“An absolute want of form. Well, there
he is on his beam-ends, and then Jenkins, too, and
plenty of others with them.”
“What! the doctor too? Ah! so much the
worse. Such a polite and amiable man.”
“Yes, still another breaking-up of his establishment.
Horses, carriages, furniture. The yard of the
house is full of bills, and it sounds as empty as
if some one were dead. The place at Nanterre is
on sale. There were half a dozen of the ‘little
Bethlehems’ left whom they packed up in a cab.
It is a break-up, I tell you, pere Passajon,
a ruin which we, old as we are, may not see the end
of, but it will be complete. Everything is rotten,
it must all come down!”
He was a sinister figure, this old steward of the
Empire, thin, stubbly, covered with mud, and shouting
like a Jeremiah, “It is the downfall!”
with a toothless mouth, black and wide open. I
felt afraid and ashamed of him, with a great desire
to see him outside, and I thought: “Oh,
M. Chalmette! Oh, my little vineyard of Montbars!”
Same date.—Great news. Mme.
Gaganetti came this afternoon to bring me mysteriously
a letter from the governor. He is in London, going
to begin a magnificent thing. Fine offices in
the best part of the town, a superb list of shareholders.
He offers me the chance of joining him, “happy
to repair thus the damage he has caused me,”
says he. I shall have twice my wages at the Territorial,
be lodged comfortably, five shares in the new bank,
and all my arrears paid. All I need is a little
money to go there and to pay a few small debts round
here. Good luck! My fortune is assured.
I shall write to the notary of Montbars to mortgage
my vineyard.
As M. Joyeuse had told the Juge d’Instruction,
Paul de Gery returned from Tunis after three weeks’
absence. Three interminable weeks spent in struggling
among intrigues, and traps secretly laid by the powerful
hatred of the Hemerlingues—in wandering
from hall to hall, from ministry to ministry through
the immense palace of the Bardo, which gathered within
one enclosure, bristling with culverins, all the departments
of the State, as much under the master’s eye
as his stables and harem. On his arrival, Paul
had learned that the Chamber of Justice was preparing
secretly Jansoulet’s trial—a derisive
trial, lost beforehand; and the closed offices of
the Nabob on the Marine Quay, the seals on his strong
boxes, his ships moored to the Goulette, a guard round
his palace, seemed to speak of a sort of civil death,
of a disputed succession of which the spoils would
not long remain to be shared.
There was not a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious
crowd; the French colony itself appeared satisfied
with the fall of a courtier who had so long monopolized
the roads to favour. To attempt to snatch this
prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph
at the Assembly, was not to be thought of. All
that de Gery could hope for was to save some shreds
of his fortune, and this only if he hurried, for he
was expecting day by day to learn of his friend’s
complete ruin.
