The Parisians, Book 5.

M. Louvier was closet

nd

"I have behaved very

ne can say to

he transfer of the mortgages, that free bonus of one th

fine apartment; he has bought a coupe and horses; he has placed himself in the hands of the Chevalier

d t

ust of the vieux manoir. He can borrow no more. I must remain sole mortgagee, and I shal

sieur wished to see M. Louvier for a few

to send in

states that he has already th

press, perhaps; o

e, Monsieur, but he has th

. I will not detain you

to Madame

were thy father instead," he muttered chucklingly, and then took his stand on the hearth, with his back to the fireless grate. There entered a gentlema

ur and the crispness of its ringlets. He wore neither beard nor mustache, and the darkness of his hair was contrasted by a clear fairness of complexion, healthful, though somewhat pale, and eyes of that rare gray tint which has in it no shade of blue,-peculiar eyes, which give a very distinct character to the face. The man must have been singularly handsome in youth; he was handsome still, though probably in his forty- seventh or forty-ei

before, and could not remember where or when; but at all events he

ieur," he said, resum

r near to the financier's, stretched his limbs with the ease of a man making himself a

ou not remember me? You a

cheek paled, and at last he faltered out, "Ciel!

rvice, my d

onfused and embarrassed, and not less evidently

indeed a surprise; I thought you ha

ung as we were, Louvier,-we have more vigour in us than the new generation; and though it may no longer befit us to renew the gay carousals of old, life has st

ou ser

French gayety wil

r yourself that you will regain the societ

something in the Vico

ravel incognito, and so may a simple gentilhomme. 'Regain my pla

t do

. Ah, mon cher! why recoil? why so frightened? Do you think I am going to ask you for money? Have I ever done so since we parted; and did I

rg and lions from the Chaussee d'Antin, rose to his feet in superb wrath, less at

ou to address me in that ton

r nerves, reseat yourself, and l

opped into

t you, neither do I come to ask money; I assume that I am in my r

! I know noth

didate for her hand. You did know her enough to solicit my good offices in promotion

de Mauleon, not heard ne

. You went to Aix-la-Chapelle; you saw Louise Duval, at

d not even see her. The day before I arrived at Aix-la-Cha

not mean the misera

lf. I have never even sought to hear of her since that day. Vicomte, that woman was the one love of my life. I loved her, as

genuine, nor did I think myself thus easily affected by matters belonging t

rs not; h

r that; I might

o avenge my wron

with a seducer? So proud as she

rier she fled; her pride wo

her somehow. Did she co

life, his life was pretty well known to me till its end; and a very few mon

h a relation, Louise Duval was but little known, and after what you tell me, I cannot dispute your right to say, 'Talk

ith a certain pathetic

owards th

aughtiness with which he had resented the frigidity of his reception, he drew his chair still nearer to Louvier's, and resumed: "Our situations, Paul Louvier, are much changed since we two became friends. I then could say, 'Open sesame' to whatever recesses, forbidden to vulgar foots

to rebuke their incivilities, the more so as you evinced on that occasion your own

his head, evid

wasting money-and money was plentiful with you-you generously offered me your purse. On more than one occasion I accepted the offer; and you would never have aske

ssociates. Do you not remember some hours of serious talk we have had together when we lounged in the Tuileries, or sipped our coffee in the garden of the Palais Royal?-hours when we forgot that those were the haunts of idlers, and thought of the sto

de la Concorde, on which we had paused, noting the starlight on the waters, that you said, pointing towards the walls of t

r these circumstances. You became in love with Louise. I told you her troubled history; it did not diminish your love; and then I frankly favoured your suit. You set out for Aix-la

t since you refer to that thunderbolt

expect those who have known me as well

really a

h heat; "ever doubt that I would rather have blown out my brains

ract it by travel,-visited Holland and England; and when I did return to Paris, all that I heard of your story was the darker side of it. I willingly listen to your own account. You

lf, that sanguine confidence in the favour of fortune, which are vices common to every roi des viveurs. Poor mock Alexanders that we spendthrifts are in youth! we divide all we have among others, and when asked by some prudent friend, 'What have you left for your own share?' answer, 'Hope.' I knew, of course, that my patrimony was rapidly vanishing; but then my horses were matchless. I had enough to last me for years on their chance of winning-of course they would win. But you may recollect when we parted that I was troubled,-credito

f severe, but, in its own loose way, grandly generous and grandly brave-struck both on the common-sense and the heart of the listener; and the Fren

le of my stud and effects might suffice to pay every sou that I owed, including my debt to De N.; but that was not quite certain. At all events, when the debts were paid I should be beggared. Well, you know, Louvier, what we Frenchmen are: how Nature has denied to us the quality of patience; how involuntarily suicide presents itself to us when hope is lost; and suicide seemed to me here due to honour, namely, to the certain discharge of my liabilities,-for the stud and effects of Victor de Mauleon, roi des viveurs, would command much higher prices if he died like Cato than if he ran away from his fate like Pompey. Doubtless De N. guessed my intention from my words or my manner; but on the very day in w

