CHAPTER I

My beginning at the office--Ernest Basset--Lassagne--M. Oudard--I see M. Deviolaine--M. le Chevalier de Broval--His portrait--Folded letters and oblong letters--How I acquire a splendid reputation for sealing letters--I learn who was my neighbour the bibliomaniac and whistler

The next day I waited from eight o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock; but, as my neighbour in the orchestra had predicted, nobody came to demand satisfaction for the blow I had dealt on the previous evening. However, I had now arrived at two convictions--namely, that there must be something extravagant about my appearance and about some portion of my clothing. For fear of falling out egregiously with everybody I met abroad, I ought to cut my locks and to shorten the length of my coat. My hair was fully two inches too long; my coat certainly a foot beyond regulation length. I called in a barber and a tailor. The barber asked me for ten minutes; the tailor for a day. I gave up my coat to the tailor and my head to the barber. I intended to go to the office in a morning coat: it should be understood that my first visit to the office was almost in the nature of a call upon my chiefs. A morning coat would not be out of place.

My face was completely changed by the cropping of my hair: when it was too long, I looked like one of the sellers of "Lion Pomade," who make their own heads their principal prospectuses; when my hair was too short, I looked like a seal. Of course the barber cut my hair too short; unfortunately, there was then no remedy left me but to wait until it grew again. When I had breakfasted fairly well at my hotel, and given notice that I should settle my account and leave the establishment that evening, I made my way towards the office.

As a quarter-past ten struck, I made inquiries of the porter in the hall and he told me which staircase led to M. Oudard's offices, otherwise the Secretariat. They were situated at the right angle of the second court of the Palais-Royal, looking upon the square from the side of the garden. I went towards this staircase and I furnished myself with fresh instructions from a second porter: the offices were on the third floor, so I climbed up. My heart was beating violently: I was entering upon another life--one which I had desired and chosen for myself this time. This staircase was leading me to my future office. Where would my future office lead me?... No one had arrived. I waited with the office-boys. The first employé who appeared was a fine big fair youth; he came singing up the stairs, and took down the office door key from a nail. I rose.

"Monsieur Ernest," said one of the office-boys, the eldest of them, a lad called Raulot, "this young man wants to speak to M. Oudard."

The person addressed as Ernest looked at me for a moment with his keen, clear blue eyes.

"Monsieur," I said to him, "I am one of the supernumeraries, of whom you may perhaps have heard."

"Ah yes! M. Alexandre Dumas," he exclaimed; "the son of General Alexandre Dumas, recommended by General Foy?"

I saw he knew all about me.

"I am the same," I said.

"Come in," he said, going in before me and opening the door of a small room, with one window in it and three desks. "See," he continued, "you are expected; here is your seat. Everything is ready--paper, pens, ink; you have but to sit down and to draw up your chair to your desk."

"Have I the pleasure of talking to one of those with whom I am destined to spend my days?" I asked.

"Yes.... I have just been promoted as ordinary clerk at eighteen hundred francs; I am giving up my place as copying-clerk, and that place will be yours, after a longer or shorter probationary period."

"And who is our third companion?"

"He is our deputy head clerk, Lassagne."

The door opened.

"Hullo! who is talking about Lassagne?" asked a young man of twenty-eight to thirty, as he came in.

Ernest turned round.

"Ah! it is you," he replied. "I was just saying to M. Dumas,"--he pointed to me, I bowed,--"I was just telling M. Dumas that this was your place, that his, and the other mine."

"Are you our new colleague?" Lassagne asked me.

"Yes, monsieur."

"You are welcome." And he held out his hand to me.

I took it. It was one of those warm and trembling hands that it is a pleasure to shake from the first touch--a loyal hand, revealing the nature of him to whom it belonged.

"Good!" I said to myself: "this man will be friendly to me, I am sure."

"Listen," he said: "a word of advice. It is rumoured that you have come here with the idea of entering upon a literary career: do not talk too loudly of such a project; it will only do you harm.... Hush! that is Oudard entering his room."

