The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iii Part 14

To this appearance, or rather reality, M. Ferrand attached great importance. In the eyes of the vulgar, carelessness about comfort almost always pa.s.ses for disinterestedness; dirt, for austerity. Comparing the vast financial luxury of some notaries, or the costly toilets of their wives, to the dull abode of M. Ferrand, so opposed to elegance, expense, or splendour, clients felt a sort of respect for, or rather blind confidence in, a man who, according to his large practice and the fortune attributed to him, could say, like many of his professional brethren, my carriage, my evening party, my country-house, my box at the opera, etc. But, far from this, Jacques Ferrand lived with rigid economy; and thus deposits, investments, powers of attorney, in fact, all matters of trust and business requiring the most scrupulous and recognised integrity, acc.u.mulated in his hands.

Living thus meanly as he did, the notary lived in the way he liked. He detested the world, show, dearly purchased pleasures; and, even had it been otherwise, he would unhesitatingly have sacrificed his dearest inclinations to the appearances which he found it so profitable to a.s.sume.

A word or two on the character of the man. He was one of the children of the large family of misers. Misers are generally exhibited in a ridiculous and whimsical light; the worst do not go beyond egotism or harshness. The greater portion increase their fortune by continually investing; some (they are but few) lend at thirty per cent.; the most decided hardly venture any risk with their means; but it is almost an unheard-of thing for a miser to proceed to crime, even murder, in the acquisition of fresh wealth.

That is easily accounted for; avarice is especially a negative pa.s.sion.

The miser, in his incessant calculations, thinks more of becoming richer by not disbursing; in tightening around him, more and more, the limits of strict necessity, than he does of enriching himself at the cost of another; he is especially the martyr to preservation. Weak, timid, cunning, distrustful, and, above all, prudent and circ.u.mspect, never offensive, indifferent to the ills of his neighbour,--the miser at least never alludes to these ills,--he is, before all and above all, the man of certainty and surety; or, rather, he is only a miser because he believes only in the substantial, the hard gold which he has locked up in his chest. Speculations and loans, on even undoubted security, tempt him but little, for, how improbable soever it may be, they always offer a chance of loss, and he prefers rather to lose the interest of his money than expose his capital. A man so timorous will, therefore, seldom have the savage energy of the wretch who risks the galleys or his neck to lay hands on the wealth of another.

Risk is a word erased from the vocabulary of the miser. It is in this sense that Jacques Ferrand was, let us say, a very singular exception, perhaps a new variety of the genus Miser; for Jacques Ferrand did risk, and a great deal. He relied on his craft, which was excessive; on his hypocrisy, which was unbounded; on his intellect, which was elastic and fertile; on his boldness, which was devilish, in a.s.suring him impunity for his crimes, and they were already numerous.

Jacques Ferrand was a twofold exception. Usually these adventurous, energetic spirits, which do not recoil before any crime that will procure gold, are beset by turbulent pa.s.sions--gaming, dissipation, gluttony, or other pleasures. Jacques Ferrand knew none of these violent and stormy desires; cunning and patient as a forger, cruel and resolute as an a.s.sa.s.sin, he was as sober and regular as Harpagon. One pa.s.sion alone was active within him, and this we have seen too fatally exhibited in his early conduct to Louise. The loan of thirteen hundred francs to Morel at high interest was, in Ferrand's hands, a snare--a means of oppression and a source of profit. Sure of the lapidary's honesty, he was certain of being repaid in full some day or other. Still Louise's beauty must have made a deep impression on him to have made him lay out of a sum of money so advantageously placed.

