poverty. This coat, which had seen long service at balls, had now,
like its master, passed from the opulent ease of former times to daily
work. The seams of the black cloth showed whitening lines; the collar
was
greasy; long usage had frayed the edges of the sleeves into
fringes.
And yet, Georges ventured to attract attention by yellow kid gloves,
rather dirty, it is true, on the outside of which a signet ring
defined a large dark spot. Round his
cravat, which was slipped into a
pretentious gold ring, was a chain of silk, representing hair, which,
no doubt, held a watch. His hat, though worn rather jauntily,
revealed, more than any of the above symptoms, the
poverty of a man
who was
totallyunable to pay sixteen francs to a hat-maker, being
forced to live from hand to mouth. The former
admirer of Florentine
twirled a cane with a chased gold knob, which was
horribly battered.
The blue
trousers, the
waistcoat of a material called "Scotch stuff,"
a sky-blue
cravat and a pink-striped cotton shirt, expressed, in the
midst of all this ruin, such a
latent desire to SHOW-OFF that the
contrast was not only a sight to see, but a lesson to be
learned.
"And that is Georges!" said Oscar, in his own mind,--"a man I left in
possession of thirty thousand francs a year!"
"Has Monsieur DE Pierrotin a place in the coupe?" asked Georges,
ironically replying to Pierrotin's rebuff.
"No; my coupe is taken by a peer of France, the son-in-law of Monsieur
Moreau, Monsieur le Baron de Canalis, his wife, and his mother-in-law.
I have nothing left but one place in the interieur."
"The devil! so peers of France still travel in your coach, do they?"
said Georges, remembering his adventure with the Comte de Serizy.
"Well, I'll take that place in the interieur."
He cast a glance of
examination on Oscar and his mother, but did not
recognize them.
Oscar's skin was now bronzed by the sun of Africa; his moustache was
very thick and his whiskers ample; the hollows in his cheeks and his
strongly marked features were in keeping with his military bearing.
The rosette of an officer of the Legion of honor, his
missing arm, the
strict
propriety of his dress, would all have diverted Georges
recollections of his former
victim if he had had any. As for Madame
Clapart, whom Georges had scarcely seen, ten years
devoted to the
exercise of the most
severe piety had transformed her. No one would
ever have imagined that that gray sister concealed the Aspasia of
1797.
An
enormous old man, very simply dressed, though his clothes were good
and
substantial, in whom Oscar recognized Pere Leger, here came slowly
and heavily along. He nodded familiarly to Pierrotin, who appeared by
his manner to pay him the respect due in all lands to millionaires.
"Ha! ha! why, here's Pere Leger! more and more preponderant!" cried
Georges.
"To whom have I the honor of speaking?" asked old Leger, curtly.
"What! you don't recognize Colonel Georges, the friend of Ali pacha?
We travelled together once upon a time, in company with the Comte de
Serizy."
One of the
habitual follies of those who have fallen in the world is
to recognize and desire the
recognition of others.
"You are much changed," said the ex-farmer, now twice a millionaire.
"All things change," said Georges. "Look at the Lion d'Argent and
Pierrotin's coach; they are not a bit like what they were fourteen
years ago."
"Pierrotin now controls the whole service of the Valley of the Oise,"
replied Monsieur Leger, "and sends out five coaches. He is the
bourgeois of Beaumont, where he keeps a hotel, at which all the
diligences stop, and he has a wife and daughter who are not a bad help
to him."
An old man of seventy here came out of the hotel and joined the group
of travellers who were
waiting to get into the coach.
"Come along, Papa Reybert," said Leger, "we are only
waiting now for
your great man."
"Here he comes," said the
steward of Presles, pointing to Joseph
Bridau.
Neither Georges nor Oscar recognized the
illustrious artist, for his
face had the worn and
haggard lines that were now famous, and his
bearing was that which is given by success. The
ribbon of the Legion
of honor adorned his black coat, and the rest of his dress, which was
extremely
elegant, seemed to
denote an
expedition to some rural fete.
At this moment a clerk, with a paper in his hand, came out of the
office (which was now in the former kitchen of the Lion d'Argent), and
stood before the empty coupe.
"Monsieur and Madame de Canalis, three places," he said. Then, moving
to the door of the interieur, he named, consecutively, "Monsieur
Bellejambe, two places; Monsieur de Reybert, three places; Monsieur--
your name, if you please?" he said to Georges.
"Georges Marest," said the fallen man, in a low voice.
The clerk then moved to the rotunde, before which were grouped a
number of nurses, country-people, and petty shopkeepers, who were
bidding each other adieu. Then, after bundling in the six passengers,
he called to four young men who mounted to the
imperial; after which
he cried: "Start!" Pierrotin got up beside his driver, a young man in
a
blouse, who called out: "Pull!" to his animals, and the vehicle,
drawn by four horses brought at Roye, mounted the rise of the faubourg
Saint-Denis at a slow trot.
But no sooner had it got above Saint-Laurent than it raced like a
mail-cart to Saint-Denis, which it reached in forty minutes. No stop
was made at the cheese-cake inn, and the coach took the road through
the
valley of Montmorency.
It was at the turn into this road that Georges broke the silence which
the travellers had so far maintained while observing each other.
"We go a little faster than we did fifteen years ago, hey, Pere
Leger?" he said, pulling out a silver watch.
"Persons are usually good enough to call me Monsieur Leger," said the
millionaire.
"Why, here's our blagueur of the famous journey to Presles," cried
Joseph Bridau. "Have you made any new campaigns in Asia, Africa, or
America?"
