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"Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a general-secretary?" "What?" "I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs, you will despise me because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well, Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed." "But all that is monstrous."
Vimeux was originally appointed to Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself transferred to Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity in relation to what were called "the English," a name given by the government clerks to their creditors. "English day" means the day on which the government offices are thrown open to the public.
At each separate affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer's little eyes grew big as saucers. "Farewell, monsieur," said Rabourdin at last, with a manner that was half-solemn, half-satirical. Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and letters belonging to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney coach.
He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once into Baudoyer's section to ask him to come to the office of the head of the division and receive instructions as to the business which that incapable being was henceforth to direct.
His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old Gigonnet's strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in the end to benefit his nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important that the latter should obtain a position which would be in keeping with the combined fortunes of the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which would finally devolve on the Baudoyer's little daughter; and what an heiress she would be with an income of a hundred thousand francs! to what social position might she not aspire with that fortune?
First of all, we must make sure of Baudoyer's appointment, and des Lupeaulx will get it for us on these terms; after that is settled we will hand him back to you. Falleix is now canvassing the electoral vote. Don't you perceive that you have Lupeaulx completely in your power until after the election? for Falleix's friends are a large majority. Now do you see what I mean, papa Gigonnet?"
Bixiou. "By cochineal." Vimeux. "Yes, cochineal; he's a partner in the house of Matifat, rue des Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to be replaced. So much is certain; the rest is all conjecture. The appointment of Monsieur Rabourdin is to be announced this morning; they are afraid of intrigues." Bixiou. "What intrigues?" Fleury. "Baudoyer's, confound him!
Saillard, terrified, rushed up to Baudoyer's office, where he found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state of exasperation difficult to describe; for they were reading the terrible paper on the administration in which they were all discussed. "Saillard. The office of cashier to be suppressed in all the ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the Treasury.
We need not, we think, point out to the intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom the liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the administration, had little really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer's appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great self-interests.
The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's bureau held the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard. Minard had married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-flower maker employed by Mademoiselle Godard.
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