"No," replied Maxime, "I have always done my own business in that line."

"True," said Desroches, "you conquer in the upper ranks, where, as a general thing, they don't use go-betweens. But, at any rate, you have heard of Madame de Saint-Esteve?"

"Of course; her establishment is in the rue Neuve-Saint-Marc, and it was she who got that pot of money out of Nucingen for La Torpille. Isn't she some relation to the chief of detective police, who bears the same name, and used to be one of the same kind as herself?"

"I don't know about that," said Desroches, "but what I can tell you is that in her business as procuress--as it was called in days less decorous than our own--the worthy woman has made a fortune, and now, without any serious change of occupation, she lives magnificently in the rue de Provence, where she carries on the business of a matrimonial agency."

"Is that where you are going to dine?" asked Maxime.

"Yes, with the director of the London opera-house, Emile Blondet, Finot, Lousteau, Felicien Vernon, Theodore Gaillard, Hector Merlin, and Bixiou, who was commissioned to invite me, as it seems they are in want of my _experience_ and _capacity for business_!"

"_Ah ca_! then there's some financial object in this dinner?"

"No; it merely concerns a theatrical venture,--the engagement of a prima donna; and they want to submit the terms of the contract to my judgment.

You understand that the rest of the guests are invited to trumpet the affair as soon as the papers are signed."

"Who is the object of all this preparation?"

"Oh! a _star_,--destined, they say, to European success; an Italian, discovered by a Swedish n.o.bleman, Comte Halphertius, through the medium of Madame de Saint-Esteve. The ill.u.s.trious manager of the London opera-house is negotiating this treaty in order that she shall make her first appearance at his theatre."

"Well, adieu, my dear fellow; a pleasant dinner," said Maxime, preparing to depart. "If your star shines in London, it will probably appear in our firmament next winter. As for me, I must go and attend to the sunrise in Arcis. By the bye, where does Ma.s.sol live?"

"Faith! I couldn't tell you that. I never myself trust him with a case, for I will not employ barristers who dabble in politics. But you can get his address from the 'Gazette des Tribuneaux'; he is one of their reporters."

Maxime went to the office of that newspaper; but, probably on account of creditors, the office servant had express orders not to give the barrister's address, so that, in spite of his arrogant, imperious manner, Monsieur de Trailles obtained no information. Happily, he bethought him that he frequently saw Ma.s.sol at the Opera, and he resolved to seek him there that evening. Before going to dinner, he went to the lodgings in the rue Montmartre, where he had installed the Romilly peasant-woman and her counsel, whom Madame Beauvisage had already sent to Paris. He found them at dinner, making the most of the Beauvisage funds, and he gave them an order to come to his apartment the next day at half-past eleven without breakfasting.

In the evening he found Ma.s.sol, as he expected, at the opera-house.

Going up to the lawyer with the slightly insolent manner which was natural to him, he said,--

"Monsieur, I have an affair, half legal, half political, which I desire to talk over with you. If it did not demand a certain amount of secrecy, I would go to your office, but I think we could talk with more safety in my own apartment; where, moreover, I shall be able to put you in communication with other persons concerned in the affair. May I hope that to-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock, you will do me the favor to take a cup of tea with me?"

If Ma.s.sol had had an office, he might possibly not have consented, for the sake of his legal dignity, to reverse the usual order of things; but as he perched rather than lodged in any particular place, he was glad of an arrangement which left his abode, if he had any, incognito.

"I shall have the honor to be with you at the hour named," he replied ceremoniously.

"Rue Pigalle," said Maxime, "No. 6."

"Yes, I know," returned Ma.s.sol,--"a few steps from the corner of the rue de la Rochefoucauld."

VIII. SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES

A few evenings after the one on which Sallenauve and Marie-Gaston had taken Jacques Bricheteau to Saint-Sulpice to hear the Signora Luigia's voice, the church was the scene of a curious little incident that pa.s.sed by almost wholly unperceived. A young man entered hastily by a side-door; he seemed agitated, and so absorbed in some anxiety that he forgot to remove his hat. The beadle caught him by the arm, and his face became livid, but, turning round, he saw at once that his fears were causeless.

"Is your hat glued on your head, young man?" said the beadle, pompously.

"Oh, pardon me, monsieur," he replied, s.n.a.t.c.hing it off; "I forgot myself."

Then he slipped into the thickest of the crowd and disappeared.

