Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau

“I have already written to him,” said Cesar.

“Oh! and don’t forget the sister-in-law of Monsieur Lebas, Madame Augustine Sommervieux,” said Cesarine. “Poor little woman, she is so delicate; she is dying of grief, so Monsieur Lebas says.”

“That’s what it is to marry artists!” cried her father. “Look! there’s your mother asleep,” he whispered. “La! la! a very good night to you, Madame Cesar – Now, then,” he added, “about your mother’s ball-dress?”

“Yes, papa, it will be all ready. Mamma thinks she will wear her china-crape like mine. The dressmaker is sure there is no need of trying it on.”

“How many people have you got down,” said Cesar aloud, seeing that Constance opened her eyes.

“One hundred and nine, with the clerks.”

“Where shall we ever put them all?” said Madame Birotteau. “But, anyhow, after that Sunday,” she added naively, “there will come a Monday.”

Nothing can be done simply and naturally by people who are stepping from one social level to another. Not a soul – not Madame Birotteau, nor Cesar himself – was allowed to put foot into the new appartement on the first floor. Cesar had promised Raguet, the shop-boy, a new suit of clothes for the day of the ball, if he mounted guard faithfully and let no one enter. Birotteau, like the Emperor Napoleon at Compiegne, when the chateau was re-decorated for his marriage with Maria Louisa of Austria, was determined to see nothing piecemeal; he wished to enjoy the surprise of seeing it as a whole. Thus the two antagonists met once more, all unknown to themselves, not on the field of battle, but on the peaceful ground of bourgeois vanity. It was arranged that Monsieur Grindot was to take Cesar by the hand and show him the appartement when finished, – just as a guide shows a gallery to a sight-seer. Every member of the family had provided his, or her, private “surprise.” Cesarine, dear child, had spent all her little hoard, a hundred louis, on buying books for her father. Monsieur Grindot confided to her one morning that there were two book-cases in Cesar’s room, which enclosed an alcove, – an architectural surprise to her father. Cesarine flung all her girlish savings upon the counter of a bookseller’s shop, and obtained in return, Bossuet, Racine, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, Moliere, Buffon, Fenelon, Delille, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, La Fontaine, Corneille, Pascal, La Harpe, – in short, the whole array of matter-of-course libraries to be found everywhere and which assuredly her father would never read. A terrible bill for binding was in the background. The celebrated and dilatory binder, Thouvenin, had promised to deliver the volumes at twelve o’clock in the morning of the 16th. Cesarine confided her anxiety to her uncle Pillerault, and he had promised to pay the bill. The “surprise” of Cesar to his wife was the gown of cherry-colored velvet, trimmed with lace, of which he spoke to his accomplice, Cesarine. The “surprise” of Madame Birotteau to the new chevalier was a pair of gold shoe-buckles, and a diamond pin. For the whole family there was the surprise of the new appartement, and, a fortnight later, the still greater surprise of the bills when they came in.

Cesar carefully weighed the question as to which invitations should be given in person, and which should be sent by Raguet. He ordered a coach and took his wife – much disfigured by a bonnet with feathers, and his last gift, a shawl which she had coveted for fifteen years – on a round of civilities. In their best array, these worthy people paid twenty-two visits in the course of one morning.

Cesar excused his wife from the labor and difficulty of preparing at home the various viands demanded by the splendor of the entertainment. A diplomatic treaty was arranged between the famous Chevet and the perfumer. Chevet furnished superb silver plate (which brought him an income equal to that of land); he supplied the dinner, the wines, and the waiters, under the orders of a major-domo of dignified aspect, who was responsible for the proper management of everything. Chevet exacted that the kitchen, and the dining-room on the entresol, should be given up to him as headquarters; a dinner for twenty people was to be served at six o’clock, a superb supper at one in the morning. Birotteau arranged with the cafe Foy for ices in the shape of fruits, to be served in pretty saucers, with gilt spoons, on silver trays. Tanrade, another illustrious purveyor, furnished the refreshments.

“Don’t be worried,” said Cesar to his wife, observing her uneasiness on the day before the great event, “Chevet, Tanrade, and the cafe Foy will occupy the entresol, Virginie will take charge of the second floor, the shop will be closed; all we shall have to do is to enshrine ourselves on the first floor.”

At two o’clock, on the 16th, the mayor, Monsieur de la Billardiere, came to take Cesar to the Chancellerie of the Legion of honor, where he was to be received by Monsieur le Comte de Lacepede, and about a dozen chevaliers of the order. Tears were in his eyes when he met the mayor; Constance had just given him the “surprise” of the gold buckles and diamond pin.

