Gaudissart

“ To bid adieu to his beloved capital, Gaudissart had gone to see a new piece at the Vaudeville; Popinot resolved to wait for him. Was it not drawing a cheque on fortune to entrust the launching of the oil of nuts to this incomparable steersman of mercantile inventions, already petted and courted by the richest firms? Popinot had reason to feel sure of Gaudissart. The commercial traveller, so knowing in the art of entangling that most wary of human beings, the little provincial trader, had himself become entangled in the first conspiracy attempted against the Bourbons after the Hundred Days. ”

“ The evening before Gaudissart reached Vouvray Madame Margaritis had had more difficulty than usual in deceiving her husband, whose mind happened to be uncommonly lucid.
"I really don't know how I shall get through to-morrow," she had said to Madame Vernier. "Would you believe it, the good-man insists on watching his two casks of wine. He has worried me so this whole day, that I had to show him two full puncheons. ”

“ His protuberant stomach swelled forth in the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active and vigorous. He caught Jenny up in his arms like a baby and kissed her.
"Hold your tongue, young woman!" he said. "What do you know about Saint-Simonism, antagonism, Fourierism, criticism, heroic enterprise, or woman's freedom? I'll tell you what they are,—ten francs for each subscription, Madame Gaudissart."
"On my word of honor, you are going crazy, Gaudissart."
"More and more crazy about you," he replied, flinging his hat upon the sofa. ”

“ Andoche accepted Popinot’s perturbation as a compliment.
“Now then, before dinner, let’s get to the bottom of the prospectus; then we can drink without an afterthought,” said Gaudissart. “After dinner one reads askew; the tongue digests.”
“Monsieur,” said Popinot, “a prospectus is often a fortune.”
“And for plebeians like myself,” said Andoche, “fortune is nothing more than a prospectus.”
“Ha, very good!” cried Gaudissart, “that rogue of a Finot has the wit of the forty Academicians.” ”

“ Sure enough, a waiter entered, followed by two scullions bearing in three baskets a dinner, and six bottles of wine selected with discernment.
"How shall we ever eat it all up?" said Popinot.
"The man of letters!" cried Gaudissart, "don't forget him. Finot loves the pomps and the vanities; he is coming, the innocent boy, armed with a dishevelled prospectus—the word is pat, hein? Prospectuses are always thirsty. We must water the seed if we want flowers. Depart, slaves!" he added, with a gorgeous air, "there is gold for you."
He gave them ten sous with a gesture worthy of Napoleon, his idol. ”

“ Since early morning Gaudissart and Popinot, helped by a journeyman whose services the commercial traveller had invoked, were busily employed in stretching a fifteen-sous paper on the walls of these horrible rooms, the workman pasting the lengths. A collegian’s mattress on a bedstead of red wood, a shabby night-stand, an old-fashioned bureau, one table, two armchairs, and six common chairs, the gift of Popinot’s uncle the judge, made up the furniture. Gaudissart had decked the chimney-piece with a frame in which was a mirror much defaced, and bought at a bargain. ”

“ On returning from his trip through the southern departments, the illustrious Gaudissart occupied the coupe of a diligence, where he met a young man to whom, as they journeyed between Angouleme and Paris, he deigned to explain the enigmas of life, taking him, apparently, for an infant.
As they passed Vouvray the young man exclaimed, “What a fine site!”
“Yes, Monsieur,” said Gaudissart, “but not habitable on account of the people. You get into duels every day. Why, it is not three months since I fought one just there,” pointing to the bridge of La Cise, “with a damned dyer ”

“ Two large commercial houses, alarmed at the decline of business, implored the ambitious Gaudissart not to desert the article Paris, and seduced him, it was said, with large offers, to take their commissions once more. The king of travellers was amenable to the claims of his old friends, enforced as they were by the enormous premiums offered to him.
“Listen, my little Jenny,” he said in a hackney-coach to a pretty florist.
All truly great men delight in allowing themselves to be tyrannized over by a feeble being, and Gaudissart had found his tyrant in Jenny. ”

