Derues | Page 9

listened to an orator who held forth in his
shirt sleeves, a little farther there were disputes, quarrels, exclamations
of "Poor man!" "Such a good fellow!" "My poor gossip Derues!"
"Good heavens! what will he do now?" "Alas! he is quite done for; it is
to be hoped his creditors will give him time! "Above all this uproar was
heard a voice, sharp and piercing like a cat's, lamenting, and relating
with sobs the terrible misfortune of last night. At about three in the
morning the inhabitants of the rue St. Victor had been startled out of
their sleep by the cry of "Fire, fire!" A conflagration had burst forth in
Derues' cellar, and though its progress had been arrested and the house
saved from destruction, all the goods stored therein had perished. It
apparently meant a considerable loss in barrels of oil, casks of brandy,
boxes of soap, etc., which Derues estimated at not less than nine

thousand livres.
By what unlucky chance the fire had been caused he had no idea. He
recounted his visit to Madame Legrand, and pale, trembling, hardly
able to sustain himself, he cried--
"I shall die of grief! A poor man as ill as I am! I am lost! I am ruined!"
A harsh voice interrupted his lamentations, and drew the attention of
the crowd to a woman carrying printed broadsides, and who forced a
passage through the crowd up to the shop door. She unfolded one of her
sheets, and cried as loudly and distinctly as her husky voice permitted--
"Sentence pronounced by the Parliament of Paris against John Robert
Cassel, accused and convicted of Fraudulent Bankruptcy!"
Derues looked up and saw a street-hawker who used to come to his
shop for a drink, and with whom he had had a violent quarrel about a
month previously, she having detected him in a piece of knavery, and
abused him roundly in her own style, which was not lacking in energy.
He had not seen her since. The crowd generally, and all the gossips of
the quarter, who held Derues in great veneration, thought that the
woman's cry was intended as an indirect insult, and threatened to
punish her for this irreverence. But, placing one hand on her hip, and
with the other warning off the most pressing by a significant gesture--
"Are you still befooled by his tricks, fools that you are? Yes, no doubt
there was a fire in the cellar last night, no doubt his creditors will be
geese enough to let him off paying his debts! But what you don't know
is, that he didn't really lose by it at all!"
"He lost all his goods!" the crowd cried on all sides. "More than nine
thousand livres! Oil and brandy, do you think those won't burn? The
old witch, she drinks enough to know! If one put a candle near her she
would take fire, fast enough!"
"Perhaps," replied the woman, with renewed gesticulations, "perhaps;
but I don't advise any of you to try. Anyhow, this fellow here is a rogue;
he has been emptying his cellar for the last three nights; there were only
old empty casks in it and empty packing-cases! Oh yes! I have
swallowed his daily lies like everybody else, but I know the truth by
now. He got his liquor taken away by Michael Lambourne's son, the
cobbler in the rue de la Parcheminerie. How do I know? Why, because
the young man came and told me!"
"I turned that woman out of my shop a month ago, for stealing," said

Derues.
Notwithstanding this retaliatory accusation, the woman's bold assertion
might have changed the attitude of the crowd and chilled the
enthusiasm, but at that moment a stout man pressed forward, and
seizing the hawker by the arm, said--
"Go, and hold your tongue, backbiting woman!"
To this man, the honour of Derues was an article of faith; he had not
yet ceased to wonder at the probity of this sainted person, and to doubt
it in the least was as good as suspecting his own.
"My dear friend," he said, "we all know what to think of you. I know
you well. Send to me tomorrow, and you shall have what goods you
want, on credit, for as long as is necessary. Now, evil tongue, what do
you say to that?"
"I say that you are as great a fool as the rest. Adieu, friend Derues; go
on as you have begun, and I shall be selling your 'sentence' some day";
and dispersing the crowd with a few twirls of her right arm, she passed
on, crying--
"Sentence pronounced by the Parliament of Paris against John Robert
Cassel, accused and convicted of Fraudulent Bankruptcy!"
This accusation emanated from too insignificant a quarter to have any