The Mysteries Of Paris Volume V Part 16

CHAPTER VI.

PIQUE-VINAIGRE.

The prisoner who was beside Barbillon was a man about forty-five years of age, thin, mean-looking, with a keen, intelligent, jovial, merry face. He had an enormous mouth, almost entirely toothless; and, when he spoke, he worked it from side to side, very much after the style of those orators who are accustomed to harangue from booths at fairs. His nose was flat, his head disproportionately large and nearly bald; he wore an old gray knit worsted waistcoat, a pair of trousers of indescribable colour, torn and patched in a thousand places; his feet, half wrapped up in pieces of old linen, were thrust into wooden shoes.

This man, Fortune Gobert, called Pique-Vinaigre, formerly a juggler, a convict freed after condemnation for the crime of uttering false money, was charged with having broken from gaol and committed violent burglary.

Having been confined but very few days in La Force, Pique-Vinaigre already filled the office of story-teller, to the general satisfaction of his fellow prisoners. Now story-tellers have become very rare, but formerly each ward had usually, for a slight general subscription, its official story-teller, who, by his narrations, made the long winter evenings appear less tedious when the prisoners went to bed at sunset.

If it be curious to note the desire for these fictions which these outcasts display, it is yet a more singular thing to reflect upon the hearing of these recitals. Men corrupted to the very marrow, thieves, and murderers, prefer especially the histories in which are expressed generous, heroic sentiments, recitals in which weakness and goodness are avenged in fierce retribution. It is the same thing with women of lost reputation; they are singularly fond of simple, touching, and sentimental details, and almost invariably refuse to read obscene books.

Pique-Vinaigre excelled in that kind of heroic tales in which weakness, after a thousand trials, concludes by triumphing over persecution. He possessed, besides, a deep fund of satire, which had procured for him his name, his repartees being very frequently ironical or merry. He had just entered the reception-room. Opposite to him, on the other side of the grating, was a female of about thirty-five years of age, of pale, mild, and interesting countenance, meanly but cleanly clad. She was weeping bitterly, and held a handkerchief to her eyes. Pique-Vinaigre looked at her with a mixture of impatience and affection.

"Come, Jeanne," he said, "do not play the child. It is sixteen years since we met, and to keep your handkerchief up to your eyes is not the way for us to know each other again."

"Brother--my poor, dear Fortune! I am choking--I cannot speak."

"Ah, nonsense! What ails you?"

His sister repressed her sobs, wiped her eyes, and, looking at him with astonishment, replied, "What ails me? What, when I find you again in prison, where you have already been fifteen years!"

"True. It is six months to-day since I left Melun; and I didn't call upon you in Paris because the capital was forbidden to me."

"Why did you leave Beaugency when you were under surveillance?"

"In the first place, Jeanne, since the gratings are between us, you must fancy I have embraced you, squeezed you in my arms, as a man ought to do who has not seen his sister for an eternity. Now let us talk. A prisoner at Melun, who is called the Gros-Boiteux, told me that there was at Beaugency an old convict of his acquaintance, who employed the freed prisoners in a factory of white lead. Those who work at it in a month or two catch the lead-colic. One in three of those attacked die.

It is true that others die also; but they take their time about it and get on, sometimes as long as a year or even eighteen months. Then the trade is better paid than most others, and there are fellows who hold out at it for two or three years. But they are elders--patriarchs--of the white-leaders. They die, it is true, but that is all."

"And why did you choose a trade so dangerous that they die at it?"

"What could I do? When I went to Melun for that well-known job of the forged coin I was a thimble-rigger. As in gaol there was no scope for my line of business, and I am not stronger than a good stout flea, they put me to making children's toys. There was a tradesman in Paris who found it very advantageous to have his wooden trumpets and swords made by the prisoners. Why, I must have made half the wooden swords used by the children of Paris; and I was great in the trumpet line. Rattles, too,--why, with two of my manufacture I could have set on edge the teeth of a whole battalion! Well, when my time was up I was a first-rate maker of penny trumpets, and my only resource was making child's playthings.

Now, supposing that a whole town, young and old, were inclined to play tur-tu-tu-tu on my trumpets, I should still have had a good deal of trouble to earn a livelihood; and then I could not have induced a whole population to continue playing the trumpet from morning to night."

"You are still such a jester!"

"Better joke than cry. Well, then, seeing that at forty leagues from Paris my trade of juggler was no more useful to me than my trumpets, I requested the surveillance at Beaugency, intending to become a white-leader. It is a trade that gives you indigestion enough to send you mad; but until one bursts one lives, and that is always something, and it was better than turning thief. I am neither brave nor strong enough to thieve, and it was from pure accident that I did the thing I have just mentioned to you."

"And yet you had the courage to take up with a deadly trade! Come now, Fortune, you wish to make yourself out worse than you are."

"I thought that the malady would have so little to take hold of in me that it would go elsewhere, and that I should become one of the patriarchal white-leaders. Well, when I came out of prison, I found my earnings had considerably increased by telling stories."

"So you told us. You remember how it amused poor old mother?"

"Dear soul! She never suspected that I was at Melun?"

"Never. She thought you had gone abroad."

