The Brotherhood of Consolation

“Thank you, monsieur,” said the unhappy Bourlac.

With the words he fell rigid on the snow, and rolled into one of the hollows round the trees of the boulevard.

The commissary of police called for help, and Nepomucene ran up, together with Madame Vauthier. The old man was carried to his room, and Madame Vauthier begged the commissary to call on his way in the rue d’Enfer, and send Doctor Berton as soon as possible.

“What is the matter with my grandfather?” asked poor Auguste.

“He is out of his head. You see what it is to steal,” said the Vauthier.

Auguste made a movement as though he would dash out his brains. The two agents caught him.

“Come, young man, be calm,” said the commissary of police; “you have done wrong, but it may not be irreparable – ”

“Monsieur, will you tell that woman my grandfather hasn’t had anything to ear for twenty-four hours?”

“Oh! the poor things!” exclaimed the commissary under his breath.

He stopped the coach, which had started, and said a word in the ear of one of his agents, who got out and ran to Madame Vauthier, and then returned.

When Dr. Berton arrived he declared that Monsieur Bernard (he knew him only under that name) had a high fever of great intensity. After hearing from Madame Vauthier all the events which had brought on this crisis (related after the manner of such women) he informed Monsieur Alain the next morning, at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, of the present state of affairs; on which Monsieur Alain despatched a note in pencil by a street messenger to Monsieur Joseph.

Godefroid had given Monsieur Joseph, on his return from the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse the night before, the notes confided to him by Auguste, and Monsieur Joseph had spent part of the night in reading the first volume of Baron Bourlac’s work.

The next morning after breakfast Madame de la Chanterie told her neophyte that he should, if his resolution still held good, be put to work at once. Godefroid, initiated by her into the financial secrets of the society, worked steadily seven or eight hours a day for several months, under the inspection of Frederic Mongenod, who came every Sunday to examine the work, and from whom he received much praise and encouragement.

“You are,” he said, when the books were all in order and the accounts audited, “a precious acquisition to the saints among whom you live. Two or three hours a day will now suffice to keep the current accounts in order, and you will have plenty of surplus time to help the work in other ways, if you still have the vocation you showed for it six months ago.”

It was now July, 1838. During the time that had elapsed since his opening attempt on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, Godefroid, eager to prove himself worthy of his friends, had refrained from asking any question relating to Baron Bourlac. Not hearing a single word on the subject, and finding no record of any transaction concerning it in the accounts, he regarded the silence maintained about the enemy of Madame de la Chanterie and his family either as a test to which he himself was subjected, or as a proof that the friends of the noble woman had in some way avenged her.

Some two months after he had left Madame Vauthier’s lodgings he turned his steps when out for a walk towards the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, where he came upon the widow herself, and asked for news of the Bernard family.

“Just as if I knew what has become of them!” she replied. “Two days after your departure – for it was you, slyboots, who got the affair away from my proprietor – some men came here and rid me of that arrogant old fool and all his belongings. Bless me! if they didn’t move everything out within twenty-four hours; and as close as wax they were too; not a word would they say to me. I think he went off to Algiers with his rogue of a grandson; for Nepomucene, who had a fancy for that young thief, being no better himself, couldn’t find him at the Conciergerie. I dare say Nepomucene knows where he is, though, for he, too, has run away. That’s what it is to bring up foundlings! that’s how they reward you for all your trouble, leaving you in the lurch! I haven’t yet been able to get a man in his place, and as the quarter is looking up the house is full, and I am worked to death.”

Godefroid would never have known more about Baron Bourlac and his family if it had not been for one of those chance encounters such as often happens in Paris.

In the month of September he was walking down the great avenue of the Champs Elysees, thinking, as he passed the end of the rue Marbeuf, of Dr. Halpersohn.

“I might,” thought he, “go and see him and ask if he ever cured Bourlac’s daughter. What a voice, what immense talents she had! – and she wanted to consecrate herself to God!”

When he reached the Rond-point Godefroid crossed it quickly, on account of the many carriages that were passing rapidly. As he reached the other side in haste he knocked against a young man with a lady on his arm.

“Take care!” said the young man; “are you blind?”

“Hey! is it you?” cried Godefroid, recognizing Auguste de Mergi.

Auguste was so well-dressed, and looked so dandified and handsome and so proud of giving his arm to a pretty woman, that if it had not been for the youth’s voice and the memories that were just then in his own mind he might not have recognized him.

“Oh! it is our dear Monsieur Godefroid!” said the lady.

Hearing those words in the celestial notes of Vanda’s enchanting voice, Godefroid stopped short on the spot where he stood.

“Cured!” he exclaimed.

“For the last ten days he has allowed me to walk out,” she replied.

