The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie: Vautrin’s Lesson
He quickly falls in love with Delphine, who has been abandoned by her husband, Baron de Nucingen, a banker who has already used his wife’s dowry in any number of speculative ventures. Rastignac soon sheds his illusions as he discovers the cynicism of a society entirely corrupted by money. He is appalled to learn how Père Goriot has been abandoned by his daughters, who, preoccupied as they are with social success, are ashamed of their father and have seen little of him since availing themselves of his fortune. The old man dies in sordid poverty and solitude. Only Rastignac attends his burial. But no sooner has he left Père Lachaise cemetery than he is overwhelmed by the sight of Parisian wealth on display along the Seine and decides to set out in conquest of the capital:“It’s just you and me now!” he apostrophizes the city. His sentimental and social education is over. From this point on he, too, will be ruthless.
The darkest moment in the novel, when the social
and moral dilemmas Rastignac faces are rawest and clearest, comes at the
midpoint, when the shady character Vautrin offers him a lesson about his future
prospects. Vautrin, who resides in the same shabby boarding house as Rastignac
and Goriot, is a glib talker and seducer who is concealing a dark past as a
convict, much like Edmond Dantès in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo or
Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. In contrast to those two characters, who
are on the whole worthy fellows, Vautrin is deeply wicked and cynical. He
attempts to lure Rastignac into committing a murder in order to lay hands on a
large legacy. Before that, Vautrin offers Rastignac an extremely lurid,
detailed lesson about the different fates that might befall a young man in the
French society of the day.
In substance, Vautrin explains to Rastignac that it
is illusory to think that social success can be achieved through study, talent,
and effort. He paints a detailed portrait of the various possible careers that
await his young friend if he pursues studies in law or medicine, fields in
which professional competence counts more than inherited wealth. In particular,
Vautrin explains very clearly to Rastignac what yearly income he can aspire to
in each of these professions. The verdict is clear: even if he ranks at the top
of his class and quickly achieves a brilliant career in law, which will require
many compromises, he will still have to get by on a mediocre income and give up
all hope of becoming truly wealthy:
By the
age of thirty, you will be a judge making 1,200 francs a year, if you haven’t
yet tossed away your robes. When you reach forty, you will marry a miller’s
daughter with an income of around 6,000 livres. Thank you very much. If you’re
lucky enough to find a patron, you will become a royal prosecutor at thirty,
with compensation of a thousand écus [5,000 francs], and you will marry the
mayor’s daughter. If you’re willing to do a little political dirty work, you will
be a prosecutor-general by the time you’re forty.… It is
my privilege to point out to you, however, that there are only twenty
prosecutors-general in France, while 20,000 of you aspire to the position, and
among them are a few clowns who would sell their families to move up a rung. If
this profession disgusts you, consider another. Would Baron de Rastignac like
to be a lawyer? Very well then! You will need to suffer ten years of misery,
spend a thousand francs a month, acquire a library and an office, frequent
society, kiss the hem of a clerk to get cases, and lick the courthouse floor
with your tongue. If the profession led anywhere, I wouldn’t advise you against
it. But can you name five lawyers in Paris who earn more than 50,000 francs a
year at the age of fifty?
By contrast, the strategy for social success that
Vautrin proposes to Rastignac is quite a bit more efficient. By marrying
Mademoiselle Victorine, a shy young woman who lives in the boarding house and
has eyes only for the handsome Eugène, he will immediately lay hands on a
fortune of a million francs. This will enable him to draw at age twenty an
annual income of 50,000 francs (5 percent of the capital) and thus immediately
achieve ten times the level of comfort to which he could hope to aspire only
years later on a royal prosecutor’s salary (and as much as the most prosperous
Parisian lawyers of the day earned at age fifty after years of effort and
intrigue).
The conclusion is clear: he must lose no time in
marrying young Victorine, ignoring the fact that she is neither very pretty nor
very appealing. Eugène eagerly heeds Vautrin’s lesson right up to the ultimate
coup de grâce: if the illegitimate child Victorine is to be recognized by her
wealthy father and become the heiress of the million francs Vautrin has
mentioned, her brother must first be killed. The ex-convict is ready to take on
this task in exchange for a commission. This is too much for Rastignac:
although he is quite amenable to Vautrin’s arguments concerning the merits of inheritance
over study, he is not prepared to commit murder.
[Narrated by Thomas Piketty in his Capital in the
Twenty-First Century, Chapter-7.]
Here they are
prepared to commit murder! This is Twenty-First Century bourgeois
society!! 
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