Kitabı oku: «The Deputy of Arcis», sayfa 20

V. CHILDREN

On his return from the theatre Monsieur Octave de Camps declared that it would be long before they caught him at a fairy piece again. But Nais, on the contrary, still under the spell of its marvels gave a lively recital of the scene, which showed how much her imagination was capable of being stirred.

As Madame de Camps and her husband walked away together, the former remarked, —

“That child is really very disquieting. Madame de l’Estorade develops her too much; I should not be surprised if she gave her a great deal of trouble in future years.”

It would be difficult to mark the precise moment in our contemporary habits and customs when a new species of religion, which might be called child-idolatry, appeared. Nor shall we find it easier to discover by what species of influence this worship has reached its present enormous development among us. But, although unexplained, the fact exists and ought to be recorded by every faithful historian of the great and the little movements of society. In the family of to-day children have taken the place of the household gods of the ancients, and whoever does not share this worship is not a morose and sour spirit, nor a captious and annoying reasoner, – he is simply an atheist.

Try to amuse one of these beloved adored ones, all puffed up, as they naturally are, by a sense of their importance, with dolls and toys and Punch-and-Judys, as in the days of our unsophisticated innocence! Nonsense! Boys must have ponies and cigarettes, and the reading of novelettes; and girls, the delight of playing hostess, giving afternoon dances, and evening parties at which the real Guignol of the Champs Elysees and Robert Houdin appear, – the entertainment being announced on the invitation cards. Sometimes, as now in the case of Nais de l’Estorade, these little sovereigns obtain permission to give a ball in grown-up style, – so much so, that policemen are stationed about the doors, and Delisle, Nattier, and Prevost provide the toilets and the decorations.

With the character we have already seen in Nais, it may be said that no one was better fitted than she for the duties that devolved upon her by the abdication of her mother. This abdication took place before the evening of the ball itself, for it was Mademoiselle Nais de l’Estorade who, in her own name, invited her guests to do her the honor to pass the evening chez elle; and as Madame de l’Estorade would not allow the parody to go as far as printed cards, Nais spent several days writing her notes of invitation, taking care to put in the corner, in conspicuous letters, the sacramental word, “Dancing.”

Nothing could be more curious, or, as Madame de Camps might have said, more alarming, than the self-possession of this little girl of fourteen, behaving precisely as she had seen her mother do on like occasions; stationed, to receive her company, at the door of the salon, and marking by her manner the proper grades of welcome, from eager cordiality to a coldness that verged on disdain. To her best friends she gave her hand in truly English style; for the rest she had smiles, apportioned to the degrees of intimacy, – simple inclination of the head for unknown guests or those of less account; with little speeches now and then, and delicious mamma-like airs for the tiny children whom it is necessary to ask to these juvenile routs, however dangerous and difficult to manage that element may be.

With the fathers and mothers of her guests, as the ball was not given for them, Nais as a general thing reversed the nature of the Gospel invocation, Sinite parvulos venire ad me, and was careful not to pass the limit of cold though respectful politeness. But when Lucas, following the instructions he had received, reversed the natural order of things and announced, “Mesdemoiselles de la Roche-Hugon, Madame la Baronne de la Roche-Hugon, and Madame la Comtesse de Rastignac,” the little strategist laid aside her reserve, and, running up to the wife of the minister, she took her hand and pressed it to her lips with charming grace.

After the dancing began, Nais was unable to accept all the invitations which the elegant young lions vied with one another in pressing upon her; in fact, she grew sadly confused as to the number and order of her engagements, – a circumstance which very nearly led, in spite of the entente cordiale, to an open rupture between France and perfidious Albion. A quadrille doubly promised, to a young English peer aged ten and a pupil in the Naval School of about the same years, came very near producing unpleasant complications, inasmuch as the young British scion of nobility had assumed a boxing attitude. That fray pacified, another annoying episode occurred. A small boy, seeing a servant with a tray of refreshments and being unable to reach up to the objects of his greed, had the deplorable idea of putting his hand on the edge of the tray and bending it down to him. Result: a cascade of mingled orgeat, negus, and syrups; and happy would it have been had the young author of this mischief been the only sufferer from the sugary torrent; but, alas! nearly a dozen innocent victims were splashed and spattered by the disastrous accident, – among them four or five bacchantes, who were furious at seeing their toilets injured, and would fain have made an Orpheus of the clumsy infant. While he was being rescued with great difficulty from their clutches by the German governess, a voice was heard amid the hubbub, – that of a pretty little blonde, saying to a small Scottish youth with whom she had danced the whole evening, —

“How odd of Nais to invite little boys of that age!”

