Kitabı oku: «The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn», sayfa 4

CHAPTER IV.
PRADELINE

Gonthram Neroweg, Count of Plouernel, occupied a cosy little house on Paradis-Poissonniere Street, built by his own grandfather. The somewhat rococo elegance of the establishment suggested it must have been constructed about the middle of the last century, and had done service as a city residence. The quarter of the Poissonnieres, or Fish-markets, as the neighborhood was called in the days of the Regency, but now almost deserted, was perfectly appropriate for those mysterious retreats that are devoted to the cult of Venus Aphrodite.

The Count of Plouernel was breakfasting tête-a-tête with a pretty girl of about twenty years – a brunette, lively and laughterful, who had been surnamed Pradeline because of her readiness, at the suppers of which she always was the soul and often the queen also, in improvising upon all imaginable subjects, ditties that the celebrated improviser, whose name she bore with a feminine termination, would surely not have cared to father, but which had at least the redeeming feature of lacking neither in point nor in mirthfulness.

The Count of Plouernel, having heard speak of Pradeline, invited her to sup the previous night with him and some of his friends. After the supper, which was prolonged until three in the morning, the right of hospitality for the night had been earned by the girl. After the hospitality came breakfast the following morning. The two companions were, accordingly, at table in a little boudoir fitted out in Louis XV style, and contiguous to the bed chamber. A good fire blazed in the marble-tipped hearth. Thick curtains of light blue damask, covered with roses, softened the glare of the daylight. Flowers filled large porcelain vases. The atmosphere was warm and perfumed. The wines were choice, the dishes toothsome. Pradeline and the Count of Plouernel were doing honor to both.

The colonel was a man of about thirty-eight years of age – tall, and at once lithe and robust. His face, though rather haggard, on that morning, was of a species of bold beauty, and strongly betrayed his German or Frankish stock, the characteristic traits of which Tacitus and Caesar frequently described. His hair was light blonde, his moustache long and reddish, his eyes light grey, and his nose hooked like an eagle's beak.

Wrapped in a costly morning gown, the Count of Plouernel seemed no less hilarious than the young girl.

"Come, Pradeline," said he, pouring out to her a glass of generous old Burgundy wine, "to the health of your lover."

"Nonsense! Do you think I keep a lover?"

"You are right. To the health of your lovers!"

"You don't seem to be jealous, darling!"

"And you?"

At this question Pradeline nonchalantly opened her red corsage, and clinking her glass with the blade of her knife she answered the Count of Plouernel with an improvisation to the tune then in vogue of La Rifla:

 
"For ague-cheeked Sir Fidelity
I only have duplicity.
When some gay lover pleases me,
'Tis quickly done! He pleases me —
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla,
La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla."
 

"Bravo, my dear!" cried the colonel, laughing boisterously.

And joining in chorus with Pradeline, he sang, also clinking his glass with the edge of his knife:

 
"When some gay lover pleases me,
'Tis quickly done! He pleases me.
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla,
La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla."
 

"And now, my little girl," he proceeded to say at the close of the refrain, "since you are not jealous, give me some advice – some friendly advice. I am in love – desperately in love."

"Is it possible!"

"If she were a woman of the world I would not ask your advice, but – "

"Well! Well! Am I, perchance, not a woman? and of the world, too?"

"Of all the world, not true, my dear?"

"Naturally, seeing I'm here – which is little to your credit, my dear, and less creditable to me. But that matters not. Proceed, and don't be rude again – if you can avoid it."

"Oh! The little one gives me a lesson in politeness!"

"You want my advice; you see I can give you lessons. Proceed, what have you to say?"

"You must know I am in love with a shop-girl, that is to say, her father and mother keep a shop. You surely know the ways of such folks, their customs and habits. What means would you advise me to employ in order to succeed?"

"Make yourself beloved."

"That takes too long. When a violent fancy seizes me, I find it impossible to wait."

"Indeed! 'Tis wonderful, but, darling, you interest me greatly. Let's see. First of all is the shop-girl poor? Is she in great want? Does she seem very hungry?"

