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The Two Brothers-Part1_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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nor the respect which a son owes to a mother. Jean-Jacques Rouget was



like his father, especially on the latter's worst side; and the doctor

at his best was far from satisfactory, either morally or physically.



The arrival of the charming Agathe Rouget did not bring happiness to

her uncle Descoings; for in the same week (or rather, we should say



decade, for the Republic had then been proclaimed) he was imprisoned

on a hint from Robespierre given to Fouquier-Tinville. Descoings, who



was imprudent enough to think the famine fictitious, had the

additional folly, under the impression that opinions were free, to



express that opinion to several of his male and female customers as he

served them in the grocery. The citoyenne Duplay, wife of a cabinet-



maker with whom Robespierre lodged, and who looked after the affairs

of that eminent citizen, patronized, unfortunately, the Descoings



establishment. She considered the opinions of the grocer insulting to

Maximilian the First. Already displeased with the manners of



Descoings, this illustrious "tricoteuse" of the Jacobin club regarded

the beauty of his wife as a kind of aristocracy. She infused a venom



of her own into the grocer's remarks when she repeated them to her

good and gentle master, and the poor man was speedily arrested on the



well-worn charge of "accaparation."

No sooner was he put in prison, than his wife set to work to obtain



his release. But the steps she took were so ill-judged that any one

hearing her talk to the arbiters of his fate might have thought that



she was in reality seeking to get rid of him. Madame Descoings knew

Bridau, one of the secretaries of Roland, then minister of the



interior,--the right-hand man of all the ministers who succeeded each

other in that office. She put Bridau on the war-path to save her



grocer. That incorruptible official--one of the virtuous dupes who are

always admirably disinterested--was careful not to corrupt the men on



whom the fate of the poor grocer depended; on the contrary, he

endeavored to enlighten them. Enlighten people in those days! As well



might he have begged them to bring back the Bourbons. The Girondist

minister, who was then contending against Robespierre, said to his



secretary, "Why do you meddle in the matter?" and all others to whom

the worthy Bridau appealed made the same atrocious reply: "Why do you



meddle?" Bridau then sagely advised Madame Descoings to keep quiet and

await events. But instead of conciliating Robespierre's housekeeper,



she fretted and fumed against that informer, and even complained to a

member of the Convention, who, trembling for himself, replied hastily,



"I will speak of it to Robespierre." The handsome petitioner put faith

in this promise, which the other carefully forgot. A few loaves of



sugar, or a bottle or two of good liqueur, given to the citoyenne

Duplay would have saved Descoings.



This little mishap proves that in revolutionary times it is quite as

dangerous to employ honest men as scoundrels; we should rely on



ourselves alone. Descoings perished; but he had the glory of going to

the scaffold with Andre Chenier. There, no doubt, grocery and poetry



embraced for the first time in the flesh; although they have, and ever

have had, intimate secret relations. The death of Descoings produced



far more sensation than that of Andre Chenier. It has taken thirty

years to prove to France that she lost more by the death of Chenier



than by that of Descoings.

This act of Robespierre led to one good result: the terrified grocers



let politics alone until 1830. Descoings's shop was not a hundred

yards from Robespierre's lodging. His successor was scarcely more



fortunate than himself. Cesar Birotteau, the celebrated perfumer of

the "Queen of Roses," bought the premises; but, as if the scaffold had



left some inexplicable contagion behind it, the inventor of the "Paste

of Sultans" and the "Carminative Balm" came to his ruin in that very



shop. The solution of the problem here suggested belongs to the realm

of occult science.






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