A Second Home [16]
to let her mother speak.
"They brought a priest--to hear my confession, as they said.--Beware, Caroline!" cried the old woman with an effort, "the priest made me tell him your benefactor's name."
"But who can have told you, poor mother?"
The old woman died, trying to look knowingly cunning. If Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille had noted her mother's face she might have seen what no one ever will see--Death laughing.
To enter into the interests that lay beneath this introduction to my tale, we must for a moment forget the actors in it, and look back at certain previous incidents, of which the last was closely concerned with the death of Madame Crochard. The two parts will then form a whole--a story which, by a law peculiar to life in Paris, was made up of two distinct sets of actions.
Towards the close of the month of November 1805, a young barrister, aged about six-and-twenty, was going down the stairs of the hotel where the High Chancellor of the Empire resided, at about three o'clock one morning. Having reached the courtyard in full evening dress, under a keen frost, he could not help giving vent to an exclamation of dismay--qualified, however, by the spirit which rarely deserts a Frenchman--at seeing no hackney coach waiting outside the gates, and hearing no noises such as arise from the wooden shoes or harsh voices of the hackney-coachmen of Paris. The occasional pawing of the horses of the Chief Justice's carriage--the young man having left him still playing /bouillote/ with Cambaceres--alone rang out in the paved court, which was scarcely lighted by the carriage lamps. Suddenly the young lawyer felt a friendly hand on his shoulder, and turning round, found himself face to face with the Judge, to whom he bowed. As the footman let down the steps of his carriage, the old gentleman, who had served the Convention, suspected the junior's dilemma.
"All cats are gray in the dark," said he good-humoredly. "The Chief Justice cannot compromise himself by putting a pleader in the right way! Especially," he went on, "when the pleader is the nephew of an old colleague, one of the lights of the grand Council of State which gave France the Napoleonic Code."
At a gesture from the chief magistrate of France under the Empire, the foot-passenger got into the carriage.
"Where do you live?" asked the great man, before the footman who awaited his orders had closed the door.
"Quai des Augustins, monseigneur."
The horses started, and the young man found himself alone with the Minister, to whom he had vainly tried to speak before and after the sumptuous dinner given by Cambaceres; in fact, the great man had evidently avoided him throughout the evening.
"Well, Monsieur /de/ Granville, you are on the high road!"
"So long as I sit by your Excellency's side--"
"Nay, I am not jesting," said the Minister. "You were called two years since, and your defence in the case of Simeuse and Hauteserre had raised you high in your profession."
"I had supposed that my interest in those unfortunate emigres had done me no good."
"You are still very young," said the great man gravely. "But the High Chancellor," he went on, after a pause, "was greatly pleased with you this evening. Get a judgeship in the lower courts; we want men. The nephew of a man in whom Cambaceres and I take great interest must not remain in the background for lack of encouragement. Your uncle helped us to tide over a very stormy season, and services of that kind are not forgotten." The Minister sat silent for a few minutes. "Before long," he went on, "I shall have three vacancies open in the Lower Courts and in the Imperial Court in Paris. Come to see me, and take the place you prefer. Till then work hard, but do not be seen at my receptions. In the first place, I am overwhelmed with work; and besides that, your rivals may suspect your purpose and do you harm with the patron. Cambaceres and I, by not speaking a word to you this evening, have averted the accusation of favoritism."
As the great man ceased speaking, the carriage drew up on the Quai des
"They brought a priest--to hear my confession, as they said.--Beware, Caroline!" cried the old woman with an effort, "the priest made me tell him your benefactor's name."
"But who can have told you, poor mother?"
The old woman died, trying to look knowingly cunning. If Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille had noted her mother's face she might have seen what no one ever will see--Death laughing.
To enter into the interests that lay beneath this introduction to my tale, we must for a moment forget the actors in it, and look back at certain previous incidents, of which the last was closely concerned with the death of Madame Crochard. The two parts will then form a whole--a story which, by a law peculiar to life in Paris, was made up of two distinct sets of actions.
Towards the close of the month of November 1805, a young barrister, aged about six-and-twenty, was going down the stairs of the hotel where the High Chancellor of the Empire resided, at about three o'clock one morning. Having reached the courtyard in full evening dress, under a keen frost, he could not help giving vent to an exclamation of dismay--qualified, however, by the spirit which rarely deserts a Frenchman--at seeing no hackney coach waiting outside the gates, and hearing no noises such as arise from the wooden shoes or harsh voices of the hackney-coachmen of Paris. The occasional pawing of the horses of the Chief Justice's carriage--the young man having left him still playing /bouillote/ with Cambaceres--alone rang out in the paved court, which was scarcely lighted by the carriage lamps. Suddenly the young lawyer felt a friendly hand on his shoulder, and turning round, found himself face to face with the Judge, to whom he bowed. As the footman let down the steps of his carriage, the old gentleman, who had served the Convention, suspected the junior's dilemma.
"All cats are gray in the dark," said he good-humoredly. "The Chief Justice cannot compromise himself by putting a pleader in the right way! Especially," he went on, "when the pleader is the nephew of an old colleague, one of the lights of the grand Council of State which gave France the Napoleonic Code."
At a gesture from the chief magistrate of France under the Empire, the foot-passenger got into the carriage.
"Where do you live?" asked the great man, before the footman who awaited his orders had closed the door.
"Quai des Augustins, monseigneur."
The horses started, and the young man found himself alone with the Minister, to whom he had vainly tried to speak before and after the sumptuous dinner given by Cambaceres; in fact, the great man had evidently avoided him throughout the evening.
"Well, Monsieur /de/ Granville, you are on the high road!"
"So long as I sit by your Excellency's side--"
"Nay, I am not jesting," said the Minister. "You were called two years since, and your defence in the case of Simeuse and Hauteserre had raised you high in your profession."
"I had supposed that my interest in those unfortunate emigres had done me no good."
"You are still very young," said the great man gravely. "But the High Chancellor," he went on, after a pause, "was greatly pleased with you this evening. Get a judgeship in the lower courts; we want men. The nephew of a man in whom Cambaceres and I take great interest must not remain in the background for lack of encouragement. Your uncle helped us to tide over a very stormy season, and services of that kind are not forgotten." The Minister sat silent for a few minutes. "Before long," he went on, "I shall have three vacancies open in the Lower Courts and in the Imperial Court in Paris. Come to see me, and take the place you prefer. Till then work hard, but do not be seen at my receptions. In the first place, I am overwhelmed with work; and besides that, your rivals may suspect your purpose and do you harm with the patron. Cambaceres and I, by not speaking a word to you this evening, have averted the accusation of favoritism."
As the great man ceased speaking, the carriage drew up on the Quai des