Mlle Clerget

Mlle Clerget, also known as Basine Clerget, is an old friend of Ève Séchard whose practical generosity becomes crucial when David Séchard’s family is under pressure. Once a companion of Ève’s during their working years, she offers a place of employment and later risks helping conceal David from his pursuers. Her friendship is more than a source of comfort: it provides work, shelter, secrecy, and a channel for the first news of David’s papermaking success.

Friendship and Work

Mlle Clerget and Ève’s friendship reaches back to the period when Ève was the first assistant at Mme Prieur’s. Ève remembers Basine as a well-behaved young girl and identifies her as Postel’s cousin. By the time the family faces hardship, Basine has succeeded Mme Prieur. She tells Ève of this change while bringing her fine linen, and Ève sees the news as an immediate means of supporting those she loves: she can go to work for her old friend.

Ève’s proposed work is concrete and modest. She promises that so long as her fingers can hold an iron, the household will not lack for necessities. Mlle Clerget’s new position gives that promise a practical possibility; friendship opens a route back into paid labor at a moment when David’s invention has not yet brought the family security. The episode establishes the character of Basine’s help before the danger intensifies: she is not merely someone Ève remembers fondly, but a person in a position to offer assistance.

A Refuge Made Possible by Trust

When David must evade his enemies, the family needs a way to reach Basine without leading the watchers to her home. Ève proposes going there by night and says she will arrange matters with her friend, describing Basine as another self. The plan has to account for surveillance: David warns that spies are following them, and Kolb offers to draw the pursuers away while Ève makes her visit.

David and Kolb ride out together and lead the spies away from the house. Ève, meanwhile, first visits Postel under the pretext of consulting him, then leaves and reaches Basine’s home unseen. Once there, she confides her distress and asks for protection. Basine receives her privately in her own room, then opens an adjoining cabinet whose roof-window admits daylight but whose interior cannot be seen from outside. This secluded space becomes David’s hiding place, away from the view of both his enemies and the police.

The arrangement depends on details of Basine’s house and work. A small fireplace in the cabinet has a flue running alongside the chimney of the workshop where the ironing women keep a fire for their irons. Basine and Ève uncover the little fireplace and lay worn blankets on the floor to muffle any noise David might make by accident. They furnish the cabinet with a folding bed, a stove for his experiments, a table, and a chair for sitting and writing. Basine promises to bring him food at night. Her aid is thus carefully organized around ordinary domestic spaces and routines, made private enough to conceal a fugitive and sustain his work.

Secrecy and Practical Loyalty

Basine’s assistance is active, not simply permission to hide. She helps prepare the room, shares the risk of keeping David there, and agrees to feed him at night. The secrecy extends beyond the refuge itself: Ève first uses a plausible visit to Postel to disguise her movements, while David and Kolb draw the spies elsewhere. Basine’s room and adjoining cabinet offer concealment; the workshop’s familiar fires and the hidden flue make that concealment workable.

The scene gives a material form to the trust between the two women. Ève can ask Basine for protection because their bond predates the crisis, and Basine answers by turning the privacy of her own home into a safeguard for Ève’s husband. Ève embraces her after David is settled, declaring in effect that he is now safe. The rescue is consequently a shared undertaking: Ève plans and carries out the visit, Basine provides the protected space and provisions, and David can remain hidden while continuing his experiments.

The First Paper and Its Promise

Basine later brings Ève a letter from David, written on what he describes as the first sheet of paper produced by his process. She delivers it secretly, preserving the connection between the hidden inventor and the family outside. The letter reports that David has solved the problem of sizing paper in the vat. He estimates the pulp at five sous per pound, even allowing for specially cultivated land for the materials, and calculates that a twelve-pound ream would require three francs’ worth of sized pulp. He believes the method will cut the weight of books in half; the envelope, letter, and samples represent different versions of the manufacture.

The message makes Basine’s refuge part of the story of the invention itself. The stove and table in the cabinet give David a place to work, while Basine’s secret delivery carries the results back to Ève. The first sheet is both evidence of technical progress and a personal message to the woman who has sustained him. Basine, who first offered Ève a possible livelihood, now helps preserve the conditions under which David can pursue the work that may change the family’s fortunes.