so like y

h this sort of romance was owned. I had not replied to them encouragingly. In truth, my heart was then devoted to another,-the English girl whom I had wooed as my wife; who, despite her parents' retraction of their consent to our union when they learned how dilapidated were my fortunes, pledged herself to remain faithful to me, and wait for better days." Again De Mauleon paused in suppressed emotion, and then went on hurriedly: "No, the Duchesse did not inspi

ll given by the Duchesse; how handsome I thought her, though no

e manner towards a mauvais sujet like myself, and forbade her in future to receive my visits. It was then that t

insolence of magnificent ease with which I paid De N--- the t

me from,' said this miserable, 'much more may yet come;' and then be narrated, with that cynicism so in vogue at Paris, how he had told the Duchesse (who knew him as my intimate associate) of my stress of circumstance, of his fear that I meditated something desperate; how she gave him the jewels to sell and to substitute; how, in order to baffle

o hot-blooded, and De N

e you im

t rendered it impossible for a man of honour to profit by such an act. Unhappily, what had been sent was paid away ere I knew the facts; but I could not bear the thought of

grunted

key to the private entrance to her rooms, by which I could gain an interview with her at ten o'clock that night, an hour at which the Duc had informed her he should be out till late at his club. Now, however great the indiscretion which the Duchesse here committed, it is due to her memory to say that I am convinced that her dominant idea was that I meditated self-destruction; that no time was to be lost to save me from it; and for the rest she trusted to the influence which a woman's tears and adjurations and reasonings have over even the strongest and hardest men. It is only o

th a convulsive hand. Almost in the same breath he recovered

hen I, obeying the first necessary obligation of honour, invented on the spur of the moment the story by which the Duchesse's reputation was cleared from suspicion, accused myself of a frantic passion and the trickery of a fabricated key, the Due's true nature of gentilhomme came back. He retracted the charge which he could scarcely even

cafe,-exaggerated, distorted, to my ignominy and shame. My detection in the cabinet, the sale of the jewels, the substitution of paste by De N., who was known to be my servile imitator and reputed to be my abject tool, all my losses on the turf, my debts,- all these scattered fibres of flax were t

the letters you had received from the Duchesse

she had caused her jewels to be sold for the uses of a young r

unted Lou

futation should have escaped him in the surprise of the moment; but stating that since the offence I had owned was one that he could not overlook, he was under the necessity of asking the only reparation I could make. That if it 'deranged' me to qui

ly. "Yes; with other more important documents cons

nouncement of my arrival, and was considering how I should obtain a second in some officer quartered in the town-for my soreness and resentment at the marked coldness of my former acquaintances at Paris had forbidden me to seek a s

he hysterical excitement under which she was suffering. It is only this day that her mind became collected, and she herself then gave me her entire confidence. Monsieur, she insisted on my reading the letters that you addressed to her. Those letters, Monsieur, suffice to prove your innocence of

with two or three letters written as friend to friend, and in which you will

rs, at least, you might have shown, and in braving y

the Parisians had become to me so hateful. And to crown all, that girl, that English girl whom I had so loved, on whose fidelity I had so counted-well, I received a letter from her, gently but coldly bidding me farewell forever. I do not think she believed me guilty of theft; but doubtless the

ame of you, my

er whatever name, I have earned testimonials of probity, could manifestations of so vulgar a virtue be held of account by the enlightened people of Paris. I come now to a close. The Vicomte de Mauleon is about to re-appear in Paris, and the first to whom he announces that sublime avatar is Paul Louvier. When settled in some modest apartment, I shall place in your hands my pieces justificatives. I shall ask you to summon my surviving relations or

iety. Why not appeal yourself

My vindicator must be a man of whom the vulgar cannot say, 'Oh, he is a relation,-a fellow-noble; those aristocrats whitewash each other.' I

froid of the Vicomte. He was once more under the domination

so easily explained to my complete vindication when the vindication comes from a man of your solid respectability and social influence. Besides, I have political objects in view. You a

hen. I will do all

riend; and you do both

pressed the hand he

also left in the fiacre. Arrived at the Boulevard Sebastopol, he drew up the collar of the cloak so as to conceal much of his face, stopped the driver, paid him quickly, and, bag in hand, hurried on to another stand of fiacres at a little distance, entered one, drove to the Faubourg Montmartre, dismissed the vehicle at the mouth of a street not far from M. Lebeau's offi

in a drawer of his secretaire, he sat him

lend him, and for which you hold his bill due this day. The scandal of legal measures against a writer so distinguished should be avoided if possible. He will avoid