Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (43 page)

And this exaltation of the Universal shares, this ascension, carrying them up as if on a divine wind, seemed to harmonize with the louder and louder music from the Tuileries and the Champ-de-Mars, and the continual festivities with which the Exhibition was driving Paris mad. The flags flapped more noisily in the heavy air of the warmer days, and there was no evening when the blazing city did not sparkle under the stars like some colossal palace, in the depths of which, debauchery went on until dawn. Joy had spread from house to house, the streets were an intoxication, a cloud of animal vapours, cooking-smells from the feastings, the sweat of couplings, all rolling away to the horizon, carrying over the rooftops the nights of Sodom, Babylon, and Nineveh.
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Ever since May, emperors and kings had been coming on pilgrimage from the four corners of the earth in endless processions, nearly a hundred sovereigns, princes, and princesses. Paris was filled to the brim with Majesties and Highnesses; it had welcomed the Emperor of Russia and the Emperor of Austria, the Sultan and the Viceroy of Egypt, and had thrown itself under the wheels of the carriages just to see close-up the King of Prussia, followed by Count von Bismarck like a faithful hound. Jubilant salvos were continually thundering through the Invalides,
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while the crowds, crammed into the Exhibition, made a great popular success of Krupp’s huge and sombre cannon that Germany had put on show.
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Almost every week the Opéra lit up its chandeliers for some official gala. In the smaller theatres and in the restaurants, people could hardly breathe, and the pavements were not wide enough now for the overflowing torrent of prostitution. Napoleon III decided to distribute in person the awards for the sixty thousand exhibitors, in a ceremony that excelled all others in its magnificence, like a glorious halo glowing on the brow of Paris, the resplendence of the reign, in which the Emperor appeared, in a fairy-tale lie, as master of Europe, speaking with calmness and strength, and promising peace. That same day, news had come to the Tuileries of the appalling catastrophe of Mexico,
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the execution of Maximilian, French blood spilt
and French money spent, all for nothing; and the news was concealed in order not to cast a blight on the festivities. It was a first death-knell on the evening of this splendid day, still dazzling in the sun.

Then, in the midst of all this glory, it seemed as if the star of Saccard was also rising to its greatest brilliance. At last he had achieved what he had sought for so many years, he had fortune as his slave, a thing of his own to dispose of as he would, to keep under lock and key, a living reality! So many times his coffers had been full of lies, so many millions had flowed through them, leaking out through all sorts of unseen holes! No, this was no longer the deceptive façade of wealth, this was the genuine royalty of gold, solid and enthroned on sacks full of gold; and he had this royalty of his, not thanks to the economies of a long line of bankers, like a Gundermann; he flattered himself proudly that he had conquered it for himself, like a soldier of fortune who seizes a kingdom at one stroke. In the time of the land-deals in the Europe district
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of Paris, he had often risen very high, but never had he felt Paris so thoroughly conquered, so humble at his feet. And he recalled that day when, eating at Champeaux’s, ruined once again, and no longer believing in his star, he had cast hungry eyes upon the Bourse, suddenly in a fever to start everything all over again, to conquer again, in a fury of revenge. So, now he was once again the master, what an appetite he had for enjoyment! First, as soon as he felt all-powerful, he dismissed Huret, and ordered Jantrou to launch an article against Rougon, in which the minister would find himself unambiguously accused, in the name of the Catholics, of playing a double game on the Roman question.
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This was a definitive declaration of war between the brothers. Ever since the September Convention of 1864,
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and especially after Sadowa, the clerical party had decided to show intense anxiety over the position of the Pope; and from now on
L’Espérance
, resuming its former Ultramontane political stance, violently attacked the liberalization of the Empire, begun with the decrees of 19 January. One of Saccard’s comments went around the Chamber: he had said that despite his profound affection for the Emperor, he would resign himself to Henri V,
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rather than allow the revolutionary spirit to lead France into catastrophe. Then, his victories making him ever more audacious, he no longer concealed his plan of attacking the big Jewish banks in the person of Gundermann, whose billion he meant to pound and batter until a final assault and capture. The Universal had grown so miraculously that supported as
it was by the whole of Christendom, why should it not become, in a few more years, the undisputed mistress of the Bourse? And with a warlike swagger Saccard presented himself as a rival, as a neighbouring king of equal power; while Gundermann phlegmatically went on watching and waiting, with not so much as an ironic smile, seeming simply interested in the continual rise of the shares, as a man whose entire strength lies in patience and logic.

