MONEY

(L’ARGENT)

BY

ÉMILE ZOLA

AUTHOR OF 'THE DOWNFALL' 'THE DREAM' 'DR. PASCAL' ETC.

TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN PHOTOGRAVURE BY H. ROUNTREE

LONDON
THE CAXTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED
CLUN HOUSE, SURREY STREET, W.C.

1900

Mazaud lay, his head pierced by a bullet.

[PREFACE]

The present version of M. Zola's novel 'L'Argent' supplies one of the missing links in the English translations of the Rougon-Macquart series which the author initiated some five and twenty years ago, and brought to a close last summer by the publication of 'Doctor Pascal.' Judged by the standard of popularity, 'L'Argent' may be said to rank among M. Zola's notable achievements, for not only has it had an extremely large sale in the original French, but the translations of it into various Continental languages have proved remarkably successful. This is not surprising, as the book deals with a subject of great interest to every civilized community. And with regard to this English version, it may, I think, be safely said that its publication is well timed, for the rottenness of our financial world has become such a crying scandal, and the inefficiency of our company laws has been so fully demonstrated, that the absolute urgency of reform can no longer be denied.

A work, therefore, which exposes the evils of 'speculation,' which shows the company promoter on the war-path, and the 'guinea-pig' basking at his ease, which demonstrates how the public is fooled and ruined by the brigands of Finance, is evidently a work for the times, even though it deal with the Paris Bourse instead of with the London market. For the ways of the speculator, the promoter, the wrecker, the defaulter, the reptile journalist, and the victim, are much the same all the world over; and it matters little whence the example may be drawn, the warning will apply with as much force in England as in France.

The time for prating of the purity of our public life, and for thanking the Divinity that in financial as in other matters we are not as other men, has gone by. When disasters like that of the Liberator group are possible, when examples of financial unsoundness are matters of every-day occurrence, when the very name of 'trust company' opens up visions of incapacity, deceit, and fraud, it is quite certain that things are ripe for stringent inquiry and reform.

Of course the cleansing of the Augean stable of finance in this country will prove a Herculean labour; but although callous Governments and legislators may postpone and shirk it, the task remains before them, ever threatening, ever calling for attention, and each day's delay in dealing with it only adds to the evil. We are overrun with rotten limited liability companies, flooded with swindling 'bucket-shops,' crashes and collapses rain upon us, and the 'promoter' and the 'guinea-pig' still and ever enjoy impunity. It is becoming more and more impossible to burke the issue. It stares us in the face. Even if the various measures of political and social reform, about which we have heard so much of recent years, should yield all that their partisans declare they will, it is doubtful whether there would be much national improvement. For the rottenness of our social system must still remain the same; the fabric must still repose upon as unsound a basis as it does now if the brigands of Finance remain free to plunder the community and to pave their way to ephemeral wealth and splendour with the bodies of the thrifty and the credulous.

One may well ask why this freedom should be allowed them. The man in the street who wishes to lay odds against the favourite for the Derby is promptly mulcted in pocket or consigned to limbo, but the promoter of the swindling company, and the keeper of the swindling 'bucket-shop,' who deliberately defraud other people of their money, are at liberty to ply their nefarious callings with no worse fate before them than a short suspension of their discharge should they choose to close their books with the aid of the Bankruptcy Court. There cannot be two moralities, although a distinguished Frenchman, the late M. Nisard, once tried to demonstrate that there were, and was laughed to scorn for his pains. We know that there is but one true morality—the same for the rich as for the poor, the same for the legislator as for the elector, the same for the defaulter who dabbles in millions as for the welsher who sneaks half-crowns. And it should be borne in mind that the harm done to the community at large by the thousands of bookmakers disseminated throughout the United Kingdom is as nothing beside that which is done by the half thousand financial brigands who infest the one city of London. It may, I think, be safely said that more people were absolutely ruined by the crash of the Liberator group than by all the betting on English racecourses over a period of many years.

There have been, I believe, over 2,200 applicants for relief to the fund which has been raised for the benefit of the sufferers of so-called Philanthropic Finance, and among the number it appears there are nearly 1,400 single women and widows. Some of the victims have committed suicide, others have gone mad. Thousands, moreover, who are too proud to beg, find themselves either starving or in sadly straitened circumstances, with nothing but a pittance left them of their former little comforts. This is a specimen of the work done by the brigand of Finance.

Of course there are reforms urgently needed in the very organisation of the Stock Exchange; and reforms needed with regard to the conditions under which public companies may be launched. Why should men be allowed to ask the public to subscribe millions of money for the purchase of properties which are literally valueless? Why, moreover, should directors be allowed to proceed to 'allotment,' when but a tithe of the shares placed on the market have been taken up? And surely the time has come for the proper auditing of accounts under Government supervision. The neglectful auditor and the fraudulent promoter are as much in need of abolition as the ornamental 'guinea-pig.' And such abolition, and the enforcement of many reforms, might be secured by a self-supporting Ministry of Commercial Finance. Some institution of the kind will doubtless be founded in time to come; and, meanwhile, if all that is told us of the purity of our public life be true, I fail to see why a series of measures directed against the brigands of Finance should not promptly receive the assent of both Houses of Parliament and become law. Surely no member of the Lords or the Commons would dare to stand up and plead the cause of the negligent director who imperils the safety of other people's money? Surely not one of our legislators would dare to take the fraudulent promoter and the rogue of the 'bucket-shop' under his protecting wing? And, as such measures must of necessity be non-contentious, why do not some of our social reformers initiate them, instead of for ever and ever harping upon 'Bills' which are not likely to be included in the Statute-book for another score of years?

I am not against public companies. Let us have them; let us have as many good ones as we can get, but let them be honestly founded and honestly administered. It is through the multiplicity of public companies that we may eventually attain to Collectivism, which so many great thinkers of the age deem to be the future towards which the world is slowly but surely marching. And when that comes, perhaps, as Sigismond Busch, one of M. Zola's characters, foreshadows in the following pages, we shall have some other means of exchange than money—the metallic money of the present day. Sigismond Busch is a Karl Marxite, a believer in the universal fraternity of humanity, a fraternity which he regretfully admits is still far away from us. Of a very different stamp to him is M. Zola's hero—if hero he can be called—Saccard, the scheming financier, the sanguine promoter and manager of the Universal Bank, the poet of money, the apostle of gambling, ever intent on gigantic enterprises, believing that the passion for gain should be fostered rather than discouraged, and that in order to set society on a proper basis it is necessary to destroy the financial power of the Jews.

Saccard is one of M. Zola's favourite creations. After figuring in the 'Fortune des Rougon,' he played a prominent part in 'La Curée;' and he is further alluded to in 'Doctor Pascal,' Clotilde, the heroine of that work, being his daughter. Certainly Saccard, the worshipper of Mammon, the man to whom money is everything in life, is a true type of our fin-de-siècle society. It has often occurred to me that in sketching this daring and unscrupulous financier M. Zola must have bethought himself of Mirès, whose name is so closely linked to the history of Second Empire finance. Mirès, however, was a Jew, whereas Saccard is a Jew-hater, and outwardly, at all events, a zealous Roman Catholic. In this respect he reminds one of Bontoux, of Union Générale notoriety, just as Hamelin the engineer reminds one of Feder, Bontoux's associate. Indeed, the history of M. Zola's Universal Bank is much the history of the Union Générale. The latter was solemnly blessed by the Pope, and in a like way M. Zola shows us the Universal receiving the Papal benediction. Moreover, the secret object of the Union Générale was to undermine the financial power of the Jews, and in the novel we find a similar purpose ascribed to Saccard's Bank. The Union, we know, was eventually crushed by the great Israelite financiers, and this again is the fate which overtakes the institution whose meteor-like career is traced in the pages of 'L'Argent.'

There is a strong Jewish element in this story, and here and there some very unpleasant things are said of the chosen people. It should be remembered, however, that these remarks are the remarks of M. Zola's characters and not of M. Zola himself. He had to portray certain Jew-haters, and has simply put into their mouths the words which they are constantly using. This statement is not unnecessary, for M. Zola counts many friends and admirers among writers and readers of the Jewish persuasion, and some of them might conceive the language in which their race is spoken of to be expressive of the author's personal opinions. But such is not the case. M. Zola is remarkably free from racial and religious prejudices. And, after all, I do not think that any Hebrew reader can take exception to the portrait of Gundermann, the great Jew financier, the King of the Money Market, who in a calm methodical way brings about the ruin of Saccard and Hamelin. Gundermann, moreover, really existed and may be readily identified.

In Daigremont, another financier, but a Catholic, we have a combination of Achille Fould and Isaac Pereire. Daigremont's house is undoubtedly Fould's, and so is his gallery of paintings. And there are other characters in the story who might in a measure be identified. For instance, readers acquainted with the social history of France during the last half century will doubtless trace a resemblance between the Princess d'Orviedo and a certain foreign Duchess. Then the Viscount de Robin-Chagot is strangely suggestive of a Rohan-Chabot, whose financial transactions brought him before a court of law during the latter period of the Second Empire. Various personalities are merged in the character of the courtly Marquis de Bohain, that perfect type of the aristocratic rogue; but Rougon is undoubtedly Eugène Rouher tout craché, whatever M. Zola may pretend to the contrary. M. Zola himself will be found in the book, for surely Paul Jordan, the impecunious journalist with 'an idea for a novel,' is the author of the Rougon-Macquart series in the far-away days when he lived on the topmost floor of a modest house on the Boulevard de Clichy.

In Huret we are presented with a specimen of the corrupt Deputy, and in this connection it may be pointed out that the venal French legislator by no means dates from the Panama scandals. In fact, there were undoubtedly more corrupt members in the Corps Législatif of the Second Empire than there have ever been in the Parliament of the Third Republic. Only, in those glorious Imperial times, anything approaching a scandal was promptly hushed up, and more than once the Emperor himself personally intervened to shield his peccant supporters. M. Schneider, who presided over the Corps Législatif in its later days, was undoubtedly a very honest man; but it would be impossible to say the same of his predecessors—Walewski, who claimed descent from the great Napoleon, and Morny, who was the little Napoleon's illegitimate half-brother. It is notorious that Morny made millions of money by trickery and fraud; and that the Emperor himself was well aware of it was proved conclusively by the papers found in his cabinet at the Tuileries after the Revolution of 1870. Roguery being thus freely practised in high places, a considerable number of Deputies undoubtedly opined that there was no occasion for them to remain honest.

'L'Argent,' however, is no mere story of swindling and corruption. Whilst proving that money is the root of much evil, it also shows that it is the source of much good. It does not merely depict the world of finance; it gives us glimpses of the charitable rich, the decayed noblesse striving to keep up appearances, the thrifty and the struggling poor. Further, it appears to me to be a less contemplative work than many of M. Zola's novels. It possesses in no small degree that quality of 'action' in which, according to some critics, the great naturaliste's writings are generally deficient. The plot, too, is a sound one, and from beginning to end the interest never flags.

In preparing the present version for the press I have followed the same course as I pursued with regard to 'Dr. Pascal.' Certain passages have been condensed, and others omitted; and in order to reconnect the narrative brief interpolations have here and there been necessary. Nobody can regret these changes more than I do myself, but before reviewers proceed to censure me (as some of them did in the case of 'Dr. Pascal'), I would ask them to consider the responsibility which rests upon my shoulders. If they desire to have verbatim translations of M. Zola's works, let them help to establish literary freedom.

And now, by way of conclusion, I have a request to make. After perusing the story of Saccard's work of ruin, the reader will, perhaps, have a keener perception of all the misery wrought by that Liberator crash to which I have previously alluded. I would point out, however, that whereas Saccard's bank was essentially a speculative enterprise, the Liberator and its allied companies claimed that they never embarked in any speculative dealings whatever. Their shareholders had no desire to gamble; they only expected to obtain a fair return from the investment of their hard-earned savings. Their position is therefore deserving of all commiseration. Unfortunately, the fund raised for their benefit still falls far short of the amount required; and so I would ask all who read 'Money,' and who have money to spare, to send some little of their store to the Rev. J. Stockwell Watts, at the office of the Fund, 16 Farringdon Street, E.C. In complying with this suggestion they will be doing a good action. And I may say that nothing would afford greater pleasure either to M. Zola or myself than to learn that this book had in some degree a contributed to alleviate so much undeserved misery and hardship.

E. A. V.

CONTENTS

[MONEY]

CHAPTER I

THE TEMPLE OF MAMMON

Eleven o'clock had just struck at the Bourse when, making his way into Champeaux' restaurant, Saccard entered the public room, all white and gold and with two high windows facing the Place. At a glance he surveyed the rows of little tables, at which the busy eaters sat closely together, elbow to elbow; and he seemed surprised not to see the face he sought.

As a waiter passed, laden with dishes, amid the scramble of the service, he turned to him and asked: 'I say, hasn't Monsieur Huret come?'

'No, monsieur, not yet.'

Thereupon, making up his mind, Saccard sat down at a table, which a customer was leaving, in the embrasure of one of the windows. He thought that he was late; and whilst a fresh cover was being laid he directed his looks outside, scrutinising the persons passing on the footway. Indeed, even when the table had been freshly laid, he did not at once give his orders, but remained for a moment with his eyes fixed on the Place, which looked quite gay on that bright morning of an early day in May. At that hour, when everybody was at lunch, it was almost empty: the benches under the chestnut trees of a fresh and tender green remained unoccupied; a line of cabs stretched from one to the other end of the railing, and the omnibus going to the Bastille stopped at the office at the corner of the garden, without dropping or taking up a single passenger. The sun's rays fell vertically, lighting up the whole monumental pile of the Bourse, with its colonnade, its pair of statues, and its broad steps, at the top of which there was as yet only an army of chairs ranged in good order.

Having turned, however, Saccard recognised Mazaud, a stock-broker, sitting at the table next to his own. He held out his hand. 'Dear me, you are here? Good morning,' said he.

'Good morning,' answered Mazaud, shaking hands in an absent-minded fashion.

Short, dark, a very brisk, good-looking man, Mazaud, at the age of two and thirty, had just inherited the business of one of his uncles. He seemed to be altogether taken up with the person opposite him, a stout gentleman with a red and shaven face, the celebrated Amadieu, whom the Bourse revered since his famous deal in Selsis mining stock. When the Selsis shares had fallen to fifteen francs, and anyone who bought them was looked upon as a madman, he had put his whole fortune, two hundred thousand francs, into the affair at a venture, without calculation or instinct—indeed, through mere obstinate confidence in his own brutish luck. Now that the discovery of real and important veins had sent the price of the shares up above a thousand francs, he had made fifteen millions; and his imbecile operation, which ought to have led to his being shut up in an asylum, had raised him to the level of men of great financial intellect. He was saluted and, above all things, consulted. Moreover, he placed no more orders, but seemed to be satisfied, enthroned as it were upon his unique and legendary stroke of genius.

Mazaud must have been dreaming of securing his patronage.

Saccard, having failed to obtain even a smile from Amadieu, bowed to the table opposite, where three speculators of his acquaintance, Pillerault, Moser, and Salmon, were gathered together.

'Good day. Quite well?' he asked.

'Yes, thanks—Good morning.'

Among these men also he divined coldness, in fact almost hostility. Pillerault, however, very tall, very thin, with spasmodic gestures, and a nose like a sabre-blade set in the bony face of a knight-errant, habitually displayed the familiarity of a gambler—the gambler who makes recklessness a principle, for he declared that he plunged head over heels into catastrophes whenever he paused to reflect. He had the exuberant nature of a 'bull,' ever turned towards victory; whereas Moser, on the contrary, short of stature, yellow-skinned, and afflicted moreover by a liver complaint, was continually lamenting, in incessant dread of some approaching cataclysm. As for Salmon, a very fine-looking man struggling against old age, and displaying a superb beard of inky blackness, he passed for a fellow of extraordinary acumen. Never did he speak; he answered only by smiles; folks could never tell in what he was speculating, or whether he was speculating at all; and his way of listening so impressed Moser, that the latter, after making him his confidant, was frequently so disconcerted by his silence that he ran off to countermand an order.

Amid the indifference exhibited towards him, Saccard, with feverish and provoking glances, went on finishing his survey of the room, and he exchanged no other nod except with a tall young man sitting three tables away, the handsome Sabatani, a Levantine with a long dark face, illumined by magnificent black eyes, but spoiled by an evil, disquieting mouth. This fellow's amiability put the finishing touch to his irritation. A defaulter on some foreign Stock Exchange, one of those mysterious scamps whom women love, Sabatani had tumbled into the market during the previous autumn. Saccard had already seen him at work as figure-head in a banking disaster, and now he was little by little gaining the confidence of both the corbeille[1] and the coulisse[2] by scrupulous correctness of behaviour and an unremitting graciousness even towards the most disreputable.

A waiter, however, was standing before Saccard. 'What are Monsieur's orders?'

'Oh, anything you like—a cutlet, some asparagus.' Then calling the waiter back, he added: 'You are sure that Monsieur Huret did not come in before me and go away again?'

'Oh! absolutely sure.'

So there he was, after the crash which in October had once more forced him to wind up his affairs, to sell his mansion in the Parc Monceau, and rent a suite of rooms. The Sabatani set alone saluted him; his entrance into a restaurant where he had once reigned no longer caused all heads to turn, all hands to be stretched forth. He was a good gambler; he harboured no rancour with regard to that last scandalous and disastrous speculation in land, from which he had scarcely saved more than his skin. But a fever of revenge was kindling within him; and the absence of Huret, who had formally promised to be there at eleven o'clock to acquaint him with the result of an application which he had undertaken to make to his—Saccard's—brother, Rougon, the then triumphant minister, exasperated him especially against the latter. Huret, a docile deputy, and one of the great man's creatures, was after all merely a messenger. But Rougon, he who could do anything, was it possible that he had abandoned him in this fashion? Never had he shown himself a good brother. That he should have been angry after the catastrophe, and have broken with him in order not to be compromised himself, was natural enough; but ought he not to have come secretly to his assistance during the last six months? And now would he have the heart to refuse him the final lift which he solicited through a third party, not daring indeed to see him in person, for fear lest he might be carried away by some fit of passion? Rougon had only to say a word to put him on his feet again, with all huge, cowardly Paris beneath his heels.

'What wine will Monsieur drink?' asked the waiter.

'Your ordinary Bordeaux.'

Saccard, who, with his absent-mindedness and lack of appetite, was letting his cutlet grow cold, raised his eyes as he saw a shadow pass over the table-cloth. It was the shadow of Massias, a stout, red-faced remisier,[3] whom he had known in want, and who glided between the tables with his list of quotations in his hand. Saccard was exasperated at seeing him march past him, without stopping, in order to hand the list to Pillerault and Moser. With their thoughts elsewhere, engaged in a discussion together, these two barely gave it a glance; no, they had no order, they would give one some other time. Massias, not daring to approach the celebrated Amadieu, who was leaning over a lobster salad and conversing in a low tone with Mazaud, thereupon came back to Salmon, who took the list, studied it for some time, and then returned it without a word. The room was growing animated. The door swung every moment as other remisiers entered. Loud words were being exchanged at a distance, and all the passion for business rose as the hour advanced. Saccard, whose eyes continually turned to the window, saw also that the Place was now gradually filling, that vehicles and pedestrians were flocking in; whilst on the steps of the Bourse, of dazzling whiteness in the sunlight, men were already appearing one by one, like black spots.

'Again I tell you,' said Moser, in his disconsolate voice, 'that those complementary elections of March 20[4] are a most disturbing symptom. In fact, all Paris is nowadays on the side of the Opposition.'

Pillerault shrugged his shoulders, however. What difference could it make that Carnot[5] and Garnier-Pagès should be added to the ranks of the Left?

'It is like the question of the Duchies,'[6] resumed Moser; 'it is fraught with complications. It is indeed; you needn't laugh. I don't say that we were bound to make war on Prussia to prevent her from laying hands on Denmark; but there were other means of action. Yes, yes, when the big begin to eat the little, one never knows where it will all end, and, as for Mexico——'

Pillerault, who was in one of his fits of satisfaction with everything, interrupted with a shout of laughter: 'Oh, no, my dear fellow, don't weary us any more with your terrors about Mexico. Mexico will be the glorious page of the reign. Where the deuce did you get the idea that the Empire is ailing? Wasn't the loan of three hundred millions covered more than fifteen times over last January? An overwhelming success! Well, I'll give you rendez-vous for '67, yes, in three years from now, when the Universal Exhibition which the Emperor has just decided upon will open.'

'I tell you that things are very bad,' declared Moser in despair.

'Oh, leave us in peace; everything is all right.'

Salmon looked at them in turn, smiling in his profound way. And Saccard, who had been listening, connected the difficulties of his personal situation with the crisis upon which the Empire seemed to be entering. He was once more down; and now was this Empire, which had made him, about to tumble over like himself, suddenly falling from the highest to the most miserable destiny? Ah! for twelve years past, how he had loved and defended that régime, in which he had felt himself live, grow, and imbibe sap, like some tree whose roots plunge into fitting soil. But if his brother were determined to tear him from it, if he were to be cut off from those who were exhausting that fertile soil of enjoyment, then might all be swept away in the great final smash-up!

He now sat waiting for his asparagus, his thoughts wandering away from the room, where the hubbub kept on increasing, his mind invaded by memories of the past. He had just caught sight of his face in a large mirror opposite, and it had surprised him. Age had made no impression upon his short slight figure; his fifty years seemed to have been scarcely more than eight and thirty. He still had the slender build and vivacious manners of a young man. His dark, sunken marionette's face, with its sharp nose and small glittering eyes, had, with the march of years, adapted itself to his supple, active youthfulness, so long abiding that as yet his still bushy hair was without a single white thread. And irresistibly he recalled his arrival in Paris on the morrow of the coup d'état, that winter evening when he had alighted on the pavement, penniless, hungry, with a perfect rage of appetite to satisfy. Ah! that first trip through the streets, when, even before unpacking his trunk, he had felt the need of rushing through the city to conquer it in his greasy overcoat and his boots trodden down at heel! Since that night he had often risen very high; a river of millions had flowed through his fingers, yet he had never been able to make a slave of fortune, something of his own that he could dispose of, and keep under lock and key, alive and real. Falsehood and fiction had always dwelt in his safes, the gold in which had always slipped out through unknown holes. And now he again found himself upon the pavement, as in the far-off days of the beginning, as young and as hungry as then, still unsatisfied, tortured by the same need of enjoyment and conquest. He had tasted of everything, but was not satiated, having lacked both opportunity and time, he thought, to bite deeply enough into persons and things. At this present hour he felt less wretched at finding himself on the pavement than a beginner would have felt, and this although the latter would probably have been sustained by illusion and hope. He was seized with a feverish desire to begin all over again, to regain everything, to rise higher than he had ever risen before, to place his foot at last full upon the conquered city. No longer the lying finery of the façade, but the solid edifice of fortune, the true royalty of gold enthroned upon real money bags full to overflowing—that was what he wanted.

Moser's voice, which again rose sharp and shrill, aroused him for a moment from his reflections. 'The Mexican expedition costs fourteen million francs a month; Thiers has proved it, and one must really be blind not to see that the majority in the Chamber is shaken. The Left now counts thirty odd members. The Emperor himself clearly sees that absolute power is becoming impossible, for he himself is coming forward as a promoter of liberty.'

Pillerault vouchsafed no further answer, but contented himself with a contemptuous sneer.

'Yes, I know the market seems firm to you,' continued Moser; 'as yet business prospers. But wait till the end. There has been far too much pulling down and rebuilding in Paris, you see. The great public works have exhausted everybody's savings. As for the powerful financial houses, which seem to you so prosperous, wait till one of them goes down, and then you will see all the others tumble in a row—to say nothing of the fact that the lower orders are getting restless. That International Association of the working classes, which has just been founded to improve the position of those who labour, inspires me with great fear. There is a revolutionary movement in France, which is becoming more pronounced every day—yes, I tell you that the worm is in the fruit. There will be a general burst up at last!'

Thereupon came a noisy protest. That confounded Moser had one of his liver attacks decidedly. He himself, however, while talking on, did not take his eyes off the neighbouring table, where, amid all the noise, Mazaud and Amadieu continued conversing in low tones. Little by little the entire room began to feel uneasy over that prolonged confidential chat. What could they have to say to each other that they should be whispering in that way? Undoubtedly Amadieu was placing some orders, preparing some deal or other. For three days past, unfavourable rumours had been circulating respecting the works at Suez. Moser winked, and lowered his voice: 'You know,' said he, 'that the English wish to prevent them from working there. We may very likely have war.'

This time Pillerault was shaken by the very enormity of the news. It was incredible, yet the report at once flew from table to table, acquiring the force of certainty. England had sent an ultimatum, demanding an immediate cessation of work. Clearly enough, Amadieu was talking of it with Mazaud, and giving him orders to sell all his Suez shares. A buzz of panic arose in the odour-laden atmosphere, amid the increasing clatter of the crockery. And at that moment the general emotion was brought to a climax by the sudden entry of Mazaud's clerk, little Flory, a fellow with a flabby face, overgrown with a thick chestnut beard. He rushed in with a number of fiches[7] in his hand, and gave them to his employer, saying something in his ear.

'All right,' answered Mazaud quietly, as he classified the fiches in his pocket-book; then taking out his watch, he added: 'Already noon! Tell Berthier to wait for me. And be there yourself; go up after the telegrams.'

When Flory had gone, he resumed his talk with Amadieu, taking some other fiches from his pocket, and placing them on the table-cloth beside his plate. Every minute or so some customer passing him on his way out leaned over him and said a word or two, which he rapidly noted down on one of the bits of paper between a couple of mouthfuls. The false news which had originated no one knew where, which had been born of nothing, was growing and swelling like a storm-cloud.

'You mean to sell, don't you?' asked Moser of Salmon.

However, the latter's silent smile had something so sharp and knowing about it, that he was left in anxiety, suddenly doubting the existence of this ultimatum from England, which he did not even remember had been invented by himself.

'For my part, I shall buy as long as anyone will sell,' concluded Pillerault, with the boastful temerity of a gambler without a system.

Meantime Saccard—his temples heated by the fever of speculation, which was stimulated by all the noise attending the close of the luncheon hour in that narrow room—had at last made up his mind to eat his asparagus, again full of irritation against Huret, whom he had now given up. He, as a rule so prompt in coming to a decision, had for weeks past been hesitating, a prey to conflicting doubts. He realised the imperative necessity of slipping into a new skin, and had at first dreamed of an entirely new life, in the upper circles of the Civil Service, or else in political spheres. Why should not a seat in the Legislature land him in the Cabinet, like his brother? He was discontented with speculation on account of its continual instability, huge sums being as quickly lost as won. Never had he slept on a real million, owing nothing to anyone. And now that he was subjecting his conscience to examination, he said to himself that perhaps he was of too passionate a nature for financial warfare, which required so much coolness. That must be the reason why, after such an extraordinary life of mingled luxury and need, he had come out of the fray empty-handed, badly scorched by ten years' formidable trafficking in the soil of new Paris—trafficking in which many others, not nearly as sharp as himself, had amassed colossal fortunes. Yes, perhaps he had mistaken his real vocation. With his activity and ardent faith perhaps he would triumph at one bound in the hubbub of politics. Everything depended, however, on his brother's answer. If Rougon should repulse him, throw him back into the gulf of speculation, well, it would undoubtedly be so much the worse for him and everyone else; he would then risk the grand stroke which he had not as yet spoken of to anyone, the huge affair which he had been dreaming of for weeks past, and which frightened even himself, so vast it was, so calculated to shake the world whether it succeeded or collapsed.

Pillerault had raised his voice again. 'I say, Mazaud,' he asked, 'is everything settled about Schlosser?'

'Yes,' answered the broker, 'he will be posted to-day. What would you have? It is annoying, of course, but I had received the most alarming reports, and was the first to move in the matter. It is necessary to make a sweep from time to time, you know.'

'I have been told,' said Moser, 'that your colleagues, Jacoby and Delarocque, lost large sums by him.'

The broker made a vague gesture. 'Bah! we always have to make an allowance for losses. That fellow Schlosser must belong to a gang; he will now be free to go and play the wrecker on the Bourse of Berlin or Vienna.'

Saccard's eyes had fallen upon Sabatani, whose secret association with Schlosser had been revealed to him by chance some time previously. Both had been playing a well-known game, the one 'bulling' and the other 'bearing' the same stock, he who lost being free to share the other's profit and then disappear. However, the young Levantine was quietly settling his score for the dainty repast which he had just made; after which, with the caressing grace of a semi-Oriental, semi-Italian, he came forward to shake hands with Mazaud, whose customer he was. Leaning over, he gave an order to the broker, which the latter inscribed upon a fiche.

'He is selling his Suez,' murmured Moser, and thereupon, distracted with doubt, he added aloud: 'I say, what do you think of Suez?'

Silence fell amid all the hubbub of voices; every head at the neighbouring tables turned. The question summed up the growing anxiety. However, Amadieu, who had simply asked Mazaud to lunch, in order to recommend one of his nephews to him, remained impenetrable, having indeed nothing to say; while the broker, who was becoming astonished at the number of orders to sell which he was receiving, contented himself with shaking his head, in accordance with his professional habit of discretion.

'Suez, why, it's capital,' declared Sabatani in his sing-song voice, as before going out he stepped aside to shake hands gallantly with Saccard.

For a moment afterwards it seemed to Saccard that he could still feel the pressure of the Levantine's soft, supple, almost feminine hand. In his uncertainty as to the course he should take to begin his life anew, he looked upon all who were there as sharpers. Ah! if they forced him to it, how he would hunt them down, how he would shear them, those trembling Mosers, those boastful Pilleraults, those Salmons, hollower than gourds, and those Amadieus whose chance success had transformed them into geniuses! The clatter of plates and glasses had begun again; voices were growing hoarse; and the doors swung faster than ever in the hasty eagerness that consumed them all to be across the way, at the game, if there was to be a crash in Suez. And in the middle of the Place, now crowded with pedestrians and crossed by cabs in all directions, Saccard, looking out of the window, saw that the shining steps of the Bourse were sprinkled with human insects—insects ever climbing—men correctly dressed in black, who gradually filled the colonnade, while behind the railings there vaguely appeared a few women, prowling about under the chestnut trees.

Suddenly, while he was cutting some cheese which he had just ordered, a gruff voice made him raise his head.

'I beg your pardon, my dear fellow, but it was impossible for me to come sooner.'

So here at last was Huret, a Norman of Calvados, with the thick broad face of a shrewd peasant who affected the air of a simple man. He straightway told the waiter to bring him whatever he pleased, the dish of the day, with some vegetables.

'Well?' drily asked Saccard, containing himself.

The other, however, evinced no hurry, but watched him like a sly, prudent man. Then, beginning to eat, bringing his face forward and lowering his voice, he said: 'Well, I saw the great man. Yes, at his house this morning. Oh, he spoke very kindly of you, yes, very kindly.'

He paused, drank a large glass of wine, and put a potato in his mouth.

'And what else?' asked Saccard.

'What else, my dear fellow, why this: He is very willing to do what he can for you; he will find you a very comfortable berth, but not in France. Say, for instance, the governorship of one of our colonies, one of the good ones. You would be the master there, a real little prince.'

Saccard had turned very pale. 'I say,' he exclaimed, 'you must be having a joke with me, mocking at me, surely. Why not penal servitude at once? Ah! so he wants to get rid of me. Let him look out, or I shall end by embarrassing him in earnest.'

Huret, with his mouth full, remained conciliatory. 'Come, come,' said he, 'we only wish your own welfare; leave us to act.'

'Leave myself to be suppressed, eh? Why, only just now they were saying here that there soon won't be a single mistake left for the Empire to make. Yes, the Italian war, Mexico, the attitude of the Government towards Prussia! Upon my word, it is the truth! You will be up to such stupidity and folly, that all France will rise up to pitch you out.'

On hearing this, Huret, deputy, faithful creature of the minister as he was, at once became anxious, turned pale, and looked about him. 'Ah, come, come, I cannot follow you. Rougon is an honest man; there is no danger as long as he is at the helm. No, not another word—you misunderstand him, I must really say so——'

Clenching his teeth so as to deaden his voice, Saccard furiously interrupted him. 'Very well, love him—keep house together. Yes or no, will he give me his patronage here, in Paris?'

'In Paris, never!'

Without adding a word, Saccard rose and called the waiter in order to pay his score, whilst Huret, who knew his temper, calmly continued swallowing huge mouthfuls of bread, and let him go, through fear of a scene. Just then, however, quite a sensation was caused in the room.

Gundermann[8] had just entered it—Gundermann the banker-king, the master of the Bourse and of the world, a man of sixty, whose huge bald head, thick nose and round goggle-eyes betokened immense obstinacy and weariness. Never did he go to the Bourse; in fact he even pretended that he sent no official representative thither; neither did he ever breakfast in a public place. Only from time to time he happened, as on this occasion, to show himself at Champeaux' restaurant, where he would seat himself at one of the tables that he might simply drink a glassful of Vichy water. For twenty years he had suffered from a gastric affection, and nourished himself exclusively with milk.

All the waiters were at once on the move to bring him his glass of water, and all who were lunching suddenly became very humble. Moser sat like one overwhelmed, contemplating this man who knew all secrets and who made stock rise or fall at will, just as the Divinity makes the thunder growl. Even Pillerault saluted him, like one whose only faith is in the irresistible force of the milliard. It was half-past twelve, and Mazaud, who was hurriedly leaving Amadieu, stepped back and bent low before the banker, from whom he sometimes had the honour to receive an order. Many boursiers, similarly on the point of departing, remained standing around the demigod, forming about him a very deferential court, amid the disarray of the soiled tablecloths; and it was with veneration that they watched him take the glass of water in his trembling hand and carry it to his pale lips.

Formerly, during his speculations in the lands of the Monceau Plain, Saccard had had sundry discussions and even a quarrel with Gundermann. They could not get on together—the one passionate and fond of the pleasures of life, the other sober and coldly logical. Accordingly the former, his fit of passion increased by this triumphal entrance, was going away, when the other called him.

'I say, my good friend, is it true that you are giving up business? Really, you act wisely; it is the best course.'

This, to Saccard, was like a lash across his face. He straightened his little figure, and in a clear voice, as sharp as a sword, replied: 'I am about to establish a banking house with a capital of twenty-five millions, and I expect to call upon you soon.'

And thereupon he went out, leaving behind him the fiery hubbub of the room, where all were now jostling one another, eager not to miss the opening of the Bourse. Ah! to succeed at last, to set his heel once more upon these people, who turned their backs upon him, and to struggle for power with that king of wealth, and some day perhaps beat him! He had not really decided to launch his great enterprise, and was surprised at the phrase which the necessity of answering had wrung from him. But could he tempt fortune elsewhere, now that his brother abandoned him, and that men and things were galling him back into the struggle, even as the bleeding bull is galled back into the arena?

For a moment he stood quivering on the edge of the footway. It was that active hour when all the life of Paris seems to flow into that central square between the Rue Montmartre and the Rue Richelieu, those two teeming arteries that carry the crowd along. From the four crossways at the four corners of the Place, streams of vehicles poured in uninterruptedly, whisking across the pavement amid an eddying mob of foot passengers. The two rows of cabs at the stand, beside the railings, were continually breaking and reforming; while along the Rue Vivienne the victorias of the remisiers stretched away in a compact line, above which towered the drivers, reins in hand and ready to whip up at the first signal. The steps and peristyle of the Bourse were quite black with swarming frock-coats; and from among the coulissiers, already installed under the clock and hard at work, there arose the clamour of bull and bear, the flood-tide roar of speculation dominating all the rumbling hubbub of the city. Passers-by turned their heads, curious and fearful as to what might be going on there—all those mysterious financial operations which few French brains can penetrate, all that sudden ruin and fortune brought about—how, none could understand—amid gesticulation and savage cries. And Saccard, standing on the kerb of the footway, deafened by the distant voices, elbowed by the jostling, hurrying crowd, dreamed once more of becoming the Gold King, the sovereign of that fever-infested district, in the centre of which the Bourse, from one till three o'clock, beats as it were like some enormous heart.

Since his fall, however, he had not dared to re-enter the edifice; and on this day also a feeling of suffering vanity, a conviction that he would be received as a beaten man, prevented him from ascending the steps. Yet, like the lovers driven from the presence of a mistress whom they still desire, even while thinking that they hate her, he ever and ever returned to the spot, making the tour of the colonnade under various pretexts, entering the garden and strolling along in the shade of the chestnut-trees. Perambulating this dusty square, grassless and flowerless, where shady speculators and bareheaded women of the neighbourhood nursing their babies mingled together on the benches near the newspaper stalls, he affected a disinterested saunter, raised his eyes, and watched, absorbed by the exciting thought that he was besieging the monumental pile, drawing his lines more and more closely around it, in order that he might some day re-enter it in triumph.

Having made his way into the garden at the right-hand corner, under the trees facing the Rue de la Banque, he at once fell upon the Little Bourse, where discredited stock is negotiated, a Bourse of hawker-brokers—the 'Wet Feet' as others have nicknamed them with ironical contempt—men who quote in the open air, and in the mud on rainy days, the shares and debentures of defunct companies. There, an unclean Jewry was gathered in a tumultuous group—fat, shining faces, withered profiles like those of voracious birds, an extraordinary assemblage of typical noses, all drawn together as by a prey, all eagerly, angrily disputing, with guttural shouts, and seemingly ready to devour one another. He was passing on, when, a little apart, he noticed a stout man looking in the sunlight at a ruby, which he held up delicately between his huge dirty fingers.

'What! is it you, Busch? You remind me that I intended to call at your place,' said Saccard.

Busch, who kept an agency in the Rue Feydeau at the corner of the Rue Vivienne, had on several occasions been very useful to him in moments of difficulty. He was standing there in a state of ecstasy, examining the water of the jewel, with his broad flat face upturned and the glow of his heavy grey eyes extinguished, as it were, by the bright light. The white tie which he always wore was twisted round his neck like a bit of rope; while his second-hand frock coat, a superb garment once upon a time, but now wonderfully threadbare and covered with grease spots, reached up to the light hair falling in scanty rebellious locks from his head, which on the top was quite bald. Nobody could tell the age of his hat, browned by the sun and washed by countless showers. At last he decided to descend to earth again. 'Ah! Monsieur Saccard, so you are taking a little walk this way?' said he.

'Yes, I have a letter in the Russian language—a letter from a Russian banker in business at Constantinople. It occurred to me that your brother could translate it for me.'

Busch, who with a gentle movement was still unconsciously rolling the ruby between the fingers of his right hand, held out the left, saying that the translation would be forwarded that very evening. But Saccard explained that it was only a matter of ten lines. 'I will go up,' said he; 'your brother will read it to me at once.'

He was, however, at that moment interrupted by the arrival of a woman of colossal proportions, a certain Madame Méchain, well known to the frequenters of the Bourse as one of those fierce, wretched female speculators whose fat hands dabble in all sorts of suspicious jobs. Her red, puffy, full-moon face, with little blue eyes, a little hidden nose, and a little mouth whence came a child-like piping voice, protruded from an old mauve bonnet, tied askew with garnet ribbons; and her gigantic bosom and dropsical body strained almost to bursting point her mud-stained poplin gown, once green but now turning yellow. She carried on her arm an immense old black leather bag, as deep as a valise, which never left her. That afternoon the bag, so full that it seemed likely to burst, drew her down on the right side, like a tree that has grown slantwise.

'Here you are, then?' said Busch, who had evidently been waiting for her.

'Yes, and I have received the Vendôme papers; I have brought them,' she replied.

'Good! Let us be off to my place, then. There's nothing to be done here to-day.'

Saccard had darted a wavering glance at the vast leather bag. He knew that into it inevitably fell all sorts of discredited stock, the shares of bankrupt companies, in which the 'Wet Feet' still speculate—shares issued at five hundred francs, but which they dispute for at twenty or even ten sous apiece, either in the vague hope of an improbable rise or, more practically, as merchandise which they can sell at a profit to fraudulent bankrupts who are desirous of having something to show by way of explaining their pretended losses. In the deadly battles of speculation, La Méchain was the raven that followed the armies on the march; not a company, not a large financial establishment was founded, but she appeared with her bag, sniffing the air, awaiting the corpses, even in the prosperous hours of triumphant issues. For she well knew that ruin was inevitable, that the day of massacre would come, when there would be dead to eat, shares to pick up for nothing, from amid the mire and the blood. And Saccard, who even then was revolving a grand banking project in his mind, gave a slight shudder, and felt a presentiment at sight of that bag, that charnel-house, as it were, of depreciated stock, into which passed all the dirty paper swept away from the Bourse.

Busch was on the point of taking the old woman off, when Saccard stopped him, saying: 'Then I can go up? I am certain of finding your brother, eh?'

The Jew's eyes softened with an expression of anxious surprise. 'My brother! Why, certainly. Where do you expect him to be?'

'Very well, then; I will go up directly.'

Allowing them to move away, Saccard thereupon resumed his slow walk under the trees, towards the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. This is one of the most frequented sides of the Place, overlooked by houses occupied by commercial firms and petty manufacturers, whose gilt signboards were flaming in the sunlight. Blinds, too, were flapping at the balconies; and a whole family of provincials stood gaping at the window of a hotel. Saccard mechanically raised his head, and looked at these people, whose amazement made him smile, comforting him with the thought that plenty of investors would always be found in the provinces. Behind him, the clamour of the Bourse, the distant flood-tide roar, was still resounding, haunting him, following him like a threat of doom which would presently overtake him.

Another meeting, however, made him pause.

'What, Jordan, you at the Bourse?' he exclaimed, shaking hands with a tall, dark young man, with a small moustache and a determined, wilful air.

For ten years past, Jordan, whose father, a Marseilles banker, had committed suicide in consequence of some disastrous speculations, had been tramping the pavements of Paris with the fever of literature within him, in a gallant struggle against black misery. One of his cousins, residing at Plassans, where he knew the Rougon family, had formerly recommended him to Saccard, at the time when the latter was receiving all Paris at his mansion of the Parc Monceau.

'Oh! at the Bourse, never!' answered the young man, with a violent gesture, as if he were driving away the tragic memory of his father. Then, beginning to smile, he added: 'You know that I have got married—yes, to a little friend of my childhood's days. We were betrothed at the time when I was rich, and she has persisted in taking me—poor devil though I now am.'

'Quite so; I received the notification,' said Saccard. 'And do you know that I used to be in business relations with your father-in-law, Monsieur Maugendre, when he had his awning factory at La Villette? He must have made a pretty fortune there.'

The conversation was taking place near a bench; and at this point Jordan interrupted it to introduce a short, stout gentleman, of military bearing, who was sitting there, and with whom he had been talking when Saccard came up. 'Captain Chave, an uncle of my wife's,' said he. 'Madame Maugendre, my mother-in-law, is a Chave, of Marseilles.'

The captain had risen, and Saccard bowed. He was by sight acquainted with the owner of that apoplectic face, set on a neck stiffened by long wearing a military choker—that type of the petty cash gambler, whom one is certain to find somewhere about the Bourse every day from one to three o'clock. The game that men of this class play is one of small winnings, an almost certain profit of from fifteen to twenty francs, which must be realised before the day's operations are over.

Jordan, with his good-natured laugh, now added, by way of explaining his presence: 'My uncle is a ferocious speculator, with whom I sometimes stop to shake hands as I pass by.'

'Why,' said the captain, simply. 'I'm obliged to speculate, since the Government, with its beggarly pension, leaves me to die of hunger.'

Saccard, whom the young man interested by reason of his courageous battle for existence, next asked him how things were going in the domain of literature, and Jordan, again becoming merry, thereupon described in what a sorry fashion he had started housekeeping on the fifth storey of a house in the Avenue de Clichy; for the Maugendres, who distrusted a poet, and thought they had gone very far indeed in consenting to the marriage, had given their daughter nothing by way of portion, under the pretext that she would have their fortune intact, increased by their savings, when they were dead and gone. No, said Jordan, literature did not feed its man; he had an idea of a novel, but could not find time to write it, and had been obliged to embrace journalism, knocking off anything that his position called for, from leading articles to law reports and even news 'pars.'

'Well,' said Saccard, 'if I start my great enterprise, I shall perhaps need you. So come and see me.'

After bowing he turned away, and found himself behind the Bourse. There the distant clamour, the howling of the gamesters at last ceased, subsided into a vague hum, lost amid the rumbling of the street traffic. The steps on this side, like those in front, were, it is true, invaded by people; but the brokers' room, whose red hangings could be seen at the high windows, here intervened between the hubbub of the main hall and the colonnade, where sundry fastidious and richer speculators, some alone and others in little groups, were sitting comfortably in the shade, transforming the vast open peristyle into a sort of club. The rear of the building was, moreover, something like the rear of a theatre—the stage entrance, as it were, reached by that equivocal and comparatively quiet street, the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, which was lined with wine-shops, cafés, beer-houses, and taverns, all swarming with a special class of customers strangely mingled. The signboards also betokened an evil growth that had sprung up at the very brink of the great cloaca: a growth of disreputable insurance companies, blackmailing financial journals, syndicates, banks, agencies, counting-houses, an entire series of cut-throat places on a petty scale, installed in dingy shops or on first floors no bigger than one's pocket-handkerchief. On the footways and in the middle of the street, everywhere in fact, men were prowling, waiting, as on the outskirts of a wood.