"How? Whether she is hungry? What the devil do you mean?"

"Colonel, I can not deny your personal attractions – you're handsome, you're brilliant, you're charming, you're adorable, you're delicious – "

"Irony?"

"What do you think! Would I dare to? Well, as I was saying, you're delicious! But, in order for the poor girl to appreciate you duly, she must first be dying of hunger. You have no idea how hunger – helps to find people adorable."

Whereupon Pradeline sailed in to improvise a new ditty, not, this time, in merry vein, but with marked bitterness, and keeping time with such a slow measure that her favorite tune sounded melancholic:

 
"You're hungry and you weep,
Come, maid, and fall asleep;
Come, you'll have plenty of gold,
Thyself to me be sold.
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla – "
 

"The devil take that song! This one is not at all jolly," remarked the Count of Plouernel, struck by the melancholic accents of the young girl, who, however, quickly resumed her reckless bearing and wonted cheerfulness. "I understand the allusion," he added; "but my pretty shop-girl is not hungry."

"The next thing – is she coquettish? Does she love to be prinked? Does she like jewelry, or theaters? These are famous means to blast a poor girl."

"I presume she likes all those things. But she has a father and mother, and they probably keep a close watch over her. In view of all this I had a plan – "

"You? At last you have a plan of your own! And what is it?"

"It is to make frequent and large purchases in that shop, even to loan them money at a pinch, because I know those small traders must ever be hard pushed for cash to pay their bills."

"In other words, you believe they will be ready to sell you their daughter – for cash?"

"No; but I figure that they will at least shut their eyes – I would then be able to dazzle the minx with presents, and proceed rapidly to my goal. Well, how does my plan strike you?"

"I'll be blown! How can I tell?" answered Pradeline, affecting innocence. "If things are done in your upper world in that manner, if parents sell their daughters, perhaps the thing is done in the same way among the poorer folks. Still, I don't believe it. These people are too bourgeois, they are too niggardly, you see?"

"My little girl," said the Count of Plouernel haughtily, "you are emancipating yourself prodigiously."

At this reproach the young girl broke out with a peal of laughter, which she interrupted to sing in merry notes this new improvisation:

 
"O! See that bold signor,
So full of pride, honor?
To such a haughty flea
All bourgeois bend the knee!
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla – "
 

After which Pradeline rose, took from the mantlepiece a cigar that she deftly lighted, and proceeded to hum her refrain between the puffs of smoke that she blew out of her cherry lips. She then stretched herself at full length upon a lounge, and drove in silence the bluish smoke of her choice Havana towards the ceiling.

Forgetting the anger with which he was seized shortly before, the Count of Plouernel could not avoid laughing at the originality displayed by the young girl, and said:

"Come, my little pet; let us talk seriously. I am not asking for songs, but for advice."

"I must first be informed of the quarter of the town in which your love is located," observed the young girl dogmatically, turning over on the lounge. "The knowledge of the quarter is very important in such matters. What may be done in one quarter, can not be done in another. Darling, there are prudish quarters, devout quarters, and decolleté quarters."

"Profoundly reasoned, my charmer. The influence of a quarter upon the virtue of its women is considerable. Without running any risk I may tell you that my shop-girl lives on St. Denis Street."

The young girl, who, stretched out upon the lounge, had been leisurely and nonchalantly rolling the clouds of smoke from her cigar before her, started at the mention of St. Denis Street, and rose so suddenly that the Count of Plouernel looked at her in astonishment, and cried:

"What the devil has come over you?"

"What has come over me – " answered Pradeline, quickly recovering her composure and wonted nonchalance, "what has come over me is that your horrible cigar has burnt me – but that's no matter. You were saying, darling, that your love is located in St. Denis Street? Well, now I have something to go by; but not yet enough."

"And you shall not learn any more, my little beauty."

"The pest take this cigar!" exclaimed Pradeline, again shaking her head. "It will blister me! It will blister me surely!"

"Would you like some cold water?"

