Honore de Balzac (2 page)

At the moment when our history begins Michu was leaning against a
mossy parapet on which he had laid his powder-horn, cap, handkerchief,
screw-driver, and rags,—in fact, all the utensils needed for his
suspicious occupation. His wife's chair was against the wall beside the
outer door of the house, above which could still be seen the arms of the
Simeuse family, richly carved, with their noble motto, "Cy meurs." The
old mother, in peasant dress, had moved her chair in front of Madame
Michu, so that the latter might put her feet upon the rungs and keep
them from dampness.

"Where's the boy?" said Michu to his wife.

"Round the pond; he is crazy about the frogs and the insects," answered
the mother.

Michu whistled in a way that made his hearers tremble. The rapidity with
which his son ran up to him proved plainly enough the despotic power of
the bailiff of Gondreville. Since 1789, but more especially since 1793,
Michu had been well-nigh master of the property. The terror he inspired
in his wife, his mother-in-law, a servant-lad named Gaucher, and the
cook named Marianne, was shared throughout a neighborhood of twenty
miles in circumference. It may be well to give, without further delay,
the reasons for this fear,—all the more because an account of them will
complete the moral portrait of the man.

The old Marquis de Simeuse transferred the greater part of his property
in 1790; but, overtaken by circumstances, he had not been able to put
the estate of Gondreville into sure hands. Accused of corresponding with
the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of Cobourg, the marquis and his
wife were thrust into prison and condemned to death by the revolutionary
tribunal of Troyes, of which Madame Michu's father was then president.
The fine domain of Gondreville was sold as national property. The
head-keeper, to the horror of many, was present at the execution of
the marquis and his wife in his capacity as president of the club of
Jacobins at Arcis. Michu, the orphan son of a peasant, showered with
benefactions by the marquise, who brought him up in her own home and
gave him his place as keeper, was regarded as a Brutus by excited
demagogues; but the people of the neighborhood ceased to recognize him
after this act of base ingratitude. The purchaser of the estate was a
man from Arcis named Marion, grandson of a former bailiff in the Simeuse
family. This man, a lawyer before and after the Revolution, was afraid
of the keeper; he made him his bailiff with a salary of three thousand
francs, and gave him an interest in the sales of timber; Michu, who was
thought to have some ten thousand francs of his own laid by, married
the daughter of a tanner at Troyes, an apostle of the Revolution in that
town, where he was president of the revolutionary tribunal. This tanner,
a man of profound convictions, who resembled Saint-Just as to character,
was afterwards mixed up in Baboeuf's conspiracy and killed himself to
escape execution. Marthe was the handsomest girl in Troyes. In spite of
her shrinking modesty she had been forced by her formidable father to
play the part of Goddess of Liberty in some republican ceremony.

The new proprietor came only three times to Gondreville in the course
of seven years. His grandfather had been bailiff of the estate under the
Simeuse family, and all Arcis took for granted that the citizen Marion
was the secret representative of the present Marquis and his twin
brother. As long as the Terror lasted, Michu, still bailiff of
Gondreville, a devoted patriot, son-in-law of the president of the
revolutionary tribunal of Troyes and flattered by Malin, representative
from the department of the Aube, was the object of a certain sort
of respect. But when the Mountain was overthrown and after his
father-in-law committed suicide, he found himself a scape-goat;
everybody hastened to accuse him, in common with his father-in-law, of
acts to which, so far as he was concerned, he was a total stranger. The
bailiff resented the injustice of the community; he stiffened his back
and took an attitude of hostility. He talked boldly. But after the
18th Brumaire he maintained an unbroken silence, the philosophy of the
strong; he struggled no longer against public opinion, and contented
himself with attending to his own affairs,—wise conduct, which led his
neighbors to pronounce him sly, for he owned, it was said, a fortune of
not less than a hundred thousand francs in landed property. In the first
place, he spent nothing; next, this property was legitimately acquired,
partly from the inheritance of his father-in-law's estate, and partly
from the savings of six-thousand francs a year, the salary he derived
from his place with its profits and emoluments. He had been bailiff of
Gondreville for the last twelve years and every one had estimated the
probable amount of his savings, so that when, after the Consulate was
proclaimed, he bought a farm for fifty thousand francs, the suspicions
attaching to his former opinions lessened, and the community of Arcis
gave him credit for intending to recover himself in public estimation.
Unfortunately, at the very moment when public opinion was condoning
his past a foolish affair, envenomed by the gossip of the country-side,
revived the latent and very general belief in the ferocity of his
character.