Saccard had stopped inside the Bourse railings, raising his eyes to the door leading to the brokers' room, with the piercing glance of the commander of an army who is examining from every side the fortress which he proposes to storm—when a tall fellow, coming out of a tavern, crossed the street and approached him with a very low bow.

'Ah! Monsieur Saccard, have you nothing for me? I have altogether left the Crédit Mobilier, and am looking for a situation.'

Jantrou was an ex-professor, who had left Bordeaux for Paris in consequence of some shady affair. Obliged to quit the University, without caste or position, but a handsome fellow with his black fan-shaped beard, and his tendency to early baldness, and lettered, intelligent, and amiable withal, he had, at the age of twenty-eight, landed at the Bourse, where for ten years he had dragged out an unclean life as a remisier, earning scarcely more money than was necessary for the gratification of his vices. And now, quite bald and as disconsolate as a hussy whose wrinkles threaten her with a loss of livelihood, he was still awaiting the opportunity which should start him on the road to success and fortune.

Saccard, on seeing him so humble, bitterly recalled the salutations of Sabatani at Champeaux' restaurant. The disreputable and the unsuccessful alone remained friendly to him. However, he was not without esteem for this man's keen intelligence, and he well knew that the desperate make the bravest troops, those ready to dare everything, having nothing to lose and everything to gain. So he received him fairly cordially. 'A situation?' he repeated. 'Well, perhaps that can be found. Come and see me.'

'It's Rue Saint-Lazare now, isn't it?'

'Yes, Rue Saint-Lazare; in the morning.'

They chatted. Jantrou spoke very excitedly about the Bourse, repeating, with the rancour of a man who has not been lucky in his knavery, that none but a knave could be successful there. For his part, said he, it was all over; he wanted to try something else; it seemed to him that, thanks to his University culture, and his knowledge of the world, he might conquer a fine position in discharging administrative duties. Saccard nodded approval. And, as they were now outside the railings, walking along the footway in the direction of the Rue Brongniart, they both became interested in a dark brougham, a very correct equipage, which had stopped in that street, with the horse turned towards the Rue Montmartre. The back of the high-perched coachman was as motionless as a rock, but they had twice noticed a woman's head appear at the carriage door, and then quickly disappear. All at once this head was again thrust out, and this time it lingered at the window, giving a long, backward, impatient look in the direction of the Bourse.

'The Baroness Sandorff,' muttered Saccard.

It was a very strange brown head, with burning black eyes beneath dark lids; a passionate face, with blood-red lips, and only marred by rather a long nose. Altogether its possessor seemed very pretty and precociously mature for her five-and-twenty years, having the look of a Bacchante garmented by the foremost dressmakers of the reign.

'Yes, the Baroness,' repeated Jantrou. 'I knew her when she was a young girl, at her father's, Count de Ladricourt. Oh! a mad speculator he was, and revoltingly brutal. I went to take his orders every morning; one day he came near giving me a beating. I shed no tears when he died in an apoplectic fit, ruined after a series of lamentable "settlements." The little one then had to make up her mind to marry Baron Sandorff, Counsellor to the Austrian Embassy, who was thirty-five years older than herself, and whom she had positively driven mad with her fiery glances.'

'I know,' said Saccard, simply.

The Baroness's head had again dived back into the brougham, but it almost immediately reappeared, more ardent than ever, and turned so as to command a better view of the Place.

'She speculates, doesn't she?'

'Oh, like a crazy woman! Whenever there is a crisis, she is to be seen there in her carriage, following the quotations, feverishly taking notes in her memorandum book, giving orders—and see! it was Massias whom she was waiting for: here he comes to join her.'

In fact, Massias, his quotations in his hand, was running up as fast as his short legs would carry him, and they saw him rest his elbows on the carriage door, and pop his head through the open window, in order to confer with the Baroness. Then Saccard and Jantrou stepped away a little, so that they might not be caught spying on the pair, and as the remisier came back, still on the run, they called him. He at first gave a glance back, to make sure that he was hidden by the street corner, and then he stopped short, out of breath, his florid face quite purple, but still gay, with big blue eyes as limpid as those of a child.

'But what is the matter with them all?' he cried. 'There's Suez all going to rack and ruin. There are rumours of a war with England, a piece of news that revolutionises them all, and that comes no one knows whence. War, indeed! who can have invented such a cram? Or did it invent itself all alone? At all events, there's a nice to-do!'

'Does the lady still bite?' asked Jantrou with a wink.

'Oh, madly! I am carrying her orders to Nathansohn.'

Saccard, who was listening, remarked: 'Ah, yes, so it's true, then; I had heard that Nathansohn had joined the coulisse.'

'A very nice fellow is Nathansohn,' repeated Jantrou, 'and one who deserves to succeed. We were at the Crédit Mobilier together. But he'll succeed, he will, for he is a Jew. His father, an Austrian, is in business at Besançon, as a watchmaker, I believe. The fever took him one day at the Crédit, you know, when he saw how things were managed. He said to himself that it wasn't such a trick, after all; that it was only necessary to get a room, put a wire grating across it, and open a wicket; and he has opened a wicket. And you, Massias, are you satisfied?'

'Oh, satisfied! You've been in the mill; you are right in saying that it is necessary to be a Jew; otherwise it is useless to try to understand. There's no such thing as a look in, nothing but cursed bad luck. What a filthy trade! But when a man is in it, he stays. And, besides, I have good legs still, and keep on hoping all the same.'

Thereupon he started off, running and laughing. He was said to be the son of a Lyons magistrate, removed from his post for unworthiness, and had stranded at the Bourse, after the disappearance of his father, not caring to continue his law studies.

With short, slow steps, Saccard and Jantrou retraced their way towards the Rue Brongniart, and there they again found the Baroness's brougham; but the windows were now raised, and the mysterious carriage appeared to be empty, while the coachman seemed more motionless than ever, still waiting—as he often had to do, until the very last quotations.

'She is devilishly provoking,' resumed Saccard, brutally. 'I understand the old Baron.'

A singular smile came over Jantrou's face. 'I fancy that he has had enough long ago. And he is very stingy, they say. And do you know who now pays her bills, speculation never sufficing?'

'No.'

'Delcambre!'

'Delcambre, the Public Prosecutor! that tall, dry man, so stiff and yellow! a future minister! Is it possible?'

Thereupon, in great good-humour, altogether enlivened, the pair separated with a vigorous handshake, after the one had reminded the other that he should take the liberty of calling on him shortly.

As soon as he found himself alone again, Saccard once more heard the loud voice of the Bourse, persistently swelling like that of the rising tide. He had turned the corner, and was making his way towards the Rue Vivienne, by this side of the Place, which through the complete absence of cafés has a more solemn aspect than any other. He passed the Chamber of Commerce, the Post Office, and the great advertising agencies, becoming more and more deafened, growing more and more feverish, as he drew nearer to the principal façade. And when by an oblique glance he could again command a view of the peristyle, he paused afresh as if reluctant to finish his circuit of the colonnade, to complete his investment of it. Here, where the footway broadened, life spread, burst forth upon him; torrents of customers invaded the cafés, the pastrycook's shop never emptied, and pedestrians were ever pausing, fascinated by the display in the shop windows, especially in those of a silversmith's establishment, which were all ablaze with large pieces of plate. And at the four cross-ways, at the four corners of the Place, the flood of cabs and wayfarers seemed to be increasing in inextricable entanglement; whilst the traffic at the omnibus station added to the block, and the carriages of the remisiers, ranged in a line, prevented access to the footway almost from one end of the railing to the other. Saccard's eyes, however, were fixed on the high steps, where frock-coats clustered in the sunlight. Then they were lifted towards the columns, towards the compact mass of speculators—the dense swarm, the blackness of which was scarcely relieved by the pale faces in the crowd. All were standing, no chairs could be seen; the curve formed by the coulisse under the clock could only be divined by the prevalent ebullition, the fury of gestures and words which made the very atmosphere quiver.

More calmness prevailed on the left, among a group of bankers, who were engaged either in arbitrage operations, in fixing the foreign exchange rates, or in negotiating English cheques, and whose ranks were continually being traversed by people on their way to the telegraph office. Speculators overflowed even from the side galleries, crowding and crushing together; and, leaning on the balustrades between the columns, there were some who presented belly or back, as if they were at home, or at a theatre, lolling against the velvet-upholstered front of a private box. The quivering and rumbling, like that of a steam-engine at work, was ever increasing, agitating the entire Bourse—subsiding only for a second to burst forth yet louder, in the same way as a flame may flicker and then flare high again. And gazing on it all, Saccard suddenly recognised the remisier Massias, who descended the steps at full speed and leaped into his carriage, the driver of which forthwith lashed his horse into a gallop.

Then Saccard felt his fists clench, and, violently tearing himself away, turned into the Rue Vivienne, which he crossed in order to reach the corner of the Rue Feydeau, where Busch's office was situated. He had just remembered the Russian letter which he had to get translated. As he was entering the house, however, a young man, standing in front of the stationer's shop on the ground floor, bowed to him, and he recognised Gustave Sédille, son of a silk manufacturer in the Rue des Jeûneurs, whom his father had placed with Mazaud, to study the mechanism of finance. Saccard smiled paternally upon this tall, elegant young fellow, strongly suspecting why he was mounting guard there. Conin's stationery shop had been supplying note-books to the entire Bourse since little Madame Conin had begun to help her husband—fat Conin, as he was called—who never left his back shop, there attending to the manufacturing part of his business, whilst she continually came and went, serving at the counter and doing errands outside. She was plump, blonde, and pink, a real curly-haired little sheep, with light silky hair, a pleasing, coaxing manner, and imperturbable gaiety. She was very fond of her husband, it was said, but this certainly did not prevent her from flirting with the gentlemen of the Bourse. As he passed, Saccard saw her smiling at Gustave through the window. What a pretty little sheep she was! The sight gave him a delightful sensation, akin to that of a caress. Then he at last went upstairs.

For twenty years Busch had occupied a small logement, comprising two chambers and a kitchen, high up, on the fifth floor. Born at Nancy, of German parents, he had come here from his native town, and had gradually extended the circle of his business, which was wonderfully complicated, without feeling the need of a larger office. Relinquishing the room overlooking the street to his brother Sigismond, he contented himself with a little chamber on this side of the courtyard of the house—a little chamber in which old papers, batches of documents, packages of all kinds were so piled up, that there was no room left except for a single chair beside the desk. One of his principal lines of business was a traffic in depreciated shares and debentures, thousands of which he collected together, serving as an intermediary between the Little Bourse of the 'Wet Feet' and the bankrupts embarrassed to account for their real or imaginary losses. He accordingly followed the market, at times buying direct, but more frequently supplied with batches of stock that were brought to him. In addition also to usury and a secret traffic in jewels and precious stones, he particularly occupied himself with the purchase of 'bad debts.' This it was that filled his office with old paper to overflowing, this it was that sent him forth to the four corners of Paris, sniffing and watching, with connections in all circles of society. As soon as he heard of a failure, he hurried off, prowled around the liquidator, and ended by buying up everything which could not immediately be realised. He kept a watch on the notaries' offices, looked out for inheritances difficult of settlement, and attended the sales of hopeless claims. He himself published advertisements, in this wise attracting impatient creditors who preferred to get a few coppers down rather than run the risk of prosecuting their debtors. And from all these manifold sources this chiffonnier of bad debts derived supply upon supply of paper, huge basketfuls, an ever-increasing pile of unpaid notes of hand, unfulfilled agreements, unredeemed acknowledgments of liability, unkept engagements of every kind. Then a sorting-out became necessary, a fork had to be thrust into this mess of broken victuals, a special and very delicate scent being required in the operation. To avoid waste of effort, it was necessary to make a choice in this ocean of debtors, who were either insolvent or had disappeared. In principle, Busch asserted that every claim, even the most seemingly hopeless, may some day become valuable again; and he had a series of portfolios, admirably classified, to which corresponded an index of names, which he read over from time to time to refresh his memory. However, naturally enough, among the insolvent ones, he more closely followed those who seemed to him to have near chances of fortune. Prosecuting his inquiries, he stripped people bare, discovered what means they possessed, penetrated family secrets, took note of all rich relatives, and especially of such newly-acquired situations as allowed of an attachment of salary. He thus often allowed a man to ripen for years, in order to strangle him at his first success. As for the debtors who disappeared, these stimulated him to yet greater energy, threw him into a fever of continual search, with his eyes on every signboard as he scoured the streets, and on every name printed in the newspapers. He hunted for addresses as a dog hunts for game, and as soon as he held the vanished and insolvent ones in his clutches, he became ferocious, clearing their pockets with bills of costs, sucking them dry, getting a hundred francs for what had cost him ten sous, brutally explaining the while what risks he ran as a speculator, forced to extort from those whom he caught all that he pretended to lose by those who slipped like smoke through his fingers.

In hunting for debtors, La Méchain was one of the helpers whom Busch was fondest of employing; for although he was obliged to have a little band of 'game-beaters' in his service, he lived in distrust of these disreputable, famishing assistants; whereas La Méchain had property of her own—an entire cité behind the Butte Montmartre, the Cité de Naples, as it was called, a vast tract of land covered with tumble-down shanties, which she let out by the month, a nook of frightful poverty, where starvelings were heaped together in filth, a crowd of pigsties which the wretched fought for, and whence she pitilessly swept away her tenants and their dung-heaps as soon as ever they ceased to pay her. However, her unfortunate passion for speculation consumed her, ate up all the profits of her cité. And she had also a taste for financial losses, ruins, and fires, amid which melted jewels can be stolen. When Busch charged her with obtaining some information, or ferreting out a debtor, she would sometimes even spend money out of her own pocket in view of furthering her researches, such was the pleasure she took in them. She called herself a widow, but no one had ever known her husband. She came, too, no one knew whence, and seemed always to have been about fifty years old, and monstrously fat, with the piping voice of a little girl.

On this occasion, as soon as La Méchain had taken her seat on the single chair in Busch's office, the room became full, blocked up by her mass of flesh. Busch stood like a prisoner at his desk, buried, as it were, with only his square head showing above the ocean of papers. 'Here,' said she, removing from her old bag the huge pile of papers that distended it, 'here is what Fayeux has sent me from Vendôme. He bought everything for you at that sale in connection with the Charpier failure, which you told me to call to his attention—one hundred and ten francs.'

Fayeux, whom she called her cousin, had just established an office down there as a collector of dividends. His ostensible business was to cash the coupons of the petty bondholders of the district; and, as the depositary of these coupons and the cash they yielded, he speculated in the most frenzied manner.

'The country isn't worth much,' muttered Busch, 'but there are discoveries to be made there all the same.'

He sniffed the papers, and began sorting them out with an expert hand, roughly classifying them in accordance with a first appraisement, in which he seemed to be guided by their mere smell. As he proceeded, his flat face grew dark, and he paused at last with an expression of disappointment.

'Humph! there is no fat here, nothing to bite. Fortunately it did not cost much. Here are some notes, and here some more. If they are signed by young people, who have come to Paris, we shall perhaps catch them.' Then, with a slight exclamation of surprise, he added: 'Hallo, what's this?'

At the bottom of a sheet of stamped paper he had just found the signature of the Count de Beauvilliers, and the sheet contained only three lines of large handwriting, evidently traced by an old man: 'I promise to pay the sum of ten thousand francs to Mademoiselle Léonie Cron on the day she attains her majority.

'The Count de Beauvilliers,' he slowly continued, thinking aloud; 'yes, he had several farms, quite a large estate, in the vicinity of Vendôme. He died of a hunting accident, leaving a wife and two children in straitened circumstances. I held some of his notes formerly, which with difficulty I got them to pay—he was a wild droll, not good for much——'

Suddenly he burst into a loud laugh, reconstructing in his mind the story attaching to the note.

'Ah! the old sharper, he played the little one a nice trick with this bit of paper, which is legally valueless. Then he died. Let me see, this is dated 1854, ten years ago. The girl must be of age now. But how could this acknowledgment have got into Charpier's hands? He was a grain merchant, who lent money by the week. No doubt the girl left this on deposit with him in order to get a few crowns, or perhaps he had undertaken to collect it.'

'But this is very good,' interrupted La Méchain—'a real stroke of luck.'

Busch shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. 'Oh no, I tell you that it is legally worth nothing. If I should present it to the heirs, they may send me about my business, for it would be necessary to prove that the money is really due. Only, if we find the girl, I may induce them to be reasonable, and come to an understanding with us, in order to avoid a disagreeable scandal. You understand? Look for this Léonie Cron; write to Fayeux, and tell him to hunt her up down there. That done, we may perhaps have a laugh.'

He had made two piles of the papers, with the intention of thoroughly examining them when he should be alone, and now sat motionless, with his hands open, one resting on each pile.

A spell of silence followed; then La Méchain resumed: 'I have been attending to the Jordan notes. I really thought that I had found our man again. He has been employed somewhere, and now he is writing for the newspapers. But they receive you so badly at the newspaper offices; they refuse to give you addresses. And besides, I think that he does not sign his articles with his real name.'

Without a word, Busch had stretched out his arm to take the Jordan portfolio from its place. It contained six notes of hand of fifty francs each, dated five years back and maturing monthly—a total sum of three hundred francs—which the young man had undertaken to pay to a tailor in days of poverty. Unpaid on presentation, however, the capital sum had been swollen by enormous costs, and the portfolio fairly overflowed with formidable legal documents. At the present time the debt had increased to the sum of seven hundred and thirty francs and fifteen centimes. 'If he has a future before him,' muttered Busch, 'we shall catch him one of these days.' Then, some sequence of ideas undoubtedly forming in his mind, he exclaimed: 'And that Sicardot affair, are we going to abandon it?'

La Méchain lifted her fat arms to heaven with a gesture of anguish. A ripple of despair seemed to course through her monstrous person. 'Oh, Lord!' she wailed, with her piping voice, 'it will cost me my very skin.'

This Sicardot affair was a very romantic story which she delighted to tell. A cousin of hers, Rosalie Chavaille, a daughter of her father's sister, living with her mother in a small lodging on the sixth floor of a house in the Rue de la Harpe, had fallen a victim to a married man, who occupied with his wife a room sublet to him on the second floor. There were some abominable circumstances in connection with the affair, but the girl's mother, consenting to silence, had merely required that the evil-doer should pay her the sum of six hundred francs, divided into twelve notes of fifty francs each, payable monthly. Before the first month was at an end, however, the man—an individual of gentlemanly appearance—had disappeared, and all trace of him was lost, whilst misfortunes continued falling thick as hail. Rosalie gave birth to a boy, lost her mother, and fell into a life of vice and abject poverty. Stranded in the Cité de Naples, her cousin's property, she had dragged about the streets till the age of twenty-six; but at last, during the previous year, she had been lucky enough to die, leaving behind her her son Victor, whom La Méchain had to keep; and of the whole adventure there only remained the twelve unpaid notes of hand. They had never been able to learn more of the individual who had signed them than that he called himself Sicardot.

With a fresh gesture, Busch took down the Sicardot papers, contained in a thin grey paper wrapper. No costs had accumulated, so there were merely the twelve notes.

'If Victor were only a nice child!' explained the old woman in a sorrowful voice. 'But he's dreadful! Ah! it is hard to be encumbered with such inheritances—an urchin who will end on the scaffold, and those bits of paper which will never bring me anything!'

Busch kept his big pale eyes obstinately fixed upon the notes. How many times already had he thus studied them, hoping that some hitherto unnoticed detail, something in the form of the letters, or in the grain of the stamped paper, would supply him with a clue! He asserted at times that that fine, pointed handwriting was not altogether unknown to him. 'It is curious,' he repeated once more, 'I am certain that I have somewhere already seen such a's and o's as these, so elongated that they resemble i's.'

Just then there came a knock; and he asked La Méchain to stretch out her hand to open the door, for the room communicated direct with the staircase. You had to cross it in order to reach the second chamber, the one that overlooked the street. As for the kitchen, this was a stifling hole on the other side of the landing.

'Come in, monsieur,' said La Méchain, and Saccard entered. He was smiling, inwardly amused by the copper plate screwed upon the door, and bearing in large letters the words: 'Disputed Claims.'

'Oh yes, Monsieur Saccard, you have come for that translation—my brother is there in the other room. Come in, pray come in.'

La Méchain, however, absolutely barred the passage, and scrutinised the new-comer with an air of increasing surprise. No end of manœuvring was necessary for Saccard to effect an entrance; he had to retreat to the stairs again whilst she stepped out, and drew back on the landing, so that he might pass in and finally reach the adjoining room, into which he disappeared. During these complicated movements, La Méchain had not once taken her eyes off him.

'Oh!' she faintly gasped, like one sorely oppressed, 'this Monsieur Saccard, I never had so near a view of him before. Victor is the perfect image of him.'

Busch looked at her, at first failing to understand; then a sudden light dawned upon his mind, and in a stifled voice he swore: 'Thunder! that's it; I knew very well that I had seen that handwriting somewhere.'

And this time he rose, rummaged among his batches of papers, and at last found a letter that Saccard had written him during the previous year to ask him for an extension of time in favour of an insolvent lady. He quickly compared the handwriting of the notes with that of this letter. The a's and the o's were clearly the same, though they had grown yet more pointed with the lapse of time; and there was also a marked similarity between the capital letters.

'It is he, it is he,' he repeated. 'Only, let me see, why Sicardot? Why not Saccard?'

In his mind, however, there awoke a confused recollection of some story of Saccard's past—a story which an agent, named Larsonneau, now a millionaire, had once told him: Saccard tumbling into Paris on the day after the coup d'état, coming there to exploit the rising power of his brother Rougon; then, first of all, his poverty in the dingy streets of the old Latin Quarter; next, his rapidly acquired fortune, under cover of a disreputable marriage, when he had been lucky enough to lose his first wife. It was at the time of those difficult beginnings that he had changed his name from Rougon to Saccard, by simply transforming his first wife's name, which was Sicardot.

'Yes, yes, Sicardot; I remember perfectly,' muttered Busch. 'He had the effrontery to sign notes with his wife's name. No doubt the family assumed that name when they came to the Rue de la Harpe. And then the rascal took all sorts of precautions, ready to move at the slightest alarm. Ah! so he was not only hunting for money; well, well, one of these days his doings will cost him dear.'

'Hush! hush!' resumed La Méchain. 'We have him now, and well may one say that there is indeed a Providence. At last, then, I am to be rewarded for all that I have done for that poor little Victor, whom I dearly love all the same, in spite of the fact that there is nothing to be done with him.'

She was radiant; her little eyes sparkled amid all the melting, puffy flesh of her face.

Busch, however, after the momentary fever attending this long-sought-for solution, brought to him by chance, grew cold again as he reflected, and shook his head. Undoubtedly. Saccard, although ruined for the moment, was still good to shear. One might have fallen upon a less desirable father. Only he would not allow himself to be annoyed; he had terrible teeth. And besides, he was certainly unaware that he had an illegitimate son; he might deny it, in spite of the extraordinary resemblance that had so astounded La Méchain. Moreover, he was now for the second time a widower, free, under no obligation to account for his past to anyone, so that, even if he should acknowledge the child, there was no threat that could be utilised against him. As for merely realising the six hundred francs which the notes represented, that would be really too paltry a stroke; the miraculous help which chance had brought must be turned to better account than that. He must reflect, nurse the affair, find a way of cutting the crop at harvest time, and not before. 'We mustn't be in a hurry,' he concluded. 'Besides, he is down; let us give him time to get up again.'

And, before dismissing La Méchain, he finished dealing with the little matters with which she was charged—a young woman who had pawned her jewels for her lover; a son-in-law whose debt would be paid by his mother-in-law, if they could find a way to work it; in short, some of the most delicate varieties of the complex and difficult business of collecting bad debts.

Saccard, on entering the adjoining room, had stood for a second dazzled by the bright light that streamed in through the sunny window panes, unhindered by any curtain. This room, with its walls covered with paper bearing a design of blue flowrets on a light background, was almost bare; there was merely a little iron bedstead in one corner, a deal table in the middle, and two straw-bottomed chairs. Along the partition on the left, some planks, scarcely planed, served as a bookcase, loaded with volumes, pamphlets, journals, and papers of all sorts. But the broad sunlight at this height imparted to all the bareness a sort of youthful gaiety, a smile of artless freshness. And Busch's brother, Sigismond, a beardless fellow of five and thirty, with long, scanty, chestnut hair, was sitting at the table, his broad, bumpy forehead buried in his thin hand, so absorbed in his perusal of a manuscript that he did not turn his head, not having heard the door open.

He was an intelligent man was this Sigismond, educated in the German universities, and speaking not only French, his mother tongue, but German, English, and Russian. He had made the acquaintance of Karl Marx at Cologne in 1849, and had become the most highly prized of the contributors to the 'New Rhenish Gazette.' From that moment his religion had been fixed; he professed Socialism with an ardent faith, giving his entire being to the idea of an approaching social renovation, which would assure the happiness of the poor and humble. Since his master, banished from Germany, and forced to leave Paris after the days of June, had been living in London, writing and trying to organise the party, Sigismond, on his side, had vegetated in his dreams, so careless as to his material life that he would surely have perished of hunger had his brother not taken him to live with him in the Rue Feydeau, near the Bourse, with the idea that he might utilise his knowledge of languages as a professional translator. This elder brother adored his junior with a maternal passion. Ferocious wolf though he was towards debtors, quite capable of wading through blood that he might steal half a franc, he was straightway moved to tears and evinced all the passionate, minute tenderness of a woman whenever this tall, absent-minded fellow, who had remained a child, was in question. He had given him the fine room overlooking the street, he served him as a domestic, and took entire charge of their strange household, sweeping the floors, making the beds, and ordering the food which a little restaurant in the neighbourhood sent up twice a day. Moreover, he so active, with his head full of a thousand business matters, not merely suffered his brother to remain idle—for, thwarted by private writing, very few translations were made—but he even forbade him to work, anxious as he was concerning an ominous little cough. And in spite of his stern love of money, his murderous greed, which converted money-making into the sole motive of life, he smiled indulgently at the theories of this revolutionist, relinquishing capital to him like a toy to a child, at the risk of seeing him break it.

On his side, Sigismond did not even know what his brother did in the next room. He was utterly ignorant of all that frightful traffic in depreciated stock, and of the purchase of bad debts; he lived in a loftier region, in a sovereign dream of justice. The idea of charity wounded his feelings, made him angry: charity was alms, inequality consecrated by kindness, and he admitted nought but justice, the rights of each individual man regained and adopted as the unchangeable principles of the new social organisation. And thus, following the example of Karl Marx, with whom he was in constant correspondence, he spent his days in studying this organisation, incessantly modifying and improving upon paper the society of to-morrow, covering immense pages with figures, building up on the basis of science the whole complicated scaffolding of universal happiness. He took capital from some, to distribute it among all the others; he moved billions, displaced the wealth of the world with a stroke of his pen; and this he did in that bare room, without any other passion than his dream, without any desire of enjoyment to satisfy, so frugal that his brother had to get angry in order to make him drink wine and eat meat. He desired that the labour of every man, measured according to his strength, should assure the satisfaction of his appetites; but, for his own part, he was killing himself with work, and living upon nothing—a real sage, exalted in his studious occupations, disengaged from material life, very gentle and very pure. Since the previous autumn, however, he had been coughing more and more; consumption was seizing hold of him, but he did not even condescend to notice it and nurse himself.

Saccard having made a movement, Sigismond at last raised his large vague eyes, and was astonished, although he knew the visitor.

'I have come to get a letter translated.'

The young man's surprise increased, for he had done all he could to discourage his customers, the bankers, speculators, and brokers, all that circle of the Bourse who receive, especially from England and Germany, so many communications on financial matters, company prospectuses and statutes, circulars, and so forth.

'Yes, a letter in Russian. Oh! only ten lines long.'

Thereupon Sigismond stretched out his hand, Russian having remained his speciality, he alone translating it rapidly among all the other translators of the neighbourhood, who mainly lived by German and English. The rarity of Russian documents in the Paris market explained his long periods of idleness.

He read the letter aloud in French. It was, in three sentences, a favourable reply from a Constantinople banker, a simple yes as to a matter of business.

'Ah! thank you,' exclaimed Saccard, who seemed delighted; and he asked Sigismond to write the few lines of translation on the back of the letter. But Sigismond was seized with a terrible fit of coughing, which he stifled in his handkerchief, in order not to disturb his brother, who always ran in whenever he heard him cough in that way. Then, the attack over, he rose and went to open the window wide, for he was stifling, and wished to breathe the air. Saccard, who had followed him, gave a glance outside, and raised a slight exclamation: 'Oh! so you see the Bourse? How queer it looks from here!'

Never in fact had he seen it under such a singular aspect, in a bird's-eye view, with the four vast zinc slopes of its roof extraordinarily developed and bristling with a forest of pipes. The lightning-rods rose erect like gigantic lances threatening the sky. And the edifice itself was nothing but a cube of stone, streaked with columns at regular intervals, a bare, ugly cube of a dirty gray hue, surmounted by a ragged flag. But, above all else, the steps and the peristyle astonished him, covered with black ants, a swarm of ants in revolution, all agog, in a state of wonderful commotion, which was not to be explained from such a height, and prompted a feeling of pity.

'How small they all look!' continued Saccard; 'it seems as if one could take the whole of them in the hand, with one grip.' Then, knowing his companion's ideas, he added with a laugh: 'When are you going to sweep all that away with a kick?'

Sigismond shrugged his shoulders. 'What is the use? You are demolishing yourselves fast enough.'

Then, little by little, he became animated, overflowing with the subject he was full of. A proselytising spirit launched him, at the slightest word, into an exposition of his system. 'Yes, yes, you are working for us without suspecting it,' said he. 'You are a few usurpers, who expropriate the mass of the people, and when you have gorged yourselves we shall only have to expropriate you in our turn. Every monopoly, every phase of centralisation, leads to collectivism. You are setting us a practical example, in the same way as the large estates absorbing the small patches of land, the large producers devouring the petty home industries, the great financial establishments and great stores killing all competition, and battening on the ruin of the little banks and the little shops, are slowly but surely leading towards the new social state. We are waiting for everything to crack, for the existing method of production to end in the intolerable disorder which will be its ultimate consequence. Then the bourgeois and the peasants themselves will aid us.'

Saccard, feeling interested, looked at him with a vague anxiety, although he took him for a madman. 'But come, explain to me, what is this collectivism of yours?'

'Collectivism is the transformation of private capital, living by the struggle of competition, into a unitary social capital, exploited by the labour of all. Imagine a society in which the instruments of production will be the property of all, in which everybody will work according to his intelligence and strength, and in which the products of this social co-operation will be distributed to each in proportion to his effort! There can be nothing more simple, eh? Common production in the factories, yards, and workshops of the nation! Then an exchange, a payment in kind! If there should be over-production, the surplus will be lodged in public warehouses, from which it will be taken to fill up any deficits that may arise. One will have to strike a balance. And this, like one blow of an axe, will fell the rotten tree. No more competition, no more private capital, and, therefore, no more "business" of any kind—neither commerce, nor markets, nor Bourses. The idea of profit will thenceforth have no meaning. The sources of speculation, of incomes acquired without work, will be dried up.'

'Oh! oh!' interrupted Saccard, 'that would change many people's habits, and no mistake! But what would you do with those who have incomes to-day? Gundermann, for instance, would you take away his milliard?'

'Not at all; we are not robbers. We should redeem his milliard, all his shares, debentures, and State bonds, with certificates of enjoyment, divided into annuities. And just imagine this immense capital thus replaced by an overwhelming wealth of articles of consumption: in less than a century your Gundermann's descendants would, like other citizens, be reduced to personal labour; for the annuities would finally become exhausted, and they would not have been able to capitalise their forced economies, the overplus of their overwhelming supply of articles of consumption, even admitting that the right of inheritance should be left untouched. I tell you that this would at one stroke sweep away, not only individual enterprises, companies, syndicates, and so forth, but also all the indirect sources of income, all systems of credit, loans, rentals, and so on. Nothing but labour would be left as a measure of value. Wages would naturally be suppressed, for in the present capitalistic system they are never equivalent to the exact product of labour; but at the utmost represent no more than is strictly necessary for the labourer's daily maintenance.[9] And it must be admitted that the existing system alone is guilty in the matter, that the most honest employer is clearly forced to follow the stern law of competition, to exploit his workmen, if he himself wishes to live. We have to destroy our entire social system. Ah! just think of it, Gundermann stifling under the burden of his certificates of enjoyment, his heirs unable to consume everything, obliged to give to others, and to take up the pick or the chisel, like other comrades!'

Thereupon Sigismond burst into a good-natured laugh, like a child at play, still standing by the window, with his eyes fixed on the Bourse, where swarmed the black ant-hill of speculation. A burning flush was rising to his cheeks; he had no other amusement than to picture in this wise the comical ironies of to-morrow's justice.

Saccard's uneasiness had increased. Suppose this wide-awake dreamer were after all speaking the truth. Suppose he had divined the future. He explained things that seemed very clear and sensible. 'Bah!' muttered Saccard, as though to reassure himself, 'all that won't happen next year.'

'Certainly not,' rejoined the young man, again becoming serious and weary. 'We are in the transition period, the period of agitation. There will perhaps be revolutionary violences; they are often inevitable. But the exaggerations and outbursts are temporary. Oh! I do not conceal the great immediate difficulties. All this future that I dream of seems impossible. It is difficult to give people a reasonable idea of this future society, the society of just labour, whose morals will be so different to ours. It is like another world in another planet. And then, it must be confessed, the scheme of reorganisation is not ready; we are still hunting for it. I, who now scarcely sleep at all, exhaust my nights in searching. For instance, it is certain that our adversaries can say to us: "If things are as they are, it is because the logic of human actions has made them so." Hence, what a task to take the river back to its source, and direct it into another valley! The existing social system certainly owes its centuries of prosperity to the individualist principle, which emulation and personal interest endow with a fertility of production that is ever being renewed. Will collectivism ever attain to such fertility, and by what means are we to stimulate the productive functions of the workman when the idea of profit shall have been destroyed? There, to my mind, lies the doubt, the anguish, the weak point over which we must fight, if we wish the victory of Socialism to be some day won. But we shall conquer, because we are Justice. There! you see that building in front of you? You see it?'

'The Bourse?' said Saccard. 'Why, yes, of course I see it.'

'Well, it would be stupid to blow it up, because it would be rebuilt. Only I predict to you that it will go up of itself when the State shall have expropriated it, and have become the sole universal bank of the nation; and, who knows? perhaps it will then serve as a public warehouse for our surplus wealth, as one of the store-houses where our grandchildren will find the necessary supply of luxury for their days of festivity.'

Thus, with a sweeping comprehensive gesture, did Sigismond reveal this future of universal average happiness. And he had become so excited that a fresh fit of coughing shook him, and sent him back to his table, with his elbows among his papers and his head in his hands, striving to stifle the harsh rattle in his throat. But this time he did not succeed in stopping it. The door suddenly opened, and Busch, having dismissed La Méchain, ran in with a bewildered air, suffering himself at the sound of that abominable cough. He at once leaned over, and took his brother in his long arms, as one takes hold of a child to soothe its pain.

'Come, youngster,' said he, 'what is the matter with you, that you are stifling like this? You know I wish you to send for a doctor. This isn't reasonable. You surely must have talked too much.'

And thereupon he darted a side glance at Saccard, who had remained in the middle of the room, quite upset by what he had just heard from the lips of that tall fellow, so passionate and so ill, who from his window on high doubtless cast a spell over the Bourse with all his stories of sweeping everything away, in order to build up everything afresh.

'Thanks; I leave you,' said the visitor, in a hurry to get outside again. 'Send me my letter, with the ten lines of translation. I expect some others, and we will settle for them all together.'

The attack being over, however, Busch detained him a moment longer. 'By the way,' said he, 'the lady who was here just now used to know you—oh! a long time ago.'

'Ah! where was that?'

'In the Rue de la Harpe, in '52.'

Despite his usual perfect mastery over himself, Saccard turned pale. A nervous twitch distorted his mouth. Not that he, at that minute, remembered the girl whom he had wronged; he had never even known of her becoming a mother, he was ignorant of the existence of the child. But he always greatly disliked being reminded of the wretched years of his début in life.

'Rue de la Harpe! Oh! I only lived there a week, at the time of my arrival in Paris, just long enough to look for rooms. Au revoir!'

'Au revoir!' emphatically answered Busch, who deceived himself with the idea that Saccard's embarrassment implied confession, and who was already wondering how largely he might profit by the adventure.

On finding himself in the street, Saccard mechanically turned back towards the Place de la Bourse. He was trembling, and did not even look at little Madame Conin, whose pretty blonde face was smiling in the doorway of the stationery shop. The agitation had increased on the Place; it was with uncurbed flood-tide violence that the clamour of the speculators swept across the roadway to the footwalks swarming with people. It was the last roar, the roar which bursts forth as soon as the clock points to a quarter to three, the battle of the last quotations, the rageful longing to know who will come away with his pockets full. And, standing at the corner of the Rue de la Bourse, opposite the peristyle, Saccard fancied that, amid all the confused jostling under the columns he could recognise 'bear' Moser and 'bull' Pillerault quarrelling, and that he could hear the shrill voice of broker Mazaud coming from the depths of the great hall, but drowned occasionally by the shouts of Nathansohn, sitting under the clock in the coulisse. However, a vehicle, fringing the gutter as it drove up, came near spattering him with mud. Massias leaped out, even before the driver had stopped, and darted up the steps at a bound, bringing, quite out of breath, some customer's last order.

And Saccard, still motionless and erect, with his eyes fixed on the mêlée above him, ruminated over his life, haunted by the memory of his beginnings, which Busch's question had just awakened. He recalled the Rue de la Harpe, and then the Rue Saint-Jacques, through which he had dragged his boots, worn down at heel, on arriving in Paris to subdue it like a conquering adventurer; and a fury seized him at the thought that he had not subdued it yet, that he was again upon the pavement, still watching for fortune, still unsatisfied, tortured by such an appetite for enjoyment that never had he suffered more. That mad fellow Sigismond was right: labour cannot give one life; merely wretches and fools labour, to fatten the others. There was only gambling that was worth anything—gambling which in one afternoon can at one stroke bring comfort, luxury, life, broad and entire. Even if this old social world were fated to crumble some day, could not a man like himself still find time and room to satisfy his desires before the Downfall?

But just then a passer-by jostled him without even turning to apologise. He looked, and recognised Gundermann taking his little walk for his health, and saw him enter a confectioner's, whence this gold king sometimes brought a franc box of bonbons to his grand-daughters. And that elbow-thrust, at that minute, in the fit of fever that had been rising in him since he had begun the circuit of the Bourse, was like the whip-stroke, the last shove that determined him. He had completed his investment of the fortress, now he would make the assault. He swore to begin a merciless struggle; he would not leave France, he would defy his brother, he would play the final rubber, a battle of terrible audacity, which should either put Paris beneath his heels or throw him into the gutter with a broken back.

Until the moment when the Bourse closed Saccard obstinately lingered there, erect at his post of menace and observation. He watched the peristyle clearing, the steps blackening again as the whole fagged, heated crowd slowly scattered. Both on the foot and roadways around him the block continued—an endless flow of people, the eternal crowd of future victims, the investors of to-morrow, who could not pass that great lottery office of speculation without turning their heads, curious and fearful as to what might be going on there, as to all those mysterious financial operations which are the more attractive to French brains as they are penetrated by so few of them.

[CHAPTER II]

DREAMS AND SCHEMES

When, after his last and disastrous land speculation, Saccard had been obliged to leave his palace in the Parc Monceau, which he abandoned to his creditors in order to avoid a yet greater catastrophe, his first idea had been to take refuge with his son Maxime. The latter, since the death of his wife, now sleeping in a little cemetery in Lombardy, had been living alone in a mansion in the Avenue de l'Impératrice, where he had planned out his life with a prudent and ferocious egoism. There he spent the fortune of the deceased, methodically, without ever overstepping the bounds, like a man in feeble health whom vice had prematurely ripened; and it was in a clear voice that he refused to lodge his father in his house, wishing, he explained with his smiling, prudent air, that they might continue on good terms together.

Saccard thereupon thought of some other retreat, and was on the point of taking a little house at Passy, a retired merchant's bourgeois asylum, when he recollected that the first and second floors of the Orviedo mansion, in the Rue Saint-Lazare, were still unoccupied, with doors and windows closed. The Princess d'Orviedo, who had withdrawn into three rooms on the second floor since her husband's death, had not even put up any notice 'To Let' at the carriage entrance, where the weeds were growing. A low door at the other end of the façade led to the second storey by a servants' staircase. And in the course of his business relations with the Princess, during the visits that he paid her, Saccard had often been astonished at the negligence which she showed in the matter of deriving some profit from her property. But she shook her head in reply to his remarks; she had theories of her own as to money matters. However, when he applied in his own name, she consented at once, and for the ridiculous rent of ten thousand francs made over to him both the sumptuous ground and first floors, decorated in princely fashion, and worth certainly double the money.

The magnificence displayed by Prince d'Orviedo was well remembered. It was in the feverish flush of his immense financial fortune, when he had come from Spain to Paris amid a rain of millions, that he had bought and redecorated this mansion, pending the erection of the palace of marble and gold with which he dreamed of astonishing the world. The edifice dated from the last century; it had been one of those pleasure-houses built in the midst of vast gardens by noble gallants. Partially demolished, however, and re-erected in a severer style, it had of its park of former days merely retained a large court, bordered with stables and coach-houses, which the projected Rue du Cardinal-Fesch would surely sweep away. The Prince acquired the mansion from the heirs of a Mademoiselle Saint-Germain, whose property had formerly extended to the Rue des Trois-Frères, as the further end of the Rue Taitbout was once called. The entrance of the mansion was still in the Rue Saint-Lazare, adjoining a large building of the same period, the whilom Folie-Beauvilliers, which the Beauvilliers still occupied, after passing through a period of slow ruin; and they there possessed some remnants of an admirable garden, with magnificent trees, likewise condemned to disappear in the approaching transformation of the district.

In the midst of his disaster, Saccard still dragged about with him a number of servants, the débris of his over-numerous household, a valet, a chef, and his wife who had charge of the linen, another woman who had remained no one knew why, a coachman and two ostlers; and he filled up the stables and coach-houses, putting two horses and three carriages in them, and arranged a servants' dining-hall on the ground floor of the house. He had not five hundred francs in cash in his coffers, but lived at the rate of two or three hundred thousand francs a year. And with his own person he managed to fill the vast first-floor apartments, the three drawing- and five bed-rooms, not to mention the immense dining-room, where covers could be laid for fifty persons. Here a door had formerly opened upon an inner staircase, leading to another and smaller dining-room on the second floor, and the Princess, who had recently let this part of the second floor to an engineer, M. Hamelin, a bachelor, living with his sister, had contented herself with closing the door by the aid of a couple of stout screws. She herself shared the old servants' staircase with the Hamelins, while Saccard had the main stairway at his own entire disposal. He partially furnished a few rooms with some remnants from his Parc Monceau establishment, and left the others empty, succeeding, nevertheless, in restoring some life to that series of bare, gloomy walls, whence an obstinate hand seemed to have torn even the smallest shreds of hangings on the very morrow of the Prince's death. And here then he was able to indulge afresh his dream of a great fortune.

The Princess d'Orviedo was at that time one of the most curious notabilities of Paris. Fifteen years previously she had resignedly married the Prince, whom she did not love, in obedience to the formal command of her mother, the Duchess de Combeville. At that period this young girl of twenty had been famous for her beauty and exemplary conduct, being very religious, and perhaps a little too serious, although loving society passionately. She was ignorant of the singular stories current regarding the Prince, the sources of his regal fortune estimated at three hundred millions of francs—his whole life of frightful robberies, perpetrated, not on the skirts of a wood and weapon in hand, after the fashion of the noble adventurers of former days, but according to the system of the correct modern bandit, in the broad sunlight of the Bourse, where amidst death and ruin he had emptied the pockets of poor credulous folks. Over there in Spain, and here in France, the Prince for twenty years had appropriated the lion's share in every great legendary piece of rascality. Although suspecting nothing of the mire and blood in which he had just picked up so many millions, his wife at their first meeting had felt a repugnance towards him, which even her religious sentiments were powerless to overcome; and to this antipathy was soon added a secret, growing rancour at having no child by this marriage, to which she had submitted for obedience' sake. Maternity would have sufficed her, for she adored children; and thus she came to hate this man, who, after taking from her all hope of love, had even been unable to satisfy her maternal longings. It was then that the Princess was seen to precipitate herself into a life of unheard-of luxury, dazzling Paris with the brilliancy of her fêtes, and displaying in all things such magnificence that even the Tuileries were said to be jealous. Then suddenly, on the day after the Prince died from a stroke of apoplexy, the mansion in the Rue Saint-Lazare fell into absolute silence, complete darkness. Not a light, not a sound; doors and windows alike remained closed; and the rumour spread that the Princess, after violently stripping the lower part of the house, had withdrawn, like a recluse, into three little rooms on the second floor, with old Sophie, her mother's former maid, who had brought her up. When she reappeared in public, she wore a simple black woollen dress, with a lace fichu concealing her hair. Short and still plump, with her narrow forehead and her pretty round face with pearly teeth hidden by tightly-set lips, she already had a yellow complexion, with the silent countenance of a woman who has but one desire, one purpose in life, like a nun long immured in the cloister. She had just reached thirty, and lived henceforth solely for deeds of charity on a colossal scale.