“Who? Halpersohn?”

“Yes,” she said. “Why have you not been to see us? Perhaps it was well you didn’t;” she added; “my hair came off; this that you see is a wig; but the doctor assures me it will grow again. Oh! how many things we have to tell each other! Come and dine with us. Oh! your accordion! oh! monsieur,” – she put her handkerchief to her eyes.

“I shall keep it all my life,” she went on, “and my son will preserve it as a relic after me. My father has searched all Paris for you. And he is also in search of his unknown benefactors; he will grieve himself to death if you do not help him to discover them. Poor father! he is gnawed by a melancholy I cannot always get the better of.”

As much attracted by that exquisite voice, now rescued from the silence of the grave, as by a burning curiosity, Godefroid offered his arm to the hand held out to him by the Baronne de Mergi, who signed to her son to precede them, charging him with a commission which he seemed to understand.

“I shall not take you far,” she said; “we live in the Allee d’Antin, in a pretty little house built in the English fashion. We occupy it alone; each of us has a floor. Oh! we are so comfortable. My father thinks that you had a great deal to do with our good fortune.”

“I?”

“Yes; did you know that on a recommendation made by the minister of public instruction a chair of international law has been created for papa at the Sorbonne? He begins his first course next November. The great work on which he has been engaged for so long will be published this month by the firm of Cavalier and Co., who agree to share the profits with my father; they have already paid him on account thirty thousand francs. My father bought our house with that money. The minister of justice has awarded me a pension of twelve hundred francs as the daughter of a former judge; my father has his retiring pension of three thousand, and his professorship will give him five thousand more. We are so economical that we are almost rich. My dear Auguste will begin his law studies in two months; but he is already employed in the office of the attorney-general, and is earning twelve hundred francs a year. Ah! Monsieur Godefroid, promise me you will never speak of that unhappy affair of my poor Auguste. As for me, I bless him every day for his action, though his grandfather has not yet forgiven him. Yes, his mother blesses him, Halpersohn adores him, but my father is implacable!”

“What affair?” asked Godefroid.

“Ah! I recognize your generosity,” cried Vanda. “What a heart you have! Your mother must be proud of you.”

She stopped as if a pain had struck her heart.

“I swear to you that I know nothing of the affair of which you speak,” said Godefroid.

“It is possible that you really did not know it?” said Vanda. And she related naively, in terms of admiration for her son, the story of the loan that he had secured from the doctor.

“We may not speak of it before Baron Bourlac,” said Godefroid, “tell me now how your son got out of his trouble.”

“Well,” said Vanda, “I told you, I think, that he is now employed by the attorney-general, who shows him the greatest kindness. Auguste was only forty-eight hours in the Conciergerie, where he was put into the governor’s house. The good doctor, who did not receive a noble letter the boy wrote him till late at night, withdrew his complaint; and, through the influence of a former judge of the Royal Courts, whom my father has never been able to meet, the attorney-general was induced to annul the proceedings in the court. There is no trace left of the affair except in my heart and my son’s conscience, and alas! in his grandfather’s mind. From that day he has treated Auguste as almost a stranger. Only yesterday Halpersohn begged him to forgive the boy; but my father, who never before refused me anything – me, whom he loves so well! – replied: ‘You are the person robbed; you can, and you ought to forgive; but I am responsible for the thief. When I was attorney-general I never pardoned.’ ‘You’ll kill your daughter,’ said Halpersohn. My father made no reply and turned away.”

“But who helped you in all this?”

“A gentleman, whom we think is employed to do the queen’s benefits.”

“What is he like?”

“Well, he is of medium height; rather stout, but active; with a kindly, genial face. It was he who found my father ill of fever in the house where you knew us and had him brought to that in which we now live. And just fancy, as soon as my father recovered I was installed there too, in my very own room, just as if I had never left it. Halpersohn, whom the gentleman captivated, I am sure I don’t know how, then told me all the sufferings my father had endured. Ah, when I think of it! my father and my son often without bread to eat, and when with me pretending to be rich! even the diamonds in the snuff box sold! Oh, Monsieur Godefroid! those two beings are martyrs. And so, what can I say to my father? Between him and my son I can take no part; I can only make return to them in kind by suffering with them, as they once suffered with me.”

“And you say you think that gentleman came from the queen?”

“Oh! I am sure you know him, I see it in your face,” cried Vanda, now at the door of the house.

She seized Godefroid by the hand with the vigor of a nervous woman and dragged him into a salon, the door of which stood open.

“Papa!” she cried, “here is Monsieur Godefroid! and I am certain he knows our benefactors.”

Baron Bourlac, whom Godefroid now saw dressed in a manner suitable for a man of his rank and position, rose and came forward, holding out his hand to Godefroid, saying as he did so: —

“I was sure of it.”

