Chapter XVI: A Downfall

Madame de Grangeville, whose place of abode Chicotin had not been able to ascertain, lived on Rue Fontaine-Saint-Georges, in a small apartment on the fourth floor of a recently-constructed house.

In houses which have just been finished, and of which the walls have not had time to dry and the paint to lose its odor, apartments are very commonly let to persons who offer to break them in, so to speak. Why are these persons very often lorettes or ballet-dancers out of employment? Probably because those ladies know that very little pains will be taken to seek information about them, and that they will be accepted as tenants with such effects as they choose to bring. Landlords are never exacting with those tenants who are willing to “dry the walls.”

The Baronne de Grangeville, however, did not belong to either of the various classes of women who are in the habit of hiring apartments without asking the price, and who reply to those persons who remark that their rent is high: “What difference does that make to me? I never pay!”

However, from her position, her tastes and her habits, it was impossible to mistake her position in life; it was easy to see that that lady had fallen from opulence.

Her furniture still retained some traces of her former opulence: it included a dressing-table and a couch of extreme daintiness, and side by side with them, easy-chairs and common chairs that were out of style, spotted and in wretched condition. There were ample curtains, large and small, in her bedroom; there were only very small ones in her salon. The dining-room was almost bare and there was very little furniture in the kitchen, but the baroness never, or very rarely, had cooking done in her apartment; she sent out to a restaurant for her meals; that way of living is more expensive, but Madame de Grangeville had never chosen to take the trouble to calculate, or to pay any heed to her expenses; so long as she had had a regular income, she had thought of nothing but satisfying her fancies, her most trifling desires, without stopping to think whether her means were sufficient for her innumerable whims; people who have no idea of order when they are young, rarely change when they are older; with them things go as best they can; they never think of the morrow. Such people are very agreeable in society and are generally considered very generous; they have nothing of their own and everyone exclaims:

“Ah! what an excellent heart!”

I consider that only those persons have a good heart who give what they themselves possess, and who, before everything, pay their creditors and do not run into debt. If you make a present to a friend, if you open your purse to obsequious flatterers who surround you, you inflict a real injury on your tailor whom you do not pay, on the restaurant keeper whom you put off from day to day by giving him small sums on account; it is not with your money that you are generous, but with that of your creditors. There are people who distribute alms after becoming bankrupt, and who pose as benefactors of mankind. There are such people who have great reputations for kindness of heart, for whom I have very little esteem! If you scratch the surface, you soon come to the rock.

As Madame de Grangeville could not afford to keep both a lady’s maid and a cook, she had dismissed the latter, whom it would have been more sensible to keep; unfortunately, she could not do without a lady’s maid; she would gladly have kept her cook as well, but the latter had become tired of buying food on credit at the dealers’, who also were tired of supplying goods without being paid.

When Madame Roc, that was the cook’s name, went to her mistress to ask for money, she would throw herself back on her couch and hold a phial of smelling salts to her nose, crying:

“Oh! Madame Roc, have you come to talk about money again? Leave me in peace, I beg you. I have an attack of vapors already, and you will give me an attack of hysteria.”

“But, madame, for dinner----”

“Don’t bother me about dinner; do what you choose; I give you _carte blanche_!”

“_Carte blanche_ isn’t money, and they all want money; I can’t say to the butcher: ‘I have _carte blanche_ to pay for your fillet.’”

“Mon Dieu! how you tire me! how you make my head ache!”

“But, madame, if I shouldn’t get any dinner for you, would you like that?”

“Heavens! how you annoy me, how intolerable you are! Go away, I tell you again, and leave me!”

This little scene, which is of frequent occurrence in Paris, will give an idea of the sort of person that the Baronne de Grangeville was. When the cook had been dismissed, matters arranged themselves better with the lady’s maid; she, being accustomed to flatter her mistresses in order to obtain a dress or a scarf, knew a thousand tricks to deceive creditors, to put them off the scent and send them away; and that was just the sort of lady’s maid that Madame de Grangeville needed.

However, everything has an end, the patience of creditors no less than the confidence of dealers. Discovering a little late that she was likely to find herself in a very critical situation, after squandering a part of her principal, she sold what little she had left, and with the proceeds took it into her head to gamble on the Bourse. That was as good a way as another; it was a matter of luck, and she could still dream of wealth; for people who are devoid of order, it is a masterstroke to be able to rely on chance.

One morning, Madame de Grangeville, who had just risen and taken her chocolate _à la vanille_, told Lizida, her maid, to go out and buy a newspaper which had the quotations of railroad and manufacturing stocks.

The maid hastened to obey her mistress; the latter looked at herself in a mirror, as she tried on a very fashionable cap which she had worn only three times, but which did not rejuvenate her as much as she wished.

“Here is the paper, madame,” said Lizida, eyeing her mistress’s cap, which she coveted; “I inquired about the Mouzaias; hasn’t madame some Mouzaia stocks?”

“Yes, I have twenty shares; my last hope is in that.”

“What are the Mouzaias, madame? a sugar factory?”

