‘You must go into hiding,’ said Petit-Claud to David as he ran after old Séchard with a view to getting him still more exasperated. The diminutive solicitor caught up with the grumbling vine-grower at the Place du Mûrier and escorted him as far as L’Houmeau. As he left him he threatened to serve him with a writ for the costs due to him if he was not paid within a week. Old Séchard replied: ‘I’ll pay them if you can find some way for me to disinherit my son without cutting out my grandson and daughter-in-law!’ And he abruptly took leave of Petit-Claud.
‘How well tall Cointet understands these people!… Yes, he was right! Having to pay seven hundred francs will prevent the father from paying the seven thousand francs which his son owes!’ Such were the little solicitor’s reflections as he made his way to Angoulême. ‘Nevertheless I must not let Cointet get the better of me. It’s time I asked this wily old paper-manufacturer for something more than words.’
‘Well, David my dear, what are you thinking of doing?’ Eve asked her husband when old Séchard and the solicitor had left them.
‘Put your biggest pan on the fire, my girl,’ cried David to Marion. ‘I’ve solved the problem.’ On hearing these words, Eve took up her hat, shawl and shoes in a fever of excitement. ‘Get your clothes on, my friend,’ she said to Kolb. ‘You shall go with me, for I must know if there’s a way out of this inferno…’
‘Monsieur David,’ Marion exclaimed once Eve had gone. ‘Do be reasonable, or Madame will die of grief. Earn some money to pay what you owe, and after that you can spend all the time you like searching for your treasure…’
‘Be quiet, Marion,’ David replied. ‘The final difficulty will be overcome. I shall get the two patents I need: the one for invention, and the one for improvement.’
The patent of improvement is a plague for inventors in France. A man spends ten years of his life researching into a new industrial process, a machine, some discovery or other; he takes out his patent and believes he has everything under control. Then he finds a competitor on his heels, and if he has not foreseen every contingency this man perfects the invention by adding a screw, and thus takes it out of his hands. The fact of inventing a cheap pulp for papermaking did not clinch the matter: others might improve on the process. David wanted to allow for every possibility so that the fortune for which he had striven in such adverse circumstances should not be snatched from his grasp. Holland paper (paper made entirely from linen rag still keeps this name although it is no longer made in Holland) is only lightly-sized. If it became possible to size the pulp in the vat with a fairly cheap size (that is in fact what is done today, but the process is still imperfect) there could be no further ‘improvement’. For a month then David had been trying to size his pulp in the vat and was thus aiming at two simultaneous discoveries.
Eve went to see her mother. By a lucky chance, Madame was nursing Madame Milhaud, the Deputy Public Attorney’s wife, who had just presented the Milhaud family at Nevers with an heir presumptive. Eve distrusted all the ministerial officials and had had the idea of consulting the legal champion of widows and orphans about her position and asking him if she could extricate David by standing surety for him and liquidating her own rights; but she was also hoping to learn the truth about Petit-Claud’s ambiguous dealings.
Impressed by Madame Séchard’s beauty, the magistrate received her not only with the consideration due to a woman, but also with a kind of courtesy to which she was not accustomed. At long last the poor woman read in the magistrate’s eyes an expression which, since her marriage, she had only read in Kolb’s eyes. That, for beautiful women like Eve, is a criterion for judging men. When some ruling passion, or self-interest, or old age puts a chill in a man’s eyes and quenches the gleam of complete deference which is ablaze in a young man’s eyes, a woman then conceives mistrust for such a man and begins to watch him closely. The Cointets, Petit-Claud, Cérizet, every man in whom Eve had divined hostility, had looked at her with a dry, cold eye. She therefore felt at ease with this magistrate. But although he gave her a gracious hearing, a few words from him sufficed to crush all her hopes.
