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*208
L7ſ
W!\ |\|\\
AND
OTHER STORIES.
BY g
M. E. BRADDON, Wºo-ºº!
AUTHOR OF “LADY AUDLEY's SECRET,”
* AURORA FLOYD,” “BIRDS OF PREY,” “DEAD SEA FRUIT,” “LOST For LovE’”
“DEAD MEN'S SHOEs,” ETC.
NEW YORK :
R. WORTHINGTON, 750 BROADWAY.
I88O,
§ sº
tºy
l
# CONTENTS
MY SISTER,” S CON FESSION.
PART I.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
* THE WHITE HOUSE AMONG THE WINEYARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
CHAPTER II. *
MonsLEUR LE CURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº ſº e º 'º & 8
CHAPTER III.
AT THE CONFESSIONAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER IV.
A QUESTION THAT EMBARRASSES M. LE CURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº e º e º C. 14
CHAPTER V.
CAROLINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CHAPTER VI.
AN ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION . . . . . . . . ... • * * * * * * * • . . . . . . . . . . . 20
PART II.
*...*- CHAPTER I.
$. TEN DAYS IN THE Rue HENRI QUATRE . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . 22
CHAPTER II.
A DANGEROUS FLIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . 27
CHAPTER III.
AT THE EAUx CHAUDES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & © e º e º e e 30
203 32
CONTENTS,
THE DEEP RAviNE. . . . . . . .
Conclusion e e º e º tº e
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL . . . . . . . . . .
AT CHRIGHT ON ABBEY
CHAPTER IV.
e ‘e tº tº e e º © tº º
CHAPTER W.
e e º e s tº e i. e e o 'º o
III. ©
© e º 'º º º w. e e º e º e tº
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT, PART I.
& 6
W.
THE SCENE PAINTER'S WIFE . . .
THE DREADED GUEST . .
VI.
PART II.
PAGE
. . . .84
. . . . . . . . . . . 40
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
tº e e º te e º 'º 58
e © O © 75
• e e º e o e & o . 88
• . . . . . . . . . . 98
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
CHAPTER I.
TEIE WHITE HOUSE AMONG THE WINE-
YARDS.
THE south of France
To you, reader, perhaps the words
conjure up a glowing picture of soft
dreamy life, under deep-blue skies, in a
balmy climate, amidst the sounds of that
melodious language which can scarcely
be termed strange to an English ear.
Your fancy or your memory paints a pic-
ture of sunny mornings idled away either
in the public walks or the narrow shady
streets, where every object that meets
your eyes from the quaintly-dressed
peasant-woman riding into town astride
her mule to the distant mountains rais-
ing their peaks sharply in the clear air,
tells you each instant that you are in a
foreign land.
Ah, was not the morning breeze com-
ing from those dark-gray mountains cool
and pleasant, in spite of the hot blaz-
ing sunshine? Were not the air and
sky wonderfully clear? And then the
evenings! Your memory probably re-
calls them as only too pleasantly and
quickly passed in those shady prom-
enades, amid a crowd as idle, life-loving,
and light-hearted as only the French
can be.
Coquettish grisettes, with their dainty
caps and dark bright eyes; military men
of all grades and of all uniforms; old
ladies, young ladies; old gentlemen,
young gentlemen. What a medley it
was How softly the gay buzz of voices
rose in the calm airl The very laughter
seemed to lose itself in the rustle of
those avenues of overhanging limes.
How beautifully the dusk fell, toning
down, as it were, the gorgeous colors
the sunset had left floating over the dis-
tant mountains ! — toning down that
faint greenish hue visible in the early
evening, which looks as if the yellow of
the sunshine had somehow blended with
the blue of the sky, and falling on the
crowded walks so lightly, that to watch
the movements of the promenaders
seemed like watching the changes of a
kaleidoscope.
Those warm nights—nights when the
stars seemed countless in the blue skies,
and the meteors rushed across them too
quickly to count | Heaven, in its starry
beauty, seemed almost to outrival that
glorious panorama of mountain, Valley,
and river that lay still visible in the
moonlight.
Or, if you preferred a more active
scene, you had only to take your place
at one of those little tables at the café,
and with all that magnificent natural
panorama for a background, you could
watch living actors—groups of Smokers,
groups of card-players, groups of talk-
ers; here and there bright bonnets;
everywhere bright eyes. Life and move-
ment meet you on all sides. That,
reader, is your picture. *-
My memory recalls one of the most
painful periods of my life; so painful
that, in spite of the soft climate and ex-
quisitely beautiful scenery of the
country, my prayer is, that I may never
see it more. At the bare mention of
the name of Bearn Ishiver. The Pyr-
enees, to me, is a sound which, instead of
conjuring up majestic mountains, Nature
6
MY SISTER'S CONFESSION.
awful in her beauty, recalls frightful
precipices—Death in his most horrible
form.
To the south of Pau, not very far
from the village of Gan, stands a large
square white house, surrounded by vine-
yards, which, sloping downgradually to
the maize-fields separating them from
the high-road, formed a property of no
small value before the grape had fallen
under the power of that terrible blight
which has been so fatal to the fortunes
of wine-growers.
The wine from that particular village
is greatly esteemed, and commands a
price which, if not so high as that of
Botignon and Jurancon, is quite high
enough to make the possession of vine-
yards at Gan very desirable. Therefore,
in spite of the disappointment of ten
failing récoltés, Monsieur Gartin, the pos-
sessor of the white house and its sur-
roundings, refused to part with it, and,
much to Madame's disgust, contentedly
laid out on the property year after year
a great deal more than it ever returned
to him, hoping always, poor man, for
better luck in the next season.
But summer after summer went by,
and the fair promises of spring were al-
ways scattered before the vintage-time
came ; and poor Monsieur Gartin wan-
dered over the sunny slopes of his be-
loved vineyard, only to see the grapes
stunted and withered just when they
should have been swelling and ripening
under the hot sun. It was very disap-
pointing, and no wonder Madame grew
restive under it. At any rate, if Mon-
sieur would play the bête, and not sell
the property, Madame insisted that no
more good money should be spent on it.
And when Madame insisted, Monsieur
was forced to give in ; no more money
was spent on it.
Nature had her own way with the
poor grapes and the luscious figs and
peaches; and the rats had their own
way with the house. Nature made a
better mistress than the rats; and so,
in despair, Madame turned to a new re-
source ; the place should be let. And
let it was, to a Madame Héloise Palin-
gat, the head of a pension for young
ladies. That was how I came to live in
that white house among the vineyards.
Madame confided to her friends that
she was the widow of a brave capitaine,
who had fallen in the battle of Water-
loo ; that she could, if she chose, es-
tablish her right to a pension, but that,
for reasons of her own, she preferred
depending on her own exertions for a
livelihood, and therefore condescended
to keep a pension for young ladies. I
don’t affirm that Madame Palingat's
friends believed her; but they wisely
affected to do so, and listened with sym-
pathetic attention to her allusions to
that gallant officer who lost his life in
the great battle.
Madame was one of those wiry, fierce
little women whom it is better to soothe
than aggravate ; and when she did con-
descend to mention anything concerning
her personal history, she always did it
in such a defiant manner, and with such
a gleam in her hard-looking dark eyes,
that, even supposing she had chosen to
declare herself the widow of Napoleon
Bonaparte himself, I am sure few of
her friends would have cared to contra-
dict her.
On other subjects Madame was not
disagreeable. She could be very pleas-
antly talkative on worldly matters, for
she had seen a good deal of life, and
apparently mixed with all classes of so-
ciety; and her reminiscences were very
entertaining, told in her short, humor-
ous fashion.
She could be kind, too, in her way;
but it was a forced sort of kindliness,
more politic, I fancy, than springing
from natural disposition. She happened
to regard me with particular favor—I
cannot say affection, for I don’t believe
she was capable of such a sentiment ;
and I soon discovered that I was a fa-
vorite pupil by the impunity with which
I found I could break any of the school-
laws, and by the deference with which
the under-teachers treated me.
Whether it was my connections, my
position, or myself, that won Madame
Palingat's sympathy, I was puzzled tº
decide; for though my father was no-
bly connected and very wealthy, I had
never seen him, and the little I knew
of my family history was not sufficiently
favorable for me to think it would be
highly regarded by Madame.
My position, again—that of a girl
who from her cradle had been tossed
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
7
about from school to school, left always
to the paid care of strangers from one
year's end to another, without a relation
ever appearing personally—was not
more attractive ; and as to myself, Mad-
ame Palingat was not a woman to be
sentimentally influenced by either grace
of mind or person. At the time I did
not trouble myself much to account for
this favor. Young as I was, that toss-
ing about the world had hardened me,
and I was quite ready to enjoy any ben-
efits I found in my way, thanklessly,
without inquiring into their cause.
My mother, a Frenchwoman, had
died when I was four years old; and
from that age I had been a schoolgirl,
my schoolmistress for the time being
the only friend I had. I never knew
the delights of going home for holidays
—the pleasure of home letters, home
presents, home friends. The circle sur-
rounding me was my home circle;
strangers were my relations and friends,
strangers my constant companions.
My English father must have given
me a touch of his English nature; for
I was not gay and light-hearted like my
schoolmates, and I pined over my lone-
liness and brooded over it, till, as I
grew up, I became grave and taciturn
almost to a fault. Some called me
heartless, others proud; I only knew I
was indifferent to everything and every-
OIl€.
I was about sixteen when an order
for my removal to Madame Palingat's
school, then just established at Gan,
reached me. These removals from one
school to another, were the only import-
ant breaks in my monotonous exist-
ence; and I accordingly looked forward
to them with a degree of interest and
excitement that persons placed in my
position can only know. In the pres-
ent instance the long distance I should
have to travel—for I was then living
near Paris—with the change of climate
and scenery, enhanced this interest :
and the letter which Madame Palingat
thought proper to send me also awoke
my curiosity. This letter was short
and gracious ; but her allusion to the
pleasure it would give her to finish my
education, and finally present me to my
father thoroughly fitted to occupy my
important station, roused me to consider
attentively what that station could be.
As I said before, I was utterly ignorant
of all concerning my own family and
relations. The words awoke a pleasant
hope that a termination to this lonely,
loveless life was at hand, and that per-
haps Madame Palingat knew the posi-
tion which I should actually occupy.
I dreamt a good deal of this as I
travelled down to the south ; so ab-
sorbed was I in my expectations, that I
felt very little the cold farewells I had
received, and still less did I notice the
changes of scenery through which I
passed. I travelled on dreaming and
silent; even the first view of the grand
mountain chain, which, as the diligence
toiled its way up the winding road, met
our sight, failed to draw any enthusias-
tic remark; and as, in the various as-
cents, descents, and windings of the
road, we now lost and now again caught
sight of the beautiful scene, I sat back
in the carriage quite indifferent to it.
Whatever I may have hoped from
Madame Palingat’s apparent knowledge
of my family affairs, I was disappointed
in. She received me graciously, but
neither by word nor sign did she show
that she regarded me in any other light
than as a pupil for whom the best mas-
ters and every expensive luxury of the
school were to be freely provided. In
vain did I endeavor to see Madame pri-
vately, and make some inquiries as to
when she had seen my father, and why
I was removed so suddenly from the
neighborhood of Paris, where it was
natural to suppose my education could
be more highly finished than in an ob-
scure village like Gan.
Milord, Madame said, smiling with
her red lips, as I walked beside her and
another pupil the morning after my ar-
rival, and before I could make up my
mind to question her in the presence of
a stranger, Milord was an old acquaint-
ance of hers, I was very like Milord—
it pleased her to see it. I should be a
pleasant reminder of him.
Madame spoke as if she wished to pay
a compliment to both parties, but quite
carelessly. I listened eagerly, and then
ventured a question or two ; but the
short “Oui, mademoiselle,” or “ Mais
non,” fell discouragingly on my ear. I
was too proud to show how little I knew
8 MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION.
of my own history, or to appear to seek
information; and those cold answers
proved an effectual check to my curi-
osity.
I soon settled down to the routine of
my new school life. As regarded monot-
ony, it was no improvement upon that
I had just left; but the climate and
scenery of the south were changes
decidedly for the better.
I preferred also the manner in which
the school was conducted; there was less
noise, less surveillance, though greater
seclusion. We were at liberty to wander
about the grounds and vineyards as we
chose, provided we kept within bounds;
and during the hours of recreation, which
were tolerably long, we enjoyed con-
siderable freedom.
The three under-governesses generally
kept to themselves, or if they joined the
girls, it was only with the object of shar-
ing their amusements. As for Madame,
beyond her attendance in classe, and a
visit night and morning to the school-
room she never came among us.
The all-absorbing curiosity with which
I had come to Gan soon consumed itself,
and expired for want of fuel. If Ma-
dame knew aught of my affairs, she evi-
dently had no intention of communica-
ting her knowledge to me; and in twenty-
four hours I learnt that Madame's inten-
tions were always preserved and ob-
served to the letter. I resigned myself
to remain ignorant still.
CHAPTER II.
MONSIEUR LE CURE.
MADAME was a strict Catholic, and she
required all her élèves to observe their
religious duties with equal strictness.
Summer and winter, every morning
under the hot sun as over the snow, she
marched at the head of girls and teachers
down the hilly ground to the village
church to hear the early mass. She con-
fessed once a fortnight, communicated as
often, and fasted and feasted whenever
the calendar so decreed. Not content with
thus performing her duty, and causing us
to do likewise, she besought Monsieur le
Curé to visit us weekly, and give us the
benefit of his pious instructions.
The Curé of Gan was a young man,
with quick dark eyes, and a bright com-
plexion; not exactly a jovial-looking man,
but one whom, as Mademoiselle Fleury,
the first governess, said, one could not
help regretting should have dedicated
himself to the holy but triste profession
of priesthood.
S. bom, si douac d'un caractère tout-à-
fait charmant, was it surprising that M.
le Curé's weekly visits were welcome to
the houseful of young women and girls
surrounded by only the solitary vine-
yards and maize-fields 2 And if the
young ladies did quarrel among them-
selves as to who should sit near him dur-
ing the lesson, what was the harm 2 If
they waited on him, and courted his
favor with a devotion they never exhib-
ited to their patron saints—if they dis-
puted for his glances and counted them
eagerly—if even when Madame was
with him they dared to throw themselves
in his homeward path, starting up from
among the fig-trees and vines like start-
led nymphs, eager to receive his good-
night and priestly blessing—they meant
no harm. They called him mon père,
and treasured his advice ; while he ad-
dressed them as mes enfants, and loved
them as such he said.
I think I might have been very happy
in that house among the vineyards, if it
had not been for that man—that priest.
I knew nothing of the world and its
pleasures then, and consequently the
seclusion was no trial to me; the climate
suited me ; the life of not too laborious
a routine, suited me.
I was passionately fond of drawing,
and from every window of the house,
every point of the sloping grounds, there
were scenes which even now, as I recall
them to memory, thrill me with sadness
and delight. I wish I could but faintly
express the dreamy happiness my ar-
tistic genius procured me.
My nature was not voluptuous ; and
yet, to sit there in the soft clear air,
with the deep gloriously blue sky
above my head, the vines around me—
amid those scenes of mountain beauty,
dreaming as I shall never dream again
—not ambitiously, not with worldliness,
yet with a luxuriance of egotism—was
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION. 9
to enjoy a sensuous happiness, from
which it was actual grief to be recalled.
To sit for hours, almost wondering
myself at the ease with which beautiful
Nature lent herself to the power of my
pencil, so absorbed that the sounds of
my schoolmate's voices sometimes star-
tled me, sometimes passed me by un-
heeded—to wander about the vineyards
often beyond bounds, and often, often
into the little church, there to pray
piously and faithfully—such was my
happiness.
A break came to it.
Late one evening, encouraged by the
impunity with which I usually managed
to break the rules, I took a fancy to es-
cape from the dormitory, where the
girls were sleeping, into the garden. It
was not a very difficult feat, for my bed
was placed at the top of the range of
beds that completely lined the long
room. Close to it was the glass door
leading to the wooden balcony. This
door was left wide open these summer
nights, and the balcony was only a few
feet from the ground. Young and agile
as I then was, to let myself down from
this to the soft grass below was but the
affair of a few minutes.
It was a very calm moonlight night ;
so clear and bright, that the shadows of
the trees and of myself fell as distinctly
on the silent earth as on the Sunniest
day. Everything was still. Not a leaf
stirred, not a bird uttered a note. The
shadows of shrub and tree fell motion-
less. My own, as I crept from under
the veranda on to the open sod, seemed
the only evidence of life in the whole
SCene.
Very few French girls of my age
would have risked Madame's displeas-
ure for the sake of a moonlight ramble
among the vines. The French romance
is of a different nature. There must
always be a spice of intrigue in it. A
view of Nature under a new aspect
being the object of a Moonlight walk
would be something at which a French-
woman would arch her eyebrows and
shrug her shoulders but never under-
stand.
Young and ignorant of the world as
I then was, I was perfectly aware of
that, and consequently of what I risked
should I be discovered. Instinctively I
crept to the farthest part of the grounds,
and wandered about there.
Between the boundaries of the vine-
yard and the maize-fields, ran a narrow
grassy road, full of holes and ruts,
made by the vaches and the charrettes,
and on this the moonlight fell full and
brightly. It was too exposed a situation
for me to venture in ; I therefore Satdown
as comfortably as I could among the
vines to rest before I began my home-
ward walk.
As I said before, the air was wonder-
fully still; so still that the breaking of
a twig might be distinctly heard. As I
sat, a distant murmur of voices startled
me. Voices at that time and in that
place were startling, and I crouched,
frightened, still farther back into the
shadow.
Well for me that I did so, for in a
few seconds two figures came out from
the maize-fields, and, crossing the nar-
row road, were distinctly visible. They
were Monsieur le Curé and Madame.
Now Madame Palingat professed to
keep very early hours. Had I not be.
lieved her soundly sleeping in the house
on the hill, I should certainly have
paused and considered before I indulged
my fancy for a moonlight walk. What
could Madame be doing? Was her mid-
night promenade a freak or fancy, like
my own P I was very young, and very
little fit to cope with a world-wise wo-
man like Madame; but I could judge
and understand her sufficiently to an-
swer my own question with a very deci-
sive No
The night was oppressively hot, and
the priest held his broad-leaved hat in
his hand, leaving his head exposed. I
could see his every feature distinctly in
the clear light. Madame on the contrary
had a light shawl thrown over her
head, and it was only by her voice that
I recognized her. They stood not far
from my hiding-place, evidently with
the intention of parting company there ;
and I was in such intense fear of being
discovered, that for some minutes I was
too much absorbed in the endeavor to
remain perfectly still to care to listen to
their conversation. Presently, however,
a sound—a word something like my
own name—attracted my attention. In
an instant my stifled curiosity—like
10
MY SISTER’s CONFESSION.
a sudden flame in a dying fire—shot
up, and sent the blood whirling through
my veins. How I listened then I Mad-
ame's voice came indistinctly. She
evidently lowered her natural tone of
speaking ; besides, her back was turned
towards me. But M. le Cure's deep
voice, in spite of his also speaking soft-
ly, reached me generally clearly enough.
“At confession on Thursday,” I
heard him say.
Madame spoke then in whispers.
“True,” the Cure said again. “But
Surely you, Héloise, with all your far-
sightedness, can provide against that.
Besides, a child like her—a quiet petite
réveuse—what can you fear?”
Madame raised her head and seemed
to speak with some excitement.
“I will remark it,” again said the
priest; “but I think you deceive your-
self. The girl is too simple, too childish
to have the art you imagine. But
it is late. We can decide to-morrow.
I must wish you good-night.”
He put on his flat-hat as he spoke,
and moved a step or two ; but Madame
had evidently more to say to him. She
turned a little, and in her hurry let the
shawl partly fall from her head. I
scarcely know why, but I shivered as I
caught sight of her still handsome face,
pale in the moonlight. She was frown-
ing too—frowning in a manner that she
never did before her élèves.
Bah / Bah / said the priest again.
“The sais ! tu sais tout, mom amie / Mais
tw te trompe quelquefois.”
As he spoke he turned abruptly, and,
without more ado, walked quickly away
in the shadow of the trees. For an in-
stant Madame stood looking after him ;
then drew the shawl again over her head,
gathered up her dress, to enable her, I
suppose, to walk more quickly and
quietly, and then stole into the shadow
of the vines, and I saw her no more.
For nearly half an hour I crouched
there not daring to move, and watching
for the least sign to assure me that
Madame had reached the house. From
their manner of parting I could not
doubt but that they had no intention of
meeting again that night; and yet in
such a state of nervous tremor was I,
that the slightest sound seemed to be
"eturning footsteps. The idea of meet-
ing Madame was absolutely horrible. I
should have done anything to avoidit—
and encountered any personal danger.
With this fear was mixed a large share
of wonderment at what I had heard
and seen. tº.
The Curé tutoyed Madame, and treat-
ed her with a familiarity that I could
not understand. He had left her in
a very disrespectful manner, and yet
Madame, who of all persons loved
her national politeness, seemed neither
to resent it nor to be surprised at it.
And then who was the girl of whom
they spoke—the petite réveuse, as the
priest called her? Could it be that I
had really heard my own name spoken
Could they have been talking about me !
I pondered it all over very carefully,
but I could not satisfy myself that I
was the person to whom they referred.
When I returned to my room, I fancied
I saw the glimmer of a candle through
the panes of glass at the top of the
door leading into the passage. Could
Madame have paid us a visit, or was
she about to do so? I thought as I
crept into bed softly as possible, and
drew the sheet over me.
A light footstep came down the stair.
Yes, the latch of the door was lifted,
and a figure entered in a very peculiar
style of toilet.
Madame's hair was all twisted up un-
der her white cap. She had on a short
black petticoat and her bed gown ; and
whether it was my imagination or her
peculiar dress I know not, but I should
scarcely have recognized in that small
weary-looking woman, coming slowly
up the long room between the ranges of
beds, the authoritative, voluminous
Madame Palingat of everyday life. I
lay perfectly still watching her, and as
I watched an uneasy feeling came over
me—a horrid weary desire of remem-
bering some long-banished scene. Fa-
miliar and yet strange did that small
figure seem in the hideous nightcap and
short petticoat. So familiar did it seem,
that after slowly coming up the room,
stooping every now and then to look
anxiously at the occupant of some par-
ticular bed, I was quite prepared to see
it approach mine. and almost knew be-
forehand the words it would address to
me. One has such feelings sometimes.
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
11
How to account for them, I know not.
“Why don’t you sleep, Christine’’’
Madame said, stopping at the foot of
my bed, and raising her lamp so that its
light fell full on my face.
“It is so hot,” I answered, uneasily,
shading my eyes and feeling dreadfully
frightened.
“It is hot,” she said, fixing on me
her dark hard looking eyes, till their
stare became painful and I turned un-
easily. Then she came up to my side.
Holy Mary ! how my very heart
seemed to tremble when she laid her
strong cold hand on my arm, and, bend-
ing over me, smiled.
“You are feverish, my child,” she
said; “that is the reason you do not
sleep. If you were so uneasy, why did
you not wake Mademoiselle Elise and
send her to me?”
“I was not uneasy,” I answered;
“but I can’t sleep.”
“Hush I don’t wake the other young
ladies—hush, my child ! Tell me, as
you have been lying awake, have you
heard steps about the house?”
“No,” I replied, starting up in
alarm.
“Hush 1 ° smiled Madame; “don’t
be frightened. I fancied I did, and that
is why I got up to see. I fancied one
of the girls might be ill, or perhaps
sleep-walking.”
I shivered a little again at the stare
of those hard eyes, and I was thankful
to every saint in heaven when she at
length took away her hand, muttered
good-night, and crept out of the room
as silently as she had entered it.
Were that scene to take place now,
were such words to be addressed to me
now, I should probably argue very dif-
ferently about their cause. Then I was
unwise and unsuspicious enough to fancy
that they meant no more than they ex-
pressed. I actually fancied that Mad-
ame had probably heard my footsteps
in returning to the house, and my great
fear had been that she might discover
some evidence of my late adventure. I
never dreamt that she had some motive,
perhaps, in visiting our room at mid-
night, and that, finding me awake, she
had framed the excuses for her unex-
pected appearance.
A young mind does not naturally im-
agine evil. Experience makes us sus-
picious; experience comes hand in
hand with Time, and lifts the veil from
many kinds of knowledge; but with
ignorance departs much of our inno-
C6:IlC6.
CHAPTER III.
AT THE CONFESSIONAL.
I was a little nervous the next day at
meeting Madame, but this was occasion-
ed entirely by my fear of her having in
some way discovered my midnight walk.
With the dark night had departed all
my wonderment at Madame's moonlight
ramblings and midnight visit to the dor-
mitory. In the daylight I became pro-
saic, and it seemed to me quite easy to
understand that probably M. le Cure
had supped with Madame, stayed unusu-
ally late, and then, as often happened,
she had accompanied him to the bound-
ary of her dominions. As to the visit
she had paid me at night, that was easi-
ly accounted for. It was only too prob-
able that she had heard me re-enter the
house, and, perhaps suspecting some
escapade, had come to inspect her
charge.
I met her bonjour courageously; but
when I fancied that for an instant her
quick dark eyes rested inquisitively on
me, I could not help coloring up. She
did not question me though, she even
turned away, as if she did not wish to
notice that I was embarrassed; and that
morning, instead of keeping me beside
her as usual to walk to church, she sent
me on with some of the others. I did
not remark this at the time ; after events
brought it to my memory, and then I
understood all that was so strange and
contradictory in her conduct.
I was kneeling in the confessional; it
was late in the evening, for by some
chance I was the last of the party to
confess, and the dying light struggled
feebly in through the small windows of
the church. I was kneeling humbly,
listening to the questions of the father
confessor with a reverence that, as a
religiously brought-up young Catholic, I
felt sincerely ; but my sins were not very
12
MY SISTER’s CONFESSION.
numerous or very heavy, and I labored
hard to believe myself the black-hearted
sinner he strove to make me think I
was. The father was not accustomed
to talk to me thus; he usually heard
my simple confession of bad deeds with
a very forgiving compassion, and the
penance never exceeded a few extra
Pater Nosters and Ave Marias to be
added to my night and morning prayers;
he generally dismissed me in a few
minutes with kind words and a light
conscience ; but to-night he seemed in
no hurry to end this task. |
“A life of sin, my child,” said the
priest softly, “have you ever thought of
the eternal perdition which must follow
it 2 ”
“Yes, father,” I answered humbly,
but in nowise considering the subject
personally.
“Eternal perdition eternity in hell !
Does the thought terrify you, my child?
Do you pray that such may never be
your lot ?”
“I pray always with faith, father,” I
answered, still composedly.
“You do right—pray constantly, pray
always, pass your life in prayer.” The
priest paused a moment, but I was silent;
truth to tell, I was noticing how gloomi-
ly the light fell from the windows, and
wondering whether Ishould reach home
before the night set in darkly. The
good father's unwonted enthusiasm came
on a rather dull ear.
“My daughter,” he said, suddenly but
softly, “ have you ever contemplated
the holy delight of passing your life in
devotion—in giving yourself entirely to
Christ P” *~
I paused ; as a good Catholic the idea
was not very startling to me, “I don’t
think I should like to be a nun, father,”
I said simply. -
“I feared not ; I feared your heart
still loved sin and its allurements. Your
mind cannot conceive the beauty of self-
sacrifice—of sacrifice to Christ; you
cannot understand the safety and hap-
piness of a holy life. As yet you do
not realize the awfulness of your posi-
tion. You must pray; my child, pray
to the blessed Virgin to soften your
heart, and enlarge your understand-
ing.”
§ Yes, my father,” I said humbly,
“Pray to her to teach you to shun the
hollow pleasures of the world.”
“Yes, father.”
“To have no pleasure in wealth or
rank.”
“Yes, father.” V.
“To give up cheerful ties of kindred
for Christ's sake, and for his glorifica-
tion.”
I was silent—where were my ties of
kindred P
“You do not answer, my child,” con-
tinued the priest.
“I was thinking,” I replied hesita-
tingly, “that that would be no sacrifice,
father, for I have none.”
“ None P”
“At least none known to me.”
“You should be thankful then, my
child. God has spared you the trial of
such a sacrifice. Are you not grateful,
or is there lurking in your sinful heart
a repining at what is really a mercy P”
“I should like to know my father,” I
said apologetically, “it is hard to be
quite alone in the world.”
“What when Christ offers you so
near a relationship, so holy a home !
Many a blessed soul, surrounded with
wealth in worldly goods and earthly
love has considered it a privilege to be
permitted to exchange them for the
quiet and calm of such a home; while
to you there would be no exchange—
the blessing would be to you a free gift.”
“I am not worthy,” I muttered faintly,
not quite understanding this long speech,
and endeavoring to answer appropriately.
“You may strive to become so—pray
fervently to become so ; and pray also
that your eyes may be opened to see
the mercy of your position. Go home,
my daughter, and with faith and prayer
think over my words.”
I left the confessional with a willing
step; I scarcely know why, but I felt
frightened. The small church looked
gloomy and melancholy. The lamp
burning dimly before the altar shed a
feeble glare on the crucifix and orna-
ments, and glimmered with a ghastly
light on the face of the virgin in the
large picture hanging just above. “I did
not feel as bowing humbly and crossing
myself I passed the altar, that there
was much comfort to be found there. I
felt bewildered and friendless. I turned
MY SISTER's
CONFESSION,
13
and looked eagerly round to see if any
of my companions yet remained; for I was
afraid the priest might leave his zoom
before I could get out of the church, and
then probably he would walk home with
me and renew the disagreeable tete-à-
téte. But Madame was too excellent a
governess to leave a pupil alone without
protection at such an hour. I soon dis-
covered poor Mademoiselle Elise—the
youngest teacher, a girl not many years
older than myself—quietly dozing over
her rosary and clasped hands in the
darkest corner of the church.
“Que c'est ennuyeux d'attendre / "she
saluted me with yawning vigorously.
“Est-ce que M. le Curé est mécontent de
vows, ma pauvre Christine, qu'il vous a,
fait rester si longtemps?”
“Let us go quickly,” I answered,
putting my arm through hers and draw-
ing her out of the church, “M. le Curé
will be after us in a moment.”
“Tant mieux,” replied Mademoiselle
Elise; “il est fort charmant, surtout
hors de l'église.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Charm-
ing or not, Elise,” I replied quickly,
“I am not going to walk home with
him to-night. If you choose to wait
for him, you may wait by yourself.”
Elise muttered something about my
being insolente et leste ; but she follow-
ed me quickly, and we reached the
grounds before the priest could over-
take us. Elise was an immense talker,
and for that reason she and I were not
at all favorite companions, and we
made no secret of the matter.
“You need not be in such haste,”
the young teacher began, “if we are a
little late, Madame will not scold, as it
is M. le Curé who has kept you; and I
do so hate going to the narrow hard
vilain beds at this hour, when other
people are walking about and enjoying
themselves.”
I scrambled on, saying, “I am tired,
Elise; besides, M. le Curé is behind.”
The girl turned round to look.
“No,” she answered, “I thought he
would not come to-night. Whilst we
where in the church, Christine—”
“Well,” I said impatiently; for she
had stopped to gather some figs, and
was hurriedly devouring them.
“I beg your pardon, Christine,” she
said, coming on ; “I really ought not
to be such a babillarde. I will be si
lent.”
“As you please. I only thought
you were going to tell me why M. le
Curé could not be coming to sup with
Madame to-night; but I’ve no doubt
you know nothing about the matter.”
“Que vous étes méchante / " laughed
the governess, good-humoredly. “You
know I am dying to tell you, and you
want to hear, only you are proud and
disagreeable.”
“Well, Elise, when we were in the
church—”
“There we were, all triste as could
be, telling our beads, and waiting for
first one and then the other to go into
the confessional,” answered Elise. “l
think every one of us but Madame
was ready to die of ennui–but she,
you know, Christine, is wonderfully
good and pious—when, just after you
had gone, we heard the door of the
church open, and in came a fine lady,
dressed" in the most elegant recherché
toilet. How such a brilliant, beautiful
woman could take a fancy to come into
this stupid place, I can’t imagine, for
she was dressed to go among the beau
monde, fit for the gayest promenade in
all gay Paris even. Well, she passed
the holy water, and was coming in a
tremendous hurry up the church, when
I supposed, she remembered herself,
for she went back, and dipped her fin-
gers in the basin, and then, like a good
Christian, knelt down at the end of the
church, and began praying, I suppose,
for she put up her hands— si bien gan-
tées, Christine—to her face, and re-
mained quite still. Well, of course,
we all looked at her thoroughly, and
began to wonder who she could be ;
we know the baronne by sight, and so
were sure it was not she, when Mad-
ame gets up quickly from her place,
and walks straight up to the lady and
begins talking to her. After a short
minute, Madame comes back, looking a
little pale—not very, you know, par-
ceque Madame est naturellement très
brune—and she tells Mademoiselle Ber-
net to take the pupils home at Önce;
but she tells me to wait for you; and
then she goes back to the lady. I
have good ears, Christine, they hear a
14
CONFESSION.
MY SISTER’s.
long way off; and I know my Pater
Nosters so well, that I can say them
and listen to other things at the same
time. Well, I heard Madame speak
English—I know it was English, be-
cause it sounded just the same as when
you read to me your English songs.
Besides, Madame said, ‘To-morrow.’
‘To-morrow is English, is it not,
Christine P And the lady said ‘Yes.’
Presently they went out of the church;
and then, ma petite chérie,” (Elise al-
ways called me that when she was con-
fessing to having done something not
exactly in the rules of the school),
“why, I found it so dreadfully hot and
triste that I followed them, and peeped.
There was a beautiful carriage stand-
ing at the door, the lady got into it,
and Madame too ; and then away they
went on the road to Pau !”
“To Pau ? at this time P”
“Exactly, ma chère ; so you see
there is no harm if we stay and eat a
few figs in the cool air, instead of go-
ing to those hot ugly beds.”
I was quite of Elise's opinion con-
cerning the pleasures of remaining
where we were ; but I had no desire to
be reported to Madame so soon after
my late escapade. “You can do as
you choose, Elise.” I answered, “but
for myself I am tired; so good-night.”
CHAPTER IV.
A QUESTION THAT EMBARRASSES M.
LE CURE.
THE weather had been very hot—we
had been enjoying what is called an
Indian summer, and were getting lan-
guid and weary of the perpetual sun-
shine and soft air—so weary, that some
amongst us were beginning to long for
the Pyrrenees to glisten with snow ; but
we of the North, who held winter
in awe, were satisfied to long for the
leaves to yellow and fall; we were
even willing to say good-bye to the
grapes and figs.
How hot it was toiling up that wea-
rying hill after high mass on Sunday,
and then after vespers in the afternoon.
It exhausted the strongest amongst us,
and even Madame herself, would pause
to pant and wipe her brow. Our Sun-
day dinner was little enjoyed after those
walks, and we were glad to get our re-
lease earlier from the house than usual,
and wander about in the shady parts of
the grounds.
There was a particular spot that I
loved well. It was a kind of recess
from the path that led up the hill—a
few square feet of level ground on
which grew a couple of large fig-trees
and a beautiful glossy-leaved magnolia.
From here I could watch the evening
light in all its various hues fall on the
mountains as they stood sharply out
against the sky. I could watch the
rose-color tone and sober into lilac and
then into gray, while the sky around
was a perfect glory of gold and crimson,
or gold and purple. Here I could catch
the first breeze that after Sunset came
pleasantly fresh from the mountains,
and after those hot days a breath of
fresh air was a luxury.
I was sitting in this recess one Sun-
day evening, not long after my visit to
the confessional, when to my discom-
fort I saw the priest coming slowly up
the mountain path. He never came to
visit Madame on Sunday, as he always
dined with the baronne, who lived in
the handsomest house Gan could boast :
so I was a little surprised to see him,
and not at all pleased. He was holding
his hat in his hand, and mounting the
path with an energy that spoke well for
his constitution. Of course he saw me
directly, and I went to meet him with
the respectful courtesy Madame taught
all her pupils to show their priest and
confessor.
“Alone!” he exclaimed ; “always
alone, ma petite reveuse ?”
I colored, for I was but a schoolgirl,
and had the habit of blushing even at my
own thoughts. My thoughts at that
moment were, “Then they were speak-
ing of me that night—I am the petite
reveuse.” I colored with nervousness,
but not that occasioned by meeting M.
le Curé. *
“You have chosen a pretty hiding-
place, Mademoiselle Christine,” he con-
tinued, sitting down on the mound under
the fig-tree. -
I answered demurely, “Yes, M. le
MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION.
15
Curé.” As I have before said, conver-
sation was not my forte.
He shaded his eyes with his hand,
and seemed absorbed in contemplating
the scene, whilst I stood respectfully
and silently by.
“Sit down, my child,” he said pres-
ently, turning abruptly towards me ;
“there is room for us both.”
I obeyed, sitting, however, as far as
possible from the priest.
“A most glorious view,” he went on.
“You show good taste, Mlle Christine,
in choosing such a spot for quiet medi-
tation. You love meditation do you
not P”
“Sometimes,” I answered; “but I
love drawing better. I come here to
sketch ; there are such beautiful points
of view from this mound.”
“Drawing is a talent, certainly ; but
are you sure you employ it in the service
of Heaven P’’
“How could I?” I asked humbly.
“I can tell you one way: you might
occupy yourself in copying sacred
subjects for altar-pieces, and you might
give the money so earned to the sister-
hood to which you belong.” .
“I don’t wish to be a nun, father; I
don’t wish to belong to any sisterhood.”
“I have told you your heart is sinful,
my poor child.”
“But why should you think it my
duty to be a nun more than any of my
companions P Why is it more sinful
of me not to wish it than the others ?”
I asked boldly and flushing red. Be-
fore he replied, the priest gave me a
quick look from his bright eyes.
“Do not try to argue with me,” he
said severely. “Your duty is to listen
humbly and obey.” -
“And, my father—” I muttered, dar-
ingly. But the Curé did not hear me;
he was looking at a figure that was com-
ing up the steep nath with an energy
equal to that with which he had so late-
ly mounted himself.
Up it came, nearer and nearer, the
rustle of silk mingled with the rustle of
leaves and at length a strange lady
stood before us, a little out of breath
with her exertions, but apparently in no
way disturbed or surprised at seeing us.
She wore a large-brimmed hat, and this
she pulled over her face as she reached
us, so that I could not see her features.
The Cure saluted her courteously, and
she said in French, but with an ac-
cent my ear immediately detected as
English: t
“Have I kept you waiting long 2*
The priest did not reply immediate-
ly. He approached her, muttered some-
thing, I could not hear what, and then,
without taking any notice of me, they
both strolled on side by side in the direc-
tion of the house.
Have you ever watched a hare or
rabbit skip joyfully from a thicket, frisk
about freely in the sunshine, when sud-
denly, from some cause hidden from
you, a kind of panic seizes it, and away
it flies in an agony of fear? As the
priest turned away from me, such a
panic, such an agony of fear seized me.
I knew not what danger menaced me,
knew not from whence; but such an
utter dread of my loneliness and help-
lessness came over me, that even in the
warm air Igrew cold as death, and, clasp-
ing my hands, burst into a passion of
tears. I think that was the first time I
really apprehended that there was some
mystery going on between Madame and
the priest that concerned me.
My nature was not French, according
to the general adaptation of the term.
I was slow to be roused, slow to per-
ceive; but once roused, my perception
once awakened, I was fierce and vin-
dictive enough to show my Celtic blood.
With that flood of tears my apathetic
humility passed away; I carefully re-
considered the scanty data I had from
which to draw my conclusions, and I
determined to be more watchful, more
suspicious for the future; and with my
suspicion were roused all the worst at-
tributes of my nature.
CHAPTER W.
CAROLINE.
ON rare occasions we used to go to
the town of Pau. We were barely four
English miles distant, and the journey
was easily performed by omnibus for
the moderate sum of ten sous ; so, for
all important shopping, for occasional
16
CONFESSION.
MY SISTER'S
visits to the dentists, and so forth,
Madame always took us to the town.
I remember it was the Thursday fol-
lowing the Sunday of which I have just
been writing, that, on dismissing the
morning class, Madame called me to her
and told me that she was going to Pau,
and would take me with her, as she be-
lieved I required to make some pur-
chases. It was a beautiful afternoon,
about the beginning of October. There
had been a violent but short storm the
preceding day, and the earth was fresh
and green, the air cool and clear as
crystal, and everything seemed to prom-
ise that summer heat was at length over,
and that we might look now for pleas-
ant autumn days—to me the loveliest of
all days in the south of France.
I sat opposite the Madame in the om-
nibus, with a stout, blue-bloused, garlic-
smelling peasant on either side of me ;
but, in spite of my position, I felt very
satisfied. In the first place, I enjoyed
a visit to the town ; and secondly, but
chiefly, I trusted by this means to es-
cape seeing the one person on earth
whom I feared and disliked—Monsieur
Bellemere, the Curé of Gan. Thursday
was his special day for dining with
Madame. Thursday is the mid-week
half holiday in France. It is vacance
to schoolboys and schoolgirls; one dines
more luxuriously on Thursday, one
dresses better, more visits are paid,
more parties of pleasure planned, and
in the public promenades you will gen-
erally find music and promenaders. Pau
was particularly gay that afternoon.
The weather, I suppose, combined
with its being Thursday, enticed the
beau monde into the walks and public
places. Besides, the invalid season was
beginning, and there were strangers
from all countries lounging about, as
well as the residents.
Madame dressed in her most careful
style, seemed another person as she
swept along the Sunny, gay street, stop-
ping at every other shop to inspect and
admire, bowing here, greeting pleasantly
some acquaintance there. A French-
woman loves sunshine and gayly-dressed
people; of all things she loves a gay
lively promenade. Madame was thor-
oughly French, and she could no more
resist the influence of that afternoon’s
walk than she could help her national.
ity. Yet, when we had set off, even in
the omnibus, though she was occupied
all the time in talking to the gentleman
next her about the vintage, she had
looked more harassed and worn than I
had ever seen her before. She cheered
up wonderfully as we walked along.
She was gay and talkative; not familiar,
though, or warm-mannered—I think it
was utterly impossible for her to be
that. As we passed a modiste's, a
thought seemed suddenly to strike her.
“Your hat, Christine,” she said, “is
shockingly unbecoming; let us see if
we can suit you better.”
I entered the shop willingly. No
girl is indifferent to her appearance,
and I was alarmed at hearing I looked
badly dressed. Madame's taste, how-
ever, was different from mine. She
selected a very dashing hat, ornamented
with a scarlet feather ; and no persua-
sion on my part could induce her to let
me choose another.
“With your black hair, Christine,
your dark eyes, what could go better?”
As she spoke she placed the hat on my
head, looked at me eagerly, muttering:
“In spite of them all I will not be
ashamed of her.
“Mademoiselle resembles Madame
very much,” the modiste said, Smiling.
I laughed, peeping into the glass,
however, and saying, “Nevertheless,
she is no relation.” But that glance
startled me.
The milliner was right. As we stood
there, side by side, I smiling and eager,
she also smiling, and, for one instant,
something like softness in her usually
hard-looking eyes, I could trace a re-
semblance between us—a faint shadowy
likeness, not of feature nor yet of ex-
pression, but still something that might
make it quite possible for a stranger's
eye to mistake us for relations. -
I turned away quietly. Was it a
sigh that escaped Madame Palingat I
sat silently with the hat on my head,
and let her pay for it without another
word. As we went out of the shop I
slipped my arm through hers—we had
to make our way through a group of
persons; in the slight confusion I took
courage. “You,” I whispered—“Ma.
dame, are You my Mother P’’
MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION. - 17
i|
She did not answer till we were
walking in a clear space, outside the
arches on the Place Gramont; then she
said steadily, “No, Christine ; your
mother lies buried in the cimetière there
on the hill.” As she spoke, she dis-
placed my arm from hers in a manner
that was coldly repulsive.
“You knew her then P’” I said, gen-
tly.
W. I did. Don't question me any more,
Christine; I shall not reply.”
“Who will answer me then 2 To
whom shall I appeal P You are cruel,
. Madame ; you are heartless,” I said
passionately.
She walked on beside me silently for
some moments; then she said quietly,
and in her coldest tone :
“Christine, in this world there are
some persons whose existence are bur-
densome to themselves and their rela-
tions.”
I did not immediately understand her
words. My eyes were swimming with
tears, and I was vainly trying to hide
my emotion, and to be calm and proud
in my sorrow ; but as I thought them
over, a sudden light burst upon me—I
turned crimson.
“Do you mean to say that—am I—
would my mother—” I gasped.
“Pray remember you are in a public
street,” Madame interrupted ; “don’t
make yourself ridiculous.”
“Is my existence a burden to my re-
lations?” I at length managed to say
calmly.
“To judge from appearances I should
certainly say that it was.”
And then we walked on without ex-
changing another word.
I cannot tell you how different the
sky, the place, the people looked to me
after those few words. By some un-
seen power I seemed suddenly wrench-
ed from the world, and placed by my-
self in a great solitude. The scene
around me appeared utterly distinct
from myself; I saw, heard, and felt, but
it was as a person suddenly transferred
into a strange land.
An intolerable sensation of shame
seized me. If I had dared, I would
have crouched down and hidden my
face with my hands; but Madame, my
tormentor, dragged me on—dragged me
2
on, it seemed as if to expose me to the
public eye in all the freshness of my
disgrace. I have passed through many
miserable moments since then, many
hours of mental suffering ; but the
memory of that afternoon’s walk in the
Sunny streets of Pau comes to my mind
more keenly painful than them all.
Perhaps it was the intensity of the
humiliation coming unexpectedly that
made me suffer so. I was young, guile-
less then ; the idea that disgrace could
be associated with me had never oc-
curred to my mind. And then, with
all the impulse of a young heart and
head, I never paused to reason with or
to doubt the fulness of my misery. I
accepted it, believed it at once—took it
in largely as my fancy presented it to
me. Now I should pause a little first.
“I am going to pay a visit, Christine,
in the Rue Henri Quatre,” Madame said
presently; “I hope you are not tired.”
“No,” I replied.
I believe I should not have felt tired
had I walked across France in my then
mood ; but it seemed so strange to hear
Madame's voice talking on every day
matters in that quiet manner. To me
the world was a chaos : what had I to
do with fatigue or paying visits 2
“On the other side,” she said again ;
“let us cross the road.”
We crossed ; we passed by the large
shop at the corner. I remember there
were two pictures in that part of the
window that stands farthest back; we
stood and looked at them. I can recall
the subjects to this day: one was a
brilliantly - colored Spanish scene of
dancing girls; the other, the picture of
a lovely fair-haired mother bending over
a dying child. I recollect remarking
the gorgeousness of the couch on which
the child lay. I recollect, too, shudder-
ing and remarking the wedding-ring on
the mother's hand. How strange it is
that the details of scenes, looked upon
when our minds were certainly under
the absorbing influence of some great
misery, should be remembered so
clearly
In the Place Royal opposite, the
military band was playing, and there
were groups of persons lounging about
under the trees and before the café.
In the doorway of the house stood a
1S
CONFESSION,
MY SISTER'S
young man, dressed in the English
fashion, smoking, Madame drew back
a little as she noticed him ; but a voice
from a window above called her by
name, adding in English, “Bring Mad-
ame Palingat up, Montagu !” and then
Madame advanced, and the young man,
without removing either his hat or his
cigar, drew back for us to pass.
“Au premier,” he said, pointing to
the stairease in anything but a courteous
manner: “powes monter.” Madame
answered “Thank you,” in English ;
and up we went.
Madame seemed to know her way
well ; she ran up stairs, opened first one
door and then another without cere-
mony, till we reached the front room
from which the voice had come.
It was a spacious apartment, furnish-
ed with the eternal crimson velvet, and
having large handsome pictures on the
walls. By the window, stretched on
the sofa, so that she could see into the
Place, but still lounge comfortably, was
a young lady. As we entered, she rose
from her seat and came forward, saying
in English:
“I was just giving you up.”
“I was detained choosing a hat for
Christine,” answered Madame, standing
aside for the lady to see me. “One of
my pupils,” she added by way of in-
troduction. *
The lady bowed coldly, giving me
merely a passing glance; and then turn-
ing to Madame, she led her up to the
sofa by the window.
As for myself, I dropped into the
nearest chair, and tried to shake off the
feeling that I was in a hideous dream,
and to believe in it as a reality.
Whether it was through over-exer-
tion or too much strain on my nerves, I
know not, but suddenly the large pic-
tures on the wall began to spin round
me; and then everything was wrapped
in darkness.
I became conscious of some one
bending over me, of some one bathing
my temples with a strong essence; a
hand held my wrist, two voices, one a
strange one, were talking over me, but
what they said my brain was too feeble
to comprehend.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that
I was lying in a bedroom; and Madame
and the English lady were standing be-
side me. They were both looking at
me, but with very little compassion ;
and both seemed much more occupied
with their own conversation than with
my recovery.
As I opened my eyes they became
silent, and the lady walked off a little
way, and stood leaning against the
mantelshelf with her back turned to-
wards me.
“Do you suffer P” asked Madame,
pushing the hair from my forehead and
bending over me.
I removed her hand, and turned.
away. Memory was returning, and
bringing such a heavy weight, I could
not be gentle and courteous even to
Madame. I felt utterly careless and in-
different to her displeasure.
“If she is better, let us leave her for
a little, and go into the next room,”
said the English lady; “ or if you
please, we will call the bonne to stay
with her.”
Madame hesitated :
“Perhaps it would be better to go
home at once,” she said. “I could
come to-morrow.”
“Nonsense !” — and I heard a pas-
sionate stamp on the floor — “non-
sense !” answered the lady; “what’s a
fainting fit? I’ve fainted hundreds of
times. In half an hour Mademoiselle
will be quite well. Come, Madame; I
must speak to you in the next room.”
She led the way, and the Frenchwoman
followed her.
A quiet quarter of an hour ensued,
during which the only sounds that
reached me were the distant strains of
the music in the Place Royale : though
I listened attentively, I could hear
nothing in the next room—neither rus-
tle of dresses nor whispering of voices.
It is a long time ago since all this
happened, but I can recall with great
distinctness the smallest detail, even
my sensations and thought, as I lay on
the bed in that pretty room.
I felt weak and dreamy, and it was
too great an effort to struggle with the
misery that had so suddenly overtaken
me; so I submitted myself, to it, and
felt weighed down ; and meanwhile my
thoughts went over and over again all
the events of that afternoon. Then,
MY SISTER's
CONFESSION.
19
still more dreamily, I began examining
the furniture of the room, the patterns
on the wall, and two pictures that stood
leaning against the large mirror on the
mantelshelf. There were no crucifixes
about, no little vases of holy water, or
bits of palm blessed by the priest. I
was evidently in the room of a person
whose religion I had been taught to
consider little better than paganism,
and in my simplicity I made the sign of
the cross.
I gazed at the pictures. They were
portraits of a man and woman. The
man’s was a dark stern-looking face,
half covered by a thick beard and
mustache; the eyes and brows looked
pitiless, though not fierce, and the thin
nostrils, even in the painting, seemed
ready to quiver with hauteur and pride.
The woman’s was a fair English face;
so strongly resembling the lady I had
just seen, that I could not decide wheth-
er it was her own portrait or that of
some very near relation. The only dif-
ference was that, in the picture, the
bright fair hair was brushed smoothly
down on either side of the face; while
the lady wore hers turned back in the
fashionable French style, making her
face look more piquant than the coun-
tenance in the picture.
Much as I disliked her, I could not
but admire her style of beauty; even
in the short minute I had seen her, I
was impressed by it.
She was not very tall, with a straight
full figure. Her head sat with the
stateliest grace on her round white
throat; and as she went impetuously
about, she moved it with something of
the free but dignified grace of a young
stag. I think the comparison—a little
out of the way, as I confess it to be—is
suggested to me by the resemblance
her large hazel eyes had to those of
this animal. Some person's counte-
nances have a likeness to some partic-
ular creatures; how to account for it I
know not, but I have often remarked
it ; and whenever I think of Caroline's
large, floating, beautiful eyes, I am ir-
resistibly led to the memory of the
wistful intelligent orbs of some elk or
antlered stag. -
But my dreaminess was suddenly in
terrupted and my attention aroused by
hearing footsteps coming up stairs. They
sounded like those of men, and I was
soon assured of it by hearing a deep
grave-toned voice call “Caroline; ”
and then the door of the next room
opened and the footsteps passed in. I
could not distinctly hear what was
said; I made out a few words now and
then, sometimes of English and some-
times French, but I recognized that
there were four voices speaking, of
which one was Madame Palingat's.
There was a great deal of talking for
the space of about ten minutes, and
then again the door opened; and, I
suppose, some of them came out and
stood near the room where I was, for I
heard every word they uttered distinct-
ly
“For some days? But you need not
stay here, Caroline,” said the grave
voice.
“As well here as anywhere,” Caro-
line replied. “Good-bye, papa ; take
care of yourself.”
“Yes, Milord,” Madame added in
her hard English, “be mindful ; our
mountains are terribly dangerous in
Some parts.”
“Don’t be anxious,” answered the
man’s voice. “You will see me back
in ten days at most ; and then, Mad-
ame, I shall go to you at Gan without
fail; indeed I am not sure but that I
shall take you now on my way. I shall
only stay to-night with my friend, and
might just as well call on you to-mor-
row and end the business.”
At that moment the door communi-
cating with the bedroom and saloon
opened gently and Caroline came in.
“You are not asleep !” she exclaim-
en ; and then hurrying to the door
opening on to the stairs, stood with her
hand on the handle, hesitating whether
to go out or to stay and listen. .
I had lost, by her interruption, the
beginning of Madame's reply ; but we
both heard the end, “–her health,”
was saying Madame ; “but in ten or
twelve days she will have returned, and
then, if your lordship pleases, the inter-
view can take place ; though, for my
own part, I consider it ill judged.”
“Pardon me, Madame, you must
permit me to govern my own actions,”
returned the man’s voice.
20 MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
“Most certainly. I was only speak-
ing out of regard for the child. Such
an interview can but disturb her mind.
Simple as she is, the idea of having
such claims on your lordship may mis-
lead her just at a moment when it is of
the greatest importance that nothing
should happen to interfere with her
preparation for the holy vocation.”
I raised myself as my ear caught
these words, Caroline turned her flush-
ed face with its angry eyes towards the
bed, and our glances met.
I threw off the coverlet and sprang
from the bed. I scarcely know what I
meant to do, but there was a storm of
passion going on within me; and in the
whirl of fear, resentment, and bewil-
derment, I rose up with the hot angry
longing to meet and crush something.
“Whose voice is that?” I said in
French, hissing out the words so rap-
idly that the English girl did not under-
stand the simple sentence.
She came forward, her face quite
pale, except for two scarlet spots of
passion on her cheeks.
“Be quiet,” she whispered, “be
quiet; ” you shall be quiet; ” and with
all her strength she threw me back on
the bed, and held her hands over my
mouth. I could not move. There we
stayed for two long minutes. I shall
never forget lying there pressed down
under her weight, almost suffocated,
but powerless to move; while above
me hung her beautiful, fresh, wild,
furious face, with eyes that would have
willingly killed me with the hatred of
their glances.
I could not hear the voices outside
the room. I was struggling too much
to relieve myself; but I did hear at
length the noise of heavy footsteps
going down stairs; and then with a
tremendous effort I wrenched her hands
away, and gave a loud scream, calling,
“ Father | ?”
The door opened at that moment,
and in came Madame Palingat, her
brown face for once pale as death.
“What is this? what is the matter,
Mademoiselle Caroline P” she exclaim-
ed, looking first at me and then at the
English girl, who stood still clasping
me round the waist and holding me on
the bed. “Are you mad P”
“Almost, I believe,” Caroline answer
ed, springing up ; “but in my madness
I am not the utter fool you are.”
“Mais qu’est-ce que c'est done?”
Madame said, forgetting her English
in her surprise, Dites-moi, Christine.”
“Who was that who went out just
now P” I asked eagerly.
Madame turned away, and Caroline,
throwing herself into a large fauteuil,
buried her face in her hands.
If I had only known how to use my
opportunity by boldly speaking out my
Suspicions and accusations, it would
have been better for more than one of
our silent party; but I was a mere
schoolgirl, accustomed to submit my-
self to rule, and to hold my tongue. I
knew nothing of the world or the
world's ways; how was I to be expect-
ed to oppose by superior sagacity the
experience of Madame Palingat P
I stood there for some moments pas-
sionate and eager ; but I could not long
bear the cold glare of my schoolmis-
tress's eyes, and Isoon dropped down on
a chair, and was silent, like Caroline.
And so we all three remained for al-
most ten minutes, when Caroline rose
and walked hastily out of the room.
“Christine, tell me what has occur-
red?” Madame then said, coming and
standing beside me. “What caused
this outburst of anger from you both **
“Ask her,” I answered, pointing to
the next room, where we could hear
the rustle of the girl's dress as she
moved about. “I shall not enlighten
you.” -
Madame did not resent my rudeness;
she only looked puzzled.
“Are we going home now 2° I ask-
ed.
“In a short time. I have still some
business to settle with Mademoiselle
Caroline; we will then dine, and after
that go home.”
As she spoke, Madame left the room.
CHAPTER WI.
AN ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION.
HALF an hour passed slowly enough.
I heard the murmur of voices in the
MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION, 21
next room, footsteps passing up and
down stairs, but no one came to me;
and there I sat on the disordered bed,
feeling as miserable and ill as my ene-
mies could possibly desire.
Presently the door opened, and Mad-
ame Palingat re-entered. She had ta-
ken off her walking things, and looked
prepared to meet me amicably.
“Mademoiselle Caroline has sent me
to you with a message of peace,” she
began ; “and I hope you are ready to
receive it kindly.”
I did not reply; so Madame con-
tinued :
“I told you this afternoon, Christine,
that I would answer no questions con-
cerning your family affairs; but after
this foolish outburst of temper, both
on the part of yourself and your step-
sister, I think it better to—”
“Is she my sister?” I interrupted, in-
voluntarily recoiling. “Do you mean
to say that the woman who almost suf-
focated me half an hour ago, is my sis-
ter?”
Madame shrugged her shoulders.
“So much for the ties of relationship,”
she said, sneering ; then, in a different
tone she added: “Do you remember
what I told you this afternoon—that
some persons are burdensome to their
friends and relations P”
“I remember it well,” I answered,
lowering my eyes, for the tears would
fill them when I wanted to show that,
child and disgraced though I was, I had
some pride to face them all with at any
rate. “And you told me I was one of
those persons,” I added.
“Just so. It was for that reason
that your step-sister was so alarmed
that her father might find you here,
and be displeased with her.”
I looked up in her face as she spoke
the lie; but it was so calm, so rigid,
that in my own truthfulness I believed
what she said.
“Her father,” I said, “my father?”
“Yes.”
“And he will not see me P’’
“He does not desire you to come to
his house.”
“I will go from it this instant, then.
O Madame Palingat, why did you bring
me here P Let me go now !”
I Sprang to my feet and with trem-
bling fingers began arranging my dress,
scarcely hearing Madame's commands to
be quiet and remain where I was.
“You misunderstand, Christine,” she
said; “Milord objects to meeting you
here himself; but your sister wishes to
see you—your sister, Christine. Will
you not be friends with her ?. She de-
sired me to tell you she was sorry for
her passionate conduct, to excuse her to
you in explaining her fears at the mo-
ment, and to beg you to forget it.”
I was silent, but I unfastened my cloak
again.
“When you know Caroline,” Mad-
ame went on, “you will think as little
of her wild ways as other people do.”
I hesitated for a moment, and mean-
while went over in my mind all the
acts of my step-sister that afternoon ;
her cold reception, her colder words, and
finally her unwomanly violence, and—
ah I must not forget that—the ha-
tred that gleamed from her eyes when
she stood over me, almost Suffocating
me with her hands. I recalled it almost
shudderingly.
“Well, what answer shall I return
to Mademoiselle? Shall I tell her you
are glad to accept her friendship 2 or
do you prefer remaining as you were,
an utter stranger to any of your rela-
tions P As I have told you before,
Christine, there will not be many who
will lament it ; I have endeavored to
make you understand your position.”
I sat down and tried to think quietly
and dispassionately ; but the waking to
life’s bitter trouble in this one after-
noon had been too sudden and was too
recent to let me do that ; my poor brain
was in a whirl, and the blood kept rush-
ing hotly to my throbbing head.
“Why did you bring me here 2° I
asked, looking up with a vain endeavor
to find some pity in Madame's hard
COuntenance.
“Bah! you weary me with your
childish complaints, Mademoiselle
Christine. Have the kindness to an-
swer my question.”
I hesitated still: for I was not utter-
ly blind to certain discrepancies in
Madame's explanation with what I
knew to be facts, but I was not suffi-
ciently skilful to make use of them.
“Eh bien 2° Madame said impatiently.
22 MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
“You may tell her—that it shall be
as she wishes,” I answered feebly.
I don’t recollect much more of that
evening. I remember inidistinctly sitting
at a dinner-table, and having meats and
wine given me which I had never tast-
ed before, and the odor of which seem-
ed to sicken me. I can faintly recall
sitting opposite to a beautiful fair wo-
man's face, which, however, never look-
ed on me once with a kind smile ;
while beside me was a tall man who
spoke the oddest French I ever heard,
and insisted on heaping my plate with
petits géteaua.
I have an idea, too, that I sat by the
open window all the evening, watching
the people walking about in under the
trees in the Place opposite ; for I have a
vivid recollection, the only vivid one of all
the events of that evening—of seeing the
great round moon shining brightly over
the mountain-tops, and throwing a sil-
very whiteness over the statue of the
great Bearnais king standing near the
centre of the square.
Some music was playing near, but
whether it came from the street or the
room I know not ; neither do I remem-
ber what became of Madame or my
step-sister; the only thing concerning
them which I can recall is, that when I
went to my room—for we did not re-
turn to Gan that night — and after
I had fallen asleep, I was aroused by
something beside me, and for one light-
ning instant I fancied I caught sight of
both Caroline and Madame in the act
of closing the door, after, I suppose,
paying me a visit.
PART II.-CHAPTER I.
TEN DAYS IN THE RUE HENRI QUATRE.
THOSE who have never known the
mental inertia produced by constant
submission to monotonous rules—the
wearisome listlessness brought on by
never being allowed to exercise one's
own will—can scarcely conceive the
novelty of the ten days’ freedom I en-
joyed while staying in the Rue Henri
Quatre with Caroline IIallam.
When the bonne brought me Mad-
ame's note informing me, in her odd
stiff phraseology, that she had acceded
to my sister's request to leave me with
her for a day or two, and wishing me
good-bye, I felt at first frightened at
the idea of being, as it were, thus de-
serted ; and for a few moments there
seemed no place of such quiet safety,
no such haven of rest, as the white
house among the vineyards. But a few
hours soon lessened this fear, and a few
days perfectly reconciled me to my new
position.
I felt if difficult to describe and to
excuse the ease with which other per-
sons and other circumstances moulded
me to the temper they desired. More
difficult still is it to try and retrace my
sensations and sentiments of that time;
for I have to depend entirely on my in-
dividual experience, and I cannot, as in
other cases, imagine them from general-
izing under given circumstances.
I believe mine to have been a rare
experience, and a far from Ordinary lot.
Few children are left to the utter deso-
lation that I endured from my very
cradle; few are brought up without
even the charice of attaching themselves
to some one human being; thus dwarf-
ing, or rather crushing, as it were, every
effort Nature makes to bring out the
noble qualities by the divine power of
affection.
I can scarcely regard utter solitude
in the same blighting light as I consider
this isolation amongst a crowd. At
any rate, in solitude the danger of cal-
lousness is avoided, and imagination
may supply, after a feeble fashion, the
reality.
When I endeavor to recall the long
past, and to analyze my own feelings,
indeed my own character, in these first
years, it seems to me as if the great
want produced by my position was sen-
sation. I do not mean to say that my
senses were idle; but their employment
was so monotonous, so wearyingly re-
peated time after time in the same form,
that experience scarcely merited the
name. With the exception of my vo-
luptuous enjoyment of the glorious
scenery around me, I cannot recall any
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION. 23
keen perception, any active thoughts,
during my early sojourn at Gan.
With the other girls, I learnt history
and poetry—I read books in which love,
glory, sorrow, joy, and similar subjects
were discussed ; but I learned them as
I learned my other lessons. Experience
never taught me to understand them,
and take them into my individual ex-
perience. When, therefore, trouble first
found me, under the form of M. le Curé's
advice, and afterwards in the more ter-
rible one of shame, I was peculiarly un-
prepared for it.
I was more unlearned in the world’s
ways than a child; more ignorant of
life as a conscious responsible being
than I can describe. If I did not re-
member this, I should scarcely believe
it possible that a girl of nearly twenty-
years of age could have been so easily
led by the will of others—so easily
duped, so utterly blind, even to that
which seemed to lie so closely before
her eyes.
Those ten days were happy in many
ways. In the first place, I learned to
feel and to enjoy ; and in the second, I
contrived to lay aside the Iniserable
sense of shame which Madame's revela-
tions had brought on me. For the first
time, I learned to appreciate wealth—
to understand what it was. I enjoyed
riding and driving about most thorough-
ly; I enjoyed my new dresses and pretty
ornaments; I enjoyed promenading
about beside my beautiful step-sister,
listening to music and compliments;
and last, and, I must do myself the jus-
tice to say, least, I liked the well served
dinner-table.
Caroline I could not understand ; but
I admired her intensely, and if she
would have permitted it, I could have
loved her dearly. She was kind and
civil to me; she permitted me to be
with her wherever slue went ; and at
times I could see my evident pleasure
in the novelty of my surroundings would
rouse her generosity and kind-hearted-
mess, and she could not resist contriving
pleasure trips and expeditions for my
benefit.
Still she was ungracious : she never
spoke to me unless it was absolutely
necessary, and we sometimes remained
hours together in the same room with-
out her evincing any consciousness of
my presence. She was extremely hand-
some, and, with her known position and
wealth, she was able to queen it supreme
among the English set assembled at Pau
that winter.
At every ball, soirée, concert, or
promenade, Miss Hallam was the
marked and admired belle. The men
courted her for her beauty and gay
manner, the women for her position ;
and wherever she went she was sure
of compliments and adulation of all
kinds. I believe she enjoyed it; but
from her birth she had received it, and
so took it as a right, and consequently
with grace and ease. Perhaps, when I
consider all this, I can excuse her con-
duct to myself. Had I been in her
place and she in mine, I believe I
should have hated her as much as she
did me, and perhaps I should have acted
in the same manner. From the moment
we met after Madame's departure, she
assumed that coldly friendly demeanor
towards me, from which she deviated
but once only till that event happened
which I shall shortly relate.
In a few words, she asked me to be
silent as to our mutual relationship, and
to continue to bear my mother's maiden
name, though she never hinted that I
had no right to call myself by that she
herself bore. After that, she carefully
avoided referring to anything which
might recall our first meeting, and never
again did she appear to recollect that
we were so nearly related.
T was too timid to do otherwise than
submit to fall into the position she gave
me. My courage was more of endur-
ance than daring action ; and though,
once resolved to resist, I was capable
of resistance to the death, I could not
scheme a line of action for myself, and
then firmly carry it through.
Caroline Hallam treated me as a
friend ; she carefully avoided recalling
by word or act that she or I had any
cause to be ashamed of our mutual re-
lationship ; and whilst so behaving she
drew me with herself into a routine of
existence that banished any regret I
might first have felt at quitting my
home at Gan. Why was I living with
her ? I frequently asked myself. Our
first meeting I often recalled; but
24 MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
though my suspicions and fears were
not forgotten or dispelled, they troubled
me very little. You must remember, I
was accustomed to be ordered about by
some invisible power; so there was
nothing very strange in my sudden
transfer from Madame Palingat's care
at Gan to that of Miss Hallam at Pau.
I heard Lord Hallam's name often
mentioned, Caroline called him papa;
and letters for and from him arrived
daily. There was no doubt that I was
under my father's roof; and that Mad-
ame had asserted only the truth when
she said Caroline Hallam was my step-
sister.
Still I used to think it strange that
she never mentioned my father to me;
it seemed odd to be living in that fa-
miliar, yet distant, sort of manner.
I had been at Pau about ten days;
when one Thursday, Caroline, her com-
panion, Mrs. Ward, and myself, were
strolling about the Place Royale, listen-
ing to the military band, and chatting
with first one set of acquaintance and
then another, when I saw Caroline sud-
denly color up, and then bend careless-
ly, and begin, with an effort of abstrac-
tion, to draw figures in the dust on the
ground.
My ten days’ sojourn at Pau made
me comprehend that there was some-
thing disturbing Caroline's equanimity,
Mrs. Ward was an industrious quiz,
and I learned a good deal from the con-
versation she evidently considered it
part of her duty to hold with Miss Hal-
lam every morning. I learned that such
disturbance denoted all kinds of non-
sense, and I believed it all devoutly.
A gentleman came and stood before
my step-sister—a tall, fair-haired young
man, with an abundance of brown beard
and whiskers, and a pair of lazy blue
eyes A cigar was between his lips,
which he did not apparently deem it
necessary to remove ; and he extended
his hand to Miss Hallam in the idlest
and most unconcerned manner possible.
“Surprised to see me, Carry, eh?”
he began. “I couldn’t stand it any
longer. I told you our tastes wouldn’t
suit.”
“I certainly did not expect you yet.
When did you return. Where have you
left papa P Caroline replied in a tone,
that in spite of her evident desire to
seem calm and unconcerned, to my ear
sounded a little anxious.
“I left him in the clouds on the Pic
du Midi, in a state of dumb rapture.”
But while he answered Caroline, Mr.
Montagu Huntly was gazing about
through his eyeglass in a manner that
was anything but flattering to her. Still
she did not seem to resent it ; on the
contrary, she pushed a chair towards
him, laughed, and told him to sit down
and answer a few questions, and then he
might go where he pleased.
I did not listen to the few questions;
I found more amusement in watching
the promenaders pass and repass, and in
hearing the overture to Zampa, which
the band of the Sixty-eighth was play-
ing to perfection.
It was a fine, pleasant afternoon in
October; and the place was filled with
visitors from all parts of the world.
One might hear some half-dozen differ-
ent languages spoken, as the stream of
people strolled past ; while complexions
and fashions varied enough to suit all
tastes. Of the strangers, there was a
large proportion of English, and that
language, after French, sounded the
most frequently in my ear, as I sat there
lazily listening to anything and every-
thing that attracted my attention.
Presently, among a group of very
handsomely-dressed English, I noticed
a young girl of the most delicately
lovely style of beauty that I have ever
seen. She was scarcely up to the av-
erage height, but so proportioned that
she seemed elegance and grace personi-
fied ; while perhaps a rather too studied
airiness of dress gave a youthfulness to
her appearance that was almost child-
ish. As she came near us, I saw her
cast a quick shy glance at our party,
and then, drawing herself up, she bowed
haughtily to Miss Hallam. Mr. Huntly
removed his hat, but in such a manner,
that accustomed as I was to the French
habits, I concluded he was not ac-
quainted with her. Ten minutes after-
wards, however, the girl passed again,
and this time Mr. Huntly was walking
beside her, and it was Caroline Hallam
who gave the quick angry glance; and
then, rising with a stateliness that
seemed to belong peculiarly to her tall
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION,
25
full figure, she swept towards the other
end of the Place.
We went home soon after that; and
I heard Caroline give orders that no
one should be admitted, not even Mr.
Huntly. She was tired, she said—ill.
She certainly was restless. After the
dinner, which she scarcely tasted, had
been cleared, she began lounging about
the room ; now playing scraps of pieces
on the piano, now doing a few stitches
of work, and ending by leaning on her
folded arms against the open window
and falling into a deep, gloomy rev-
€I'16.
I was quite accustomed to remain un-
noticed, and I worked away at my em-
broidery quickly enough, till Mrs.
Ward, tired, I suppose, of the silence,
went to bed. Then Caroline roused
herself, and came and sat down opposite
me at the marble-topped table. The
lamp-light fell full on her face; and I
noticed that at times her beautiful brown
eyes glistened with tears.
“How I envy you your power of self-
control l’” she exclaimed at length
abruptly. “I have been watching you
for days, and it never seems to fail
you.”
I looked up in wonder.
“People talk about the English
sang-froid,” she went on, “but in our
case, Christine, Nature seems to have
reversed her order.”
“I have English blood in my veins,
you know,” I said, coloring up at thus
daring to remind her of our relation-
ship.
She got up from her chair and re-
turned to the window, and I went on
working. Presently she came back and
resumed her seat.
“Christine, did you notice a small,
childish-looking person, dressed in pale-
blue muslin, in the Place Royale this
afternoon P” she asked.
“The pretty girl who was walking
with Mr. Huntly when we left?”
Caroline flushed a little as she an-
swered, “Yes.”
We were both silent a moment after
that. I worked on wondering why she
asked me such a simple question with
such evident trepidation ; and she sat
opposite to me, her brown eyes glisten-
ing, her cheeks now flushing, now pal-
ing; her lips apart, her breath coming
in little fitful bursts, something like
sobs; in a word, looking very rºuch
like a sorrowful, passionate, beautiful
child.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Christine,”
she burst out presently; “I’ll tell you
out plainly—I believe plain speaking
would have been best from the begin-
ning, but that scheming Madame would
not have it—I'm miserable, wretched ;
and its all through you.”
“Through me ! what do you mean **
I exclaimed, crimsoning; for I thought
she was going to accuse me of being a
disgrace to her.
“Yes, through you. Do you think
Montagu will marry me when he
knows? Don’t you see how that odious
Emily Clinden is already trying to lure
him away from me? And if she—if
people come to know, what is to become
of me? oh,” she continued, starting up
and clasping her hands, “you don’t
know the madness the bare idea of shame
or dishonor is to me.”
I laid down my work. I was very
quiet ; for I felt almost paralyzed for a
moment with my grief.
“You,” she went on saying, in a
lower tone—“you don't know what it
is to live in the world, to be admired,
courted, almost worshipped. You don’t
know what it is to love ; if you did,
Christine, I would not ask you to give
up such a life. But your whole exist-
ence has been a simple monotony ; con-
vent-life would be but a continuance of
it; while if you refuse, you cast me
into misery forever.”
“I don’t understand, ”I murmured in
a trembling voice. “What have I to do
with you?”
“So much, that either you must be
sacrificed or I,” answered Caroline still
passionately. “If you consent to go
into a convent, all this wrong-doing of
my father can be hushed up—all this
disgrace need never be known.”
I got up; her supreme selfishness
abased her before me, so that for a mo-
ment all my anger was turned into con-
tempt.
“I do not understand your confused
sentences thoroughly,” I answered ;
“but one thing I assure you of, I have
no intention of becoming a nun. I will
26
MY SISTER’s CONFESSION,
keep out of your way; no one shall
ever know of our relationship ; but I
will never consent to enter a convent.”
I walked away after saying that, and
went to the door. As I was about to
pass out, some one threw it open, and
I heard M. le Curé's voice on the
stairs.
I held the priest in such dislike and
dread, that the sound of his approach
banished in an instant my hot anger,
and the only thought that occupied me
was how to get out of his way. The
door of the small room adjoining the
saloon was open ; so I hurriedly went
in there, and locked myself in.
The moonlight came streaming in
through the open windows, and lighted
up the room sufficiently for me to dis-
tinguish all that was in it, and to as-
sure myself that I was alone; and then
with a blush at my own meanness, I
crept quietly to the closed door that
communicated with the next room, and
through which I expected to be able to
overhear the conversation between Mon-
sieur Bellemere and Caroline Hallam.
But they spoke in such low tones and
in such a manner, that I only occasion-
ally caught a sentence, and even then
I could not gather much from it. Once
I fancied I caught my own name, but
not in connection with any words that
might lead me to suppose I was the
subject of their conversation.
A quarter of an hour passed in this
unpleasant fashion, and then the Curé's
heavy footstep crossed the room, and I
heard the door open. Caroline evident-
ly was following him, for I heard her
dress rustle; and then footsteps de-
scended the stairs, while both their
voices reiterated good-night.
My meanness had been for nothing,
I thought, and I was softly crossing the
room to unlock the door, when Caroline
called out, “Monsieur Bellemere ! did
papa say when he would arrive here !”
“No, mademoiselle,” the priest an-
swered from the passage ; but he was
leaving Gan that evening, so I conclude
you will see him to-morrow. At any
rate, Madame will call on you early in
the morning. Bonne nuit.”
Miss Hallam returned his good-night,
and then she went into the saloon, and
I heard her ringing violently for the
bonne. I could comprehend by that
ringing that my step-sister's irritation
was not over yet. Ar
I fear I must have been naturally
very obtuse, but it was only the next
morning, when Madame Palingat made
her appearance, and told me to prepare
to accompany her back to Gan, that I
began to find a use for the only sentences
of Caroline and the Curé's conversation
that I had been able to overhear.
Madame was in a hurry to return,
and Caroline seemed anxious for us to
go. Mr. Huntly called, but was not ad-
mitted; and when he insisted on seeing
Caroline, Madame, with a great show
of politeness, put her arm through mine
and led me into the next room, and
there we remained for a full half hour ;
whilst Montagu Huntly loitered about
the Saloon, talking careless nonsense to
Caroline, strumming on the piano, and
otherwise idling away the time.
