A Piece of contemporary history
IN the year 1807 a working shoemaker of the name of Francois Picaud lived in Paris. This poor devil, who did his work at home, was a young and good-looking fellow, and was on the point of marrying a neat, pert, lively girl, whom he loved as common people do love the brides they choose, that is, alone among all women; for common people know only one way of loving a woman, that is, marrying her. With this fine project in his head, and dressed in his Sunday’s best, Francois Picaud went to the keeper of a coffee-house, a man who was his equal in age and station but richer than the cobbler, and known for his extravagant jealousy of everybody and everything that was prosperous.
Mathieu Loupian, a native of Nimes like Picaud, kept a coffee and wine shop, well patronized, near the Place Sainte-Opportune. He was a widower with two children; three regular customers, all from the department of the Gard, and all acquainted with Picaud, were with him.
“What’s up?” said the master of the house. “Why, Picaud, you are so smart that one would think you were going to dance las treillas!” This is the name of a popular dance in Lower Languedoc.
“I am going to do better, my friend, – I am going to be married.”
“Whom have you chosen to plant your horns?” said one of the company named Allut.
“Not your mother-in-law’s second girl, for in that family they plant them so clumsily that they stick through your hat.”
In fact Allut’s hat had a hole in it, and the laugh was on the cobbler’s side.
“Joking aside,” said the landlord, “whom are you about to marry?”
“The Vigouroux girl.”
“Therese the rich?”
“The same!”
“Why! she has a hundred thousand francs!” cried the astonished landlord.
“I will repay her in love and happiness! Now, gentlemen, I invite you to the mass, which will be celebrated at Saint-Leu, and to the dance after the wedding banquet, which will take place at the sign of the ‘Bal Champetre’ in the ‘Bosquets de Venus,’ Rue aux Ours, at the rooms of M. Lasignac, dancing-master, fifth floor back.”
The four friends could scarcely reply with a few meaningless words, so dumfounded were they with the good luck of their companion.
“When is the wedding?” asked Loupian.
“Next Tuesday.”
“Tuesday!”
“I reckon on you. Good-bye. I am going to the mayor’s office.”
He left, and the rest stared at each other.
“He is lucky, the rogue!”
“It is witchcraft!”
“Such a fine, such a rich girl!”
“To a cobbler!”
“The wedding is on Tuesday.”
“Yes, three days hence.”
“I’ll lay a bet,” said Loupian, “I’ll put it off!”
“How will you do that?”
“Oh, a joke!”
“How?”
“An excellent bit of fun. The commissary is coming; I’ll tell him I suspect Picaud of being an English spy; then he will be summoned and questioned; he will be terrified, and for eight days at least the marriage will have to wait.”
“Loupian,” said Allut, “that’s a mean trick. You do not know Picaud: if he finds it out, he is a man to take hard vengeance.”
“Bah!” cried the others, “we want to amuse ourselves in carnival time.”
“As much as you like! But I must tell you I am not in it. Every man to his taste.”
“Ah,” cried the cafe-keeper, bitterly, “no wonder you wear horns!”
“I am an honest man, you are envious. I shall live in peace, you will die miserable. Good-night!”
When he had left, the trio encouraged each other not to give up such an amusing idea, and Loupian, the inventor of it, promised his two friends that he would make them laugh till they had to unbutton. On the same day, two hours afterward, the commissary of police, to whom Loupian had been chattering, did his duty as a vigilant officer. He made out of the landlord’s gossip a report in his best official style, and forwarded it to the higher powers. The fatal letter was taken to the Duke of Rovigo; it agreed with the information received respecting the movements in La Vendee. Beyond doubt, Picaud was the connecting link between the South and the West. He must be some important person; his professed trade disguised a gentleman of Languedoc. In short, in the night between Sunday and Monday, the unfortunate Picaud was taken from his room so mysteriously that no one saw him go. After that day, all trace of him was lost completely; his relatives and his friends could not obtain the slightest information of what had befallen him, and he was forgotten.
Time passed. The year 1814 arrived; the Empire fell, and about the 15th day of April, a man, bent by suffering, and aged by despair more than by time, came out of the citadel of Fenestrelles. In seven years he had lived half a century. No one could recognize him; he could not recognize himself when for the first time he looked into a mirror in the wretched tavern of Fenestrelles.
This man, whose prison name had been Joseph Lucher, had been in the service of a rich ecclesiastic of Milan, who regarded him more as a son than a domestic. The priest, indignant at his relatives, who had abandoned him in order to enjoy the income of his large fortune, concealed from them the funds he had deposited in the bank of Hamburg and in the bank of England. He had, furthermore, sold the greater part of his domains to one of the high dignitaries of the Kingdom of Italy, and the interest on these funds was payable annually at a bank in Amsterdam, which had orders to transmit the amount to the vendor.