"No, it will soon be over. So, then, your love lives in St. Denis Street. You should also let me know – is the place at the head or the foot of the street? There is quite some difference between the head and the foot of a street, you must admit. The proof is, that the prices of the shops are dear at one end and cheap at the other. According as the rent runs high or low, a lover's generosity must keep step and be proportionately great or less so. You can not get over this positive fact."

"It is a very positive fact. Well, I shall confide to you that my love lives not far from the St. Denis Gate."

"I need put no further questions to render my opinion," said Pradeline with a voice that she was at great pains to modulate into comical tones. Nevertheless, a closer observer than the Count of Plouernel would have noticed a vague shadow of uneasiness flit over the otherwise gay girl.

"Well, what is your advice?"

"First of all – you should – " but, suddenly breaking off, the young girl said:

"Someone raps at the door, darling."

"You think so?"

"I am quite certain. Listen! Don't you hear?"

In fact the rapping was renewed.

"Walk in!" cried the Count.

A valet presented himself, looking disconcerted, and said to the Count anxiously:

"Monsieur Count, his Eminence – "

"My uncle!" exclaimed the Count of Plouernel, looking no less disconcerted than his valet, and hastily rising to his feet.

"Yes, Monsieur Count. Monsignor the Cardinal arrived last night in the city from his trip abroad, and – "

"A Cardinal!" cried Pradeline, interrupting the valet with boisterous peals of laughter, already oblivious of the matters that seemed to preoccupy her mind a minute before. "A Cardinal! That's a rare sight! That's a thing one does not find every day at Mabille's or at Valentino's! A Cardinal! I've never seen one. I must give myself a treat."

Whereupon she forthwith improvised to the tune of her favorite song:

 
"The young Queen Bacchanal
She saw a Cardinal,
And said: Let's have some fun,
And make him dance and run —
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla,
La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla!"
 

So saying, Pradeline raised the hem of her dress and started to pirouet around the room with great grace and utterly unconstrained, all the while singing her latest improvisation, while the valet, standing motionless at the half-opened door was with difficulty keeping a serious face, and the Count of Plouernel, nettled at the freedom of the brazen minx, called to her:

"Come, my dear; that's foolish; keep still."

Cardinal Plouernel, just announced, not caring to be kept waiting in his nephew's ante-chamber, and little imagining him to be in such profane company, had followed upon the heels of the valet, and entered the room just as Pradeline, throwing out her well shaped limb, undulated her upper body as she sang:

 
"Oh, let us have some fun,
And make him dance and run!
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla – "
 

At the sight of the Cardinal the Count of Plouernel ran to the door, and repeatedly and effusively embracing his uncle, gently pushed him back into the salon from which he came. The valet, like the experienced menial that he was, discreetly shut the door of the boudoir upon his master, and drew the bolt.

CHAPTER V.
CARDINAL AND COUNT

Cardinal Plouernel was a man of sixty-five years of age, lean, lank and leathery of skin. Except for the difference in age, he was possessed of the identical type of face as his nephew. His long neck, bald head, large and crooked nose like the beak of a bird of prey, and wide-set, round and penetrating eyes, imparted to his physiognomy, if analyzed and the high grade of intelligence that they denoted left out of consideration, a singular resemblance to that of a vulture.

To sum up, the priest, if clad in his red robes of Prince of the Church, could not choose but present a fear-inspiring aspect. On a visit to his nephew, he was clad simply in a long black coat, strictly buttoned up to his throat.

"Pardon, dear uncle," said the Count, smiling. "Not being aware of your return to town, I did not expect this matitudinal call."

The Cardinal was not the man to be astonished at a colonel of dragoons keeping a mistress. He made answer in his brief manner:

"I am pressed for time. Let us talk to the point. On my way from abroad I made a wide tour through France. We are on the verge of a revolution."

"Indeed, uncle?" asked the colonel incredulously. "Do you really believe – "

"I believe a revolution is at hand."

"But, uncle – "

"Have you available funds about you? If not, I can help you out."

"Funds – what for?"

"To exchange into gold, or for good drafts upon London. The latter are more convenient on a voyage."