Poor Madame ! even in my perplex-
ity I could not help being amused at
her impatience struggling with her
politeness, whilst, with her watch in
hand, she now listened to the lazy visitor
in the next room, and now walked to
the window, whence she could see the
ponies pawing the ground, and the pack-
ages stored in the chaise waiting to take
us back to Gan.
Madame was evidently in a hurry to
be off. It was nearly twelve o’clock
when Mr. Huntly’s departure released
us from our prison; and then, scarcely
giving herself time to wish Miss Hal-
lam good-bye, she hurried me down
stairs into the chaise, and taking the
reins in her own hands, drove off at a
rapid pace.
I turned, and caught just a glimpse of
Caroline's face looking anxiously after
after us; and then a pony-chaise similar
to ours dashed up and stopped before
the house, and a tall, gray-haired man
jumped out.
A rapid thought sprang to my mind.
I understood the Curé's visit—those
hasty sentences, Madame's hurry to get
me off—in an instant.
That gentleman was my father, Lord
Hallam | For some reason or other
they wished to prevent my seeing him
We dashed down the hilly road of the
Place Grammont, and rattled over the
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION. - 27
bridge spanning the beautiful clear blue
Gare, at a pace that made the little car-
riage swing. I did not speak, neither
did Madame.
“There,” at length she said, with a
kind of sigh of relief, as we cleared the
bridge, and the ponies relaxed their
furious gallop a little, “we have made
up for lost time ; now we may take it
gently.”
I took no notice of her remark; but
when we were nearly arrived at Gan,
I said quietly, “Has Milord been to see
you lately, Madame P’’
Madame's diplomacy failed her when
she allowed me to discover her in a lie.
She answered No ; but I remember-
ed the priest's words; and from that
moment I felt assured that—what hith-
erto I had only vaguely suspected—Ma-
dame was in some way, deceiving me.
CHAPTER II.
A DANGEROUS FLIGHT.
I RETURNED to Gan, but not to the
peaceful monotonous existence I had
formerly lived there.
Madame was stern and cold; she
threw out hints that I had become im-
pious and refractory; M. le Curé treat-
ed me in the same manner; and, by
Some means I can scarcely even now
understand, I was placed out from
among the other girls as sinful and un-
worthy. I was not of a sociable dis-
position; but, for all that, I deeply felt
the universal avoidance that I met.
Teachers, girls, servants, and Madame
herself, seemed to regard me as if I were
guilty of some crime, and shunned me
as a malefactress. Vainly I denied
having done any wrong when at times
my schoolmates would question me. It
was not to be supposed that I could
have so suddenly lost Madame's favor,
and drawn on me the displeasure of his
reverence M. le Curé, without serious
CallSé.
The female mind is often, through its
Weakness, forced into meanness, and
even cruelty. In that white house
among the vineyards Madame was the
ruling power, and to me the evil genius;
to curry favor with her, there was not
one who had the courage to do me com-
mon justice. From the head teacher to
the youngest pupil, all knew that Ma-
dame not only withheld her protection
and kindnesses from me, but desired
that all around me should render my situ-
ation as miserable as possible; and there
was not one who did not seek to please
her in this. Meanwhile, at confession
and on every occasion the priest urged
on me—not in directly open terms, but
clearly enough for me to understand—
the necessity of deciding on embracing
the profession of a nun. The misery
of those days I cannot write. It seemed
as if all the world that did not persecute
me had deserted me. I stood utterly
alone amidst my enemies. But my
very weakness proved my strength ; as
I said before, my courage was of the
negative sort—resistance ; left thus to
myself, with no one to turn to for ad-
vice, none to lean on, I was forced to
use the only weapon I possessed, and
which, under the circumstances, was
perhaps the most useful that I could
have.
I did endure—I did resist bravely.
Never once did I swerve from my de-
termination to refuse becoming a nun.
I heard all Madame had to say quietly,
and without evincing any anger; and
I listened respectfully to the discourses
of my confessor; but from no word of
mine could either of them gather a hope
that I would at length lend myself to
their plans and wishes.
It was a soft gray afternoon; the
hills seemed to stand nearer and larger,
bringing the landscape, as it were, to a
more confined aspect, while the Pyre-
mean mountains were visible only as a
dark outline in the distance. Some
persons prognosticated rain from such
appearance, and I stood looking round
me for a moment on my way down the
vineyard, trusting that they might be in
the wrong for this particular time.
Madame had gone to the church with
some of the girls who were preparing
for their first communion ; Mademoi-
selle Bornet was holding a class; and,
properly speaking, I ought to have been
sitting in the bare schoolroom with the
rest of my schoolfellows, embroidering
28 MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
industriously under the care of Made-
moiselle Elise.
I had taken a strange resolution ; one
that may be guessed, when I say that
in my right hand I held a small bag
containing my paroisse, handsomely
bound in gold, a solid silver crucifix, a
pair of emerald earrings, and a twenty-
franc piece. In the other, I carried a
selection of my best water-color draw-
ings. I was dressed in the handsomest
clothes my not very abundant wardrobe
could supply, and I had put on as many
different articles as I could conveniently
We:).I’.
I was not exactly going forth to seek
my fortune, after the manner of dis-
tressed damsels in fairy-books, but I was
taking upon myself a pilgrimage which
may seem almost as adventuresome and
romantic. I meant by some means to
get to my father, and beg his protection.
If he refused it—if he joined with my
persecutors, I was not quite resolved
what to do ; but I was quite determined
never to return to Gan.
You may imagine the persecution of
those few days must have been pretty
strong to force a girl of my unventur-
ous disposition into such a resolution.
I don’t fancy I should ever have taken
it, had it not been for my great fear and
dread of the priest Bellemere. I should
have borne with Madame; I could en-
dure a good deal; but I hated M. le
Curé with all my soul.
Well, I crept quietly down the path,
crossed the maize-fields, and found my
way to the highroad without meeting
any one. I had chosen my time well;
for the teachers and girls were all en-
gaged in the house, and with the excep-
tion of the vine-keepers, at that season
there were no men or women laborers
about the place.
I did not care to take the omnibus,
fearing that I might chance to meet
among the passengers some person from
the village who might recognize me; so
I managed to find a seat in a diligence
from Oloran, and went dashing into the
streets of Pau in a short three-quarters
of an hour.
It wanted still half an hour to dusk,
and I felt frightened at finding myself
alone, for the first time in my life, in
the open streets. I did not like to go
direct to the Rue Henri Quatre ; for I
had no wish to encounter Caroline Hal.
lam ; and supposing Lord Hallam to be
from home, all my journey would be
useless.
The diligence had set me down near
the Hotel de l’Europe, so I wandered
slowly down the Rue de la Prefecture,
on and on, till I reached the church of
St. Martin. My heart smote me at
seeking as a harbor of temporal refuge
that sanctuary which I was striving
with all my might to avoid as a refuge
from sin; and as I took out my rosary,
and knelt before the shrine of the Virgin,
my fingers trembled as if I were guilty
of a crime. I was anxious to remain in
the church till the usual six-o'clock din-
ner-hour should clear the streets; be-
sides, I considered I should have a bet-
ter chance of finding my father at home,
at that time than any other.
The hours hung heavily ; more than
once I had gone round my chaplet, till
I got so weary of the Aves and Paters,
that I could bear it no longer, but
ventured out of the dark, gloomy, silent
church into the Place before it ; then,
grown a little bolder with the reviving
fresh air, I ventured to descend the steps
leading to the gardens of the famous
chateau of Henri Quatre.
There was not a human figure along
the walk. The moon was struggling
with the departing daylight, as to which
should prevail over the beautiful scene
of hill and river, on which I looked
from the solitary terrace.
A few autumn flowers were blooming
in the stiffly-shaped beds; the trees,
standing in a straight road, were still
leafy, but beginning to look richly brown
and yellow; and behind rose the old
château on its steep rock. Such was
the scene of my solitary walk.
I was obliged to keep walking brisk-
ly up and down ; if I had not, I believe
I should never have kept my nerves up
to the pitch necessary for that which I
was about to do. -
How much I wished the time would
go, I cannot express; and yet I dreaded
it ; for as each moment slipped by, I
felt that the possibility of Madame's
discovering my flight, and coming in
pursuit, grew stronger.
I had reached the end of the walk,
My SISTER’s
CONFESSION. 29
and was turning back, when I came so
suddenly on a gentleman, that I quite
started and uttered a loud “Ah! ”
He muttered something in English
about pardon, and went on a step or
two. I fancied I recognized the voice,
and turned to look after him ; and then,
to my consternation, Montagu Huntly
came back, looked very much surprised,
muttered something, and then we both
stood staring at one another in the pale
moonlight.
What I said to him, or what he said
to me, how I ever came to speak at all,
I do not remember in the least. How
he recognized me I know not, for only
once had we met, besides seeing each
other at the Place Royale; but I rec-
ollect very distinctly waking up sud-
denly to the feeling that at last I had
met some one in this wide weary world
who was not an enemy. I recollect
leaning over the low parapet overhang-
ing the basse ville, talking as I had never
talked before—questioning, wondering,
thinking, while beside me stood a tall
figure, in the very shadow of which
there seemed to be a kind of protection.
In my agitation, I suppose that I
must have revealed my whole story in
a passionate burst. I am sure, had I
been in my ordinary frame of mind, it
would have taken hours to worm from
me the faintest sketch of all I had suf-
fered and was still suffering. I must
have been a little demented to confide
almost unasked my whole story to a
stranger. But then Montagu Huntly
was a man of the world, and it required
but a few words to make him compre-
hend a mystery which to me was still
incomprehensible; and almost before I
was aware of it, he had drawn from me
all that I knew of myself, even that
which I thought I could never have
told to any one—that I was a shame to
my relations.
He was very kind to me; had I been
his sister, he could not have treated me
with less pretending gentleness.
Lord Hallam, he told me, was at
Bordeaux, on his way to England; but
he advised me to apply to Caroline
boldly for protection. She was on the
point of setting out for a couple of days'
expedition to the mountains; but she
would, no doubt, delay her journey till
some arrangements had been made for
IOle.
My step-sister, Montagu Huntly as-
sured me, was capricious and passion-
ate, but she was good-hearted and gen-
erous, and would let no weak fear of
compromising herself interfere with
what was a duty.
As he spoke, Mr Huntly hesitated a
little; perhaps he had not much faith in
his own words; perhaps he was think-
ing, as I was, that Caroline must have
some good reason for being such close
friends with Madame Palingat, which
would outweigh her natural generosity.
“It is the only means of clearing-up
the mystery,” he said, as I objected to
the plan. “I may be mistaken, but I
think, mademoiselle, you do not thor-
oughly understand your position; or
have you kept back any of your suspi-
cions or thoughts from me?’
As he spoke, he looked curiously into
my face with his blue eyes—keen blue
eyes they were then.
“Is there any other cause, any other
reason, do you think, for your sister's
dislike P Can she have any other reason
for wishing you to enter a convent P’’
“I can imagine none,” I answered;
“this is what she herself told me.”
He said “Ah! ” in a meaning tone ;
then adding, “Let us go ; I will see
you to the house at once, and have some
conversation with Caroline.
We walked on slowly side by side,
returning past the church towards the
Rue Henri Quatre.
“I am not sure but that Fate did us
both a kind turn in throwing us thus in
each other's way to-night,” he said
presently as we neared the house.
“A kind turn to me certainly,” I re-
plied.
“And to me also, perhaps,” he mut-
tered, in a tone that was too grave to be
gallant.
The streets were silent and empty,
the dusk was falling, and, without
meeting or recognizing any one, we ar.
rived at the house.
“I stood a little back as the woman
came running down to answer our sum-
II; OIlS.
“Mademoiselle had set off that after-
noon for the eawa chaudes. She had
left a note for monsieur.”
30 MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION.
Montagu Huntly took the letter, and
slipped it into his waistcoat-pocket with-
out reading it; and then he turned to
me, looking rather puzzled.
“I would recommend you to stay
here,” he said, but that Frenchwoman
is sure to seek you here directly. You
are rather young to go to a hotel
alone.”
“Oh, never mind; I have money,” I
answered, producing my solitary gold
piece.
Mr. Huntly tried to look grave.
“If you had not met me, and your
father and sister had refused you pro-
tection, what would you have done P’’
he asked.
“I should not have gone back,” I
answered resolutely.
“Ah,” he said, “but do you not know
women lose themselves sometimes P.”
“I know my way perfectly all over
Pau,” I answered. “There is no fear
of my losing myself.”
We were standing near a gas-light,
and as I looked up confidently in Mr.
Huntly’s face, I saw a smile cross his
lips, the meaning of which I could not
understand.” .
“Well,” he exclaimed, rousing him-
self and beginning to walk on, “I must
confide you to the care of a lady I know
in the Hotel de l’Europe for to-night;
and meanwhile I will try and commu-
nicate with Miss Hallam.”
I was accustomed to have my actions
directed ; so, without the faintest idea
of resisting his proposal, I walked be-
side him with the confidence of a child
of six years old, and consented to obey
his instructions.
In the first place, he directed me to
talk to no one of my own affairs, and to
be silent, above al], concerning my re-
lationship to the Hallams; in the second,
to avoid any mention of Madame Pal-
ingat, or my residence at Gan; “in
fact,” Montagu ended, “be as silent as
possible ; talking is always a dangerous
amusement.”
I don’t know whether Mr. Huntly
considered it such as regarded himself
and me, but he never opened his lips
again till we reached the hotel. Then,
calling for a certain woman, whom, by
courtesy, he called a lady—for she wore
the peasant's mottchoir—he spoke a few
words to her in his peculiar French ;
and then, with a wave of his hand to
me, he backed out of the door, and left
me so suddenly that, surrounded as I
was by strangeness, I seemed once more
deserted.
CHAPTER III.
AT THE EAUX CFIAUDES.
I was very tired, and I slept soundly
that night in spite of my position. But
I was up betimes, and had said my
prayers, and packed up my bags again,
when I heard Montagu Huntly’s voice
on the stairs, and a moment after he
knocked at my door.
My French ideas of propriety were
not half so much shocked as his were,
at having to receive him in a disordered
bedroom; but then again, I was infin-
itely more embarrassed at having no
third party to our interview than he was.
He stood in the doorway.
“The diligence starts in half an hour
for the eaux,” he said. “Shall we go
to Caroline at once P’’.
I hesitated.
“It is the only place I can think of,”
he said ; “and I can assure you that
Lord Hallam will not be at all shocked
at your travelling under my protec-
tion.”
“I was not thinking of that,” I an-
swered. “I would rather go to my
father. I am afraid of trusting to my
sister.”
“ Under my care, you need have no
fear; and I promise to protect you
from any unkindness or injustice. I
wish, he added, with an emphasis on
the words, “you would consent to this
plan. I have my own reasons for de-
siring to take you to Miss Hallam.
She is going to be my wife, in all prob-
ability.” --
He came into the room as he spoke,
and sat down on a chair, in a slightly
embarrassed manner.
“I know,” I answered; and then,
thinking perhaps that it would be po-
lite to add something more, I said
simply, “She is very happy and very
fortunate.”
MY SISTER'S CONFESSION.
31
“Did she tell you so?”, he asked
quickly; “did she speak to you of
me P”
“Very little. She said something
about my preventing her marrying you;
but I hope not. I hope you won’t
mind about me, because I would prom-
ise never to come in your way, and
never to mention my relationship to
Lord Hallam. You would not let me
prevent you marrying her, would
ou?”
I said all this in the very innocence
of my ignorance concerning the pro-
prieties and conveniences of the polite
world, and never for an instant did it
cross my mind that I was exposing my
step-sister's confidence.
“If I thought it was only that,” Mr.
Huntly began, and then suddenly he
stopped, muttered something about
“being a tremendous fool,” and getting
up, put on his hat again and went back
to his place in the doorway. He seemed
to think that his proper position.
“Shall we go?” at length he asked.
“We can breakfast en route.”
I shall never forget that journey. As
I sat back in the corner of the dili-
gence,—not daring to look out at the
window till we had passed Gan, for
fear of being recognized by some peas-
ant or laborer on the vineyards,-for
the first time in my life of twenty
years, I began to day-dream, and the
day-dream was—But are not such fan-
cies known to everybody ? One girl's
dreams are like another's at that age.
It was an unusually bright morning
for November; the air was fresh but
clear, and the sunshine lighted up the
blue sky, and fell on the golden-leaved
trees, till the world looked aglow with
life and happiness. There were only
three passengers inside beside myself,
and they were too content with their
own talk to care about my silence; so
I lay back, watched the scenery, and
dreamt one of those sweet day-dreams.
I ought to have been very miserable,
very much bewildered ; for certainly
my lot was as uncertain and perplexing
as it well could be ; but somehow I
felt very comfortable and very content.
I remember every incident of that day’s
journey well. I recollect how su-
premely delighted I was at the respect-
ful manner in which we were every
where received; and then the English
fashion of ordering and paying what
was asked—accustomed as I was to see
Madame haggle over a sous, appeared
to me generous in the extreme. My
pleasure was once rather disturbed by
hearing the hostess at the inn ask Mr.
Huntly if Madame would like to rest
up stairs; and by her manner, seeing
that she mistook me for his wife, for a
few minutes I reflected seriously as to
the propriety of thus travelling and
talking with a male stranger. And I
recollect being mutely surprised at
Montagu Huntly answering the good
woman in such words as to confirm her
in her error; but then the surprise and
embarrassment soon passed off, and I
comforted my conscience with the as-
surance that if I threw off Mr. Hunt-
ly’s protection, I should be utterly
friendless.
We had to wait long at Laruns, one
of the wheels of the diligence getting
injured; and then Montagu proposed
hiring a pony chaise, which by chance
we met returning from the mountains ;
and I completed my indiscretion, sin-
ning against French propriety, by tak-
ing a seat beside the young English-
man, and committing myself to his soli-
tary protection, for the remainder of
the way.
It was evening when, after slow
toiling up the steep road, cut in the
hard substance of the mountains, we
came in sight of the Hotel de l’Etab-
lissement, standing in its gloomy gran-
deur of position, surrounded by high
mountains and deep ravines.
The sun was shedding a deep yellow
light through an opening in the mass of
surrounding rocks, and the stream of
gold fell full on the balcony of one of
the windows, on which stood a tall
handsomely-dressed figure.
Mr. Huntly gave the ponies a sharp
touch of the whip, and they cantered
briskly round to the other side of the
building, and there he handed me out.
He led the way immediately up stairs,
and I followed, feeling desperately that
a crisis in my fate was at hand, and that,
whether I chose or not, I must face it.
I never shall forget the scene that met
my eyes when I reached the first-floor
32
CONFESSION.
MY SISTER'S
At the open door facing us stood
Caroline Hallam, pale as death, but
with such terrible anger blazing in her
beautiful eyes that I turned away fright-
ened, and for a moment Mr. Huntley
stopped in his advance.
“I bring you your sister,” he said at
length, grasping my hand and dragging
me forward into the room ; and then
he paused, and for a moment we all
three stood regarding one another in a
silence that was forced on myself
through fear, on Montagu Huntly by
embarrassment, and on Caroline by the
excess of her passion.
I think I see her now, standing with
that blaze of yellow light illuming her
tall beautiful figure, and glowing among
the rich colors of her dress and bright
fair hair, till you might have taken her
for one of Millais's pictures quickened
into life. g
What a pity it was that anything so
beautiful, so admirable, could descend
to such paltry vices as envy and hatred
“Well,” at length she gasped, rather
than spoke, for her chest was heaving
so that her breath came in short bursts
—“well !”
“Your sister, Caroline,” Montagu
Huntly answered in a tone that sounded
calm as death beside her excitement,
“I scarcely expected this deception
from you,” he added ; “I have not de-
served it.”
“Then you have told him l’” she
burst out, turning on me; and before I
could answer she had thrust out her
hands towards us both, exclaiming, “Go,
go! cruel traitors ” and then covering
her face, had thrown herself on the
couch, and was rocking to and fro, sob-
bing in a manner that was almost too
distressing to be endured.
That was how she received us.
To my great relief Mrs. Ward came
and carried me off to a place of quiet;
and we left the two lovers to make
peace as best they could.
Montagu Huntly was not a man for
even a beautiful winsome woman to
turn round her fingers; and little as I
then knew of him I could not but feel
Caroline was going the wrong way to
work, to assail him with storms in which
she appeared a splendid fury. How
would it end ? I asked myself as the
evening drew in, and still I remained
alone. Would Mr. Huntly prove a
staunch friend ? or would Miss Hallam
win him over to her side, as she had
done Madame Palingat and the Curé?
I sat down to dinner alone with Mrs.
Ward, and I had not been able to an-
swer these questions; and the coffee
was served, and the evening wore on ;
and I remained still in nervous doubt.
Caroline had gone to her room, I was
told, with a bad headache, and Mr.
Huntly was dining at the table-d'hote.
My bedroom was on the first floor;
the window opened on to a balcony, from
which one looked down into a deep ra-
vine ; opposite was a wall of mountain
covered with low shrubs and creepers,
and down which dashed a silver thread
of water with a noise of perpetual
Splash, which sounded pleasant and even
musical for the first few minutes but be-
came wearisome as the hours rolled on.
I unfastened the window, and wrap-
ping myself in a shawl, leaned out to
watch the scene, and try and get sleepy,
for I was anything but happy or sleepi-
ly disposed.
The moon was at her full, and shed
a clear light over the mountains and
valleys. I could distinguish easily Mr.
Huntly’s figure as he lounged past the
hotel and then began ascending the path
that led away over the bridge. He was
Smoking, and he never glanced at the
hotel. I felt my pulses throb at the
sight of him, for in him seemed my
world of safety; if he had turned and
seen me, I should have hazarded speak-
ing a few words; but he passed on, his
cigar in his mouth, his hands in his
pockets, apparently serenely unconsci-
ous of me or my troubles—even of
Caroline Hallam and hers.
Whilst I was gazing after him, I
heard the door of my room open and
some one enter. It was my step-sister.
She was half undressed, and her hair
fell about her bare shoulders and over
her white round arms. -
“What have you told him P' she
asked, in a voice that sounded faint as
from weeping, and standing beside mé
without glancing at me.
“All that I know,” I answered bold.
ly. “I did not spare myself either;
for it seems to me, that, proud as you
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION. 33
:#
are, Caroline Hallam, the shame presses
more on me than on you.”
“How do you mean P” she said, af-
ter a moment's hesitation.
I did not reply.
“Will you answer me one question
plainly 2” she went on ; “indeed, you
owe it to me,” she added bitterly, “for
you have lost me Montagu, or nearly
lost him; for when he hears the truth
confirmed by my father—” she paused;
“tell me, did you only speak to him of
what Madame Palingat told you, or—”
I looked up at her perplexed.
“I do not understand,” I answered ;
and in truth I did not.
“You will not ” Caroline exclaimed,
passionately. “Listen, you must an-
swer me, for I am determined to trust no
more to Madame's assurances, but to
judge for myself. Did you tell Montagu
your age, and mine P’’
“I only told him my own age: he
knows yours,” I replied.
As I spoke, Caroline fixed on me her
glowing eyes as if she would read my
soul.
“I was surprised,” I continued; “for
I had always thought you older than
myself.”
One moment she was silent, then
starting up, she exclaimed. “It is not
true—you know you mentioned it to him
*n proof. You are telling me a lie—a
cruel lie. And the paroisse of your
hateful mother that you tried to hide from
us—you knew about the date | I was
certain of it, and Madame has deceived
me.”
She clasped her hands as she spoke ;
she almost wrung them ; she seemed
beside herself with excitement.
A sudden thought flashed through my
mind. Poor Caroline, in her passion,
she betrayed herself I had never no-
ticed as anything peculiar the fact that
she was two years younger than myself,
neither had I particularly treasured my
mother's paroisse, though I had often
read her name written in it, and I knew
the inscription and date by heart though
it was written in Latin.
A suspicion flashed through my mind
like lightning; it sent the blood rushing
to my brain. I rose from my seat al-
most staggeringly.
“Ah !” Caroline went on blindly in
3
her passion, “you cannot deny it. Ma-
dame has deceived me; you are plotting
together to deprive me of my birthright
—for it is my birthright, whatever you,
or she, or any one may say ; and I will
not give it up ! Justice, indeed ; and
while papa renders justice to you, what
does he give to me 2 Shame—disgrace
—misery | Curse him for it ! Curse you
all for it !”
In the intensity of her rage, she fell
down on her knees beside the window,
hoarsely muttering her dreadful impre-
cations.
The moonlight fell on her trembling
half-dressed figure. I saw her quiver-
ing as if in a death-agony ; and in spite
of her hatred I felt myself drawn to my
beautiful unhappy sister. In that mo-
ment, I believe if she had shed but a
single tear, given me but one kind look,
I should have knelt beside her, prom-
ised her any sacrifice in this world that
she could ask.
Once I uttered the word “Caroline,”
and moved a step towards her; but she
started up, and put out her hand to
keep me off; so I went back, and we re-
mained together silent for nearly ten
minutes—minutes that seemed to me an
age. At length she rose from the ground.
“I am a bad hypocrite,” she said,
more calmly than she had yet spoken ;
“but I will do my best to behave ami-
ably towards you—till at least Montagu
goes ; you will not find it so difficult to
act your part. I have no right to ask
favors; but if you have any kinduess in
your nature, you will forbear any further
communications with any one on this
subject till Lord Hallam arrives. Mr.
Huntly has written to him to return at
once from Bordeaux. He alone must
judge between us.”
She tossed back her hair as she spoke,
took up her lamp, and without another
word or look walked out of the room.
The suspicion that had flashed through
my mind was, that perhaps, after all, my
own mother's marriage had been legiti-
mate, and had taken place previous to
that of Caroline’s mother. The difference
in our ages alone would prove that. Still,
as I knew my mother had died soon
after my birth, I was puzzled to under-
stand how any stain could reach Caroline
through me, supposing my own birth
34 MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
legitimate. My poor brain contained
small store of legal knowledge. I had
but dim notions of primogeniture, dim-
mer still of bigamy ; and my angry
sister would have been much comforted
had she known that it was only confusion
and trouble that her ambiguous words
had served to raise in my mind.
I tried hard to comprehend all that
was strange in my history, and all that
might be stranger, but I could not get
very far ; and, in spite of my troubles,
the monotonous splash of the cascade
without soon produced an overpowering
sleepiness ; and in a few minutes I was
dreaming that Caroline Hallam, in the
form of a winged fury was pushing me
over the precipice into the deep ravine
where dashed that ever-flowing cascade.
CHAPTER IV.
TEIE DEEP RAVINE.
MRs. WARD came to fetch me to
breakfast at noon the next day, and on
going into the salle-à-manger, I found
Miss Hallam seated composedly at the .
table, with Mr. Huntly opposite to her.
Montagu rose on my entrance and pla-
ced me a chair, and Caroline murmured
“Good-morning.”
The two talked together all break-
fast time, amicably enough, about the
scenery, the bathing, the waters, the visi-
tors; Mrs. Ward chiming in now and
then to express her opinion on what she
was eating, or to remark that she had no
idea Miss Hallam expected me, and that
now we should be a very pleasant party.
It was like the lull before the storm,
this friendly breakfast ; but still on all
our faces dark clouds were lowering.
In vain Caroline endeavored to talk
lightly—her laugh died away before it
could ring, and her lips contracted be- |
fore the smile could form ; while Mon-
tagu talked on and fast, but with absent-
looking eyes regarding his betrothed,
and with so grave and gloomy a counte-
nance, that you would scarcely have
taken him for the same man who had ac-
costed us so carelessly in the Place
Royale, andlingered chatting with prev y
Emily Clinden. -
When we rose from the table, Caro.
line proposed taking a walk, and she
invited me to go with them.
Not twenty-four hours ago we had
been standing before each other in anger
that had rendered one of us speechless;
now we were walking side by side along
the road, and had a stranger seen us, or
beard our conversation, I am certain he
could not have guessed the deadly en-
mity between us.
There was a fresh breeze blowing,
but the air was clear and the sky bright,
and, in spite of the advanced season, the
little mountainous recess was a pleasant
place for a morning's ramble.
were only two or three stragglers left
of the host of summer visitors, so we
had the roads and mountain paths to
ourselves.
Caroline was less expert at climbing
than myself, and she required Montagu
Huntly’s constant assistance; whilst I
scrambled on by myself, often getting
far ahead of them, much, doubtless, to
the satisfaction of all parties.
They who had visited the eaux chaudes
will remember well the deep ravine that
lies on one side of the road leading from
the plain up towards the village. At
the bottom of it, so deeply down that
the head grows dizzy in looking, runs
clear swift water, now dashing smoothly
along, now eddying round some huge
mass of fallen rock, at other places
rushing in a thousand foaming cascades
over its rough bed, till at length it loses
itself in the mountain. -
In some parts the walls of this ravine
are steep and rugged; but in one or two
places they offer sufficient support for
an adventurous foot and a steady eye to
dare a descent at least part of the way
towards the bottom. But it must be
for a very adventurous and sure foot
only, for a false step is certain destruc-
tion.
We were standing, looking over the
low wall that edges the road overhang-
ing the ravine, looking down into the
rushing water, and listening to the
hoarse murmur that the echoes took up
everlastingly, when Caroline, starting
up, asked if either of us would dare ac-
company her to a spot she pointed out
to us in the rock half-way down, and
from which, she said, she would sketch
There
MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION.
35
a scene that would be the chef-d'oeuvre of
her sketch-book.
In vain Mr. Huntly represented to
her the danger of such an attempt ;
Caroline was obstinate, almost dogged ;
she treated his remonstances with con-
tempt, half accused him of cowardice,
and at length, apparently wearying of
argument, she scaled the low wall, and,
without farther ado, began slowly and
with difficulty making her descent.
It was not a very dangerous task for
me, for I was particularly surefooted
and agile, and in a few minutes I had
overtaken my step-sister. Mr. Huntly
joined us; and we soon were all three
actively engaged in making our peril-
ous and foolhardy attempt to reach the
projecting rock.
I think Caroline must have been be-
side herself in the moment she at-
tempted it; and oh how bitterly did I
blame myself, in the terrible suffering
that followed it, for having so quickly,
and, apparently, willingly, joined her in
her folly
We did reach the rock ; we all three
stood safely thereon, congratulating and
complimenting ourselves on our courage
and agility, and then, excitement, over,
we sat down and began to calculate the
difficulties of retracing our steps.
Caroline was in a cruel humor; she
seemed to take a delight in tormenting
Mr. Huntly ; or perhaps she was so
mentally excited with the troubles she
dared not talk of, that she could not
measure her actions.
“We must go to the bottom,” she
said presently, in a tone that meant
what she said. “It will be so curious
to look at the ‘point’ from there; and,
besides, it will be quite a glory to have
done the deed.” *
Fortunately Montagu was firm in re-
fusing to accompany her, but he offered
to ascend the mountainous path and
fetch her sketch-book; and she, in her
cruelty, her selfish delight of showing
her power over him, let him go.
I shall never forget sitting on that
ledge of rock, suspended, as it were, in
the damp cold air between those walls
of mountain, watching him slowly pass
from one point to another, knowing that
the slightest hesitation in choosing his
footing, a loose stone even, would send
him to the bottom of the rocks a man-
gled corpse !
I could not speak, I could not utter a
syllable of thankfulness even, when I
saw him at length safely scaling the low
wall, and then stand on the firm road
waving his hat to us. I only drew a
long breath and unclasped my hands,
which, till then, I had been straining to-
gether in nervous agony.
Well, after that, I cannot remember
distinctly all that happened. We spoke
a few words together—angry words, I
know, on my part, furious ones on Caro-
line's—but what they were I cannot re-
call. Then she rose from her seat,
whether in anger, in excitement, or
with some awfully mad purpose, I knew
not then, and even now cannot deter-
mine. She stood with her back to the
precipice, facing me, throwing about her
hands; then suddenly—an empty space
was before me where she had stood —
she was gone, and there was a terrible
cry ringing through the air, which the
echoes caught up and shouted back in
mocking agony
After that I do not know what hap-
pened. I saw persons collecting on the
road above us, drawn together, I sup-
pose by that cry. Somehow I was car-
ried up that awful path and placed
among them ; and I recognized, without
surprise, the face of Madame Palingat
as the one that stooped down first and
peered into mine as I lay extended on
the ground.
Confused noises and sounds were
round me—exclamations of horror, as-
tonishment, or terror—cries, sobs. Then
men came with ropes and ladders, and
the confusion increased, in spite of the
presence of the chief officials the place
could boast, till Montagu's voice came
shouting Commands; and then, by some
magic power, instead of crying and talk-
ing, the men were forced into action.
Time passed ; but how, I know not;
and then I heard words shouted up,
which the people took up and passed
from one to another like lightning:
“ Elle n'est pas morte! ”
“ Elle n'est pas morte,” said a voice
in my ear. “You had better return
to the hotel, mademoiselle.” And then
M. le Curé of Gan put his arm round
me, lifted me up, and led me away.
$6 MY SISTER’s
CONFESSION,
He left me in my room and turned
the key in the lock. I tried more than
once to get out during the next hour,
but it was impossible; and I waited
there in an agony of suspense, till some
one came to fetch me to give an account
of the accident, in a room where offi-
cials, friends, and foes formed a group
round me immediately, questioning, ex-
claiming, and talking till my poor head
could bear the excitement no longer,
and I was carried back to my room half
fainting After that the time wore on
wearily, and I was left to myself. Once
only some one came to my door, but I
heard Madame Palingat's voice prevent-
ing my visitor friend entering.
It was getting dark, and I was crouch-
ed on the bed in utter fear and misery,
when the door opened, and the quick
firm footstep of M. le Curé crossed the
room to my side.
“ Malheureuse,” he whispered, “can
you bear to hear that your crime has
not succeeded? Your victim has escap-
ed you.”
I started up. Was it some fiend
who had just spoken such awful words 2
“What can you mean?” Ifoundstrength
in my horror to exclaim.
“Wretched creature | do not attempt
to deceive me—us. We know well
enough your cruel hatred of your step-
sister—your desire for her death. We
know well enough whose hand pushed
her into the abyss, from which some
marvellous providence has rescued her.
We know it, and his lordship must ; and
perhaps also the law of public justice
will have to listen to it, horrible though
it be.”
I cannot describe all I suffered in
that dreadful moment. In an instant I
saw before me the tribunal—the scaf-
fold ! And yet this was scarcely more
terrible than the agonizing feeling of
being utterly helpless “in the hands of
those who seemed sworn to be my ruin.
My agony was too intense to be other-
wise than calm.
“Do you mean to say,” I asked,
“ that you accuse me of trying to kill
my sister P’’
“Alas!” he answered, “we feel only
too sure of it. Do not attempt to hide
your sin, but repent. In deep, bitter
repentance alone can you expect to find
mercy either at the hands of your in
jured relations or the holy church.”
“This is too awful,” I said pres-
ently; “ your cruelty is too terrible.
What have I done to make you hate
me thus P” -
“ Unhappy child,” the priest answer-
ed, “is not the proof of your impiety
only too easy 2 Have you not shown
yourself refractory to your father's wish-
es? Have you not abandoned your pro-
tectress P and on all occasions have you
not shown your hatred and jealousy of
your unfortunate sister P But enough of
this. I came to give you a little advice;
for, in spite of your wickedness, I
cannot forget that you were one of my
flock, and my heart grieves for you.
When your impious hand was lifted
against your sister, Christine, did you
think of the punishment that earthly
justice would deal to you when discov-
ered in your guilt? Did you think of
the pain and shame of public execution ?”
I could not help moaning under the
monster's tongue, though I strove to
listen and bear silently.
“Did you think of eternal perdition ?
You did not, for Satan’s power blinded
you. But listen to me, wretched woman
death and perdition are awaiting you.
To the unrepentant soul mercy is deaf.
You must repent.”
I shuddered from head to foot.
“Are you listening 2" continued the
priest. “I am come to give you good
advice, even in a worldly point of view.
Do not turn from me. Your father is
an English nobleman, who holds his
name and honor dear. To prevent such
shame overtaking him, as it would most
surely through you, were I or Madame
Palingat to breathe our suspicious in
public, we have resolved to promise him
silence, supposing he consents to your
taking the vows as soon as possible, and
so enabling you in prayer and mortifi-
cation to expiate in some measure your
awful sin. I have only persuaded my..
self thus far to hide your crime in con-
sideration of your extreme youth, and
in the hope that a soul may yet be sav-
ed from eternal perdition.”
What could I do 2 What could I say
to this cruel man—I, a very child as to
experience in all worldly knowledge 2
What more could I do than crouch
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION. w 37
there before him, and let the bitter tears
fall at his feet?
“Have you no answer to make 2 no
thanks to Heaven to render for this
mercy?” asked the priest at length.
Then I burst out passionately: “Go |
Leave me ! I have done no wrong, and
you shall not insult me any more with
your hateful words: Go | Leave me to
myself.”
And he did leave me to a solitude
which fear peopled with such terrible
pictures that I could scarcely endure it.
No one came to me again that night.
I heard steps pass and repass my door;
voices talked so near that I could all
but distinguish what they said. Some
one arrived : some one whom Montagu,
Madame, and everybody went out to
meet—Lord Hallam, I supposed—and
then they all passed my door, and went
talking in suppressed tones towards
that part of the house where the poor
crushed form of Caroline lay. No one
seemed to remember me.
That night wore by somehow, and
the next day too, and the evening came
again, I saw no one. Madame Palingat
once just opened the door, and thrust
into the room a loaf of bread and a
bottle of wine. Already they treated
me as a prisoner. The misery of that
day I cannot write. I believe another
such twenty-four hours would have
taken away my reason.
It must bave been nearly ten o'clock,
for the night had fallen some hours,
when my door was unlocked, and Mad-
ame entered saying, “Mademoiselle,
your father desires to see you.”
I rose immediately. Such a sum-
mons, though made to me for the first
time in my life, scarcely startled me,
for I was getting used to novelty.
“Are you ready ?” Madame asked
in her coldest tone. And I replied,
quietly enough, “Yes.”
We went along the dark passage to
the farthest end of the house. I could
hear the murmur of Montagu Huntly’s
voice in the last room, mingled with a
grave-toned one, which seemed famil-
iar. Madame opened the door, saying
“Entrez,” and, with a throbbing heart,
I obeyed.
On the bed lay a still white figure—
So white that it was difficult to distin-
guish the linen bandages from those
parts of the flesh they left uncovered;
so still that, if it had not been for the
faint motion of the chest, I should have
believed I looked on a corpse.
Beside the bed stood M. le Curé; at
the foot sat Montagu Huntly ; while,
standing by the fireplace, was a tall
gray-haired gentleman, exactly like the
portrait I had seen at Pau in Caroline's
bedroom. As I entered no one looked
up except the tall gentleman, and his
eyes met mine with a glance in which
I felt there might be justice, but no
mercy.
“Mademoiselle Christine Hallam,”
said Madame, as if she were introduc-
ing ordinary strangers in an ordinary
manner; and my father looked at me
again and bowed his head. Was it not
cruel ? I think even the priest felt a
little shocked, for he would not look
at us, but bent over Caroline, Smooth-
ing her pillow.
I advanced a few steps, but no one
spoke, no one seemed to notice my
presence. If the earth would have
opened then and swallowed me up, how
thankful I should have been
“Let us be just,” at length Mr.
Huntly exclaimed, sternly, rising from
his seat, and coming to my side. “Hear
what she has to say before you con-
demn her utterly. Lord Hallam, re-
member she is as much your child as
Caroline.”
“With shame I acknowledge it,” an-
swered my father slowly. “Her mother
disgraced my name before she was
born, and now her child is to bring
shame on my gray hairs.”
“I hope not,” put in the priest, soft-
ly. “Your commands can prevent such
a misfortune.”
That man’s voice roused me from
my stupor. I took courage.
“I am accused, being innocent,”
turning to my father, “and you con-
demn me unheard. If you treat me
thus—your own child—where shall I
go, what shall I do?”
They were all silent. Even Montagu
went back to his seat; and there I
stood alone in the centre of the room.
I went desperately towards Lord Hal-
lam.
“Father,” I said, “you must have
38
CONFESSION.
MY SISTER'S
loved my mother once; for the sake of
that love, hear me now and be just to
me; do not listen only to those who
are my enemies.” -
But he waved me off sternly. “No
scenes,” he said. “Nothing can move
mé to regard you with anything but
horror whilst that is before me,” and he
pointed to the bed. “M. le Curé, have
the goodness to ask the questions
agreed on, and let us end this.”
“ Approach, Mademoiselle,” said the
priest; “your sister is sufficiently re-
covered to say a few words; but we
have forborne to question her concern-
ing the accident till we could do it in.
presence of her father, Mr. Huntly,
and yourself.”
“Mademoiselle Hallam,” he con-
tinued, “ did you fall by accident over
the cliff P’’
The white figure moved feebly and
answered a faint, hesitating “No.”
There was a perfect silence in the
room. My heart seemed to stand still
with agitation and suspense.
“How did it happen, then P
5 5
Tell
U.S.
But Caroline was silent, except for a
faint moan. Then the priest continued,
in almost a whisper, but so clearly that
it resounded all over the room. “Did
your sister Christine push you down?”
The white figure shuddered. And
then, on what might probably have
proved her death-bed, Caroline Hallam
uttered her cruel lie.
“Yes,” she whispered faintly.
A death-like silence followed that
murmur. I was stupefied.
“Caroline !” at length I exclaimed,
rousing from my dull horror, “do not
die with this terrible untruth upon
your lips; do not hate me so cruelly.
For God’s sake, for the Blessed Vir-
gin's sake, save me from this horror!
Unsay what you have said; you know
that I never touched you.”
“Hush l’” said my father, sternly ;
“enough of this. Someone take her
away.”
But at that moment there was a rus-
tle outside the room—a slow measured
footstep. The door opened, and my
good angel, in the form of a sister of
charity, entered. She entered quickly;
and her dark sad garments and Solemn
demeanor seemed to check our agita,
tion—even that of my stern father
She went up to the bed,—for she had
come to nurse Caroline,—and bending
over the suffering girl, tenderly took
her hand. w
But as, after a moment's silent gaze
at Caroline's white death-like face, she
glanced up and across the room, her
eyes fell on Madame Palingat, and then
she started up, and almost cried out.
Restraining herself, however, with an
effort, she stretched her hand across the
bed, exclaiming, in a trembling voice,
“Heloise! I am glad we meet again,
sister | *
But Madame drew back; she could
not grasp it—could not answer calmly ;
she gave a startled glance at Lord Hal-
lam. The sister followed that glance,
and this time she did cry out, so loud-
ly too, that the poor invalid turned and
opened her eyes.
“My lord,” said the nun humbly,
“Providence must be working for some
good end in allowing us three to meet
together. One of us at least can repair
a wrong and confess a sin. Do you re-
member me?”
My father staggered a step forward;
he was deadly pale, but his eyes seem-
ed to glow with excitement.
“Louise,” he muttered between his
teeth; “Louise—you !”
“You mistake,” answered the sister,
in a low voice, “I am Marie, the twin
sister of Louise, and so like her, that
this is not the first time you have
mistaken me for her. Listen ; I have
a story of sin to tell you. I have vow-
ed to my God and the blessed Virgin
to tell it whenever I should meet you.
And if long years’ repentance can atone
for a few hours' sin, mine will not have
been in vain. You married my sister
Louise when she was but sixteen ; and
you fancied her unfaithful, and left her
two months afterwards.”
“I had good proof,” muttered my
father.
The nun shook her head. “You
thought you had. Well, she died a year
after the birth of her little daughter.”
“Marie, Marie l’” burst in Madame
Palingat; “if you have no mercy for
yourself, spare me. Be silent.”
“Hush 1 ° answered the nun sternly;
MY SISTER'S
CONFESSION.
39
papa
“sin must be atoned for. Do you un-
derstand me?” she added, turning and
facing Lord Hallam. “I say Louise died
a year after the birth of her child /*
My father came nearer, and looked
eagerly in the nun's face. “You are
deceiving me,” he said in a low firm
voice. “I saw her in England two
years after—two years after my sec-
ond marriage and her reported death.
She died six months after that.”
“It was me you saw in England; me
you paid to return to America, from
whence I had come, and to keep the se-
cret of my existence. I have deceived
you and my sister Heloise. Louise
died a year after the birth of Christine.”
The sister spoke softly, but clearly.
Her faintest word reached every ear,
even the feeble sense of the poor crush-
ed sufferer.
“What!” she struggled with her
weakness to mutter, “was it not true,
then 2 O Madame Palingat I papa,
| 22
The sister bent over her. “My
child,” she whispered, “as the good God
is merciful, be merciful and forgiving.
If my falsehood has made you suffer,
on my knees I beseech your pardon.”
Caroline uttered a long, low cry.
“Your pardon | * she gasped. “And
my life Papa, do you hear ! I am
dying—dying; and they have killed me,
for they have maddened me with their
lies.”
Lord Hallam leant against her pil-
low, and I saw the large drops of per-
spiration standing on his forehead as he
gazed down on her white dying face,
but he could not speak. -
“You have all connived to kill me,”
went on the poor girl, in her sharp dis-
tressed voice. “Madame, with her
threats of seeing Christine righted ; my
father, with his cruel justice of acknowl-
edging her unless she retired by free
will into a convent; Montagu, with his
cruel heartlessness, and you,” she ad-
ded, pushing away the nun’s hand,
“have been the cause of all, of all—
and through you I lie here dying.” Her
groan of mental and bodily anguish rang
through the room.
There was a silence—such a deep si-
lence, that the short gasps of the suf-
ferer might have been counted.
“Will you let her take my place, pa-
pa?” she asked presently.
“Never !” Lord Hallam burst out
fiercely. “My poor child—my darling !
For ever shall I hate the cause of your
loss. Her mother was the curse of my
early life, and now her child curses my
latter years.”
“Hush ' " said the nun solemnly;
“such words are not for dying ears.”
“Caroline !” Montagu exclaimed, re-
proachfully.
I knelt down by the bedside. “While
there is time,” I murmured feebly, “my
sister, do me justice. Unsay the cruel
falsehood you told just now ; say that
my hand never touched you when you
fell. For the love of the blessed Vir-
gin, do not leave me with such an awful
stain on my name ! Dying lips, they
say, speak truly; who will believe my
word against yours?”
There was a silence. Caroline mov-
ed and moaned, but she would not
Speak.
“My child, have you no answer P”
said the sister.
“ Hush | * Lord Hallam exclaimed
fiercely. “Leave her in peace—she
shall be left in peace. Is it not enough
that you have killed her ?”
“Hush ” said the nun solemnly;
“hush an immortal soul is passing.”
Caroline's white face was settling
down into rigid stillness, and for a mo-
ment we all stood listening to her fee-
ble gasping, forgetful each of our own
trouble in witnessing that awful strug-
gle with the grim shadow, that stood
even now intercepting the light of life
from Caroline's poor longing eyes.
Then it was that Montagu Huntly
went up to the head of the bed, pushing
aside the sister, who was bending over
the sufferer, and, leaning over her pillow,
whispered something in her ear. What
those words were, none of us ever knew.
As Montagu spoke, his face lost the
sternness that had characterized it during
this dreadful scene, and grew sad and
anxious.
He clasped her feeble white fingers
lovingly. Whether it was a request he
whispered, or merely kind words of
comfort, none but her ear ever heard,
none but she ever knew ; but as she
listened for a solitary minute, life flashed
J.0
CONFESSION.
MY SISTER'S
back into her face, the death-like rigid-
ness gave place to a sad smile, she
opened her eyes, and turned them on
Montagu's face with an expression
which, even in her dying moment, show-
ed how well she loved him.
And then Montagu took my hand,
and, joining it with hers in his own,
looked up almost sternly at our father.
But before he could speak, Caroline's
life ebbed again, the white face growing
deathly, but peacefully still—for a faint
smile had replaced the former look of
ghastly horror. Then suddenly, whilst
her gaze still remained fixed on Mr.
Huntly, she gathered her last flicker of
life and strength to stretch out her pale
feeble hand towards her father, while,
in a voice whose accents sounded awful-
ly strange, she cried piteously, “Papa
papal she never touched me ! Forgive
—” That dying prayer, whether for
herself or me, was never finished. Like
a weary child, she gave a little gasping
sigh, closed her eyes, and so died.
CHAPTER V.
CONCLUSION.
I HAVE but an indistinct remembrance
of all that occurred immediately after
the death of my unhappy step-sister. I
recollect hearing that Mr. Huntly en-
deavored to make my father investigate
closely with the aid of the police, the
plot that the sisters of his first wife had
so successfully formed and executed to
extort money from him, and which had
wrought such misery for us all; but
Lord Hallam after hearing a more
detailed explanation from the nun,
refused to take further notice of the
affair, and allowed the priest (whom I
discovered to be Madame Palingat's son,
and my own cousin) to depart unques-
tioned, in company with Madame. I
believe Madame returned to her school
at Gan ; but I never saw her again, or
heard directly of her. Mr. Huntly left
Pau immediately after Caroline's fune-
ral, and for a couple of years I saw
nothing of him.
About myself and my own history
during those two years, I have little to
relate. My father took me with him to
England, and in outward appearance
treated me as his daughter. But his
was not a character to overcome easily
a deeply-rooted prejudice; and though
I was installed mistress of his splendid
establishment—though he surrounded
me with all the luxuries and comforts
his wealth and high position could com-
mand—though before all the world he
treated me as his child—not for a mo-
ment of those long two years, was I
permitted to forget that I occupied
Caroline's place everywhere but in my
father's heart.
I believe it was a considerable time
before he could endure my preseñce
without pain; and even when, as time
passed on, and with his blessed hand
healed partly that terrible wound, my
father never took pleasure in my society
—never more than coldly received those
marks of filial affection with which I
sought to win him to regard me more
kindly.
Those times were scarcely happier
than the solitary hours I spent puzzling
over my fate in the quiet vineyards of
Gan; and more than once have I longed
to exchange my grand and luxurious
English home for the old French school-
room, where, if I had no friend, my
presence at least caused pain to no one.
We lived the greater part of the year
at Hallam Court—a gloomy country
mansion, in one of the most beautiful
but most secluded parts of Somerset; and
there the long months wore on wearily
and monotonously, and how I lived
through them I scarcely know. Mr.
Huntly came back to England at last,
and then life grew a little brighter.
I cannot write about love-scenes and
love-talk well, particularly when they
concern myself. How it was that Mon-
tagu could fancy my quiet unpretending
self, after beautiful fascinating Caroline
was a mystery I never attempted to
comprehend, but the fact of which I
accepted gratefully.
He found me very unhappy; wearing
my life away in cold solitary splendor,
almost as friendless as on the night he
had met me wandering in the moonlit
alley of the chateau-gardens at Pau; and
perhaps it was pity—perhaps that feel-
ing which Lamartine describes when he
- MY SISTER’s CONFESSION.
41
|
|
says," “il faut regarder d'en haut ce
qu'on aime,” which first attracted his
heart towards me.
Ours was a very quiet, very unro-
mantic love-making. Montagu was al-
most as matter-of-fact about it as my-
self; and I believe it was only after the
deed was irrevocably done, when we
were solemnly bound husband and wife,
that we woke up to the consciousness
of real love. I do not feel ashamed of
acknowledging this ; in my mind, while
it ennobles my husband, it does not hu-
miliate me. I was neither a bril-
liantly-beautiful nor very attractive
woman ; and probably had not some
sentiment of this kind drawn us togeth-
er, Montagu would never have noticed
In 62.
Our quiet courtship and quiet mar-
riage-day now stand among the memo-
ries of the far past, side by side with
the sad history which I have just writ-
ten. We talk over them all, sometimes,
whilst wandering under the shady ave-
nues of Hallam Court ; but even now,
at this distance of time, with bright and
happy years between us and that Sad
past, I can never listen to any mention
of those days, never hear the names of
Caroline or the eawa chaudes, without a
shiver.
Montagu has told me much concern-
ing Caroline which throws a softening
shade over her sad memory ; but still I
cannot prevent myself from signing the
cross and muttering a prayer, according
to my old religious habit, at the men-
tion of her name. I believe Montagu
did love her once, though never with
the fierce, wild love she gave to him.
He has told me long stories of her gen-
erous liberal nature, of her wilfulness,
fascinating in spite of itself, and of the
egotism in which she had been encour-
aged by a father who literally wor-
shipped her, and which might be urged
largely in her defence.
Had Caroline lived, in all probability
I should never have married Montagu ;
but—Heaven pardon me for saying it!
—I cannot help feeling that, though we
both shudder together over her awful
fate, my husband never regrets that, in-
stead of the beautiful dashing Caº oline,
he has a quiet, loving wife, who, al-
though she could not fascinate him, has
known how to win and keep his love
and respect. My father is more recon-
ciled to me since my marriage ; perhaps
it is because I am the mother of a sweet,
darling little daughter, in whose wild
beauty and rebellious ways he can re-
trace something of her whom he has
never ceased to mourn. He visits us
frequently ; but the greater part of the
year he passes travelling about the
Continent.
As for myself, I have lived in Eng-
land till I have almost forgotten the
customs and habits of my childhood,
and until my mother-tongue sounds
strangely on my ears.
I have never yet found courage to
visit my native land; and, as I said at
the commencement, while to others the
name of the South of France may be
the conjurer-up of happy times and
lovely scenery, to me it is but a knell.
In it. I hear suffering, woe, death in its
most awful form.
There is a stately marble mausoleum
in the cemetery at Pau, standing in the
corner devoted to the Protestants; roses
bloom around it ; lilies adorn it ; and
to it. Lord Hallam goes yearly, and most
liberally pays to have it carefully tend-
ed. And a tall, dark-robed Sister of
Charity visits it, too, and with abundant
tears does she pray for the soul of her
whose body lies beneath the carved
white marble. Requiescat in pace /
II.
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
CHAPTER I.
OLD Rudderford Hall lay back from
the high road, buried in trees, and all
the traveller saw of it was a glimpse of
mellow, red-brick chimney, or an angle
of the steep-tiled roof, above oaks and
elms that had been growing ever since
the Norman Conquest, when all about
the trim little out-of-the-world village
of Rudderford was forest land.
New Rudderford Hall fronted the
turnpike road, resplendent with three
rows of shining plate-glass windows, a
brilliant stuccoed front, a conservatory
with a glass dome flashing in the sum-
mer sun, a prim lawn embellished with
geometrical flower-beds, all ablaze with
scarlet and yellow, and two pair of
bran-new Birmingham iron gates, of
florid design, surmounted by two pair
of lamps. New Rudderford Hall looked
what it was—the abode of commercial
wealth. New Rudderford Hall gave
dinner parties, a ball once a year, hunt-
ing breakfasts in the late autumn, pri-
vate theatricals at Christmas. New
Rudderford Hall had three rosy daugh-
ters and one stalwart, hard-riding son,
the apple of its eye.
Old Rudderford Hall rarely opened
its rusty gates, or unlocked its creaking
doors. There was, indeed, a legend that
no stranger had broken bread there for
a century; yet there was a counter-story
current to the effect that the master of
Old Rudderford Hall could, when he
chose, open a bottle of rare old wine
for a visitor, Madeira that had voy-
aged three times to and fro the East
Indies, sirupy Malmsey, golden-tinted
Tokay, gly Constantia, with a faint bit-
ter twang. Old Rudderford Hall had
one only child, a daughter, fair to see,
who rode an ancient purblind palfrey
about the shady lanes round Rudder-
ford, and was met sometimes in the
.dwellings of the poor, but never in that
exalted sphere, which Rudderford called
“society.” Old Rudderford Hall re-
joiced in that patrician appendage,_a
family ghost.
The story went that a Champion of
the days of the Stuarts had, slain his
wife in some fit of jealous fury, and
that the poor lady's restless spirit—the
legend hinted at her guilt—haunted the
long dark passages and dismal cham-
bers of the old house. It was not very
clear that any one had ever seen her,
but she was firmly believed in, never-
theless, and plenty of people were able
to give a graphic description of her, a
tall, graceful lady, dressed in white, with
flowing auburn hair falling over her
neck and shoulders. -
The present owner of the Hall was
Anthony Champion, and the estate had
belonged to the house of Champion
ever since the days of Henry VIII.,
who, in the distribution of church prop-
erty, had rewarded his liege, servant,
Thomas Champion, gentleman, for di-
vers services not set down in the title-
deeds of the estate, with the copyhold
of Rudderford Chase and Rudderford
Grange, previously held by a monkish
fraternity settled in the neighborhood.
There were portions of the old
Grange still standing-massive stone
walls pierced with narrow, arched win-
dows, a winding staircase, and low, oak
door, iron-bound and studded with huge
nails; but these stone buildings now
OLD RUDIDERFORD HALL.
43
served only as offices, and the Hall
proper had been built by the aforesaid
Thomas Champion, with much splendor
and lavish expenditure, in an age when
architectural extravagance had been
made fashionable by the magnificent
Wolsey. The house was one of the fin-
est specimens of domestic architecture
in England, but had been sorely neg-
lected for the last century. Wherever
decay could arise, it had arisen, and a
settled gloom had fallen upon the man-
sion and its surroundings. Only in the
flower-garden was there any glimpse of
neatness or brightness, and that was
due to the care of Christabel Cham-
pion, who loved the old flower-beds, the
grassy walks, and ancient roses, and
who not only superintended the labors
of a 'great hulking lad of seventeen,
sole gardener at the Hall, but worked
hard herself into the bargain.
Within, the gloom was almost op-
pressive. Anthony Champion was a
man who lived amongst his books, and
dreamed away his days over mouldy
old folios and rare editions collected by
his father, when the Champion purse
was deeper than it was nowadays. He
lived almost wholly in his library, only
emerging at seven in the evening to
share his daughter's frugal dinner, and
to doze or muse for an hour or so after-
wards in the long saloon. There was
some little show of state and ceremony
kept up at the Hall, though there were
only three servants in a house where
there had once been forty—an ancient
butler and housekeeper, man and wife,
and a buxom country girl, who did all
the scrubbing and cleaning, attended to
a small dairy, and waited upon Chris-
tabel.
The master of Old Rudderford Hall
was as poor as Job in his day of afflic-
tion ; or at least so ran the common ru-
Emor, amply sustained by the mode and
manner of his existence. A hundred
years ago there had been revelry and
Splendor at the grand old house, but at
that time a great misfortune befel its
master, in the untimely death of his
eldest son, killed in a duel; and the be-
reaved father shut up the house, and
Went to France, where he lived a wild
life, and squandered a noble fortune at
the profligate court of Louis the Well-
beloved. He died in Paris a year or so
before the revolution, which was to re-
generate mankind, arrived at that stage
in which it began to improve them off
the face of the earth, and probably by
his timely decease escaped a ruder exit
via the guillotine. His estate, much
impoverished, descended to a nephew, a
studious young man, lame and of feeble
health, who married a girl of humble
birth, lived the life of a recluse in the
neglected house, and became the father
of Anthony Champion, the present mas-
ter of the old Hall.
It is possible that, when young An-
thony inherited the estate, shrunk and
burdened as it was, he might have made
some effort to brighten and improve
things, if fortune had favored him ever
so little. But again did affliction fall
heavily upon the old house. He mar-
ried a woman he adored, a fair young
girl of high family but no fortune and,
brought her home to the Hall, full of
all manner of schemes for the future.
For a little more than a year he lived a
life of Supreme domestic happiness, and
then—two months after the birth of a
baby-girl— he saw an unusual flush
upon his young wife's cheek one day,
and the next beheld her stricken with
typhus-fever. In a week all was over,
and he stood alone by his dreary hearth,
like a strong man turned to stone. It
was long before the caresses of his child
could bring the faintest shadow of a
smile to his haggard face. He seemed
to grow an old man all at once. Un-
like his ancestor, he did not turn his
back upon the scene of his suffering ;
he only entombed himself there, buried
alive among his books. He had inher-
ited his father's studious habits; and
after a weary year, in which he sat
alone day after day, helpless, hopeless,
blankly staring at the wall before him,
and brooding over his misery, he grew
to find some cold comfort in recondite
studies of so close and severe a kind,
that the more credulous annong his
neighbors talked darkly as of some-
thing not quite canny.
For such a man society could have no
charm. Had he possessed the wealth
of all the Rothschilds, he would have
lived very much as he did live. A ret-
inue of servants might have eaten and
44
OLD RUDDERFORL) HALL.
drunk at his expense, a vast amount of
splendid upholstery might have been
created at his cost; but his individual
expenditure would have been no
greater, his manner of existence no
more cheerful. He lived alone by
choice; and so utterly narrowed had
his mind become by constant brooding
on one vain regret, as to make him half-
unconscious that this hermit life was
scarcely the best and brightest for a girl
of eighteen. The motherless baby,
whose plaintive cries had rent his heart
years ago, had blossomed into a lovely
girl, painfully like his lost wife. Long
and dreary as his days and nights had
seemed to him ever since that loss, he
had been scarcely conscious of the actu-
al progress of time. The lapse might
be five years or fifty. It was a surprise
to him to see his daughter grown to
womanhood. He woke up from a long
sleep, as it were, and looked at her with
vague wonder. Seven or eight years be-
fore, he had made a friendly arrangement
with the rector's wife, by which Christa-
bel was to share the studies of the four
girls at the rectory, under an admirable
governess; and by virtue of this arrange-
ment his daughter's education had cost
him very little money and no trouble.
He loved her fondly, and yet had
given her little of his confidence. Rarely
did he see the fair young face looking
up at him without a faint pang, which
was like the memory of an acute agony
rather than actual present pain. She
was so like her mother | He fancied
something how fair a picture those two
faces would have made side by side—
one developed and matronly, the other
in all the bloom of girlhood.
She had her little circle of friends—
a very small one. The only house she
visited was the rectory, and there she
came and went like a daughter of the
house. There she had met the New
Rudderford Hall people—Frank Green-
wood and his three sisters, who fell in
love with her—the sisters, that is to
say—at first sight. Frank said very
little about her. She declined all invi-
tations for parties, however—indeed,
she had none of the finery required for
such occasions—but consented to join
them now and then on the croquet-
lawn and share their afternoon tea.
CHAPTER II.
NEW RUDDERFORD HALL was built
upon a part of the land which King
Henry bestowed upon his liege Thomas
Champion, and this fact was resented by
Anthony as a personal offence against
him upon the part of Mr. Greenwood.
If he had been a visiting man even,
nothing could have induced him to break
bread with the master of the new Hall,
and he always heard of his daughter's
intimacy with “those Greenwood girls”
with displeasure.
“I can't imagine what induces you
to cultivate such people, Christabel,”
he said fretfully, as they were sitting
together in the summer dusk after din-
ner one evening in the long saloon—a
melancholy room which would have ac-
commodated an assembly of fifty, and
seemed very dreary in its faded splendor,
occupied only by the father and daugh-
ter.
“I never have cultivated them, papa.
You know how many invitations they
have sent me, and I have declined them
all.”
“You have been to their house.”
“Yes, to play croquet, now and then;
never to any of their parties.”
“I suppose that is a deprivation,”
said Mr. Champion, with a sigh. “I
daresay there are people who would
call me a cruel father, and the life you
lead in this old house an unnatural
one.”
“Pray, pray don’t say that, my dear
father,” cried the girl earnestly, coming
over to his chair by the open window,
and laying her hand caressingly upon his
shoulder. “You know that I am quite
content to be with you ; there is no
higher happiness I could desire than
that. If our lives are a little dull
sometimes, and one is subject to an oc-
casional attack of low spirits, never
mind; there are other times when life
seems all sunshine, and the garden and
the dear old house enchanted, like the
fairy palace in Beauty and the Beast.
Why, after all, my life is quite as gay
as Beauty's was. As long as you like
to live alone, papa, I will be content
with our solitude; though I confess it
would make me happy to see you go
more into the world.”
OLD RUDDER FORD HALL.
45
world is out in its reckoning.
The world, in Christabel’s ideas,
meant Rudderford and half-a-dozen
houses within half-a-dozen miles of
Rudderford. Perhaps the world of
which she was thinking just at this
moment meant even something less
than that—an occasional dinner-party
at Samuel Greenwood's Smart stuccoed
mansion.
“That is a sight you will never see,
my dear,” answered her father, drearily.
“I shut my door upon the world when
I came home from your mother's fune-
ral—home ! and she was no longer
there ! No, Christabel; the world and
I have parted company too long for any
sympathy to be possible between us.
A man coming out into the clamor and
confusion of Paris after five-and-twenty
years in one of the underground cells of
the Bastille could not feel himself more
a stranger than I should, if I were to
go into the world now. But I am not
going to keep you buried alive forever.
You have blossomed into a woman all
at once, and taken me by surprise. I
want a little time to think about it, and
then I shall form some plan for giving
you a brighter life.”
“I don’t wish for any change, papa;
I would not leave you. If you have
any plan for sending me away, pray
abandon it. Not all the pleasures in
the world would make up to me for
leaving you. Indeed, indeed, I am
quite happy I have my poor people to
visit, and—and—a few friends”—she
hesitated, with a sudden blush, remem-
bering that those obnoxious Greenwoods
were among the few—“ and my dear
old horse, Gilpin.”
Mr. Champion smiled at the mention
of this last item.
“Gilpin is scarcely a steed for a young
lady to boast of,” said he. I suppose
the world thinks that I can give you no
better mount than old Gilpin; that I
live the life I do from poverty as much
as for any other reason.”
“People may think so, papa; what
does it matter P”
“Nothing, child; but for once the
I am
ºnot a poor man. The estate was heav-
ily burdened when I succeeded to it,
but money has accumulated rapidly in
the life I have led, and I have paid off
everything, have saved money, too.
If I could have only bought back the
land upon which the new hall stands,
and pulled down that vulgar cockney
house, I should think my money worth
something ; but that's out of the ques-
tion. Samuel Greenwood is one of the
richest men in the county, and would
dearly like to buy me out of this place.
However, don’t let's talk of him ; the
subject always puts me out of temper.
When the time comes for your marry-
ing, Christabel, you will not be a pen-
miless bride.”
“I hope, if ever I do marry, papa, it
will be some one who won’t care whether
I have any money or not.”
“Of course; that’s a girl's notion.
But people do care. I don’t want you
to marry a pauper, who, having nothing
to bestow would be content to take you
with nothing. The age has grown
commercial, my dear; the more money
a man has, the more he expects with
his wife. And when you go into society
by and by, as I intend you shall do,
you shall appear as become's a gentle-
man's daughter; and when you marry,
you shall have such jewels as not one
woman in a hundred can show.”
“Jewels, papal ’’ cried Christabel,
opening her blue eyes to their widest
extent, “jewels.”
Except a white cornelian necklace
and a gold heart-shaped locket contain-
ing her mother’s hair, the girl had never
possessed a trinket in her life.
“Yes, child, jewels. Stay here a
minute, and I'll show you something.”
There was a door at one end of the
saloon opening into the library, that
darksome den in which Anthony Cham-
pion spent his days, and which was
rarely invaded by the foot of the in-
dustrious housemaid. A dingy old room,
lined from floor to ceiling with dingy
books,—books in piles on the floor,
books on the mantle-piece, books heaped
up on the three broad, oak window-
seats, books everywhere, and between
the windows two huge carved-oak mu-
niment chests.
Anthony left his daughter in the
saloon, and went into the library. He
unlocked one of these muniment chests,
and took out a battered old leather-cov-
ered box, which had once been crimson
46
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
This he brought to Christabel. There
was just light enough for her to see
some faded gilt lettering at the top,
the initials “C. C.”
“Was that my mother's?” she asked,
scrutinizing those two letters with in-
terest.
“No. This jewel-case belonged to
your great-aunt, Caroline Champion,
the mother of that unhappy lad who
lost his life in a drunken brawl which
ended in bloodshed. When Angus
Champion turned his back upon Rud-
derford, he left this box behind him,
forgot its existence, perhaps ; who
knows 2 His wife had been dead nine
years. At any rate, although he spent
almost everything he could lay his
hands on, the jewels remained in an
iron safe in the steward’s room, among
old leases and useless parchments, and
there my father found them when he
inherited the property. As they had
escaped so long, he did not care to sell
them. “My son's wife shall wear them,'
he said. But your mother never lived
to wear them, Christabel. We used to
talk merrily enough of the day when
she should be presented at court, in a
blaze of diamonds. Yet she wore no
ormaments but the roses we put in her
coffin.” He stopped for a few moments;
that memory never came to him without
the familiar pang. “And now I am
going to dazzle your eyes,” he said,
putting aside the bitter thought with an
effort. There are loves that do verily
last a lifetime, and his was one of
those.
He unlocked the jewel-case, and lift-
ed the lid. Christabel gave a great
cry of rapture. There was a tray of
diamonds,--necklace, bracelets, brooch,
ear-rings, set in silver, in a solid, simple
style. The stones were large and bril-
liant, perfect in color, of a greater value
than Anthony Champion imagined,
though he deemed them worth a round
SUIII].
He raised the upper tray, and re-
vealed a lower one, full of sapphires, in
a quaint filigree gold setting; then he
showed his daughter another tray, con-
taining a necklace and ear-rings of
amethysts and pearls, which Christabel
declared were more beautiful than the
diamonds; and then the bottom of the
box, in which there were only odds and
ends,-antique rings, an apostle spoon,
a smelling-bottle, a couple of thimbles,
a fruit knife, a locket, a brooch or two,
and so on. But these interested Chris-
tabel almost more than the precious
stones, and she sat looking them over
entranced, with the three jewel-trays
spread out upon the table.
“Hark!” said her father suddenly.
What was that ?”
“What, papa?”
“That noise outside ; it sounded like
a step upon the gravel. Look out,
Christabel, and see if there is any one.”
Miss Champion stepped out of the
long window. There was a wide gravel
walk before the saloon windows, some-
what weedy and moss-grown, and be-
yond that a shrubbéry, where the young
firs and shrubs grew thick and tall,—
a shrubbery in which a dozen men
might have hidden securely enough.
There was no one to be seen. The
girl glanced up and down the weedy
walk, very desolate looking in the sum-
mer twilight, and peered into the shrub-
bery, parting the thick laurels here and
there, but without result. -
“Are you sure you heard a footstep,
papa P” she asked, rather incredulous-
ly, as she came back to the room.
“Yes,” said Mr. Champion, who had
been hastily replacing the jewel-trays,
while his daughter was looking about,
“I am sure. And there was something
more than a footstep. I saw a shadow
fall across the window.”
“The shadow of a tree, perhaps,
papa.” -
“There is no tree that can cast a
shadow on this window. It was gone in
a moment. There has been some one
watching us, Christabel.”
“A tramp, perhaps, papa,” said Miss
Champion, coolly. -
The approaches to old Rudderford
Hall were ill guarded, guarded not at
all, in fact. The gates were never
locked, and for those intruders who
might find the legitimate mode of en-
trance inconvenient, there were numer-
ous gaps in the fence through which
they might roam into the park at will.
Plenty of tramps, therefore, came to
the old hall, and were wont to depart,
protesting against the inhospitality of
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
47
the back door and kitchen department
in general. There were no beer-drink-
ing grooms to wheedle out of a friendly
pint ; no gossiping Scullerymaids to give
them bread and cheese or broken vic-
tuals, the bone of a leg of mutton and
half a loaf of bread, or the carcasses
of a pair of fowls and a dish of cold
vegetables. There was nothing to be
heard or seen, no hen roosts to be rob-
bed,—for the poultry-yard was a desert;
only close-shut doors, and blank iron-
barred windows; weeds growing be-
tween the flagstones in the court, an
empty dog-kennel, a locked dairy, a
broken pump, which would not yield
the wanderer so much as the refresh-
ment of a draught of spring water.
“A tramp !” exclaimed Mr. Cham-
pion, with displeasure. “I’m afraid you
encourage such vermin by your indis-
criminate charities, Christabel.”
Christabel looked downward with a
faint little sigh. If not a miser in
theory, Mr. Champion had been a miser
in practice ; and so restricted was her
pocket-money that these indiscriminate
charities of which he complained con-
sisted of a stray sixpence now and then
bestowed upon some footsore vagrant,
whose piteous tale touched the tender
young heart.
“A tramp !” repeated Mr. Champ-
ion; “a pleasant thing for a tramp to
have seen those jewels. I’ll put them
away this moment, and do you look
out again, Christabel, and see if you
can discover any one lurking about;
and you might tell David to keep his
eyes open.”
David was the solitary gardener and
out-of-door-man, who had the custody
of grounds that could have been barely
kept in order by six.
Miss Champion stepped out into the
garden again under a darkening sky,
and this time looked more closely than
before, making a circuit of the shrub-
bery by a path half choked with the
wild growth of neglected shrubs, going
round into the old Dutch garden, glanc-
ing even into the kitchen garden be-
yond, where she found David staring
pensively into a broken cucumber frame.
To him she gave her father's order,
which he received almost contemptu-
ously.
| 2,
“Tramps, miss! Lor' a mercy, they
don’t do no harm. There's nothing for
'em to steal.”
Of course the intruder, whoever he
might be, must have had ample time to
make his escape after Mr. Champion
first took alarm. David prowled slowly
through the gardens, stared across a
massive holly hedge into the park, saw
no one, and wended his solitary way to
the house to report accordingly.
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTABEL met Rosa Greenwood
next morning in one of the green lanes
beyond the village when she was return-
ing from a long ramble on Gilpin, and
that young lady told her of a croquet
party that was to take place at New
Rudderford Hall that evening, and to
which she must certainly come.
“It’s not the least bit in the world a
party, you know, dear,” Miss Green-
wood pleaded, patting Gilpin's iron-gray
shoulder; “quite an impromptu affair,
got up for Miss Perkington, only
daughter of the great firm of Perking-
ton and Tanberry, cloth manufacturers,
who is staying with us. Such a dear
girl | not exactly pretty, but so interest-
ing. We all want Frank to marry
her, and I really think she likes him.
But there’s no knowing; young men
are so peculiar.”
Christabel wore a straw hat with a
blue veil, and under the blue veil the
roses on her cheeks deepened a little at
this juncture. -
“Now you must, must, must come,
Christabel. I won’t accept a refusal.
The rectory girls are to be with us. We
are to dine at five, so as to secure a long
evening, and begin croquet at six ; and
we can wind up with a waltz or two be-
fore supper.”
Christabel's eyes quite sparkled at
the idea of a waltz. Dancing was a dis-
sipation which seemed to her inexperi-
ence the height of earthly felicity. She
had waltzed all by herself on the lawn
many a summer evening, softly singing
some languorous melody of D'Albert's
as she danced.
“I should dearly like to come,” she
48
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
said thoughtfully, “but I don't know if
papa–’’
“Papal bosh l’’ exclaimed Miss
Greenwood, who was somewhat fast
and irreverent in her notions of parental
authority. “I should like to see the
author of my being putting a spoke in
the wheel, if I wanted to enjoy myself.
As if your life wasn’t dull enough, mew-
ed up in that dreary old Hall !” And
Miss Greenwood made a wry face,
which expressed her supreme contempt
for the grand old Tudor mansion, as
compared with the Smart plate-glass-
windowed habitation which sheltered
her fair self.
“I’ll ask papa if I may come at
eight,” said Christabel. “He dines at
seven, you know, and he always likes to
have me with him at dinner. I couldn't
possibly come till eight; but the even-
ings are so long now.”
“It’s a great deal too late,” replied
Rosa, picking a fly off Gilpin's nose.
“However, if you must stop to see that
curious old pa of yours eat his dinner,
you must. But remember we shall ex-
pect you at eight sharp. I’ll send Frank
to meet you at the field gate.”
“Oh, please don’t,” cried Christabel.
“But I please shall. He'll meet you
at the gate when the clock strikes
eight.”
“Miss Champion walked her horse
to the end of the lane, Rosa Greenwood
walking by her side, telling her about
that wonderful young person Miss Vic-
toria Perkington, who, by virtue of her
position as the only daughter of Perk-
ington and Tanberry, had an allowance
which made the condition of the rich
Miss Greenwoods seem absolute pen-
\ll’W.
“You should see the dresses she has
brought with her for a ten days’ visit !”
exclaimed Rosa. “A basket as big as
a house, and all of them from a French-
woman in Bruton street. There’s a
corded black silk trimmed with white
Jace—Valenciennes—three inches deep
on all the flounces and puffings; worth
a fortune—a perfect duck of a dress l’”
Christabel thought of her jewels, and
wished that she could have melted just
a few diamonds, which she could never
wear till she was married, into silk
dresses. She gave a little sigh, think-
ing of the scantiness of her wardrobe,
and how very poor a figure she must
needs seem in the eyes of Miss Perk-
ington, and rode slowly home, medita-
tive, and not altogether happy,
“I dare say he will marry her,” she
said to herself. “It is just as papa said
last might. The richer people are, the
more eager they are to increase their
wealth. He will marry her, no doubt,
and buy some great estate in the neigh-
borhood, and build a big, ugly house ;
and I shall see them riding by on their
thorough-bred horses, and laughing at
poor old Gilpin.”
She bent over her horse's neck to
pat him at this thought, and one child-
ish tear dropped upon the gray mane.
She was not much more than a child,
and Frank Greenwood had been very
tender and deferential in his manner to
her always. It gave her a sharp pain
to think that he would pass quite out of
her life, and belong to Miss Perking-
ton.
“Would you object to my going to
play croquet at—at the new Hall this
evening, papa?” the girl asked timidly,
during dinner.
“Object 2 Well, my dear, you know
I detest those Greenwood people,”—it
is doubtful if he had seen them three
times in his life, “but I suppose it
would be hard upon you to forbid you
enjoying any little pleasure they may
offer you in a quiet way. It is not a
party, of course * *
“Oh, no, papa. I only heard of it
from Rosa when I was out this morn-
in s.”
