Part 6

“Rise, my wife! Monsieur is a man of science.”

Madame Vital rose at her husband’s gesture. Gazonal bowed to her.

“Shall I have the honor to cover your head?” said Vital, with joyful obsequiousness.

“At the same price as mine,” interposed Bixiou.

“Of course, of course; I ask no other fee than to be quoted by you, messieurs--Monsieur needs a picturesque hat, something in the style of Monsieur Lousteau’s,” he continued, looking at Gazonal with the eye of a master. “I will consider it.”

“You give yourself a great deal of trouble,” said Gazonal.

“Oh! for a few persons only; for those who know how to appreciate the value of the pains I bestow upon them. Now, take the aristocracy--there is but one man there who has truly comprehended the Hat; and that is the Prince de Bethune. How is it that men do not consider, as women do, that the hat is the first thing that strikes the eye? And why have they never thought of changing the present system, which is, let us say it frankly, ignoble? Yes, ignoble; and yet a Frenchman is, of all nationalities, the one most persistent in this folly! I know the difficulties of a change, messieurs. I don’t speak of my own writings on the matter, which, as I think, approach it philosophically, but simply as a hatter. I have myself studied means to accentuate the infamous head-covering to which France is now enslaved until I succeed in overthrowing it.”

So saying he pointed to the hideous hat in vogue at the present day.

“Behold the enemy, messieurs,” he continued. “How is it that the wittiest and most satirical people on earth will consent to wear upon their heads a bit of stove-pipe?--as one of our great writers has called it. Here are some of the infections I have been able to give to those atrocious lines,” he added, pointing to a number of his creations. “But, although I am able to conform them to the character of each wearer--for, as you see, there are the hats of a doctor, a grocer, a dandy, an artist, a fat man, a thin man, and so forth--the style itself remains horrible. Seize, I beg of you, my whole thought--”

He took up a hat, low-crowned and wide-brimmed.

“This,” he continued, “is the old hat of Claude Vignon, a great critic, in the days when he was a free man and a free-liver. He has lately come round to the ministry; they’ve made him a professor, a librarian; he writes now for the Debats only; they’ve appointed him Master of Petitions with a salary of sixteen thousand francs; he earns four thousand more out of his paper, and he is decorated. Well, now see his new hat.”

And Vital showed them a hat of a form and design which was truly expressive of the juste-milieu.

“You ought to have made him a Punch and Judy hat!” cried Gazonal.

“You are a man of genius, Monsieur Vital,” said Leon.

Vital bowed.

“Would you kindly tell me why the shops of your trade in Paris remain open late at night,--later than the cafes and the wineshops? That fact puzzles me very much,” said Gazonal.

“In the first place, our shops are much finer when lighted up than they are in the daytime; next, where we sell ten hats in the daytime we sell fifty at night.”

“Everything is queer in Paris,” said Leon.

“Thanks to my efforts and my successes,” said Vital, returning to the course of his self-laudation, “we are coming to hats with round headpieces. It is to that I tend!”

“What obstacle is there?” asked Gazonal.

“Cheapness, monsieur. In the first place, very handsome silk hats can be built for fifteen francs, which kills our business; for in Paris no one ever has fifteen francs in his pocket to spend on a hat. If a beaver hat costs thirty, it is still the same thing--When I say beaver, I ought to state that there are not ten pounds of beaver skins left in France. That article is worth three hundred and fifty francs a pound, and it takes an ounce for a hat. Besides, a beaver hat isn’t really worth anything; the skin takes a wretched dye; gets rusty in ten minutes under the sun, and heat puts it out of shape as well. What we call ‘beaver’ in the trade is neither more nor less than hare’s-skin. The best qualities are made from the back of the animal, the second from the sides, the third from the belly. I confide to you these trade secrets because you are men of honor. But whether a man has hare’s-skin or silk on his head, fifteen or thirty francs in short, the problem is always insoluble. Hats must be paid for in cash, and that is why the hat remains what it is. The honor of vestural France will be saved on the day that gray hats with round crowns can be made to cost a hundred francs. We could then, like the tailors, give credit. To reach that result men must resolve to wear buckles, gold lace, plumes, and the brims lined with satin, as in the days of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. Our business, which would then enter the domain of fancy, would increase tenfold. The markets of the world should belong to France; Paris will forever give the tone to women’s fashions, and yet the hats which all Frenchmen wear to-day are made in every country on earth! There are ten millions of foreign money to be gained annually for France in that question--”

“A revolution!” cried Bixiou, pretending enthusiasm.

“Yes, and a radical one; for the form must be changed.”

“You are happy after the manner of Luther in dreaming of reform,” said Leon.

“Yes, monsieur. Ah! if a dozen or fifteen artists, capitalists, or dandies who set the tone would only have courage for twenty-four hours France would gain a splendid commercial battle! To succeed in this reform I would give my whole fortune! Yes, my sole ambition is to regenerate the hat and disappear.”

“The man is colossal,” said Gazonal, as they left the shop; “but I assure you that all your originals so far have a touch of the Southerner about them.”

“Let us go this way,” said Bixiou pointing to the rue Saint-Marc.

“Do you want to show me something else?”