"What! A voyage, uncle? What voyage?"

"The voyage that you are to make by keeping me company. We shall depart this evening."

"Depart – this evening!"

"Would you prefer to serve the Republic?"

"The Republic!" exclaimed the Count of Plouernel. "What Republic?"

"The one that will be proclaimed in Paris, within shortly, after the downfall of Louis Philippe."

"The downfall of Louis Philippe! The Republic in France – and within shortly!"

"Yes, the French Republic – one, and indivisible – proclaimed in our interest – provided we know how to wait – "

And the Cardinal indulged in a singular smile as he inhaled a pinch of snuff.

The Count contemplated him dumbfounded. He looked as if he had just dropped down from the clouds.

"I see, my poor Gonthram, you must have been either blind or deaf," the Cardinal proceeded, shrugging his shoulders. "Do you see nothing in those revolutionary banquets that have succeeded one another throughout the principal cities of France during the last three months?"

"Ha! Ha! Ha! uncle," answered the Count, laughing out aloud; "do you take those bibbers of blue wine, those swallowers of veal – at twenty sous a plate – to be capable of making a revolution?"

"The simpletons – I can not blame them, so much the worse – the simpletons have turned the heads of the bigger simpletons who listened to them. There is nothing, in and of itself, so stupid as gunpowder; is there? Yet that does not prevent it from exploding. Well, these banqueters have played with gunpowder. The mine is about to explode, and it will blow up the throne of the Orleans dynasty."

"You are joking, uncle. There are fifty thousand soldiers in the city. If the mob but raise a finger it will be mowed down like grass. Everybody is so completely at ease regarding the state of Paris that, despite the seeming commotion of yesterday, the troops have not even been furnished with passwords in the barracks."

"Is that so? Well, so much the better!" put in the Cardinal, rubbing his hands. "If their government is seized with the vertigo, these Orleans will quickly vacate their seats for the Republic, and our turn will come all the sooner."

At this point his Eminence was interrupted by two raps given at the door of the salon that communicated with the boudoir. Promptly upon the raps followed the following ditty, still to the tune of La Rifla, and sung by Pradeline in measured rhythm on the other side of the door:

 
"To get out of this scrape —
I sorely need my cape,
On this occa-si-on,
Your bene-dic-ti-on.
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla!"
 

"Oh, uncle!" said the colonel in anger, "Pay no attention, I beg you, to the insolence of that foolish little minx."

And rising, the Count of Plouernel took from the sofa where they had lain since the previous evening the cape and hat of the brazen girl, rang the bell quickly, and, throwing the articles at the valet who answered the summons, said to him:

"Deliver these traps to the hussy, and have her leave the house instantly."

And then, returning to his Eminence, who had remained impassive, and was at the moment in the act of opening his snuff-box, he continued:

"I assure you, uncle, that I am ashamed. But droll creatures like that respect nothing."

"She has very well shaped limbs," mused the Cardinal, taking his snuff; "she is quite comely, the droll creature. Nevertheless, in the Fifteenth Century, we would have ordered her roasted alive like a little Jewess, in reward for such a joke. But patience. Oh, my friend, never – never before were our chances so favorable!"

"Our chances favorable if the Orleans dynasty is chased away and the Republic is proclaimed?"

The Cardinal again shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to explain:

"Either one thing or the other will happen – either the Republic of the bare-footed mob will be anarchy, the dictatorship, emigration, pillage, paper money, the guillotine, and war with all Europe – and then the thing will last six months at the longest, and Henry V will be brought back triumphantly by the Holy Alliance; or, on the contrary, their Republic will be benign, stupid, legal and moderate with universal suffrage for its foundation – "

"And, if so, uncle?"