It was his passion that took Saccard so high, and his passion that would cast him down. In order to satisfy his appetites, he would like to have discovered a sixth sense to indulge. Madame Caroline had reached the point of being able to go on smiling, even when her heart was bleeding, and she remained a friend, who listened to him with a sort of wifely deference. Baroness Sandorff, whose bruised eyelids and red lips were so deceptive, was beginning to lose her charm for him, with her icy coldness even in the midst of his perverse experiments. And besides, he had himself never known any grand passion, he was too busy, in his world of money, using his nerves in other ways, and paying for love by the month. So when, on the heap of his new millions, he thought of women at all, he thought only of buying himself an expensive one, to show her off to the whole of Paris, just as he might have bought himself, simply out of vanity, a very large diamond pin for his cravat. Then, wouldn’t it be an excellent bit of publicity? When a man can pay a lot for a woman, doesn’t that mean he must have a considerable fortune? His choice at once fell on Madame de Jeumont, at whose house he had dined two or three times with Maxime. She was still very beautiful at thirty-six, with a regular, grave and Junoesque beauty, and she had a great reputation due to the fact that the Emperor, for one night with her, had paid a hundred thousand francs, not to mention a decoration for her husband, a man of propriety who had no other role in life than to be his wife’s spouse. The two lived a life of ease and were received everywhere, in the ministries and at court, keeping themselves afloat with a few rare and select deals, restricting themselves to no more than three or four nights a year. Everyone knew how hideously expensive it was and how extremely distinguished the clientele. Saccard, who was particularly excited by the thought of having a taste of the Emperor’s morsel, bid as high as two hundred thousand francs, since the husband had at first pulled a face at this shady former financier, finding him too slight a personage and of compromising immorality.

It was around this time that little Madame Conin flatly refused to take her pleasure with Saccard. He often went to the stationery shop in the Rue Feydeau, always needing to buy order-books and very attracted by this adorable blonde, all pink and plump, with her pale, silky hair, so fluffy, a little curly lamb, graceful, beguiling, and always cheerful.

‘No, I don’t want to. Never with you!’

When once she had said ‘never’, that was it, nothing ever made her change her mind over a refusal.

‘But why? I saw you with someone else coming out of the house in the Passage des Panoramas…’

She blushed, but went on looking him straight in the eye. That house, kept by an old lady who was a friend of hers, was indeed the place she used for her rendezvous, when some whim made her give in to a gentleman from the Bourse, at those hours when her good soul of a husband was pasting up his registers, and she was out and about in Paris, always on stationery business.

‘You know perfectly well, that young man Gustave Sédille is your lover.’

With a pretty gesture, she protested. No, no, she had no lover. No man could boast of having had her more than once. What sort of person did he think she was? Once, yes, from time to time, for pleasure, without its being of the slightest significance! And they all remained her friends, very grateful, and very discreet.

‘Is it because I’m no longer young?’

But with a new gesture, and still with a laugh, she seemed to say that for her, being young was of no importance at all! She had yielded to men less young than he, less good-looking too, often indeed to some wretched poor devils.

‘Why then? Just tell me why!’

‘My word, it’s simply… that I don’t fancy you. With you, never!

She was still just as amiable, and sorry to have to refuse.

‘Come on,’ he went on, brutally, ‘it can be as much as you want… do you want a thousand, two thousand francs, for just one time?’

Each time he raised his offer, she shook her head gently.

‘Do you want… Come now, do you want ten thousand? Do you want twenty thousand?’

Gently, she interrupted him, placing her little hand on his.

