The Will to Live (Les Roquevillard) by Henry Bordeaux

NOTHING was being talked about in all Chambéry but the clever transaction of Mr. Frasne. It was especially the favourite topic of conversation at the reception given by Mr. and Mrs. Sassenay one evening in celebration of the eighteenth birthday of their daughter Jeanne. One of the characteristics of provincial society seems to be that the men take the occupations and preoccupations of the city into company with them, clinging to the excitements of their business in the midst of social pleasures. At the Sassenays' they one and all abandoned the ladies to the rivalries of clothes, and between the waltzes made off hastily into corners to take up the burden of their financial slanders and professional cares. On this special occasion, the family drama which had shaken the Roquevillards' long standing social status, with its climax due to come off the day after to-morrow -- it was the evening of December 4th -- at the sitting of the court of assizes, was stirring public comment to its depths. Public opinion in Chambéry was tired, no doubt, of the well-founded and continuous ascendancy of the Roquevillards. It was worked up with the desire for levelling down, which is one of the modern zeals, as well as irritation at the persistent pride that refused to plead for itself or beg for sympathy even in misfortune. People, in short, were on the watch for the final collapse of a race which at other times had been considered an ornament to the city.

In the smoking-room were gathered men of law, doctors, manufacturers, capitalists; a few of them now and then, as the first strains of a waltz sounded, made for the group of girls and younger women seated in the drawing-room, like an assaulting party issuing in victorious sallies from a place besieged, to return again shortly to their masculine circle. Only one of them all knew nothing of this lucky speculation of the notary, which some found fault with and others praised, namely, the Viscount de la Mortellerie. His excuse was that he had tarried too long in the fourteenth century, with the history of the ducal castle that he was writing. In vain he tried to interest his neighbours in the ingenuity of Amedeus V, who in 1328 had wooden conduits arranged to bring water from the fountain of Saint Martri to his vast kitchens, where it gushed out in an enormous stone basin, which served also as a pool for the salmon that were destined for the ducal table. People would not listen to this babbler who was almost six hundred years behind the times. Mr. Latache, president of the Chamber of Notaries, sententious, ceremonious, bored, upholding the dignity of his life and business reputation, bore the brunt of the attack made by the little lawyer Coulanges. This latter, a scented, curled and powdered little individual, had assumed the defense of Mr. Frasne on behalf of the younger school.

"No, no," declared Mr. Latache solemnly, "the criminal action follows the civil in such matters. Frasne should have waited for the jury's verdict before accepting reparation for material damage. Or rather, since he has been fully indemnified, he should withdraw his complaint altogether. He ought not to mix up money matters with his vengeance."

"Pardon me, pardon me," parried the bubbling lawyer, fencing promptly. "Let us reason the thing out, I beg of you. Mr. Frasne made a complaint against Maurice Roquevillard of embezzlement in the sum of one hundred thousand francs, and instituted a civil suit against him. The elder Roquevillard offered to restore this sum to him before the arrest, and you blame him now for accepting it?"

"I don't blame him for accepting it, but as he has taken it, I blame him for keeping up his suit. And I don't understand Mr. Roquevillard."

"Oh, he knows his son is guilty, and he buys the jury's indulgence in this way. As for Mr. Frasne, since conviction is always uncertain at trials, he prefers a bird in the hand to two in the bush. Besides, at the hearing, he will make capital out of this payment, as if it were an admission of guilt. It's a very strong presumption."

"It's a great advantage to Frasne certainly. I can't explain Roquevillard's motives, but just the same he's too experienced to leave such a weapon in his adversary's hands without having taken precaution on his own part. The receipt which he must have demanded surely provides that if he discharges the obligation of a third party, it's irrelevant whether that third party is his son or not."

"As a matter of fact, the receipt does make this reservation, and in the most formal terms," announced another lawyer, Mr. Paillet, coming up at this moment and entering into the discussion without loss of time.

"I supposed as much," said Mr. Latache triumphantly. "And rather than affix his signature to a paper containing such a restriction, Mr. Frasne would have been better advised to leave it to the decision of the court."

But Mr. Coulanges was not ready to surrender yet.

"What does such a receipt prove? " he objected. "Would you give up one hundred thousand francs for some one you didn't know?"

The lookers-on agreed that he was right, and testified to their opinion by a flattering murmur of approval, as much as to say that indeed such a piece of generosity must have come from some imperious necessity. Nevertheless, his success was short-lived. Mr. Paillet swept it away for him like a conjurer making a nutmeg disappear before their eyes. He was a gay, round, fat man, who knew everything, poking in everywhere and telling everything he knew.

"I see," he said, "that you don't, any of you, know of Mr. Frasne's finest stroke."

"Tell us about it."

"Well, well."