Rise and Fall of César Birotteau | Page 5

about to say to his wife, "Well, what do you want, Constance?"
his air and manner, like those of a man absorbed in calculations, were
so prodigiously silly that Madame Birotteau began to laugh.
"Goodness! Cesar, if you are not an oddity like that!" she said. "Why
did you leave me alone without telling me? I have nearly died of terror;
I did not know what to imagine. What are you doing there, flying open
to all the winds? You'll get as hoarse as a wolf. Do you hear me,
Birotteau?"
"Yes, wife, here I am," answered the perfumer, coming into the
bedroom.
"Come and warm yourself, and tell me what maggot you've got in your
head," replied Madame Birotteau opening the ashes of the fire, which
she hastened to relight. "I am frozen. What a goose I was to get up in
my night-gown! But I really thought they were assassinating you."
The shopkeeper put his candlestick on the chimney-piece, wrapped his
dressing-gown closer about him, and went mechanically to find a
flannel petticoat for his wife.
"Here, Mimi, cover yourself up," he said. "Twenty-two by eighteen,"
he resumed, going on with his monologue; "we can get a superb salon."
"Ah, ca! Birotteau, are you on the high road to insanity? Are you
dreaming?"
"No, wife, I am calculating."
"You had better wait till daylight for your nonsense," she cried,
fastening the petticoat beneath her short night-gown and going to the
door of the room where her daughter was in bed.
"Cesarine is asleep," she said, "she won't hear us. Come, Birotteau,
speak up. What is it?"

"We can give a ball."
"Give a ball! we? On the word of an honest woman, you are dreaming,
my friend."
"I am not dreaming, my beautiful white doe. Listen. People should
always do what their position in life demands. Government has brought
me forward into prominence. I belong to the government; it is my duty
to study its mind, and further its intentions by developing them. The
Duc de Richelieu has just put an end to the occupation of France by the
foreign armies. According to Monsieur de la Billardiere, the
functionaries who represent the city of Paris should make it their duty,
each in his own sphere of influence, to celebrate the liberation of our
territory. Let us show a true patriotism which shall put these liberals,
these damned intriguers, to the blush; hein? Do you think I don't love
my country? I wish to show the liberals, my enemies, that to love the
king is to love France."
"Do you think you have got any enemies, my poor Birotteau?"
"Why, yes, wife, we have enemies. Half our friends in the quarter are
our enemies. They all say, 'Birotteau has had luck; Birotteau is a man
who came from nothing: yet here he is deputy-mayor; everything
succeeds with him.' Well, they are going to be finely surprised. You are
the first to be told that I am made a chevalier of the Legion of honor.
The king signed the order yesterday."
"Oh! then," said Madame Birotteau, much moved, "of course we must
give the ball, my good friend. But what have you done to merit the
cross?"
"Yesterday, when Monsieur de la Billardiere told me the news," said
Birotteau, modestly, "I asked myself, as you do, what claims I had to it;
but I ended by seeing what they were, and in approving the action of
the government. In the first place, I am a royalist; I was wounded at
Saint-Roch in Vendemiaire: isn't it something to have borne arms in
those days for the good cause? Then, according to the merchants, I
exercised my judicial functions in a way to give general satisfaction. I

am now deputy-mayor. The king grants four crosses to the municipality
of Paris; the prefect, selecting among the deputies suitable persons to
be thus decorated, has placed my name first on the list. The king
moreover knows me: thanks to old Ragon. I furnish him with the only
powder he is willing to use; we alone possess the receipt of the late
queen,--poor, dear, august victim! The mayor vehemently supported me.
So there it is. If the king gives me the cross without my asking for it, it
seems to me that I cannot refuse it without failing in my duty to him.
Did I seek to be deputy-mayor? So, wife, since we are sailing before
the wind, as your uncle Pillerault says when he is jovial, I have decided
to put the household on a footing in conformity with our high position.
If I can become anything, I'll risk being whatever the good God wills
that I shall be, --sub-prefect, if such be my destiny. My wife, you are
much mistaken if you think a citizen