Some birds, beautifully stuffed, but eaten by moth, perched in this wilderness of trumpery, presided over by an Angora cat, Madame Popinot's pet, restored to her no doubt with all the graces of life by some impecunious naturalist, who thus repaid a gift of charity with a perennial treasure.Some local artist whose heart had misguided his brush had painted portraits of M.and Madame Popinot.Even in the bedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes in cross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as to show the senseless labor they had cost.
The window-curtains were black with smoke, and the hangings absolutely colorless.Between the fireplace and the large square table at which the magistrate worked, the cook had set two cups of coffee on a small table, and two armchairs, in mahogany and horsehair, awaited the uncle and nephew.As daylight, darkened by the windows, could not penetrate to this corner, the cook had left two dips burning, whose unsnuffed wicks showed a sort of mushroom growth, giving the red light which promises length of life to the candle from slowness of combustion--a discovery due to some miser.
"My dear uncle, you ought to wrap yourself more warmly when you go down to that parlor.""I cannot bear to keep them waiting, poor souls!--Well, and what do you want of me?""I have come to ask you to dine to-morrow with the Marquise d'Espard.""A relation of ours?" asked Popinot, with such genuine absence of mind that Bianchon laughed.
"No, uncle; the Marquise d'Espard is a high and puissant lady, who has laid before the Courts a petition desiring that a Commission in Lunacy should sit on her husband, and you are appointed----""And you want me to dine with her! Are you mad?" said the lawyer, taking up the code of proceedings."Here, only read this article, prohibiting any magistrate's eating or drinking in the house of either of two parties whom he is called upon to decide between.Let her come and see me, your Marquise, if she has anything to say to me.I was, in fact, to go to examine her husband to-morrow, after working the case up to-night."He rose, took up a packet of papers that lay under a weight where he could see it, and after reading the title, he said:
"Here is the affidavit.Since you take an interest in this high and puissant lady, let us see what she wants."Popinot wrapped his dressing-gown across his body, from which it was constantly slipping and leaving his chest bare; he sopped his bread in the half-cold coffee, and opened the petition, which he read, allowing himself to throw in a parenthesis now and then, and some discussions, in which his nephew took part:--" 'To Monsieur the President of the Civil Tribunal of the Lower Court of the Department of the Seine, sitting at the Palais de Justice.
" 'Madame Jeanne Clementine Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, wife of M.
Charles Maurice Marie Andoche, Comte de Negrepelisse, Marquis d'Espard'--a very good family--'landowner, the said Mme.d'Espard living in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, No.104, and the said M.
d'Espard in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, No.22,'--to be sure, the President told me he lived in this part of the town--'having for her solicitor Maitre Desroches'--Desroches! a pettifogging jobber, a man looked down upon by his brother lawyers, and who does his clients no good--""Poor fellow!" said Bianchon, "unluckily he has no money, and he rushes round like the devil in holy water--That is all."" 'Has the honor to submit to you, Monsieur the President, that for a year past the moral and intellectual powers of her husband, M.
d'Espard, have undergone so serious a change, that at the present day they have reached the state of dementia and idiocy provided for by Article 448 of the Civil Code, and require the application of the remedies set forth by that article, for the security of his fortune and his person, and to guard the interest of his children whom he keeps to live with him.
" 'That, in point of fact, the mental condition of M.d'Espard, which for some years has given grounds for alarm based on the system he has pursued in the management of his affairs, has reached, during the last twelvemonth, a deplorable depth of depression; that his infirm will was the first thing to show the results of the malady; and that its effete state leaves M.the Marquis d'Espard exposed to all the perils of his incompetency, as is proved by the following facts:
" 'For a long time all the income accruing from M.d'Espard's estates are paid, without any reasonable cause, or even temporary advantage, into the hands of an old woman, whose repulsive ugliness is generally remarked on, named Madame Jeanrenaud, living sometimes in Paris, Rue de la Vrilliere, No.8, sometimes at Villeparisis, near Claye, in the Department of Seine et Marne, and for the benefit of her son, aged thirty-six, an officer in the ex-Imperial Guards, whom the Marquis d'Espard has placed by his influence in the King's Guards, as Major in the First Regiment of Cuirassiers.These two persons, who in 1814 were in extreme poverty, have since then purchased house-property of considerable value; among other items, quite recently, a large house in the Grand Rue Verte, where the said Jeanrenaud is laying out considerable sums in order to settle there with the woman Jeanrenaud, intending to marry: these sums amount already to more than a hundred thousand francs.The marriage has been arranged by the intervention of M.d'Espard with his banker, one Mongenod, whose niece he has asked in marriage for the said Jeanrenaud, promising to use his influence to procure him the title and dignity of baron.This has in fact been secured by His Majesty's letters patent, dated December 29th of last year, at the request of the Marquis d'Espard, as can be proved by His Excellency the Keeper of the Seals, if the Court should think proper to require his testimony.
