The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 5 of 6

"Germain? A young man called Germain?"

"Yes; d'ye know him? Is he one of us? If so, in spite of his looks, we – "

"I don't know him; but if he is the Germain I have heard speak of, his affair is settled."

"How?"

"Why, he has only just escaped from a plot which Velu and the Stout-Cripple laid for him lately."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but they said that in the country somewhere he had tricked one of their pals."

"I was sure of it, Germain is a spy. Well, we'll spy him! I'll go and tell our friends; that'll set them sharper against him. By the way, how does Gros-Boiteux get on with your lodgers?"

"Thank heaven, I have got rid of him, – a blackguard! You'll see him here to-day or to-morrow."

"All right; how we shall laugh! He's a boy who is never taken aback!"

"It's because I knew that he would find this Germain here that I said his affair was settled, – if it's the same chap."

"Why have they got hold of the Gros-Boiteux?"

"For a robbery committed with a discharged convict, who wanted to turn honest and work. Well, you see, the Gros-Boiteux soon got him in a string; he is such a vicious devil, the Boiteux! I am certain it was he who broke open the trunk of the two women who live in the little room on my fourth floor."

"What women? – ah, yes, two women! You was smitten by the young 'un, I remember, you old vagabond, because you thought her so nice."

"They'll not smite anybody any more, for by this time the mother must be dead, and the daughter is scarcely alive. I shall lose a fortnight's rent, and I sha'n't give a sou to pay for their burial. I've had so many losses, without talking of the little matters you entreat me to give you and your family, that my affairs are quite disarranged. I've had the luck of it this year."

"Pooh, pooh! You are always complaining, old gentleman; you who are as rich as Crœsus. But don't let me detain you."

"You're polite."

"You'll call and tell me how mother and Calabash are when you bring me my other provisions?"

"Yes, if I must."

"Ah, I'd nearly forgot; whilst you're about it, bring me a new cap, of plaid velvet, with an acorn at top; mine's regularly done for."

"Come, now, you're laughing at me."

"No, daddy, by no means; I want a plaid velvet cap. That's my wish."

"Then you're resolved to make a beggar of me?"

"Come, I say, Micou, don't get out of temper about it. It's only yes or no, – I do not force you, but – you understand?"

The receiver, reflecting that he was at the mercy of Nicholas, rose, fearing that if he prolonged his visit he would be exposed to fresh demands.

"You shall have your cap," he replied; "but mind, if you ask me for anything more, I will give you nothing, – let what will occur, you'll suffer as much as I shall."

"Make your mind easy, I'll not make you sing (force you to give money under the threat of certain disclosures) more than is sufficient for you not to lose your voice; for that would be a pity, you sing so well."

The receiver went away, shrugging his shoulders with rage, and the turnkey conducted Nicholas back to the interior of the prison.

At the moment when Micou quitted the reception-room, Rigolette entered it. The turnkey, a man about forty years of age, an old soldier, with stern and marked features, was dressed in a round jacket, with a blue cap and trousers; two silver stars were embroidered on the collar and facings of his jacket. At the sight of the grisette the face of this man brightened up, and assumed an expression of benevolence. He had always been struck by the grace, gentleness, and touching kindness with which Rigolette consoled Germain when she came there to see him. Germain was, besides, not an ordinary prisoner; his reserve, his peaceable demeanour, and his melancholy inspired the persons about the prison with deep interest, – an interest which they did not manifest, for fear of exposing him to the ill-treatment of his brutal companions, who, as we have said, looked upon him with mistrusting hate. It was raining in torrents, but, thanks to her goloshes and umbrella, Rigolette had boldly faced the wind and rain.

"What a shocking day, my poor girl!" said the turnkey, kindly. "It requires a good deal of courage to leave home such weather as this."

"When we think as we come along of the pleasure we shall give a poor prisoner, we don't think much about the weather, sir."

"I need not ask you whom you have come to see?"

"Certainly not. And how is poor Germain?"

"Why, my dear, I have seen many prisoners; they have been sad for a day, – two days, perhaps, – and then gradually got into the same way as the others; and those who were most out of sorts at first often ended by becoming the merriest of all. But M. Germain, is not one of these, he has still that melancholy air."

"How sorry I am to hear it!"

"When I'm on duty in the yards, I look at him from the corner of my eye, he is always alone. I have already told you that you should advise him not to do so, but to resolve on conversing with the others, or it will end with his becoming suspected and ill-used by them. We keep a close look-out, but a mischievous blow is soon given."

"Oh, sir, is there any danger threatens him?" cried Rigolette.

"Not precisely, but these ruffians see that he is not one of them, and hate him because he has an honest and proud look."

"Yet I advised him to do what you told me, sir, and make up his mind to talk to some of the least wicked! But he cannot help it, he cannot get over his repugnance."

"He is wrong – wrong! A struggle is so soon begun."

"Can't he, then, be separated from the others?"

