Chapter 14

Murat received the injunction to march quickly, to avoid all disorder. General Durosnel was sent forward to hold communication with the authorities, and lead them to the conqueror's feet, who desired to receive their homage and calm their fears. M. Denniée was charged to go and prepare food and lodging for the army, Murat, galloping at the head of the light cavalry, arrived, at length, across the faubourg of Drogomilow, at the bridge of the Moskowa. There he found a Russian rear-guard, who were retreating, and inquired if there was no officer there who knew French. A young Russian, who spoke our language correctly, presented himself immediately before this king, whom hostile nations knew so well, and asked what he wanted. Murat having exprest a wish to know which was the commander of this rear-guard, the young Russian pointed out an officer with white hair, clothed in a bivouac cloak of long fur. Murat, with his accustomed grace, held out his hand to the old officer, who took it eagerly. Thus national hatred was silenced before valor.

Murat asked the commander of the enemy's rear-guard if they knew him. "Yes," replied the latter, "we have seen enough of you under fire to know you." Murat seeming struck with, the long fur mantle, which looked as if it would be very comfortable for a bivouac, the old officer unfastened it from his shoulders to make him a present of it. Murat, receiving it with as much courtesy as it was offered, took a beautiful watch and presented it to the enemy's officer, who received this present in the same way as his had been accepted. After these acts of courtesy, the Russian rear-guard filed off rapidly to give ground to our vanguard. The King of Naples, followed by his staff and a detachment of cavalry, went down into the streets of Moscow, traversed alternately the poorest and the richest quarters, rows of wooden houses crowded together, and a succession of splendid palaces rising from amidst vast gardens: he found everywhere the most profound silence. It seemed as if they were penetrating into a dead city, whose inhabitants had suddenly disappeared.

The first sight of it, surprizing as it was, did not remind us of our entry into Berlin or Vienna, Nevertheless, the first feeling of terror experienced by the inhabitants might explain this solitude. Suddenly some distracted individuals appeared; they were some French people, belonging to the foreign families settled at Moscow, and asked us in the name of heaven to save them from the robbers who had become masters of the town. They were well received, but we tried in vain to remove their fears. We were conducted to the Kremlin,[53] and had hardly arrived in sight of these old walls than we were exposed to a discharge of shot. It came from bandits let loose on Moscow by the ferocious patriotism of the Count of Rostopchin. These wretched beings had invaded the sacred citadel, had seized the guns in the arsenal, and were firing on the French who came to disturb them after their few hours' reign of anarchy. Several were sabered, and the Kremlin was relieved of their presence. But on making inquiry we learned that the whole population had fled, except a small number of strangers, or of Russians acquainted with the ways of the French and not fearing their presence. This news vexed the leaders of our vanguard, who were flattering themselves that they would see a whole population coming before them, whom they would take pleasure in comforting and filling with surprize and gratitude. They made haste to restore some order to the different quarters of the town, and to pursue the thieves, who thought they should much longer enjoy the prey that the Count of Rostopchin had given up to them.

[Footnote 53: The Kremlin is a fortified enclosure within the city and containing the imperial palace, three cathedrals, a monastery, convent and arsenal. It is surrounded by battlemented walls that date from 1492. Within the palace are rooms of great size, one of them being 68 by 200 feet, with a height of more than 60 feet. Many historic events in the times of Ivan the Terrible, and Peter the Great, are associated with the Kremlin. Among its treasures are the Great Bell, coronation robes and the thrones of the old Persian Shah and toe last emperor of Constantinople.]

The next morning, September 15, Napoleon made his entry into Moscow, at the head of his invincible legions, but he crossed a deserted town, and for the first time his soldiers, on entering a capital, found none but themselves to be witnesses of their glory. The impression that they experienced was sad. Napoleon, arrived at the Kremlin, hastened to mount the high tower of the great Ivan, and to contemplate from that height his magnificent conquest, across which the Moskowa was slowly pursuing its winding course. Thousands of blackbirds, ravens and crows, as numerous here as the pigeons at Venice, flying around the tops of the palaces and churches, gave a singular aspect to this great city, which contrasted strangely with the brightness of its brilliant colors. A mournful silence, disturbed only by the tramp of cavalry, had taken the place of life in this city, which till the evening before had been one of the most busy in the world. In spite of the sadness of this solitude, Napoleon, on finding Moscow abandoned like the other Russian towns, thought himself happy nevertheless in not finding it burned up, and did not despair of softening little by little the hatred which the presence of his flags had inspired since Vitebsk.

