"A lawyer," added Barbet, in a low voice, "who occupies a small apartment on the third floor front. Oh! HE doesn't amount to much; he has nothing.""What is the name of that young man?" said Olivier Vinet to Thuillier.
"Theodose de la Peyrade; he is a barrister," replied Thuillier, in a whisper.
At that moment the women present, as well as the men, looked at the two young fellows, and Madame Minard remarked to Colleville:--"He is rather good-looking, that stranger."
"I have made his anagram," replied Colleville, "and his name, Charles-Marie-Theodose de la Peyrade, prophecies: 'Eh! monsieur payera, de la dot, des oies et le char.' Therefore, my dear Mamma Minard, be sure you don't give him your daughter.""They say that young man is better-looking than my son," said Madame Phellion to Madame Colleville. "What do you think about it?""Oh! in the matter of physical beauty a woman might hesitate before choosing," replied Madame Colleville.
At that moment it occurred to young Vinet as he looked round the salon, so full of the lesser bourgeoisie, that it might be a shrewd thing to magnify that particular class; and he thereupon enlarged upon the meaning of the young Provencal barrister, declaring that men so honored by the confidence of the government should imitate royalty and encourage a magnificence surpassing that of the former court. It was folly, he said, to lay by the emoluments of an office. Besides, could it be done, in Paris especially, where costs of living had trebled,--the apartment of a magistrate, for instance, costing three thousand francs a year?
"My father," he said in conclusion, "allows me three thousand francs a year, and that, with my salary, barely allows me to maintain my rank."When the young substitute rode boldly into this bog-hole, the Provencal, who had slyly enticed him there, exchanged, without being observed, a wink with Dutocq, who was just then waiting for the place of a player at bouillotte.
"There is such a demand for offices," remarked the latter, "that they talk of creating two justices of the peace to each arrondissement in order to make a dozen new clerkships. As if they could interfere with our rights and our salaries, which already require an exhorbitant tax!""I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing you at the Palais," said Vinet to Monsieur de la Peyrade.
"I am advocate for the poor, and I plead only before the justice of peace," replied la Peyrade.
Mademoiselle Thuillier, as she listened to young Vinet's theory of the necessity of spending an income, assumed a distant air and manner, the significance of which was well understood by Dutocq and the young Provencal. Vinet left the house in company with Minard and Julien the advocate, so that the battle-field before the fire-place was abandoned to la Peyrade and Dutocq.
"The upper bourgeoisie," said Dutocq to Thuillier, "will behave, in future, exactly like the old aristocracy. The nobility wanted girls with money to manure their lands, and the parvenus of to-day want the same to feather their nests.""That's exactly what Monsieur Thuillier was saying to me this morning," remarked la Peyrade, boldly.
"Vinet's father," said Dutocq, "married a Demoiselle de Chargeboeuf and has caught the opinions of the nobility; he wants a fortune at any price; his wife spends money regally.""Oh!" said Thuillier, in whom the jealousy between the two classes of the bourgeoisie was fully roused, "take offices away from those fellows and they'd fall back where they came."Mademoiselle was knitting with such precipitous haste that she seemed to be propelled by a steam-engine.
"Take my place, Monsieur Dutocq," said Madame Minard, rising. "My feet are cold," she added, going to the fire, where the golden ornaments of her turban made fireworks in the light of the Saint-Aurora wax-candles that were struggling vainly to light the vast salon.
"He is very small fry, that young substitute," said Madame Minard, glancing at Mademoiselle Thuillier.
"Small fry!" cried la Peyrade. "Ah, madame! how witty!""But madame has so long accustomed us to that sort of thing," said the handsome Thuillier.
Madame Colleville was examining la Peyrade and comparing him with young Phellion, who was just then talking to Celeste, neither of them paying any heed to what was going on around them. This is, certainly, the right moment to depict the singular personage who was destined to play a signal part in the Thuillier household, and who fully deserves the appellation of a great artist.