‘Not ten, not fifty, not a hundred thousand! You could go on and
on like that, but it would still be no, always no… You can see I don’t wear any jewels. Oh, I’ve been offered them, I’ve been offered lots of things, money, all sorts of things! But I don’t want anything, isn’t it enough in itself, when it gives pleasure?… But just understand that my husband loves me with all his heart, and I too am very fond of him. He’s a very decent man, my husband. So, I’m certainly not going to kill him by causing him pain… What do you expect me to do with your money, since I can’t give it to my husband? We are not badly off, we shall retire one day with a tidy sum; and if those gentlemen are all so well disposed as to continue to buy their supplies from us, that I gladly accept… Oh, I’m not pretending to be more disinterested than I really am. If I were single I’d think about it. But one more thing, you can’t imagine that my husband would take your hundred thousand francs after I had slept with you… No! No! Not for a million!’

And she dug in her heels. Saccard, exasperated by this unexpected resistance, went on badgering her for nearly a month. She bowled him over, with her laughing face and her big eyes full of tenderness and compassion. What! So money could not buy everything! This woman others had enjoyed for nothing, and he could not have her, even at a crazy price! She said no, and she meant it. In all his triumph, he suffered cruelly over this, as if it cast a doubt over his power, a secret disillusion about the power of money, which until then he had thought absolute and sovereign.

But one evening his vanity experienced the most intense enjoyment. It was the high point of his existence. There was a ball at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he had chosen this event, celebrating the Exhibition, to make known to the public his good fortune of one night spent with Madame de Jeumont; for it was always agreed, in the deals of this beautiful person, that the buyer would have the right, just once, to exhibit his good luck in such a way that the affair could have all the publicity desired. So towards midnight, in the rooms where bare shoulders were crushed among the men’s black evening-jackets, under the blazing light of the chandeliers, Saccard made his entrance with Madame de Jeumont on his arm, and her husband following. When they appeared, groups broke up to make way for this two hundred thousand-franc whim on display, this scandal of uncontrolled appetite and lunatic extravagance. There were smiles and whispers, amusement, and no indignation, in the intoxicating scent of the corsages and the distant lulling of the orchestra. But at the end
of one of the rooms, a quite different group was gathered inquisitively around a colossus, dressed in the dazzling and superb white uniform of a cuirassier.
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It was Count von Bismarck, his tall figure towering above the heads of all, laughing heartily, with his big eyes, prominent nose, and powerful jaw, adorned by the moustaches of a barbarian conqueror. After Sadowa, he had given Germany to Prussia; the treaties of alliance
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against France, denied for so long, had been signed months before, and the war which had almost broken out in May over Luxembourg
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was now inevitable. When the triumphant Saccard went through the room, with Madame de Jeumont on his arm, and her husband following, Count von Bismarck stopped laughing for a moment to watch them passing, with the curiosity and ironic amusement of a kindly giant.

M
ADAME
C
AROLINE
found herself alone once more. Hamelin had stayed in Paris until the beginning of November for the formalities required for the definitive constitution of the company, with a capital of one hundred and fifty millions; it was he, too, who went, at Saccard’s request, to make the legal declarations stating that all the shares had been subscribed and the capital paid, which was not true. Then he left for Rome where he was to spend two months, having some important matters to study there, matters he kept to himself—doubtless his great dream of the Pope in Jerusalem, as well as another, more substantial and practical project, the transformation of the Universal into a Catholic Bank supported by the interests of the whole of Christendom, a simply enormous machine intended to crush the Jewish banks and sweep them out of the universe; from there he meant to turn back to the Orient again, to deal with the work on the railway from Broussa to Beirut. He went away happy about the rapid success of the bank, convinced of its unshakeable solidity and with only a vague anxiety about its excessive success. So on the eve of his departure, in conversation with his sister, he firmly recommended just one thing: that she should resist the general infatuation and sell their shares if the price went beyond two thousand two hundred francs, since he intended to make a personal protest against the continual rise, which he judged to be foolish and dangerous.