23. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 548-572

Part Three: An Inventor's Tribulations, The History of a Lawsuit, 15. Climax; 16. Imprisonment for debt in the provinces; 17. An obdurate father; 18. The pack pauses before the kill

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Lucien writes Eve to tell about Coralie's death and its effect on him: "I have lost many illusions here, and I shall lose many more as I go about begging for the little money I need in order to bury an angel's body in consecrated ground!" And he tells her in a postscript that "a worthy merchant of the name of Camusot" had come to his rescue.

But their reflections on Lucien's plight are interrupted by Marion's announcement that Doublon and his men are there to repossess everything. Petit-Claud arrives to reassure them that this won't happen, but also to inform them that they will owe legal fees even if they succeed in blocking Doublon, which Eve regards as a "remedy worse than the disease."

Old Séchard arrives too, and Petit-Claud informs him that he owes him "seven hundred francs for having intervened in this case," which enrages the old man. But when Petit-Claud asks him, "In an hour or two they'll try to get your son in prison. Will you let him be taken there?" Séchard, who has been playing with his grandson Lucien, "decided that they were staking on his paternal benevolence, and he was afraid of being exploited." He balks at helping his son: "David's such a scholar that he'll surely manage to pay his debts."

Petit-Claud, who is playing all sides for whatever he can get out of them, says,

"Listen to the truth: it's you who got David in his present predicament by selling; him your printing-works for three times its real value and you've ruined him by making him pay this exorbitant price.... You're making a pretence of prodigious love for you grandson in order to disguise the bankruptcy of your feelings for your son and daughter-in-law.... You fondle that little one so that you may appear to love someone in your family and not be taxed with hardheartedness." 

But the truth only gets Séchard's back up, which is in fact what Petit-Claud hopes will happen. Cointet has promised him that when David goes to prison, he'll be introduced to Madame de Sénonches and her ward.

Eve realizes at this point that Petit-Claud can't be trusted, and even the more naive David wonders how Petit-Claud knows so much about his father, not realizing the solicitor is involved with the Cointets and Métivier. When Petit-Claud leaves, he urges David to go see the Cointets and go into partnership with them on his invention. This is the first Séchard has heard of an invention, and Petit-Claud tells him it's a process for making paper more cheaply.

"One more trick for catching me," old Séchard cried. "You're all as thick as thieves. If David has made an invention like that he doesn't need me. He'll be a millionaire! Good-bye, my friends. Nothing doing." And the old man clattered downstairs. 

Balzac explains the obstacles that still remain in David's getting a patent: He needs not only a patent for the invention, but also a "patent of improvement" -- otherwise a competitor can come along and make a slight change in the invention and claim it for his own.

Eve, trying to figure out what Petit-Claud is up to, goes to see Milhaud, the deputy public attorney. (David's mother has just helped to deliver Milhaud's son.) He informs her that the lawyers "are battening on you!" but that there is little they can do other than pay what they owe. The situation, in short, is hopeless. But Kolb manages to overhear what Doublon, the Cointets and Cérizet are up to with regard to sending David to prison: "We'll leave him for a few days until he fells secure," Doublon says, "then we'll pounce on him some day before sunrise or sunset." And he tells them that he has men watching David's house. This is exactly what Kolb needs to know, so he hires a horse and goes back to the house, where he tells them what's afoot.

Eve realizes that the Cointets are behind the lawsuit, because they want to steal David's invention. And when Kolb proposes that they find a place for David to hide, she suggests that he go to Basine Clerget's. Kolb will go out with David, and when the bailiff's men see them he and David will get on the horse and ride away too fast for them to catch up. Meanwhile, Eve goes to see Postel to draw off suspicion and then sneaks over to Basine's to arrange a hiding place for David. When she gets home, Marion tells her, "They've gone."

When Kolb and David get to Marsac on the horse, David decides to go see his father again. Kolb scolds the old man, but David tells him "fathers are always in the right" and sends him off to stable the horse. David proposes to his father that he share in the profits from his invention in return for paying off the debt. Séchard can give him a shed in which to work "in which no one can see me." The old man protests,

"So you don't trust the man who brought you into the world."
"It's not that. I don't trust the man who robbed me of the means of living in it."
"You're right! Everyone for himself!" said the old man. "Very well, I'll put you in my store-room." 

And he agrees that if David can show him the product the next day, he'll give him "twenty-five thousand francs -- on condition that I get the same amount back every year." David says it's a deal.

Séchard gives David a little room in which he distills wine into brandy, which is exactly what David needs. But at two in the morning, Kolb catches Séchard peeking into the room through a hole he has made. He is sent away, and in the morning David brings him thirty sheets of paper he has made. The old man can find no fault with them, but he still wants further tests. And when David admits that there's still a problem with the process that makes the paper too expensive, Séchard withholds the money until that's solved. Unable to come to an agreement with him, David returns with Kolb to Angoulême, where David slips unseen into the room at Basine Clerget's house.