The surprise of Paris was very great, and all sorts of extraordinary stories began to circulate. The Princess had inherited her husband's entire fortune, the famous three hundred millions of francs,[10] which the newspapers were always talking about. And the legend which finally sprang up was a romantic one. A man, a mysterious stranger dressed in black, it was said, had suddenly appeared one evening in the Princess's chamber just as she was going to bed, without her ever understanding by what secret door he had gained admission; and what this man had told her no one in the world knew; but he must have revealed to her the abominable origin of those three hundred millions, and perhaps have exacted from her an oath to offer reparation for so many iniquities, if she wished to avoid the most frightful catastrophes. Then the man had disappeared; and now during the five years that she had been a widow, either in obedience to an order received from the realms beyond, or through a simple revolt of honesty when the record of her fortune had fallen into her hands, she had lived in a burning fever of renunciation and reparation. All the pent-up feelings of this woman, who had not known love, and who had not succeeded in becoming a mother, and especially her unsatisfied affection for children, blossomed forth in a veritable passion for the poor, the weak, the disinherited, the suffering, from whom she believed the stolen millions to be withheld, to whom she swore to restore them royally in a rain of alms. A fixed idea took possession of her, a thought she could not get rid of had been driven into her brain; she henceforth simply looked upon herself as a banker with whom the poor had deposited those millions, in order that they might be employed for their benefit in the most advantageous way. She herself was but an accountant, a business agent, living in a realm to figures, amidst a population of notaries, architects, and workmen. She had established a vast office in town, where a score of employees worked. In her three small rooms at home she only received four or five intermediaries, her lieutenants; and there she passed her days, at a desk, like the director of some great enterprise, cloistered far away from the importunate among a growing heap of papers spread out all around her. It was a dream to relieve every misery, from that of the child who suffers from being born, to that of the old man who cannot die without suffering. During those five years, scattering gold by the handful, she had founded the St. Mary's Infant Asylum at La Villette—an asylum with white cradles for the very little and blue beds for the bigger ones—a vast, well-lighted establishment, already occupied by three hundred children; then had come the St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum at Saint Mandé, where a hundred boys and a hundred girls received such education and training as are given in bourgeois families; next an asylum for the aged at Châtillon, capable of accommodating fifty men and fifty women, and finally a hospital—the St. Marceau Hospital it was called—in one of the suburbs of Paris. Here the wards, containing a couple of hundred beds, had only just been opened. But her favourite foundation, that which at this moment absorbed her whole heart, was the Institute of Work,[11] a creation of her own, which was to take the place of the House of Correction, and where three hundred children, one hundred and fifty girls and one hundred and fifty boys, rescued from crime and debauchery on the pavements of Paris, were to be regenerated by good care and apprenticeship at a trade. These various foundations, with large donations to public establishments and a reckless prodigality in private charity, had in five years devoured almost a hundred millions of francs. At this rate, in a few years more she would be ruined, without having reserved even a small income to buy the bread and milk upon which she now lived. When her old servant Sophie, breaking her accustomed silence, scolded her with a harsh word, prophesying that she would die a beggar, she gave a feeble smile, now the only one that ever appeared on her colourless lips, a divine smile of hope.

It was precisely in connection with the Institute of Work that Saccard made Princess d'Orviedo's acquaintance. He was one of the owners of the land which she bought for this institution, an old garden planted with beautiful trees reaching to the Park of Neuilly, and skirting the Boulevard Bineau. He had attracted her by his brisk way of doing business; and, certain difficulties arising with her contractors, she wished to see him again. He himself had become greatly interested in what she was doing—struck, charmed by the grand plan which she had imposed upon the architect: two monumental wings, one for the boys, the other for the girls, connected with each other by a main building containing the chapel, the common departments, the offices, and various services; and each wing with its spacious yard, its workshops, its outbuildings of all sorts. But what particularly fired his enthusiasm, given his own taste for the grand and the gorgeous, was the luxury displayed, the very vastness of the edifice, the materials employed in building it—materials which would defy the centuries—the marble lavished upon all sides, the kitchen walled and floored with faïence, and with sufficient accommodation for the roasting of an ox, the gigantic dining-halls with rich oak panellings and ceilings, the dormitories flooded with light and enlivened with bright paintings, the linen room, the bath room, and the infirmary, where all the appointments bespoke extreme refinement; and on all sides there were broad entrances, stairways, corridors, ventilated in summer and heated in winter; and the entire house, bathed in the sunlight, had the gaiety of youth, the complete comfort which only immense wealth can procure. When the anxious architect, considering all this magnificence useless, spoke to the Princess of the expense, she stopped him with a word: she had enjoyed luxury; she wished to give it to the poor, that they might enjoy it in their turn—they who create the luxury of the rich. Her fixed idea centred in this dream; to gratify every desire of the wretched, to provide them with the same beds, the same fare, as the fortunate ones of this world.

There was to be no question of a crust of bread, or a chance pallet by way of alms; but life on a large scale within this palace, where they would be at home, taking their revenge, tasting the enjoyment of conquerors. Only, amidst all this squandering, all these enormous estimates, she was abominably robbed; a swarm of contractors lived upon her, to say nothing of the losses due to inadequate superintendence; the property of the poor was being wasted. And it was Saccard who opened her eyes to this, begging her to let him set her accounts straight. And he did this in a thoroughly disinterested way, solely for the pleasure of regulating this mad dance of millions which aroused his enthusiasm. Never before had he shown himself so scrupulously honest. In this colossal, complicated affair he proved the most active, most upright of helpers, giving his time and even his money, taking his reward simply in the delight which he felt at such large sums passing through his hands. Scarcely anyone but himself was known at the Institute of Work, whither the Princess never went, any more than she visited her other establishments, preferring to remain hidden within her three little rooms, like some invisible good fairy, whilst he was adored, blessed, overwhelmed with all the gratitude which she did not seem to desire.

It was at this time undoubtedly that Saccard began nursing the indefinite project, which, when once he was installed as a tenant in the Orviedo mansion, became transformed into a sharp, well-defined desire. Why should he not devote himself entirely to the management of the Princess's charitable enterprises? In the period of doubt in which he found himself, vanquished on the field of speculation, not knowing how to rebuild his fortune, this course appeared to him like a new incarnation, a sudden deifical ascent. To become the dispenser of that royal charity, the channel through which would roll that flood of gold that was pouring upon Paris! There were two hundred millions left; what works might still be created, what a city of miracle might be made to spring from the soil! To say nothing of the fact that he would make those millions fruitful, double, triple them, know so well how to employ them that he would make them yield a world. Then, in his passionate fever, his ideas broadened; he lived in this one intoxicating thought of scattering those millions broadcast in endless alms, of drowning all happy France with them; and he grew sentimental, for his probity was without a reproach—not a sou stuck to his fingers. In his brain—the brain of a visionary—a giant idyl took shape, the idyl of one free from all self-consciousness, an idyl in no wise due to any desire to atone for his old financial brigandage. There was the less cause for any such desire, as at the end there still lay the dream of his entire life, the conquest of Paris. To be the king of charity, the adored God of the multitude of the poor, to become unique and popular, to occupy the attention of the world—it even surpassed his ambition. What prodigies could he not realize, should he employ in goodness his business faculties, his strategy, obstinacy, and utter freedom from prejudice! And he would have the irresistible power which wins battles, money, coffers full of money, which often does so much harm, and which would do so much good as soon as it should be used to satisfy his pride and pleasure.

Then, enlarging his project still further, Saccard came to the point of asking himself why he should not marry the Princess d'Orviedo. That would determine their mutual position, and prevent all evil interpretations. For a month he manœuvred adroitly, disclosed superb plans, sought to make himself indispensable; and one day, in a tranquil voice, again becoming ingenuous, he made his proposal, developed his great project. It was a veritable partnership that he proposed; he offered himself as the liquidator of the sums stolen by the Prince; pledged himself to return them to the poor tenfold. The Princess, in her eternal black dress, with her lace fichu on her head, listened to him attentively, no emotion whatever animating her sallow face. She was very much struck with the advantages that such an association might offer, and quite indifferent to the other considerations. However, having postponed her answer till the next day, she finally refused; she had upon reflection doubtless realized that she would no longer be sole mistress of her charities, and these she meant to dispense with absolute sovereignty, even if she did so madly. However, she explained that she would be happy to retain him as a counsellor; and showed how precious she considered his collaboration by begging him to continue to attend to the Institute of Work, of which he was the real director.

For a whole week Saccard experienced violent chagrin, as one does at the loss of a cherished idea; not that he felt himself falling back into the abyss of brigandage; but, just as a sentimental song will bring tears to the eyes of the most abject drunkard, so this colossal idyl of good accomplished by dint of millions had moved his corsair soul. Once more he fell, and from a great height: it seemed to him that he was dethroned. From money he had always sought to derive, in addition to the satisfaction of his appetites, the magnificence of a princely life, and never had he sufficiently achieved it. He grew enraged as one by one his tumbles carried away his hopes. And thus, when his project was destroyed by the Princess's quiet, precise refusal, he was thrown back into a furious desire for battle. To fight, to prove the strongest in the stern war of speculation, to eat up others in order to keep them from eating him, was, after his thirst for splendour and enjoyment, the one great motive of his passion for business. Though he did not heap up treasure, he had another joy, the delight attending on the struggle between vast amounts of money pitted against one another—fortunes set in battle array, like contending army corps, the clash of conflicting millions, with defeats and victories that intoxicated him. And forthwith there returned his hatred of Gundermann, his ungovernable longing for revenge. To conquer Gundermann was the chimerical desire that haunted him, each time that he found himself prostrate, vanquished. Though he felt the childish folly attaching to such an attempt, might he not at least cut into him, make a place for himself opposite him, force him to share, like those monarchs of neighbouring countries and equal power who treat each other as cousins? Then it was that the Bourse again attracted him; his head once more became full of schemes that he might launch; conflicting projects claimed him in all directions, putting him in such a fever that he knew not what to decide until the day came when a supreme, stupendous idea evolved itself from amidst all the others, and gradually gained entire possession of him.

Since he had been living in the Orviedo mansion, Saccard had occasionally seen the sister of the engineer Hamelin, who lived in the little suite of rooms on the second floor, a woman with an admirable figure—Madame Caroline she was familiarly called. What had especially struck him, at their first meeting, was her superb white hair, a royal crown of white hair, which had a most singular effect on the brow of this woman, who was still young, scarcely thirty-six years old. At the age of five and twenty her hair had thus turned completely white. Her eyebrows, which had remained black and very thick, imparted an expression of youth, and of extreme oddity, to her ermine-girt countenance. She had never been pretty, for her nose and chin were too pronounced, and her mouth large with thick lips expressive of exquisite kindliness. But certainly that white fleece, that wavy whiteness of fine silken hair, softened her rather stern physiognomy, and added a grandmother's smiling charm to the freshness and vigour of a beautiful, passionate woman. She was tall and strongly built, with a free and very noble carriage.

Every time he met her, Saccard, shorter than she was, followed her with his eyes, in an interested way, secretly envying her tall figure, her healthy breadth of shoulders. And gradually, through the servants, he became acquainted with the whole history of the Hamelins, Caroline and George. They were the children of a Montpellier physician, a remarkable savant, an enthusiastic Catholic, who had died poor. At the time of their father's death the girl was eighteen and the boy nineteen; and, the latter having just entered the Polytechnic School, his sister followed him to Paris, where she secured a place as governess. It was she who slipped five-franc pieces into his hand, and kept him in pocket-money during his two years' course; later, when, having graduated with a low rank, he had to tramp the pavements, it was still she who supported him until he found employment. They adored each other, and it was their dream never to separate. Nevertheless, an unhoped-for marriage offering itself—the good grace and keen intelligence of the young girl having made the conquest of a millionaire brewer in the house where she was employed—George wished her to accept; a thing which he cruelly repented of, for, after a few years of married life, Caroline was obliged to apply for a separation in order to avoid being killed by her husband, who drank and pursued her with a knife in fits of imbecile jealousy. She was then twenty-six years old, and again found herself poor, obstinately refusing to claim any alimony from the man whom she left. But her brother had at last, after many attempts, put his hand upon a work that pleased him: he was about to start for Egypt, with the Commission appointed to prosecute the first investigations connected with the Suez Canal, and he took his sister with him. She bravely established herself at Alexandria, and again began giving lessons, while he travelled about the country. Thus they remained in Egypt until 1859, and saw the first blows of the pick struck upon the shore at Port Said by a meagre gang of barely a hundred and fifty navvies, lost amid the sands, and commanded by a handful of engineers. Then Hamelin, having been sent to Syria to ensure a constant supply of provisions, remained there, in consequence of a quarrel with his chiefs. He made Caroline come to Beyrout, where other pupils awaited her, and launched out into a big enterprise, under the patronage of a French company—the laying out of a carriage road from Beyrout to Damascus, the first, the only route opened through the passes of the Lebanon range. And thus they lived there three years longer, until the road was finished; he visiting the mountains, absenting himself for two months to make a trip to Constantinople through the Taurus, she following him as soon as she could escape, and fully sharing the revivalist projects which he formed, whilst tramping about this old land, slumbering beneath the ashes of dead and vanished civilisations. He had a portfolio full of ideas and plans, and felt the imperative necessity of returning to France if he was to give shape to all his vast schemes, establish companies, and find the necessary capital. And so, after nine years' residence in the East, they started off, and curiosity prompted them to return by way of Egypt, where the progress made with the works of the Suez Canal filled them with enthusiasm. In four years a city had grown up on the strand at Port Said; an entire people was swarming there; the human ants were multiplying, changing the face of the earth. In Paris, however, dire ill-luck awaited Hamelin. For fifteen months he struggled on with his projects, unable to impart his faith to anyone, too modest as he was, too taciturn, stranded on that second floor of the Orviedo mansion, in a little suite of five rooms, for which he paid twelve hundred francs a year, farther from success than he had even been when roaming over the mountains and plains of Asia. Their savings rapidly decreased, and brother and sister came at last to a position of great embarrassment.

In fact, it was this that interested Saccard—the growing sadness of Madame Caroline, whose hearty gaiety was dimmed by the discouragement into which she saw her brother falling. She was to some extent the man of the household; George, who greatly resembled her physically, though of slighter build, had a rare faculty for work, but he became absorbed in his studies, and did not like to be roused from them. Never had he cared to marry, not feeling the need of doing so, his adoration of his sister sufficing him. This whilom student of the Polytechnic School, whose conceptions were so vast, whose zeal was so ardent in everything he undertook, at times evinced such simplicity that one would have deemed him rather stupid. Brought up, too, in the narrowest Romanism he had kept the religious faith of a child, careful in his observance of all rites and ceremonies like a thorough believer; whereas his sister had regained possession of herself by dint of reading and learning during the long hours when he was plunged in his technical tasks. She spoke four languages; she had read the economists and the philosophers, and had for a time been moved to enthusiasm by socialistic and evolutionary theories. Subsequently, however, she had quieted down, acquiring—notably by her travels, her long residence among far-off civilisations—a broad spirit of tolerance and well-balanced common-sense. Though she herself no longer believed, she retained great respect for her brother's faith. There had been one explanation between them, after which they had never referred to the matter again. She, with her simplicity and good-nature, was a woman of real intelligence; and, facing life with extraordinary courage, with a gay bravery which withstood the cruel blows of fate, she was in the habit of saying that a single sorrow alone remained within her—that of never having had a child.

Saccard was able to render Hamelin a service—some little work which he secured for him from some investors who needed an engineer to report upon the output of a new machine, and thus he forced an intimacy with the brother and sister, and frequently went up to spend an hour with them in their salon, their only large room, which they had transformed into a work room. This room remained virtually bare, for its only furniture consisted of a long designing table, a smaller table covered with papers, and half a dozen chairs. Books were heaped up on the mantel-shelf, whilst on the walls an improvised decoration enlivened the blank space—a series of plans, of bright water-colour drawings, each held in place by four tacks. The plans were those which Hamelin had gathered together in his portfolio of projects; they were the notes he had taken in Syria, the bases on which he hoped to build up all his future fortune; whereas the water-colours were the work of Madame Caroline—Eastern views, types, and costumes which she had noted while accompanying her brother about, which she had sketched with keen insight into the laws of colour, though in a very unpretending way. Two larger windows overlooking the garden of the Beauvilliers mansion admitted a bright light to illumine these straggling designs, typical of another life, of an ancient society sinking into dust, which the plans, firmly and mathematically outlined, seemed about to put upon its feet again, supported, as it were, by the solid scaffolding of modern science. And Saccard, when he had rendered himself useful, with that display of activity which made him so charming, would often linger before the plans and water-colours, seduced, and continually asking for fresh explanations. Vast schemes were already germinating in his brain.

One morning he found Madame Caroline seated alone at the little table which she used as her desk. She was dreadfully sad, her hands resting among her papers.

'What can you expect?' said she, 'things are turning out very badly. I am brave, but everything seems about to fail us at once; and what distresses me is the powerlessness to which misfortune reduces my poor brother, for he is not valiant, he has no strength except for work. I thought of getting another situation as governess, that I might at least help him. But I have sought, and found nothing. Yet I cannot go out working as a charwoman.'

Never had Saccard seen her so upset, so dejected. 'The devil! you have not come to that!' he cried.

She shook her head, and evinced great bitterness against life, which she usually accepted so jovially, even when at its worst. And Hamelin just then coming in with the news of a fresh disappointment, big tears ran slowly down her cheeks. She spoke no further, but sat there, her hands clenched on the table, her eyes wandering away into space.

'And to think,' said Hamelin, 'that there are millions awaiting us in the East, if someone would only help me to make them!'

Saccard had planted himself in front of a plan representing a view of a pavilion surrounded by vast store-houses. 'What is that?' he asked.

'Oh! something I did for my amusement,' explained the engineer. 'It's the plan of a dwelling at Beyrout for the manager of the Company which I dreamed of, you know, the United Steam Navigation Company.'

He became animated, and went into fresh particulars. During his stay in the East, he had noticed how defective were all the transport services. The various companies established at Marseilles were ruining one another by competition, and were unable to provide vessels in sufficient number or of sufficient comfort. One of his first ideas, the very basis indeed of his many enterprises, was to syndicate these services, to unite them in one vast, wealthy company, which should exploit the entire Mediterranean, and acquire the sovereign control thereof, by establishing lines to all the ports of Africa, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Asia, and even the remotest parts of the Black Sea. It was a scheme worthy at once of a shrewd organiser and a good patriot; it meant the East conquered, given to France, to say nothing of the close relations which it would establish with Syria, where lay the vast field of his proposed operations.

'Syndicates,' murmured Saccard—'yes, nowadays the future seems to lie in that direction. It is such a powerful form of association! Three or four little enterprises, which vegetate in isolation, acquire irresistible vitality and prosperity as soon as they unite. Yes, to-morrow belongs to the association of capital, to the centralised efforts of immense masses. All industry and commerce will end in a single huge bazaar, where a man will provide himself with everything.'

He had stopped again, this time before a water-colour which represented a wild locality, an arid gorge, blocked up by a gigantic pile of rocks crowned with brambles. 'Oh! oh!' he resumed, 'here is the end of the world. There can be no danger of being jostled by passers-by in that nook.'

'A Carmel gorge,' answered Hamelin. 'My sister sketched it while I was making my studies in that neighbourhood,' and he added simply: 'See! between the cretaceous limestone and the porphyry which raised up that limestone over the entire mountain-side, there is a considerable vein of sulphuretted silver—yes, a silver mine, the working of which, according to my calculations, would yield enormous profits.'

'A silver mine?' repeated Saccard eagerly.

Madame Caroline, with her eyes still wandering far away, had overheard them amid her fit of sadness, and, as if a vision had risen before her, she said: 'Carmel, ah! what a desert, what days of solitude! It is full of myrtle and broom, which make the warm air balmy. And there are eagles continually circling aloft—and to think of all this silver, sleeping in that sepulchre, beside so much misery, where one would like to see happy multitudes, workshops, cities spring up—a whole people regenerated by toil.'

'A road could easily be opened from Carmel to Saint Jean d'Acre,' continued Hamelin. 'And I firmly believe that iron, too, would be found there, for it abounds in all the mountains in the neighbourhood. I have also studied a new system of extraction, by which large savings could be made. All is ready; it is only a matter of finding the capital.'

'The Carmel Silver Mining Company!' murmured Saccard.

But it was now the engineer who, with raised eyes, went from one plan to another, again full of this labour of his life, seized with fever, at thought of the brilliant future which was sleeping there while want was paralysing him. 'And these are only the small preliminary affairs,' he continued. 'Look at this series of plans; here is the grand stroke, a complete railway system traversing Asia Minor from end to end. The lack of convenient and rapid communication, that is the primary cause of the stagnation into which this rich country has sunk. You would not find a single carriage road there, travel and transport being invariably effected by means of mules or camels. So imagine the revolution if the iron horse could penetrate to the confines of the desert! Industry and commerce would be increased tenfold, civilisation would be victorious, Europe would at last open the gates of the East. Oh! if it interests you, we will talk of it in detail. And you shall see, you shall see!'

And such was his excitement that he could not refrain from straightway entering into explanations. It was especially during his journey to Constantinople that he had studied his projected railway system. The great, the only difficulty was presented by the Taurus mountains; but he had explored the different passes, and asserted that a direct and comparatively inexpensive line was possible. However, it was not his intention to make the system complete at one stroke. On obtaining a full grant from the Sultan, it would be prudent at the outset to merely lay down the mother line, from Broussa to Beyrout, by way of Angora and Aleppo. Later on, they might lay down branch lines from Smyrna to Angora, and from Trebizond to Angora, by way of Erzeroum and Sivas. 'And after that, and after that,' he continued; but, instead of finishing, he contented himself with a smile, not daring to tell how far he had carried the audacity of his projects.

'Ah! the plains at the foot of Taurus,' said Madame Caroline, in the slow, low voice of an awakened sleeper; 'what a delightful paradise! One has only to scratch the earth, and harvests spring up in abundance. The boughs of the fruit trees, peach, cherry, fig, and almond, break under their weight of fruit. And what fields of olive and mulberry—dense as woods! And what a natural, easy existence in that light atmosphere, under that sky for ever blue!'

Saccard began to laugh, with that shrill laugh betokening a fine appetite, which was his whenever he scented fortune. And, as Hamelin went on talking yet of more projects, notably of the establishment of a bank at Constantinople, with just an allusion to the all-powerful relations which he had left behind him, especially with the entourage of the Grand Vizier, he interrupted him to say gaily: 'Why, it is Tom Tiddler's land, one could sell it!' Then, very familiarly resting both hands on the shoulders of Madame Caroline, who was still sitting at the table, he added: 'Don't despair, madame. I have great sympathy for you; between us, your brother and I, we will do something that will benefit all of us. You'll see; be patient, and wait.'

During the ensuing month Saccard again procured some little jobs for the engineer; and though he talked no further of the latter's grand enterprises, he must have steadily thought of them, hesitating the while on account of their crushing magnitude.

The bond of intimacy between them was drawn tighter, however, by the wholly natural fashion in which Madame Caroline came to occupy herself with his household, the household of a single man, whose resources were diminished by useless expenses, and who was the worse served the more servants he had. He, so shrewd out of doors, famous for the vigour and cunning of his hand when any huge robbery had to be perpetrated, let everything go helter-skelter at home, careless of the frightful waste that tripled his expenses; and the absence of a woman was cruelly felt, even in the smallest matters. When Madame Caroline perceived how he was being pillaged, she at first gave him advice, and then intervened in person, with the result of effecting a saving in two or three directions, so that one day he laughingly offered her a position as his housekeeper. Why not? She had sought a place as governess, and might well accept an honourable situation, which would permit her to wait. The offer made in jest became a serious one. Would it not give her occupation, and enable her to assist her brother to the extent, at any rate, of the three hundred francs a month that Saccard was willing to give? And so she accepted. She reformed the household in a week, discharging the chef and his wife, and replacing them by a female cook, who, with the valet and the coachman, would suffice for Saccard's requirements. Further, she retained but one horse and one carriage, assumed authority over everything, and examined the accounts with such scrupulous care that at the end of the first fortnight she had reduced expenses by one-half. He was delighted, and jokingly told her that it was he who was now robbing her, and that she ought to have claimed a percentage on all the profits that she realised for him.

Then a very intimate life began. Saccard had the idea of removing the screws that fastened the door which supplied communication between the two suites of rooms, and they went up and down freely, from one dining-room to the other, by the inner staircase. While her brother was at work, shut up from morning till night, busy with the task of putting his Eastern designs in order, Madame Caroline, leaving her own household to the care of the one servant in her employ, came down at all hours of the day to give her orders, as though she were at home. It had become Saccard's joy to see this tall, stately woman continually appear and cross the rooms with a firm, superb step, bringing with her the ever-unexpected gaiety of her white hair flying about her young face. Again she was very gay; she had recovered her courage now that she felt she was useful once more, her time occupied, her feet ever on the move. Without any affectation of simplicity, she always wore a black dress, in the pocket of which could be heard the jingling of her bunch of keys; and it certainly amused her—she, the woman of learning, the philosopher—to be solely a good housewife, the housekeeper of a prodigal, whom she was beginning to love as one loves naughty children. He, greatly attracted for a time, calculating that after all there was but a difference of fourteen years between them, had asked himself what would happen should he some day talk to her of love. He knew, however, that a friend of her brother's, a Monsieur Beaudoin, a merchant whom they had left at Beyrout, and whose return to France was near at hand, had been much in love with her, to the point indeed of offering to wait for the death of her husband, who had just been shut up in an asylum, crazy with alcoholism.

In this connection it suddenly happened that Madame Caroline subsided into deep sorrow. One morning she came down dejected, extremely pale, and with heavy eyes. Saccard could learn nothing from her; in fact, he ceased to question her, so obstinately did she declare that there was no trouble, and that she was just as usual. Only on the following day did he understand matters on finding in the rooms upstairs the printed notification of M. Beaudoin's marriage to an English consul's daughter, who was both very young and immensely rich. The blow must have been the harder because of the arrival of the news in this way, without any preparation, without even a farewell. It was a complete collapse in the unfortunate woman's existence, the loss of the far-off hope to which she had clung in hours of disaster. And chance also proved abominably cruel, for only two days before she had learnt that her husband was dead; for forty-eight hours she had been able to believe in the approaching realisation of her dream, and then her life had fallen into ruin, leaving her as if annihilated. That same evening, when, in accordance with her habit, she entered Saccard's rooms to talk of the orders for the next day, he spoke to her of her misfortune so gently that she burst out sobbing; and then the inevitable came to pass, words of comfort were at last followed by words of love, and Madame Caroline fell.

For a fortnight afterwards she remained in a state of frightful sadness. The strength of life, that impulse which makes existence a necessity and a delight, had abandoned her. She attended to her manifold occupations, but like one whose mind was far away, without any illusion as to the ratio and interest of things. She personified the human machine still toiling on, but in despair over the annihilation of everything. And, amid this shipwreck of her bravery and gaiety, she had but one distraction, that of passing all her spare time with her brow pressed against the panes of one of the windows of the large work-room, her eyes fixed upon the garden of the neighbouring mansion, that Hôtel Beauvilliers where, since the first days of her sojourn in the neighbourhood, she had divined the presence of anguish, of one of those hidden miseries which are all the more distressing by reason of the effort made to save appearances. There, too, were beings who suffered, and her sorrow was, so to speak, steeped in their tears; at sight of which she was so overcome with melancholy as to deem herself insensible, dead, lost in the sorrow of others.

These Beauvilliers—who, to say nothing of their immense estates in Touraine and Anjou, had formerly possessed a magnificent mansion in the Rue de Grenelle—now, in Paris, only owned this old pleasure-house, built at the beginning of the last century outside the city walls, and at present shut in among the gloomy buildings of the Rue Saint-Lazare. The few beautiful trees of the garden lingered there, as at the bottom of a well; and the cracked, crumbling entrance-steps were covered with moss. The place seemed like some corner of Nature put in prison, a meek, mournful nook where dumb despair reigned, and where the sun only cast a greenish light, which chilled one's shoulders. And in this still, damp, cellar-like place, at the top of the disjoined steps, the first person noticed by Madame Caroline had been the Countess de Beauvilliers, a tall, thin woman of sixty, with perfectly white hair and a very noble old-time air. With her large straight nose, thin lips, and particularly long neck, she looked like a very old swan, meekly woeful. Then, almost immediately behind her, had come her daughter, Alice de Beauvilliers, now twenty-five years old, but with such an impoverished constitution that one would have taken her for a little girl, had it not been for the spoiled complexion and already drawn features of her face. She was her mother over again, but more puny and with less aristocratic nobility, her neck elongated to the point of ugliness, having nothing left her, indeed, but the pitiful charm that may cling to the last daughter of a great race. The two women had been living alone since the son, Ferdinand de Beauvilliers, had enlisted in the Pontifical Zouaves, after the battle of Castelfidardo, lost by Lamoricière. Every day, when it did not rain, they thus appeared, one behind the other, and, descending the steps, made the circuit of the little central grass-plot, without exchanging a word. The path was merely edged with ivy; flowers would not have grown in such a spot, or perhaps they would have cost too dear. And the slow promenade—undoubtedly a simple constitutional—made by those two pale women, under the centenarian trees which long ago had witnessed so many festivities, and which the neighbouring bourgeois houses were now stifling, was suggestive of a melancholy grief, as though they had been performing some mourning ceremony for old, dead things.

Her interest aroused, Madame Caroline had watched her neighbours out of tender sympathy, without evil curiosity of any kind; and gradually from her view of the garden she penetrated their life, which they hid with jealous care from the street. There was still a horse in the stable, and a carriage in the coach-house, in the care of an old domestic who was at once valet, coachman, and door-porter; just as there was a cook, who also served as a chambermaid; but if the carriage went out at the main gate, with the horse properly harnessed, to take the ladies visiting, and if there was a certain display at table in the winter, at the fortnightly dinners to which a few friends came, how long were the fasts, how sordid the economies that were hourly practised in order to secure this false semblance of fortune! In a little shed, screened from every eye, there were, in order to reduce the laundry bill, continual washings of wretched garments worn out by frequent soaping, and mended thread by thread; three or four vegetables were picked for the evening meal; bread was allowed to grow stale on a board, in order that less of it might be eaten; all sorts of avaricious, mean, and touching practices were resorted to: the old coachman would sew up the holes in Mademoiselle's boots, the cook would blacken the tips of Madame's faded gloves with ink; and then the mother's dresses were passed over to the daughter after ingenious transformations; and hats and bonnets lasted for years, thanks to changes of flowers and ribbons.

When they were expecting no one, the reception rooms on the ground floor were kept carefully closed, as well as the large apartments of the first storey; for, of the whole large pile, the two women now occupied but one small room, which they used both as their dining-room and boudoir. When the window was partly open, the Countess could be seen mending her linen, like some needy little bourgeoise; while the young girl, between her piano and her box of water-colours, knit stockings and mittens for her mother. One very stormy day, both were seen to go down into the garden, and gather up the sand of the pathway, which the violence of the rain was sweeping away.

Madame Caroline now knew their history. The Countess de Beauvilliers had suffered much from her husband, a rake of whom she had never complained. One evening they had brought him home to her at Vendôme, with the death-rattle in his throat and a bullet-hole through his body. There was talk of a hunting accident, some shot fired by a jealous gamekeeper whose wife or daughter he had probably seduced. And the worst of it was that with him vanished that formerly colossal fortune of the Beauvilliers, consisting of immense tracts of land, regal domains, which the Revolution had already found diminished, and which his father and himself had now exhausted. Of all the vast property, a single farm remained, the Aublets, situated at a few leagues from Vendôme and yielding a rental of about fifteen thousand francs, the sole resource left for the widow and her two children. The mansion in the Rue de Grenelle had long since been sold; and that in the Rue Saint-Lazare consumed the larger part of the fifteen thousand francs derived from the farm, for it was heavily mortgaged, and would in its turn be sold if they did not pay the interest. Thus scarcely six or seven thousand francs were left for the support of four persons, of the household of a noble family still unwilling to abdicate. It was now eight years since the Countess, on becoming a widow with a son of twenty and a daughter of seventeen, had, amid the crumbling of her fortune, and with her aristocratic pride waxing within her, sworn that she would live on bread and water rather than fall. From that time she had indeed had but one thought—to hold her rank, to marry her daughter to a man of equal nobility, and to make a soldier of her son. At first Ferdinand had caused her mortal anxieties in consequence of some youthful follies, debts which it became necessary to pay; but, warned of the situation in a solemn interview with his mother, he had not repeated the offence, for he had a tender heart at bottom, albeit he was simply an idle cypher in the world, unfitted for any employment, any possible place in contemporary society. And, now that he was a soldier of the Pope, he was still a cause of secret anguish to the Countess, for he lacked health, delicate despite his proud bearing, with impoverished, feeble blood, which rendered the Roman climate dangerous for him. As for Alice's marriage, it was so slow in coming that the sad mother's eyes filled with tears when she looked at her daughter already growing old, withering whilst she waited. Despite her air of melancholy insignificance, the girl was not stupid; she had ardent aspirations for life, for a man who would love her, for happiness; but, not wishing to plunge the house into yet deeper grief, she pretended to have renounced everything; making a jest of marriage, and saying that it was her vocation to be an old maid; though at night she would weep on her pillow, almost dying of grief at the thought that she would never be mated. The Countess, however, by prodigies of avarice, had succeeded in laying aside twenty thousand francs, which constituted Alice's entire dowry. She had likewise saved from the wreck a few jewels—a bracelet, some finger-rings and ear-rings, the whole possibly worth ten thousand francs—a very meagre dowry, a wedding-gift of which she did not dare to speak, since it was scarcely enough to meet the necessary expenditure, should the awaited husband ever appear. And yet she would not despair, but struggled on in spite of everything, unwilling to abandon a single one of the privileges of her birth, still as haughty, as observant of the proprieties as ever, incapable of going out on foot, or of cutting off a single entremets when she was receiving guests, but ever reducing the outlay of her hidden life, condemning herself for weeks to potatoes without butter, in order that she might add another fifty francs to her daughter's ever-insufficient dowry. It was a painful, puerile daily heroism that she practised, whilst week by week the house was crumbling a little more about their heads.

So far, however, Madame Caroline had not had an opportunity of speaking to the Countess and her daughter. Although she finally came to know the most private details of their life, those which they hid from the entire world, she had as yet only exchanged glances with them, those glances that suddenly turn into a feeling of secret sympathy. The Princess d'Orviedo was destined to bring them together. She had the idea of appointing a sort of committee of superintendence for her Institute of Work—a committee composed of ten ladies, who would meet twice a month, visit the Institute in detail, and see that all the departments were properly managed. Having reserved the selection of these ladies for herself, she designated, among the very first, Madame de Beauvilliers, who had been a great friend of hers in former days, but had become simply her neighbour, now that she had retired from the world. And it had come about that the committee of superintendence, having suddenly lost its secretary, Saccard, who retained authority over the management of the establishment, had recommended Madame Caroline as a model secretary, such a one as could not be found elsewhere. The duties of the post were rather arduous; there was much clerical work, and even some material cares, that were somewhat repugnant to the ladies of the committee. From the start, however, Madame Caroline had shown herself an admirable hospitaller; for her unsatisfied longing for maternity, her hopeless love of children, kindled within her an active tenderness for all those poor creatures whom it was sought to save from the Parisian gutter. In this wise, at the last meeting of the committee, she had met the Countess de Beauvilliers; but the latter had given her rather a cold salute, striving to conceal her secret embarrassment, for she undoubtedly realised that this Madame Caroline was an eye-witness of her poverty. However, they now both bowed whenever their eyes met, since it would have been gross impoliteness to pretend they did not recognise each other.

One day, in the large workroom, while Hamelin was correcting a plan in accordance with some new calculations he had made, and Saccard, standing by, was watching his work, Madame Caroline, at the window as usual, gazed at the Countess and her daughter as they made their tour of the garden. That morning she noticed that they were wearing shoes which a rag-picker would have scorned to touch.

'Ah! the poor women!' she murmured; 'how terrible and distressing it must be, that comedy of luxury which they think themselves obliged to play!'

So saying, she drew back, hiding herself behind the window-curtain, for fear lest the mother should see her and suffer yet more intensely at being thus watched. She herself had grown calmer during the three weeks that she had been lingering every morning at that window; the great sorrow born of her abandonment was quieting down; it seemed as if the sight of the woes of others induced a more courageous acceptance of her own, that fall which she had deemed the fall of her entire life. Again, indeed, she occasionally caught herself laughing.

For a moment longer, and with an air of profound meditation, she watched the two women pace the garden, green with moss; then, quickly turning towards Saccard, she exclaimed: 'Tell me why it is that I cannot be sad. No, it never lasts, has never lasted; I cannot be sad, whatever happens to me. Is it egotism? Really, I do not think so. Egotism would be wrong; and, besides, it is in vain that I am gay; my heart seems ready to break at sight of the least sorrow. Reconcile these things; I am gay, and yet I should weep over all the unfortunates who pass if I did not restrain myself—understanding as I do that the smallest scrap of bread would serve their purpose better than my vain tears.'

So speaking, she laughed her beautiful brave laugh, like a courageous woman who prefers action to garrulous pity.

'And yet,' she continued, 'God knows that I have had occasion to despair of everything! Ah! fortune has not favoured me so far. After my marriage, falling as I did into a perfect hell, insulted, beaten, I really believed that there was nothing for me to do but to throw myself into the water. I did not throw myself into it, however, and a fortnight later, when I started with my brother for the East, I was quite lively again, full of immense hope. And at the time of our return to Paris, when almost everything else failed us, I passed abominable nights, when I pictured ourselves dying of hunger amid all our fine projects. We did not die, however, and again I began to dream of wonderful things, happy things, that sometimes made me laugh as I sat alone. And lately, when I received that frightful blow, which I still don't dare to speak of, my heart seemed torn away; yes, I positively felt it stop beating; I thought that it had ceased to be, I fancied that I myself no longer existed, annihilated as I was. But not at all! Here is existence returning; to-day I laugh, and to-morrow I shall hope; I shall be longing to live on, to live for ever. Is it not extraordinary that I cannot long be sad?'

Saccard, who was laughing also, shrugged his shoulders. 'Bah! you are like the rest of the world. Such is life,' he said.

'Do you think so?' she cried, in astonishment. 'It seems to me there are some people who are so sad that they never know a gay moment, people who render their own life intolerable, in such dark colours do they paint it. Oh! not that I entertain any illusion as to the pleasantness and beauty which it offers. In my case it has been too hard: I have seen it too closely, too freely, under all aspects. It is execrable when it is not ignoble. But what would you have? I love it all the same. Why? I do not know. In vain does everything crumble around me; on the morrow I find myself standing on the ruins, gay and confident. I have often thought that my case is, on a small scale, the case of humanity, which certainly lives in frightful wretchedness, cheered up, however, by the youth of each succeeding generation. After each crisis that throws me down, there comes something like a new youth, a spring time whose promise of sap warms me and inspirits my heart. So true is this that, after some severe affliction, if I go out into the street, into the sunshine, I straightway begin loving, hoping, feeling happy again. And age has no influence upon me; I am simple enough to grow old without noticing it. You see, I have read a great deal more than a woman should; I no longer know where I myself am going, any more than this vast world knows where it is going, for that matter. Only, in spite of myself, it seems to me that I am going, indeed that we are all going, towards something very good and thoroughly gay.'

Although affected, she ended by turning the matter into jest, trying to hide the emotion born of her hope; whilst her brother, who had raised his head, looked at her with mingled adoration and gratitude.

'Oh! you,' he declared, 'you are made for catastrophes; you personify the love of life, whatever it may be.'

These daily morning conversations gradually became instinct with a kind of fever. If Madame Caroline returned to that natural inherent gaiety of hers, it was due to the courage which Saccard, with his active zeal for great enterprises, imparted. It was, indeed, now almost decided: they were going to turn the famous portfolio to account; and when the financier's shrill voice rang out everything seemed to acquire life, to assume colossal proportions. They would, in the first place, lay hands on the Mediterranean, conquer it by means of their steamship company. And, enumerating all the ports where they would establish stations, he mingled dim classical memories with his stock-exchange enthusiasm, chanting the praises of that sea, the only one which the old world had known, that blue sea around which civilisation had blossomed, and whose waves had bathed the ancient cities—Athens, Rome, Tyre, Alexandria, Carthage, Marseilles—all those seats of commerce and empire that have made Europe. Then, when they had ensured themselves possession of that vast waterway to the East, they would make a start in Syria with that little matter of the Carmel Silver Mining Company, just a few millions to gain en passant, but a capital thing to introduce, for the idea of a silver mine, of money found in the bowels of the earth and thrown up by the shovelful, was still attractive to the public, especially when ticketed with a prodigious, resounding name like that of Carmel. There were also coal mines there, coal just beneath the rock, which would be worth gold when the country should be covered with factories; to say nothing of other little ventures, which would serve as interludes—the establishment of banks and industrial syndicates, and the opening up and felling of the vast Lebanon forests, whose huge trees were rotting where they stood for want of roads. Finally, he came to the giant morsel, the Oriental Railway Company, and then he began to rave, for that system of railroads cast over Asia Minor from one end to the other, like a net, to him meant speculation, financial life, at one stroke seizing hold of a new prey—that old world still intact, with incalculable wealth concealed under the ignorance and grime of ages. He scented the treasure, and neighed like a war-horse at the smell of powder.

Madame Caroline, albeit possessed of sterling good sense, and not easily influenced by feverish imaginations, yielded at last to this enthusiasm, no longer detecting its extravagance. In truth, it fanned her affection for the East, her longing to again behold that wonderful country, where she had thought herself so happy; and, by a logical counter-effect, without calculation on her part, it was she who, by her glowing descriptions and wealth of information, stimulated the fever of Saccard. When she began talking of Beyrout, where she had lived for three years, she could never stop; Beyrout lying at the foot of the Lebanon range, on a tongue of land, between a stretch of red sand and piles of fallen rock; Beyrout with its houses reared in amphitheatral fashion amid vast gardens; a delightful paradise of orange, lemon, and palm trees. Then there were all the cities of the coast: on the north, Antioch, fallen from its whilom splendour; on the south, Saida, the Sidon of long ago, Saint Jean d'Acre, Jaffa, and Tyre, now Sur, which sums them all up: Tyre, whose merchants were kings, whose mariners made the circuit of Africa, and which to-day, with its sand-choked harbour, is nothing but a field of ruins, the dust of palaces, where stand only a few fishermen's wretched and scattered huts.

And Madame Caroline had accompanied her brother everywhere; she knew Aleppo, Angora, Broussa, Smyrna, and even Trebizond. She had lived a month at Jerusalem, sleeping amid the traffic of the holy places; then two months more at Damascus, the queen of the East, standing in the midst of a vast plain—a commercial, industrial city, which the Mecca and Bagdad caravans fill with swarming life. She was also acquainted with the valleys and mountains, with the villages of the Maronites and the Druses, perched upon table-lands or hidden away in gorges, and with the cultivated and the sterile fields. And from the smallest nooks, from the silent deserts as from the great cities, she had brought back the same admiration for inexhaustible, luxuriant nature, the same wrath against evil-minded humanity. How much natural wealth was disdained or wasted! She spoke of the burdens that crushed both commerce and industry, the imbecile law that prevents the investment of more than a certain amount of capital in agriculture, the routine that leaves the peasant with nothing but the old plough which was in use before the days of Christ, and the ignorance in which millions of men are steeped even to-day, like idiotic children stopped in their growth. Once upon a time the coast had proved too small; the cities had touched each other; but now life had gone away towards the West, and only an immense, abandoned cemetery seemed to remain. No schools, no roads, the worst of Governments, justice sold, execrable officials, crushing taxes, absurd laws, idleness, and fanaticism, to say nothing of the continual shocks of civil war, massacres which destroyed entire villages.

And at thought of this she became angry, and asked if it was allowable that men should thus spoil the work of nature, a land so blest, of such exquisite beauty, where all climates were to be found—the glowing plains, the temperate mountain-sides, the perpetual snows of the lofty peaks. And her love of life, her ever-buoyant hopefulness, filled her with enthusiasm at the idea of the all-powerful magic wand with which science and speculation could strike this old sleeping soil, and suddenly reawaken it.