"If so, it will last longer, but we shall lose nothing by waiting. Wielding our influence as large landed proprietors, and operating through the lower clergy upon the peasants, we shall become masters at the hustings, obtain the majority in the Chamber, and hamper the passage of every measure that might, I will not say cause the Republic to be loved, but even cause such a revolutionary state of things to seem tolerable. We shall sow the seeds of mistrust and fear in all minds. Soon, with its credit destroyed, with universal ruin, with disaster on all sides, a chorus of curses will rise against the infamous Republic that will then die peaceably after a trial that will for all time disgust the people with it. At that psychologic moment we shall step forward. The hungering people, the bourgeois, frightened out of their senses, will throw themselves at our feet, praying to us with clasped hands for Henry V, the savior of France. Finally, the hour for stipulating conditions will arrive. These will be ours: Royalty, at least such as it existed before 1789, that is, no more bourgeois insolent and clamorous Chamber, holding the reins of government as much as the King, seeing it decides upon appropriations and taxes – an ignominious state of things; an end of the present mongrel system —all or nothing, and we want all, to wit, an absolute King resting upon an omnipotent clergy; a strong aristocracy and a merciless army; a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand foreign troops, if needed; the Holy Alliance will lend them to us. Misery will be so frightful, fear so intense, the general lassitude such, that our conditions will be accepted as soon as imposed. Thereupon we shall take prompt and terrible measures – the only effective ones in such emergencies. Our measures will be these: First of all, provost courts; reinstitution of the laws pronouncing sacrilege and lese majesté capital crimes, and making them retroactive, back to 1830; execution to follow verdict within twenty-four hours, in order to smother in their own poison all revolutionists, all people tainted with impiousness; it will be an era of terror – another St. Bartholomew, if necessary. France will not die under the knife; on the contrary, she is suffering of plethora, she needs a bleeding from time to time.⁸ The second measure will be to assign public instruction to the Society of Jesus – it alone is able to emasculate the human species. The third measure will be to break the sheaf of centralization; in it lay the strength of the Revolution; our effort must be, on the contrary, to isolate the provinces as much as possible from the small centers, where, unmolested, we shall hold sway through the lower clergy; or, by virtue of our large holdings, restrain, prevent, if at all possible, the intercommunication of one section of the country with another. It is not helpful to us for people to draw together and meet each other with frequency. With the view of dividing and keeping them divided, we shall assiduously rekindle the rivalries, jealousies, and where needed, the old provincial hatreds. To that end an occasional little douse of civil war will be a helpful expedient. It breeds and nurses the germs of implacable animosity."

The Cardinal stopped a moment to take another pinch of snuff, and then concluded with these words:

"People who are divided by hatred never conspire."

The merciless logic of the priest repelled the Count of Plouernel. Despite his own fatuity and caste prejudices, he rather leaned towards modern thought. No doubt he would have preferred a reign of "legitimate Kings." But he did not stop to think that he who wants the end must not object to the means, and that, in order to be lasting in the eyes of its partisans, a complete and absolute restoration could not possibly take place and maintain itself except by the frightful means that the Cardinal had just laid bare with complacent assurance. The colonel replied with a smile:

"But, uncle, think of it! In these days of ours the idea of isolating the population is chimerical. The thing is impossible! What about the strategic highways! The railroads!"

"The railroads?" echoed the Cardinal angrily. "A devil's invention, good only to cause the revolutionary fever to circulate from one end of Europe to the other! For that very reason our Holy Father wants no railroads in his states, and right he is. It is incredible that the monarchs of the Holy Alliance could have allowed themselves to yield to such diabolical innovations! They may have to pay dear therefor! What did our forefathers do, at the time of the conquest, with a view to subjugate and keep the yoke riveted to the neck of this perverse Gallic race – our vassals by birth and by kind, that has so often risen in rebellion against us? Our ancestors staked them within their separate domains, forbidding them to step outside under penalty of death. Thus chained to the glebe, thus isolated and brutified, the breed is more easily kept under control – that must be the goal we should aim at returning to."

"But I repeat – what about the railroads? You would not tear up the highways and railroads, would you, uncle?"