“Mind, I set my face absolutely
against your appearance at any of their
ostentatious parties. I’ll not have my
daughter paraded at Joshua Green-
wood’s chariot-wheels. But as far as a
game of croquet goes, if it pleases you,
I’ve no objection.”
“Thanks, dear papa.”
“When are you going?”
“Directly after dinner.”
“That will be at eight o'clock. I
shall send David for you at half-past
nine.”
Only an hour and a half I Would
there be time for those waltzes on the
lawn P. She had danced several times
with Frank at that hospitable rectory,
OLD RUDIDERFORD HALL. 49
and knew that he was an agreeable
artner.
“There is to be a kind of supper, I
believe, papa,” she faltered.
“A kind of supper ? Say ten, then,
or half-past at the latest.”
“Thank you, papa dear.”
“Bless my heart | one would think
these people were the most congenial
acquaintance you could desire.”
“The rectory girls are to be there,
papa,” Christabel said, demurely.
“Well, I don’t wonder at your being
attached to them. Run away, child,
and dress yourself. I can finish my
dinner alone.”
Miss Champion kissed her father, and
tripped away to make her brief toilet;
pleased, and yet with a vague pain at
her heart—a pain that was associated
with the image of the unknown Miss
Perkington. Rosa Greenwood had
called her brother “peculiar ” in a
tone that seemed to imply his indiffer-
ence to the great heiress; but she had
not said the marriage was at all unlike-
ly; and the family wished it ; and Miss
Perkington was there; and Frank was
a man of the world—very bright, and
clever, and open-hearted, but a man of
the world nevertheless.
She put on her white muslin dress,
a dress three summers old, which had
been lengthened artfully, but not quite
imperceptibly, to suit her increasing
height ; just such a dress as must of ne-
cessity provoke contempt in the mind
of Miss Perkington, who of course had
never in her life worn anything length-
ened, or “let out.” She tied a broad
blue ribbon round her slim white
throat, with the gold heart-shaped
locket hanging to it, and then looked at
herself in the glass discontentedly. It
was a very beautiful picture which she
saw in that old-fashioned cheval glass
a tall, slender, white-robed figure, and
a fair young face framed in luxuriant
auburn hair; but Christabel only saw
the deficiencies of her costume, and turn-
ed away from the glass with a sigh.
Her father was dozing in his deep
arm-chair when she peeped into the sa-
loon to bid him good-by ; so she went
lightly out of the window, and away
through the gardens, into a meadow
where a solitary cow was browsing in
the still evening atmosphere, and on to
that field gate of which Miss Greenwood
had spoken ; a gate that divided Sam-
uel Greenwood's territory from the
shrunken lands of the Champions.
Rudderford Church clock chimed the
three-quarters after seven as Christabel
crossed the meadow. She was just a
quarter of an hour before the appointed
time. She was half glad, half sorry, to
think that Frank would not be there.
He was there, nevertheless—a good-
looking young fellow, with long legs, sit-
ting on the gate in a contemplative at-
titude, thinking so profoundly that he
looked up with a start as the light foot-
step came close to him—a start and
something like a blush.
“How good of you to come so early 1 °
he said, as they shook hands, and he
held the little hand an extra moment or
so. (It was just the sort of meeting in
which a young man would consider
himself entitled to one gentle pressure
before he released a pretty girl’s hand.)
“I strolled over here ten minutes ago
to have a good think. I don't often
think ; it’s a bad habit.”
Christabel laughed. She was almost
always gay in his presence ; he seemed
to brighten her life somehow with a
genial influence.
“You must have been obliged to
think at Oxford,” she said. Francis
Greenwood had taken honors at Oxford
a year or so before.
“Not the least in the world. One's
tutor does that sort of thing for one.
I used to read with a man—a duodeci-
mo edition of Porson in his way, drank
like a fish, and knew no end of Greek.
When I came to a stiffish passage in
Aristotle, I used to throw myself back
in my chair and light my cigar. “Just
help yourself to another S.-and-b., and
be good enough to demonstrate that
proposition, old fellow ; I don’t seem
to see it,” I used to say ; and the dear
old bloke would prose away for an
hour, and, if I didn’t understand it after
that, I threw my book at his head and
gave it up.”
“Was s.-and-b. a dictionary P” Chris-
tabel asked naively.
“No, Miss Champion, but a wonder-
ful enlightener of the human under
standing—soda-water and brandy.”
50
OLD R U DDERFORD HALL.
“I’m afraid you led quite a dreadful
life at the University.”
“Not at all, it was very nice. I
should hardly mind leading it over
again, only it was not so nice as—"
“As what ?” Christabel asked, when
he came to a dead stop.
“As the life I hope to lead by and
by.”
Her heart sank all at once. That
meant his life in the big, ugly house
that he was to build for himself, and in
which he was to set up as a country
squire, enriched with the wealth of
Perkington and Tanberry. Christabel
knew that he was an ardent lover of
field-sports, and all pursuits that coun-
try gentlemen affect, and that he had a
vast capacity for spending money.
What more natural than that he should
be tempted by Miss Perkington's half-
million or so P
She was silent. They had one wide
meadow to cross, a meadow where the
newly-cut grass was fragrant in the
still June air, and they would be in the
grounds of the new Hall—grounds in
which there were very few trees, but a
good deal of ornamentation in the way
of costly shrubs of divers spikey orders,
and winding gravel paths that were
kept with rigorous care. They could
hear the sharp click of the croquet-
balls as they crossed the meadow, and
shrill feminine laughter.
“It was very rude of you to leave
your side so long,” said Christabel.
“My side 2 Oh, to be sure, those
everlasting croquet-players. Do you
know, I think croquet the most duffing
—I beg your pardon, the most uninter-
esting game in the world. A man
plays it for the sake of loafing with a
girl he likes; I can’t see any other at-
traction in it.”
“I suppose you have been loafing
with Miss Perkington,” said Christabel,
with a forced laugh.
Frank Greenwood looked at her cu-
riously.
“Yes,” he answered, coolly, “I have
been loafing with Miss Perkington a
good deal lately ; ” and then he looked
at her again.
They were at the iron gate by this
time—only a light iron fence divided
the grounds from the meadow. Between
the lawn and the fence there was that
part of the garden called par eaccellence
a shrubbery—a scanty grove of the
spikey tribe, and young pink hawthorn-
trees, as thick in the trunk as a gandin's
umbrella, and guelder-roses dotted about
at intervals—a shrubbery in which there
was not covert for a rabbit. Christabel
felt that the eyes of all the players on
the croquet-ground were upon her, as
she traversed the meandering gravel
walks with Frank by her side.
The lawn was as smooth and as
level as a billiard-table, and there was
not so much a faded leaf among the
flower-beds — brilliant pyramids of
bloom, rising tier upon tier in rings of
contrasting color, or waiving in and
out in ribbon bordering. The croquet-
ground lay on one side of the house,
and scattered around it there were iron
seats and tables for the accommodation
of loungers and lookers-on. Samuel
Greenwood was sitting here, Smoking
his after dinner cigar, and reading the
“Times; ”— a big, bald-headed man,
who might once have been like Frank.
He did not look particularly pleased
when Christabel came to shake hands
with him, smiling shyly, and he gave
his son a side-glance that was not alto-
gether agreeable.
“Oh, how d'ye do, Miss Champion ?”
he said. I didn’t know you were to be
here this evening.”
“Good gracious me, pal” exclaimed
the irreverent Rosa, “as if we should
take the trouble to tell you who was
coming to play croquet. Come, Chris,
you’re to be on our side,-Harry and I.”
(short for Harriet), “Julia Lee’’ (the
rector's daughter), “and you; Miss
Perkington, Frank, Clara Lee, and Pat-
ty, on the other side. Now then, first
red, get on—Oh, I forgot to introduce
you two girls. Miss Perkington, Miss
Champion; Miss Champion, Miss Perk-
ington; aristocracy and plutocracy; old
Rudderford Hall and the Beeches,
Leamington; and now you know all
about each other, and I expect you to be
good friends immediately.”
Miss Perkington bowed stiffly. She
did not quite relish such a free-and-easy
introduction, but her dear Rosa had such
eccentric ways. She was a tall, thin
young woman, of an order that is called
1 22
OLD RUDIOERFORD HAIL.
51
stylish, with a good many sharp angles,
that were artfully toned down by the
flouncings and puffings of a French dress-
maker; a young woman with a com-
plexion of the kind that is vulgarly
called “tallowy,” cold gray eyes, a
short, nondescript nose, and a heavy
lower jaw. She had good, white teeth,
a profusion of black hair, and she held
herself well; but it took a large amount
of millinery to make Victoria Perking-
ton attractive. Q
It was not altogether pleasant to
Christabel, that game at croquet. In all
their previous sport she had had Frank
always on her side, achieving wonders
by combined dexterity and dishonesty,
now boldly pushing her ball to a point
of vantage with the toe of his boot,
anon calmly pocketing it to avoid the
perils of an adversary’s croquet; and
they had had such fun, such perpetual
giggling, such little secrets, and mutu-
al iniquities. This evening they played
a rigorous game. Miss Perkington be-
longed to a croquet-club at Leamington,
and would stand no nonsense. She
played two hours every afternoon
throughout the croquet season, just as
regularly as she practised Czerny’s ex-
ercises on the piano two hours every
morning. She had a stroke like a
sledge - hammer, and never missed a
hoop ; so she very soon became a rover,
and in that capacity kept a sharp eye
upon her ally, Mr. Francis Greenwood.
He had not the smallest opportunity
for talking to Christabel, even if he had
wished to do so, and poor Christabel
fancied that he did not wish. He
seemed to be upon quite confidential
terms with Miss Perkington. He was in
fact a young man who could hardly help
making himself agreeable to women,
and had that semi-flirting manner which
Some young men cultivate.
Miss Champion played abominably ;
suffered herself to be croqueted off the
face of the earth, as it were, to the ex-
treme indignation of Rosa Greenwood.
The Perkington side won with flying
colors. Oh, how poor Christabel hated
the eau-de-Nil dress, with its innumer-
able flounces and frillings, the point-
lace collar, the Cluny borderings, and
all the Perkington caparisons, as that
sole daughter of the house of Perking-
ton and Tanberry kept rustling to and
fro, sending adverse balls to the farthest
limits of space with a cold-blooded fero-
city that set Miss Champion's teeth on
edge |
When the second game had finished.
with dire defeat for Christabel’s party,
and it was about as dark as ever it is
at midsummer, with the stars shining
out one by one from a deep blue sky,
Rosa and one of those useful rectory
girls went into the drawing-room, and
played the famous “Mabel ” waltzes.
The piano had been wheeled into the
bay, and the music floated out through
the three tall windows, open from floor
to ceiling.
Two of the girls waltzed together,
and Frank was still Victoria Perking-
ton's partner. He had scarcely asked
her to dance, she had appropriated him
as a matter of course.
“If I am to dance, I suppose it is to
be with you,” she said with her little,
supercilious laugh, “since you are our
only danseur.”
She waltzed very well, with all her
canvas spread; waltzed too well, Fran-
cis Greenwood thought, for he was
waiting for her to get tired out in order
that he might get just a turn or so
with Christabel. She gave him no op-
portunity for this, however, as she con-
trived to hold him in conversation—
fade society talk about people they
both knew at Leamington; but, oh, it
sounded so confidential, so tender, even,
to Christabel’s listening ears l—during
the pauses in which Miss Perkington
condescended to rest, and then went off
again like a steam-engine refreshed.
When Frank did at last make his es-
cape, and cross the lawn in quest of
Christabel, a shrill voice from the bay-
window called out “Supper l’ and he
was obliged to abandon all hope of that
longed-for waltz.
He offered Miss Champion one arm,
and gave the other to one of the rectory
girls. These were visitors for the eve-
ning, and Miss Perkington was staying
in the house, and was, in a manner, a
member of the family. 'The fair Vic-
toria rewarded him with a very black
look, notwithstanding, when they all
came crowding into the brilliantly-light-
ed dining-room, where Samuel Green
52
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
wood sat at the head of his table, with
an Aberdeen salmon & la mayonnaise
before him, a huge, silvery fish lying in
a bed of greenery, with a bristling
hedge of prawns.
“Come here, Victoria, my dear,”
he said, pointing to the chair on his
right. “Frank, you’ll sit next to Miss
Perkington ; Miss Lee, you come on
my left.”
He took no notice of Christabel; but
that contumacious Frank put her coolly
into the chair next his own, and so
seated himself between Miss Perking-
ton and her rival.
The heiress of Perkington and Tan-
berry retired into herself. Frank tried
to divide his attentions between the
two girls; but Miss Perkington only
answered him with icy monosyllables,
and pretended to consider all his at-
tempts at general conversation directed
solely to Christabel. She scarcely
touched her salmon, declined lobster-
salad, would have nothing to say to cold
chicken or pine-apple cream, left the
Moselle to waste its fragrance on the
desert air, and sat trifling moodily with
half-a-dozen monster strawberries.
Her ill-temper seemed to communi-
cate itself to Mr. Greenwood, senior,
who looked daggers at his son from
time to time. The other girls were un-
easy. Christabel, who had brightened
and sparkled into new life at the begin-
ning of the feast, found out suddenly,
in the midst of an animated little dis-
cussion, that she and Frank were the
only talkers, and grew silent immedi-
ately.
The great ormolu and malachite
clock upon the chimney-piece struck
the half-hour after ten.
“Oh, if you please,” she whispered
to Frank, “I ought to go away directly,
if Mr. Greenwood would not think me
rude. David was to come for me at
half-past ten,_the gardener, you know,
—and papa might be angry, if I were
to stay later.”
“David is a nuisance,” said Frank, in
his free-and-easy manner; “though our
society is not so entertaining that you
need regret leaving it. I shall see you
bome, of course.”
“Oh, no, pray don’t think of that:
there's really no occasion.”
“There is occasion. You might
meet a gang of poachers poaching eggs,
or something, and what would David be
among so many ? There's that fellow
they call Black Simeon—the man who
got seven years for a burglary at Little
Thorpington—has come back to Rud-
derford. I saw him prowling about the
village yesterday, half-seas over. A
regular bad lot, that fellow is. Of
course I shall come with you. David
can walk behind and contemplate the
stars. I dare say he knows Orion and
the Pleiades as well as that fellow in
‘Lockesley Hall, whose knowledge of
the heavenly bodies dosen’t seem to
have been stupendous.”
The advent of the indoor man from
the rectory, to fetch the Miss Lees, was
announced at this moment, so the girls
all rose together. A maid who had
spirited away Christabel's hat brought
it back; and, after a very cool good-
night from Joshua Greenwood, who sat
scowling at the mutilated salmon, and
the stiffest possible bow from Miss Per-
kington, Miss Champion departed with
Frank for her escort.
“Miss Champion has a servant, I be-
lieve, Frank,” Mr. Greenwood said,
sternly.
“I know she has,” answered his un-
dutiful son ; “but I’m going to see her
safe across the meadows, for all that.”
Oxford was always too much for
Birmingham in any encountºr between
those two. The commercial magnate
had spent three or four thousand pounds
upon his son’s education, and it seemed
to him at odd times that the only tangi-
ble produce of that investment was an
extensive vocabulary of university
slang, and an agreeable placidity of
manner which set paternal authority at
naught. The young man was not al-
together an undutiful son, however, and
owned occasionally that his father
wasn't “half a bad fellow.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE moon had risen while they were
losing the calm sweetness of the night
in the gas-lit dining-room; the bright
full summer moon had risen, and all the
OLD RUDIDERFORD HALL. 53
}
spiky trees in the shrubbery were re-
flected on the smooth grass as if on
water, all the flowers in the garden
were breathing perfume. Frank and
Christabel went out by the drawing-
room window, and forgot all about
David, who came running after them by
and by from the servant's hall, where
he had been regaled with beer, and
questioned artfully about the “queer
ways” of his master. He had to come
round by back ways and obscure paths,
the gardens being sacred from such
vulgar feet as his, and thus did not over-
take those two till they were half way
across the first meadow. And yet they
had dawdled a good deal in the garden,
Frank insisting upon picking an especial
yellow rose from a standard of his own
planting for Christabel.
“You must have one ; roses always
smell sweeter picked by moonlight,”
he said. “If you don't find the fact
stated in Linnaeus, it isn’t my fault.”
David was a judicious young man.
He followed at a respectful distance,
and, as Frank had suggested, contem-
plated, or seemed to contemplate, the
sidereal heavens, chewing a twig of
hawthorn thoughtfully the while. He
allowed an ample margin for loitering
at gates, gave Frank so much latitude,
in fact, that before they came to the
thick wood which made a darkness
round old Rudderford Hall, that un-
dutiful son had asked Christabel to be
his wife. Of course, he had set out
with no such intention ; but the moon-
light, and the dewy meadows, fragrant
with new-mown hay, and that judicious
David, and a tender sweetness in Chris-
tabel's blue eyes, had been too much for
him, and the words had come of their
own accord somehow, he hardly knew
how.
Was he sorry when she looked up at
him with those sweet eyes, brimming
over with happy tears, and murmured
shyly:—
“I thought you were going to marry
Miss Perkington l’”
“Not for millions of millions,darling!”
he cried, not sorry, but rapturously
glad, clasping the slender figure to his
breast, and raining down kisses on the
fair young face.
David drew nearer at this juncture,
still intent upon astronomical study, but
with the air of thinking he might be
wanted presently.
Frank took the hint, released the
trembling girl, quite confounded by sur-
prise and joy, and put a little hand
through his hand with the calmest air of
appropriation.
“It’s all settled, darling,” he said ;
“I shall call upon your father to-mor-
row.”
“O Mr. Greenwood | ?”
“Mr. Greenwood | If you say that
again, I shall kiss you again, in spite of
David.”
“Frank, then.”
How sweet it was to say it ! how
Sweet it was to hear it !—sweetness
known to youth only, that loves and is
beloved for the first time. After six or
Seven such experiences, that sort of
thing is apt to become commonplace.
It is like one’s first watch, one's first
Derby day, one's first whitebait dinner.
“I’m sure your father will never let
you marry me, Frank,” said Christabel.
“I should like to see myself asking
my governor's permission,” replied the
young man. “He ought to be proud
of my getting such a chance—marrying
a girl of a grand, old family like yours;
Brummagem allying itself to the Middle
Ages; counting-house getting a leaf in
Burke’s ‘County Families.’”
“But we are so poor,” remonstrated
Christabel. “At least—”
“A lift in the social scale is better
than money, my dearest. I can take
out letters-patent and call myself Green-
wood-Champion by and by. That
would look well upon our pasteboards,
wouldn't it; Belle?”
They were in the deep shadow of the
trees by this time. Not a glimmer of
light was visible in the old house. All
the lower windows were closely guard-
ed by heavy oak shutters. They went
to a little door—not the principal en-
trance, but a low, arched door in a side
tower—and David rang a bell, which
made a tremendous clanging half a mile
away, as it seemed. They had to wait
a considerable time before any one an-
Swered this summons, very much to
Frank’s satisfaction. He was whisper-
ing schemes about their future life into
Christabel’s ear, just as if they had
54
OLD RUDIOERFORD HALL.
been engaged a twelvemonth; while
David looked up at the dark ivy-cover-
ed walls, as if calculating the sparrow’s
InestS.
Some one came at last—much too
soon for Francis Greenwood. Slipshod
feet shuffled along a stone passage, un-
certain hands fumbled with locks and
bolts, and the door being opened cauti-
ously, revealed the ancient butler in a
semi-somnambulistic condition.
“Lard, but you be late, Miss Chris-
sy,” he said; he had helped to nurse
her in her motherless babyhood. “Your
pa's gone to bed ever so long.”
“I’m glad of that,” Christabel whis-
pered to her lover.
“Why, sweetest?”
“Because I never could have told
him; and if he had seen my face, he
might have found out—”
“He shall hear all about it to-mor-
row, darling. I shall call at one
o'clock.”
“And I shall ride Gilpin away to the
other end of the world. I couldn’t bear
to be in the house while—while—”
“While I am in the dock,” said the
young man, laughing. “I think the
verdict will be a favorable one, Chrissy.”
“Oh, you don’t know,” cried Chris-
tabel, dolefully.
“I don’t know what, dear?”
“How prejudiced papa is against
your family, because of the new Hall
being built upon land that once belong-
ed to this, and the estate having been
cut up and spoiled so, to make your
grounds. Those meadows of yours
were a part of our park once.”
“That isn't our fault, darling, but
that improvident old Ghampion’s.
Who knows but what the two estates
Inight be joined somehow one of these
days * My father could buy himself
another place; and we’d cut off the new
Hall with the smallest possible allow-
ance of garden, and restore this dear
old barn”—so lightly did young Oxford
speak of a perfect specimen of Tudor
architecture—“to its original splendor.”
The sleepy butler coughed faintly, as
if to remind them of his infirmities and
the lateness of the hour. It was nearly
midnight by this time—that walk across
the fields had lasted so long. The lovers
clasped hands, and said good-night; and
Frank would fain have made this last
good-night a long business, only there
was the butler, with his guttering tallow
candle and his piteous expostulating
look, and David in the rear yawning
audibly. So with one warm pressure
of the little hand he let her go, and the
stout old door closed upon her, like the
jaws of a monster that had just swal-
lowed her up.
Francis Greenwood turned away with
a sigh, putting his hand in his waist-
coat-pocket mechanically to give David
baksheesh. But David had vanished,
and the court-yard was empty. He
looked about him meditatively, in no
humor to go back to the common world
just yet. The wind was sighing faintly
among the ivy-leaves, with a sound
scarce louder than the breathing of a
quiet sleeper; the black wall of the old
house rose high above him, the shadow
of it fell upon him like a pall.
“What a dismal place for my pet to
|ive in ” he said to himself, and then
began to wonder which was her room,
and to watch for the glimmer of a
light from one of those upper case-
mentS.
It came presently ; a feeble twinkle,
which flitted along a corridor, shining
faintly from a row of narrow windows,
and then stopped and grew steady in a
window at the end of the house. This
was his darling's chamber, the young
man thought rapturously. It might
have been the butler's, but fortunately
was not ; that functionary—who might
have had his pick of twenty vacant
rooms—preferring to inhabit a dark-
some den in the steep, sloping roof,
where he burrowed like a rabbit. It
really was Christabel’s room.
Rudderford church clock struck
twelve while the lover still stood gaz-
ing, and at that very moment, as if con-
jured into being by the last stroke of
the mystic hour, the figure of a man
came suddenly from behind an angle of
the wall.
“Who the deuce are you?” cried
Frank, darting forward.
But the figure had vanished. There
was a labyrinth of outbuildings on
that side of the house. Frank fol-
lowed, and prowled round about them,
peering into every corner, but could
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
55
find no trace of that midnight intruder.
There is always a nook into which that
sort of gentry can screw itself. His
search was so close and thorough, that
he began at last to fancy his own senses
must have deceived him, and that the
figure had been only a creature of the
imagination. He was not easily satis-
fied, however. The jewel in that old
Tudor casket was to his mind so rare a
gem, that no care or watchfulness
could be too much for him, whose priv-
lege it was to guard it. He made a
complete circuit of the house, trying
windows and shutters. On the lower
story all was secure as the casements of
a beleaguered fortress, close guarded
from the foe. If Anthony Champion
had been the owner of hoarded mil-
lions, he could scarcely have protected
himself better from possible burglars.
One o’clock struck before Frank
Greenwood left the precincts of the
old Hall, and walked slowly away to-
wards the meadows.
CHAPTER W.
Christabel was almost too happy af-
ter that midnight parting. There was
no depressing influence to-night in the
gloom and silence of her ancient home.
All the burden of her loneliness, which
she had borne so meekly, was lifted
away in a moment, and her future life
lay radiant before her, like a garden in
fairy-land. She was a little anxious
about her father, and his strong preju-
dices against the race of Greenwood;
but her lover appeared to her altogeth-
er so fascinating and irresistible, that
she could not imagine anybody proof
against his influence. Her father
would like and admire him, of course,
just as she did, and would abandon all
his prejudices, and accept him as her
lover. And Miss Perkington | Chris-
tabel laughed aloud—a little, happy
laugh that startled the silence of the
old room—at the thought of that
young lady’s ignominious defeat : all
the silk flounces and lace frillings count-
ing for nothing in the eyes of true
love.
She was much too happy to think of
sleepforever so long, although it was past
midnight, but paced the room, with her
hands clasped in a joyous reverie,
thinking of the wondrous fortune that
had befallen her. Only a retired man-
ufacturer's son, it is true ; but then she
loved him, and he seemed to her the one
most perfect creature in all the world
—so bright, so generous, so brave, so
true. She had known so few people,
had lived a life so utterly lonely, that
it is scarcely strange she should believe
in the one sunny-natured young fellow
who had praised and loved her.
Here she stopped before the tall nar-
row old glass, and looked at herself half
wonderingly.
Was she really pretty 2 was she
worthy of such a lover ? She shook
out her long loose hair. Yes; she was
like a picture of Patient Grisel she re-
membering seeing years ago in a fa-
mous collection.
The clock struck one before she lay
down; and then, overcome suddenly by
sleep in the midst of her happy
thoughts, she threw herself down,
dressed as she was, upon a sofa, to
rest a little before going seriously to
bed ; and thereupon fell into a deep
slumber, which seemed likely to last all
night.
She had one bad habit, engendered
perhaps of lonely days, with much
time for thoughtfulness and waking
dreams—the habit of walking in her
sleep. It was not a thing that hap-
pened to her often, but once in a way;
two or three times in a year perhaps,
when her mind had been in any way
disturbed during the day, she had been
wont to wander. The servants had
met her at daybreak, sometimes in the
corridor, or out on the broad square
landing beyond, or on the stairs even,
descending ghostlike, with open, unsee-
ing eyes. One luckless country lass,
taking her for a ghost of that slaugh-
tered lady whose spirit was reported to
haunt the Hall, had fled shrieking to
the kitchen, where she fell into violent
hysterics, clutching the air, and well-
nigh strangling herself with her sobs.
and Screams.
And so it happened to-night. To-
wards three o’clock, just as the moon
was waning, the girl rose from her sofa.
56
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL.
pushed open the door, which she had
left ajar, and went out into the corridor
—a tall white figure faintly visible in
the dim light.
She went straight on to an angle of
the corridor where there was a narrow
window cut in a part of the wall where
the ivy grew thickest. As she came
slowly forward, this window was open-
ed by a stealthy hand, and a man thrust
his head and shoulders through the
window.
He was on the point of leaping
through, when his eyes—evil eyes they
were too—fell upon that mysterious
figure, with the white dress and loose
flowing hair, the figure he had heard of
many a time, when folks talked of the
ghost that haunted old Rudderford
Hall. w
He dropped his stick with an ejacu-
lation. The fall of the jagged stake,
cut from a hedge, and trimmed with a
rough, hasty hand, upon the uncarpeted
oak floor awaked Christabel. She
gave a loud shriek, and stared at the
intruder transfixed. That shriek was
alarming enough; but it reassured him.
He sprang into the corridor, and clapp-
ed his great horny hand upon her mouth
“What, it's you, is it 2 ” he exclaim-
ed, in a cautious voice. “Hold your
row ; or I shall have to quiet you with
my clasp-knife. What brings you
prowling about at this time of night, I
wonder P. After that chap that was
prowling outside an hour ago, I Sup-
pose. Come, young lady, you just
walk into your own room, and keep
yourself to yourself; I’ve got business
to do here.” -
He had tied a big bird's eye handker-
chief across the girl’s mouth—she was
not fully awake yet, and had only a
confused sense of peril and horror—and
had just produced another, with a view
to tying it round her wrists, when a
great crash of glass sounded close be-
hind him, and Frank Greenwood sprang
through the open window, smashing
the casement as he came through.
Love is so foolish, so full of morbid
doubts and apprehensions. He had
come back to the old Hall, after cross-
ing the meadows on his way home, not
able to feel comfortable about that
lurking figure which he had seen at
midnight, and had come back in time
time to rescue his betrothed from the
clutch of a ruffian, and to save the
Champion diamonds,-a very valuable
portion of his future wife's dowry.
The man was Black Simeon the
poacher. He had been lurking about
the night before, when Mr. Champion
showed his daughter the family jewels,
had seen the gems and where they
were kept, and had hidden himself in
the shrubbery when Christabel came
out to reconnoitre. To-night he had
tried all the lower doors and windows,
and finding entrance below impossible,
had clambered up the ivy to this case-
ment at the end of the corridor, trust-
ing to his good luck to grope his way
downstairs to the library.
The intent but not the deed con-
founded him. He was pinioned and
locked in an empty, wine-cellar that
night, and handed over to the local au-
thorities at breakfast-time, to appear by
and by, charged with a burglarious at-
tempt, and to return to that state of
bondage from which he had so lately
emerged.
Anthony Champion could hardly be
uncivil to the man who had saved his
daughter and the family diamonds; and
Frank Greenwood really was a nice
young fellow, with free-and-easy, irre-
sistible ways. He brought brightness
and life into the gloomy old house, and
in an incredibly short time persuaded
the master of Old Rudderford Hall, to
waive his prejudices against the inmates
of New Rudderford Hall.
When he had smoothed the way by
his artful management, he coolly order-
ed his father to call upon Mr. Champion,
to entreat that gentleman's consent to
the union of the two houses. The
manufacturer was furious, and there
was a scene; but a very brief one.
Frank's supreme coolness made light of
everything. Miss Perkington had de-
parted before this in silent disgust, with
all her baggage. Samuel Greenwood
was fain to give way ; it evidently mat-
tered so very little to his son whether
he did or not.
“I can always make a living at the
bar,” said young Oxford in his careless
way, “and there's the five hundred a
year my poor mother left me. I should
\
57
OLD RUDI) ERFORD HALL.
\
like to have made an amicable arrange-
ment, and secured your co-operation for
restoring the old Hall; but if it isn’t
to be, why it isn’t; you know best;
and we sha’n’t starve.”
Samuel fretted and fumed, swore an
oath or two, and succumbed. He went
to call upon Mr. Champion with lamb-
like meekness, and returned crestfallen.
Mr. Champion was prepared to waive
all consideration of the wide difference
between the status of the two families,
and to consent to the marriage. He
could give his daughter fifty thousand
pounds, and jewels worth at least twen-
ty-five thousand more. Mr. Greenwood
had supposed him to be a pauper.
“It has been my fancy to live like
this,” he said, “and allow the surplus of
my income to accumulate for my only
child.”
And so they were married, and were
just the sort of couple to live happily
ever afterwards.
III
AT CHRIGHTON AIBBEY.
A TALE.
gººmsºmºsº
The Chrightons were very great peo-
ple in that part of the country where
my childhood and youth were spent.
To speak of Squire Chrighton was to
speak of a power in that remote west-
ern region of England. Chrighton Ab-
bey had belonged to the family ever
since the reign of Stephen, and there
was a curious old wing and a cloistered
quadrangle still remaining of the origi-
nal edifice, and in excellent preserva-
tion. The rooms at this end of the
house were low, and somewhat dark-
Some and gloomy, it is true; but,
though rarely used, they were perfectly
habitable, and were of service on great
occasions when the Abbey was crowded
with guests.
The central portion of the Abbey
had been rebuilt in the reign of Eliza-
beth, and was of noble and palatial pro-
portions. The southern wing, and a
long music-room with eight tall narrow
windows added on to it, were as mod-
ern as the time of Anne. Altogether,
the Abbey was a very splendid man-
sion, and one of the chief glories of our
county.
All the land in Chrighton parish, and
for a long way beyond its boundaries,
belonged to the great Squire. The
parish church was within the park
walls, and the living in the Squire's gift
—not a very valuable benefice, but a
useful thing to bestow upon a younger
Son's younger son, once in a way, or
sometimes on a tutor or dependent of
the wealthy house.
58
I was a Chrighton, and my father, a
distant cousin of the reigning Squire,
had been rector of Chrighton parish.
"His death left me utterly unprovided
for, and I was fain to go out into the
bleak unknown world, and earn my
living in a position of dependence—a
dreadful thing for a Chrighton to be
obliged to do.
Out of respect for the traditions and
prejudices of my race, I made it my
business to seek employment abroad,
where the degradation of one solitary
Chrighton was not so likely to inflict
shame upon the ancient house to which
I belonged. Happily for myself I had
been carefully educated, and had in-
dustriously cultivated the usual modern
accomplishments in the calm retirement
of the Vicarage. I was so fortunate as
to obtain a situation at Vienna, in a
German family of high rank; and here
I remained seven years, laying aside
year by year, a considerable portion of
my liberal salary. When my pupils
had grown up, my kind mistress pro-
cured me a still more profitable position
at St. Petersburg, where I remained
five more years, at the end of which
time I yielded to a yearning that had
been long growing upon me—an ardent
desire to see my dear old country home
ODC6, II) Ol'é.
I had no very near relations in Eng-
land. My mother had died some years
before my father; my only brother was
far away, in the Indian Civil Service;
sister I had none. But I was a Chrigh-
ton, and I loved the soil from which I
had sprung. I was sure, moreover, of
a warm welcome from friends who had
loved and honored my father and
AT CHEIGHTON ABBEY.
59
mother, and I was still farther encour-
aged to treat myself to this holiday by
the very cordial letters I had from time
to time received from the Squire's wife,
a noble warm-hearted woman, who fully
approved the independent course I had
taken, and who had ever shown herself
my friend.
In all her letters for some time past,
Mrs. Chrighton begged that, whenever
I felt myself justified in coming home,
I would pay a long visit to the Ab-
bey.
“I wish you could come at Christ-
mas,” she wrote, in the autumn of the
year of which I am speaking. “We
shall be very gay, and I expect all kinds
of pleasant people at the Abbey. Ed-
ward is to be married early in the
spring—much to his father's satisfac-
tion, for the match is a good and ap-
propriate one. His fiancée is to be
among our guests. She is a very beau-
tiful girl; perhaps I should say hand-
some rather than beautiful. Julia Tre-
maine, one of the Tremaines of Old
Court, near Hayswell—a very old
family, as I daresay you remember.
She has several brothers and sisters,
and will have little, perhaps nothing,
from her father ; but she has a consid-
erable fortune left her by an aunt, and
is thought quite an heiress in the
county—not, of course, that this latter
fact had any influence with Edward.
He fell in love with her at an assize
ball in his usual impulsive fashion, and
proposed to her in something less than
a fortnight. It is, I hope and believe,
a thorough love-match on both sides.”
After this followed a cordial repeti-
tion of the invitation to myself. I was
to go straight to the Abbey when I
went to England, and was to take up
my abode there as long as ever I
pleased.
This letter decided me. The wish to
look on the dear scenes of my happy
childhood had grown almost into a
pain. I was free to take a holiday,
without detriment to my prospects. So,
early in December, regardless of the
bleak dreary weather, I turned my face
homewards, and made the long journey
from St. Petersburg to London, under
the kind escort of Major Manson, a
Queen's Messenger, who was a friend
of my late employer, the Baron Fruy-
dorff, and whose courtesy had been en-
listed for me by that gentleman.
I was three-and-thirty years of age.
Youth was quite gone; beauty I had
never possessed; and I was content to
think of myself as a confirmed old maid,
a quiet spectator of life's great drama,
disturbed by no feverish desire for an
active part in the play. I had a dis-
position to which this kind of passive
existence is easy. There was no wast-
ing fire in my veins. Simple duties,
rare and simple pleasures, filled up my
sum of life. The dear ones who had
given a special charm and brightness to
my existence were gone. Nothing
could recall them, and without them
actual happiness seemed impossible to
me. Everything had a subdued and
neutral tint ; life at its best was calm
and colorless, like a gray sunless day in
early autumn, serene but joyless.
The old Abbey was in its glory when
I arrived there, at about nine o'clock on
a clear starlit night. A light frost
whitened the broad sweep of grass that
stretched away from the long stone ter-
race in front of the house, to a semi-
circle of grand old oaks and beeches.
From the music-room at the end of the
southern wing, to the heavily framed
gothic windows of the old rooms on the
north, there shone one blaze of light.
The scene reminded me of some weird
palace in a German legend; and I half
expected to see the lights fade out all
in a moment, and the long stone façade
wrapped in sudden darkness.
The old butler, whom I remembered
from my very infancy, and who did not
seem to have grown a day older during
my twelve years’ exile, came out of the
dining-room as the footman opened the
hall-door for me, and gave me cordial
welcome, nay, insisted upon helping to
bring in my portmanteau with his own
hands, an act of unusual condescension,
the full force of which was felt by his
subordinates.
“It’s a real treat to see your pleas-
ant face once more, Miss Sarah,” said
this faithful retainer, as he assisted me
to take off my travelling cloak, and
took my dressing-bag from my hand.
“You look a trifle older than when you
used to live at the Vicarage twelve
60
AT CHRIGHTON AIBBEY.
year ago, but you're looking uncom-
mon well for all that; and, ord love
your heart, miss, how pleased they all
will be to see you ! Missus told me
with her own lips about your coming.
You'd like to take off your bonnet be-
fore you go to the drawing-room, I
daresay. The house is full of com-
pany. Call Mrs. Marjorum, James,
will you?”
The footman disappeared into the
back regions, and presently reappeared
with Mrs. Marjorum, a portly dame,
who, like Truefold, the butler, had been
a fixture at the Abbey in the time of
the present Squire's father. From her
I received the same cordial greeting,
and by her I was led off up staircases
and along corridors, till I wondered
where I was being taken.
We arrived at last at a very comfort-
able room—a square tapestried cham-
ber, with a low ceiling supported by a
great oaken beam. The room looked
cheery enough, with a bright fire roar-
ing in the wide chimney; but it had a
somewhat ancient aspect, which the su-
perstitiously inclined might have asso-
ciated with possible ghosts.
I was fortunately of a matter-of-fact
disposition, utterly skeptical upon the
ghost subject; and the old-fashioned
appearance of the room took my fan-
Cy.
“We are in King Stephen's wing, are
we not, Mrs. Marjorum ?” I asked ;
“This room seems quite strange to me.
I doubt if I have ever been in it be-
fore.”
“Very likely not, miss. Yes, this is
the old wing. Your window looks out
into the old stable-yard, where the ken-
nel used to be in the time of our
Squire's grandfather, when the Abbey
was even a finer place than it is now,
I’ve heard say. We are so full of com-
pany this winter, you see, miss, that we
are obliged to make use of all these
rooms. You’ll have no need to feel
lonesome. There's Captain and Mrs.
Cranwick in the next room to this, and
Jhe two Miss Newports in the blue room
opposite.”
“My dear, good Marjorum, I like my
quarters excessively; and I quite enjoy
the idea of sleeping in a room that was
extant in the time of Stephen, when
the Abbey really was an abbey. I
daresay some grave old monk has worn
these boards with his devout knees.”
The old woman stared dubiously,
with the air of a person who had small
sympathy with monkish times, and
begged to be excused for leaving me,
she had so much on her hands just
Il OW .
There was coffee to be sent in ; and
she doubted if the still-room maid would
manage matters properly, if she, Mrs.
Marjorum, were not at hand to see that
things were right.
“You’ve only to ring your bell, miss,
and Susan will attend to you. She's
used to help waiting on our young ladies
sometimes, and she's very handy. Mis-
sus has given particular orders that she
should be always at your service.”
“Mrs. Chrighton is very kind; but I
assure you, Marjorum, I don’t require
the help of a maid once in a month. I
am accustomed to do everything for my-
self. There, run along, Mrs. Mar.
jorum. and see after your coffee ; and
I’ll be down in the drawing-room in ten
minutes. Are there many people there,
by-the-bye?”
“A good many. There's Miss Tre-
maine, and her mamma and younger
sister; of course you’ve heard all about
the marriage—such a handsome young
lady—rather too proud for my liking ;
but the Tremaines always were a proud
family, and this one’s an heiress. Mr.
Edward is so fond of her—thinks the
ground is scarcely good enough for her
to walk upon, I do believe ; and some-
how I can’t help wishing he’d chosen
some one else—some one who would
have thought more of him, and who
would not take all his attentions in such
a cool off-hand way. But of course it
isn’t my business to say such things,
and I wouldn’t venture upon it to any
one but you, Miss Sarah.”
She told me that I would find dinner
ready for me in the breakfast-room, and
then bustled off, leaving me to my
toilet.
This ceremony I performed as rapid-
ly as I could, admiring the perfect com-
fort of my chamber as I dressed. Every
modern appliance had been added to
the sombre and ponderous furniture of
an age gone by, and the combination
AT CHRIGHT ON ABBEY.
61
produced a very pleasant effect. Per-
fume-bottles of ruby-colored Bohemian
glass, china brush-trays and ring-stands
brightened the massive oak dressing-
table; a low, luxurious chintz-covered
easy chair, of the Victorian era, stood
before the hearth; a dear little writing-
table of polished maple, was placed con-
veniently near it; and in the back-
ground the tapestried walls loomed
duskily, as they had done hundreds of
years before my time.
I had no leisure for dreamy musings
on the past, however, provocative
though the chamber might be of such
thoughts. I arranged my hair in its
... usual simple fashion, and put on a dark
gray silk dress, trimmed with some fine
old black lace that had been given to
me by the Baroness—an unobtrusive
demi-toilette, adapted to any occasion.
I tied a massive gold cross, an orna-
ment that had belonged to my dear
mother, round my neck with a scarlet
ribbon ; and my costume was complete.
One glance at the looking-glass con-
vinced me that there was nothing dow-
dy in my appearance ; and then I hur-
ried along the corridor and down the
staircase to the hall, where Truefold
received me and conducted me to the
breakfast-room, in which an excellent
dinner awaited me.
I did not waste much time over this
repast, although I had eaten nothing all
day; for I was anxious to make my
way to the drawing-room. Just as I
had finished, the door opened, and Mrs.
Chrighton sailed in, looking superb in
a dark-green velvet dress richly trimmed
with old point lace. She had been a
beauty in her youth, and, as a matron,
was still remarkably handsome. She
had, above all, a charm of expression
which to me was rarer and more de-
lightful than her beauty of feature and
complexion.
She put her arms round me, and
kissed me affectionately.
“I have only this moment been told
of your arrival, my dear Sarah,” she
said, “and I find you have been in the
house half an hour. What must you
have thought of me !”
“What can I think of you, except
that you are all goodness, my dear
Fanny ?
I did not expect you to leave
your guests to receive me, and am really
sorry that you have done so. I need
no ceremony to convince me of your
kindness.”
“But, my dear child, it is not a ques-
tion of ceremony. I have been looking
forward so anxiously to your coming,
and I should not have liked to see you
for the first time before all those peo-
ple. Give me another kiss, that’s a
darling. Welcome to Chrighton. Re-
member, Sarah, this house is always to
be your home, whenever you have need
of one.”
“My dear kind cousin And you
are not ashamed of me who have eaten
the bread of strangers?”
“Ashamed of you ! No, my love ; I
admire your industry and spirit. And
now come to the drawing-room. The
girls will be so pleased to see you.”
“And I to see them. . They were
quite little things when I went away,
romping in the hay-fields in their short
white frocks; and now, I suppose, they
are handsome young women.”
“They are very nice-looking ; not as
handsome as their brother. Edward is
really a magnificent young man. I
do not think my maternal pride is guilty
of any gross exaggeration when I say
that.”
“And Miss Tremaine P” I said, “I
am very curious to see her.”
I fancied a faint shadow came over
my cousin’s face as I mentioned this
Ila,ID62.
“Miss Tremaine—yes—you cannot
fail to admire her,” she said rather
thoughtfully.
She drew my hand through her arm
and led me to the drawing-room; a
very large room, with a fireplace at
each end, brilliantly lighted to-night,
and containing about twenty people,
scattered about in little groups, and all
seeming to be talking and laughing
merrily. Mrs. Chrighton took me
straight to one of the fireplaces, beside
which two girls were sitting on a low
sofa, while a young man of something
more than six feet high stood near
them, with his arm resting on the broad
marble slab of the mantle-piece. A
glance told me that this young man
with the dark eyes and crisp waving
brown hair, was Edward Chrighton,
62
* , ,
AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY.
His likeness to his mother was in itself
enough to tell me who he was ; but I
remembered the boyish face and bright
eyes which had so often looked up to
mine in the days when the heir of the
Abbey was one of the most juvenile
scholars at Eton.
The lady seated nearest Edward
Chrighton attracted my chief attention;
for I felt sure that this lady was Miss
Tremaine. She was tall and slim, and
carried her head and neck with a state-
ly air, which struck me more than amy-
thing in that first glance. Yes, she
was handsome, undemiably handsome;
and my cousin had been right when she
said I could not fail to admire her ; but
to me the dazzlingly fair face with its
perfect features, the marked aquiline
nose, the short upper lip expressive of
unmitigated pride, the full cold blue
eyes, peneilled brows, and aureole of
pale golden hair, were the very reverse
of sympathetic. That Miss Tremaine
must needs be universally admired, it
was impossible to doubt; but I could
not understand how any man could fall
in love with such a woman.
She was dressed in white muslin, and
her only ornament was a superb dia-
mond locket, heart-shaped, tied round
her long white throat with a broad
black ribbon. Her hair, of which she
seemed to have a great quantity, was
arranged in a massive coronet of plaits,
which surmounted the small head as
proudly as an imperial crown.
To this young lady, Mrs. Chrighton
introduced me.
“I have another cousin to present
to you, Julia,” she said smiling—“Miss
Sarah Chrighton, just arrived from St.
Petersburg.”
“From St. Petersburg 2 What an
awful journey ! How do you do, Miss
Chrighton P. It was really very coura-
geous of you to come so far. Did you
travel alone P’’
“No ; I had a companion as far as
London, and a very kind one. I came
on to the Abbey by myself.”
The young lady had given me her hand
with rather a languid air. I thought I
saw the cold blue eyes surveying me
curiously from head to foot, and it
seemed to me as if I could read the con-
demnatory summing-up — “A frump,
and a poor relation”—in Miss Tre-
maine's face.
I had not much time to think about
her just now ; for Edward Chrighton
suddenly seized both my hands, and
gave me so hearty and loving a wel-
come, that he almost brought the tears
“up from my heart into my eyes.”
Two pretty girls in blue crape, came
running forward from different parts of
the room, and gayly saluted me as
“Cousin Sarah ; ” and the three sur-
rounded me in a little cluster, and as-
sailed me with a string of questions—
whether I remembered this, and whe-
ther I had forgotten that, the battle in
the hayfield, the charity-school tea-par-
ty in the vicarage orchard, our picnics
in Hawsley Combe, our botanical and
entomological excursions on Chorwell
common, and all the simple pleasures
of their childhood and my youth.
While this catechism was going on,
Miss Tremaine watched us with a dis-
dainful expression, which she evidently
did not care to hide.
“I should not have thought you ca-
pable of such Arcadian simplicity, Mr.
Chrighton,” she said. “Pray continue
your recollections. These juvenile ex-
periences are most interesting.”
“I don’t expect you to be interested
in them, Julia,” Edward answered, with
a tone that sounded rather too bitter for
a lover. “I know what a contempt you
have for trifling rustic pleasures. Were
you ever a child yourself, I wonder, by
the way ? I don’t believe you ever ran
| after a butterfly in your life.”
Her speech put an end to our talk of
the past, somehow. I saw that Edward
was vexed, and that all the pleasant
memories of his boyhood had fled be-
fore that cold, scornful face. A young
lady in pink, who had been sitting next
Julia Tremaine, vacated the sofa, and
Edward slipped into her place, and de-
voted himself for the rest of the even-
ing to his betrothed. I glanced at his
bright expressive face, now and then,
as he talked to her, and could not help
wondering what charm he could dis-
cover in one who seemed to be so un-
worthy of him.
It was midnight when I went back to
my room in the north wing, thoroughly
happy in the cordial welcome that had
AT CHRIGHTON ARBEY, 63
been given me. I rose early next
morning—for early rising had long been
habitual to me—and, drawing back the
damask-curtain that sheltered my win-
dow, looked out at the scene below.
I saw a stable-yard, a spacious quad-
rangle, surrounded by the closed doors
of stables and dog-kennels: low, mas-
sive buildings of gray stone, with the
ivy creeping over them here and there,
and with an ancient moss-grown look,
...that gave them a weird kind of interest
in my eyes. This range of stabling
must have been disused for a long time,
I fancied. The stables now in use
were a pile of handsome red-brick build-
ings at the other extremity of the
house, to the rear of the music-room,
and forming a striking feature in the
back view of the Abbey.
I had often heard how the present
Squire's grandfather had kept a pack
of hounds, which had been sold imme-
diately after his death; and I knew
that my cousin, the present Mr. Chrigh-
ton, had been more than once requested
to follow his ancestor's good example ;
for there were no hounds now within
twenty miles of the Abbey, though it
was a fine country for fox-hunting.
George Chrighton, however — the
reigning lord of the Abbey—was not a
hunting man. He had, indeed, a secret
horror of the sport; for more than one
scion of the house had perished un-
timely in the hunting-field. The family
had not been altogether a lucky one,
in spite of its wealth and prosperity.
It was not often that the goodly heri-
tage had descended to the eldest son.
Death in some form or other—on too
many occasions a violent death—had
come between the heir and his inheri-
tance. And when I pondered on the
dark pages in the story of the house, I
used to wonder whether my cousin Fanny
was ever troubled by morbid forebodings
about her only and fondly-loved son.
Was there a ghost at Chrighton—
that spectral visitant without which the
state and splendor of a grand old house
seem scarcely complete 2 Yes, I had
heard vague hints of some shadowy
presence that had been seen on rare
occasions within the precincts of the
Abbey; but I had never been able to
ascertain what shape it bore.
Those whom I questioned, were
prompt to assure me that they had
seen nothing. They had heard stories
of the past—foolish legends, most like-
ly, not worth listening to. Once, when
I had spoken of the subject to my
cousin George, he told me angrily never
again to let him hear any allusion to
that folly from my lips.
That December passed merrily. The
old house was full of really pleasant
people, and the brief winter days were
spent in one unbroken round of amuse-
ment and gayety. To me the old fa-
miliar English country-house life was a
perpetual delight — to feel myself
amongst kindred, an unceasing pleasure.
I could not have believed myself capa-
ble of being so completely happy.
I saw a great deal of my cousin Ed-
ward, and I think he contrived to make
Miss Tremaine understand that, to
please him, she must be gracious to me.
She certainly took some pains to make
herself agreeable to me; and I discov-
ered that, in spite of that proud dis-
dainful temper, which she so rarely took
the trouble to conceal, she was really
anxious to gratify her lover.
Their courtship was not altogether a
halcyon period. They had frequent
quarrels, the details of which Edward’s
sisters Sophy and Agnes delighted to
discuss with me. It was the struggle
of two proud spirits for mastery; but
my cousin Edward's pride was of the
nobler kind—the lofty scorn of all
things mean—a pride that does not ill-
become a generous nature. To me he
seemed all that was admirable, and I
was never tired of hearing his mother
praise him. I think my cousin Fanny
knew this, and that she used to confide
in me as fully as if I had been her sis-
ter.
“I daresay you can see I am not
quite so fond as I should wish to be of
Julia Tremaine,” she said to me one
day; “but I am very glad that my son
is going to marry. My husband's has
not been a fortunate family, you know,
Sarah. The eldest sons have been
wild and unlucky for generations past;
and when Edward was a boy I used to
have many a bitter hour, dreading what
the future might bring forth. Thank
God he has been, and is, all that I can
:
:
.
.
:
:
.
:
*
64
AT CHRIGHTON, ARBEY.
wish. He has never given me an hour's
anxiety by any act of his. Yet I am
not the less glad of his marriage. The
heirs of Chrighton who have come to
an untimely end have all died ummar-
ried. There was Hugh Chrighton, in
the reign of George the Second, who
was killed in a duel; John, who broke
his back in the hunting-field thirty
years later ; Theodore, shot accidental-
ly by a school-fellow at Eton ; Jasper,
whose yacht went down in the Medi-
terranean forty years ago. An awful
list, is it not, Sarah 2 I shall feel as if
my son were safer somehow when he is
married. It will seem as if he has es-
caped the ban that has fallen on so
many of our house. He will have
greater reason to be careful of his life
when he is a married man.”
I agreed with Mrs. Chrighton; but
could not help wishing that Edward
had chosen any other woman than the
cold handsome Julia. I could not
fancy his future life happy with such a
Iſlate.
Christmas came by and by—a real
old English Christmas—frost and snow
without, warmth and revelry within ;
skating on the great pond in the park,
and sledging on the ice-bound high-
roads, by day; private theatricals,
charades, and amateur concerts, by
night. I was surprised to find that
Miss Tremaine refused to take any ac-
tive part in these evening amusements.
She preferred to sit among the elders
as a spectator, and had the air and bear-
ing of a princess for whose diversion
all our entertainments had been planned.
She seemed to think that she fulfilled
her mission by sitting still and looking
handsome. No desire to show off ap-
peared to enter her mind. Her intense
pride left no room for vanity. Yet I
knew that she could have distinguished
herself as a musician if she had chosen
to do so; for I had heard her sing and
play in Mrs. Chrighton's morning-room,
when only Edward, his sisters, and my-
self were present; and I knew that
both as a vocalist and a pianist she ex-
celled all our guests.
The two girls and I had many a
happy morning and afternoon, going
from cottage to cottage in a pony-car-
riage laden with Mrs. Chrighton's gifts
to the poor of her parish. There was
no public formal distribution of blanket-
ing and coals, but the wants of all were
amply provided for in a quiet friendly
way. Agnes and Sophy, aided by an
indefatigable maid, the Rector's daugh-
ter, and one or two other young ladies,
had been at work for the last three
months making smart warm frocks and
useful under-garments for the children
of the cottagers; so that on Christmas
morning every child in the parish was.
arrayed in a complete set of new gar-
ments. Mrs. Chrighton had an admira-
ble faculty of knowing precisely what
was wanted in every household; and
our pony carriage used to convey a
varied collection of goods, every parcel
directed in the firm free hand of the
châtelaine of the Abbey.
Edward used sometimes to drive us
on these expeditions, and I found that
he was eminently popular among the
poor of Chrighton parish. He had
such a pleasant airy way of talking to
them, a manner which set them at their
ease at once. He never forgot their
names or relationships, or wants or ail-
ments; had a packet of exactly the
kind of tobacco each man liked best al-
ways ready in his coat-pockets; and
was full of jokes, which may not have
been particularly witty, but which used
to make the small low-roofed chambers
ring with hearty laughter.
Miss Tremaine coolly declined any .
share in these pleasant duties.
“I don’t like poor people,” she
said. “I daresay it sounds very dread-
ful, but it's just as well to confess my
iniquity at once. I never can get on
with them, or they with me. I am not
simpatica, I suppose. And then I can-
not endure their stifling rooms. The
close faint odor of their houses gives
me a fever. And again, what is the
use of visiting them It is only an in-
ducement to them to become hypocrites.
Surely it is better to arrange on a sheet
of paper what it is just and fair for
them to have—blankets, and coals, and
groceries, and money, and wine, and so
on—and let them receive the things
from some trustworthy servant. In
that case, there need be no cringing on
one side, and no endurance on the
other.”
AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY.
65
“But, you see, Julia, there are some
kinds of people to whom that sort of
thing is not a question of endurance,”
Edward answered, his face flushing in-
dignantly. “People who like to share
in the pleasure they give—who like to
see the poor careworn faces lighted up
with sudden joy—who like to make
these sons of the soil feel that there is
some friendly link between themselves
and their masters—some point of union
between the cottage and the great
house. There is my mother, for in-
stance: all these duties which you
think so tiresome are to her an unfail-
ing delight. There will be a change,
I'm afraid, Julia, when you are mistress
of the Abbey.”
“You have not made me that yet,”
she answered; “and there is plenty of
time for you to change your mind, if
you do not think me suited for the
position. I do not pretend to be like
your mother. It is better that I should
not affect any feminine virtues which I
do not possess.”
After this Fdward insisted on driv-
ing our pony-carriage almost every
day, leaving Miss Tremaine to find
her own amusement; and I think this
conversation was the beginning of an
estrangement between them, which be-
came more serious than any of their
previous quarrels had been.
Miss Tremaine did not care for sledg-
ing, or skating, or billiard-playing. She
had none of the “fast ’’ tendencies which
have become so common lately. She
used to sit in one particular bow-window
of the drawing-room all the morning,
working a screen in berlin-wool and
beads, assisted and attended by her
younger sister Laura, who was a kind
of slave to her—a very colorless young
lady in mind, capable of no such thing
as an original opinion, and in person a
pale replica of her sister.
Had there been less company in the
house, the breach between Edward
Chrighton and his betrothed must have
become notorious ; but with a house so
full of people, all bent on enjoying
themselves, I doubt if it was noticed.
On all public occasions my cousin
showed himself attentive and apparent-
ly devoted to Miss Tremaine. It was
only I and his sisters who knew the
real state of affairs.
I was surprised, after the young
lady's total repudiation of all benevo-
lent sentiments, when she beckoned me
aside one morning, and slipped a little
purse of gold—twenty sovereigns—into
my hand.
“I shall be very much obliged if yoa
will distribute that among your cot-
tagers to-day, Miss Chrighton,” she
said. “Of course I should like to give
them something; it's only the trouble
of talking to them that I shrink from ;
and you are just the person for an al-
moner. Don’t mention my little com-
mission to any one, please.”
“Of course I may tell Edward,” I
said; for I was anxious that he should
know his betrothed was not as hard
hearted as she had appeared.
“To him least of all,” she answered
eagerly. “You know that our ideas
vary on that point. He would think I
gave the money to please him. Not a
word, pray, Miss Chrighton.” I sub-
mitted, and distributed my sovereigns
quietly, with the most careful exercise
of my judgment. So Christmas came
and passed. It was the day after the
great anniversary—a very quiet day
for the guests and family at the Abbey,
but a grand occasion for the servants,
who were to have their annual ball in
the evening—a ball to which all the
humbler class of tenantry were invited.
The frost had broken up suddenly,
and it was a thorough wet day—a de-
pressing kind of day for any one whose
spirits are liable to be affected by the
weather, as mine are. I felt out of
spirits for the first time since my arrival
at the Abbey.
No one else appeared to feel the
same influence. The elder ladies sat
in a wide semicircle round one of the
fireplaces in the drawing-room; a group
of merry girls and dashing young men
chatted gayly before the other. From
the billiard-room there came the fre-
quent clash of balls, and cheery peals
of stentorian laughter. I sat in one of
the deep windows, half hidden by the
curtains, reading a novel—one of a box
ful that came from town every month.
If the picture within was bright and
cheerful, the prospect was dreary
5
66
AT CHRIGHTON ABIBEY.
enough without. The fairy forest of
snow-wreathed trees, the white valleys
and undulating banks of snow, had van-
ished, and the rain dripped slowly and
sullenly upon a darksome expanse of
sodden grass, and a dismal background
of leafless timber. The merry sound
of the sledge bells no longer enlivened
the air ; all was silence and gloom.
Edward Chrighton was not amongst
the billiard-players; he was pacing the
drawing-room to and fro from end to
end, with an air that was at once
moody and restless.
“Thank heaven, the frost has broken
up at last !” he exclaimed, stopping in
front of the window where I sat.
He had spoken to himself, quite un-
aware of my close neighborhood, Un-
promising as his aspect was just then, I
Ventured to accost him.
“What bad taste, to prefer such
Weather as this to frost and snow !” I
answered. “The park looked enchant-
ing yesterday—a real scene from fairy-
land. And only look at it to-day ! ”
“Oh, yes, of course, from an artistic
point of view, the snow was better.
The place does look something like the
great dismal swamp to-day ; but I am
thinking of hunting, and that confound-
ed frost made a day’s sport impossible.
We are in for a spell of mild weather
now, I think I’’
“But you are not going to hunt, are
you, Edward?”
“Indeed I am, my gentle cousin, in
spite of that frightened look in your
amiable countenance.”
“I thought there were no hounds
hereabouts.”
“Nor are there ; but there is as fine
a pack as any in the country—the Dale-
borough hounds—five-and-twenty miles
away.”
“And you are going five-and-twenty
miles for the sake of a day's run ?”
“I would travel forty, fifty, a hun-
dred miles for that same diversion.
But I am not going for a single day
this time ; I am going over to Sir
Francis Wycherly's place — young
Frank Wycherly and I were sworn
chums at Christchurch—for three or
four days. I am due to-day, but I
scarcely cared to travel by cross-coun-
try roads in such rain as this. How-
ever, if the floodgates of the sky are
loosened for a new deluge, I must go
to-morrow.”
“What a headstrong young man l’” I
exclaimed. “And what will Miss Tre.
maine say to this dosertion ?” I asked
in a lower voice.
“Miss Tremaine can say whatever
she pleases. She had it in her power
to make me forget the pleasures of the
chase, if she had chosen, though we
had been in the heart of the shires, and
the wellkin ringing with the baying of
hounds.”
“Oh, I begin to understand. This
hunting engagement is not of long
standing.”
“No ; I began to find myself bored
here a few days ago, and wrote to
Frank to offer myself for two or three
days at Wycherly. I received a most
cordial answer by return, and am book-
ed till the end of this woek.”
“You have not forgotten the ball on
the first P”
“Oh, no ; to do that would be to vex
my mother, and to offer a slight to
our guests. I shall be here for the
first, come what may.”
Come what may ! so lightly spoken.
The time came when I had bitter occa-
sion to remember those words.
“I’m afraid you will vex your mother
by going at all,” I said. “You know
what a horror both she and your father
have of hunting.”
“A most un-country-gentleman-like
aversion on my father's part. But he
is a dear old book-worm, seldom happy
out of his library. Yes, I admit they
both have a dislike to hunting in the
abstract ; but they know I am a pretty
good rider, and that it would need a
bigger country than I shall find about
Wycherly to floor me. You need not
feel nervous, my dear Sarah ; I am not
going to give papa and mamma the
smallest ground for uneasiness.”
“You will take your own horses, I
suppose?” *
“That goes without saying. No
man who has cattle of his own cares to
mount another man’s horses. I shall
take Pepperbox and the Druid.”
“Pepperbox has a queer temper, I
have heard your sisters say.”
“My sisters expect a horse to be a
*
A.T. CHRIGHTON AT3BEY.
67
kind of overgrown baa-lamb. Every-
thing splendid in horseflesh and woman-
kind is prone to that slight defect, an
ugly temper. There is Miss Tremaine,
for instance.”
“I shall take Miss Tremaine's part.
I believe it is you who are in the
wrong in the matter of this estrange-
ment, Edward.”
“Do you? Well, wrong or right,
my cousin, until the fair Julia comes to
me with sweet looks and gentle words,
we can never be what we have been.”
“You will return from your hunting
expedition in a softer mood,” I answer-
ed; “that is to say, if you persist in
going. But I hope and believe you
will change your mind.”
“Such a change is not within the
limits of possibility, Sarah. I am fixed
as Fate.”
He strolled away, humming some
gay hunting-song as he went. I was
alone with Mrs. Chrighton later in the
afternoon, and she spoke to me about
this intended visit to Wycherly.
“Edward has set his heart upon it
evidently,” she said regretfully, “ and
his father and I have always made a
point of avoiding anything that could
seem like domestic tyranny. Our dear
boy is such a good son, that it would
be very hard if we came between him
and his pleasures. You know what a
morbid horror my husband has of the
dangers of the hunting-field, and per-
haps I am almost as weak-minded.
But in spite of this we have never in-
terfered with Edward's enjoyment of a
sport which he is passionately fond of;
and hitherto, thank God! he has es-
caped without a scratch. Yet I have
had many a bitter hour, I can assure
you, my dear, when my son has been
away in Leicestershire hunting four
days a week.”
“He rides well, I suppose.”
“Superbly. He has a great reputa-
tion among the sportsmen of our neigh-
borhood. I daresay when he is master
of the Abbey he will start a pack of
hounds, and revive the old days of his
great-grandfather, Meredith Chrighton.”
“I fancy the hounds were kenneled
in the stable-yard below my bedroom.
window in those days, were they not,
Fanny ?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Chrighton answered,
gravely; and I wondered at the Hudden
8hadow that fell upon her face.
I went up to my room earlier than
usual that afternoon. and I had a clear
hour to spare before it would be time
to dress for the seven o’clock dinner.
This leisure hour I intended to devote
to letter-writing; but on arriving in
my room I found myself in a very idle
frame of mind, and instead of opening
my desk, I seated myself in the low
easy-chair before the fire, and fell into
a reverie.
How long I had been sitting there I
scarcely know ; I had been half-medi-
tating, half dozing, mixing broken
snatches of thought with brief glimpses
of dreaming, when I was startled into
wakefulness by a sound that was strange
to me.
It was a huntsman’s horn—a few low
plaintive notes on a huntsman’s horn—
notes which had a strange far-away
sound, that was more unearthly than
anything my ears had ever heard. I
thought of the music in Der Freischutz;
but the weirdest snatch of melody
Weber ever wrote had not so ghastly a
sound as these few simple Lotes con-
veyed to my ear.
I stood transfixed, listening to that
awful music. It had grown dusk, my
fire was almost out, and the room in
shadow. As I listened, a light flashed
suddenly on the wall before me. The
light was as unearthly as the sound—
a light that never shone from earth or
sky. -
I ran to the window ; for this ghast-
ly shimmer flashed through the window
upon the opposite wall. The great
gates of the stable-yard were open, and
men in scarlet coats were riding in, a
pack of hounds crowding in before them,
obedient to the huntsman’s whip. The
whole scene was dimly visible by the
declining light of the winter evening and
the weird gleams of the lantern carried
by one of the men. It was this lantern
which had shone upon the tapestried
wall. I saw the stable-doors opened
one after another ; gentlemen and
grooms alighting from their horses;
the dogs driven into their kennel; help-
ers hurrying to and fro; and that
strange wan lantern-light glimmering
68
AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY.
here and there in the gathering dusk.
But there was no sound of horse's hoof
or of human voices—not one yelp or cry
from the hounds. Since those faint far-
away sounds of the horn had died out in
the distance, the ghastly silence had been
unbroken.
I stood at my window quite calmly,
and watched while the group of men
and animals in the yard below noiseless-
ly dispersed. There was nothing su-
pernatural in the manner of their disap-
pearance. The figures did not vanish
or melt into empty air. One by one I
saw the horses led into their separate
quarters ; one by one the redcoats
strolled out of the gates, and the
grooms departed, some one way, some
another. The scene but for its noise-
lessness, was natural enough ; and had
I been a stranger in the house, I might
have fancied that those figures were
real—those stables in full occupation.
But I knew that stable-yard and
all its range of building to have been
disused for more than half a century.
Could I believe that, without an hour's
warning, the long-deserted quadrangle
could be filled—the empty stalls ten-
anted 2
Had some hunting-party from the
neighborhood sought shelter here, glad
to escape the pitiless rain 2 That was
not impossible, I thought. I was an
utter unbeliever in all ghostly things—
ready to credit any possibility rather than
suppose that I had been looking upon
shadows. And yet the noiselessness,
the awful sound of that horn — the
strange unearthly gleam of that lantern
Little superstitious as I might be, a cold
sweat stood out upon my forehead, and
I trembled in every limb.
For some minutes Istood by the win-
dow, statue-like, staring blankly into the
empty quadrangle. Then I roused myself
Buddenly, and ran softly down stairs by
a back staircase leading to the servants’
quarters, determined to solve the mys-
tery somehow or other. The way to
Mrs. Marjorum’s room was familiar to
me from old experience, and it was
thither that I bent my steps, determ-
ined to ask the housekeeper the mean-
ing of what I had seen. I had a lurk-
ing conviction that it would be well for
me not to mention that scene to any
member of the family till I had taker
counsel with some one who knew the
secrets of Chrighton Abbey.
I heard the sound of merry voices
and laughter as I passed the kitchen
and servants’ hall. Men and maids
were all busy in the pleasant labor of
decorating their rooms for the evening's
festival. They were putting the last
touches to garlands of holly and laurel,
ivy and fir, as I passed the open doors;
and in both rooms I saw tables laid for
a substantial tea. The housekeeper's
room was in a retired nook at the end
of a long passage—a charming old room
panelled with dark oak, and full of ca-
pacious cupboards, which in my child-
hood I had looked upon as storehouses
of inexhaustible treasures in the way of
preserves and other confectionery. It
was a shady old room, with a wide old-
fashioned fireplace, cool in summer,
when the hearth was adorned with a
great jar of roses and lavender; and
warm in winter, when the logs burnt
merrily all day long.
I opened the door softly, and went in.
Mrs. Marjorum was dozing in a high-
backed arm-chair by the glowing hearth
dressed in her state gown of gray wa-
tered silk, and with a cap that was a
perfect garden of roses. She opened
her eyes as I approached her and stared
at me with a puzzled look for the first
moment Or SO.
“Why is that you, Miss Sarah?” she
exclaimed ; “and looking as pale as a
ghost, I can see, even by this fire-light !
Let me just light a candle, and then
I’ll get you some sal volatile. Sit
down in my arm-chair, miss; why, I
declare you're all of a tremble !”
She put me into her easy-chair before
I could resist, and lighted the two can-
dles which stood ready upon her table,
while I was trying to speak. My lips
were dry, and it seemed at first as if my
voice was gone.
“Never mind the sal volatile, Marjo
rum,” I said at last. “I am not ill :
I’ve been startled, that’s all ; and I’ve
come to ask you for an explanation of
the business that frightened me.”
“What business, Miss Sarah P”
“You must have heard something of
it yourself, surely. Didn't you hear a
horn just now, a huntsman's horn ?”
AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY. 69
|
“A horn 1 Lord no, Miss Sarah.
What ever could have put such a fancy
into your head P”
I saw that Mrs. Marjorum's ruddy
cheeks had suddenly lost their color,
that she was now almost as pale as I
could have been myself.
“It was no fancy,” I said; “I heard
the sound, and saw the people. A
hunting-party has just taken shelter in
the north quadrangle. Dogs and horses,
and gentlemen and servants.”
“What were they like, Miss Sarah?”
the housekeeper asked in a strange voice.
“I can hardly tell you that. I could
see that they wore red coats; and I
could scarcely see more than that. Yes,
I did get a glimpse of one of the gentle-
men by the light of the lantern. A
tall man, with gray hair and whiskers,
and a stoop in his shoulders. I no-
ticed that he wore a short-waisted coat
with a very high collar—a coat that
looked a hundred years old.”
“The old Squire l’ muttered Mrs.
Warjorum under her breath ; and then
turning to me, she said with a cheery
resolute air, “You’ve been dreaming,
Miss Sarah, that’s just what it is.
You've dropped off in your chair before
the fire, and had a dream, that's it.”
“No, Marjorum, it was no dream.
The horn woke me, and I stood at my
window and saw the dogs and huntsmen
come in.”
“Do you know, Miss Sarah, that the
gates of the north quadrangle have been
locked and barred for the last forty
years, and that no one ever goes in there
except through the house **
“The gates may have been opened
this' evening to give shelter to stran-
gers,” I said.
“Not when the only keys that will
open them hang yonder in my cupboard,
miss,” said the housekeeper pointing to
a corner of the room.
“But I tell you, Marjorum, these
people came into the quadrangle ; the
horses and dogs are in the stables and
kennels at this moment. I’ll go and ask
Mr. Chrighton, or my cousin Fanny, or
Edward, all about it, since you won’t
tell me the truth. ”
I said this with a purpose, and it an-
swered. Mrs. Marjorum caught me
eagerly by the wrist.
“No, miss, don’t do that; for pity's
sake don’t do that ; don’t breathe a word
to missus or master.”
“But why not?”
“Because you’ve seen that which al
ways brings misfortune and Sorrow to
this house, Miss Sarah. You’ve seen
the dead.”
“What do you mean?” I gasped,
awed in spite of myself.
“I daresay you’ve heard say that
there’s been something seen at times at
the Abbey—many years apart, thank
God ; for it never came that trouble
didn’t come after it.”
“Yes,” I answered hurriedly; “but
I could never get any one to tell me
what it was that haunted this place.”
“No, miss. Those that know have
kept the secret. But you have seen it
all to-night. There's no use in trying to
hide it from you any longer. You have
seen the old Squire, Meredith Chrigh-
ton, whose eldest son was killed by a
fall in the hunting-field, brought home
dead one December night, an hour after
his father and the rest of the party had
come safe home to the Abbey. The
old gentleman had missed his son in the
field, but had thought nothing of that,
fancying that master John had had
enough of the day's sport, and had
turned his horse's head homewards. He
was found by a laboring-man, poor lad,
lying in a ditch with his back broken,
and his horse beside him staked. The
old Squire never held his head up after
that day, and never rode to hounds
again, though he was passionately fond
of hunting. Dogs and horses were
sold, and the north quadrangle has been
empty from that day.”
“How long is it since this kind of
thing has been seen P”
“A long time, miss. I was a slip of
a girl when it last happened. It was
in the winter-time—this very night—
the night Squire Meredith’s son was
killed; and the house was full of com-
pany, just as it is now. There was a
wild young Oxford gentleman sleeping
in your room at that time, and he saw
the hunting-party come into the quad-
rangle ; and what did he do but throw
his window wide open, and give them
the view-hallo as loud as ever he could.
He had only arrived the day before
70
AT: CHRIGHTON ABBEY.
and knew nothing about the neighbor-
hood; so at dinner he began to ask
where were his friends the sportsmen,
and to hope he should be allowed to
have a run with the Abbey hounds next
day. It was in the time of our master's
father ; and his lady at the head of the
table turned as white as a sheet when
she heard this talk. She had good rea-
son, poor soul. Before the week was
out her husband was lying dead. He
was struck with a fit of apoplexy, and
never spoke or knew any one after-
wards.”
“An awful coincidence,” I said; “but
it may have been only a coincidence.”
“I’ve heard other stories, miss—
heard them from those that wouldn’t
deceive—all proving the same thing :
that the appearance of the old Squire
and his pack is a warning of death to
this house.”
“I cannot believe these things,” I
exclaimed ; “I cannot believe them.
Does Mr. Edward know anything about
this P”
“No, miss. His father and mother
have been most careful that it should be
kept from him.”
“I think he is too strong-minded to
be much affected by the fact,” I said.
“And you’ll not say anything about
what you’ve seen to my master or my
mistress, will you, Miss Sarah P” plead-
ed the faithful old servant. “The
knowledge of it would be sure to make
them nervous and unhappy. And if
evil is to come upon this house, it isn’t
in human power to prevent its coming.”
“God forbid that there is any evil at
hand l’” I answered. “I am no believ-
er in visions or omens. After all, I
would sooner fancy that I was dream-
ing—dreaming with my eyes open as I
stood at the window—than that I be-
held the shadows of the dead.”
Mrs. Marjorum sighed, and said noth-
ing. I could see that she believed firm-
ly in the phantom hunt.
I went back to my room to dress for
dinner. However rationally I might
try to think of what I had seen, its
effect upon my mind and nerves was
not the less powerful. I could think of
nothing else; and a strange morbid
dread of coming misery weighed me
down like an actual burden.
There was a very cheerful party in
the drawing-room when I went down-
stairs, and at dinner the talk and laugh-
ter were unceasing; but I could see that
my cousin Fanny’s face was a little
graver than usual, and I had no doubt
she was thinking of her son's intended
visit to Wycherly.
At the thought of , this a sudden
terror flashed upon me. Iłow if the
shadows I had seen that evening were
ominous of danger to him—to Edward,
the heir and only son of the house?
My heart grew cold as I thought of this,
and yet in the next moment I despised
myself for such weakness.
“It is natural enough for an old ser-
vant to believe in such things,” I said
to myself; “but for me—an educated
woman of the world — preposterous
folly.”
And yet from that moment I began
to puzzle myself in the endeavor to de-
vise some means by which Edward’s
journey might be prevented. Of my
own influence I knew that I was power-
less to hinder his departure by so much
as an hour; but I fancied that Julia
Tremaine could persuade him to any
sacrifice of his inclination, if she could
only humble her pride so far as to en-
treat it. I determined to appeal to her
in the course of the evening.
We were very merry all that even-
ing. The servants and their guests
danced in the great hall, while we sat in
the gallery above, and in little groups
upon the staircase, watching their diver-
sions. I think this arrangement afford-
ed excellent opportunities for flirtation,
and that the younger members of our
party made good use of their chances—
with one exception : Edward Chrighton
and his affianced contrived to keep far
away from each other all the evening.
While all was going on noisily in the
hall below, I managed to get Miss Tre-
maine apart from the others in the em-
brasure of a painted window on the
stairs, where there was a wide open
seat. Seated here side by side, I de-
scribed to her, under a promise of
secrecy, the scene which I had witnessed
that afternoon, and my conversation
with Mrs. Marjorum.
“But, good gracious me, Miss Chrigh
ton | * the young lady exclaimed, lift.
AT CELEIGHT ON AIBBEY.
71
ing her pencilled eyebrows with uncon-
cealed disdain, “you don’t mean to tell
me that you believe in such nonsense
—ghosts and omens, and old woman's
folly like that l”
“I assure you, Miss Tremaine, it is
most difficult for me to believe in the
supernatural,” I answered earnestly ;
“but that which I saw this evening was
something more than human. The
thought of it has made me very unhap-
py; and I cannot help connecting it
somehow with my cousin Edward's visit
to Wycherly. If I had the power to
prevent his going, I would do it at any
cost ; but I have not. You alone have
influence enough for that. For Heaven's
sake use it ! do anything to hinder his
hunting with the Daleborough hounds.”