And I heard in the neighbouring room the self-possessed, measured tread of a man accustomed to rule an office. A moment later, the door of our office opened and Raulot appeared.

"M. Oudard wants M. Alexandre Dumas," he said.

I rose and cast a glance at Lassagne: he understood what I felt like.

"Go along," he said; "he is a capital fellow, but you have to become acquainted with him: however, you will soon do that."

This was not altogether reassuring; so it was with my heart beating very rapidly that I proceeded along the corridor and entered M. Oudard's office.

I found him standing before the fireplace. He was a man of five feet six inches high, with a brown complexion, black hair and an impassive face, gentle although firm. His black eyes had that direct look to be found in men who have risen from a lower class to a high position; its expression was almost stonily hard when it was fixed on you; you would have said he had ridden rough-shod over everything and everybody that had come in his way, as so many obstacles on the road towards that goal, known only to himself, which he had made up his mind to reach. He had fine teeth; but, contrary to the habit of those who possess this advantage, he rarely smiled: one could see that nothing--not even the most insignificant event--was indifferent to him; a pebble under the foot of an ambitious man will raise him higher by the size of that pebble. Oudard was very ambitious; but as he was also essentially honest, I doubt whether his ambition had ever, I will not say inspired him with an evil thought--what man is master of his thoughts?--but caused him to commit a mean action. Later, it will be seen that he was hard on me, almost pitiless. He was, I am sure, well intentioned in being so; he did not think of the future I wanted to carve for myself, and he feared I should only lose the position I had made--the position which he had helped me to make. Oudard, unlike other upstarts (and let us admit, he was really more a man who had achieved success than a mere parvenu), talked a great deal of the village where he was born, of the home in which he had been brought up, of his old mother, who came to see him, dressed in her peasant's costume, with whom he would walk out in the Palais-Royal or whom he would take to the play, just as she was: perhaps all this talk was only another form of pride, but it is a pride I like. He was devoted to his mother--a sentiment sufficiently rare in ambitious men to be noted here as out of the common. Oudard must have been thirty-two at that period; he was head of the Secretarial Department, and private secretary to the Duchesse d'Orléans. These two posts combined must have been worth about twelve thousand francs a year to him, perquisites included. He was clad in black trousers, a white piqué waistcoat and a black coat and cravat. He wore very fine cotton stockings and slippers. Such was the get-up of a man who was not merely chief clerk of an office, but one who might be called into the presence of a prince or princess at any moment.

"Come in, Monsieur Dumas," he said.

I went up to him and bowed.

"You have been very especially commended to me by two persons, one of whom I greatly respect and the other of whom I love dearly."

"Is not General Foy one of these, monsieur?"

"Yes, he is the man I respect. But how is it you do not guess the name of the other?"

"I confess, monsieur, I should be puzzled to name anyone else in whom I can have inspired sufficient interest to cause him to take the trouble to recommend me to you."

"It was M. Deviolaine."

"M. Deviolaine?" I repeated, in considerable surprise.

"Yes, M. Deviolaine.... Is he not related to you?"

"Certainly, monsieur; but when my mother begged M. Deviolaine to have the goodness to recommend me to Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans, M. Deviolaine met the request so coldly...."

"Oh, you know, brusqueness is almost the leading trait in the character of our worthy Conservator.... You must not pay any heed to that."

"I fear, monsieur, that if my good cousin spoke much of me to you, in recommending me to you, he has not flattered me."

"That would not be bad for you, since it would but give you a chance to surprise me agreeably."

"He has probably told you I was idle?"

"He told me you had never done much work; but you are young, and you can make up for lost time."

"He told you I cared for nothing but shooting?"

"He confessed you were something of a poacher."

"He told you I was wayward and changeable in my ideas and fancies?"

"He said you had been under all the solicitors in Villers-Cotterets and Crespy and had not been able to stop with any of them."

"He exaggerated somewhat.... But if I did not remain with either of the two solicitors under whom I worked, it was on account of my unalterable, intense desire to come to Paris."

"Very well, here you are, and your desire is fulfilled."

"Was that all M. Deviolaine told you about me?"