"For the last two or three days, since I have seen their ill-will towards him, I advised him to place himself what we call à la pistole, – that is, in a room."

"Well?"

"I had not thought of one thing. A whole row of cells is undergoing repair, and the others are full."

"But these wretches may kill him!" said Rigolette, her eyes filling with tears. "And if, by chance, he had any protectors, what could they do for him, sir?"

"Nothing, but enable him to obtain what these debtors who can pay for it obtain, – a chamber, à la pistole."

"Alas, then, he is lost, if they hate him in prison."

"Oh, don't be downhearted, we will look well to him. But I repeat, my dear, do advise him to familiarise himself a little, – the first step is half the battle."

"I will advise him as strongly as I can, sir. But for a good and honest heart it is very hard, you know, to familiarise itself with such people."

"Of two evils we must choose the least. Now I will fetch M. Germain. But now I think of it," said the turnkey, "there are only two visitors; wait until they are gone, there'll not be any more to-day, for it is two o'clock. I will then fetch M. Germain, and you can talk at your ease. I can then, when you are alone, let him come into the passage, so that you will be separated by one grating instead of two. Won't that be better?"

"Ah, sir, how kind you are, and how much I thank you!"

"Hush! Do not let any one hear you, or they may be jealous. Sit down there at the end of the bench, and when this man and woman have gone, I will tell M. Germain."

The turnkey returned to his post inside the grating, and Rigolette sat down very melancholy at the end of the visitors' bench.

Whilst the grisette is awaiting the coming of Germain, we will allow the reader to overhear the conversation of the prisoners who remained there after the departure of Nicholas Martial.

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, Fortuné 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 Fortuné! 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, Fortuné, 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 fashion." 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-champêtre, 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 chink, 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 shirt 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 pass. But you know I am used to see crowds. When I played with my cups and balls, 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 shirt, 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."

"Pardieu! I meant to have gone to you, but I preferred arriving with my hands full, – for I see you do not ride in your carriage. Well, and your children, – and your husband?"

"Has left me these three years, after having sold off every stick, not leaving me or the children one single thing but a straw palliasse."

"Poor Jeanne! How have you managed alone with three children?"

"Why, I have suffered very much. I worked at my business as a trimming-maker as well as I could, the neighbours helping me a little, watching my children when I went out. And then I, who haven't much luck, had a bit of good fortune once in my life; but it was no avail, because of my husband."

"How was that?"

"My employer had spoken of my trouble to one of his customers, telling him how my husband had left me with nothing, after having sold all our furniture, and that, in spite of this, I was working as hard as I could to bring up my children. One day when I returned what did I find? Why, my room fitted up again, a good bed, furniture, and linen; it was the kind customer of my employer."

"Poor sister! Why didn't you write and tell me of your misfortune; and then, instead of spending my money, I would have sent you some."

"What! I free to ask of you a prisoner?"

"Why not? I was fed, clothed, lodged, at the cost of government; all I gained was so much profit. But knowing my brother-in-law was a good workman, and you a good manager and worker, I was quite easy, and melted my 'tin' with my eyes shut, and my mouth open."

"My husband was a good workman, that is true; but he became dissipated. However, thanks to this unexpected aid, I took courage again. My eldest girl began to earn a little, and we were happy, except when we remembered that you were at Melun. Work went well with us, and my children were well clad, and wanted for nothing hardly, and that gave me good heart; and I had actually saved thirty-three francs, when suddenly my husband returned. I had not seen him for a year; and when he found me so well off and tidily dressed, he stood for nothing, but took my money and lived with us without working, getting drunk every day, and beating me when I complained. And that is not all. He gave up a small room adjoining ours to a woman with whom he lived openly as his mistress; so I had that indignity to endure for the second time. He soon began to make away with the few poor things I had managed to get together; so, foreseeing what would be the end of such conduct, I went to a lawyer who lived in the same house, and begged him to advise me how to act to prevent my husband from taking the very bed from me and my children."

"Why, there needed no lawyer, I should think, to tell you that the only thing you had to do was to turn your husband out of your doors."

"Ah, but I could not, – the law gave me no power to do so. The lawyer told me that, as 'head of the family,' my husband could take up his abode wherever I dwelt, and was not compelled to labour unless he liked; that it was very hard for me to have to maintain him, and endure his ill-treatment into the bargain, but that he recommended me to submit to it, though certainly the circumstance of his having a mistress living under the same roof entitled me to demand separation from 'bed and board,' as he called it; and further, that as I would bring witnesses to prove his having repeatedly struck me, and otherwise ill-treated me, I could institute a suit against him, but that it would cost me, at the very least, from four to five hundred francs to obtain a perfect separation from him. Only think what a sum, – as much as I should earn in a year! And who would lend me so much money, which would have to be repaid heaven knows how? For four or five hundred francs is a perfect fortune."