“Alas! no, it isn’t sugar. I believe it’s a copper mine in Algeria; I don’t know exactly, but it doesn’t make any difference; a friend of mine doubled her money six months ago by buying shares in it; and I hope to double mine; but thus far I haven’t had any luck.--Do you think my cap is becoming, Lizida?”

“Mon Dieu, madame, it’s strange--but if you want my opinion----”

“To be sure, when I ask for it.”

“Well! madame, who is always so pretty--I don’t know how it is, but with that cap madame has a stern, serious look.”

“Say at once that it makes me older, for that is what you don’t dare to say.”

“Oh! it isn’t that; madame can’t look old; that is impossible; but madame has a less animated, less coquettish air--that’s it, less coquettish.”

Madame de Grangeville snatched off her cap and threw it on a chair, crying:

“You are quite right, Lizida; this cap certainly does make me a frightful object.”

“Oh! frightful! As if madame could be frightful when--when she is so pretty!”

“Hush, child; take the cap; I give it to you, it’s yours, do what you choose with it.”

“Madame is too good; but I wouldn’t want madame to think----”

“I tell you to take that cap, I never want to hear of it again. Go and get me the little blue one that I wore before I bought that one.”

Mademoiselle Lizida ran from the room to fetch the cap which her mistress asked for, and handed it to her; then she made haste to take to her own room the cap for which the baroness had paid thirty-five francs and which she had worn but three times, saying to herself:

“I knew very well that I should get it! Oh! it is a perfect beauty! It makes me look like an angel, and I will wear it on Sunday to go to the Château des Fleurs to dance.--How lovely it is!”

Then she returned to her mistress, who had put on the blue cap, and cried:

“Oh! how lovely madame is in that! madame is only twenty-five years old,--not a day more. Ah! if I was a man, how madly in love I should be with madame!”

“Hush, you mad girl! It’s a fact that this cap is very becoming to me.”

“Madame, you must have another one just like it made at once.”

“Yes, that is what I intend to do, when I am in funds.--Let me look at the newspaper, the quotations; I don’t understand them very well.”

“Madame, I was told that the Mouzaias had gone up.”

“Really? Oh! if only that were true! for I bought twenty shares at par, and they have fallen to forty-eight francs. Let me see,--a rise of fifty centimes! That is magnificent!”

“Then madame has not made anything?”

“If I should sell now, I shouldn’t get back a thousand francs of the two thousand that I invested; I should lose more than half!”

“Then you mustn’t sell, madame!”

“I mustn’t sell, but I must have money. I have promised to go to Nogent, to visit those Glumeaus, who are to have a family party, with theatricals.”

“The Glumeaus! Who on earth are they? Retired grocers?”

“No, they are--Faith, I don’t know what they used to do, nor do I care. If I had to inquire about such things as that, should I ever go into society? But they are excellent people; one enjoys oneself at their house; it is just like being at home. The company is a little mixed there perhaps, but isn’t it so everywhere? I met at Monsieur Glumeau’s a person whom I used to know, before I was married.”

“Ah! it must have been a long while ago then!”

Mademoiselle Lizida had no sooner made this remark than she saw that she had put her foot in it; she made haste to add:

“When I said a long time, I said something very foolish; I spoke without thinking, for after all, I have no idea whether madame was married long ago, any more than I know how long madame has been a widow. Sometimes one is widowed right away. A husband doesn’t always last a year.”

“Oh! my poor Lizida, there are many other things that you don’t know, and that would surprise you greatly if I should tell you them!”

Mademoiselle Lizida, who was inquisitive like all lady’s maids, seeing that her mistress was in one of those moods when one longs to disclose one’s secrets, to confide the most private mysteries which a woman always tires of keeping to herself, employed at first her usual tactics to make herself agreeable to her mistress.

“Mon Dieu! how very becoming that little blue cap is to madame! It gives her such a charming air! But then, madame always has that.”

“Oh! there are days when one looks better than on others; everybody is like that; to-day certainly seems to be one of my good days.”

“It would seem then that madame was married very young?”

“Yes, very young; I was seventeen years old, not more.”

“What a sweet little bride madame must have been!”

“Yes, everybody admired me!”

“And madame’s husband, the Baron de Grangeville, was he young? Was he a fine-looking man?”

“Why yes, my husband was a fine man, very good-looking, with a somewhat serious expression.--Would you believe, my dear child, that I was mad over that man?”

“Pray, madame, why not? There are wives who adore their husbands; it isn’t very common, but such things are seen.”

“Yes, I adored him--the first year after our marriage.”

“Ah! only the first year?”

“Men are agreeable for such a short time!”

“Oh! how true that is!--And madame’s husband became like the others, no doubt, surly, moody, fault-finding. There are some men who refuse their wives everything, even a cashmere shawl; and everybody knows that a woman who goes into good society cannot do without a cashmere shawl! The idea of such a thing! what would she look like?”

“My husband found no fault with my taste for dress; besides, I had my own money; I brought him twelve thousand francs a year when I married him.”

“Well! if with that amount the wife was not the mistress, it would be funny!”

“But he had nearly twenty thousand francs a year.”

