be most unhappy if I failed to deserve your regard. I lost my wife recently, I have two children left on my hands, I am a sensible and practical man. In marrying your niece I am doing good all round. If you retain any prejudice against me, you will lose it later on when I have dried everyone’s tears and made the fortune of all my family. Success is a golden flame that purifies everything. I want M. Béraud himself to shake me by the hand and thank me….”
He lost himself. He talked on for a long while in the same bantering strain, whose cynicism from time to time shone through his genial air. He dragged in his brother, the Deputy, his father the receiver of taxes at Plassans. He ended by making a conquest of Aunt Elisabeth who, with involuntary joy, saw the tragedy under which she had been suffering for the past month ending, under this clever man’s fingers, in a comedy that was almost hilarious. It was arranged that they should go to the notary the next day.
So soon as Madame Aubertot had gone, Saccard went to the Hotel de Ville, and spent the day in turning over certain documents that he knew of. At the notary’s he raised a difficulty, he said that as Renée’s dowry consisted entirely of landed property, he feared it would give her a deal of worry, and that he thought it would be as well to sell the house in the Rue de la Pépinière in order to secure her an investment in the funds. Mme. Aubertot proposed to refer the matter to M. Béraud du Châtel, who continued to keep his room. Saccard went out again till the evening. He went to the Rue de la Pépinière, he walked about Paris with the preoccupied air of a general on the eve of a decisive battle. The next day Mme. Aubertot declared that M. Béraud du Châtel left the whole matter in her hands. The contract was drawn up on the lines already discussed. Saccard brought in two hundred thousand francs, Renée’s dowry was the Sologne property and the house in the Rue de la Pépinière, which she agreed to sell; and further, in the case of the death of her first child, she was to be the sole owner of the land at Charonne given her by her aunt. The contract was in accordance with the system of separate estates by which the husband and wife retain the entire management of their respective fortunes. Aunt Elisabeth followed the notary attentively, and seemed contented with this system, whose provisions apparently assured her niece’s independence by placing her fortune beyond the reach of any attempts. Saccard smiled vaguely as he saw the good lady nodding her approval of each clause. The marriage was fixed to take place at the earliest possible date.
When all was settled, Saccard paid a ceremonial visit to his brother Eugène to announce his marriage with Mlle. Renée Béraud du Châtel. This masterstroke took the deputy by surprise. As he made no attempt to conceal his astonishment, the clerk said:
“You told me to look, and I looked until I found.”
Eugène, bewildered at first, began to get a glimpse of the truth. And in a charming tone he said:
“Come, you’re a clever fellow…. I suppose you have come to ask me to be your witness. You may rely on me…. If necessary, I will bring the whole of the Right of the Corps Législatif to your wedding; that would launch you nicely….”
Then, as he had opened the door, he lowered his voice to add:
“I say…. I don’t want to compromise myself too much just now, we have a very tough bill to pass…. The lady is not very far gone, I hope?”
Saccard gave him such a savage look that Eugène said to himself, as he shut the door:
“That’s a joke that would cost me dear if I were not a Rougon.”
The marriage was solemnised in the Church of Saint-Louis-en-l’Île. Saccard and Renée did not meet till the eve of that great day. The introduction took place early in the evening, in a low reception-room at the Hotel Béraud. They examined each other curiously. Renée, since her marriage had been arranged, had regained her light-headedness, her madcap ways. She was a tall girl of exquisite and tempestuous beauty, that had grown up at random through her schoolgirl caprices. She thought Saccard small and ugly, but ugly in a restless and intelligent way that she did not dislike; and moreover, he was perfect in manner and deportment. As for him, he made a little grimace at the first sight of her; she doubtless struck him as too tall, taller than he was. They exchanged a few words, free from embarrassment. Had the father been present, he might readily have believed that they had long known each other, and that they had a common fault in their past lives. Aunt Elisabeth, who was present at the interview, blushed in their stead.
On the day after the wedding, which the presence of Eugène Rougon, whom a recent speech had brought to the forefront, magnified into an event in the Île Saint-Louis, the newly-married couple were at length admitted to the presence of Monsieur Béraud du Châtel. Renée shed tears on finding her father aged, graver, and sadder. Saccard, whom up to that point nothing had put out of countenance, was frozen by the chill and gloom of the room, by the sombre austerity of the tall old man, whose piercing eye seemed to penetrate to the depths of his conscience. The ex-magistrate kissed his daughter slowly on the forehead, as though to tell her that he forgave her, and turning to his son-in-law: “Monsieur,” he said, simply, “we have suffered greatly, I trust you will give us reason to forget the wrong you have done us.”
He held out his hand. But Saccard remained timorous. He thought how, if M. Béraud du Châtel had not given way under the tragic sorrow of Renée’s shame, he might with a glance, with a gesture, have annulled Madame Sidonie’s manuœvres. The latter, after bringing her brother and Aunt Elisabeth together, had prudently effaced herself. She had not even come to the wedding. Saccard adopted an attitude of great frankness towards the old man, having read in his face a look of surprise at finding his daughter’s seducer ugly, little, and forty years of age. The newly-married couple were compelled to spend the first nights at the Hotel Béraud. Christine had been sent away two months since, so that this child of fourteen might have no suspicion of the drama that was being enacted in this house, peaceful and serene as a convent. When she returned home, she stood aghast before her sister’s husband, whom she too thought old and ugly. Renée alone seemed to take but little notice of her husband’s age or his mean aspect. She treated him without contempt as without affection, with absolute tranquillity, through which was visible an occasional glimmer of ironical disdain. Saccard strutted about, made himself at home, and really succeeded, by his frankness and vivacity, in gradually winning everybody’s good will. When they took their departure, in order to install themselves in an imposing flat in a new house in the Rue de Rivoli, M. Béraud du Châtel had lost his look of astonishment, and Christine had taken to playing with her brother-in-law as with a schoolfellow. Renée’s pregnancy was at that time four months advanced; her husband was on the point of sending her to the country, proposing afterwards to lie as to the child’s age, when, as Madame Sidonie had foretold, she had a miscarriage. She had so tightly laced herself to dissimulate her condition, which was moreover concealed under the fulness of her skirts, that she was compelled to keep her bed for some weeks. He was enchanted with the adventure; Fortune was at last on his side; he had made a golden bargain: a splendid dowry, a wife of a beauty that should be worth a decoration to him within six months, and not the least encumbrance. He had received two hundred thousand francs to give his name to a fœtus which its mother would not even look at. From that moment his thoughts began to turn affectionately towards the Charonne property. But for the time being he devoted all his attention to a speculation which was to be the basis of his fortune.
Notwithstanding the high standing of his wife’s family, he did not immediately resign his post as a surveyor of roads. He talked of work that had to be finished, of an occupation that had to be sought for. As a matter of fact he wished to remain till the end on the battlefield upon which he was venturing his first stake. He felt at home, he was able to cheat more at his ease.
His plan of fortune was simple and practical. Now that he had more money than he had ever hoped for in hand to begin his operations, he reckoned on putting his designs into execution on a large scale. He had all Paris at his fingers’ ends; he knew that the shower of gold which was beating down upon the walls would fall more heavily every day. Clever people had but to open their pockets. He had enlisted himself among the clever ones by reading the future in the offices of the Hôtel de Ville. His duties had taught him what may be stolen in the buying and selling of houses and ground. He was well up in every classical swindle: he knew how you sell for a million