‘It is not certain, Madame,’ he said, ‘that the Court of Appeal will reverse the decision limiting to movable furniture the cession which your husband has made to you of all he possessed in satisfaction of your claim. The privilege you enjoy ought not to serve as cover for fraudulence. However, since as a creditor you will be entitled to your share in the price obtained for the articles distrained, and since your father-in-law will have a preferential claim for the amount of rent due, there will be, once the court has made its order, matter for still further contestation in regard to what in legal terms we call a contribution.’
‘But in that case Monsieur Petit-Claud is bringing us to ruin?’
‘Petit-Claud’s procedure in this affair,’ the magistrate went on, ‘is in conformity with the instructions of your husband who, according to his solicitor, wants to gain time. In my view it would perhaps be better to withdraw the appeal and, when the auction comes off, to buy in the apparatus most necessary for the running of your business: you to the limit of what should be restored to you, and your father-in-law for the amount of his rents… But that would be rushing things too much for the lawyers: they are battening on you!’
‘In that case I should be in the hands of Monsieur Séchard senior, to whom I should owe rent for the apparatus and rent for the house. But my husband would still be subject to prosecution from Monsieur Métivier, who would have scarcely got anything back.’
‘That is so, Madame.’
‘So then our position would be even worse than it is now…’
‘The law, Madame, comes down in the long run on the creditor’s side. You received three thousand francs, and it goes without saying that you must pay them back.’
‘Oh, Monsieur, do you think we are capable of…’ – Eve stopped short on realizing the danger her brother might incur if she exonerated David and herself.
‘Oh, I well know that there are obscurities in this case, both as regards the debtors who are honest, scrupulous and even high-minded people… and as regards the creditor, who is merely a man of straw.’
Eve was appalled and gave the magistrate a bewildered stare.
‘You must realize,’ he said, looking at her with an undisguisedly sly expression, ‘that we magistrates have plenty of time for reflecting on what is happening before our eyes as we sit listening to the learned counsels’ speeches.’
Eve went home in despair at having made no headway. That evening, at seven, Doublon brought the court order giving notice of David’s impending arrest. Thus, at this moment, the proceedings against him reached their climax.
‘From tomorrow onwards,’ said David, ‘I shall only be able to go out at night.’
Eve and Madame Chardon burst into tears. For them, to go into hiding was a disgrace.
16. Imprisonment for debt in the provinces
ON learning that their master’s liberty was threatened, Kolb and Marion were so much the more alarmed because they had long since recognized that he was completely guileless. They were so concerned for him that they came to see Madame Chardon, Eve and David under the pretext of asking how their devotion could be put to good effect. They arrived just at the moment when these three persons, for whom life had been so simple until then, were weeping at the thought of having to keep David in concealment. How indeed could they elude the invisible spies who from that instant would be watching every move of this lamentably absent-minded man?
‘If Matame vill vait tchust a qvarter off an hour, I vill to a pit of reconnoitrink in ze enemy camp,’ said Kolb. ‘You vill see zat I know my way apout, efen if I look like a Tcherman. But I am a true Frentchman, ant I am cunnink enough.’
‘Yes, Madame, let him go,’ said Marion. ‘He only wants to protect Monsieur; that’s all he’s thinking of. He’s… what shall I say?… a real Newfoundland dog.’
‘Go, my good Kolb,’ said David. ‘We still have time to come to a
decision.’
Kolb went off quietly to the bailiff’s house, where David’s enemies, in counsel together, were devising means to lay hands on him.