Séchard moves into an attic room at David's house and tries to wheedle Eve into disclosing the secret of David's invention. And he goes to see the Cointets, who tell him that if David's process works, they'll "go in fifty-fifty with him for his invention." Marion catches him trying to break into the shed where David has been conducting his experiments, and he bribes her with twelve francs not to tell Eve. She tells Eve anyway, because there's nothing of significance left in the shed.

David solves the remaining problem with the invention and writes a letter to Eve on the paper he has produced, enclosing some samples. She shows them to Séchard and says, "Give your son the price you get for your vintage and let him make his fortune. He'll repay you ten times over. He has reached success!" Séchard takes the samples to the Cointets, who admit that David has succeeded and say they'll pay off his debts if he'll go into partnership with them. The Cointets know that David will need capital to industrialize the process and to obtain the patents needed. But Séchard doesn't trust either them or his son:

"If I pay David's debts he'll be free, and once he's free he needn't take me on as a partner. He knows very well I swindled him in our first partnership, and won't feel like starting a second one. So it's in my interest to keep him in prison and down on his luck."

Similarly, the Cointets know that once David is out of debt they have no hold over him either. The only solution is to keep him in debt and in hiding. 

22. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 522-548

Part Three: An Inventor's Tribulations, The History of a Lawsuit, 10. A free public lecture on dishonoured bills for those unable to meet them; 11. Lucien under distraint; 12. "Your house is on fire"; 13. A contrast in loyalties; 14. Keeping the fire going

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After Eve learns that her brother has forged David's signature to the bills, Balzac gives us a "lecture" on the financial system in which the Séchards have found themselves entangled, on the premise that "there is nothing about which people are more ignorant than what they ought to know: the workings of the law!" Unfortunately for a reader like me who is ignorant of finance, and especially of the financial system of France in the 1820s, the explanation is fairly hard-going. But the upshot is simple: David is screwed. Not only is he responsible for the debts Lucien has laid on him, but he also has incurred the distrust of the public, who even express "approval and admiration for the severity which old Séchard was showing to his son."

Eve is faced with a choice of sides: her husband or her brother. And she chooses her husband, especially after David receives this note from Métivier, the chief creditor in the case:

Your brother-in-law, Monsieur Chardon, is a man of bad faith and has registered his furniture under the name of the actress with whom he is living. You ought, Monsieur, to have loally informed me of these circumstances to spare me from taking futile legal proceedings, for you did not answer my letter of May tenth. Do not therefore take it in evil part if I ask you immediately to reimburse me for the three bills of exchange and all my expenses.

Until this moment, Eve has thought that Lucien "had atoned for his crime by paying off the forged bills." She sends David off to see Petit-Claud, who is not only his solicitor but also attended school with David. Ignorant of Petit-Claud's deal with Boniface Cointet, David trusts the advice the solicitor gives him. He is still banking on the success of the paper-making process he is inventing, though Petit-Claud advises that commercializing the invention, including taking out a patent, "will take time and money." He doesn't succeed in worming the secret of the process out of David, however. Petit-Claud gets David to sign over power of attorney to him, and to send Eve to do likewise. And he learns from David that the person he trusts most is his "watch-dog," Kolb. He ends with this warning to David: "your house is on fire."

As David walks home from Petit-Claud's, he chews on a stalk of nettle that he has been working with in his research and discovers that the ball of chewed pulp in his mouth has the adhesive properties he needs for paper-making. This lifts his spirits, but Eve is not so sanguine. She is determined to go back to work -- her mother can look after the baby, whom they have named -- of course -- Lucien. She has heard that the forewoman at the laundry where she worked has retired and that a woman she knows from her days there, Basine Clerget, has taken over for her. Eve decides to go to work for her. She also writes Métivier asking him to list the printing-office for sale again, telling him they will pay the debt out of what they get for it. Métivier is away, however, and his clerk tells he he can do nothing in his absence. But he will renew the bills if David's father will agree to endorse them.

So Eve set out on her own to see old Séchard, who remains obdurate and bad-mouths David: "You'd like to know what David is? I'll tell you. He's a good-for-nothing, a scholar!... I'm no scholar. I never had a foreman's job at the Didots, a first-rate printing-firm. But I've never had a summons!" And when he learns that David is being sued, he says, "That's what comes of being able to sign your name!" But he agrees to go see his lawyer, Cachan, to see what can be done.

Eve returns and tells David of the situation, and while they are talking Marion and Kolb come to see them. They have saved up eleven hundred francs and are willing to invest it in David's invention. David sends Kolb with a thousand francs to Cachan, but warns him not to divulge anything about the invention and not to let anyone see him when he's gathering the herbs that David is testing for the paper. When they leave, he says to Eve, "It would be worth getting rich if only to be able to reward such kind souls."