'Look here!' cried Saccard, 'that Carmel gorge which you have sketched, where there are now only stones and mastic-trees, well! as soon as we begin to work the silver mine, there will start up first a village, then a city! And we will clear all those sand-choked harbours, and protect them with strong breakwaters. Large ships will anchor where now mere skiffs do not venture to moor. And you will behold a complete resurrection over all those depopulated plains, those deserted passes, which our railway lines will traverse—yes! fields will be cleared, roads and canals built, new cities will spring from the soil, life will return as it returns to a sick body, when we stimulate the system by injecting new blood into the exhausted veins. Yes! money will work these miracles!'

And such was the evoking power of his piercing voice that Madame Caroline really saw the predicted civilisation rise up before her. Those bare diagrams, those sketches in outline, became animated and peopled; it was the dream that she had sometimes had of an East cleansed of its filth, drawn from its ignorance, enjoying its fertile soil and charming sky, amid all the refinements of science. She had already witnessed such a miracle at Port Said, which in so few years had lately sprung up on a barren shore; at first some huts to shelter the few labourers who began the operations, then a city of two thousand souls, followed by one of ten thousand, with houses, huge shops, a gigantic pier, life and comfort stubbornly created by toiling human ants. And it was just this that she saw rising again—the forward, irresistible march, the social impulse towards the greatest possible sum of happiness, the need of action, of going ahead, without knowing exactly whither, but at all events with more elbow-room and under improved circumstances; and amid it all there was the globe turned upside down by the ant-swarm rebuilding its abode, its work never ending, fresh sources of enjoyment ever being discovered, man's power increasing tenfold, the earth belonging to him more and more every day. Money, aiding science, yielded progress.

Hamelin, who was listening with a smile, then gave vent to a prudent remark: 'All this is the poetry of results, and we are not yet at the prose of starting.'

But Saccard's enthusiasm was only increased by the extravagance of Madame Caroline's conceptions, and matters even became worse when, on beginning to read some books about the East, he opened a history of Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition. The memory of the Crusades already haunted him, the memory of that return of the West to its cradle the East, that great movement which had carried extreme Europe back to the original country, still in full flower, and where there was so much to learn. But he was struck still more by the towering figure of Napoleon, going thither to wage war, with a grand and mysterious object. Though he had talked of conquering Egypt, of installing a French establishment there, and of thus placing the commerce of the Levant in the hands of France, he had certainly not told all; and in all that was vain and enigmatical about the expedition, Saccard fancied he could detect some mysterious, hugely ambitious project, an immense empire refounded, Napoleon crowned at Constantinople as Emperor of the East and the Indies, thus realising the dream of Alexander, and rising to a greater height than even Cæsar and Charlemagne. Had he not said at Saint Helena, in speaking of Sidney Smith, the general who had stopped him before Saint Jean d'Acre: 'That man ruined my fortune'? And it was this gigantic thought of conquering the East, the scheme which the Crusaders had attempted, and which Napoleon had been unable to accomplish, that inflamed Saccard; though, in his case, it was to be a rational conquest, effected by the double agency of science and money. Since civilisation had flown from the East to the West, why should it not come back towards the East, returning to the first garden of humanity, to that Eden of the Hindustan peninsula which had fallen asleep beneath the fatigue of centuries? He would endow it with fresh youth; he would galvanise the earthly paradise, make it habitable again by means of steam and electricity, replace Asia Minor in the centre of the world, as a point of intersection of the great natural highways that bind the continents together. And it was no longer a question of gaining millions, but milliards and milliards.

After that, Hamelin and he engaged in long conversations every morning. Vast as was their hope, the difficulties that presented themselves were numerous and colossal. The engineer, who had been at Beyrout in 1862, at the very time of the horrible butchery of the Maronite Christians by the Druses—a butchery which had necessitated the intervention of France—did not conceal the obstacles which would be encountered among those populations, who were ever battling together, delivered over to the tender mercies of the local authorities. However, he had powerful relations at Constantinople, where he had assured himself the support of the Grand Vizier, Fuad Pasha, a man of great merit, an avowed partisan of reforms, from whom, he flattered himself, he would obtain all necessary grants. On the other hand, whilst prophesying the inevitable bankruptcy of the Ottoman Empire, he saw a rather favourable circumstance in its unlimited need of money, in the loans which followed one upon another from year to year: for although a needy Government may offer no personal guarantee, it is usually quite ready to come to an understanding with private enterprises, if it can detect the slightest profit in them. And would it not be a practical way of solving the eternal and embarrassing Eastern question to interest the empire in great works of civilisation, and gradually lead it towards progress, that it might no longer constitute a monstrous barrier between Europe and Asia? What a fine patriotic rôle the French Companies would play in all this!

Then, one morning, Hamelin quietly broached the secret programme to which he sometimes alluded, and which he smilingly called the crowning of his edifice.

'When we have become the masters,' said he, 'we will restore the kingdom of Palestine, and put the Pope there. At first we might content ourselves with Jerusalem, with Jaffa as a seaport. Then Syria will be declared independent, and can be annexed. You know that the time is near when it will be impossible for the Papacy to remain at Rome under the revolting humiliations in store for it. It is for that day that we must have all in readiness.'

Saccard listened open-mouthed whilst Hamelin said these things in a thoroughly unaffected way, actuated solely by his deep Catholic faith. The financier himself did not shrink from extravagant dreams, but never would he have gone to such a point as this. This man of science, apparently so cold, quite astounded him. 'It's madness!' he cried. 'The Porte won't give up Jerusalem.'

'Oh! why not?' quietly rejoined Hamelin. 'It is always in such desperate need of money! Jerusalem is a burden to it; it would be a good riddance. The Porte, you know, often can't tell what course to take between the various sects which dispute for possession of the sanctuaries. Moreover, the Pope would have true supporters among the Syrian Maronites, for you are not unaware that he has established a college for their priests at Rome. In fact, I have thought the matter over carefully, have calculated everything, and this will be the new era, the triumphant era of Catholicism. It may be said that we should be sending the Pope too far away, that he would find himself isolated, thrust out of European affairs. But with what brilliancy and authority would he not radiate when once he was enthroned in the holy places, and spoke in the name of Christ from the very land where Christ Himself spoke! That is his patrimony, there should be his kingdom. And, rest easy, we will build this kingdom up, firm and powerful; we will put it beyond the reach of political disturbances, by basing its budget—guaranteed by the resources of the country—on a vast bank for the shares of which the Catholics of the entire world will scramble.'

Saccard, who had begun to smile, already attracted by the magnitude of the project, although not convinced, could not help christening this bank with a joyous 'Eureka! The Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre, eh? Superb! There you have it!'

But just then his eyes met those of Madame Caroline, beaming with common-sense. She was smiling also, but like one who is sceptical, even a little vexed. She felt ashamed of his enthusiasm.

'All the same, my dear Hamelin,' said he, 'it will be best for us to keep secret this crowning of the edifice, as you call it. Folks might make fun of us. And, besides, our programme is already a terribly heavy one; it is a good plan to reserve the final result, the glorious ending, for the initiated alone.'

'Undoubtedly; such has always been my intention,' declared the engineer. 'That shall be the mystery.'

And thereupon, that very day, they finally decided to turn the portfolio of schemes to account, to launch the whole huge series of projects. They would begin by founding a small financial establishment, to promote the first enterprises; then success aiding, they would, little by little, subjugate the market and conquer the world.

The next day, as Saccard went up to take some order from the Princess d'Orviedo respecting the Institute of Work, he remembered the dream that he had for a moment cherished of becoming this queen of charity's prince-consort, the mere dispenser and manager of the fortune of the poor. And he smiled, for he now thought all that a little silly. He was built to make life, not to dress the wounds that life has made. And now he was about to find himself at work again, in the thick of the battle of interests, in the midst of that race for happiness which has brought about the very progress of humanity, from century to century, towards greater joy and greater light.

That same day he found Madame Caroline alone in the work-room among the diagrams. She was standing at one of the windows, detained there by the appearance of the Countess de Beauvilliers and her daughter in the neighbouring garden at an unusual hour. The two women were reading a letter with an air of deep sadness; a letter, no doubt, from the son Ferdinand, whose position at Borne could not be a brilliant one.

'Look,' said Madame Caroline, on recognising Saccard. 'Another sorrow for those unfortunates. The poor women in the streets give me less pain.'

'Bah!' he gaily cried, 'you shall ask them to come to see me. We will enrich them also, since we are to make everybody's fortune.'

And, in his happy fever, he sought her lips, to press a kiss upon them. But she abruptly drew back, and became grave and pale.

'No, I beg of you,' said she.

'Really, would it pain you?'

'Yes, deeply.'

'But I adore you.'

'No, do not say that—you are going to be so busy. Besides, I assure you that I shall feel true friendship for you if you prove the active man I think, and do all the great things you say. Come, friendship is far better!'

He listened to her, still smiling and irresolute. 'Then, friends only?' said he.

'Yes, I will be your comrade, I will help you. Friends, great friends!' With these words she offered him her cheeks, and he, conquered, and realizing that she was right, imprinted two loud kisses upon them.

[CHAPTER III]

SACCARD MAKES A START

The letter from the Russian banker at Constantinople, which Sigismond had translated, was a favourable reply awaited before launching the enterprise in Paris; and on the next day but one Saccard, on waking, had an inspiration that he must act at once, and, before night, form the syndicate which he wished to make sure of, in order to secure the immediate allotment of the fifty thousand shares of his projected company. The capital of the latter was to be five and twenty millions, each share representing five hundred francs.

In jumping out of bed, he had at last just thought of a name for this company, such as he had long been seeking. The words 'Universal Bank' had suddenly flamed up before him, in letters of fire as it were, in the still dark room. 'The Universal Bank,' he kept on repeating whilst he dressed himself, 'the Universal Bank, that is both simple and grand; it takes in everything, covers the world. Yes, yes, it is excellent! the Universal Bank!'

Until half-past nine o'clock he walked up and down his spacious rooms, absorbed in doubt as to where he should begin hunting for the necessary millions in Paris. Twenty-five millions of francs—such a sum is still to be found at a turn of the street; it was rather the embarrassment of making a selection that made him reflect, for he wished to proceed with some method. He drank a glass of milk, and evinced no vexation when the coachman came up to tell him that his horse was not well, having undoubtedly caught cold, so that it would be prudent to send for the veterinary surgeon.

'All right, do so. I will take a cab,' said Saccard.

Once out of doors, however, he was surprised by the keen bitterness of the wind; it was like a sudden return of winter in this month of May, which only the night before had been so mild. It was not yet raining certainly, but dense yellow clouds were rising on the horizon. Still he did not take a cab; a walk, he thought, would warm him up; he might, first of all, go on foot to Mazaud's office, in the Rue de la Banque; for he had an idea of sounding the broker with regard to Daigremont, the well-known speculator, the lucky member of every syndicate. On reaching the Rue Vivienne, however, such a shower of hail and water fell from the sky, now overspread with livid clouds, that he took refuge under the carriage entrance of a house.

He had been standing there for a moment, watching the downpour, when, above the noise it made, there arose a jingling sound of gold, which attracted his attention. Continuous, light, and musical, this sound seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, as in some tale of the 'Arabian Nights.' He turned his head, took his bearings, and saw that he was standing in the doorway of a house occupied by a banker named Kolb, whose especial business it was to deal in gold. Buying up specie in states where it was cheap, he melted it, and sold it in ingots in the countries where it commanded higher prices; and thus, from morning till night, on casting days there arose from the basement that crystalline jingle of gold coins carried by the shovelful from cases to the melting-pot. The ears of the passers-by fairly rang with the sound from one year's end to the other. Saccard smiled with satisfaction as he heard this music, which was like the subterranean voice of the entire Bourse district. He interpreted it as a happy omen.

The rain had ceased falling, so he crossed the Place, and at once found himself at Mazaud's. Unlike the majority of his colleagues, the young broker had his private abode on the first floor of the very house in which his offices were situated. He had, in fact, simply taken over the rooms occupied by his uncle, when, on the latter's death, he had agreed with his joint heirs to purchase the business.

It was striking ten o'clock, and Saccard went straight up to the offices, at the door of which he met Gustave Sédille.

'Is Monsieur Mazaud in?'

'I do not know, monsieur; I have just come.'

The young man smiled; always a late arrival, he took things at his ease, like the mere unpaid amateur he was, quite resigned to spending a year or two in this fashion, in order to please his father, the silk manufacturer of the Rue des Jeûneurs.

Saccard passed through the outer office, saluted by both cashiers, the one who dealt with specie and the one who dealt with stock, and then entered the room set aside for the two 'authorised clerks,' where he only found Berthier, the one whose duty was to receive customers, and who accompanied his employer to the Bourse.

'Is Monsieur Mazaud in?'

'Why, I think so; I just left his private room. But no—he isn't there. He must be in the "cash" office.'

He pushed open a door near at hand, and glanced round a rather large room, in which live employees were at work, under the orders of a head clerk.

'No; that's strange. Look for yourself in the "account" office there, yonder.'

Saccard entered the account office. It was there that the head accountant, the pivot of the business as it were, aided by seven employees,[12] went through the memorandum-book, handed him by the broker every afternoon after the Bourse, and entered to the various customers the sales and purchases which had been effected according to their orders. In doing this, he referred to the numerous fiches in order to ascertain the customers' names, for these did not appear in the memorandum-book, which contained only brief notes of the transactions: such a stock, such an amount bought or sold, at such a rate, from such a broker.

'Have you seen Monsieur Mazaud?' inquired Saccard.

But they did not even answer him. The head accountant having gone out, three of the clerks were reading their newspapers, and two others were staring up at the ceiling; while the arrival of Gustave Sédille had just keenly interested little Flory, who in the morning made entries, and in the afternoon looked after the telegrams at the Bourse. Born at Saintes, of a father employed at the local registry office, he had started in life as a clerk to a Bordeaux banker; after which, reaching Paris towards the close of the previous autumn, he had entered Mazaud's office with no other prospect before him than the possible doubling of his salary in ten years' time. At first he had conducted himself well, performing his duties regularly and conscientiously. But during the last month, since Gustave had entered the office, he had been going astray, led away by his new comrade—a fellow of very elegant tastes, and well provided with money—who was launching out in no small degree, and had made him acquainted with women. With bearded chin and cheeks, Flory was possessed of a sensual nose, an amiable mouth, and soft eyes; and he had now reached the point of indulging in little secret, inexpensive pleasure parties, with a figurante of the Variétés—a slim grasshopper from the Parisian pavements, the runaway daughter of a Montmartre door-porter. She was named Mdlle. Chuchu, and was fairly amusing with her papier-mâché face, in which gleamed a pair of beautiful large brown eyes.

Standing behind Flory and Gustave Sédille, Saccard heard them whispering women's names. He smiled, and addressing himself to Flory, inquired: 'Haven't you seen Monsieur Mazaud?'

'Yes, monsieur, he came to give me an order, and then went down to his apartments again. I believe that his little boy is ill; he was told that the doctor had come. You had better ring at his door, for he will very likely go out without coming up again.'

Saccard thanked him, and hurried down to the floor below. Mazaud was one of the youngest of the official brokers, and an extremely lucky man to boot; for by the death of his uncle he had come into one of the largest businesses in Paris at an age when one can still learn. Though short, he was very pleasant-looking, with a small brown moustache and piercing black eyes; and he displayed great activity, and a very alert mind. He was already known in the corbeille for his vivacity of mind and body, such a desideratum in his calling, and one which, coupled with a keen scent and remarkable intuition, was sure to place him in the first rank; to say nothing of the fact that he possessed a shrill piercing voice, received direct information from foreign Bourses, did business with all the great bankers, and was reputed to have a second cousin employed at the Havas News Agency. His wife, whom he had married for love, and who had brought him a dowry of twelve hundred thousand francs, was a charming young woman, and had already presented him with two children, a little girl now three years and a boy some eighteen months old.

As Saccard came down he found Mazaud ushering out the doctor, who was laughingly tranquillising his paternal anxiety.

'Come in,' said the broker to Saccard. 'It's true, you know—with these little creatures you at once get anxious; the slightest ailment, and you think them lost.'

So saying, he ushered him into the drawing-room, where his wife was still seated, holding the baby on her knees, while the little girl, glad to see her mother gay, was raising herself on tip-toe to kiss her.

'You see that we were foolish,' said he.

'Ah! that makes no difference, my friend,' she answered. 'I am so glad that he has reassured us!'

In presence of all this happiness, Saccard halted, bowing. The room, luxuriously furnished, was redolent of the happy life of this household, which nothing had yet disunited. During four years of wedlock, Mazaud had been accused of nothing save a fleeting curiosity with regard to a vocalist at the Opéra Comique. He remained a faithful husband, just as he had the reputation of not yet speculating too heavily on his own account, despite all the natural impetuosity of youth. And a pleasant perfume of luck, of unclouded felicity could really be detected here, amid the discreet peacefulness of the apartment, amid the delicious odour with which a large bouquet of roses, overflowing from a china vase, had scented the entire room.

Madame Mazaud, who was slightly acquainted with Saccard, addressed him gaily: 'Is it not true, monsieur, one need only wish it to be always happy?'

'I am convinced of it, madame,' he answered. 'And besides, there are persons so beautiful and good that misfortune never dares to touch them.'

She had risen, radiant. Kissing her husband in her turn, she went out, carrying the little boy, and followed by the little girl, who had been hanging on her father's neck. The latter, wishing to hide his emotion, turned towards his visitor with the bantering remark: 'You see we don't lead a dull life here.'

Then he quickly added: 'You have something to say to me? Let us go upstairs, eh? We shall be more at our ease there.'

Up above, in the cashiers' office, Saccard recognised Sabatani, who had called for some money due to him; and he was surprised to see how cordially the broker shook hands with his customer. However, as soon as he was seated in Mazaud's private room, he explained his visit by questioning the broker as to the formalities which were necessary to secure the quotation of a new security in the official list. In a careless way he spoke of the affair which he was about to launch, the Universal Bank, with a capital of twenty-five millions. Yes, a financial establishment which would especially patronise certain great enterprises, which he just alluded to. Mazaud listened with perfect composure, and, in the most obliging way, explained the formalities that were requisite. However he was in no wise duped; Saccard had certainly not called on him merely with reference to this trifling matter, and so when his visitor at last mentioned the name of Daigremont he gave an involuntary smile. Certainly Daigremont had a colossal fortune behind him; it was said that his fidelity was not of the surest; but then who is faithful in business and in love? Nobody! For the rest, he (Mazaud) hardly cared to speak the full truth about Daigremont, for they had quarrelled, and their quarrel had been the talk of the whole Bourse. Daigremont now gave most of his orders to a Bordeaux Jew, named Jacoby, a tall man of sixty, with a broad, gay face, whose roaring voice was celebrated, but who was growing heavy and corpulent; and there was a sort of rivalry between him and Mazaud, between the young man favoured by fortune and the elder who owed his position to long service, for Jacoby had been a mere authorised clerk until—financed by sleeping partners—he had finally succeeded in purchasing his employer's business. Though of very great experience and shrewdness, he was sorely handicapped by his passion for speculation, and, in spite of considerable profits, always seemed on the eve of a catastrophe. His money melted away on settling days.

'In any case,' concluded Mazaud, yielding at last to his resentment against the man he had quarrelled with, spite of all his scruples, 'it is quite certain that Daigremont played his allies false in that Caraccas affair, and swept away the profits—I consider him a very dangerous man.' Then, after a pause, he added: 'But why don't you apply to Gundermann?'

'Never!' cried Saccard, in a fit of passion.

Just then Berthier, the authorised clerk, came in and whispered a few words in the broker's ear. The Baroness Sandorff had come to pay her losses, and was raising all sorts of quibbling objections by way of trying to reduce her account. Mazaud generally hastened to receive her in person, but, when she had lost, he avoided her like the plague, certain as he was that his gallantry would be put to too severe a test. There are no worse clients than women, for as soon as they have to pay money away they become absolutely dishonest.

'No, no; tell her that I am not in,' he answered testily. 'And don't abate a centime, you understand?'

When Berthier had gone, seeing by Saccard's smile that he had heard him, he continued: 'It is true, my dear fellow, she's very pretty, but you have no idea of her rapacity. Ah; how our customers would love us if they always won! Yet the richer they are, the higher the society in which they move, God forgive me! the more I distrust them, the more I fear I may not be paid. Yes, there are days when, apart from the large banking houses, I could wish that my connection was purely a provincial one.'

Just then a clerk came in, handed him some papers that he had asked for that morning, and then went out.

'See here!' he resumed, 'here is a receiver of dividends at Vendôme, a man named Fayeux. Well, you can have no idea of the number of orders that I receive from him. To be sure, these orders, taken singly, are modest ones, coming as they do from folks of the petty bourgeoisie, shopkeepers and farmers. But there are so many of them. Really, the best of our business, the very foundation of it, will be found among the people of modest means, the crowd of nobodies who speculate.'

This somehow reminded Saccard of Sabatani, whom he had seen in the cashiers' office.

'I see that you have Sabatani now,' said he.

'I have had him for a year, I believe,' replied the broker, with an air of amiable indifference. 'He's a pleasant fellow, isn't he? He began in a small way, he is very prudent, and he will end by making something.'

What he did not say, what he no longer even remembered, was that Sabatani had merely deposited two thousand francs with him by way of 'cover.' Hence the moderate ventures at the outset. Undoubtedly, like many others, the Levantine expected that the insignificance of this 'cover' would be forgotten; and he evinced great prudence, increasing his orders in a stealthy gradual fashion, pending the day when, with a heavy settlement to meet, it would be necessary for him to disappear. But how could one distrust such a charming fellow, whose friend one has become? How could one doubt his solvency when one sees him gay, well-dressed, 'got up' in that elegant style which is indispensable, the very uniform, as it were, of robbery at the Bourse?

'Very pleasant, very intelligent,' repeated Saccard, suddenly resolving to remember Sabatani whenever he might need a discreet and unscrupulous fellow. Then, rising and taking leave, he said: 'Well, good-bye; when our stock is ready, I will see you again, before trying to get it quoted.'

And as Mazaud shook hands with him on the threshold, saying: 'You are wrong; you had better see Gundermann for your syndicate,' he again shouted in a fury: 'No, never!'

On leaving the broker's private room, he recognised Moser and Pillerault in the cashiers' office; the first was pocketing with a woeful air his fortnight's profits of seven or eight thousand francs; while the other, who had lost, paid over ten thousand francs with a loud voice, and a proud, aggressive air, as if after a victory. The luncheon and Bourse hour was approaching, and the office would then partly empty. Meantime, from the 'account' office, the door of which was ajar, there came a sound of laughter, provoked by a story which Gustave was telling Flory—a story of a boating party, at which a coxswain of the softer sex had fallen into the Seine.

On reaching the street, Saccard consulted his watch. Eleven o'clock—what a lot of time he had lost! No, he would not go to Daigremont's; and although he had flown into a passion at the very mention of Gundermann's name, he suddenly decided to go to see him. Besides, had he not warned him of his visit on that occasion at Champeaux' restaurant, when he had spoken to him of his great scheme by way of silencing his malicious laugh? He even excused the visit on the plea that he did not wish to get anything out of the man, but simply desired to confront and triumph over one who ever affected to treat him as an urchin. And so, as a fresh shower began to lash the pavement with a flood of water, he leaped into a cab, bidding the Jehu drive him to the Rue de Provence.

Gundermann there occupied an immense mansion, just large enough for his innumerable family. He had five daughters and four sons, of whom three daughters and three sons were married, and these had already given him fourteen grandchildren. At the evening meal, when all were gathered together, there were, counting his wife and himself, thirty-one at table. And, excepting two of his sons-in-law, who did not live in the house, all had their apartments there, in the left and right wings facing the garden; for the central block was entirely occupied by the spacious banking offices. In less than a century a monstrous fortune of a milliard of francs[13] had been amassed by this one family, thanks partly to thrift, and partly to fortunate combinations of circumstances. This wealth seemed a sort of predestination, which keen intelligence, persistent labour, prudent and invincible effort—continually directed to the same end—had largely assisted. Every river of gold now flowed into that sea; other millions were absorbed by those which Gundermann already possessed; it was a swallowing-up of the public wealth by the ever-increasing wealth of a single individual; and Gundermann was the true master, the omnipotent king, feared and obeyed by Paris and by the world.

As Saccard ascended the broad stone stairway, the steps of which were worn by the continual ascent and descent of scores of feet—more worn indeed than the thresholds of many old churches—he felt inextinguishable hatred for this man rising within him. Ah! the Jew! Against the Jew he harboured all the old racial resentment, to be found especially in the South of France; and it was something like a revolt of his very flesh, a repugnance of the skin, which, at the idea of the slightest contact, filled him with disgust and anger, a sensation which no reasoning could allay, which he was quite unable to overcome. And the singular thing was that he, Saccard, the terrible company promoter, the spendthrift with unclean hands, lost all self-consciousness as soon as a Jew was in question, and spoke of him with the harshness, the revengeful indignation of an honest man who lives by the labour of his arms, unstained by any usurious dealings. He indicted the whole Hebrew race, the cursed race without a country, without a prince, which lives as a parasite upon the nations, pretending to recognise their laws, but in reality only obeying its Jehovah—its God of robbery, blood, and wrath; and he pointed to it fulfilling on all sides the mission of ferocious conquest which this God has assigned to it, establishing itself among every people, like a spider in the centre of its web, in order to watch its prey, to suck the blood of one and all, to fatten itself by devouring others. 'Did anyone ever see a Jew working with his fingers?' he would ask.[14] Were there any Jewish peasants and working men? 'No,' he would say; 'labour disgraces, their religion almost forbids it, exalting only the exploitation of the labour of others. Ah! the rogues!' Saccard's rage was all the greater because he admired them, envied their prodigious financial faculties, that innate knowledge of arithmetic, that natural facility evinced by them in the most complicated operations, that scent and that luck which assure triumph in everything they undertake. 'Christians,' he would say, 'make sorry financial rogues, they always end by coming to grief; but take a Jew who does not even understand book-keeping, throw him into the troubled waters of any shady affair, and he will not only save himself, but bring out all the profit on his back.' It was the gift of the race, the reason why it ever subsisted among all the other nationalities that start up and disappear. And he would passionately predict the final conquest of every nation by the Jews, when they should at last have secured possession of the entire fortune of the globe, a feat which it would not take them long to accomplish, since they were allowed every day to freely extend their kingdom, and one could already see in Paris a Gundermann reigning on a firmer and more respected throne than the Emperor's.

When, after climbing the stairs, he was on the point of entering the spacious ante-room, he felt an inclination to turn back, for he saw that it was full of remisiers and other applicants, a tumultuous swarming crowd of men and women. The remisiers especially were struggling for first place, in the improbable hope of carrying off an order; for the great banker had his own agents; but it was already an honour, a recommendation, even to be received by him, and each of them wished to be able to boast of it. Accordingly the 'waits' were never long, the two office attendants had little else to do than to organise the procession—a continuous procession it was, a real gallop through the swinging doors. And thus, in spite of the crowd, Saccard was almost immediately admitted with the stream.

Gundermann's private office was a vast apartment, of which he simply occupied a little corner at the farther end, near the last window. Seated at a simple mahogany writing table, he was so placed as to turn his back to the light, his face remaining completely in the shade. Up at five o'clock every morning, he was at work when Paris was still asleep; and when at about nine the scramble of appetites began, rushing past him at a gallop, his day's work was already done. In the middle of the office, and at larger tables, stood two of his sons, and one of his sons-in-law who assisted him, rarely sitting down, but moving about hither and thither amid a world of clerks. All this, however, was the inner working of the establishment. The crowd from the street went straight across the room to him, the master, seated in his modest corner, as for hours and hours he held this open reception with an impassive gloomy air, often contenting himself with a mere sign, and only now and again speaking a word when he wished to appear particularly amiable.

As soon as he perceived Saccard, a faint, somewhat sarcastic smile lighted up his face.

'Ah! so it's you, my friend,' he said. 'Be seated a moment, if you have anything to say to me. I will be at your disposal directly.'

Then he pretended to forget him. Saccard, however, was not impatient, for he felt interested in the procession of remisiers, who, at each other's heels, entered the room with the same profound bow, drawing from their irreproachable frock coats the same little cards setting forth the same Bourse quotations, which they presented to the banker with the same suppliant and respectful gestures. Ten of them, twenty of them, passed by; the banker each time took the list, glanced at it and then returned it; and nothing equalled the patience he displayed beneath this avalanche of offers, unless indeed it were his absolute indifference.

At last Massias appeared, with the gay yet anxious air of a good dog who is often whipped. At times folks received him so badly that he could have cried. That day, undoubtedly, his stock of humility was exhausted, for he ventured to insist in the most unexpected fashion.

'See! monsieur, Mobiliers are very low. How much shall I buy for you?'

Without taking the proffered list, Gundermann raised his sea-green eyes upon this young man, who was so familiar, and roughly answered: 'I say, my friend, do you think it amuses me to receive you?'

'Well, monsieur,' retorted Massias, turning pale, 'it amuses me still less to come every morning for nothing, as I have done for three months past.'

'Then don't come again.'

The remisier bowed and withdrew, after exchanging with Saccard the furious, distressful glance of one who has suddenly become conscious that he will never make his fortune.

Saccard meantime was asking himself what interest Gundermann could have in receiving all these people. Evidently he had a special power of isolating himself; he remained absorbed, continued thinking. Moreover, in all this there must be some question of discipline, a habit of passing the market in review every morning, which invariably conduced to some little profit or other. In a greedy fashion Gundermann deducted eighty francs from the amount claimed by some jobber to whom he had given an order the day before, and who, it should be said, was certainly robbing him. Then a dealer in curiosities arrived, bringing an enamelled gold box of the last century, which had been considerably restored, a trick which the banker immediately scented. Next came two ladies, an old one with the beak of a night-bird, and a young one, a very beautiful brunette; they wished to show him at their house a Louis XV. commode, which he promptly refused to go and see. Then came a jeweller with some rubies, a couple of inventors, some Englishmen, Germans, and Italians, folks of both sexes and every language. And meantime the procession of remisiers went on just the same, between the other visits, endless to all appearance, with an incessant repetition of one and the same gesture—the mechanical presentation of the list; while, as the hour for the opening of the Bourse approached, the clerks crossed the room in greater numbers than ever, bringing telegrams, or coming to ask for signatures.

But the tumult reached a climax when a little boy of five or six, riding astride a stick, burst into the office, playing a trumpet and followed by two other children—little girls, one three years old, and the other eight—who besieged their grandfather's arm-chair, tugged at his arms, and hung upon his neck; to all which he placidly submitted, kissing them with all the Jewish passion for one's offspring—the numerous progeny which yields strength, and which one defends.

Suddenly, however, he seemed to remember Saccard: 'Ah! my good friend, you must excuse me; you see that I haven't a minute to myself. Come now, explain your business to me.'

And he was beginning to listen to him, when an employee, who had introduced a tall, fair gentleman, came to whisper a name in his ear. He rose promptly, yet without haste, and went to confer with the gentleman in question at another window, while one of his sons continued receiving the remisiers and coulissiers in his stead.

In spite of his secret irritation, Saccard was beginning to experience a feeling of respect. In the tall, fair gentleman he had recognised the ambassador of one of the Great Powers, full of arrogance at the Tuileries, but here standing with his head slightly inclined, smiling like one who solicits some favour. At other times officials of high rank in the public service, the Emperor's ministers themselves, would be received standing in this way, in this room as public as a square, and resounding with the noisy mirth of children. And here was affirmed the universal sovereignty of this man, who had his own ambassadors in every court of the world, his consuls in every province, his agents in every city, and his vessels on every sea. He was not a speculator, a soldier of fortune manœuvring with the millions of others, dreaming, like Saccard, of heroic combats in which he should prove conqueror and win colossal booty for himself, thanks to the aid of mercenary gold enlisted under his orders; he was, as he quietly said, a simple money merchant, but the most shrewd, most careful there could be. Nevertheless, to establish his power, it was essential that he should rule the Bourse; and so with each settlement there was a new battle, in which the victory infallibly remained with him, thanks to the decisive power of his big battalions. For a moment, Saccard, as he sat watching him, was overwhelmed by the thought that all the money which this man set in motion was his own, that he held in his cellars an inexhaustible supply, in which he trafficked like a shrewd and prudent merchant, like an absolute master, obeyed at a glance, bent on hearing everything, seeing everything, doing everything himself. A milliard of one's own thus manipulated is an invincible force.

'We shan't have a minute, my good friend,' said Gundermann, when he came back. 'I am going to breakfast; come with me into the next room. Perhaps they will leave us in peace there.'

It was the little dining-room of the mansion, the one used for the morning meal, and where the entire family was never gathered together. That day there were only nineteen at table, eight of them children. The banker sat in the middle, and all he had in front of him was a bowl of milk.

He remained for a moment with his eyes closed, exhausted by fatigue, his face very pale and contracted; for he suffered from a complaint of the liver and the kidneys. Then, when with trembling hands he had lifted the bowl to his lips, and had drunk a mouthful, he sighed: 'Ah! I am tired out to-day.'

'Why do you not take a rest?' asked Saccard.

Gundermann turned his eyes upon him in astonishment, and naïvely answered: 'But I can't.'

In fact, he was not allowed even to drink his milk in peace, for the reception of the remisiers had begun again; the gallop now went on across the dining-room, while the members of the family, men and women, accustomed to all this stir and bustle, laughed and ate heartily of the cold meats and pastries, and the children, excited by two thimblefuls of pure wine, raised a deafening din.

Meantime Saccard, who was still watching him, marvelled at seeing him slowly swallow his milk with such an effort that it seemed as if he would never manage to empty the bowl. He had been put on a milk diet; he was no longer allowed to touch even a bit of meat or pastry. And that being the case, thought Saccard, of what use was his milliard to him? Moreover, women had never tempted him; for forty years he had remained strictly faithful to his wife; and now virtue was compulsory on his part, irrevocably definitive. Why then should he rise at five o'clock, ply this awful trade, weigh himself down with such immense fatigue, lead a galley-slave's life which no beggar would have accepted, with his memory crammed with figures, and his skull fairly bursting with a whole world of cares? Why, too, add so much useless gold to so much gold already possessed, when one may not buy and eat so much as a pound of cherries, or carry a passing girl off to some waterside wineshop, when one may not enjoy any of the things that are sold, nor even idleness and liberty? And Saccard, who despite his terrible appetites made due allowance for the disinterested love of money, simply for the power that it gives, felt seized with a sort of holy terror as he gazed upon that face, not that of the classical miser who hoards, but that of the blameless workman, without a fleshly instinct, who in his ailing old age had become as it were an abstract of himself, and obstinately continued building his tower of millions, with the sole dream of bequeathing it to his descendants, that they might raise it yet higher, until it should overshadow the entire earth.

At last Gundermann leaned over, and let him explain in an undertone the projected launching of the Universal Bank. Saccard, however, was sparing of details, simply alluding to the schemes in Hamelin's portfolio, for from the first words he had felt that the banker was trying to draw him, with the predetermination to refuse him his support.

'Another bank, my good friend, another bank!' he repeated in his sneering way. But the affair into which I would sooner put my money would be a machine, yes, a guillotine, to cut off the heads of all the banks already established.... A rake, eh? to clean out the Bourse. Your engineer hasn't something of that sort among his papers, has he?' Then, affecting a paternal air, he continued with tranquil cruelty: 'Come, be reasonable; you know what I told you. You are wrong to go into business again; I render you a real service in refusing to launch your syndicate; you will inevitably come to grief, it is mathematically certain, for you are much too enthusiastic, you have too much imagination; and besides, matters always end badly when one deals with other people's money. Why doesn't your brother find you a good post, eh? a prefecture, or else a financial receivership—no, not a receivership, that also is too dangerous. Beware, my good friend, beware.'

Saccard had risen, quivering: 'You have made up your mind, then; you won't take any stock, you won't be with us?'

'With you? Never in my life. You will be cleared out within three years.'

There was a spell of silence, instinct with conflict; a sharp exchange of defiant glances.

'Then, good afternoon. I have not breakfasted yet, and am very hungry. We shall see who will be cleared out.'

And thereupon Saccard left the great financier in the midst of his tribe; and whilst they finished noisily stuffing themselves with pastry, the master went on receiving the last belated brokers, wearily closing his eyes every now and then, and draining his bowl with little sips, his lips all white with milk.

Throwing himself into his cab, Saccard gave his own address, Rue Saint-Lazare. One o'clock was striking, the day was lost; he was going home to lunch quite beside himself. Ah! the dirty Jew! There indeed was a fellow whom he would have been pleased to crunch with his teeth as a dog crunches a bone! Certainly he was a terrible morsel, too big to eat. But could one ever tell? The greatest empires had crumbled, a time always comes when the powerful succumb. And without eating him entirely at the first bite, might he not manage to get his teeth into him, tear from him some shreds of his milliard? That done, yes, he might afterwards eat him—why not?—and in the person of their undisputed king destroy those Jews who thought the feast to be entirely intended for themselves. These reflections, this wrath with which he had come away from Gundermann's, filled Saccard with a furious hankering, an imperative desire for traffic, immediate success. He would have liked to found his banking-house, set it working, triumph and crush all rival houses at a wave of his hand. All at once, the thought of Daigremont came back to him; and without debating the matter, swayed by an irresistible impulse, he leaned forward and called to the driver to go up the Rue Larochefoucauld. If he wanted to see Daigremont, he must make haste and postpone lunch till later, for he knew that it was Daigremont's habit to go out at about one o'clock. No doubt this Christian was worse than any two Jews, and passed for an ogre who devoured the young enterprises entrusted to his care. But at that moment Saccard would have negotiated with Cartouche[15] himself in order to conquer, and even on condition of dividing the spoil. Later on, they would see, he himself would prove the stronger.

Meanwhile the cab, after ascending the steep hill with some difficulty, stopped in front of the lofty monumental entrance of one of the last grand mansions of this neighbourhood, which once had some very fine ones. The detached buildings, at the rear of a vast paved courtyard, wore an air of royal grandeur; and the garden beyond, in which centenarian trees were still growing, remained a veritable park, isolated from the populous streets. All Paris knew that mansion for its splendid entertainments, and especially for the admirable collection of pictures assembled there, which not a grand-duke on his travels failed to visit. Married to a woman who was famous for her beauty, like his pictures were for theirs, and who had achieved a great success in society as a vocalist, the master of the house led a princely life, was as proud of his racing stable as of his gallery, belonged to one of the principal clubs, paraded the most costly women, and had a box at the Opera, a chair at the Hôtel Drouot,[16] and a foot-stool at the questionable resorts most in vogue. And all this profuse life, this luxury coruscating in an apotheosis of caprice and art, was entirely paid for by speculation, by a fortune which was incessantly on the move, and which seemed infinite like the sea, though, like the sea, it had its ebb and flow—balances in one or the other sense of two and three hundred thousand francs at each fortnightly settlement.

When Saccard had climbed the majestic entrance steps, a valet announced him, and escorted him through three reception rooms filled with marvels, to a little smoking room where Daigremont was finishing a cigar before going out. Already forty-five years of age, and struggling against stoutness, he was of high stature and very elegant, with his hair carefully trimmed, and wearing only a moustache and imperial, like a fanatic of the Tuileries. He affected great amiability, having absolute confidence in himself, a firm conviction of conquering.

He at once darted forward. 'Ah! my dear friend, what is becoming of you?' said he. 'Only the other day I was thinking about you. But are you not now my neighbour?'

He calmed down, however, and set aside this effusive manner, which he kept for the common herd, when Saccard, deeming it useless to beat about the bush, forthwith broached the object of his visit, expatiating on his great enterprise, and explaining that, before establishing the Universal Bank with a capital of twenty-five millions of francs, he wished to form a syndicate of friends—bankers and manufacturers—who would pressure the success of the issue by agreeing to take four-fifths of the shares, that was, some forty thousand. Daigremont had become very serious, and listened to him, and watched him, as if searching to the depths of his brain, to ascertain what effort, what labour useful to himself, he might yet get out of this man whom he had known so active, so full of marvellous qualities amidst all his blundering fever. At first he hesitated. 'No, no,' said he, 'I am overwhelmed already; I do not wish to take anything fresh in hand.'

Then, tempted nevertheless, he asked some questions, wished to know what projects the new venture would patronise, projects which Saccard was prudent enough to speak about with the extremest reserve. And when Daigremont had been made acquainted with the first enterprise which it was intended to launch, that idea of syndicating all the Mediterranean transport companies under the name of the United Steam Navigation Company, he seemed very much struck with it, and suddenly yielded.

'Well, I consent to go in. But on one condition only. How do you stand with your brother, the minister?'

Saccard was so surprised at the question that he frankly displayed his rancour. 'With my brother? Oh! he does his business, and I do mine. He hasn't very fraternal feelings, that brother of mine.'

'Then so much the worse!' flatly declared Daigremont. 'I won't be with you unless your brother is with you too. You understand, I won't have you two at loggerheads together.'

With an angry gesture of impatience Saccard began protesting. What need had they of Rougon? Would it not be seeking chains with which to bind themselves hand and foot? But at the same time the voice of prudence, stronger than his irritation, repeated to him that it was at least necessary that they should assure themselves of the great man's neutrality. And yet, after all, he brutally refused. 'No, no, he has always been too hoggish with me. I will never take the first step.'

'Listen,' resumed Daigremont. 'I expect Huret here at five o'clock with respect to a commission he has undertaken for me. You will hurry off to the Corps Législatif, take Huret into a corner, tell him your plans, and he will at once speak of the matter to Rougon, find out what the latter thinks of it, and we shall have the answer here at five o'clock. That's it, eh? An appointment here at five o'clock?'

With his head low, Saccard reflected. 'Mon Dieu!' said he, 'if you insist upon it.'

'Oh, absolutely! Without Rougon, nothing; with Rougon, anything you like.'

'All right, I will go then.'

They had shaken hands vigorously, and Saccard had started off, when the other called him back. 'Ah, I say, if you find things promising, just call on your way back upon the Marquis de Bohain and Sédille; tell them that I am going in, and ask them to join—I want them with us.'

At the door Saccard found his cab, which he had kept, although he had only to go down to the end of the street to get home. He now dismissed the vehicle, in the idea that he could have his own horse in the afternoon; and then he hurried back to get something to eat. They had long since given him up; however, the cook served him a bit of cold meat, which he devoured whilst quarrelling with the coachman; for when the latter had been summoned, and had given an account of the veterinary surgeon's visit, it appeared that the horse must be allowed three or four days' rest. Thereupon Saccard, with his mouth full, accused the coachman of neglect, and threatened him with Madame Caroline, who would see to it all. Finally, he shouted for him to go for another cab. Just then a diluvian shower again swept the street, and he had to wait more than a quarter of an hour for a vehicle, into which he stepped, under the torrential downpour, shouting the address: 'To the Corps Législatif!'

His plan was to arrive before the sitting, so that he might get hold of Huret, and quietly interview him. Unfortunately an exciting debate was feared that day, for a member of the Left was to bring up the eternal question of Mexico, and Rougon no doubt would be obliged to reply.

As Saccard entered the Salle des Pas Perdus,[17] he was lucky enough to meet the deputy, and led him into one of the little reception-rooms near by, where they found themselves alone, thanks to the great excitement prevailing in the lobbies. The opposition was growing more and more formidable, a wind of catastrophe was beginning to blow—a wind destined to increase and sweep everything away. Thus Huret, who was very preoccupied, did not at first understand Saccard, and the latter had to repeat his request. On the deputy realising what was wanted of him, his dismay increased: 'Oh, my dear friend, how can you think of such a thing!' he exclaimed. 'Speak to Rougon at such a moment as this! He will send me to the deuce, you may be sure of it.'

Then his anxiety as to his personal interests became manifest. His very existence depended on the great man, to whom he owed his selection as an official candidate, his election, his situation as a kind of general servant living on the crumbs of his master's favour. By following this calling for a couple of years, he had, thanks to bribes and pickings prudently realised, been able to increase his extensive Calvados estates, intending to retire and enthrone himself there after the Downfall.

His fat, cunning, peasant-like face had now darkened, and expressed all the embarrassment he felt at this sudden request for intervention, which gave him no time to consider whether he would gain or lose thereby. 'No, no! I cannot,' he repeated. 'I told you your brother's decision; I cannot disturb him again. The devil! think of me a little. He's by no means gentle when he's bothered; and, plainly now, I've no desire to pay for you at the cost of my own credit.'

Thereupon, Saccard, understanding, strove to convince him that millions of money were to be gained by the launching of the Universal Bank. With broad touches and glowing words, which transformed a pecuniary affair into a poet's tale, he explained all the superb enterprises which were in view, and dwelt on their certain and colossal success. Daigremont, whose enthusiasm was roused, would place himself at the head of the syndicate. Bohain and Sédille had already asked to come into it. It was impossible that he, Huret, should not be one of them: the others absolutely wanted him to join them on account of his high political position. They even hoped that he would consent to become a member of the board of directors, for his name was a guarantee of method and probity.