“That’s easily explained,” said the Scottish youth; “he’s a boy of the Treasury department. Nais had to ask him on account of her parents, – a matter of policy, you know.”

Then, taking the arm of one of his friends, the same youth continued: —

“Hey, Ernest,” he said, “I’d like a cigar; suppose we find a quiet corner, out of the way of all this racket?”

“I can’t, my dear fellow,” replied Ernest, in a whisper; “you know Leontine always makes me a scene when she smells I’ve been smoking, and she is charming to me to-night. See, look at what she has given me!”

“A horse-hair ring!” exclaimed the Scot, disdainfully, “with two locked hearts; all the boys at school have them.”

“What have you to show that’s better?” replied Ernest, in a piqued tone.

“Oh!” said the Scot, with a superior air, “something much better.”

And drawing from the pouch which formed an integral part of his costume a note on violet paper highly perfumed, —

“There,” he said, putting it under Ernest’s nose, “smell that!”

Indelicate friend that he was, Ernest pounced upon the note and took possession of it. The Scottish youth, furious, flung himself upon the treacherous French boy; on which Monsieur de l’Estorade, a thousand leagues from imagining the subject of the quarrel, intervened and parted the combatants, which enabled the ravisher to escape into a corner of the salon to enjoy his booty. The note contained no writing. The young scamp had probably taken the paper out of his mother’s blotting-book. A moment after, returning to his adversary and giving him the note, he said in a jeering tone, —

“There’s your note; it is awfully compromising.”

“Keep it, monsieur,” replied the Scot. “I shall ask for it to-morrow in the Tuileries, under the horse-chestnuts; meantime, you will please understand that all intercourse is at an end between us.”

Ernest was less knightly; he contented himself with putting the thumb of his right hand to his nose and spreading the fingers, – an ironical gesture he had acquired from his mother’s coachman; after which he ran to find his partner for the next quadrille.

But what details are these on which we are wasting time, when we know that interests of the highest order are moving, subterraneously, beneath the surface of the children’s ball.

Arriving from Ville d’Avray late in the afternoon, Sallenauve had brought Madame de l’Estorade ill news of Marie-Gaston. Under an appearance of resignation, he was gloomy, and, singular to say, he had not visited the grave of his wife, – as if he feared an emotion he might not have the power to master. It seemed to Sallenauve that his friend had come to the end of his strength, and that a mental prostration of the worst character was succeeding the over-excitement he had shown at his election. One thing reassured the new deputy, and enabled him to come to Paris for, at any rate, a few hours. A friend of Marie-Gaston, an English nobleman with whom he had been intimate in Florence, came out to see him, and the sad man greeted the new-comer with apparent joy.

In order to distract Sallenauve’s thoughts from this anxiety, Madame de l’Estorade introduced him to Monsieur Octave de Camps, the latter having expressed a great desire to know him. The deputy had not talked ten minutes with the iron-master before he reached his heart by the magnitude of the metallurgical knowledge his conversation indicated.

During the year in which he had been preparing for a parliamentary life, Sallenauve had busied himself by acquiring the practical knowledge which enables an orator of the Chamber to take part in all discussions and have reasons to give for his general views. He had turned his attention more especially to matters connected with the great question of the revenue and taxation; such, for instance, as the custom-house, laws of exchange, stamp duties, and taxation, direct and indirect. Approaching in this manner that problematical science – which is, nevertheless, so sure of itself! – called political economy, Sallenauve had also studied the sources which contribute to form the great current of national prosperity; and in this connection the subject of mines, the topic at this moment most interesting to Monsieur de Camps, had not been neglected by him. We can imagine the admiration of the iron-master, who had studied too exclusively the subject of iron ore to know much about the other branches of metallurgy, when the young deputy told him, apropos of the wealth of our soil, a sort of Arabian Nights tale, which, if science would only take hold of it, might become a reality.

