The Illustrious Gaudissart.................................................................................................................................1

Honore de Balzac .....................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I .............................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................................5

CHAPTER III..........................................................................................................................................9

CHAPTER IV........................................................................................................................................13

CHAPTER V.........................................................................................................................................21

The commercial traveller, a personage unknown to antiquity, is one of the striking figures created by the

manners and customs of our present epoch. May he not, in some conceivable order of things, be destined to

mark for coming philosophers the great transition which welds a period of material enterprise to the period of

intellectual strength? Our century will bind the realm of isolated power, abounding as it does in creative

genius, to the realm of universal but levelling might; equalizing all products, spreading them broadcast

among the masses, and being itself controlled by the principle of unity,the final expression of all societies.

Do we not find the dead level of barbarism succeeding the saturnalia of popular thought and the last struggles

of those civilizations which accumulated the treasures of the world in one direction?

The commercial traveller! Is he not to the realm of ideas what our stagecoaches are to men and things? He is

their vehicle; he sets them going, carries them along, rubs them up with one another. He takes from the

luminous centre a handful of light, and scatters it broadcast among the drowsy populations of the duller

regions. This human pyrotechnic is a scholar without learning, a juggler hoaxed by himself, an unbelieving

priest of mysteries and dogmas, which he expounds all the better for his want of faith. Curious being! He has

seen everything, known everything, and is up in all the ways of the world. Soaked in the vices of Paris, he

affects to be the fellowwell met of the provinces. He is the link which connects the village with the capital;

though essentially he is neither Parisian nor provincial, he is a traveller. He sees nothing to the core: men

and places he knows by their names; as for things, he looks merely at their surface, and he has his own little

tapeline with which to measure them. His glance shoots over all things and penetrates none. He occupies

Jester and jolly fellow, he keeps on good terms with all political opinions, and is patriotic to the bottom of his

soul. A capital mimic, he knows how to put on, turn and turn about, the smiles of persuasion, satisfaction, and

goodnature, or drop them for the normal expression of his natural man. He is compelled to be an observer of

a certain sort in the interests of his trade. He must probe men with a glance and guess their habits, wants, and

above all their solvency. To economize time he must come to quick decisions as to his chances of

success,a practice that makes him more or less a man of judgment; on the strength of which he sets up as a

He knows all the good and bad haunts in France, "de actu et visu." He can pilot you, on occasion, to vice or

virtue with equal assurance. Blest with the eloquence of a hotwater spigot turned on at will, he can check or

let run, without floundering, the collection of phrases which he keeps on tap, and which produce upon his

victims the effect of a moral showerbath. Loquacious as a cricket, he smokes, drinks, wears a profusion of

trinkets, overawes the common people, passes for a lord in the villages, and never permits himself to be

"stumped,"a slang expression all his own. He knows how to slap his pockets at the right time, and make

his money jingle if he thinks the servants of the secondclass houses which he wants to enter (always

eminently suspicious) are likely to take him for a thief. Activity is not the least surprising quality of this

human machine. Not the hawk swooping upon its prey, not the stag doubling before the huntsman and the

hounds, nor the hounds themselves catching scent of the game, can be compared with him for the rapidity of

his dart when he spies a "commission," for the agility with which he trips up a rival and gets ahead of him,

for the keenness of his scent as he noses a customer and discovers the sport where he can get off his wares.

How many great qualities must such a man possess! You will find in all countries many such diplomats of

low degree; consummate negotiators arguing in the interests of calico, jewels, frippery, wines; and often

displaying more true diplomacy than ambassadors themselves, who, for the most part, know only the forms

of it. No one in France can doubt the powers of the commercial traveller; that intrepid soul who dares all, and

boldly brings the genius of civilization and the modern inventions of Paris into a struggle with the plain

commonsense of remote villages, and the ignorant and boorish treadmill of provincial ways. Can we ever

forget the skilful manoeuvres by which he worms himself into the minds of the populace, bringing a volume

of words to bear upon the refractory, reminding us of the indefatigable worker in marbles whose file eats

slowly into a block of porphyry? Would you seek to know the utmost power of language, or the strongest

pressure that a phrase can bring to bear against rebellious lucre, against the miserly proprietor squatting in the

recesses of his country lair? listen to one of these great ambassadors of Parisian industry as he revolves

and works and sucks like an intelligent piston of the steam engine called Speculation.

"Monsieur," said a wise political economist, the directorcashier manager and secretarygeneral of a

celebrated fireinsurance company, "out of every five hundred thousand francs of policies to be renewed in

the provinces, not more than fifty thousand are paid up voluntarily. The other four hundred and fifty thousand

are got in by the activity of our agents, who go about among those who are in arrears and worry them with

stories of horrible incendiaries until they are driven to sign the new policies. Thus you see that eloquence, the

To talk, to make people listen to you,that is seduction in itself. A nation that has two Chambers, a woman

who lends both ears, are soon lost. Eve and her serpent are the everlasting myth of an hourly fact which

Let us walk round the commercial traveller, and look at him well. Don't forget his overcoat, olive green, nor

his cloak with its morocco collar, nor the striped blue cotton shirt. In this queer figureso original that we

cannot rub it outhow many divers personalities we come across! In the first place, what an acrobat, what a

circus, what a battery, all in one, is the man himself, his vocation, and his tongue! Intrepid mariner, he

plunges in, armed with a few phrases, to catch five or six thousand francs in the frozen seas, in the domain of

the red Indians who inhabit the interior of France. The provincial fish will not rise to harpoons and torches; it

can only be taken with seines and nets and gentlest persuasions. The traveller's business is to extract the gold

in country caches by a purely intellectual operation, and to extract it pleasantly and without pain. Can you

think without a shudder of the flood of phrases which, day by day, renewed each dawn, leaps in cascades the

There lives in Paris an incomparable commercial traveller, the paragon of his race, a man who possesses in

the highest degree all the qualifications necessary to the nature of his success. His speech is vitriol and

likewise glue,glue to catch and entangle his victim and make him sticky and easy to grip; vitriol to

dissolve hard heads, close fists, and closer calculations. His line was once the HAT; but his talents and the art

with which he snared the wariest provincial had brought him such commercial celebrity that all vendors of

the "article Paris"[*] paid court to him, and humbly begged that he would deign to take their commissions.

[*] "Article Paris" means anythingespecially articles of wearing apparelwhich originates or is made in

Paris. The name is supposed to give to the thing a special value in the provinces.

Thus, when he returned to Paris in the intervals of his triumphant progress through France, he lived a life of

perpetual festivity in the shape of weddings and suppers. When he was in the provinces, the correspondents in

the smaller towns made much of him; in Paris, the great houses feted and caressed him. Welcomed, flattered,

and fed wherever he went, it came to pass that to breakfast or to dine alone was a novelty, an event. He lived

the life of a sovereign, or, better still, of a journalist; in fact, he was the perambulating "feuilleton" of Parisian

His name was Gaudissart; and his renown, his vogue, the flatteries showered upon him, were such as to win

for him the surname of Illustrious. Wherever the fellow went,behind a counter or before a bar, into a salon

or to the top of a stagecoach, up to a garret or to dine with a banker,every one said, the moment they saw

him, "Ah! here comes the illustrious Gaudissart!"[*] No name was ever so in keeping with the style, the

manners, the countenance, the voice, the language, of any man. All things smiled upon our traveller, and the

traveller smiled back in return. "Similia similibus,"he believed in homoeopathy. Puns, horselaugh,

monkish face, skin of a friar, true Rabelaisian exterior, clothing, body, mind, and features, all pulled together

to put a devilmaycare jollity into every inch of his person. Freehanded and easygoing, he might be

recognized at once as the favorite of grisettes, the man who jumps lightly to the top of a stagecoach, gives a

hand to the timid lady who fears to step down, jokes with the postillion about his neckerchief and contrives to

sell him a cap, smiles at the maid and catches her round the waist or by the heart; gurgles at dinner like a

bottle of wine and pretends to draw the cork by sounding a filip on his distended cheek; plays a tune with his

knife on the champagne glasses without breaking them, and says to the company, "Let me see you do

THAT"; chaffs the timid traveller, contradicts the knowing one, lords it over a dinnertable and manages to

get the titbits for himself. A strong fellow, nevertheless, he can throw aside all this nonsense and mean

business when he flings away the stump of his cigar and says, with a glance at some town, "I'll go and see

[*] "Se gaudir," to enjoy, to make fun. "Gaudriole," gay discourse, rather free.Littre.

