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The day after this interview the bailiff of the justice-of-peace did Cerizet the service of suing la Peyrade secretly. He went to see the barrister that evening, and the whole affair was done without any publicity. The Court of commerce has a hundred such cases in the course of one term. The strict regulations of the council of barristers of the bar of Paris are well known.
Moreover, he decided to go and see the copying clerk at Dutocq's office; it would look, he thought, less like a visit than if he went to his den in the rue des Poules. It was nearly two o'clock when la Peyrade made his entrance into the precincts of the justice-of-peace of the 12th arrondissement.
"Well, my good Madame Lambert, I'll ask my patron to speak to the justice-of-peace, and, if I get a chance, I'll speak to him myself; but, I repeat it, he is very much prejudiced against you." Madame Lambert retired with many curtseys and protestations of gratitude. When she was fairly gone la Peyrade remarked:
However, that is none of my business; every one must settle his own affairs in his own way. Now, then, say what you have to say, distinctly." "I came, monsieur," she replied, "to implore you, monsieur, to implore Monsieur the judge's clerk, to speak in our favor to Monsieur the justice-of-peace. Monsieur the vicar of Saint-Jacques is also to speak to him.
La Peyrade departed, carrying with him the deed of relinquishment. At eleven o'clock he was in the courtroom of the justice-of-peace, perfectly calm, and firm. When he saw Cerizet come in, pale with rage, his eyes full of venom, he said in his ear:
The next day Madame Cardinal intended to consult Cerizet, in view of the fact that he was a clerk in the office of the justice-of-peace; but, before reaching his lair in the rue des Poules, she was met by the porter of a house in which an uncle of hers, a certain Toupillier, was living, who told her that the old man hadn't probably two days to live, being then in the last extremity.
As soon as he was able to leave Edinburgh, he had hurried to Mossgiel and gone through a justice-of-peace marriage with Jean Armour. Burns, with all his faults, was an honest and a high-spirited man, and he loved the mother of his children. Had he hesitated to make her his wife, he must have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian, or that misery of miseries, the remorse of a poet.
Those august personages, before whom the two women lowered the diapason of their voices, called the mother's attention to the fact that the girl was of legitimate theatrical age, and that instead of screaming at the door after the director, she could summon him before the justice-of-peace, or the police-court, whichever she pleased.
What security have we that if the facts about their origin should come out, and the Thuillier marriage shouldn't come off, the court of commerce mightn't annul them as 'obligations without cause. For my part, I should laugh at such a decision; I can stand it; and, moreover, my precautions are taken; but you, as clerk to a justice-of-peace, don't you see that such an affair would give the chancellor a bone to pick with you?"
In herself, the girl has no fortune, but a certain Monsieur Thuillier, her godfather, member of the Council-general of the Seine, has promised her a suitable 'dot." "Who has handled this affair?" "La Peyrade has been devoted to the Thuillier family, into which he was introduced by Monsieur Dutocq, clerk of the justice-of-peace of their arrondissement."
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