“But, monsieur, do you really believe,” cried Monsieur de Camps, “that, besides our coal and iron mines, we possess mines of copper, lead, and, possibly, silver?”

“If you will take the trouble to consult certain specialists,” replied Sallenauve, “you will find that neither the boasted strata of Bohemia and Saxony nor even those of Russia and Hungary can be compared to those hidden in the Pyrenees, in the Alps from Briancon to the Isere, in the Cevennes on the Lozere side, in the Puy-de-Dome, Bretagne, and the Vosges. In the Vosges, more especially about the town of Saint-Die, I can point out to you a single vein of the mineral of silver which lies to the depth of fifty to eighty metres with a length of thirteen kilometres.”

“But, monsieur, why has such untold metallurgical wealth never been worked?”

“It has been, in former days,” replied Sallenauve, “especially during the Roman occupation of Gaul. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the work was abandoned; but the lords of the soil and the clergy renewed it in the middle ages; after that, during the struggle of feudality against the royal power and the long civil wars which devastated France, the work was again suspended, and has never since been taken up.”

“Are you sure of what you say?”

“Ancient authors, Strabo and others, all mention these mines, and the tradition of their existence still lingers in the regions where they are situated; decrees of emperors and the ordinances of certain of our kings bear testimony to the value of their products; in certain places more material proof may be found in excavations of considerable depth and length, in galleries and halls cut in the solid rock, – in short, in the many traces still existing of those vast works which have immortalized Roman industry. To this must be added that the modern study of geological science has confirmed and developed these irrefutable indications.”

The imagination of Monsieur Octave de Camps, hitherto limited to the development of a single iron-mine, took fire, and he was about to ask his instructor to give him his ideas on the manner of awakening a practical interest in the matter, when Lucas, throwing wide open the double doors of the salon, announced in his loudest and most pompous voice, —

“Monsieur the minister of Public Works.”

The effect produced on the elders of the assembly was electric.

“I want to see what sort of figure that little Rastignac cuts as a statesman,” said Monsieur de Camps, rising from his seat; but in his heart he was thinking of the government subsidy he wanted for his iron-mine. The new deputy, on his side, foresaw an inevitable meeting with the minister, and wondered what his friends in the Opposition would say when they read in the “National” that a representative of the Left was seen to have an interview with a minister celebrated for his art in converting political opponents. Anxious also to return to Marie-Gaston, he resolved to profit by the general stir created by the minister’s arrival to slip away; and by a masterly manoeuvre he made his way slyly to the door of the salon, expecting to escape without being seen. But he reckoned without Nais, to whom he was engaged for a quadrille. That small girl sounded the alarm at the moment when he laid his hand on the handle of the door; and Monsieur de l’Estorade, mindful of his promise to Rastignac, hastened to put a stop to the desertion. Finding his quiet retreat impossible, Sallenauve was afraid that an open departure after the arrival of the minister might be construed as an act of puritanical opposition in the worst taste; he therefore accepted the situation promptly, and decided to remain.

Monsieur de l’Estorade knew that Sallenauve was far too wise to be the dupe of any artifices he might have used to bring about his introduction to the minister. He therefore went straight to the point, and soon after Rastignac’s arrival he slipped his arm through that of the statesman, and, approaching the deputy, said to him, —

“Monsieur the minister of Public Works, who, on the eve of the battle, wishes me to introduce him to a general of the enemy’s army.”

“Monsieur le ministre does me too much honor,” replied Sallenauve, ceremoniously. “Far from being a general, I am a private soldier, and a very unknown one.”

“Hum!” said the minister; “it seems to me that the battle at Arcis-sur-Aube was not an insignificant victory; you routed our ranks, monsieur, in a singular manner.”

“There was nothing wonderful in that; you must have heard that a saint fought for us.”

“Well, at any rate,” said Rastignac, “I prefer this result to the one arranged for us by a man I thought cleverer than he proved to be, whom I sent down there. It seems that Beauvisage is a perfect nonentity; he’d have rubbed off upon us; and after all, he was really as much Left centre as the other man, Giguet. Now the Left centre is our real enemy, because it is aiming to get our portfolios.”

