‘There is a future for you!…’ said the Procurator casting upon the heavy-hearted villain an inquisitorial look.
The man made a gesture expressive of total indifference with regard to himself
‘Lucien left a will in which he bequeathes you three hundred thousand francs.’
‘Oh, the poor child! the poor child!’ cried Jacques Collin, ‘always the same, too honest! The bad feelings, that was me; him, the good, the noble, the beautiful, the sublime! Fine souls like that don’t change! all he’d taken from me, sir, was my money!’
This profound, this total abandonment of the personality which the magistrate was unable to revive, was such undeniable proof of what the man said that Monsieur de Granville found himself taking the criminal's side. Was he still Attorney General!
‘If nothing is of interest to you any longer,’ asked Monsieur de Granville, ‘what have you come to see me about?’
‘Wasn’t it already something that I gave myself up? You were warm, but you hadn’t got me; besides, you found me an embarrassment!…’
‘What an adversary!’ thought the great Procurator.
‘Mister Attorney General, you are about to cut off the head of an innocent man, and I have discovered the guilty one,’ Jacques Collin went on solemnly drying his tears. ‘I have not come here on their account but on yours. I came to spare you remorse, for I love anyone who interested himself in any way on Lucien’s behalf, just as I shall pursue with hatred all the men and women who brought his life to an end… What does any convict mean to me?’ he continued after a slight pause. ‘A convict, to me, is barely what an ant is to you. I’m like those proud Italian brigands, if a traveller carries about with him more than the cost of one shot, they stretch him out dead! I thought only of you. I confessed this young man, who had only me to confide in, I was his comrade in the chain-gang! Théodore’s nature is good; he thought he could do a mistress a service by undertaking to sell or otherwise dispose of stolen objects; but he is no more criminally involved in the Nanterre affair than you are. He is a Corsican, revenge is a custom with them, they kill one another like flies.
‘In Italy and in Spain, they don’t treat a man’s life with respect, for the simplest of reasons. They believe that we are possessed of a soul, a something, an image of ourselves which goes on living, perhaps eternally. Try to explain a crackbrained notion like that to one of our analysts! It is only in atheistical or philosophy-ridden countries that human life must be paid for dearly by those who disturb it, and this is quite right among people who believe only in matter, only in the present!
‘If Calvi had informed against the woman from whom the stolen goods came, you wouldn’t have known who the guilty person was, for he is already in your clutches, but only an accomplice whom poor Théodore doesn’t want to harm, for she’s a woman… What would you? every condition of life has its point of honour, the penitentiary and the thief on the street have theirs! Now I know who killed those two women and carried the whole bold scheme through, a strange, quite peculiar affair, I’ve been told it in all its details. Stop Calvi’s execution, you shall learn everything; but give me your word to return him to the convict station, commuting his sentence… In my state of grief, it is too much trouble to tell lies, you know that. What I have just told you is the truth…’
‘With you, Jacques Collin, although it diminishes the dignity of the Law, which itself would never compromise in this way, I think I can soften the rigour of my duties and refer the matter back to the right quarter.’
‘Do you grant me this man’s life?’
‘It seems possible…’
‘Sir, I implore you to give me your word, that will do.’
Monsieur de Granville’s gesture was one of wounded pride.
The society file
‘THE honour of three great families is in my keeping, and in yours only the life of three convicts,’ Jacques Collin persisted, ‘I am stronger than you.’
‘You can be returned to solitary confinement; then what could you do?…’ the Procurator asked.
‘Ah! so this is a game!’ said Jacques Collin. ‘I was speaking without frills, me! I was speaking to Monsieur de Granville; but if the man before me is the Attorney General, then I pick up my cards and stick. Well, there we are, if you’d given me your word, I was going to hand you the letters written to Lucien by Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu!’ This was said with a steady emphasis, a coldness of manner and a look which revealed to Monsieur de Granville an adversary against whom one false step was dangerous.