At this promise that he should be made a director, the deputy looked Saccard full in the face. 'Well, what is it that you want of me, what reply do you wish me to get from Rougon?' he asked.

'Oh! for my part,' replied Saccard, 'I would willingly have dispensed with my brother. But Daigremont insists on a reconciliation. Perhaps he is right—so I think that you ought simply to speak of our affair to the terrible fellow, and obtain, if not his help, at least a promise that he won't oppose us.'

Huret, his eyes half closed, still seemed undecided.

'You see, if you can only draw an amiable word from him—just an amiable word, you understand—Daigremont will be satisfied with it, and we will settle the matter this afternoon between us three.'

'Well, I will try,' suddenly declared the deputy, affecting a peasant's bluntness, 'but I shall only do so for your sake, for he is not a pleasant customer by any means—no indeed, especially when the Left is tormenting him. At five o'clock, then?'

'At five o'clock.'

For nearly an hour longer Saccard lingered at the Palais Bourbon, greatly disturbed by the rumours of battle which were afloat. Hearing one of the great orators of the Opposition announce that he meant to speak, he momentarily felt a desire to go in search of Huret again, and ask him if it would not be prudent to postpone the interview with Rougon until the next day. Then, fatalist that he was, believing in chance, he trembled lest he might compromise everything if he altered existing arrangements. Perhaps, too, in the scramble, his brother would the more readily speak the desired word. And thereupon, in order to let things take their course, he started off, and again got into his cab, which was already recrossing the Pont de la Concorde, when he recollected the desire expressed by Daigremont: 'Driver,' he called, 'Rue de Babylone.'

It was in the Rue de Babylone that the Marquis de Bohain lived, occupying a grand mansion's former dependencies—a pavilion which had once sheltered stablemen, but had now been transformed into a very comfortable modern house, the luxurious appointments of which were coquettishly aristocratic. The Marquis's wife, by the way, was never seen; her health was bad, he said; infirmities kept her in her apartments. Nevertheless, the house and furniture were hers; he lived with her only as a lodger, having nothing of his own save his clothes, a trunkful, which he could have carried away on a cab. He and she had been legally separated, so far as estate went, since he had begun living by speculation. On two disastrous occasions already he had flatly refused to pay up what he owed, and the official receiver, after looking into matters, had not even taken the trouble to send him any stamped paper. The sponge was passed over the claims against him. He pocketed as long as he won, but as soon as he lost he did not pay; folks knew it, and resigned themselves to it. On the other hand, he bore an illustrious name, and his presence and manners were of a kind to adorn a board of directors, so that new companies in search of a little gilding disputed with each other for his services, and he never knew a slack time. At the Bourse he had his chair on the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires side frequented by the rich speculators, who pretended to take no interest in the little rumours of the day. They respected and frequently consulted him. He had often influenced the market. And, briefly, he was quite a personage.

Though Saccard knew the Marquis well, he was nevertheless impressed by the loftily polite reception accorded him by this handsome old man of sixty, whose small head was perched upon a colossal body, a brown wig setting off his pale face, the expression of which was exceedingly aristocratic.

'Monsieur le Marquis, I come as a veritable solicitor,' said Saccard, explaining the motive of his visit, but without entering into details.

At his first words, however, the Marquis stopped him. 'No no, all my time is taken. I have at this moment a dozen proposals which I must refuse.'

Then, as Saccard added, smiling, 'Daigremont sent me; he thought of you,' he immediately exclaimed, 'Oh! is Daigremont in it? Well, well, if Daigremont is with you, so am I. Rely on me.'

Then, as his visitor wished to furnish him with at least a little information, so that he might know what sort of an undertaking he was joining, he closed his mouth, with the amiable, easy-going manner of a grand seigneur, who does not descend to such details, and has a natural confidence in people's probity.

'Not another word, I beg of you. I do not wish to know. You need my name, I lend it to you, and I am very glad to do so; that is all. Simply tell Daigremont to arrange the matter to his liking.'

On stepping into his cab again, Saccard, feeling quite gay, laughed inwardly. 'He will cost us dear,' he thought, 'but he is really charming.' Then he added aloud: 'Driver, Rue des Jeûneurs.'

It was here that Sédille had his warehouses and offices on a vast ground-floor at the far end of a courtyard. After thirty years' toil, Sédille, who was a native of Lyons and had retained some workshops there, had at last succeeded in making his silk business one of the best known and best established in Paris, when a passion for gambling, due to chance circumstances, broke out and spread within him with the destructive violence of a conflagration. A couple of strokes, which one after the other yielded him considerable profit, made him altogether lose his head. What was the use of giving thirty years of one's life to the earning of a paltry million, when, in a single hour, by a simple transaction at the Bourse, one can put the same amount in one's pocket? From that time he gradually ceased to take any interest in his business, which simply continued working thanks to pre-acquired motive power. He lived in the sole hope of some triumphant stroke of speculation; and, having fallen on a vein of persistent ill-luck, soon sank in gambling all the profits of his business. The worst of such a fever as this is that a man becomes disgusted with legitimate gains, and finally even loses an exact idea of money. And ruin lay inevitably at the end, for in vain did the Lyons workshops bring Sédille in a couple of hundred thousand francs a year, since speculation swept away three hundred thousand.

Saccard found him agitated and anxious, for this merchant gambler lacked phlegm and philosophy. He lived in a state of remorse, always hoping, always dejected, sick with uncertainty, and all this because he was still honest at heart. The settlement at the end of April had proved disastrous to him. However, his fat face, fringed with large fair whiskers, flushed at the first words: 'Ah! my dear fellow, if it is luck that you bring me, you are welcome!' Then seized with a fit of terror, he added: 'But no, no, do not tempt me. I should do better to shut myself up with my goods, and never stir from my counting-house.'

Wishing to let him calm himself, Saccard began speaking to him of his son Gustave, whom he had seen, he said, that morning at Mazaud's. But to the merchant this was another subject of chagrin, for he had dreamt of transferring the responsibility of his establishment to this son, and the latter despised commercial pursuits, and cared only for mirth and festivity, having the white teeth of a parvenu's son, teeth only fit to devour the fortune that might some day fall to them. Still, his father had placed him with Mazaud to see if he would nibble at finance.

'Since the death of his poor mother,' murmured the manufacturer, 'he has given me very little satisfaction. But in a broker's office he will perhaps learn some things that may be useful to me.'

'Well,' resumed Saccard abruptly, 'are you with us? Daigremont told me to come and tell you that he was going in.'

Sédille raised his trembling arms to heaven, and, in a voice expressive both of desire and fear, replied: 'Why, yes, I am with you. You know very well that I can't do otherwise than go in with you! If I should refuse and your enterprise should prosper, I should fall ill with regret. Tell Daigremont that I will go in.'

When Saccard found himself in the street again, he pulled out his watch, and saw that it was scarcely four o'clock. The time that he had before him, and the desire that he felt to walk a little, induced him to dismiss his cab. He repented of it almost immediately, however, for he had not reached the boulevard when a fresh shower, a deluge of water mingled with hail, again forced him to take refuge in a doorway. What cursed weather, when one had to scour Paris! After watching the rain fall for a quarter of an hour, he grew impatient again, and hailed an empty cab which was passing. It was a victoria, and in vain did he tuck the leather apron about his legs, for he was quite drenched when he reached the Rue Larochefoucauld, a good half-hour before his time.

The valet stated that his master had not yet returned, but conducted him to the smoking-room, where with slow short steps he paced up and down looking at the pictures. Then as a superb female voice, a contralto of deep and melancholy power, suddenly broke the silence of the mansion, he approached the open window to listen: it was Madame Daigremont rehearsing at her piano a composition which she doubtless meant to sing that evening in some salon. Lulled by the music, Saccard began thinking of the extraordinary stories that had been told him of Daigremont: the story of the Adamantine Company especially, that loan of fifty millions, all the securities of which he had kept in hand, selling them and re-selling them five times in succession, through agents of his own, until he had created a market, established a price for them. Then had come the genuine sale, followed by the inevitable fall from three hundred to fifteen francs, enormous profits being made out of a little world of simpletons, who were ruined at one blow. Ah! Daigremont was indeed a strong, a terrible man. Meantime his wife's voice still rang out, exhaling a wild, loving plaint of tragic intensity; while Saccard, stepping back to the middle of the room, halted before a Meissonier, which he valued at a hundred thousand francs.

Just then, however, some one came in, and on turning he was surprised to recognise Huret. 'What! here already? It is not yet five o'clock. Is the sitting over, then?'

'Over! what an idea! They are still squabbling.'

And thereupon he explained that, as the deputy of the Opposition was still speaking, Rougon would certainly not be able to answer until the next day. On realising that, he had ventured to tackle the minister, during a short adjournment, between two doors.

'Well,' asked Saccard nervously, 'and what did my illustrious brother say?'

Huret did not answer immediately. 'Oh! he was as surly as a bear. I will own that I relied on the exasperation in which I found him, for I hoped that he would simply tell me to be off. Well, I told him of your affair, and said that you did not wish to undertake anything without his approval.'

'And then?'

'Then he seized me by both arms, and shook me, shouting in my face: "Let him go and get hanged!" and there he planted me.'

Saccard, who had turned pale, gave a forced laugh. 'That was pleasant,' said he.

'Why yes, pleasant indeed,' answered the deputy, in a tone of conviction. 'I did not ask for so much; with that we can go ahead.' Then as in the next room he heard the footfall of Daigremont, who had just returned, he added in a low voice: 'Let me arrange it all.'

It was becoming evident that Huret greatly desired to see the Universal Bank established, and to become connected with it. No doubt he had already satisfied himself as to what kind of part he might play in the affair. Consequently, as soon as he had shaken hands with Daigremont, he put on a radiant expression, and waved his arm in the air. 'Victory!' he exclaimed, 'victory!'

'Ah! really. Tell me about it.'

'Well! the great man did as he was bound to do. He answered me, "Let my brother succeed!"'

Daigremont was in an ecstasy, so charming did he find the phrase 'Let him succeed!' It implied everything: 'If he is so stupid as not to succeed, I shall drop him; but let him succeed, and I will assist him.' Really it was quite exquisite!

'And, my dear Saccard, we shall succeed,' said Daigremont. 'Be easy on that point. We are going to do everything that is necessary to that end.'

Then, the three men having sat down, in order to decide upon the principal points, Daigremont rose up and went to close the window; for his wife's voice, gradually swelling in volume, was giving vent to a sob of infinite despair, which prevented them from hearing one another. And even with the window closed, the stifled lamentation resounded like an accompaniment while they decided upon founding a financial establishment to be called the Universal Bank, with a capital of twenty-five millions of francs, divided into fifty thousand shares of five hundred francs each. It was further agreed that Daigremont, Huret, Sédille, the Marquis de Bohain, and a few of their friends, should form a syndicate to take four-fifths of the stock in advance, and divide it among themselves, so that in the first place the success of the issue would be assured, whilst later on, keeping the shares in their possession, they would be able to create a scarcity in the market, and send the price up at will. However, everything nearly fell through when Daigremont demanded a premium of four hundred thousand francs to be divided among the forty thousand shares of the syndicate, at the rate of ten francs a share. Saccard protested, declaring that it was not reasonable to make the cow bellow before milking her. Matters were bound to be difficult at the outset; why make the situation any worse? Nevertheless he had to yield, in view of the attitude of Huret, who quietly regarded the matter as quite natural, saying that it was always done.

They were separating, having fixed an appointment for the next day, an appointment at which Hamelin the engineer was to be present, when Daigremont suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead with an air of despair. 'And Kolb, whom I was forgetting!' he said. 'Oh! he would never forgive me; he must be one of us. My little Saccard, if you want to oblige me, you will go to his place directly. It isn't six o'clock yet; you will still find him there. Yes, go yourself and not to-morrow, but to-night, because that will have an effect on him, and he may be useful to us.'

With all docility Saccard started off again, knowing that lucky days do not come twice over. But he had again dismissed his cab, having hoped to go home—a distance of a few steps—on leaving Daigremont's; and so, as the rain seemed to have stopped at last, he descended the street on foot, happy to feel under his heels the pavement of Paris, which he was reconquering. In the Faubourg Montmartre a few drops of rain made him take to the covered passages, the Passage Verdeau, the Passage Jouffroy and the Passage des Panoramas, which last brought him out again into the Rue Vivienne.

Here at the moment when he was about to enter Kolb's he once more started and stopped. A soft, crystalline music, coming as it were from the bowels of the earth, like the voices of legendary fairies, enveloped him; and he recognised the musical voice of gold, the continual jingle which pervaded this neighbourhood of trade and speculation, and which he had already heard in the morning. The end of the day was like its beginning; and the caressing sound of this voice made him radiant, it seemed like the confirmation of a good omen.

Kolb happened to be downstairs in the casting shop, and, as a friend of the house, Saccard went down to join him there. In the bare basement, ever lighted by large flaming gas-jets, the two founders were emptying by the shovelful several zinc lined boxes, filled that day with Spanish coins which they threw into the melting-pot on the great square furnace. The beat was intense; they had to shout to make themselves heard amid this harmonica-like music vibrating under the low vaulted ceiling. Freshly cast ingots, golden paving-stones, having all the glittering brilliancy of new metal, stood in rows upon the table of the assayer, who determined the standard. And since morning more than six millions of francs had passed through the founders' hands, assuring the banker a profit of no more than three or four hundred francs; for the difference realised, between two quotations is of the smallest, being measured by thousandths, so that in gold arbitrage, as the traffic is called, a profit only accrues when large quantities of metal are dealt with. Hence this tinkling of gold, this streaming of gold, from morning till night, from year's end to year's end, in the depths of that cellar, whither the gold came in coins, and whence it went away in ingots, to come back again in coins and go away again in ingots indefinitely, with the sole object of leaving in the trader's hands a few particles of the precious metal.

As soon as Kolb—a little man with a very dark complexion, whose nose, shaped like an eagle's beak, and emerging from a thick beard, proclaimed his Jewish origin—had understood Saccard's offer, which the gold almost drowned with a sound of hail, he accepted it. 'Certainly,' he cried. 'I am very glad to be in it, if Daigremont is! And thank you for having put yourself out on my account.'

However, they scarcely heard each other, and relapsed into silence, lingering there a moment longer, deafened, but experiencing a sensation of beatitude amid that clear provoking jingling, which made their flesh quiver, like some altissimo note prolonged upon the strings of violins to the point of provoking spasm.

Outside, although the fine weather had returned, although it was now a clear May evening, Saccard, worn out with fatigue, once more took a cab to go home. It had been a hard, but a well-filled day.

[CHAPTER IV]

THE BANK IS FOUNDED

Difficulties arose, the affair dragged along, and in fact five months rolled by without anything being settled. The latter days of September had already been reached, and it enraged Saccard to find fresh obstacles continually arising, a whole series of secondary questions, which it was necessary to solve beforehand, if they wished to establish anything serious and substantial. His impatience became so great, that at one moment he was on the point of renouncing the idea of a syndicate, haunted and seduced by the sudden thought of carrying out the affair with the Princess d'Orviedo alone. She had the millions necessary for the first launching; why should she not put them into this superb affair, leaving the smaller investors to come in later on, at the time of the future increase of capital which he had already in view? He thought of this in all good faith, convinced that he was offering her an investment in which she could increase her fortune tenfold—that fortune of the poor, which she was scattering in charities ever on a more extensive scale.

So one morning he went up to the Princess's rooms, and, like a friend who is also a man of business, he explained to her the motive and the mechanism of the bank which he dreamed of. He told her everything, spread the contents of Hamelin's portfolio before her, did not omit one of the many Oriental enterprises. Yielding to the faculty he possessed of becoming intoxicated by his own enthusiasm, and of acquiring faith by his burning desire to succeed, he even revealed the mad dream of the Papacy established at Jerusalem, spoke of the final triumph of Catholicism, the Pope enthroning himself in the Holy Land, dominating the world, and assured of a royal budget, thanks to the creation of the Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Princess, an ardent devotee, was solely struck by this supreme project, this crowning of the edifice, the chimerical grandeur of which was in keeping with the disorderly imagination which prompted her to throw away her millions in good works of colossal and useless luxury. The French Catholics had just been startled and irritated by the treaty which the Emperor had concluded with the King of Italy, and by which he pledged himself, under certain conditions, to withdraw the French troops from Rome. It was very certain that this meant the abandonment of Rome to Italy; and the Catholics already saw the Pope driven away, reduced to soliciting alms, and wandering through the cities of Europe leaning on a beggar's staff. But what a prodigious dénouement that would be: the Pope again finding himself Pontiff and King at Jerusalem, installed and sustained there by a bank in which the Catholics of the whole universe would regard it an honour to become shareholders! It was so beautiful a conception that the Princess declared it the grandest idea of the century, worthy to incite the enthusiasm of any well-born person possessed of faith. Success seemed to her absolutely certain, and her esteem for the engineer Hamelin, whom she treated with consideration, knowing him to be a constant worshipper, increased. Nevertheless, she flatly refused to go into the affair; she intended to remain faithful to her oath to restore her millions to the poor, without ever deriving from them a single copper of interest, for she desired that this money, the fruit of gambling, should be lost, drunk up by poverty, like some poisoned water that must disappear. The argument that the poor would profit by the speculation did not touch her; it even irritated her. No, no! the accursed source must be dried up, exhausted; she had undertaken no other mission.

Disconcerted, Saccard could only profit by her sympathy to obtain from her an authorisation which he had hitherto vainly solicited. It had been his idea to install the Universal Bank in the mansion itself; or, at least, Madame Caroline had suggested this idea to him; for he himself saw things on a grander scale, and would have liked a palace forthwith. However, they might content themselves with roofing the court, yard with glass and transforming it into a central hall; whilst the entire ground floor, the stables, and coach-houses might be fitted up as offices. Then on the first floor he would give up his salon, which would do duty as a board-room, whilst his dining-room and six other rooms could be turned into additional offices. For himself, he should merely retain a bed-chamber and dressing-room, taking his meals and passing his evenings upstairs with the Hamelins; so that at small expense they would provide the Bank with somewhat limited but very respectable quarters. The Princess, as proprietor, had at first refused her consent, through her hatred of all traffic in money. Never, said she, should her roof shelter such abomination. But when she found that religion entered into the matter, she was moved by the grandeur of the purpose, and consented. It was an extreme concession, and she felt a little shudder pass through her at the thought of that infernal machine, a financial establishment, a house of speculation and jobbery, with its machinery of ruin and death, being set up underneath her.

Finally, a week after this abortive effort, Saccard had the joy of seeing the affair, so long thwarted by obstacles, concluded in a few days' time. Daigremont called to tell him that he had secured all needful support, and that they could go ahead. Then, for the last time, they went together over the proposed bye-laws, and drew up the articles of association. And it was a great time too for the Hamelins, whose circumstances were growing difficult again. Hamelin had for years had but one dream—to become the consulting engineer of a great financial establishment; as he expressed it, he undertook to bring the water to the mill. So, little by little, Saccard's fever had gained upon him, and he now burned with the same zeal and impatience. Madame Caroline, on the contrary, after her first enthusiasm at the idea of the beautiful and useful things which they were going to accomplish, seemed to grow colder and wore a dreamy air, now that they were reaching the briars and bogs of execution. Her great good sense, her upright nature, scented all sorts of dark and unclean holes; and she particularly trembled for her brother, whom she adored and whom she sometimes laughingly called 'a big stupid' in spite of all his science; not that she in the least doubted the perfect honesty of their friend, whom she saw so devoted to their fortune; but she experienced a singular sensation, as if the earth were moving under her feet, and feared lest she should fall and be swallowed up at the first false step.

That morning, Saccard, when Daigremont had gone, went up to the workroom with a beaming face. 'At last, it is settled!' he cried.

Hamelin, in a transport, stepped forward with moist eyes, and grasped his hands, as if he would crush them. And as Madame Caroline simply turned towards him, a little pale, Saccard added: 'Well, and you, is that all you have to say to me? Doesn't this news please you?'

Thereupon she smiled pleasantly. 'Why, yes, I am very glad, very glad, I assure you.'

And when he had given her brother particulars respecting the syndicate now definitely formed, she intervened with her peaceful air: 'So it is permissible, eh? for several persons to meet and divide stock among themselves, before it has been issued?'

He made a violent gesture of affirmation. 'Why, certainly, it is permissible! You don't think us silly enough to risk a failure? To say nothing of the fact that we need the support of men of standing, men who can control the market should matters be difficult at the outset. And now, at any rate, four-fifths of our shares are placed in sure hands. We can proceed to sign the articles of association at the notary's.'

She was daring enough to oppose him. 'I thought that the law required the subscription of the entire capital before that was done?'

This time, greatly surprised, he looked her in the face. 'You read the Code then?' he asked.

She coloured slightly, for he had guessed the truth. On the previous day, yielding to her uneasiness, that secret fear without any precise cause, she had read the law which regulated joint-stock companies. Still, just for a moment, she was on the point of denying it. Then she confessed with a laugh: 'Yes, it's true; I read the Code yesterday; and after my perusal, I found myself examining into my own honesty and that of others, just as after reading medical books one fancies oneself afflicted with every disease.'

He, however, took offence; for the circumstance that she had wished to inform herself showed that she distrusted him, and was prepared to watch him, with her searching intelligent woman's eyes.

'Ah!' he replied, with a gesture which swept all vain scruples away, 'do you suppose that we are going to conform to the trumperies of the Code? Why! we could not take two steps; we should be met by obstacles at every turn, while others, our rivals, would go ahead at full speed and outstrip us. No, no, I certainly shan't wait till all the capital is subscribed; moreover, I prefer to reserve some shares for ourselves, and I shall find a man with whom I will open an account, and who, in short, will be our man of straw.'

'It is forbidden,' she declared, simply, in that beautiful, grave voice of hers.

'Oh yes, it is forbidden, but all companies do it.'

'They do wrong, then, since it isn't right.'

Calming himself by a sudden effort of will, and smiling in his turn, Saccard thereupon thought it best to turn to Hamelin, who, in his embarrassment, was listening without intervening. 'I hope that you don't doubt me, my dear friend; I am an old stager of some experience; you can trust yourself in my hands, so far as the financial side of the affair is concerned. Bring me good ideas, and I will undertake to make them yield all desirable profit with the least possible risk. I believe that a practical man can say nothing better.'

The engineer, with his invincible timidity and weakness, turned the matter into a joke, in order to avoid giving a direct answer. 'Oh! you will have a real censor in Caroline,' said he. 'She is a born schoolmistress.'

'But I am quite willing to join her class,' declared Saccard gallantly.

Madame Caroline herself had begun laughing again. And the conversation continued in a familiar good-natured way.

'You see,' she said, 'I love my brother very much, and I like you yourself more than you think, and it would give me great sorrow to see you engage in shady transactions with nothing but disaster and grief at the end of them. Thus I may say, now that we are upon the matter, that I have a great terror of speculation and Bourse gambling. I was so glad, therefore, to read in the eighth clause of the proposed bye-laws which you made me copy that the company forbade itself all dealings "for account." That was a prohibition of gambling, was it not? And then you disenchanted me by laughing at me and explaining that it was simply a show clause, a formula which all companies made it a point of honour to insert in their bye-laws, but which none of them ever observed. Do you know what I should like? Why, that instead of these shares, these fifty thousand shares which you are going to issue, you should issue only debentures. Oh! you see that I have become very learned since I read the Code; I am no longer ignorant that folks do not gamble in debentures, that a debenture-holder is a simple lender who receives a certain percentage for his loan without being interested in the profits, whereas the shareholder is a partner who runs the risk of profit and loss. So, why not debentures? That would tranquillise me so much; I should be so happy!'

She jocularly exaggerated the supplicating tone of her request in order to conceal her real anxiety. And Saccard answered in the same tone, with comical passion: 'Debentures, debentures! No, never! What would you have us do with debentures? They are so much dead matter. You must understand that speculation, gambling, is the central mechanism, the heart itself, of a vast affair like ours. Yes, it attracts blood, takes it from every source in little streamlets collects it, sends it back in rivers in all directions, and establishes an enormous circulation of money, which is the very life of great enterprises. But for this, the great movements of capital and the great civilising works that result therefrom would be impossible. It is the same with joint-stock companies. Has there not been a great outcry against them? Has it not been said again and again that they are gambling, cut-throat institutions? But the truth is that without them we should have no railways nor any of the huge modern enterprises that have made the world a new one; for no single fortune would have sufficed to carry them through, just as no single individual or group of individuals would have been willing to run the risk. The risk and the grandeur of the object are everything. There must be a vast project, the magnitude of which will strike the imagination; there must be the hope of a considerable gain, of some stroke that will increase the investment tenfold, provided it is not swept away; and then passions kindle, life abounds, each brings his money, and you can knead the earth over again. What evil do you see in that? The risks incurred are voluntary, they are spread over an infinite number of persons, they are unequal, limited by the fortune and audacity of each. One man loses, but another wins; all hope to secure a lucky number, but must always expect to draw a blank; and humanity has no more obstinate, no more ardent dream, than that of trying fortune, of striving to obtain everything from its capricious decisions, of becoming a king, a demi-god!'

Little by little, Saccard had ceased laughing, and straightening himself upon his short legs, he became inflamed with a lyric ardour, indulging the while in gestures that scattered his words to the four corners of heaven. 'See!' he cried, 'we, with our Universal Bank, are we not going to open up a broad horizon, pierce through that old world of Asia, that unlimited field for the pickaxe of progress and the dreams of the goldfinder? Certainly there was never a more colossal ambition, and, I grant it, never were the chances of success or failure more obscure. But, precisely for that reason, we are within the very terms of the problem, and shall arouse, I am convinced, extraordinary infatuation among the public as soon as we become known. Our Universal Bank will, in the first place, be one of the orthodox establishments which transact all banking and discount business, which receive funds on deposit, and contract, negotiate, or issue loans. But what I especially wish to make of it, is a machine to launch your brother's grand projects: that will be its real rôle, the rôle in which it will find increasing profits and a gradually commanding power. We establish it, in short, in order that it may assist the financial and industrial companies which we shall organise in foreign countries, the companies whose shares we shall place, and which will owe us life and assure us sovereignty. And now that we are already in sight of this dazzling future of conquest, you come and ask me if it is allowable to form a syndicate and grant a premium to the syndicators, a premium which will be charged among the initial expenses. You worry yourself about inevitable petty irregularities, such as unsubscribed shares, which the Bank will do well to retain under cover of a man of straw; in short, you start on a campaign against gambling—gambling, good heavens! which is the very soul, the furnace, of the mechanical giant that I dream of! Know then that all this is nothing! that this paltry little capital of twenty-five millions is a simple faggot thrown under the machine to heat it! that I hope to double, quadruple, quintuple this capital as fast as our operations extend! that we must have a hail of gold, a dance of millions, if we wish to accomplish over yonder the prodigies we have predicted! Ah! I won't say there will be no breakage—one can't move the world, you know, without crushing the feet of a few passers-by.'

She looked at him, and, in her love of life, of all that was strong and active, she ended by finding him handsome, seductive, by reason of his fervour and faith. Accordingly, without espousing his theories, at which the uprightness of her clear intelligence revolted, she pretended to be vanquished.

'Well, then, say that I am only a woman, and that the battles of existence frighten me. Only do try to crush as few people as possible, and especially crush none of those I love.'

Saccard, intoxicated by his own outburst of eloquence, as triumphant at the mere exposition of his vast plans as though the work were already done, made a display of great good-nature. 'Oh, don't be afraid!' said he; 'if I play the ogre, it is for fun. We shall all be rich.'

Then they talked quietly of the arrangements which had to be made, and it was agreed that Hamelin should proceed to Marseilles and thence to the East, to hasten the launching of their grand enterprises.

Rumours were already spreading, however, about the Parisian market; the name of Saccard emerged from the troubled depths in which it had temporarily sunk; and the reports which circulated, at first in a whisper, but gradually in a louder key, so clearly trumpeted approaching success that once again, as at the Parc Monceau in former days, his ante-room became filled every morning with applicants. He saw Mazaud call, as if by chance, to shake hands with him and talk over the news of the day; he received other brokers, Jacoby the Jew with the thundering voice, and his brother-in-law, Delarocque, a stout red-haired man who made his wife very unhappy. The coulisse came also, personified by Nathansohn, a little fair-haired, active man, borne onward on the wave of fortune. And as for Massias, resigned to the hard lot of an unlucky remisier, he already appeared every morning, though as yet there were no orders to be received. Day by day the crowd increased.

One morning at nine o'clock Saccard found the ante-room full. Not having yet engaged any special staff, he had to content himself with such assistance as his valet could give, and, as a rule, he took the trouble to usher in his visitors himself. That day, as he opened the door of his private room, Jantrou wished to be admitted, but among those waiting Saccard caught sight of Sabatani, for whom he had been searching for two days past.

'Excuse me, my friend,' said he, stopping the ex-professor in order to receive the Levantine first.

Sabatani, with his disturbing, caressing smile and adder-like suppleness, left the speaking to Saccard, and the latter, like one who knew his man, plainly set forth his proposition. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'I have need of you. We want the loan of your name. I will open an account with you, set you down as the buyer of a certain number of our shares, which you will pay for simply by a manipulation of accounts. You can see that I come straight to the point, and treat you as a friend.'

The young man looked at him with his handsome velvet eyes gleaming softly in his long dark face.

'The law, dear master, formally specifies that payment must be made in cash. Oh! it is not for myself that I tell you that. You treat me as a friend, and I am very proud of it. Anything you like.'

Thereupon Saccard, to be agreeable to him, spoke of the esteem in which he was held by Mazaud, who was now willing to take his orders without cover. 'And, by the way,' he added, 'we shall also need signatures to make certain operations regular—transfers, for instance. Can I send you the papers to sign?'

'Why, certainly, dear master. Anything you like!'

He did not even raise the question of payment, knowing that such services are priceless; and, as the other added that they would give him a franc per signature to compensate him for his loss of time, he acquiesced with a simple nod of the head. Then, with his familiar smile, he said: 'I hope, too, dear master, that you won't refuse me your advice. As you will be so well placed, I shall come to you for information.'

'Quite so,' concluded Saccard, who understood. 'Till we meet again, be careful of yourself; don't listen too readily to the ladies.'

Then, with a laugh, for Sabatani was reported to be for some mysterious reason a remarkable favourite with the fair sex, he dismissed him by a private exit, which enabled him to send people away without making them pass through the ante-room again.

Having gone to open the other door, he next called Jantrou, who, as he saw at a glance, was in sore straits, at the very end of his tether, clad in a frock-coat, the sleeves of which had been worn threadbare by long leaning on café tables during his endless 'wait' for a situation. The Bourse continued to be a hard-hearted mother to him, and yet he bore himself jauntily, with his fan-shaped beard, still cynical and lettered, at times dropping a flowery phrase, betokening the former university man.

'I meant to write to you shortly,' said Saccard. 'We are drawing up a list of employees, upon which I have inscribed your name among the first, and I expect I shall place you in the issue office.'

Jantrou stopped him with a gesture. 'You are very kind, and I thank you. But I have a proposal to make to you.'

He did not explain himself forthwith, but, starting with generalities, inquired what part the Press would play in the launching of the Universal Bank. The other took fire at the first words, declared that he was for advertising on the largest scale, and would devote all available money to it. Not a trumpet was to be disdained; not even the penny trumpets; for he laid it down as an axiom that every noise was good from the simple fact that it was a noise. The ideal would be to have every paper at one's service; only that would cost too much.

'Is it your idea, then, to organise our advertising?' he at last inquired. 'Perhaps that wouldn't be a bad scheme. We will talk it over.'

'Yes, later, if you like. But what would you say to a paper of your own, completely your own, and which I should manage for you? Every morning there would be a page reserved for you, articles that would sing your praises, or paragraphs reminding people of you, with allusions to you in contributions altogether foreign to financial matters—in short, a regular campaign, in which, à propos of everything and nothing, you would be incessantly exalted on the slaughtered bodies of your rivals. Does that tempt you?'

'Why yes, if it doesn't cost the devil.'

'No, the price will be reasonable.'

And at last he named the paper he had in view—'L'Espérance,' which had been founded two years previously by a little group of Catholic notabilities, the violent members of the party, who waged ferocious war upon the Empire. The success of their efforts was however absolutely null, and every week there circulated a fresh report of the paper's disappearance.

'Oh, it doesn't print two thousand copies!' cried Saccard.

'But it will be our business to raise its circulation.'

'And besides, it is impossible: it drags my brother in the mud; I cannot afford to offend him at the very outset.'

Jantrou gently shrugged his shoulders. 'There is no need to offend anyone. You know as well as I do that, when a financial house has a paper of its own, it is of little consequence whether this paper supports or attacks the Government; if it is an officious journal, the house is certain to be included in all the syndicates organised by the Minister of Finance to insure the success of the State and Communal loans; while if it is an opposition print, the same minister is very considerate in his treatment of the bank which it represents, prompted by a desire to disarm it and win it over, which often finds expression in still more favours. So don't trouble yourself as to the politics of "L'Espérance." Have a paper, it is a power.'

Silent for a moment, Saccard, with that alertness of intellect which in a trice enabled him to appropriate another's idea, examine it, and adapt it to his needs, to the point of making it entirely his own, swiftly thought out a complete plan: he would buy 'L'Espérance,' silence its bitter attacks, lay it at the feet of his brother—who would be obliged to show his gratitude—but at the same time keep it Catholic, as a menace, a machine ever ready to resume its terrible campaign in the name of the interests of religion. And, if the folks in power were not amiable with him, he would brandish Rome in their faces, and risk the grand Jerusalem stroke. It would be a pretty trick to finish with.

'Should we be free to do as we chose?' he asked abruptly.

'Absolutely free. They have had enough of it; the paper has fallen into the hands of a needy fellow who will hand it over to us for ten thousand francs or so. We can then do what we like with it.'

Saccard reflected a minute longer. 'Well, it is settled,' he eventually said. 'Make an appointment and bring your man here. You shall be director, and I will see to centralising all our advertising in your hands. I wish it to be something unheard of, enormous—oh! later on when we have the wherewithal to set the machine going properly.'

He had risen. Jantrou also rose, concealing the joy he felt at finding bread, beneath a bantering laugh, the laugh of one who has lost caste, and is weary of all the mire of Paris.

'At last, then, I shall return to my element, my dear belles lettres!'

'Don't engage anybody as yet,' said Saccard, as he escorted him to the door. 'And while I think of it, just make a note of a protégé of mine, Paul Jordan, a young man whom I find remarkably talented, and in whom you will have an excellent literary contributor. I will write him a letter and tell him to call upon you.'

As Jantrou was going out by the private door, this happy arrangement of the two outlets struck him. 'Why, this is convenient,' said he, in his familiar style. 'One can conjure people away. When beautiful ladies come, like the one I saluted just now in the ante-room, the Baroness Sandorff——'

Saccard did not know that she was there, and with a shrug of his shoulders he sought to express his indifference; but the other chuckled, refusing to believe in such disinterestedness. Then the two men exchanged a vigorous handshake, and Jantrou went off.

When he was alone, Saccard instinctively approached the mirror, and brushed back his hair, in which not a white thread as yet appeared. He had not, however, spoken falsely to Jantrou, for women scarcely entered his thoughts, now that business had again taken entire possession of him; and he merely yielded to the involuntary gallantry which makes it impossible for a Frenchman to find himself alone with a woman without fearing that she will look upon him as a blockhead if he does not conquer her. And so, as soon as he had ushered in the Baroness, he showed himself remarkably attentive.

'Be seated, madame, I pray you.'

Never had he seen her so strangely seductive, with her red lips, and her burning eyes with bruised lids, set deeply under thick eyebrows. What could she want of him? And he was much surprised, almost mortified, when she had explained to him the motive of her visit.

'Mon Dieu! monsieur, I beg your pardon for disturbing you without advantage to yourself; but between people who move in the same circle it is necessary one should render each other these little services. You lately had a cook, a chef, whom my husband is on the point of engaging. I have therefore simply come to inquire about him.'

Thereupon he allowed himself to be questioned, answering with the greatest obligingness, and at the same time never taking his eyes off her; for he fancied that all this was a mere pretext: in her heart she cared little or nothing about the cook, she evidently came for something else. And, in fact, by manœuvring, she finally referred to a common friend, the Marquis de Bohain, who had spoken to her of the Universal Bank. So much trouble and worry were attached to investments, said she, it was so difficult to find reliable securities. And at last he understood that she would willingly take some shares, with the premium of ten per cent. given to the syndicators; and he understood still better that, if he should open an account with her, she would not pay.

'I have my private fortune, she said, 'my husband never meddles with it. It gives me a deal of worry, but supplies a little amusement also, I confess. People are astonished—are they not?—to see a woman busy herself with money matters, especially a young woman, and they are tempted to blame her. There are days when I am in mortal embarrassment, having no friends who are willing to advise me. Last fortnight, for want of proper information, I lost a considerable sum. Ah! now that you will be in such a good position to know things, if you would be obliging, if you would only——'

Through the woman of society pierced the gambler, the fierce mad gambler. Such was the passion of this daughter of the Ladricourts, one of whose ancestors had taken Antioch, this diplomat's wife before whom the foreign colony of Paris bent almost double—a passion which led her, like some equivocal applicant, to the offices of everyone who dabbled in finance. Her lips bled, her eyes flamed more brightly, her desire shot forth, seemingly stirring all her ardent nature. And he was simple enough to believe that she was prepared for everything, provided that he admitted her into his great enterprise, and gave her some useful financial tips when opportunity offered.

'Why, I ask nothing better, madame,' said he, 'than to lay my experience at your feet.'

He had drawn his chair nearer, and he took her hand. But at this she at once seemed sobered. Ah! no, she had not yet come to that point! And she rose up in a revolt of birth and breeding.

'So you say, monsieur, that you were satisfied with your chef?' she exclaimed.

Quite astonished, Saccard rose in his turn. Had she hoped that he would put her name on the list and give her information for nothing? However, he merely replied: 'Very well satisfied, I assure you. It was only a change in my household arrangements which led me to part with him.'

The Baroness Sandorff hesitated, though scarcely for a second. Then she responded with a simple inclination of her head to the respectful bow with which he bade her good-day; and he was accompanying her to the little door when it was suddenly opened in a familiar manner. The intruder was Saccard's son Maxime, who was to breakfast with him that morning. He stepped aside, likewise bowing, and allowed the Baroness to pass. When she had gone, however, he gave a slight laugh, followed by a few bantering words.

Then seating himself in a large arm-chair, and taking up a newspaper, he added: 'Don't mind me; finish your receiving, if I am not in the way. I have arrived too early, but the fact is I wanted to see my doctor, and I did not find him at home.'

Just then the valet came in to say that the Countess de Beauvilliers requested to be received. Saccard, a little surprised, although he had already met his 'noble neighbour,' as he called her, at the Institute of Work, gave orders for her immediate admittance; then, recalling the valet, he told him to send everybody else away, as he was tired and very hungry.

When the Countess entered, she did not even see Maxime, who was hidden by the back of the large arm-chair. And Saccard was still more astonished to find that she had brought her daughter Alice with her. This lent additional solemnity to the visit: these two women so sad and so pale, the mother slender, tall and very white, with a past-century air, and the daughter already ageing, with a neck elongated to the point of ugliness. He set chairs for them with a bustling politeness, the better to show his deference. 'I am extremely honoured, madame,' said he; 'can I have the happiness to be of any use to you?'

With great timidity, which her haughty manners failed to conceal, the Countess finally explained the motive of her visit.

'Monsieur,' she said, 'it is in consequence of a conversation I lately had with my friend, the Princess d'Orviedo, that the idea occurred to me of calling on you. I confess to you that I hesitated at first, for at my age one cannot easily change one's ideas, and I have always been very much afraid of certain things of nowadays which I do not understand. At last, however, I have talked matters over with my daughter, and I believe it is my duty to stifle my scruples, so that I may try to assure the happiness of my children.'

And she continued; saying how the Princess had spoken to her of the Universal Bank, certainly a financial establishment like the rest of them in the eyes of the profane, but endowed in the eyes of the initiated with an irreproachable excuse, an object so meritorious and lofty as to silence the most timorous consciences. She named neither the Pope nor Jerusalem; those were matters not to be spoken of, scarcely to be whispered among the faithful; therein lay the mystery destined to excite enthusiasm; but each of her words, allusions, and hints revealed a hope and faith which imparted a true religious flame to her belief in the success of the new bank.

Saccard himself was astonished at her suppressed emotion, at the trembling in her voice. As yet he had only spoken of Jerusalem in the poetical phases of his fever. In his heart he distrusted that mad project, scenting something ridiculous in it, and quite prepared to abandon it and laugh at it if it should be greeted with jests. And the emotional application of this pious woman who brought her daughter with her, the earnest way in which she gave him to understand that she and all her kindred, the entire French nobility, would believe and become infatuated with the scheme, struck him forcibly, gave substance to what had been purely a dream, and infinitely enlarged his field of evolution. Was it true, then, that he had a lever here, the employment of which would permit him to move the world? With his gift of rapid assimilation, he at once entered into the situation, talking in mysterious terms of this final triumph which he would pursue in silence; and his speech was full of fervour, for he had really just acquired faith—faith in the excellence of the instrument placed in his hands by the crisis through which the Papacy was passing. He indeed had the happy faculty of believing, as soon as the success of his plans required it.

'In short, monsieur,' continued the Countess, 'I have decided upon a thing which has hitherto been repugnant to me. Yes, the idea of making money work, of putting it out at interest, had never entered my head. Mine are the old ways of viewing life, scruples that are becoming a little stupid, I know; but what would you have? One cannot easily throw off the ideas acquired in childhood, and I imagined that land alone, extensive estates, ought to support people like ourselves. Unfortunately, large estates——'

She blushed slightly, for she was coming to the confession of the ruin which she had so carefully concealed. 'Large estates can now scarcely be found in France; we have been sorely tried, and now we have but one farm left.'

Thereupon Saccard, to spare her further embarrassment, began blazing away. 'But nowadays, madame, no one lives on land. The landed fortune of olden times is an out-of-date form of wealth, which has ceased to have its raison d'être. It was the very stagnation of money, the value of which we have increased tenfold by throwing it into circulation, and by inventing paper money, and securities of all sorts, commercial and financial. It is by this means that the world is to be renewed, for nothing would be possible—neither the applications of science nor the final universal peace—without money, liquid money which flows and penetrates everywhere. Oh! landed wealth! it has gone to keep company with the old stage-coaches. With a million in land a man dies; whereas with a fourth of that capital invested in good enterprises at fifteen, twenty, and even thirty per cent., he lives.'

Gently, and with infinite sadness, the Countess shook her head. 'I scarcely understand you, and, as I have told you, I am a survivor of an epoch in which these things were feared, as things wicked and forbidden. However, I am not alone; above all, I must think of my daughter. In the last few years I have succeeded in laying aside, oh! a little sum——'

Her blush appeared again.

'Twenty thousand francs, which lie idle at home in a drawer. Later on perhaps I might feel remorseful at having left them thus unproductive; and since your enterprise has a good object, as my friend has confided to me, and since you are going to labour for what we all wish, and wish most ardently, I will make the venture. In short, I shall be grateful to you if you can reserve for me some shares in your bank, say to the amount of ten or twelve thousand francs. I wanted my daughter to accompany me, for I will not conceal from you that this money is hers.'

So far Alice had not opened her mouth, but had kept quite in the background, in spite of her look of keen intelligence. Now, however, she made a gesture of loving reproach. 'Oh, mine, mamma! Have I anything that is not yours?'

'And your marriage, my child?'

'But you know very well that I do not wish to marry.'

She had said this too quickly; the chagrin of her solitude cried out in her shrill voice. Her mother silenced her with a distressful glance; and they looked at each other for a moment, unable to lie, compelled as they were to share each other's daily sufferings and secrets.

Saccard was greatly moved. 'Madame,' said he, 'even though there were no more shares left, I would find some for you. Yes, if necessary, I will take them from my own. Your application touches me infinitely; I am highly honoured by your confidence.' And at that moment he really believed that he was making the fortune of these unfortunates; he associated them for a share in the golden rain that was about to pour upon him and around him.

The ladies had risen and were retiring. Only at the door did the Countess venture on a direct allusion to the grand affair, which they did not speak of. 'I have received,' she said, 'from my son Ferdinand, who is at Rome, a distressing letter respecting the sadness which the announcement of the withdrawal of our troops has produced there.'

'Patience!' declared Saccard, in a tone of conviction. 'We are here to save everything.'

They exchanged profound bows, and he accompanied them to the landing, passing this time through the ante-room, which he fancied was empty. But, as he came back, he noticed, on a bench, a tall, withered fellow of fifty, clad like a working man in his Sunday best, and accompanied by a pretty girl of eighteen, slender and pale.

'What! What do you want?'

The girl had risen first, and the man, intimidated by this abrupt reception, began to stammer a confused explanation.

'I had given orders that everybody was to be sent away!' added Saccard. 'Why are you here? Tell me your name at least.'