When buckled down to his work he became the slyest and cleverest of diplomats. All things to all men, he

knew how to accost a banker like a capitalist, a magistrate like a functionary, a royalist with pious and

monarchical sentiments, a bourgeois as one of themselves. In short, wherever he was he was just what he

ought to be; he left Gaudissart at the door when he went in, and picked him up when he came out.

Until 1830 the illustrious Gaudissart was faithful to the article Paris. In his close relation to the caprices of

humanity, the varied paths of commerce had enabled him to observe the windings of the heart of man. He had

learned the secret of persuasive eloquence, the knack of loosening the tightest pursestrings, the art of

rousing desire in the souls of husbands, wives, children, and servants; and what is more, he knew how to

satisfy it. No one had greater faculty than he for inveigling a merchant by the charms of a bargain, and

disappearing at the instant when desire had reached its crisis. Full of gratitude to the hatmaking trade, he

always declared that it was his efforts in behalf of the exterior of the human head which had enabled him to

understand its interior: he had capped and crowned so many people, he was always flinging himself at their

heads, etc. His jokes about hats and heads were irrepressible, though perhaps not dazzling.

Nevertheless, after August and October, 1830, he abandoned the hat trade and the article Paris, and tore

himself from things mechanical and visible to mount into the higher spheres of Parisian speculation. "He

forsook," to use his own words, "matter for mind; manufactured products for the infinitely purer elaborations

The general upset of 1830 brought to birth, as everybody knows, a number of old ideas which clever

speculators tried to pass off in new bodies. After 1830 ideas became property. A writer, too wise to publish

his writings, once remarked that "more ideas are stolen than pockethandkerchiefs." Perhaps in course of

time we may have an Exchange for thought; in fact, even now ideas, good or bad, have their consols, are

bought up, imported, exported, sold, and quoted like stocks. If ideas are not on hand ready for sale,

speculators try to pass off words in their stead, and actually live upon them as a bird lives on the seeds of his

millet. Pray do not laugh; a word is worth quite as much as an idea in a land where the ticket on a sack is of

more importance than the contents. Have we not seen libraries working off the word "picturesque" when

literature would have cut the throat of the word "fantastic"? Fiscal genius has guessed the proper tax on

intellect; it has accurately estimated the profits of advertising; it has registered a prospectus of the quantity

and exact value of the property, weighing its thought at the intellectual Stamp Office in the Rue de la Paix.

Having become an article of commerce, intellect and all its products must naturally obey the laws which bind

other manufacturing interests. Thus it often happens that ideas, conceived in their cups by certain apparently

idle Parisians,who nevertheless fight many a moral battle over their champagne and their pheasants,are

handed down at their birth from the brain to the commercial travellers who are employed to spread them

discreetly, "urbi et orbi," through Paris and the provinces, seasoned with the fried pork of advertisement and

prospectus, by means of which they catch in their rattrap the departmental rodent commonly called

subscriber, sometimes stockholder, occasionally corresponding member or patron, but invariably fool.

"I am a fool!" many a poor country proprietor has said when, caught by the prospect of being the first to

launch a new idea, he finds that he has, in point of fact, launched his thousand or twelve hundred francs into a

"Subscribers are fools who never can be brought to understand that to go ahead in the intellectual world they

must start with more money than they need for the tour of Europe," say the speculators.

Consequently there is endless warfare between the recalcitrant public which refuses to pay the Parisian

imposts and the taxgatherer who, living by his receipt of custom, lards the public with new ideas, turns it on

the spit of lively projects, roasts it with prospectuses (basting all the while with flattery), and finally gobbles

it up with some toothsome sauce in which it is caught and intoxicated like a fly with a blacklead. Moreover,

since 1830 what honors and emoluments have been scattered throughout France to stimulate the zeal and

self love of the "progressive and intelligent masses"! Titles, medals, diplomas, a sort of legion of honor

invented for the army of martyrs, have followed each other with marvellous rapidity. Speculators in the

manufactured products of the intellect have developed a spice, a ginger, all their own. From this have come

premiums, forestalled dividends, and that conscription of noted names which is levied without the knowledge

of the unfortunate writers who bear them, and who thus find themselves actual cooperators in more

enterprises than there are days in the year; for the law, we may remark, takes no account of the theft of a

patronymic. Worse than all is the rape of ideas which these caterers for the public mind, like the slave

merchants of Asia, tear from the paternal brain before they are well matured, and drag halfclothed before

the eyes of their blockhead of a sultan, their Shahabaham, their terrible public, which, if they don't amuse it,

This madness of our epoch reacted upon the illustrious Gaudissart, and here follows the history of how it

happened. A lifeinsurance company having been told of his irresistible eloquence offered him an unheard

of commission, which he graciously accepted. The bargain concluded and the treaty signed, our traveller was

put in training, or we might say weaned, by the secretarygeneral of the enterprise, who freed his mind of its

swaddlingclothes, showed him the dark holes of the business, taught him its dialect, took the mechanism

apart bit by bit, dissected for his instruction the particular public he was expected to gull, crammed him with

phrases, fed him with impromptu replies, provisioned him with unanswerable arguments, and, so to speak,

sharpened the file of the tongue which was about to operate upon the life of France.

The puppet amply rewarded the pains bestowed upon him. The heads of the company boasted of the

illustrious Gaudissart, showed him such attention and proclaimed the great talents of this perambulating

prospectus so loudly in the sphere of exalted banking and commercial diplomacy, that the financial managers

of two newspapers (celebrated at that time but since defunct) were seized with the idea of employing him to

get subscribers. The proprietors of the "Globe," an organ of SaintSimonism, and the "Movement," a

republican journal, each invited the illustrious Gaudissart to a conference, and proposed to give him ten

francs a head for every subscriber, provided he brought in a thousand, but only five francs if he got no more

than five hundred. The cause of political journalism not interfering with the pre accepted cause of life

insurance, the bargain was struck; although Gaudissart demanded an indemnity from the SaintSimonians for

the eight days he was forced to spend in studying the doctrines of their apostle, asserting that a prodigious

effort of memory and intellect was necessary to get to the bottom of that "article" and to reason upon it

suitably. He asked nothing, however, from the republicans. In the first place, he inclined in republican

ideas,the only ones, according to guadissardian philosophy, which could bring about a rational equality.

