Scenes from a Courtesans Life | Page 6

a distinguished ornament, and we will give
you our support.--Finot, a paragraph in the 'latest items'!--Blondet, a
little butter on the fourth page of your paper!--We must advertise the
appearance of one of the finest books of the age, _l'Archer de Charles
IX._! We will appeal to Dauriat to bring out as soon as possible les
Marguerites, those divine sonnets by the French Petrarch! We must
carry our friend through on the shield of stamped paper by which
reputations are made and unmade."
"If you want a supper," said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself of

this mob, which threatened to increase, "it seems to me that you need
not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were
a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier's----" he cried, seeing a woman
come by, whom he rushed to meet.
"Oh! oh! oh!" said Bixiou on three notes, with a mocking glance, and
seeming to recognize the mask to whom Lucien addressed himself.
"This needs confirmation."
He followed the handsome pair, got past them, examined them keenly,
and came back, to the great satisfaction of all the envious crowd, who
were eager to learn the source of Lucien's change of fortune.
"Friends," said Bixiou, "you have long known the goddess of the Sire
de Rubempre's fortune: She is des Lupeaulx's former 'rat.'"
A form of dissipation, now forgotten, but still customary at the
beginning of this century, was the keeping of "rats." The "rat"--a slang
word that has become old-fashioned--was a girl of ten or twelve in the
chorus of some theatre, more particularly at the opera, who was trained
by young roues to vice and infamy. A "rat" was a sort of demon page, a
tomboy who was forgiven a trick if it were but funny. The "rat" might
take what she pleased; she was to be watched like a dangerous animal,
and she brought an element of liveliness into life, like Scapin,
Sganarelle, and Frontin in old-fashioned comedy. But a "rat" was too
expensive; it made no return in honor, profit, or pleasure; the fashion of
rats so completely went out, that in these days few people knew
anything of this detail of fashionable life before the Restoration till
certain writers took up the "rat" as a new subject.
"What! after having seen Coralie killed under him, Lucien means to rob
us of La Torpille?" (the torpedo fish) said Blondet.
As he heard the name the brawny mask gave a significant start, which,
though repressed, was understood by Rastignac.
"It is out of the question," replied Finot; "La Torpille has not a sou to
give away; Nathan tells me she borrowed a thousand francs of Florine."

"Come, gentlemen, gentlemen!" said Rastignac, anxious to defend
Lucien against so odious an imputation.
"Well," cried Vernou, "is Coralie's kept man likely to be so very
particular?"
"Oh!" replied Bixiou, "those thousand francs prove to me that our
friend Lucien lives with La Torpille----"
"What an irreparable loss to literature, science, art, and politics!"
exclaimed Blondet. "La Torpille is the only common prostitute in
whom I ever found the stuff for a superior courtesan; she has not been
spoiled by education--she can neither read nor write, she would have
understood us. We might have given to our era one of those
magnificent Aspasias without which there can be no golden age. See
how admirably Madame du Barry was suited to the eighteenth century,
Ninon de l'Enclos to the seventeenth, Marion Delorme to the sixteenth,
Imperia to the fifteenth, Flora to Republican Rome, which she made
her heir, and which paid off the public debt with her fortune! What
would Horace be without Lydia, Tibullus without Delia, Catullus
without Lesbia, Propertius without Cynthia, Demetrius without Lamia,
who is his glory at this day?"
"Blondet talking of Demetrius in the opera house seems to me rather
too strong of the Debats," said Bixiou in his neighbor's ears.
"And where would the empire of the Caesars have been but for these
queens?" Blondet went on; "Lais and Rhodope are Greece and Egypt.
They all indeed are the poetry of the ages in which they lived. This
poetry, which Napoleon lacked--for the Widow of his Great Army is a
barrack jest, was not wanting to the Revolution; it had Madame Tallien!
In these days there is certainly a throne to let in France which is for her
who can fill it. We among us could make a queen. I should have given
La Torpille an aunt, for her mother is too decidedly dead on the field of
dishonor; du Tillet would have given her a mansion, Lousteau a
carriage, Rastignac her footmen, des Lupeaulx a cook, Finot her
hats"--Finot could not suppress a shrug at standing the point-blank fire
of this epigram--"Vernou would have composed