'Dejoie, monsieur, and I have come with my daughter Nathalie——'

Then he again became confused, so much so that Saccard in his impatience was about to push him to the door, when he finally understood that Madame Caroline had known the fellow for a long time and had told him to wait.

'Ah! you are recommended by Madame Caroline! You should have said so at first. Come in, and make haste, for I am very hungry.'

On returning to his room, he allowed Dejoie and Nathalie to remain standing; nor did he even sit down himself, wishing to despatch them more quickly. Maxime, who had risen on the departure of the Countess, was no longer discreet enough to hold aloof, but scrutinised the new-comers with an air of curiosity. And Dejoie told his story at length.

'This is how it is, monsieur. After I served my term in the army I was engaged as office-porter by M. Durieu, Madame Caroline's late husband, when he was a brewer. Then I entered the employ of M. Lamberthier, the salesman at the Central Markets; after which I worked for M. Blaisot, a banker, whom you must have known. He blew his brains out two months ago, and so I am now out of work. I must tell you first of all that I had married. Yes, I married my wife, Josephine, when I was with M. Durieu, and when she was cook to Monsieur's sister-in-law, Madame Leveque, whom Madame Caroline knew very well. Then, when I was with Monsieur Lamberthier, she could not get a situation there, but got suited at a doctor's in Grenelle, Monsieur Renaudin. Then she went to the linen-draper's shop, the Trois-Frères, in the Rue Rambuteau, where by ill-luck I could never get a situation——'

'In short,' interrupted Saccard, 'you come to ask me for employment, don't you?'

Dejoie, however, was determined to explain the great grief of his life, the ill-fortune which had led him to marry a cook with whose employers he had never succeeded in obtaining a situation. It was as if they had not been married, never having a home they could call their own, but having to meet at wine-shops, and kiss each other behind kitchen-doors. However, a daughter was born, Nathalie, whom he had been obliged to put out to nurse until she was eight years old, until indeed he was tired of living alone, and took her to join him in his little bachelor lodging. And in this wise he had become the little one's real mother, bringing her up, taking her to school, watching over her with infinite care, his heart overflowing the while with growing adoration.

'Ah! I may certainly say, monsieur,' he continued, 'that she has given me satisfaction. She's educated, and well behaved. And, as you can see yourself, she's as nice-looking as can be.'

Indeed Saccard found this blonde flower of the Paris pavements quite charming with her slight graceful figure and large eyes shining from under quivering ringlets of light hair. She complacently allowed her father to admire her, virtuous as yet, having no reason to be otherwise, yet allowing a ferocious, quiet egotism to be seen in the limpid brilliancy of her eyes.

'And so, monsieur,' continued Dejoie, 'she's now of an age to marry, and a capital suitor has just come forward, the eon of a pasteboard maker, our neighbour. But he wants to set up in business himself, and asks for six thousand francs. It isn't much; he might expect a girl who would bring him more. I must tell you that I lost my wife four years ago and that she left us her savings, her little profits as a cook, you see. Well, I have four thousand francs, but that's not six thousand, and the young man is in a hurry. Nathalie too——'

The girl, who stood listening, smiling, with a clear, cold decided look, here expressed assent with her chin. 'Of course,' said she, 'I want to end the matter, one way or another.'

Saccard again interposed. He had already gauged the man—his intellect might be limited, but he was upright, had a kindly heart, and was accustomed to military discipline. Moreover, it sufficed that he had presented himself with Madame Caroline's recommendation.

'Very well, my friend,' said the financier, 'I am about to purchase a newspaper, and I will engage you as office attendant. Let me have your address, and now good-day.'

Dejoie did not take his departure, however, but with fresh embarrassment resumed: 'It's very kind of you, monsieur. I'll accept the situation gratefully, for sure enough I shall have to work when I have arranged Nathalie's matter. But I came for something else. Yes, I have heard through Madame Caroline and other people too, that you are about to start a big enterprise, monsieur, and will be able to place your friends and acquaintances in a position to make as much money as you may choose them to make. So if you would be kind enough, monsieur, to interest yourselves in us, if you would consent to let us have some of your shares——'

A second time was Saccard moved, more moved even than he had been on the first occasion when the Countess likewise had intrusted her daughter's dowry to him. Did not this simple man, this microscopical capitalist, with savings scraped up copper by copper, personify the believing, truthful multitude, the great multitude that means abundant, substantial custom, the fanatical army that endows a financial establishment with invincible power? If this worthy fellow hurried to him in this fashion, before a single announcement had been made, a single advertisement issued, what would it be when the offices opened? He smiled with emotion upon this first little shareholder, in whose coming he beheld an omen of immense success.

'Agreed, my friend, you shall have some shares,' said he.

Dejoie's face became radiant, as though some great unhoped-for favour had been promised him. 'You are very kind, monsieur. And with my four thousand francs I shall be able, shan't I? to gain two thousand more, in six months' time or so, and then we can make up the amount we want. And since you consent, monsieur, I would rather settle the matter at once. I've brought the money.'

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out an envelope which he offered to Saccard, who stood there motionless, silent, struck with admiration at this final proof of confidence. And he, the terrible corsair, who had levied tribute on so many fortunes, ended by bursting into a hearty laugh, honestly resolved that he would enrich this trusting man as well as all the others.

'But, my good fellow,' he said, 'things are not managed in that way. Keep your money. I will put your name down, and you will pay up at the proper time and place.'

Thereupon he finally dismissed them, after Dejoie had made Nathalie thank him, which she did with a smile of content lighting up her hard, yet candid eyes.

When Maxime at last found himself alone with his father he remarked with that insolently jeering air of his: 'And so now you dower young girls?'

'Why not?' Saccard answered gaily. 'It's a good thing to invest in other people's happiness.' Then before leaving his room he turned to set some papers in order, and all at once exclaimed: 'And you, by the way, don't you want some shares?'

Maxime, who was slowly walking up and down, turned round with a start, and planted himself in front of his father. 'Oh no, indeed! Do you take me to be a fool?' he asked.

Saccard made an angry gesture, for he found the answer sadly disrespectful and witty. He was on the point of shouting that the affair was really a superb one, and that he, Maxime, credited him with little common sense if he imagined him to be a mere thief like others; but as he looked at the young fellow, a feeling of pity came over him for this poor boy of his, who at five and twenty was already exhausted, worn-out, settled down, and even avaricious—so aged by vice, so anxious as to his health that he no longer ventured on any expenditure or enjoyment without carefully calculating the profits that might accrue to him. And thereupon, thoroughly consoled, quite proud of the passionate imprudence which he himself displayed at the age of fifty, he once more began laughing, and tapped his son on the shoulder: 'Come, let's go to breakfast, my poor youngster, and mind you are careful of your rheumatism.'

Two days later, October 5, Saccard, accompanied by Hamelin and Daigremont, repaired to the offices of Maître Lelorrain, notary, in the Rue Sainte-Anne, and there executed the deed which established the joint stock company of the Universal Bank, with a capital of five and twenty millions of francs, divided into fifty thousand shares of five hundred francs each, a fourth part of the amount alone having to be paid on allotment. The offices of the company were fixed at the Orviedo mansion in the Rue St. Lazare, and a copy of the bye-laws, drawn up in accordance with the deed, was deposited at Maître Lelorrain's office. Then, on leaving the notary's, as it happened to be a very bright, sunny autumn day, the three gentlemen lighted cigars, and slowly sauntered homeward by way of the boulevard and the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, feeling well pleased with life, and as merry as boys escaped from school.

The initial general meeting was not held until the following week, in a hall in the Rue Blanche which had formerly been used for public balls, and in which a scheming individual was now endeavouring to start a fine art exhibition. The members of the syndicate had already disposed of those shares which they had taken, but did not wish to keep for themselves; and there came to the meeting one hundred and twenty-two shareholders, representing nearly forty thousand shares, which should have given a total of two thousand votes, since twenty shares were necessary to entitle one to sit and vote. However, as no one shareholder was allowed more than ten votes, whatever might be the amount of stock held by him, the exact total number of votes proved to be sixteen hundred and forty-three.

Saccard positively insisted upon Hamelin presiding. He himself had voluntarily disappeared among the crowd. He had put down the engineer's name and his own for five hundred shares apiece, which were to be paid for, temporarily at all events, by a manipulation of accounts. All the members of the syndicate were present: Daigremont, Huret, Sédille, Kolb, and the Marquis de Bohain, each with the group of shareholders marching under his orders. Sabatani, one of the largest subscribers, was also noticed there, together with Jantrou, accompanied by several of the higher officials of the bank, who had entered upon their duties a couple of days previously. And all the decisions which had to be arrived at had been so well foreseen and settled beforehand, that never was there a shareholders' meeting at which more splendid calmness, simplicity, and harmony were displayed. The sincerity of the declaration that the entire capital had been subscribed, and that one hundred and twenty-five francs per share had been paid on allotment, was endorsed by an unanimous vote; and then with all solemnity the company was declared to be established. Immediately afterwards came the appointment of the board of directors, which was to consist of twenty members, who, in addition to attendance fees, calculated at an annual total of fifty thousand francs, were, according to the bye-laws, to receive ten per cent. upon the net profits.

This was not to be despised, so each member of the syndicate had insisted upon having a seat on the board; and naturally, at the head of the list of those who were elected, came Daigremont, Huret, Sédille, Kolb, the Marquis de Bohain, and Hamelin, whom his colleagues wished to appoint chairman, followed by fourteen others of minor importance, selected from among the most subservient and ornamental of the shareholders. At last Saccard, who so far had remained in the background, came forward on Hamelin proposing him for the post of general manager. A murmur of sympathy greeted the mention of his name, and he also obtained a unanimous vote.

It then only remained for them to elect the two auditors, whose duty it would be to examine and report on the balance sheets and in this way check the accounts supplied by the management—functions, at once delicate and useless, for which Saccard had designated a certain Sieur Rousseau and a Sieur Lavignière, the first completely under the influence of the second, who was a tall, fair-haired fellow with very polite manners and a disposition to approve of everything, being consumed with a desire to become a member of the board when the latter, later on, should express satisfaction with his services. Rousseau and Lavignière having been appointed, the meeting was about to end, when the chairman thought it his duty to refer to the premium of ten per cent. granted to the members of the syndicate, in all four hundred thousand francs, which, at his suggestion, the meeting charged to the preliminary expenses account. It was a trifle; it was necessary to make an allowance to the promoters; and, this point being settled, whilst the crowd of petty shareholders hurried away like a flock of sheep, the larger subscribers lingered behind, shaking hands with one another on the footway with smiling faces.

On the very next day the directors met at the Orviedo mansion, in Saccard's former salon, now transformed into a board room. A huge table, covered with a green velvet cloth and encompassed by twenty arm-chairs upholstered in the same material, occupied the centre of the apartment, where there was also a couple of bookcases, the glass doors of which were provided with silk curtains, also green. Deep red hangings darkened the room, whose three windows overlooked the garden of the Beauvilliers mansion, whence came a kind of twilight, the peacefulness as it were of some old cloister, sleeping in the greeny shade of its trees. Altogether the apartment had a severe, aristocratic appearance, conveying an impression of antique honesty.

The board had met to select its officers, and when four o'clock struck almost all the members were present. With his lofty stature and little pale aristocratic head, the Marquis de Bohain was quite typical of 'old France;' whilst Daigremont, with his affability, personified the lofty fortune of the Empire in all the splendour of its success. Sédille, less worried than usual, began talking to Kolb of an unexpected turn which business was taking on the Vienna market; and around them the other directors, the band, stood listening, trying to glean some information, or else chatting together about their own affairs, being there merely to make up the requisite number, to pick up their share of the spoils on the days when there might be booty to divide. As usual, it was Huret who came late, out of breath, after escaping at the last moment from some committee of the Chamber on which he served. He apologised, and then they all seated themselves in the arm-chairs ranged round the table.

The eldest of the directors, the Marquis de Bohain, had taken his seat in the presidential arm-chair, which was higher and more lavishly gilded than the others. Saccard, as general manager, had placed himself at the other end of the table in front of him; and upon the Marquis announcing that they were first about to select a chairman, Hamelin at once rose up to decline nomination. He had reason to believe, said he, that several gentlemen present had thought of him for the chairmanship, but he wished to call their attention to the fact that he must start for the East immediately, that he was altogether without experience in banking, Bourse, and book-keeping matters, and that the chairmanship altogether carried with it a weighty responsibility which he was unable to accept. Saccard listened to him in great surprise, for only the day before the matter had been quite decided between them; and he at once divined that Madame Caroline had brought her influence to bear upon her brother. They had, he knew, had a long conversation together that morning. And so, as he was unwilling to have any other director as chairman—any independent individual who might embarrass him—he ventured to intervene, explaining that the office was mainly one of honour, and that it sufficed for the chairman to put in an appearance at the general meetings, and there support the proposals of the board and deliver the customary speeches. Moreover, said he, they were going to elect a vice-chairman, who would be empowered to sign for the board. As for the rest, the purely technical parts of their business, the account-keeping, the Bourse, the thousand and one details connected with the inner management of a great financial establishment, would not he, Saccard, be there, he the manager, expressly appointed to attend to the matters in question? According to the bye-laws he had to direct all the office work, see that money was collected and paid, attend to current affairs, carry out the decisions of the board—in a word, act as the company's executive officer. All this seemed sensible enough. Nevertheless, Hamelin resisted for a considerable time longer, and it became necessary for Daigremont and Huret to insist in the most pressing fashion, whilst the majestic Marquis de Bohain affected to take no interest in the matter.

At last the engineer yielded and was named chairman; and then the vice-chairmanship was bestowed on an obscure agriculturist, the Viscount de Robin-Chagot, formerly a Counsellor of State and a gentle niggardly fellow, who would prove a first-rate signing machine. As for the secretary, it was proposed that he should be selected not from among the board members but from among the bank staff, and thereupon the head of the issue department was chosen. Then, as dusk was falling in the spacious, severe-looking room, a greeny dusk of infinite sadness, the work accomplished was judged good and sufficient, and they separated after fixing their meetings at two a month—the petty board on the 15th, and the full board on the 30th.

Saccard and Hamelin went up together to the workroom, where Madame Caroline was awaiting them. By her brother's embarrassment she clearly realised that he had once more yielded through weakness; and for a moment she was quite angry with him.

'But come now, this isn't reasonable!' exclaimed Saccard. 'Remember that the chairman receives thirty thousand francs a year—which amount will be doubled when our business shall have extended. You are not rich enough to despise such an advantage. And besides, what is it that you fear, tell me?'

'Why, I fear everything,' answered Madame Caroline. 'My brother won't be here and I myself understand nothing about money matters. And about those five hundred shares which you have put him down for, without his paying for them at once, isn't that irregular? Would he not find himself in trouble if the enterprise should come to grief?'

Saccard had begun laughing. 'A fine affair!' said he. 'Five hundred shares, a first call of sixty-two thousand five hundred francs! Why, if he won't be able to pay that out of his first profits before six months are over our heads, we might just as well, all of us, throw ourselves into the Seine at once, rather than take the trouble to launch anything at all. No, you can be easy, speculation only devours fools.'

She retained her severity of demeanour in the growing darkness which was filling the room. However, a couple of lamps were brought, and a broad light then illumined the walls, the large plans, the bright water-colours, which so often made her dream of the countries over yonder. The plains were still barren, the mountains still barred the horizon, and once more she conjured up a vision of the distressful wretchedness of that old world asleep on its treasures, but which science was going to reawaken in its filth and its ignorance. What great and beautiful and good things there were to be accomplished! Little by little, her vision showed her the generations of the future, a stronger and happier humanity springing from the ancient soil which progress would once more plough.

'Speculation, speculation!' she mechanically repeated, struggling with her doubts. 'Ah! the idea of it fills my heart with disturbing anguish.'

Saccard, who was well acquainted with her usual train of thought, had watched that hope in the future dawning on her face. 'Yes,' said he, 'speculation. Why does the word frighten you? Speculation—why, it is the one inducement that we have to live; it is the eternal desire that compels us to live and struggle. Without speculation, my dear friend, there would be no business of any kind. Why on earth would you have me loosen my purse strings and risk my fortune, if you do not promise me some extraordinary enjoyment, some sudden happiness which will open heaven to me? With the mere legitimate, moderate remuneration of labour, the mere living wage—with nothing but well-balanced equilibrium in all transactions, life becomes a desert of dreary flatness, a marsh in which all forces slumber and stagnate. But, all at once, just make some dream flare up on the horizon, promise men that with one sou they shall gain a hundred, propose to all these sleepers that they shall join you in the chase after the impossible, and gain millions in a couple of hours, amidst the most fearful hazards—why then the race at once begins, all energies are increased tenfold, and amidst the scramble of people toiling and sweating for their own gratification, birth is given to great and beautiful living things. It is the same as in love. In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.'

Madame Caroline was not prudish, and made up her mind to laugh. 'And so,' said she, 'your conclusion is that we must resign ourselves since all this enters into Nature's plan. You are right, life is by no means clean.'

Genuine bravery came to her at the thought that each forward step in the world's history and development is made through blood and mire. One must have will-power, determination. Meantime her eyes, straying along the walls, had not ceased gazing at the plans and drawings, and the future appeared to her with its ports, canals, highways, railways, rural districts with immense farms equipped like factories, new, healthy, and intelligent cities, where the human race would live to a great age and in the enjoyment of much knowledge.

'Well,' she resumed gaily, 'I must give way, I suppose, as usual. Let us try to do a little good, that we may be forgiven.'

Her brother, who had remained silent, now drew near and embraced her. She threatened him with her finger. 'Oh! you,' said she, 'you are a coaxer. I know you well. To-morrow, when you have left us, you will trouble yourself but little as to what may go on here; and as soon as you have buried yourself in your work over yonder, you will find everything going well and be dreaming of triumph, whilst here, perhaps, the soil will be cracking beneath us.'

'But,' cried Saccard in a jocular way, 'since it's understood that he will leave you here like a gendarme to lay hold of me if I behave badly.'

All three burst out laughing.

'Yes,' said Madame Caroline, 'you may rely upon it, I shall lay hold of you. Remember what you have promised, to ourselves to begin with, and then to so many others, my worthy Dejoie for instance, whom I strongly recommend to you. Ah! and our neighbours also, those poor Beauvilliers ladies, whom I saw to-day superintending their cook whilst she washed some of their linen, by way of reducing the laundry bill, no doubt.'

For another moment all three continued talking in a very friendly way, and Hamelin's departure was definitely settled. Then, as Saccard went down again to his private room, he learnt from his valet that a woman had been obstinately waiting to see him, although she had been told that there was a board meeting that afternoon, and that he would in all probability be unable to receive her. At first, feeling quite tired, Saccard became angry, and gave orders to send her away; then the thought that he ought to be grateful for success and the fear that he might change his luck should he close his door caused him to alter his mind. The stream of applicants was increasing day by day, and the swarming of this throng brought him intoxication.

His private room was lighted by a single lamp and he could not see his visitor very clearly.

'It was Monsieur Busch who sent me, monsieur,' she began.

His anger kept him standing, and he did not even tell the woman to sit down. By that shrill voice emanating from an unsightly mass of flesh he had recognised Madame Méchain. There was a pretty shareholder for you—a creature who bought securities by the pound weight!

She, however, calmly explained that Busch had sent her to get some information respecting the issue of the Universal Bank shares. Were there any still available? Could one hope to secure some with the premium accorded to the members of the syndicate? But all this was surely a pretext, a dodge to get in to see the house, to spy out what was being done there, and to feel him, Saccard; for her tiny eyes, gimlet-holes as they seemed, pierced in her puffy face, were ferreting everywhere, and incessantly returning to him, as though to probe him to the very soul. Busch, indeed, after long and patient waiting, ripening the famous affair of the abandoned child, was now making up his mind to act, and had sent her out to reconnoitre.

'There are none left,' answered Saccard brutally.

She realised that she would learn nothing further, and that any attempt that day would be imprudent. And so, without waiting for him to push her out, she at once stepped towards the door.

'Why don't you ask me for some shares for yourself?' he resumed with the intention of offending her.

Thereupon, in her lisping, pointed voice in which there was a touch of mockery, she replied: 'Me! Oh! that isn't my style of business—I—wait.'

And, at that moment, catching sight of the huge, worn leather bag which never left her, he felt a shudder pass through him. To think of it, on a day when everything had gone off so well, when he had at last felt so happy at beholding the long-desired birth of that great financial establishment, this woman came to him. Would she, rascally old creature that she was, prove to be the wicked fairy, the fairy who in the familiar tales throws a spell over princesses in their cradles? That bag which she had been carrying through the offices of his nascent bank was—he realised—full of depreciated securities, stock that had ceased to be quoted. And he understood, so he fancied, that she meant to wait as long as might be necessary in order to bury his own shares in it, when the fall of his enterprise should come. Her reply was like the cry of the raven that starts with the army when it sets out on the march, that follows it until the night of the carnage, then hovers and swoops down, knowing there must be dead to eat.

'Au revoir, monsieur,' added La Méchain, as she retired panting and very polite.

[CHAPTER V]

THE LITTLE MONSTER

A month later, in the early days of November, the installation of the Universal Bank was not yet finished. Carpenters were still putting up wainscotings, and painters were applying putty to the enormous glass roof with which the courtyard had been covered.

This delay was due to Saccard, who, dissatisfied with the smallness of the quarters, prolonged the work for the sake of adding unreasonable luxuries to it; and, not being able to set back the walls in order to realise his continual dream of the enormous, he had at last become angry, and thrown upon Madame Caroline the duty of finally dismissing the contractors. She it was, therefore, who superintended the placing of the last wickets. There was an extraordinary number of these. The courtyard, transformed into a central hall, was surrounded by them; grated wickets they were, severe and dignified, surmounted by beautiful brass plates, bearing inscriptions in black letters. In short, the installation, although effected in rather limited quarters, was a very happy one. On the ground floor were the departments which were to be in constant relation with the public, the different cash, issue, and other offices, where every current banking operation went on; and upstairs was the inner mechanism, so to speak, of the establishment, the managing, correspondence, and accountant's offices—that for disputed claims, and that of the staff. Altogether more than two hundred employees moved about in this restricted space. And what struck one as soon as one entered, even amidst the bustle of the workmen driving in their last nails while the gold jingled in the wooden bowls, was an air of severity, of ancient probity, vaguely suggestive of a sacristy, and due undoubtedly to the premises—to that old, dark, damp mansion, standing silent in the shadow of the trees of the neighbouring garden. It seemed to you, indeed, as though you were entering a house of piety.

One afternoon, on returning from the Bourse, Saccard himself experienced this sensation, which surprised him. It consoled him, however, for the absence of gilding, and he expressed his satisfaction to Madame Caroline. 'Well, all the same, for a beginning it is very nice,' said he. 'It has a family air; it's a real little chapel. Later on we shall see. Thank you, my beautiful friend, for all the trouble you have taken in your brother's absence.'

And as he made it a principle to utilize unexpected circumstances, he thenceforward exercised his ingenuity in developing the austere appearance of the house. He imposed upon his employees the manners of young priests; they spoke only in measured tones; they received and paid out money with quite priestly discretion.

Never had Saccard in his tumultuous life so actively expended his energy. In the morning at seven o'clock in advance of all the clerks, and before the office porter had even lighted his fire, he was already at his desk, opening his correspondence, and answering the most pressing letters. Then, until eleven o'clock, there was an interminable gallop—the principal friends and customers of the house, brokers, remisiers, the whole host of the financial world, to say nothing of the procession of heads of departments, coming for orders. He himself, as soon as he had a minute's rest, rose and made a rapid inspection of the various offices, where the employees lived in terror of his sudden appearances, which never occurred at the same hours two days running. At eleven o'clock he went up to breakfast with Madame Caroline, ate heartily and drank heartily, with the ease of a thin man whom food does not inconvenience; and the full hour which he spent there was not wasted, for that was the time when, as he put it, he confessed his beautiful friend—that is, asked her for her opinion about men and things, although as a rule he did not know how to profit by her great good sense. At noon he went off to the Bourse, wishing to be one of the first to arrive there, in order to see and talk. However, he did not gamble openly, but repaired to the spot as to a natural place of appointment, where he was certain to meet the customers of his bank.

Moreover, his influence was already felt at the Bourse; he had re-entered the building as a conqueror, a substantial man, supported henceforth by real millions; and the shrewd ones talked in low tones as they looked at him, whispering extraordinary rumours, and predicting his approaching sovereignty. Towards half-past three he was always back at the bank again, settling down to the irksome task of signing, and so trained in this mechanical movement of the hand that, his head free and speaking at his ease, he summoned employees, gave answers, and decided important matters without once ceasing to sign. Then, until six o'clock, he again received visitors, finished the work of the day, and prepared that of the morrow. And when he went up again to Madame Caroline, it was for a more copious meal than that at eleven o'clock—delicate fish and particularly game, with caprices in the matter of wine that led him to dine on one evening with Burgundy, on another with Bordeaux, and on another with Champagne, according to the fortune that had attended him that day.

'Dare to say that I am not well-behaved!' he cried sometimes, with a smile. 'Instead of frequenting clubs and theatres, I live here, like a good bourgeois, beside you. You must write that to your brother to reassure him.'

He was not as well-behaved as he pretended, having about that time taken a fancy to a little singer at the Bouffes; but he lived in such a desire, such an anxiety, for success, that all other appetites were bound to remain diminished and paralysed until he should feel himself triumphant, fortune's undisputed master.

'Bah!' Madame Caroline would answer, 'my brother has always been so staid that staidness is to him a natural condition, and not a merit, I wrote to him yesterday that I had induced you not to re-gild the board-room. That will please him much more.'

It was about this time, one very cold afternoon in the early days of November, at the moment when Madame Caroline was giving the head painter an order to merely clean the paint in the board-room, that a servant brought her a card, saying that the person who had delivered it strongly insisted upon seeing her. The card, a dirty one, bore the name of Busch, coarsely printed. She did not know the name; still she gave orders for the person to be shown up to her brother's room, where she usually received.

If for six long months Busch had remained patient, and had not utilised the extraordinary discovery which he had made of Saccard's natural son, it was in the first place for the reasons that he had originally advanced—the comparatively trifling result that there would be in simply obtaining payment of the six hundred francs, which the notes given to the mother represented, and the extreme difficulty of blackmailing Saccard in order to obtain more, that is, a reasonable sum of a few thousand francs or so. A widower, free from all 'incumbrances,' and but little afraid of scandal—how could one terrorise him, how make him pay a stiff price for that ugly present, a natural child, who had grown up in the mud, and was fated possibly to become a brute and an assassin? La Méchain had certainly made out a long bill of expenses, about six thousand francs: first small sums lent to Rosalie Chavaille, her cousin, the little one's mother; then what the poor woman's sickness had cost her, her burial, the care of her grave, and finally what had been spent for Victor himself, since he had fallen to her charge, in the way of food, clothing, and a multitude of other things. But if Saccard should not prove an affectionate father, was it not likely that he would send them about their business? For there was nothing in the world to prove that he was the father except the resemblance between himself and the child; and at most they might merely get from him the amount represented by the notes, provided always that he did not contend that they were barred by the statute of limitation.

Another reason why Busch had delayed action so long was that he had just spent several weeks of frightful anxiety by the side of his brother Sigismond, who was in bed stretched low by consumption. For a fortnight especially, this terrible 'stirabout' had neglected everything, forgotten the thousand and one complicated skeins which he was unravelling, no more appearing at the Bourse, and no longer pursuing a single debtor—never indeed leaving the bedside of his patient, but watching over him, caring for him, and changing his linen like a mother. Becoming prodigal, he who was so stingy, he summoned the best doctors of Paris, and would have paid an enhanced price for drugs if by this means they could only have been rendered more efficacious; and, as the doctors had forbidden all work, and Sigismond in this respect was obstinate, he carefully hid all the young fellow's papers and books. A war of ruses was then carried on between them. As soon as his nurse, overcome by fatigue, fell asleep, the young man, drenched with perspiration and devoured by fever, would manage to find a bit of pencil, and on the margin of a newspaper would again begin making his calculations, distributing wealth according to his dream of justice, and assuring to one and all a due share of happiness and life. And Busch, on waking, was irritated to find him worse, and felt heartbroken at the thought that he thus bestowed on his chimera the little life that was left him. He allowed him to play with these stupid theories, as he called them, just as one allows a child to play with jumping-jacks, when he was in good health; but to kill himself with such mad, impracticable ideas, really it was imbecile! At last, however, having consented to be prudent through affection for his elder brother, Sigismond had recovered some strength and was beginning to get up.

Then it was that Busch, going back to his work, declared that it was time to settle the Saccard matter, especially as Saccard had re-entered the Bourse as a conqueror, and had again become a personage of indisputable solvency. The report which Busch had received from La Méchain, whom he had sent to the Rue Saint Lazare, was excellent. Nevertheless, he still hesitated to attack his man in front, and was delaying matters in the hope of discovering some method by which he might conquer him, when a word dropped by La Méchain with regard to Madame Caroline, the lady who kept the house, and of whom all the shopkeepers in the neighbourhood had spoken to her, started him on a new plan of campaign. Was this lady perchance the real mistress, the one who held the keys of the cupboards and of the heart? He frequently obeyed what he called the stroke of inspiration, yielding to sudden divination, starting upon the chase with a mere indication due to his scent, and then collecting facts which would bring him certainty, and enable him to form a resolution. Thus it was that he betook himself to the Rue Saint Lazare to see Madame Caroline.

Upstairs in the work-room, she stopped short in surprise at sight of this stout, ill-shaven man, with a flat dirty face, greasy frock-coat, and white cravat. He, on the other hand, searched her very soul, finding her such as he desired her to be, so tall and healthy-looking, with her wonderful white hair, which, so to say, illumined her young face with gaiety and gentleness; and he was especially struck by the expression of her rather large mouth, such an expression of kindliness that he at once made up his mind.

'Madame,' said he, 'I wished to see Monsieur Saccard, but they just told me he was not in.'

He lied; he had not even asked for Saccard, for he knew very well that he was not in, having watched his departure for the Bourse.

'And so,' he resumed, 'I ventured to apply to you, really preferring this, for I am not ignorant who it is that I address. It is a question of a communication so serious and so delicate——'

Madame Caroline, who had so far not asked him to sit down, pointed out a chair with anxious alacrity.

'Speak, monsieur, I am listening.'

Carefully lifting the skirts of his coat, which he seemed to be afraid of soiling, Busch settled in his own mind that this woman must be Saccard's mistress.

'You see, madame,' said he, 'it is not an easy thing to say, and I confess to you that at the last moment I ask myself if I really ought to confide such a matter to you. I hope that you will see in the step I am taking nothing but a desire to enable Monsieur Saccard to repair old wrongs.'

With a gesture she put him at his ease, having, in her turn, understood with what sort of personage she had to deal, and desiring to curtail all useless protests. For the rest, he did not insist, but began to tell the old story in great detail—the seduction of Rosalie in the Rue de la Harpe, the birth of a child after Saccard's disappearance, the death of the mother in poverty and debauchery, and the fate of Victor left in the charge of a cousin too busy to watch him, and growing up in the midst of abomination. She listened to him, astonished at first by this romance which she had not expected, for she had imagined that it was a question of some shady financial transaction; and afterwards she visibly softened, moved by the mother's sad fate and the abandonment of the child, deeply stirred in the maternal instinct which was so strong within her, childless though she was.

'But,' said she, 'are you certain, monsieur, of the things that you tell me? Very strong proofs are needed, absolute proofs, in support of such stories.'

He smiled. 'Oh, madame, there is a certain proof, the extraordinary resemblance of the child to Monsieur Saccard. Besides, there are the dates—everything agrees and proves the facts beyond a doubt.'

She was trembling, and he observed it. After a pause he continued: 'You will understand now, madame, how embarrassing it was for me to address myself direct to Monsieur Saccard. I would say that I have no personal interest in the matter; I only come in the name of Madame Méchain, the cousin, whom chance alone has put on the track of the father; for, as I have had the honour to tell you, the twelve notes of fifty francs each given to the unfortunate Rosalie were signed with the name of Sicardot, a thing which I do not permit myself to judge—excusable, mon Dieu! in this terrible life of Paris. Only Monsieur Saccard, you see, might have misunderstood the nature of my intervention. And it was then that I was inspired with the idea of seeing you first, madame, so that I might be guided entirely by you as to the best course to follow, knowing what an interest you take in Monsieur Saccard. There! you have our secret. Do you think that I had better wait for him and tell him all to-day?'

Madame Caroline evinced increasing emotion. 'No, no, later on,' she replied.

But she herself did not know what to do, so strange was the story told her. Meanwhile, Busch continued to study her, well pleased with the extreme sensibility that placed her in his power, perfecting his plans, and henceforth feeling certain that he should be able to get from her far more than Saccard would ever have given.

'You see,' he murmured, 'it is necessary to come to some decision.'

'Well, I will go—yes, I will go to this Cité you speak of. I will go to see this Madame Méchain and the child. It is better, much better, that I should first see things for myself.'

She thought aloud; she had just decided to make a careful investigation before saying anything whatever to the father. Then, if she were convinced of the truth of the story, there would be time to tell him. Was she not there to watch over his house and his peace of mind?

'Unfortunately, the case is pressing,' replied Busch, bringing her little by little to the desired point. 'The poor boy is suffering. He is in abominable surroundings.'

She had risen. 'I will put on my bonnet and go at once,' said she.

In his turn he had to leave his seat, and he added carelessly: 'I say nothing of the little bill there will be to settle. Of course, the child has been an expense; and there was also some money lent during the mother's life. Oh! I don't know how much. I would not undertake that part of the matter. However, all the papers are there.'

'Very well, I will see them.'

Then he seemed to be moved himself.

'Ah! madame, if you knew all the queer things that I see in the course of business! The most respectable people have to suffer later on through their passions, or, what is worse, through the passions of their relatives. For instance, I could give you an example. Your unfortunate neighbours, those Beauvilliers ladies——'

With a sudden movement he had approached one of the windows, and was now darting inquisitive glances into the neighbouring garden. Undoubtedly, since his very arrival, he had been planning this attempt at spying, anxious as he always was to know his battle-ground. He had made a correct guess in the matter of the acknowledgment of ten thousand francs, signed by the Count de Beauvilliers in favour of Léonie Cron; the information he had received from Vendôme corroborated his theory of the adventure; the seduced girl, consumed by a desire to come to Paris, had left the paper as security with the usurer Charpier for some trifling loan, and then had taken herself off. But, although he had speedily found the Beauvilliers, he had employed La Méchain in scouring Paris for six months without managing to put his hand upon Léonie. She had first become maid of all work to a process-server, and he had traced her to three other situations, but, dismissed for misbehaviour, she had at last disappeared, and in vain had he searched every gutter. This exasperated him the more, as he could make no attempt upon the Countess until he could secure the girl and utilise her to threaten a scandal. However, he still nursed the affair; and, standing at Madame Caroline's window, he felt happy at being able to spy into the garden of the mansion, of which latter he had previously seen nothing save the façade in the street.

'Are those ladies also threatened with some annoyance?' asked Madame Caroline, with anxious sympathy.

He affected ignorance. 'No, I do not think so. I was simply referring to the sad situation in which the Count's misconduct has left them. Yes, I have friends at Vendôme; I know their story.' And as he finally made up his mind to leave the window, he felt, amid the emotion which he feigned, a sudden and singular reaction upon himself. 'And after all,' said he, 'if there were only money losses! But it is when death enters a house!'

This time real tears moistened his eyes. He had just thought of his brother, and was choking. She fancied that he had recently lost a relative, and discreetly refrained from questioning him. She had not been deceived as to the abject calling of this personage who inspired her with such a feeling of repugnance; and these unexpected tears determined her more than his shrewdest tactics would have done; her desire increased to hasten off to the Cité de Naples at once.

'Then, madame, I rely upon you?' said Busch.

'I start immediately,' she answered.

An hour later, having taken a cab, she was wandering about behind the Butte Montmartre, unable to find the Cité. At last, in one of the deserted streets running out of the Rue Marcadet, an old woman pointed it out to the cabman. At the entrance it was like some broken-up country road blocked with mud and refuse, and leading across a tract of waste land. It was only after an attentive glance that you distinguished the miserable shanties, compounded of earth, old boards, and zinc, and looking like heaps of rubbish around the inner courtyard. At the street corner, a one-storey house built of freestone, but repulsively decrepit and filthy, seemed to command the entrance, like a gaol. And here, indeed, lived La Méchain, like a vigilant proprietress, ever on the watch, exploiting in person her little population of starving tenants.

As soon as Madame Caroline had stepped from the cab, she saw La Méchain appear on the threshold, with her enormous figure swaying in an ancient blue silk dress, frayed at the folds and cracked at the seams, and with cheeks so puffy and red that her tiny nose, almost lost to sight, seemed to be cooking between two live coals. At this sight Madame Caroline hesitated, filled with a sudden feeling of uneasiness, but all at once the woman's gentle voice, which had the shrilly charm of a shepherd's pipe, reassured her.

'Ah! madame, Monsieur Busch sends you; you came for little Victor. Come in, come in. Yes, this is really the Cité de Naples. The street is not classified; we have no numbers yet. Come in. We must talk it all over first. Mon Dieu, it is so annoying, it is so sad!'

And then Madame Caroline had to accept a dilapidated chair, in a dining-room black with grease, where a red-hot stove kept up a stifling temperature and odour. La Méchain next had a deal to say about the visitor's luck in finding her there, for she had so much business to attend to in Paris that she seldom reached home before six o'clock. It became necessary to interrupt her.

'Excuse me, madame, I came about this poor child.'

'Precisely, madame, I am going to show him to you. You know that his mother was my cousin. Ah! I can say that I have done my duty. Here are the papers, here are the accounts.'

Going to a cupboard, she thereupon took from it a package of papers, carefully arranged, and enclosed in a blue wrapper such as lawyers use. And she talked on endlessly about the unhappy Rosalie, who had undoubtedly ended by leading a fearful life, though originally she had been a good hard-working girl.

'You see, madame, I lent her all this money in sums of forty sous and a hundred sous at a time. Here are the dates: June 20, forty sous; June 27, forty sous again; July 3, one hundred sous. And see, she must have been ill about this time, for here is an endless line of items of one hundred sous. Then I had Victor to dress. I have placed a V before all the expenditures made for the boy. To say nothing of the fact that, when Rosalie died—oh! in a very dreadful way—he fell completely into my charge. So, look, I have put down fifty francs a month. That is very reasonable. The father is rich; he can easily give fifty francs a month for his boy. In short, it makes five thousand four hundred and three francs, which, with the amount of the notes, six hundred francs, would make a total of six thousand francs. Yes, everything for six thousand francs; there you have it!'

In spite of the nausea, which was making her turn pale, Madame Caroline remarked: 'But the notes do not belong to you; they are the child's property.'

'Ah! excuse me,' replied La Méchain sharply, 'I advanced money upon them. To oblige Rosalie, I discounted them for her. You see my endorsement on the back. It is very good of me not to claim interest. You will reflect, my good lady; I am sure that you won't cause a poor woman like me to lose anything.'

Upon a weary gesture from the good lady, who accepted the statement of account, she became calm again. And once more she found her little piping voice to say: 'Now I will have Victor called.'

But in vain did she in turn despatch three urchins who were prowling about; in vain did she plant herself on the threshold and make vigorous gestures; it became certain that Victor refused to stir. One of the brats even brought back a dirty word for sole reply. Thereupon she started off herself, as if to lead the youngster back by the ear. But she reappeared alone, having reflected, thinking it a good plan, no doubt, to exhibit him in all his abominable horror.

'If Madame will take the trouble to follow me,' said she.

And on the way she furnished some particulars about the Cité de Naples, which her husband had inherited from an uncle. This husband probably was dead; no one had ever known him, and she never spoke of him except to explain the origin of her property. A sorry business, which would be the death of her, she said, for she found more trouble than profit in it, especially now that the Prefecture was tormenting her, sending inspectors to require repairs and improvements, under the pretext that people were dying like flies on her premises. However, she energetically refused to spend a copper. Would they not soon require chimney-pieces ornamented with mirrors in rooms which she let for two francs a week! But she did not speak of her own greediness in collecting the rents, throwing families into the street the moment they failed to pay the usual two francs in advance, doing her own police work, and so feared that beggars without a shelter would not have dared to sleep for nothing against one of her walls.

With her heart oppressed, Madame Caroline examined the courtyard, a devastated piece of ground, full of mounds and hollows, and transformed by accumulated filth into a perfect cloaca. Everything was thrown into it; there was neither pit nor cesspool in the Cité, so that this yard had become an ever-growing dunghill, poisoning the air; and fortunately it was now cold weather, for on warm sunny days the stench generated pestilence. With anxious feet, Madame Caroline tried to avoid the heaps of vegetables and bones, while casting glances at the dwellings on either side. These were indescribable dens, some half tumbling down, others in ruins strengthened with the most extraordinary materials. Several were simply covered with tarred paper. Many had no doors, but afforded a glimpse of dark cave-like holes, whence came a nauseous breath of poverty. Families of eight and ten persons were huddled in these charnel-houses, often without even a bed—men, women, and children, rotting like decayed fruit, given over from early childhood to the most monstrous promiscuity. And thus bands of emaciated, puny brats, eaten up by disease, continually filled the courtyard, poor creatures growing on this dunghill like mushrooms. When an epidemic of typhoid fever or small-pox arose, it at once swept half the Cité into the cemetery.[18]

'I explained to you, madame,' continued La Méchain, 'that Victor has not had good examples before his eyes, and that it is time to think of his education, for he is almost in his teens. During his mother's life, you know, he saw things that were not at all proper, for she didn't stand on ceremony when she got drunk. Then, too, I have never had time to keep a sufficiently watchful eye upon him, because of my business in Paris. I tried to send him to school, but he would play on the Fortifications all day long, and twice I had to go to claim him because he had stolen—oh! trifles only. But you will see for yourself; at the age of twelve he is already a man. Finally, so that he might work a little, I gave him to Mother Eulalie, a woman who hawks vegetables about at Montmartre. He goes with her to market, and carries one of her baskets. The misfortune is that just now she is laid up, as she has something the matter with her. But here we are, madame; be good enough to enter.'

Madame Caroline shrank back. It was one of the foulest holes, at the very end of the courtyard, behind a real barricade of filth, a hovel scarce rising above the soil, a heap of plaster sustained by pieces of board. There was no window. The door—an old glass door it was lined with a sheet of zinc—was left open to let in the light, and the cold wind entered in a frightful fashion. In one corner she saw a palliasse thrown upon the beaten ground. There was no other recognisable piece of furniture among the jumble of broken casks, torn-down trellis-work, and half-rotten baskets which served as chairs and tables. A sticky moisture oozed from the walls, whilst a crack, a greenish split in the black ceiling, allowed the rain to come in just at the foot of the mattress. And the smell, the smell especially was frightful. Here was human degradation and absolute destitution in all their horror.

'Mother Eulalie,' cried La Méchain, 'here's a lady who's interested in Victor. What ails the brat that he doesn't come when he is called?'

A shapeless bundle of flesh stirred upon the mattress, under a shred of old printed calico which served as a covering; and Madame Caroline at last distinguished a fat woman of about forty. Her face was not ugly, and with little blonde ringlets around it still looked fairly fresh.

'Ah!' the sick woman moaned, 'by all means let the lady come in if she means us well, for this cannot possibly continue! When one thinks, madame, that I haven't been able to get up for a fortnight on account of my illness! Of course, I haven't a copper left. Impossible to continue business. I had a few things, which Victor went to sell; and I really believe that to-night we should have died of hunger.' Then, raising her voice, she added: 'Come now, it's stupid! Come out, little one! The lady wishes you no harm.'

And Madame Caroline trembled at seeing a bundle, which she had taken for a heap of rags, rise up from a basket. It was Victor, clad in the remnants of a pair of trousers and a linen vest. The light from the doorway fell full upon him, and she stood there with open mouth, astounded at his extraordinary resemblance to Saccard. All her doubts vanished; the paternity was undeniable.

'I don't want to be bored about going to school,' he declared.

But she still looked at him with a growing feeling of uneasiness. Besides the resemblance which had struck her, there was something alarming about the appearance of this urchin, with one half of his face larger than the other, and his nose twisted to the right; for he seemed prodigiously developed for his age—not very tall certainly, but thickset, full-grown already, like a precocious beast. Although his complexion was yet fresh and pure, his bold devouring eyes and sensual mouth were those of a man; and he embarrassed and terrified the beholder, like the sight of some monstrosity.

But the worst was to come, for when Madame Caroline questioned him, the answers he gave, the admissions he made, though Mother Eulalie in her shame sought to tone them down, were horrible and revolting beyond expression. Madame Caroline shuddered. Her heart failed her in a frightful attack of nausea.