‘Is that all you are asking me for?’ said the Procurator.
‘I shall be plain with you,’ said Jacques Collin. ‘The honour of the Grandlieu family is what I am offering for the commutation of Théodore’s sentence: the gain is all yours. What is a convict serving a life sentence?… If he escapes, you can soon be rid of him! you draw a note of hand on the guillotine! The only thing is, as he’d been bundled off, not with the kindest intentions, to Rochefort, you’ll promise to redirect him to Toulon, recommending that he should be well treated. But now, for myself, I want more; I have files on Madame de Sérisy and the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and what letters those are!… Listen, count: when whores write they express themselves with some taste and a display of fine feelings, well! society women who go in for taste and fine feelings all day long, write as whores behave. Philosophers could no doubt explain this set to partners, I shan’t try. Woman is an inferior being, she is too much governed by her organs. To me, a woman is only beautiful when she is like a man!
‘And so these little duchesses who are men in their heads have written masterpieces… Oh, it’s wonderful stuff, from end to end, like that celebrated ode of Piron’s.’
‘Really?’
‘Do you want to see them?…’ said Jacques Collin with a smile.
The magistrate looked ashamed.
‘I can let you read them; but, there, we aren’t joking! This is a straight game?… You’ll give me the letters back, and you’ll give orders that the person who brings them won’t be informed on, followed or even looked at.’
‘It will take time, won’t it?’ said the Procurator.
‘No, it is half past nine,…’ Jacques Collin went on with a glance at the clock; ‘well, in four minutes, we can have a letter from each of these ladies; and, after reading them, you’ll countermand the guillotine arrangements! If I were pretending, you wouldn’t see me so calm. These ladies have, moreover, been warned…’
Monsieur de Granville did not conceal his surprise.
‘At this very moment, they must be taking steps, they’ll be putting the Keeper of the Seals to work, they may go, who knows, as far as the King… Look, do you give me your word to pay no attention to who comes, not to follow or have the person followed for an hour?’
‘I promise you that!’
‘Very well, a man like you wouldn’t try to trick an escaped convict. You are made of the metal of men like Turenne and you keep your word even to thieves… Well, in the waiting-hall, there is at the moment a beggarwoman in rags, an old woman, standing in the centre of the hall. She’s there to speak to one of the public scriveners about a case to do with some party wall; send a boy for her, and tell him to say: Dabor ti mandana. She’ll come… But don’t be cruel without need!… Either you accept my proposals, or you won’t compromise yourself with a convict… I’m only a forger, you know!… Well, then, don’t leave Calvi in the frightful anguish of a man togged up for execution…’
‘The execution has already been countermanded… I don’t,’ said Monsieur de Granville to Jacques Collin, ‘wish Justice to subsist beneath your level! ’
Jacques Collin looked at the Attorney General with a kind of astonishment and saw him pull the cord of the bell.
‘Will you be so good as not to escape? Give me your word, and I am content. Go and find this woman…’
One of his staff appeared.
‘Félix, send the constables away,…’ said Monsieur de Granville.
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Jacques Collin admitted defeat.
In this duel with the magistrate, he wished to be the greater, the stronger, the more magnanimous, and the magistrate crushed him. Nevertheless, the convict felt himself to be superior in that he was playing with the Law, which he would convince that the guilty was innocent, and from which he meant to win a disputed head; but that superiority had to be dumb, secret, concealed, while the Stork conquered him in full daylight, and with majesty.
Jacques Collin’s first appearance in comedy
As Jacques Collin was leaving Monsieur de Granville’s office, the general secretary of the Cabinet Office appeared, himself a deputy, Count des Lupeaulx, accompanied by a small, sickly-looking old man. This character, wrapped in a purple-brown quilted overcoat, as if it had still been winter, his hair powdered, his face cold and pale, walked as though full of gout, unsteadily, on feet made to seem larger by shoes of Orleans calfskin, leaning on a stick with a gold knob, hat in hand, a row of seven decorations on his breast.