"Well, no; ... he said, too, that you were a good son, and that, although you constantly made your mother miserable, you adored her; that you had never really wished to learn anything, but more from over-quickness, than from want of intelligence; he told me, besides, that you had certainly a poor head, but that he also believed you were good-hearted.... Go and thank him, go and thank him."

"Where shall I find him?"

"One of the office-boys will take you to him."

He rang.

"Take M. Dumas to M. Deviolaine's rooms," he said.

Then, addressing me--

"You have already met Lassagne?" he said.

"Yes, I have just had five minutes' talk with him."

"He is a very good fellow with but one failing: he will be too weak with you; luckily I shall be at hand. Lassagne and Ernest Basset will tell you what your work will be."

"And M. de Broval?" I asked.

M. de Broval was the general manager.

"M. de Broval will be told you have come, and will probably ask for you. You know that your whole future depends on him?"

"And on you, monsieur, yes."

"I hope, so far as I am concerned, that that will not cause you much uneasiness.... But go and thank M. Deviolaine; go! You have already delayed too long."

I bowed to M. Oudard and I went out. Five minutes afterwards, I was at M. Deviolaine's. He worked in a large room by himself, and at a desk which stood alone in the middle of the room. As I was preceded by an office-boy, and as it was presumed that I had been sent by M. Oudard, they let me enter unannounced. M. Deviolaine heard the door open and he waited an instant for someone to speak; then, as I also was waiting, he looked up and asked--

"Who is there?"

"It is I, M. Deviolaine."

"Who, you? (_toi_)"

"I see you recognise me, by the way you speak."

"Yes, I recognise you.... So there you are! Well, you are a fine lad!"

"Why, if you please?"

"Well! you have been to Paris three times without paying me a single call."

"I did not know you would care to see me."

"It was not for you to question whether it would please me or not; it was your duty to come."

"Well, here I am; better late than never."

"What have you come for now?"

"I have come to thank you."

"What for?"

"For what you said about me to M. Oudard."

"You are not difficult to please, then."

"Why?"

"Do you know what I did say?"

"Certainly: you told him I was an idle lad; that I was no good except for copying deeds; that I had tired out the patience of every solicitor in Villers-Cotterets and in Crespy."

"Well, is there much thanks due to me for all that?"

"No, it was not for that I came to thank you; it was for what you added."

"I did not add anything."

"But you did!... you went on to say...."

"I tell you I added nothing; but I will add something now you are here: that is, that if you are so ill-advised as to write filthy plays and trashy verses here, as you did in Villers-Cotterets, I will report you, I will carry you off with me, I will confine you in one of my offices and I will lead you a dog's life ... see if I don't!"

"Let me say, cousin...."

"What?"

"While I am here...."

"Well?"

"Even if you do not let me go back."

"Well?"

"Because that,--_A cause que_, a grammatical error, I know quite well; but Corneille and Bossuet made use of it,--because that I have only come to Paris to write filthy plays and trashy verses, whether I am in the Secretarial Department or here, I must still continue to write them."

"Ah, is that so? Do you seriously imagine you can become a Corneille, a Racine or a Voltaire after an education of three francs a month?"

"If I were to become such a man as any one of those three, I should be only what another man has been, and that would not be worth while."

"You mean, then, that you would do better than they?"

"I would do something different."

"Come a little nearer me, so that I can give you a good kick, you conceited lad."

I went nearer to him.

"Here I am!"

"I believe the impudent boy has actually come closer!"

"Yes.... My mother told me to give you her love."

"Is your poor mother quite well?"

"I hope she is."

"She is a good creature! How the devil did you happen to come into the world by such a mother? Come, shake hands and be off with you!"

"Good-bye, cousin."

He kept hold of my hand.

"Do you want any money, you rogue?"

"Thanks.... I have some."

"Where did you get it?"

"I will tell you that some other time; it would take too long now."

"You are right; I have no time to lose. Be off with you!"

"Good-bye, cousin."

"Come and dine with me when you like."

"Oh! thanks, yes, for your people to look down on me." "To look down on you! I would like to see them do that. My wife dined often enough with your grandfather and your grandmother to justify you in coming to dine with me as often as you like.... But now be off, cub! you are making me waste all my time."