“You would have me humiliate my-
self by asking him to forego his pleas-
ure, and that after his conduct to me
during the last week P”
“I confess that he has done much to
offend you. But you love him, Miss
Tremaine, though you are too proud to
let your love be seen ; I am certain
that you do love him. For pity’s sake
speak to him ; do not let him hazard
his life, when a few words from you may
prevent the danger.”
“I don’t believe he would give up
this visit to please me,” she answered ;
“ and I shall certainly not put it in his
power to humiliate me by a refusal.
Besides, all this fear of yours is such
utter nonsense. As if nobody had ever
hunted before. My brothers hunt four
times a week every winter, and not one
of them has ever been the worse for it
yet.”
I did not give up the attempt lightly.
I pleaded with this proud obstinate girl
for a long time, as long as I could in-
duce her to listen to me; but it was all
in vain. She stuck to her text—no one
should persuade her to degrade herself
by asking a favor of Edward Chrigh-
ton. He had chosen to hold himself
aloof from her, and she would show him
that she could live without him. When
she left Chrighton Abbey, they would
part as Strangers.
So the night closed, and at breakfast
next morning I heard that Edward had
started for Wycherly soon after day-
break His absence made, for me at
least, a sad blank in our circle. Fo.
one other also, I think; for Miss Tre-
maine's fair proud face was very pale,
though she tried to seem gayer than
usual, and exerted herself in quite an
unaccustomed manner in her endeavor
to be agreeable to every one.
The days passed slowly for me after
my cousin's departure. There was a
weight upon my mind, a vague anxiety,
which I struggled in vain to shake off.
The house, full as it was of pleasant peo-
ple, seemed to me to have become dull and
dreary now that Edward was gone. The
place where he had sat appeared always
vacant to my eyes, though another filled
it, and there was no gap on either side
of the long dinner-table. Light-hearted
young men still made the billiard-room
resonant with their laughter; merry
girls flirted as gayly as ever, undisturbed
in the smallest degree by the absence of
the heir of the house. Yet for me all
was changed. A morbid fancy had
taken complete possession of me. I
found myself continually brooding over
the housekeeper's words; those words
which had told me that the shadows I
had seen boded death and sorrow to the
house of Chrighton.
My cousins, Sophy and Agnes, were
no more concerned about their brother's
welfare than were their guests. They
were full of excitement about the new-
year's ball, which was to be a very
grand affair. Every one of importance
within fifty miles was to be present,
every nook and corner of the Abbey
would be filled with visitors coming
from a great distance, while others were
to be billeted upon the better class of
tenantry round about. Altogether the
organization of this affair was no small
business; and Mrs. Chrighton’s morn-
ings were broken by discussions with
the housekeeper, messages from the cook,
interviews with the head-gardener on
the subject of floral decorations, and
other details, which all alike demanded
the attention of the châtelaine herself.
With these duties, and with the claims
of her numerous guests, my cousin Fan-
ny’s time was so fully occupied, that she
had little leisure to indulge in anxious
feelings about her son, whatever secret
uneasiness may have been lurking in
her maternal heart. As for the master
72
AT CHRIGHT ON AB.B.E.Y.
of the Abbey, he spent so much of his
time in the library, where, under the
pretext of business with his bailiff, he
read Greek, that it was not easy for any
one to discover what he did feel. Once,
and once only, I heard him speak of his
son, in a tone that betrayed an intense
eagerness for his return.
The girls were to have new dresses
from a French milliner in Wigmore
street; and as the great event drew near,
bulky packages of millinery were con-
tinually arriving, and feminine consul-
tations and expositions of finery were
being held all day long in bedrooms and
dressing-rooms with closed doors. Thus,
with a mind always troubled by the
same dark shapeless foreboding, I was
perpetually being called upon to give
an opinion about pink tulle and lilies of
the valley, or maize silk and apple-blos-
SODOS.
New-year's morning came at last,
after an interval of abnormal length,
as it seemed to me. It was a bright
clear day, an almost spring-like sun-
shine lighting up the leafless land-
scape. The great dining-room was noisy
with congratulations and good wishes as
we assembled for breakfast on this first
morning of a new year, after having
seen the old one out cheerily the night
before ; but Edward had not yet return-
ed, and I missed him sadly. Some
touch of sympathy drew me to the side
of Julia Tremaine on this particular
morning. I had watched her very often
during the last few days, and I had seen
that her cheek grew paler every day.
To-day her eyes had the dull heavy look
that betokens a sleepless night. Yes, I
was sure that she was unhappy—that
the proud relentless nature suffered bit-
terly.
“He must be home to-day,” I said to
her in a low voice, as she sat in stately
silence before an untasted breakfast.
“Who must?” she answered, turning
towards me with a cold distant look.
“My cousin Edward. You know he
promised to be back in time for the
ball.”
“I know nothing of Mr. Chrighton’s
intended movements,” she said, in her
haughtiest tone; “but of course it is
only natural that he should be here to-
might. He would scarcely care to insult
half the county by his absence, however
little he may value those now staying in
his father's house.”
“But you know that there is one here
whom he does value better than any one
else in the world, Miss Tremaine,” I
answered, anxious to soothe this proud
irl.
“I know nothing of the kind. But
why do you speak so solemnly about
his return ? He will come, of course.
There is no reason he should not come.”
She spoke in a rapid manner that
was strange to her, and looked at me
with a sharp inquiring glance, that
touched me somehow, it was so unlike
herself—it revealed to me so keen all
anxiety.
“No, there is no reasonable cause for
anything like uneasiness,” I said ; “but
you remember what I told you the other
night. That has preyed upon my mind,
and it will be an unspeakable relief to
me when I see my cousin Safe at home.”
“I am sorry that you should indulge
in such weakness, Miss Chrighton.”
That was all she said ; but when I
saw her in the drawing-room after
breakfast, she had established herself
in a window that commanded a view of
the long winding drive leading to the
front of the Abbey. From this point
she could not fail to see any one ap-
proaching the house. She sat there all
day; every one else was more or less
busy with arrangements for the evening,
or at any rate occupied with an appear-
ance of business; but Julia Tremaine
kept her place by the window, pleading
a headache as an excuse for sitting still,
with a book in her hand, all day, yet
obstinately refusing to go to her room
and lie down, when her mother entreat-
ed her to do so. *
“You will be fit for nothing to-night,
Julia,” Mrs. Tremaine said, almost an-
grily ; “you have been looking ill for
ever so long, and to-day you are as pale
as a ghost.”
I knew that she was watching for him ;
and I pitied her with all my heart, as the
day wore itself out, and he did not come.
We dined earlier than usual, played
a game or two of billiards after dinner,
made a tour of inspection through the
bright rooms, lit with wax-candles cnly,
and odorous with exotics; and then
AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY.
73
came a long interregnum devoted to the
arts and mysteries of the toilet; while
maids flitted to and fro laden with frilled
muslin petticoats from the laundry, and
a faint smell of singed hair pervaded the
corridors. At ten o’clock the band were
tuning their violins, and pretty girls and
elegant-looking men were coming slowly
down the broad oak staircase, as the
roll of fast-coming wheels sounded louder
without, and stentorian voices announced
the best people in the county.
I have no need to dwell long upon the
details of that evening's festival. It
was very much like other balls—a bril-
liant success, a night of splendor and
enchantment for those whose hearts
were light and happy, and who could
abandon themselves utterly to the pleas-
ure of the moment; a far-away picture
of fair faces and bright-hued dresses, a
wearisome kaleidoscopic procession of
form and color for those whose minds
were weighed down with the burden of
a hidden care.
For me the music had no melody, the
dazzling scene no charm. Hour after
hour went by ; supper was over, and
the waltzers were enjoying those latest
dances which always seem the most de-
lightful, and yet Edward Chrighton had
not appeared amongst us.
There had been innumerable inquiries
about him, and Mrs. Chrighton had
apologized for his absence as best she
might. Poor soul, I well knew that his
non-return was now a source of poignant
anxiety to her, although she greeted all
her guests with the same gracious smile,
and was able to talk gayly and well upon
every subject. Once, when she was
sitting alone for a few minutes, watch-
ing the dancers, I saw the smile fade
from her face, and a look of anguish
come over it. I ventured to approach
her at this moment, and never shall I
forget the look which she turned to-
wards me.
“My son, Sarah !” she said, in a low
voice—“something has happened to my
son | ?”
I did my best to comfort her; but my
own heart was growing heavier and heav-
ier, and my attempt was a very poor one.
Julia Tremaine had danced a little at
the beginning of the evening, to keep
up appearances, I believe, in order that
no one might suppose that she was dis
tressed by her lover's absence; but
after the first two or three dances she
pronounced herself tired, and withdrew
to a seat among the matrons. She was
looking very lovely in spite of her ex-
treme pallor, dressed in white tulle, a
perfect cloud of airy puffings, and with
a wreath of ivy-leaves and diamonds
crowning her pale golden hair.
The night waned, the dancers were
revolving in the last waltz, when I hap-
pened to look towards the doorway at
the end of the room. I was startled by
seeing a man standing there, with his
hat in his hand, not in evening costume;
a man with a pale anxious-looking face,
peering cautiously into the room. My
first thought was of evil; but in the
next moment the man had disappeared,
and I saw no more of him.
I lingered by my cousin Fanny's side
till the rooms were empty. Even Sophy
and Aggy had gone off to their own
apartments, their airy dresses sadly di-
lapidated by a night's vigorous dancing.
There were only Mr. and Mrs. Chrigh-
ton and myself in the long suite of
rooms, where the flowers were drooping
and the wax-lights dying out one by One
in the silver sconces against the walls.
“I think the evening went off very
well,” Fanny said, looking rather anx
iously at her husband, who was stretch-
ing himself and yawning with an air of
intense relief.
“Yes, the affair went off well enough.
But Edward has committed a terrible
breach of manners by not being here.
Upon my word, the young men of the
present day think of nothing but their
own pleasures. I suppose that something
especially attractive was going on at
Wycherly to-day, and he couldn’t tear
himself away.”
“It is so unlike him to break his
word,” Mrs. Chrighton answered. “You
are not alarmed, Frederick? You don’t
think that anything has happened—any
accident P”
“What should happen P. Ned is one
of the best riders in the county. I don’t
think there's any fear of his coming to
grief.”
“He might be ill.”
“Not he. He's a young Hercu es.
And if it were possible for him to be
74
AT CHRIGHTON AIBBEY.
ill—which it is not—we should have had
a message from Wycherly.”
The words were scarcely spoken when
Truefold the butler stood by his master's
side, with a solemn anxious face.
“There is a-a person who wishes to
see you, sir,” he said in a low voice,
“ alone.”
Low as the words were, both Fanny
and myself heard them.
“Some one from Wycherly 2” she ex-
claimed. “Let him come here.”
“But, madam, the person most par-
ticularly wished to see master alone.
-—Shall I show him into the library, sir?
The lights are not out there.”
“Then it is someone from Wycherly,”
said my cousin, seizing my wrist with a
hand that was icy cold. “Didn't I tell
you so, Sarah P. Something has hap-
pened to my son. Let the person come
here, Truefold, here; I insist upon it.”
The tone of command was quite
strange in a wife who was always defer-
ential to her husband, in a mistress who
was ever gentle to her servants.
“Let it be so, Truefold,” said Mr.
Chrighton. “Whatever ill news has
come to us we will hear together.”
He put his arm round his wife's waist.
Both were pale as marble, both stood
in stony stillness waiting for the blow
that was to fall upon them.
The stranger, the man I had seen in
the doorway, came in. He was curate
of Wycherly church, and chaplain to
Sir Francis Wycherly ; a grave middle-
aged man. He told what he had to tell
with all kindness, with all the usual
forms of consolation which Christianity
and an experience of sorrow could sug-
gest. Vain words, wasted trouble. The
blow must fall, and earthly consolation
was unable to lighten it by a feather's
weight.
There had been a steeplechase at
Wycherly—an amateur affair with gen-
tlemen riders—on that bright new-
year's day, and Edward Chrighton had
been persuaded to ride his favorite
hunter Pepperbox. There would be
plenty of time for him to return to
Chrighton after the races. He had
consented ; and his horse was winning
easily, when, at the last fence, a double
one, with water beyond, Pepperbox
baulked his leap, and went over head-
foremost, flinging his rider over a hedge
into a field close beside the course, where
there was a heavy stone roller. Upon
this stone roller Edward Chrighton had
fallen, his head receiving the full force
of the concussion. All was told. It
was while the curate was relating the
fatal catastrophe that I looked round
suddenly, and saw Julia Tremaine stand-
ing a behind the speaker. She had
heard all; she uttered no cry, she show-
ed no signs of fainting, but stood calm
and motionless, waiting for the end.
I know not how that night ended :
there seemed an awful calm upon us
all. A carriage was got ready, and
Mr. and Mrs. Chrighton started for
Wycherly to look upon their dead son.
He had died while they were carrying
him from the course to Sir Francis's
house. I went with Julia Tremaine to
her room, and sat with her while the
winter morning dawned slowly upon
us—a bitter dawning.
I have little more to tell. Life goes
on, though hearts are broken. Upon
Chrighton Abbey there came a dreary
time of desolation. The master of the
house lived in his library, shut from the
outer world, buried almost as completely
as a hermit in, his cell. I have heard that
Julia Tremaine was never known to
smile after that day. She is still un-
married, and lives entirely at her fath-
er's country house ; proud and reserved
in her conduct to her equals, but a very
angel of mercy and compassion amongst
the poor of the neighborhood. Yes;
this haughty girl, who once declared
herself unable to endure the hovels of
the poor, is now a Sister of Charity in
all but the robe. So does a great sorrow
change the current of a woman’s life.
I have seen my cousin Fanny many
times since that awful new-year's night;
for I have always the same welcome at
the Abbey. I have seen her calm and
cheerful, doing her duty, Smiling upon
her daughter's children, the honored
mistress of a great household; but I
know that the mainspring of life is bro-
ken, that for her there hath passed a glo-
ry from the earth, and that upon all the
pleasures and joys of this world she
looks with a solemn calm of one for
whom all things are dark with the shad-
ow of a great sorrow.
IV.
COL, BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
PART I.
*
CHAPTER I.
“Thou see'st we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woful pageants than the
SCCI) e.
Wherein we play in.”
IT was late in July when Herbert
Benyon, colonel of a Bengal cavalry
regiment, landed at Southampton from
one of the P. and O. Steamers, home
from India on sick-leave. The Colonel
had been very ill indeed with jungle
fever; very close to the shadowy bound-
ary which divides us from that un-
known country, whither we are all
journeying with steady footsteps on the
separate roads of life. The fresh sea-
breezes and idle steamboat life had done
a good deal for him, but he still bore
the traces of that desperate sickness.
The sunburnt face was wan and hag-
gard, and there were lines of premature
age about the mouth and dark shadows
under the large, lustrous gray eyes.
Those eyes of Colonel Benyon's had
been wont to strike terror to the souls
of defaulting soldiers, conscious of a de-
ficiency in the way of pipeclay or a lax-
ity as to drill; the gray seemed to
change to black when the Colonel was
angry, and at such times his men were
apt to say that their commanding offi-
cer looked a very devil. He was not
exactly a martinet either, and was
known to be as particular about the
comfort and well-being of his soldiers
as he was about their appearance on
parade; but he was a hard master, and
his men feared him.
The Colonel gave a sigh, that was
the next thing to a groan, as the express
from Southampton slackened its pace at
Waterloo. He had a first-class car-
riage all to himself, and had littered all
the seats with an accumulation of news-
papers, despatch-boxes, dressing-bags,
and such light luggage. He had
tramped to and fro the narrow space
like some restless lion in its den, during
that rapid journey; had taken up one
newspaper after another, and tossed it
aside again with an air of weariness
nigh unto death. And now, at the end of
his journey, during which he had seemed
devoured by impatience, he groaned
aloud from very heaviness of spirit.
He was nine-and-thirty years of age,
something over six feet in height, broad-
shouldered, strong-limbed, and, if not
exactly handsome, at least distinguish-
ed-looking; his military career had been
one of continued success, and the men
who knew him best prophesied for him
distinction in the future. He had been
eleven years away from England, and
had passed through the fiery furnace of
the Indian Mutiny, reaping a harvest
of laurels from that most bloody field.
And now he came home with two years'
furlough, a handsome balance at his Eng.
lish bankers’, and not a creature in the
76
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
world with a claim upon his purse or
his care.
A more thoroughly independent man
than Herbert Benyon never landed
upon British soil. He had escaped the
rocks and shoals of matrimony by what
his brother officers called a fluke. In
plain words he had been jilted at the
outset of his career by a high-born and
penniless flirt, who had thrown him over
at the last moment in favor of a wealth-
ier suitor. In all outward seeming he
had borne his disappointment gayly
enough ; but from that hour he became
as a man hewn out of granite in rela-
tion to all womanly fascinations. The
prettiest girls in Calcutta, the most dan-
gerous young matrons in the Indian
military world, had flashed their bright-
est glances upon him with no more ef-
fect than the rising sun has nowadays
on the head of Memnon. He was one
of the best waltzers in English India,
and was wont to declare that waltzing
was an intellectual exercise ; but in all
the giddy mazes of a dozen seasons, Col-
onel Benyon had never been known to
entangle himself. There were women
who were said to have been, in the
graceful phraseology of the junior offi-
cers, “down any amount of a pit,” or “up
no end of a tree,” on the subject of the
Colonel; but the Colonel himself had
never been known to Smile upon a woman
with anything warmer than the con-
ventional smile demanded of him by so-
ciety, since the hour when Lady Julia
Dursay had written to tell him that she
had looked into her own heart and found
that it was better for both of them that
they should break an engagement which
could never result in happiness to
either.
He had taken life pleasantly enough
withal, and was eminently popular
among his brother officers: a great bil-
liard-player, a most implacable and in-
scrutable opponent at the whist-table;
and a mighty hunter of those large ani-
maſs which enliven the jungle by their
existence. He had sent home innumer-
able tiger-claws mounted in silver, as la-
bels for his English friends’ decanters,
and had more skins of wild-beasts than
he knew what to do with.
Indeed, Herbert Benyon excelled in
all those accomplishments which win a
man the respect of his fellow-men, and
the admiration of the softer sex.
He was rich as well as successful.
A bachelor-uncle had died during his
absence in the East, leaving him a con-
siderable fortune, and a fine old place
in the north of Scotland. It would have
seemed as if a man could scarcely de-
sire more good things than had fallen
to the lot of Herbert Benyon ; and yet
the man was not happy. Coming home
to familiar scenes after those eleven
years of exile awoke no thrill of rapture
in his heart. He had perhaps no en-
thusiastic affection for the country of
his birth; in any case his return brought
him no pleasure, only a gloomy sense of
his own isolation.
Near relatives he had none ; neither
sister nor brother would smile a wel-
come upon him ; father and mother had
been dead twenty years. He had some
distant kindred of course — men and
women who bore his name, and profes-
sed a certain amount of affection for
him ; and he had friends by the score
—the people to whom he had sent
tiger-claws, and wonderful inlaid boxes
lined with Sandal-wood, and cashmere
shawls, and embroidered muslims, and
all those treasures of Ind wherewith
the wanderer is wont to gratify his ac-
quaintance ; but that was all. Amongst
all the men he knew there was only one
to whose friendly smile and welcoming
grasp of the hand he looked forward
with any ray of real pleasure.
This was a man of about his own age,
a comrade at Eton and Cambridge, a
certain Frederick Hammersley, who
had begun life as a country curate, and
had been spoiled for the church by the
inheritance of a comfortable fortune,
and the development of views in which
his diocesan, a bishop of evangelical
tendencies, had recognized a leaning
towards Romanism.
Mr. Hammersley had not gone over
to Rome, however; he had contented
himself with writing several theological
pamphlets setting forth his principles,
which were of the most advanced An-
glican school, and with doing much
good in his immediate neighborhood. If
he were no longer an accredited shep-
herd, he had not forgotten the divine
precept, “Feed my sheep.”
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
77
The last that Colonel Benyon had
heard of this friend was the announce-
ment of his marriage. They did not
maintain friendship by an interchange
of long letters, like a couple of school-
girls. Each in his way was fully oc-
cupied by the business of life; and each
felt secure of the other's friendship.
There was no need of pen-and-ink pro-
testations between men of this stamp.
Yes, there was some pleasure for the
Colonel in the thought of meeting Fred
Hammersley. He deposited his goods
and chattels at the British, in Cock-
spur street, and went straight to his
friend's club, the respectable Athenæum.
The London season was over, and pas-
sers-by stared a little at the Colonel’s
tall figure, with its unmistakable mili-
tary air. There were some changes in
the aspect of things even at this end of
the town since those days before the
Indian Mutiny, but the Colonel did not
take the trouble to notice them ; the
Corinthian pillars of a renovated club-
house, or a new shop-front here and
there, seemed trivial objects to a man
fresh from the natural splendors of
Cashmere; or it may be that Herbert
Benyon was uninterested in these
things for lack of any personal associa-
tion that went home to his heart. When
he came to the Athenaeum, where he
had eaten many a pleasant dinner with
his old friend, the familiar look of the
hall stirred something in his breast that
was almost emotion.
He was doomed to encounter a dis-
appointment here. “Mr. Hammersley
was abroad,” the porter told him, “on
the Continent.” The porter could not
tell where; “but he had been absent
for a long time ; ever since—ever since
—last spring was a twelvemonth,” the
porter said, pulling himself up, as if he
had been about to say something else.
“And his letters,” asked the Colonel
—“what becomes of them * *
“We don't get many,” answered the
man; “but any that do come here for
him are sent to Coutts’s. He's always
on the move, they say, and nobody but
his bankers know where to find him.”
There was something in the man’s
face that impressed Colonel Benyon
with the idea that he could say more,
if he pleased. He lingered on the
threshold of the strangers' room with a
dubious meditative air, and slipped half
a sovereign into the porter's hand, al-
most as if from pure absence of mind.
“Thank you, sir; you're very kind,
sir. I’m sure I’m sorry enough Mr.
Hammersley has left us. It was always
a pleasure to do anything for him. Not
that he ever gave any trouble—wanting
hansoms fetched when it's raining cats
and dogs, or anything of that kind. He
was always quiet in his ways and affa-
ble in his manners. I wish there was
more like him. And it do seem a hard
thing that he should have to turn his
back upon his country like that.”
The Colonel stared at the speaker.
“But he travels for his own pleas
ure, I suppose?” he exclaimed. “He
had no particular reason for leaving
England P’’
“Well, yes, sir; there was unpleas
ant circumstances connected with his
going away. Of course at the West-
end those things get talked of, and a
person in my position can’t shut his
ears to such reports. I should be the
last in the world to talk, but there’s
nothing going that don’t come to my
hearing somehow.”
Colonel Benyon stared aghast. What
did it mean * Had Frederick Ham-
mersley, that most conscientious and
devoted of Anglicans, committed for-
gery 2 What was the meaning of this
enforced exile 2 Then a light suddenly
flashed on the Colonel’s mind.
“His wife is with him, I suppose P”
he said interrogatively.
“No, sir; Mrs. Hammersley is not
with her husband. In fact his going
abroad arose from circumstances con-
nected with that party. She turned
out a bad lot, sir. I should be the last
to speak disrespectfully of a lady, and
of a lady connected with ourselves, as
I may say ; but I have heard our gen-
tlemen say that Mrs. Hammersley's
conduct was very bad.”
“She left him, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir; ran away from him, after
they’d been married little better than
six months, with a gentleman they say
she was engaged to before she kept
company with Mr. Hammersley. The
marriage was her father's doing, so I’ve
heald ; and when this gentleman, who
78
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
was captain in the army, came home
from India, she ran away with him.
They went to Orstend and suchlike
places together, and two months after-
wards the captain was found dead early
one September morning, shot through
the heart, on the sands at Blankenburg.
There was a great piece of work. Every
one thought it was a duel, and that Mr.
Hammersley had killed him ; but he
was supposed to be in London at the
time, no one had seen him or heard of
him in Belgium, and they never tried
to bring it home to him. The matter
dropped after a little while. Mr. Ham-
mersley got a divorce soon after, and left
England directly his case was decided.”
“And what became of the lady ?”
asked the Colonel, curious to know the
fate of a creature so lost.
“I’ve never heard, sir. She made no
defence in the Divorce Court. It would
go rather hard with her, I should think,
the captain being dead, unless her friend
took her back, which don’t seem likely.”
“Poor wretch! Do you remember
the man's name P”
“What, the captain, sir?
it times and often.
United gentleman.
Chandos ? No.
Champney.”
Colonel Benyon remembered the
name, but not the man ; he was in a line
regiment, altogether an obscure person
compared with the dashing colonel of
Bengal cavalry. He had not even heard
of the scandal connected with the poor
fellow’s death. IIe had never been an
eager devourer of English newspapers,
unless they had some bearing on the
politics of martial India; so whatever
mention there had been of Champney’s
death and Hammersley’s divorce had
escaped him.
He left the Athenaeum and strolled
into his own club, the Senior United
Service, very much cast down. He
ordered his dinner; it was growing dusk
by this time; and the coffee-room had
an empty and even sepulchral look,
with lamps glimmering here and there
in the twilight, like the religious gloom
of some Egyptian temple. Modern
architects have a knack of giving an air
of Carthage or Babylon to their public
dining-rooms.
I’ve heard
He was a Junior-
Let me see—was it
Champney—Captain
After dinner the Colonel wrote to his
old friend an honest straightforward
epistle, touching lightly upon Frederick
Hammersley's trouble, but withal full
of manly sympathy; not such a flowery
missive as the Orestes of a French novel
would have addressed to his Pylades
under the like circumstances, but a
thorough English letter. If Hammer-
sley were within any accessible distance,
the Colonel proposed to join him as soon
as he was strong enough for the jour-
ney.
“I am on leave for my health, and
for that alone,” he wrote; “and I do not
see why I should not get well as fast,
or perhaps faster abroad than I should
in England. I have scarcely an associ-
ation in this country that I care to renew.
I am not even eager to visit that stern
old Scottish barrack where you and I
once hunted the Caledonian boar or stag
in an autumnal holiday, and which now
belongs to me. In short, I have out-
lived most of the illusions of life, and
have nothing left, save a belief in friend-
ship where you are concerned. Let me
come, my dear Hammersley, unless
solitude is your fixed humor; but do
not say yes if inclination says no.”
Colonel Benyon addressed this letter
to his friend under cover to Messrs.
Coutts; and having dome this, he felt
almost as if he had no more to do until
the wanderer's reply came. The waiters
at the United Service told him that
London was empty—in a fashionable
sense a veritable desert. Yet no doubt
there were people he knew to be found
in the great city, and there were thea-
tres enough open for his amusement had
he cared to visit them; but he had lost
his relish for the modern drama fifteen
years before ; so he went home to the
British, read the papers, and drank the
weakest decoction of soda-and-brandy
until an hour or so after midnight.
He had a little business to transact
with his army agent next day, and an
interview with a stockbroker in Warn-
ford-court, to whom he intrusted the in-
vestment of those moneys which had
accumulated during his absence. On
the day after he made a round of calls
at the houses of his old acquaintances;
and had reason to acknowledge the truth
of the waiter's assertion as to the bar.
COLONEL BENYON's ENTANGLEMENT.
79
renness of civilized London. Every
one best worth seeing was away. There
were two or three business men, who
professed themselves the most miserable
drudges in the great mill which is al-
ways grinding everything into money;
here and there in that obscurer region
beyond Eaton Square he found a homely
matron who lamented her inability to
take the dear children to the seaside
until Edwin or Augustus should be able
to leave that tiresome office in the city;
and who seemed unaffectedly rejoiced to
see the Colonel; but the choicer spirits
among his old circle — the dessus du
panier—were away yachting off Cowes,
or gambling in Germany. Altogether
the day was a dreary one. Colonel
Benyon was glad to return to the soli-
tude of his hotel and the intellectual
refreshment of the evening papers.
After this he idled away a week in re-
visiting such familiar haunts of his early
manhood as he cared to see again. The
contemplation of them gave him very
little pleasure; that one brief letter of
Julia Dursay's seemed to have taken all
the sunshine out of his nature. There
was a settled bitterness in his mind—a
sense that outside his profession there
was nothing in the world worth living
for.
Nearly a fortnight went by before
there came any answer from Mr. Ham-
mersley ; and the Colonel felt that he
could shape no plan for his holiday till
he received his friend's reply. The let-
ter came at last—a letter that went to
Herbert Benyon's heart; for it told him
in a few words how dire a death-blow
had shattered his friend’s life.
“No, my dear Benyon,” wrote the
exile, whose letter was dated from a
small town in Norway; “you must not
join me. The day may come, God on-
ly knows when, in which I may be fit-
ter for a friend's companionship ; but
at present I am too miserable a creature
to inflict my society upon any one I care
for. I have been roughing it in this
country for the last six months, and like
the fishing, the primitive life, and sim-
ple friendly people; but I doubt if such
an existence in such a climate as this
Would suit an Anglo-Indian valetudina-
rian, even supposing I were decent com-
pally. I write in all candor, you see,
my dear Benyon, and I do not think
you will doubt my regard for you be-
cause, under the bitter influence of an
affliction which happily few men can
measure, I shrink even from your com-
panionship.
“And now I have a proposition to
make to you. You are home on sick-
leave, you tell me, and really in need of
perfect rest. I have a house in the ex-
treme west of Cornwall—a cottage in
a garden of roses, within sight of the
sea—which I think would suit you to a
nicety, if I can persuade you to make
your home there for the next few
months. The place is full of bitter as-
sociations for me, and I doubt if there
is another living creature to whom I
would offer it ; but I shall be heartily
glad if you will inhabit a spot that
was once very dear to me. The climate
is almost equal to Madeira; and if you
have any inclination left for that kind
of thing, there is plenty of shooting and
hunting to be had in the neighborhood.
I have a couple of old servants in charge
of the place, to whom I shall write by
this post, telling them to hold themselves
ready for your reception; so you will
have nothing to do but put yourself in-
to the train at Paddington any morning
you please, and go straight through to
Penjudah, from which station a seven-
mile drive will carry you to Treward-
ell, by which barbarous name my place
is known. If you would drop a line to
Andrew Johns, Trewardell, near Pen-
judah, beforehand, to announce your
coming, he would meet you at the station
with a dogcart. There are a couple of
good hacks in the stable, and a hunter
I used to ride two years ago, which is,
I fancy, about up to your weight.”
The offer was a tempting one, and
after some hesitation the Colonel deci-
ded upon accepting it. Cornwall was
a new country to him—a remote semi-
barbarous land, he fancied, still pervad-
ed by the Phoenicians and King Arthur;
a land that had been more civilized two
thousand years ago than to-day; a land
with which Solomon had had trading
relations in the way of metal; a land
where, at some unknown period, the
children of Israel had worked as slaves
in the mines; a land of which one might
believe anything and everything, in fact,
30
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
There was some smack of adventure in
the idea of going to take possession of
his absent friend's house, some faint fla-
vor of romance in the whole business.
It would be dull, of course ; but the Col-
onel liked solitude, and found himself
year by year less inclined for the kind
of life most people consider pleasant.
He might have spent his autumn in half
a dozen fine old country houses, and re-
ceived unlimited petting from their fair
inhabitants, if he had desired that kind
of thing; but he did not. He only
wanted to recover his old health and vig-
or, and then to go back to India.
He wrote to Mr. Andrew Johns, in-
forming that worthy of the probable
time of his arrival; and three days af-
terwards turned his back upon the great
city, and sped away westwards across the
fields, where the newly-cut stubble was
still bright and yellow, onward through
a region where the land was red, then
away skirting the edge of the bright
blue water, across Isambard Brunel's
wonderful bridge at Saltash, and then
along a narrow line that flies over deep
gorges in the woodland, through a fair
and lonely landscape to the little station
of Penjudah.
It was dusk in the late summer even-
ing when the traveller heard the bar-
barous name of the place called out
with the unfamiliar Cornish accent by
a stalwart Cornish porter. The train,
which had been about a quarter of a
mile long when it left Paddington, had
dwindled to a few carriages, and those
were for the most part empty. Penju-
dah seemed the very end of the world.
The perfect quiet of the place almost
startled the Colonel as he stood upon
the platform, looking round about him
in the faint gray evening light. He
found himself deep in the heart of a
wooded valley, with no sign of human
life within sight except the two officials
who made up the staff of Penjudah sta-
tion. There was a balmy odor of pines,
and a subdued rustle of leaves lightly
stirred by the warm west wind. Among
the Indian hills he could scarcely re-
member a scene more lonely. A rabbit
ran down a wooded bank and scudded
across the line while he was looking
about him. The guard told him after-
wards that scores of these vermin might
be seen playing about the line at odd
times. The trains were not frequent
enough to scare them.
Outside the station the Colonel found
an elderly man-servant, out of livery,
with a smart dogcart and a capital horse.
This was Andrew Johns. He hand-
ed the reins to the traveller, and took
his seat behind in charge of Colonel
Benyon's portmanteaus; and a few min-
utes afterwards the Colonel was driving
up a hilly road that wound across the
twilit woods. That seven miles’ drive to
Trewardell was all up and down hill.
The Colonel had rarely encountered a
stiffer road even in the East, but the
landscape, dimly seen in that dubious
light, seemed to him very beautiful; and
he was glad that he had accepted his
friend’s offer. From the top of one of
the hills he caught a glimpse of the dis-
tant sea ; on the summit of another
there was a stretch of commonland, and
a tall obelisk that served as a beacon
for all the countryside, a monumental
tribute to a great Indian soldier.
Something over half an hour brought
them into a valley, where there was a
church with a square tower surmounted
with stone pinnacles, a church of some
pretension for a parish which consisted
of about half a dozen houses. Close to
the church were the gates of Trewar-
dell. They stood open to receive the
stranger; and after a winding drive
through a shrubbery, the Colonel saw
the lighted windows of a long low white-
walled cottage half smothered in foli-
age and flowers.
Mrs. Johns and a fat-faced housemaid
were waiting in the hall, and a male
hanger-on in corduroy and a stable-
jacket was in attendance to receive the
horse. Everything within looked bright
and homelike; one might have fancied
the house in full occupation. The hall
was low and wide, with panelled walls
painted white, and hung with water-
colored sketches prettily framed. The
dining-room was a comfortable square
apartment, with light oak furniture of
the modern mediaeval order, and dark
blue silk hangings. The drawing-room
opened out of it, and was more of a
boudoir or lady's morning-room than an
actual drawing-room. Everywhere, in
the dining-room, and even in the en-
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT. - 8 I
trance-hall, there were books, from
ponderous folios (choice editions on
elephant-paper) to the daintiest duode-
cimos in white-vellum binding. There
was a brightness and prettiness about
everything which the Colonel never re-
membered to have noticed in any house
before. It looked like a home that had
been made beautiful by the hands of a
lover preparing a bower for his bride.
“A woman must have been hard to
please who could not make herself hap-
py here, and with so good a fellow as
Fred Hammersley,” he said to him-
self.
An excellent dinner had been pre-
pared for him, at which repast the
versatile Mr. Johns waited, and proved
himself an admirable butler. The
Colonel asked him a good many ques-
tions about the neighborhood in the
course of the meal, to all of which Mr.
Johns replied with considerable intel-
ligence ; but he uttered no word about
his absent master, or of the kind of ex-
istence that he had led there in the brief
period of his wedded life.
It was ten o'clock when Colonel
Benyon had finished dinner, a warm
moonlit night; so he went out to ex-
plore the gardens and enjoy his evening
smoke. It might be very long before
any feminine presence would lend its
grace to those bright-looking rooms;
but Herbert Benyon would as soon have
thought of committing sacrilege as of
desecrating his friend's house with the
odor of tobacco. A woman had left
the impress of her individuality upon
everything. The pretty water-colored
sketches in the hall were signed by a
woman's hand; in the drawing-room
there were caskets and writing-cases,
Work-baskets and photographic albums
—innumerable trifles that were unmis-
takably a woman’s belongings. It seem-
ed as if everything had been religiously
preserved exactly as the traitress had
left it. Colonel Denyon could fancy
her last look round this room, or fancied
that he could fancy it. There was a
low arm-chair on one side of the fire-
place, with a gem of a work table beside
it—her seat, of course. How often had
she sat there meditating treason, with
her husband sitting opposite to her per-
haps, watching her fondly all the while,
and thanking God for having given him
so sweet, a wife
“Confound the woman | * muttered
the Colonel impatiently; “I can't get her
out of my mind.”
It did indeed seem to him to-night as
if that false wife had left an evil influ-
ence upon the scene of her iniquity. He
could not feel at ease in the house; he
could not help wondering and specula-
ting about that lost creature.
“Where is she now 2° he asked him-
self; and then there arose before him
an image of her sitting alone in some
Sordid continental lodging, poor, friend-
less, desolate; or worse, flaunting on a
Parisian boulevard, in the livery of sin.
Do what he would, he could not help
thinking of her.
“It will wear off in time, I suppose,”
he said to himself; “but upon my word,
if I were her husband, I could scaréely
worry myself more about her.”
He went out into the gardens, and
roamed about amongst the flower-beds,
and in the darksome shrubbery-paths,
smoking and communing with himself
for more than an hour. The grounds
of Trewardell were spacious and lovely,
quite out of proportion with the humble
pretensions of the house. There was
a lake on one side of the lawn, on the
other a group of fine old plane-trees;
beyond these a short avenue of elms
leading to a meadow that looked almost
a park. The soft night air was heavy
with the perfume of myrtle and mag
nolia.
“The place is a perfect Eden,” said
the Colonel ; “but I wish I had not been
told the history of Eve and the Ser-
pent.”
CHAPTER II.
‘Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly
theme.’
For the first fortnight of his sojourn
atTrewardell, Colonel Benyon's Cornish
experiences were altogether agreeable.
The weather was brilliant ; and in a
county much given to moisture he was
not inconvenienced by a single shower.
There was plenty for him to see within
a day’s ride : here a ruined castle, there
6
82
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
a nobleman's seat renowned amongst
the show places of the west; and during
those first two weeks the Colonel spent
the greater part of every day in the
saddle ; or on foot, tramping over sun-
burnt hills high above a broad sweep of
sea, while his horse rested at some
solitary rustic inn. He was somewhat
inclined to forget how short a time had
gone by since he was lying in his In-
dian bungalow, well-nigh given over
by the regimental doctors. Perhaps
in that first fortnight of genuine enjoy-
ment he sowed the seeds of a mischief
which was to overtake him by and by.
The third week brought him into Sep-
tember, and he had a good time of it
among the partridges, with Andrew
Johns for his guide and counsellor. For
three consecutive mornings the two men
set out at daybreak when the dew was
heavy upon the ground, and tramped
over miles of stubble and turnip-field
before breakfast. On the fourth day
the Colonel suddenly knocked under,
and told Mr. Johns that he had had
enough, just for the present. Partridge-
shooting was all very well in its way;
but there were shooting-pains in the
Colonel's limbs, and a dull perpetual
aching in the Colonel's shoulders which
a man of forty rarely cares to cultivate.
There was a drizzling rain, too, upon
that fourth day of September ; and
Colonel Benyon was very glad to find
a blazing fire in the bright-looking
dawing-room, wherein he had a knack
of painting imaginary scenes—scenes
out of that tragical drama of which
Flora Hammersley had been the
heroine.
In his enforced idleness to-day, the
thought of his friend’s sorrow, and this
woman’s sin, haunted him more vividly
than ever. That young soldier lying
dead in the chill autumn sunrise on the
sands near Plankenburg, slain by a
hand that had never before been lifted
to do a cruel thing—the hand of a gen-
erous single-minded man. As to the
fact of Fred Hammersley’s share in
this transaction, Colonel Benyon felt no
doubt. His friend had killed the se-
ducer. It was the thing he would have
done himself, unhesitatingly, under like
circumstances. He walked up and down
the room. He had read yesterday's
Times and Globe, Standard and Tele-
graph, and there was no more mental
pabulum for him till a post came in—
per special messenger on pony from the
nearest post-town—at five o’clock P. M.
At another time Mr. Hammersley’s
splendid library might have afforded
him ample entertainment; but to-day
he was in no humor for books; he had
opened half a dozen or so, and after
skimming a page or two absently, had
put each volume back on its particular
shelf. He could not fasten his mind
upon any subject.
The rain came down in a monotonous
hopeless way; even the standard roses
on the lawn outside had a dreary look.
The Colonel longed, like Horace Wal-
pole, to bring them indoors and put
them by the fire. Sometimes Colonel
Benyon stood staring out at the deluged
garden ; sometimes he threw himself
into a low arm-chair by the fire, and
amused himself by a savage demolition
of the coals; anon he paced the room
again, pausing now and then, in an idle
way, to examine some one of those
womanly trifles whose presence remind-
ed him of the lost mistress of Trewar-
dell.
The day seemed interminable. He
was glad when it grew dark ; still more
glad of the slight distraction afforded
by his seven-o’clock dinner, though he
had no appetite—an utter distaste for
food, indeed—and a burning thirst.
“I feel very much as I used to feel
at the beginning of my fever,” he said
to himself, a little alarmed by these
symptoms, and by the heaviness and
aching of his limbs. “God forbid that
I should have another spell of it !”
Andrew Johns had gone to the mar-
ket-town on business connected with the
victualling of the small household ; and
Mrs. Johns had put on a black-silk
gown and her best cap to wait upon the
Colonel, not caring to trust that delicate
office to the fat-faced rustic handmaiden.
“The girls we get hereabouts are so
rough,” she said ; “and this one has
never been used to much out of the
dairy. We had a houseful of servants
when Mr. Hammersley lived here; but
since he's gone abroad there's been scar-
cely enough work for me and a girl.”
The dame gave a profound sigh.
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
83
Colonel Benyon perceived that she was
garrulously given, and perceived that if
he had a mind to hear about his friend's
history in this house, it would not
require any great effort to set Mrs.
Johns discoursing thereupon.
“Do try one of those red mullet, sir;
I dressed them with my own hands.
It’s a sauce that Mr. Hammersley was
fond of—poor dear gentleman l’’
Here came another profound sigh;
and the dame lingered, trifling absently
with the arrangements of the sideboard,
as if willing to be questioned.
“You seem to have been very fond
of your master,” said the Colonel.
“We shouldn’t be much account if
we weren't fond of him,” replied Mrs.
Johns. “He was as good a master as
ever lived. We'd known him from a
boy, too. He used to come down to
Penrose Abbey for his holidays in the
old Squire's time—Mr. Penrose; you’ve
heard tell of him, I daresay, sir. Andrew
and me were butler and cook at Pen-
rose for twenty years. Mr. Hammers-
ley was only a distant relation to the
Squire, you see, sir, and nobody thought
that he’d come in for all the property ;
but he did. I suppose Mr. Penrose
took a fancy to him when he was a
boy; but there were plenty more young
nephews and cousins on the look-out
for his money, I can tell you.”
“Did Mr. Penrose ever live here P’’
“No, sir. Trewardell was his mother's
place, and it was shut up after her
death. But since Mr. Hammersley
came into the estate, the abbey has
been kept as a show house. He didn’t
care to live there; it was cold and
gloomy, he said; and he took a fancy
to this place, and had it done up against
his marriage—a power of money he
spent upon it, to be sure. But, dear
me, sir, you haven’t eat a mouthful of
that mullet. Perhaps you don’t like
the sauce P”
“It’s excellent, my dear Mrs. Johns,
but I really have no appetite this eve-
ning.” -
“And there’s a boiled fowl with stew-
ed artichokes, and a brace of those birds
you shot the day before yesterday. I
hope you’ll eat something, sir.”
“I’m sorry to do injustice to such
good cooking ; but upon my word, I
can’t eat a morsel. If you'll make me
a stiffish glass of brandy-and-water, as
hot as you can make it, I think perhaps
it might do me some good. I had a bad
fever in India, and seem to have a touch
of my old enemy to-night.”
“Wouldn’t you like Andrew to ride
back for the doctor, as soon as he comes
in 2 or I could send one of the men at
once, sir.”
“On no account. Pray don’t make
an invalid of me. I walked a little too
far after the partridges yesterday; I
daresay I’ve knocked myself up, that's
all. Even if I should feel worse, which
I don't expect, I’ve some medicine in
my dressing-case.”
Mrs. Johns mixed the brandy-and-
water with an anxious face, and watched
the Colonel while he drank ic. Then
she persuaded him to return to the
drawing-room, where she ensconced him
luxuriously in an easy-chair by the fire,
with a tiger-skin carriage-rug over his
knees.
“Don’t hurry away, Mrs. Johns,” he
said, after duly acknowledging her at-
tention. “I like to hear you talk of my
poor friend Hammersley ; sit down by
the fire, do, there's a good soul. That's
right ; it looks quite comfortable and
homelike to see you sitting there. I
could almost fancy I’d discovered some
treasure in the way of an aunt. I can't
tell you how dreary I’ve felt all day.
My mind has been running perpetually
upon poor Hammersley and his wife. It's
no use speaking of them to your hus-
band ; if I do, he tightens up his lips in
a most impenetrable way, and is dumb
immediately.”
“Yes, sir, that's just like Andrew,” re-
plied the dame, smoothing her white-
muslin apron and settling herself com-
fortably in the chair opposite the Colo-
nel’s ; “I think he'd lie down on the
ground for his master to walk over him ;
but you can never get him to talk about
him, nor of her either, poor soul!”
“She behaved so badly, and worked
such ruin, that I almost wonder you
can find it in your heart to pity her,”
said the Colonel.
The good woman sighed again, and
shook her head dubiously.
“You see, I knew her, sir,” she re.
plied ; “and it isn't likely I could bring
S4
COLONEI, BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT. º
*
rest of the world. She was such a noble
generous ereature, no one could ever
have thought she would do such a wicked
thing. She hadn't been here very long
before I found out that the love was all
on one side in that marriage. She was
very gentle and winning in all her ways
towards her husband ; but she didn't
care for him, and never had cared for
him, and never would ; that was plain
enough to me. And she wasn't happy :
do what he would to please her, he
couldn't make her happy. There was
a look in her face of missing something
—a sort of blank look ; and whenever
her husband was away—though good-
ness knows that was not often—she
would roam about the house in a rest-
less way that gave one the dismals only
to wateh her.”
“Did he see that she was unhappy,
do you think?” asked the Colonel.
“No, sir, I don't think he did ; and
that's why it came upon him like a thun-
derclap when she ran away. He was so
bent upon making her happy, that I
think he believed she was so. He was so
proud of her too. Everybody admired
her. She was the loveliest woman in
the county, they said, though the west is
famous for pretty women; and she was
so clever—such a sweet singer. It was
she who painted all the pictures in this
room and in the hall. It was Mr. Ham-
mersley’s fancy to have none but what
she had painted.”
“Did she belong to this part of the
country?”
“O dear no, sir. Her family were
Suffolk people, I’ve heard say; her
father was a colonel in the Indian army
and there was a very large family of
them— not too well off, I believe ; so
of course it was a very good match for
her. I suppose she married to please
her friends; such things seem com-
mon enough nowadays. She was always
very sweet-spoken and affable with me.
One day when I was talking to her of
a son of mine—my only child, that
died young—she said, “Ah, Mrs. Johns,
I have my dead too !” and I fancied she
was speaking of some sweetheart very
like that she’d had in time past.”
“Did Captain Champney come here
as Iſammersley's friend?”
myself to think as hardly of her as the
“No, sir; he nover came to this house
at all ; she must have met him out of
doors. It was summer time, midsum-
mer, and very sultry weather. Mr. Ham-
mersley was up in London on business
connected with his estate. IIe was to
be away a week at most, and he had
wanted her to go with him ; but she
wouldn't, not being over well or strong
at the time. She'd had a low nervous
fever in the spring, that had pulled
her down a good deal. It was the morn-
ing after her husband left—I remember
it all as well as if it was yesterday—
she had been out in the village and
round about the lanes visiting the poor
—she was a rare hand at that always
and she came in at one of those
windows while I was dusting the china
in this room. I never shall forget her.
Her face was as white as a sheet, and she
walked in a strange tottering way, with
her eyes fixed, until she came right up
against me. Then she gave a start, and
dropped into the nearest chair, half
fainting. I brought her a glass of water
and asked her what had happened. ‘O,
Mrs. Johns,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen a
ghost ' ' I couldn’t get her to say
more than this ; and all the rest of the
day she was shut up in her room. The
next day there came a messenger with
a letter for her, and late in the after-
noon the same man came again with
another letter. They were both from
the Captain, of course ; but all that
day she never stirred outside the doors,
not so much as to go into the gardens,
though it was a splendid summer day.
Early the next morning there came
another letter, and in the afternoon she
went out. She wore her garden-hat and
a light muslin dress, and she took
nothing with her. I could lay my life
that when she left the house that after-
moon she had no thought of going away :
but she never came back.”
“Were the two seen together in this
neighborhood P”
“Yes; a lad met Mrs. Hammersley
and a strange gentleman in Farmer
Goldman’s Field—there’s a short cut
across that way to the Penjudah road
—she had her hands clasped over her
face, and was sobbing as if her heart
would break, the boy said, and the gen-
tleman was talking to her very earn-
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
| 85
estly. The boy turned and watched
them. They loitered about, talking for
half an hour or so, Mrs. Hammersley
crying almost all the time ; and then
the boy saw them get into a close car-
riage that had been waiting in the Pen-
judah road, and heard the gentleman
tell the man to drive to the station.
This was about four o'clock in the af-
ternoon, and the Plymouth train leaves
Penjudah at a quarter to five. It came
out afterwards that Captain Champney
had been staying at the Rose and Crown
at Penjudah, and had hired a close fly
on that day. The driver could tell all
the rest—how he had waited above an
hour in the road near Trewardell, and
picked up a lady there.”
“How soon did Hammersley learn
what had happened P”
“My husband telegraphed to him
that night, and he was back early the
next evening. He was very quiet. I
never saw any one take a great blow so
quietly. He didn’t bluster or rave, as
some gentlemen would have done ; but
he sat in the library for one whole day,
writing letters and seeing every one
who had anything to tell him, while
Andrew was about making inquiries
quietly in every direction. There was
no fuss or talk, considering, and it was
only a few people knew anything of
what had happened. As soon as Mr.
Hammersley had heard all he could
hear in this place he started off—after
those two, I suppose ; and that's the last
we ever saw of him. He wrote to An-
drew soon after, telling him how the
house was to be kept up, and so on ;
and that was all.”
“You heard of Captain Champney’s
death, I suppose P” said the Colonel.
“Yes,” Mrs. Johns replied, with a
doubtful air, “we did hear that he was
dead.”
“And you heard the strange manner
of his death, no doubt P”
“We saw something in the papers,
but didn’t take much heed of it,” re-
plied Mrs. Johns, with an air of not
caring to pursue this subject.
The Colonel did not press it. There
was no doubt in his own mind as to the
hand that had slain Captain Champney,
and he fancied that Mrs. Johns shared
his conviction upon that subject.
“IIave you ever heard what became
of Mrs. Hammersley 2" he asked pres-
ently.
“Not a word, sir. That’s what makes
me pity her sometimes, in spite of my-
self. It’s a hard thing for her to be left
like that, without a soul to care for her
—him that she sinned for dead and
gone. She may be starving somewhere,
poor misguided creature without a
roof to cover her perhaps, and these
empty rooms looking as if they were
waiting for her all the while, with all
the pretty things she was so fond of
just as she left them. It always gives
me the heartache to think of her, or to
touch any of the things that belonged
to her.”
“Was it Hammersley's wish that the
place should be kept just as she left
it 2 ''
“Yes, sir, that was one of his orders
in the letter of instruction that he wrote
to my husband before he left England.”
“Is there no portrait of her anywhere
about the house * *
“No sir. There was a likeness of
her, painted by some great artist in
London, but I never saw that after the
day when Mr. Hammersley came back
and found her gone. Whether he de-
stroyed it in secret that day, or put it
away somewhere under lock and key, I
can’t tell. I only know that when I
came into this room next morning the
picture was gone. There's the blank
space where it hung just above your
head.”
The Colonel looked up. Yes, there
was the empty panel. On the opposite
side of the fireplace there was a por-
trait of his friend, little more than a
head, against a dark background, bold
and truthful, by the hand of John
Philip. He had made a shrewd guess
why the companion picture was miss-
l]] O.
#e had been so much interested in
the housekeeper's talk as almost to for-
get his pain and weariness; but by this
time the stimulating effect of his dose
of brandy-and-water had worn off, and
he felt really ill, quite as ill as when
the first warning of his fever came upon
him up the country.
“I’m afraid I’m in for it, Mrs.
Johns,” he said, with a faint groan
86
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be very ill.
Rather hard upon you and your hus-
band, isn’t it, and not in the bond 2 My
friend lent me his house to get well in ;
he didn't bargain for my falling ill in
it.”
Mrs. Johns did her best to console
and cheer him with assurances that his
symptoms indicated nothing more than
a cold and a little over-fatigue.
“A cold's a hazardous thing for a
man in my condition, my good soul,”
said the Colonel, and I was a fool to
overdo it with those long tramps over
the damp stubble. The doctor who sent
me home gave me all manner of solemn
warnings as to what I might and might
not do, and I'm afraid I’ve paid very
little attention to any of them. How-
ever, I’ll go to bed at once, take a dose
of the fellow’s medicine, and wrap my-
self in a blanket. Perhaps I may be
all right in the morning. But if I
should be worse, you’d better telegraph
to Plymouth for one of the best medical
men there. Don’t put me in the hands
of a local doctor.”
Mrs. Johns promised to obey these
instructions, still protesting that the
Colonel would be better in the morn-
ing; and then hurried off to see that
there was a blazing fire made in his bed-
room, and to provide one of her thick-
est blankets in which to envelop him.
CHAPTER III.
“Ah, homeless as the leaf that winds have
blown,
To earth—in this wide world I stand alone.”
THE Colonel's dismal prophecy was
but too faithfully realized. The next
morning found him in a raging fever,
with a furred tongue, bloodshot eyes, a
galloping pulse, and racking pains in his
limbs. It was no case of infection, no
village epidemic. The Colonel had
simply, in his own language, overdone
it.
Mrs. Johns opined that this was the
beginning of a rheumatic fever; but she
still kept up her cheery tone to the pa-
tient, looking anxiously all the while
for the advent of the Plymouth doctor.
IIe did not come till sunset, by which
time the Colonel was worse. After
making a careful examination of his pa.
tient, and questioning Mrs. Johns closely
as to the Colonel’s antecedents, the
physician sat down to write a prescrip-
tion.
“It is not so much a question of
physic as of care,” he said, “You have
not called in any one from the neigh-
borhood yet, I suppose?”
“No, sir. Colonel Benyon begged
me not to call in any one of that kind,
or else I should have sent at once for
Mr. Borlase.”
“Never mind what the Colonel says.
Let your husband call for Mr. Borlase,
and get this prescription made up. He
can ask Mr. Borlase to come back with
him and see me. Or, let me see, there’ll
scarcely be time for that. I can call
on Borlase as I drive back to the station,
and explain matters. Mr. Borlase will
watch the case for me.”
“But you'll come to see him again,
Sir P”
“Most decidedly. This is Friday.
I shall come again on Monday by the
same train. The case is rather a crit-
ical one.” *
“You don’t think there's any danger,
Sir 2 °’
“Not immediate danger ; but the
man’s constitution has been undermined
by hard work and illness in India, and
he's not a good subject for rheumatic
fever. However, I shall be able to say
more on Monday. In the mean time
the grand question is good nursing. I
think I had better send you a profes-
sional nurse.”
Mrs. Johns protested her ability to
nurse the Colonel herself; but the
physician shook his head.
“My good creature, you have your
house to look after,” he said, “and that
poor fellow will want constant watch-
ing. We must expect delirium in such
a case. You and your husband must
contrive to look after him to-night, and
I will send you a reliable person early
to-morrow morning.”
Having made this promise, the doc-
tor got into the fly from the Rose and
Crown, and drove back to Penjudah,
where he had a brief interview with
Mr. Borlase, who came out of his trim-
looking stone house and stood upon the
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
37
pavement before his door, while the
great man talked to him out of the fly.
“I shall send a nurse from Plymouth
to-morrow morning,” said the physician.
“There’s no one about here, I suppose,
that one could depend upon for such a
case ?”
“I don’t know about that,” replied
Mr. Borlase. “There's a person I've
had a good deal to do with lately
amongst my very poor patients, and if
you could only get her, you'd find her a
treasure ; but whether she would attend
a wealthy person as a paid servant is
a question I can’t answer. She has
only nursed the poor hereabouts, and
evidently does it as a pious duty. I
fancy, from her dress and manner, that
she belongs to some religious community
—not exactly Roman Catholic perhaps,
but very near it.”
“Who is she P”
“A Mrs. Chapman—a widow ; poor
herself, I suppose, for she occupies very
humble lodgings in Bolter's-row, at the
other end of the town. She never takes
payment from any one ; indeed she
only attends a class that are quite un-
able to pay. She is a young woman,
fragile-looking, and very pretty; but
she is the best nurse I ever met with.”
“I don’t think the Colonel will object
to her youth and good looks,” said the
doctor, laughing. = “That kind of thing
is much pleasantº in a sick room than
some gorgon of the Gamp species. Have
you known this Mrs. Chapman long?”
“Not long. She has only been here
three months; but I have seen a great
deal of her in that time; and I can an-
swer for her patience and devotion.”
“I’ve half an hour to spare before
my train starts. I’ll go down to Bol-
ter's-row, and have a look at this par-
agon of yours.”
“I’m sure you’ll be pleased with her ;
but I very much doubt your being able
to get her to do what we want,” said Mr.
Borlase.
“We'll see about that,” answered the
physician, who had some confidence in
his own powers of persuasion. “You
say the woman is poor. She’ll scarcely
care to decline an advantageous offer, I
should think. Good-night, Borlase. Be
sure you go to Trewardell the first thing
to-morrow.”
With this injunction the doctor drove
away down the little hilly High-street
to the outskirts of Penjudah, where he
alighted, and groped his way along a
narrow alley of queer old-fashioned
cottages, so crooked that they seemed
Scarcely able to support themselves in a
standing position.
Upon inquiring for Mrs. Chapman,
he was directed to the last house in Bol-
ter's-row, and here he was ushered into
a tiny sitting-room, daintily neat, and
with an air of freshness and prettiness
that struck him as something beyond
the common graces of poverty. The
room was dimly lighted by one candle,
beside which a woman sat reading; a
slim fragile creature in a black gown
and a white muslin cap of some peculiar
fashion, a cap which concealed almost
every vestige of her hair, and gave a
nunlike aspect to her pale thin face. .
The doctor felt at once that this was
no vulgar sick-nurse. This was not a
woman to whom he could broadly offer
money as an inducement to her to de-
part from her established round of duty.
IIe told her his errand, told her what
he had heard from Mr. Borlase, and how
anxious he was to secure her services
for a gentleman lying dangerously ill.
“It is quite impossible,” she said, in
a sweet firm voice. “I nurse only the
very poor.”
“You belong to some sisterhood, I
suppose P’’ said the physician.
“No ; I belong to no sister hood,” she
answered, with something that was half
bitterness, half sorrow in her tone ; “I
stand quite alone in the world.”
“Pray pardon me; I thought by
your dress you might be a member of
one of those communities so numerous
nowadays.”
“No, sir. It is a simple dress, and
suits my circumstances; that is my only
reason for wearing it. I have made
my own line of duty, and try to follow
it.”
“I wonder you should have chosen
so obscure a place as Penjudah as a
field for your charitable work. Do you
belong to this part of the country?”
“No. The place is quiet, and I can
live cheaply here. Up to this time I
have always found plenty of work.”
“The duty you have chosen is a very
88
COLONEL BENYON's ENTANGLEMENT.
noble one, and the sacrifice most admi-
rable in so young a woman.”
“It is no sacrifice for me,’ she answer-
ed decisively; and the doctor felt he
had no right to ask any more questions.”
He pressed his request very warmly,
however; so much so, that at last Mrs.
Chapman seemed almost inclined to
yield.
“You have owned that you have no
pressing duties in Penjudah just now,”
he said, when they had been talking
together for some time ; “and I do
assure you that you will be performing
a real act of charity in looking after
this poor fellow at Trewardell.”
It was the first time he had mention-
ed the name of the place.
“At Trewardell, did you say ?” asked
Mrs. Chapman.
* Yes. It's a gentleman's house, seven
miles from here ; a charming place.
This Colonel Benyon is a friend of the
owner, who has lived abroad for some
years. Pray, now, consider the case,
and extend your charity to this poor
man, Mrs. Chapman. Remember it's
not as if he were in the bosom of his
family. He's quite alone, with no one
in the house but servants, and a stran-
ger in the land, as one may say. Of
course I might send a nurse from Ply-
mouth, as I intended in the first case;
but after what Mr. Borlase told me, I
set my heart upon having you.”
“Mr. Borlase is very good. I will
come.”
He had expected to conquer in the
end, but had not expected her to yield
so suddenly.
“You will ! That's capital; and allow
me to say that, as far as remuneration
goes, you will be quite at liberty to
name your own terms.”
“Pray do not mention that. I could
not possibly take payment for my ser-
vices. I shall come to Colonel Benyon
as I should to the poorest patient in
Penjudah.”
“Do just what you please, only come ;
and the sooner the better.”
“I can come immediately—to-night,
if you please.”
“I should be very glad if you will do
so. I am just off to the station, and
will send my fly to take you back to
Trewardell.”
“Back to Trewardell !” Mrs. Chap.
man repeated those three last words as
if there were something strange in them.
The doctor was too hurried to notice
anything peculiar in her tone. As it
was, he ran some risk of losing his train.
He wished her good-night, and went
back to the fly.
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
* There are some things hard to understand •
Oh, help me, my God, to trust in Thee ;
But I never shall forget her soft white hand,
And her eyes when she looked at me.’
COLONEL BENYON had a hard time
of it. Again, as in his Indian bun-
galow, grim death claimed him for his
own, and was only to be kept at bay
by prodigies of care and skill ; again
the lamp of life flickered low, and for a
while the sick man lay in a land where
all was darkness, knowing no one, re-
membering nothing, and suffering the
unspeakable agonies of a mind distraught.
There is no need to describe the varia-
tions of the fever, the changes from bad
to worse, the faint improvement, the
threatened relapse. Through all that
month of September Mr. Borlase came
twice a-day, and theºPlymouth physi-
cian twice a week, to Trewardell. They
both declared themselves proud of their
victory when Herbert Benyon could be
fairly pronounced out of danger. They
both acknowledged that they owed that
victory, under Providence, to Mrs.
Chapman.
She had been indefatigable, working
and watching by day and night with a
quiet patience that knew no limit. No
other hand than hers had ever adminis-
tered the Colonel's medicine, or smooth-
ed his pillow, since she came to Tre-
wardell; no eyes but hers had watched
him in the dead of the night. It was
quite in vain that Mr. Borlase and
Mrs. Johns had urged her to accept
assistance, to let some one relieve her
of her night-watch now and then. Upon
this point she was inexorable. If she
ever slept at all, she so planned her
slumbers that they should not interfere
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
89
with her duties. Sometimes in the dusk
of the evening, when it was very nearly
dark even out of doors, she would tike
a solitary walk in the gardens for half
an hour or so. That was her only re-
Iaxation. Sweet and gentle as she was
in her manners she was rather an unap-
proachable person, and she contrived to
keep Mrs. Johns at a distance; which
was somewhat galling to that worthy
matron, who had never been able to be-
guile her into a little friendly gossip
since she entered the house.
“She's as proud as Lucifer, I do be-
lieve, in spite of her meek quiet ways,”
Mrs. Johns declared to her husband,
with an aggrieved expression of coun-
tenance. “Why, I’ve scarcely heard her
voice half-a-dozen times since she's been
here ; and I can’t say that I’ve seen
her face properly yet, that black hood
she wears overshadows it so. I hate
such popish ways.”
This hood which Mrs. Johns objected
to had certainly a somewhat conventual
aspect, and served to hide the nurse’s
pale sweet face much more than the cap
in which Dr. Matson had first seen her.
The physician perceived the change of
headgear when he came to Trewardell,
but considered it only a part of that
harmless eccentricity which might be
permitted to this lay sister of charity.
The time came at last when Herbert
Benyon awoke from that long night of
suffering and delirium to some faint
interest in external things. He had not
been unconscious all this time ; on the
contrary, for long afterwards he had a
keen remembrance of every detail of
his illness; but mixed up with all the
realities of his life had been the dreams
and delusions of fever. He knew that
throughout his illness by day and night
a slender black-robed figure had sat by
his bed-side, or flitted lightly about his
room ; he knew that a woman’s soft
hand had administered to his comforts
day after day, without change or wear-
iness; he knew that a very sweep sad
face had looked down upon him in the
dim lamplight with ineffable pity ; but
he had cherished strange fancies about
this gentle watcher. Sometimes she
was a sister he had loved very dearly,
and lost in his early youth ; sometimes
she was Lady Julia. Dursay. That she
resembled neither of them mattered
little to his wandering mind.
But this was all over now. He knew
that he was at Trewardell, and that this
black-robed woman was a stranger to
him.
It was upon a Sunday, a mild October
day, towards sunset, that he felt himself
for the first time able to speak to his
patient nurse. A broad bay-window in
his room looked westward, and he saw
the evening sky with a warm rosy light
in it, and heard the rooks cawing in
the avenue, and the church-bells ringing
for evening service.
Mrs. Chapman was sitting by the
window reading, with her hood thrown
back, and her dark-brown hair only
shrouded by her muslin cap. She did
not wear the hood always, though Mrs.
Johns had never happened to see her
without it. She had a habit of throwing .
it off at times.
The Colonel lay quite motionless,
looking at the sky and at that quiet
figure by the window, wondering dream-
ily who this woman was. Her profile
was clearly defined against the soft
light, as she sat there, unconscious that
he was watching her; and Herbert Ben-
yon thought that he had never seen a
lovelier face.
It was a spiritualised beauty, sublim-
ated by some great sorrow, the Colonel
fancied. The glory and bloom of youth
were gone, though the woman was
evidently young ; but with the loss of
these she had gained in the charm of
expression. It was a face that went to
one’s heart.
She turned from the window pres-
ently, hearing her patient stir, and came
towards the bed. He saw that her eyes
were gray, large, and dark, with a plain-
tive look in them.
“I did not know that you were awake,”
she said, gently. “ Let me alter your
pillows a little, and then I will bring
you some tea.”
It was the voice that had been with
him in all his foolish dreams. It seemed
as if he had come back to life out of a
living grave, bringing only this memory
with him. She bent over him, arranging
the pillow, which had slipped to a posi-
tion of torture on the edge of the bed.
The dexterous hands made all comfort
90
COLONEL BENYON's ENTANGLEMENT.
able in a few moments, while the lovely
face looked down upon him.
“How good you have been to me all
this time !” he said. He had uttered
protestations of gratitude and regard
many times during his delirium, but
these were the first thoroughly sensible
words he had spoken to her.
The surprise overcame her a little.
Sudden tears started to her eyes, and
she turned her head aside to hide them.
“Thank God ’’ she exclaimed earnest-
ly; “thank God . "
“ For what ?” asked the Colonel.
“That you are so much better.
“I have been very ill, then, I sup-
pose ?”
“You have been very ill.”
“Off my head, haven't I? Yes, I
know I thought myself up the country :
and that I could hear the jackals scream-
ing outside. And I am really in Corn-
wall, down at Hammersley’s place—
poor Hammersley !—and you have been
nursing me for I don’t know how long !
You see I am quite rational now. I
thought once you were my sister—a
girl who died nearly twenty years ago.”
“Yes, you are much better; but pray
do not talk. You are very weak still,
and the doctors would be angry with me
for letting you talk so much.”
“Very well. I will be as quict as a
lamb ; indeed I don’t feel capable of
disobeying you. But there is one ques-
tion that I must ask.”
“I do not mind answering one ques-
tion, if I can.”
“To what beneficent influence do I
owe your care of me? what freak of
fortune brought such a ministering angel
to my sick-bed ”’’
“I am here to perform a work of
charity, that is all,” she answered, quiet-
ly; “I am a nurse by profession.”
“But you are a lady l’ he exclaimed,
surprised.
“That does not prevent my nursing
the sick.”
“Then you do not mean that you are
a hospital nurse—a person to be engag-
ed by any one who needs your services 2 ”
“You are asking more than one ques-
tion. No ; I am not a hospital nurse,
nor do I take payment for my services.”
“I thought not,” murmured the Col-
onel, with a faint sigh of relief.
It would have shocked him, somehow
to discover that the patient watcher
whom he had mistaken now for his lost
sister—anon for his false love—was
only a hireling after all.
“I wished to perform some duty in
the world, being quite alone, and I
chose that of attendance on the sick
poor. I have never wearied of it yet.”
“And have you been long engaged
in this good work P.”
“Not very long; but you must not
talk any more. I must positively forbid
that.”
The Colonel submitted very reluct-
antly. He was so eager to know all
about this woman—this ministering
angel, as he called her in his own mind.
He repeated Scott s familiar lines in a
low voice as she moved softly about the
room making preparations for his even-
ing meal.
Betsy Jane, the fat-faced housemaid,
brought the tea-tray.
Mrs. Johns had avoided all actual
attendance on the sick-room of late,
offended by the nurse's stand-offishness.
The Colonel did not want her, she said.
He had that fine lady with her popish
headgear.
Mrs. Chapman arranged the tea-
things on the table by the bed—the
small home-baked loaf, the tiny rolls of
rich yellow butter, and a noble block of
honeycomb on a glass dish. There was
a nosegay of autumnal flowers, too, for
the embellishment of the table ; and
altogether Herbert Benyon fancied that
innocent repast the most tempting ban-
quet that had ever been spread for him.
“Please sit there, and pour out my
tea,” he said, in his weak voice. “But
see, you have forgotten your own cup
and saucer,” he added, looking at the
table.
“I will drink my tea presently.”
“You must drink it now, with me, or
I will drink none.”
She complied; it was not worth while
arguing with him about such a trifle.
She brought the second cup and saucer,
and sat where he ordered her. He
looked at her very often as he sipped
the tea she had poured out for him, and
ate bread and honey like the queen in
the famous nursery rhyme. He looked
at her, wondering what her life had
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
'91
been, with an intense curiosity only
possible to a prisoner in a sick-room.
He would have given the world to ques-
tion her farther; but that was forbidden,
to say nothing of the impertinence of
such a proceeding. He was fain to lie
there, and look at her with fixed dreamy
eyes, speculating idly about her and her
history.
The patient had taken a turn, and
the doctors rejoiced exceedingly ; but
his progress even now was very slow.
He lay for four long weeks almost as
helpless as a child, attended upon day
and night by Mrs. Chapman and a
young man out of the stables, a handy
young fellow, whose genius had been
developed by the exigences of the case,
and who made a very decent amateur
valet. How he should have endured
this dreary time without Mrs. Chap-
man's care and companionship, Herbert
Benyon could not imagine. She bright-
ened the dismal monotony of the sick-
room, and lightened his burden for him
more than words could tell; and yet
she was by no means what any one
would call a lively person. Indeed,
after that close companionship of many
weeks, Colonel Benyon could not re-
member ever having seen her smile.
But her presence had an influence upon
him that was better than commonplace
cheerfulness. She read to him, and the
low sweet voice was like music. She
talked to him, and every word helped
to reveal the wealth of a highly-culti-
wated mind. With such a companion
life could not be irksome, even in a sick-
I’OOIſl.
Before the fourth week of that first
stage of his convalescence was ended,
Colonel Benyon had made many efforts
to learn his nurse’s history ; but had
failed uttterly in the endeavor.
“My story is common enough,” she
told him once, when he said that he was
convinced there was some romance in
her life. “I have lost all that I ever
loved, and am obliged to interest my-
self in strangers.”
“You are very young to be a widow,”
said the Colonel. “Had you been long
married when Mr. Chapman died ?”
A sudden look of pain came into her
face.
“Not very long. Please do not ask
me to recall my past life. My history
is the history of the dead.”
After this he could not push his
curiosity farther ; but he was not a lit.
tle tormented by his desire to know
more. In the dead of the night he lay
awake saying to himself, “Who the
deuce could this Chapman have been to
leave his wife in such a desolate posi-
tion ? and what has become of her own
relations 2 I would stake my chances of
promotion that she is a lady by birth ;
but how comes a lady to be left to carry
out such a quixotic scheme as this sick-
nursing business?” For to the Colonel's
mundane mind the nursing of the sick
poor seemed an eccentric and abnormal
employment for a well-bred young wo-
man—above all, for a beautiful woman
like this widow, with the classic profile
and luminous gray eyes.
As soon as the Colonel was strong
enough to totter from his bed to a sofa,
Dr. Matson suggested a change of quar-
terS.
“You must get nearer the sea,” he
said ; “this flowery dell is all very well
In its way ; and you certainly do get a
sniff of the Atlantic mixed with the
perfume of your roses. But I should
like to plant you somewhere on the very
edge of the ocean. There is a decent
inn at Penjudah, now, directly facing
the sea, built almost upon the beach ; a
homely place enough, but where you
would get very good treatment. I think
we might move you there with ad-
vantage.”
The Colonel groaned.
“I don’t feel strong enough to be
moved from one room to another,” he
said.
“I daresay not. There's a good deal
of prostration still, no doubt ; but the
change would do you a world of good.
We must manage it somehow—con-
trive some kind of ambulance, and carry
you in a recumbent position. Mrs.
Chapman will go with you, of course.”
The Colonel’s face brightened at this
Suggestion.
“Would you go 2° he asked, looking
at his nurse.
“Of course she would. She’s not.
done with you yet, by any means. You
are not going to slip out of our hands
for some little time, I assure you, Col-
92
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
onel Benyon,” said Dr. Matson, with
professional jocosity.
“I do not wish ; I am quite content
to remain an invalid,” replied the Colo-
nel, looking at his nurse and not at his
doctor.
The physician saw the look.
“Bless my soul,” he said to himself,
“is that the way the cat jumps ? The
Colonel's friends won’t thank me for
getting him such a good nurse, if he
winds up by marrying her. That look
was very suspicious.”
The doctor had his way. The chief
inn at Penjudah was quite empty at this
late period of the year; and the best
rooms, old-fashioned capacious cham-
bers facing the sea, were at the pa-
tient’s disposal. So fine morning, in
the beginning of November, while the
reddened leaves in this mild western
country still lingered on the trees,
Colonel Benyon left Trewardell, which
had been a somewhat unlucky shelter, it
seemed.
Even on that last morning busy Mrs.
Johns scarcely caught so much as a
glimpse of the nurse's face ; but just at
the final moment, when the Colonel had
been made comfortable in the carriage,
wrapped up to the eyes in woollen rugs
and tiger-skins, Mrs. Chapman turned
and held out her hand to the house-
keeper. She had her veil down, a thick
black veil, and she wore a close black
bonnet of a somewhat bygone fashion.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Johns,” she said in
her low plaintive voice. “This is the
last time I shall ever see Trewardell.
Please shake hands before I go away.”
There was something that seemed
almost humility in her tone. The house-
keeper drew herself up rather stiffly,
quite taken by surprise ; and then, in
the next moment, her good-nature got
the better of her resentment, and she
took the proffered hand. What a slen-
der little hand it seemed in the grasp of
Sarah Johns’ stout fingers
“I’m sure I bear you no malice,
mum,” she said “though you have kept
yourself so much to you self, as if other
folks weren’t good enough for you; and
if you like to walk over from Pen-
judah any fine afternoon to take a cup
of tea with me and my husband, you’ll
be heartily welcome. There's always
t
a bit of cold meat and an apple-pasty in
the house.”
“You are very kind; but I feel some-
how that I shall never see Trewardell
again. May I gather one of those late
| roses 2 Thanks ; I should like to take
one away.”
She went to one of the standard rose-
trees on the lawn, and gathered one soli-
tary tea-rose—a pale primose-colored
flower—a melancholy-looking blossom,
the Colonel thought, when she took her
seat in the carriage with this rose in her
hand.
“I don’t like to see you with that
pale yellow flower,” he said ; “it re-
minds me of asphodel, and seems sym-
bolical of death. I should like to do
away with that ugly black bonnet, and
crown you with a garland of bright red
roses, the emblems of renewed youth
and hope.”
She looked at him with sad earnest
eyes.
“I have done with youth,” she said,
“ and with hope, except—”
“Except what ?” he asked, eagerly.
“Except a hope that I do not care to
talk about—the hope of something be-
yond this earth.”
After this the Colonel was silent.
There was something in those grave
words that sounded like a reproof.
Mrs. Johns stood in the porch watch-
ing the carriage drive away with a
thoughtful countenance. “What was it
in her voice just now that gave me the
shivers ?” she said to herself, perplexed
in spirit. *
CHAPTER II.
“So may one read his weird, and reason,
And with vain drugs assuage no pain ;
Ifor each man in his loving season
Fools and is fooled of these in vain.
Charms that allay not any longing,
Spells that appease not any grief,
Time brings us all by handfuls, wronging
All hurts with nothing of relief.”
COLONEL BENYON was in love. That
rigid disciplinarian, that battered sol-
dier, who had boasted for the last
fifteen years of his freedom from any-
thing approaching what he called “an
COLONEL BENYON S ENTANGLEMENT.