"Why not? Did not the Franks, our ancestors, in pursuit of an unerring policy, tear up the highways, the magnificent roads of communication that they found in Gaul, and which those pagans of Romans had constructed? Would it be so difficult a task to hurl against the railroads the mass of brutes whom that infernal invention threw out of their means of earning a livelihood? Anathema – anathema against those proud monuments of haughty Satan! By the blood of my race! If he is not curbed in his sacrilegious career, man will yet end – may God forefend! – by changing this valley of tears into a terrestrial paradise, wholly oblivious of the fact that original sin condemns him to perpetual suffering!"

"Zounds! Dear uncle, not so fast!" interjected the colonel. "I am not inclined to carry out my destiny with quite such scrupulous accuracy."

"You big baby!" replied the Cardinal impatiently, taking a fresh pinch of snuff. "Do you not understand that, in order that the large majority of the race of Adam suffer and be meritoriously conscious of its suffering, it is requisite that there be always in evidence a neat small number of happy people in the world?"

"Oh, I see! As a contrast; is that it, dear uncle?"

"Necessarily. The depth of the valley is not realized but for its contrast with the mountain top. But enough of philosophy. As you know, I have an accurate eye, quick and certain. The situation is such as I have described it to you. I repeat – do as I have done. Realize all your negotiable effects in gold, or in good drafts upon London. Send in your resignation this minute, and let us depart to-morrow at the very latest. Such is the blindness of those people that they apprehend nothing. You said so yourself. There is hardly any military precaution taken. You can, accordingly, without in any way wounding your military honor, quit your regiment this instant."

"Impossible, my dear uncle – that would be an act of cowardice. If the Republic is to be established, the thing will not be done without the firing of some guns. I wish to do my part – I wish to be quits. Politeness for politeness, with good round discharges of muskets! My dragoons will want nothing better than a chance to charge upon the canaille."

"Then you propose to defend the throne of the wretches of Orleans!" exclaimed the Cardinal with a loud outburst of sardonic laughter.

"Dear uncle, you know very well I did not wheel in line in support of the Orleans dynasty. No more than you, do I love them. I simply joined the army, because I have a military turn of mind. The army has but one opinion – discipline. In short, if your foresight is correct – and your trained experience inclines me to the belief that you are not mistaken – then a battle will be fought this very day. Under such circumstances I would be a despicable wretch to hand in my resignation on the eve of an encounter."

"Then you are determined to run the risk of being riddled with bullets or brained by the mob on a barricade – in the interest of the Orleans dynasty?"

"I am a soldier – I am determined to fulfil the duties of my profession."

"But, you devil of a stubborn block! Suppose you are killed, our house would then fall from the lance to the distaff."

"I promised you I would marry at forty – "

"But until then – think of it – these street fights are disgraceful – to die in the mud of the gutters, killed by a lot of beggars!"

"Before it came to that I would have treated myself to the sport of hewing several of them down with my saber," coolly replied the colonel. "In that event it will not be difficult for you to find some sturdy Plouernel bastard of my own making – whom you will then adopt, uncle. He will perpetuate my name. Bastards often have brought good luck to great houses."

"Triple fool! To play with your life in that manner! And that at the very moment when the future smiles upon us as it never smiled before! At the moment when, after having been beaten, kicked and cuffed by the descendants of the men who for fourteen centuries were our vassals and serfs, we are about to wipe out at a single stroke these last fifty years of shame! At the moment when, instructed by experience, and aided by the course of events, we are about to resume our power and become even mightier than we were in 1789! Go to – I pity you! You are right, races degenerate!" exclaimed the intractable old man, rising. "I would despair of our cause if all our people were like you."

The valet, stepping in again after rapping at the door, said to the Count of Plouernel:

"Monsieur Count, the linendraper of St. Denis Street has arrived. He is waiting in the ante-chamber."

"Take him to the salon of the portraits."

The valet left; the colonel said to the Cardinal, whom he saw angrily picking up his hat and moving towards the door:

"For God's sake, uncle, do not go away angry, in that way – "

"I am not going away angry; I am going away ashamed."

"Come, dear uncle, you will think better of me."

"Will you, yes or no, depart with me for England?"

"Impossible, uncle."

"Then go to the devil!" was the rather uncanonical shout with which the Cardinal furiously took his leave, slamming the door behind him.