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A Man of Business By: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) |
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By Honore De Balzac Translated by Clara Bell and Others
DEDICATION To Monsieur le Baron James de Rothschild, Banker and
Austrian Consul General at Paris.
A MAN OF BUSINESS
The word lorette is a euphemism invented to describe the status of a
personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to
speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a
definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a
new word comes to supply the place of an unwieldy circumlocution, its
fortune is assured; the word lorette has passed into the language of
every class of society, even where the lorette herself will never gain
an entrance. It was only invented in 1840, and derived beyond a doubt
from the agglomeration of such swallows' nests about the Church of
Our Lady of Loretto. This information is for etymoligists only. Those
gentlemen would not be so often in a quandary if mediaeval writers had
only taken such pains with details of contemporary manners as we take in
these days of analysis and description. Mlle. Turquet, or Malaga, for she is better known by her pseudonym (See
La fausse Maitresse .), was one of the earliest parishioners of
that charming church. At the time to which this story belongs, that
lighthearted and lively damsel gladdened the existence of a notary with
a wife somewhat too bigoted, rigid, and frigid for domestic happiness. Now, it so fell out that one Carnival evening Maitre Cardot was
entertaining guests at Mlle. Turquet's house Desroches the attorney,
Bixiou of the caricatures, Lousteau the journalist, Nathan, and others;
it is quite unnecessary to give any further description of these
personages, all bearers of illustrious names in the Comedie Humaine .
Young La Palferine, in spite of his title of Count and his great
descent, which, alas! means a great descent in fortune likewise, had
honored the notary's little establishment with his presence. At dinner, in such a house, one does not expect to meet the patriarchal
beef, the skinny fowl and salad of domestic and family life, nor is
there any attempt at the hypocritical conversation of drawing rooms
furnished with highly respectable matrons. When, alas! will
respectability be charming? When will the women in good society
vouchsafe to show rather less of their shoulders and rather more wit or
geniality? Marguerite Turquet, the Aspasia of the Cirque Olympique, is
one of those frank, very living personalities to whom all is forgiven,
such unconscious sinners are they, such intelligent penitents; of such
as Malaga one might ask, like Cardot a witty man enough, albeit a
notary to be well "deceived." And yet you must not think that any
enormities were committed. Desroches and Cardot were good fellows grown
too gray in the profession not to feel at ease with Bixiou, Lousteau,
Nathan, and young La Palferine. And they on their side had too often had
recourse to their legal advisers, and knew them too well to try to "draw
them out," in lorette language. Conversation, perfumed with seven cigars, at first was as fantastic as
a kid let loose, but finally it settled down upon the strategy of the
constant war waged in Paris between creditors and debtors. Now, if you will be so good as to recall the history and antecedents of
the guests, you will know that in all Paris, you could scarcely find a
group of men with more experience in this matter; the professional
men on one hand, and the artists on the other, were something in the
position of magistrates and criminals hobnobbing together. A set of
Bixiou's drawings to illustrate life in the debtors' prison, led the
conversation to take this particular turn; and from debtors' prisons
they went to debts. It was midnight. They had broken up into little knots round the table
and before the fire, and gave themselves up to the burlesque fun which
is only possible or comprehensible in Paris and in that particular
region which is bounded by the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Chaussee
d'Antin, the upper end of the Rue de Navarin and the line of the
boulevards... Continue reading book >>
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