"Why, my girl, my follies were my father's fault, who dressed me up as a clown to help in his mountebank displays, to swallow tow and spit fire, which did not allow me spare time to form acquaintance with the sons of the peers of France; and so I fell into bad company. But to return to Beaugency. When once I had left Melun, like the rest, I thought I must see some fun; if not, what was the use of my money? Well, I reached Beaugency, with scarcely a sou in my pocket. I asked for Velu, the friend of Gros-Boiteux, the head of the manufactory. Your servant! There was no longer any white-lead factory; it had killed eleven persons in the year, and the old convict had shut up shop. So here I was in the middle of this city, with my talent for trumpet-making as my only means of existence, and my discharge from prison as my only certificate of recommendation. I did my best to procure work, but in vain. One called me a thief, another a beggar, a third said I had escaped from gaol; all turned their backs upon me. So I had nothing to do but die of hunger in a city which I was not to leave for five years. Seeing this, I broke my ban, and came to Paris to utilise my talents. As I had not the means to travel in a coach and four, I came begging and tramping all the way, avoiding the _gens-d'armes_ as I would a mad dog. I had luck, and reached Auteuil without accident. I was very tired, hungry as a wolf, and dressed, as you may see, not in the height of the fas.h.i.+on." And Pique-Vinaigre glanced comically at his rags. "I had not a sou, and was liable to be taken up as a vagabond. Well, _ma foi!_ an occasion presented itself; the devil tempted me, and, in spite of my cowardice--"

"Enough, brother,--enough!" said his sister, fearing lest the turnkey might hear his dangerous confession.

"Are you afraid they listen?" he said. "Be tranquil; I have nothing to conceal. I was taken in the act."

"Alas!" said Jeanne, weeping bitterly; "how calmly you say this!"

"If I spoke warmly what should I gain by it? Come, listen to reason, Jeanne. Must I have to console you?"

Jeanne wiped her eyes and sighed.

"Well, to go back to my affair," continued Pique-Vinaigre. "I had nearly reached Auteuil, in the dusk. I could not go any farther, and I did not wish to enter Paris but at night; so I sat down behind a hedge to rest myself, and reflect on my plan of campaign. My reflections sent me to sleep, and when the sound of voices awoke me it was night. I listened.

It was a man and woman, who were talking as they went along on the other side of the hedge. The man said to the woman, 'Who do you think would come and rob us? Haven't we left the house alone a hundred times?'

'Yes,' replied the woman; 'but then we hadn't a hundred francs in the drawers.' 'Who knows that, you fool?' says the husband. 'You are right,'

replies the wife; and on they went. _Ma foi!_ the occasion seemed to me too favourable to lose, and there was no danger. I waited until they got a little farther on, and then came from behind the hedge, and, looking twenty paces behind me, I saw a small cottage, which I was sure must be the house with the hundred francs, as it was the only habitation in sight. Auteuil was about five hundred yards off. I said to myself,'Courage, old boy,--there is no one. Then it is night; if there is no watch-dog (you know I was always afraid of dogs), why, the job is as good as done.' Luckily there was no dog. To make sure I knocked at the door. Nothing. This encouraged me. The shutters were closed on the ground floor, but I put my stick between and forced them. I got into the window, and in the room the fire was still alight. So I saw the drawers, but no key. With the tongs I forced the lock, and under a heap of linen I found the prize, wrapped in an old woollen stocking. I did not think of taking anything else, but jumping out of the window, I alighted on the back of the garde-champetre, who was returning home."

"What a misfortune!"

"The moon had risen. He saw me jump from the window and seized me. He was a fellow who could have eaten a dozen such as I was. Too great a coward to resist, I surrendered quietly. I had the stocking still in my hand, and he heard the money c.h.i.n.k, took it, put it in his game bag, and made me accompany him to Auteuil. We reached the mayor's with a crowd of blackguards and _gens-d'armes_. The owners of the cottage were fetched, and they made their depositions. There was no means of denial; so I confessed everything and signed the depositions, and they put on me handcuffs, and I was brought here."

"In prison again, and for a long time, perhaps?"

"Listen to me, Jeanne, for I will not deceive you. I may as well tell you at once; for it is no longer an affair of prison."

"Why not?"

"Why, the relapse, the breaking in and entry into a dwelling-house at night, the lawyer told me, is a complete affair, and I shall have fifteen or twenty years at the galleys, and the public exposure into the bargain."

"The galleys,--and you so weak? Why, you'll die!"

"And suppose I had been with the white-lead party?"

"But the galleys,--the galleys!"

"It is a prison in the open air, with a red s.h.i.+rt instead of a brown one; and then I have always had a curiosity to see the sea!"

"But the public exposure! To be subject to the contempt of all the world! Oh, my poor brother!" And the poor woman wept bitterly.

"Come, come, Jeanne, be composed; it is an uncomfortable quarter of an hour to pa.s.s. But you know I am used to see crowds. When I played with my cups and b.a.l.l.s, I always had a crowd around me; so I'll fancy I am thimble-rigging, and if it has too much effect on me I'll close my eyes, and that will seem as if no one was looking at me."

Speaking with this derision, the unhappy man affected this insensibility, in order to console his sister. For a man accustomed to the manners of prisons, and in whom all shame is utterly dead, the _bagne_ (galleys) is, in fact, only a change of s.h.i.+rt, as Pique-Vinaigre said, with frightful truth. Many prisoners in the central prisons even prefer the _bagne_, because of the riotous life they lead, often committing attempts at murder in order to be sent to Brest or Toulon.

"Twenty years at the galleys!" repeated Pique-Vinaigre's poor sister.

"Take comfort, Jeanne, they will only pay me as I deserve. I am too weak to be put to hard labour, and if there is no manufactory of wooden trumpets and swords as at Melun, why, I shall be set to some easy work; they will employ me at the infirmary. I am not a troublesome fellow, but a good, easy chap; and I shall tell my stories as I do here, and shall be esteemed by my chiefs, and adored by my comrades, and I will send you carved cocoanuts and straw boxes for my nephews and nieces."

"If you had only written to me that you were coming to Paris, I would have tried to conceal you until you found work."