93
entanglement,” now awoke to the con-
sciousness that he was the veriest fool in
the universe, and that unless he could
win this woman, of whose antecedents
he knew nothing, for his wife, he was a
lost man. That he could return to the
outer world, that he could go back to
India and begin life again without her,
seemed to him impossible. His world
had narrowed itself into the sick-cham-
ber where she ministered to him. All
the voices of this earth seemed to have
melted into that one low tender voice
that read to him or talked with him in
the long tranquil evenings. Until now
he had scarcely known the meaning of
a woman's companionship. Never had
he lived in such close intimacy with any
one, not even a masculine friend. But
now he looked back at his hard com-
monplace life, the conventional so-
ciety, the stereotyped pleasures, and
wondered how he had endured so many
years of such a barren existence. He
loved her. For a long time—his idle
weeks in that sick-room had seemed so
long, giving him so much leisure for
thought—he had struggled against this
folly, if folly it were ; but he had
struggled in vain. He loved her. Her,
and none other, would he have for his
wife ; and he told himself that it was,
after all, no great sacrifice which he con-
templated making. That she was a lady
he had never doubted from the first
hour when, restored to his sober senses,
he had looked at her face and heard her
voice. It was just possible that she was
born of a less noble race than his own,
though he could scarcely bring himself
to believe even this ; it was more than
probable that she was very poor. The
Colonel was glad of this last fact. It
pleased him to think that his wealth
might give her a new and brighter life,
surrounding her with all those luxuries
and elegances which seemed the natural
attributes of her beauty.
Was there any hope for him 2 Well,
yes, he was inclined to believe his case
far from desperate. There was a subtle
something in her looks and tones at
times that made him fancy he was not
quite indifferent to her, that he was more
than the mere object of her charity.
Nothing could be more vague than these
signs and tokens, for she was the most re-
served of women—the proudest, he some-
times thought—and he felt convinced that
she was herself unconscious of them. But,
slight as they were, they were sufficient
to kindle hope in Herbert Benyon's
breast, and he fancied that he had only
to wait the fulness of time for the hour
of his confession and the certainty of
his happiness.
He was not eager to speak. There
was time enough. This tranquil daily
intercourse was so sweet to him, that he
almost feared to end it by assuming
a new relation to his gentle nurse. He
did not want to scare her away just yet,
even if she left him only to come back to
him later as his wife. He wanted to
have her all to himself a little longer in
this easy undisturbed companionship.
So the days and weeks went on. The
Colonel grew so much stronger, that
Dr. Matson bade him good-bye, and
even Mr. Borlase began to talk of
releasing him. He was able to take a
short stroll in the sunniest hour of the
autumn day, leaning on his cane, and
occasionally getting a little help from his
nurse's supporting arm. He was very
fond of Penjudah : the scattered houses
on the sea-shore—the curious old-fash-
ioned High-street straggling up a hill—
the sheltered nook upon the grassy hill-
side, that served as a burial-ground for
the population of Penjudah—the rustic
lanes, from which one looked right out
upon the broad Atlantic — all these
things grew very dear to the Colonel,
and it seemed to him that he could
be content to live in this remote western
haven for ever with this one woman for
his companion.
It was very nearly the end of No-
vember, but the weather was wonder-
fully mild in this region, the days bright
and balmy, the evenings clear and calm,
The Colonel stopped to rest sometimes
in the burial.ground, seated on a moss-
grown granite tomb, with his face
towards the sea, and Mrs. Chapman by
his side.
He had told her all the story of his
past life, even that ignominious episode
of Lady Julia. Dursay's ill-treatment. It
was his his delight to talk to her. He
confided in her as he had never done
in any one else. He had such unbounded
faith in her integrity, such a fixed belief
94
COLONEL BENYON's ENTANGLEMENT.
in her good sense. He had talked to
her of his friend Hammersley, and had
told her the story of the guilty mistress
of Trewardell.
“Strange that we should both have
come to grief about a woman, isn't it?”
he asked ; and Mrs. Chapman owned
that it was very strange.
“You’d heard the story before, I dare-
say,” remarked the Colonel. “I suppose
all the gossips of Penjudah know it by
heart 2 ”
“’Yes,” she answered, “everybody in
Cornwall knows it.”
It was the last day of November.
Mr. Borlase had again talked about
taking leave of his patient, and the Co-
lonel was sitting on his favorite tomb,
the memorial of some race whose gran-
deur was a memory of the past. He
began to think the time was drawing
near when he must make his confession
and hear his fate. He was no coxcomb,
yet he had no fear of the result ; in-
deed, he was certain that she loved him.
While he was meditating this in a
dreamy was, in no hurry to speak, and
quite satisfied with the happiness of hav-
ing the woman he loved by his side, Mrs.
Chapman suddenly broke the silence.
“You are so much better, Colonel
Benyon'' she began—“almost well, in-
deed, Mr. Borlase says—that I think
you can afford to spare me now. I have
stayed with you already much longer
than I felt to be necessary, only”—she
hesitated just for a moment, and then
went rapidly on—“only yours was a crit-
ical case, and I did not wish to leave
you while there was the faintest chance
of relapse. There is no fear of that now,
and I am wanted elsewhere. There is a
little boy in one of the cottages up the
hill dying of consumption. His mother
came to the hotel to speak to me last
night, and I have promised her to go to
him this evening.”
“This evening !” cried the Colonel,
aghast. “You mean to leave me this
evening !”
“To go to a dying child, yes, Colonel
Benyon,” the nurse answered, reproach-
fully. “There is so little that I can do
for you now—for I suppose you may be
trusted to take your medicines regularly
—you really do not want me any longer.”
“I do not want you any longer l’’ re-
peated the Colonel, “I want you all my
life. I want you for my wife ” he went
on, laying his hand upon her shoulder.
“I cannot live without you. You must
stay with me, dearest, or only leave me
to come back to me as my wife. We
have no need of a long courtship. I
think we know each other thoroughly
as it is.”
“You think you know me thoroughly
as it is ” the woman echoed, shrinking
away from him, and standing with her
face turned towards the sea, only the
profile visible to the Colonel, and upon
that the impress of a misery that struck
him to the soul.
“My dear love, what is this P’’ he
asked. “Have I distressed you so much
by my avowal P Am I so utterly re-
pugnant to you ?”
“Your wife,” she murmured, as if she
had scarcely heard his last words, “your
Wife ”
“Yes, dearest, my beloved and honor-
ed wife. I did not believe it was in my
nature to love any one as I love you.”
“That any man upon this earth
should care for me !” she murmured :
“you, above all other men l’” And then
turning to him with a calmer face, she
said decisively, “That can never be, Col-
onel Benyon. You and I can never
be more to one and another than we
have been. The wisest thing you
can do is to wish me good-bye, here
where we stand, and forget that you
have ever known me.”
“That is just the last thing possible to
me,” he answered, impetuously. “There
is nothing upon this earth I care to live
for, if I cannot have you for my wife.
You must have known that I loved you.
You had no right to stay with me so
long ; you had no right to let me love
you, if you meant to treat me like this
at the last. But you do not mean to
be so cruel ; you are only trying me ;
you are only playing with your victim.
O, my darling, for pity’s sake, tell me
that I am not quite indifferent to you!”
“That is not the question,” the woman
replied, quietly. “Have you thought of
what you are doing, Colonel Benyon 3
Have you counted the cost Have you
thought what it is to intrust your name
and your honor to the keeping of a
woman of whom you know nothing * *
coloxEL BENYON's ENTANGLEMENT.
95
“I know that you are an angel,” he
said, putting his arm round the slender
figure, trying to draw her to his breast.
Again she shrank from him—this
time with a gesture so repellent, that
he drew back involuntarily, chilled to
the heart. “Do not touch me,” she said.
“You do not know who and what I am.”
“I ask to know nothing,” he cried,
vehemently. “If there is any secret in
your past life that might divide us, hide
it from me. Do you think I am going
to bring the scrutiny of a detective to
bear upon the antecedents of the woman
I love 2 Blindly I give my happiness
and my honor into your keeping. I see
you, and love you for what you are—
not for what evil fortune may have
made you in the past.”
“You do not know the weight of
your words,” she answered sadly, “I
thank you with all my heart for your
confidence, for your love ; but that
which you think you wish can never
be. It is best for us to part this very
day, this very moment. Let us shake
hands, Colonel Benyon, and say fare-
well.”
“Not till you have told me your rea-
son,” the Colonel cried, imperiously. “I
may know those, at least.”
“I do not recognize your right to
question me. I cannot explain my rea-
sons.”
“But I will know them,” he cried,
seizing her wrist. “I have been fooled
by one woman ; I will not be trifled
with by another. I will know why you
refuse to be my wife. Is it because you
hate or despise me?”
“No, no, no ; you know that it is not
that ’’
She looked at him piteously, with a
look that said as plainly as any words
she could have spoken. “You know
that I love you.”
“Is it from any mistaken notion of
fidelity to the dead?”
“No, it is not that. Yet, Heaven
knows, I have reason to be faithful to
the dead P”
“What is it, then P
shall tell me.” .
“For pity's sake, spare me. You
are torturing me, Colonel Benyon.”
“Give me your promise to be my
wife, then, and I will not ask a ques-
You must and
tion. There can be no reason strong
enough to divide us, if you love me;
and I think you do.”
“Heaven help me she sobbed,
clasping her hands with a piteous ges-
ture.
To Herbert Benyon those three words
sounded like a confession. He was sure
that she loved him, sure that his will
must conquer hers in the end.
“Yes,” she cried, passionately, “I do
love you. Nothing could excuse such
an admission from my lips but the
knowledge that in this hour we part for
ever. I do love you, Colonel Benyon;
but there is nothing in this world that
would induce me to become your wife,
even if you knew the worst I can tell,
and were yet willing to take me, which
you would not be.” -
“You are wrong,” he exclaimed with
an oath. “There is nothing you can
tell me that can change my resolution,
or diminish my love.”
“Do not promise so rashly,” she an-
swered, ashy pale, and with tremulous
lips.
He drew her to the old granite tomb,
and persuaded her to sit down beside
him, seeing that she was nearly faint-
1I]
| 2,
“My love, I do not wish to be cruel,”
he said tenderly. “I do not seek to lift
the veil of the past. I am content to
love you blindly, foolishly, if you like.
I will do anything to prove my devo-
tion, will shape the whole course of my
future life for your happiness. There
is nothing in the world I would not sac-
rifice for your sake. Be generous, for
your part, dearest. Say that you will
be my wife, or give me some adequate
reason for your denial.”
She did not answer him immediately.
There was a silence of some moments,
and then she said in a low voice :
“You have a friend to whom you are
very much attached, Colonel Benyon, a
friend who is almost as dear to you as
a brother. I have heard you say that.”
“What, Hammersley P Yes, certain-
ly; Hammersley is a dear good fellow ;
but what has that to do with my marry-
ing as I please ? I should not consult
him about that.”
“You were talking the other might
of that guilty creature—his wife.”
96
COLONEL BENYON'S ENTANGLEMENT.
. *
“Yes, I have spoken to you about his
Wife.”
“You have—in terms of reprobation
which were well deserved. Have pity
upon me, Colonel Benyon—I am that
wretched woman ”
She had slipped from the tombstone
to the turf beside it, and remained there,
half crouching, half kneeling, in her ut-
ter abasement, with her face hidden.
“You !” exclaimed the Colonel, in a
thick voice. “You !”
The blow seemed almost to crush
him. He felt for the moment stupefied,
stunned. He had been prepared for
anything but this.
“I am that wretched woman. I do
not know if there is the shadow of ex-
cuse for my sin in the story of my life;
but, at any rate, it is best that you
should know it. George Champney
and I were engaged to be married long
before I saw Mr. Hammersley; and
when he went to India, we were pledged
to wait till he should come back and
make me his wife. We had known
each other from childhood; and I can-
not tell you how dearly I loved him.
It seems a mockery now to speak of
this when I have not even been faith-
ful to his memory; but I did love him.
I have mourned him as truly as ever
any man was lamented upon this earth.
From the first my father was opposed
to our engagement, and my stepmother,
a very worldly woman, set her face
against it most resolutely. But we
braved their displeasure, and held our
own in spite of them. It was only
when George was gone that their perse-
cution became almost unendurable to
me. I need not enter into details.
Captain Champney had been away more
than two years when I first met Mr.
Hammersley. We were forbidden to
write to each other ; and I had suffered
unspeakable anxiety about him in that
time. It was only in some indirect man-
ner that I ever had news of him. When
Mr. Hammersley first proposed to me,
I refused him decisively; but then fol.
lowed a weary time in which I was tor-
mented by my stepmother, and even by
my father, who was influenced by her
in this business. I do not think any
man can understand the kind of domes-
tic persecution which women are sub-
ject to—the daily reproaches, the inces
sant worry. But I went through this
ordeal. It was only when my father
brought home a newspaper containing
the announcement of George Champ-
ney's death that my courage gave way.
They let me alone for some time after
this, let me indulge my grief unmolest-
ed; and then, one day, the old argu-
ments, the familiar reproaches began
again ; and in an hour of fatal weak-
ness, worn out in body and mind—for I
had been very ill for a long time after
that bitter blow—I yielded.
She paused for a little ; but the Colo-
nel did not speak. He sat upon the
granite tomb, looking seaward with
haggard eyes, motionless as a statue,
the living image of despair. He could
have born anything but this.
“You know the rest. . No, you can
never know how I suffered. The false
announcement in the paper had been an
error, common enough in those days,
Captain Champney told me, when he
came upon me one summer morning
near Trewardell like a ghost. He had
heard of the report in India, and had
written to a common friend of ours, en-
treating her to let me know the truth;
whether she had attempted to do so, and
had been in some manner prevented by
my father or my stepmother, I cannot
tell. Another Champney had been
killed. The mistake was only the in-
sertion of the wrong initials; but it was
a fatal error for us two. He came to
me to remind me of my promise ; came
determined to take me away from my
husband. I cannot speak of the events
that came afterwards. There was no
such thing as happiness possible for
either of us. We were not wicked
enough to be happy in spite of our sin.
You know how they found George
Champney lying dead upon the sands
at Blankenburg one bright September
morning. After that I had a danger
ous illness, during which I was taken
to a Belgian convent, by my husband's
influence, Ibelieve. where I was tender-
ly nursed till Irecovered. They knew
my story, those spotless nuns, and yet
were kind to me. I stayed with them
as a boarder for a year after—after
Mr. Hammersley obtained his divorce,
and it was there that I learned to nurse
COLONEL BENYON S ENTANGLEMENT.
97
the sick. I was not destitute; a sister
of my mother's, knowing my position,
settled a small annuity upon me; and
on that I have lived ever since. Six
months ago I was seized with a yearn-
ing to see the place where the most
tranquil days of my life had been spent.
I knew that Mr. Hammersley was liv-
ing abroad; and I fancied that I ran no
risk of recognition in returning to this
neighborhood. I know how much mis-
ery and illness had changed me since I
left Trewardell. It was a foolish fancy
no doubt; but I, who have nothing hu-
man left to love, may be forgiven for
a weak attachment to familiar places. I
came to Penjudah, thinking that I
should find plenty of work here of the
kind I wanted. I had no intention of
coming any nearer to Trewardell, where
I must, of course, run considerable risk
of being recognized; but when Dr.
Matson urged me to come to you the
temptation was too strong for me, and
I came to see the dear old place once
more. That is the end of my story;
and now, Colonel Benyon, I have but
one word more to say—Farewell.”
She rose from the ground, and was
going to leave him ; but he detained her.
“You have almost broken my heart,”
he said; “but there is nothing in this
world can change my love for you. I
still ask you to be my wife. I promise
to cherish you with a love that shall
blot out the memory of your past.”
She shook her head sadly.
“It can never be,” she answered; “I
am not vile enough to trade upon your
weakness or your generosity. Let me
be faithful to the dead, and loyal to you.
Once more, good-bye.”
“Will nothing I can say prevail with
you?”
“Nothing. I shall always honor and
revere you as the most generous of men;
but you and I must never meet after to-
day.”
He pleaded with her a little longer,
trying by every possible argument to
vanquish her resolution ; but his en-
deavors were all in vain. He knew
that she loved him ; he felt that he was
doomed to lose her.
And so at last she left him, sitting in
the quiet burial-ground, in the pale
winter sunshine, with all the glory of
the Atlantic before him, and the still-
ness of a desert round about. Even
after she had left him he determined
upon making one more attempt to win
her. He found out the place where she
lived, and went to that humble alley in
the early dusk, bent upon seeing her
once more, upon pleading his cause more
calmly, more logically than it had been
possible for him to do in the first heat of
his passion. He found the house, and
a very civil good-natured woman, who
told him that Mrs. Chapman had left
Penjudah two hours before, for good.
She had gone abroad, the woman said.
“To Belgium. I suppose?”
“Yes, sir, that was the name of the
place.”
As soon as he was strong enough
Colonel Benyon went to Belgium, where
he spent a couple of months searching
for Flora Hammersley in all the con-
vents. It was a long wearisome search :
but he went through with it patiently to
the end, persevering until he found a
quiet little conventual retreat six miles
from Louvain, where boarders were ad-
mitted. It was the place where she
had been. His search was ended; and
the woman he loved had been buried in
the tiny convent cemetery just a week
before he came there. After this there
was nothing left for the Colonel but to
go back to India to the old familiar life.
It was only his closest friends who ever
perceived the change in him ; but,
although he never spoke of his trouble,
those who did thoroughly know him,
knew that he had suffered some recent
heart-wound, and that the stroke had
been a heavy one.
W.
THE SOEN E-PATNTER'S WIFE.
“You wouldn’t think it, to look at her
now, sir,” said the old clown, as he
shook the ashes out of his blackened
clay, “but madam was once as hand-
some a woman as you'd see for many a
long day. It was an accident that
spoilt her beauty.”
The speaker was attached to a little
equestrian company with which I had
fallen in during a summer day's pedes-
trianism in Warwickshire. The troupe
had halted at a roadside inn, where
I was dawdling over my simple mid-
day meal, and by the time I had smoked
my cigar in his companionship, the
clown and I were upon a footing of
perfect friendliness.
I had been not a little struck by the
woman of whom he spoke. She was
tall and slim, and had something of a
foreign look, as I had thought. Her
face was chiefly remarkable for the
painful impression which it gave to a
stranger. It was the face of a woman
who had undergone some great terror.
The sickly pallor of the skin was made
conspicuous by the hectic brightness of
the large black eyes, and on one cheek
there was a scar—the mark of some
deadly hurt inflicted long ago.
My new friend and I had strolled a
little way from the inn, where the rest
of the company were still occupied with
their frugal dinner. A stretch of sun-
ny common lay before us, and seemed
to invite a ramble. The clown filled
his pipe, and walked on meditatively.
I took out another cigar.
98
“Was it a fall from horseback that
gave her that scar P” I asked.
“A fall from horseback | Madame
Delavanti! No, sir, that seam on her
cheek was made by the claws of a tiger.
It's rather a curious sort of story, and I
don’t mind telling it, if you'd like to
hear it ; but for the Lord’s sake don’t
let her know I’ve been talking of her,
if you should happen to scrape acquaint-
ance with her when you go back to the
inn.”
“Has she such a dislike to being
talked about 2 ”
“I rather think she has. You see
she's not quite right in the upper story,
poor soul; but she rides beautifully, and
doesn’t know what fear means. You'd
scarcely believe how handsome she
looks at night when she's dressed for
the ring. Her face lights up almost as
well as it used to do ten years ago, be-
fore she had the accident. Ah, she was
handsome in those days, and used to be
run after by all the gentlemen like mad!
But she never was a bad lot, never—
wild and self-willed, but never a wicked
woman, as I’ll stake my life. I’ve been
her friend through thick and thin, when
she needed a friend, and I’ve under.
stood her better than others.
She was only twelve years old when
first she came to us with her father, a
noted lion-tamer. He was a man that
drank hard now and then, and was very
severe with her at such times; but she
always had a brave spirit, and I never
knew her to quail before him or before
THE SCENE-PAINTER'S WIFE.
'99
the beasts. She used to take her share
in all the old man's performances, and
when he died, and the lions were sold
off, our proprietor kept a tiger for her
to perform with. He was the cleverest
of all the animals, but a queer temper,
and it needed a spirit like Caroline Del-
avanti’s to face him. She rode in the
circus as well as performing with the
tiger, and she was altogether the most
valuable member of the company, and
was very well paid for her work. She
was eighteen when her father died, and
within a year of his death she married
Joseph Waylie, our scene-painter.
I was rather surprised at this mar-
riage, for I fancied Caroline might have
done better. Joe was thirty-five if he
was a day—a pale, sandy-haired fellow,
not much to look at, and by no means
a genius. But he was awfully fond of
Caroline. He had followed her about
like a dog ever since she came among
us, and I thought she married him more
out of pity than love. I told her so one
day; but she only laughed, and said: —
“He’s too good for me, Mr. Waters,
and that’s the truth. I don’t deserve to
be loved as he loves me.”
The newly-married couple did indeed
seem to be very happy together. It was
a treat to see Joe stand at the wing and
watch his wife through her perform-
ances, ready to put a shawl over her
pretty white shoulders when she had
done, or to throw himself between her
and the tiger in case of mischief. She
treated him in a pretty, patronizing sort
of way, as if he had been ever so much
younger than her instead of twelve
years her senior. She used to stand on
tiptoe and kiss him before all the com-
pany sometimes at rehearsal, much to
his delight. He worked like a slave in
the hope of improving his position as he
improved in his art, and he thought
nothing too good for his beautiful young
wife. They had very comfortable lodg-
ings about half a mile from the manu-
facturing town where we were stationed
for the winter months, and lived as well
as simple folks need live.
Our manager was proprietor of a
second theatre, at a seaport town fifty
miles away from the place where we
were stationed; and when pantomime
time was coming on, poor Joseph Waylie
was ordered off to paint the scenery for
this other theatre, much to his grief, as
his work was likely to keep him a month
or six weeks away from his wife. It
was their first parting, and the husband
felt it deeply. He left Caroline to the
care of an old woman, who took the
money, and who professed a very warm
attachment for Mrs. Waylie, or Madame
Delavanti, as she was called in the bills.
Joseph had not been gone much more
than a week when I began to take
notice of a young officer who was in front
every evening, and who watched Caro-
line's performance with evident admira-
tion. I saw him one night in very close
conversation with Mrs. Muggleton, the
money-taker, and was not overpleased
to hear Madame Delavanti’s name men-
tioned in the course of their conversa-
tion. On the next night I found him.
loitering about at the stage-door. He
was a very handsome man, and I could
not avoid taking notice of him. On
inquiry I found that his name was
Jocelyn, and that he was a captain in
the regiment then stationed in the town.
He was the only son of a wealthy
manufacturer, I was told, and had
plenty of money to throw about. .
I had finished my performance earlier
than usual one night soon after this,
and was waiting for a friend at the stage-
door, when Captain Jocelyn came up
the dark by-street, smoking his cigar,
and evidently waiting for some one. I
fell back into the shadow of the door,
and waited, feeling pretty sure that he
was on the watch for Caroline. I was
right. She came out presently and
joined him, putting her hand under his
arm, as if it were quite a usual thing
for him to be her escort. I followed
them at a little distance as they walked
off, and waited till I saw Joe’s wife safe
within her own door. The captain de-
tained her on the doorstep talking for a
few minutes, and would fain have kept
her there longer, but she dismissed him
with that pretty, imperious way she had
with all of us at times.
Now, as a very old friend of Caro-
line's, I wasn’t going to stand this sort
of thing; so I taxed her with it plainly
next day, and told her no good could
come of any acquaintance between her
and Captain Jocelyn.
I00
THE SCENE-PAINTER's WIFE.
“And no harm need come of it
either, you silly old fellow,” she said.
“I’ve been used to that sort of atten-
tion all my life. There's nothing but
the most innocent flirtation, between
us.”
“What would Joe think of such an
innocent flirtation, Caroline P” I asked
“Joe must learn to put up with such
things,” she answered, “as long as I do
my duty to him. I can’t live without
excitement, and admiration, and that
sort of thing. Joe ought to know that
as well as I do.”
“I should have thought the tiger and
the horses would have given you enough
excitement, Caroline,” I said, “without
running into worse dangers than the
risk of your life.”
“But they don't give me half enough
excitement,” she answered; and then
she took out a little watch in a jewelled
case, and looked at it, and then at me,
in a half-boastful, half-anxious way.
“Why, what a pretty watch, Carry P’’
said I. “Is that a present from Joe?”
“As if you didn’t know better than
that l” she said. “Country scene-paint-
ers can’t afford to buy diamond watch-
es for their wives, Mr. Waters.”
I tried to lecture her, but she laugh-
ed off my reproaches; and I saw her
that night with a bracelet on her arm,
which I knew must be another gift from
the captain. He was in a stage-box, and
threw her a bouquet of choice flowers
after her scene with the tiger. It was
the prettiest sight in the world to see
her pick up the flowers and offer them
to the grim-looking animal to smell,
and then snatch them away with a
laugh, and retire, courtesying to the
audience, and glancing coquettishly
towards the box where her admirer sat
applauding her.
Three weeks went by like this, the
captain in front every night. I kept a
close watch upon the pair, for I thought
that, however she might carry on her
flirtation, Joe's wife was true at heart,
and would not do him any deliberate
wrong. She was very young and very
wilful, but Ifancied my influence would
go a long way with her in any desper-
ate emergency. So I kept an eye upon
her and her admirer, and there was
rarely a night that I did not see the
captain's back turned upon the door of
Mrs. Waylie's lodgings before I went
home to my own supper.
Joe was not expected home for an-
other week, and the regiment was to
leave the town in a couple of days.
Caroline told me this one morning with
evident pleasure, and I was overjoyed
to find she did not really care for Cap-
tain Jocelyn.
“Not a bit, you silly old man,” she
said ; “I like his admiration, and I like
his presents, but I know there's no one
in the world worth Joe. I’m very glad
the regiment will be gone when Joe
comes back. I shall have had my bit
of fun, you know, and I shall tell Joe
all about it; and as Captain Jocelyn
will have gone to the other end of the
world, he can't object to the presents—
tributes offered to my genius, as the
captain says in his notes.”
I felt by no means sure that Joseph
Waylie would consent to his wife’s
retaining these tributes, and I told her
as much.
“Oh, nonsense,” she said; “I can do
what I like with Joe. He'll be quite
satisfied when he sees Captain Jocelyn's
respectful letters. I couldn’t part with
my darling little watch for the world.”
When I went to the theatre next
night, I found the captain standing talk-
ing to Caroline just inside the stage-
door. He seemed very earnest, and
was begging her to do something which
she said was impossible. It was his
last night in the town, you see, and I
have very little doubt that he was ask-
ing her to run away with him—for I
believe the man was over head and ears
in love with her—and that she was put-
ting him off in her laughing, coquettish
way.
“I won’t take your answer now,” he
said very seriously. “I shall wait for
you at the door to-night. You can’t
mean to break my heart, Caroline ; the
answer must be yes.”
She broke away from him hurriedly.
“Hark,” she said, “there's the over-
ture ; and in half an hour I must be
upon the stage.”
I passed the captain in the dark pass-
age, and a few paces farther on passed
some one else whose face I could not
see, whose short, hurried breathing
THE SCENE-PAINTER'S WIFE.
101
sounded like that of a person who had
been running. We brushed against one
another as we passed, but the man took
no notice of me.
Half an hour afterwards I was loung-
ing in a corner of the ring while Caro-
line went through her performances
with the tiger. Captain Jocelyn was in
his usual place, with a bouquet in his
hand. It was New-Year's night, and
the house was very full. I had been
looking all round for some time, when
I was startled by the sight of a face in
the pit. It was Joseph Waylie's face
ashy pale and fixed as death—a face
that meant mischief.
“He has heard something against his
wife,” I thought. “I’ll run round to
him directly I can get out of the ring,
and make matters square. Some con-
founded scandal-monger has got hold of
him, and has been poisoning his mind
about Caroline and the captain.” I
knew there had been a good deal of
talk in the theatre about the two—talk
which I had done my best to put down.
Captain Jocelyn threw his bouquet,
which was received with a coquettish
smile, and a bright upward glance that
seemed to express profound delight. I
knew that this was mere stage-play ;
but how must it have looked to the jeal-
ous man, glaring with fixed eyes from
his place at the back of the pit ! I turn-
ed to look at him as the curtain fell
upon the stage, but he was gone. He
was going round to speak to his wife,
no doubt. I left the ring immediately,
and went to prepare her for the inter-
view, and, if needful, to stand between
her and her husband's anger.
I found her at the wing, trifling with
her bouquet in an absent way.
“IHave you seen Joe P” I asked.
“No,” she answered. “He hasn’t
come back, has he I didn’t expect
him for a week.”
“I know, my dear; but he was in
front just now, looking as pale as a
ghost. I'm afraid some one has been
talking to him about you.”
She looked rather frightened when I
said this.
“They can’t say any harm of me, if
they speak the truth. I wonder Joe
didn’t come straight to me,though, in-
stead of going to the front of the house.”
We were both wanted in the ring.
I helped Caroline through her equestri-
an performance, and saw that she was
a little nervous and anxious about Joe's
return. She did not favor the captain
with many more smiles that evening,
and she told me to be ready for her at
the stage-door ten minutes before the
performance was over.
“I want to give Captain Jocelyn the
slip,” she said; “but I dare say Joe
will come to me before I’m ready.”
Joe did not appear, however, and she
went home with me. I met the cap-
tain on my way back, and he asked me
if I had been seeing Mrs. Waylie home.
I told him yes, and that her husband
had come home. Joe had not arrived
at the lodgings, however, when Caroline
went in, and I returned to the theatre
to look for him. The stage-door was
shut when I went back; so I supposed
that Joe had gone home by another
way or was out drinking. I went to
bed that night very uneasy in my mind
about Caroline and her husband.
There was an early rehearsal of a new
interlude next morning, and Caroline
came into the theatre five minutes after
I got there. She looked pale and ill.
Her husband had not been home.
“I think it must have been a mistake
of yours about Joe,” she said to me. “I
don’t think it could have been him you
saw in the pit last night.”
“I saw him as surely as I see you at
this moment, my dear,” I answered.
“There's no possibility of a mistake.
Joe came back last night, and Joe was
in the pit while you were on with the
tiger.”
This time she looked really frightened.
She put her hand to her heart suddenly
and began to tremble.
“Why didn’t he come home to me?”
she cried, “ and where did he hide him-
self last night 2'
“I’m afraid he must have gone out
upon the drink, my dear.”
“Joe never drinks,” she answered.
While she stood looking at me with
that pale, scared face, one of our young
men came running towards us.
“You’re wanted, Waters,” he said,
shortly.
“ Where 2°
“ Up stairs in the painting-room.”
102
THE SCENE-PAINTER'S WIFE.
“Joe's room P” cried Caroline.
“Then he has come back. I'll go with
you.”
She was following me as I crossed
the stage, but the young man tried to
stop her.
§ “You’d better not come just yet, Mrs.
Waylie,” he said in a hurried way, that
was strange to him. “It’s only Waters
that's wanted, on a matter of business.”
And then, as Caroline followed close
upon us, he took hold of my arm and
whispered, “Don’t let her come.”
I tried to keep her back, but it was
In O ÚlS62.
“I know it's my husband who wants
you,” she said. “They’ve been making
mischief about me. You shan’t keep
me away from him.”
We were on the narrow stairs leading
to the painting-room by this time. I
couldn't keep Caroline off. She pushed
past both of us, and ran into the room
before we could stop her.
“Serve her right,” muttered my com-
panion. “It’s all her doing.”
I heard her scream as I came to the
door. There was a little crowd in the
painting-room round a quiet figure lying
on a bench, and there was a ghastly
pool of blood upon the floor. Joseph
Waylie had cut his throat.
“He must have done it last night,”
said the manager.
“There’s a letter for his wife on the
table yonder. Is that you, Mrs. Waylief
A bad business, isn’t it? Poor Joseph I’”
Caroline knelt down by the side of the
bench, and stopped there on her knees,
as still death, till the room was clear of
all but me.
“They think I deserve this, Waters,”
she said, lifting her white face from the
dead man’s shoulder, where she had
hidden it; “but I meant no harm. Give
me the letter.”
“You’d better wait a bit, my dear,”
I said.
“No, no ; give it to me at once,
please.”
I gave her the letter. It was very
short. The scene-painter had come
back to the theatre in time to hear some
portion of that interview between Cap-
tain Jocelyn and his wife. He evidently
had believed her much more guilty than
she was.
“I think you must know how I loved
you, Caroline,” he wrote ; “I can’t face
life with the knowledge that you've
been false to me.”
Of course there was an inquest. We
worked it so that the jury gave a ver-
dict of temporary insanity, and poor Joe
was buried decently in the cemetery out-
side the town. Caroline sold the watch
and the bracelet that Captain Jocely n
had given her, in order to pay for her
husband's funeral. She was very quiet,
and went on with the performances as
usual a week after Joe's death, but I
could see a great change in her. The
rest of the company were very hard upon
her, as I thought, blaming her for her
husband's death, and she was under a
cloud, as it were ; but she looked as
handsome as ever and went through all
her performances in her old, daring way.
I’m sure, though, that she grieved sin-
cerely for Joe's death, and that she had
never meant to do him wrong.
We travelled all through the next
summer, and late in November went
back to Homersleigh. Caroline had
seemed happier while we were away, I
thought, and when we were going back
she confessed as much to me.
“I’ve got a kind of dread of seeing
that place again.” she said; “I’m al-
ways dreaming of the painting-room as
it looked that January morning with the
cold light streaming in upon that dread-
ful figure on the bench. The room's
scarcely been out of my dreams one
night since I’ve been away from Homer-
sleigh ; and now I dread going back
as if—as if he was shut up there.”
The room was not a particularly con-
venient one, and had been used for
lumber after Joe's death. The man
who came after him didn’t care to paint
there by himself all day long. On the
first morning of our return, Caroline,
went up and looked in at the dusty heap
of disused stage furniture and broken
properties. I met her coming away
from the room.
“O Mr. Waters,” she said to me with
real feeling, “if he had only waited to
hear me speak for myself! They all
think I deserved what happened, and
perhaps I did, as far as it was a punish-
ment for my frivolity; but Joe didn't
deserve such a fate. I know it was
THE SCENE-PAINTER'S WIFE.
103
their malicious talk that did the mis-
chief.”
I fancied after this that her looks
changed for the worse, and that she had
a kind of nervous way in going through
her equestrian performances, as if there
was a fever upon her. I couldn’t judge
so well how she went through the tiger
act, as I was never on the stage with
her, but the brute seemed as submissive
as ever. On the last day of the year
she asked our manager to let her off for
the next night. “It’s the anniversary
of my husband's death,” she said.
“I didn’t know you were so precious
fond of him,” he answered, with a sneer.
“No, Mrs. Waylie, we can’t afford to
dispense with your services to-morrow
night. The tiger act is one of our
strong features with the gallery, and I
expect a full house for New Year's
night.”
She begged him very hard to let her
off, but it was no use. There was no
rehearsal on New Year's morning, and
she went to the little cemetery where Joe
was buried, a three miles' walk, in the
cold and rain. In the evening, when
she came to the wing her eyes were
brighter than usual, and she shivered a
good deal more than I liked to see.
“I think I must have caught cold in
the cemetery to-day,” she said to me
when I noticed this. “I wish I could
have kept this night sacred—this one
night—to my husband’s memory. He
has been in my mind so much to-day.”
She went on, and I stood at the wing
watching her. The audience applauded
vociferously, but she did not make her
accustomed courtesy ; and she went
about her work im a listless way that
was very different from her usual spirit-
ed manner. The animal seemed to
know this, and when she had got about
half-way through her tricks with him,
he began to respond to her word of com-
mand in a sulky, unwilling manner, that
I didn’t like. This made her angry,
and she used her light whip more freely
than usual.
One of the tiger's concluding tricks
was a leap through a garland of flowers
which Caroline held for him. She was
kneeling in the centre of the stage with
this garland in her hands, ready for the
animal’s spring, when her eyes wander-
ed to the front of the house, and she
rose suddenly with a shrill scream, and
her arms outstretched wildly. Whether
the sulky brute thought that she was
going to strike him or not, I don’t know ;
but he sprang Savagely at her as she
rose, and in the next moment she was
lying on the ground helpless, and the
audience screaming with terror. I
rushed upon the stage, with half-a-dozen
others, and we had the brute muzzled
and roped in a few breathless moments,
but not before he had torn Caroline's
cheek and shoulder with his claws. She
was insensible when we carried her off
the stage, and she was confined to her
bed three months after the accident with
brain-fever. When she came among us
again, she had lost every vestige of
color, and her face had that set look
which you must have observed just now.
“The fright of her encounter with
the tiger gave her that look,” I said.
“I don’t much wonder at it.”
“ Not a bit of it,” answered the
clown. “That's the curious part of the
story. She didn’t think anything of her
skirmish with the tiger, though it quite
spoilt her beauty. What frightened her
was the sight of her husband sitting in
the pit, as he had sat there a year before,
on the night of his death. Of course
you’ll say it was a delusion, and so say
I. But she declares she saw him sitting
amongst the crowd—amongst them, and
yet not one of them, somehow, with a
sort of ghastly light upon his face that
marked him out from the rest. It was
the sight of him that made her drop her
garland and give that scream and rush
that frightened the tiger. You see she
had been brooding upon his death for a
long time, and no doubt she conjured up
his image out of her own brain, as it
were. She's never been quite the same
since that fever; but she has plenty of
pluck, and there's scarcely anything she
can’t do now with Baber, the tiger, and
I think she is fonder of him than of any
human creature, in spite of the scar on
her cheek.”
THE T)REATDED GUIEST.
A BLEAK December night nearly a
hundred years ago. Hard frost, and
a keen biting wind blowing the thick
drifting snowflakes into the faces of
those few foot passengers who still
tramp the half-deserted city streets;
a frost so hard, that the fast-falling
snow does not change to mud and slush
all in a moment, after the usual manner
of London Snow, but lies crisp and white
upon road and pavement, and crowns
the steep roofs and gables with moun-
tainous heaps of whiteness, which over-
hang the parapets, and threaten pedes-
trians with the fall of miniature ava-
lanches.
There are retired nooks and corners
of this crowded London city where the
snow might lie almost as pure and un-
defiled as in some silent Alpine gorge
known only to the eagle and the cham-
ois—notably one narrow little street,
scarcely better than a court or alley, in
the region of Moorfields; an eminently
respectable street in its way, tenanted
by two or three working jewellers, a
Dutch merchant in some small way of
trade, the chief clerk in a great colonial
house under the shadow of the Monu-
ment, and Dr. Prestwitch.
One feeble oil-lamp glimmers at the
entrance to this quiet little street
—which leads nowhere, by the way,
Dr. Prestwitch's house facing the
explorer, and barring his farther pro-
gress, except through Dr. Prestwitch's
hall-door—one dim blear-eyed little
iamp, which does not do much towards
the illumination of the street in a gen-
eral way. But to-night there is the
lū4
lightness and brightness of the snow,
which lies thick upon the paved foot-
way between the two rows of tall nar-
row houses, unmarked by a single foot-
fall. The occupants of Little Bell-street
are a sober steady-going people, and
there has been no traffic, not so much as
the opening or shutting of a door, since
eight o'clock this evening.
It is now eleven.
As an auxiliary to the public lamp,
Dr. Prestwitch burns a little colored
lamp of his own under the wooden shell
that surmounts his doorway—a relic of
former splendor, when great people
lived in the City, and fashionable bach-
elors or small gentry with large preten-
sions may have occupied Little Bell-
Street; a lamp which announces his
profession to the world at large, keeps
him in the eye of the public as it were,
and which has more than once brought
him a chance patient—some ruffiam
bruised and mangled in a street-fight,
a child run over in a neighboring
thoroughfare, a black eye, or a sprained
ankle.
There is one tall narrow window up-
on each side of Dr. Prestwitch’s tall
narrow door, and in the extreme left
corner of Dr. Prestwitch’s house there
is a passage, scarcely wide enough to
admit one person of bulky figure, lead-
ing to Dr. Prestwitch's back premises—
the surgery where he compounds his
medicines and spreads his plasters, and
a bleak bare room, with a long deal
table on tressels, and a smaller leaden
table fitted with a sink. This room is
very rarely used by the doctor, never
THE DREADED GUIEST.
105
entered by the doctor's family, and has
a dampish odor.
In the time of this December snow-
storm Dr. Prestwitch was quite a young
man; a young man with a bright ea-
ger face, dark curling hair which he
did not often disguise with powder
and pomatum, and a bright eager
manner; a man who had given hos-
tages to Fortune in the shape of a
pretty little wife and three small chil-
dren, and who was perhaps rather too
anxious to succeed in life. It is doubt-
ful whether this young surgeon had any
legal right to the title of doctor, but
the neighborhood of Little Bell-street
had made him a doctor by common con-
sent. The brass plate upon his stout
oak door described him simply as “Mr.
Prestwitch, Surgeon.”
He had not a large practice, and the
task of supporting that small household
was a hard one, simple as were the
needs of the pretty little wife and the
three small children. They had one
servant, a ſat overgrown girl, with a
shock of red hair, and a countenance
in which good temper did duty for all
other charms; a stupid honest creature,
who heartily loved the doctor's wife and
children, and thought the doctor himself
the greatest man of his age. The daily
meals in that respectable house in Little
Bell-street were apt to be meagre in
quantity and inferior in quality; but
Barbara Snaffles — commonly called
I3ab–was a faithful soul, who would
have shared the diet of Count Ugolino
and his sons without a murmur, if fidel-
ity had demanded such patience. As it
was, she had a fair share of whatever
was eaten or drunken in the house, and
was treated more like a member of the
family than was perhaps consistent with
the dignity of a professional man’s
household.
On this particular December night
she was sitting darning stockings upon
one side of the hearth in the every-
day parlor—a small panelled chamber,
furnished in the scantiest way, but
with a certain air of neatness and even
comfort nevertheless—while her mis-
tress occupied the other. A handful of
fire burnt cheerily in the old-fashioned
grate—such a roomy old grate, with
such a capacity for the consumption of
fuel, but pinched and contracted by an
artful contrivance of brickwork upon
each side. The red-worsted curtains, a
trifle scanty even for the narrow win-
dow, but very comfortable looking not-
withstanding, had been drawn to their
extremest stretch ; the honest mahog-
any table had been vigorously polished
by Bab after the removal of the tea-
things, the one candle was kept care-
fully Snuffed, the cat reposed luxurious-
ly against the open-work side of the
bright brass fender, and this room, alto-
gether humble as it was, bore the unmis-
takable aspect of home.
The doctor was in his surgery read-
ing. He was a studious young man,
and in the dearth of more profitable
employment devoted his evenings to
the study of medical science. It had
been a matter of no small regret to .
him that he had been unable to advance
very far in the practical study of that
branch of his profession which seemed
to him the most important, the study of
anatomy. The cost of a subject for
his experiments rendered this part of
his science almost a sealed book to the
poor and hardworking student, who
could not afford to avail himself of the
services of those gangs of desperate
ruffians who were continually violating
the sanctity of the grave by their un
holy traffic.
Martin Prestwitch had a friend, how-
ever, in the house-surgeon of Newgate,
and that gentleman, who had a surfeit
of subjects sometimes, had promised to
send him the first defunct criminal he
should be able to dispose of in a
friend's favor. There were outstand-
ing claims to be considered first, for the
jail was in those days the only legiti-
mate resource for the student ; but
whenever there should be a subject to
spare, it was to be for Martin Prest-
witch.
He had been reading hard in an old
book upon anatomy this evening, and
his fingers itched to be using the
scalpel.
“I’m afraid Jack Tylney has forgot-
ten his promise,” said he presently,
with a sigh.
He was wrong. Mr. Tylney, the
Newgate surgeon, had not forgotter,
the obligation that was upon him. His
106
THE DREADED GUIEST.
promise was destined to be kept that
very night. The first footsteps to de-
file the snow that had remained un-
trodden through all the quiet evening
hours were the footsteps of two men
carrying a ghastly burden.
They took it first to the hall-door,
where one of them stooped to read the
name upon the brass plate, and then
knocked—a cautious, mysterious-sound-
ing knock.
The door was opened almost immedi-
ately by the faithful Barbara, who
scented a possible patient in this un-
timely summons; but at the sight of
that ghastly burden—it was muffled in
a sack, but there are some things that
will not be hidden—she fell back with
a Start.
“Lord save us ! what's that ?” she
cried.
“A subject for Dr. Prestwitch—the
man that was hung for coining at New-
gate this morning.”
“What l” exclaimed Bab, “do you
mean to say it's a dead body ?”
“Yes, miss,” one of the bearers an-
Swered with a grin: “not to make too
many bones about it, it’s a stiff un—
with Mr. Tylney's compliments to Dr.
Prestwitch.”
“Take the dreadful thing round to
the surgery,” said Barbara, aghast.
“Master's in there reading. Take it
down that passage; I’ll come and open
the door directly minute.—And to
think that any one can wish to have
such a thing !” she ejaculated, as 'she
shut the front door.
She had heard her master talk of that
subject which Jack Tylney was to send
him.
She opened the surgery-door and told
the doctor what had come for him, and
then opened the door leading into the
passage, where the men were waiting.
Martin Prestwitch was all on the alert
in a moment. He took his candle, led
the way into that damp-smelling room
set apart for such a purpose as this,
and so rarely used. The horror was
carried in there, and laid upon the long
deal table, Barbara Snaffles standing on
the threshold all the time and peering
in, fascinated by the ghastly sight.
Then Martin Prestwitch and the men
came cut, and the doctor dismissed
them with a shilling to buy drink—one
of his few shillings.
He locked the door of his dissecting
room, while Barbara stood a little aloof,
open-mouthed, devouring the scene
with her big round eyes.
“Ask your mistress to make me
some of her good coffee, Bab,” said
the doctor—“I shall sit up late to-
night; and be sure she knows nothing
of this business,” he added, pointing to
the locked door.
“Lord bless you! no sir; not for the
world. I don’t want to turn that poor
dear's whole mask of blood, as mine
was turned just now when I saw that
orful thing in a sack.”
Barbara gave a gulp and made a wry
face as she spoke.
“You’d better come and say good-
night to missus, sir, if you want her to
go to bed.”
“Ay, to be sure,” answered Martin
Prestwitch, at all times an affectionate
husband, but just at this moment some-
what distracted by the thought of that
inanimate clay lying upon his table.
He went into the parlor, where his
industrious little wife was singing soft-
ly to herself, as she put the finishing
touches to a triumph of ingenuity and
economics in the shape of a frock for
the biggest of the three small children,
made out of a cast-off petticoat of her
OWI).
“See, Martin,” she cried, looking up
at him with her bright loving face,
“ won’t Molly look nice in that ?”
“Very nice, dear; but you oughtn't
to sit up so late, sewing for Molly. It’s
nearly twelve o’clock.”
“That's the very last stitch, Martin;
and it’s just as late for you, sir, as it is
for me; and you’ve not had a morsel of
supper either. There's the bit of beef-
steak-pudding that was left at dinner.
Bab has warmed it nicely, and there it
is, waiting for you, down in the fender.”
“I’ll eat it by and by, dear; but I’ve
no appetite for supper just yet, I want
you to make me a cup of coffee—as
strong as you like.”
“What, Martin; you're not going to
sit up over your fusty old books again?”
cried the little wife, dolefully.
It was a common thing for the doctor
to sit poring over his medical books
THE DREADED GUEST.
107
deep into the night, and Mary Prest-
witch had often crept downstairs in the
gray morning, to find him still studying
one of those dismal volumes, with his
candle burned down to the socket
“Yes Mary, my dear; I want to sit
an hour or so longer. There's a very
interesting case I’m reading up, a case
that will be useful to me in my practice;
and you know, love, how much depends
upon my getting on in my profession.”
Mary gave a little nod and a sigh.
Yes, indeed, it was vital to that small
household that the surgeon’s efforts
should be crowned with success. Only
that evening Mrs. Prestwitch and Bab
had been calculating the amount of the
Christmas bills—Christmas brings so
little for struggling householders except
bills—and wondering whether the
trades-people would be content with
such small sums as Dr. Prestwitch could
give them on account.
“They know that we are honest,
Bab,” said the anxious wife ; “thank
Heaven they know that. We have
lived in this house five years, and paid
our way somehow. I don't think they
will find it in their hearts to be hard up-
on us.”
Martin Prestwitch kissed his wife,
and sent her off to bed directly she had
made the coffee, during which operation
there was heard a great clattering of
bolts and bars from the indefatigable
Barbara, who took as much pains to
secure all these fastenings as if her
master’s house had been the most tempt-
ing field for an enterprising burglar.
It was just midnight when the little wo-
man tripped upstairs, with Barbara be-
hind her, and all the clocks of the City
seemed to be booming out the hour as
Dr. Prestwitch went to his dissecting-
room, carrying a steaming jug of coffee
in one hand and a candle in the other.
He had to put his jug on the floor while
he unlocked the door, for there were no
superfluous tables or sideboards in the
passages of that sparsely furnished
abode. The room struck cold as some
icebound region on that bleak winter
night, and the doctor's first labor was to
light a fire. There were happily some
wood and coals in a cupboard near the
fireplace, and with these and an old
newspaper Martin Prestwitch set to
work. The task was not an easy one :
the grate was damp, the Smoke came
down the chimney, and well-nigh choked
him ; but the doctor's patience and en-
ergy got the better of these difficulties,
and when he rose from his kneeling
position before the dingy hearth, the
fire was burning cheerily.
He refreshed himself with a cup of
coffee before proceeding to his more
serious labor, and set the jug down up-
on the hearth, to keep the remainder of
that comfortable beverage warm. Then
he set to work in real earnest.
There is no need to enter upon the
details of that ghastly performance.
Before he had reached more than the
preliminary stage of his labor, Dr.
Prestwitch came to a full stop, Sudden-
ly, with the knife in his hand, arrested
by a conviction that had come upon .
him like a flash of lightning, and set
his heart beating with an awful fear.
Another moment, one rapid move-
ment of that skilful hand which held
the knife, and he might have been a
murderer.
The creature was not dead |
Martin Prestwitch bent down with
his ear against the felon's naked chest,
and listened.
Yes, there it was, weak and Sup-
pressed, but still palpable to the profess-
ional ear—the action of the heart.
In the next moment the doctor was
at work with the approved means of
those days for the revival of suspended
animation. It was a slow business, but
he was rewarded at last. The coiner
gave a great sigh, muttered something
that sounded like an oath, and then
opened his bloodshot eyes, and stared
with a bewildered gaze at his benefac-
tor, the man who had given him back
his forfeited life.
“Where the-am I?” he asked ; “I
thought they were going to hang me.
Was there a reprieve?”
“No, there was no reprieve. Mr
Ketch must have bungled over his work,
I suppose.”
The coiner sat upright, and looked
about him ; and at this moment it oc-
curred to Martin Prestwitch that he had
perhaps been guilty of a kind of felony
in giving back life to a man whom the
law had doomed to death. The law
108
THE DIREADED GUEST.
was a critical thing in those days, invol-
ving such a large amount of execution
that Dr. Prestwitch was by no means
sure that such an act as assisting in a
felon’s evasion of the gallows might not
be in itself a hanging matter.
But the deed was done ; and there sat
the coiner, a stalwart square built ruſſian
of near six feet high, a man who could
have annihilated the slim surgeon.
“Can't you give a man something to
drink?” asked the coiner. “My throat's
like a lime-kiln.”
Dr. Prestwitch handed him the
coffee-jug, which he emptied at a
draught. -
“Cat-lap !” said the coiner con-
temptously ; “but it's done me good.
And now, do you mean to tell me as they
hung me this morning 2 I remember
standing on the drop, and feeling the
sleet and hail pelting against the night-
cap they’d pulled over my face ; and I
think, of all the blessed cold days I can
call to mind, this blessed morning was
the coldest. Do you mean to tell me
as they made a botch of it, and let
me off P’’
“So it appears,” replied Dr. Prest-
witch gently ; for although a man of
some moral courage, he felt himself at
a disadvantage in this téte-à-téte, “so
it appears. All I know is that you were
brought here about an hour ago, and in-
troduced to my notice as an individual
who had paid the last penalty of the
law.”
“Brought here what for 2 °
“Well—for—in short, for scientific
purposes. My name is Prestwitch, and
I am a professor of medicine and sur-
gery.”
“WHAT l’’ roared the restored suff-
erer; “were you going to cut me
up P 2 3
The coiner looked so ferocious as he
asked this question, that Dr. Prestwitch
felt as if his last moment had come.
“Don’t excite yourself, my good
friend,” he remonstrated mildly. “If
things had been as I had every reason
to suppose, you would not have felt the
slightest inconvenience. The legitimate
ends of science would have been pro-
moted without any suffering on your part.
How much happier would you have
been in that respect than the dogs and
safe to get hung to-morrow.
rabbits, whose vivisection has served to
demonstrate the theories of some of
our great anatomists * As it is, how-
ever, you have some reason to be grate-
ful to me, as you owe me your life.’
Dr. Prestwitch glanced towards the
door, thinking there was no real neces-
sity that this interview should be pro-
longed farther, and that this terrible
guest of his might be going. Then, all
at once, it dawned upon him that there
was an obstacle to the coiner's depart-
ure. With the exception of the sack-
ing that had muffled him when he was
brought to Little Bell-street, he was
garmentless; and the sacking was
scarcely a costume for a cold winter's
night in the streets of London.
“Grateful!” muttered the man. “I
don’t know as life's much a favor to a
poor devil that doesn’t know where to
get a morsel of bread ; that's marked
down by a pack of bloodhounds, and if
he doesn’t get hung to-day, is pretty
You
can’t give me back my tools, I sup-
pose 2 I had as pretty a set of moulds
and presses as was ever seen, in a cellar
down by Lambeth Pallis, for my busi-
ness, which was a good un till a pal
peached upon me. Howsomedever I
make no doubt you meant kindly, and
here's my hand upon it.”
With that the scoundrel extended a
dingy-looking paw, very broad and
muscular the doctor observed, and Mar-
tin Prestwitch was fain to accept the
friendly invitation, and shake hands
with the coiner.
“And now, doctor,” said the man,
wrapping the sacking around him as
closely as he could, and planting him-
self in the single chair by the fire, which
he stirred in a manner that showed no
mercy to the doctor’s coals, and now,
doctor, since we begin to understand
each other, I’ll trouble you for some-
thing to eat. I had some breakfast at
six o'clock this morning—for I wasn’t
a-going to be put off my feed by Jack
Ketch—but I’ve had nothing since.”
“I’ll go and see,” said Dr. Prest-
witch doubtfully, knowing the slender
resources of his larder.
He remembered the beefsteak-pud-
ding, which had been put aside for his
own supper, and which he could gladly
THE DREADED. GTU EST.
109
have eaten just now, and he presently
returned to the dissecting-room with
this savory mess, and a great hunch of
bread and cheese. The coiner devoured
both, and then looked about him with
the air of a man who could have eaten
half an ox or so, and to whom this
light refreshment seemed about as sub-
stantial as a handful of lollipops.
“You haven’t got any more of that
there puddin', I suppose f * he asked,
rather dolefully.
“Not a morsel.”
“Nor a slice of cold beef, or any-
thing in that way ?”
“I am sorry to say there is no cold
joint in the house.”
“And I’m sorry to hear it. You
ain’t out of bread and cheese, though, I
daresay; and I must make up with that.
So if you’ll bring me the loaf and the
cheese, I shall be thankful. Don’t take
the trouble to cut it. It ain’t likely as
a gentleman such as you would be able
to take the measure of my appetite.”
Dr. Prestwitch sighed as he went
away to comply with this request, dis-
tressed to think how bare a look the
larder would have next morning at
breakfast-time. The quartern loaf was
shrunk already, the family cheese was
only the remnant of a pale-complex-
ioned specimen of the Dutch kind; but
it was impossible to refuse submission
to the demands of such a guest; so
Martin Prestwitch carried these pro-
visions to the coiner and laid them on the
table before him, with a plate and knife.
“Your house don’t seem to be too
well supplied with victuals, doctor,”
said the man, eying the pale-faced
cheese with no special favor.
“I am not a rich man,” Martin
Prestwitch answered, humbly. “I find
it a hard thing to live.”
“Humph 1 ° muttered the coiner;
“that’s a common complaint, I suppose.
I’ve had my ups and downs —the fat
of the land to-day, and a dry crust, to-
morrow ; and now I’ve got to begin life
again, with the brand of the law upon
me, every man's hand against me, and
no more mercy to expect from any of
'em than if I was a hunted rat. I
should like to know how I’m to set
about getting my living when I leave
this house to-morrow morning.”
Dr. Prestwitch breathed a little
more freely. It was some relief to him
to learn that this unexpected visitor
did contemplate departing in the morn-
ing. What a blessed thing it would be
to have him gone It seemed to the
perplexed surgeon as if the burden of
this nameless criminal’s presence had
been weighing him down for months.
The coiner made a fierce dart at the
pale cheese, and hewed alternate wedges
from that and the loaf, in a half-absent
manner, until both were demolished,
grumbling to himself the while about
the hardness of life, when a poor crea-
ture might not manufacture a few guin-
eas for himself, without becoming liable
the stiffest penalties of the law.
“And how I’m to begin work again,
with all my tools gone, and not a pal
as I can trust in, is more than I know,”
muttered the coiner audibly.
“I really think, my good friend.”
Dr. Prestwitch suggested, gently, “that
in your case I should emigrate. A
foreign country—a new country: es-
pecially, like Nova Scotia—might offer
a fair field for—” Dr. Prestwitch did
not like to say “coining,” but concluded
with a polite periphrasis—“your par-
ticular line of business.”
“Emigrate ” exclaimed the coiner
contemptuously. “How the deuce”—
his actual expression was considerably
more forcible ; but Dr. Prestwitch, who
was always a mild man, used to tell this
story in the mildest language, only hint-
ing that his guest’s vocabulary had been
something beyond the common in the
way of rude vernacular vigor—“how
the deuce is a man to emigrate who
hasn't sixpence towards his passage
money P And a nice outfit I’ve got for
emigration l’ added the coiner, with a
shiver, looking down at the sacking in
which he was hugging his burly limbs.
“If you want me to emigrate, doctor,
you must find the rhino.”
“I ’’ cried Martin Prestwitch, turn-
ing a shade paler, though he had been
pale enough before. “My good man,
what are you dreaming of?”
“Yes, you ; you brought me back to
life, and you're bound to provide for
me. I didn’t ask you to come any of
your reviving dodges over me, did I?
I was brought here to be dissected, and
110
THE DEEADED GUIEST.
it was your duty to dissect me. But
you scientific parties are never satisfied
without trying your blessed experi-
ments ’’
“Good gracious me !” exclaimed Dr.
Prestwitch, completely confounded by
this blatant ingratitude. “Here is an
extraordinary creature | I restore him
to life, and he looks upon me as his en-
emy ” -
“I didn’t ask to be restored, did I ?”
grumbled the coiner. “Life's no favor
to such as me ! Howsomedever, you've
revived me, and now you must keep me
going; and in the first place, I’ll trouble
you for a suit of clothes.”
“A suit of clothes l’ murmured the
surgeon in a helpless tone.
“Yes. I can’t walk about like this ;
it's against the laws.”
“I have not an extensive wardrobe,”
said Martin Prestwitch ; “and even if
I had, my garments would scarcely fit
you.”
“Well, you are but a poor thread-
paper of a man, certainly,” answered
the coiner, who had perhaps devoured
more beef in a week than the surgeon
was in the habit of consuming in a
quarter ; “but any clothes are better
than none, and I must screw myself
into 'em Somehow ; so turn 'em out,
Mr. Doctor.”
“Good gracious me!” exclaimed Dr.
Prestwitch again, dolefully; “it’s like
an awful dream.”
He went away to do his visitor's bid-
ding. It did really seem to him almost
as if he had been walking in his sleep,
the victim of some gruesome vision.
A cold perspiration bedeved his fore-
head as he crept upstairs, candle in
hand, to search for garments wherewith
to clothe that midnight intruder.
He chose the biggest things he could
find—a bottle-green riding-coat with a fur
collar, that had belonged to his father (a
good and substantial garment, which he
had cherished with care,intending to have
it cut down and adapted for his own wear
on some convenient occasion). It went
to his heart to part with this treasure, and
he felt the fineness of the cloth with a slow
regretful hand, as he flung the garment
over his arm. He found a pair of leath-
er knee-breeches that had belonged to
the same esteemed parent—a bulkier
man than himself—and with these, a
clean linen shirt, and a rusty black bro-
caded waistcoat of his own, garnished
| with copper lace, he went down stairs.
“I can only lend you the coat,” he
said, as he laid the garments before the
coiner; “the breeches and waistcoat you
are welcome to keep.”
The unknown looked at the things
with a somewhat contemptuous expres-
sion of countenance, and then proceeded
to invest himself in them, splitting the
shirt-sleeves with his brawny arms, and
straining the leathern breeches of the
defunct Prestwitch senior with his pon-
derous legs. The waistcoat he split up
the back with a knife, and laced up the
opening dexterously with a bit of whip-
cord which the doctor procured for
him. The coat fitted him comfortably,
and concealed all deficiencies; but even
then there remained his extremities still
unclad—his great bare feet and mus-
cular legs—for which Martin Prestwitch
must needs find shoes and stockings.
With that bottle-green coat and fur col-
lar the man was too well dressed to go
out barefoot.
“As soon as the shops are open, I’ll
slip out and buy you a pair of shoes and
stockings,” said the doctor; “but for
mercy’s sake, man, keep quiet while I’m
gone. I wouldn’t have my wife know
of your being in the house for worlds.”
“I’ll keep quiet enough,” growled
the coiner. “These togs are no great
shakes; but I feel myself more like a
Christian in ’em than I felt in that old
sack; and, I say, doctor, you’ll give me
a trifle of money to set me going again,
won’t you?”
“Money !” exclaimed Martin Prest-
witch. “Why, my good creature, I’m
as poor as a church mouse !”
“Come, that won’t do,” said the coin-
er. “You doctors make no end of mon-
ey, helping your patients out of this
world. It's only fair you should spend
a little on a patient that you’ve helped
Žnto the world.” - -
The doctor again urged his poverty,
but it was no use. His arguments,
however reasonable, prevailed nothing
against that direful visitant.
“It’s no good humbugging, doctor,”
said the man. “I don’t leave this house
without a fi’-pun note.”
THE DREADED GUEST.
III
It did happen that Martin Preswitch
possessed the sum of seven pounds ten,
amassed by what supreme efforts of
economy he and his narrow household
only could have told, and honestly set
aside for the payment of the Christmas
quarter's rent. To part with any of
this would be like shedding his heart's
blood; but he felt himself utterly unable
to cope with this dreadful creature,
whom he had given back to the living
world, and if the coiner had asked him
for his heart’s blood instead of a five-
pound note, it seemed to Martin Prest-
witch that he must needs have given
it.
So after a longish parley, and a des-
perate endeavor to defend his treasure
on the doctor's part, Martin Prestwitch
stole up stairs once more in the dead
night-time, and crept like a robber to
his little hoard, from which he took the
five-pound note demanded by his tor-
mentor. He looked at a little Dutch
clock in the kitchen before he went
back to the dissecting-room—watch he
had none—and saw that it wanted still
a quarter to three o'clock. The long
dismal winter's night was not half gone
yet, and Dr. Prestwitch did not know
how much more that resuscitated felon
might ask of him before it was done.
To think of going to bed was worse
than idle; sleep or rest was an impos-
sibility with that baleful creature upon
the premises. Dr. Prestwitch seated
himself by the fire, opposite his visitor,
and prepared to wait for morning with
what patience he might.
Fed and clothed the intruder was in-
clined to be social, and expanded con-
siderably as the night wore on, favor-
ing Dr. Prestwitch with numerous
glimpses of his past history, exhibiting
a career at once adventurous and felon-
ious. Sense of right and wrong seem-
ed altogether wanting to this creature,
whose real name, he told the doctor was
Jonathan Blinker, but who had been
known to fame by several aliases, the
most familiar of which was Captain
Flashman. -
Day dawned at length—a dull gray
winter's morning, the atmosphere heavy
with unfallen snow, the bright white
ground looking even whiter than it it
was against the dense leaden sky. When
the little Dutch clock in the kitchen
struck seven, Martin Prestwitch turned
the key of the dissecting-room door,
and conjured Mr. Blinker to keep si-
lence ; and for one whole hour the
two men sat without speaking, Mr.
Blinker dozing by the expiring fire, the
surgeon listening to Barbara Snaffle's
movements as she bustled about, per-
forming her morning duties. Then
came the shrill small voices of the chil-
dren, and then his wife’s gentle tones
inquiring for the doctor at the dissect-
ing-room door.
“You don't mind being locked in
here for half an hour or so, while I go
and get those shoes and stockings, do
you ?” asked Martin of Mr. Blinker, in
a whisper.
The coiner looked at him doubt-
fully.
“You ain’t going to sell me, are you?”
he said. “You wouldn’t go and peach
upon a poor devil that you’ve brought
back to life 2 You won’t let me swing
a second time for the sake of the re-
ward P’’
“Do you take me for a scoundrel ?”
exclaimed Martin, with suppressed in-
dignation.
“No, I don’t, and I'll trust you,” an-
swered the other promptly.
So Dr. Prestwitch went out, and lock-
ed the door behind him, to secure his
secret from the exploring eyes of Bar-
bara Snaffles.
He had to answer his wife’s remon-
strances and tender upbraidings. How
could he sit up all night, to the peril of
his precious health P. He told her that
his studies had been especially interest-
ing, and the night had slipped away un-
3.W8,I’éS.
“What I didn’t it seem long, Martin,”
she exclaimed, “all those hours down in
that cold dreary room P’’
“No, indeed, my love; I never was
more comfortable,” answered the doc-
tor, with audacious mendacity.
“You eat a good supper, anyhow, sir,”
said the familiar Barbara. “Only think,
mum; there isn’t a mossel of yesterday's
quarten, and the Dutch cheese is clean
gone!”
Martin Prestwitch slunk off without
attempting an answer to this accusation.
He muttered something about seeing a
112
THE DREADED GUIEST.
patient in the next street, put on his
hat, and went out.
It would not do to trifle with Mr.
Blinker. The shops must be open by
this time, and the coiner might be shod
and dispatched. The doctor cheapened
a pair of roomy second-hand shoes on a
cobbler's stall, and bºught a pair of com-
fortable worsted stockings, of the size
which his anatomical eye taught him was
likely to suit Mr. Blinker. The half-hour
had scarcely expired when he turned the
key in the dissecting-room door. The
coiner was asleep, with his head repos-
ing comfortably upon the operating-table.
The shoes and stockings were an ad-
mirable fit ; and when Dr. Prestwitch
had farther provided an old hat, Mr.
Blinkner presented a tolerably respecta-
ble appearance. There was still the ques-
tion of disguise; but the doctor, after
some little search in his surgery, found a
pair of green spectacles, which made a
considerable alternation in Jonathan
Blinker's physiogomy. When these had
been assumed, the doctor looked out,
saw that the ground was clear, that no
inquisitive Barbara or anxious wife was
lurking in the shadow of an adjacent
doorway, and then ushered Mr. Blinker
into the court, rejoiced beyond all mea-
sure to be rid of him, even at the cost of
a five-pound note and that excellent bot-
tle-green coat.
On the threshold Mr. Blinker turned
round.
“I shall give you a look in soon, doc-
tor, to tell you how I get on.”
“O don’t, if you please,” the surgeon
cried piteously. “It would never do
for you to come here. You see, my
family look upon you in the light of a
body, and I don’t see how they are to
be brought to regard you from any other
point of view.”
“I shan’t come to see your family,”
replied Jonathan Blinker; “I shall
come to see you.”
With this awful threat he stalked
away, looking gigantic in the narrow
alley. The doctor closed the door with
a groan, and went to the parlor, where
the meagre breakfast was neatly laid
on the round table by the small bright
fire, and where the anxious wife was
ready to take alarm at Martin’s hag-
gard face.
But Mary Prestwitch's anxious looks
were not half so embarrassing as the
searching glances of Barbara Snaffles,
who regarded the surgeon with a mor-
bid curiosity, as a man who had just
left an abnormal employment. She ,
lingered in the room while he ate his
breakfast, handing him his coffee-cup
and hovering over his solitary egg. -
“Is it there still P” she asked him in
a stage-whisper, while Mrs. Prestwitch
was engaged with the three hungry
children, the youngest of which was
still dependent upon the maternal
breast for the most primitive kind of
nourishment. -
“What do you mean by it?” Dr.
Prestwitch asked impatiently. -
“Him The body.”
“No, girl; it's gone.”
“Gone? What you've done with
it already ?”
“Yes.”
“And they’ve fetched it away?”
“Yes, they’ve fetched it away.”
“Well, I never !” exclaimied Bar-
bara, with an injured air ; “they must
have been in a hurry. I thought I
should have seen it this morning. I’ve
seen a many in my time—drownded
and otherwise—and I never missed one
before. I make no doubt I shall dream
Of him.”
“Dream of him 2 Nonsense, girl!”
“Not having seen him, I make no
doubt I shall dream of him,” said Bar-
bara, with an air of conviction. “I
never missed one before—not if it was
three streets off and the family as it
belonged to a'most strangers to me;
and to have had one in the same house,
and not seen him, seems right-down
stupid-like.”
“Good gracious me !” cried the
doctor; “the girl is a perfect vam-
pire l’”
“Was it them two as brought him as
fetched him away ?” Miss Snaffles in-
quired curiously.
“Of course,” answered the doctor.
“And are they going to bury him in
Newgate?”
“I suppose so. There, Bab, go and
mind your work, and don't worry me
any more about the man. He's gone ;
that’s enough for you.”
Heartily did Martin Prestwitch wish
THE DREADED GUEST.
118
that his visitor of last night had indeed
been carried away to be safely interred
within the prison walls. That farewell
threat of Jonathan Blinker's weighed
heavy on his soul.
For the first time since he had lived
in Little Bell-street, Dr. Prestwitch
was behind-hand with his Christmas
rent, to the bewilderment of his faith-
ful wife, who had helped him to save
the seven pounds ten so carefully
scraped together against the landlord
should claim his due. -
“It’s gone, Mary,” the doctor said
dismally, “ or at least five pounds ten
out of it. You see, my dear, I was
obliged to part with it.”
“But what for, Martin 2 What
could you want five pounds ten for 2–
you who never spend money.”
“Surgical instruments, my love; a
man’s first duty is his profession.”
And again Martin Prestwitch hated
himself for having lied to the wife of
his bosom. -
The landlord was displeased, but not
implacable. Dr. Prestwitch was a care-
ful tenant, and had shown himself an
honest man ; so, after grumbling a lit-
tle, the landlord gave him a month's
grace and went his way. -
Jonathan Blinker kept his promise.
In the wintry gloaming a great hulking
man in a bottle-green coat with a fur
collar might have been often seen en-
tering the doctor's surgery from the
l,arrow side-alley, with a furtive sur-
reptitious air. Here Dr. Prestwitch
Meld converse with him, and was fain
to provide some small sum of money
against his coming. In time these do-
1:ations took the form of a weekly al-
lowance, and the accomplished Captain
Flashman became a regular pensioner
upon the doctor. He always used the
same argument when claiming this
bounty—Dr. Prestwitch had revived
him of his own volition, and was there-
fore bound to aliment him—to keep
him “going,” as the Captain called it.
Dr. Prestwitch submitted to this im-
position with much bitterness of spirit,
and many a groan breathed in the soli-
tude of his surgery. He was a man of
a gentle and somewhat timorous nature,
and he felt himself quite unequal to re-
sist such a claimant; so week by week
the poor fellow's brain was racked by
the consideration of how he was to pro-
vide for Jonathan Blinker. Nor was
it money only that his tormentor de-
manded from him. The ex-coiner was
of a hungry temperament, and took it
in bad part if there was not some tri-
fling snack provided for him when he
paid his weekly visit ; whereby the
surgeon was fain to have recourse to
divers small stratagems in order to set
aside the remains of a beef-steak-pie or
to secure the bladebone of a shoulder
of mutton for the refection of his op-
pressor. The devoted Barbara did not
fail to note the disappearance of these
viands, and to remark upon the fitful-
ness of her master's appetite.
For a long time this secret burden
weighed Martin Prestwitch down to
the dust. Life had been a hard strug-
gle before, but it was infinitely harder
now, when the small weekly scrapings
which he might have saved were all
absorbed by the omnivorous Blinker.
He woke sometimes in the dead of the
night, startled from sleep by the mem-
ory of his tormentor, and lay broad a-
wake for hours, brooding over his diffi-
culties.
Mr. Blinker had taken care to im-
press upon him that the thing he had
done was against the law, and that he
was liable to some severe penalty for
having assisted in the evasion of a con-
demned felon. Being too benevolent a
man to betray his incubus, and not val-
orous enough to face the difficulties of
the case, Dr. Prestwitch submitted to
be imposed upon, and received his pen-
sioner as meekly as if Jonathan Blink-
er had been a creditor armed with a
righteous claim against him.
Things went on in this dismal man-
ner for some time, and then there came
a gradual change for the better in the
doctor's circumstances. Patients drop-
ped in upon him or sent for him much
oftener than of old. Now it was a sum-
mons to attend the birth of some denizen
of a slum in St. Giles', anon he was
called to the deathbed of some ancient
inhabitant of the Mint; sometimes he
was sent for to repair the damages caused
by a faction-fight in the purlieus of
Field-lane, or to operate upon the frac-
tured ribs of some muscular member of
114
THE DREADED GUEST.
the dangerous classes in Bedfordbury.
On all these occasions he found that he
had been recommended by Jonathan
Blinker, who had described him as a
perfect master of surgery and physic;
and on all these occasions Dr. Prest-
witch had reason to suspect that his new
clients belonged to the criminal classes.
But patients are patients, and these
people paid the doctor promptly and
liberally when flush of money, and
showed themselves honorable when-
ever he gave them credit. The juvenile
population in these quarters was perpet-
ually being increased; and the ladies
being uniformly pleased with gentle
Martin Prestwitch, one matron recom-
mended him to another, until the gentle-
man who was usually described amongst
them as “ Blinker’s doctor” found his
practice was really picking up, and his
financial position becoming easier.
There were still, however, those
dreaded visits of Jonathan Blinker ; and
it seemed to Dr. Preswitch as if his
whole life was pervaded by that bulky
figure in the bottle-green coat, very
shiny about the cuffs and elbows, and
very mangy as to the fur collar, by this
time. And yet he felt that on the
whole he was bound to be grateful to
his tormentor, for the ultimate result of
the business had been advantageous to
himself. He did even try to make some
show of gratitude ; while Jonathan on
his part was positively affectionate to
his benefactor, declaring himself ready
to serve him in any manner, at the
hazard of a second suspension per col.
€WeI).
“There's nothing I would’nt do for
you, doctor,” he said. “I’d coin for
you if I had a new set of tools, or the
money to buy 'em. There !”
The doctor, of course, entreated him
to dismiss all ideas of coining from his
brain, and to set about leading an honest
life; but on this Mr. Blinker would
only shake his head dubiously, as not
perceiving the relevancy of the pro-
position.
So things went on for nearly three
years. The doctor's three small chil-
dren had been recruited by an infantine
brother, and now numbered four, with
the possibility of a fifth looming in the
distance. The doctor's practice was
better, but it was not a good one, and
could not by any means be called an
aristocratic or even a genteel practice ;
nor had the doctor any prospect of being
able to remove to a more fashionable
locality than Little Bell-street. . He
could pay the butcher and the baker,
however, and had no need to worry him-
self about his rent ; and this, to a man
of such modest desires, was enough for
COntentment.
Mr. Blinker had been his pensioner
all this time, and Barbara Snaffles had
become quite familiar with the weekly
visitor in the bottle-green coat, dimly
visible in the gloaming; for whatever
the season of the year, Mr. Blinker
came only in the twilight. She believed
in him firmly as a patient in the corn-
chandlery line —Dr. Prestwitch had
told her he was a corn-chandler—afflic-
ted with some chronic disease, and one
of her master's most profitable custom-
€TS.
The third year was closing in when
the evening and hour of Mr. Blinker's
accustomed visit came round without
bringing that gentleman to Little Bell-
street. It was the first time he had failed
to appear with Tuesday evening's dusk
since the foundation of this institution,
and Dr. Prestwitch passed the remain-
der of the evening in a state of almost
feverish restlessness,with the ex-coiner's
allowance in his pocket. Could any-
thing have happened to Jonathan Blin-
ker P Could it be that this infliction had
come to a sudden end?
A second Tuesday came round, and
again Mr. Blinker was missing; a third,
and then a fourth with the same result.
Dr. Prestwitch felt a wild half-guilty.
hope that he should never see Jonathan
Blinker again. Yet he was somewhat
sorry to think that evil had befallen
the missing man, nevertheless ; for the
surgeon was of a kindly disposition, and
the creature had loved him.
Six weeks went by, and there were
still no tidings of Mr. Blinker. The
surgeon read the police news, expecting
to see some record' of calamity to his
felonious acquaintance; but the scanty
news-sheet of the day contained no in-
formation of the missing Jonathan. If
he had suffered, he had suffered under
some alias unknown to the doctor. At
THE DIREADED GTUEST.
115
the end of the six weeks, and while Dr.
Prestwitch’s wonderment was yet at its
height, there came a mysterious brown-
paper parcel, addressed to the doctor in
a queer cramped hand that he had never
seen before. It was a small oblong
package, very carefully corded and seal-
ed, yet in a somewhat clumsy manner ;
and it arrived in the evening, while Mar-
tin Prestwitch was enjoying a pleasant
interval of repose in the bosom of his
family.