To put debtors under arrest in the provinces is as exceptional and abnormal an occurrence as could be imagined. To begin with, every person is too well known for anyone to take so odious a step. Creditors and debtors have to live out their whole lives face to face. Moreover, when a defaulting tradesman is contemplating bankruptcy on a large scale – in the provinces business ethics are uncompromisingly severe against this kind of legal robbery – he takes sanctuary in Paris. To some extent Paris is to the provinces what Belgium is to France: almost inaccessible hide-outs can be found there and the process-server’s writ has no validity outside his legal area. In the second place, there are other impediments which make it virtually null and void. For instance, the law establishing the inviolability of the domicile holds good without exception in the provinces; a process-server is not entitled, as he is in Paris, to make ingress into a third person’s house in order to apprehend a debtor. Our legislators deemed it necessary to make exception for Paris because there the same building regularly houses several different families. But in the provinces, even in order to intrude into the debtor’s own domicile, the process-server must have a juge de paix1 with him. Now this magistrate, who has control over the process-server, is more or less free to grant or refuse his cooperation. It must be said in praise of these juges de paix that this obligation weighs heavily with them and that they are unwilling to serve blind passion or personal vindictiveness. And there are other no less grave obstacles tending to mitigate the wholly useless cruelty of the law on arrest for debt through the operation of moral scruples which often modify and almost nullify the laws. In large cities there are plenty of depraved, unprincipled wretches who are ready to serve as informers. But in a small town everyone is too well known to put himself in the pay of a bailiff. Anyone, even in the lowest strata of society, who lent himself to this kind of baseness would be obliged to leave the town. And so, the arrest of debtors not being, as in Paris and other great centres of population, a privileged function like that of the ‘Gardes du Commerce’, it becomes an exceedingly difficult operation of legal procedure, a battle of wits between the debtor and the process-server, and the stratagems devised have occasionally provided very amusing news-items for the newspapers.
The elder Cointet had not wanted to appear in person, but stout Cointet, who made out that he was acting for Métivier, had called on Doublon with Cérizet, now one of his compositors, whose cooperation had been acquired by the promise of a thousand-franc note. Doublon had two of his own men to assist him, so that the Cointets already had three blood-hounds to keep watch over their prey. Moreover, when it came to the act of arrest, Doublon was entitled to employ the police militia which, by the terms of the court decisions, is obliged to give its support to the bailiff who calls for it. These five persons were therefore assembled at that very moment in Maître Doublon’s private office, situated on the ground-floor of the house and adjoining the main office.
Access to this office was given by a fairly wide paved corridor which formed a sort of alley. The house had a single-leaf door, on either side of which were the gilded escutcheons of the Court in the centre of which BAILIFF was inscribed in black letters. The two windows of the office opening on to the street were protected by stout iron bars. The private room looked out on to a garden in which the bailiff, a votary of Pomona, himself cultivated his espaliers with great success. The kitchen stood opposite the office, and behind it ran a staircase leading to the upper storey. The house itself stood in a little street behind the law-courts, then under construction, but only to be finished after 1830. These details are not without utility for the understanding of what happened to Kolb. The Alsatian had had the idea of presenting himself to the process-server on the pretext of betraying his master – in order thereby to find out what traps were to be laid for him and circumvent them. The cook opened the door and Kolb expressed the desire to talk to Monsieur Doublon on business. Vexed at being disturbed while she was washing up, the woman opened the door of the office and told Kolb, whom she did not know, to wait there for Monsieur, who was at that moment holding consultation in his inner room. Then she went and informed her master that a man wanted to speak to him. The word ‘man’ so evidently meant ‘peasant’ that Doublon said: ‘Let him wait!’ Kolb sat down close to the door of the private room.
‘Now then,’ said stout Cointet, ‘how do you propose to proceed? If we could nab him tomorrow morning it would be so much time gained.’
‘Nothing could be easier.’ cried Cérizet. ‘He’s quite rightly called the Gaffer. He makes gaffes in plenty.’
On recognizing stout Cointet’s voice and above all on hearing these two remarks, Kolb immediately guessed that they were talking about his master, and his astonishment increased when he picked out Cérizet’s voice.
‘A fellow who hass eaten his preat!’ he exclaimed, horror-stricken.
‘Now, friends,’ said Doublon, ‘this is what we have to do. We’ll spread our men round at wide intervals, from the rue de Beaulieu and the Place du Mûrier in every direction, so that we can follow the Gaffer (I like that nickname) without his noticing, and we’ll keep on his track until he’s got into the house where he proposes to hide. We’ll leave him for a few days until he feels secure, then we’ll pounce on him some day before sunrise or sunset.’
‘But what’s he up to just now? He might slip away,’ said stout Cointet.