“Oh!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “after what we heard of the man, I think he would have done exactly what was wanted of him.”

“My dear friend, don’t believe that,” said the minister. “Fools are often more tenacious of the flag under which they enlisted than we think for. Besides, to go over to the enemy is to make a choice, and that supposes an operation of the mind; it is much easier to be obstinate.”

“I agree with the minister,” said Sallenauve; “extreme innocence and extreme rascality are equally able to defend themselves against seduction.”

Here Monsieur de l’Estorade, seeing, or pretending to see, a signal made to him, looked over his shoulder and said, —

“I’m coming.”

And the two adversaries being thus buckled together, he hastened away as if summoned to some duty as master of the house.

Sallenauve was anxious not to seem disturbed at finding himself alone with the minister. The meeting having come about, he decided to endure it with a good grace, and, taking the first word, he asked if the ministry had prepared, in view of the coming sessions, a large number of bills.

“No, very few,” replied Rastignac. “To tell the truth, we do not expect to be in power very long; we brought about an election because in the general confusion into which the press has thrown public opinion, our constitutional duty was to force that opinion to reconstitute itself; but the fact is, we did not expect the result to be favorable to us, and we are therefore taken somewhat unawares.”

“You are like the peasant,” said Sallenauve, laughing, “who, expecting the end of the world, did not sow his wheat.”

“Well, we don’t look upon our retirement as the end of the world,” said Rastignac, modestly; “there are men to come after us, and many of them well able to govern; only, as we expected to give but few more representations in that transitory abode called ‘power,’ we have not unpacked either our costumes or our scenery. Besides, the coming session, in any case, can only be a business session. The question now is, of course, between the palace, that is, personal influence, and the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. This question will naturally come up when the vote is taken on the secret-service fund. Whenever, in one way or the other, that is settled, and the budget is voted, together with a few bills of secondary interest, Parliament has really completed its task; it will have put an end to a distressing struggle, and the country will know to which of the two parties it can look for the development of its prosperity.”

“And you think,” said Sallenauve, “that in a well-balanced system of government that question is a useful one to raise?”

“Well,” replied Rastignac, “we have not raised it. It is born perhaps of circumstances; a great deal, as I think, from the restlessness of certain ambitions, and also from the tactics of parties.”

“So that, in your opinion, one of the combatants is not guilty and has absolutely nothing to reproach himself with?”

“You are a republican,” said Rastignac, “and therefore, a priori, an enemy to the dynasty. I think I should lose my time in trying to change your ideas on the policy you complain of.”

“You are mistaken,” said the theoretical republican deputy; “I have no preconceived hatred to the reigning dynasty. I even think that in its past, striped, if I may say so, with royal affinities and revolutionary memories, it has all that is needed to respond to the liberal and monarchical instincts of the nation. But you will find it difficult to persuade me that in the present head of the dynasty we shall not find extreme ideas of personal influence, which in the long run will undermine and subvert the finest as well as the strongest institutions.”

“Yes,” said Rastignac, ironically, “and they are saved by the famous axiom of the deputy of Sancerre: ‘The king reigns, but does not govern.’”

Whether he was tired of standing to converse, or whether he wished to prove his ease in releasing himself from the trap which had evidently been laid for him, Sallenauve, before replying, drew up a chair for his interlocutor, and, taking one himself, said, —

“Will you permit me to cite the example of another royal behavior? – that of a prince who was not considered indifferent to his royal prerogative, and who was not ignorant of constitutional mechanism – ”

“Louis XVIII.,” said Rastignac, “or, as the newspapers used to call him, ‘the illustrious author of the Charter’?”

“Precisely; and will you kindly tell me where he died?”

“Parbleu! at the Tuileries.”

“And his successor?”

“In exile – Oh! I see what you are coming to.”