The surgeon of Little Bell-street was
not the recipient of many parcels.
Gifts and offering of friendship were
not showered upon him, even at the
most festive season. Christmas brought
him no monster turkeys, the new year
no costly frivolities for his children in
the way of sugar-plums; and his little
ones had grown out of infancy without
so much as a sponsorial fork and spoon
amongst the four of them. The advent
of a parcel, therefore, was a sufficient
cause for excitement in the small family
circle. The loving little wife's bright
eyes grew brighter with pleasure, the two
elder children hustled each other at their
father's knees in their eagerness to see
the parcel opened; and Barbara Snaffles
stood open-mouthed and open-eyed at
her master's elbow.
The parcel felt very heavy—almost
like plate, Dr. Prestwitch thought—and,
Oh, what an acceptable gift a dozen or so
of silver forks and spoons would have
been in that humble household ! He
broke the seals and unfastened the cord
with hands that were tremulous with ex-
citement. Inside the brown paper there
was a small deal box, roughly made,
and with the lid nailed down. There
was some work and some delay in rais-
ing the lid; but when it was lifted,
Mary Prestwitch thought the sight she
beheld an all-sufficient reward for a
hundred times as much trouble.
Comfortably reposing between two
layers of cotton wool appeared a quan-
tity of golden guineas, their yellow
brightness pleasingly relieved by a back- |
ground of crown pieces, fresh from the
Mint,
“O Martin, " cried the little woman,
with clasped hands, “who can have sent
us so much money P 'Thanks be to
God, who ever it is l’’
For a few moments Dr. Prestwitch
did indeed believe that some unknown
benefactor had taken compassion upon
his poverty, and that the glistening
counters before him were genuine coin
of the realm. Only moments, then the
image of Jonathan Blinker arose before
his dazzled eyes, and he felt assured that
these bright reproductions of King
George's image were the handiwork of
the coiner.
He pushed away his wife's hand as
she stretched it out to take one of the
guineas.
“Don’t excite yourself, Molly,” he
said gently. “It isn’t real money. It's
only some one playing off a practical
joke upon me.”
“Not real money? O, Martin l’ex-
claimed the wife, with something like a
Sob.
“No, my love. They look very well,
certainly, but there's not a genuine
guinea amongst them ; and if you or I
were to try to pass one of them, it would
be at the hazard of our necks.”
“I Wouldn’t mind trying, though,”
said the reckless Barbara, “at Bartlemy
Fair.”
“Bab, I’m ashamed of you!” cried
the doctor.
He took up one of the delusive coins
between his finger and thumb, and felt
the edges with the air of a man learned
in metallurgy.
“Examine the milling, my dear,” he
said, handing the false guinea to his
wife. “ That is the test.”
Mary Prestwitch burst out crying as
she looked at the bright simulacrum. It
was a bitter disappointment. Five
minutes ago she had fancied that a
shower of riches had descended upon
them ; and now it seemed as if the
thought of their poverty was a keener
pang than it had ever been before.
“Are they really false, Martin’” she
asked piteously.
“As false as any that ever a man was
hung for coining,” replied the doctor.
He had just come upon a scrap of
paper that lurked at the bottom of the
box—a brief scrawl from Jonathan
Blinker :
“Honerd Sirr,” wrote the felon ‘I
ave gott sum tooles and biggun wurk
agen. I send a fu Spessimints, wich
116
THE DREADED GUIEST.
may bee yusefull. Thay wold parse in
yº nayburode.—Y” to comand, J. B.”
Martin Prestwitch tossed this missive
into the fire.
“O, Martin, who is it that has played
this wicked trick P” asked his wife;
“and what was there in that note?”
“Nothing that I could make out,
Molly. Don't fret my darling. I don't
suppose the person meant unkindly.”
“Not mean unkindly'. And to dis-
appoint us like that O, Martin P’
The Christmas snow lay in the retired
nooks and byways of the great city
Once more, and the doctor was fourteen
years older than at the beginning of
this story. But he still lived in Little
Bell-street, and still worked very hard
to provide for his wife and children.
The fact was, he had so many of them,
that his household expenses for the last
fourteen years had been steadily on the
increase. He did not grumble at this
however. He could ill have spared one
of that merry band.
His circumstances had improved some-
what year by year, but never so much
as to justify his removal to a more fash-
ionable neighborhood. His patients
belonged to the lower classes, and if he
had left Little Bell-street he must have
left his practice behind him. So a
whole nosegay of blooming flowers had
grown up in that dingy old house, more
or less under the dominion of Barbara
Snaffles. “Old servants are such hard
masters,” says Charles Reade, and cer-
tainly Barbara ruled the doctor's house-
hold with a rod of iron.
There was a great commotion in the
family this Christmas. The eldest
girl, her mother's namesake, Molly, was
going to be married ; going to be trans-
planted into a sphere of life much lofti-
er than that in which her father and
mother had their being, for she had
been lucky enough to win the affec-
tions of a fashionable young doctor,
whose father was a physician with a
large West-end practice; a very proud
and pompous gentleman ; not a little
disposed to consider that his only son
was throwing himself away upon pretty
Molly Prestwitch.
They were to be married upon the
last day of the old year, and poor Molly
had had hard work to prepare her sim-
ple wedding outfit, with the aid and
counsel of Barhara Snaffles. Gentle
little Mrs. Prestwitch was something of
a cipher in the household, like most
mild-tempered women whose lives are
taken up with the rearing of children.
She was content to look on and see the
indefatigable Barbara manage for her-
self and her family, and it seemed to
her that everything Mistress Snaffles
did was wise.
On Christmas-day there was to be a
great festival in Little Bell-street. Young
Mr. Clemmory—Molly's intended—was
to dine with his future father-in-law ;
and the great Dr. Clemmory himself, of
Saville-row, had condescended to accept
Martin Prestwitch's invitation to partake
of his modest Christmas fare. The fare
was to be by no means unworthy of the
distinguished guest, however; for Bar-
bara had been up to her eyes in prepar-
atons for the last week, and had cheap-
ened one at the finest geese in Leaden-
hall-market for the feast, which, with a
haunch of mutton, a boiled round of
beef, and a veal-pie, the doctor and his
wife agreed would make a very pretty
little dinner. They were to dine at
three in the afternoon—quite a patri-
cian hour—but young Clemmory had
informed them that his father never
dined earlier; and as the appointed time
drew near, Barbara’s nervousness in-
creased to a feverish intensity. She
felt that her reputation as a cook and a
manager was staked upon this cast.
A little before three Dr. Clemmory
and his son arrived, the West-end physi-
cian a ponderous man, with a fat voice,
a powdered wig, a pair of handsome legs
in black-silk stockings, and a gold-head-
ed cane. The small wainscoted parlor
seemed hardly capacious enough for
such grand company; and Mrs. Prest-
witch was quite fluttered by the impor-
tance of her guest.
It was nearly dinner-time, and they
were all assembled in , he parlor: Molly
the younger radiant and blooming in a
white-muslin frock, with a coral neck-
lace round her slender throat ; two
younger girls, who looked like smaller
repetitions of Molly; three boys, more
or less in the hobbledehoy stage of ex-
istence, all in clean shirt-frills, but show-
THE DREADED GUEST.,
117
ing a little more bony wrist below their
coat-cuffs than was in accordance with
the reigning fashion—poor people's chil-
dren grow so fast. It was on the stroke
of three ; Mrs. Prestwitch was wonder-
ing how the goose would turn out ;
whether the haunch of mutton would
be roasted to that perfection of culina-
ry art which such a man as Dr. Clem-
mory had a right to expect in any joint
set before him ; and whether Barbara
would emerge triumphantly from the
plum-pudding ordeal, and walk un-
scathed through the mince-pie furnace.
The house was small, and the narrow
entrance-hall had been odorous with
dinner for the last hour or more.
Before the neighboring clocks began
to strike the hour, there came a loud
double-knock at Dr. Prestwitch's door.
The surgeon and his wife stared at
each other aghast. They had invited
no other guest; and the advent of a
dropper-in upon such an occasion would
be an unmixed calamity. Every fork
and spoon had been pressed into the
service of the day, every inch of the
dinner-table was engaged.
The West-end physician was laying
down the law in his pompous voice,
talking about the King, and my Lord
North, and these contumacious Ameri-
cans ; but every other tongue was si-
lent, and Dr. and Mrs. Prestwitch were
straining their ears to the utmost to
hear the opening of the street door,
and Barbara's parley with the unex-
pected visitor. There was a long
pause; it was not an easy thing for
Bab to leave her dinner at the supreme
moment of “dishing-up,” and it would
have been ill-manners for a member of
the family to leave the room in order
to open the street door. There was a
prolonged pause, therefore, during
which the church-clocks chimed three
with a solemn sound, and the individual
who had knocked gave a loud husky
h’m, a sound that sent a cold shiver
through Martin Prestwitch, he scarce
knew why.
At last the door was opened, and a
voice that turned the surgeon's blood
to ice was heard inquiring for Dr.
Prestwitch. Then a pair of creaking
shoes walked down the passage, the
parlor door was flung open, and Bar-
bara announced Mr. JonATHAN BLIN-
KER
It was the coiner, dressed in a bran-
new bottle-green coat and breeches, and
a scarlet waistcoat elaborately adorned
with gold lace; the coiner grown stout
and red-faced and prosperous-looking;
the coiner in a snow-white frilled-shirt,
and with a new three-cornered hat un-
der his arm.
There was a dead silence. Martin
Prestwitch's countenance assumed a
sickly hue ; the great man from Saville
row stopped suddenly in his lecture,
and stared at the new-comer as if wait-
ing for an introduction. Mrs. Prest-
witch and the children stared also ; but
were inclined to consider Mr. Blinker’s
jovial red face in a favorable aspect.
He looked an eminently respectable
gentleman of the agricultural class.
“How d'ye do, doctor P’’ he said,
unabashed by the assembly in which he
found himself. “I’ve just come back
from America, and I thought I’d give
you a look up before I went anywheres
else, even though it was Christmas-day;
and I don’t mind cutting my Christmas
beef with you, if you've no objections.”
What could Martin Prestwitch do—
a weak soul at the best, and especially
feeble where Jonathan Blinker was
concerned P. He faltered out a half-
audible introduction, “Dr. Clemmory,
Mr. Blinker; Mr. Clemmory, Mr.
Blinker.” The physician bowed with
an urbane stateliness; good-natured
George Clemmory shook hands with
the stranger.
“Your arrival is somewhat of a co-
incidence,” said Dr. Clemmory; “we
were discussing the aspect of Ameri-
can affairs when you knocked.”
Barbara announced dinner before
Mr. Blinker could reply. By a rapid
and judicious manoeuvring of the
knives and forks, she had contrived to
prepare a cover for the uninvited guest;
and the coiner took his place amongst
the rest of the company, to the horror
of Martin Prestwitch, who knew not
what revelations might be made before
the meal was finished, and who felt
that his face was palpably bedeved
with cold perspiration.
The banquet was a success. Dr.
Clemmory ate like an alderman, and
118 THE DREADIED GUEST.
praised the goose and the haunch until
Barbara's countenance glowed with an
honorable pride. Mr. Blinker made
himself eminently agreeable, talking jo-
vially with the youngsters at his end of
the table, and leading the laughter for
all Dr. Clemmory's jokes with a sten-
torian peal. It is true that he put his
knife in his mouth a good deal, and
supped up his gravy in a painfully au-
dible manner ; but people were not so
refined in those days, and a prosperous
agriculturist might do as much as this
without creating a scandal. Altogether,
things were much better than Martin
Prestwitch had expected, and as the
evening wore on he began to breathe
freely.
After dinner there was a dessert of
nuts and oranges. How happy George
Clemmory and pretty Molly Prestwitch
seemed, roasting chestnuts at the fire in
the dimly-lighted parlor, with all those
young brothers and sisters, while their
parents conversed more gravely in the
dining-room, where there was a steaming
bowl of punch Under the influence
of punch the West-end physician be-
came wonderfully expansive, and pat-
rouized Jonathan Blinker in the most
genial manner.
“I like a man of that stamp,” he said
afterwards in confidence to Martin
Prestwitch; “an honest jovial fellow,
cast in a good mould, sir, cast in a good
mould. There's genuine metal there,
Dr. Prestwitch; you can hear the ring
of it. The man is sterling coin, sir.”
Martin Prestwitch shivered, and could
only reply with a sickly smile.
Before the night was out Dr. Clem-
mory was obviously the worse or the
better for liquor, and had become al
most maudlin in his expressions of re.
gard for the ex-coiner. Mr. Blinker had
drunk more, but the strong drink hat,
no effect upon him. When the phy-
sician's coach came to fetch him away
from Little Bell-street, he volunteered
to set Mr. Blinker down at his inn before
driving home, an offer which was accept-
ed, to the horror of Martin Prestwitch.
If Dr. Clemmory had taken a fancy to
Mr. Blinker, that worthy, on his part,
had taken a fancy to the junior mem-
bers of the Prestwitch family. He in.
sisted upon kissing the three girls under
the mistletoe when he wished them
good-night, and wound up by kissing
Barbara Snaffles in the passage. He
squeezed Martin Prestwitch by the
hand upon the threshold, and said in a
confidential voice,
“I think you’ve been glad to seeme,
doctor; and I take it kindly I’ve not
forgot past favors. I’ve made a bit
of money out yonder in the shipping
line, and I’ve left every penny of it to
you.”
It was the truth; and the bit of
money turned out to be a large fortune,
which Dr. Prestwitch inherited three
years afterward from the grateful Blin-
ker, who expired in the odor of sanc-
tity at his own house at Clapton, sin-
cerely regretted by the young Prest-
witches, to whom he had been a kind of
fairy godfather, showering benefits and
gifts upon them during those concluding
years of his life. To the last day of his
existence Dr. Clemmory was wont to
speak of Mr. Blinker as a model of
probity, and the very flower of success-
ful traders and self-made men.
|
| T H E

MEMBER FOR PARIS
A 7ale of the Second Empire.
, , , /
By TROIS-ETOILES. /U4 %ca -
}
·º
A> º 7 f, ( , " º
(T
* A force de marcher l'homme erre, l'esprit doute,
Tous laissent quelquechose aux buissons de la route,
Les troupeaux leur toison et l'uomme sa vertu.''
VICTOR HUGo .
NEW YORK :
R. WORTHINGTON, 75o BROADWAY.
· I88O.
CHAP
l.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
|XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
&VIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
YXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII.
XXXVIII.
XXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
CONTENTS.
CE FUT UN DEUIL DANs LE PAYs.
HoNEST GEROLD & te ©
Vox POPULI WOx DEI . tº
ANNO DOMINI M.DCCC.LIV o
BOURGEOIs Politics © ©
A FIRST BRIEF e º tº
A FIRST SPEECH . tº e
Sweets AND BITTERS OF POPULARITY
HORACE STARTS IN JOURNALISM
NEw FRIENDS, NEW HABITs .
LOVE AND WAR © © wº
M. MACROBE OFFERS MonEY .
M. POCHEMOLLE’s REQUEST .
M. MACROBE INSERTS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
How EMPIRES ARE GOVERNED
MADEMOISELLE ANGELIQUE .
“THE FUTURE MADAME FILOSELLE”
M. MACROBE “AT HOME * * >
YouNG CANDOR, OLD SUBTLETY
“LE LION AMOUREUx” . *
CANVASSING . º e ©
Vox POPULI . tº * > tº
MACROBE, A LA RESCOUSSE .
EPISTOLARY & o gº o
A SPEECH, A Vote, AND A SURPRISE
A RECOGNITION o e Ç
PRINCE COPHETUA’s Woong .
IDLE REGRETS AND BAD RESOLUTION
M. MACROBE’s ASPIRATIONS .
ONE GOOD MAN LESS . O
REQUIESCAT . te © tº
DECLARATIONS OF WAR . º
AFFAIRs of INTEREST AND OF HONOR
SUB ROSA . * > © Q e
INTER POCULA . e tº º
M. GRIBAUD MAKES A SPEECH
MANUEL GEROLD’s SoNs DIVIDE HIS INHERITANCE
ANGéLIQUE's CONFESSION C.
A PANIC . e * > c tº
LovE’s CALVARIES . º º
IN ExCELSIS . Q O O
te
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THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
CHAPTER I.
CE FUT UN DEUIL DANS LE PAYS.
HAUTBOURG on the Loire is a venerable
old town, which played an important part
in French history some six or seven hun-
dred years ago, when gentlemen wore plate-
armor and cut each other's throats by way
of pastime. If we may trust the legend, it
originally formed part of , the fief. of a
mighty Count Alaric, who, being a disloyal
subject and in league with the Devil,
thrashed his king, Louis le Gros, in a field
adjoining the town, which Providence, and
the municipal council between them have
since appointed for a brick-kiln. If you
turn to Froissart you will find that a Count
de Hautbourg fought behind John II, at
Poictiers, and was in the train of that ill-
starred monarch when he rode through
London on a tall horse, having his van-
quisher, the Black Prince, beside him on a
small one. Three centuries and a half later,
another Count de Hautbourg turned up in
the Bastille, where he had been put for
being a Jansenist; and in 1793 a certain
Raoul-Aimé, Marquis of Hautbourg and
Clairefontaine, was heard of on the guillo-
tine, where he perished, it seems, with re-
markable good grace and equanimity. I
am not going to weary you with a long ac-
count of what the Hautbourgs did in exile
during the Republic and the reign of Na-
poleon; but if you are versed in contem-
porary history you must have read all about
that Marquis of H. and C., who accom-
panied Louis XVIII. to Hartwell, married
in England Mary-Anne Sophia, daughter
of Ezekiel Guineaman, Esquire, and died,
under the Restoration, a duke, a peer of
France, and a secretary of state. To him
Succeeded his eldest son, who was also a
peer of France, but never a minister, and
who figured as one of the leaders of that
“anti-dynastic" opposition, which made
the life of poor Louis Philippe so extremely
unpleasant to him. This nobleman being
in Paris in 1851, at the time when Mon-
sieur Bonaparte, as he called him, effected
his coup d'état, was so unfortunate as to take
a walk in the afternoon of the 3d Decem-
ber, at the precise moment when the emis-
saries of the said Monsieur B. were most
intent upon their work. Finding himself
suddenly face to face with a troop of M. de
Goyon's horse, whose mission it was to clear
the streets, he made an attempt to fly—the
first attempt of the kind, be it said inci-
dentally, that he had ever made in his life.
But well-mounted dragoons are not always
so easy to fly from. You will remember that
on this occasion the brave defenders of order
had been liberally plied with wine, and had
received instructions not to spare anybody
who stood in their way. These instructions
they obeyed; and so it befell that the noble
scion of the Hautbourgs, who entertained
about the same feelings towards democracy
as he did towards pitch, came, thanks to the
grim irony of fate, by the death of a demo-
crat. For, when the slain were picked up on
the evening of that glorious day which slew
a republic and founded a dynasty, the Legit-
imist duke was found lying side by side
with a subversive sweep, a costermonger of
socialist tendencies, and a small boy, three
feet high, who must have been wicked be-
yond his years, seeing that out of his bleed-
ing, perverse little hand was snatched a red
toy-flag emblazoned with the heinous words,
Vive la Liberté !
Some three years after this, that is, in the
year 1854, the time at which this narrative
commences, the domain and castle of Claire-
fontaine, about two miles distant from
Hautbourg, had not yet been visited by
their new master. The estate, which dur-
5
6 - THE MEMBER FOR PARIS
ing five and thirty years had teemed with
splendor, animation, and festivity, now
looked as if a sudden blight had fallen upon
it. Grass had begun to sprout over the
stately avenue, a good mile long, which led
from the lodge-gates of the manor-house to
its principal entrance. The shutters of the
castle were all closed and barred. The
stables, in which the last Duke of Haut-
bourg had stalled six and twenty horses,
were deserted. The handsome little Gothic
chapel, one of the sights of the country, in
which it was reported that Fénelon had
once preached, and in which it was a certi-
fied fact that his Majesty King Charles X.
had been several times to mass during the
visit he paid to the first Duke in 1827, was
become a home for spiders; and — worse
sign than all — the monumental fountain
standing in the centre of the state court-
yard — fountain built on the designs of the
famous sculptor Pierre Puget, and covering
a spring from which the manor drew its
name of Clairefontaine — was overgrown
with moss, thus revealing that its dolphins
and naiads had long ceased to dash spray
out of their open mouths and horned
conchs into the porphyry-basin under them.
Had it not been for the unsightly ruins of
an unfinished summer-house, which had
evidently been begun in the late Duke's
time, and abandoned to the mercies of wind
and rain at his death, one would have fan-
cied it was full a hundred years since any-
body had trod those leaf-strewn alleys and
silent chambers. Now and then in the
very early morning, or in the evening to-
wards sunset, an old crome was to be seen
painfully mowing with a hand-sickle the
long grass on the lawn, or gathering peaches,
apricots, and cherries in the orchard, or
picking lapfuls of roses and pinks from
what had once been the flower-garden; but
she partook more of the phantom than of
the human being. If questioned, she would
teil you that she was the lodge-keeper, and
that she gathered the fruit and flowers to
prevent them being wasted. She was a
rather dismal old woman, with a querulous
intonation of voice, kºut — like all French
people of either sex — she was ready
enough to talk, and would spin her quaver-
ing yarns by the hour when interrogated
civilly. “She had no idea,” she said,
“when the new Duke was coming; she be-
lieved he lived in foreign parts. Somebody
had told her that he was an odd gentle-
man — not mad, Monsieur, she didn’t mean
that, but queerlike in his ways. No one
had ever seen him at Clairefontaine since
he was a little bit of a boy just so high;
no, he hadn’t even come to M. le Duc's
funeral, which was thought strange, and
had made folks about the country talk a
little, though our Holy Virgin forbid that
she should find any thing to say concerning
a gentleman who was a Hautbourg and cer-
tainly had good reasons for all he did. But
you see, sir, despite her being an old wo-
man, she couldn't help hearing what people
said, and them as talked said that Monsieur,
the new Duke, had not been very well off
before, and that it was peculiar he shouldn't.
have come to the burial of a relation whose
death had brought him a million francs a
year. Ay, Monsieur, it was full a million, if
not more. All the land from Hautbourg to
Clairefontaine, from Clairefontaine to Bois-.
froment and Clairebourg, and from Claire-
bourg to Sainte-Sophie, belonged to the
estate. To judge of the size, one should
have seen all the tenants assembled, some
three or four hundred, on horseback, as she
had seen them when Monseigneur, the late
Duke, came of age, and when “Monsieur le
Roi Charles Dix’ arrived on a visit with
Monsieur le Duc d’Angoulême and Mon-
seigneur le Duc de Quelen, Archbishop of
Paris. Ah, that was a sight to see. that
was but, mon Dieu, those times were far
gone, and men were no longer now what
they were then. In those days she was a
young woman, and her husband, who was
head-gamekeeper, had loaded his Majesty's
own gun when there was a battue in the
preserves. He was paralyzed now, her
husband, but he had been ‘a brave; ” he
had served as sergeant in the Prince of
Condé's army at Coblentz along with the
first Dake, who was Marquis then ; and he
had lived in Monseigneur's household up-
wards of forty years. There was no head-
gamekeeper now, in fact no gamekeeper at
all, and the estate was managed by a new
agent, M. Claude.” Was he a kind man,
this Monsieur Claude’” — “Oh, yes, sir;
she couldn't but say he was kind enough;
he was a quiet-spoken gentleman from
Paris, and never hard to the tenants. But,
after all, Monsieur” — and here the old
woman's voice would wax more querulous
and whimpering — “it wasn’t the same as
having M. le Duc here. The country had
been all dead like for the last three years,
and she had heard tell that if this went on
much longer half the folks up at the town
yonder would be ruined. You see, sir, they
used to live on Monseigneur, they did, and
the new Duke's keeping away was no more
nor less than taking the bread out of their
mouths.”
This account, gloomy and piteous as it
might sound, was yet cheerful in compari-
son to what one heard in the town itself.
There the closing of the Château of Claire-
fontaine and the protracted absence of the
new Duke were viewed as public calami-
ties; and one had only to walk along the
Ulì, FUT UN DEUIL DANS LE PAYS º
tortuous old streets, and mark the dejected
faces of the shopkeepers, to guess that un-
less M. le Duc put in an appearance very
shortly the old woman's prediction about the
gazette was not unlikely to be realized. As we
said at starting, Hautbourg was a venerable
town, but it had had its day, and it could
no longer afford to do without patronage.
On each side of the main street, which was
called La Rue de Clairfontaine, the sign-
boards and devices over the shops (for
sign-boards are as much in vogue in French
provincial towns as they were in England
150 years ago) testified abundantly, that,
spite of revolutions and noble principles of
equality, the relations between borough and
manor-house were as feudal as they had
ever been at the best of times. Over the
crockery-dealer's was the picture of a young
person standing beside a bubbling fountain
and handing a mugful of water to a knight
in plate-armor, with underneath the words:
Aw Chevalier de la Claire fontaine. Over
the ironmonger's was another knight in
plate-armor, dispensing what appeared to
be shovels and tongs to his menials, and
exhorting them to be “toujours prêts,”
which was the motto of the Hautbourgs.
Over the pork-butcher's was a Hautbourg
slaying a wild-boar; over the gunsmith's a
fourth Hautbourg firing off a culverin, and
so on. Of course the chief inn was the
Hotel de Clairefontaine, and its rival over
the way, the Hotel Monseigneur; and
equally, of course, there was in the midst
of the market-place an equestrian statue
of the Hautbourg of Crécy, with a long
homage in Latin to the valor of that war-
rior.*
The Dukes of Hautbourg had always
done their very best to foster in the borough
a spirit of dependency, and with the greater
success, as the town, having no manufac-
tures to support it, and being situated
neither on a river, nor in the vicinity of a
large canal, nor on the trunk-line of an
important railway, possessed none of the
elements of modern vitality, and would
º have dwindled away into a village
ad it not been for the great family at
Clairefontaine. It was to this family the
town owed every thing. Its schools, its
free library, its museum of stuffed bids, its
restored church, filled with furbished brasses
and stained-glass windows; its restored
gate, out of which the Count Alaric had
proceeded when he went to beat Louis VII.,
and on which still bristled a spike, where
it was assured this same Count used to spit
the heads of his subjects who were behind-
hand with their taxes; * its quaint fountain
and horse-trough in the street near the
cattle-market, its red-brick alms-houses and
free dispensary, - all these institutions had
been built, founded, or renovated with
Clairefontaine money. Furthermore, the
late Duke, with a view to keeping up his ter-
ritorial influence, had spent annually some
four hundred thousand francs in the town.
All the necessaries of life in the way of fur-
niture, food, and clothing, both for himself
and servants, and many luxuries also, which
a less politic nobleman might have bought
in Paris, this far-sighted landlord purchased
at Hautbourg. He even went the length of
wearing in Paris coats cut by the Hautbourg
tailor, and of suffering none but the Haut-
bourg doctor to attend him in illness—acts
of courage these which entailed their re-
ward, for I honestly believe the two facts
combined did more for the popularity of
the Duke, and for the self-esteem of the
borough, than if Monseigneur had caused
Hautbourg to be raised to the rank of
a first-class prefecture, and had brought
a cardinal-archbishop to reside there. But
this was not all. The establishment at
Clairefontaine was not only an ever-flowing
Source of profit in itself; it also acted as a
great central planet around which gravitat-
ed a number of satellites, in the shape of
smaller country-houses, occupied by the
lesser nobility and gentry of the department.
So long as the hospitable doors of the castle
remained open these lesser gentry abound-
ed. Harvest-festivals, archery-meetings,
hunting-parties, masked-balls, and charity-
fairs, followed each other in unbroken, ed-
dying succession. Not a small purse but
endeavored to vie with the big purse : hall
played the suit of castle, and villa returned
the lead of hall; the whole summer and
autumn season was a carnival, and the di-
rect result appeared in this, that the trad-
ing-men of Hautbourg grew fat, their wives
and children waxed ruddy, and the borough
in general wore a sleek and prosperous
look, such as speaks of plenty, and savings
in the funds.
All this, however, was a thing of the
past now. The eclipse of the great planet
had involved that of the satellites, and
Hautbourg was fallen of a sudden from its
Snug position of ease into penury, the more
hard to bear as it had been unexpected.
The Hautbourg of 1854 was but the ghost
of the Hautbourg of 1851. Can you fancy
Capua ravaged by a pestilence, Pompeii
become bankrupt, or Herculaneum aban-
doned just previous to its interment 2 There
* This statue was erected at the Restoration, the
original one standing before 1789 having been melt-
ed down under the Republic, one and indivisible,
to coin pence witu.
* I ought to mention that there were some who
insisted this was only the remnant of an ancient
weather-cock, but there are unbelieving people
everywhere.
8
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
was not a carriage to be seen in that neatly-
paved serpentine Rue de Clairefontaine, in
which, of a fine autumn afternoon in the
good times of the late Duke, the local quid-
nuncs had often counted as many as a
couple of dozen vehicles, come in for shop-
ing, and drawn up in a long queue outside
M. Blanchemelle and Camisole's, the
linen-drapers, or Madame Bavolet's, the
modiste from Paris. MM. Blanchemelle and
Camisole and Madame Bavolet had always
prided themselves upon keeping pace step
for step with the fashions of the capital, and
it was certainly to their credit that their bills
, were, if any thing, rather heavier than those
of the Rue de la Paix; but, alas ! where
were they and the fashions now 2 MM.
B. and C. were advertising cotton-checks
cheap, and a humble placard in Madame
Bavolet's window informed you that bonnets
were to be had within “first style” for fif.
teen francs It is curious what a single blow
with a dragoon’s sword can do. The unsus-
pecting pimple-nosed trooper who cut down
Monsieur le Duc, had at the same stroke
ripped open the money-bags of a whole
borough, dispersed the denizens of some
score of mansions, and mowed away the
prosperity of twenty square miles as com-
pletely as if it had been so much grass. I
need not tell you how popular he was, this
pimple-nosed trooper, in Hautbourg; but I
think he would have spent a pleasant quar-
ter of an hour if the municipal council
could have had the dealing with him for
fifteen minutes in private. Nevertheless,
I am bound to say there was some one
against whom public opinion was yet more
incensed than against him, and that was the
new landlord — the new Duke of Haut-
bourg. After all, the dragoon had acted
in ignorance; he was a brute, who was paid
to do his work; and as for the Monsieur
Bonaparte who had paid him, why, you see,
he had become Emperor since, and so the
less discussion about him the better. But
what was to be said for a man who had
come into a million francs a year, a colossal
estate, a magnificent name, and who yet
hid away in some hole-and-corner foreign
town, and never condescended to show him-
self? I ask you, what was the good of being
a Duke, if one did not stand forth and show
one's self? The law ought to put a stop to
dukes who did not show themselves. Their
being suffered to hold land was nonsense;
it was immoral, and the sooner they were
compelled by statute either to relinquish
their money or to spend it like gentlemen,
the better it would be for everybody. Such
were the discourses that were uttered in
Hautbourg; and if you would like to hear
what else was said about the new and mys-
terious owner of Clairefontaine, you have
only to step in and listen to the conversa.
tion held one evening after a very sorry
market-day at the table d'hôte of the chief
hotel in the place.
It was at that critical moment in the
repast when the boiled beef has been re-
moved, and when the company are waiting,
silent, to see what is coming next.
Farmer Toulmouche, wizen and small—
a fine specimen of a French farmer nour-
ished on lean pork and red wine — poured
himself out half a tumbler of ordinaire,
diluted it with water, and mournfully ven-
tured upon an observation.
“I never see such a market-day in all my
life,” he said. “This very day three years
ago I sold twenty beeves — no more nor
less. To-day I sold never a one.”
“Nor I,” dismally echoed Farmer Truche-
poule, an agriculturist of rather bigger cali-
bre. “Never a one.” .
“Oh I don’t let's talk of past times,” pro-
tested M. Scarpin, the local bootmaker, de-
jectedly. He had come to dine at table
d'hôte to raise his spirits a little; for trade
had not been very brisk at home that day,
and Madame Scarpin, according to the wont
of lovely woman, had made him bear the
penalty of it.
“No, don’t let's talk of past times,” as-
sented M. Ballanchu, the seedsman, with
a sigh , but he instantly added, “When I
think of that Duke skulking away like this,
and allowing every thing here to go to rack
and ruin, par tous les cinq cent mille diables,
it makes my blood boil.”
M. Ballanchu was a fat man, and when
his blood boiled, after an invocation to the
five hundred thousand devils, his counte-
nance reddened and was ferocious to be-
hold.
“Of what duke are you speaking 2 ”
asked young M. Filoselle, the commercial
traveller, whetting his knife against his fork
with a view to the roast veal which Made-
lon, the servant wench, was just then bring-
ing in. This was only M. Filoselle's second
visit to Hautbourg. On both occasions, he
had found a prodigious difficulty in screw-
ing orders out of the “beggarly ” town, and
he saw no reason whatever for standing on
ceremony.
“Why, the Duke of Hautbourg, to be
sure,” answered M. Ballanchu in astonish-
ment. “Whom else should I mean ‘’”
“Ah, yes, I remember,” proceeded M.
Filoselle, trying the edge of his knife on
his thumb,” “You did nothing but talk
about him last time I was here. Well,
hasn’t he turned up yet 2"
This levity disgusted M. Scarpin, the boot-
maker, who communicated to his neighbor,
M. Hochepain, the tax-gatherer, that those
Parisians were growing more and more
.# CE FUT. UN TEUIL DANS LE PAYS.
3
bumptious every year. Unfortunately, this
remark was lost upon M. Hochepain; for,
besides being deaf, he was at that moment
immersed in profound speculation as to who
would get the veal kidney.
It was Farmer Follavoine, the replica pic-
ture of Farmer Toulmouche, who undertook
to answer the traveller.
“Turned up !” he rejoined bitterly.
“No, and never likely to. Why should he
turn up 2 His agent collects his rents for
him regular; and so long as them's all
right, I don’t suppose he's going to care
much whether us here goes to the deuse
or not.” *
“I know I shouldn't—not two pins,” re-
marked M. Filoselle pleasantly.
“Do you take stuffing 2" called out M.
Duval, the landlord, from his end of the
table.
“I should think he did ; he takes every
thing,” ejaculated the stout Madelon — the
person alluded to being M. Hochepain, the
tax-gatherer.
“If I were you,” said M. Filoselle, shak-
ing the pepper-pot over his plate, which
was by this time full of roast, and grin-
ning approval at Madelon's sally, —“if I
were you, I shouldn't sit down and pull
faces all the year round, as you seem to
be doing. If you want to see your Duke
back again, why don’t you — Madelon, my
angel, the bread— why don’t you draw up
a petition and have it off to him with a
deputation ?”
“What good would that do?” asked M.
Scarpin contemptuously.
“Not much, I am afraid, mon pauvre M.
Scarpin, if it was you who headed the depu-
tation; for your Duke might think the jaun-
dice had broken out here, and people who
are rich don’t like the jaundice; but if you
sent somebody with a more cheerful face on
his shoulders, something might come of it.
After all, though,” pursued the collected M.
Filoselle, “it depends on what sort of a man
your Duke is. In my experience, there are
dukes and dukes. I once knew a duke who
was no higher than Madelon's waist there,
par exemple; he wasn’t so stout. We trav-
elled together on board a steamboat going
down the Rhine — you don't know the
Rhine, M. Scarpin 7 It's a splendid river,
couleur café au lait, with a bordering of
sugar-loaves on each side. The duke was
standing abaft blowing away at a cigar.
Said I to him, ‘Monsieur le Due, it is the
mission of great men to patronize the arts
and manufactures. I am travelling for three
world-famed houses: one in the drapery
way, another in the musical instrument
line, and the third in the wine-business.
I also take subscriptions and advertisements
for two newspapers—one democratic, the
ſº
other conservative. If you will honor me
with an order for a flute, and put down
your name as subscriber to one of the
papers, you will encourage native indus-
try and promote the development of jour-
nalism.’
“‘Monsieur,’ he replied dryly, “I am not
a great man. I don’t play the flute, and I
think that journalism is a great deal too
much developed as it is;" and with this he
turned on his heel. Ah, diable ! that’s what
I call a sharp duke; and if yours is like
him, I agree with you, it wouldn't be much
use petitioning. But”—
“Go to, saucy farceur from Paris l’inter-
rupted M. Ballanchu wrathfully. “You’re
all of you alike with that cursed habit of
Sniggering at every thing. I tell you it's
not a matter to laugh at, that a whole
town should be going on to ruin, because
a crotchety old man, who has had all the
good blood in him poisoned by that infernal
city of yours, chooses to hide away and
hoard up the gold he ought never to have
inherited. I tell you, we country-folk whom
you Parisians turn up your snub-noses at
are a precious sight better than you. Do
you hear that, young whippersnapper ? Bad
luck to you, one and all !”
“Hear, hear,” chorused Farmers Toul-
mouche, Truchepoule, and Follavoine, who
had an unmitigated contempt for Parisians,
They had never seen Paris, either of them,
and didn’t wish to.
M. Filoselle was not the least abashed.
He had just finished his veal, and was oc-
cupied in mopping up the gravy in his
plate with some bread-crumb. This oper-
ation completed to his satisfaction, he raised
his eyes towards his interlocutor, and said,
“Monsieur the Seedsman, my birthplace is
not Paris, but Dijon. I first saw the light
in the city renowned for its mustard, and
I beg you to observe that my nose is of the
aquiline order of architecture. As for the
old gentleman with the crotchets, who had
his good blood poisoned in Paris, I should
like to hear something more about him; for
he must be an interesting phenomenon to
study.”
M. Ballanchu growled.
“Come, come,” interposed M. Duval,
the host, in a spirit of conciliation, for he
had tact enough to see that his fellow-towns-
man, finding himself unequal to a wordy
war, might have recourse to some other
means of asserting rustic Supremacy, —
“come, come, gentlemen, don’t let us have
M. le Duc interfering with our dinner. He's
done us enough harm without that.”
“I should think he had, confounded radi-
cal l’ grumbled M. Ballanchu, still eying
M. Filoselle threateningly,
“Radical ?” echoed the commercial trav-
10
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
eller, catching up the word, and laughing
from ear to ear. “There, my good Mon-
sieur Seedsman, didn’t I tell you he must
be a phenomenon, this old man. Peste /
you don’t suppose it's every province in
France that begets radical dukes.”
“No, and a good job too,” roared M.
Ballanchu. “And this one would never
have been what he is if his nephew had had
tive minutes' time before dying to disinherit
him. Clairefontaine wasn’t made for such
as he – a wrong-headed, obstinate, canting
Jacobin.”
There was a stiff old half-pay officer of
the name of Duroseau dining at the table
d'hôte. He had been too much absorbed as
yet by the process of mastication to take
any part in the conversation. (His teeth
were false, and he was obliged to eat slowly
to prevent them coming out.) But now,
having laid down his knife and fork, and
noticing the puzzled look on the commercial
traveller's face, he said gruffly, - “Young
man, you must have heard of the ex-deputy,
Manuel Gerold 2 ”
“Of course I have, captain; he was
one of the first speakers in the old As-
sembly under the Republic and poor King
Pear.*
I heard him speak once in the House of
Representatives. Thunder Monsieur
Ballanchu, your voice was nothing to his.
But what of him, captain 2”
“Well, young man, it's he who is now
Duke of Hautbourg.”
M. Filoselle, who had not been brought
up at court, and ignored a good many max-
ilns of dinner-table etiquette, gave a pro-
Honged whistle.
M. Duroseau went on, not sorry to have
taken the “forward young jackanapes "
aback.
“At the time when you saw Monsieur
Manuel Gerold, under the late King's reign"
(Captain Duroseau laid an emphasis on the
words late King. He was not a Bonapart-
ist ; he had fought under the Dukes of
Orleans, Nemours, and Aumale in Africa,
and would have been glad to cut off M.
Filoselle's ears for calling Louis Philippe
King Pear) —“At the time, I say, when
you saw M. Gerold, his proper title was
Count de Clairebourg; but he has always
been a Republican, and never called him-
self otherwise than by the family name —
Gerold. He is the uncle of the Duke who
was killed by — by — ahem 1 — in 1851.
He was locked up at the eoup d'état, but let
out as soon as it was found that he was his
* Le Roi Poire; literally, King Pear—his Majesty
King Louis Philippe. The sobriquet was much in
vogue between 1830 and 1848 ; it was an allusion to
the shape of his Majesty’s head. Happy the king
whose enemies can find no worse nick-name for him
than King Pear.
nephew's heir. At present he is living ir
Brussels.”
Captain Duroseau, having delivered him.
self of this concise biographical summary,
deemed he had contributed his ample share
towards the general fund of conversation,
and turned his attention towards a piece of
Gruyère cheese.
“Tiens, tiens,” muttered the commercial
traveller, who had become a little pensive,
“that tall man with the gray hair and the
eyes like lanterns, who set me all aglow
when he let fall those words about liberty
and justice—that man is Duke of Haut-
bourg l And you call him a canting Jaco-
bin, M. Ballanchu. Do you know what
we called him in Paris? We had surnamed
him l’honnéte Gerold.”
“He was a Republican, sir,” said Captain
Duroseau, looking up from his cheese. The
captain admired honesty as much as any
man, but he would not allow that it could
exist amongst Republicans.
“I don’t care that — what you called him
in Paris,” retorted the seedsman, snapping
his fingers energetically. “I only know
this much, that it was a bad day for us all
down here in Hautbourg when the property
up at Clairefontaine yonder fell into the
hands of a man who had such cursed mean
notions as to how a landlord should spend
his money. Let a man be what he likes,
say I, so long as he's poor; but when he's
rich, and a duke, why then let him show
people what a nobleman is, and throw radi-
calism and all that pack of nonsense to them
as have need of it.”
This sentiment seemed so perfectly in
accordance with the spirit of practical wis-
dom, that the three farmers, the boot-
maker, the host, and the tax-gatherer burst
into a cordial “Ay, ay, well said.” Of
course, the tax-gatherer had not heard a
word, but his idea was that somebody’s
health had been proposed, and as the seeds-
man followed up his remarks by draining
his glass dry, he, the tax-gatherer, did
likewise. The only two who did not join
in the applause were the half-pay captain
and the commercial traveller. The former
muttered dryly that he did not see what
change of fortune had got to do with change
of politics, and the latter simply asked:—
“Does this M. Gerold, this new Duke of
Hautbourg, do nothing for the poor of your
town 2 ”
“Poor, sir! who cares two figs for the
poor 7" replied M. Ballanchu, always fore-
most in the van. “Who ever said a word
about the poor, I should like to know 2 Do
you suppose because a man sends ostenta-
tiously twenty thousand francs a year to be
distributed amongst a parcel of cripples and
old women, I and my fellow-tradesmen are
CE FUT UN DEUIL DANS LE PAYS.
11
any the better for it? Perhaps you think
I can pay for my dinner by telling our host
there that M. le Duc has put a thousand
napoleons into the poor-box” Ask M.
Duval.” This sarcasm, emitted in a tone
of derisive scorn, obtained an immense suc-
cess. M. Duval thought it was one of the
most delicate flights of wit he had heard for
many, a long day, and inwardly blamed
himself for the unjust estimate he had
formed of M. Ballanchu's mental powers.
As for the three farmers, Toulmouche,
Truchepoule, and Follavoine, they reflected
that this seedsman was assuredly a strong
head, who would one of these days do some-
thing in politics.
A little jealous of his compeer's triumph,
M. Scarpin, the bootmaker, felt the mo-
ment had come for reaping some glory in
his turn.
“Now-a-days,” said he, “the poor are a
great deal too rich; they take the bread off
the plate of their betters” —
“Alas! and only leave one the veal
exclaimed M. Filoselle. “You see,” he
added pathetically, “we have lighted upon
degenerate times. What with radical
dukes and wealthy paupers, there is no
knowing where we should all go, were it
not for the honest sentiments of such men
as M. the Seedsman. M. Ballanchu, I ad-
mire your theories; M. Scarpin — paragon
of bootmakers l—I shall make a note of
your observation. But tell me — for I have
yet to learn — why your depraved Jacobin
lives at Brussels. That part of the mystery
has not been explained yet.” And the
commercial traveller turned towards Cap-
tain Duroseau.
“I don’t know, sir,” replied the old officer,
curtly; “M. de Hautbourg's business
doesn't concern me.” The fact is, in spite
of himself, the worthy captain looked upon
a duke rather in the light of a superior
officer; and he was not best pleased to hear
lim discussed with so much familiarity by a
company of “clod-hoppers ” and “counter-
jumpers.”
“When a man lives at Brussels,” ex-
claimed M. Ballanchu, in a sapient tone,
“I say there must be something in it. I
know more of Brussels than M. le Duc
thinks for. People don’t go and live at
I3russels unless they have a reason.”
“No, that they don't,” assented M. Scar-
pin, mysteriously.
“Then you mean to say?”—insinuated
M. Filoselle.
“I mean to say nothing, sir,” responded
M Ballanchu sternly. “Only, I'm a man
of business, I am; and unless I have proof
positive that a man has a good motive for
doing any thing, I make it my rule to be-
lieve the contrary. This M. le Duc is not
35
!
exiled by the Government, he has plenty
of money and a house waiting here for him,
Why doesn't he come to it? If you can
tell me that, I shall be ready to ſº to
you; but, until you do, you will allow me
to have my own opinion.” And saying
this, M. Ballanchu folded his napkin an
pushed his chair from the table.
“Yes, yes,” muttered M. Scarpin, like-
wise laying down his napkin, and shaking
his head. “There's something not clear in
all this. Why was the Duke kept at such
distance by his nephew and brother in past
days? Why was he never asked to Claire-
fontaine? Why did nobody ever hear
nothing of him until, when it was found
that Monsieur the late Duke having left no
will, it was he who was to come into the
property Why, does he hide away now
without daring to show himself 2 ”
The seedsman, the bootmaker, the three
farmers, and the host exchanged meaning
glances. To tell the truth, they were a lit-
tle alarmed at their own perspicacity.
Without having the least idea what it was
they suspected, each yet felt as though his
preternatural acuteness had put him on the
scent of a tragic state secret. The most
solemn-looking, however, was the tax-gath-
erer. As he had not caught a single
syllable of what was said, his countenance
was more mysteriously profound than that
of any of the others.
The captain, who disliked tattling, and
who besides had finished his cheese, rose
and took up his hat to go; M. Filoselle
followed his example ; and this was the
signal for a general break-up of the party.
But the commercial traveller, who, perhaps,
was used to having the last word, had not
the good sense to retire; maintaining that
silence which is known to be of gold.
Picking up his carpet-bag in a corner of
the room, he exclaimed with enthusiasm:
“O charming town remarkable alike for
its boiled beef and for the genial instincts
of its inhabitants, it pains my heart to leave
thee. But say, Ballanchu, we shall meet
again; and perchance, next time I come
thou wilt purchase of me an instrument of
music whereon to pipe the praises of that
duke whom now thou abusest; for should
he put in an appearance here, O friendl
and shouldst thou have the luck to make
his acquaintance, I think thou wilt soon
discover that, spite of his living at Brus-
sels” (here M. Filoselle judged well to put
a prudent distance betwixt him and the
seedsman), “he outweighs in honesty both
thee and me — ay, and the lot of us, not to
speak of the tax-gatherer.”
“Talk for yourself, you parrot-voiced
puppy,” spluttered the red-faced M. Bal-
lanchu. “And the day I buy any thing of
12
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
thee, write it down in a book that I’ve got
more money than I want, and have ceased
to care about being swindled.”
“ Vive l'esprit l” retorted the undaunted
M. Filoselle. “There is but one Duke, and
Ballanchu shall be his seedsman. M. Duval,
I charge you take care of that man; he is
so sharp that I foresee he will cut himself.”
And with this Parthian shot, M. Filoselle
chucked Madelon, the serving-maid, under
the chin, threw her a twenty-sou piece,
made his obeisance to the company, and
vanished.
“Que le diable l'emporte / " shouted the
seedsman, shaking his fist after him. “And
as for that ‘honest Gerold’ of thine, I fancy
thou and he would make a pretty pair.”
To which observation the whole company
for the third time cried assent, M. Hoche-
F. this once joining like the rest; for,
aving caught the two words “pretty pair,”
he concluded they must refer to a couple of
cauliflowers which had figured at the board,
and so remarked in confidence to the irate
seedsman:—
“Yes, a pretty pair truly, but not quite
boiled enough.”
% $ % 3% 3%
This dinner and this conversation took
place at the Hôtel de Clairefontaine to-
wards the end of September in the year
1854. A week afterwards, day for day,
some stir was caused in the hotel by what
was no longer a diurnal occurrence, the arri-
val of three travellers. They had come by
the mid-day train, purposed dining, and
would, perhaps, stay a night. One of them
was an old man of about seventy, the other
two looked like his sons.
CHAPTER II.
HONEST GEROLD.
Un sacrifice fier charme une âme hautaine:
La gloire en est présente et la douleur lointaine.
As stood to reason, they were given the
best rooms in the hotel; indeed, there was
good choice and to spare, for the house was
empty. Mdlle. Madelon showed them into
the yellow drawing-room on the first floor,
overlooking the market-place, and lost no
time in telling them that the two pictures
on the wall, facing them as they went in
were portraits of Monseigneur the late
Duke of Hautbourg and his father—“the
owners of this house, if you please, gentle-
men.” That, over the fireplace, with the
eriwig, was Monsieur le Marquis, who had
tº beheaded by Monsieur Robespierre;
*
and that in the corner there, with the frame
in brown Holland, was another member of
the Hautbourg family, Monseigneur Jean
de Clairebourg, Bishop of Marvault, a holy
man, who had done a great deal of good
by burning some Protestants. Mdlle.
Madelon had recited all this so often, that
she knew it by heart. She used at one
time to turn a pretty penny by pointing
out to travellers the identical bed in which
Monseigneur the first Duke of IIautbourg
had slept on the night of his return from
emigration in 1814, before they had had time
to prepare his room for him at the castle.
Unfortunately, she had rather overdone
this, for, finding it paid, and that people
liked to sleep in Monseigneur's bed, she
had ended by pointing out every couch in
the house as having been occupied by his
Grace, and had even unwarily put a gentle-
man of the Filoselle type, who came thrice
to the hotel, each time in a different bed,
warranted slept in by the great noble. On
going away the third time, the gentleman
had inquired dryly whether emigration had
not imparted somewhat erratic habits to
Monseigneur, since he spent his nights
going about from bed to bed.
The oldest of the three strangers listened
very kindly to the girl’s prattle, and the
two younger ones seemed amused by it.
They were three as handsome faces as any
admirer of manly beauty could have hoped
to meet. The veteran carried himself erect,
and had something in his gait that revealed
the old soldier. His hair and beard were
both long, however — longer than old
soldiers generally allow themselves; for the
hair, which was of dazzling white, ſell to the
shoulders, and the beard half covered the
chest. What chiefly attracted one in this
old man was the expression of his eyes,
which was singularly eloquent and gentle.
They beamed upon one, those eyes; and
one felt, under their quiet, steady gaze,
that they could never have quailed before
anybody. The voice, too, had a rare accent
of benevolence; it was the voice of a man
who thought well of human nature, and
had met on his path more good characters
than bad ones.
The two younger men were suſliciently
alike to make it discernible at a glance
that they were brothers. The elder looked
three or four and twenty; the other was
probably a couple of years his junior. Both
had the same eyes — at least, very nearly
the same — as the old man, and their faces
were like his, bright, open, and intelligent.
Of the two, it was, perhaps, the younger
who was the strongest, and he also looked
the graver; the elder was slighter of build,
more graceful, and certainly more inclined
to laugh, for Scarcely a minute passed but
HONEST GEROLD.
13
saw his pleasant features lighted up by a
smile. }. were very well dressed — not
a common merit in France, where young
men are the worst dressers in Christendom
— but as traits of character can be gathered
from little facts, it may as well be mention-
ed that, whilst the younger wore a plain
black silk cravat tied in a knot, the elder
had a black satin scarf, with a cameo pin
in it, and, moreover, wore a gold ring.
Between the three men seemed to exist
that cordial, trustful familiarity bred of
deepest love on the one hand, and of fullest
affection, respect, and confidence on the
other,
Mdlle. Madelon, though not given to en-
thusiasm, thought within herself that they
were three as nice gentlemen as she had
seen for a long while; and proceeded to
testify this sentiment by dusting some of
the chairs — an operation which she often
neglected where less comely strangers were
concerned. Having done this, and opened
the windows to show “Messieurs’ the
market-place, and the statue of the Poictiers
hero prancing in the middle, she announced
that Monsieur Duval would doubtless be up
presently to offer his respects; and, sure
enough, the words were scarcely out of her
mouth, before that gentleman appeared in
person.
IIe was very obsequious; carried a nap-
kin on his arm, as if his house were chock
full, and he had done nothing but wait at
table all day; and expressed a hope that
the gentlemen were lodged to their liking.
“Perfectly, M. Duval, thank you,” said
the old man, politely. “But we shall not
have occasion to make much use of your
comfortable rooms, for my sons and I will
be out all day. It is one o'clock now ; I
think we shall hardly be home before seven;
may we rely upon you to get us dinner for
that hour º’”
“Monsieur may place his entire confi-
ãence in me,” replied M. Duval, bowing.
(Allow me to notice here how fond French-
men are of phrases with the word confi-
dence. An English inn-keeper would have
answered, “Dinner will be on the table
punctually at seven, sir.”
The travellers having seen their rooms
and intrusted their bags to Mdlle. Made-
lon, had no further reason for staying in-
doors, and so followed M. Duval down
stairs. The worthy host entertained them
with warm praises of himself and his house
all the way, and was once more renewing
to them his assurance about the confidence
and the dinner, when he remembered, just
as the strangers were crossing the entrance-
hall, that he had forgotten to ask for their
names. The French police are always very
anxious to know the names of strangers
who stop at hotels, and the instructions
given to inn-keepers on this subject are pe.
remptory. No name, no lodging. Besides,
M. Duval was curious on his own account
to know whom he was harboring. Every
thing about these well-looking, gentleman-
like travellers, pointed to the presumption
that they were not hap-hazard folk.
“I beg your pardon, Messieurs,” he cried,
“would you have any objection to put your
names on the register?”
The old man appeared a little annoyed,
but he said nothing to show it, and followed
M. Duval into the parlor, where the host
began bustling about to find a new quill-
pen, and then laid out on the table that
imposing folio register, which has to be
inspected by M. le Commissaire every three
days. The pages were marked out in col-
umns, and the traveller was requested by
printed queries at the top to supply informa-
tion as to the few following particulars : —
Name and Christian Name, Age, Birthplace,
Profession or Trade, Motives of present
journey, Name of place last visited, Name
of place to be visited next, Nature of the
Certificates of Identity in the Traveller's
possession; and, lest the traveller should
after this feel that he had not said enough,
and be disposed to communicate more about
himself and his intentions, there was a
ninth column headed Observations. The
white-haired stranger took the pen from M.
Duval, and in a clear, large hand silently
filled up the blank spaces both for himself
and his two sons; the host keeping at a
discreet distance apart the while. When
the formality had been gone through, how-
ever, M. Duval made a point of deploring
the troublesome inquisitiveness of the po-
lice, who put gentlemen to so much trou-
ble; and so followed the strangers to the
door, very hearty in his apologies as he was
in every thing. As soon as they had left
the house he returned to the parlor.
“Now,” said he, “let us see;” but he had
hardly cast his eyes on the register and the
bold handwriting, still wet, than he gave a
scarefied start, crying, “Mon Dieu ! it's not
possible — no — yet, by heavens ! it is,
though.” And with one bound he was at
the street-door again, his face all aglow
with excitement, trying if he could perceive
the travellers. But they were already out
of sight. They had turned the corner of
the market-place, and were gone down the
street towards the high-road leading to
Clairefontaine.
M. Duval was fain to come in again, but
he did not remain in-doors long; and before
an hour was over, the whole town of Haut-
bourg was in as great a state of excitement
as he was.
The road to Clairefontaine was a fine
14
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
i
Q
one, and must have borne an animated ap-
pearance during the reign of that irrepres-
sible late duke who was so continually
cropping up in the conversations of the
Hautbourgeois. An enterprising builder
had, however, done his best to spoil it by
converting a part of it into a suburb of the
borough. He had erected on each side of
it a number of lath-and-plaster trifles, deco-
rated with the pretentious name of châlets
and even châtelets, but which looked about
as much like the real thing as a child's
house of toy-bricks looks like Windsor
Castle.
as new ruins, and these châlets, castlets,
villas, or whatever else they may be called,
were all in ruins, not from age, but from
want of care. Imagine a band,of school-
girls decked out smart for a holiday in pink
and white, but caught in a good drenching
deluge of rain at the day's outset, and stand-
ing piteously in the sun an hour afterwards
to dry themselves—such was pretty much
the idea suggested by the excoriated white
plaster on the walls, the washed-out, red
tiles, and the shutters denuded of almost
every vestige of paint. In point of fact, the
houses had never been inhabited, and the
builder had gone where many other good
builders go — into the bankruptcy court.
The three men walked along, chatting
pleasantly, or, to speak with more accuracy,
the two younger ones chatted whilst the el-
der listened. He seemed to have grown a
little grave and pre-occupied, and this grav-
ity rather increased than diminished every
minute; but he smiled at the bright humor
of the eldest of his sons, who, teeming with
wit and spirits, found something to say of
every object, animate and inanimate, on the
road; and he nodded kindly whenever the
youngest, less brilliant but more thoughtful,
capped his brother's witticisms by some
quaint remark, arguing gentleness of mood,
and quiet, scholarly perception.
“Where are you taking us to, father ?”
asked the eldest, smiling; “I begin to
think this mysterious pilgrimage of ours is
to end on a ruin; every thing we pass is
dilapidated. Look at that public-house.”
“Our pilgrimage is drawing to its close,
Horace,” answered the old man, returning
the smile; but he added with some anxiety
in his tone, “Do you really think the coun-
try looks dilapidated? We have met no
beggars yet, and I generally make that my
test. As to ruined public-houses, why, you
know, I do not feel much sympathy for
them.”
Horace looked around a moment, as if
trying to detect a beggar, and, not succeed-
ing, answered, “I really think one only
sees beggars in free lands. I have met
plenty in Belgium, and when we went to
There are few things so ghastly
England last year I saw nothing else; but
here * —
“Here one has gendarmes instead,”
broke in the younger brother quietly; and
he pointed to a booted representative of
law and order, who was, in truth, the fifth
or sixth they had met that afternoon.
They had walked about a mile and a
half, and, at this juncture, reached a point
where four roads met. A young girl was
coming towards them with a basket of eggs
on her arm. The old man, who appeared
doubtful as to which road to take, raised
his hat and said, “Will you kindly tell us
the way to Clairefontaine, Mademoiselle?”
“There to the left, Monsieur,” she ans-
wered; “it’s not above ten minutes' walk.
See the sign-post"
They had not noticed the sign-post. It
said: Clairefontaine, 3 kilomètre; Claire-
bourg, 2 kilomètres; Boisgency, 3} kilo-
metres; Sainte Sophie, 5 kilomètres.
“Clairefontaine !” muttered the elder
brother, and he proceeded to quote what
seemed to him appropriate, – “Fons Ban-
dusiae, splendidior vitro, cras donaberis haedo.
Are we bent on sacrifice, father ?” he
added, laughing.
The old man laid a hand on his shoulder.
“You shall answer that question for me
yourself, my dear boy, when we come back
this evening,” he replied, with a gravity
which surprised his two sons. “Perhaps, in-
deed, Clairefontaine is to be our Bandu-
sian Fount,” he continued, gently, “ and
maybe there will be a sacrifice there. I ac-
cept your omen.”
The party walked on in silence for the
next few minutes — the father still grave,
the sons both wondering—until a turning
in the road brought them abruptly in view
of the lodge-gates of Clairefontaine, with
the princely avenue of elms beyond, and
the turreted mansion, half palace, half cas-
tle, closing the prospect grandly in the dis-
tance. The old man's face seemed to light
up with quick emotion, and the two young
men gave a murmur of admiration. Certes,
it was a splendid sight. Clairefontaine
House in its lonely majesty, bathed in the
purple rays of the autumn sun, and sur-
rounded by its cortège of stately trees, still
looked like a queen in the midst of her
COurt.
“What a thing is wealth,” sighed Hor-
ace. “And to think that the owner of
this paradise is perhaps some Croesus who
finds the country slow, and spends three-
fourths of his time in Paris cooped up in a
set of rooms scarcely bigger than that
lodge yonder.”
“You will have the opportunity of in-
specting your paradise at leisure,” answered
| his father, “for this is the end of our jour,
PIONEST GEROLD.
15
ney.” And the gate being now reached,
he pulled the bell-chain hanging on one
side of it.
Out hobbled the old crone whose ac-
quaintance we have already made. She
was used to the application of visitors de-
sirous of seeing the grounds, and the more
of such came the better she liked it; for a
visitor generally represented at least a
forty-sou piece. These, however, were not
ordinary applicants, as she soon found.
When the three strangers had been ad-
mitted within the massive bronze gates,
forged all over with scutcheons and ducal
coronets, the elder drew a letter from his
pocket and handed it to her.
“It's from Monsieur Claude, the agent,”
he said.
The old woman fumbled in her apron for
a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, put them
on with a shaking hand, broke the seal of
the letter, and read these lines: —
“MADAME MABOULE, - You will
please to show the bearer of this all over
the castle, the rooms, stables, picture-gal-
lery, or, should he prefer visiting the house
alone, you will give him the keys.
“J. CLAUDE.”
“Oh Monsieur, then, is the gentleman
whom Monsieur Claude was speaking
about the other day?” exclaimed Madame
Maboule, throwing a searching but respect-
ful glance at the strangers. “He said a
gentleman was coming as would want to
see the castle — a friend of Monseigneur
the new Duke's, I believe 7”
The old man bent his head affirmatively;
his sons opened their eyes; they appeared
not to know in the least whither their
father was tending, nor what was his motive
in bringing them there.
Madame Maboule, dismal at her best, but
more than usually so when she stood in the
presence of the great, whimpered a hope
that Monseigneur was quite well, and in-
quired whether the Messieurs would go up
to the house alone, or whether she should
accompany them.
There was a moment's deliberation on
this point; the stranger evidently wished
to save the worthy old soul the mile's walk
up the avenue, but Madame Maboule pro-
tested with wheezy fortitude that the walk
was nothing to her, and that the Messieurs
would lose their way in the apartments if
she was not there to guide them.
“But perhaps,” added she, with an inquir-
ing glance at them all, “the Messieurs
have been here before ?”
“I was here once,” answered the old
man, in a hurried tone, “but it was a long
time ago; things have changed since then.
I might not know my way now.” And to
compensate the honest crone for the trouble
she was going to take, he slipped a napoleon
into her hand.
“I am sure Monsieur is very generous,’
was the grateful and somewhat bewildered
acknowledgment ; and the next minute the
four set off in company, the old woman
leading the way, and the three gentlemen
walking slowly, not to tire her.
As nothing so much resembles one old
mansion as another old mansion; and as,
moreover, the description of abandoned
drawing-rooms and bedrooms, silent libra-
ries and picture-galleries, old-fashioned
furniture muffled up in chintz coverings,
and old-fashioned beds overhung with im-
posing dusty canopies, can scarcely be
expected to interest any save very en-
thusiastic admirers of bric-a-brac, we will
not follow the strangers in their inspection
of the Castle of Clairefontaine, but, leaving
them to the care of Madame Maboule, wait
for them outside on the open terrace, over-
looking what had a few years before been
one of the finest gardens in the province.
The walk up the avenue had taken about
three-quarters of an hour, protracted as it
was by constant halts on the part of Ma-
dame Maboule to point out this or that
feature of interest in the landscape. Here
was a bench on which Monsieur the late
Duke would often sit to read his paper.
There, on that rising plot of ground, a
belvedere erected by Monsieur the Mar-
quis, who was very fond of looking at the
stars with a telescope, eighty years ago;
there, again, in that by-path, if the Mes-
sieurs would step out of their way and see,
was a marble urn erected over the burying-
place of a pet dog by Madame la Marquise,
wife of Monseigneur who was imprisoned
in the Bastille by Louis XIV.-a very
beautiful lady, gentlemen, and much respect-
ed by the King. But of all the objects, that
which had most fascination for the old
woman, was a beech-tree that had been used
to hang a Jacobin on. The man had led
the sacking of Clairefontaine in 1793 and had
retired to live in peace for the next twenty
years. But in 1814, when the exiled family
returned, the peasantry had dragged him
out and strung him up in the night opposite
the new Duke's windows—a delicate piece
of attention that had greatly touched
Monseigneur, and seemed both natural and
proper to Madame Maboule. In the castle
itself the party staid more than a couple
of hours. The old man appeared desirous
that his sons should see every nook and
corner of the house and miss none of its
accumulated splendors. Madame Maboule
lent herself readily enough to his whim.
She took them from floor to floor, from
16
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
room to lobby, lobby to hall, hall to chapel;
turning creaking locks with her jingling
keys, and explaining every thing as if she
was speaking about a city of the dead, and
showing things that had long ceased to be
understood by a modern generation. What
more garrulous than an old woman who
has lived five-and-sixty years on an estate,
and has room for nothing else but the
memory of its past glories in her venerable
head 2 Every foot of carpet within the
doors of Clairefontaine House was so much
consecrated ground to Madame Maboule.
She talked about her departed masters
with a plaintive, wobegone, motherly sort
of affection; and, throughout all her utter-
ances, rang like the burden of a dirge — a
lamentation over that new Duke whom she
had never seen and whose absence she
could not understand. The young men
listened to her with much the same kind
of silent attention which one bestows upon
an aged monk showing one over a cathedral.
Their father spoke very little during the
whole two hours. Only once, when they
were in an upper room — which, in old
times, had been a nursery — he smiled a
rather sad smile, and, pointing to a picture
of a very young child hanging in a corner,
asked who that was. “That, sir, is the
present Duke of Hautbourg,” answered
the old woman; “it was taken nigh upon
seventy years ago.”
At last the inspection was over ; the
desolate castle had been visited from roof to
basement, and the three strangers with their
guide stood together on the terrace.
“Well, Emile,” asked the old man of his
. son, “what do you think of all we
ave just seen º’ And he looked with a
rather curious expression into the lad's
grave, blue eyes.
“I think there is a skeleton in that house
like in many poorer ones, father,” replied
the young man, pensively.
“What skeleton, dear boy?”
“The skeleton that prevents the new
Lord of Clairefontaine from coming and
living here. Do you not think, father,”
added he, with concern, “that there must
be very bitter memories attached to some
of that splendor, if the new Duke of Haut-
bourg persists in keeping away like this?”
The father made no immediate answer,
but a few moments afterwards he turned to
the old lodge-keeper and said softly, “We
will not trouble you to stay with us any
longer, Madame Maboule. I and my sons
are going to sit down for a little under yon-
der oak, and perhaps we shall walk about
in the park for a short while afterwards.”
Madame Maboule dropped a courtesy.
“Very well, sir,” she answered, in her usual
dolorous tone. “When you want to return
you have only to follow the avenue straight,
and I shall be down at the lodge to open
the gate for you.” She courtesied for a
second time and hobbled away slowly.
The three men walked towards the oak,
which stood in the centre of a grass-plot
just beyond the outskirts of the garden and
commanded a view of almost the entire
park. Was it an undefined presentiment of
something strange about to be told them,
or merely hazard, that kept the young men
silent as they went 3 anyhow, silent they
were: and save but for the chirping of
the birds overhead, and the muffled sound
of their own footsteps in the long grass,
there would have been a complete stillness
all around them as far as the eye could
reach. There was a wooden form running
round the rough trunk of the oak, and aï
three sat down on it.
“Can you guess why I have brought you
here 2° inquired the father, addressing both
his sons.
They shook their heads.
“Why, father?” they asked.
“I wish to tell you a story,” he said, af.
fectionately taking a hand of theirs in each
of his, as they sat on either side of him.
“Should you like to be told what is the
skeleton in Clairefontaine, Emile 2 And
you, Horace, are you curious to learn how
people may live cooped up in rooms no big-
ger than the park-lodge, and yet be more at
ease than in a fine palace like this 2°
Emile smiled slightly.
“Then there is a skeleton,” he rejoined,
and Horace added, grimly, “I was com-
plaining that one met nothing but beggars
in free countries. One may remark, also,
that there seem to be a deplorable number
of skeletons in rich houses. I have never
been over a castle, but somebody had poi-
soned somebody else in it, or put him down
a well, or thrown him out of the window.”
“Yes; but there is nothing of that kind
in my story,” interrupted the old man good-
naturedly. “It is not a legend of murder
or mystery. It is — well, I can hardly
call it an every-day story, but you shall
hear and judge.” And, seeing both young
men attentive, with their eyes fixed on him,
he began his recital in a quiet, simple tone
—much as he would have told a fairy tale
to young children.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was
a very rich nobleman, who lived in a house
such as this, we will say. He was a kind-
hearted, well-meaning man; but he came
in troublous times, when people's minds
were excited by the remembrance of many
centuries of oppression, and, when at last
there was a rising of the down-trodden
against their masters, he paid, as we must
often do here below, for the sins of some of
HONEST GEROLD.
17
his ancestors. Let it be recorded that he
perished nobly. In dying he left two or-
phan sons (their mother was dead some
years before) — the elder seventeen years
old, the younger nine. In the ordinary
course of things, the elder must have suc-
ceeded his father, and become his brother's
guardian; but there was so much exasper-
ation against the nobility throughout the
whole country, that the boys would not
have been safe had they remained in
France. So both of them went into exile.
The eldest, who had assumed the family
title of marquis, became an officer in the
Prince of Condé's army at Coblentz; the
younger, who was a viscount, was taken
as page of honor into the household of a
royal princess, the Countess of Provence —
the same, who, a few years later, died in
London, calling herself, and called by the
Royalists, Queen of France. I have no
need to remind you what came eventually
of the Prince of Condé's army. The offi-
cers and soldiers who composed it were
brave men, but they were bearing arms
against their country, and somehow expe-
rience shows that victory does not remain
long on the side of those who are not in
the right. After a series of reverses they
got dispersed. Some went and accepted
service in foreign armies; others—and,
probably, the wisest there —started for
America, to try and build up their fortunes
Once more in a new world; and others,
again, emigrated to England, where they
formed a large, but not very united, nor
always very reasonable, colony of titled
refugees. Amongst those who went to
England were the young Marquis and his
brother. They had been completely ruined
by the Revolution, for it had been decreed
by the Convention that those who emigrated
should forfeit their estates; so that all the
two boys had to live upon was the money
raised by means of some of the family plate
and jewels, which a devoted servant had
been able to rescue from the wreck of the
property, and had contrived to smuggle out
of France. Those were hard times for lads
brought up in purple; but the two brothers
would have been ungrateful to complain,
for many were twenty times worse off than
they. There were plenty of dukes and
counts who became music, fencing, lan-
guage, or drawing masters. One or two set
up as Small shopkeepers. There was one
(he became a peer of France afterwards)
who took to carpentering, and very success-
fully, too. Unfortunately, however, this
adversity, which should have read a lesson
to many of those whose lack of wisdom had
been the cause of the Revolution, seemed
not to profit them much, and there was
little else in the refugee colony but bicker-
2
ings and disputes, teacup storms and in-
trigues, plans for invading France and
restoring the old régime, and anathemas of
all sorts against the Liberal principles of
the Revolution. It was this that first pained
the younger of the two brothers, and, by
degrees, estranged him from the Royalist
cause. As he grew old enough to think for
himself he could not see that the Revolu-
tion had been such a crying wrong as those
of his own caste would have had him
believe. Of course the excesses of the
Revolution, the blood-orgies of '93, were a
wrong—a cruel wrong, and they have been
dearly expiated by Republicans. But one
should separate the good from the bad
in pronouncing judgment; — one should
draw a difference between the Revolu-
tionists who asked only for freedom and
fair laws, and who ſell victims of their mod-
eration, from the few sorry villains who —
But let us speak mercifully of them, too,”
exclaimed the old man, humbly. “Who
shall presume to judge motives: Death has
passed over good and bad alike now !”
He paused for a moment, and then re-
sumed: “The boy, the young Wiscount I.
mean, had struggled a good while with him-
self before daring to admit even to his own,
conscience that he was disposed to think
differently from those who formed his hab-
itual society. You see, his father had been,
put to death unjustly, and it required some
time before he could perceive that it was no
more just to hold the Republicans as a body
responsible for this crime than, it would
have been to make his father responsible
for the misdoings of those brother noblemen,
of his whose follies had driven the country
into rebellion. Perhaps if the language of
the exiles in whose company he lived had
been more tolerant than, it was, their con-
duct more dignified, and their apparent
aims more patriotic, he would never have
been brought to reason in this way, and
would have remained a Royalist to the end,
like his elder brother. But, with few ex-
ceptions, the conduct of the refugees was
not dignified; and if they felt any patriotism,
they seldom showed it in their schemes. To
a boy of seventeen they seemed a feeble,
prejudiced, selfish body of men, whom mis-
fortune had neither chastened nor instruct-
ed; and it was impossible not to reflect, after
hearing them talk, that should they ever
recover their power they would inevitably
lose it again before long through sheer force
of obstinacy and wrongheadedness. In
youth we quickly fly from one extreme to
the other, for when we lose our faith in one
set of principles we conclude that those
most diametrically opposite to them must be
the right ones. The young exile, feeling
his confidence in and his admiration for the
18
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
Royalist party growing less and less every
day, began gradually to take up with Re-
publican views. This was at the period
when Bonaparte was shaking all Europe
with his Italian victories, and when the
military glory of France shone with a lustre
it had never possessed before. It was diſfi-
cult not to feel one's heart thrill at the re-
port of battles in which Frenchmen fought
and won against treble odds; and though
the refugees, and the English papers with
them sneered at these victories and declared
they were not true, yet such denials were
so evidently prompted by jealousy that they
rather added to than diminished the enthu-
siasm with which every fresh success was
received by those who really loved their
country. One day — this was in the year
1801—the young Wiscount took a resolution.
He was grown tired of an exile's life, and
saw nothing to tempt him in the prospect
of dangling indefinitely about the mock
court of the Prince who styled himself
Louis XVIII. Summoning up all his cour-
age — and I can assure you it needed
courage — he informed his brother of his
intention of returning to France and en-
listing in General Bonaparte's army. The
Marquis had never bated a jot from his
Royalism, and the thought that any one of
his family could ever turn Republican had
not crossed his mind even in dream. He
started at his brother's communication as if
he had been shot. The thing seemed to
him like blasphemy. A brother of his to
turn renegade and serve in the ranks with
those who had murdered his father | Why
this was as bad as being accomplice to a
parricide He became white with dismay,
seized his brother's hand, and entreated
him to declare that it was all a hoax, a joke,
or any thing save the truth. But the young-
er brother held good. He had been pre-
pared for some consternation, but he felt so
sure of his own motives, he knew so well
that hatred against his father's murderers
burned within him as strongly as ever, that
he attached little importance to the horri-
fied expressions of his brother, and even
hoped to convert him. He pleaded his case
with all the boldness he could muster.
There could be no offence to their father's
memory, he showed, in serving their com-
mon country. It was not Robespierre or
Marat he was going to fight for — those
men were dead—he was simply going to
be a French soldier; and, in short, he ad-
duced all the arguments which he had
uppermost in his heart, and which his con-
science has ever since—yes, ever since—
assured him were right. The Marquis,
however, refused to be convinced. Chival-
rous and unbending in all points of loyalty,
he considered desertion of one's party a
crime too heinous for excuse. He was shock-
ed: he cast his brother away from him like a
viper; and from that day up to his death
he would never consent to see him nor
speak to him again.”
The old man became silent a moment.
He was a little pale; but he proceeded in
an unbroken voice: “Party spirit ran high
in those days; I believe men could hate
each other more intensely than they do now.
It was a time when the words Royalist or
Republican put barriers between men which
no strength of family ties could break
down ; and once a man had left one camp
for the other, the feud between himself and
his former friends was something deep,
lasting, and absurdly violent. In this case
the younger brother did not hate the elder,
God knows ' but the elder bore an eternal
grudge against the younger, and — But let
bygones be bygones, and may those with
whom pardon lies forgive as fully as the
younger brother has forgiven. I don’t want
to make my story too long,” continued the
old man; “so shall only say that Fortune
dealt kindly with the boy who enlisted in
Bonaparte's army. He soon rose to be an
officer, was at the end of three years a cap-
tain, and might have gone much higher had
he chosen to remain in the service. But in
becoming a soldier under Bonaparte he had
sworn allegiance to the Republic which then
existed, and had not foreseen that an Em-
pire was going to be established. When
the First Consul converted himself into an
Emperor, he tendered his resignation, which
was not immediately accepted — for officers
and men were wanted just then for the
Austerlitz campaign; — but on the declara-
tion of peace, when it was seen that he
would neither accept promotion nor the
legion of honor, he was allowed to retire;
and so went to settle in Paris, where, by the
help of pen instead of sword, he cut out for
himself a new career, which was blessed,
perhaps, beyond his deserts — certainly, be-
yond his expectations. The elder brother,
meanwhile, prospered in a different way.