Except this weakness, Jacques Ferrand loved gold only. He loved gold for gold's sake; not for the enjoyments it procured,--he was a stoic; not for the enjoyments it might procure,--he was not sufficiently poetical to enjoy speculatively, like some misers. With regard to what belonged to himself, he loved possession for possession's sake; with regard to what belonged to others, if it concerned a large deposit, for instance, liberally confided to his probity only, he experienced in returning this deposit the same agony, the same despair, as the goldsmith, Cardillac, did in separating himself from a casket of jewels which his own exquisite taste had fas.h.i.+oned into a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of art. With the notary, his character for extreme probity was his _chef-d'oeuvre_ of art; a deposit was to him a jewel, which he could not surrender but with poignant regrets. What care, what cunning, what stratagems, what skill, in a word, what art, did he use to attract this sum into his own strong box, still maintaining that extreme character for honour, which was beset with the most precious marks of confidence, like the pearls and diamonds in the golden diadems of Cardillac. The more this celebrated goldsmith approached perfection, they say, the more value did he attach to his ornaments, always considering the last as his _chef-d'oeuvre_, and being utterly distressed at giving it up. The more Jacques Ferrand grew perfect in crime, the more he clung to the open and constant marks of confidence which were showered upon him, always considering his last deceit as his _chef-d'oeuvre_.

We shall see in the sequel of this history that, by the aid of certain means really prodigious in plan and carrying out, he contrived to appropriate to himself, with impunity, several very considerable sums.

His secret and mysterious life gave him incessant and terrible emotions, such as gaming gives to the gambler. Against all other men's fortunes Jacques Ferrand staked his hypocrisy, his boldness, his head; and he played on velvet, as it is called, far out of the reach of human justice, which he vulgarly and energetically characterised as a chimney which might fall on one's head; for him to lose was only not to gain; and, moreover, he was so criminally gifted that, in his bitter irony, he saw a continued gain in boundless esteem, the unlimited confidence which he inspired, not only in a mult.i.tude of rich clients, but also in the smaller tradespeople and workmen of his district. A great many of these placed their money with him, saying, "He is not charitable, it is true; he is a devotee, and that's a pity; but he is much safer than the government or the savings-banks." In spite of his uncommon ability, this man had committed two of those mistakes from which the most skilful rogues do not always escape; forced by circ.u.mstances, it is true, he had a.s.sociated with himself two accomplices. This immense fault, as he called it, had been in part repaired; neither of his two a.s.sociates could destroy him without destroying themselves, and neither would have reaped from denunciation any other profit but of drawing down justice on themselves as well as on the notary; on this score he was quite easy.

Besides, he was not at the end of his crimes, and the disadvantages of accomplices.h.i.+p were balanced by the criminal aid which at times he still obtained.

A few words as to the personal appearance of M. Ferrand, and we will introduce the reader into the notary's study, where we shall encounter some of the princ.i.p.al personages in this recital.

M. Ferrand was fifty years of age, but did not appear forty; he was of middle height, with broad and stooping shoulders, powerful, thickset, strong-limbed, red-haired, and naturally as hirsute as a bear. His hair was flat on his temples, his forehead bald, his eyebrows scarcely perceptible; his bilious complexion was almost concealed by innumerable red spots, and, when strong emotion agitated him, his yellow and murky countenance was injected with blood, and became a livid red. His face was as flat as a death's head, as is vulgarly said; his nose thick and flat; his lips so thin, so imperceptible, that his mouth seemed incised in his face, and, when he smiled with his villainous and revolting air, his teeth seemed as though supplied by black and rotten fangs. His pallid face had an expression at once austere and devout, impa.s.sible and inflexible, cold and reflective; whilst his small, black, animated, peering, and restless eyes were lost behind large green spectacles.

Jacques Ferrand saw admirably well; but, sheltered by his gla.s.ses, he had an immense advantage; he could observe without being observed; and well he knew how often a glance is unwittingly full of meaning. In spite of his imperturbable audacity, he had met twice or thrice in his life certain potent and magnetic looks, before which his own had compulsorily been lowered; and in some important circ.u.mstances it is fatal to lower the eyes before the man who interrogates, accuses, or judges you. The large spectacles of M. Ferrand were thus a kind of covert retrenchment, whence he could reconnoitre and observe every movement of the enemy; and all the world was the notary's enemy, because all the world was, more or less, his dupe; and accusers are but enlightened or disgusted dupes. He affected a negligence in his dress almost amounting to dirtiness, or rather, he was naturally so; his chin shaven only every two or three days, his grimy and wrinkled head, his broad nails encircled in black, his unpleasant odour, his threadbare coat, his greasy hat, his coa.r.s.e neckcloth, his black-worsted stockings, his clumsy shoes, all curiously betokened his worthiness with his clients, by giving him an air of disregard of the world, and an air of practical philosophy, which delighted them.