She left twenty francs, hurried away, and again sought refuge in the house of the proprietress, in order to make up her mind and come to a definite understanding with the woman. The sight of such abandonment had suggested an idea to her—the Institute of Work. Had it not been expressly created for such falls, for the wretched children of the gutter, whom it was sought to regenerate by hygiene and the teaching of a trade? Victor must be extricated from this mire as quickly as possible, placed in that home, and have a new existence given him. She was still trembling at all that she had seen. And into the decision that she had arrived at there entered a woman's delicacy: to say nothing yet awhile to Saccard, to wait until the monster should be somewhat cleansed before exhibiting him; for the sight of this frightful offspring had filled her with something like shame for the father; she suffered at the thought of how ashamed of such a child he would be. A few months, however, would undoubtedly suffice to effect a great change, and then she would speak out, well pleased with her good work.

It was difficult to make La Méchain understand, however.

'Mon Dieu! Madame, as you please,' said she. 'Only I want my six thousand francs at once. Victor shall not stir from my house until I have my six thousand francs.'

This decision filled Madame Caroline with despair. She did not possess the amount, and, of course, did not want to ask the father for it. In vain did she argue and plead.

'No, no!' said La Méchain. 'If I no longer had my security, I might say good-bye to the money. I know that!' At last, however, realizing that the sum was a large one and that she might get nothing at all, she made an abatement. 'Well, give me two thousand francs at once. I will wait for the rest.'

But Madame Caroline's embarrassment remained the same, and she was asking herself where she could possibly get two thousand francs, when the idea struck her of applying to Maxime. She did not pause to think it over. He would surely consent to share the secret; he would not refuse to advance such a small sum, which his father would certainly repay him. And thereupon she went away, saying that she would return the next day to fetch Victor.

It was only five o'clock, and she was in such a fever to finish the matter that, on getting into her cab, she gave the driver Maxime's address in the Avenue de l'Impératrice. When she arrived, the valet told her that his master was at his toilet, but that he would all the same announce her.

For a moment she stifled in the reception-room into which she was ushered. The house was small, but furnished with an exquisite refinement of luxury and comfort. Hangings and carpets had been lavished upon it; and amid the warm silence of the rooms a delicate odour of ambergris was diffused. All was pretty, soft, and discreet here, although there was no sign of woman; for the young widower, enriched by his wife's death, had arranged his life for the sole worship of self, declining, like a man of experience, to allow anyone to share it again. Owing the enjoyments of life to one woman, he was determined not to let them be spoilt by another. He had long since abandoned his idea of entering the Council of State; he no longer even kept a racing stable, weary as he was of horses as well as women. And he lived alone, idle, perfectly happy, spending his fortune with art and precaution, evincing the ferocity of a perverse 'kept' masher who has turned serious.

'If Madame will allow me,' the valet returned to say, 'Monsieur will receive her in his room directly.'

Madame Caroline was on familiar terms with Maxime, now that whenever he went to his father's to dine he found her installed there as a faithful housekeeper. On entering his room, she saw that the curtains were drawn. Six candles, burning on the mantel-shelf and a stand, illumined with a quiet light this silky, downy nest, the more than effeminate chamber of a beautiful woman. With its deep seats and immense soft downy bed, this was his favourite room, where he had lavished delicacies, marvellous furniture, and precious bibelots of the last century, all blended, lost amidst the most delightful confusion of stuffs imaginable.

However, the door leading to the adjoining dressing-room was wide open, and Maxime appeared, saying: 'What has happened, then? Papa isn't dead, eh?'

With his pretty face, girlish but no longer fresh, his eyes blue and clear, hiding the emptiness of his brain, he had just left the bath, and, his skin cool and balmy, had slipped on an elegant white flannel costume. Through the door could still be heard the dripping from one of the bath taps, and a strong flowery perfume ascended from the soft warm water.

'No, no; it is not so serious,' she answered, put out by the quietly jesting tone of the question. 'And yet what I have to say to you embarrasses me a little. You will excuse me for thus falling in upon you——'

'It's true I dine out, but I have time enough to dress. Come, what is the matter?'

He waited, and now she hesitated, and began to stammer, greatly struck by all the luxury and enjoyable refinement which she perceived about her. Cowardice seized upon her; and she could not find courage to tell the whole story. Was it possible that existence, so stern to the child of chance over yonder, in the sink of the Cité de Naples, had shown itself so prodigal to this one, living amid such well-ordered wealth? So much vile wretchedness, hunger, and filth on the one hand, and on the other such exquisite refinement, abundance, and beautiful life. Could money, then, be education, health, intelligence? And if the same human mud remained beneath, did not all civilisation consist in the superiority of smelling nice and living well?

'Mon Dieu!' said she, 'it is such a story! But I believe I do right in telling it to you. For that matter, I am obliged to; I have need of you.'

Maxime at first listened to her standing; then he sat down in front of her, his legs giving way, such was his surprise. And when she had finished, he exclaimed: 'What, what! So I am not the only son! A frightful little brother falls on me from the sky, without so much as shouting "Look out!"'

She thought he spoke from an interested motive, and made an allusion to the question of inheritance.

'Oh! an inheritance from papa!' said he.

And he made a gesture of ironical carelessness, which she did not understand. What—what did he mean? Did he not believe in his father's great qualities, his certainty of attaining to fortune?

'No, no, I have my pile,' he added. 'I need nobody. But really this is such a queer affair that I cannot help laughing at it.'

And he did laugh, but in a vexed, anxious, hollow fashion, thinking only of himself, not yet having had time to consider what good or harm this event might bring him. He felt that he lived altogether apart from the others, and dropped a remark in which he brutally gave expression to his real feelings: 'After all, what do I care?'

Having risen, he passed into the dressing-room, and came back directly with a tortoiseshell polisher, with which he began gently rubbing his nails. 'And what are you going to do with your monster?' he asked. 'He cannot be put in the Bastille, like the Man with the Iron Mask.'

She then spoke of La Méchain's accounts, explained her idea of placing Victor at the Institute of Work, and asked for the two thousand francs.

'I don't wish your father to know anything of the matter yet awhile,' said she. 'You are the only person to whom I can apply; you must advance this money.'

But he flatly refused. 'To papa—not if I know it! not a sou! Listen, it is an oath! Even if papa only needed a sou to pay a bridge-toll, I would not lend it to him. Understand! there are some silly things that are altogether too silly; I do not wish to be ridiculous.'

Again she looked at him, disturbed by his ugly insinuations. In this exciting moment, however, she had neither the wish nor the time to make him talk. 'And to me,' she abruptly rejoined—'will you lend these two thousand francs to me?'

'To you, to you——'

He continued polishing his nails with a light, pretty movement, while examining her with his clear eyes, which searched women to their heart's blood. 'To you, yes; after all—I am willing. You are one of the gullible ones, you will pay me back.'

Then, after going to take two notes of a thousand francs each from a little desk, and giving them to her, he grasped her hands and held them for a moment in his own, with an air of friendly gaiety, like a step-son who feels some sympathy for his step-mother. 'You have some illusions respecting papa,' said he. 'Oh! don't protest; I don't want to meddle with your affairs. Women are so queer; it amuses them sometimes to devote themselves, and of course they are quite right in taking their pleasure where they find it. All the same, if some day you should be ill rewarded, come and see me, we will have a chat.'

When Madame Caroline was once more in her cab, still stifling from the soft warmth of the little residence and the heliotrope perfume which had penetrated her garments, she shuddered as though she had just left some house of ill-repute, frightened also by the son's reticence and jocularity with regard to his father, which increased her suspicion of a past life such as none would confess to. However, she did not wish to know anything; she had the money, and quieted herself by planning the work of the morrow, so that by night time the child might be saved from his vices.

Accordingly, early in the morning, she already had to start out, for there were all sorts of formalities to be fulfilled in order to ensure her protege's admission into the Institute of Work. Naturally, her position as secretary of the Committee of Superintendence, to which the Princess d'Orviedo, the founder of the Institute, had appointed ten ladies of high social standing, facilitated the accomplishment of these formalities; and in the afternoon she had only to go to the Cité de Naples to fetch Victor. She took some suitable garments with her, and was not really without anxiety as to the resistance which the boy might offer—he who would not hear speak of going to school. However, La Méchain, to whom she had sent a telegram, and who was waiting for her, informed her on the threshold of a piece of news by which she herself had been upset. Mother Eulalie had died suddenly in the night, from some cause which the doctor had been unable to precisely fix—a congestion, perhaps, some distemper produced by her corrupted blood. This tragedy had quite stupefied the boy, filled him with a secret fear, so that he consented to dress and seemed even pleased with the idea of living in a house with a beautiful garden. There was nothing to keep him at the Cité any longer since the 'fat 'un,' as he called Mother Eulalie, was going to rot in the grave.

Meanwhile, La Méchain, while writing her receipt for the two thousand francs, laid down her conditions. 'It is agreed, isn't it? you will complete the six thousand in one payment, six months from now. Otherwise, I shall apply to Monsieur Saccard.'

'But you will be paid by Monsieur Saccard himself,' said Madame Caroline. 'To-day I am simply his substitute, that is all.'

There was no affection in the farewells exchanged between Victor and his old cousin; a kiss upon the hair, and then the urchin was all haste to get into the cab, while La Méchain, scolded by Busch for having consented to accept merely an instalment of her claim, remained secretly annoyed at seeing her security thus escape her. 'Now, madame, be honest with me,' said she, 'otherwise I shall find a way to make you repent.'

On the way from the Cité de Naples to the Institute of Work on the Boulevard Bineau, Madame Caroline was only able to extract monosyllables from Victor, who with glittering eyes devoured the route, the broad avenues, the passers-by and handsome houses. He did not know how to write and could scarcely read, having always played the truant from school in order to loaf about the Fortifications; and his face, the face of a child who has precociously matured, only expressed the exasperated appetites of his race, a violent, pressing longing for enjoyment, aggravated by the wretchedness and the abominable examples amidst which he had grown up. On the Boulevard Bineau his eyes, like those of a young wild beast, glowed more brightly when, having alighted from the cab, he began crossing the central courtyard, edged on one side by the boys' and on the other by the girls' department. He had already darted a searching look at the spacious play-grounds planted with beautiful trees, at the faïence-walled kitchens, from whose open windows came the smell of meat, at the marble-decorated dining halls, as long and as lofty as the naves of chapels, at all the regal luxury which the Princess, obstinately bent on restitution, had desired to bestow upon the poor. Then, on reaching the farther end of the court, on entering the building where the managerial offices were installed, on being led from department to department so that the customary formalities of admission might be fulfilled, he listened to the clatter of his new shoes along the endless corridors, up and down the broad stairways, across all the vestibules flooded with air and light, and decorated in palatial style. His nostrils quivered; all this would be his.

Returning to the ground floor, however, in order that some document might be signed, Madame Caroline led him along a fresh corridor, and suddenly stopped before a glass door through which he could see a workshop, where some lads of his own age, standing at benches, were receiving instruction in wood-carving.

'You see, my little friend,' said she, 'they work here, because it is necessary to work if one wishes to secure good health and happiness. There are classes in the evening, and I hope you will be steady, and study well. You will, won't you? You will be able to decide your own future here, a future such as you have never dreamt of.'

Victor frowned, a dark expression came over his face. He did not answer, and henceforth his eyes—the eyes of a young wolf—only cast envious, thieving glances at all the lavish display of luxury. To have, to enjoy it all, but without work; to seize and feast upon it, tooth and nail—that was what he wanted. And from that moment he was there only as a rebel, a prisoner who dreams of robbery and escape.

'Everything is now settled,' resumed Madame Caroline; 'we are going up to the bathroom.'

It was the regulation that each inmate should take a bath on his arrival, and the baths were installed upstairs in little rooms adjoining the infirmary, beyond whose two small dormitories, one for boys and one for girls, the linen-room was situated. Six sisters of charity reigned in this superb linen-room, around which ran tiers of presses all of varnished maple, and also in the model infirmary, whose immaculate brightness, whiteness, and cheerful cleanliness were typical of health. And at times, too, some ladies of the Committee of Superintendence would come and spend an hour here in the afternoon, less to exercise any supervision than to help on the work by their own devoted assistance.

That day it chanced that the Countess de Beauvilliers and her daughter Alice were in a room separating the dormitories of the infirmary. The Countess often brought the girl there in order to divert her mind, in order that she might experience the pleasure which the practice of charity affords. And on this occasion Alice was helping one of the sisters to prepare some slices of bread and jam for two little convalescent girls who were allowed a snack between meals.

'Ah!' exclaimed the Countess at sight of Victor, who was given a seat whilst his bath was being got ready, 'here is a new one!'

As a rule, she behaved very ceremoniously towards Madame Caroline, merely saluting her with an inclination of the head, never speaking to her, for fear perhaps lest she might be obliged to enter into neighbourly intercourse with her. However, the sight of this boy whom Madame Caroline had brought to the Institute, the active kindness with which she attended to him, doubtless touched Madame de Beauvilliers and helped to draw her from her reserve. So they began talking together in an undertone.

'If you only knew, madame, from what a hell I have just taken him!' said Madame Caroline. 'I recommend him to your kindness as I have recommended him to all the ladies and gentlemen.'

'Has he any relatives? Do you know them?'

'No, his mother is dead. He has only me.'

'Poor boy! Ah! what misery there is!'

In the meantime Victor did not take his eyes off the slices of bread and jam. Ferocious greed had lighted up his eyes, and from the jam which was being spread on the bread with a knife his glances strayed first to Alice's tapering white hands, then to her slender neck, in turn to all parts of her figure—the spare figure of a sickly girl wasting away in the vain waiting for wedlock. Ah! if he had only been alone with her, how he would have given her a good butt in the stomach with his head and sent her reeling against the wall, so that he might have taken the bread and jam from her. However, the girl had noticed his gluttonous glances, and after consulting the sister of charity with her eyes, exclaimed: 'Are you hungry, my little friend?'

'Yes.'

'And you don't dislike jam?'

'No.'

'So it would suit you if I got a couple of slices ready for you to eat when you have taken your bath?'

'Yes.'

'A great deal of jam on very little bread, that's what you want, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

She laughed and joked, but he remained grave and open-mouthed, with his greedy eyes devouring both herself and her bread and jam.

At that moment, however, loud shouts of joy, quite a violent uproar, arose from the boys' ground, where four o'clock playtime was beginning. The workshops were emptying, and the youngsters had half an hour before them to stretch their legs and eat a morsel. 'You see,' resumed Madame Caroline, leading Victor to a window, 'although they work here, they also play. Do you like work?'

'No.'

'But you like play?'

'Yes.'

'Well, if you want to play you will have to work. Everything will come all right; you will be sensible, I am sure of it.'

He returned no answer. A flush of pleasure was heating his face at the sight of his released companions shouting and skipping hither and thither. Then his eyes reverted to the promised slices of bread and jam, which the girl had finished preparing and was laying on a plate. Yes, liberty and dainties all the time, he wanted nothing else. However, his bath was now ready, and so he was led away.

'That little fellow won't be easy to manage, I fancy,' gently said the sister; 'I distrust them when they haven't a straight face.'

'Yet this one isn't ugly,' murmured Alice. 'To see him look at you, you would think he was eighteen.'

'That is true,' rejoined Madame Caroline, with a slight shudder; 'he is very advanced for his age.'

Before going away the ladies wished to have the pleasure of seeing the little convalescent girls eat their bread and jam. One of them especially was very interesting, a little fair-complexioned thing of ten years old, who already had knowing eyes, a womanly look, the sickly precocity peculiar to the Parisian faubourgs. Moreover, hers was the old story: a drunken father who had gone off with a mistress, and a mother who had likewise taken to drink and chosen a paramour. Yet the wretched woman was allowed to come and see her child, for she herself had begged that she might be taken from her, having retained an ardent feeling of maternal love amidst all her degradation. And she happened to be there that very afternoon—a thin, yellow-skinned, worn-out creature with eyelids reddened by tears—and she sat beside the white bed where, propped up by pillows, her little one, neat and clean, lay eating her bread and jam in a pretty, graceful way.

The woman recognised Madame Caroline, for she had previously called at Saccard's for help. 'Ah! madame,' said she, 'so here's my poor Madeleine saved again. She has all our misfortunes in the blood, you see, and the doctor well told me that she wouldn't live if she continued to be hustled about at home, whereas here she has meat and wine, and air and quietness. I pray you, madame, tell that good gentleman that I don't spend an hour of my life without blessing him.'

A sob checked her utterance; her heart was melting with gratitude. It was Saccard whom she alluded to, for, like most of the parents who had children at the institution, she knew him alone. The Princess d'Orviedo did not show herself, whereas he had long lavished his efforts, peopling the establishment, picking little wretches of all kinds out of the gutters in order that this charitable machine, in some degree his own creation, might the sooner set to work. And, moreover, he had, as usual, grown quite enthusiastic, taking five-franc pieces from his own pocket and distributing them among the sorry parents whose little ones he saved. And to all those wretched folk he remained the one true benefactor.

'And you will tell him, won't you, madame? that there is a poor woman praying for him somewhere. Oh! it isn't that I'm religious. I don't want to be; I've never been a hypocrite. No, between the churches and us it is all over, for we not merely don't think of them any more, but it's of no use to waste one's time in them. Still, that doesn't alter the fact that there's something up above us, and when somebody has been good to you it relieves you, you know, to call down the blessings of Heaven upon him.'

Tears started from her eyes and rolled down her withered cheeks. 'Listen to me, Madeleine, listen,' she resumed.

The little girl, who looked so pale in her snow-white chemise as she lay there licking the jam off the bread with the tip of her greedy tongue, her eyes beaming the while with happiness, raised her head and became attentive, but without interrupting her feast.

'Every evening,' continued the mother, 'before you go to sleep in bed, you must join your hands like this, and say: "Pray, God, grant Monsieur Saccard a reward for all his kindness, and give him a long life and happiness." You hear, Madeleine; you promise me you will say it?'

'Yes, mother.'

During the following weeks Madame Caroline's mind was sorely troubled. She had no longer a clear opinion of Saccard. The story of Victor's birth and abandonment, of that poor creature Rosalie's sad affair, of the unpaid notes of hand, and of the fatherless child growing up in the midst of mire—all that lamentable past made her feel sick at heart. She brushed aside the visions of it that arose before her in the same way as she had refrained from provoking Maxime's indiscreet revelations. Plainly enough, there were certain old-time mud stains in all this business, the thought of which frightened her, and the full knowledge of which would have brought her, she felt it, too much grief. And then how strange the contrast. There was that woman in tears, joining her little girl's hands, and teaching her to pray for that very same man. There, in this case, was Saccard worshipped as an incarnation of beneficent Providence; and verily he had given proof of true kindness of heart, had actually saved souls from perdition, by the passionate scheming activity which he evinced, raising himself to virtue whenever the task before him was a fine one. And thus Madame Caroline ended by refusing to judge him, and, like a learned woman who has read and thought too much, sought to quiet her conscience by saying that he, like all other men, was compounded of good and evil.

Three months slipped by, during which she went to see Victor twice every week; and at last, how it came about she hardly knew, she one day again found herself Saccard's mistress. Was it that this child Victor had become as it were a bond, a link, inevitably drawing her, his mother by chance and adoption, towards the father who had abandoned him? Yes, it is probable that in her case there was far less sensuality than a kind of sentimental perversion. In her great sorrow, at being childless herself, the charge of this man's son amid such poignant circumstances had certainly affected her to the point of annihilating her will. And, moreover, her self-surrender was explained by her craving for maternity. Then, too, she was a woman of clear good sense; she accepted the facts of life without wearing herself out in trying to explain their thousand complex causes. The unravelling of heart and brain, the minute splitting and analysing of hairs, was, to her mind, a pastime fit only for idle worldlings with no household to manage, no child to love, intellectual humbugs who ever seek excuses for their frailty in what they call 'the science of the soul.'

She, with her vast erudition, who formerly had wasted her time in a burning desire to know the whole vast world and join in the disputes of philosophers, had emerged from this phase of her life with a feeling of great contempt for all such psychological recreations, which threaten to supersede both the pianoforte and the embroidery frame, and of which she would laughingly remark that they had depraved far more women than they had reclaimed. And so, whenever she felt a gap within her, whenever her free will succumbed, she preferred to have the requisite courage to realise the fact and accept it, and relied upon the work of Life to efface the fault, to repair the evil, even as the ever-rising sap closes the gash in the heart of an oak tree, supplying in time fresh wood and bark.

Thus, if she was now Saccard's mistress, without having desired it, without feeling sure if she esteemed him, she did not experience any feeling of ignominy, but buoyed herself up by judging him to be not unworthy of her, attracted as she was by the qualities he showed as a man of action, by the energy to conquer that he evinced, by the belief that he was good and useful to others. In the need we all feel of purifying our errors, her first feeling of shame had passed away, and nothing now appeared more natural, more peaceful than their liaison. Reason, not passion, seemed to link them together; he was happy at having her with him of an evening when he did not go out; and she, with her keen intelligence and uprightness, showed herself almost maternal, evinced a calming affection. And for Saccard, that freebooter of the Parisian streets, whose roguery in all sorts of shady financial affairs had brought him many a scorching and drubbing, the affection of this adorable woman, who, her six and thirty years notwithstanding, was still so young and healthy under the snowy mass of her abundant white hair, who displayed such valiant good sense, such true wisdom in her faith in life, such as it is, and despite all the mud that its torrent rolls along—this affection was really an undeserved stroke of luck, a reward stolen like all others.

Months passed by, and it must be admitted that throughout all the difficult beginnings of the Universal Bank Madame Caroline found Saccard very energetic and very prudent. Indeed, her suspicions of shady transactions, her fears that he might compromise her brother and herself entirely disappeared when she saw him so obstinately, so incessantly struggling with difficulties, expending his energy from morning till night in order to ensure the perfect working of this huge new machine, whose mechanism was grinding and grating and seemed likely to burst. And she felt grateful to him for it all, she admired him.

The Universal was not progressing as he had hoped it would, for it had against it the covert hostility of great financiers. Evil reports were spread abroad and obstacles were constantly cropping up, preventing the employment of its capital, frustrating all profitable endeavours on a large scale. Accordingly Saccard made a virtue of necessity—of the slow progress to which he was reduced—taking but one step forward at a time, and on solid ground, ever on the look-out for pitfalls, too much absorbed in striving to avoid a fall to dare to launch out into hazardous speculation. He impatiently champed the bit, stamping like a race-horse who is allowed a mere trot. However, never were the beginnings of a financial house more honourable or more correct, and the Bourse talked of it all in astonishment.

In this wise, then, they reached the date of the first general meeting of shareholders. April 25 had been chosen for this meeting, and on the 20th Hamelin, hastily recalled by Saccard, who was stifling in his narrow sphere, arrived from the East expressly to preside over it. He brought excellent news with him; the agreements for the formation of the United Steam Navigation Company were concluded, and he, moreover, had in his pocket the firmans granting the working of the Carmel silver mines to a French company; to say nothing of the National Turkish Bank, the foundations of which he had just laid at Constantinople, and which would become a branch of the Universal. As for the big question of the Asia Minor Railway, this was not yet ripe and must be kept in reserve. Besides, he meant to return to the East directly after the meeting, in order to continue his studies. Saccard, who was delighted, had a long conversation with him, at which Madame Caroline was present, and he easily persuaded them that an increase of capital would be absolutely necessary if they wished to provide for all these enterprises. The large shareholders, Daigremont, Huret, Sédille, and Kolb, who had been consulted, had already approved of an increase, so that a couple of days sufficed to mature the suggestion and lay it before the board on the very eve of the meeting of shareholders.

This special board-meeting was a solemn affair. All the directors attended in that large severe-looking room on the first floor, where the light acquired a greenish tinge through the proximity of the lofty trees in the garden of the Beauvilliers mansion. As a rule, there were two board-meetings every month: the petty, but more important meeting on or about the 15th, when only the real leaders, the true managers, of the enterprise would attend; and the full meeting on the 30th, when the silent and purely ornamental directors came to signify their approval of all that had been prearranged and to give the signatures required of them. On this occasion the Marquis de Bohain arrived one of the first, testifying with an aristocratic weary air to the approval of the entire French nobility. And the Viscount de Robin-Chagot, the penurious, gentle vice-chairman, who had been selected to school those of the directors to whom the position of affairs had not been communicated, drew them aside, and in a few words informed them of the orders of the general manager, the real master of one and all. It was an understood thing, and with a nod they all promised compliance.

At last the proceedings commenced. Hamelin acquainted the board with the report which he was to read at the shareholders' meeting. This was the big task on which Saccard had long been at work, and which he had at last drafted in a couple of days, supplementing it with information which Hamelin had furnished on his arrival. Yet, while the engineer read it aloud, he listened modestly, with an air of keen interest, as though he had not previously been acquainted with a single word of it.

The report began by recapitulating the business done by the Universal Bank since its foundation. Its transactions were good ones, but they were mainly little every-day matters in which money was promptly turned over—all the usual routine, in fact, of financial houses. Still, some rather large profits had been made in the matter of the Mexican loan which had been floated during the preceding month, after the Emperor Maximilian's departure for Mexico. A queer affair was this, disgracefully mismanaged, with plenty of pickings in the way of premiums for enterprising speculators; and Saccard greatly regretted that lack of money had kept him from wading yet more deeply in these troubled waters. However, if the bank's transactions had simply been commonplace ones, at least it had managed to live. Since its foundation on October 5, until December 31, it had realised profits amounting to rather more than four hundred thousand francs. This had enabled the management to pay off one-fourth of the preliminary expenses, to give the shareholders five per cent., and to carry ten per cent. to a reserve fund. Moreover, the directors had received the ten per cent. guaranteed to them by the articles of association, and there remained about sixty-eight thousand francs, which it was proposed to carry forward until the next distribution of profits. Nothing could have been more strictly commonplace and honourable than all this. It was the same with regard to the price at which Universal shares were quoted at the Bourse; they had risen from five hundred to six hundred francs, not suddenly, but in a slow normal fashion, just like the shares of any respectable banking house. And for two months now the price had remained stationary, there being no reason for any increase, given the humdrum daily round in which the newly-born concern seemed to be falling asleep.

But the report passed on to the future, and here everything suddenly expanded; a vast horizon of a series of great enterprises was spread before the view. Especial attention was called to the United Steam Navigation Company, whose shares were to be issued by the Universal Bank. This company, with a capital of fifty millions of francs, was to monopolise the entire transport service of the Mediterranean. It would amalgamate those two great rival concerns, the Phocæan Company, with its service to Constantinople, Smyrna, and Trebizond by way of the Piræus and the Dardanelles, and the Maritime Company, with its service to Alexandria by way of Messina and Syria; to say nothing of the various minor houses which would be absorbed in the enterprise—Combarel and Co., with their service to Algeria and Tunis; Veuve Henri Liétard, who ran another service to Algeria, but by way of Spain and Morocco; and, finally, Messrs. Féraud-Giraud Brothers, whose vessels plied along the coasts of Italy to Naples, Civita Vecchia, and the ports of the Adriatic. By making one company of all these rival concerns, which were killing one another, the entire Mediterranean would be conquered. By the centralization of capital they would be able to build superior vessels, of unsurpassed speed and comfort; and they would further be able to increase the frequency of the services and the number of the ports of call, so that the East would soon become a mere suburb of Marseilles. And to what importance would the company not attain when the Suez Canal was finished and it became possible for it to organise services to India, Tonquin, China, and Japan! Never had a greater and a safer enterprise been conceived.

Then came the question of supporting the National Turkish Bank, concerning which the report supplied an abundance of technical particulars, fully demonstrating what a secure and substantial enterprise this would be. And the recital of the contemplated operations concluded with the announcement that the Universal would also give its patronage to the Carmel Silver Mining Company, which was to be established with a capital of twenty millions of francs. Specimens of ore, which chemists had analysed, had been found to contain a large proportion of silver. But, more even than science, the antique poesy clinging to the Holy Places summoned up a vision of silver pouring forth in a miraculous stream—a divine, dazzling vision which Saccard had alluded to at the end of a sentence with which he was very pleased.

Finally, after all these promises of a glorious future, the report concluded by recommending an increase of capital. It should be doubled, raised from five and twenty to fifty millions of francs. The suggested system of issue was of extreme simplicity, in order that everybody might understand it. Fifty thousand new shares would be created, and reserved share by share for the holders of the original stock, so that there would not even be any public subscription. Only these new shares were to be issued at five hundred and twenty francs apiece, inclusive of a premium of twenty francs. This would yield a million, which could be carried to the reserve fund. It was reasonable and prudent that this little tax should be levied on the shareholders, since they would be favoured by the new issue. Moreover, only a fourth part of the value of the shares, plus the premium, was payable on allotment.

A hum of approval arose when Hamelin ceased reading. It was perfect; not the faintest objection could be raised. Throughout the perusal Daigremont, to all appearance very much interested in his finger-nails, had smiled at sundry vague thoughts that occurred to him; whilst deputy Huret, leaning back in his arm-chair with closed eyes, almost fell asleep under the impression that he was at the Chamber of Deputies. And meantime Kolb, the banker, quietly and openly devoted himself to making a long calculation on some of the sheets of paper which, like every director, he had before him.

However, Sédille, who was always anxious and distrustful, made up his mind to ask a few questions. What would become of those new shares which the shareholders, relinquishing their right, might not choose to take up? Would the bank keep them on its own account, and, if so, would this not be illegal, as the declaration of increase of capital, required by law, could not be made at the notary's until the entire additional capital had been subscribed? On the other hand, if the Bank meant to get rid of these shares, to whom and how did it expect to sell them? However, at the first words spoken by the silk manufacturer, the Marquis de Bohain, observing Saccard's impatience, intervened, and declared, with his grand aristocratic air, that the board left these matters of detail to its chairman and manager, who were both so devoted and so competent. And after this only congratulations were heard, and the meeting broke up with everybody in rapturous delight.

The shareholders' meeting on the morrow supplied occasion for some really touching demonstrations. It was again held in that hall in the Rue Blanche where the proprietor of a public ball had gone bankrupt; and prior to the chairman's arrival the most favourable reports began to circulate among the crowd of shareholders. One rumour in particular was transmitted in whispers from ear to ear: Rougon, the minister, the manager's brother, whom the growing Opposition was now virulently attacking, was disposed to favour the Universal if the Bank's newspaper 'L'Espérance,' a former organ of the Catholic party, would only defend the Government. One of the deputies of the Left had lately raised that terrible cry 'The second of December[19] is a crime!' which had resounded from one to the other end of France like an awakening of the public conscience. And it was necessary to answer it by great deeds—such as the launching of the approaching Universal Exhibition, which, it was expected, would increase business tenfold. Besides, people would make piles of money in Mexico and elsewhere now that the triumph of the Empire was at its zenith.

In one little group of shareholders, whom Jantrou and Sabatani were schooling, a good deal of laughter was indulged in at the expense of another deputy of the Left who, during the discussion of the army budget, had let his fancy run riot to the point of suggesting that the Prussian recruiting system should be adopted in France. The Chamber had been much amused by this. How the terror of Prussia had been troubling certain brains since that Denmark affair, under the influence of the secret resentment that Italy had harboured against France since Solferino! However, all the hubbub of private conversation, all the loud buzzing that prevailed in the hall, was suddenly hushed when Hamelin and the other officials entered. Displaying even more modesty than at the board meeting, Saccard had withdrawn from all prominence, hidden himself away among the throng; and he contented himself with giving the signal for applauding the report, which embodied the first balance-sheet, duly checked and approved by Lavignière and Rousseau the auditors, and finally proposed the doubling of the Bank's capital. The meeting alone had power to authorise this increase, upon which it decided with enthusiasm, quite intoxicated as it was by the millions of the United Steam Navigation Company and the National Turkish Bank, and realising, moreover, that it was necessary to place the capital on a par with the importance which the Universal was now about to acquire. As for the Carmel silver mines, the announcement concerning them was greeted with a religious thrill. And when votes of thanks had been accorded to the chairman, directors, and manager, and the shareholders separated, they all began dreaming of Carmel and of that miraculous rain of silver which would pour down from the Holy Places amidst a halo of glory.

A couple of days later Hamelin and Saccard, on this occasion accompanied by the Viscount de Robin-Chagot, the vice-chairman, returned to Maître Lelorrain's offices in the Rue Ste. Anne to make the needful declaration of the increase of capital, which, they alleged, had been entirely subscribed. But the truth was that some three thousand shares, declined by the original shareholders to whom by right they belonged, had been left on the Bank's hands and turned over to the Sabatani account by some jugglery in the book-keeping. It was the original irregular device, repeated and aggravated—the system of concealing a certain number of Universal shares in the Bank's own coffers, as a kind of reserve, which would enable it to speculate and throw itself into the thick of the fight at the Bourse so as to keep up prices should any coalition of 'bears' be formed to beat them down.

Hamelin, though he disapproved of these illegal tactics, had ended by completely trusting the management of financial operations to Saccard. There was a conversation between them and Madame Caroline on this subject, but in reference only to the shares which Saccard had compelled the Hamelins to take for themselves. Five hundred of the first issue and five hundred of the second had been allotted to them, a thousand shares in all, one-fourth of the value of which was demandable, together with the premium of twenty francs per share on the last five hundred. The brother and sister insisted on paying the amount in question, one hundred and thirty-five thousand francs, out of an unexpected legacy of three hundred thousand francs which had come to them from an aunt, who had recently died, ten days after her only son, the same fever carrying them both off. Saccard allowed his friends to pay as they desired to do so; however, he did not explain in what manner he expected to release his own shares.

'Ah, this inheritance!' said Madame Caroline, laughing. 'It is the first piece of luck that has come to us. I really believe that you bring us luck. Why, what with my brother's salary of thirty thousand francs, his liberal allowance for travelling expenses, and all this gold that has just rained down upon us—probably because we no longer needed it—we are now quite rich!'

She looked at Saccard with hearty gratitude, henceforth vanquished, absolutely confident in him, each day losing some of her clear-sightedness amidst the growing affection with which he inspired her. Then, carried away by her gay frankness despite everything, she added: 'No matter. If I had earned this money, I shouldn't risk it in your enterprises, I assure you. But, you see, we scarcely ever knew that aunt of ours; we never gave a thought to her money. It's like money picked up in the street, something which seems to me not to be quite honestly come by, something which I feel a trifle ashamed about, and so, you understand, I don't set much store by it, and shan't be so sorry if it's lost.'

'Precisely!' exclaimed Saccard, jesting in his turn. 'It will increase and multiply and give you millions. There is nothing like stolen money to yield a profit. Within a week from now you'll see—you'll see what a rise there will be.'

And indeed Hamelin, having been compelled to delay his departure, witnessed with surprise a rapid rise in the price of Universal. At the settlement at the end of May they commanded more than seven hundred francs. This was the usual result which attends an augmentation of capital: the classic whip-stroke, the trick of stimulating success, of urging the quotations into a brisk canter whenever there is a new issue. But the rise was also in a measure due to the genuine importance of the enterprises which the Bank was about to launch. The large yellow bills, placarded all over Paris, announcing the approaching opening of the Carmel silver mines, had ended by turning every head, kindling the first symptoms of a passionate intoxication which was destined to grow and sweep all common sense away. The ground was prepared; for there, all ready, was that compost of the Empire, compounded of fermenting remnants and heated by maddened appetites, a soil favourable to one of those wild growths of speculation which every ten or fifteen years block and poison the Bourse, leaving only ruin and blood behind them.[20] Swindling financial concerns were already springing up like mushrooms; great companies, by the example they set, were urging people into risky speculative ventures; an intense gambling fever was breaking out amidst the uproarious prosperity of the reign, amidst all the dazzling whirl of pleasure and luxury, of which the approaching Exhibition promised to be the final splendour, the deceptive transformation scene, as at the close of some extravaganza. And amidst the vertigo that had seized upon the mob, amidst the scramble of all the fine chances that were freely offered, the Universal was at last setting in motion, like some powerful machine which was destined to infatuate and crush everybody, and which violent hands were heating incautiously, immoderately, to the point almost of explosion.

When her brother had again started for the East, Madame Caroline once more found herself alone with Saccard, and they resumed their life of close, almost conjugal, intimacy. She obstinately continued to manage his household and effect economies like a faithful stewardess, albeit there was now a great change in his fortune, as in hers. And in the smiling peacefulness of her existence, her temper ever even, she experienced but one worry—her conscientious scruples with regard to Victor, her hesitating doubt as to whether she ought to conceal the child's existence from his father any longer. They were very dissatisfied with the boy at the Institute of Work, where he was ever committing depredations. However, the six months' trial had now taken place, so ought she to produce the little monster, though he was not yet cleansed of his vices? At thought of him, she at times experienced genuine suffering.

One evening she was on the point of speaking. Saccard, ever dissatisfied with the petty quarters in which the Universal was lodged, had just prevailed on the board to rent the ground floor of a house next door, in order to enlarge the offices, pending the time when he might venture to propose the building of the palatial pile which he dreamt of. So it again became necessary to have doorways cut through the walls, partitions removed, and wickets set in place. And on the evening in question, when Madame Caroline returned from the Boulevard Bineau in despair over the abominable conduct of Victor, who had almost eaten the ear of one of his playmates, she requested Saccard to come up with her to their rooms.

'I have something to say to you,' she remarked.

But, once upstairs, when she saw him, one shoulder white with plaster, go into an ecstasy over a fresh idea of enlargement which had just occurred to him—that of covering the courtyard of the next house with glass, as he had done in the case of the Orviedo mansion—she lacked the courage to upset him, as she must do should she reveal her deplorable secret. No, she could continue waiting; that frightful little scapegrace must be reformed. The thought of the suffering of others took all strength away from her; and so she simply said: 'Well, my friend, it was precisely about that courtyard. The very same idea had occurred to me.'

[CHAPTER VI]

A GREAT STROKE

The offices of 'L'Espérance,' the Catholic journal in distress, which, at Jantrou's suggestion, Saccard had purchased to assist him in launching the Universal Bank, were situated in the Rue Saint Joseph, in an old, dark, damp building, of which they occupied the first floor, at the rear of the courtyard. A passage led from the ante-room, where the gas was always kept burning; and on the left came, first, the office of Jantrou, the director, and then a room which Saccard had reserved for himself; whilst on the right were the contributors' room, the sub-editor's room, and others. Across the landing were the manager's and cashier's offices, which an inner passage, behind the staircase, connected with the editorial rooms.

That day, Jordan, who was finishing an article in the contributors' room, which he had entered at an early hour in order not to be disturbed, went out just as the clock struck four to find Dejoie, the office porter, who, by a broad gas flame, although it was radiant daylight out of doors, was greedily reading the Bourse bulletin, which had just arrived, and at which he invariably got the first look.

'I say, Dejoie, was it Monsieur Jantrou who just came in?'

'Yes, Monsieur Jordan.'

The young man hesitated, experienced a feeling of uneasiness, which for a few seconds kept him there. In the difficult beginnings of his happy household, some old debts had fallen upon him; and, in spite of his luck in finding this paper to take his articles, he was passing through a period of cruel embarrassment, the greater as his salary had been attached, and as that very day he had to pay a fresh note of hand, or otherwise an execution would be promptly levied on his few sticks of furniture. Twice already he had vainly applied to the director for an advance, for Jantrou had fallen back upon the attachment placed in his hands.

However, the young fellow at last made up his mind, and was approaching the door, when the porter added:

'Monsieur Jantrou is not alone.'

'Ah! who is with him?'

'He came in with Monsieur Saccard, and Monsieur Saccard told me to let no one enter except Monsieur Huret, whom he is waiting for.'

Jordan breathed again, relieved by this delay, so painful did he find it to ask for money. 'All right, I will go back to finish my article. Let me know when the director is alone,' said he.

Just as he was stepping away, however, Dejoie detained him, with a shout of extreme delight: 'You know that Universal have reached 750.'

The young man made a gesture as though to say that it was all one to him, and then returned to the contributors' room.

Almost every day Saccard thus went up to the newspaper office on leaving the Bourse, and often even made appointments in the room which he had reserved for himself there, in order to negotiate certain special and mysterious affairs. Jantrou, moreover, although officially only the director of 'L'Espérance,' for which he wrote political articles in the finished, florid style of a University man, articles which his opponents themselves recognised as the 'purest atticism,' was in addition the financier's secret agent, entrusted with the discharge of delicate duties. And among other things he had just organised a vast advertising scheme in connection with the Universal Bank. Of the little financial sheets that swarmed all over France, he had chosen and 'bought' a dozen. The best belonged to doubtful banking-houses, whose very simple tactics consisted in publishing and supplying copies of these prints for two or three francs a year, a sum which did not even represent the cost of postage; but then they recouped themselves in another way, dealing in the money and securities of the customers which the papers brought them. It was pretended that the sole object of these papers was to publish the Bourse quotations, the winning numbers in the bond drawings, all the technical information useful to petty capitalists, but gradually puffs were slipped in among the other 'copy,' in the form of recommendation and advice, at first modestly and reasonably, but soon immoderately and with quiet impudence, so as to sow ruin among credulous readers.

From among the mass of the two or three hundred publications which were thus ravaging Paris and France, Jantrou, with keen scent, had just chosen those which had not as yet lied too boldly, and were not, therefore, in too bad odour. But the big affair which he contemplated was the purchase of one of them, the 'Côte Financière,' which already had twelve years of absolute honesty behind it; only such honesty threatened to be very expensive, and he was waiting till the Universal should be richer and find itself in one of those situations when a last trumpet blast determines the deafening peals of triumph. However, he had not confined himself to gathering together a docile battalion of these special organs, which in each successive number celebrated the beauty of Saccard's operations; he had also contracted with the principal political and literary journals, keeping up in their columns a running fire of amiable paragraphs and laudatory articles, at so much a line, and assuring himself of their aid by presents of shares when new issues were placed on the market. And then, too, there was the daily campaign carried on under his orders in 'L'Espérance,' not a violent campaign of approbation, but an explanatory and even argumentative one, a slow fashion of seizing hold of the public and strangling it.

It was to talk about the paper that Saccard had shut himself up with Jantrou that afternoon. In the morning issue he had found an article by Huret teeming with such extravagant praise of a speech made by Rougon in the Chamber the day before, that he had entered into a violent rage, and was waiting for the deputy, to have an explanation with him. Did they suppose that he was his brother's hireling? Was he paid to compromise the journal's line of conduct by unreserved approval of the Minister's slightest acts? Jantrou smiled silently when he heard him speak of the journal's line of conduct. Still, as the storm did not threaten to burst upon his own shoulders, he listened to him calmly, examining his finger-nails the while. With the cynicism of a disillusioned man of letters, he had the most perfect contempt for literature, for both 'one' and 'two,' as he said, alluding to the pages of the paper upon which the articles, even his own, appeared; and he only began to evince any interest on reaching the advertisements. He now wore the newest of clothes—closely girt in an elegant frock coat, his button-hole blooming with a brilliant rosette of various colours; in summer carrying a light-coloured overcoat on his arm, in winter buried in a furcoat costing a hundred louis; and showing himself especially careful with regard to his head-gear, his hat always being irreproachable, glittering indeed like a mirror. But with all this there were still certain gaps in his elegance; a vague suspicion of uncleanliness persisting underneath, the old filth of the ex-professor fallen from the Bordeaux Lycée to the Paris Bourse, his skin penetrated, stained by the dirt in which he had lived for ten years; so that, amid the arrogant assurance of his new fortune, he still frequently evinced base humility, making himself very small and humble in the sudden fear of receiving some kick from behind, as in former times.

He now made a hundred thousand francs a year, and spent double the amount, nobody knew how, for he paraded no mistress, but was probably consumed by some awful vice, the secret cause which had driven him from the University. Absinthe, moreover, had been gradually devouring him ever since his days of poverty, and in the luxurious club-house of to-day continued the work begun in the low-class cafés of former times, mowing off his last hairs, and imparting a leaden hue to his skull and face, of which his black, fan-shaped beard remained the sole glory. And Saccard having again invoked 'L'Espérance's' line of conduct, Jantrou stopped him with a gesture, with the weary air of a man who, not liking to waste his time in futile passion, had made up his mind to talk of serious matters, since Huret did not put in an appearance.

For some time the ex-professor had been nursing some new advertising ideas. He thought first of writing a pamphlet, some twenty pages long, about the great enterprises which the Universal Bank was launching—a pamphlet, however, which should have all the interest of a romance, and be couched in a dramatic and familiar style; and he wished to inundate the provinces with this pamphlet, to have it distributed gratuitously in the remotest country districts. Then he proposed to establish an agency, which should draw up and 'manifold' a daily bulletin of the Bourse, sending a hundred copies of it to the best papers in the various departments of France. This bulletin would be given away or sold at a nominal price, and in this wise they would soon have in their hands a powerful weapon, a force which every rival banking-house would have to recognise. Knowing Saccard, he thus primed him with his ideas, returning to the attack until the other had adopted them, made them his own, enlarged them to the point of really re-creating them.