"Sacrebleu! I've made the revolution of July, and that's enough for
me, for it ruined me."
"Ah! you made the revolution of July!" cried the
painter, laughing.
"Well, I always said it never made itself."
"How people meet again!" said Monsieur Leger, turning to Monsieur de
Reybert. "This, papa Reybert, is the clerk of the notary to whom you
undoubtedly owe the
stewardship of Presles."
"We lack Mistigris, now famous under his own name of Leon de Lora,"
said Joseph Bridau, "and the little young man who was
stupid enough to
talk to the count about those skin diseases which are now cured, and
about his wife, whom he has recently left that he may die in peace."
"And the count himself, you lack him," said old Reybert.
"I'm afraid," said Joseph Bridau, sadly, "that the last journey the
count will ever take will be from Presles to Isle-Adam, to be present
at my marriage."
"He still drives about the park," said Reybert.
"Does his wife come to see him?" asked Leger.
"Once a month," replied Reybert. "She is never happy out of Paris.
Last September she married her niece, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom,
since the death of her son, she spends all her
affection, to a very
rich young Pole, the Comte Laginski."
"To whom," asked Madame Clapart, "will Monsieur de Serizy's property
go?"
"To his wife, who will bury him," replied Georges. "The
countess is
still fine-looking for a woman of fifty-four years of age. She is very
elegant, and, at a little distance, gives one the
illusion--"
"She will always be an
illusion to you," said Leger, who seemed
inclined to
revenge himself on his former hoaxer.
"I respect her," said Georges. "But, by the bye, what became of that
steward whom the count turned off?"
"Moreau?" said Leger; "why, he's the
deputy from the Oise."
"Ha! the famous Centre man; Moreau de l'Oise?" cried Georges.
"Yes," returned Leger, "Moreau de l'Oise. He did more than you for the
revolution of July, and he has since then bought the beautiful estate
of Pointel, between Presles and Beaumont."
"Next to the count's," said Georges. "I call that very bad taste."
"Don't speak so loud," said Monsieur de Reybert, "for Madame Moreau
and her daughter, the Baronne de Canalis, and the Baron himself, the
former
minister, are in the coupe."
"What 'dot' could he have given his daughter to induce our great
orator to marry her?" said Georges.
"Something like two millions," replied old Leger.
"He always had a taste for millions," remarked Georges. "He began his
pile surreptitiously at Presles--"
"Say nothing against Monsieur Moreau," cried Oscar,
hastily. "You
ought to have
learned before now to hold your tongue in public
conveyances."
Joseph Bridau looked at the one-armed officer for several seconds;
then he said, smiling:--
"Monsieur is not an
ambassador, but his rosette tells us he has made
his way nobly; my brother and General Giroudeau have
repeatedly named
him in their reports."
"Oscar Husson!" cried Georges. "Faith! if it hadn't been for your
voice I should never have known you."
"Ah! it was
monsieur who so
bravely rescued the Vicomte Jules de
Serizy from the Arabs?" said Reybert, "and for whom the count has
obtained the collectorship of Beaumont while a
waiting that of
Pontoise?"
"Yes,
monsieur," said Oscar.
"I hope you will give me the pleasure,
monsieur," said the great
painter, "of being present at my marriage at Isle-Adam."
"Whom do you marry?" asked Oscar, after accepting the invitation.
"Mademoiselle Leger," replied Joseph Bridau, "the granddaughter of
Monsieur de Reybert. Monsieur le comte was kind enough to arrange the
marriage for me. As an artist I owe him a great deal, and he wished,
before his death, to secure my future, about which I did not think,
myself."
"Whom did Pere Leger marry?" asked Georges.
"My daughter," replied Monsieur de Reybert, "and without a 'dot.'"
"Ah!" said Georges, assuming a more
respectful manner toward Monsieur
Leger, "I am
fortunate in having chosen this particular day to do the
valley of the Oise. You can all be useful to me, gentlemen."
"How so?" asked Monsieur Leger.
"In this way," replied Georges. "I am employed by the 'Esperance,' a
company just formed, the statutes of which have been approved by an
ordinance of the King. This
institution gives, at the end of ten
years, dowries to young girls, annuities to old men; it pays the
education of children, and takes
charge, in short, of the fortunes of
everybody."
"I can well believe it," said Pere Leger, smiling. "In a word, you are
a
runner for an insurance company."
"No,
monsieur. I am the inspector-general;
charged with the duty of
establishing correspondents and appointing the agents of the company
throughout France. I am only operating until the agents are selected;
for it is a matter as
delicate as it is difficult to find honest
agents."
"But how did you lose your thirty thousand a year?" asked Oscar.
"As you lost your arm," replied the son of Czerni-Georges, curtly.
"Then you must have shared in some
brilliant action," remarked Oscar,
with a sarcasm not unmixed with bitterness.
"Parbleu! I've too many--shares! that's just what I wanted to sell."
By this time they had arrived at Saint-Leu-Taverny, where all the
passengers got out while the coach changed horses. Oscar admired the
liveliness which Pierrotin displayed in unhooking the traces from the
whiffle-trees, while his driver cleared the reins from the leaders.
"Poor Pierrotin," thought he; "he has stuck like me,--not far advanced
in the world. Georges has fallen low. All the others, thanks to
speculation and to
talent, have made their fortune. Do we breakfast
here, Pierrotin?" he said, aloud, slapping that
worthy on the
shoulder.