care not to do that!” he cried anxiously. “If you were not seen wearing those diamonds at the ministry ball tomorrow, people would invent stories about my position….”
He was in a genial mood that morning. He ended by smiling and murmuring with a wink:
“We speculators, my dear, are like pretty women, we have our little artifices…. Keep your aigrette and necklace, I beg, for love of me.”
He could not tell the story, a very pretty one but a little risky. It was after supper one night that Saccard and Laure d’Aurigny had entered into an alliance. Laure was over head and ears in debt, and her one thought was to find a good young man who would elope with her and take her to London. Saccard on his side felt the ground crumbling beneath his feet; his imagination, driven to bay, sought an expedient which would display him to the public sprawling on a bed of gold and banknotes. The courtesan and the speculator had come to an understanding amid the semi-intoxication of dessert. He hit upon the idea of that sale of diamonds which set all Paris agog; and there, with a deal of fuss, he bought jewels for his wife. Then with the product of the sale, about four hundred thousand francs, he managed to satisfy Laure’s creditors, to whom she owed nearly twice as much. It is even to be presumed that he recouped part of his sixty-five thousand francs. When he was seen settling the d’Aurigny affairs, he was looked upon as her lover, and believed to be paying her debts in full and committing extravagances for her. Every hand was stretched out to him, his credit revived formidably. And on the Bourse he was chaffed about his passion, with smiles and insinuations that entranced him. Meanwhile Laure d’Aurigny, brought into prominence by this hubbub, although he had never spent a single night with her, pretended to deceive him with nine or ten idiots enticed by the notion of stealing her from a man of such colossal wealth. In one month she had two sets of furniture and more diamonds than she had sold. Saccard had got into the way of going to smoke a cigar with her in the afternoon on leaving the Bourse; he often caught sight of coat-tails flying through the doorways in terror. When they were alone, they could not look at one another without laughing. He kissed her on the forehead as though she were a wayward wench whose roguery delighted him. He did not give her a sou, and on one occasion she even lent him money to pay a gambling debt.
Renée tried to insist, and spoke of at least pawning the diamonds; but her husband gave her to understand that that was not possible, that all Paris expected to see her wear them on the morrow. Then Renée, who was much worried about Worms’s bill, sought another way out of the difficulty.
“But,” she suddenly exclaimed, “my Charonne property is going on all right, is it not? You were telling me only the other day that the profit would be superb…. Perhaps Larsonneau would advance me a hundred and thirty-six thousand francs?”
Saccard had for a moment forgotten the tongs between his legs. He now hastily seized them again, leant forward, and almost disappeared in the fireplace, whence the young woman indistinctly heard his voice muttering:
“Yes, yes, Larsonneau might perhaps….”
She was at last coming of her own accord to the point to which he had been gently leading her since the beginning of the conversation. He had already for two years been preparing his masterstroke in the Charonne district. His wife had never consented to part with Aunt Elisabeth’s estate; she had promised her to keep it intact, so as to leave it to her child if she became a mother. In the presence of this obstinacy, the speculator’s imagination had set to work, and ended by building up quite a poem. It was a work of exquisite villainy, a colossal piece of cheating, of which the Municipality, the State, his wife, and even Larsonneau were to be the victims. He no longer spoke of selling the building-plots; only every day he deplored the folly of leaving them unproductive and contenting one’s self with a return of two per cent. Renée, who was always in urgent need of money, ended by entertaining the idea of a speculation of some kind. He based his operations on the certainty of an expropriation for the cutting of the Boulevard du Prince-Eugène, the direction of which was not yet clearly resolved upon. And it was then that he brought forward his old accomplice Larsonneau as a partner, who made an agreement with his wife on the following basis: she brought the building-plots, representing a value of five hundred thousand francs; Larsonneau on the other hand agreed to spend an equal sum on building upon this ground a music-hall with a large garden attached, where games of all kinds, swings, skittle-alleys and bowling-greens would be set up. The profits were naturally to be divided, as the losses would be borne in equal shares. In the event of one of the two partners wishing to withdraw, he could do so and claim his share, which would be fixed by a valuation. Renée seemed surprised at the large figure of five hundred thousand francs, when the ground was worth three hundred thousand at the utmost. But he explained to her that it was an ingenious plan for tying Larsonneau’s hands later on, as his buildings would never represent such an amount as that.
Larsonneau had developed into an elegant man-about-town, well-gloved, with dazzling linen and astounding cravats. To go on his errands he had a tilbury as light as a piece of clockwork, with a very high seat, which he drove himself. His offices in the Rue de Rivoli were a sumptuous suite of rooms in which there was not a bundle of papers, not a business document to be seen. His clerks worked at tables of stained pear-wood, inlaid with marquetry and adorned with chased brass. He called himself an expropriation-agent, a new calling which the works of Paris had brought into being. His connection with the Hotel de Ville caused him to receive early information of the cutting of any new thoroughfare. When he had succeeded in learning the line of route of a boulevard from one of the surveyors of roads, he went and offered his services to the threatened landlords. And he turned his little plan for increasing the compensation to account by acting before the decree of public utility was issued. So soon as a landlord accepted his proposals, he took all the expenses on himself, drew up a plan of the property, wrote out a memorandum, followed up the case before the court and paid an advocate, all for a percentage on the difference between the offer of the Municipality and the compensation awarded by the jury. But to this almost justifiable branch of business he added a number of others. He more especially lent out money at interest. He was not the usurer of the old school, ragged and dirty, with eyes pale and expressionless as five-franc pieces, and lips white and drawn together like the strings of a purse. He was a radiant person, had a charming way of ogling, got his clothes at Dusautoy’s, went and lunched at Brébant’s with his victim, whom he called “old man,” and offered him Havannahs at dessert. In reality, beneath his waistcoats tightly buckled round his waist, Larsonneau was a terrible gentleman, who would have insisted on the payment of a note of hand until he had driven the acceptor to suicide, and this without losing a grain of amiability.
Saccard would gladly have looked for another partner. But he was always anxious on the subject of the false inventory, which Larsonneau preciously preserved. He preferred to take him into the affair, hoping to avail himself of some circumstance to regain possession of that compromising document. Larsonneau built the music-hall, an edifice of planks and plaster surmounted by little tin turrets, which were painted bright red and yellow. The garden and the games proved successful in the populous district of Charonne. In two years the speculation looked prosperous, although the profits in reality were very slight. Saccard had so far always spoken enthusiastically to his wife of the prospects of this fine idea.
Renée, seeing that her husband would not make up his mind to come out of the fireplace, where his voice was becoming more and more inaudible, said:
“I will go and see Larsonneau to-day. It is my only chance.”
Then he let go the log with which he was struggling.
“The errand’s done, my dear,” he replied, smiling. “Don’t I forestall all your wishes?… I saw Larsonneau last night.”
“And he promised you the hundred and thirty-six thousand francs?” she enquired anxiously.
He was building up between the two flaming logs a little mountain of embers, picking