Besides which he had already dipped into the conspiracies of the French "carbonari"; he had been arrested,

and released for want of proof; and finally, as he called the newspaper proprietors to observe, he had lately

grown a mustache, and needed only a hat of certain shape and a pair of spurs to represent, with due propriety,

For one whole week this commanding genius went every morning to be SaintSimonized at the office of the

"Globe," and every afternoon he betook himself to the lifeinsurance company, where he learned the

intricacies of financial diplomacy. His aptitude and his memory were prodigious; so that he was able to start

on his peregrinations by the 15th of April, the date at which he usually opened the spring campaign. Two

large commercial houses, alarmed at the decline of business, implored the ambitious Gaudissart not to desert

the article Paris, and seduced him, it was said, with large offers, to take their commissions once more. The

king of travellers was amenable to the claims of his old friends, enforced as they were by the enormous

All truly great men delight in allowing themselves to be tyrannized over by a feeble being, and Gaudissart

had found his tyrant in Jenny. He was bringing her home at eleven o'clock from the Gymnase, whither he had

"On my return, Jenny, I shall refurnish your room in superior style. That big Matilda, who pesters you with

comparisons and her real India shawls imported by the suite of the Russian ambassador, and her silver plate

and her Russian prince,who to my mind is nothing but a humbug, won't have a word to say THEN. I

consecrate to the adornment of your room all the 'Children' I shall get in the provinces."

"Well, that's a pretty thing to say!" cried the florist. "Monster of a man! Do you dare to talk to me of your

"Oh, what a goose you are, my Jenny! That's only a figure of speech in our business."

"You don't let me finish. I have taken under my protection a superlative idea,a journal, a newspaper,

written for children. In our profession, when travellers have caught, let us suppose, ten subscribers to the

'Children's Journal,' they say, 'I've got ten Children,' just as I say when I get ten subscriptions to a newspaper

"That's all right. Are you going into politics? If you do you'll get into SaintPelagie, and I shall have to trot

down there after you. Oh! if one only knew what one puts one's foot into when we love a man, on my word of

honor we would let you alone to take care of yourselves, you men! However, if you are going away

The coach stopped before a pretty house, newly built in the Rue d'Artois, where Gaudissart and Jenny

climbed to the fourth story. This was the abode of Mademoiselle Jenny Courand, commonly reported to be

privately married to the illustrious Gaudissart, a rumor which that individual did not deny. To maintain her

supremacy, Jenny kept him to the performance of innumerable small attentions, and threatened continually to

turn him off if he omitted the least of them. She now ordered him to write to her from every town, and render

"How many 'Children' will it take to furnish my chamber?" she asked, throwing off her shawl and sitting

"Delightful! And is it with five sous that you expect to make me rich? Perhaps you are like the Wandering

"But, Jenny, I shall get a thousand 'Children.' Just reflect that children have never had a newspaper to

themselves before. But what a fool I am to try to explain matters to you,you can't understand such things."

"Can't I? Then tell me,tell me, Gaudissart, if I'm such a goose why do you love me?"

"Just because you are a goose,a sublime goose! Listen, Jenny. See here, I am going to undertake the

'Globe,' the 'Movement,' the 'Children,' the insurance business, and some of my old articles Paris; instead of

earning a miserable eight thousand a year, I'll bring back twenty thousand at least from each trip."

"Yes, truly," said the traveller, complacently; "I shall become a shareholder in the newspapers, like Finot, one

of my friends, the son of a hatter, who now has thirty thousand francs income, and is going to make himself a

peer of France. When one thinks of that little Popinot,ah, mon Dieu! I forgot to tell you that Monsieur

Popinot was named minister of commerce yesterday. Why shouldn't I be ambitious too? Ha! ha! I could

easily pick up the jargon of those fellows who talk in the chamber, and bluster with the rest of them. Now,

"Gentlemen," he said, standing behind a chair, "the Press is neither a tool nor an article of barter: it is, viewed

under its political aspects, an institution. We are bound, in virtue of our position as legislators, to consider all

things politically, and therefore" (here he stopped to get breath)"and therefore we must examine the Press

and ask ourselves if it is useful or noxious, if it should be encouraged or put down, taxed or free. These are

serious questions. I feel that I do not waste the time, always precious, of this Chamber by examining this

articlethe Pressand explaining to you its qualities. We are on the verge of an abyss. Undoubtedly the

laws have not the nap which they ought to haveHein?" he said, looking at Jenny. "All orators put France

on the verge of an abyss. They either say that or they talk about the chariot of state, or convulsions, or

political horizons. Don't I know their dodges? I'm up to all the tricks of all the trades. Do you know why?

Because I was born with a caul; my mother has got it, but I'll give it to you. You'll see! I shall soon be in the

"Why shouldn't I be the Baron Gaudissart, peer of France? Haven't they twice elected Monsieur Popinot as

deputy from the fourth arrondissement? He dines with Louis Phillippe. There's Finot; he is going to be, they

say, a member of the Council. Suppose they send me as ambassador to London? I tell you I'd nonplus those

English! No man ever got the better of Gaudissart, the illustrious Gaudissart, and nobody ever will. Yes, I say

it! no one ever outwitted me, and no one canin any walk of life, politics or impolitics, here or elsewhere.

But, for the time being, I must give myself wholly to the capitalists; to the 'Globe,' the 'Movement,' the

"You will be brought up with a round turn, you and your newspapers. I'll bet you won't get further than

"Done! If I lose that shawl I'll go back to the article Paris and the hat business. But as for getting the better of

And the illustrious traveller threw himself into position before Jenny, looked at her proudly, one hand in his

Gaudissart was thirtyeight years of age, of medium height, stout and fat like men who roll about continually

in stagecoaches, with a face as round as a pumpkin, ruddy cheeks, and regular features of the type which

sculptors of all lands adopt as a model for statues of Abundance, Law, Force, Commerce, and the like. His

protuberant stomach swelled forth in the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active and vigorous. He

"Hold your tongue, young woman!" he said. "What do you know about SaintSimonism, antagonism,

Fourierism, criticism, heroic enterprise, or woman's freedom? I'll tell you what they are,ten francs for each

The next morning Gaudissart, having breakfasted gloriously with Jenny, departed on horseback to work up

the chief towns of the district to which he was assigned by the various enterprises in whose interests he was

now about to exercise his great talents. After spending fortyfive days in beating up the country between

Paris and Blois, he remained two weeks at the latter place to write up his correspondence and make short

visits to the various market towns of the department. The night before he left Blois for Tours he indited a

letter to Mademoiselle Jenny Courand. As the conciseness and charm of this epistle cannot be equalled by

any narration of ours, and as, moreover, it proves the legitimacy of the tie which united these two individuals,

"My dear Jenny,You will lose your wager. Like Napoleon, Gaudissart the illustrious has his star, but NOT

his Waterloo. I triumph everywhere. Life insurance has done well. Between Paris and Blois I lodged two

millions. But as I get to the centre of France heads become infinitely harder and millions correspondingly

scarce. The article Paris keeps up its own little jogtrot. It is a ring on the finger. With all my wellknown

cunning I spit these shopkeepers like larks. I got off one hundred and sixtytwo Ternaux shawls at Orleans.

I am sure I don't know what they will do with them, unless they return them to the backs of the sheep.

"As to the article journalthe devil! that's a horse of another color. Holy saints! how one has to warble

before you can teach these bumpkins a new tune. I have only made sixtytwo 'Movements': exactly a

hundred less for the whole trip than the shawls in one town. Those republican rogues! they won't subscribe.

