Part 42

“Madame--” said Fraisier, stopping short to bow with the humility by which officials recognize the superior rank of the person whom they address.

“Take a seat, monsieur,” said the Presidente. She saw at a glance that this was a man of law.

“Mme. la Presidente, if I take the liberty of calling your attention to a matter which concerns M. le President, it is because I am sure that M. de Marville, occupying, as he does, a high position, would leave matters to take their natural course, and so lose seven or eight hundred thousand francs, a sum which ladies (who, in my opinion, have a far better understanding of private business than the best of magistrates)--a sum which ladies, I repeat, would by no means despise--”

“You spoke of a legacy,” interrupted the lady, dazzled by the wealth, and anxious to hide her surprise. Amelie de Marville, like an impatient novel-reader, wanted the end of the story.

“Yes, madame, a legacy that you are like to lose; yes, to lose altogether; but I can, that is, I could, recover it for you, if--”

“Speak out, monsieur.” Mme. de Marville spoke frigidly, scanning Fraisier as she spoke with a sagacious eye.

“Madame, your eminent capacity is known to me; I was once at Mantes. M. Leboeuf, President of the Tribunal, is acquainted with M. de Marville, and can answer inquiries about me--”

The Presidente’s shrug was so ruthlessly significant, that Fraisier was compelled to make short work of his parenthetic discourse.

“So distinguished a woman will at once understand why I speak of myself in the first place. It is the shortest way to the property.”

To this acute observation the lady replied by a gesture. Fraisier took the sign for a permission to continue.

“I was an attorney, madame, at Mantes. My connection was all the fortune that I was likely to have. I took over M. Levroux’s practice. You knew him, no doubt?”

The Presidente inclined her head.

“With borrowed capital and some ten thousand francs of my own, I went to Mantes. I had been with Desroches, one of the cleverest attorneys in Paris, I had been his head-clerk for six years. I was so unlucky as to make an enemy of the attorney for the crown at Mantes, Monsieur--”

“Olivier Vinet.”

“Son of the Attorney-General, yes, madame. He was paying his court to a little person--”

“Whom?”

“Mme. Vatinelle.”

“Oh! Mme. Vatinelle. She was very pretty and very--er--when I was there--”

“She was not unkind to me: inde iroe,” Fraisier continued. “I was industrious; I wanted to repay my friends and to marry; I wanted work; I went in search of it; and before long I had more on my hands than anybody else. Bah! I had every soul in Mantes against me--attorneys, notaries, and even the bailiffs. They tried to fasten a quarrel on me. In our ruthless profession, as you know, madame, if you wish to ruin a man, it is soon done. I was concerned for both parties in a case, and they found it out. It was a trifle irregular; but it is sometimes done in Paris, attorneys in certain cases hand the rhubarb and take the senna. They do things differently at Mantes. I had done M. Bouyonnet this little service before; but, egged on by his colleagues and the attorney for the crown, he betrayed me.--I am keeping back nothing, you see.--There was a great hue and cry about it. I was a scoundrel; they made me out blacker than Marat; forced me to sell out; ruined me. And I am in Paris now. I have tried to get together a practice; but my health is so bad, that I have only two quiet hours out of the twenty-four.

“At this moment I have but one ambition, and a very small one. Some day,” he continued, “you will be the wife of the Keeper of the Seals, or of the Home Secretary, it may be; but I, poor and sickly as I am, desire nothing but a post in which I can live in peace for the rest of my life, a place without any opening in which to vegetate. I should like to be a justice of the peace in Paris. It would be a mere trifle for you and M. le President to gain the appointment for me; for the present Keeper of the Seals must be anxious to keep on good terms with you...

“And that is not all, madame,” added Fraisier. Seeing that Mme. de Marville was about to speak, he cut her short with a gesture. “I have a friend, the doctor in attendance on the old man who ought to leave his property to M. le President. (We are coming to the point, you see.) The doctor’s co-operation is indispensable, and the doctor is precisely in my position: he has abilities, he is unlucky. I learned through him how far your interests were imperiled; for even as I speak, all may be over, and the will disinheriting M. le President may have been made. This doctor wishes to be head-surgeon of a hospital or of a Government school. He must have a position in Paris equal to mine.... Pardon me if I have enlarged on a matter so delicate; but we must have no misunderstandings in this business. The doctor is, besides, much respected and learned; he saved the life of the Comtesse Popinot’s great-uncle, M. Pillerault.

“Now, if you are so good as to promise these two posts--the appointment of justice of the peace and the sinecure for my friend--I will undertake to bring you the property, almost intact.--Almost intact, I say, for the co-operation of the legatee and several other persons is absolutely indispensable, and some obligations will be incurred. You will not redeem your promises until I have fulfilled mine.”

The Presidente had folded her arms, and for the last minute or two sat like a person compelled to listen to a sermon. Now she unfolded her arms, and looked at Fraisier as she said, “Monsieur, all that you say concerning your interests has the merit of clearness; but my own interests in the matter are by no means so clear--”

“A word or two will explain everything, madame. M. le President is M. Pons’ first cousin once removed, and his sole heir. M. Pons is very ill; he is about to make his will, if it is not already made, in favor of a German, a friend of his named Schmucke; and he has more than seven hundred thousand francs to leave. I hope to have an accurate valuation made in two or three days--”

“If this is so,” said the Presidente, “I made a great mistake in quarreling with him and throwing the blame----” she thought aloud, amazed by the possibility of such a sum.

“No, madame. If there had been no rupture, he would be as blithe as a lark at this moment, and might outlive you and M. le President and me. ... The ways of Providence are mysterious, let us not seek to fathom them,” he added to palliate to some extent the hideous idea. “It cannot be helped. We men of business look at the practical aspects of things. Now you see clearly, madame, that M. de Marville in his public position would do nothing, and could do nothing, as things are. He has broken off all relations with his cousin. You see nothing now of Pons; you have forbidden him the house; you had excellent reasons, no doubt, for doing as you did, but the old man is ill, and he is leaving his property to the only friend left to him. A President of the Court of Appeal in Paris could say nothing under such circumstances if the will was made out in due form. But between ourselves, madame, when one has a right to expect seven or eight hundred thousand francs--or a million, it may be (how should I know?)--it is very unpleasant to have it slip through one’s fingers, especially if one happens to be the heir-at-law.... But, on the other hand, to prevent this, one is obliged to stoop to dirty work; work so difficult, so ticklish, bringing you cheek by jowl with such low people, servants and subordinates; and into such close contact with them too, that no barrister, no attorney in Paris could take up such a case.

“What you want is a briefless barrister like me,” said he, “a man who should have real and solid ability, who has learned to be devoted, and yet, being in a precarious position, is brought temporarily to a level with such people. In my arrondissement I undertake business for small tradespeople and working folk. Yes, madame, you see the straits to which I have been brought by the enmity of an attorney for the crown, now a deputy-public prosecutor in Paris, who could not forgive me my superiority.--I know you, madame, I know that your influence means a solid certainty; and in such a service rendered to you, I saw the end of my troubles and success for my friend Dr. Poulain.”

The lady sat pensive during a moment of unspeakable torture for Fraisier. Vinet, an orator of the Centre, attorney-general (procureur-general) for the past sixteen years, nominated half-a-score of times for the chancellorship, the father, moreover, of the attorney for the crown at Mantes who had been appointed to a post in Paris within the last year--Vinet was an enemy and a rival for the malignant Presidente. The haughty attorney-general did not hide his contempt for President Camusot. This fact Fraisier did not know, and could not know.