Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honoré de Balzac (e reader TXT) 📕

the notes in their cover; "this is a secret between the police and the law. The judge will estimate its value, but Monsieur and Madame Camusot must know nothing of it."

"As if I needed telling that!" said his wife.

"Lucien is guilty," he went on; "but of what?"

"A man who is the favorite of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of the Comtesse de Serizy, and loved by Clotilde de Grandlieu, is not guilty," said Amelie. "The other _must_ be answerable for everything."

"But Lucien is his accomplice," cried Camusot.

"Take my advice," said Amelie. "Restore this priest to the diplomatic career he so greatly adorns, exculpate this little wretch, and find some other criminal----"

"How you run on!" said the magistrate with a smile. "Women go to the point, plunging through the law as birds fly through the air, and find nothing to stop them."

"But," said Amelie, "whether he is a diplomate or a convict, the Abbe Carlos will find some one to get him out of the scrape."

"I am only a considering cap; you are the brain," said Camusot.

"Well, the sitting is closed; give your Melie a kiss; it is one o'clock."

And Madame Camusot went to bed, leaving her husband to arrange his papers and his ideas in preparation for the task of examining the two prisoners next morning.


And thus, while the prison vans were conveying Jacques Collin and Lucien to the Conciergerie, the examining judge, having breakfasted, was making his way across Paris on foot, after the unpretentious fashion of Parisian magistrates, to go to his chambers, where all the documents in the case were laid ready for him.

This was the way of it: Every examining judge has a head-clerk, a sort of sworn legal secretary--a race that perpetuates itself without any premiums or encouragement, producing a number of excellent souls in whom secrecy is natural and incorruptible. From the origin of the Parlement to the present day, no case has ever been known at the Palais de Justice of any gossip or indiscretion on the part of a clerk bound to the Courts of Inquiry. Gentil sold the release given by Louise de Savoie to Semblancay; a War Office clerk sold the plan of the Russian campaign to Czernitchef; and these traitors were more or less rich. The prospect of a post in the Palais and professional conscientiousness are enough to make a judge's clerk a successful rival of the tomb--for the tomb has betrayed many secrets since chemistry has made such progress.

This official is, in fact, the magistrate's pen. It will be understood by many readers that a man may gladly be the shaft of a machine, while they wonder why he is content to remain a bolt; still a bolt is content--perhaps the machinery terrifies him.

Camusot's clerk, a young man of two-and-twenty, named Coquart, had come in the morning to fetch all the documents and the judge's notes, and laid everything ready in his chambers, while the lawyer himself was wandering along the quays, looking at the curiosities in the shops, and wondering within himself:--

"How on earth am I to set to work with such a clever rascal as this Jacques Collin, supposing it is he? The head of the Safety will know him. I must look as if I knew what I was about, if only for the sake of the police! I see so many insuperable difficulties, that the best plan would be to enlighten the Marquise and the Duchess by showing them the notes of the police, and I should avenge my father, from whom Lucien stole Coralie.--If I can unveil these scoundrels, my skill will be loudly proclaimed, and Lucien will soon be thrown over by his friends.--Well, well, the examination will settle all that."

He turned into a curiosity shop, tempted by a Boule clock.

"Not to be false to my conscience, and yet to oblige two great ladies--that will be a triumph of skill," thought he. "What, do you collect coins too, monsieur?" said Camusot to the Public Prosecutor, whom he found in the shop.

"It is a taste dear to all dispensers of justice," said the Comte de Granville, laughing. "They look at the reverse side of every medal."

And after looking about the shop for some minutes, as if continuing his search, he accompanied Camusot on his way down the quay without it ever occurring to Camusot that anything but chance had brought them together.

"You are examining Monsieur de Rubempre this morning," said the Public Prosecutor. "Poor fellow--I liked him."

"There are several charges against him," said Camusot.

"Yes, I saw the police papers; but some of the information came from an agent who is independent of the Prefet, the notorious Corentin, who had caused the death of more innocent men than you will ever send guilty men to the scaffold, and----But that rascal is out of your reach.--Without trying to influence the conscience of such a magistrate as you are, I may point out to you that if you could be perfectly sure that Lucien was ignorant of the contents of that woman's will, it would be self-evident that he had no interest in her death, for she gave him enormous sums of money."

"We can prove his absence at the time when this Esther was poisoned," said Camusot. "He was at Fontainebleau, on the watch for Mademoiselle de Grandlieu and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt."

"And he still cherished such hopes of marrying Mademoiselle de Grandlieu," said the Public Prosecutor--"I have it from the Duchesse de Grandlieu herself--that it is inconceivable that such a clever young fellow should compromise his chances by a perfectly aimless crime."

"Yes," said Camusot, "especially if Esther gave him all she got."