They talk, they talk; they share your opinions, and presently you are all agreed that every existing thing must

be overturned. You feel sure your man is going to subscribe. Not a bit of it! If he owns three feet of ground,

enough to grow ten cabbages, or a few trees to slice into toothpicks, the fellow begins to talk of consolidated

property, taxes, revenues, indemnities,a whole lot of stuff, and I have wasted my time and breath on

patriotism. It's a bad business! Candidly, the 'Movement' does not move. I have written to the directors and

"As for the 'Globe,' that's another breed altogether. Just set to work and talk new doctrines to people you

fancy are fools enough to believe such lies,why, they think you want to burn their houses down! It is vain

for me to tell them that I speak for futurity, for posterity, for selfinterest properly understood; for enterprise

where nothing can be lost; that man has preyed upon man long enough; that woman is a slave; that the great

providential thought should be made to triumph; that a way must be found to arrive at a rational

coordination of the social fabric, in short, the whole reverberation of my sentences. Well, what do you

think? when I open upon them with such ideas these provincials lock their cupboards as if I wanted to steal

their spoons and beg me to go away! Are not they fools? geese? The 'Globe' is smashed. I said to the

proprietors, 'You are too advanced, you go ahead too fast: you ought to get a few results; the provinces like

results.' However, I have made a hundred 'Globes,' and I must say, considering the thickheadedness of these

clodhoppers, it is a miracle. But to do it I had to make them such a lot of promises that I am sure I don't know

how the globites, globists, globules, or whatever they call themselves, will ever get out of them. But they

always tell me they can make the world a great deal better than it is, so I go ahead and prophesy to the value

of ten francs for each subscription. There was one farmer who thought the paper was agricultural because of

its name. I Globed HIM. Bah! he gave in at once; he had a projecting forehead; all men with projecting

"But the 'Children'; oh! ah! as to the 'Children'! I got two thousand between Paris and Blois. Jolly business!

but there is not much to say. You just show a little vignette to the mother, pretending to hide it from the child:

naturally the child wants to see, and pulls mamma's gown and cries for its newspaper, because 'Papa has DOT

his.' Mamma can't let her brat tear the gown; the gown costs thirty francs, the subscription sixeconomy;

result, subscription. It is an excellent thing, meets an actual want; it holds a place between dolls and

"I have had a quarrel here at the table d'hote about the newspapers and my opinions. I was unsuspiciously

eating my dinner next to a man with a gray hat who was reading the 'Debats.' I said to myself, 'Now for my

rostrum eloquence. He is tied to the dynasty; I'll cook him; this triumph will be capital practice for my

ministerial talents.' So I went to work and praised his 'Debats.' Hein! if I didn't lead him along! Thread by

thread, I began to net my man. I launched my fourhorse phrases, and the F sharp arguments, and all the

rest of the cursed stuff. Everybody listened; and I saw a man who had July as plain as day on his mustache,

just ready to nibble at a 'Movement.' Well, I don't know how it was, but I unluckily let fall the word

'blockhead.' Thunder! you should have seen my gray hat, my dynastic hat (shocking bad hat, anyhow), who

got the bit in his teeth and was furiously angry. I put on my grand airyou knowand said to him: 'Ah, ca!

Monsieur, you are remarkably aggressive; if you are not content, I am ready to give you satisfaction; I fought

in July.' 'Though the father of a family,' he replied, 'I am ready' 'Father of a family!' I exclaimed; 'my dear

sir, have you any children?' 'Yes.' 'Twelve years old?' 'Just about.' 'Well, then, the "Children's Journal" is the

very thing for you; six francs a year, one number a month, double columns, edited by great literary lights,

well got up, good paper, engravings from charming sketches by our best artists, actual colored drawings of

the Indieswill not fade.' I fired my broadside 'feelings of a father, etc., etc.,'in short, a subscription

instead of a quarrel. 'There's nobody but Gaudissart who can get out of things like that,' said that little cricket

"I leave tomorrow for Amboise. I shall do up Amboise in two days, and I will write next from Tours, where

I shall measure swords with the inhabitants of that colorless region; colorless, I mean, from the intellectual

and speculative point of view. But, on the word of a Gaudissart, they shall be toppled over, toppled down

"Adieu, my kitten. Love me always; be faithful; fidelity through thick and thin is one of the attributes of the

Five days later Gaudissart started from the Hotel des Faisans, at which he had put up in Tours, and went to

Vouvray, a rich and populous district where the public mind seemed to him susceptible of cultivation.

Mounted upon his horse, he trotted along the embankment thinking no more of his phrases than an actor

thinks of his part which he has played for a hundred times. It was thus that the illustrious Gaudissart went his

cheerful way, admiring the landscape, and little dreaming that in the happy valleys of Vouvray his

Here a few remarks upon the public mind of Touraine are essential to our story. The subtle, satirical,

epigrammatic taletelling spirit stamped on every page of Rabelais is the faithful expression of the

Tourangian mind,a mind polished and refined as it should be in a land where the kings of France long held

their court; ardent, artistic, poetic, voluptuous, yet whose first impulses subside quickly. The softness of the

atmosphere, the beauty of the climate, a certain ease of life and joviality of manners, smother before long the

sentiment of art, narrow the widest heart, and enervate the strongest will. Transplant the Tourangian, and his

fine qualities develop and lead to great results, as we may see in many spheres of action: look at Rabelais and

Semblancay, Plantin the printer and Descartes, Boucicault, the Napoleon of his day, and Pinaigrier, who

painted most of the colored glass in our cathedrals; also Verville and Courier. But the Tourangian,

distinguished though he may be in other regions, sits in his own home like an Indian on his mat or a Turk on

his divan. He employs his wit in laughing at his neighbor and in making merry all his days; and when at last

he reaches the end of his life, he is still a happy man. Touraine is like the Abbaye of Theleme, so vaunted in

the history of Gargantua. There we may find the complying sisterhoods of that famous tale, and there the

As to the donothingness of that blessed land it is sublime and well expressed in a certain popular legend:

"Tourangian, are you hungry, do you want some soup?" "Yes." "Bring your porringer." "Then I am not

hungry." Is it to the joys of the vineyard and the harmonious loveliness of this garden land of France, is it to

the peace and tranquillity of a region where the step of an invader has never trodden, that we owe the soft

compliance of these unconstrained and easy manners? To such questions no answer. Enter this Turkey of

sunny France, and you will stay there,lazy, idle, happy. You may be as ambitious as Napoleon, as poetic as

Lord Byron, and yet a power unknown, invisible, will compel you to bury your poetry within your soul and

The illustrious Gaudissart was fated to encounter here in Vouvray one of those indigenous jesters whose jests

are not intolerable solely because they have reached the perfection of the mocking art. Right or wrong, the

Tourangians are fond of inheriting from their parents. Consequently the doctrines of SaintSimon were

especially hated and villified among them. In Touraine hatred and villification take the form of superb disdain

and witty maliciousness worthy of the land of good stories and practical jokes,a spirit which, alas! is

yielding, day by day, to that other spirit which Lord Byron has characterized as "English cant."

For his sins, after getting down at the Soleil d'Or, an inn kept by a former grenadier of the imperial guard

named Mitouflet, married to a rich widow, the illustrious traveller, after a brief consultation with the landlord,

betook himself to the knave of Vouvray, the jovial merrymaker, the comic man of the neighborhood,

compelled by fame and nature to supply the town with merriment. This country Figaro was once a dyer, and

now possessed about seven or eight thousand francs a year, a pretty house on the slope of the hill, a plump

little wife, and robust health. For ten years he had had nothing to do but take care of his wife and his garden,

marry his daughter, play whist in the evenings, keep the run of all the gossip in the neighborhood, meddle

with the elections, squabble with the large proprietors, and order good dinners; or else trot along the

embankment to find out what was going on in Tours, torment the cure, and finally, by way of dramatic

entertainment, assist at the sale of lands in the neighborhood of his vineyards. In short, he led the true

Tourangian life,the life of a little countrytownsman. He was, moreover, an important member of the

bourgeoisie,a leader among the small proprietors, all of them envious, jealous, delighted to catch up and

retail gossip and calumnies against the aristocracy; dragging things down to their own level; and at war with

all kinds of superiority, which they deposited with the fine composure of ignorance. Monsieur Verniersuch

was the name of this great little manwas just finishing his breakfast, with his wife and daughter on either

side of him, when Gaudissart entered the room through a window that looked out on the Loire and the Cher,