M. Deviolaine's office-boy came in. His name was Féresse. We shall see more of him later.

"M. Deviolaine," he said, "M. de Broval wishes to know if the report on the management of the forest of Villers-Cotterets is finished?"

"No, not yet ... in a quarter of an hour."

Then, turning to me--

"You see?... you see?"

"I will make myself scarce, M. Deviolaine."

And off I went, while M. Deviolaine buried his nose in the report, growling as usual.

I returned to our common office, and I sat down at my desk. My desk was next to Lassagne's, so we were only separated from one another by the width of our tables and by the little black set of pigeon-holes in which the current work was usually put. Ernest had gone out, I know not why. I asked Lassagne to tell me what to do. Lassagne got up, leant over my desk and told me. I always took a great interest in studying people around me, and especially the man whose position in the office was that of my immediate superior; for, although Ernest was now a full-fledged clerk and I only destined to be a simple copying-clerk, he was more my comrade than my superior.

Lassagne, as I think I have already said, was at that time a man of twenty-eight or thirty, with an attractive face, enshrined in beautiful black hair, animated by black eyes full of intelligence and cleverness, and lighted up (if the phrase may be permitted) by teeth so white and so regular that the vainest of women might have envied them. The only defect in his face was his aquiline nose, which was a little more inclined to one side than the other; but this very irregularity gave an original touch to his face that it would not have had without it. Add to these things a sympathetic voice which seemed gently to vibrate in one's ear, and at the sound of which it was impossible not to turn round and smile. In short, a delightful person whose like I have rarely met; well informed; a brilliant song-writer; the intimate friend of Désaugiers, Théaulon, Armand Gouffé, Brazier, Rougemont and all the opera-writers of the time; so that he refreshed himself after his official work, which he loathed, by entering into the literary world, which he adored, and his daily labour alternated with desultory work, consisting partly of articles for the _Drapeau blanc_ and the _Foudre_ and partly of contributions to some of the most delightful plays of the operatic theatres. It will be admitted that here was the very superior I needed, and I could not have asked Providence for anything that would have seemed to me better for me.

Well, during the five years that we spent in the same office there was never a cloud, or a quarrel, or a feeling of cross purposes between Lassagne and me. He made me like the hour at which I began my daily work, because I knew he would come in immediately after me; he made me love the time I spent at my desk, because he was always ready there to help me with an explanation, to teach me something fresh about life, which had as yet, for me, scarcely opened, about the world of which I was totally ignorant, and finally about foreign or national literature, of which in 1823 I knew practically nothing, either of the one or of the other.

Lassagne arranged my daily work; it was entirely mechanical, and consisted in copying out, in the finest handwriting possible, the largest possible number of letters: these, according to their importance, had to be signed by M. Oudard, M. de Broval, or even by the Duc d'Orléans. In the midst of this correspondence, which concerned the whole range of administration and which often, when addressed to princes or foreign kings, passed from matters of administration to politics, there occurred reports connected with the contentious affairs of M. le Duc d'Orléans; for the Duc d'Orléans himself prepared his litigious business for his counsel, doing himself the work that solicitors do for barristers--that is to say, preparing the briefs. These were nearly always entirely in the handwriting of the Duc d'Orléans, or at all events corrected and annotated in his large thick writing, in which every letter was fastened to its neighbouring letter by a solid stroke, after the fashion of the arguments of a logical dialectician, bound together, entwined, succeeding each other.

I was attacking my first letter, and, by the advice of Lassagne, who had laid great stress on this point, I was despatching it in my very best handwriting, when I heard the door of communication between Oudard's office and ours open. I pretended, with the hypocrisy of an old hand, to be so deeply absorbed in my work that no noise could distract my attention, when I heard the creak of steps advancing towards my desk and then they stopped by me.

"Dumas!" called out Lassagne to me.

I raised my head and I saw, standing close to me on my left, a person who was totally unknown to me.

"M. le Chevalier de Broval," added Lassagne, adding information to his exclamation.