“ Your wine is very good, Monsieur; it puts the stomach in a glow.”
“They make champagne out of it; there is a man from Paris who comes here and makes it in Tours.”
“I have no doubt of it, Monsieur. The ‘Globe,’ of which we were speaking—”
“Yes, I’ve gone over it,” said Margaritis.
“I was sure of it!” exclaimed Gaudissart. “Monsieur, you have a fine frontal development; a pate—excuse the word—which our gentlemen call ‘horse-head.’ There’s a horse element in the head of every great man. Genius will make itself known ”

“ Gaudissart being released by Judge Popinot was ever after grateful to the magistrate and devoted to the interests of his nephew. When he became minister, Anselme Popinot obtained for Gaudissart license for a large theatre on the boulevard, which in 1834 aimed to supply the demand for popular opera. This theatre employed Sylvain Pons, Schmucke, Schwab, Garangeot and Heloise Brisetout, Felix's mistress. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Cousin Pons.] "Gaudissart the Great," then a young man, attended the Birotteau ball. About that time he probably lived on rue des Deux-Ecus, Paris. ”

“ In 1831 Gaudissart said that his friend Finot had an income of thirty thousand francs, that he would be councillor of state, and was booked for a peer of France. He aspired to end up as his "shareholder." [Gaudissart the Great.] In 1836 Finot was dining with Blondet, his fellow-editor, and with Couture, a man about town, in a private room of a well-known restaurant, when he heard the story of the financial trickeries of Nucingen, wittily related by Bixiou. [The Firm of Nucingen.] ”

“ Mitouflet, with his former prowess as grenadier of the guard, made sixty-two passes at Gaudissart, pushed him about right and left, and finally pinned him up against the wall.
"The deuce! you are strong," said Gaudissart, out of breath.
"Monsieur Vernier is stronger than I am."
"The devil! Damn it, I shall fight with pistols."
"I advise you to do so; because, if you take large holster pistols and load them up to their muzzles, you can't risk anything. They are sure to fire wide of the mark, and both parties can retire from the field with honor. Let me manage all that. Hein! ”

“ To pick out the greatest gossip, the sharpest tongue, the most inveterate cackler of the neighborhood! It meant that Madame Vernier was to take a witness to the scene between the traveller and the lunatic which should keep the town in laughter for a month. Monsieur and Madame Vernier played their part so well that Gaudissart had no suspicions, and straightway fell into the trap. He gallantly offered his arm to Madame Vernier, and believed that he made, as they went along, the conquest of both ladies, for those benefit he sparkled with wit and humor and undetected puns. ”

“ Why, it wouldn't be a bad thing: they give more for worse wines— (Good! I've got him!" thought Gaudissart, "he wants to sell me wine which I want; I'll master him) —Well, Monsieur," he continued, "those who argue usually come to an agreement. Let us be frank with each other. You have great influence in this district—"
"I should think so!" said the madman; "I am the Head of Vouvray!"
"Well, I see that you thoroughly comprehend the insurance of intellectual capital—"
"Thoroughly." ”

“ I congratulate you."
"A noble prospectus!" cried Popinot, enthusiastically.
"A prospectus which slays Macassar at the first word," continued Gaudissart, rising with a magisterial air to deliver the following speech, which he divided by gestures and pauses in his most parliamentary manner.
"No—hair—can be made—to grow! Hair cannot be dyed without—danger! Ha! ha! success is there. Modern science is in union with the customs of the ancients. We can deal with young and old alike. We can say to the old man, 'Ha, monsieur! ”

“ The illustrious Gaudissart was fated to encounter here in Vouvray one of those indigenous jesters whose jests are not intolerable solely because they have reached the perfection of the mocking art. Right or wrong, the Tourangians are fond of inheriting from their parents. ”

“ For talent, Monsieur, is a bill of exchange which Nature gives to the man of genius, and which often has a long time to run before it falls due.”
“That is usury!” cried Margaritis.
“The devil! he’s keen, the old fellow! I’ve made a mistake,” thought Gaudissart, “I must catch him with other chaff. I’ll try humbug No. 1. Not at all,” he said aloud, “for you who—”
“Will you take a glass of wine?” asked Margaritis.
“With pleasure,” replied Gaudissart.
“Wife, give us a bottle of the wine that is in the puncheons. ”

