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Updated: September 25, 2025
Contenson, like his fellows, was only a super in the dramas of which the leading parts were played by his chief when a political investigation was in the wind. "Go 'vay," said Nucingen, dismissing his secretary with a wave of the hand. "Why should this man live in a mansion and I in a lodging?" wondered Contenson to himself.
This is so absolutely true, monsieur, that if you like to leave me in the coach, where I will wait for you, on my honor as an old Commissioner-General of Police, you can go to the hotel and question Contenson.
Poor Lansmatt is dead." Lansmatt was a gatekeeper in the secret of the King's intrigues. The bankers of Paris never knew how much they owed to Contenson. That spy was the cause of Nucingen's allowing an immense loan to be issued in which his share was allotted to him, and which he gave over to them.
"That friend of Peyrade's is still at my heels," thought Jacques Collin. "If only I knew him, I would get rid of him as I did of Contenson. If only I could see Asie once more!" After signing a paper written by Coquart, the judge put it into an envelope and handed it to the clerk of the Delegate's office. This is an indispensable auxiliary to justice.
"Criminal, the head of which was Vidoeq; secret police, which keeps an eye on the other police, the head of it being always unknown; political police, that's Fouche's. It came to an end under Monsieur Decazes. I belonged to the police of Louis XVIII.; I'd been in it since 1793, with that poor Contenson."
The prison chaplain, it has been seen, could make nothing of him. All this business, and the name of Calvi, must have escaped the notice of Jacques Collin, who, at the time, was absorbed in his single-handed struggle with Contenson, Corentin, and Peyrade.
Enough has been said to show what were the means of living of the man who at the Cafe David was known as good old Canquoelle, and by what threads he was tied to the terrible and mysterious powers of the police. Between 1817 and 1822, Corentin, Contenson, Peyrade, and their myrmidons, were often required to keep watch over the Minister of Police himself.
"You may still play the nabob," said Corentin. "To keep an eye on Esther you must keep up her intimacy with Val-Noble. She was really Lucien's mistress." "They have got more than five hundred thousand francs out of Nucingen already," said Contenson. "And they want as much again," Corentin went on. "The Rubempre estate is to cost a million.
In such a case a true sportsman, to keep his hand in, for lack of larks kills sparrows. Domitian, we know, for lack of Christians, killed flies. Contenson, having witnessed Esther's arrest, had, with the keen instinct of a spy, fully understood the upshot of the business. The rascal, as we have seen, did not attempt to conceal his opinion of the Baron de Nucingen.
When he left the Baron, Contenson went quietly from the Rue Saint-Lazare to the Rue Saint-Honore, as far as the Cafe David. He looked in through the windows, and saw an old man who was known there by the name of le Pere Canquoelle.
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