"Is this Monsieur Vernier himself?" said the traveller, bending his vertebral column with such grace that it

"Yes, Monsieur," said the mischievous exdyer, with a scrutinizing look which took in the style of man he

"I come, Monsieur," resumed Gaudissart, "to solicit the aid of your knowledge and insight to guide my efforts

in this district, where Mitouflet tells me you have the greatest influence. Monsieur, I am sent into the

"Who mean to win our tricks," said Vernier, long used to the ways of commercial travellers and to their

"Precisely," replied Gaudissart, with native impudence. "But with your fine tact, Monsieur, you must be

aware that we can't win tricks from people unless it is their interest to play at cards. I beg you not to confound

me with the vulgar herd of travellers who succeed by humbug or importunity. I am no longer a commercial

traveller. I was one, and I glory in it; but today my mission is of higher importance, and should place me, in

the minds of superior people, among those who devote themselves to the enlightenment of their country. The

most distinguished bankers in Paris take part in this affair; not fictitiously, as in some shameful speculations

which I call rattraps. No, no, nothing of the kind! I should never condescendnever!to hawk about such

CATCHFOOLS. No, Monsieur; the most respectable houses in Paris are concerned in this enterprise; and

Hereupon Gaudissart drew forth his whole string of phrases, and Monsieur Vernier let him go the length of

his tether, listening with apparent interest which completely deceived him. But after the word "guarantee"

Vernier paid no further attention to our traveller's rhetoric, and turned over in his mind how to play him some

malicious trick and deliver a land, justly considered halfsavage by speculators unable to get a bite of it, from

At the head of an enchanting valley, called the Valley Coquette because of its windings and the curves which

return upon each other at every step, and seem more and more lovely as we advance, whether we ascend or

descend them, there lived, in a little house surrounded by vineyards, a halfinsane man named Margaritis. He

was of Italian origin, married, but childless; and his wife took care of him with a courage fully appreciated by

the neighborhood. Madame Margaritis was undoubtedly in real danger from a man who, among other fancies,

persisted in carrying about with him two longbladed knives with which he sometimes threatened her. Who

has not seen the wonderful self devotion shown by provincials who consecrate their lives to the care of

sufferers, possibly because of the disgrace heaped upon a bourgeoise if she allows her husband or children to

be taken to a public hospital? Moreover, who does not know the repugnance which these people feel to the

payment of the two or three thousand francs required at Charenton or in the private lunatic asylums? If any

one had spoken to Madame Margaritis of Doctors Dubuisson, Esquirol, Blanche, and others, she would have

preferred, with noble indignation, to keep her thousands and take care of the "goodman" at home.

As the incomprehensible whims of this lunatic are connected with the current of our story, we are compelled

to exhibit the most striking of them. Margaritis went out as soon as it rained, and walked about bare headed

in his vineyard. At home he made incessant inquiries for newspapers; to satisfy him his wife and the

maidservant used to give him an old journal called the "IndreetLoire," and for seven years he had never

yet perceived that he was reading the same number over and over again. Perhaps a doctor would have

observed with interest the connection that evidently existed between the recurring and spasmodic demands

Usually when his wife had company, which happened nearly every evening, for the neighbors, pitying her

situation, would frequently come to play at boston in her salon, Margaritis remained silent in a corner and

never stirred. But the moment ten o'clock began to strike on a clock which he kept shut up in a large oblong

closet, he rose at the stroke with the mechanical precision of the figures which are made to move by springs

in the German toys. He would then advance slowly towards the players, give them a glance like the automatic

gaze of the Greeks and Turks exhibited on the Boulevard du Temple, and say sternly, "Go away!" There were

days when he had lucid intervals and could give his wife excellent advice as to the sale of their wines; but at

such times he became extremely annoying, and would ransack her closets and steal her delicacies, which he

devoured in secret. Occasionally, when the usual visitors made their appearance he would treat them with

civility; but as a general thing his remarks and replies were incoherent. For instance, a lady once asked him,

"How do you feel today, Monsieur Margaritis?" "I have grown a beard," he replied, "have you?" "Are you

better?" asked another. "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" was the answer. But the greater part of the time he gazed

stolidly at his guests without uttering a word; and then his wife would say, "The goodman does not hear

On two or three occasions in the course of five years, and usually about the time of the equinox, this remark

had driven him to frenzy; he flourished his knives and shouted, "That joke dishonors me!"

As for his daily life, he ate, drank, and walked about like other men in sound health; and so it happened that

he was treated with about the same respect and attention that we give to a heavy piece of furniture. Among

his many absurdities was one of which no man had as yet discovered the object, although by long practice the

wiseheads of the community had learned to unravel the meaning of most of his vagaries. He insisted on

keeping a sack of flour and two puncheons of wine in the cellar of his house, and he would allow no one to

lay hands on them. But then the month of June came round he grew uneasy with the restless anxiety of a

madman about the sale of the sack and the puncheons. Madame Margaritis could nearly always persuade him

that the wine had been sold at an enormous price, which she paid over to him, and which he hid so cautiously

that neither his wife nor the servant who watched him had ever been able to discover its hidingplace.

The evening before Gaudissart reached Vouvray Madame Margaritis had had more difficulty than usual in

"I really don't know how I shall get through tomorrow," she had said to Madame Vernier. "Would you

believe it, the goodman insists on watching his two casks of wine. He has worried me so this whole day,

that I had to show him two full puncheons. Our neighbor, Pierre Champlain, fortunately had two which he

had not sold. I asked him to kindly let me have them rolled into our cellar; and oh, dear! now that the

Madame Vernier had related the poor woman's trouble to her husband just before the entrance of Gaudissart,

and at the first words of the famous traveller Vernier determined that he should be made to grapple with

"Monsieur," said the exdyer, as soon as the illustrious Gaudissart had fired his first broadside, "I will not

hide from you the great difficulties which my native place offers to your enterprise. This part of the country

goes along, as it were, in the rough,"suo modo." It is a country where new ideas don't take hold. We live as

our fathers lived, we amuse ourselves with four meals a day, and we cultivate our vineyards and sell our

wines to the best advantage. Our business principle is to sell things for more than they cost us; we shall stick

in that rut, and neither God nor the devil can get us out of it. I will, however, give you some advice, and good

advice is an egg in the hand. There is in this town a retired banker in whose wisdom I haveI,

particularlythe greatest confidence. If you can obtain his support, I will add mine. If your proposals have

real merit, if we are convinced of the advantage of your enterprise, the approval of Monsieur Margaritis

(which carries with it mine) will open to you at least twenty rich houses in Vouvray who will be glad to try

When Madame Vernier heard the name of the lunatic she raised her head and looked at her husband.