More legal maneuvering takes place: Eve is recognized as David's creditor for ten thousand francs, the amount of her dowry, and "In discharge of this debt he made over to her the stock-in-trade of the printing-office and the household furniture." And when old Séchard goes to see the solicitor Cachan about recovering the rent David owes him, he is sent to Petit-Claud. As a result of these (to me) somewhat arcane maneuvers, the court "ceded the ownership of only movable furniture to Madame Séchard, rejected the claims of Séchard senior and flatly ordered him to pay four hundred and thirty-four francs and sixty-five centimes in costs." Balzac sums up:

David now owed Métivier, by formal judgment and valid writs of execution -- quite legally in fact -- the lump sum of five thousand two hundred francs and twenty-five centimes exclusive of interest. He owed Petit-Claud twelve hundred francs plus his fees, the figure for which ... was left to his generosity. Madame Séchard owed Petit-Claud about three  hundred and fifty francs, and fees into the bargain. Old Séchard's debt came to four hundred and thirty-four francs and sixty-five centimes, and Petit-Claud also demanded three hundred francs from him in fees. The whole thus amounted to some ten thousand francs.

All from the bill Lucien forged for three thousand francs.

19. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 479-496

Part Three: An Inventor's Tribulations, Introduction, 1. The doleful confession of a "child of the age"; 2. Back-kick from a donkey; The History of a Lawsuit, 3. The problem at issue; 4. A plucky wife

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Lucien leaves Paris, taking a bus as far as Longjumeau, where he sets out on foot, then hitches a ride to Tours, then on foot again to Poitiers and beyond. Along the road, he sees a barouche slowly climbing a slope. Unseen, he manages to scramble onto the back of the carriage between two pieces of luggage. He falls asleep and finds himself in the town of Mansle, where he had waited for Madame de Bargeton and his ride to Paris a year and half earlier. And, in a real stretch of a coincidence, it turns out that the carriage on which he has stowed away is that of "the new Prefect of the Charente -- the Comte Sixte du Châtelet -- and his wife, Louise de Nègrepelisse." The former Madame de Bargeton invites him to ride with them, but "Lucien coldly saluted the couple with a look which was both humble and menacing" and departs on foot.

Down to his last three francs and suffering from a fever, he begs lodging for a week from a miller named Courtois and his wife. He identifies himself as "Lucien de Rubempré, ... the son of Monsieur Chardon, who owned the chemist's shop in L'Houmeau before Postel. My sister married David Séchard, the printer in the Place du Mûrier in Angoulême." The miller recognizes David as "the son of the old fox who's running a vineyard at Marsac.... They say he's making his son sell up, and he owns more than two hundred thousand francs' worth of land, without counting what he keeps in his crock."

Lucien faints at the news that David is in financial difficulties, and the miller goes to fetch the doctor and the parish priest of Marsac, who know of Lucien's involvement with Madame de Bargeton as well as her marriage to Châtelet. The doctor tells Lucien that David is "probably in prison" because his father had refused to help him pay some debts -- those incurred by the notes Lucien had forged. Lucien confesses to the priest, telling him not only of the forgery but of his experiences in Paris. The priest agrees to go to Angoulême and find out what has happened to Lucien's mother and sister. In L'Houmeau, the priest learns from Postel, who bought the chemist's shop after Lucien's father died, and who wanted to marry Eve, that she's "living in appalling poverty." Postel, who signed the judgment against David that sent him to prison, tells the priest that Lucien can have his old room back. The priest sets off for Angoulême.

Balzac then flashes back to the story of David's troubles as he tries to develop a new process for making paper in response to the increased demand for it in the post-Restoration era of political discussion.

And so, curiously enough, while Lucien was getting caught in the cogwheels of the vast journalistic machine and running the risk of it tearing his honour and intelligence to shreds, David Séchard, in his distant printing office, was sureying the expansion of the periodical press in its material consequences. 

He had overextended himself in the wedding plans and in helping Lucien get to Paris, and he owed Postel a thousand francs, so the hope of making a breakthrough discovery was urgent.

David assures Eve, of course, that "all our tribulations will come to an end" once his invention succeeds. She is pregnant, but she decides to help out in the print shop while David works on his project. There are only three employees left: Cérizet, an apprentice David brought with him when he came home from Paris; Marion, who has been with the firm since old Séchard ran it; and Kolb, an Alsatian who had been stationed with the army in Angoulême. Marion and Kolb had fallen in love, even though she "was big and fat and thirty-six" and he "was five feet seven inches in height, well-built, and as strong as a fortress."

No one, however, has been keeping track of the accounts, so Eve asks to look at the books and discovers "that during the first six months of his wedded life David had failed to cover his rent, the interest on capital based on the value of his stock and his printer's license, Marion's wages, ink and finally the profits a printer should make." So Eve takes inventory and sets Kolb, Marion, and Cérizet to cleaning things up. She decides to use the paper on hand to print up broadsheets of "the illustrated folk-tales which peasants paste up on the walls of their cottages.... They cost her thirty francs to produce and brought in three hundred francs at a penny apiece." This success inspires her to use the profits to print a "Shepherd's Almanac" with a potential of two thousand francs' profit.

While this bustling activity was in its beginnings there came the heart-rending letters in which Lucien told his mother, sister and brother-in-law of his failure and financial difficulties in Paris. It is therefor easy to see that, in sending three hundred francs to the spoilt child, Eve, Madame Chardon and David had offered the poet their life's blood.

And as Eve's pregnancy advanced, there was good reason to wonder what would happen to them and their print shop.