“Then you must have lived very handsomely! Ah! your maid must have been very lucky! madame is so noble, so generous! madame was born to be waited upon; anyone can see that at once.”

“But my husband became jealous, so jealous that he made himself ridiculous!”

“Ah! that is another fault of these men! to be jealous! and what good does it do them, I ask you? None at all, except to bore their wives! and when a woman is bored, why, bless my soul, she seeks some sort of distraction! I say, madame, as monsieur le baron had become so jealous, it seems to me that you should not have been very sorry to be left a widow.--Dear me! what lovely pink cheeks madame has to-day!”

Madame de Grangeville smiled at herself in the mirror which stood before her; then, throwing herself back in an armchair, she said with a little sigh:

“Ah! you don’t know all, Lizida. What I am going to tell you will surprise you tremendously! but you must be very discreet, and never mention it to anyone!”

“Madame must know me, she knows that I am not a chatterbox; I would rather be chopped in pieces than betray a secret.”

“Well, my dear, I am not a widow.”

“Oho! is it possible? Madame’s husband is still alive?”

“Yes, and what is more, I know from someone who has met him lately that he is living in Paris at this moment.”

“Well, that is news indeed; the Baron de Grangeville is alive!”

“Not the Baron de Grangeville, for that isn’t his name; I did not choose to bear his name any longer.”

“I understand; so madame is not really a baroness then?”

“I was a countess, Lizida, which is much better; for my husband is a count!”

“Oh! excuse me, madame, excuse me! madame la comtesse! Ah! ‘madame la comtesse’! how lovely it is to say that! will you allow me to call you that, madame?”

“No, you would become accustomed to it; besides, I don’t want that title any more, it would remind me of a time that I wish to forget.”

“Oh! of course, since madame was so unhappy with her husband, that she was obliged to leave him--after many years, no doubt.”

“Why, no; we had been married hardly three years when we separated.”

“Only three years! That isn’t very long! Was he very unkind from the beginning, that husband of yours?”

“Yes, he began to be very--very ridiculous at once!”

“Madame had no children?”

“No, I had none.”

“That is very lucky, for sometimes there is a dispute as to who shall have the children, or who shall not have them; whereas, when there are none, it’s: ‘Adieu, bonsoir; we can’t live together any longer, let us part!’--Isn’t that the way it’s done, madame?”

“Not quite so easy as that when you wish to separate according to law, and that is what we did, Monsieur de--my husband having his separate property and I mine, we both took our own.”

“Ah! but if your husband should die, madame, would you inherit from him?”

“No indeed, I should not get a sou.”

“How unjust that is! Just think of that! A poor little woman gives herself to a man who makes her unhappy, and if he dies, she doesn’t inherit! And monsieur le comte, your husband, has at least twenty thousand francs a year, you say?”

“Oh! in more than nineteen years that have passed, it seems that he has doubled his fortune at least, in undertakings, speculations.”

“What! nineteen years madame has left her husband?”

Madame de Grangeville made a gesture of irritation, and the maid made haste to add:

“No, no, that is not possible; madame made a mistake; doubtless madame meant to say nine years.”

“Yes, you are right, I did make a mistake; it is much less. However, what does it matter? It is of no use to think about that any more.”

“I beg pardon, madame,--don’t be offended at what I am going to say; it is an idea that came into my head, and I submit it to you.”

“Go on; you know very well that I never am angry.”

“Well, since madame’s former husband is so rich, and madame finds herself annoyed, besieged by those demons of creditors, as we have been for some time--suppose madame should send to monsieur le comte and ask him to let her have a few thousand-franc notes--would he refuse them?”

“O Lizida! that is impossible!”

“Why so? Just let madame tell me her husband’s name and address, and I will willingly undertake the errand.”

“It is impossible, Lizida, because I don’t choose to do it, because I shall never apply to the count. No, I would prefer to be deprived of everything, rather than let him know my position. Besides, he would reply: ‘You had your property, madame. You should have kept it.’”

“Kept it! kept it! That is very easy to say; but madame has such a kind heart, she is so noble, so generous--madame has too noble a mind to know how to calculate. Pshaw! it is only the petty bourgeois who do that!”

“But they are wise, perhaps!”

“To think that madame is not a widow! I cannot get over it. So that is the reason that madame does not marry. See how wicked it is to forbid divorce!”

“If only those infernal Mouzaias would go back to the price I paid for them! I absolutely must have some money; I am going to Nogent in four days; they are going to have theatricals, there’ll be a great many people there, and I must have another bonnet; mine is no longer fresh enough.”

“It is true that it is beginning to be unworthy of madame; and madame is always so well dressed that everybody always admires her costume!”

“Yes, I used to be one of the women who were famous for their taste in dress; I set the fashion.”

“Madame might set the fashion again if she would.”

“Say rather if I could, my dear Lizida! But listen--someone rang; if it is Monsieur de Merval, you will let him come in; he is the person whom I met at the Glumeaus’.”

“But if it’s an _Englishman_----”

“A creditor! Mon Dieu! you know well enough what you must say to them, for you are used to receiving those fellows.”

“Oh yes, madame, I will get around him.”