"I will speak to you frankly. I await a person I came to see; having no one to talk with, just now, before this gentleman placed himself between us, without wishing it, I a.s.sure you, I have heard you talk to your brother of your sorrows, of your children; I said to myself, poor folks ought to a.s.sist each other. The idea struck me at the time that I might be of some use to you, since you are a fringe-maker. If, indeed, what I have proposed suits you, here is my address; give me yours, so that when I shall have a little order to give you I shall know where to find you."
And Rigolette gave one of her cards to the sister of Pique-Vinaigre. She, quite touched at the proceedings, said gratefully:
"Your face has not deceived me; and, besides, do not take it for pride, but you have a resemblance to my eldest daughter, which made me look at you twice on entering. I thank you much; if you employ me, you shall be satisfied with my work; it shall be done conscientiously. I am called Jeanne Duport. I live at No. 1, Rue de la Barillerie."
"No. 1, it is not difficult to remember. Thank you, madame."
"It is for me to thank you, my dear, it is so kind in you to have thought at once of serving me! Once more I express my surprise."
"Why, that is very plain, Madame Duport," said Rigolette, with a charming smile. "Since I look like your daughter Catherine, that which you call my kindness ought not to surprise you."
"How kind! Thanks to you, I go away from here less sad than I thought; and then, perhaps, we may meet here again, for you come, like me, to see a prisoner?"
"Yes, madame," answered Rigolette, sighing.
"Then, adieu. I shall see you again; at least, I hope so, Miss Rigolette,"
said Jeanne Duport, after having cast her eyes on the address of the grisette.
"At least," thought Rigolette, resuming her seat, "I know now the address of this poor woman; and certainly M. Rudolph will interest himself for her when he knows how unfortunate she is, for he has always told me, "If you know any one much to be pitied, address yourself to me.""
And Rigolette taking her place, awaited with impatience the end of the conversation of her neighbor, in order to be able to ask for Germain.
Now a few words on the preceding scene. Unfortunately, it must be confessed, the indignation of the brother of Jeanne Duport was legitimate.
Yes: in saying the law was _too dear_ for the poor, he said the truth.
To plead before the civil tribunals is to incur enormous expenses, quite out of the reach of artisans, who barely exist on their scanty wages.
Let a mother or father of a family belonging to this ever-sacrificed cla.s.s wish to obtain an obliteration of the conjugal tie; let them have all right to obtain it: will they obtain it? No; for there is no workman in a condition to spend four or five hundred francs for the onerous formalities of such a judgment.
Yet the poor have no other life than a domestic one; the good or bad conduct of the head of an artisan"s family is not only a question of morality; but of _bread_. The fate of a woman of the people, such as we have endeavored to paint, does it deserve less interest, less protection, than that of a rich woman, who suffers from the bad conduct or infidelities of her husband, think you?
Nothing is more worthy of pity, doubtless, than the griefs of the heart.
But when to these griefs is added, for an unfortunate mother, the misery of her children, is it not monstrous that the poverty of this woman places her without the law, and leaves her and her family without defense against the odious treatment of a drunken and worthless husband?
Yet this monstrosity exists. [Footnote: Translator"s Note.--How singular that, as this new edition of the _sensational romancist"s_ work is issued, the Imperial Parliament should have a bill to redress this very oversight before it.]
And a liberated criminal can, in this circ.u.mstance as in others, deny, with right and reason, the impartiality of the inst.i.tutions in the name of which he is condemned. Is it necessary to say what there is in this dangerous to society, to justify such attacks?
What will be the influence, the moral authority, of those laws whose application is absolutely subordinate to a question of money? Ought not civil justice, like criminal justice, to be accessible to all?
When people are too poor to be able to invoke the benefits of a law eminently preservative and tutelary, ought not society to a.s.sure the application, through respect for the honor and repose of families?
But let us leave this woman, who will remain all her life the victim of a brutal and perverted husband, because she is too poor to obtain a matrimonial separation by law. Let us speak of Jeanne Duport"s brother.
This man left a den of corruption to enter the world again; he has paid the penalty of his crime by expiation. What precautions has society taken to prevent his falling back into crime? None.
Has any one, with charitable foresight, rendered possible his return to well-doing, in order to be able to punish, as one should punish, in a becoming manner, if he shows himself incorrigible? No.
