going farther, it is necessary to explain who this Unknown person was, and what his purpose was in coming to Champagne.
XII. THE SALON OF MADAME D’ESPARD
About two months before the nomination of Simon Giguet, at eleven o’clock one evening, in a mansion of the faubourg Saint-Honore belonging to the Marquise d’Espard, while tea was being served the Chevalier d’Espard, brother-in-law to the marquise, put down his tea-cup, and, looking round the circle, remarked: —
“Maxime was very melancholy to-night, – didn’t you think so?”
“Yes,” replied Rastignac, “but his sadness is easily accounted for. He is forty-eight years old; at that age a man makes no new friends, and now that we have buried de Marsay, Maxime has lost the only man capable of understanding him, of being useful to him, and of using him.”
“He probably has pressing debts. Couldn’t you put him in the way of paying them?” said the marquise to Rastignac.
At this period Rastignac was, for the second time, in the ministry; he had just been made count almost against his will. His father-in-law, the Baron de Nucingen, was peer of France, his younger brother a bishop, the Comte de Roche-Hugon, his brother-in-law, was an ambassador, and he himself was thought to be indispensable in all future combinations of the ministry.
“You always forget, my dear marquise,” replied Rastignac, “that our government exchanges its silver for gold only; it pays no heed to men.”
“Is Maxime a man who would blow out his brains?” inquired the banker du Tillet.
“Ha! you wish I were; we should be quits then,” said Comte Maxime de Trailles, whom everybody supposed to have left the house.
The count rose suddenly, like an apparition, from the depths of an arm-chair placed exactly behind that of the Chevalier d’Espard.
Every one present laughed.
“Will you have a cup of tea?” said the young Comtesse de Rastignac, whom the marquise had asked to do the honors in her place.
“Gladly,” replied the count, standing before the fireplace.
This man, the prince of fashionable scoundrels, had managed to maintain himself until now in the high and mighty position of a dandy in Paris, then called Gants Jaunes (lemon-kid-glovers), and since, “lions.” It is useless to relate the history of his youth, full of questionable adventures, with now and then some horrible drama, in which he had always known how to save appearances. To this man women were never anything else than a means; he believed no more in their griefs than he did in their joys; he regarded them, like the late de Marsay, as naughty children. After squandering his own fortune, he had spent that of a famous courtesan, La Belle Hollandaise, the mother of Esther Gobseck. He had caused the misery of Madame Restaud, sister of Madame Delphine de Nucingen, the mother of the young Comtesse de Rastignac.
The world of Paris offers many unimaginable situations. The Baronne de Nucingen was at this moment in Madame d’Espard’s salon in presence of the author of all her sister’s misery, in presence of a murderer who killed only the happiness of women. That, perhaps, was the reason why he was there. Madame de Nucingen had dined at Madame d’Espard’s with her daughter, married a few months earlier to the Comte de Rastignac, who had begun his political career by occupying the post of under-secretary of state in the famous ministry of the late de Marsay, the only real statesman produced by the Revolution of July.
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