But each day that elapsed had seemed to bring calm to his soul.
Little by little, he had become to his wife so indulgent and so affectionate, that the poor helot felt her heart touched. He had for his daughter attentions which caused her to wonder.
Often, when the weather was fine, he took them out walking, leading them along the quays towards a part of the walls occupied by the battalion of their ward. Twice he took them to St. Onen, where the sharp-shooters were encamped to which Maxence belonged.
Another day he wished to take them to visit M. de Thaller's house, of which he had charge. They refused, and instead of getting angry, as he certainly would have done formerly, he commenced describing to hem the splendors of the apartments, the magnificent furniture, the carpets and the hangings, the paintings by the great masters, the objects of arts, the bronzes, in a word, all that dazzling luxury of which financiers make use, somewhat as hunters do of the mirror with which larks are caught.
Of business, nothing was ever said.
He went every morning as far as the office of the Mutual Credit; but, as he said, it was solely as a matter of form. Once in a long while, M. Saint Pavin and the younger Jottras paid a visit to the Rue St. Gilles. They had suspended, - the one the payments of his banking house; the other, the publication of "The Financial Pilot."
But they were not idle for all that; and, in the midst of the public distress, they still managed to speculate upon something, no one knew what, and to realize profits.
They rallied pleasantly the fools who had faith in the defence, and imitated in the most laughable manner the appearance, under their soldier's coat, of three or four of their friends who had joined the marching battalions. They boasted that they had no privations to endure, and always knew where to find the fresh butter wherewith to dress the large slices of beef which they possessed the art of finding. Mme. Favoral heard them laugh; and M. Saint Pavin, the manager of " The Financial Pilot," exclaimed, "Come, come! we would be fools to complain. It is a general liquidation, without risks and without costs." Their mirth had something revolting in it; for it was now the last and most acute period of the siege.
At the beginning. the greatest optimists hardly thought that Paris could hold out longer than six weeks. And now the investment had lasted over four months. The population was reduced to nameless articles of food. The supply of bread had failed; the wounded, for lack of a little soup, died in the ambulances; old people and children perished by the hundred; on the left bank the shells came down thick and fast, the weather was intensely cold, and there was no more fuel.
And yet no one complained. From the midst of that population of two millions of inhabitants, not one voice rose to beg for their comfort, their health, their life even, at the cost of a capitulation.
Clear-sighted men had never hoped that Paris alone could compel the raising of the siege; but they thought, that by holding out, and keeping the Prussians under its walls, Paris would give to France time to rise, to organize armies, and to rush upon the enemy.
There was the duty of Paris; and Paris was toiling to fulfil it to the utmost limits of possibility, reckoning as a victory each day that it gained.
Unfortunately, all this suffering was to be in vain. The fatal hour struck, when, supplies being exhausted, it became necessary to surrender. During three days the Prussians camped in the Champs Elysees, gazing with longing eyes upon that city, object of their most eager desires, - that Paris within which, victorious though they were, they had not dared to venture. Then, soon after, communications were reopened; and one morning, as he received a letter from Switzerland, "It is from the Baron de Thaller!" exclaimed M. Favoral.
Exactly so. The manager of the Mutual Credit was a prudent man.
Pleasantly situated in Switzerland, he was in nowise anxious to return to Paris before being quite certain that he had no risks to run.
Upon receiving M. Favoral's assurances to that effect, he started; and, almost at the same time the elder Jottras and M. Costeclar made their appearance.