Vautrin's Last Avatar - Part 8

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_ A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin, in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself.

Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the throng.

To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door. This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges, King's council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by this back way.

It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are now heard before the Supreme Court. The heart sinks within us at the sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese's daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great staircase at Versailles, once passed that way! Perhaps it was in expiation of her mother's crime--the atrocious division of Poland. The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the retribution to be exacted by Providence.

When Jacques Collin went up the vaulted stairs to the public prosecutor's room, Bibi-Lupin was just coming out of the little door in the wall.

The chief of the "Safety" had come from the Conciergerie, and was also going up to Monsieur de Granville. It was easy to imagine Bibi-Lupin's surprise when he recognized, in front of him, the gown of Carlos Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morning; he ran on to pass him. Jacques Collin turned round, and the enemies were face to face. Each stood still, and the self-same look flashed in both pairs of eyes, so different in themselves, as in a duel two pistols go off at the same instant.

"This time I have got you, rascal!" said the chief of the Safety Department.

"Ah, ha!" replied Jacques Collin ironically.

It flashed through his mind that Monsieur de Granville had sent some one to watch him, and, strange to say, it pained him to think the magistrate less magnanimous than he had supposed.

Bibi-Lupin bravely flew at Jacques Collin's throat; but he, keeping his eye on the foe, gave him a straight blow, and sent him sprawling on his back three yards off; then _Trompe-la-Mort_ went calmly up to Bibi-Lupin, and held out a hand to help him rise, exactly like an English boxer who, sure of his superiority, is ready for more. Bibi-Lupin knew better than to call out; but he sprang to his feet, ran to the entrance to the passage, and signed to a gendarme to stand on guard. Then, swift as lightning, he came back to the foe, who quietly looked on. Jacques Collin had decided what to do.

"Either the public prosecutor has broken his word, or he had not taken Bibi-Lupin into his confidence, and in that case I must get the matter explained," thought he.--"Do you mean to arrest me?" he asked his enemy. "Say so without more ado. Don't I know that in the heart of this place you are stronger than I am? I could kill you with a well-placed kick, but I could not tackle the gendarmes and the soldiers. Now, make no noise. Where to you want to take me?"

"To Monsieur Camusot."

"Come along to Monsieur Camusot," replied Jacques Collin. "Why should we not go to the public prosecutor's court? It is nearer," he added.

Bibi-Lupin, who knew that he was out of favor with the upper ranks of judicial authorities, and suspected of having made a fortune at the expense of criminals and their victims, was not unwilling to show himself in Court with so notable a capture.

"All right, we will go there," said he. "But as you surrender, allow me to fit you with bracelets. I am afraid of your claws."

And he took the handcuffs out of his pocket.

Jacques Collin held out his hands, and Bibi-Lupin snapped on the manacles.

"Well, now, since you are feeling so good," said he, "tell me how you got out of the Conciergerie?"

"By the way you came; down the turret stairs."

"Then have you taught the gendarmes some new trick?"

"No, Monsieur de Granville let me out on parole."

"You are gammoning me?"

"You will see. Perhaps it will be your turn to wear the bracelets."

Just then Corentin was saying to Monsieur de Granville:

"Well, monsieur, it is just an hour since our man set out; are you not afraid that he may have fooled you? He is on the road to Spain perhaps by this time, and we shall not find him there, for Spain is a whimsical kind of country."

"Either I know nothing of men, or he will come back; he is bound by every interest; he has more to look for at my hands than he has to give."

Bibi-Lupin walked in.

"Monsieur le Comte," said he, "I have good news for you. Jacques Collin, who had escaped, has been recaptured."

"And this," said Jacques Collin, addressing Monsieur de Granville, "is the way you keep your word!--Ask your double-faced agent where he took me."

"Where?" said the public prosecutor.

"Close to the Court, in the vaulted passage," said Bibi-Lupin.

"Take your irons off the man," said Monsieur de Granville sternly. "And remember that you are to leave him free till further orders.--Go! --You have a way of moving and acting as if you alone were law and police in one."

The public prosecutor turned his back on Bibi-Lupin, who became deadly pale, especially at a look from Jacques Collin, in which he read disaster.

"I have not been out of this room. I expected you back, and you cannot doubt that I have kept my word, as you kept yours," said Monsieur de Granville to the convict.

"For a moment I did doubt you, sir, and in my place perhaps you would have thought as I did, but on reflection I saw that I was unjust. I bring you more than you can give me; you had no interest in betraying me."