“My conclusion is certainly not difficult to guess. But have you fully remarked the deduction to be drawn from that royal career? – for which I myself feel the greatest respect. Louis XVIII. was not a citizen king. He granted this Charter, but he never consented to it. Born nearer to the throne than the prince whose regrettable tendencies I mentioned just now, he might naturally share more deeply still the ideas, the prejudices, and the infatuations of the court; in person he was ridiculous (a serious princely defect in France); he bore the brunt of a new and untried regime; he succeeded a government which had intoxicated the people with that splendid gilded smoke called glory; and if he was not actually brought back to France by foreigners, at any rate he came as the result of the armed invasion of Europe. Now, shall I tell you why, in spite of all these defects and disadvantages, in spite, too, of the ceaseless conspiracy kept up against his government, it was given to him to die tranquilly in his bed at the Tuileries?”

“Because he had made himself a constitutional king,” said Rastignac, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “But do you mean to say that we are not that?”

“In the letter, yes; in the spirit, no. When Louis XVIII. gave his confidence to a minister, he gave it sincerely and wholly. He did not cheat him; he played honestly into his hand, – witness the famous ordinance of September 5, and the dissolution of the Chamber, which was more Royalist than himself, – a thing he had the wisdom not to desire. Later, a movement of public opinion shook the minister who had led him along that path; that minister was his favorite, his son, as he called him. No matter; yielding to the constitutional necessity, he bravely sent him to foreign parts, after loading him with crosses and titles, – in short, with everything that could soften the pain of his fall; and he did not watch and manoeuvre surreptitiously to bring him back to power, which that minister never regained.”

“For a man who declares he does not hate us,” said Rastignac, “you treat us rather roughly. According to you we are almost faithless to the constitutional compact, and our policy, to your thinking ambiguous and tortuous, gives us a certain distant likeness to Monsieur Doublemain in the ‘Mariage de Figaro.’”

“I do not say that the evil is as deep as that,” replied Sallenauve; “perhaps, after all, we are simply a faiseur, – using the word, be it understood, in the sense of a meddler, one who wants to have his finger in everything.”

“Ah! monsieur, but suppose we are the ablest politician in the country.”

“If we are, it does not follow that our kingdom ought not to have the chance of becoming as able as ourselves.”

“Parbleu!” cried Rastignac, in the tone of a man who comes to the climax of a conversation, “I wish I had power to realize a wish – ”

“And that is?”

“To see you grappling with that ability which you call meddlesome.”

“Well, you know, Monsieur le ministre, that we all spend three fourths of life in wishing for the impossible.”

“Why impossible? Would you be the first man of the Opposition to be seen at the Tuileries? An invitation to dinner given publicly, openly, which would, by bringing you into contact with one whom you misjudge at a distance – ”

“I should have the honor to refuse.”

And he emphasized the words have the honor in a way to show the meaning he attached to them.

“You are all alike, you men of the Opposition!” cried the minister; “you won’t let yourselves be enlightened when the opportunity presents itself; or, to put it better, you – ”

“Do you call the rays of those gigantic red bottles in a chemist’s shop light, when they flash into your eyes as you pass them after dark? Don’t they, on the contrary, seem to blind you?”

“It is not our rays that frighten you,” said Rastignac; “it is the dark lantern of your party watchmen on their rounds.”

“There may be some truth in what you say; a party and the man who undertakes to represent it are in some degree a married couple, who in order to live peaceably together must be mutually courteous, frank, and faithful in heart as well as in principle.”

“Well, try to be moderate. Your dream is far more impossible to realize than mine; the day will come when you will have more to say about the courtesy of your chaste better half.”

“If there is an evil for which I ought to be prepared, it is that.”

“Do you think so? With the lofty and generous sentiments so apparent in your nature, shall you remain impassive under political attack, – under calumny, for instance?”

“You yourself, Monsieur le ministre, have not escaped its venom; but it did not, I think, deter you from your course.”

“But,” said Rastignac, lowering his voice, “suppose I were to tell you that I have already sternly refused to listen to a proposal to search into your private life on a certain side which, being more in the shade than the rest, seems to offer your enemies a chance to entrap you.”

“I do not thank you for the honor you have done yourself in rejecting with contempt the proposals of men who can be neither of my party nor of yours; they belong to the party of base appetites and selfish passions. But, supposing the impossible, had they found some acceptance from you, pray believe that my course, which follows the dictates of my conscience, could not be affected thereby.”

“But your party, – consider for a moment its elements: a jumble of foiled ambitions, brutal greed, plagiarists of ‘93, despots disguising themselves as lovers of liberty.”

