Part 45

“Paul! go and ask M. Ségaud, my successor, to come here.--He shall go to see the Cointets while we breakfast” said Petit-Claud, addressing his former clients, “and in a few hours’ time you will be on your way home to Marsac, ruined, but with minds at rest. Ten thousand francs will bring you in another five hundred francs of income, and you will live comfortably on your bit of property.”

Two hours later, as Petit-Claud had prophesied, Maître Ségaud came back with an agreement duly drawn up and signed by the Cointets, and fifteen notes each for a thousand francs.

“We are much indebted to you,” said Séchard, turning to Petit-Claud.

“Why, I have just this moment ruined you,” said Petit-Claud, looking at his astonished former clients. “I tell you again, I have ruined you, as you will see as time goes on; but I know you, you would rather be ruined than wait for a fortune which perhaps might come too late.”

“We are not mercenary, monsieur,” said Madame Eve. “We thank you for giving us the means of happiness; we shall always feel grateful to you.”

“Great heavens! don’t call down blessings on me!” cried Petit-Claud. “It fills me with remorse; but to-day, I think, I have made full reparation. If I am a magistrate, it is entirely owing to you; and if anybody is to feel grateful, it is I. Good-bye.”

As time went on, Kolb changed his opinion of Séchard senior; and as for the old man, he took a liking to Kolb when he found that, like himself, the Alsacien could neither write nor read a word, and that it was easy to make him tipsy. The old “bear” imparted his ideas on vine culture and the sale of a vintage to the ex-cuirassier, and trained him with a view to leaving a man with a head on his shoulders to look after his children when he should be gone; for he grew childish at the last, and great were his fears as to the fate of his property. He had chosen Courtois the miller as his confidant. “You will see how things will go with my children when I am under ground. Lord! it makes me shudder to think of it.”

Old Séchard died in the month of March, 1929, leaving about two hundred thousand francs in land. His acres added to the Verberie made a fine property, which Kolb had managed to admiration for some two years.

David and his wife found nearly a hundred thousand crowns in gold in the house. The department of the Charente had valued old Séchard’s money at a million; rumor, as usual, exaggerating the amount of a hoard. Eve and David had barely thirty thousand francs of income when they added their little fortune to the inheritance; they waited awhile, and so it fell out that they invested their capital in Government securities at the time of the Revolution of July.

Then, and not until then, could the department of the Charente and David Séchard form some idea of the wealth of the tall Cointet. Rich to the extent of several millions of francs, the elder Cointet became a deputy, and is at this day a peer of France. It is said that he will be Minister of Commerce in the next Government; for in 1842 he married Mlle. Popinot, daughter of M. Anselme Popinot, one of the most influential statesmen of the dynasty, deputy and mayor of an arrondissement in Paris.

David Séchard’s discovery has been assimilated by the French manufacturing world, as food is assimilated by a living body. Thanks to the introduction of materials other than rags, France can produce paper more cheaply than any other European country. Dutch paper, as David foresaw, no longer exists. Sooner or later it will be necessary, no doubt, to establish a Royal Paper Manufactory; like the Gobelins, the Sèvres porcelain works, the Savonnerie, and the Imprimerie royale, which so far have escaped the destruction threatened by bourgeois vandalism.

David Séchard, beloved by his wife, father of two boys and a girl, has the good taste to make no allusion to his past efforts. Eve had the sense to dissuade him from following his terrible vocation; for the inventor like Moses on Mount Horeb, is consumed by the burning bush. He cultivates literature by way of recreation, and leads a comfortable life of leisure, befitting the landowner who lives on his own estate. He has bidden farewell for ever to glory, and bravely taken his place in the class of dreamers and collectors; for he dabbles in entomology, and is at present investigating the transformations of insects which science only knows in the final stage.

Everybody has heard of Petit-Claud’s success as attorney-general; he is the rival of the great Vinet of Provins, and it is his ambition to be President of the Court-Royal of Poitiers.

Cérizet has been in trouble so frequently for political offences that he has been a good deal talked about; and as one of the boldest enfants perdus of the Liberal party he was nicknamed the “Brave Cérizet.” When Petit-Claud’s successor compelled him to sell his business in Angoulême, he found a fresh career on the provincial stage, where his talents as an actor were like to be turned to brilliant account. The chief stage heroine, however, obliged him to go to Paris to find a cure for love among the resources of science, and there he tried to curry favor with the Liberal party.

As for Lucien, the story of his return to Paris belongs to the Scenes of Parisian life.

ADDENDUM

Note: Eve and David is the part three of a trilogy. Part one is entitled Two Poets and part two is A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. In other addendum référénces parts one and three are usually combined under the title Lost Illusions.

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Cérizet Two Poets A Man of Business Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life The Middle Classes

Chardon, Madame (nee Rubempré) Two Poets Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Châtelet, Sixte, Baron du Two Poets A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life The Thirteen

Châtelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Nègrepelisse, Baronne du Two Poets A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Government Clerks

Cointet, Boniface Two Poets The Firm of Nucingen The Member for Arcis

Cointet, Jean Two Poets

Collin, Jacques Father Goriot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life The Member for Arcis

Conti, Gennaro Beatrix

Courtois Two Poets

Courtois, Madame Two Poets