Gaudissart to a conference, and proposed to give him
ten francs a head for every subscriber, provided he
brought in a thousand, but only five francs if he
got no more than five hundred. The cause of political
journalism not interfering with the pre-accepted
cause of life insurance, the bargain was struck; although
Gaudissart demanded an indemnity from the Saint-Simonians
for the eight days he was forced to spend in studying
the doctrines of their apostle, asserting that a prodigious
effort of memory and intellect was necessary to get
to the bottom of that “article” and to
reason upon it suitably. He asked nothing, however,
from the republicans. In the first place, he
inclined in republican ideas,—the only ones,
according to guadissardian philosophy, which could
bring about a rational equality. Besides which
he had already dipped into the conspiracies of the
French “carbonari”; he had been arrested,
and released for want of proof; and finally, as he
called the newspaper proprietors to observe, he had
lately grown a mustache, and needed only a hat of
certain shape and a pair of spurs to represent, with
due propriety, the Republic.
CHAPTER II
For one whole week this commanding genius went every
morning to be Saint-Simonized at the office of the
“Globe,” and every afternoon he betook
himself to the life-insurance company, where he learned
the intricacies of financial diplomacy. His aptitude
and his memory were prodigious; so that he was able
to start on his peregrinations by the 15th of April,
the date at which he usually opened the spring campaign.
Two large commercial houses, alarmed at the decline
of business, implored the ambitious Gaudissart not
to desert the article Paris, and seduced him, it was
said, with large offers, to take their commissions
once more. The king of travellers was amenable
to the claims of his old friends, enforced as they
were by the enormous premiums offered to him.
* * * * *
“Listen, my little Jenny,” he said in
a hackney-coach to a pretty florist.
All truly great men delight in allowing themselves
to be tyrannized over by a feeble being, and Gaudissart
had found his tyrant in Jenny. He was bringing
her home at eleven o’clock from the Gymnase,
whither he had taken her, in full dress, to a proscenium
box on the first tier.
“On my return, Jenny, I shall refurnish your
room in superior style. That big Matilda, who
pesters you with comparisons and her real India shawls
imported by the suite of the Russian ambassador, and
her silver plate and her Russian prince,—who
to my mind is nothing but a humbug, —won’t
have a word to say THEN. I consecrate to the adornment
of your room all the ‘Children’ I shall
get in the provinces.”
“Well, that’s a pretty thing to say!”
cried the florist. “Monster of a man!
Do you dare to talk to me of your children? Do
you suppose I am going to stand that sort of thing?”