‘What is it, my dear Lupeaulx?’ asked the Public Prosecutor.
‘I come from the prince,’ he whispered in Monsieur de Granville’s ear. ‘You may take whatever measures you like to recover the letters of Mesdames de Sérisy and Maufrigneuse, and those of Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu. You may deal with this gentleman…’
‘Who is he?’ the Procurator asked des Lupeaulx in a whisper.
‘I have no secrets from you, my dear Attorney, this is the famous Corentin. His Majesty wishes you to tell him yourself all the details of this affair and what hangs on it.’
‘Do me the further favour,’ replied the Procurator still in des Lupeaulx’s ear, ‘of going and letting the prince know that the matter is at an end, that I had no need of this gentleman,’ he added indicating Corentin. ‘I shall go for orders to His Majesty, at the end of this matter which concerns the Keeper of the Seals for there are two reprieves to be made out.’
‘You acted wisely in going ahead on your own,’ said des Lupeaulx shaking the Procurator’s hand. ‘We are on the eve of great things, and the King doesn’t want, at this point, to see the peerage talked about, tarnished… It isn’t a low criminal action now, it’s an affair of Stat…’
‘Tell the prince that, when you came, it was all done with!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, then, my dear, you’ll be Keeper of the Seals, when the present Keeper becomes Chancellor…’
‘I’m not ambitious!…’ replied the Procurator.
Des Lupeaulx went out laughing.
‘Beg the prince to solicit me ten minutes’ audience with the King, at about half past two,’ added Monsieur de Granville, as he saw Count des Lupeaulx out.
‘So you’re not ambitious!’ said Lupeaulx casting a perceptive glance at Monsieur de Granville. ‘Come, now, you have two children, you would like to be made a peer of France at least…’
‘If the Attorney General already has the letters, there is no need for my intervention,’ Corentin pointed out, when he found himself alone with Monsieur de Granville, who looked at him with understandable curiosity.
‘A man like yourself is never superfluous in so delicate a matter,’ replied the Director of Prosecutions seeing that Corentin had either understood or simply heard all.
Corentin’s inclination of the head was almost condescending.
‘Do you know, sir, the individual with whom we are concerned?’
‘Yes, Monsieur le Comte, he is Jacques Collin, head of the Ten Thou’ society, treasurer to all three penitentiaries, a convict who, for five years, has managed to conceal his identity under the cassock of the priest Carlos Herrera. How did he come to be entrusted with a mission from the King of Spain to our late King? We all lose our way in seeking out the truth of this matter. I am waiting for a reply from Madrid, where I sent letters and a man. That convict is possessed of two kings’ secrets…’
‘He’s a man of lively temper! There are only two things to be done: to make him work on our side, or to get rid of him,’ said the Procurator.
‘Our thoughts were the same, and I am deeply honoured,’ answered Corentin. ‘I am compelled to think so much on behalf of so many people, that I am bound statistically to meet a man of wit from time to time.’ This was offered so drily and in so icy a tone, that the Attorney General said nothing and addressed himself to one or two other pressing matters.
When Jacques Collin appeared in the reception hall, the astonishment of Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin can hardly be imagined. She remained planted firmly on her two feet, her hands on her hips, for she was dressed as a costermonger. Habituated as she was to her nephew’s unexpected accomplishments, this surpassed all.
‘Dear me, if you go on looking at me as though I were a show-case of natural oddities,’ said Jacques Collin, taking his aunt’s arm and leading her out of the hall, ‘they’ll think we’re both very odd, they might arrest us, and that would be a waste of useful time.’ And he descended the staircase of the Galerie Marchande, which leads into the rue de la Barillerie.
‘Where’s Paccard?’
‘He’s waiting for me outside la Rousse’s, walking up and down the Quai des Fleurs.’
‘And Prudence?’
‘She’s inside, pretending to be my godchild.’