Godefroid made a gesture denying that he shared in this noble vengeance, but the former attorney-general gave him no chance to speak.

“Ah! monsieur,” he said, continuing, “Providence could not be more powerful, love more ingenious, motherhood more clear-sighted than your friends have been for us. I bless the chance that has brought you here to-day; for Monsieur Joseph has disappeared forever; he has evaded all the traps I set to discover his true name and residence. Here, read his last letter. But perhaps you already know it.”

Godefroid read as follows: —

Monsieur le Baron Bourlac, – The sums which we have spent for you, under the orders of a charitable lady, amount to fifteen thousand francs. Take note of this, so that you may return that sum either yourself, or through your descendants, whenever the prosperity of your family will admit of it, – for that money is the money of the poor. When you or your family are able to make this restitution, pay the sum you owe into the hands of Messrs. Mongenod and Company, bankers.

May God forgive you.

Five crosses formed the mysterious signature of this letter, which Godefroid returned to the baron.

“The five crosses are there,” he said as if to himself.

“Ah! monsieur,” said the old man; “you do know all; you were sent to me by that mysterious lady – tell me her name!”

“Her name!” exclaimed Godefroid; “her name! Unhappy man! you must not ask it; never seek to find it out. Ah! madame,” he cried, taking Madame de Mergi’s hand; “tell your father, if he values his peace of mind, to remain in his ignorance and make no effort to discover the truth.”

“No, tell it!” said Vanda.

“Well, then, she who saved your daughter,” said Godefroid, looking at the old man, “who returns her to you young and beautiful and fresh and happy, who rescued her from her coffin, she who saved your grandson from disgrace, and has given you an old age of peace and honor – ” He stopped short – “is a woman whom you sent innocent to prison for twenty years; to whom, as a magistrate, you did the foulest wrong; whose sanctity you insulted; whose beautiful daughter you tore from her arms and condemned to the cruellest of all deaths, for she died on the guillotine.”

Godefroid, seeing that Vanda had fallen back half fainting on her chair, rushed into the corridor and from there into the street, running at full speed.

“If you want your pardon,” said Baron Bourlac to his grandson, “follow that man and find out where he lives.”

Auguste was off like an arrow.

The next morning at eight o’clock, Baron Bourlac knocked at the old yellow door in the rue Chanoinesse, and asked for Madame de la Chanterie. The portress showed him the portico. Happily it was the breakfast hour. Godefroid saw the baron, through one of the casements on the stairs, crossing the court-yard; he had just time to get down into the salon where the friends were all assembled and to cry out: —

“Baron Bourlac is here!”

Madame de la Chanterie, hearing the name, rose; supported by the Abbe de Veze she went to her room.

“You shall not come in, tool of Satan!” cried Manon, recognizing their former prosecutor and preventing his entrance through the door of the salon. “Have you come to kill Madame?”

“Manon, let the gentleman come in,” said Monsieur Alain.

Manon sat down on a chair as if both her legs had given way at once.

“Monsieur,” said the baron in an agitated voice, recognizing Monsieur Joseph and Godefroid, and bowing to Monsieur Nicolas, “mercy gives rights to those it benefits.”

“You owe us nothing, monsieur;” said the good old Alain; “you owe everything to God.”

“You are saints, and you have the calmness of saints;” said the former magistrate; “you will therefore listen to me. I know that the vast benefits I have received during the last eighteen months have come from the hand of a person whom I grievously injured in doing my duty. It was fifteen years before I was convinced of her innocence; and that case is the only one, gentlemen, for which I feel any remorse as to the exercise of my functions. Listen to me! I have but a short time to live, but I shall lose even that poor remnant of a life, still so important to my children whom Madame de la Chanterie has saved, unless she will also grant me her pardon. Yes, I will stay there on my knees on the pavement of Notre-Dame until she says to me that word. I, who cannot weep, whom the tortures of my child have dried like stubble, I shall find tears within me to move her – ”

The door of Madame de la Chanterie’s room opened; the Abbe de Veze glided in like a shadow and said to Monsieur Joseph: —

“That voice is torturing Madame.”

“Ah! she is there!” exclaimed the baron.

He fell on his knees and burst into tears, crying out in a heart-rending voice: “In the name of Jesus dying on the cross, forgive, forgive me, for my daughter has suffered a thousand deaths!”

The old man fell forward on the floor so prone that the agitated spectators thought him dead. At that instant Madame de la Chanterie appeared like a spectre at the door of her room, against the frame of which she supported herself.

“In the name of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette whom I see on their scaffold, in the name of Madame Elisabeth, in the name of my daughter and of yours, and for Jesus’ sake, I forgive you.”