The magistrate flashed a look at Corentin. This glance, which could not escape _Trompe-la-Mort_, who was watching Monsieur de Granville, directed his attention to the strange little old man sitting in an armchair in a corner. Warned at once by the swift and anxious instinct that scents the presence of an enemy, Collin examined this figure; he saw at a glance that the eyes were not so old as the costume would suggest, and he detected a disguise. In one second Jacques Collin was revenged on Corentin for the rapid insight with which Corentin had unmasked him at Peyrade's.

"We are not alone!" said Jacques Collin to Monsieur de Granville.

"No," said the magistrate drily.

"And this gentleman is one of my oldest acquaintances, I believe," replied the convict.

He went forward, recognizing Corentin, the real and confessed originator of Lucien's overthrow.

Jacques Collin, whose face was of a brick-red hue, for a scarcely perceptible moment turned white, almost ashy; all his blood rushed to his heart, so furious and maddening was his longing to spring on this dangerous reptile and crush it; but he controlled the brutal impulse, suppressing it with the force that made him so formidable. He put on a polite manner and the tone of obsequious civility which he had practised since assuming the garb of a priest of a superior Order, and he bowed to the little old man.

"Monsieur Corentin," said he, "do I owe the pleasure of this meeting to chance, or am I so happy as to be the cause of your visit here?"

Monsieur de Granville's astonishment was at its height, and he could not help staring at the two men who had thus come face to face. Jacques Collin's behavior and the tone in which he spoke denoted a crisis, and he was curious to know the meaning of it. On being thus suddenly and miraculously recognized, Corentin drew himself up like a snake when you tread on its tail.

"Yes, it is I, my dear Abbe Carlos Herrera."

"And are you here," said _Trompe-la-Mort_, "to interfere between monsieur the public prosecutor and me? Am I so happy as to be the object of one of those negotiations in which your talents shine so brightly?--Here, Monsieur le Comte," the convict went on, "not to waste time so precious as yours is, read these--they are samples of my wares."

And he held out to Monsieur de Granville three letters, which he took out of his breast-pocket.

"And while you are studying them, I will, with your permission, have a little talk with this gentleman."

"You do me great honor," said Corentin, who could not help giving a little shiver.

"You achieved a perfect success in our business," said Jacques Collin. "I was beaten," he added lightly, in the tone of a gambler who has lost his money, "but you left some men on the field--your victory cost you dear."

"Yes," said Corentin, taking up the jest, "you lost your queen, and I lost my two castles."

"Oh! Contenson was a mere pawn," said Jacques Collin scornfully; "you may easily replace him. You really are--allow me to praise you to your face--you are, on my word of honor, a magnificent man."

"No, no, I bow to your superiority," replied Corentin, assuming the air of a professional joker, as if he said, "If you mean humbug, by all means humbug! I have everything at my command, while you are single-handed, so to speak."

"Oh! Oh!" said Jacques Collin.

"And you were very near winning the day!" said Corentin, noticing the exclamation. "You are quite the most extraordinary man I ever met in my life, and I have seen many very extraordinary men, for those I have to work with me are all remarkable for daring and bold scheming.

"I was, for my sins, very intimate with the late Duc d'Otranto; I have worked for Louis XVIII. when he was on the throne; and, when he was exiled, for the Emperor and for the Directory. You have the tenacity of Louvel, the best political instrument I ever met with; but you are as supple as the prince of diplomates. And what auxiliaries you have! I would give many a head to the guillotine if I could have in my service the cook who lived with poor little Esther.--And where do you find such beautiful creatures as the woman who took the Jewess' place for Monsieur de Nucingen? I don't know where to get them when I want them."

"Monsieur, monsieur, you overpower me," said Jacques Collin. "Such praise from you will turn my head----"

"It is deserved. Why, you took in Peyrade; he believed you to be a police officer--he!--I tell you what, if you had not that fool of a boy to take care of, you would have thrashed us."

"Oh! monsieur, but you are forgetting Contenson disguised as a mulatto, and Peyrade as an Englishman. Actors have the stage to help them, but to be so perfect by daylight, and at all hours, no one but you and your men----"

"Come, now," said Corentin, "we are fully convinced of our worth and merits. And here we stand each of us quite alone; I have lost my old friend, you your young companion. I, for the moment, am in the stronger position, why should we not do like the men in _l'Auberge des Adrets_? I offer you my hand, and say, 'Let us embrace, and let bygones be bygones.' Here, in the presence of Monsieur le Comte, I propose to give you full and plenary absolution, and you shall be one of my men, the chief next to me, and perhaps my successor."