‘Come on, then.’
‘Watch we aren’t being followed…’
The red-headed lady’s story
LA ROUSSE, who kept a hardware shop on the Quai des Fleurs, was the widow of a famous murderer, one of the Ten Thou’. In 1819, Jacques Collin had faithfully restored over twenty thousand francs to the wench, on behalf of her lover, after his execution. Dodgedeath alone knew of the private life of this young woman, at that time a milliner, and her fanandel.
‘I’m your man’s dab,’ he, then living at Ma Vauquer’s, said to the girl, whom he’d arranged to meet in the Botanical Gardens. ‘He must have talked to you about me, little one. Whoever betrays me dies within the year! those I can trust have nothing to fear from me. I am the chum to die without saying a word that will compromise anybody I wish well. Treat me as though I were the devil you’d sold your soul to, and you’ll benefit by it. I promised your poor Auguste I’d see you in luck, he wanted you to be set up; he got sliced for you. Don’t cry. Listen to me: nobody in the world except me knew that you were a convict’s moll, a killer who got put down Saturday; nobody’ll ever know. You’re twenty-two, you’re pretty, and there you are with twenty-six thousand francs; forget Auguste, get married, become an honest woman if you can. In return for that cushy life, I want you to be ready to help me, me and anybody I send to you, without hesitation. I shall never ask you to do anything compromising, either to yourself, or your children, or your husband, if you have one, or your family. Sometimes, in my profession, I need a place where I can talk without risk, or where I can hide. I need a woman who can post a letter or run an errand discreetly. You would be one of my letter-boxes, one of my porter's lodges, an occasional messenger, nothing more, nothing less. You are blonde to a fault, Auguste and I always called you la Rousse, you’ll keep that name. My aunt, a dealer in the Temple, to whom I’ll introduce you, will be the one person in the world you must obey; tell her everything that happens; she’ll find you a husband, she’ll be useful to you in a lot of ways.’
Thus they concluded one of those diabolical pacts of the same kind as that which, for so long, had bound Prudence Servien to this man and of which he formed many; for, like the devil, he had a passion for recruiting.
Jacqueline Collin had married la Rousse to the head clerk of a rich wholesale ironmonger, in about 1811. This head clerk, having bought the commercial side of his master’s undertakings, was on the way to prosperity, father of two children, and deputy mayor of his district. La Rousse, now Madame Prélard, had never had the least grounds for complaint, either against Jacques Collin, or against his aunt; but, each time her assistance was sought, Madame Prélard trembled through all he
r frame. Thus, when she saw these two dreadful individuals enter her shop, she turned pale.
‘We have business to discuss with you, Madame,’ said Jacques Collin.
‘My husband is at home,’ she replied.
‘For the moment, your own presence won’t be much needed; I never disturb people needlessly.’
‘Send out for a cab, child,’ said Jacqueline Collin, ‘and tell my goddaughter to come down; I’m hoping to place her as maid to a great lady, and the steward of the house wants to take her along.’
Paccard, who looked like one of the constabulary in plain clothes, was at that moment talking to Monsieur Prélard about a large order for steel cable for a bridge.
A shop-assistant went to look for a cab, and a few minutes later, Europe, or to substitute her real name for the one under which she had waited on Esther, Prudence Servien, with Paccard, Jacques Collin and his aunt, were, to the great joy and relief of la Rousse, sitting together in a cab, whose driver Dodgedeath instructed to make for the Ivry barrier.
Prudence Servien and Paccard, trembling before the Dab, were like guilty souls in God’s presence.
‘Where are the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs?’ he, the dab, asked them, fixing upon them one of those lucid glances which so disturbed the blood of such damned souls, when they were caught out in a fault, that the hairs of their head seemed like so many pins.
‘The seven hundred and thirty thousand francs,’ Jacqueline Collin replied to her nephew, ‘are in a safe place, I handed them this morning to la Romette, in a sealed packet…’