One evening, coming away from Troyes in company with several peasants,
among whom was the farmer at Cinq-Cygne, he let fall a paper on the main
road; the farmer, who was walking behind him, stooped and picked it up.
Michu turned round, saw the paper in the man's hands, pulled a pistol
from his belt and threatened the farmer (who knew how to read) to blow
his brains out if he opened the paper. Michu's action was so sudden and
violent, the tone of his voice so alarming, his eyes blazed so savagely,
that the men about him turned cold with fear. The farmer of Cinq-Cygne
was already his enemy. Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, the man's employer,
was a cousin of the Simeuse brothers; she had only one farm left for her
maintenance and was now residing at her chateau of Cinq-Cygne. She lived
for her cousins the twins, with whom she had played in childhood at
Troyes and at Gondreville. Her only brother, Jules de Cinq-Cygne, who
emigrated before the twins, died at Mayence, but by a privilege which
was somewhat rare and will be mentioned later, the name of Cinq-Cygne
was not to perish through lack of male heirs.

This affair between Michu and the farmer made a great noise in the
arrondissement and darkened the already mysterious shadows which seemed
to veil him. Nor was it the only circumstance which made him feared.
A few months after this scene the citizen Marion, present owner of the
Gondreville estate, came to inspect it with the citizen Malin. Rumor
said that Marion was about to sell the property to his companion, who
had profited by political events and had just been appointed on the
Council of State by the First Consul, in return for his services on
the 18th Brumaire. The shrewd heads of the little town of Arcis now
perceived that Marion had been the agent of Malin in the purchase of the
property, and not of the brothers Simeuse, as was first supposed. The
all-powerful Councillor of State was the most important personage in
Arcis. He had obtained for one of his political friends the prefecture
of Troyes, and for a farmer at Gondreville the exemption of his son from
the draft; in fact, he had done services to many. Consequently, the sale
met with no opposition in the neighborhood where Malin then reigned, and
where he still reigns supreme.

The Empire was just dawning. Those who in these days read the histories
of the French Revolution can form no conception of the vast spaces which
public thought traversed between events which now seem to have been so
near together. The strong need of peace and tranquillity which every
one felt after the violent tumults of the Revolution brought about a
complete forgetfulness of important anterior facts. History matured
rapidly under the advance of new and eager interests. No one, therefore,
except Michu, looked into the past of this affair, which the community
accepted as a simple matter. Marion, who had bought Gondreville for six
hundred thousand francs in assignats, sold it for the value of a couple
of million in coin; but the only payments actually made by Malin were
for the costs of registration. Grevin, a seminary comrade of Malin,
assisted the transaction, and the Councillor rewarded his help with
the office of notary at Arcis. When the news of the sale reached the
pavilion, brought there by a farmer whose farm, at Grouage, was situated
between the forest and the park on the left of the noble avenue, Michu
turned pale and left the house. He lay in wait for Marion, and finally
met him alone in one of the shrubberies of the park.

"Is monsieur about to sell Gondreville?" asked the bailiff.

"Yes, Michu, yes. You will have a man of powerful influence for your
master. He is the friend of the First Consul, and very intimate with all
the ministers; he will protect you."

"Then you were holding the estate for him?"

"I don't say that," replied Marion. "At the time I bought it I was
looking for a place to put my money, and I invested in national property
as the best security. But it doesn't suit me to keep an estate once
belonging to a family in which my father was—"

"—a servant," said Michu, violently. "But you shall not sell it! I want
it; and I can pay for it."

"You?"

"Yes, I; seriously, in good gold,—eight hundred thousand francs."

"Eight hundred thousand francs!" exclaimed Marion. "Where did you get
them?"

