The assignee's act in the drama is intended to prove that every assignee is incorruptible, and that no collusion has ever existed between any of them and the bankrupt. The pit--which has all, more or less, been assignee in its day--knows very well that every assignee is a "covered" merchant. It listens, and believes as it likes. After three months employed in auditing the debtor and creditor accounts, the time comes for the /concordat/. The provisional assignees make a little report at the meeting, of which the following is the usual formula:--
Messieurs,--There is owing to the whole of us, in bulk, about a million. We have dismantled our man like a condemned frigate. The nails, iron, wood, and copper will bring about three hundred thousand francs. We shall thus get about thirty per cent of our money. Happy in obtaining this amount, when our debtor might have left us only one hundred thousand, we hereby declare him an Aristides; we vote him a premium and crown of encouragement, and propose to leave him to manage his assets, giving him ten or twelve years in which to pay us the fifty per cent which he has been so good as to offer us. Here is the certificate of bankruptcy; have the goodness to walk up to the desk and sign it.
At this speech, all the fortune creditors congratulate each other and shake hands. After the ratification of the certificate, the bankrupt becomes once more a merchant, precisely such as he was before; he receives back his securities, he continues his business, he is not deprived of the power to fail again, on the promised dividend,--an additional little failure which often occurs, like the birth of a child nine months after the mother has married her daughter.
If the certificate of bankruptcy is not granted, the creditors then select the permanent assignees, take extreme measures, and form an association to get possession of the whole property and the business of their debtor, seizing everything that he has or ever will have,--
his inheritance from his father, his mother, his aunt, /et caetera/.
This stern measure can only be carried through by an association of creditors.
There are therefore two sorts of failures,--the failure of the merchant who means to repossess himself of his business, and the failure of the merchant who has fallen into the water and is willing to sink to the bottom. Pillerault knew the difference. It was, to his thinking and to that of Ragon, as hard to come out pure from the first as to come out safe from the second. After advising Cesar to abandon everything to his creditors, he went to the most honorable solicitor in such matters, that immediate steps might be taken to liquidate the failure and put everything at once at the disposition of the creditors. The law requires that while the drama is being acted, the creditors shall provide for the support of the bankrupt and his family. Pillerault notified the commissioner that he would himself supply the wants of his niece and nephew.
Du Tillet had worked all things together to make the failure a prolonged agony for his old master; and this is how he did it. Time is so precious in Paris that it is customary, when two assignees are appointed, for only one to attend to the affair: the duty of the other is merely formal,--he approves and signs, like the second notary in notarial deeds. By this means, the largest failures in Paris are so vigorously handled that, in spite of the law's delays, they are adjusted, settled, and secured with such rapidity that within a hundred days the judge can echo the atrocious saying of the Minister, --"Order reigns in Warsaw."
Du Tillet meant to compass Cesar's commercial death. The names of the assignees selected through the influence of du Tillet were very significant to Pillerault. Monsieur Bidault, called Gigonnet,--the principal creditor,--was the one to take no active part; and Molineux, the mischievous old man who lost nothing by the failure, was to manage everything. Du Tillet flung the noble commercial carcass to the little jackal, that he might torment it as he devoured it. After the meeting at which the creditors appointed the assignees, little Molineux returned home "honored," so he said, "by the suffrages of his fellow-
citizens"; happy in the prospect of hectoring Birotteau, just as a child delights in having an insect to maltreat. The landlord, astride of his hobby,--the law,--begged du Tillet to favor him with his ideas;
and he bought a copy of the commercial Code. Happily, Joseph Lebas, cautioned by Pillerault, had already requested the president of the Board of Commerce to select a sagacious and well-meaning commissioner.
Gobenheim-Keller, whom du Tillet hoped to have, found himself displaced by Monsieur Camusot, a substitute-judge,--a rich silk-
merchant, Liberal in politics, and the owner of the house in which Pillerault lived; a man counted honorable.
One of the cruellest scenes of Cesar's life was his forced conference with little Molineux,--the being he had once regarded as a nonentity, who now by a fiction of law had become Cesar Birotteau. He was compelled to go to the Cour Batave, to mount the six flights, and re-enter the miserable appartement of the old man, now his custodian, his /quasi/ judge,--the representative of his creditors. Pillerault accompanied him.
"What is the matter?" said the old man, as Cesar gave vent to an exclamation.
"Ah, uncle! you do not know the sort of man this Molineux is!"
"I have seen him from time to time for fifteen years past at the cafe David, where he plays dominoes. That is why I have come with you."
Monsieur Molineux showed the utmost politeness to Pillerault, and much disdainful condescension to the bankrupt; he had thought over his part, studied the shades of his demeanor, and prepared his ideas.
"What information is it that you need?" asked Pillerault. "There is no dispute as to the claims."