They said: "What tastes, what pa.s.sions, what feelings, what weaknesses, must the notary sacrifice to obtain the confidence he inspires! He gains, perhaps, sixty thousand francs (2,400_l._) a year, and his household consists of a servant and an old housekeeper. His only pleasure is to go on Sundays to ma.s.s and vespers, and he knows no opera comparable to the grave chanting of the organ, no worldly society which is worth an evening quietly pa.s.sed at his fireside corner with the cure of the parish after a frugal dinner; in fine, he places his enjoyment in probity, his pride in honour, his happiness in religion."

Such was the opinion of the contemporaries of M. Jacques Ferrand.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OFFICE.

The office of M. Ferrand resembled all other offices, and his clerks all other clerks. It was approached through an antechamber, furnished with four old chairs. In the office, properly so-called, surrounded by rows of shelves, ornamented with pasteboard boxes, containing the papers of the clients of M. Ferrand, five young men, stooping over black wooden desks, were laughing, gossiping, or scribbling perpetually. A waiting-room, also filled with pasteboard boxes, and in which the chief clerk was constantly stationed, and another room, which, for greater secrecy, was kept unoccupied, between the notary's private room and the waiting-room, completed the total of this laboratory of deeds of every description.

An old cuckoo-clock, placed between the two windows of the office, had just struck two o'clock, and a certain bustle prevailed amongst the clerks; a part of their conversation will inform the reader as to the cause of this excitement.

"Well, if any one had told me that Francois Germain was a thief," said one of the young men, "I should have said, 'That's a lie!'"

"So should I."

"And I."

"And I. It really quite affected me to see him arrested and led away by the police. I could not eat any breakfast; but I have been rewarded by not having to eat the daily mess doled out by Mother Seraphin, for, as the song goes:

'To eat the allowance of old Seraphin, One must have a twist indeed.'"

"Capital! why, Chalamel, you are beginning your poetry already."

"I demand Chalamel's head!"

"Folly apart, it is very terrible for poor Germain."

"Seventeen thousand francs (680_l._) is a lump of money!"

"I believe you!"

"And yet, for the fifteen months that Germain has been cas.h.i.+er, he was never a farthing deficient in making up his books."

"I think the governor was wrong to arrest Germain, for the poor fellow swore that he had only taken thirteen hundred francs (52_l._) in gold, and that, moreover, he brought back the thirteen hundred francs this morning, to return them to the money-chest, at the very moment when our master sent for the police."

"Ah, that's the bore of people of such ferocious honesty as our governor, they have no pity!"

"But they ought to think twice before they ruin a poor young fellow, who, up to this time, has behaved with strict honesty."

"M. Ferrand said he did it for an example."

"Example? What? It is none to the honest, and the dishonest know well enough what they expose themselves to if they are found out in any delinquencies."

"Our house seems to produce lots of jobs for the police officers."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, this morning there was poor little Louise, and now poor Germain."

"I confess that Germain's affair was not quite clear to me."

"But he confessed?"

"He confessed that he had taken thirteen hundred francs, certainly; but he declared most vehemently that he had not taken the other fifteen thousand francs in bank-notes, and the other seven hundred francs which are short in the strong box."

"True; and, if he confessed one thing, why shouldn't he confess another?"

"Exactly so; for a man is as much punished for five hundred francs as he is for fifteen thousand francs."

"Yes; only they retain the fifteen thousand francs, and, when they leave prison, this forms a little fund to start upon; and, as the swan of Cambrai sings:

'To get a jolly lot of "swag"

A cove must dip deep in the lucky-bag.'"

"I demand Chalamel's head!"

"Can't you talk sense for five minutes?"

"Ah, here's Jabulot! won't he be astonished?"