"That's none of your business," replied Michu; then, softening his
tone, he added in a low voice: "My father-in-law saved the lives of many
persons."

"You are too late, Michu; the sale is made."

"You must put it off, monsieur!" cried the bailiff, seizing his master
by the hand which he held as in a vice. "I am hated, but I choose to be
rich and powerful, and I must have Gondreville. Listen to me; I don't
cling to life; sell me that place or I'll blow your brains out!—"

"But do give me time to get off my bargain with Malin; he's troublesome
to deal with."

"I'll give you twenty-four hours. If you say a word about this matter
I'll chop your head off as I would chop a turnip."

Marion and Malin left the chateau in the course of the night. Marion was
frightened; he told Malin of the meeting and begged him to keep an eye
on the bailiff. It was impossible for Marion to avoid delivering the
property to the man who had been the real purchaser, and Michu did not
seem likely to admit any such reason. Moreover, this service done by
Marion to Malin was to be, and in fact ended by being, the origin of the
former's political fortune, and also that of his brother. In 1806 Malin
had him appointed chief justice of an imperial court, and after
the creation of tax-collectors his brother obtained the post of
receiver-general for the department of the Aube. The State Councillor
told Marion to stay in Paris, and he warned the minister of police, who
gave orders that Michu should be secretly watched. Not wishing to push
the man to extremes, Malin kept him on as bailiff, under the iron rule
of Grevin the notary of Arcis.

From that moment Michu became more absorbed and taciturn than ever, and
obtained the reputation of a man who was capable of committing a crime.
Malin, the Councillor of State (a function which the First Consul raised
to the level of a ministry), and a maker of the Code, played a great
part in Paris, where he bought one of the finest mansions in the
Faubuorg Saint-Germain after marrying the only daughter of a rich
contractor named Sibuelle. He never came to Gondreville; leaving all
matters concerning the property to the management of Grevin, the Arcis
notary. After all, what had he to fear?—he, a former representative of
the Aube, and president of a club of Jacobins. And yet, the unfavorable
opinion of Michu held by the lower classes was shared by the
bourgeoisie, and Marion, Grevin, and Malin, without giving any reason or
compromising themselves on the subject, showed that they regarded him as
an extremely dangerous man. The authorities, who were under instructions
from the minister of police to watch the bailiff, did not of course
lessen this belief. The neighborhood wondered that he kept his place,
but supposed it was in consequence of the terror he inspired. It is easy
now, after these explanations, to understand the anxiety and sadness
expressed in the face of Michu's wife.

In the first place, Marthe had been piously brought up by her mother.
Both, being good Catholics, had suffered much from the opinions and
behavior of the tanner. Marthe could never think without a blush of
having marched through the street of Troyes in the garb of a goddess.
Her father had forced her to marry Michu, whose bad reputation was
then increasing, and she feared him too much to be able to judge him.
Nevertheless, she knew that he loved her, and at the bottom of her heart
lay the truest affection for this awe-inspiring man; she had never known
him to do anything that was not just; never did he say a brutal word,
to her at least; in fact, he endeavored to forestall her every wish. The
poor pariah, believing himself disagreeable to his wife, spent most
of his time out of doors. Marthe and Michu, distrustful of each other,
lived in what is called in these days an "armed peace." Marthe, who
saw no one, suffered keenly from the ostracism which for the last seven
years had surrounded her as the daughter of a revolutionary butcher, and
the wife of a so-called traitor. More than once she had overheard the
laborers of the adjoining farm (held by a man named Beauvisage, greatly
attached to the Simeuse family) say as they passed the pavilion, "That's
where Judas lives!" The singular resemblance between the bailiff's head
and that of the thirteenth apostle, which his conduct appeared to carry
out, won him that odious nickname throughout the neighborhood. It was
this distress of mind, added to vague but constant fears for the future,
which gave Marthe her thoughtful and subdued air. Nothing saddens so
deeply as unmerited degradation from which there seems no escape. A
painter could have made a fine picture of this family of pariahs in
the bosom of their pretty nook in Champagne, where the landscape is
generally sad.