"Ah, precisely; my wife intends to call on Madame Margaritis with one of our neighbors. Wait a moment,

and you can accompany these ladies You can pick up Madame Fontanieu on your way," said the wily

To pick out the greatest gossip, the sharpest tongue, the most inveterate cackler of the neighborhood! It meant

that Madame Vernier was to take a witness to the scene between the traveller and the lunatic which should

keep the town in laughter for a month. Monsieur and Madame Vernier played their part so well that

Gaudissart had no suspicions, and straightway fell into the trap. He gallantly offered his arm to Madame

Vernier, and believed that he made, as they went along, the conquest of both ladies, for those benefit he

The house of the pretended banker stood at the entrance to the Valley Coquette. The place, called La Fuye,

had nothing remarkable about it. On the ground floor was a large wainscoted salon, on either side of which

opened the bedroom of the goodman and that of his wife. The salon was entered from an antechamber,

which served as the dining room and communicated with the kitchen. This lower door, which was wholly

without the external charm usually seen even in the humblest dwellings in Touraine, was covered by a

mansard story, reached by a stairway built on the outside of the house against the gable end and protected by

a shedroof. A little garden, full of marigolds, syringas, and elderbushes, separated the house from the

fields; and all around the courtyard were detached buildings which were used in the vintage season for the

Margaritis was seated in an armchair covered with yellow Utrecht velvet, near the window of the salon, and

he did not stir as the two ladies entered with Gaudissart. His thoughts were running on the casks of wine. He

was a spare man, and his bald head, garnished with a few spare locks at the back of it, was pearshaped in

conformation. His sunken eyes, overtopped by heavy black brows and surrounded by discolored circles, his

nose, thin and sharp like the blade of a knife, the strongly marked jawbone, the hollow cheeks, and the oblong

tendency of all these lines, together with his unnaturally long and flat chin, contributed to give a peculiar

expression to his countenance,something between that of a retired professor of rhetoric and a ragpicker.

"Monsieur Margaritis," cried Madame Vernier, addressing him, "come, stir about! Here is a gentleman whom

my husband sends to you, and you must listen to him with great attention. Put away your mathematics and

On hearing these words the lunatic rose, looked at Gaudissart, made him a sign to sit down, and said, "Let us

The two women went into Madame Margaritis' bedroom, leaving the door open so as to hear the

conversation, and interpose if it became necessary. They were hardly installed before Monsieur Vernier crept

softly up through the field and, opening a window, got into the bedroom without noise.

"Public business," answered Margaritis, interrupting him. "I pacificated Calabria under the reign of King

"I am listening," said Margaritis, striking the attitude taken by a man when he poses to a portraitpainter.

"Monsieur," said Gaudissart, who chanced to be turning his watchkey with a rotatory and periodical click

which caught the attention of the lunatic and contributed no doubt to keep him quiet. "Monsieur, if you were

not a man of superior intelligence" (the fool bowed), "I should content myself with merely laying before you

the material advantages of this enterprise, whose psychological aspects it would be a waste of time to explain

to you. Listen! Of all kinds of social wealth, is not time the most precious? To economize time is,

consequently, to become wealthy. Now, is there anything that consumes so much time as those anxieties

which I call 'potboiling'?a vulgar expression, but it puts the whole question in a nutshell. For instance,

what can eat up more time than the inability to give proper security to persons from whom you seek to

"Well, Monsieur, I am sent into the departments by a company of bankers and capitalists, who have

apprehended the enormous waste which rising men of talent are thus making of time, and, consequently, of

intelligence and productive ability. We have seized the idea of capitalizing for such men their future

prospects, and cashing their talents by discountingwhat? TIME; securing the value of it to their survivors. I

may say that it is no longer a question of economizing time, but of giving it a price, a quotation; of

representing in a pecuniary sense those products developed by time which presumably you possess in the

region of your intellect; of representing also the moral qualities with which you are endowed, and which are,

Monsieur, living forces,as living as a cataract, as a steamengine of three, ten, twenty, fifty horsepower.

Ha! this is progress! the movement onward to a better state of things; a movement born of the spirit of our

epoch; a movement essentially progressive, as I shall prove to you when we come to consider the principles

involved in the logical coordination of the social fabric. I will now explain my meaning by literal examples,

leaving aside all purely abstract reasoning, which I call the mathematics of thought. Instead of being, as you

are, a proprietor living upon your income, let us suppose that you are painter, a musician, an artist, or a

"Well, so be it. I see you take my metaphor. You are a painter; you have a glorious future, a rich future before

At these words the madman looked anxiously at Gaudissart, thinking he meant to go away; but was reassured

"You may even be nothing at all," said Gaudissart, going on with his phrases, "but you are conscious of

"you feel yourself a great man; you say to yourself, 'I will be a minister of state.' Well, then, youpainter,

artist, man of letters, statesman of the futureyou reckon upon your talents, you estimate their value, you

"Yes, Monsieur, as you will see. Either your heirs and assigns will receive them if you die, for the company

contemplates that event, or you will receive them in the long run through your works of art, your writings, or

your fortunate speculations during your lifetime. But, as I have already had the honor to tell you, when you

have once fixed upon the value of your intellectual capital,for it is intellectual capital,seize that idea

"You sign a policy of insurance with a company which recognizes in you a value of a hundred thousand

"Yes," resumed Gaudissart,"painter, poet, musician, statesmanand binds itself to pay them over to your

family, your heirs, if, by reason of your death, the hopes foundered on your intellectual capital should be

overthrown for you personally. The payment of the premium is all that is required to protect"

"Yes," said the madman. "I established the Territorial Bank in the Rue des FossesMontmartre at Paris in

"For," resumed Gaudissart, going back to his premium, "in order to meet the payments on the intellectual

capital which each man recognizes and esteems in himself, it is of course necessary that each should pay a

certain premium, three per cent; an annual due of three per cent. Thus, by the payment of this trifling sum, a

"Ah! yes; you mean if you should live long? That is the usual objection,a vulgar prejudice. I fully agree

that if we had not foreseen and demolished it we might feel we were unworthy of being what? What are

we, after all? Bookkeepers in the great Bureau of Intellect. Monsieur, I don't apply these remarks to you, but

I meet on all sides men who make it a business to teach new ideas and disclose chains of reasoning to people

who turn pale at the first word. On my word of honor, it is pitiable! But that's the way of the world, and I

don't pretend to reform it. Your objection, Monsieur, is really sheer nonsense."

"Why?this is why: because, if you live and possess the qualities which are estimated in your policy against

"Well, then, you have succeeded in life; and you have succeeded because of the said insurance. You doubled

your chances of success by getting rid of the anxieties you were dragging about with you in the shape of wife

and children who might otherwise be left destitute at your death. If you attain this certainty, you have touched

the value of your intellectual capital, on which the cost of insurance is but a trifle,a mere trifle, a

"Ah! is it not, Monsieur?" cried Gaudissart. "I call this enterprise the exchequer of beneficence; a mutual

insurance against poverty; or, if you like it better, the discounting, the cashing, of talent. For talent, Monsieur,

is a bill of exchange which Nature gives to the man of genius, and which often has a long time to run before it

"The devil! he's keen, the old fellow! I've made a mistake," thought Gaudissart, "I must catch him with other

"Wife, give us a bottle of the wine that is in the puncheons. You are here at the very head of Vouvray," he

The maidservant brought glasses and a bottle of wine of the vintage of 1819. The goodman filled a glass

"Ah, you are joking, Monsieur!" exclaimed the commercial traveller. "Surely this is Madeira, true Madeira?"

"So you think," said the fool. "The trouble with our Vouvray wine is that it is neither a common wine, nor a

wine that can be drunk with the entremets. It is too generous, too strong. It is often sold in Paris adulterated

with brandy and called Madeira. The winemerchants buy it up, when our vintage has not been good enough

for the Dutch and Belgian markets, to mix it with wines grown in the neighborhood of Paris, and call it

Bordeaux. But what you are drinking just now, my good Monsieur, is a wine for kings, the pure Head of

Vouvray,that's it's name. I have two puncheons, only two puncheons of it left. People who like fine wines,

highclass wines, who furnish their table with qualities that can't be bought in the regular trade,and there

are many persons in Paris who have that vanity,well, such people send direct to us for this wine. Do you

"We are going on," said the fool. "My wine is capital; you are capital, capitalist, intellectual capital, capital

wine,all the same etymology, don't you see? hein? Capital, 'caput,' head, Head of Vouvray, that's my

"So that you have realized your intellectual capital through your wines? Ah, I see!" said Gaudissart.