In talk like this the minutes slipped away, and they came at last to the apportionment of the advertising funds for the next quarter, to the subsidies to be paid to the principal newspapers, to the terrible financial scribe employed by a hostile house whose silence it was necessary to purchase, and the course which they should take with regard to the approaching sale by auction of the fourth page of a very old and highly-respected print. And, amidst their prodigality with regard to all the money that they thus uproariously scattered to the four corners of heaven, you could detect what immense disdain they felt for the public, what contempt in which they, intelligent business men, held the dense ignorance of the masses—the masses which were ready to believe all stories, and were so incompetent to understand the complex operations of the Bourse that the most shameless traps caught passers-by, and made millions of money rain down.

Whilst Jordan was still striving to concoct fifty lines of 'copy' with which to complete his two columns, he was disturbed by Dejoie, who called him. 'Ah!' said the young fellow, 'is Monsieur Jantrou alone now?'

'No, monsieur, not yet. But your wife is here, and wants to see you.'

Very anxious, Jordan hurried out. For a few months past, since La Méchain had at last discovered that he was writing over his own name in 'L'Espérance,' he had been pursued by Busch for payment of the six notes of fifty francs each which he had formerly given to a tailor. He could have managed to pay the three hundred francs which the notes represented, but what exasperated him was the enormity of the costs, that total of seven hundred and thirty francs and fifteen centimes to which the debt had risen. He had entered into a compromise, however, and pledged himself to pay a hundred francs a month; and, as he could not manage it, his young household having more pressing needs, the costs rose higher yet every month, and the intolerable annoyances were ever beginning afresh.

Just then he was again passing through a serious crisis. 'What's the matter?' he asked his wife, whom he found in the ante-room.

But, before she could answer, the door of the director's office was thrown open, and Saccard appeared, shouting: 'I say, Dejoie—and Monsieur Huret?'

'Why, monsieur, he isn't here,' stammered the bewildered attendant; 'I cannot make him hurry.'

The door was closed again with an oath, and Jordan, having taken his wife into one of the adjoining offices, was there able to question her at his ease.

'What's the matter, darling?' he again asked.

Marcelle, usually so gay and brave, whose little, plump, dark person and clear countenance, with laughing eyes and healthy mouth, expressed happiness even in trying times, now seemed utterly upset. 'Oh, Paul, if you only knew!' she replied. 'A man came—oh! a frightful, ugly man—who smelt bad, and had been drinking, I think. Well, he told me that the matter was ended, that the sale of our furniture was fixed for to-morrow. And he had a placard, which he wanted to stick up at the street door.'

'But it is impossible!' cried Jordan. 'I have received nothing; there are other formalities to be observed.'

'Oh! you know still less about these matters than I do. When papers come, you do not even read them. Well, to keep him from putting up the placard I gave him forty sous, and hurried off to tell you.'

They were in despair. Their poor little home in the Avenue de Clichy! Those few little bits of furniture, of mahogany and blue rep, which they had purchased with such difficulty at so much a month, and of which they were so proud, although they sometimes laughed at them, finding them in execrable bourgeois taste! Still they loved them, because ever since their wedding night they had formed part of their happiness in those two little rooms over yonder, those little rooms which were so sunny, so open to space, with a view stretching away even to Mont Valérien. And he who had driven in so many nails, and she who had shown so much ingenuity to give the apartments an artistic appearance! Was it possible that all was going to be sold, that they were to be driven from that pretty nook, where even poverty was delightful to them?

'Listen,' said he, 'I was thinking of asking for an advance; I will do what I can, but I haven't much hope.'

Then, in a hesitating way, she confided her idea to him. 'This is what I have been thinking of,' said she. 'Oh! I would not have done it without your consent, as you may judge from the fact that I have come here to talk with you about it. Yes, I desire to apply to my parents.'

He promptly refused. 'No, no, never! You know very well that I don't wish to be under any obligation to them.'

The Maugendres certainly behaved in a decorous fashion. But Jordan retained in his heart a recollection of the coldness which they had shown him after the suicide of his father, whose fortune had been swept away in speculation. He remembered that they had then only consented to the long-planned marriage of their daughter because she was determined on it, and that they had taken all sorts of offensive precautions against himself, among others that of not giving a sou of dowry, convinced as they were that a fellow who wrote for the newspapers would devour everything. Later on, said they, their daughter would inherit their property. And so the young couple, she as well as he, had taken a certain pride in starving without asking anything of her parents apart from the meal which they took with them once a week, on Sunday evenings.

'I assure you,' she replied, 'our reserve is ridiculous, since I am their only child, since the whole must come to me some day! My father tells every one who will listen to him that he has acquired an income of fifteen thousand francs by his awning manufactory at La Villette; and then, too, there is their little residence, with its beautiful garden, to which they have retired. It is stupid for us to let ourselves be worried like this when they have a surfeit of everything. They have never been cruel to us, you know. I tell you that I am going to see them.'

She evinced a cheerful bravery, displayed a determined air, very practical in her desire to bring happiness to her dear husband, who worked so hard without yet having obtained anything from either the critics or the public, excepting a good deal of indifference and a few smacks. Ah! money, she would have liked to bring it to him by the bucketful, and he would be very stupid to be over particular about it, since she loved him and owed him everything. It was her fairy story, her 'Cinderella:' the treasures of her royal family, which with her little hands she deposited at the feet of her ruined prince, to keep him on in his march to glory and the conquest of the world.

'Come,' she gaily said, kissing him, 'I really must be of some use to you; all the pain must not be yours.'

He yielded; it was agreed that she should go straightway to the Rue Legendre, at Batignolles, where her parents lived, and that she should bring the money back to the office, in order that he might try to pay it that very evening. And, as he accompanied her to the stairs, as much agitated as though she were starting on a very dangerous expedition, they had to step aside to make room for Huret, who had at last arrived. When Jordan returned to finish his article in the contributors' room, he heard a violent hubbub of voices in Jantrou's office.

Saccard, now grown powerful, the master once more, wished to be obeyed, knowing that he held them all by the hope of gain and the terror of loss in that colossal game of fortune which he was playing with them.

'Ah! so here you are,' he shouted on seeing Huret. 'Did you stop at the Chamber to offer the great man your article in a gilt frame? I've had enough, you know, of this swinging of incense-burners under his nose, and I have been waiting for you to tell you that it must be stopped—that in future you must give us something else.'

Quite amazed, Huret looked at Jantrou. But the latter, thoroughly determined not to get himself into trouble by coming to the deputy's succour, had begun to pass his fingers through his handsome beard, his eyes wandering away.

'What! something else?' finally asked Huret; 'but I give you what you asked for. When you purchased "L'Espérance," the organ of extreme Catholicism and Royalty, which was carrying on such a bitter campaign against Rougon, you yourself asked me to write a series of laudatory articles in order to show your brother that you did not intend to be hostile to him, and in this wise to indicate the new policy of the paper.'

'The policy of the paper, precisely,' replied Saccard with increased violence; 'it is the policy of the paper that I accuse you of compromising. Do you think that I wish to be my brother's vassal? Certainly I have never been sparing of grateful admiration and affection for the Emperor; I don't forget what we all owe to him, what I in particular owe to him. But to point out the mistakes that are made is not the same thing as to attack the Empire; on the contrary, it is the duty imposed on every faithful subject. That, then, is the paper's policy—devotion to the dynasty, but entire independence with regard to Ministers, to all the ambitious individuals ever bestirring themselves and fighting together for the favour of the Tuileries!'

And then he launched into an examination of the political situation, in order to prove that the Emperor had bad advisers. He accused Rougon of having lost his authoritative energy, his former faith in absolute power, of compounding with liberal ideas for the sole purpose of retaining his ministerial portfolio. For his part, striking his chest with his fist, he declared himself to be unchangeable, a Bonapartist from the very first, a believer in the coup d'état, with the conviction that the salvation of France lay, to-day as well as formerly, in the genius and strength of a single man. Yes, rather than assist the evolution of his brother, rather than allow the Emperor to commit suicide by new concessions, he would rally the uncompromising believers in dictatorship together, make common cause with the Catholic party, in order to prevent the rapid downfall which he foresaw. And let Rougon take care, for 'L'Espérance' might resume its campaign in favour of Rome!

Huret and Jantrou listened to him, astonished at his wrath, never having suspected that he possessed such ardent political convictions. And it occurred to the former to try to defend the last acts of the Government.

'Well, my dear fellow,' said he, 'if the Empire is moving towards liberty, it is because all France is pushing it firmly in that direction. The Emperor is borne along with the current, and Rougon is obliged to follow him.'

But Saccard was already passing to other grievances, without a thought of making his attacks in any degree logical.

'And see,' said he, 'it is the same with our foreign situation; why, it is deplorable! Since the Treaty of Villafranca which followed upon Solferino, Italy has harboured resentment against us for not having finished the campaign and given her Venice; so that now she is allied with Prussia, in the certainty that the latter will help her to beat Austria. When war breaks out, you'll see what a row there'll be, and what a fix we shall be in; especially as we have made the great mistake of letting Bismarck and King William seize the Duchies in the Denmark affair, in contempt of a treaty which France herself had signed. It is a slap in the face, there's no denying it, and there is nothing for us to do now but to turn the other cheek. Oh! war is certain; you remember how French and Italian securities fell last month, when there was some talk of a possible intervention on our part in German affairs. Within a fortnight, perhaps, Europe will be on fire.'

More and more surprised, Huret became excited, contrary to his habit. 'You talk like the Opposition papers,' said he; 'but you certainly don't want "L'Espérance" to follow the lead of the "Siècle" and the others. There is nothing left for you but to insinuate, like those rags do, that, if the Emperor allowed himself to be humiliated in the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and let Prussia grow with impunity, it is because he had for many months kept an entire army corps in Mexico. Come, be a little fair; the Mexican affair is over, our troops are coming back. And then I do not understand you, my dear fellow. If you wish to keep Rome for the Pope, why do you seem to blame the hasty peace of Villafranca? Venice given to Italy means the Italians in Rome within two years; you know that as well as I do, and Rougon knows it too, although he swears the contrary in the tribune.'

'Ah! you see what a trickster he is!' shouted Saccard superbly. 'Never will they touch the Pope, do you hear me? without the whole of Catholic France rising up to defend him. We should carry him our money, yes! all the money of the Universal. I have my plan, our affair lies there, and really, if you keep on exasperating me, you will make me say things that I do not want to say as yet.'

Jantrou, very much interested, had suddenly pricked up his ears, beginning to understand, trying to profit by the remarks thus casually dropped.

'Well,' replied Huret, 'I want to know what to depend upon with regard to my articles, and we must come to an understanding. Are you for intervention or against intervention? If we are for the principle of nationalities, by what right are we to meddle with the affairs of Italy and Germany? Do you wish us to carry on a campaign against Bismarck? Yes! in the name of our menaced frontiers.'

But Saccard, erect, beside himself, burst out: 'What I want is that Rougon shall not make a fool of me any longer. What! after all that I have done! I buy a newspaper, the worst of his enemies; I make it an organ devoted to his policy; I allow you to sing his praises for months, and yet never has the beggar given us a single lift. I have still to receive the first service from him.'

Thereupon the deputy timidly remarked that the Minister's support had singularly aided the engineer Hamelin in the East, opening all doors to him, and exercising pressure upon influential personages.

'Oh, stuff and nonsense! He could not do otherwise. But has he ever sent me a word of warning the day before a rise or a fall, he who is so well placed to know everything? Remember, I have a score of times charged you to sound him, you who see him every day, and you have yet to bring me a useful bit of information. Yet it would not be such a serious matter—a simple word for you to repeat to me.'

'Undoubtedly. But he doesn't like that sort of thing; he says it is all jobbery, which a man always repents of.'

'Nonsense! Has he any such scruples with Gundermann? He plays the honest man with me, and he gives tips to Gundermann.'

'Oh, Gundermann, no doubt! They all need Gundermann; they could not float a loan without him.'

At this Saccard clapped his hands with a violent gesture of triumph. 'There we are, then; you confess it! The empire is sold to the Jews—the dirty Jews! All our money is doomed to fall into their thieving paws. There is nothing left for the Universal but to collapse before their omnipotence.'

And then he exhaled his hereditary hatred, again brought forward his charges against that race of traffickers and usurers for centuries on the march through the nations, sucking their blood, like the parasites of scab and itch, and, although spat upon and beaten, yet marching on to the certain conquest of the world, which they would some day possess by the invincible power of gold. And he was especially furious against Gundermann, giving way to his old resentment, to his unrealisable mad desire to strike that Jew down; and this in spite of a presentiment that he was the limit against which he (Saccard) would fall should he ever engage in a struggle with him. Ah, that Gundermann! a Prussian in the house, albeit born in France; for his sympathies were evidently with Prussia; he would willingly have supported her with his money, perhaps he was secretly supporting her even now! Had he not dared to say one evening, in a salon, that, if war should ever break out between Prussia and France, the latter would be vanquished?

'I have had enough of it; do you understand, Huret? and get this well into your head: that if my brother is of no service to me, I do not intend to be of any further service to him; When you have brought me a good word from him—I mean a "tip" that we can turn to account—I will allow you to resume your dithyrambs in his favour. Is that clear?'

It was too clear. Jantrou, who had again found his Saccard under the political theorist, had once more begun to comb his beard with his finger tips. But all this did not suit the wily peasant-like prudence of Huret, who was greatly annoyed, for he had staked his fortune upon the two brothers, and would have liked to quarrel with neither of them.

'You are right,' he murmured; 'let us act discreetly, especially as we must wait to see what will happen. And I promise you to do everything to obtain the great man's confidence. The first news that he gives me, I will jump into a cab and bring it to you.'

Having played his part, Saccard was already in a good humour again. 'It is for you all that I am working, my good friends,' said he. 'For my part, I have always been ruined, and I have always devoured a million a year.'

Then, reverting to the advertising, he continued: 'I say, Jantrou, you ought to make your Bourse bulletin a little more lively. Yes, you know, give us some jokes, some puns. The public like that sort of thing; there is nothing like wit to help them to swallow things. That's it, eh? some puns!'

It was the director's turn to be vexed. He prided himself on his literary distinction. But he had to promise. And thereupon, as he invented a story of some fashionable women who had offered to allow advertisements to be tattooed on their persons, the three men, laughing loudly, again became the best friends in the world.

Meanwhile Jordan had at last finished his article, and was impatiently awaiting his wife's return. Other contributors arrived; he chatted with them, and then went into the ante-room. And there he was a little scandalised to find Dejoie, with his ear against the door of the director's room, listening to all that was being said in it, while his daughter Nathalie kept watch.

'Do not go in,' stammered the attendant. 'Monsieur Saccard is still there—I thought I heard them call me.'

The truth was that, bitten by a fierce longing for gain ever since he had bought eight fully paid-up shares in the Universal with the four thousand francs which his wife had saved and left to him, he lived only for the delightful emotion of seeing these shares 'go up' in value; and ever on his knees before Saccard, drinking in his most trifling remarks, as though they had been oracular utterances, he could not resist his desire to become acquainted with his real thoughts, to hear what the demi-god said in the secrecy of his sanctuary. Moreover, there was no egotism in this; his only thought was for his daughter, and he had just become excited by the calculation that, at seven hundred and fifty francs apiece, his eight shares already represented a profit of twelve hundred francs, which, added to the capital sum, made five thousand two hundred francs. Another rise of a hundred francs, and he would have the six thousand francs he desired, the dowry which his neighbour, the mill-board maker, insisted upon as a condition of his son's marriage with the girl. At this thought, Dejoie's heart melted; and he gazed with tearful eyes at the child whom he had brought up, and whose real mother he had been in the happy little home which they had made together since he had taken her from her nurse.

However, he was very much put out at being surprised by Jordan, and sought to hide his indiscretion by saying whatever entered his head: 'Nathalie, who just came up to see me, met your wife out of doors, Monsieur Jordan.'

'Yes,' said the young girl; 'she was turning into the Rue Feydeau. Oh, she was running so fast!'

Her father allowed her to go out as she pleased, certain of her good behaviour, said he. And he did right to rely upon her, for she was really too cold, too determined to ensure her future happiness, to compromise by folly the marriage which had been so long looked forward to. With her slender figure, and her large eyes lighting up her pretty, pale, smiling face, she loved herself with egotistical obstinacy.

Jordan, surprised and at a loss to understand, exclaimed: 'What! you saw her in the Rue Feydeau?'

But he had not time to question the girl further, for at that moment Marcelle entered, out of breath. He forthwith took her into the adjoining office, but, finding the law-court reporter there, had to come out again and content himself with sitting down beside her on a little bench at the end of the passage.

'Well?'

'Well, dear, it is done, but not without trouble.'

Despite her satisfaction, he saw clearly that her heart was full; and she rapidly told him everything in a low voice, for in vain did she vow to hide certain things from him; she could keep no secrets.

For some time the Maugendres had been changing in their manner towards their daughter. She found them less affectionate, more preoccupied, slowly becoming the prey of a new passion—the passion for gambling. It was the usual story: the father, a stout, calm, bald man, with white whiskers; the mother, lean and active, earner in part of the common fortune; both living in too profuse a style on their fifteen thousand francs a year, and sorely worried at having nothing left to do. He, indeed, had nothing to occupy his attention, except the collection of his money. Formerly he had thundered against all speculation, and shrugged his shoulders with mingled wrath and pity in speaking of the poor fools who allowed themselves to be plucked in stupid, unclean, thieving Bourse transactions. But about this time, a considerable sum of money owing to him having been repaid, he conceived the idea of lending it against securities. That was not speculation, but a simple investment; only from that day forward he had contracted the habit of attentively reading the Bourse quotations in his paper after breakfast. And in this wise the evil took root; the fever gradually seized upon him at sight of the mad dance of securities, on breathing the poisonous atmosphere of the gambling world, and his mind became haunted by the thought of millions made in an hour, whereas he himself had spent thirty years in getting a few hundred thousand francs together. He could not help talking to his wife about it at each meal; what strokes he would have made if he hadn't sworn that he would never gamble! And he explained the operation; he manipulated his funds with all the skilful strategy of a carpet general, always ending by vanquishing his imaginary opponents, for he prided himself on having become wonderfully expert in such matters as options and lending money on securities.

His wife, growing anxious, declared that she would rather drown herself at once than see him risk a copper; but he reassured her. What did she take him for? Never in his life would he do such a thing! Yet an opportunity had offered; both had long desired to build a little greenhouse in their garden—a greenhouse costing from five to six thousand francs; and thus one evening, his hands trembling with a delightful emotion, he laid upon his wife's work table six notes of a thousand francs each, saying that he had just won them at the Bourse; a stroke which he had felt sure of, an indulgence which he promised he would never allow himself again, and on which he had only ventured because of the greenhouse. She, a prey to mingled anger and astonished delight, had not dared to scold him, and the following month he launched out into some transaction in options, explaining to her that he feared nothing since he limited his loss. Besides, there were some excellent chances among the lot, and it would have been very stupid of him to let others alone profit by them. And thus—it was fatal—he began to speculate, in a small way at first, but gradually more boldly, whilst she, tortured by anxiety, like a good prudent housewife, yet with her eyes sparkling at the slightest gain, continued to predict that he would die a beggar.

But it was especially Captain Chave, Madame Maugendre's brother, who blamed his brother-in-law. He, who could not live on his pension of eighteen hundred francs a year, speculated at the Bourse to be sure; but then he was the shrewdest of the shrewd; he went there as a clerk goes to his office, and embarked solely in cash transactions, brimming over with delight when he took his twenty-franc piece home in the evening. These were daily operations of the most certain sort, and so modest that there was no possibility of catastrophe. His sister had offered him a home in her house, which was too large now that Marcelle had married; but wishing to be free, he had refused, and tenanted a single room in the rear of a garden in the Rue Nollet. For years he had been cautioning Maugendre, telling him not to gamble, but to take life easily; and when the latter had cried, 'But you?' he had made a vigorous gesture. Oh! he! that was different; he hadn't got an income of fifteen thousand francs! If he gambled, it was the fault of that dirty Government which begrudged to its old soldiers the delights of their old age. His great argument against gambling was that the gambler is mathematically bound to lose: if he wins, he has to deduct brokerage and stamp tax; if he loses, he has to pay these taxes in addition to his loss. So that, even admitting that he wins as often as he loses, he is still out of pocket to the extent of the stamp tax and the brokerage. At the Paris Bourse these taxes annually produce the enormous total of eighty millions of francs. And he brandished those figures—eighty millions gathered in by the State, the brokers, and the bucket-shops!

Seated on the little bench at the end of the corridor, Marcelle told her husband a part of this story.

'I must say, dear, that my visit was ill-timed. Mamma was quarrelling with papa on account of some loss which he has met with at the Bourse. Yes, it appears that he never leaves it now. It seems so queer to me, he who formerly used to say that all men ought to earn their money by steady work. Well, they were disputing, and there was a newspaper, the "Côte Financière," which mamma was flourishing under his nose, telling him that he didn't know anything, that she had foreseen the fall herself. Then he went for another paper, "L'Espérance," in fact, and wanted to show her the article from which he had got his information. Indeed, the house is full of newspapers; they stuff themselves with them from morning till night, and I believe—God forgive me!—that mamma is beginning to speculate too, in spite of her furious air.'

Jordan could not help laughing, so amusingly did she mimic the scene amidst all her sorrow.

'Well, I told them of our worry, and asked them to lend us two hundred francs to stop the proceedings. And if you had only heard how they cried out! Two hundred francs, when they had lost two thousand at the Bourse! Was I laughing at them? Did I want to ruin them? Never had I seen them in such a state. They who were so kind to me, who would have spent their all in making me presents! They must really be going mad, for there is no sense in making their lives wretched in this fashion when they could be so happy in their beautiful house, with nothing to worry them, no care but to live at their ease on the fortune which they so painfully earned.'

'I certainly hope that you did not insist,' said Jordan.

'Why, yes, I did insist; and then they fell upon you. You see that I tell you everything; I had promised myself to keep this from you, and now it escapes me. They repeated to me that they had foreseen how it would be, that writing in the newspapers isn't a proper business for anyone, and that we should end by dying on the straw. Finally, as I was getting angry in my turn, and was just about to leave, the Captain came in. You know that Uncle Chave has always been very fond of me. Well, in his presence, they became reasonable, especially as he triumphed over papa by asking him if he meant to keep on getting himself robbed like that. Then mamma took me aside, and slipped fifty francs into my hand, saying that with that we could obtain a few days' delay, enough time to turn round.'

'Fifty francs! a pittance! And you accepted them?'

Marcelle had grasped his hands tenderly, calming him with her quiet good sense.

'Come, don't be angry. Yes, I accepted them, and I understood so well that you would never dare to take them to the process-server that I went at once myself to his office, you know, in the Rue Cadet. But just imagine! he refused to take the money, explaining that he had formal orders from M. Busch, and that M. Busch could alone stop the proceedings. Oh! that Busch! I hate nobody, but how he exasperates and disgusts me! Still, all the same, I ran off to his office in the Rue Feydeau and he had to content himself with the fifty francs; so there, here we are, with a little peace before us for a fortnight.'

Deep emotion had contracted Jordan's face, while the tears that he was restraining moistened his eyelids. 'You did that, little wife, you did that?' said he.

'Why yes, I did not wish you to be annoyed any further. What harm does it do to me to get a scolding if you are allowed to work in peace?'

She was laughing now, and forthwith she began to tell the story of her arrival at Busch's office amid all his dusty, grimy papers; the brutal way in which he had received her, his threats that he would not leave them a rag on their backs if the whole debt were not paid at once. The queer part was that she had given herself the treat of exasperating him by disputing his legal right to recover the debt, those three hundred francs represented by the notes, which costs had run up to no less than seven hundred and fifty francs and fifteen centimes, whereas he had probably found the papers in some bundle of old rags which hadn't perhaps cost him a hundred sous. On hearing this he had almost choked with fury; in the first place, said he, he had paid a very high price for the notes; and there was his lost time, and all the running about during a couple of years to discover the person who had signed them, and the intelligence that he had had to display in this hunt. Was he not to be repaid for all that? So much the worse for those who allowed themselves to be caught! All the same, however, he had ended by taking the fifty francs, for his prudent system was always to compromise.

'Ah! little wife, how brave you are, and how I love you!' said Jordan, impulsively kissing Marcelle, although the sub-editor was just passing. And then, lowering his voice, he asked: 'How much have you left at home?'

'Seven francs.'

'Good!' he rejoined, feeling quite happy, 'we can go two days on that, so I won't ask for an advance, which would surely be refused. Besides, it worries me so to ask. To-morrow I will go to see if the "Figaro" will take an article from me. Ah! if I had only finished my novel, and if that would sell a little!'

Marcelle kissed him in her turn. 'Yes, things will go on all right. Now you will come home with me, won't you? That will be so nice of you, and for to-morrow morning we'll buy a red herring at the corner of the Rue de Clichy, where I saw some splendid ones. To-night we have potatoes and bacon.'

Having asked a comrade to look at his proofs, Jordan started off with his wife. Saccard and Huret were also going away just then. In the street a brougham had stopped outside the newspaper office, and they saw the Baroness Sandorff step out. She bowed with a smile, and then went hurriedly up the stairs. She now sometimes visited Jantrou in this fashion, just by way of asking him if he knew of anything. In spite of his sudden rise, she still treated him as she had done in the days when he had presented himself at her father's house, bending double and soliciting orders. Her father had been a frightfully brutal man, and she could not forget how she had once seen him, when enraged by a heavy loss, kick Jantrou out of the door. And now that the ex-professor was at the fountain-head of information, she had again become familiar, and sought to extract tips from him.

'Well, is there nothing new?' she asked, when she had reached his office, where she would not even sit down.

'No, indeed; I know nothing.'

But she continued to look at him with a smile, persuaded that he was unwilling to speak. Then, to force him to be confidential, she began to talk of that stupid war, which was about to set Austria, Italy, and Prussia fighting. The world of speculation was panic-stricken; there had been a terrible fall in Italian funds, as well as in all securities for that matter. And she was very much worried, for she did not know how far she ought to follow the movement, already having heavy engagements for next settling-day.

'Doesn't your husband give you any information?' asked Jantrou jestingly. 'He is certainly in a good position to do so, at the Embassy.'

'Oh! my husband,' she murmured, with a disdainful gesture: 'my husband, I get nothing out of him.'

He continued to laugh at her expense, going so far as to allude to the Public Prosecutor, Delcambre, who was said to pay her losses when she consented to pay them at all. 'And your friends, don't they know anything, either at Court or at the Palais de Justice?'

She pretended not to understand, but, without taking her eyes off him, rejoined, in a supplicating tone: 'Come, be amiable yourself. You know something.'

'Amiable, why should I be?' said he, laughing, with an embarrassed air. 'You are scarcely amiable with me.'

Straightway she became grave again, and a stern expression came into her eyes. That man, whom her father had received with kicks—ah! never! And she turned her back upon him to go away when, out of spite, seeking to wound her, he added: 'You just met Saccard at the door, didn't you? Why didn't you question him? He wouldn't refuse you.'

She suddenly stepped back. 'What do you mean?'

'Why, whatever you please. Oh, don't pretend to be mystified!'

A feeling of revolt filled her; all the pride of her race, still alive, rose out of the troubled depths, the mire in which her gambling passion was slowly, gradually drowning it. However, she did not indulge in an outburst, but in a clear, severe tone of voice simply said: 'Ah! my dear sir, what do you take me for? You are mad. No, I have nothing in common with your Saccard, because I didn't choose.'

Thereupon he saluted her with a profound bow. 'Well, madame, you made a very great mistake. You, who are always seeking "tips," could easily obtain them from that gentleman.'

At this she made up her mind to laugh; however, when she shook hands with him, he felt that hers was quite cold.

The month of June went by; on the 15th Italy had declared war against Austria. On the other hand, Prussia in scarcely a couple of weeks had, by a lightning march, invaded Hanover and conquered the two Hesses, Baden, and Saxony, surprising the unarmed populations in full peace. France had not budged; well-informed people whispered very softly at the Bourse that she had had a secret understanding with Prussia ever since Bismarck had met the Emperor at Biarritz, and folks talked mysteriously of the 'compensations' which she was to receive for her neutrality. But none the less, the fall in public funds, and almost all securities, went on in the most disastrous fashion. When the news of Sadowa, that sudden thunderbolt, reached Paris on the 4th of July, there was a collapse of every kind of stock. Folks believed in an obstinate prolongation of the war; for though Austria was beaten by Prussia, she had defeated Italy at Custozza, and it was already said that she was gathering the remnants of her army together, abandoning Bohemia. Orders to sell rained upon the corbeille; and buyers were not to be found.

On July 4, Saccard, calling at the office of the paper rather late, about six o'clock, did not find Jantrou there, for the editor's passions were now leading him into very disorderly courses. He would suddenly disappear for a time, returning invariably with a worn-out look and dim, bleared eyes. Women and drink were playing havoc with him. At the hour when Saccard arrived the office was emptying. There was scarcely a soul left there excepting Dejoie, who was dining at a corner of his little table in the ante-room; and Saccard, after writing a couple of letters, was in his turn about to take himself off when Huret, as red as a turkey-cock, rushed in like a whirlwind, not even taking the trouble to close the doors behind him.

'My dear fellow, my dear fellow!' he began; but he was almost stifling, and had to stop and carry both hands to his chest. 'I have just left Rougon,' he added at last; 'I had to run, because I hadn't got a cab. But eventually I found one. Rougon has received a despatch from over yonder; I've seen it! Such news! such news!'

With a violent wave of the arm, Saccard cut him short, and hastened to close the door, for he had caught sight of Dejoie, who was already on the prowl, with ears on the alert.

'Well, what?' he then asked.

'Well, the Emperor of Austria hands Venetia over to the Emperor of the French and accepts his mediation, so that Napoleon is now about to address himself to the Kings of Prussia and Italy with the view of bringing about an armistice.'

A moment's silence ensued.

'That means peace, eh?' said Saccard.

'Evidently.'

Thunderstruck, no idea as yet occurring to him, Saccard gave vent to an oath. 'D—— it! And everybody at the Bourse is speculating for a further fall!' Then, in a mechanical way, he added: 'And does nobody know this news?'

'No, it's a confidential despatch. There won't even be any announcement in the "Moniteur" to-morrow morning. In all probability, Paris will know nothing for four and twenty hours.'

Then the flash of lightning, the sudden inspiration, came to Saccard. He again rushed to the door and opened it to see if anyone were listening. He was quite beside himself, and when he came back he planted himself in front of the deputy and seized hold of both lapels of his coat. 'Keep quiet, not so loud!' said he. 'We are masters of the situation if Gundermann and his gang are not warned. Not a word, do you hear?—not a word to a living soul, to any of your friends, to your wife even! It happens luckily! Jantrou isn't here, the secret will be ours alone, and we shall have time to act. Oh, I don't mean to work merely for my own profit! You are in it, all our colleagues of the Universal too. Only a secret must never be confided to a lot of people. Everything would be lost if there were the slightest indiscretion before the opening of the Bourse to-morrow.'

Huret, who was greatly disturbed, quite upset in fact, by the magnitude of the stroke which they were about to attempt, promised to speak to no one. And then, deciding that they must open the campaign at once, they divided the work between them. Saccard had already taken up his hat when a last question came to his lips.

'So it was Rougon who told you to bring me this news?'

'To be sure,' replied Huret.

He had hesitated, however, in giving this answer, and, in point of fact, he lied. The despatch had simply been lying on the Minister's table, and curiosity had prompted him to read it while he was left alone in Rougon's room for a few moments. However, as his interest lay in furthering a cordial understanding between the two brothers, his lie seemed to him a very adroit one, the more so as he knew that they had little desire to see each other and talk about such things.

'Well,' said Saccard, 'there's no denying it, he's done me a good turn this time. And now let's be off!'

Dejoie was still the only person in the ante-room. He had striven to hear them, but had been unable to catch a single distinct word. Nevertheless, they divined that he was in a feverish state; and indeed he had scented the huge prey they were after. It might be invisible, but there was a smell of money in the air, and to such a degree did it disturb him that he impulsively rushed to the window on the landing to see them cross the courtyard.

The difficulty lay in acting with the greatest possible speed and the greatest possible caution at one and the same time. And so, on reaching the street, they parted company—Huret undertaking to deal with the 'Petite Bourse,' held on the Boulevards in the evening, whilst Saccard, late though it was, rushed off in search of brokers and jobbers to give them orders for the purchase of stock. He wished to divide and scatter these orders as much as possible, in order not to arouse any suspicion; and, moreover, he wished to meet these brokers and jobbers as though by chance instead of hunting them up at home, which might have appeared singular. Luck came to his help. While walking down the Boulevard he met Jacoby, with whom he joked and chatted for a while, and before leaving him he managed to give him a rather heavy order without provoking undue astonishment. A hundred steps further on he fell in with a tall, fair-haired girl whom he knew to be the mistress of another broker, Delarocque, Jacoby's brother-in-law; and as she said that she expected to see him a little later, Saccard asked her to give him his card, on which he wrote a few words in pencil.

Then, knowing that Mazaud meant to attend a banquet of old schoolfellows that evening, he contrived to be at the restaurant where it was held when the broker arrived there, and reversed the orders which he had given him earlier in the day. But his greatest piece of luck was to come. About midnight, whilst he was on his way home, he was accosted by Massias, who was just leaving the Théâtre des Variétés. They walked towards the Rue St. Lazare together, and on the way Saccard had all the time necessary to pose as an eccentric fellow who believed in a rise. Oh! not at once, of course. However, playing his part, he ended by giving Massias numerous orders for Nathansohn and other coulissiers, saying as he did so that he was acting on behalf of a group of friends, which after all was true. When he went to bed, he had taken up position as a 'bull,' with orders representing more than five millions of francs.

At seven o'clock the next morning Huret called on Saccard and acquainted him with what he had done at the Petite Bourse held on the Boulevard in front of the Passage de l'Opéra. Here he had bought as much as he could, but in a prudent way, so as not to bring about any undue rise in prices. His orders represented a million francs; and both, judging the stroke to be so far too modest a one, resolved to renew the campaign. For this they had all the morning before them. Before doing anything, however, they rushed upon the newspapers, trembling with the fear that they might find the news printed in them—a paragraph, a mere line which would annihilate all their plans. But no! the Press knew nothing. It believed in the continuation of the war, and every paper was full of telegrams giving detailed accounts of the battle of Sadowa. If no report should leak out before two in the afternoon, if they should have an hour before them when the Bourse opened, they would, as Saccard put it, make a clear sweep at the cost of the Jews. And then they again parted company, each on his own side hastening to bring fresh millions into the field.

Saccard spent that morning in tramping the streets and sniffing the air, experiencing such a desire to walk that he sent his brougham home after his first call. Whilst in the Rue Vivienne he looked in at Kolb's, where the jingle of gold fell delightfully on his ears, like some promise of victory; and he had sufficient strength of mind to say nothing to the banker, who, he found, knew nothing himself. Then he went up to Mazaud's, not to give any fresh order, but simply to feign anxiety respecting the one that he had given the night before; and here also they were still in utter ignorance of the truth. Little Flory alone caused him some anxiety by the persistent way in which he hovered about him, but the sole cause of this was the young clerk's profound admiration for the financial intelligence of the manager of the Universal Bank. As his friend Mademoiselle Chuchu was becoming a source of considerable expense to him, he had begun to speculate in a small way on his own account, and longed to know what orders the great man might give, so as to follow his lead.

At last, after a hasty repast at Champeaux', where he experienced profound delight at hearing the pessimist lamentations of Moser, and even Pillerault, both of whom predicted a further fall in prices, Saccard found himself upon the Place de la Bourse. It was only half-past twelve; but, as he put it, he wished to see everyone arrive. The heat was overpowering; fierce sun-rays streamed down, whitening the steps, whose reflections imparted to the peristyle the oppressive, burning temperature of an oven. The unoccupied chairs were crackling in this fiery air, whilst the speculators stood up seeking the protection of the narrow shadows which the columns cast.

Under a tree in the garden Saccard caught sight of Busch and La Méchain, who, on perceiving him, began talking with animation; and he even fancied that they were about to approach him when all at once they changed their minds. Was it possible that the news was known by these low ragpickers of the Bourse, who were ever scouring the gutters for such securities as might fall into them? For a moment he shuddered. But he heard himself called by name, and recognised Maugendre and Captain Chave seated on a bench and quarrelling together; for the former was now always jeering at the captain's paltry ventures, which resulted in the gain of no more than a louis a day, just as might have been the case in some little country café after innumerable hard-fought games of piquet. Come, now, said Maugendre, could he not venture on a serious stroke that afternoon in all security? Was not a fresh fall certain, as sure to come as the sun was shining above them? And he called upon Saccard to corroborate him. Was it not certain that there would be a fall? For his own part, he had staked heavily on the fall, so convinced of its coming that he would have ventured his entire fortune. Saccard responded to this direct question by smiling and tossing his head in an indefinite sort of way, feeling meantime a twinge of remorse at the thought that he could not warn this poor man whom he had known so industrious and clear-headed in the days when he sold awnings. However, he had sworn to be dumb, and was swayed by the ferocity of the gambler who has resolved that he will do nothing that may interfere with luck.

Just then, too, a fresh incident diverted his attention. The Baroness Sandorff's brougham passed by. He watched it, and saw that on this occasion it drew up in the Rue de la Banque. And all at once he bethought himself of Baron Sandorff, the Councillor at the Austrian Embassy. The Baroness must surely know the news, and would doubtless spoil everything by some piece of feminine clumsiness. He had already crossed the street, and began prowling around the brougham, which stood there motionless and silent, destitute of all signs of life, with the coachman stiffly erect upon his box. However, one of the windows was at last lowered, and thereupon Saccard gallantly bowed and drew near.

'Well, Monsieur Saccard,' said the Baroness, 'prices are still falling, I suppose?'

He fancied that she was preparing a trap for him. 'Why, yes, madame,' he replied.

Then as she looked at him anxiously, with the wavering expression which he had so often known among gamblers, he realised that she herself knew no more than the others. A stream of hot blood thereupon ascended to his brain, filling him with a sensation of beatitude.

'So you have nothing to tell me, Monsieur Saccard?' she resumed.

'Why, no, madame, nothing but what you must already know.'

And thereupon he left her, thinking as he walked away: 'You have been none too amiable with me, and it will amuse me to see you get a ducking.'

As he was returning to the Place de la Bourse again, the sight of Gundermann, whom he espied in the distance emerging from the Rue Vivienne, made his heart flutter once more. There could be no doubt of it; distance might shorten the great Baron's figure, but it was indeed he, walking slowly as was his wont, carrying his pale head erect without looking at anybody, as though, in the midst of all that crowd, he were alone in his royalty. And Saccard watched him with a feeling of terror, seeking to interpret each movement that he made. On seeing Nathansohn approach him, he imagined that all was lost. But his hopes revived when he saw the coulissier draw back with a discomfited air. No, there was certainly nothing unusual about the great banker; he had his every-day look. And all at once Saccard's heart leapt with joy, for Gundermann had just entered the confectioner's shop to make his customary purchase of sweetmeats for his little grand-daughters; and that was a sure sign of his knowing nothing, for he never set foot in the shop on days of crisis.

One o'clock struck and the bell announced the opening of the market. It was a memorable Bourse, one of those great days of disaster—disaster caused by a totally unexpected rise—which are so rare that they remain legendary. At the outset, amid the overpowering heat, prices fell yet lower. Then some sudden isolated purchases—the desultory fire of skirmishers, as it were, before the opening of a battle—provoked astonishment. But amidst the general distrust, things still remained dull and heavy, when all at once the number of purchases began to increase, demands sprang up in all directions, and Nathansohn at the coulisse under the colonnade, and Mazaud, Jacoby, and Delarocque in the corbeille within the building, were to be heard shouting that they would take any stock at any price. And then there was a tremor, a sudden ground-swell as it were, though nobody yet dared to rush into the fight, so inexplicable was this sudden change in the tone of the market.

Prices had but slightly risen, and Saccard had time to give Massias fresh orders for Nathansohn. Then, as little Flory passed by on the run, he asked him to hand Mazaud a fiche on which he had written a request to the broker to continue buying, to keep on at it indeed until he sent him word to stop. Flory read what was written on the fiche as he trotted off, and, fired with confidence, followed the great man's lead, at once effecting some purchases on his own account. And at a quarter to two o'clock the thunderbolt fell in the midst of the crowded Bourse. Austria surrendered Venetia to the Emperor; the war was over. Whence had the news arrived? Nobody knew; but it came simultaneously from every tongue, and, indeed, from the very flagstones. Someone had brought it, and all repeated it in a growing clamour, like the loud voice of an equinoctial tide. Prices then began to rise with furious bounds amidst the frightful uproar; and before the bell rang out the closing hour there was a difference of forty, fifty francs in many quotations. It was an indescribable mêlée—one of those battles in which confusion prevails, when soldiers and officers alike rush hither and thither, thinking only of saving their skins, but unable to do so because they are blinded, deafened, and no longer possess any clear idea of the situation. Perspiration streamed from the foreheads of the combatants, whilst the relentless sun beat upon the steps, wrapping the Bourse in the blaze of a conflagration.

When settling day came round, and it was possible to form an idea of the disaster, it proved an immense one. The battle-field was strewn with wounded and ruined. 'Bear' Moser was one of the most severely hit. Pillerault, who on this one occasion had despaired of a rise, paid dearly for his weakness. Maugendre was out of pocket to the tune of fifty thousand francs, his first serious loss. The Baroness Sandorff had such heavy differences to make good that Delcambre, it was reported, refused to pay for her; and she turned quite white with rage and hatred at the mere mention of her husband, the Embassy councillor, who had held the despatch in his own hands before Rougon had ever seen it, and yet had not said a word to her on the subject. But the big bankers, the Jewish bankers especially, had been subjected to a terrible defeat—a real massacre, so to say. It was asserted that Gundermann, for his part, had lost eight millions of francs. And this astounded people. How was it that he had not been warned—he, the undisputed master of the market, to whom Cabinet Ministers were but clerks and states, dependencies? There had evidently been one of those extraordinary combinations of circumstances which bring about great strokes of chance. It was an unforeseen, an idiotic disaster that had befallen the market, a disaster outside the pale of logic and reason.

However, the story spread, and Saccard passed for a great man. He had raked in nearly all the money lost by the 'bears.' Personally, he had put a couple of million francs in his pockets. The rest was to be placed in the coffers of the Universal Bank, or rather in the hands of the directors. With great difficulty he succeeded in persuading Madame Caroline that Hamelin's share of the plunder so legitimately gained from the Jews was a million. Huret, having helped in the work, had taken care to secure for himself a princely share of the booty. As for the others, the Daigremonts, the Bohains, they needed no pressing to accept what was offered them. Thanks and congratulations were voted to the eminent manager unanimously. And one heart especially was warm with gratitude to Saccard, the heart of little Flory, who had gained ten thousand francs, a small fortune, which would enable him to live with Chuchu in a little nest in the Rue Condorcet, and join Gustave Sédille and other friends at expensive restaurants in the evening. As for Jantrou, it was found necessary to make him a considerable present, as he was very angry at not having been forewarned. Dejoie alone remained in the dumps, fated to experience eternal regret at having one evening scented fortune vaguely, mysteriously passing by in the air, all to no purpose.

This, Saccard's first triumph, seemed as it were some florescence of the Empire which now had attained its apogee. He became a part of the splendour of the reign, one of its glorious reflections. On the very evening when he waxed powerful and wealthy amidst so many shattered fortunes, at the very hour when the Bourse became but a field of ruin, all Paris adorned itself with bunting and illuminated as on the occasion of some great victory; and festivities at the Tuileries and rejoicings in the streets proclaimed Napoleon III. the master of Europe—so high and mighty that emperors and kings chose him as arbiter in their quarrels, and handed provinces over to him that he might dispose of them between them. No doubt there were protests at the Chamber of Deputies; prophets of misfortune confusedly predicted a terrible future. Prussia increased, strengthened by all that France had tolerated, Austria beaten, and Italy ungrateful. But bursts of laughter and shouts of anger drowned those anxious voices; and on the morrow of Sadowa, Paris, the centre of the world, set all her avenues and monuments ablaze with illuminations, pending the coming of those black, icy nights, those gasless nights, through which the red fuses of shells were destined to wing their flight.

Overflowing with success, Saccard that evening walked the streets, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Élysées, all the footways where lampions were lighted. Carried along in the full-tide stream of promenaders, his eyes dazzled by the day-like brilliancy, it was possible for him to imagine that folks had illuminated in his honour. For was he not also an unexpected conqueror, one who rose to increased power in the midst of the disasters of others? A single annoyance tempered his satisfaction—the anger displayed by Rougon, who, in a terrible fury, on realising the origin of the Bourse stroke, had given Huret his dismissal. So the great man had not shown himself a good brother by sending him (Saccard) the all-important news. Must he dispense with that high patronage? must he even attack the omnipotent Minister? All at once, while he was standing in front of the Palace of the Legion of Honour, which was surmounted by a gigantic cross of fire, glowing brightly against the black sky, he boldly resolved to do so on the day when he should feel himself sufficiently strong. And then, intoxicated by the songs of the crowd and the flapping of the flags, he retraced his steps through flaming Paris to the Rue Saint Lazare.