"Yet there is one very simple means of amassing the money," replied Pique-Vinaigre, bitterly; "that of living upon air during the twelve months it would take you to earn that sum, working all the same, but denying yourself even the necessaries of life; and I am only surprised the lawyer did not advise you to starve yourself and your children, or any other kind-hearted expediency."

"You always make a jest of everything, brother!"

"This time, however, I am not in a jesting humour. It is scandalous that the law should be so expensive to poor creatures such as we. Now, just look at yourself, – a good and affectionate mother, striving by every means in your power to bring up your children honestly and creditably; your husband, a bad, lazy fellow, who, not content with stripping you of all you earn, that he may spend his time in drinking and all sorts of loose pleasures, beats and ill-uses you into the bargain. Well, you apply to the justice of your country for protection for yourself and your children. 'Ah,' say the lawyers, 'yours is a hard case, and your husband is a worthless vagabond, and you shall have justice. But then you must pay five hundred francs for that same justice, – five hundred francs, mind; precisely all your utmost labour can obtain to nourish yourself and family for a year. I tell you what, Jeanne, all this proves the truth of the old saying, that 'There are but two sorts of people, – those who are hanged, and those who deserve to be!'"

Rigolette, alone and pensively inclined, had not lost a word of all that tale of woe breathed by the poor, suffering, and patient wife into her brother's ear; while her naturally kind heart deeply sympathised with all she heard, and she fully resolved upon relating the whole history to Rodolph the very first time she saw him, feeling quite sure of his ready and benevolent aid in succouring them. Deeply interested in the mournful fate of the sister of Pique-Vinaigre, she could not take her eyes from the poor woman's face, and was endeavouring to draw a little closer to her; but unluckily, just at that moment, a fresh visitant, entering the room, inquired for a prisoner, and while the person he wished to see was sent for, he very coolly seated himself on the bench between Jeanne and the grisette, who, at the sight of the individual who so unceremoniously interrupted her making closer acquaintance with her neighbour, felt a degree of surprise almost amounting to fear, for in him she recognised one of the bailiffs sent by Jacques Ferrand to arrest poor Morel, the lapidary. This circumstance, recalling as it did to the mind of Rigolette the implacable enemy of Germain, redoubled her sadness, which had been in some manner diverted while listening to the touching recital of the unfortunate sister of Pique-Vinaigre.

Retreating from the fresh arrival as far as she could, the grisette leaned her back against the wall, and once more relapsed into her mournful ruminations.

"Look here, Jeanne!" cried Pique-Vinaigre, whose mirthful, pleasure-loving countenance was suddenly overcast by a deep gloom; "I am by nature neither very strong nor very courageous; but, certainly, if I had chanced to have been by when your husband so shamefully treated you, I don't think I should have let him slip through my fingers without leaving my mark. But you were too good for him, and you put up with more than you ought!"

"Why, what would you have had me do? I was obliged to endure what I could not avoid. So long as there remained an article that would fetch money did my husband sell it, even to the frock of my little girl, and then repair to the alehouse with his mistress."

"But why did you give him your daily earnings? – you should have hid them from him."

"So I did; but he beat me so dreadfully that I was obliged to give them to him. I cared less for the blows he gave me than because I dreaded his doing me some bodily injury, such as breaking my arm and dislocating my wrist, that would have hindered me from working; and then, what would have become of my poor children? Suppose I had been compelled to go to a hospital, they must have perished with hunger. So, you see, brother, I thought it was better to give up my earnings to my husband than run the risk of being lamed by him."

"Poor woman! People talk of martyrs, but what martyrdom can exceed what you have endured?"

"And yet I can truly say I never injured a living creature, and my only desire was to work hard and do my duty to my husband and children. But it is no use thinking about it; there are fortunate and unfortunate persons, just the same as there are good people and bad people in the world!"

"True; and it is a beautiful sight to see how happy and prosperous the good always are, – aren't they, sister? And do you now believe yourself for ever freed from your scoundrel of a husband?"

"I trust so. He staid till he had sold even my bedstead and the cradle in which my youngest child lay. But when I think that, even more than that, he wished – "

"What did he wish?"

"When I say he, I ought rather to tell you that it was rather that wicked woman who urged him on. One day he said to me, 'I tell you what, when folks have a pretty girl of fifteen belonging to them, they are cursed fools if they do not turn her to good account.'"

"Oh, to be sure! When he had sold the poor girl's clothes, he was willing to sell her also."

"When I heard him say those dreadful words I lost all command over myself, and, I promise you, I did not spare him all the reproaches he merited. And when his vile paramour took upon herself to interfere, and say that my husband had a right to do what he liked with his own child, I could contain myself no longer; but I fell with all my fury on the wretched creature. This obtained for me a severe beating from my husband, who then left me; and I have never seen him since."

"I tell you, Jeanne, that there are men condemned to ten years' punishment and imprisonment who have not done so much to deserve it as your husband has done."