While still in exile he contracted a wealthy
marriage — in fact he married the daughter
of an English slave-trader — and, in course
of time, came back to France with the Bour-
bons, was made a duke, bought back with
his wife's money the family estates, which
had been sold after confiscation as “national
property,’ and died with many honors upon
him, unwavering to the end in his allegiance
to the dynasty whose ups and downs he had
shared. Now what should you say,” asked
the old man, looking at both his sons
alternately, and consulting their eyes with
some signs of emotion, —“What should you
say if, by a turn of fate, the elder brother's
only son, having died childless, the younger
HONEST GEROLD.
19
brother —the Republican — had one day
unexpectedly become inheritor both of the
dukedom and the redeemed estates ? —
Try and consider,” he went on in a voice
that, to his sons, sounded almost pleading,
so modestly appealing was it, and so earnest,
— “Try and consider what was the position
of this younger brother. He had never
looked for this inheritance and never de-
sired it. It came upon him through a
3alamity, which was itself the result of a
toolitical crime, and this alone might have
afforded an honest man excuse enough for
refusing the fortune, seeing that it is diffi-
cult to hate crime as we should when it has
helped to make us rich. But there were
other reasons. From the moment when he
had parted from his brother, the Republican
had, boy and man, pinned his faith to one
code of principles. Rightly or wrongly,
these principles did not allow of his wear-
ing a title, and so he had discarded that of
viscount, which he originally wore, for his
own plain family name. It was under this
name that he was generally known, and had
conquered such small reputation as he pos-
sessed ; and it was under this name that,
by the confidence of a Radical constituency,
he had been elected three or four times over
to the legislature as an advocate of liberal
opinions — that is, of freedom at home and
of slave-abolition in the colonies; for, re-
member, we are speaking of a few years ago,
and the abolition of slavery was one of the
chief party-cries of French liberals before
'48. Now, under all these circumstances,”
concluded the speaker slowly, “could this
man who refused to wear a viscount’s title
with consistency assume a dukedom ? or
could this man, who was an opponent of
slavery, accept an estate that had been
bought with the money of a slave-trader ?”
There was a moment's silence — it was
only a single instant—and then both sons
rose together, their heads uncovered and
their eyes glistening.
“No, father,” faltered the youngest
proudly, but he was too much moved to say
more : and the eldest added, his voice gush-
ing with admiration and enthusiasm, “But
you had no need of dukedom or estate,
father, to make your name illustrious.”
The three men shook hands; and in that
warm, silent grasp, and the few words just
recorded, was the father’s act of self-denial
-—his refusal of wealth and rank for con-
Science's sake — ratified by his children.
This, by the way, was the first the two
oung men had ever heard of their family
istory. They had known their father only
as Manuel Gerold, a Republican, who was
One of the most esteemed leaders of his
party, and whose unaffected integrity and
Simple, undeviating fidelity to principle had
earned for him, at the hand of friends and
foes alike, the enviable surname of “the .
honest Gerold.” There are certain French-
men who have the knack of making Repub-
licanism peculiarly hideous, but Manual
Gerold was not one of them. The Repub-
lic, such as he dreamed it, would have been
a very fine thing; unfortunately, it had this
drawback, that before it could be estab-
lished every man must have put away
the leaven of unrighteousness and become
transformed into an enlightened philan-
thropist, devoted to schemes of intelligent
benevolence. I do not think that in the
worthy gentleman's projects of common-
wealth any provision at all had been made
for houses of correction — much less for
such functionaries as a hangman, gend-
armes, or turnkeys. He had a way of
talking about schools which gave one to
understand that crime was but the result
of ignorance, and that if men only knew
how to read, write and count, the necessity
for coercive establishments would disappear.
I suppose it would have been hardly fair to
remind him of the remarkable number of
individuals who turn their knowledge of
the three rules to account by substracting
funds from their neighbors' pockets in order
to add them to their own. With all his
naiveness, however, and his humane belief
in the innate virtues of mankind, Manuel
Gerold was no mere dreamer. He could be
shrewd when he chose, and he had such a
hearty scorn for all that was mean or false
that he had more than once taken adver-
saries aback by the crude, energetic way in
which he assailed abuses. There was
something in him both of the soldier and of
the priest. Very mild in his habitual
moods; very indulgent also, and chival-
rously amiable, he could light up at the re-
cital of a wrong, and pour out words with
the same startling vehemence which the
hermits of old must have used when they
preached the crusades. Having, as he
thought, nothing to expect of his family, he
had brought up both his sons to the notion
that they were humble bourgeois who would
have to fight their way through life as he
had had to fight his; and it had been one of
his most constant lessons to them that if
a man only remained honest he must end
by being prosperous. This was a deep-
rooted belief with him; it was not an empty
maxim. Had he been well read in his
Bible — which I am sorry to say he wasn’t
—he would have quoted the noble lines:
“I was young and now I am old, yet have
I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his
seed begging their bread.” But being a
Republican Frenchman (and one who held
himself for a free-thinker, though he in-
voked God’s blessing twenty times a day)
20
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
f
he simply quoted from his own experience,
and said that he had known many men,
honest and otherwise, but that he had never
met with an honest man who had had
cause to repent of his integrity. Educated
in this precept, the boys had grown up to
be, above all, manly and straightforward;
they shared their father's loathing for
everything that was not true and frank, and
both bade fair, if nothing came amiss, to
follow him step for step in his republican
opinions. France is not one of those coun-
tries where every right-minded person has
a peerage on his table, so that it had been
easy enough to keep them in ignorance of
their father's family connections. A good
many of Manuel Gerold's friends did not
so much as suspect that he had any rela-
tionship to a ducal house; and as for the
general public, the tendency towards self.
depreciation is a failing of such decidedly
limited growth amongst Frenchmen, that a
man who dubs himself plain bourgeois is
taken at his own valuation without either
difficulty or questions. It should be added,
now, that their father’s communication did
not much bewilder the young men. A
few days before, Manuel Gerold, who had
been living with them at Brussels ever
since the coup d'état, had informed them qui-
etly that he intended taking them to France
“on a business visit,” and once at Claire-
fontaine, he had told them his secret in the
abrupt and simple way just shown. But
the feeling brought uppermost in their
minds by the recital was not one of very
great surprise or excitement. At twenty-
four and twenty-one, rent-rolls and duke-
doms have not the same peculiar signifi-
cance in our eyes which they acquire in
after life. Somehow the young men thought
it quite natural that their father should
turn out to be a duke; just as natural that
he should refuse to wear his title; and the
most matter-of-course thing possible that,
having inherited an estate with a slur of
ill-gained money on it, he should put it
away from him without hesitation. But
this did not prevent their admiring and
feeling proud of his disinterestedness; for
noble traits have the faculty of moving us,
even when we are best prepared for
them.
There was a long pause, after which the
father, who had been looking at his sons
with great joy and tenderness, said: “And
what should be done with an estate which
everybody refuses 2 °
Emile was the first to speak.
“It has been bought with the price of
human beings,” he answered gravely; “let
it be sold and the money employed in re-
deeming slaves, or in helping to abolish
slavery in America.”
“Yes, assented his brother
eagerly.
Manuel Gerold had produced a piece of
folded parchment of unmistakably legal
appearance. “For the last three years,”
he observed, “the estate has been master-
less, that is, an agent has collected the rev-
enues and paid them into differeut chari-
ties; but here is a deed I have had pre-
pared which makes over the whole prop-
erty to both of you jointly ; so that now
the disposal of it is in your hands.”
Horace took the parchment and was for
tearing it up instantly: “This shall be the
sacrifice of which we spoke this morning,”
he exclaimed, laughing, and his brother ap-
proved, adding: “Yes, let us tear it up, it
can do no good with us.”
“Stay one moment,” interposed Manuel
Gerold, and he quoted the two lines that
have been placed at the head of this chap-
ter. They were from a new play of Pon-
sard's, very popular at that time. “Let
me advise you to wait and not act under
impulse, dear boys,” he continued; “the
merit of your sacrifice will be greater if it
is accomplished after reflection. I did not
like to speak to you of this before you were
of an age to pronounce whether you thought
as I did about this unlucky heritage; but I
would not have you pronounce too quickly.
Think whilst you may, in order that there
shall never be any regret at having acted
too hastily.”
“But what should we think about 2 ”
asked the elder brother in a tone of sur-
prise, and looking almost reproachfully at
his father. “Can Emile or I ever think
differently about this matter to what we do
now 2 ”
“Heaven grant not l my brave boy,” re-
plied the old man, smiling to re-assure him;
“but I was considering the satisfaction you
yourselves might feel in after-life, when,
looking back upon these times, you could
remember that you had given up a fortune,
not on the spur of a generous moment, but
calmly and deliberately, like men. This is
what I was going to propose to you; let
the title-deed remain in your hands for a
stated period — say four or five years.
During that time the revenues of Claire-
fontaine shall be devoted to whatever chari-
ties you wish; and if at the end of the
term you have kept steadfast to your reso-
lution, then let Emile's proposal be adop-
ted, and the whole heritage return to its
true owners, the unfortunate slaves with
whose freedom it was bought.”
It required some little time before either
of the brothers could be brought to see the
advantages of this scheme; indeed it is
doubtful whether they ever did see the ad-
vantage of it at all; but the younger, to
yes; ”
HONEST
GEROLD. 21
please his father, whose real motives he di-
vined, pretended conversion. Emile per-
eeived that the true wish in Manuel Ge-
rold's heart was that his sons should not be
influenced by his presence in the decision
they took; he desired that they should act
for themselves when he was not there to
See them, so that the merit of the sacrifice
should be entirely with them : —“Very
well, father,” said the young man placidly,
“let us wait for a while ; it can make no
difference.”
The elder brother, however, did not give
in so soon. He had opened the parchment
and cast his eye mechanically over it: the
deed was as formal as possible; it had been
prepared before witnesses and signed, so as
to be unimpeachable in a court of justice;
it divided the estate into two equal parts,
Clairefontaine Castle, with the domain of
the same name and all the land situated in
the town of Hautbourg, being the share of
Horace; and the freeholds of Clairebourg,
Boisgency, and Sainte Sophie, together
with the family mansion in the Faubourg
Saint Germain in Paris, being that of Emile.
To satisfy the requirements of the law
the Republican had been obliged for once
in his life to sign with all his titles, and his
name figured as Manuel Armand Gerold
de Clairefontaine, Duke of Hautbourg and
of Clairefontaine, Marquis of Clairebourg
and of Sainte Sophie, Count of Boisgency,
and Baron Gerold of Hautbourg. Horace
Gerold, after looking at all this, folded up
the document again and said in a tone of
seriousness rather unusual to him : “I think
we shall do better not to wait: our duty in
this case is so plain that delay seems al-
most a wrong. Besides, five years Who
knows what may happen in that time 2 ”
“But there is no absolute necessity for
your making the term five years,” replied
Manuel Gerold cheerfully. “Make it what
you like ; say two years, or three years.
All I want is that you should put yourselves
through an ordeal sufficient to show that
you are not afraid of the temptation. For,
believe me, if you remain firm in your pur-
pose for some reasonable time, it will be an
encouragement to you in many and many
trials to come; it will convince you that
those sacrifices which seem hardest to the
world are not hard to those who have a
little common patience to help them.”
This settled the matter. The moment it
became a question of proving that he felt
no fear of wavering, Horace Gerold would
have agreed to wait twenty years. He
looked about him at the park, with its deso-
late expanses of untrimmed lawn and wild-
growing trees; at the old mansion opposite
im, sad and untenanted; and this pros-
pect, the lonely beauty of which had
charmed him but a few hours before, now
seemed to him chill and repelling; later
he felt as though he could have refused a
thousand such castles one after the other,
and so, putting the parchment in his pocket,
he said quietly: “Let it be five years,
father. This is the 20th September, 1854;
on the 20th September, 1859, we will de-
stroy this deed and make a new one. I
shall remember the date.”
“Amen,” answered Manuel Gerold fer-
vently. &
It was now about five o’clock; and the
great resolution being taken, the father and
his two sons walked leisurely in the direc-
tion of the lodge-gates, where Madame Ma-
boule had promised to be in waiting for
them. On their way they talked on the
subject which naturally engrossed the young
men most for the moment, the history of
the Hautbourgs. past and gone. Manuel
Gerold spoke of the time when he had last
seen that park, some sixty years before, on
the night when his father was arrested as a
Royalist, and he himself and his brother
were spirited away through a side-door,
whilst five or six hundred peasants, led on by
a local ragamuffin, attacked the castle and
plundered all they could find in it. He re-
n,embered the dismal coach that had come
to fetch the Marquis away, the gloomy
flashing of the gendarmes' swords in the
torch-light, the exulting yells of the rabble
at seeing the nobleman manacled like a
felon, and the desperate, heroic attempt
made by a few of the tenants, who loved
their master, to rescue him from the hands
of his captors. It was by the efforts of
these tenants that the Marquis's two sons
had been saved from being arrested like
him. The tenants had used force, for the
boys wished to go with their father, and
Manuel Gerold recollected a rough, devoted
farmer who had gagged him with his hand
to prevent him screaming. Then there was
talk of the bloody assize that had been held
in the old town-hall at Hautbourg by one
of Robespierre's judges; of the destruction
of all the monuments and memorials that
could in any way recall the great family of
Clairefontaine, of the pillage of the church,
and its conversion into a granary, and of
the sale of Clairefontaine by the Republi-
can Government to a Radical attorney,
for a few thousand francs. When the family
returned at the Restoration this attorney,
who had already made a colossal fortune,
asked for five million francs to surrender
the estate, and it was generally credited
that he would have insisted upon double
had he not had strong reasons for appre-
hending that the Duke would have him out
and shoot him. “See there,” continued
Manuel Gerold, stopping and pointing w.th
22
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
|
his stick to a moss-covered grotto, of the
sort without which no great park was com-
plete a hundred years ago. “I remember
as if it was yesterday my poor father sitting
there in powdered wig and ruffles, and
teaching me to spell words out of the ‘Ga-
zette de France’ on his knee; the ‘Ga-
zette’ was the great paper then ; it used to
reach us twice a week with news from
Paris, and was about the size of a pocket-
handkerchief.” These reminiscences of past
times, called up tenderly by the father, lis-
tened to religiously by the sons, occupied
the party until they reached the end of the
avenue, where Madame Maboule, civil and
melancholy, was standing with the gate
wide open to let them pass.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she cried,
tremulously, “and may be, sir, if you see
Monseigneur, you will tell him how glad we
should all be to see him. The place looks
like a church-yard now there's nobody
there; it does indeed.”
Manuel Gerold muttered a few kind words
in returning her salutation ; and, once out-
side the gate, turned round to take a last
look at the old house and park. His face
was perfectly calm, but he said in a low
voice, and with an affectionate wave of the
hand towards the place where he and his
fathers had been born, “Good-by to Claire-
fontaine; it came honorably into our hands
eight centuries ago; our ancestors will not
reproach us for having surrendered it hon-
orably.”
With these words, the father and his sons
walked away, going back, by the same road
as they had come, to Hautbourg. On the
way, Horace and Emile, by tacit agreement,
refrained from speaking any more about
Claireſontaine or the past, and their talk
was entirely about the immediate future.
Both brothers had graduated as licentiates
of law, the elder at Paris in 1851,
the younger at Liége in 1854, and it had
been decided that they should go to Paris
at the opening of term in October, to enter
themselves at the Bar. Their visit to
Clairefontaine and the things they had
heard there did not in any way modify these
arrangements; but the young men were
anxious to induce their father to accompany
them, and he had hitherto refused, alleging
his intention of returning to Brussels, where
most of his old Republican friends were
living. They now tried again to shake his
determination, but to little purpose.
“No, let me return into my voluntary ex-
ile,” he said, gently. “My time is over
now ; if I could do any good I would come;
but the Liberals of to-day have need of
younger and stronger soldiers than I.”
Emile and Horace both protested against
this view, and the discussion was carried on
until the three had reached those remarka-
ble lath-and-plaster villas of which mention
has been already made. At this point
they noticed that for the last couple of hun-
dred yards or so the people they met had
eyed them curiously, and been peculiarly
sedulous in the matter of hat-raising. The
lath-and-plaster dwellings extended about
three-quarters of a mile out of the town,
and the nearer they drew to Hautbourg, so
much the more did the number of the pas-
sers-by increase. Every one of them with-
out exception stared, stood aside, and un-
covered his head.
“It’s evident that we are not incognito,”
observed Horace Gerold ; “this comes of
putting down one's name in hotel books.”
A gendarme was coming towards them at
that moment; he stared, too, and made a
military salute.
“Ah,” said the Republican, “that settles
the point. It is not Manuel Gerold they
are bowing to, but the Duke of Hautbourg.”
He stopped a moment. “I had not counted
upon this,” he muttered. “I had hoped
that most of the people here were ignorant
that Gerold and the Duke were one. It
would not do to have a triumphal entry into
the town; suppose we retrace our steps and
walk about till it gets dark.”
But it was too late. On looking round
it was perceived a throng of people, to the
number of some twenty or thirty, had gath-
ered in the rear, and were following at a
respectful distance — not demonstrative, but
attentive. Simultaneously another throng,
three times as big, loomed on the horizon in
front. The fact is, Monsieur Duval of the
Hotel de Clairefontaine, startled out of all
reticence and composure by the discovery
that he was giving hospitality to none other
than the famous Duke, who was both the
despair and the stock subject of conversa-
tion of everybody in the borough, had
spent his afternoon in going about from
house to house, and proclaiming the stupefy-
ing piece of news that “HE, yes HE, had at
last come; and was going to dine at the hotel
at seven ” The intelligence in so far as
regarded the dinner, was not deemed of
vast purport, but the other fact about “his
having come,” flew through the town like
wildfire, and was speedily exaggerated into
the most positive assertion that “he had
come in company with his entire household,”
the footmen and butlers composing the afore-
said household being most circumstantially
described. There were of course people in
the crowd who soon declared themselves in
a position to give particulars as to the way
in which he had come. One had seen the
open barouche and four drive up whilst
everybody was at luncheon; another had es-
pecially noticed the two omnibuses behind
“WOX POPULI VOX DEI.”
23
containing the family; a third, declining to
keep so important a secret to himself, avowed
that he had talked with Monsieur le Duc
half an hour, and that Monsieur had told
him he was coming to live at Claire-
fontaine forthwith. Please imagine the
sensation
Immediately, and as though by magic,
Hautbourg had become transformed. Silk
dresses, buried, in lower drawers ever since
the fatal “three years ago,” were drawn out
in hot haste; windows were thrown open and
decked with glazed-calico tricolor flags,
showy tablecloths, or any other artistic
thing that came first to hand; children had
their faces washed, much to their disgust,
and were hastily sheathed in Sunday
clothes; Monsieur le Curé, abruptly ap-
prised of the news whilst he was taking his
afternoon nap, rushed with the inspiration
of wisdom to the cupboard, where his best
cassock hung, and speedily appeared in the
market-place, clean-shaven, brushed, with a
missal under his arm, and with gloves on ;
as for Monsieur le Maire, Messieurs of the
Municipal Council, and Monsieur the Bea-
dle, they might have been descried, towards
six o'clock, standing three deep round the
door of the Hôtel de Claireſontaine, silent,
august, and prepared to distinguish them-
selves.
But what shall be said of Monsieur Bal-
lanchu the seedsman, Monsieur Scarpin
the boot-maker, and Monsieur Hochepain
the tax-gatherer? These three, like honest
tradesmen as they were, announced them-
selves ready to forgive and forget. Mon-
sieur Ballanchu had bought, on credit, a
new pair of double-soles from M. Scarpin,
and was giving them an airing in honor of
the auspicious occasion; Madame Scarpin in
scarlet cap-strings was standing at her door,
and had supplied herself with two pocket-
handkerchiefs, one wiile, the other dulce,
i.e. fragrant with Eau-de-Cologne, to be
waved when the HE and family should pass.
As Madame Scarpin was not the only ma-
tron, by a hundred or so, who was standing
at her door, with cap-strings hoisted and
pocket-handkerchief in reserve, you may
readily conceive what a fine spectacle the
town presented at about the time when HE
was expected.
At last (it was about 6.30 P.M., and ex-
pectation had begun to assume that spas-
modic form which reveals itself in treading
on one another's toes, and kicking each
other's shins) — at last the report flew :
“HE comes | HE comes l’” It was quite
true; there he came, a little astonished, but
i. dignified, and walking between
is two sons. All three were bareheaded,
for everybody was shouting as if he or she
had only five minutes more in which to
shout on earth. And the lats and the
handkerchiefs — how they shook and flut-
tered And the shrill piping of the chil-
dren, how it rent the air, with the cries of
vive Monsieur le Duc ; whilst, with a mighty
thunder like that of a bull of Bashan, Mon-
sieur Ballanchu, purple in the face, was
roaring vive le Duc de Hautbourg et Mon-
sieur le Marquis. Monsieur le Curé, meek
and benign, stood up on tip-toe to obtain a
better sight, and raised his shovel-hat high
above him as if in apostolic benediction;
Monsieur le Maire, Messieurs of the Muni-
cipal Council, and Monsieur the Parish
Beadle, yelled as nobody had ever heard
them yell before; Monsieur Duval, the hotel-
keeper, had dressed himself as if for a state-
ball, and was smirking radiantly on his
door-step, with Mademoiselle Madelon be-
hind, effulgent in a clean gown, a piece of
ribbon round her throat, and a brooch some-
where on her bosom. To crown all, and
complete the tableau, the local force of six
policemen and twelve gendarmes were
drawn up in a symmetrical Semicircle, and
seemed disposed to salute. You see, they
had not yet received advices from Paris .
that this Monsieur le Duc was a “Socialist.”
They simply took their cue from Monsieur
le Maire, and, seeing him enthusiastic, were
enthusiastic, too, as became good officials.
CHAPTER III.
“VOX POPULI VOX DEI.”
THE cheering, saluting, and pocket-
handkerchief waving would have been all
very well but for this fact — that they could
have no influence whatever on the resolu-
tion of the three gentlemen whom they
were intended to honor. The eldest of the
three bowed very coldly and gravely: the
elder of the two brothers, hailed, for the
first time in his life, as “Monsieur le Mar-
quis,” appeared disposed to treat the matter
as a joke; the younger brother kept as
serious as his father, and, if anything, look-
ed contempt for men who could make such
servile fuss about people who were perfect
strangers to them. It never struck this in-
genuous youth that M. Ballanchu, whilst
he bellowed with veins distended and blood-
shot eyes, had five and twenty unpaid bills
ornamenting the inside of his desk at
home ; and that poor M. Scarpin, for all
his zeal in screaming himself hoarse, was
sick at heart in fear of approaching bank-
ruptcy.
The noise and excitement continued long
24
THE MEMBER FOR PAIMIS.
after the Gerolds had entered the hotel,
and had been ushered by the obsequious M.
Duval into the yellow drawing-room, now
blazing with wax-candles and extemporized
floral decoration. In the middle of the
room stood the table, spread with snowy
cloth, and decked with all the available
silver plate in the establishment. M. Duval
had even gone the length of borrowing an
épergne from the local jeweller; and the
local jeweller, in consenting to the loan,
had merely stipulated that one of his shop-
boys should be allowed to serve at table
disguised as waiter, so as not to lose sight
of the precious piece. It was not that he
mistrusted Monsieur Duval, but in a town
where everybody has become poor, you
know, it is best to take one's precautions.
Monsieur Duval had flattered himself
upon creating a favorable impression. He
had spent ten minutes over the bow of his
white tie, twenty in the hands of his
neighbor the barber, who had put his hair
into curl, fifteen in superintending the
toilets of his subordinates, to see that they
were as splendid as himself, and forty in
planning and arranging with his own deft
hands the adornments of the yellow draw-
ing-room as above. It should be added,
that he had also invested two twenty-franc
pieces in the purchase of the flowers which
made such a fine show, and that the menu
he had devised for M. le Duc's dinner was
a thing unique in provincial experience.
The first words of Manuel Gerold — or
of M. le Duc, if you like it better — fell
upon him, however, like a bucket of iced
water upon a glowing fire; for, whilst the
crowd were still shouting below, and whilst
he, M. Duval, smiling from ear to ear, was
assuring his guests that the dinner would
be served up in an instant — but that mean-
while, if “Monseigneur” + would allow it,
M. le Maire of the town, and M. le Curé,
together with several other of the officials,
would feel honored by being allowed to
pay their respects — the Duke, after a
moment's whispering with his sons, drew
out his watch, and asked a little stiffly :
“Monsieur Duval, at what time does the
last train start for Paris to-night?”
Poor M. Duval, utterly disconcerted at
this surprising question, stood stock still,
and looked blankly at his interlocutor.
“The last train for — for Paris 7” he
stammered. “Why, surely Monseigneur
does not think of going away to-night 8 °
At any other time Manuel Gerold would
have answered kindly, and stated his in-
* Monseigneur simply means “my lord,” and was
used before 1789 in addressing all very great noble-
men. Nowadays it is reserved for princes of the
blood, and church dignitaries, archbishops, bishops,
&c. Loyal tenants, however, like M. Duval, will
still call their noble masters “Monseigneur.”
tentions without reserve; but the stupid
acclamations of the crowd, and the cringing,
almost dog-like attitude of the persons
whom he had seen during the last half-hour,
had put him out of humor, so that he re-
plied with a curtness altogether out of
keeping with his usual manner: —
“I cannot say what my plans are ; but I
beg, Monsieur Duval, that you will not call
me Monseigneur any more. If you have
ever heard any thing about me, you must
be aware that I am a Republican, and that,
consequently, I admit no differences of rank,
but such as exist between men who are
honest and those who are not.”
As a Frenchman, M. Duval understood
this speech at once. He bowed silently,
and staggered out of the room — professedly
to fetch a time-table, virtually to hide the
confusion and chagrin which were over-
whelming him with a sense that all was
lost, and that the new Duke was indeed a
Radical
As soon as he was gone, the Gerolds
held a rapid conference, and decided that
they must go that night, and not risk any
interviews with mayors or vicars. There
was nothing in Manuel Gerold of the
charlatanry of Republicanism: and he felt
not the slightest ambition to proclaim aloud
to the world why it was that he forsook
Clairefontaine. His sons thought as he
did ; the demonstrative homage of the wor-
thy Hautbourgeois had too pecuniary a ring
in it to cause them any elation. They had
seen in their father, a few years before,
carried in triumph by several thousand
electors, who cheered lustily, not the name
or the purse, but the man; and the present
exhibition seemed to them humiliatingly
mean in comparison.
M. Duval re-entered in a few minutes,
woe-stricken in demeanor, and freighted
with a time-table. Behind him he left the
door open, and on handing the table to
Manuel Gerold, appeared to hesitate timid-
ly, as though he had something to ask, but
dared not. Outside on the landing there
was a sound of whispering, with slight
shuffling of feet, and down below in the
street, the cries vive Monsieur le JDuc / vive
Monsieur le Marquis / &c., were being ut-
tered enthusiastically and perseveringly as
€Ver.
Manuel Gerold took the time-table,
marked the look of trepidation on the host's
rueful face, and was about to ask the
reason, when he was spared the trouble;
for before M. Duval had said a word, the
door left ajar was thrown wide open, and
in sailed Monsieur le Maire, M. le Curé, as
many of the Municipal Council as could
squeeze in after him, M. Ballanchu the
seedsman, M. Scarpin the bootmaker, M.
“VOX POPULI VOX J0EI.”
25
Hochepain the tax-gatherer, and some
half-dozen more ejusden farinae, inquisitive,
awe-stricken, and respectful. To prevent
all chances of rebuff, M. le Maire had
brought with him his daughter, a damsel of
fifteen summers, attired in white as if for
confirmation, and armed with a bouquet
about a yard in circumference. The whole
procession advanced a couple of steps into
the room, and bowed like a single coun-
sellor. Then the damsel, being nudged
forward by her father, stepped out redden-
ing, and presented the bouquet.
t was to the old man she offered it. He
had risen, together with Horace and Emile;
and, as the child came to him, he laid a
hand kindly on her head.
“To whom is it you are giving these
flowers, my child?” he asked: “to Manuel
Gerold, or to the Duke of Hautbourg’”
This, question had not been foreseen in the
full-dress rehearsal of the performance
which Monsieur le Maire had gone through
down below with his daughter, so the ex-
cellent magistrate immediately hastened to
the rescue. He had mentally prepared a
short, but effective speech, treating of the
importance of the nobility in the social
scale, the dangers of anarchy, the Imperial
dynasty, the salutary blending of liberty
and order, and the price of wheat— topics
all bearing more or less on the return of
the new Duke. Losing his presence of
mind, however, at the critical moment, he
began his remarks by an allusion to the
Crusades, addressing Manuel Gerold as
“Monsieur le Duc, fils illustre d'une race
de Croisés.”
The Republican at once cut him short.
“Mr. Mayor,” he said gently, but firmly,
“I am sincerely thankſul, both to yourself
and your fellow-townsmen, for the friendly
greeting you have given my Sons and me
to-day; but I should be glad to learn that
this welcome of yours has not been offered
under a misapprehension. If you have
greeted me simply as the descendant of a
family long connected with your town, then
thank you most gratefully again and again;
but if you have welcomed me under the
belief that I was coming to assume any new
character, I think it right to tell you that
certain private arrangements which I am
compelled to make will prevent my ever
standing towards you in the same relation
as did my late nephew.”
Hero were all the new-born hopes of
Hautbourg nipped in the bud. There was
a long murmur, with whispers and sighs
from everybody, except M. Hochepain the
tax-gatherer, who, to the indignation of his
brethren, cried emergetically : “ Hear,
hear,” under a wrong impression. He was
sternly called to order by M. Ballanchu,
and, whilst this little episode was being
enacted in the hindmost ranks of the assem-
blage, near the door, M. le Curé, brushing
his shovel-hat nervously with the sleeve of
his cassock, and beaming unutterable en-
treaty through the glasses of his honest
spectacles, trotted forward and undertook
to plead the cause of his sorrowing parish-
ioners. He was a worthy ecclesiastic, and
made the most of his point. The sense of
diminished church-dues was so strong within
him that he would have been eloquent in
the face of a king, how much more then in
the presence of the man with whom it lay
to restore prosperity to the borough, and so,
indirectly, to replenish the coffers of the
parish church. He quoted Maccabees, the
Book of Ezekiel, and the parable of
the man who buried his talents in a
napkin. He marshalled in array St. Thomas
Aquinas, St. Augustine of Hippo, and St.
John Chrysostom. He adduced the suffer-
ings of St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar,
St. Laurence on his gridiron, and St. An-
drew of Utica, who perished by fish-hooks.
And all this he did with so much unction
and zeal as to excite the secret envy of the
Mayor, the wonder of the Municipal Coun-
cil, the admiration of M. Ballanchu, and,
indeed, of everybody save that unlucky M.
Hochepain, who, being always out of his
reckoning, and having still present to his
mind the angry rebuke of the seedsman,
took it upon himself to exclaim, “No, no,”
just when such an expression of opinion on
his part was most unfelicitous. Happily,
M. le Curé was too deep in his own har-
angue to hear, for he was just then closing
with a masterly peroration, depicting the
horrors of famine and the remorse which
must necessarily overtake the rich man who
allowed his poor brethren to die of
hunger. This last form of appeal was only
ventured on as an extreme resort, for, as a
general rule, M. le Curé had much greater
faith in the salvation of rich brethren than of
poor ones. He had had occasion to notice
that it was the rich who went oftenest to
church and put most into the plate.
A great pity that so much eloquence
should have missed its effect, but it did.
Manuel Gerold’s words in answer were few,
but they sounded to the good priest like so
many thwacks with a cane. The Repub-
lican observed that he had never contem-
plated letting anybody die of hunger; that
his annual subscription of 20,000 francs for
the poor of Hautbourg would be continued,
and even added to if it were insufficient;
that he would instruct the agent not to press
for rent those who really could not afford to
pay, and that if any person in Hautbourg
had met with misfortune which it was pos-
|sible to relieve by extra donations, he would
26
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
do his best to help him. This said, how-
ever, he made one of those coldly polite incli-
nations of the head by which kings, cabinet-
ministers, and people who are bored, inti-
mate their wish to end an interview. The
hint was taken with dismay by the curé,
with consternation by the mayor and coun-
eil, with suppressed mutterings by MM.
Ballanchu, §. and Co., and with
philosophical indifference by M. Hochepain,
who, having never understood from the first
why he had come up stairs, was not much
surprised to find himself going down again.
Everybody bowed on backing out as on
coming in, and it was the crest-fallen M.
Duval who held the door open. Three-
quarters of an hour after the desponding
deputation had made its exit, the strangers
themselves were gone. Finding that a train
left for Paris soon after eight, they had
galloped through M. Duval’s munificent
dinner, or, rather, through a quarter of it,
and so stabbed the professional self-esteem
of that honest innkeeper, as well as dashed
down his hopes. Not even the 500-franc
note with which the Republican generously
paid him his bill was enough to make him
forget the accumulation of so much bitter-
ness in a single day.
Manuel Gerold and his sons set out on
foot to go to the station, but though the
market-place and the streets were still
crowded, they were not cheered this time
as they had been an hour or two before.
The ill news brought down from the yellow
drawing-room by M. le Maire, M. le Curé,
and authorities, had spread pretty fast, and
as the three gentlemen appeared at the
door of the hotel, first one individual, then
another who had caught sight of them,
proffered a cat-call or derisive whistle —
(remember, darkness had set in, and it was
easy to whistle without being seen). These
isolated marks of disfavor were like the
single Squibs that are fired off at the com-
mencement of a firework entertainment.
Gradually, they increased in number, in
strength, and in noise, just as the sky-
rockets that come after the squibs. “A
bas les Républicains !” “A la fosse les
Socialistes 1’’ “A la lanterne les Rouges 1’’
Such were the amenities which this lively
mob delivered. In a minute or two the
cries, cat-calls, whistles, and kind wishes
had become general. Everybody— man,
woman, and child — contributed his or
her objurgation to the cheerful total, and
the three Gerolds were eventually escorted
to the station by a closely-packed rabble,
Screaming, yelping, hooting, and barking,
“A la fosse /* “A la lanterne /* “A la
potence / (gibbet) * , &c. One gentleman,
thinking probably that this exhibition of
feeling was scarcely forcible enough for a
practical age, snatched up a stone close to
the station and threw it at the group (it
struck Manuel Gerold’s shoulder), exclaim-
ing, “Sales Proscrits, pouah 1” -
“Ignoble dogs I’’ cried Horace Gerold,
facing round with his fists clenched in
indignant scorn.
But his father gently withheld his arm.
“Must we take angry men at their word **
he said. “These don't mean what they
say.”
“C'est égal,” muttered the young man
between his teeth; “this is my first lesson
in democracy, and if all crowds are like
this ’’—
“But they're not,” put in his father,
earnestly.
CHAPTER IV.
ANNO DOMINI M.DCCC.LIV.
WHILST the three Gerolds are being
whirled along towards Paris, each musing
in the strain peculiar to him on the ups
and downs of popular favor, it will not be
amiss if we take a bird's-eye survey of the
year 1854, which was to be a starting-point
in the lives of the two young men.
In 1854, France had already been rather
more than two years in the enjoyment of
its Second Empire, and people who had
sworn eternal fidélity to past dynasties, had
had abundant time to forget that such had
ever existed, that here there were three
great topics of interest in the Parisian
papers : the Crimean war, the sensation
drama, Les Cosaques, by MM. Arnault and
Judicis; and the Cholera. Lord Raglan
and Marshal St. Arnaud, Admiral Hamelin
and Rear-Admiral Dundas, MM. Arnault
and Judicis (afore-mentioned), and Dr.
Trousseau (on account of the cholera),
were seven popular men. Monsieur Jullien
— who had organized some promenade
concerts in London, and composed a quad
rille called the Allied Armies, during the
performance of which some warriors in red
and some others in blue were to be seen
emerging from behind a curtain playing a
medley of Rule Britannia and Partant
pour la Syrie — was also a popular man.
For the first time since the invention of
printing the term braves alliés was being
advantageously substituted for that of
Milords Godam in the current literature
which treated of Englishmen, and there
were pictures of French Zouaves warmly
embracing Scotch Highlanders in most of
the engraving-shops of the capital. Tha
ANNO DOMINI M.DCCC.LIV.
27
nick-name for His Majesty the Emperor
Nicholas was in London “Old Nick,” and
in Paris le Gros Colas ; there was likewise
a sobriquet for Prince Menschikoff, who
was styled le Prince Thermometre — a some-
what mysterious joke, but which was
§." understood to mean that the
3ussian captain's chance of thrashing les
braves Français depended much more upon
Generals Frost and Snow than upon any
proficiency of his own in the science of
warfare.
In order to diffuse a healthy patriotism
amongst the lower orders, the Imperial Gov-
ernment had taken care that there should
be no lack of seasonable reading, and husky
gentlemen patrolled the Boulevards sell-
ing songs and pamphlets, in which one found
many unpleasant things about Ivan the Ter-
rible, who cut off the ears of his courtiers, and
about Alexander, who sent French prison-
ers of war to work in the mines of Ural, and
fed them on tallow-candles. For the more
intellectual portion of the community who
might have been sceptical about the candles,
the publishers of the late M. de Custine had
brought out a new edition of his famous
Russian book; and for clubs and cafés,
where the frivolous abound, M. Gustave
Doré, then budding into fame, had prepared
a comic and pictorial “Histoire de la Sainte
Russie,” in which the death of every alter-
nate Czar, by poison, was most graphically
and instructively portrayed. To tell the
truth, this war was a godsend, for, if there
had been no dead and wounded to harangue
about, no Czar to cut jokes at, and no Mus-
covites to pummel, who knows but that the
French might have turned their ever-lively
attention to that new Constitution, which
had just been claborated, and devoted some
of their superſluous energy to knocking it to
pieces? But one thing at a time is enough
for Frenchmen —happily. They only pull
Constitutions to bits when they have nothing
else to do; and in 1854, being fully em-
ployed with other talk, they let the Consti-
tution alone. Besides, most of the workmen
who were good at knocking to pieces, were
out of the way. MM. Bianqui and Barbés,
the heroes of the 15th May insurrection in
1848, were under lock and key. MM. Le-
dru Rollin and Louis Blanc were across the
charnel. M. Victor Hugo, majestuous and
gloomy, was inspecting the ocean from the
top of his Belvedere at Guernsey, and de-
fiantly muttering verses from his “ Napo-
lóon le Pétit.” MM. Thiers and Guizot,
possibly not over-satisfied with the pretty
day's work they had accomplished when
...they smashed the Orleans throne into splin-
ters in fighting between them for the keep-
ing of it, were indulging in solitary reflec-
tions — the one in his own home at Wal
Richer, the other in Germany. M. Eugène
Sue, the Socialist in kid-gloves, great at de-
picting virtue in corduroys, was fretting
away the last years of his life at Annecy;
and Dr. Raspail, another revolutionary he-
ro, who eschewed kid-gloves but believed in
the panaceal properties of camphor, was
smoking cigarettes of that compound in re-
tirement at Brussels; M. Pierre Leroux,
the bogey of French mass-going matrons,
had disappeared, no one knew whither, tak-
ing his materialist doctrines with him; and
Generals Cavaignac, Lamoricière, and
Changarnier — those modern Curiatii, out-
witted and conquered by the Imperial Ho-
ratius — were chewing the cud of bitter
meditation — very bitter— and shooting
partridges to console themselves,
As for the minor operatives in the knock-
ing-to-pieces trade, there were eleven thou-
Sand of them at Cayenne, two thousand at
Lambessa, and fivé thousand in Africa. M.
Frédéric Cournet, who had commanded the
barricade of the Faubourg du Temple in
June '48, had lately been killed in a duel
near Windsor by his brother revolutionist,
Barthélemy who had commanded the bar-
ricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine; and
Barthélemy, himself was giving fencing-les-
sons in London, pending the time when he
should be hanged at Newgate for murder-
ing his landlord and a policeman. Thus,
opposition, liberalism, and all unpleasant-
ness of that sort, had been happily removed.
Such Radicals as remained in Paris held
their tongues, and it was only at the Bar
(where, amongst others, a young barrister
of twenty-eight, named M. Emile Olivier,
was remarkable for the vehemence of his
Republicanism) that one could ever hear
anything like a subversive speech, delivered
generally in defence of some miserable
journalist brought up for punishment.
To give a civilized look to the new Em-
pire, and make every thing regular, there
was a Corps Législatif, composed of two
hundred and sixty members, and a Senate,
composed of a hundred and twenty; who
wore, the Deputies, blue swallow-tails with
silver braiding, and the Senators, black
swallow-tails with gold ditto. The cost of
them to the nation for salaries, refresh-
ments, &c., was about half a million ster-
ling. They debated on an average sixty
hours a session with closed doors, not a
single reporter being suffered to disturb
them ; and, as they were all invariably of
one mind, their deliberations were charac
terized by that blessed harmony which
should always prevail in Christian assem-
blies. The daily press, in 1854, was no
longer — heaven be praised l — the turbu-
lent, unmanageable thing it had been a few
years previously. There were three journals
28
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
—“Patrie,” “Constitutionnel,” and “Pays”
— which sang the praises of the Imperial dy-
nasty every evening, and though, it is true,
there were three or four more that declined
to join in this concert, yet these were ill-
conditioned papers, which were perpetually
getting into trouble, and which M. de Per-
signy, the Home Minister, doctored with
whip and thong, like a liberal and wise
statesman as he was. As for the “Chariva-
ri” and kindred prints, they cut their capers
under diſficulties. Imagine a quadrille
where each of the dancers has a piece of
chain and a ten-pound shot riven to the
ankle of his right leg.
Architecturally speaking, Paris was not
yet the vast IIaussmannville it has become
since; but the trowel-wielding Baron was
just come into office, and pickaxe, hod, and
rick-cart were already on the move.
Every willing citizen who was not required
for exterminating Russians found employ-
ment to his fill in demolishing dwelling-
places.
It was known amongst tax-payers that
the Rue de Rivoli was going to be pro-
longed, so that there might be one straight
line from the Place de la Concorde to that
of the Bastile; that a new Tribunal of
Commerce was to be built in the heart of the
once pestilential Cité, where policemen of
old had never ventured without quaking;
that the old Théâtre Lyrique and Théâtre
du Châtelet were coming down, and that
new ones would soon be erected in their
stead, furnished with all modern appliances
of luxury, and with actually room enough
in the stalls for people to sit in. That M.
Alphand, the new Prefect's chief engineer
and fidus Achates, had taken the Bois de
Boulogne in hand, and was bent upon trans-
forming it into a fairy garden, which it
should need only five-and-twenty million
francs a year to keep in order: that the
plans of five new barracks, three new boule-
vards, seven new mairies, four new squares,
and seventeen new chuches, were being
prepared on a right royal scale, regardless
of expense; and that to pay for all these
things there would, in all probability, be
more taxes next year. And yet such is
the admirable effect of the whip and thong
in subduing the human mind and making
it supple, that nobody grumbled much;
though M. de Rambuteau, who had been
Prefect of the Seine under Louis Philippe,
remembered the time when the whole city
had uttered piercing cries, and groaned
aloud and predicted national ruin, because
he, M. de Rambuteau, had insisted upon
building the wretched meagre street which
bears his name.
Truly a great change had come over men
in the course of three years, and one could
*
notice the effects of it everywhere. If you
entered a café in the year 1854, you were
no longer deafened, as 1848, '49, and '50,
by the astounding clamor of citizens dis.
cussing across a table whether Cavaignac
was a greater man than Lamartine, or La-
martine a greater man than Cavaignac, or
M. Odillon Barrot a greater man than
either. From prudential motives the inves-
tigation of these interesting problems had
been momentarily shelved. There were
gentlemen to be seen in the cafés, who
walked very erect, and had small eyes, and
were particularly affable in conversation.
Unfortunately, it had been remarked that
those who confided their political impres-
sions to these engaging strangers were sel-
dom long before they were summoned to
explain them at greater length to M. le
Juge d’Instruction at the Palais de Jus-
tice, and this had no doubt something to
do with the extremely taciturn, not to say
unbrotherly demeanor, which men evinced
towards each other in Parisian cafés during
the year ‘54. There was a good deal o
the same sort of danger in clubs. It was
not the most agreeable thing in the world
to be suddenly interrupted in a mantle-shelf
conversation by a gentleman with a firm
beak-nose and a red rosette in his button-
hole, who would suddenly spring up from
an opposite end of the room and say, with
grim courtesy, hat in hand, “I think I
heard Monsieur express an opinion adverse
to the coup d'état, in which I had the honor
to participate. Will Monsieur be so obli-
ging as to name a friend?”
In nine cases out of ten, your adversary
was one of his Majesty's officers, grateful
for past favors, and hopeful by display of
zeal to merit a continuance of the same.
He would take you out at six o'clock A.M.
to the Bois de Vincennes, and there run
you through with amazing adroitness and
satisfaction. Under the circumstances, it
was as well to avoid political topics, and
to talk in a lyrical strain, either about the
glories of war or the ravages of the cholera.
— taking care to add, however, if one se-
lected this last subject, that the cholera was
not half so fatal under the present as under
preceding reigns, as was triumphantly
proved by the fact that M. Casimir Péreire,
Prime Minister of Louis Philippe, had died
of cholera, whereas, no such catastrophe
had ever befallen a minister of Napoleon,
nor was likely to.
But let us not be unjust towards the
Imperial régime. One was not entirely
confined for conversation to the war and
the cholera; there were other topics upon
which one might venture with more or less
safety. For instance, one could speak of
the monster Hotel du Louvre, which was
IBOURGEOIS
POLITICS. 29
being completed, much to the dismay of
surrounding hostelries; of the barn-like
building in the Champs-Elysées, which was
destined for the International Exhibition
of 1855, and which (this in a whisper, for
fear of beak-noses) contrasted unfavor-
ably with Sir Joseph Paxton's edifice that
adorned Hyde Park in ’51 ; of the beauty
of the new Empress, Mdlle. Eugénie de
Téba, and of the intention attributed to
her of importing the mantilla at Court ; of
the fashions of the year, – to wit, frogged
coats, striped trousers, and curly-brimmed
hats for gentlemen; three-flounced dresses,
hair à l'Impératrice, and spoon-bill bonnets
for ladies; of the thin face of M. Magne,
Minister of Finance, and the plump face of
M. Baroche, Minister of Justice; of the
beard movement raging like an epidemic in
England, and the consequent depression in
the razor-trade; of Mdle. Anna. Thillon,
the star of the Opéra "Comique, of whom
the critics unanimously wrote that she look-
ed like an angel and sang like a peacock ;
of Dr. Véron, deputy for Paris and editor of
the “Constitutionnel,” his renowned cordon
blew Sophie and his legendary shirt-collars,
more stiff and formidable than the shirt-
collars of any other man of letters from Dun-
kirk to Bayonne; of M. de Tocqueville,
the witty and thoughtful, who was writing
his book, “L’Ancien Régime et la Révo-
lution,” and M. Augustin º the
scholarly, who was busy at his “Histoire
du Tiers Etat; ” of the Académie Française,
grave and learned body, which professed
to ignore Béranger, and which, in the course
of the year, mourned five of its members—
Tissot, the savant; Antonin Jay, the foun-
der of the “Constitutionnel; ” Ancelot, the
author of “Louis XI. ; ” Baour Lormian,
the translator of “Tasso;” and the polished
Marquis de Saint Aulaire, historian of the
Fronde; of the price of oysters, which cost
ten centimes the dozen more than in ’53,
and of the scarcity of truffles on the mar-
kets of Périgord; of M. Scribe the play-
wright, whose eternal young widows and
colonels were decidedly beginning to be
found stale; and of Mdme. Emile de Gir-
ardin's new comedie, “La Joie fait Peur”
and “Le Chapeau d'un Horloger’’ (the
last two she ever wrote), which all Paris
was flocking to see; of Alfred de Musset,
whose once brilliant genius was almost ex-
tinguished, and of Alexandre Dumas, who
was as prolific in novels as ever; of Du-
mas the younger, whose recent success
with “La Dame aux Camélias” was still
in everybody's mouth, and of Mdme. Doche,
who played the part of Marguerite Gau-
tier in that drama so touchingly, that the
ladies in the boxes used to Sob, whilst the
gentlemen in the stalls would cough, and
—when nobody was looking—dash their
hands across their eyes; of italy and Ital-
ians, notably of Silvio Pellico, who was
dying at Turin, broken down by his im-
º in the Spielberg, and of Daniel
anin, ex-dictator of Venice, who was
giving music-lessons in Paris; of a new
sort of glove lately imported from England,
called dogskin, generally voted hideous,
but worn nevertheless because it was Brit-
ish ; and of the exorbitant price of articles
in Russian leather, owing to the cessation
of trade with the Czar's dominions; of M.
de Villéle, the celebrated Prime Minister
of Louis XVIII., who died during the year,
unremembered and almost unknown, from
having spent a quarter of a century in re-
tirement (sic transit gloria mundi /); of M.
le Comte d'Aberdeen, who was Premier in
England, and Monsieur Franklin Pierce,
the orator, who was President of the United
States; of certain English words which
were making their way bravely into the
French language, such as steeple-chass,
lonch, ponch, and high-life, the latter of
which was pronounced as if it rhymed with
fig-leaf; of the vintage of the year, which
was good, and the crops, which were less
so; of Alma and Balaclava, Inkermann and
Sebastopol, with discussions as to whether
one should say Sebas- or Sevas-topol; of M.
de Morney's dinners and Mdme. de Persig-
ney's suppers; of Ravel and Grassot, Bres-
sant and Rachel; of the end of the world,
which some French Dr. Cumming had an-
nounced as irrevocably fixed for the 13th
of June, 1857; and of a new establishment
of Turkish baths, which had been inaug-
urated as a novelty on the Boulevard du
Temple, and which a pepular journalist,
M. Nestor Roqueplan, recommended as a
sovereign cure to nephews who wished to
get rid of their uncles.
Such, amongst others, were the topics of
current talk in Paris in the year 1854, at
the time when Horace and Emile Gerold
came there to try their fortunes.
-Q-
CHAPTER. W.
BOURGEOIS POLITICS.
“WELL, I think we’ve about done our
furnishing,” said Horace to his brother, as
he stepped back to look at a long row of
law volumes which he had been ranging on
a book-shelf.
“Yes,” answered Emile, “both our stud-
ies are in order: the man has finished nail
ing down the carpets in the bedrooms, I
don’t see what else remains to be done.”
30
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
*
“Where have you put the tin box 7”
asked Horace.
“Here it is,” said Emile, picking up a
small tin case from out a É. of torn
newspapers, bits of string, empty boxes
and wood-shavings that encumbered the
floor. “What’s in it 2 ”
“Don’t you know?” exclaimed the el-
der, looking at him. “It’s that title-deed;
I put it there when we came from Claire-
fontaine six weeks ago.”
“Oh!” rejoined Emile, becoming seri-
ous, and he added after a moment: “What
are you going to do with it 7”
“We must find a place for the thing
somewhere where we sha’n’t be seeing it
every day,” returned Horace, perplexed.
“I heartily wish it were off our hands; I
dream about it nights. It is inconceivable
that father should have wished us to keep
such a thing five years.”
“There's an empty drawer in your bu-
reau,” remarked Emile, not answering the
latter half of his brother's observation.
Horace was holding the case in his two
hands and eying it rather absently. “H’m,
no,” he said, at the end of a moment's re-
flection: “suppose you keep it 2 I shall
feel quieter iſ it's in your charge.”
The younger brother took the case with-
out making any remark, and carried it into
the next room, which was his own study.
Horace heard the opening of a drawer,
and the double clicking of a lock. Then
Emile re-appeared with a key in his hand.
“If that can make you any easier,” he
said, “the thing's done. I’ve put it in my
lowest drawer, left-hand side, and we
need never look at it again unless you
like.”
Horace drew a short sigh of relief and
gave a nod of thanks to Emile. After
which, as the brothers wanted to set their
rooms to rights, they fell to picking up the
rubbish, wood-shavings, bits of string,
shreds of paper, &c., and piled them into
the empty deal boxes, preparatory to hav-
ing these removed to a lumber-room.
. It was during a November afternoon, and
the two Gerolds were just installed in the
lodgings they had taken, Rue St. Gene-
viève, in the “Latin Quarter,” close to the
Panthéon. Their father had some weeks
since returned to Brussels; in fact he had
done no more than pass through Paris, for,
as he said with truth enough, the France
of '54 was not a place for men who thought
as he did. Manuel Gerold had no private
fortune save that which had come to him
at his nephew's death; but in the course
of a long and laborious career as a politi-
eal writer he had amassed sufficient to end
his own days in ease and to start his sons
in life comfortably. He could afford to
give them three thousand francs a year
apiece, which is a competence in Paris for
young barristers who have not extravagant
tastes; and, as the Council of the French
Bar requires that a man shall have “a de-
cently furnished lodging and a library of
books” before he can be admitted to plead,
he had spent twelve thousand francs in fit-
ting up the chambers of IIorace and Emile,
so that Monsieur le Bâtonnier and his col-
leagues should have no fault to find. The
brothers rented a set of rooms on the third
floor — one of those good old sets of rooms
built a hundred and fifty years ago, with
thick walls, deep cupboards, and roomy pas-
sages; not like those wretched card-board
dwellings which M. Haussmann's architects
have contrived — houses where, if the first-
floor lodger plays the piano at midnight,
he is heard on the sixth story, and keeps
some ten or twelve batches of ſellow-ten-
ants awake. Horace and Emile had each
a study and a bedroom to themselves; and
for their joint use there was a kitchen and
dining-room, the latter of which, however,
as they seldom dined at home, they had
converted into a smoking saloon. There
was also a cellar for wine, wood, and coal;
and if it would interest you to know what
all this cost, I may tell you that their com-
bined rent amounted to eight hundred
francs, that is, double what they would
have had to pay before 1848, and a third
less than they would be obliged to pay in
1870.
Clubs being as yet confined in France to
men who are rich and can afford to do
without them, the brothers dined and
breakfasted at one of those tables d'hôte sc
numerous in the Latin Quarter, where,
young barristers, journalists, doctors, pro-
fessors, and the better class of students re-
sort. The board cost eighty-five francs a
month, win ordinaire included ; and for that
sum one had a very fair beefsteak or chop,
an omelette, fried potatoes, and cheese at
eleven, and soup, boiled beef, roast, vege-
tables, and dessert at six. Certainly the
French are adepts in the art of giving mul-
tum pro parvo. It is impossible to surmise
without chagrin what dinner would be
given in Great Britain to any individual
who expected his six courses per diem for
sixty-eight shillings a month.
One thousand and twenty francs paid
for board and 400 francs for lodging, left
each brother 1,580 francs annually for fir-
ing and lighting, washing, clothes, and
pocket-money. Set down the first two of
these items at 100 francs (for between two
coal can be eked out), the second at 150
francs, the third at 400 francs, and there
remained 930 francs for the last. A young
French barrister who has 371. a year for
…”
BOURGEOIS POLITICS
31
º may consider himself favored
y Providence. There is no reason why he
should deny himself the diurnal demi-tasse
at his café; he can smoke cigarettes at the
rate of one pound of tobacco per month
(total 60 francs per annum); on festive oc-
casions he may wear gloves and venture
upon a cigar (N.B. a Londrès, price 25
centimes, as good as a London regalia if
carefully selected); he may also indulge
without fear in a cab, if not over addicted
to parties; and he will still have a reserve-
fund for the exhilaration of beggars, the
remuneration of the concierge who black-
ens his boots, makes his bed, and sweeps
his room, and for an occasional summer's
day excursion to Enghien or Montmorency,
should his fancy so lead him. Of course,
theatre-going should cost him nothing.
Every barrister contrives to know a few
journalists, dramatic authors and actors,
upon whom he may depend for play-orders
— especially during the dog-days.
The house in which Horace and Emile
had taken up their abode was the property
of a worthy draper named Pochemolle, who
kept a shop on the ground floor, and was
accounted somewhat a curiosity in the par-
ish. The curiosity lay in this, that the
Pochemolles, from father to son, had occu-
pied the house where they then lived for
upwards of a hundred and seventy years
— a fact so rare, so phenomenal indeed, in
the annals of Parisian trade, that certain
of M. Pochemolle's customers, unable to
grasp the notion in its entirety, had a sort
of confused belief that it was M. Achille
Pochemolle himself— the Pochemolle of
1854 — who had ſlourished a hundred and
seventy years on the same premises. Yet
M. Achille Pochemolle was not more than
fifty ; and he looked by no means older
than his age. He was a small, smug-faced,
gooseberry-eyed man, quick in his move-
ments, glib with his tongue, and full of the
quaint shop-courtesy of eighty years ago,
which he had inherited from his sire and
his sire's sire along with their profound
veneration for all that concerned the crown,
the nobility, and the higher clergy.
It was worth going a visit to the Rue
Ste. Geneviève if only to see M. Pochemolle
bow when he ushered out a customer or
showed one in. He still kept to all the
musk-scented traditions of the grand stºcle.
For him, a lady, no matter how old and
wrinkled, was always a belle dame; and
Heaven forbid that he should ever have
driven a hard bargain with one of the gentle
sex. He used to say, “Voyez, belle dame,
cette étoffe est faite pour vous embellir,” or,
“Belle dame, ce ruban ne peut qu'ajouter
& vos graces.” Ladies liked it, and M.
Pochemolle had a fine business connection
amongst ancient dowagers and spinsters of .
the neighborhood: not to mention two or
three nunneries, the sisters of which, pleased
to be addressed occasionally in pretty old-
world compliments, came to Monsieur P.'s
for all that was wanted in the way of linen
and drapery for their convents.
In politics M. Pochemolle was a valiant
conservative of existing institutions, what
ever they were, and, under the circum-
stances, it might have seemed odd that he
should have consented to lodge the sons of
a notorious Republican, had it not been for
this, that he was under obligations to Man-
uel Gerold, and frequently acknowledged
it with gratitude. As a private first, then
as a corporal, and finally as a Sergeant in
the National Guard, Monsieur P had
fired his shot in the three insurrections of
July, 1830; February, '48; and June, '48;
fighting each time on the side of order —
that is, on the side of Government; and it
was in the last of these battles that, find-
ing himself under the same flag as Manuel
Gerold — who was for a moderate Republic,
opposed to a “Red” one — he had been
saved from certain death by the latter, who,
at the risk of his own life, had caught up
Monsieur Pochemolle from under a barri-
cade where he was lying stunned, and car-
ried him away to a place of safety. The
homest draper, who set a high price on his
own life, thought with wonder and admira-
tion of this achievement. He had sworn a
lasting gratitude to his preserver, and
seemed likely not to forget his oath; for,
when Horace and Emile Gerold came with
their father to see whether M. Pochemolle
had any lodgings to let, he had gladly given
them the best he h \d, without troubling
himself about their political opinions. He
even went further, for he spread it amongst
his own purveyors, grocer, coal-man, and
others, that his two new lodgers were young
gentlemen “who might be trusted; ” and,
on the November afternoon, when the
brothers were setting their rooms to rights,
he came up to see with his own eyes
whether they had every thing they wanted,
taking with him as his pretext a letter which
the postman had just brought for Horace
Gerold.
“Come in,” cried the brothers, in answer
to the good man's knock, and M. Poche-
molle with his letter, his gooseberry eyes,
and his excellent tongue ready for half an
hour's chat, appeared in the doorway.
“A letter, gentlemen,” he said; “and
I’ve come to see whether I can be of use to
you. Deary me ! but these are fine rooms
and improved vastly since you're in them.
This is a Brussels carpet, five francs twen-
ty-five centimes the mêtre : I know it by
the tread. Nothing can be better than
32
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
those crimson curtains, solid cloth of El-
bauf, cost a hundred and fifty francs the
pair, I’ll warrant me. And that's a por-
trait of your most respected father over the
mantle-piece 7"
“Yes,” smiled Horace, taking the letter
and laying it on the table. “Our father
has a greatesteem for you, Monsieur Poche-
molle.”
“Not more than I have for him, sir,” an-
swered the draper heartily, and, peering
into the next room, which was Emile’s, he
continued: “And that, no doubt, is Mad-
ame your most venerated mother?” The
picture was one of a fair-haired lady, with
tender, expressive eyes. The brothers had
scarcely known their mother; she had died
when they were both children. They
nodded and kept silent.
“Ha,” went on Monsieur Achille, chan-
ging the subject with ready tact. “These
pictures remind me of two of mine own
which I must show you down stairs. One
is a print made in 1710 (a hundred and
forty-four years ago), the other is more re-
cent— 1780; both represent a part of the
Rue Ste. Geneviève, and you can see my
shop in them, not altered a bit from what
it is now, with the name Pochemolle over
the doorway, and the sign of ‘The Three
Crowns.” These three crowns, you must
know, were the making of our house. Ah,
Messieurs, it's a fine story, and you should
have heard my grandfather tell it as he had
it from his own grandfather, the hero of
the tale. Just about as old as you, Mon-
sieur Horace, he was. Then my great-
great-grandfather — one day he was walk-
ing along the streets, when he sees a poor
woman, worn away with hunger, and two
little children on her arms, make a snatch
at the purse of a fine gentleman who was
stepping out of a coach, and try to run off
with it. The two were so near together
—he and the woman — that the servants
of the gentleman laid hold of him, thinking
it was he that had made the snatch; the
more so as the crazy thing, in her hurry to
get away, had tripped up and let go the
purse, which was lying at my ancestor’s
feet. Of course, this took him breathless
like, and he was just going to say what was
what, when, looking at the poor creature
who was crouching on the ground shaking
all over, and clasping her two babies close
to ner, he couldn't bear giving her up, and
so says he ‘Yes, gentlemen, it’s I that
took the purse.’
“It seems the woman gave him such
a look as he never forgot to the day when
he was laid in his coffin, and he used to say
that it was worth going ten times to the
#!"; to have eyes look at one as her’s
id. You see, thieving was no joke then :
it meant the gibbet; and it wasn't every-
body that would have run their necks into
a noose for a beggar woman they didn't
know. Well, they dragged him off to
prison, locked him up with chains to his
legs, they did; and my grandsire made up
his mind that before long they'd have him
out on the Place de Grève, and do by him
as I dare say he'd seen done by a many a
thief and cut-throat. But the gentleman
whose purse had been snatched had seen
the whole thing, and wasn't going to let
evil come of it. He allowed the young
man to lie in prison a little while, just to
see, probably, how long he would hold out ;
but when he saw that my grandsire wouldn't
budge an inch from his story, but stuck firm
to it that it was he that had taken the
purse, then he spoke out, and one day
came to the jail with a king's order for let-
ting the prisoner loose. He was a great
nobleman, was this gentleman — one of
the greatest about Louis the Fourteenth’s
court; and when my grandsire came out
of prison — it was the Châtelet; they're
building a theatre over the spot now — he
saw this great nobleman, who didn't bare
his head to many, standing, hat in hand,
beside his coach-door. “Will you do me
the honor of riding to Versailles, sir, with
me?’ he said — aye, he said, “do me the
honor,’ he did — ‘I wish to present you to
the king.” And sure enough to Versailles
they went, both together, side by side, he
and the nobleman in the same coach ; and
at court the king gave my ancestor his
hand to kiss, and the nobles between them
subscribed five hundred louis, with which
this house and the shop below were bought.
And the purse which was the cause of the
whole business, and which contained three
crowns when it was snatched, was presented
to my grandsire by the nobleman, along
with a diamond ring. They’re both under
a glass case in our back parlor now, and I
can tell you, gentlemen, we're proud of
'em.”
“Well you may be,” exclaimed Emile
Gerold, warmly. “There's not a nobleman
could show a more splendid patent of
nobility than that purse and the three
crowns.”
“And what became of the woman 2"
asked Horace Gerold.
“Our benefactor took care of her, too.
He set her up in a cottage on his country
estate, and I believe her sons grew up to
be honest peasants. But I don’t feel much
for her, though,” added M. Pochemolle, sa-
gaciously; “for, after all, if the nobleman
hadn't had his eyes about him when the
thing happened, she'd have let my grand-
sire swing, which would have been a pretty
end for a man that had never fingered a
BOURGEOIS POLITICS.
33
penny that wasn't his own, and would as
soon have thought of thieving as of com-
mitting murder.”
Whilst speaking, M. Pochemolle strode
about the rooms, continuing to inspect every
thing, feeling the coverings of chairs and
sofas with a professional touch, digging his
fists into mattresses and pillows to test
their elasticity, and closely scrutinizing the
wood of which tables and bureaus were
made. “I don't want to be talking only
about myself, gentlemen,” he said bluffly;
“let’s talk a little about yourselves; the
goings-on of an old family a hundred and
seventy years ago can't interest you much,
though it's civil of you to listen. Hullo,
what’s this ‘’”
In ſerreting about, M. Pochemolle had
come upon some framed pictures standing
on the floor with their ſinces to the wall,
waiting to be hung up. IIe took one and
turned it to the light. It was a print of
David's celebrated picture, Le Serment
du Jeu de Paume.* Poor M. Pochemolle
became suddenly grave.
“No, no,” said he, shaking his forefinger
before his face and looking reproachfully
from one brother to the other. “No, no,
no — don’t have anything to do with 'em.”
“With whom 7” asked Horace, amused.
“With them there,” and M. Pochemolle
E. ruefully to the grand figure of the
evolutionist, Bailly, standing with hand
uplifted in the foreground of the picture.
“They’re not fit company for gentlemen
like you to associate with,” he went on ;
“no, they ain’t, indeed. And if you'd
seen as much of 'em as I have, you’d wash
your hands of 'em now and for altogether.”
“Are you speaking of the Revolution-
ists 2'' inquired Emile.
“Ay, sir, I am.”
“But come, M. Pochemolle, you were a
Republican yourself, not so long ago,” ob-
served IIorace, laughing. “It was in fight-
ing for the provisional government, that
you received the blow on the head which
gave our father the opportunity of picking
you up, and making your acquaintance.”
“Ay, Monsieur, but the blow on the head
doesn’t prove I was a Republican. When I
was a little chap ten years old, no higher
than that pair of tongs yonder, I went to
the Barrière de Clichy to throw stones at
the Cossacks, who were marching into
Paris. Throwing stones was the most we
could do, for we were too small to fire guns.
* In 1789, Louis XVI., wishing to throw impedi-
Iments in the way of the sittings of the States-Gen-
ºral, who appeated to him to be voting reforms too
fast, ordered the debate room at Versailles to be
closed, under pretence of repairs. The members
thereupon adjourned to the Témmis Court, and there
8wore it solemn oath not to cease from their work
until they had drawn up a new constitution. Da-
Wid’s pencil has immortalized this episode.
3
Sixteen years later, when M. Lafayette
and that set were overthrowing Charles X.,
I went out and did my best to prevent
them. The National Guard was dissolved
then, but I put on my uniform all the same
and went to join the regulars. I stuck to it
three days, July 27, 28, and 29. along with
the Royal Guards at the Tuileries; and,
if the Bourbons were expelled, it wasn’t for
want of fighting on my part. In 1848 came
our King Louis Philippe's turn, and I was
out again, Feb. 23, 24, and 25, never clos-
ing an eye once during the three days,
and seeing six and thirty men of my com-
pany shot down by the Faubourgiens.
Well, we were beat, as you know; your
respected father and his friends came to
power, and there was nothing for it but to
rally round them to prevent their being
swept away in their turn by the ‘Reds.”
That's why I fought for them in the three
days of June, but it doesn’t prove I’m a Re-
publican, for I should do just as much for
the Emperor Napoleon if any one were to
try and get rid of him.”
“H'm, then you can boast with your.
hand on your heart that you have consist-
ently opposed progress of every sort and
kind, and are prepared to do so again,” re-
marked Horace, good-humoredly, but with,
a small point of irony.
“Ay, sir, I can,” answered M. Poche-
molle simply, though not without a counter
point of irony. “I can, if you think that
progress and revolution mean the same
thing; but I don't. Let's have order first,
I say; then we’ll see about the rest after-
wards.”
“Yet you must have some preference for
one form of government over the other,”
ejaculated Emile, not a little scandalized
at this — to him — new way of talking.
“Yes, I like any thing better than a re-
public,” responded M. Pochemolle with
deliberation. “See, gentlemen, what is it
that we tradesmen, most want, — peace,
isn’t it 2 — and a good strong government
that’ll let us sell our wares quietly, and
keep the ragamuffins from breaking our.
windows, Well, when your honored father
and his friends were in office, what did we
have 2 I know they were honest men and
meant well; but honesty’s not enough : it's
like butter without the bread: the bread’s
strength, and we want strength, too. M.
Lamartine, M. Louis Blanc, and M. Gerold
made us handsome promises, and, I know,
did their best to keep them; but what did
it all come to ? Why, in '48, we paid
twice more taxes than we'd ever paid be-
fore; we were out four days a week quelling
riots, and there was no more business doing
than if we'd all been living in famine time,
Now under the emperor, I don’t say but
34
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
that the taxes are high; only we can afford
to pay them. Trade's been brisker these
three years past, spite of the war and that,
than I ever remember it before : and we
don’t have any rioting.”
“Oh if you look at these questions from
the counter point of view,” interrupted
Emile Gerold a little contemptuously.
“Well, sir, don't we all look at things
through our particular set of glasses?” re-
joined the honest draper roundly. “Here
are you two gentlemen come to Paris to
start as lawyers, and I am bound I shall
hear you both make many a fine speech be-
fore I’ve done with you; but don’t you
think that what some of you gentlemen are
most eager after when you stand up to
preach for freedom and all that, is the mak-
ing yourselves popular names in order that
people may flock round you, and pay you
well for taking their cases in hand? Least-
ways, that's my experience of a good many
barristors.”
“There's no harm in wishing to become
popular,” remarked Emile energetically.
“No, sir; nor in wishing to sell one's
goods,” replied the draper with a laugh.
“Only I’ll tell you what’s the mistake many
of the popular gentlemen make : they ask
for a great deal more than we want, and a
great deal more than's good for us to have;
then they’ve another trick, which is to prom-
ise a good bit more than they can ever
ive.”
“I believe you're trying to paint yourself
much blacker than you really are,” inter-
posed IIorace, smiling. “You can’t care for
freedom so little as you say, M. Pochemolle.
That you should like selling your goods is
natural enough, but you are a Frenchman,
and must see something else in good govern-
ment but a mere question of trade profits.
isn’t there any satisfaction in being a free
gman in a free land? Is there no humilia-
tion in living under a Government which
treats us like children, not old enough to
think for ourselves? Why, now, to go no
further than your own case, do you find you
have lost nothing by this new state of
things? Formerly you had a parliament
which debated and voted freely under pub-
lic control; you could hold meetings when-
ever you wished to discuss political con-
cerns; you had a free press; you elected
your own mayors and your own officers in
the National Guard; in a word, you were
accounted somebody, and played your part
in the State. But now what has become of
all your rights?”
“Well, there you put the question in
plain terms, and I’ll answer you in the same
way,” replied M. Pochemolle, digging both
hands into his pockets, and looking cheerily
at the brothers. “A few years ago, as you
say, we had all those rights, and what did
they profit us? Why, during eighteen
mortal years, we had nothing but M. Guizot
trying to turn out M. Thiers, and M. Thiers
trying to turn out M. Guizot. What do
you think I cared whether it was M. Guizot
or the other who was in ‘’ There wasn’t a
pin's head to choose between them, so ſar
as real opinions went ; only for this, perhaps,
that it was M. Thiers, who talked the fast-
est about good government, that gave us the
least of it: for ’twas in his time that we
almost had the war with England, and were
taxed seventy millions to pay for Paris for-
tifications. Then there was the press. Ah!
to be sure, that was free enough : there were
a couple of hundred gentlemen who abused .
each other in the papers every evening, and
ran each other through in the Bois de Bou
logne of a morning. Very pleasant for those
who were journalists, but as I wasn’t one,
that freedom didn’t help me. Next, we had
the right to elect our own officers in the
National Guard, and do you know what
was the result” why, there wasn’t a ten
sous’ worth of discipline among the whole
lot of us. At election-time it used to be a
disgraceful sight to see the officers fawning
to the privates, and if one of them was
above doing it, or was at all sharp in com-
manding, why, twenty to one voted against
him; so that he had to carry the musket
again, after having worn the epaulet. I
know what it is; for I don’t want to make
myself out better than I am : I once voted
against my captain, simply because he'd
blown me up before company about my
rifle, which wasn’t properly cleaned; only
I'm hanged if I didn’t feel a pang when I
saw him, after the election, come and take
up his stand in the ranks, whilst I had be-
come a corporal. Then there used to be
eternal fallings-out between the members
of the Guard who were tradesmen and
those who were professional, such as doctors,
lawyers, retired officers from the army, and
the like. These last were for having all the
officers elected out of their set; and we
tradesmen, who were in a majority, used to
spite them, by electing nothing but our own
party. I’ve seen a grocer, a tailor, and a
baker, all officers in one company. I don’t
say a grocer can’t be as brave as another
man; only selling candles behind a counter
doesn't prepare one for commanding troops,
as we found out fast enough when the Re-
volution came. Shall I tell you now about
our free parliament” There were four hun-
dred of ’em in it, and the amount of talk-
ing they did was prodigious. They were
at it six days a week during seven months
out of the year, but I'm blessed if they ever
did that for us” (M. Pochemolle snapped his
fingers) “besides talking. We wanted new
IBOURGEOIS
POLITICS. 35
drains ror ‘a kº, they wouldn't give 'em us
— said it eos', too much. We wanted new
streets — same story. We had in the Cité
yonder a whole lump of courts and alleys
where people could punch one another's
heads out of their windows from opposite
sides of the street. They bred filth and
fever they did, and so swarmed with rascals,
that if the police wanted to lay hold of any-
body there, they had to go twenty and
thirty together. You’d have thought it
would have been a mercy to burn the whole
º but when it came to be a matter of
nocking it down and building something
new and clean instead, everybody cried,
‘Oh, no l’ and ‘Where's the money to come
from ?” And, I tell you, I was as bad as
the rest of 'em, for though I wasn't a mem-
ber of Jhe House of Deputies, yet when me
and a .r.t more of us, who had votes, used
to get flking together about municipal busi-
ness a 1d other things we didn’t understand,
we were always saying ‘No’ to every thing.
I remember I used to come straight slap
out with the ‘No’ before I knew what the
question was about; it was a habit I’d got
into. But at present all that’s changed.
Our Fmperor he says, “I’m here to rule,”
and he does what's good for us: builds new
streets and the like without taking counsel
of anybody. And quite right too; for yon
see, gentlemen, let each man keep to his
own walk, say I: I’m a famous good hand
at selling cloth, calico, and ribbons, but I
understand next to nothing about govern-
ing a country, and I don't see what any of
you 'ud have to gain by letting me try.”
Emile gave a shrug : Horace laughed.
“Well, that's candid and modest enough,
anyhow, M. Pochemolle,” he said. “I can’t
say you've quite convinced me. In any
case, I daresay we sha’n’t be the less good
friends from thinking differently.”
“No, no, that we sha’n’t, sir: we sha’n’t
indeed,” answered M. Pochemolle. “Only ”
— and here M. P., relapsing into a serious
vein, cast another deprecating look towards
the picture of the Revolutionists which he
had abandoned on the table during his last
harangue, – “Only trust me, gentlemen,
and don't have any thing to do with them.
I've never known it lead to any thing but
fighting in the streets and imprisonment
afterwards. If they were all cut out of the
same cloth as your respected father, it might
be another matter; but they're not. I
knew a Republican who talked very hand-
some about the rights of man, and went
away without paying my bill.”
M. Pochemolle was very exhaustive when
he got on the subject of his antipathy for
Revolutionists, and might have adduced
numerous other instances of Republican
shortcomings had not a knock at the door
interrupted him at this juncture, whilst a
feminine voice from without cried: “Papa,
you’re wanted in the shop.”
“Ah, that's my little girl, gentlemen,”
said M. Pochemolle; and opening the door
he revealed a bright young lady, who looked
some seventeen springs old, and was as
pretty as clear hazel eyes, thick chestnut
curls (young ladies wore curls in ’54), red
lips and neat dressing could make her.
She reddened slightly at finding herself
before two strange messieurs, but was not
otherwise shy, for she repeated to her sire
what she had already said, and added that
it was “maman’’ who had sent her up to
say that Monsieur Macrobe and his daugh-
ter were down stairs. She begged the
messieurs’ pardon for disturbing them.
“Come here, Georgette, and let me in-
troduce you to these gentlemen,” said M.
Pochemolle, with a not unpardonable look
of fatherly pride. “Gentlemen, you only
saw my wife and my son when you came
to take your rooms the other day. Here
is my daughter, who was staying away with
her aunt then. Georgette, these are the
MM. Gerold, sons of Monsieur Gerold, who
faced the fire of revolutionary rifles to save
your father's life.* Make your best courtesy
to them. Gentlemen, this is my little
Georgette — my pet child.” And the
worthy man led the young lady forward
by the hand.
There was the most graceful of bows on
the part of Horace Gerold, a not less civil
but graver salutation on the part of Emile,
and a demure courtesy with more blushing
from Mdlle. Georgette. As Frenchmen
are never at a loss for compliments, M.
Horace, who was always collected in the
face of the adverse sex, added a few pretty
words, which seemed to please M. Poche-
molle. Mdlle. Georgette herself cast her
eyes on the ground with an almost imper-
ceptible smile, as if the young man's com-
pliments were not the first she had heard
in her life.
“And now to business,” exclaimed the
draper. “Monsieur Macrobe and his young
lady sha’n’t be kept waiting long, my dear.