The army hoped, then, to enjoy Moscow, to find peace there, and, in any case, good winter cantonments if the war was prolonged. However, on the morrow after the day on which the entry had been made, columns of flame arose from a very large building which contained the spirits that the government sold on its own account to the people of the capital. People ran there, without astonishment or terror, for they attributed the cause of this partial fire to the nature of the materials contained in this building, or to some imprudence committed by our soldiers. In fact, the fire was mastered, and we had time to reassure ourselves.

But all at once the fire burst out at almost the same instant with extreme violence in a collection of buildings that was called the Bazaar. This bazaar, situated to the northeast of the Kremlin comprized the richest shops, those in which were sold the beautiful stuffs of India and Persia, the rarities of Europe, the colonial commodities, sugar, coffee, tea, and, lastly, precious wines. In a few minutes the fire had spread through the bazaar, and the soldiers of the guard ran in crowds and made the greatest efforts to arrest its progress. Unhappily, they could not succeed, and soon the immense riches of this establishment fell a prey to the flames. Eager to dispute with the fire the possession of these riches, belonging to no one at this time, and to secure them for themselves, our soldiers, not having been able to save them, tried to drag out some fragments.

They might be seen coming out of the bazaar, carrying furs, silks, wines of great value, without any one dreaming of reproaching them for so doing, for they wronged no one but the fire, the sole master of these treasures. One might regret it on the score of discipline, but could not cast a reproach on their honor on that account. Besides, those who remained of the people set them an example, and took their large share of these spoils of the commerce of Moscow. Yet it was only one large building--an extremely rich one, it is true--that was attacked by the fire, and there was no fear for the town itself. These first disasters, of little consequence so far, were attributed to a very natural and very ordinary accident, which might be more easily explained still, in the bustle of evacuating the town.

During the night of the 15th of September the scene suddenly changed. As if every misfortune was to fall at once on the old Muscovite capital, the equinoctial wind arose all at once with the double violence natural to the season and to level countries where nothing stops the storm. This wind, blowing at first from the east, carried the fire westward, along the streets situated between the roads from Tver and Smolensk, and which are known as the richest and most beautiful in Moscow, those of Tverskaia, Nikitskaia, and Povorskaia. In a few hours the fire, having spread fiercely among the wooden buildings, communicated itself from one to another with frightful rapidity. Shooting forth in long tongues of flame, it was seen invading other quarters situated to the west.

Rockets were noticed in the air, and soon wretches were seized carrying combustibles at the end of long poles. They were taken up; they were questioned with threats of death, and they revealed the frightful secret, the order given by the Count of Rostopchin to set fire to the city of Moscow, as if it had been the smallest village on the road from Smolensk. This news spread consternation through the army in an instant. To doubt was no longer possible, after the arrests made, and the depositions collected from different parts of the town. Napoleon ordered that in each quarter the corps fixt there should form military commissions to try, shoot, and hang on gibbets the incendiaries taken in the act. He ordered likewise that they should employ all the troops there were in the town to extinguish the fire. They ran to the pumps, but there were none to be found. This last circumstance would have left no doubt, if there had remained any, of the frightful design that delivered Moscow to the flames....

Napoleon, followed by some of his lieutenants, went out of that Kremlin which the Russian army had not been able to prevent him from entering, but from which the fire expelled him after four-and-twenty hours of possession, descended to the quay of Moskowa, found his horses ready there, and had much difficulty in crossing the town, which toward the northwest, whither he directed his course, was already in flames. The wind, which constantly increased in violence, sometimes caused columns of fire to bend to the ground, and drove before it torrents of sparks, smoke, and stifling cinders. The horrible appearance of the sky answered to the no less horrible spectacle of the earth. The terrified army went out of Moscow. The divisions of Prince Eugene and Marshal Ney, which had entered the evening before, turned back again on the roads of Zwenigorod and Saint Petersburg; those of Marshal Davoust returned by the road of Smolensk, and, except the guard left around the Kremlin to dispute its possession with the flames, our troops retired in haste, struck with horror, before this fire, which, after darting up toward the sky, seemed to bend down again over them as if it wished to devour them. A small number of the inhabitants who had remained in Moscow, and had hidden at first in their houses without daring to come out, now escaped from them, carrying away what was most dear to them--women their children, men their infirm parents.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Born in France in 1799, died in 1850; educated at Tours and Paris; became a lawyer's clerk; wrote short stories and novels anonymously and became seriously involved in a publishing venture; his first novel of merit, "Le Dernier Chonan ou la Bretagne," published in 1829, "Eugénie Grandet" in 1833, "Père Goriot" in 1835, "César Birotteau" in 1838; married in 1850 Madame Hanska of a noble Polish family.

I

THE DEATH OF PÉRE GORIOT[54]

There was something awful and appalling in the sudden apparition of the Countess. She saw the bed of death by the dim light of the single candle, and her tears flowed at the sight of her father's passive features, from which the life has almost ebbed. Bianchon with thoughtful tact left the room.