I rose from my seat.

"Do not disturb yourself," he said. And he took the letter I was copying, which was nearly finished, and read it.

I took advantage of this respite to examine him.

M. le Chevalier de Broval, as everyone knows, had been one of the faithful followers of M. le Duc d'Orléans. He had never left him during the last portion of his exile, serving him sometimes as secretary, at other times as diplomatist; in this latter capacity he had been mixed up in all the lengthy discussions over the marriage of the Duc d'Orléans with Princess Marie-Amélie, daughter of Ferdinand and Caroline, King and Queen of Naples; and in connection with this marriage he had gained the Order of Saint-Janvier, which he wore on a braided coat on high festivals, next to the cross of the Legion of Honour. He was a little old man of about sixty years of age, with short stubbly hair; he was slightly lame, walked crookedly on his left side, had a big red nose, which told its own tale, and small grey eyes, that expressed nothing; he looked a typical courtier, polite, obsequious, fawning to his master, kind by fits and starts, but generally capricious with his subordinates; he thought a great deal of trifles, attaching supreme importance to the manner in which a letter was folded or a seal was fastened; he really imbibed these notions from the Duc d'Orléans himself, who was even more particular over little details than perhaps was M. de Broval.

M. de Broval read the letter, took my pen, added an apostrophe or a comma here and there; then, replacing it in front of me: "Finish it," he said.

I finished it.

He waited behind me, literally pressing on my shoulders.

Every fresh face I saw in turn had its effect on me. I finished with a very shaky hand.

"There it is, M. le chevalier," I said.

"Good!" he exclaimed.

He took a pen, signed, threw sand over my writing and over his; then, giving me back the epistle, which was for a simple inspector,--as, at first, they did not risk confiding more than that to my inexperienced hand,--he said--

"Do you know how to fold a letter?"

I looked at him with astonishment.

"I ask you if you know how to fold a letter. Answer me!"

"Yes, yes ... at least, I believe so," I replied, astonished at the fixed stare his little grey eyes had assumed.

"You believe? Is that all? You are not sure?"

"Monsieur, I am not yet sure about anything, as you see, not even about the folding of a letter."

"And there you are right, for there are ten ways of folding a letter, according to the rank of the person to whom it is addressed. Fold this one."

I began to fold the letter in four.

"Oh! what are you about?" he said.

I stopped short. "Pardon, monsieur," I said, "but you _ordered_ me to fold the letter, and I am folding it."

M. de Broval bit his lip. I had laid emphasis on the word "ordered" in the spoken phrase as I have just underlined it in the written phrase.

"Yes," he said; "but you are folding it square--that is all right for high functionaries. If you give square-folded letters to inspectors and sub-inspectors, what will you do for ministers, princes and kings?"

"Quite so, M. le chevalier," I replied; "will you tell me what is the correct way for inspectors and sub-inspectors?"

"Oblong, monsieur, oblong."

"You will pardon my ignorance, monsieur; I know what an oblong is in theory, but I do not yet know what it is in practice."

"See...."

And M. de Broval condescended willingly to give me the lesson in things oblong I had asked of him.

"There!" he said, when the letter was folded.

"Thank you, monsieur," I replied.

"Now, monsieur, the envelope?" he said.

I had never made envelopes, except for the rare petitions I had written for my mother, and once on my own account in General Foy's office, so I was still more ignorant about the making of envelopes than about the folding. I took a half-sheet of paper in my left hand, a pair of scissors in my right hand, and I began to cut the sheet.

M. le Chevalier de Broval uttered a mingled cry of surprise and terror.

"Oh! good Lord!" he said, "what are you going to do?"

"Why, M. le chevalier, I am going to make the envelope you asked me to make."

"With scissors?"

"Yes."

"First learn this, monsieur: paper should not be cut, it should be torn."

I listened with all attention.

"Oh!" I exclaimed.

"It should be torn," repeated M. de Broval; "and then in this case there is no need even to tear the paper, which perhaps you do not realise either?"

"No, monsieur, I do not."

"You will learn.... It only wants an English envelope."