Hearing those words the old man raised his head. “It is the vengeance of angels!” he said.

Monsieur Joseph and Monsieur Nicolas raised him and led him to the courtyard; Godefroid went to fetch a carriage, and when they put the old man into it Monsieur Nicolas said to him gravely: —

“Do not return here, monsieur; the power of God is infinite, but human nature has its limits.”

On that day Godefroid was admitted to the order of the Brotherhood of Consolation.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. The Brotherhood of Consolation is also known by the title The Seamy Side of History and is referred to by that title in other Addendums.

Barbet

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

A Man of Business

The Middle Classes

Bianchon, Horace

Father Goriot

The Atheist’s Mass

Cesar Birotteau

The Commission in Lunacy

Lost Illusions

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

A Bachelor’s Establishment

The Secrets of a Princess

The Government Clerks

Pierrette

A Study of Woman

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Honorine

The Magic Skin

A Second Home

A Prince of Bohemia

Letters of Two Brides

The Muse of the Department

The Imaginary Mistress

The Middle Classes

Cousin Betty

The Country Parson

In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:

Another Study of Woman

La Grande Breteche

Bonaparte, Napoleon

The Vendetta

The Gondreville Mystery

Colonel Chabert

Domestic Peace

A Woman of Thirty

Bordin

The Gondreville Mystery

The Commission in Lunacy

Jealousies of a Country Town

Bourlac, Bernard-Jean-Baptiste-Macloud, Baron de

The Peasantry

Casteran, De

The Chouans

Jealousies of a Country Town

Beatrix

The Peasantry

Cavalier

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Champignelles, De

The Deserted Woman

Chesnel (or Choisnel)

Jealousies of a Country Town

Cibot, Jean (alias Pille-Miche)

The Chouans

Cinq-Cygne, Laurence, Comtesse (afterwards Marquise de)

The Gondreville Mystery

The Secrets of a Princess

The Member for Arcis

Desplein

The Atheist’s Mass

Cousin Pons

Lost Illusions

The Thirteen

The Government Clerks

Pierrette

A Bachelor’s Establishment

Modeste Mignon

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Honorine

Haudry (doctor)

Cesar Birotteau

The Thirteen

A Bachelor’s Establishment

Cousin Pons

La Chanterie, Baronne Henri le Chantre de

Cousin Betty

Lelewel

The Imaginary Mistress

Leroi, Pierre

The Chouans

Jealousies of a Country Town

Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier

The Chouans

The Gondreville Mystery

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

The Ball at Sceaux

The Lily of the Valley

Colonel Chabert

The Government Clerks

Marest, Frederic

A Start in Life

The Member for Arcis

Metivier (nephew)

The Middle Classes

Mongenod

Cesar Birotteau

Mongenod, Frederic

The Commission in Lunacy

Montauran, Marquis de (younger brother of Alphonse de)

The Chouans

Cousin Betty

Nathan, Raoul

Lost Illusions

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

The Secrets of a Princess

A Daughter of Eve

Letters of Two Brides

The Muse of the Department

A Prince of Bohemia

A Man of Business

The Unconscious Humorists

Popinot, Jean-Jules

Cesar Birotteau

Honorine

The Commission in Lunacy

The Middle Classes

Tours-Minieres, Bernard-Polydor Bryond, Baron des

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de

The Chouans

Jealousies of a Country Town

The Peasantry

Vernisset, Victor de

Beatrix

Cousin Betty

Vissard, Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph Rifoel, Chevalier du

The Chouans

1

The Mont-de-Piete and its branches are pawn-shops under control of the government. – TR.

2

Chauffeurs. This name applies to royalists who robbed the mail-coaches conveying government funds, and levied tribute on those who bought the confiscated property of emigres at the West. When the Thermidorian reaction began, after the fall of Robespierre, other companies of royalists, chiefly young nobles who had not emigrated, were formed at the South and East under various names, such as “The Avengers,” and “The Company of Jehu,” who stopped the diligences containing government money, which they transmitted to Brittany and La Vendee for the support of the royalist troops. They regarded this as legitimate warfare, and were scrupulous not to touch private property. When captured, however, they were tried and executed as highwaymen. – TR.

3

The National domain was the name given to the confiscated property of the emigres, which was sold from time to time at auction to the highest bidder. – TR.

4

The Country Doctor. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

5

Balzac’s description of plica polonica does not agree with that given in English medical dictionaries and cyclopedias. But as the book was written at Wierschovnia, Poland, in 1847, when he was attended by a celebrated Polish physician, and as, moreover, he was always so scrupulously accurate in his descriptions, it is fair to suppose that he knew of some form of the disease other than that given in the books. His account probably applies to the period before it takes the visible form described in the books.