"Derville and Nucingen both say that she died in ignorance of the inheritance she had long since come into," added Granville.

"But then what do you suppose is the meaning of it all?" asked Camusot. "For there is something at the bottom of it."

"A crime committed by some servant," said the Public Prosecutor.

"Unfortunately," remarked Camusot, "it would be quite like Jacques Collin--for the Spanish priest is certainly none other than that escaped convict--to have taken possession of the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs derived from the sale of the certificate of shares given to Esther by Nucingen."

"Weigh everything with care, my dear Camusot. Be prudent. The Abbe Carlos Herrera has diplomatic connections; still, an envoy who had committed a crime would not be sheltered by his position. Is he or is he not the Abbe Carlos Herrera? That is the important question."

And Monsieur de Granville bowed, and turned away, as requiring no answer.

"So he too wants to save Lucien!" thought Camusot, going on by the Quai des Lunettes, while the Public Prosecutor entered the Palais through the Cour de Harlay.

On reaching the courtyard of the Conciergerie, Camusot went to the Governor's room and led him into the middle of the pavement, where no one could overhear them.

"My dear sir, do me the favor of going to La Force, and inquiring of your colleague there whether he happens at this moment to have there any convicts who were on the hulks at Toulon between 1810 and 1815; or have you any imprisoned here? We will transfer those of La Force here for a few days, and you will let me know whether this so-called Spanish priest is known to them as Jacques Collin, otherwise _Trompe-la-Mort_."

"Very good, Monsieur Camusot.--But Bibi-Lupin is come..."

"What, already?" said the judge.

"He was at Melun. He was told that _Trompe-la-Mort_ had to be identified, and he smiled with joy. He awaits your orders."

"Send him to me."

The Governor was then able to lay before Monsieur Camusot Jacques Collin's request, and he described the man's deplorable condition.

"I intended to examine him first," replied the magistrate, "but not on account of his health. I received a note this morning from the Governor of La Force. Well, this rascal, who described himself to you as having been dying for twenty-four hours past, slept so soundly that they went into his cell there, with the doctor for whom the Governor had sent, without his hearing them; the doctor did not even feel his pulse, he left him to sleep--which proves that his conscience is as tough as his health. I shall accept this feigned illness only so far as it may enable me to study my man," added Monsieur Camusot, smiling.

"We live to learn every day with these various grades of prisoners," said the Governor of the prison.

The Prefecture of police adjoins the Conciergerie, and the magistrates, like the Governor, knowing all the subterranean passages, can get to and fro with the greatest rapidity. This explains the miraculous ease with which information can be conveyed, during the sitting of the Courts, to the officials and the presidents of the Assize Courts. And by the time Monsieur Camusot had reached the top of the stairs leading to his chambers, Bibi-Lupin was there too, having come by the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_.

"What zeal!" said Camusot, with a smile.

"Ah, well, you see if it is _he_," replied the man, "you will see great fun in the prison-yard if by chance there are any old stagers here."

"Why?"

"_Trompe-la-Mort_ sneaked their chips, and I know that they have vowed to be the death of him."

_They_ were the convicts whose money, intrusted to _Trompe-la-Mort_, had all been made away with by him for Lucien, as has been told.

"Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his former arrest?"

"Give me two summonses of witnesses and I will find you some to-day."

"Coquart," said the lawyer, as he took off his gloves, and placed his hat and stick in a corner, "fill up two summonses by monsieur's directions."

He looked at himself in the glass over the chimney shelf, where stood, in the place of a clock, a basin and jug. On one side was a bottle of water and a glass, on the other a lamp. He rang the bell; his usher came in a few minutes after.

"Is anybody here for me yet?" he asked the man, whose business it was to receive the witnesses, to verify their summons, and to set them in the order of their arrival.

"Yes, sir."

"Take their names, and bring me the list."

The examining judges, to save time, are often obliged to carry on several inquiries at once. Hence the long waiting inflicted on the witnesses, who have seats in the ushers' hall, where the judges' bells are constantly ringing.

"And then," Camusot went on, "bring up the Abbe Carlos Herrera."

"Ah, ha! I was told that he was a priest in Spanish. Pooh! It is a new edition of Collet, Monsieur Camusot," said the head of the Safety department.

"There is nothing new!" replied Camusot.

And he signed the two formidable documents which alarm everybody, even the most innocent witnesses, whom the law thus requires to appear, under severe penalties in case of failure.


By this time Jacques Collin had, about half an hour since, finished his deep meditations, and was armed for the fray. Nothing is more perfectly characteristic of this type of the mob in rebellion against the law than the few words he had written on the greasy scraps of paper.

The sense of the first--for it was written in the language, the very slang of slang, agreed upon by Asie and himself, a cipher of words--was as follows:--