"I have realized," said the lunatic. "Would you like to buy my puncheons? you shall have them on good

"No, I was merely speaking," said the illustrious Gaudissart, "of the results of insurance and the employment

"I remarked, Monsieur, that if you die the capital will be paid to your family without discussion."

"No, Monsieur; you are aware that suicide is one of those acts which are easy to prove"

"But in other countries?" said Gaudissart. "Well, Monsieur, to cut short discussion on this point, I will say,

once for all, that death in foreign countries or on the field of battle is outside of our"

"Then what are you insuring? Nothing at all!" cried Margaritis. "My bank, my Territorial Bank, rested

"Nothing at all?" exclaimed Gaudissart, interrupting the goodman. "Nothing at all? What do you call

sickness, and afflictions, and poverty, and passions? Don't go off on exceptional points."

"Now, what's the result of all this?" cried Gaudissart. "To you, a banker, I can sum up the profits in a few

words. Listen. A man lives; he has a future; he appears well; he lives, let us say, by his art; he wants money;

he tries to get it,he fails. Civilization withholds cash from this man whose thought could master

civilization, and ought to master it, and will master it some day with a brush, a chisel, with words, ideas,

theories, systems. Civilization is atrocious! It denies bread to the men who give it luxury. It starves them on

sneers and curses, the beggarly rascal! My words may be strong, but I shall not retract them. Well, this great

but neglected man comes to us; we recognize his greatness; we salute him with respect; we listen to him. He

says to us: 'Gentlemen, my life and talents are worth so much; on my productions I will pay you such or such

percentage.' Very good; what do we do? Instantly, without reserve or hesitation, we admit him to the great

"as an honored guest. He signs the insurance policy; he takes our bits of paper,scraps, rags, miserable

rags!which, nevertheless, have more power in the world than his unaided genius. Then, if he wants money,

every one will lend it to him on those rags. At the Bourse, among bankers, wherever he goes, even at the

usurers, he will find money because he can give security. Well, Monsieur, is not that a great gulf to bridge

over in our social system? But that is only one aspect of our work. We insure debtors by another scheme of

policies and premiums. We offer annuities at rates graduated according to ages, on a slidingscale infinitely

more advantageous than what are called tontines, which are based on tables of mortality that are notoriously

false. Our company deals with large masses of men; consequently the annuitants are secure from those

distressing fears which sadden old age,too sad already!fears which pursue those who receive annuities

from private sources. You see, Monsieur, that we have estimated life under all its aspects."

"Sucked it at both ends," said the lunatic. "Take another glass of wine. You've earned it. You must line your

inside with velvet if you are going to pump at it like that every day. Monsieur, the wine of Vouvray, if well

"It is very fine, very new, very useful; but I like the discounts I get at my Territorial Bank, Rue des

"You are quite right, Monsieur," answered Gaudissart; "but that sort of thing is taken and retaken, made and

remade, every day. You have also hypothecating banks which lend upon landed property and redeem it on a

large scale. But that is a narrow idea compared to our system of consolidating hopes,consolidating hopes!

coagulating, so to speak, the aspirations born in every soul, and insuring the realization of our dreams. It

"Yes, progress," muttered the lunatic, with his glass at his lips. "I like progress. That is what I've told them

"The 'Times'!" cried Gaudissart, who did not catch the whole sentence. "The 'Times' is a bad newspaper. If

"The newspaper!" cried Margaritis. "Of course! Wife! wife! where is the newspaper?" he cried, going

"If you are interested in newspapers," said Gaudissart, changing his attack, "we are sure to understand each

"Yes; but before we say anything about that, tell me what you think of this wine."

"Then let us finish the bottle." The lunatic poured out a thimbleful for himself and filled Gaudissart's glass.

"Well, Monsieur, I have two puncheons left of the same wine; if you find it good we can come to terms."

"Exactly," said Gaudissart. "The fathers of the SaintSimonian faith have authorized me to send them all the

commodities IBut allow me to tell you about their noble newspaper. You, who have understood the whole

question of insurance so thoroughly, and who are willing to assist my work in this district"

"If I take your wine; I understand perfectly. Your wine is very good, Monsieur; it puts the stomach in a

"They make champagne out of it; there is a man from Paris who comes here and makes it in Tours."

"I was sure of it!" exclaimed Gaudissart. "Monsieur, you have a fine frontal development; a pateexcuse the

wordwhich our gentlemen call 'horsehead.' There's a horse element in the head of every great man.

Genius will make itself known; but sometimes it happens that great men, in spite of their gifts, remain

obscure. Such was very nearly the case with SaintSimon; also with Monsieur Vico,a strong man just

beginning to shoot up; I am proud of Vico. Now, here we enter upon the new theory and formula of

"Man's spoliation of manby which I mean bodies of men living upon the labor of other menought to

have ceased with the coming of Christ, I say CHRIST, who was sent to proclaim the equality of man in the

sight of God. But what is the fact? Equality up to our day has been an 'ignus fatuus,' a chimera. SaintSimon

has arisen as the complement of Christ; as the modern exponent of the doctrine of equality, or rather of its

"Like liberalism, it has had its day. There is a nobler future before us: a new faith, free labor, free growth,

free production, individual progress, a social coordination in which each man shall receive the full worth of

his individual labor, in which no man shall be preyed upon by other men who, without capacity of their own,

"To judge of this doctrine, Monsieur, you must consider it from a higher point of view: you must take a

general survey of humanity. Here we come to the theories of Ballance: do you know his Palingenesis?"

"Good!" returned Gaudissart. "Well, then, if the palingenistic aspects of the successive transformations of the

spiritualized globe have struck, stirred, roused you, then, my dear sir, the 'Globe' newspaper, noble name

which proclaims its mission,the 'Globe' is an organ, a guide, who will explain to you with the coming of

each day the conditions under which this vast political and moral change will be effected. The gentlemen

"Yes, Monsieur; their houses are kept up in the highest style; I may say, in prophetic style. Superb salons,

"Well," remarked the lunatic, "the workmen who pull things down want wine as much as those who put

"True," said the illustrious Gaudissart, "and all the more, Monsieur, when they pull down with one hand and

"They want good wine; Head of Vouvray, two puncheons, three hundred bottles, only one hundred

"How much is that a bottle?" said Gaudissart, calculating. "Let me see; there's the freight and the duty,it

will come to about seven sous. Why, it wouldn't be a bad thing: they give more for worse wines (Good!

I've got him!" thought Gaudissart, "he wants to sell me wine which I want; I'll master him)Well,

Monsieur," he continued, "those who argue usually come to an agreement. Let us be frank with each other.

"Well, I see that you thoroughly comprehend the insurance of intellectual capital"

"Therefore, in view of your circumstances and of your age, I quite understand that you have no need of

insurance for yourself; but, Monsieur, you might induce others to insure, either because of their inherent

qualities which need development, or for the protection of their families against a precarious future. Now, if

you will subscribe to the 'Globe,' and give me your personal assistance in this district on behalf of insurance,

especially lifeannuity,for the provinces are much attached to annuitiesWell, if you will do this, then

"For life, Monsieur?ah, I see! yes, you are right: it is full of life, vigor, intellect, science,absolutely

crammed with science, well printed, clear type, well set up; what I call 'good nap.' None of your botched

stuff, cotton and wool, trumpery; flimsy rubbish that rips if you look at it. It is deep; it states questions on

which you can meditate at your leisure; it is the very thing to make time pass agreeably in the country."

"Monsieur!" cried Gaudissart, "of course you have got grandchildren? There's the 'Children's Journal'; that

"Very good; take my wine, and I will subscribe to the children. That suits me very well: a fine idea!