“It is very sweet to be so loved,” he said, getting into the coach in presence of the assembled clerks, and Cesarine, and Constance. They, one and all, gazed at Cesar, attired in black silk knee-breeches, silk stockings, and the new bottle-blue coat, on which was about to gleam the ribbon that, according to Molineux, was dyed in blood. When Cesar came home to dinner, he was pale with joy; he looked at his cross in all the mirrors, for in the first moments of exultation he was not satisfied with the ribbon, – he wore the cross, and was glorious without false shame.

“My wife,” he said, “Monsieur the high chancellor is a charming man. On a hint from La Billardiere he accepted my invitation. He is coming with Monsieur Vauquelin. Monsieur de Lacepede is a great man, – yes, as great as Monsieur Vauquelin; he has continued the work of Buffon in forty volumes; he is an author, peer of France! Don’t forget to address him as, Your Excellence, or, Monsieur le comte.”

“Do eat something,” said his wife. “Your father is worse than a child,” added Constance to Cesarine.

“How well it looks in your button-hole,” said Cesarine. “When we walk out together, won’t they present arms?”

“Yes, wherever there are sentries they will present arms.”

Just at this moment Grindot was coming downstairs with Braschon. It had been arranged that after dinner, monsieur, madame, and mademoiselle were to enjoy a first sight of the new appartement; Braschon’s foreman was now nailing up the last brackets, and three men were lighting the rooms.

“It takes a hundred and twenty wax-candles,” said Braschon.

“A bill of two hundred francs at Trudon’s,” said Madame Cesar, whose murmurs were checked by a glance from the chevalier Birotteau.

“Your ball will be magnificent, Monsieur le chevalier,” said Braschon.

Birotteau whispered to himself, “Flatterers already! The Abbe Loraux urged me not to fall into that net, but to keep myself humble. I shall try to remember my origin.”

Cesar did not perceive the meaning of the rich upholsterer’s speech. Braschon made a dozen useless attempts to get invitations for himself, his wife, daughter, mother-in-law, and aunt. He called the perfumer Monsieur le chevalier to the door-way, and then he departed his enemy.

The rehearsal began. Cesar, his wife, and Cesarine went out by the shop-door and re-entered the house from the street. The entrance had been remodelled in the grand style, with double doors, divided into square panels, in the centre of which were architectural ornaments in cast-iron, painted. This style of door, since become common in Paris, was then a novelty. At the further end of the vestibule the staircase went up in two straight flights, and between them was the space which had given Cesar some uneasiness, and which was now converted into a species of box, where it was possible to seat an old woman. The vestibule, paved in black and white marble, with its walls painted to resemble marble, was lighted by an antique lamp with four jets. The architect had combined richness with simplicity. A narrow red carpet relieved the whiteness of the stairs, which were polished with pumice-stone. The first landing gave an entrance to the entresol; the doors to each appartement were of the same character as the street-door, but of finer work by a cabinet-maker.

The family reached the first floor and entered an ante-chamber in excellent taste, spacious, parquetted, and simply decorated. Next came a salon, with three windows on the street, in white and red, with cornices of an elegant design which had nothing gaudy about them. On a chimney-piece of white marble supported by columns were a number of mantel ornaments chosen with taste; they suggested nothing to ridicule, and were in keeping with the other details. A soft harmony prevailed throughout the room, a harmony which artists alone know how to attain by carrying uniformity of decoration into the minutest particulars, – an art of which the bourgeois mind is ignorant, though it is much taken with its results. A glass chandelier, with twenty-four wax-candles, brought out the color of the red silk draperies; the polished floor had an enticing look, which tempted Cesarine to dance.

“How charming!” she said; “and yet there is nothing to seize the eye.”

“Exactly, mademoiselle,” said the architect; “the charm comes from the harmony which reigns between the wainscots, walls, cornices, and the decorations; I have gilded nothing, the colors are sober, and not extravagant in tone.”

“It is a science,” said Cesarine.

A boudoir in green and white led into Cesar’s study.

“Here I have put a bed,” said Grindot, opening the doors of an alcove cleverly hidden between the two bookcases. “If you or madame should chance to be ill, each can have your own room.”

“But this bookcase full of books, all bound! Oh! my wife, my wife!” cried Cesar.

“No; that is Cesarine’s surprise.”

“Pardon the feelings of a father,” said Cesar to the architect, as he kissed his daughter.

“Oh! of course, of course, monsieur,” said Grindot; “you are in your own home.”