[Footnote 54: From the concluding chapter of "Old Goriot," as translated by Ellen Marriàge.]

"I could not escape soon enough," she said to Rastignac.

The student bowed sadly in reply. Mme. de Restaud took her father's hand and kissed it.

"Forgive me, father! You used to say that my voice would call you back from the grave; ah! come back for one moment to bless your penitent daughter. Do you hear me? Oh! this is fearful! No one on earth will ever bless me henceforth; every one hates me; no one loves me but you in all the world. My own children will hate me. Take me with you, father; I will love you, I will take care of you. He does not hear me--I am mad--"

She fell on her knees, and gazed wildly at the human wreck before her.

"My cup of misery is full," she said, turning her eyes upon Eugene. "M. de Trailles has fled, leaving enormous debts behind him, and I have found out that he was deceiving me. My husband will never forgive me, and I have left my fortune in his hands. I have lost all my illusions. Alas! I have forsaken the one heart that loved me (she pointed to her father as she spoke), and for whom? I have held his kindness cheap, and slighted his affection; many and many a time I have given him pain, ungrateful wretch that I am!"

"He knew it," said Rastignac.

Just then Goriot's eyelids unclosed; it was only a muscular contraction, but the Countess's sudden start of reviving hope was no less dreadful than the dying eyes.

"Is it possible that he can hear me?" cried the Countess. "No," she answered herself, and sat down beside the bed. As Mme. De Restaud seemed to wish to sit by her father, Eugene went down to take a little food. The boarders were already assembled.

"Well," remarked the painter, as he joined them, "it seems that there is to be a death-drama up-stairs."

"Charles, I think you might find something less painful to joke about," said Eugene.

"So we may not laugh here?" returned the painter. "What harm does it do? Bianchon said that the old man was quite insensible."

"Well, then," said the employé from the Museum, "he will die as he has lived."

"My father is dead!" shrieked the Countess.

The terrible cry brought Sylvie, Rastignac, and Bianchon; Mme. de Restaud had fainted away, When she recovered they carried her down-stairs, and put her into the cab that stood waiting at the door. Eugene sent Therese with her, and bade the maid take the Countess to Mme. de Nucingen.

Bianchon came down to them.

"Yes, he is dead," he said.

"Come, sit down to dinner, gentlemen," said Mme. Vauquer, "or the soup will be cold."

The two students sat down together.

"What is the next thing to be done?" Eugene asked of Bianchon.

"I have closed his eyes and composed his limbs," said Bianchon. "When the certificate has been officially registered at the Mayor's office, we will sew him in his winding-sheet and bury him somewhere. What do you think we ought to do?"

"He will not smell at his bread like this any more," said the painter, mimicking the old man's little trick.

"Oh, hang it all!" cried the tutor, "let old Goriot drop, and let us have something else for a change. He is a standing dish, and we have had him with every sauce this hour or more. It is one of the privileges of the good city of Paris that anybody may be born, or live, or die there without attracting any attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization. There are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Old Goriot has gone off the hooks, has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us feed in peace."

"Oh, to be sure," said the widow, "it is all the better for him that he is dead. It looks as tho he had had trouble enough, poor soul, while he was alive."

And this was all the funeral oration delivered over him who had been for Eugene the type and embodiment of fatherhood.

When the hearse came, Eugene had the coffin carried into the house again, unscrewed the lid, and reverently laid on the old man's breast the token that recalled the days when Delphine and Anastasie were innocent little maidens, before they began "to think for themselves," as he had moaned out in his agony.

Rastignac and Christophe and the two undertaker's men were the only followers of the funeral. The Church of Saint-Etienne du Mont was only a little distance from the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve. When the coffin had been deposited in a low, dark, little chapel, the law student looked around in vain for Goriot's two daughters or their husbands. Christophe was his only fellow mourner: Christophe, who appeared to think it was his duty to attend the funeral of the man who had put him in the way of such handsome tips. As they waited there in the chapel for the two priests, the chorister, and the beadle, Rastignac grasped Christophe's hand. He could not utter a word just then.

"Yes, Monsieur Eugene," said Christophe, "he was a good and worthy man who never said one word louder than another; he never did any one any harm, and gave nobody any trouble."

The two priests, the chorister, and the beadle came, and said and did as much as could be expected for seventy francs in an age when religion can not afford to say prayers for nothing.

The ecclesiastics chanted a psalm, the _Libera nos_ and the _De profundis_. The whole service lasted about twenty minutes. There was but one mourning coach, which the priest and chorister agreed to share with Eugene and Christophe.

"There is no one else to follow us," remarked the priest, "so we may as well go quickly, and so save time; it is half-past five."