A few seconds after the irruption of this youth the same door gave access to a man around whose powerful, seamed face was the collar of a white beard, which, combined with a thick shock of hair, also white but slightly reddish in tone and falling almost to his shoulders, gave him very much the air of an old Conventional, or a Bernardin de Saint-Pierre who had had the small-pox. His face and his hair placed him in the sixties, but his robust figure, the energetic decision of his movements, and, above all, the piercing keenness of the glance which he cast about him on entering the church, showed a powerful organization on which the pa.s.sage of years had made little or no impression. No doubt, he was in search of the young fellow who had preceded him; but he did not commit the mistake of entering the crowd, where he knew of course that the youth had lost himself. Like a practised hunter, he saw that pursuit was useless, and he was just about to leave the church when, after a short organ prelude, the contralto of the signora delivering its solemn notes gave forth that glorious harmony to which is sung the Litany of the Virgin. The beauty of the voice, the beauty of the chant, the beauty of the words of the sacred hymn, which the fine method of the singer brought out distinctly, made a singular impression on the stalwart stranger. Instead of leaving the church, he put himself in the shadow of a column, against which he leaned as he stood; but as the last notes of the divine canticle died away among the arches of the church, he knelt on the pavement, and whoever had chanced to look that way would have seen two heavy tears rolling slowly down his cheeks. The benediction given, and the crowd dispersing, he rose, wiped his eyes, and, muttering, "What a fool I am!" left the church. Then he went to the Place Saint-Sulpice, and, beckoning to a coach on the stand, he said to the driver,--

"Rue de Provence, my man, quick! there's fat in it."

Reaching the house, he went rapidly up the stairway, and rang at the door of an apartment on the first floor.

"Is my aunt at home?" he inquired of the Negro who opened it. Then he followed the man, and was presently ushered into a salon where the Negro announced,--

"Monsieur de Saint-Esteve."

The salon which the famous chief of the detective police now entered was remarkable for the luxury, but still more for the horribly bad taste, of its appointments. Three women of advanced age were seated round a card-table earnestly employed in a game of dominoes. Three gla.s.ses and an empty silver bowl which gave forth a vinous odor showed that the worship of double-sixes was not without its due libations.

"Good evening, mesdames," said the chief of police, sitting down; "for I have something to say to each of you."

"We'll listen presently," said his aunt; "you can't interrupt the game.

It won't be long; I play for four."

"White all round!" said one of the hags.

"Domino!" cried the Saint-Esteve. "I win; you have four points between you two, and the whites are all out. Well, my dear, what is it?" she said, turning to her nephew, after a rather stormy reckoning among the witches was over.

"You, Madame Fontaine," said the chief of police, addressing one of the venerable beings, whose head was covered with disorderly gray hair and a battered green bonnet,--"you neglect your duty; you have sent me no report, and, on the contrary, I get many complaints of you. The prefect has a great mind to close your establishment. I protect you on account of the services you are supposed to render us; but if you don't render them, I warn you, without claiming any gifts of prediction, that your fate-shop will be shut up."

"There now!" replied the pythoness, "you prevented me from hiring Mademoiselle Lenormand's apartment in the rue de Tournon, and how can you expect me to make reports about the cooks and clerks and workmen and grisettes who are all I get where I am? If you had let me work among the great folks, I'd make you reports and plenty of them."

"I don't see how you can say that, Madame Fontaine," said Madame de Saint-Esteve. "I am sure I send you all my clients. It was only the other day," continued the matrimonial agent, "I sent you that Italian singer, living with a deputy who is against the government; why didn't you report about that?"

"There's another thing," said the chief of police, "which appears in several of the complaints that I received about you,--that nasty animal--"

"What, Astaroth?" said Madame Fontaine.

"Yes, that batrachian, that toad, to come down to his right name. It seems he nearly killed a woman who was pregnant--"

"Well, well," interrupted the sorceress, "if I am to tell fortunes alone, you might as well guillotine me at once. Because a fool of a woman lay-in with a dead child, must toads be suppressed in nature? Why did G.o.d make them?"

"My dear woman," said the chief, "did you never hear that in 1617 a learned man was put to death for having a toad in a bottle?"

"Yes, I know that; but we are not in those light ages," replied Madame Fontaine, facetiously.

"As for you, Madame Nourrisson, the complaint is that you gather your fruit unripe. You ought to know by this time the laws and regulations, and I warn you that everything under twenty-one years of age is forbidden. I wonder I have to remind you of it. Now, aunt, what I have to say to you is confidential."

Thus dismissed, two of the Fates departed.

Since the days when Jacques Collin had abdicated his former kingship and had made himself, as they say, a new skin in the police force, Jacqueline Collin, though she had never put herself within reach of the law, had certainly never donned the robe of innocence. But having attained, like her nephew, to what might fairly be called opulence, she kept at a safe and respectful distance from the Penal Code, and under cover of an agency that was fairly avowable, she sheltered practices more or less shady, on which she continued to bestow an intelligence and an activity that were really infernal.

"Aunt," said Vautrin, "I have so many things to say to you that I don't know where to begin."