“ I am sorry I apostrophized you: I was excited. I regard you as a man of honor.”
“Monsieur, we take twenty subscriptions to the ‘Children’s Journal,’” replied the dyer, still pale.
“That being so,” said Gaudissart, “why shouldn’t we all breakfast together? Men who fight are always the ones to come to a good understanding.”
“Monsieur Mitouflet,” said Gaudissart on his return to the inn, “of course you have got a sheriff’s officer here?”
“What for?”
“I want to send a summons to my good friend Margaritis to deliver the two casks of wine.”
“But he has not got them,” said Vernier. ”

“ The clerk went and returned. "He insists that he must speak to M. Schmucke."
"His name?"
"His name is Topinard, he says."
"I will go out to him. Sign without disturbing yourself," said Gaudissart, addressing Schmucke. "Make an end of it; I will find out what he wants with us."
Gaudissart understood Fraisier; both scented danger.
"Why are you here?" Gaudissart began. "So you have no mind to be cashier at the theatre? Discretion is a cashier's first recommendation."
"Sir—"
"Just mind your own business; you will never be anything if you meddle in other people's affairs." ”

“ Delighted to have news of his conductor, he made a Napoleonic gesture, and La Cibot was admitted.
The sometime commercial traveler, now the head of a popular theatre, regarded his sleeping partners in the light of a legitimate wife; they were not informed of all his doings. The flourishing state of his finances had reacted upon his person. Grown big and stout and high-colored with good cheer and prosperity, Gaudissart made no disguise of his transformation into a Mondor.
"We are turning into a city-father," he once said, trying to be the first to laugh. ”

“ Minard, daughter of the richest mayor in Paris. He might hope to get into the Chamber through "his line," and, with Popinot's influence, to take office under the Government.
"Whom have I the honor of addressing?" inquired Gaudissart, looking magisterially at La Cibot.
"I am M. Pons' confidential servant, sir."
"Well, and how is the dear fellow?"
"Ill, sir—very ill."
"The devil he is! I am sorry to hear it—I must come and see him; he is such a man as you don't often find."
"Ah yes! sir, he is a cherub, he is. ”

“ Such was the harangue which Gaudissart prepared as he went along, as a tragedian makes ready for his entrance on the scene.
“What!” cried Vernier, delighted at the presence of an audience, “do you think we have no right to make fun of a man who comes here, bag and baggage, and demands that we hand over our property because, forsooth, he is pleased to call us great men, painters, artists, poets,—mixing us up gratuitously with a set of fools who have neither house nor home, nor sous nor sense? ”

“ Heloise, this is M. Pons' confidential servant; she had come to tell me that I must not count upon him; our poor conductor is not expected to live. I don't know what to do."
"Oh! poor man; why, he must have a benefit."
"It would ruin him," said Gaudissart. "He might find next day that he owed five hundred francs to charitable institutions, and they refuse to admit that there are any sufferers in Paris except their own. ”

“ I have always wondered how he came to be in a theatre."
"Why, madame, the theatre is a house of correction for morals," said Gaudissart. "Poor Pons!—Upon my word, one ought to cultivate the species to keep up the stock. 'Tis a pattern man, and has talent too. When will he be able to take his orchestra again, do you think? A theatre, unfortunately, is like a stage coach: empty or full, it starts at the same time. Here at six o'clock every evening, up goes the curtain; and if we are never sorry for ourselves, it won't make good music. ”

“ Everybody at the theatre is asking after you; but though one's heart may be in the right place, every one has his own affairs, you know, and cannot find time to go to see friends. Gaudissart talks of coming round every day, and every morning the tiresome management gets hold of him. Still, we are all of us fond of you—"
"Mme. Cibot," said the patient, "be so kind as to leave us; we want to talk about the theatre and my post as conductor, with this lady. Schmucke, will you go to the door with Mme. Cibot?"
At a sign from Pons, Schmucke saw Mme. Cibot out at the door, and drew the bolts. ”

“ La Muse du Departement dates ten years and more later, when, though there was plenty of both left, both sacks had been deeply dipped into.
L’Illustre Gaudissart is, of course, slight, not merely in bulk, but in conception. Balzac’s Tourangeau patriotism may have amused itself by the idea of the villagers “rolling” the great Gaudissart; but the ending of the tale can hardly be thought to be quite so good as the beginning. Still, that beginning is altogether excellent. The sketch of the commis-voyageur generally smacks of that physiologie style of which Balzac was so fond ”