"You really offer me a situation?" said Jacques Collin. "A nice situation indeed!--out of the fire into the frying-pan!"

"You will be in a sphere where your talents will be highly appreciated and well paid for, and you will act at your ease. The Government police are not free from perils. I, as you see me, have already been imprisoned twice, but I am none the worse for that. And we travel, we are what we choose to appear. We pull the wires of political dramas, and are treated with politeness by very great people.--Come, my dear Jacques Collin, do you say yes?"

"Have you orders to act in this matter?" said the convict.

"I have a free hand," replied Corentin, delighted at his own happy idea.

"You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that a man may be suspicious of you.--You have sold more than one man by tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord. I know all your great victories--the Montauran case, the Simeuse business--the battles of Marengo of espionage."

"Well," said Corentin, "you have some esteem for the public prosecutor?"

"Yes," said Jacques Collin, bowing respectfully, "I admire his noble character, his firmness, his dignity. I would give my life to make him happy. Indeed, to begin with, I will put an end to the dangerous condition in which Madame de Serizy now is."

Monsieur de Granville turned to him with a look of satisfaction.

"Then ask him," Corentin went on, "if I have not full power to snatch you from the degrading position in which you stand, and to attach you to me."

"It is quite true," said Monsieur de Granville, watching the convict.

"Really and truly! I may have absolution for the past and a promise of succeeding to you if I give sufficient evidence of my intelligence?"

"Between two such men as we are there can be no misunderstanding," said Corentin, with a lordly air that might have taken anybody in.

"And the price of the bargain is, I suppose, the surrender of those three packets of letters?" said Jacques Collin.

"I did not think it would be necessary to say so to you----"

"My dear Monsieur Corentin," said _Trompe-la-Mort_, with irony worthy of that which made the fame of Talma in the part of Nicomede, "I beg to decline. I am indebted to you for the knowledge of what I am worth, and of the importance you attach to seeing me deprived of my weapons --I will never forget it.

"At all times and for ever I shall be at your service, but instead of saying with Robert Macaire, 'Let us embrace!' I embrace you."

He seized Corentin round the middle so suddenly that the other could not avoid the hug; he clutched him to his heart like a doll, kissed him on both cheeks, carried him like a feather with one hand, while with the other he opened the door, and then set him down outside, quite battered by this rough treatment.

"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Jacques Collin in a low voice, and in Corentin's ear: "the length of three corpses parts you from me; we have measured swords, they are of the same temper and the same length. Let us treat each other with due respect; but I mean to be your equal, not your subordinate. Armed as you would be, it strikes me you would be too dangerous a general for your lieutenant. We will place a grave between us. Woe to you if you come over on to my territory!

"You call yourself the State, as footmen call themselves by their master's names. For my part, I will call myself Justice. We shall often meet; let us treat each other with dignity and propriety--all the more because we shall always remain--atrocious blackguards," he added in a whisper. "I set you the example by embracing you----"

Corentin stood nonplussed for the first time in his life, and allowed his terrible antagonist to wring his hand.

"If so," said he, "I think it will be to our interest on both sides to remain chums."

"We shall be stronger each on our own side, but at the same time more dangerous," added Jacques Collin in an undertone. "And you will allow me to call on you to-morrow to ask for some pledge of our agreement."

"Well, well," said Corentin amiably, "you are taking the case out of my hands to place it in those of the public prosecutor. You will help him to promotion; but I cannot but own to you that you are acting wisely.--Bibi-Lupin is too well known; he has served his turn; if you get his place, you will have the only situation that suits you. I am delighted to see you in it--on my honor----"

"Till our next meeting, very soon," said Jacques Collin.

On turning round, _Trompe-la-Mort_ saw the public prosecutor sitting at his table, his head resting on his hands.

"Do you mean that you can save the Comtesse de Serizy from going mad?" asked Monsieur de Granville.

"In five minutes," said Jacques Collin.

"And you can give me all those ladies' letters?"

"Have you read the three?"

"Yes," said the magistrate vehemently, "and I blush for the women who wrote them."

"Well, we are now alone; admit no one, and let us come to terms," said Jacques Collin.