“My party has nothing, and seeks to gain something. Yours calls itself conservative, and it is right; its chief concern is how to preserve its power, offices, and wealth, – in short, all it now monopolizes.”

“But, monsieur, we are not a closed way; we open our way, on the contrary, to all ambitions. But the higher you are in character and intellect, the less we can allow you to pass, dragging after you your train of democrats; for the day when that crew gains the upper hand it will not be a change of policy, but a revolution.”

“But what makes you think I want an opening of any kind?”

“What! follow a course without an aim? – a course that leads nowhere? A certain development of a man’s faculties not only gives him the right but makes it his duty to seek to govern.”

“To watch the governing power is a useful career, and, I may add, a very busy one.”

“You can fancy, monsieur,” said Rastignac, good-humoredly, “that if Beauvisage were in your place I should not have taken the trouble to argue with him; I may say, however, that he would have made my effort less difficult.”

“This meeting, which chance has brought about between us,” said Sallenauve, “will have one beneficial result; we understand each other henceforth, and our future meetings will always therefore be courteous – which will not lessen the strength of our convictions.”

“Then I must say to the king – for I had his royal commands to – ”

Rastignac did not end the sentence in which he was, so to speak, firing his last gun, for the orchestra began to play a quadrille, and Nais, running up, made him a coquettish courtesy, saying, —

“Monsieur le ministre, I am very sorry, but you have taken my partner, and you must give him up. He is down for my eleventh quadrille, and if I miss it my list gets into terrible confusion.”

“You permit me, monsieur?” said Sallenauve, laughing. “As you see, I am not a very savage republican.” So saying, he followed Nais, who led him along by the hand.

Madame de l’Estorade, comprehending that this fancy of Nais was rather compromising to the dignity of the new deputy, had arranged that several papas and mammas should figure in the same quadrille; and she herself with the Scottish lad danced vis-a-vis to her daughter, who beamed with pride and joy. In the evolutions of the last figure, where Nais had to take her mother’s hand, she said, pressing it passionately, —

“Poor mamma! if it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t have me now.”

This sudden reminder so agitated Madame de l’Estorade, coming as it did unexpectedly, that she was seized with a return of the nervous trembling her daughter’s danger had originally caused, and was forced to sit down. Seeing her change color, Sallenauve, Nais, and Madame Octave de Camps ran to her to know if she were ill.

“It is nothing,” she answered, addressing Sallenauve; “only that my little girl reminded me suddenly of the utmost obligation we are under to you, monsieur. ‘Without him,’ she said, ‘you would not have me.’ Ah! monsieur, without your generous courage where would my child be now?”

“Come, come, don’t excite yourself,” interposed Madame Octave de Camps, observing the convulsive and almost gasping tone of her friend’s voice. “It is not reasonable to put yourself in such a state for a child’s speech.”

“She is better than the rest of us,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, taking Nais in her arms.

“Come, mamma, be reasonable,” said that young lady.

“She puts nothing in the world,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “before her gratitude to her preserver, whereas her father and I have scarcely shown him any.”

“But, madame,” said Sallenauve, “you have courteously – ”

“Courteously!” interrupted Nais, shaking her pretty head with an air of disapproval; “if any one had saved my daughter, I should be different to him from that.”

“Nais,” said Madame de Camps, sternly, “children should be silent when their opinion is not asked.”

“What is the matter,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, joining the group.

“Nothing,” said Madame de Camps; “only a giddiness Renee had in dancing.”

“Is it over?”

“Yes, I am quite well again,” said Madame de l’Estorade.

“Then come and say good-night to Madame de Rastignac, who is preparing to take leave.”

In his eagerness to get to the minister’s wife, he forgot to give his own wife his arm. Sallenauve was more thoughtful. As they walked together in the wake of her husband, Madame de l’Estorade said, —

“I saw you talking for a long time with Monsieur de Rastignac; did he practise his well-known seductions upon you?”

“Do you think he succeeded?” replied Sallenauve.

“No; but such attempts to capture are always disagreeable, and I beg you to believe that I was not a party to the plot. I am not so violently ministerial as my husband.”

“Nor I as violently revolutionary as they think.”