The contagious influence of your jails is so well known, and so justly dreaded, that he who comes out from them is everywhere an object of scorn, aversion, and alarm. Were he twenty times an honest man, he would scarcely find occupation anywhere. And what is more: the penalty of a ticket-of-leave banishes him to small localities, where his past life must be well known; and here he will have no means of exercising the exceptionable employment often imposed on the prisoners by the contractors of the maisons centrales. If the liberated convict has the courage to resist temptation, he abandons himself to some of those murderous occupations of which we have spoken, to the preparation of certain chemical productions, by which one in ten perishes; or, if he has the strength, he goes to get out stone in the forest of Fontainebleau, an employment which he survives, average time, six years! The condition of a liberated convict is, then, much worse, more painful, more difficult, than it was before his first criminal action: he lives surrounded by shackles and dangers; he is obliged to brave repulses and disdain--often the deepest misery. And if he succ.u.mbs to all these frightful temptations to criminality, and commits a second crime, you show yourself ten times more severe toward him than for his first fault. That is unjust; for it is almost always the necessity you impose on him which conducts him to a second crime. Yes; for it is shown that, instead of correcting him, your penitentiary system depraves. Instead of ameliorating, it makes worse; instead of curing slight moral affections, it renders them incurable.
Your aggravation of punishment, applied without pity to the backslider, is, then, iniquitous, barbarous, since this backsliding is, thus to express it, a forced consequence of your penal inst.i.tutions. The terrible punishment which awaits this _double guilt_ would be just and excusable if your prisons improved the morals, purified the prisoners, and if, at the expiration of the sentence, good conduct was, if not easy, at least generally possible. If any one is surprised at these contradictions of the law, what would he be when he compares certain penalties to certain crimes--either on account of their inevitable consequences, or on account of the disproportion which exists in their punishment? The conversation of the prisoner whom the bailiff came to see will offer to us one of these afflicting contrasts.
CHAPTER V.
BOULARD.
The prisoner who entered at the moment that Pique-Vinaigre left it was a man of about thirty years of age, with red hair, and a jovial, fat, and rubicund face; his middling stature rendered still more remarkable by his enormous corpulency. This prisoner, so rosy and stout, was wrapped up in a long, warm coat of gray swan"s-down, with gaiter trousers of the same material. A kind of hooded cap of red velvet completed the costume of this personage, who wore excellent furred slippers. Although the fashion of wearing trinkets was over, the golden watch-chain sustained a goodly number of fine gold seals and rings. Finally, several rings, enriched with precious stones, sparkled on the fat red fingers of this prisoner, known as Boulard the Bailiff, accused of breach of trust.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REQUEST FOR A FRIENDLY SERVICE]
His visitor was Pierre Bourdin, one of the officers charged with the arrest of Morel the jeweler. Bourdin was rather shorter, but quite as fat, and attired after his patron, whose magnificence he admired. Having, like him, a partiality for jewels, he wore on this day a huge topaz pin, and a long gold chain, suspended from his neck, was entwined among the b.u.t.tonholes of his waist-coat.
"Good-day! faithful Bourdin; I was quite sure you would not be missing at the roll-call," said Boulard, joyously, in a faint, cracked voice, which singularly contrasted with his fat body and blooming face.
"Missing at the roll-call!" answered the bailiff; "I am incapable of such an act, general!" It was thus that Bourdin, with a pleasantry at once familiar and respectful, called the bailiff, under whose orders he acted; this military form of speech being often used among certain cla.s.ses of civil pract.i.tioners.
"I see with pleasure that friendship remains faithful to the unfortunate,"
said Boulard, with cordial gayety; "yet I began to be uneasy. Three days since I wrote to you, and no Bourdin till now."
"Imagine, general, quite a history. You recollect well the handsome viscount in the Rue de Chaillot?"
"Saint Remy?"
"Exactly! you know how he laughed at our writs?"
"It was quite indecent."
"To be sure it was. Malicorne and I were quite stupefied at it, if that were possible."
"It is impossible, brave Bourdin."
"Happily, general, but here is the fact; this handsome viscount has got new t.i.tles."
"Has he become a count?"
"No! from a cheat he has become a robber."
"Ah! ah!"
"They are at his heels for some diamonds he has stolen; and, by way of parenthesis, they belong to that jeweler who employed this sneak of a Morel, the lapidary whom we went to nab in the Rue du Temple, when a tall slim jockey, with black mustaches, paid for the starved rat, and came near pitching headforemost down the stairs Malicorne and me."
"Oh! yes, yes; I recollect. You told me that, my poor Bourdin; it was very funny. The best of the farce was that the portress of the house emptied on your backs a saucepan of boiling soup."
"Saucepan included, general, which burst like a bomb at our feet. The old sorceress!"
"That will be taken into your charge. But this handsome viscount?"
"I tell you, then, that Saint Remy was prosecuted for a robbery, after having made his ninny of a father believe that he had blown his brains out.