Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau [46]
cafe David, where a few old merchants, like Pillerault, take their coffee in the evenings. There, the adoption of the son of his cook had been the subject of a few jests, such as might be addressed to a man much respected, for the iron-monger inspired respectful esteem, though he never sought it; his inward self-respect sufficed him. So when he lost the young man, two hundred friends followed the body to the cemetery. In those days he was heroic. His sorrow, restrained like that of all men who are strong without assumption, increased the sympathy felt in his neighborhood for the "worthy man,"--a term applied to Pillerault in a tone which broadened its meaning and ennobled it. The sobriety of Claude Pillerault, long become a habit, did not yield before the pleasures of an idle life when, on quitting his business, he sought the rest which drags down so many of the Parisian bourgeoisie. He kept up his former ways of life, and enlivened his old age by convictions and interests, which belonged, we must admit, to the extreme Left. Pillerault belonged to that working- men's party which the Revolution had fused with the bourgeoisie. The only blot upon his character was the importance he attached to the triumph of that party; he held to all the rights, to the liberty, and to the fruits of the Revolution; he believed that his peace of mind and his political stability were endangered by the Jesuits, whose secret power was proclaimed aloud by the Liberals, and menaced by the principles with which the "Constitutionnel" endowed Monsieur. He was quite consistent in his life and ideas; there was nothing narrow about his politics; he never insulted his adversaries, he dreaded courtiers and believed in republican virtues; he thought Manuel a pure man, General Foy a great one, Casimir Perier without ambition, Lafayette a political prophet, and Courier a worthy fellow. He had indeed some noble chimeras. The fine old man lived a family life; he went about among the Ragons, his niece Birotteau, the judge Popinot, Joseph Lebas, and his friend Matifat. Fifteen hundred francs a year sufficed for all his personal wants. As to the rest of his income he spent it on good deeds, and in presents to his great-niece; he gave a dinner four times a year to his friends, at Roland's, Rue du Hasard, and took them afterwards to the theatre. He played the part of those old bachelors on whom married women draw at sight for their amusements,--a country jaunt, the opera, the Montagnes-Beaujon, /et caetera/. Pillerault was made happy by the pleasure he gave; his joys were in the hearts of others. Though he had sold his business, he did not wish to leave the neighborhood to which all his habits tied him; and he took a small appartement of three rooms in the Rue des Bourdonnais on the fourth floor of an old house.
Just as the moral nature of Molineux could be seen in his strange interior, the pure and simple life of Pillerault was revealed by the arrangements of his modest home, consisting of an antechamber, a sitting-room, and a bed-room. Judged by dimensions, it was the cell of a Trappist. The antechamber, with a red-tiled floor, had only one window, screened by a cambric curtain with a red border; mahogany chairs, covered with reddish sheep's leather put on with gilt nails, walls hung with an olive-green paper, and otherwise decorated with the American Declaration of Independence, a portrait of Bonaparte as First Consul, and a representation of the battle of Austerlitz. The salon, decorated undoubtedly by an upholsterer, had a set of furniture with arched tops covered in yellow, a carpet, chimney ornaments of bronze without gilding, a painted chimney-board, a console bearing a vase of flowers under a glass case, a round table covered with a cloth, on which stood a liqueur-stand. The newness of this room proclaimed a sacrifice made by the old man to the conventions of the world; for he seldom received any one at home. In his bedroom, as plain as that of a monk or an old soldier (the two men best able to estimate life), a crucifix with a basin of holy-water first
Just as the moral nature of Molineux could be seen in his strange interior, the pure and simple life of Pillerault was revealed by the arrangements of his modest home, consisting of an antechamber, a sitting-room, and a bed-room. Judged by dimensions, it was the cell of a Trappist. The antechamber, with a red-tiled floor, had only one window, screened by a cambric curtain with a red border; mahogany chairs, covered with reddish sheep's leather put on with gilt nails, walls hung with an olive-green paper, and otherwise decorated with the American Declaration of Independence, a portrait of Bonaparte as First Consul, and a representation of the battle of Austerlitz. The salon, decorated undoubtedly by an upholsterer, had a set of furniture with arched tops covered in yellow, a carpet, chimney ornaments of bronze without gilding, a painted chimney-board, a console bearing a vase of flowers under a glass case, a round table covered with a cloth, on which stood a liqueur-stand. The newness of this room proclaimed a sacrifice made by the old man to the conventions of the world; for he seldom received any one at home. In his bedroom, as plain as that of a monk or an old soldier (the two men best able to estimate life), a crucifix with a basin of holy-water first