But just as the coffin was put in the hearse, two empty carriages, with the armorial bearings of the Comte de Restaud and the Baron de Nucingen, arrived and followed in the procession to Pere-Lachaise. At six o'clock Goriot's coffin was lowered into the grave, his daughters' servants standing round the while. The ecclesiastic recited the short prayer that the students could afford to pay for, and then both priest and lackeys disappeared at once. The two grave-diggers flung in several spadefuls of earth, and then stopt and asked Rastignac for their fee. Eugene felt in vain in his pocket, and was obliged to borrow five francs of Christophe.

II

BIROTTEAU'S EARLY MARRIED LIFE[55]

"You will have a good husband, my little girl," said M, Pillerault. "He has a warm heart and sentiments of honor. He is as straight as a line, and as good as the child Jesus; he is a king of men, in short."

[Footnote 55: From "The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau," as translated by Ellen Marriàge.]

Constance put away once and for all the dreams of a brilliant future, which, like most shop-girls, she had sometimes indulged. She meant to be a faithful wife and a good mother, and took up this life in accordance with the religious program of the middle classes. After all, her new ideas were much better than the dangerous vanities tempting to a youthful Parisian imagination. Constance's intelligence was a narrow one; she was the typical small tradesman's wife, who always grumbles a little over her work, who refuses a thing at the outset, and is vexed when she is taken at her word; whose restless activity takes all things, from cash-box to kitchen, as its province, and supervises everything, from the weightiest business transaction down to almost invisible darns in the household linen. Such a woman scolds while she loves, and can only conceive ideas of the very simplest; only the small change, as it were; of thought passes current with her; she argues about everything, lives in chronic fear of the unknown, makes constant forecasts, and is always thinking of the future. Her statuesque yet girlish beauty, her engaging looks, her freshness, prevented César from thinking of her shortcomings; and moreover, she made up for them by a woman's sensitive conscientiousness, an excessive thrift, by her fanatical love of work, and genius as a saleswoman.

Constance was just eighteen years old, and the possessor of eleven thousand francs. César, in whom love had developed the most unbounded ambition, bought the perfumery business, and transplanted the Queen of Roses to a handsome shop near the Place Vêndome. He was only twenty-one years of age, married to a beautiful and adored wife, and almost the owner of his establishment, for he had paid three-fourths of the amount. He saw (how should he have seen otherwise?) the future in fair colors, which seemed fairer still as he measured his career from its starting-point.

Roguin (Ragon's notary) drew up the marriage-contract, and gave sage counsels to the young perfumer; he it was who interfered when the latter was about to complete the purchase of the business with the wife's money. "Just keep the money by you, my boy; ready money is sometimes a handy thing in a business," he had said....

During the first year César instructed his wife in all the ins and outs of the perfumery business, which she was admirably quick to grasp; she might have been brought into the world for that sole purpose, so well did she adapt herself to her customers. The result of the stock-taking at the end of the year alarmed the ambitious perfumer. After deducting all expenses, he might perhaps hope, in twenty years' time, to make the modest sum of a hundred thousand francs, the price of his felicity. He determined then and there to find some speedier road to fortune, and by way of a beginning, to be a manufacturer as well as a retailer.

Acting against his wife's counsel, he took the lease of a shed on some building land in the Faubourg du Temple, and painted up thereon, in huge letters, CÉSAR BIROTTEAU'S FACTORY. He enticed a workman from Grasse, and with him began to manufacture several kinds of soap, essences, and eau-de-cologne, on the system of half profits. The partnership only lasted six months, and ended in a loss, which he had to sustain alone; but Birotteau did not lose heart. He meant to obtain a result at any price, if it were only to escape a scolding from his wife; and, indeed, he confest to her afterward that, in those days of despair, his head used to boil like a pot on the fire, and that many a time but for his religious principles he would have thrown himself into the Seine.

One day, deprest by several unsuccessful experiments, he was sauntering home to dinner along the boulevards (the lounger in Paris is a man in despair quite as often as a genuine idler), when a book among a hamperful at six sous apiece caught his attention; his eyes were attracted by the yellow dusty title-page, Abdeker, so it ran, or the Art of Preserving Beauty.

Birotteau took up the work. It claimed to be a translation from the Arabic, but in reality it was a sort of romance written by a physician in the previous century. César happened to stumble upon a passage there which treated of perfumes, and with his back against a tree in the boulevard, he turned the pages over till he reached a foot-note, wherein the learned author discoursed of the nature of the dermis and epidermis. The writer showed conclusively that such and such an unguent or soap often produced an effect exactly opposite to that intended, and the ointment, or the soap, acted as a tonic upon a skin that required a lenitive treatment, or vice versa.