"Excuse me, Justice must first take its course. Monsieur Camusot has instructions to seize your aunt."

"He will never find her," said Jacques Collin.

"Search is to be made at the Temple, in the shop of a demoiselle Paccard who superintends her shop."

"Nothing will be found there but rags, costumes, diamonds, uniforms----However, it will be as well to check Monsieur Camusot's zeal."

Monsieur de Granville rang, and sent an office messenger to desire Monsieur Camusot to come and speak with him.

"Now," said he to Jacques Collin, "an end to all this! I want to know your recipe for curing the Countess."

"Monsieur le Comte," said the convict very gravely, "I was, as you know, sentenced to five years' penal servitude for forgery. But I love my liberty.--This passion, like every other, had defeated its own end, for lovers who insist on adoring each other too fondly end by quarreling. By dint of escaping and being recaptured alternately, I have served seven years on the hulks. So you have nothing to remit but the added terms I earned in quod--I beg pardon, in prison. I have, in fact, served my time, and till some ugly job can be proved against me, --which I defy Justice to do, or even Corentin--I ought to be reinstated in my rights as a French citizen.

"What is life if I am banned from Paris and subject to the eye of the police? Where can I go, what can I do? You know my capabilities. You have seen Corentin, that storehouse of treachery and wile, turn ghastly pale before me, and doing justice to my powers.--That man has bereft me of everything; for it was he, and he alone, who overthrew the edifice of Lucien's fortunes, by what means and in whose interest I know not.--Corentin and Camusot did it all----"

"No recriminations," said Monsieur de Granville; "give me the facts."

"Well, then, these are the facts. Last night, as I held in my hand the icy hand of that dead youth, I vowed to myself that I would give up the mad contest I have kept up for twenty years past against society at large.

"You will not believe me capable of religious sentimentality after what I have said of my religious opinions. Still, in these twenty years I have seen a great deal of the seamy side of the world. I have known its back-stairs, and I have discerned, in the march of events, a Power which you call Providence and I call Chance, and which my companions call Luck. Every evil deed, however quickly it may hide its traces, is overtaken by some retribution. In this struggle for existence, when the game is going well--when you have quint and quartorze in your hand and the lead--the candle tumbles over and the cards are burned, or the player has a fit of apoplexy!--That is Lucien's story. That boy, that angel, had not committed the shadow of a crime; he let himself be led, he let things go! He was to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, to be made marquis; he had a fine fortune; --well, a prostitute poisons herself, she hides the price of a certificate of stock, and the whole structure so laboriously built up crumbles in an instant.

"And who is the first man to deal a blow? A man loaded with secret infamy, a monster who, in the world of finance, has committed such crimes that every coin of his vast fortune has been dipped in the tears of a whole family [see _la Maison Nucingen_]--by Nucingen, who has been a legalized Jacques Collin in the world of money. However, you know as well as I do all the bankruptcies and tricks for which that man deserves hanging. My fetters will leave a mark on all my actions, however virtuous. To be a shuttlecock between two racquets --one called the hulks, and the other the police--is a life in which success means never-ending toil, and peace and quiet seem quite impossible.

"At this moment, Monsieur de Granville, Jacques Collin is buried with Lucien, who is being now sprinkled with holy water and carried away to Pere-Lachaise. What I want is a place not to live in, but to die in. As things are, you, representing Justice, have never cared to make the released convict's social status a concern of any interest. Though the law may be satisfied, society is not; society is still suspicious, and does all it can to justify its suspicions; it regards a released convict as an impossible creature; it ought to restore him to his full rights, but, in fact, it prohibits his living in certain circles. Society says to the poor wretch, 'Paris, which is the only place you can be hidden in; Paris and its suburbs for so many miles round is the forbidden land, you shall not live there!' and it subjects the convict to the watchfulness of the police. Do you think that life is possible under such conditions? To live, the convict must work, for he does not come out of prison with a fortune.

"You arrange matters so that he is plainly ticketed, recognized, hedged round, and then you fancy that his fellow-citizens will trust him, when society and justice and the world around him do not. You condemn him to starvation or crime. He cannot get work, and is inevitably dragged into his old ways, which lead to the scaffold.