Brown was the prevailing color in the study, relieved here and there with green, for a thread of harmony led through all the rooms and allied them with one another. Thus the color which was the leading tone of one room became the relieving tint of another. The engraving of Hero and Leander shone on one of the panels of Cesar’s study.

“Ah! thou wilt pay for all this,” said Birotteau, looking gaily at it.

“That beautiful engraving is given to you by Monsieur Anselme,” said Cesarine.

(Anselme, too, had allowed himself a “surprise.”)

“Poor boy! he has done just as I did for Monsieur Vauquelin.”

The bedroom of Madame Birotteau came next. The architect had there displayed a magnificence well calculated to please the worthy people whom he was anxious to snare; he had really kept his word and studied this decoration. The room was hung in blue silk, with white ornaments; the furniture was in white cassimere touched with blue. On the chimney-piece, of white marble, stood a clock representing Venus crouching, on a fine block of marble; a moquette carpet, of Turkish design, harmonized this room with that of Cesarine, which opened out of it, and was coquettishly hung with Persian chintz. A piano, a pretty wardrobe with a mirror door, a chaste little bed with simple curtains, and all the little trifles that young girls like, completed the arrangements of the room. The dining-room was behind the bedroom of Cesar and his wife, and was entered from the staircase; it was treated in the style called Louis XIV., with a clock in buhl, buffets of the same, inlaid with brass and tortoise-shell; the walls were hung with purple stuff, fastened down by gilt nails. The happiness of these three persons is not to be described, more especially when, re-entering her room, Madame Birotteau found upon her bed (where Virginie had just carried it, on tiptoe) the robe of cherry-colored velvet, with lace trimmings, which was her husband’s “surprise.”

“Monsieur, this appartement will win you great distinction,” said Constance to Grindot. “We shall receive a hundred and more persons to-morrow evening, and you will win praises from everybody.”

“I shall recommend you,” said Cesar. “You will meet the very heads of commerce, and you will be better known through that one evening than if you had built a hundred houses.”

Constance, much moved, thought no longer of costs, nor of blaming her husband; and for the following reason: That morning, when he brought the engraving of Hero and Leander, Anselme Popinot, whom Constance credited with much intelligence and practical ability, had assured her of the inevitable success of Cephalic Oil, for which he was working night and day with a fury that was almost unprecedented. The lover promised that no matter what was the round sum of Birotteau’s extravagance, it should be covered in six months by Cesar’s share in the profits of the oil. After fearing and trembling for nineteen years it was so sweet to give herself up to one day of unalloyed happiness, that Constance promised her daughter not to poison her husband’s pleasure by any doubts or disapproval, but to share his happiness heartily. When therefore, about eleven o’clock, Grindot left them, she threw herself into her husband’s arms and said to him with tears of joy, “Cesar! ah, I am beside myself! You have made me very happy!”

“Provided it lasts, you mean?” said Cesar, smiling.

“It will last; I have no more fears,” said Madame Birotteau.

“That’s right,” said the perfumer; “you appreciate me at last.”

People who are sufficiently large-minded to perceive their own innate weakness will admit that an orphan girl who eighteen years earlier was saleswoman at the Petit-Matelot, Ile Saint-Louis, and a poor peasant lad coming from Touraine to Paris with hob-nailed shoes and a cudgel in his hand, might well be flattered and happy in giving such a fete for such praiseworthy reasons.

“Bless my heart!” cried Cesar. “I’d give a hundred francs if someone would only come in now and pay us a visit.”

“Here is Monsieur l’Abbe Loraux,” said Virginie.

The abbe entered. He was at that time vicar of Saint-Sulpice. The power of the soul was never better manifested than in this saintly priest, whose intercourse with others left upon the minds of all an indelible impression. His grim face, so plain as to check confidence, had grown sublime through the exercise of Catholic virtues; upon it shone, as it were by anticipation, the celestial glories. Sincerity and candor, infused into his very blood, gave harmony to his unsightly features, and the fires of charity blended the discordant lines by a phenomenon, the exact counterpart of that which in Claparon had debased and brutalized the human being. Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three noblest virtues of humanity, shed their charm among the abbe’s wrinkles; his speech was gentle, slow, and penetrating. His dress was that of the priests of Paris, and he allowed himself to wear a brown frock-coat. No ambition had ever crept into that pure heart, which the angels would some day carry to God in all its pristine innocence. It required the gentle firmness of the daughter of Louis XVI. to induce him to accept a benefice in Paris, humble as it was. As he now entered the room he glanced with an uneasy eye at the magnificence before him, smiled at the three delighted people, and shook his gray head.