‘He’s at home,’ said Maître Doublon. ‘I should know if he went out. I have one of my practitioners (bailiffs call their assistants by this honorable title) on watch in the Place du Mûrier, another at the corner of the law-courts, another thirty yards away from his house. If our quarry came out they would give a whistle, and he wouldn’t have taken three steps without my already knowing it thanks to this telegraphic means of communication.’
To hear this was a piece of luck on which Kolb had not reckoned. He quietly left the office and told the servant: ‘Monsieur Touplon vill pe encatchet for a lonk time. I vill kom pack early in ze mornink.’
The Alsatian, who had been a cavalryman, had been seized with an idea which he immediately proceeded to carry out. He hurried to a man he knew who hired out horses, chose a horse, had it saddled, and returned at full speed to his master’s house, where he found Eve plunged in grief.
‘What is it, Kolb?’ the printer asked on seeing the Alsatian in a state of mind which was both jubilant and disturbed.
‘You haf scountrelss all rount you. Ze best sink iss to hite ze master. Has Matame tought off somevere to put Monsieur out off ze vay?’
The honest Kolb told them of Cérizet’s treachery, the ring of spies circling the house and the part that stout Cointet was playing in the business. He also gave them some foreknowledge of the tricks these men were likely to devise against his master, and this threw a very sinister light on David’s predicament.
‘Then it’s the Cointets who are suing you,’ poor Eve, quite dumbfounded, exclaimed. ‘Since they’re paper-manufacturers they’re out after your secret.’
‘But what can be done to keep David out of their clutches?’ asked Madame Chardon.
‘If Matame can fint some little place for Monsieur to hite in,’ said Kolb, ‘I untertake to get him zere vizout anypoty efer knowink.’
‘Wait till night-fall,’ Eve replied, ‘and go and stay with Basine Clerget. I’ll go and arrange it all with her. In a case like this Basine will stand by me through thick and thin.’
David recovered his wits and found his tongue at last. ‘The spies will follow you. We must find a way to warn Basine without either of us going there.’
‘Matame can go zere,’ said Kolb. ‘Zis iss my plan: I vill go out viz Monsieur and ve vill traw ze vistlerss avay on our tracks. Turink zis time, Matame vill go ant see Matemoisselle Clerchet ant vill not pe followet. I haf a horse, Monsieur vill rite pehint me. Ze tefil ta
ke me if zey catch us!’
‘Very well… Good-bye, my dear,’ the poor woman cried, throwing herself into her husband’s arms. ‘None of us will come to see you, because that might lead to your arrest. We must say good-bye for the whole duration of this voluntary imprisonment. We’ll write to each other by post. Basine will put yours in the letter-box, and I’ll address mine to you in her name.’
As they went out David and Kolb heard the spies whistling and drew them off to the bottom of the Porte Palet where the horse-dealer lived. There Kolb took his master on the crupper and recommended him to hold on tight.
‘Vistle avay, vistle avay, goot frients,’ cried Kolb. ‘I make foolss off all off you. You vont catch an olt cafalryman!’
And the old cavalryman spurred on into the country at a speed which necessarily made it impossible for the spies either to follow them or to guess where they were going.
Meanwhile Eve went to see Postel on the ingenious pretext of consulting him. After stomaching the insulting kind of pity which is prodigal only of words, she left him and reached Basine’s house without being seen. She confided her griefs to her and asked her for succour and protection. Basine, who for greater precaution had drawn Eve into her bedroom, opened the door of an adjacent dressing-room which had a hinged skylight through which no eye could peer. The two friends opened up a small fire-place whose chimney-pipe ran parallel with the one belonging to the workshop in which the laundresses kept a fire going to heat their irons. Eve and Basine spread some shabby blankets on the floor-tiles to muffle any noise that David might inadvertently make. They gave him a trestle-bed to sleep on, a stove for his experiments, and a table and chair for sitting down to write. Basine promised to bring him food at night, and since no one ever found their way into this room, David could defy all his enemies, and even the police.