"Thus, while earnestly wishing to give up this struggle with the law, I could find no place for myself under the sun. One course alone is open to me, that is to become the servant of the power that crushes us; and as soon as this idea dawned on me, the Power of which I spoke was shown in the clearest light. Three great families are at my mercy. Do not suppose I am thinking of blackmail--blackmail is the meanest form of murder. In my eyes it is baser villainy than murder. The murderer needs, at any rate, atrocious courage. And I practise what I preach; for the letters which are my safe-conduct, which allow me to address you thus, and for the moment place me on an equality with you --I, Crime, and you, Justice--those letters are in your power. Your messenger may fetch them, and they will be given up to him.

"I ask no price for them; I do not sell them. Alas! Monsieur le Comte, I was not thinking of myself when I preserved them; I thought that Lucien might some day be in danger! If you cannot agree to my request, my courage is out; I hate life more than enough to make me blow out my own brains and rid you of me!--Or, with a passport, I can go to America and live in the wilderness. I have all the characteristics of a savage.

"These are the thoughts that came to me in the night.--Your clerk, no doubt, carried you a message I sent by him. When I saw what precautions you took to save Lucien's memory from any stain, I dedicated my life to you--a poor offering, for I no longer cared for it; it seemed to me impossible without the star that gave it light, the happiness that glorified it, the thought that gave it meaning, the prosperity of the young poet who was its sun--and I determined to give you the three packets of letters----"

Monsieur de Granville bowed his head.

"I went down into the prison-yard, and there I found the persons guilty of the Nanterre crime, as well as my little chain companion within an inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact," Jacques Collin went on. "I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats. Was not this providential, as you say?--So I perceived a remote possibility of doing good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead of mischievous, and I ventured to confide in your judgment, your generosity."

The man's air of candor, of artlessness, of childlike simplicity, as he made his confession, without bitterness, or that philosophy of vice which had hitherto made him so terrible to hear, was like an absolute transformation. He was no longer himself.

"I have such implicit trust in you," he went on, with the humility of a penitent, "that I am wholly at your mercy. You see me with three roads open to me--suicide, America, and the Rue de Jerusalem. Bibi-Lupin is rich; he has served his turn; he is a double-faced rascal. And if you set me to work against him, I would catch him red-handed in some trick within a week. If you will put me in that sneak's shoes, you will do society a real service. I will be honest. I have every quality that is needed in the profession. I am better educated than Bibi-Lupin; I went through my schooling up to rhetoric; I shall not blunder as he does; I have very good manners when I choose. My sole ambition is to become an instrument of order and repression instead of being the incarnation of corruption. I will enlist no more recruits to the army of vice.

"In war, monsieur, when a hostile general is captured, he is not shot, you know; his sword is returned to him, and his prison is a large town; well, I am the general of the hulks, and I have surrendered.--I am beaten, not by the law, but by death. The sphere in which I crave to live and act is the only one that is suited to me, and there I can develop the powers I feel within me.

"Decide."

And Jacques Collin stood in an attitude of diffident submission.

"You place the letters in my hands, then?" said the public prosecutor.

"You have only to send for them; they will be delivered to your messenger."

"But how?"

Jacques Collin read the magistrate's mind, and kept up the game.

"You promised me to commute the capital sentence on Calvi for twenty years' penal servitude. Oh, I am not reminding you of that to drive a bargain," he added eagerly, seeing Monsieur de Granville's expression; "that life should be safe for other reasons, the lad is innocent----"

"How am I to get the letters?" asked the public prosecutor. "It is my right and my business to convince myself that you are the man you say you are. I must have you without conditions."

"Send a man you can trust to the Flower Market on the quay. At the door of a tinman's shop, under the sign of Achilles' shield----"

"That house?"

"Yes," said Jacques Collin, smiling bitterly, "my shield is there. --Your man will see an old woman dressed, as I told you before, like a fish-woman who has saved money--earrings in her ears, and clothes like a rich market-woman's. He must ask for Madame de Saint-Esteve. Do not omit the DE. And he must say, 'I have come from the public prosecutor to fetch you know what.'--You will immediately receive three sealed packets."

"All the letters are there?" said Monsieur de Granville.

"There is no tricking you; you did not get your place for nothing!" said Jacques Collin, with a smile. "I see you still think me capable of testing you and giving you so much blank paper.--No; you do not know me," said he. "I trust you as a son trusts his father."

"You will be taken back to the Conciergerie," said the magistrate, "and there await a decision as to your fate."

Monsieur de Granville rang, and said to the office-boy who answered:

"Beg Monsieur Garnery to come here, if he is in his room." _

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