"Ah! an English envelope?"

"You do not know how to make an English envelope?"

"I do not even know what it is, M. le chevalier."

"I will show you. As a general rule, monsieur, square letters and square envelopes are for ministers, for princes and for kings."

"Right, M. le chevalier; I will remember."

"You are sure?"

"Yes."

"Good.... And for heads of departments, chief assistants, inspectors and sub-inspectors, oblong letters and English envelopes."

I repeated, "Oblong letters and English envelopes."

"Yes, yes, of course.... There, that is what we call an English envelope."

"Thank you, monsieur."

"Now the seal.... Ernest, will you light me a taper?" Ernest hastened to bring us the lighted taper; and now, I confess to my shame, my confusion increased: I had never hitherto sealed my letters except with wafers--that is to say, when I had sealed them.

I took the wax in so awkward a fashion, I heated it in such a queer way, I blew it out so quickly, for fear of burning the paper, that this time I excited pity rather than impatience in the breast of M. de Broval.

"Oh! my friend," he said, "have you really never even sealed a letter?"

"Never, monsieur," I replied. "Who was there for me to write to, buried away as I have been in a little country town?"

This humble confession touched M. de Broval.

"See," he said, heating the wax, "this is how one seals a letter."

And, believe me, he sealed the letter at arm's length, with as steady a hand as though he had been twenty-five years of age. Then, taking a large silver seal, he pressed it on the lake of burning wax, and did not withdraw it until the impress was clearly defined and I could see the escutcheon with the three heraldic fleurs-de-lis of Orléans, surmounted by the ducal coronet.

I was disheartened, I must confess.

"Write the address," M. le Chevalier de Broval said imperiously.

I wrote the address with a trembling hand.

"Good, good!" said M. le Chevalier de Broval; "don't be discouraged, my boy.... It is all right; now countersign it."

I stopped, completely ignorant of what a countersign was.

M. de Broval began to realise, as General Foy had done, how ignorant I was. He pointed with a finger to the corner of the letter.

"There," he said, "write there _Duc d'Orléans._ That is to frank the letter. You hear?"

I heard well enough; but I was so profoundly upset that I hardly understood what was said.

"There!" said M. de Broval, taking up the letter and looking at it with a satisfied air, "that is all right; but you must learn all these things.... Ernest,"--Ernest was M. de Broval's favourite, and in his genial moments the old courtier called him by his Christian name,--"Ernest, teach M. Dumas to fold letters, to make envelopes and to seal packets." And at these words he took himself off.

The door had scarcely shut before I was begging my comrade Ernest to begin his lessons, and he gave himself up to the task at once with hearty goodwill. Ernest was a first-rate hand at folding, making envelopes and sealing; but I put my whole will into it, and it was not long before I equalled and surpassed my master's skill.

When I gave in my resignation, in 1831, to the Duc d'Orléans, who had become Louis-Philippe I., I had attained to such perfection in the third accomplishment, especially, that the only regret he expressed was this--

"The devil! that is a pity! You are the best sealer of letters I have ever seen."

While I was taking my lesson in folding and sealing under Ernest, Lassagne was reading the papers.

"Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I well recollect that!"

"What is it?" I asked.

Instead of answering me, Lassagne read aloud:--"A scene which recalls that of la Fontaine at the first representation of _Florentin_ took place, yesterday evening, at the third performance of the revival of the _Vampire._ Our learned bibliophile, Charles Nodier, was expelled from Porte-Saint-Martin theatre for disturbing the play by whistling. Charles Nodier is one of the anonymous authors of the _Vampire_."

"So!" I cried, "my neighbour of the orchestra was Charles Nodier!"

"Did you have any talk with him?" asked Lassagne.

"I did nothing else during the intervals."

"You were fortunate," continued Lassagne: "had I been in your place, I should have greatly preferred the intervals to the play."

I knew Charles Nodier by name, but I was in complete ignorance as to what he had done.

As I left the office, I entered a bookshop and asked for a novel by Nodier. They gave me _Jean Sbogar._

The reading of that book began to shake my faith in Pigault-Lebrun.