"Monsieur! A hundred and ten for the company, but a hundred to me. I enable you to make a sale; you owe

"Willingly, the wine is getting into my head," said the illustrious Gaudissart, following Monsieur Margaritis,

who marched him from row to row and hillock to hillock among the vines. The three ladies and Monsieur

Vernier, left to themselves, went off into fits of laughter as they watched the traveller and the lunatic

discussing, gesticulating, stopping short, resuming their walk, and talking vehemently.

Finally the pair returned, walking with the eager step of men who were in haste to finish up a matter of

And so it was. To the huge delight of the lunatic our illustrious Gaudissart sat down at a cardtable and wrote

an order for the delivery of the two casks of wine. Margaritis, having carefully read it over, counted out seven

francs for his subscription to the "Children's Journal" and gave them to the traveller.

"Adieu until tomorrow, Monsieur," said Gaudissart, twisting his watchkey. "I shall have the honor to call

for you tomorrow. Meantime, send the wine at once to Paris to the address I have given you, and the price

Gaudissart, however, was a Norman, and he had no idea of making any agreement which was not reciprocal.

He therefore required his promised supporter to sign a bond (which the lunatic carefully read over) to deliver

This done, the illustrious Gaudissart departed in high feather, humming, as he skipped along,

The illustrious Gaudissart returned to the Soleil d'Or, where he naturally conversed with the landlord while

waiting for dinner. Mitouflet was an old soldier, guilelessly crafty, like the peasantry of the Loire; he never

laughed at a jest, but took it with the gravity of a man accustomed to the roar of cannon and to make his own

"You have some very strongminded people here," said Gaudissart, leaning against the doorpost and

"Whom have you seen? if I may ask without indiscretion," said the landlord innocently, expectorating after

Mitouflet cast two glances in succession at his guest which were expressive of chilling irony.

"May be; the goodman knows a deal. He knows too much for other folks, who can't always understand

"I can believe it, for he thoroughly comprehends the abstruse principles of finance."

"Well, crazy,cracked, as people are when they are insane," answered Mitouflet. "But he is not dangerous;

his wife takes care of him. Have you been arguing with him?" added the pitiless landlord; "that must have

"Funny!" cried Gaudissart. "Funny! Then your Monsieur Vernier has been making fun of me!"

"Wife! wife! come here and listen. If Monsieur Vernier didn't take it into his head to send this gentleman to

"What in the world did you say to each other, my dear, good Monsieur?" said the wife. "Why, he's crazy!"

"Ha!" snorted the traveller, "then I'll go straight to Monsieur Vernier and thank him."

And Gaudissart departed, boiling over with rage, to shake the exdyer, whom he found in his salon, laughing

"Monsieur," said the prince of travellers, darting a savage glance at his enemy, "you are a scoundrel and a

blackguard; and under pain of being thought a turnkey,a species of being far below a galley

slave,you will give me satisfaction for the insult you dared to offer me in sending me to a man whom you

Such was the harangue which Gaudissart prepared as he went along, as a tragedian makes ready for his

"What!" cried Vernier, delighted at the presence of an audience, "do you think we have no right to make fun

of a man who comes here, bag and baggage, and demands that we hand over our property because, forsooth,

he is pleased to call us great men, painters, artists, poets,mixing us up gratuitously with a set of fools who

have neither house nor home, nor sous nor sense? Why should we put up with a rascal who comes here and

wants us to feather his nest by subscribing to a newspaper which preaches a new religion whose first doctrine

is, if you please, that we are not to inherit from our fathers and mothers? On my sacred word of honor, Pere

Margaritis said things a great deal more sensible. And now, what are you complaining about? You and

Margaritis seemed to understand each other. The gentlemen here present can testify that if you had talked to

"That's all very well for you to say; but I have been insulted, Monsieur, and I demand satisfaction!"

"Very good, Monsieur! consider yourself insulted, if you like. I shall not give you satisfaction, because there

is neither rhyme nor reason nor satisfaction to be found in the whole business. What an absurd fool he is, to

At these words Gaudissart flew at the dyer to give him a slap on the face, but the listening crowd rushed

between them, so that the illustrious traveller only contrived to knock off the wig of his enemy, which fell on

"If you are not satisfied, Monsieur," he said, "I shall be at the Soleil d'Or until tomorrow morning, and you

will find me ready to show you what it means to give satisfaction. I fought in July, Monsieur."

"And you shall fight in Vouvray," answered the dyer; "and what is more, you shall stay here longer than you

Gaudissart marched off, turning over in his mind this prophetic remark, which seemed to him full of sinister

portent. For the first time in his life the prince of travellers did not dine jovially. The whole town of Vouvray

was put in a ferment about the "affair" between Monsieur Vernier and the apostle of SaintSimonism. Never

before had the tragic event of a duel been so much as heard of in that benign and happy valley.

"Monsieur Mitouflet, I am to fight tomorrow with Monsieur Vernier," said Gaudissart to his landlord. "I

Gaudissart had scarcely finished his dinner before Madame Fontanieu and the assistantmayor of Vouvray

came to the Soleil d'Or and took Mitouflet aside. They told him it would be a painful and injurious thing to

the whole canton if a violent death were the result of this affair; they represented the pitiable distress of

Madame Vernier, and conjured him to find some way to arrange matters and save the credit of the district.

In the evening he went up to the traveller's room carrying pens, ink, and paper.

"If you are going to fight tomorrow," answered Mitouflet, "you had better make some settlement of your

affairs; and perhaps you have letters to write,we all have beings who are dear to us. Writing doesn't kill,

you know. Are you a good swordsman? Would you like to get your hand in? I have some foils."

The pair put themselves on guard. Mitouflet, with his former prowess as grenadier of the guard, made

sixtytwo passes at Gaudissart, pushed him about right and left, and finally pinned him up against the wall.

"I advise you to do so; because, if you take large holster pistols and load them up to their muzzles, you can't

risk anything. They are SURE to fire wide of the mark, and both parties can retire from the field with honor.

Let me manage all that. Hein! 'sapristi,' two brave men would be arrant fools to kill each other for a joke."

"Are you sure the pistols will carry WIDE ENOUGH? I should be sorry to kill the man, after all," said

The next morning the two adversaries, more or less pale, met beside the bridge of La Cise. The brave Vernier

"Monsieur," said the traveller, "your joke was rather rough, but it was a good one for all that. I am sorry I

"Monsieur, we take twenty subscriptions to the 'Children's Journal,'" replied the dyer, still pale.

"That being so," said Gaudissart, "why shouldn't we all breakfast together? Men who fight are always the

"Monsieur Mitouflet," said Gaudissart on his return to the inn, "of course you have got a sheriff's officer

"I want to send a summons to my good friend Margaritis to deliver the two casks of wine."

"No matter for that; the affair can be arranged by the payment of an indemnity. I won't have it said that

Madame Margaritis, alarmed at the prospect of a suit in which the plaintiff would certainly win his case,

brought thirty francs to the placable traveller, who thereupon considered himself quits with the happiest

region of sunny France,a region which is also, we must add, the most recalcitrant to new and progressive

On returning from his trip through the southern departments, the illustrious Gaudissart occupied the coupe of

a diligence, where he met a young man to whom, as they journeyed between Angouleme and Paris, he

"Yes, Monsieur," said Gaudissart, "but not habitable on account of the people. You get into duels every day.

Why, it is not three months since I fought one just there," pointing to the bridge of La Cise, "with a damned

Finot, Andoche Cesar Birotteau A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from

Gaudissart, Felix Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Cousin Pons Cesar Birotteau Honorine