Ah, gentlemen, you should see Made-
moiselle Macrobe — a pearl, as we should
have said in my young days, though I
wouldn’t exchange her for my Georgette.
But she'll marry a duke or a king before
she's done; I’d stake twenty bales of cloth
on it. Then there’s her father, too. Lord
bless my soul, what a long head | That's
the kind of man to make a deputy of if
* N.B. — This was not quite historically correct,
for the firing had ceased when M. G. picked up
M. P., and It is not so sure that the latter would
have died, even if he had not been picked up at all,
But gratitude may be pardoned for exaggerating.
36
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
you like. When he started in life he'd not
two brass farthings to rub together, and no
profession either, nor trade, nor teaching,
so far as I could see; and yet now — why,
he rolls his carriage, and I guess he won't
live much longer in this quarter; he'll be
emigrating towards the Champs Elysées
or the Chaussée d’Antin. Worse luck, for
I shall lose a first-rate customer. A rising
man, gentlemen, and thinks like me about
politics; ay, it's not in his mouth you'd
ever hear a word against the emperor.”
Mdlle. Georgette pulled her father’s
sleeve.
“M. Macrobe was in a hurry, father.”
“Yes, my dear, coming; it won’t do to
offend M. Macrobe. Gentlemen, your ser-
vant; and if ever I can serve you, pray do
me the honor to command me. Georgette,
my pet, make another courtesy to the Mes-
sieurs Gerold.”
And Mademoiselle Georgette did.
“Queer card I’’ laughed Horace, when
the good M. Pochemolle had retreated.
“I hope we shall see as little as possible
of him for the future,” answered the young-
er brother, dryly. “I don’t like such cyni-
cism.”
“Oh cynicism is a big word,” observed
Horace. “I don’t see any thing cynic in the
matter. We can’t all think alike, you
know.”
Emile, for all his gentleness, was much
less tolerant of hostile opinions than his
brother. His was the nature out of which
enthusiasts are moulded. He answered
bitterly, “It’s those sort of men who’ve
helped to bring France to her present hu-
miliation, and to send our father into exile.
What wonder that there should be despots
to treat us Frenchmen like slaves, when
they are encouraged to it by such people as
this — fellows who are ready to stand up
for anybody in power, and to truckle to
any government that will fill their tills.”
“Whew — w — w ” whistled Horace.
“Why look at things so gloomily, brother?
Let's have freedom all round in the com-
munity. Think what it would be if every-
body professed the same opinions—half the
fun of life would be gone. Besides, it
seems to me that a man who goes out three
or four times over, and risks his life for his
opinions, however absurd these may be, has
a right to be respected. It isn’t the same
as sticking to one's convictions only so long
as they pay you.”
Emile shook his head, unconvinced; but
the discussion was not prolonged further,
for Horace remembered the letter which
the draper had brought, and which was ly-
ing unopened on the table. He had not
looked at the address, but, on taking it,
saw that it was in Manuel Gerold's hand-
writing. “It's from our father,” he said,
breaking the seal; and Emile having asked
him to read aloud, he read as follows:--
“BRUSSELS, November, 1854.
“MY DEAR Boys, – I have just receiv-
ed your letters, informing ine that you were
almost installed; and by same post a copy
of the ‘Moniteur,” with your names
amongst those of the new barristers admit-
ted at the opening of the courts. It is a
great satisfaction to me to feel that you are
now fairly launched, both of you, in a pro-
fession where merit and hard work are
more surely and liberally rewarded than in
any other calling you could have chosen.
The Bar will lead you to any thing, though
your progress must be at first slow; but
you can afford to wait, and you are too
sensible not to be aware that the only sta-
ble reputations are those which are acquir-
ed laboriously, by dint of patience and
energy. Had I staid longer in Paris, I
should have introduced you to such few of
my friends as still remain there. The num-
ber of them is terribly dwindled down, for
most of us men of '48 have been scattered
to the four winds; but there is Claude
Febvre, one of the leaders of your profes-
sion, who has always been my firm ally —
you will do well to call upon him. He will
be sure to receive you kindly, and may be
able to help you forward. In the press,
Nestor Roche, the editor of “La Senti-
nelle,’ is my old and valued friend. You
might find him a little rough at first, but
there is a heart of gold under his shaggi-
ness. He lives at the office of his paper,
Rue Montmartre. I should think it not
improbable that my bankers, MM. Lecoq
and Roderheim, would wish to show you
some civility, and asks you to their parties;
in which case you would perhaps do well to
go, for my relations with the firm have al-
ways been friendly. I hear that they have
just taken a new partner, a man named
Macrobe. If it is the same Macrobe I
knew in 1848, he will be likely to invite you,
too. He was a curious fellow, whom I
could never quite understand. I believe he
was a very warm Republican, acted once or
twice on my electoral committees, and dur-
ing the Provisional Government asked me
several times to assist him in getting army
and navy contracts. I mention this be-
cause somehow he knew all about our
family history, who I was, and the rest of
it. I used to have some trouble in prevent-
ing him from trumping up my affairs in
public, and paying me compliments. His
object seemed to be to make friends with
me; for though I never helped him in his
contract hunting, he always professed to be
a great supporter of mine ‘’--
BOURGEOIS POLITICS.
37
“Macrobel ” muttered Horace, breaking
off. “Why, that's the name of M. Poche-
molle's customer down stairs. I wonder
whether the two are the same.”
“M. Pochemolle said his M. Macrobe
was a Bonapartist.”
“H'm, to-day — yes; but he said nothing
about six years ago.”
“If they be the same,” remarked Emile,
quietly, “M. Macrobe may spare himself
the trouble of showing any civilities to
me.”
Horace said nothing, but took up the
reading where he had left off, and finished
the letter: —
“ . . . . . Amongst my other quondam
friends, I need not remind you of one whom
you frequently saw come and visit me in
old times: I mean M. Gribaud, who is now
Minister of State. You remember the
letter he wrote on the morrow of the coup-
d'état, acquainting me with his sudden
change of politics, and advising me to fol-
low his example: you have not forgotten
either the reply which I sent him. Under
the circumstances, I scarcely think it prob-
able that M. Gribaud will care to recol-
lect he was once on such warm terms with
us; and if he hears that you are in Paris,
he will, doubtless, not trouble you with
cards for any of those Ministerial soirées
of his, which I hear are so much envied.
Still, there is no knowing. My letter to
him was not sharp : it was merely cold;
and there is just a possibility that out of
vanity or bravado, or from other motives
difficult to analyze, he will invite you to go
and witness his present splendor. Should
this be the case, I confess it would please
me to hear that you had held as completely
aloof from this man as you would from any
other individual who had shown himself
openly dishonest. The world is indulgent
towards men who have succeeded, and easily
condones the villanies to which they may
owe their triumphs; but for this reason it
is the more important that strictly honor-
able men should build up a higher and
sterner code of morality. You and I can-
not harm M. Gribaud: neither would we
if we could ; but we can refuse him our
homage, and so mark in our humble way |
that we draw no difference between the
knavery that leads to the hulks and that
which leads to the Cabinet.
“Let me hear from both of you as often
as possible without intruding too much on
your time, and believe me,
“My dear Boys,
“Your ever affectionate Father,
“MANUEL GEROLD.”
Whilst Horace Gerold was reading this
letter to his brother, M. Pochemolle the
draper, with his daughter Mdlle. Georgette,
had returned to the shop on the ground
floor, in order to attend on the important
M. Macrobe. This gentleman — who at
first sight looked like a weasel, upon closer
inspection like a badger, and who, after
mature examination, left one doubtful as to
whether there were not a chimpanzee or
two amongst his ancestors — was standing
at one of the counters conversing volubly
with the draper's wife, and holding up a
piece of silk to the light to test the quality
of the woof. The good Mdme. Pochemolle,
stout, buxom, and blazing in scarlet cap-
strings, had been thrown into a sudden state
of excitement and perspiration by the entry
of this well-to-do but restless customer.
M. Macrobe was one of those gentlemen
who turn a shop upside down before they
have been in it five minutes. At his bid-
ding, M. Alcibiade Pochemolle, heir of M.
Achille, had been made to haul down bales
upon bales of silk, velvets, and satin, box
after box of ribbons, until the counter was
encumbered half a yard high with merchan-
dise. The person for whose edification all
this bustling and scurrying was supposed to
take place was Mdlle. Angélique Macrobe,
but it was her father who virtually did all the
shopping. Mdlle. Angélique herself was
a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, angel-faced
child, who looked at people with a per-
petual expression of soft wonder, and
acquiesced in every thing her sire proposed
in a quiet, pleased sort of way, as if she
quite appreciated the blessing of having
somebody to take the trouble of thinking
off her hands. In terming her “child,”
I must be understood to speak figuratively,
for her pretty baby-face was eighteen years
old, and she was decked out in all the
finery which proclaims a candidate in that
most moral of competitions called the
marriage-market. .
M. Macrobe nodded when the draper
came in, and, continuing to look through
the silk, “’Morning, M. Pochemolle,” he
said. “Brought my daughter here to lay
in winter stores. Goodish bit of silk this,
but I don’t believe in the dye. What's
the news 2 ”
In Macrobian phraseology, “What's the
news 2 ” had no reference whatever to the
state of anybody’s health or to occurrences
in the political world. M. Macrobe was
better informed that any man in Paris as
to things politic, and the condition of
people's health was a matter of great
indifference to him. “What's the news 2 ”
was a query intended to elicit information
as to what M. M. called “possible bargains.”
If there was any thing to be sold anywhere
at a loss to the seller — anything from the
38
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
stock of a bankrupt tradesman to the
“Stradivarius” of a starving fiddler or
the pug-dog of a ruined actress, M.
Macrobe was the man to seize the occasion
by the forelock. It was by constantly in-
quiring “What's the news?” during a
course of thirty years that M. Macrobe
had, bit by bit, picked up his fortune.
“I don’t think there's much doing in the
quarter, sir,” answered the draper, hasten-
ing behind his counter, with a respectful
salutation, first to the daughter, and then
to the father. “Nothing in the way of
news, I mean. Trade's brisk, and money's
plentiful enough, though to be sure I heard
somebody say that our neighbor the
Armorer, three doors off, was in a bad
way. Didn't you tell me something about
it, my dear?” (this to his wife).
“Yes, indeed,” answered Mdme. Poche-
molle, looking up from the velvet she was
spreading before Mdlle. Angélique. “An
honest man, too, and was getting on well
in his business; but they say his son's not
turned out what he should have done; his
father's had to pay his debts, and this
coming on the top of foolish gambling in
stocks, has put him in a low way.”
“What's the name and address” ” asked
M. Macrobe.
“Quirot, Armorer and Curiosity Shop,
Number 9 in this street,” said the draper;
and down at once went the name of
Quirot, 9 Rue Ste. Geneviève, in the note-
book which M. Macrobe had whipped out
from the breast-pocket of his coat.
“Generally, something to be picked up
in a curiosity shop,” he muttered. “Now
then, my pet, have you seen any thing you
like '' Fairish velvet, Mdme. Pochemolle;
this year's make; can tell it by the touch.
We shall want three ball-dresses—eh, pet 2
— what do you say to a white, a pink and
white, and a light blue, – blue's what goes
best with your hair.”
Mdlle. Angélique smiled and said, “Yes,
papa.” -
“Measure out the silk, please, M. Poche-
molle; and now twenty metres of that
velvet for a dinner-dress; ten of that white
satin for a petticoat ; enough white cash-
mere to make an opera cloak.”
“Four metres, M. Macrobe 2 ”
“No, no : a goodish cloak like a shawl;
something like the burnouses those Arab
fellows wear: a thing to wrap one up all
over — it’s warmer and it’s more chic.
You must tell Mdme. Pochemolle yourself,
et, how much trimming 'll be wanted.”
Mdlle. Angélique said, “Yes, papa,” as
before, and turned with a helpless look
towards the draper's wife, to wonder how
much trimming would be required for four
dresses. Whilst Mdme. Poché molle was
dcing her best to enlighten her on the
weighty point, M. Macrobe had inquired
for a second time of the draper whether he
had any more news to give.
M. Pochemolle was up to his neck in
silk, which was flooding the counter in
waves a yard long as fast as he could
measure it. He was full of merriment at
the fine stroke of business he was doing
that afternoon, so he answered with re-
spectful joviality, -
“Should you consider it news, sir, to
hear that I’ve got two fresh lodgers ?”
“Depends who they are,” replied the
financier, quite seriously. gº g
“Their name's Gerold, sir.”
“Gerold !” echoed M. Macrobe, quickly;
“any relations to Manuel Gerold 7”
“They’re his sons, sir; M. Horace and
M. Emile Gerold.”
Out came M. Macrobe's pocket-book in
a trice.
“What floor, M. Pochemolle” what’s the
age of the two young gentlemen 7 and what
are they doing in Paris? Manuel Gerold’s
a most intimate friend of mine, banks with
us: a curious character, but — allem I —
very well off— very.”
A little astonished, M. Pochemolle in-
formed his customer that his lodgers were
on the third floor, that they had not been
with him long, that they were quiet young
gentlemen, and that their profession was the
law. “Wasn’t aware that you knew them,
M. Macrobe,” he added; “I was just talk-
ing with them, when Georgette came up
to fetch me; but they didn’t say any thing
at the mention of your name.”
“Nor do I know them,” answered M. Ma-
crobe, promptly jotting down, Horace and
Emile Gerold, 3d floor over Pochemolle's,
Rue Sainte Geneviève. “Manuel Gerold’s
the man I know; but his sons and I will
soon scrape acquaintance. Angélique my
child, remember the Messieurs Gerold, and
tell your aunt, when you get home, to have
them down on her list for our next party.
But stay: they live in this house: why
shouldn’t I go up and drop a card whilst
you're making out your bill, M. Poche-
molle 2° and M. Macrobe fumbled in his
pockets for a pair of black kid-gloves, which
did duty with him on ceremonious occasions.
“I am sure they will be delighted to see
you, sir,” observed the draper. And the
worthy man spoke as he thought :, for, in-
deed, it seemed to him impossible that any-
body should be otherwise than delighted at
the sight of an individual so eminently
prosperous as M. Macrobe. . The latter
drew on his gloves, gave his hat, a brush
with the sleeve of his coat, and walked out;
but he was spared the trouble of climbing
up three flights of stairs, for he had searce-
BOURGEOIS
POLITICS. 39
ly left the shop when the two sons of his
most intimate friend emerged from the
porte-cochère of the house in person. They
ad finished their decorating up stairs, and
were on their way to make a few calls be-
fore dinner. M. Pochemolle noticed them
through the window, went out and stopped
them as they were passing his shop, and
then ran after M. Macrobe crying, “Those
were the MM. Gerold, sir, whom you met
going in.”
In another half minute M. Macrobe, with
a most friendly smirk on his acute physi-
ognomy, was holding out his hand to the
younger of the two brothers. He had mis-
taken him for the elder, on account of his
graver face and stronger build. “Monsieur
le Marquis de Hautbourg, I’m truly glad
that hazard should have thrown me in your
way,” he began ; “hope I see you well ?
Only just heard you were in Paris.”
“My name's not Marquis of Hautbourg,”
answered Emile very distantly. “Here is
my elder brother.”
“And I call myself Horace Gerold,”
continued the other, not less distantly,
but with rather more curiosity in his
tone.
“Ah! yes; I perfectly understand; aver-
sion to titles; most respectable prejudice;
am a Republican myself to the backbone.
Your father and I are great friends, M.
Horace : my name is Macrobe.”
“Oh you are M. Macrobe,” said Horace,
amused.
“At your service, M. Horace : Macrobe,
of ‘Lecoq, Röderheim and Macrobe, your
bankers. Dear me, what a likeness be-
tween father and sons ! Do me the pleasure
to step in a moment, M. Horace and M.
Emile, and let me introduce my daughter
to you.”
From the moment when he heard the
name Macrobe, Emile set his face rigidly
and answered only in monosyllables. Hor-
ace suffered himself to be led into the shop
by the arm and presented in due form to
Mademoiselle Angélique. The draper's
daughter, who remembered the pretty com-
pliment with which the well-looking young
gentleman had honored her some twenty
minutes before, raised her eyes slyly from
the parcel she was tying, to see whether he
was going to publish a second edition of
this flattery for Mademoiselle Macrobe.
But nothing save the usual courtesies took
place. Perhaps Horace Gerold was too
much struck by Mademoiselle Angélique's
beauty to say any thing; for in truth to
those who saw her for the first time, the
Sweet candid-faced girl appeared the incar-
nation of all that was lovely and lovable
in woman. Her courtesy to the two brothers
was a model in its way, Mademoiselle An-
gélique being an adept pupil of M. Cel. ,
larius, her dancing-master.
M. Macrobe, not unmindful of the effect
created by his daughter's beauty, followed
up his advantages by at once inviting Hor-
ace and Emile — but especially Horace —
to come and dine on an early day. “Quiet
people we are,” he said, with a bluffness
not quite suited to the weas’ly mobility of
his eyes and the fox-like acuity of his nose.
“I live here in this quarter not far off from
you — Rue de Seine, opposite the Luxem-
bourg. Name a day, and we’ll have as snug
a dinner as you could get in Paris. Twelve
at table, you know, just enough to be cosey,
and I’ll ask a solicitor or two: it’s good for
young barristers to be friends with solicit-
ors.”
Though the invitation was cordial, Hor.
ace politely regretted that the number of
his pressing engagements would prevent
him from naming a day; and there he was
going to stop, but — after a second's hesita-
tion, and a glance in the direction of Made-
moiselle Angélique — he promised he
would do himself the pleasure of calling.
Emile, more wary, promised nothing; but
the assurance of the elder was enough for
M. Macrobe, who appeared satisfied.
For the last five minutes the fingers of
the entire Pochemolle family had been
nimbly at work, folding, rolling, parcelling,
and stringing. M. Alcibiade Pochemolle,
the cashier of the firm, now went to his
high desk and totted up the items of the
various purchases into one grand-total,
Smearing the whole with sand by way of
conclusion, under pretence of blotting it.
“Shall we book to your account, M. Ma-
crobe 7" he asked.
“No, I closed my account last autumn,”
said the financier; “for the future I
pay ready money. Knock off the dis-
count.”
This was at once done, for the house of
Pochemolle and Son transacted business on
the fine old principle of deducting 6 per
cent for cash. The bill was a heavy one;
but I dare say M. Macrobe was not alto-
gether grieved. He read aloud the total —
2,785 francs 75 centimes — with some osten-
tation, drew out three bank-notes of 1,000
francs each, and paid without a word. This
feat, however, reminded him once more that
Manuel Gerold banked with his firm : so,
taking Horace by the button of his coat, he
drew him a step aside, and said, “It’s we,
you know, who are to pay you your allow-
ance, 3,000 francs a year; but I’ve been a
young man myself, and know what it is.
If ever you're hard up, don't forget where
I live : my cash-box is not like the bank,
it's open at all hours — to my friends.”
“Thank you; I never contract debts
40
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
which I have no prospect of paying,”
replied Horace curtly. -
A few years before, whilst he was still a
law student, M. Macrobe's offer might have
stirred him to emotion; at present, he felt
inclined to resent it as an impertinence, the
more so as he recalled the passage of his
father's letter, in which the acquaintance
of the financier with the Gerold family con-
cerns was hinted at.
But M. Macrobe, who knew nothing
about any passage in a letter, grinned at
the young man's stiff answer, and, with a
leer that was intended to be arch, said,
“Oh I of course, of course, M. Horace, that's
the proper reply to make — never accept a
loan till you want it. Only, mind what I
say, and if ever you do want, come to me.
All in friendship, you know ; no securities
or any thing of that kind — plain word of
honor, and down goes the money.”
And with this he turned on his heel,
leaving no time for a second refusal.
Mademoiselle Angélique had risen at this
juncture, and was preparing to leave the
shop as soon as her father should be ready.
Seeing the financier's brougham standing
outside, Horace could scarcely do less than
offer the young lady his arm to help her
into the carriage. Even had he wished to
evade performing this civility, he would
have been unable to do so, for M. Macrobe,
in going to the counter to get his bill re-
ceipted, cried, “I am sure, my dear, M.
Horace will kindly give you his arm whilst
Madame Pochemolle counts me my
change.”
And so the two young people walked
out together, preceded by the Pochemolles
male, both of them freighted with card-
board boxes and packets.
Mdlle. Angélique scarcely touched
Horace’s sleeve with her dainty gloved
hand; and, in answer to a remark of his
respecting the coldness of the weather, re-
plied, “Yes, Monsieur, it is,” with the same
depth of earnestness with which she would
have subscribed to an article of the Chris-
tian faith. Once she was safely stowed
into the brougham, and had mildly thanked
Horace, M. Macrobe came bustling out
amidst the bows and murmured benedictions
of the Pochemolles, and took farewell of
the brothers. He did not attempt to shake
hands with Emile, for he was a perspica-
cious man was M. Macrobe, and easily
discerned where he was not welcome : but
he shook hands warmly with Horace, and
repeated, “Mind, M. Horace, Rue de
Seine; always delighted to see you — An-
gélique too.”
And with this, not forgetful of business,
he directed his coachman to stop at the
curiosity shop of the ill-starred M. Quirot,
out of whom he hoped to be able to screw
a bargain.
When the carriage had rolled off, the
first remark of Horace to his brother was :
“That's the most beautiful girl I've ever
seen in my life; if she's as intelligent as
she's lovely, she must be a paragon.”
Precisely at the same moment M. Ma-
crobe was discoursing to his offspring in this
strain : “My pet, that M. Horace with the
light moustaches is a marquis, and, at the
death of his father, who is a little cracked
—in fact, entirely cracked — he will be a
duke, and have one of the finest fortunes
in France. I’d no idea we should meet
him in Paris in this way; but, since I’ve
had the luck, why, I'll get him to come and
see us; and — h’m —you'll try and be
civil to him, won't you, pet 2 ° -
To which speech Mademoiselle An-
gélique replied with a smile of placid
obedience, such as a seraph might have
envied: “Yes, papa.”
C H A P T E R VI.
A. FIRST BRIEF,
HORACE GEROLD did not immediately
redeem his promise of going to call on the
financier. After thinking during a day or
two of the sweet face and tiny hand of
Mademoiselle Angélique, that young lady
and her sire went out of his head, and it
was fully three months before he renewed
acquaintance with them. In the mean
while, M. Macrobe spared neither letters
nor invitation cards, and when these were
declined, he came himself to pay personal
visits; but he never found the brothers at
home. The fact is, they were hard workers.
Ambitious to push their way quickly, they
slaved at their trade as men must slave
who wish to succeed. This is the life they
led : Up at seven, they fagged at law-books
— but principally the Code — till eleven;
at eleven they went out and breakfasted at
their table d'hôte, which took them till about
a quarter to twelve; breakfast over, they
walked down together to the Palace of
Justice, put on their caps and gowns, and
went from court to court, listening to cases,
until six; in the evenings, after dinner,
they generally spent a couple of hours in
the Café Procope, reading the papers and
talking politics with fellow-barristers; and
the remainder of their time was devoted to
the same employment as the early morn-
ing: that is, either in studying law or in
getting up history — one of the most indis-
A FIRST
BRIEF. 41
pensable branches of knowledge in a
country where barristers have so often to
defend political offenders. The time spent
in the courts was that which seemed most
arduous to them both, and here a marked
difference in their characters became dis-
cernible. Unlike his brother, Emile seldom
went into the criminal courts. He usually
selected the most complicated case on the
Civil Roll, and sat the trial out with stolid
º from first to last, often foregoing
is breakfast to be earlier in his place, and
taking notes with an unflagging attention,
which earned him the admiration of some
of the judges, by whom he soon came to be
noticed as “that young man who never
goes to sleep.”
Frequently it happened that Emile was
the only barrister—and, indeed, the only
spectator — present, besides the counsel,
and these last would marvel to see him
follow all the mazes of some terrifically
intricate argument concerning a disputed
boundary wall, an unintelligible passage in
a codicil, or a right of way over a footpath.
They would have been much more aston-
ished, had they known that Emile Gerold
generally studied these arguments a second
time, when he got home, in the “Gazette des
Tribunaux,” making it a principle, once he
had taken up a case, to master it thor-
oughly. Horace could not have stood this
up-hill kind of labor. The cases he selected
in preference were those which promised
most excitement. The court of assize, the
sixth and seventh chambers of correctional
police, during press trials, and the third
civil court, pending a suit en séparation de
corps et de biens, – these were his places
of favorite resort, though his object was not
to recreate himself by listening to scandal-
mongering witnesses; for he commonly
went out of court whilst evidence was
being taken, and only came in during
the speeches of counsel, pro and con, and
during the summing-up. Whilst his broth-
er was laying down a solid stratum of
law-experience, and learning to be a close,
persevering reasoner, Horace was acquiring
the gift of a ready tongue, – not very strong
in argument, but clever at that headfore-
most kind of rhetoric which capsizes a jury,
and drags the public along with it. He was
the disciple and admirer of the half-dozen
leading barristers who held public prose-
cutors in check, kept a whole court fizzing
with excitement whilst they spoke, and
were known to the outside world through
the medium of their daguerrotype por-
traits, purchasable on the Boulevards for
twenty francs.
One day, Horace had been listening to a
remarkable orator of this school, who, with
much credit to himself and great advantage
to society, had been rescuing an assassin
from the scaffold; and he was walking
along the gallery, which leads from the
Assize Court to the Salle des Pas Perdus
(French Westminster Hall), musing what
a fine thing it was to set twelve jurymen
whimpering in concert, when, on reaching
the hall, he was almost run into by a man
with a preposterous-looking hat, who was
wandering about in a purposeless sort of
way, evidently seeking somebody, but not
paying much attention to whither his steps
led him. This man's hat at once stamped
him as being out of the ruck of common
humanity. It was a hat such as could only
figure on the head of one who despised con-
ventionalities, and was wont to pursue his
own course in life, undeterred by sarcasm.
It was a tall hat, made of silk, and tower-
ing into a peak, with an altogether obsolete
brim, twice as wide as those ordinarily in
vogue, and standing straight out from the
crown of the hat, without the least curve,
like the balcony of a window. Underneath
this head-dress gleamed the face of a man
of sixty, round and smooth-shaven, all but
the moustache, which hung gray and wild
to below the chin. The eyes were bright
and intelligent, though cold and searching.
The nose, mouth, chin, and lips, were all
large and boldly-delineated, denoting a man
who held pretty grimly by his opinions once
he had formed them, and was no more to
be bantered out of a crotchet than to be
intimidated out of a resolution. There are
faces like this on which one may read char-
acter as in an open book. The man was
dressed, regardless of fashion, in wide loose
clothes. He sported a broad collar, turned
down over his coat, and leaving a good deal
of his throat bare. His hands were in his
trousers-pockets.
He made no apology to Horace for nearly
running into him; but, seeing the latter was
a barrister, he said, “Can you tell me where
I’m likely to find Maitre+ Claude Febvre ?”
Claude Febvre' was the barrister upon
whom Manuel Gerold had recommended
his sons to call. The brothers had done
so, and were on very good terms with the
great pleader, who had promised to take
them in hand and help them forward as
soon as he could. At that moment, Claude
Febvre happened to be in the provinces,
standing counsel in a suit at Bordeaux, so
that Horace was able to inform the stranger
that it was no use looking for him at the
palace.
“At Bordeaux is he 7” responded the
man with the hat. “Well, it doesn’t
much matter. I should have retained him
* Maitre (Master) is the substitute for Monsieur
in the case of French barristers. The title is only
used at the law Courts.
42
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
\
because he's a friend of mine; but my
affair is as plain as a mill-board : anybody
can plead it.” He fixed his eyes on Horace
Gerold, surveyed him half a minute, as if
taking measure of his quality, and then
said, “Have you many briefs on hand, young
man 2°
Horace Gerold had not a single brief on
hand. He was just them awaiting the re-
turn of this very Claude Febvre to make
his début at the bar in the character of sec-
ond junior in an action for damages against
a railway company. He colored; but,
the sense of his professional dignity rising
uppermost within him, he answered quietly,
“If you want assistance, Monsieur, I dare-
say, I shall be able to give it you.”
“What's your name?” asked the stranger.
“My name's Horace Gerold.”
“Ah I thought I’d seen those eyes some-
where. Come you along with me, young
man. We two are friends. Have you ever
heard of Nestor Roche” ” &
“Yes, indeed,” exclaimed Horace stop-
ping. “My brother and I called upon him
twice by our father's special desire; but
he was not at home either time, – that
is,” added Horace smiling, “he was at
home both tiues; but once, when we called
at twelve, we were told he was in bed; and
the other time, when we went at three, he
was breakfasting; so we merely left cards.”
“Yes: so would you be in bed at twelve
if you were editing a paper till six in the
morning,” rejoined the man with the hat
queerly. “But give me your hand. I was
glad to see your honest cards on the table.
Next time you write to your father, tell him,
from me, that there's not a man I esteem
more under heaven. Come along now, and
I’ll tell you about this case. You shall
plead it for me.”
It was a very hearty grip, something like
a bear's, which he gave the young man.
He then slipped his arm through his, and
the two went together to a form in a corner
of the Hall, where they could talk over
matters in quiet. Horace, though a little
chagrined that a man so worthy as Nestor
Roche was known to be should wear so
eccentric a hat, was pleased to have met
his father's friend, and the prospect of now
handling a first brief added very naturally
to his elation.
“Look here,” began Nestor Roche, draw-
ing a copy of his paper, “La Sentinelle,”
from his pocket. “My gazette's got into
hot water. It would never get into hot water
if I alone wrote in it; for though there's
not a line I pen but what's against the
Government, I'm an old hand, you see, and
know how to steer clear. However, some
of the others are not so wary, and the other
day one of my yourg ones, Max Delormay,
who does the ‘Echoes,’ wrote this note,
which I didn't read carefully enough before
it went into print; so that now we’ve got
an action for libel on us in the Correctional
Court. It's all my fault, for Delormay
wouldn't be supposed to know ; in fact no-
body does know what's libel, and what's
not, until he's written twenty years. Of
course we shall be convicted, so I don’t ask
you to try for an acquittal. The “Senti-
melle, an opposition journal edited by a Re-
publican, and tried before three Imperialist
judges without jury, for attacking an Im-
perialist stock-jobber, has no more chance
of being let off than if I’d been caught in
the act of firing at the Emperor's carriage.
Delormay and I shall each get three
months' imprisonment; that’s what we shall
get : there’ll be a fine into the bargain;
and as the plaintiff has laid his damages at
a hundred thousand francs, I expect the
judges will award at least ten thousand.
All that, however, is of no consequence;
those are the risks of journalism, like the
breakages in a china-shop; and I shall be
able to edit my paper just as well in the
prison of Sainte Pélagie as in the Rue
Montmartre. But I'll tell you what I wish
you to do. You must show in your speech
that we’ve no personal rancor against this
fellow whom Delormay has attacked; that
we have merely hit at him as one of a dis-
reputable class who are growing rank as
weeds under this precious Second Em-
pire of ours. Make of this affair one of
commercial morality. Argue that it is the
duty of the Press to expose people like this
fellow, who rob the public just as truly as
if they stood on a highway road and rifled
the pockets of the passers-by. These are
the facts : — A very loose fish named — but
look, here is the note; you can read it for
yourself.”
Nestor Roche pointed with his finger to
a passage of “La Sentinelle’’ in which
figured the following lines: —
“We have noticed two very interesting
items of news in yesterday's ‘Moniteur’:
the first announcing that a certain Monsieur
Isidore Macrobe has been appointed Knight
of the Imperial Order of the Legion of
Honor, and the second proclaiming through
the advertisement-columns that the same
M. Isidore Macrobe has been elected one
of the directors of the new Société du Crédit
Parisien. We have no wish to say any thing
unpleasant either to the Members of the
Legion of Honor or to the shareholders of
the Crédit; but before congratulating the
former on their new colleague, and the lat-
ter on their fresh director, we confess we
should be glad to know whether this M.
Isidore Macrobe is the same Isidore Ma-
crobe who was declared a bankrupt in Paris
A. FIRST
BRIEF. 43
in 1835, in London three years later, and
in Brussels in 1842; whether he is the same
M. Macrobe who, having returned to Paris
in 1843, singularly well off after his third
bankruptcy, at once revealed himself to the
world as Treasurer of a Compagnie Générale
du Pavage Deparlemental, which Company
never paved any thing, but collapsed in
1845 — that is, some months after M. Ma-
crobe had with striking foresight resigned
his post of Treasurer, and, as we understand,
sold his shares at a most advantageous pre-
mium; whether it was this M. Macrobe
again who, in 1846, bloomed out afresh as
Treasurer of the Société de l’Eclairage Rus-
tique, which did rather less in the way of
lighting than the other had done in the
way of paving, and from which M. Macrobe
retired, as before, in time to avoid the ca-
tastrophe which soon after befell the share-
holders; and finally, whether it is this M.
Macrobe who, in 1848, being a zealous
republican, obtained of the Provisional Gov-
ernmenta contract for supplying all the coun-
try mairies with plasterstatues of the Repub-
lic, which statues have never been beheld to
this day, although there is no mention of M.
Macrobe having ever refunded the twenty
thousand francs which he received on ac-
count. It is a correspondent who has sug-
gested that we should ask these questions,
and we do so in the hope that they will
elicit an answer. If all the Isidore Ma-
crobes just alluded to form but one individ-
ual, it will remain with us to speculate what
can be the claims of this gentleman to be
rewarded with an order of merit, and to act
as director to a company which we had
hitherto believed to be a bonā-fide enter-
prise.”
Horace had not been able to suppress a
slight exclamation at reading the name of
Macrobe, and when he had finished he said
to Nestor Roche: “I know this man a little;
he's a partner in the firm of Lecoq and Ro-
derheim, with which my father banks.”
“Oh, you know him I will that prevent
your giving him a dressing” ” inquired the
editor.
“Not the least,” rejoined Horace. “If
all this is true, the man deserves to be
shown up, and I think M. Delormay was
quite right in exposing him.”
“Well, I don’t quite know about that,”
grumbled Nestor Roche, removing his
monumental covering, and rubbing the gray,
bristy head under it with a perplexed air.
“You must stick to that line of arguing in
your defence; but, between us both, if news-
papers set themselves to unmasking all the
Macrobes in Paris, they’d have to issue a
special edition every morning. ... I shouldn’t
have let in the paragraph at all if I’d been
awake when I read it; but Delormay gen-
erally takes things so quietly that I didn’t
expect to see him fire out in this way, and
so glanced at his note with only half an
eye. The whole thing's true, though ; for I
remember all about those plaster statues
of Liberty which were to replace the busts
of Louis Philippe ; but the fact of its being
true doesn’t matter, for French law, as
you’ve learned, won’t allow a defendant in
libel to furnish proof. No, the job's a bad
one for us; and it'll be useless to ask for
any mitigation of penalty; but, if you think
you can manage it, I shouldn't be sorry to
see M. Macrobe get a first-class lashing.
Since he's rammed us into a corner, he may
as well have the benefit of all the mauling
we can give him.”
Horace assented, told the Editor briefly
all he knew concerning M. Macrobe –
which was very little — and inquired for
what day the trial was fixed. It was down
for hearing on the following Friday, that is,
four days off, it being then a Monday ; but
as postponements of a week or fortnight
can generally be obtained without difficulty
as many as three or four times over, there
was no actual reason why the case should
come on for another six weeks.
“I wouldn’t ask for too many postpone-
ments, though, if I were you,” remarked
Nestor Roche. “The judges are always as
sulky as possible with our trade ; and, be-
sides, it doesn’t look well asking for ad-
journments in a libel case; it gives the
plaintiff the opportunity of bellowing that
we're afraid of him. Be ready to face the
fellow as soon as you can — without ad-
journing at all if possible.
Horace, not sorry that his first client
should be as impatient of delay as he,
readily promised that he would have the
case at his fingers’ ends by Friday morn-
ing. He was not likely to spare the mid-
night oil over a maiden brief, and would
have worked without any sleep at all for
the next three days if needful. Nestor
Roche gave him the address of his solicit-
or, with a laconic recommendation, how-
ever, not to follow the instructions of that
luminary, solicitors being temporizers by
nature, addicted to adjournments, and de-
void of taste for stand-up fighting. He
added, that he himself was always to be
seen from three in the afternoon to three in
the morning inclusively; and matters being
thus pleasantly settled, he observed he must
be off, gave another grip to Horace, buried
his hands in his pockets and was gone, with
as much unconcern as if he had been or-
dering a new pair of shoes, instead of pre-
paring to face three months’ imprisonment.
That day was marked with a white stone
by the two brothers, and assuredly they ara
the happiest days in our lives, those on
44
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
which we first see our way to earning our own
living. A first article or a first picture ac-
cepted, a maiden brief, a maiden fee –
these are joys which may well console those
whose lot it is to struggle, for not having
been born with golden spoons in their
mººth.s. Emile was as elated at his brother's
piece of luck as Horace could be ; he made
no doubt that now his brother had got a foot
in the stirrup he would quickly ride away to
fame. But this was not all. Emile did
not confine himself to mere congratulations;
he was anxious, so far as in him lay, to help
in assuring Horace's success. During the
whole evening he pored over libel cases in
records of French jurisprudence, and the
following morning slipped out early, with-
out saying where he was going, and remained
absent till dinner-time. When he returned
he handed his brother a paper, covered with
precise notes as to M. Isidore Macrobe's
career. He had spent his day in the public
library of the Rue Richelieu, consulting the
files of the French and Belgium “Moniteurs.”
and of “The London Gazette ’’ and had ac-
quired proof indisputable as to the worthy
financier's three bankruptcies. Further, he
had been to call upon two members of
the Provisional Government of 1848, and
both had assured him that the details as to
the statue contract were perfectly correct,
though one of them added that the unlucky
“Sentinelle” had placed itself altogether in
the wrong box, for that suspicious bankrupt-
cies, suspicious stock-jobbing, and suspi-
cious practice with regard to Government
contracts, were only accounted Stigmas
when a man was ruined by them. This,
too, was Manuel Gerold’s rather sorrow-
ful view. IIorace had written to give
him an account of the case, and on the very
morning of the trial he received an answer,
in which the old tribune said: “I am not
sorry, my dear boy, that you should win
your spurs in defending my old friend Nes-
tor Roche, neither am I in any way con-
cerned that you should be obliged to attack
that curious M. Macrobe, well-wisher of
mine though he profess to be. At the same
time, let me warn you that, from the world’s
point of view, your clients have not a leg to
stand on. Society — especially Second
Empire society — will always be averse to
having ugly truths raked up against a man
who has made his way. Nothing that you
can say against M. Macrobe will affect his
reputation in the least. He will leave the
court with a high head, and pocket poor
Nestor Roche's damages with as much cool-
ness as if the money were owing to him.”
There was another person whose opinions
in the matter of the libel leaned much rather
towards law than equity, and that was the
excellent M. Pochemolle. Coming home
on the eve of the trial, after receiving one
or two final instructions from the Editor,
Horace was stopped by the honest draper,
who dragged him by the sleeve into his shop,
and said, in tones of dismay : “Dear me,
M. Horace, what's this I hear — that you're
going to speak against M. Macrobe It
can’t be true, come now * —
And Madame Pochemolle, behind her
counter, chimed in with the exclamation :
“Such a civil young gentleman as you are,
M. Horace; I’m sure you wouldn’t say
harm against anybody.”
It took the good couple some time to un-
derstand that a man could actually recon-
cile it with his conscience to assail so ex-
tremely respectable a person as M. Macrobe.
It was Mademoiselle Georgette who had
first discovered in the paper the paragraph
which said: “The trial of “La Sentinelle,”
in the person of its editor, printer, and of
M. Max Delormay, a member of the staff,
for libelling M. Macrobe, of the banking
firm of Lecoq, Roderheim and Macrobe, will
take place on Friday. Maitre Giboulet
is retained for the plaintiff, Maitre Horace
Gerold will appear for the defence.” For
a while M. Pochemolle had clung to the
saving hope that this might be a mistake,
or that there were two Horace Gerolds,
or that the names had been interverted;
the correct reading being — Giboulet for
the defence and Gerold for the plaintiff;
but when Horace avowed without a blush
that the announcement was perfectly cor-
rect, M. Pochemolle called to mind the
words of solemn warning he had uttered to
the young men at the sight of David's pic-
ture, and reflected that the present incident
was a realization of his worst forebodings.
Nothing but association with Republicans
could ever have seduced a well-nurtured
and generally quiet youth into taking part
with a subversive print against a gentleman
who paid ready-money, and had, as it was
affirmed, at least two hundred thousand
francs a year. He hoped that no harm
would come of it, but it was his experience
that bad beginnings generally led to evil
ends.
So spake M. Pochemolle, his wife as-
senting with a sigh; and had it not been for
Mademoiselle Georgette, Horace would
have been condemned mem. con. by the
worthy household. But Georgette Poche-
molle, who was accustomed to speak her
mind, and who, besides, felt an interest in
the two rising barristers (as what young
woman will not feel an interest in a couple
of young men who pass by the window
several times a day, and on each occasion
favor her with a bow 2)— Georgette Poche-
molle quietly confronted her scandalized
father, in defence of the incriminated
A. FIRST BIRIEF. 45
outh : “For,” said she, “what if this M.
§.i. deserves to be spoken against,
why shouldn't M. Horace do it as much as
anybody else 7" A mild query, which
caused M. Pochemolle to stand bolt still, and
answer, with all the dignity he could com-
mand, “Mademoiselle, I am surprised that
you should join in the cry against one of
your father's most valued customers. When
you grow to be older, you will learn that
those who become rich are always pursued
by the animosity of the envious. Let it be
enough for you that M. Macrobe enjoys my
personal esteem and that of his sovereign,
who has just rewarded him with the Cross
of Honor.”
Georgette went on with her stitching,
but scolding never yet convinced a wo-
Iſla [l.
It must be confessed, however, that
neither his father's predictions nor the dra-
per's lamentations much damped Horace
Gerold. Of all the godsends which could
befall a French barrister in the year 1854,
that most to be prayed for was a brief in a
political trial. At a time when public
meetings were prohibited, when people held
their tongues under double chain and pad-
lock, when even the parliamentary debates
were a secret, it was something for a man
to have the opportunity of standing up in
a full court and giving vent to whatever
ent-up liberalism there might be in him.
Wot a few barristers would have cheerfully
bartered one of their ears for such a chance;
for, if taken good advantage of, it meant
simply reputation, honor, and possibly for-
tune. No great talent, in fact no talent at
all, was needed; all that was required was
boldness. Talent is of use when a cause
has to be won, but in 1854 the results of
all press trials were known beforehand.
Barristers accepted the defence of prosecut-
ed journalists, not with any hope of obtain-
ing an acquittal—that they were aware
would lave been an idle dºeam — but with
the view to making sensation speeches,
which should bring them into notice. Hor-
ace was in no way ignorant of this particu-
lar, and the more he thought over the mat-
ter the more clearly did he perceive that
Nestor Roche had thrown an occasion in
his way such as did not often fall to a plead-
er of but a few months’ standing. It is true
that the trial in which he was engaged was
not strictly a political one, being virtually
nothing more than an action for imprison-
ment and damages brought by a private
erson. But political is an elastic word;
in France, where one of the parties to a
suit is an Imperialist and the other a Radi-
cal, the judge would be a phoenix who kept
politics out of the question.
Need it be said that Horace was up with
the dawn on the morning of the famous
Friday; and shall we blame him if he paid
much more than ordinary attention to his
toilet? Always neat — a dandy even for
the Bar — he put himself this time into
black, eschewing the gray trousers habitual
to the younger members of his profession;
and selected the stiffest of his shirt-collars,
no doubt so as to be on a level with the lu-
minaries of the judgment seat. He had
not slept very soundly the night before,
neither had Emile. The latter, quietly
busy to the last, had remained working till
long after midnight, and had compiled
about twenty foolscap pages of notes, full
of intelligent arguments and precedents
drawn from past libel cases. “You would
have managed this case better than I,” said
Horace affectionately, as he glanced through
this labor of love. Emile had neglected
nothing; the notes were plainly written
in the darkest ink, and blank spaces were
left between each, so that they might more
easily catch the eye if consulted in a hurry;
with patient thoughtfulness an appendix
had been added to help in ready reference
to the rest of the work.
Just as the two brothers were going to
set out, soon after nine, Georgette Poche-
molle came running up with a letter. By
the way, it was not Mademoiselle Geor-
gette's business to bring up letters, but the
postman, when pressed for time, frequently
made mistakes and left lodgers' letters in the
shop along with the Pochemolle correspond-
ence, instead of delivering them to the
concierge at the private door. On such
occasions Mademoiselle Georgette, with her
father's sanction, would often run up stairs
with the missive, and be rewarded with,
“How good of you to take so much
trouble !” or “We’re really ashamed to put
you to so much inconvenience,” which
would make her sometimes say to herself
that these Messieurs Gerold, especially the
eldest —for it was commonly he who spoke
—were certainly very well-bred young
IOleI) .
The letter Mademoiselle Georgette
brought was rather a curious one : it came
from the imperturbable M. Macrobe: —
“MY DEAR M. HoRACE: I just hear
that you are retained for the defence in my
affair with the “Sentinelle.’ Bad business
for Roche – I am talking of the libel.
He'll be knocked down in heavy damages,
and I reckon the costs will be biggish; but
I’m glad we’ve got an honorable adversary
like you against us. Of course the whole
story of the “Sentinelle’ is a lie : but I don’t
ask you to believe it from me. I only write
to prove there's no rancor. We who've
made money are accustomed to hitting from
46
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
those who haven't — I don't say that for
you, but for Roche. -
“I shake your hand cordially,
“Is ADORE MACROBE.
“By-the-by, you've not yet kept your
promise about calling. You know we've
removed since I last saw you. Our present
address is 294 Avenue des Champs Elysées.
Easily find the house: two statues of naked
boys with goats'-legs playing on the flute
outside.”
Horace crumpled up this calm epistle,
laughing, and threw it into the fire.
“He’s cool enough, at all events,” said
Emile with a smile. And the two brothers
set off together for the palace.
CFI AP T E R VII.
A FIRST SPEECH.
A Room forty feet long by twenty, wain-
scoted with light oak, and papered above
the wainscot in green, studded with gold
bees. Twelve rows of seats on either side
of a passage running down the whole
length of the room, and leading to a dais
raised two feet from the floor. On the
dais, a table covered with green baize, and
three arm-chairs. To the left of the dais a
low pulpit, to the right a dock. On the
wall, in guise of ornament, a clock, and a
bust, in marble, of the sovereign — the bust
faces the dock, the clock shows its face to
the pulpit. Over the dais a life-sized picture
of the Saviour on the cross, the arms
stretched out in ghastly whiteness, and the
forehead bloody from the crown of thorns.
Add to this a fire-stove near the door, three
glistening pewter inkstands with three
black blotting-books on the dais table, a
fourth inkstand and blotting-book in the
pulpit, and you will have the Sixth Cham-
ber of Correctional Police.
From ten o’clock till four, five days out
of the week, thieves and swindlers are put
to confusion there. On Fridays the thieves
and swindlers only remain in possession till
noon ; at noon come the journalists, and
the procession of them generally lasts till
six. Sometimes the journalists are too
numerous to be disposed of in an afternoon,
and then the Wednesday is considerately
set apart for them. Justice shows her
respect for the Press by making the thieves
and swindlers wait.
From 1852 to 1860 Press trials took
place with closed doors: that is, none but
the defendants, plaintiffs, witnesses, and
members of the Bar were allowed to be
present. Things were conducted snugly
en famille; and when the trial was over,
the papers were allowed to publish the in-
dictment and the judgment, but not the
speeches for the defence, or the depositions
of the witnesses. This last precaution, in-
tended to safeguard the public against the
spirit of partiality that might accrue from
hearing both sides of the question, is in
force to this day; but the regulation which
kept the public out of court has been kindly
abrogated. There is nothing now to pre-
vent people from going to admire how
justice is meted out to the pen tribe.
Thus, in 1854, the trial of Macrobe v.
Roche ought to have been pleaded with
three judges, Monsieur the Public Prose-
cutor, and a few desultory barristers, for
sole spectators. So said the law, and so
said the besworded Municipal Guards, who
kept watch at the door, inflexibly keeping
back the curious, and disdaining blandish-
ments, supplications, and bribes alike. But
in France laws have from all time been
much easier to make than to enforce, and
there was one method by which one could
elude both the vigilance of the “munici-
pals” without the court and that of the
ushers within. The way was simply this: to
shave off one's beard and mustache, if one
possessed such appendages, and to hire a
barrister's cap, gown, and bands, of the robe-
man at the Palace. It was impossible that
the “municipals” could know the features
of all the members of the Bar; the shaven
or plain-whiskered face, with the cap and
gown, were their only clews; they had no
power to keep out barristers, and so in you
walked. Press trials were such an attrac-
tion that a good many journalists kept
themselves permanently shaved, so as to
have the privilege of going to hear their
compeers condemned of a Friday. The
judges more than suspected the infringe-
ment, but were obliged to wink at it. One
of them — a cantankerous judge — had
tried to put a stop to the evil; but the
“municipals” at the door are not a pre-
eminently intelligent body, and when told
to be extra careful, they kept out real bar-
risters as well as spurious. This had led to
complications. The Conseil de l’Ordre des
Avocats had remonstrated, and demanded
an apology. Judges don’t like to apologize;
and so the upshot of it was, that the shaven
journalists remained masters of the situa-
tion.
On Friday afternoons the Sixth Chamber
was always crowded. When Horace Ge-
rold arrived the repunctually at twelve with
his brother, he found it so crammed that
there would not have been standing-room
for a magpie.
A FIRST SPEECH.
47
You may be sure his heart throbbed as
he threaded his way down the gloomy pas-
sage that led from the Salle des Pas Perdus
to the grim sanctum of the Correctional
Police, over the door of which might be
read this significant couplet: —
Hic scelerum ultrices Pranae posuere tribunal ;
Sontibus unde tºmor, civibus inde salus.*
He thought everybody was staring at
him, and a good many of his legal brethren
were doing so; for they deemed him a
lucky dog, wondering rather sceptically
whether he would do justice to his luck,
and, in any case, envied him cordially.
The case had brought together not only a
mob of journalists, but a powerful squad of
moneyed men, many of whom had resorted
early to the cap, gown, and bands expe-
dient, and had managed to squeeze into
court. The remainder thronged outside
with such journalists—and they were the
majority — who were too well pleased with
their mustaches to sacrifice them, and with
those of the genuine barristers, who, less for-
tunate than their pseudo-colleagues, had
been unable to find a place. Money-men,
pen-men, and law-men were making a fearful
hubbub, and exchanging observations, in-
terjections, and epigrams at the top of their
voices, as the fashion is amongst Frenchmen.
Everybody was perfectly good-humored.
The gentlemen of the Bourse laughed very
pleasantly at the squibs of wit launched by
the gentlemen of the quill against the pro-
fession of stock and share jobbing; but
they retaliated with genial irony, and the
ejaculations “Oh I oh!” “Ah l ah l’” suc-
ceeded each other apace when a burly
journalist, known throughout Paris as the
editor of an extremely lively print con-
ducted on the strictest catch-penny princi-
ples, put in a remark about the sacerdotal
mission of the Press. It should be owned
that the eyes of the corpulent editor
twinkled somewhat as he ventured upon
these tall words, which in his mouth were
hailed as an amazingly good joke by the
bystanders.
In the centre of one of the noisiest
groups the two brothers descried the stu-
pendous hat of Nestor Roche, his baggy
clothes and naively grim face. The editor
of “La Sentinelle’’ was talking about
some recent Crimean battle, and evincing
the most supreme indifference as to what
was going to happen to him personally that
afternoon. Nevertheless, on catching sight
of the Gerolds, he held out a hand to each,
and introduced them without more ado to a
* The court labelled with this inscription has since
become that of Correctional Appeal ; the Sixth
Chamber has been removed into the new buildings
in the Cour de la Sainte Ohapelle.
good-looking companion of his, whom he
announced as “the young one who has
shoved us into the wasp’s nest — Max De-
lormay.” The brothers had both been sev-
eral times to the office of the “Sentinelle’”
during the two or three past days, and had
quite made the acquaintance of M. Roche;
but they had never met M. Max Delormay,
who seldom turned up for purposes of work
until ten o'clock P.M. He lifted his hat
and thanked Horace with effusion for the
trouble the latter was going to take in de-
fending him ; but it did not seem as though
the prospect of losing his liberty for a cer-
tain length of time, weighed very heavily
on his mind. M. Max D. was the cynosure
of a small circle of admiring confrères, in
whose eyes he had become a sort of oracle
ever since he had been fortunate enough to
drag his paper into a legal conflict. Non
culvis contingit adire Corinthum : it is not
every journalist whose editor will give a
chance of figuring in the Sixth Chamber.
Monsieur Max was not unaware of this, and
there was an expression of modest content-
ment on his features, as on those of a man
who feels conscious that fortune is dealing
kindly with him.
Nestor Roche took Horace by the arm
and drew him aside.
“Max didn't mean any harm against that
fellow Macrobe,” he whispered; “he pub-
lished the questions of a correspondent
without knowing that they would stir up
this shindy. However, mind and stick to
the commercial-morality line of defence —
and give it our adversaries hard. We
must make political capital out of the
affair.”
He said this winnply, without excitement,
and then turned to resume his talk about
the Crimean battle. But in a few minutes
an usher put his head out of the court and
announced that the judges were coming in ;
which was a signal for witnesses to proceed
to the waiting-room, and for the defendants
with their Jounsel to go and take their
seats. The crowd instantly made way to
let Horace and his brother pass; the un-
moved Nestor Roche and Max Delormay
followed; and behind them came a lean and
melancholy printer, who stood included in
the indictment. *
The solemn stillness of a court of jus-
tice, succeeding immediately to the noisy
chattering of three or four dozen glib-
tongued loungers, has something of the
same effect as a bath of cold water in col-
lecting the senses. Horace Gerold's head
had been on the whirl all the morning —
anxiety, impatience, and expectation all
combining to make him restless and fever-
ish. In the eyes of most frequenters of the
Palace it was a very ordinary press suit that
48
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
was going to be tried; to him the Sixth
Chamber was a gambling-house, in which
he was going to take his first throw with
the dice. From ten till twelve he had been
pacing up and down the Salle des Pas Per-
dus, rehearsing the main points of his
speech with Emile, and stifling occasional
qualms of nervousness by calling all his van-
ity and young ambition to his aid. A congrat-
ulatory shake of the hand or two from several
of his friends, an encouraging nod and
smile from one of the “great guns,” who
had said to him, “This is your maiden-
speech day, isn't it, Gerold 7 I wish you
success,” and the flattering hums of “That's
young Gerold.” “That's the fellow who's
going to defend the “Sentinelle,’” which
he had heard in the crowd outside the
court, had been so many circumstances that
had helped to buoy him up like corks in his
small sea of glory. He did not regain
complete and cool possession of his head
until he found himself seated, with his
brother to the right of him, Nestor Roche's
solicitor to the left, and the three judges of
the Correctional Court enthroned opposite
him on their dais.
A deep silence, and business at once
commenced. Not a moment was lost in
vain formalities. The chief judge of the
three — a florid magistrate, with a deal of
starch, silk cassock, and red ribbon about
him — lifted up a white hand, armed with
a gold pencil-case, and said, in a voice
agreeable as the abrupt closing of a steel-
trap, “The first case is that of the ‘Journal
de la Reforme,’ for exciting to hatred and
contempt of the Government. Are the
parties here 2 ”
Up jumped a slim barrister from close to
where Horace was sitting, and mumbled a
request for adjournment on grounds only
audible to himself. The pencil of the
chief judge traced a mark on the Cause
List, and the trap-like voice rejoined, “Ad-
journed for a week. But this is your third
adjournment, Maitre Gribouille ; we shall
not grant you another. The second case is
‘La Gazette des Boulevards,’ for false
news.”
The figure of the corpulent editor who
talked about the sacerdotal mission of the
press, leaned forward suddenly and whis-
pered something in the ear of a barrister
with a red face. This man of law rose in
an off-hand style, and, with his tongue in
his cheek, intimated that he was unpre-
ared, having only been instructed last
Monday week. At this a square-set form,
hitherto imbedded in the folds of a black
gown trimmed with ermine, started up in
the pulpit facing Horace, and an indignant
face, ornamented with a pair of blue spec-
tacles, cried, “I oppose the adjournment.”
“Monsieur, le Procureur Impérial op-
poses,” snapped the steel trap; “the case
shall proceed.”
“Then we will let judgment go by de-
fault,” replied he with the tongue in his
cheek “we can't plead if we're not ready.”
There was a general grin, for he with the
tongue in his cheek was a legal wag, and
his client, the fat editor of the “Gazette des
Boulevards,” was a favorite. But the
public prosecutor hereupon leaped up
again.
“Maitre Carrotte,” said he, “I shall not
allow judgment to go by default. Your
client, M. de Tirecruchon, is in court at
this moment: if he does not stand forward
and plead immediately, I shall request the
bench to have him arrested and put into
the dock.”
“ Usher, let no one leave the court,” cried
the chief judge significantly.
The grinning stopped. The ſat editor,
looking slightly blue, was seen leaning over
and conversing again with the red-faced
barrister. The latter, no longer with his
tongue in his cheek, then stood up and ex-
postulated meekly. He knew that the pros-
ecution would be perfectly justified in taking
the course proposed; but he relied upon the
well-known courtesy of Monsieur le Procu-
reur Impérial, upon his generous indul-
gence, upon his universally acknowledged
sense of justice, to grant just one more
week's respite; and he looked piteously
towards the pulpit.
Monsieur the public prosecutor, having
vindicated his importance, which was prob-
ably all he wanted to do, was graciously
pleased to unbend before Maitre Carrotte's
humility. He announced that he withdrew
his opposition for this once, but that such
an act of condescension must not be taken
as a precedent. Maitre Carrotte restored
his tongue to its original position in his
cheek. The chief judge made a second
mark on the cause list with his gold pencil-
case, and, for the third time, the steel-trap
snapped out: “The next case is Macrobe
versus Roche, Delormay, and Dutison; ac-
tion for libel. Are the parties here * *
There was no immediate reply, for Maitre
Giboulet, the counsel for the plaintiff, being
a great gun, had thought it incumbent upon
his dignity to remain talking outside until
he was being actually waited for. An usher
had to go out and call him, and in a minute
he came flustering in at the rate of eight
miles an hour, mopping his brow with a
cambric handkerchief, and followed by a
brace of juniors with bags. “I’m for the
plaintiff, Mr. President,” he shouted, lifting
his square cap and planting it on his hea
again.
Horace Gerold stood up, and, as firmly
A FIRST
SPEECH. 49
as he could, said, “And I’m for the de-
fendants.”
“The case is opened,” proclaimed the
chief judge, and in another few seconds
Maitre Giboulet had started full gallop into
his indictment.
As this is a record of the life and adven-
tures of the two Gerolds, and not a chroni-
cle destined to perpetuate the eloquence of
the French bar, it will be as well to make
no more than a passing mention of all the
fine things which Maitre Giboulet said,
and of all that part of the trial which in-
cluded the examination of the plaintiff,
defendants, and witnesses by the trap-
voiced judge. To those who know how
these things are managed in France,
it is quite needless to explain that Mai-
tre Giboulet, who was an Imperialist
and an official member of the legislature,
animadverted with a great deal of warmth
upon that base-born spirit of envy which
attached itself to men who had rapidly at-
tained wealth by dint of hard work and
enterprise. Yet he did not rant, for he
was a good orator, — albeit the chief use to
which he put his tongue in the legislative
chamber was to cry “Bravol bravo!” when
the ministers spoke. He referred in a few
feeling words to the spotless and industri-
ous career of his client, to the esteem in
which he was held in all financial circles,
“and also by his Majesty the Emperor him-
self, Mr. President, as you will see when he
comes into court by the ribbon of honor on
his breast.” He then made a brief allusion
to the newly founded Société du Crédit
Parisien, which was to confer priceless
boons upon humanity, and the shares of
which were already at three hundred francs
premium; and he concluded by a dignified
protest against the licentiousness of the
press, and a prayer that justice would safe-
guard the sanctity of private life, and in-
demnify his client by heavy damages for
a libel at once groundless, heartless, and
malicious.
Maitre Giboulet sat down, and a few of
the money-men, who had crept in with
borrowed plumes, mumbled “Très bien /*
the begowned journalists retorting by cry-
ing “Hush 1” and “Silence 1" with great
zeal, though with good humor. The cross-
uuestioning of the defendants was then com-
menced by the presiding judge, who, being
an old hand, conducted matters roundly
and with a rigid impartiality of which I will
try and give an idea.
To Nestor Roche. —“Stand up, sir; your
name * *
Nestor Roche. —“My profession is jour-
nalism; my address Rue Montmartre.”
“Why do you libel honest men 7°
“I never libelled an honest man.”
“I beg, sir, you won’t split straws with
me. You have slandered an honest gentle-
man, a knight of the Legion of Honor, a
director of one of the greatest financial
companies in Paris; you can have had but
one motive, that of sordid envy; and I ad-
vise you, if you hope for the indulgence of
the court, to make an unreserved apology.
On consulting the record of your ante-
cedents, I find you have been imprisoned
four times for press offences; twice under
the present reign, and twice under the last;
you are evidently a danger to society.
What have you to say for yourself?”
“That what you call a libel is a true
statement. I’” —
“Monsieur Roche, I cannot suffer you to
bring into court the slanders which you
have already endeavored to propagate
through your journal. Your misdemeanor
is aggravated by this display of effrontery.
Stand down l’” &
The next to come up was M. Max Delor-
may. Now, M. Max had made up his
mind to be very downright and cutting.
This is what his resolution came to : —
“Monsieur Delormay, I find you are
twenty-five, and the only son of a mother,
who has tried to bring you up as a respect-
able member of society. On coming to,
Paris five years ago, the kindness of Mon-
sieur le Préfet de la Seine obtained for you.
an appointment as clerk at the Hôtel de
Ville; but, last year, you left your place.
Were you discharged for misconduct 2"
M. Delormay (hotly)—“Certainly not.
Who has dared to insinuate such a false-
hood? I resigned because I earned only
two thousand francs a year, and could gain.
more than double by my pen.”
“Exactly. You preferred the disreput-
able gains to be had by libelling your bet-
ters to the modest salary obtainable by
labor in an honorable career. Don’t inter-
rupt me, sir; I know what I’m saying.
What business has a young man of your
age to insult one superior to him in years,
social position, and worth? It's a cowardly
thing, do you hear, sir? But you may
stand down. Your attitude sufficiently
shows that I may appeal in vain to you for
a spark of contrition, and good feeling.”
And so down went M. Max, looking very,
much as if he would like to say something,
though too nonplussed to put that some-
thing into words.
Next came M. Dutison, the lean and
melancholy printer, who observed, dole-
somely, that seven daily newspapers and
eight weekly ones were printed on his
premises, and that, with the best intentions
in the world, it was utterly beyond his
powers to revise them all. He was disa
posed of in the following terms : —

4.
50
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs. r
“Monsieur Dutison, I informed you,
when last you were here, that this excuse
was shallow and frivolous. A printer
should ponder over every line of manuscript
before submitting it to his presses. #.
should be the paternal censor of all the
writings put into his hands.”
“Yes, and see all his customers go and
get their printing done elsewhere,” ejacu-
lated M. Dutison, with dismal irony.
“Sir, an honest printer would be con-
soled for the loss of custom by the possession
of a blameless conscience.”
M. Dutison seemed to consider this
solace insufficient, and was sent back to
his seat, with the gratifying assurance that,
if he would only wait till by and by, he
would see what would happen to him. The
presiding judge then called the name of
Prosper Macrobe, and the plaintiff was
introduced, irreproachably dressed, be-
gloved, smugly shaven, and looking the
image incarnate of respectability. In the
topmost button-hole of his frock-coat flashed
a spick-span new piece of scarlet ribbon.
He cast a quick glance round the room,
leisurely drew off one of his black gloves,
and, catching sight of Horace, nodded as
amicably to him as if the two had been
breakfasting together.
Wondrous was the transformation which
the features, voice, and manner of the pre-
siding judge now underwent.
“Monsieur Macrobe, will you be so kind
as to answer the usual questions as to name
and profession ? They are a mere
formality.”
And, saying this, the steel-trap became
softened as though it had been oiled, whilst
a deferential smirk irradiated the thin lips
of the speaker. w
Monsieur Macrobe evinced no objection
to furnish all the explanations that were
required of him. He briefly stated who
he was, hinted that he was uncommonly
rich, and hesitated for some polite term by
which he could intimate that he cared not
two brass stivers what was said about him.
The judge was evidently unwilling to keep
a man of such parts long on his legs, and,
after a couple of totally insignificant ques-
tions, would have dismissed him ; but Emile,
whose usually placid face had been settling
into the rigidity of contempt under the in-
fluence of this burlesque of justice, nudged
his brother and whispered, “Up at him,
and cross-question him.”
Horace Gerold had been undergoing
during ten minutes a sort of wet-blanket
inſliction from the solicitor on his left, who,
in despair at the youth of his client's ad-
vocate, repeated mistrustfully, yet with
depressing persistency, “Mind , and be
prudent, Monsieur Gerold—mind and be
prudent.” At his brother's exhortation,
Horace at once shook off this dotard, and,
starting up, looked the plaintiff full in the
face, and said, “Monsieur Macrobe, re-
member you are on your oath. Is it or is
it not true that you have been thrice bank-
rupt 7 that you obtained a contract
which " —
He could get no further. The blue-
spectacled visage of Monsieur le Procureur
Impérial leaped up in the pulpit like a
jack-in-the-box, crying, “I protest l” The
two minor judges, aghast with astonish-
ment, exclaimed, “Order ' ' The presid-
ing judge, quivering with the anger of
outraged majesty, shouted, “Maitre Gerold,
I recall you to the respect you owe the
court. You well know that it is against
all rules for the Bar to interrogate a wit-
ness otherwise than through the Bench.”
Poor Horace apologized. He had, in-
deed, forgotten this important rule. Red-
dening, and a little dashed, he resumed,
“Will the Bench kindly ask the plaintiff
whether ” —
“I shall do no such thing, sir,” broke in
the chief judge, indignantly; and the
Public Prosecutor, without any such ex-
pression of his opinion being called for,
rose anew, and cried, “I move that the
question is altogether out of place. The
Code lays down that, in cases of libel, it
shall not be allowable for the defendants
to adduce proofs of their asseverations. *
Besides,” added the Procureur, with
triumphant logic, “even if the defendants
possessed the privilege, it would be of no
use to them, for we are entirely convinced
that their assertions are false.”
“Precisely so,” assented the chief judge;
“the libel is false and malicious, and it is
against all law that the defendants should
seek to establish the contrary.”
Emile turned pale with disgust, and bit
his lips savagely. As for Horace, the blood
had flowed to his head; he made a couple
of steps forward, and for half a moment it
looked as if there was going to be a disturb-
ance in court; but the cautious solicitor
sprang up in terror, and pulled him back
by the gown. “Oh be prudent, M.
Gerold — be prudent,” said he. Horace
turned with flashing eyes to Nestor Roche,
who was seated behind him. “What am I
to do 2 ” he asked.
“Do nothing,” answered the other,
coolly. “Wait till it's your turn to speak,
and then pitch in to everybody.”
Horace sank into his place. The non-
chalance of Nestor Roche discouraged him.
* This law was repealed by the National As-
sembly in 1871; but only so far as libels against Gov-
ernment functionaries are concerned. A writer
libelling a private person is still denied the right
of proving that his libel is a truth.
A FIRST
SPEECH. Bl
Whilst his liberty was being weighed in
the balances of Imperial justice, the Editor
was unconcernedly writing a leading ar-
ticle in his note-book with an odd bit of
pencil. -
Neither of the parties desiring to call
witnesses, the fluent Maitre Giboulet at
once set about delivering a second edition
of his opening speech. He thanked the
Bench for its impartiality; declared mag-
nanimously that he bore no grudge against
his young friend and adversary, Maitre
Gerold, for having made an abortive at-
tempt to envenom the discussion; and re-
newed his impressive yet temperate appeal
for substantial damages. Everybody ad-
mitted that it was a very gentleman-like
speech. Maitre Giboulet was succeeded
by the Public Prosecutor. As this function-
ary is supposed to intervene on behalf of
whichever party he may, after honest con-
sideration, deem aggrieved, it was only
natural that he should inveigh with splendid
energy against the defendants. “For, in-
deed,” said he, with honest wrath, “who is
there among us that would not revolt at
the idea of having all his past life disclosed ?
What hope is there for any honorable man,
if papers are suffered to reveal all he said
or did ten or twenty years ago? The press,
gentlemen, is becoming each day more and
more a danger; the landmarks of society
must soon be swept away if it be not kept
in check. M. Prosper Macrobe will leave
the court with the warmest sympathies of
all upright minds, whilst his libellers will
be branded forever with the stigma of
indelible shame.”
M. le Procureur was always overpower-
ingly eloquent in anathematizing periodical
literature. It is surprising what a number
of prints and journalists he had branded
with the stigma of indelible shame.
And now came the important moment
when Horace Gerold was to speak. The
Public Prosecutor had embedded himself
anew in his pulpit, well content with his
own oration, and after the usual amount of
buzzing, foot-scraping, and coughing that
succeeds the delivery of half an hour's
speech, a deep hush pervaded the court.
The defence is the episode par excellence of
a press trial. In this instance, too, those
who knew the name of the council were a
little curious to see how the son of the Tri-
bune Gerold would demean himself.
The beginning was not very promising.
For the first time in his life, Horace experi-
enced that disagreeable, and totally indes-
cribable sensation of perceiving every eye
in a crowded room fixed on him. Till he
opened his mouth, he would never have be-
lieved that he could so falter and stammer,
and longed that the floor might yawn and
*
swallow him. He had counted ºn an easy
triumph, for he was full of his subject; but
on rising, and hearing the unearthly echo of
his own single voice, and feeling beside him
the leaden weight of his two arms, which he
knew not how to lift or move, all his ideas
secned to go as clean out of his head as
though they had been wiped away with a
sponge. To add to his composure, the
chief judge took the occasion of hinting that
he hoped the speech would not be long, as
there was really no defence possible. -
It was Emile who saved his brother
from premature collapse by whispering
energetically, “Well said,” “That's it,”
“Perfect,” &c. By so doing he drew down
on himself the sharp censure of the Bench ;
but his welcome excitations helped Horace
to bridge over the first few moments of
emotion, after which the horrible fear of
breaking down and becoming ridiculous
acted like a tonic, and did the rest. The
voice of the speaker, which had been run-
ning all wild, and scaling every note in the
octave, from the husky to the shrill falsetto,
gathered firmness and became controllable.
Horace spoke spasmodically, but one by
one his ideas returned. He kept his eyes
fixed on those of a friend opposite him,
whose changes of expression served him as
beacons. Gradually he warmed to his sub-
ject; the trumps were all in his hand; ar-
guments began to crowd upon him. A low
murmur of approbation soon told him that
he had struck upon the right path, and was
making straight for the sympathies of his
audience. The last remnant of nervousness
forsook him. He spoke out flatly, plainly,
fearlessly. The judges, who at first had
thrown themselves back in their chairs,
leaned forward and stared uneasily; the
Public Prosecutor, who had affected to pre-
pare himself for a quiet nap, glared from
behind his blue spectacles as if he was get-
ting more than he had bargained for. En-
couraged, emboldened, Horace Gerold
branched out from the main argument of
his plea into an appeal of that kind which
always finds an echo in Frenchmen, and
which, in times of oppression, sets fire to
them like tinder. He spoke of lost liberties,
and there was a thrill. The dullest can be
eloquent on such a theme; and young Ge-
rold, who was not a dullard, threw out the
burning words with a fervor of earnestness
that quickly stirred his hearers to the mar-
row. There are crowds whom it takes a
great deal to move ; next to nothing is re-
quired to animate a French crowd. It
seemed to some of the spectators present as
though in the excited young orator before
them, they saw the image of the rising
generation standing forth to protest against
the cowardice of its fathers which had

52
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
handed France over to slavery. A loud
explosion of murmurs greeted an unwise at-
tempt of the chief judge to check the speak-
er. The judge desisted, cowed; and from
that moment the success of Horace Gerold
was sealed. . The arms no longer hung like
lead now ; they moved with the simple but
magnificent gestures of scorn and defiance;
the face was flushed, the hair thrown back;
faster and faster fell the words, louder and
braver grew the denunciations, until at last
the speaker stopped amidst a tremendous
uproar. Everybody in court had risen;
enthusiastic cries of “Bravo” shook the
rafters; the three judges, on their feet, and
livid with rage were shouting, “You shall
apologize l’” Nestor Roche had rushed
from out of his place and embraced Horace,
kissing him on both cheeks, French fashion:
Emile, with tears streaming from his eyes,
was wringing his brother's hand and crying,
“Well done, Horace; admirably spoken.”
“You shall apologize,” vociferated the
Bench. “You said “corrupt judges;’ we
will have an instant apology.”
“Did I say ‘corrupt judges?’” asked
Horace, and indeed it was in perfect good
faith he put the question, for he could not
have told for the life of him what he had
been saying.
“An instant apology l’ roared the
judges. -
“An humble apology,” yelped the Public
Prosecutor.
Apologize at such a moment Apologize
when a score of hands were being stretched
out to him, and tongues were repeating
clamorously, “Bravo, bravo!” In a clear,
ringing voice, Horace replied, “I shall
never retract. I said “corrupt judges, and
I maintain the term.”
The Public Prosecutor immediately cried,
“Maitre Gerold has been guilty of an out-
rageous contempt of court. I pray that the
Bench will use its discretionary powers to
punish him.” There was no doubt about
the contempt of court; the three judges
caught up their caps, and swept out of the
room by the door behind the dais to delib-
erate.
Impossible to describe the scene in court
Čiring their absence. Barristers, journal-
ists, left their seats and scrambled over
desks and forms, to cluster round Horace
and shake hands with him. Half an hour
before he had been a simple, struggling,
and pretty nearly briefless advocate; now
he was a hero. “Well said, indeed,”
“Your speech was inimitable,” “You called
the coup-d'état a crime; give me your hand;
you're my friend.” Such were a few
amongst the hundred exclamations that rose
like fusees from out of the transported
throng. It was in vain that the ushers
sought to impose silence; they were bidden
hold their peace, and jostled with ignominy
—the noise was deafening. One must
witness such a scene to realize it. In the
midst of it all, as cool as a cucumber, M.
Prosper Macrobe bustled forward, seized
Horace's hand like the rest, and exclaimed,
“My young friend, admiration knows no
camp; splendid speech : always knew you'd
make your way.” At which the spectators
around clapped their hands, thinking this
was truly manly behavior on the finan-
cier's part. M. Macrobe had quite relied
upon this impression ; that enterprising
man never laid out any thing save at
interest.
At the end of twenty minutes the judges
returned. Horace was perfectly aware that
he was going to get his share of whatever
penalty was in store, but this did not affect
him in the least — neither, I fancy, did the
other thought, that his fine speech had per-
haps not done overmuch for his client's
interest. There was no need to proclaim
silence anew : the lull in the court was
instantaneous. When the judges reached
their place, one could have heard a gnat fly.
The chief judge held two written judgments
in his hand. Still white with rage, and in
a loud, rasping voice, he read out the
first : —
“Whereas the newspaper “La Senti-
nelle” published in its number of the 15th
April, 1855, a note beginning with the
words, “We noticed in yesterday’s “Moni-
teur,”’ and ending with the words “a bona-
fide enterprise; ' and whereas the said note
contains a wilful and malicious libel affect-
ing the character and reputation of M.
Prosper Macrobe ; -
“And whereas the said M. Prosper
Macrobe never gave cause of just offence to
the defendants, so that it is evident the libel
can only proceed from a wanton spirit of
mischief;
“Whereas the defendant, Max Delor-
may, wrote the note, knowing it to be libel-
lous ;
“And the defendant, Nestor Roche,
editor, inserted it in the newspaper “La
Sentinelle, likewise knowing it to be libel-
lous ; -
“And the defendant, Dutison, printer,
rendered himself accessory to the misde-
meanor by printing the said note :
“The Court,
“Conformably to the conclusions of the
Public Prosecutor,
“Condemns
“Nestor Roche to six months' imprison-
ment, and a fine of five thousand francs;
“Max Delormay to six months' imprison
ment, and a fine of five thousand francs :
SWEETS AND BITTERS of PopULARITY.
53
“1)utison to two months' imprisonment,
and a fine of two thousand francs;
“And the three defendants conjointly to
pay five and twenty thousand francs dam-
ages to the plaintiff, together with all the
costs of the trial.”
Then came the second judgment : —
“Whereas Maitre Horace Gerold, advo-
cate, practising at the Imperial Court of
Paris, did on the – th day of April, 1855,
speaking in the Court of Correctional
Police, render himself guilty of a gross con-
tempt of court, by uttering words reflecting
on the honor of the Magistracy ;
“And whereas the said Maitre Gerold,
on being summoned to retract his words
and tender an apology, refused to do so;
“The Court,
“Conformably to the conclusions of the
Public Prosecutor, and by virtue of its dis-
cretionary powers,
“Condemns
“Maitre Horace Gerold to be disbarred
from pleading in any Court of the French
Empire during a period of six months.”
That evening Horace Gerold was the
most talked-of man in all Paris.
CHAPTER VIII.
SWEETS AND BITTERS OF POPULARITY.
POPULARITY does not come or go by
halves in Paris; it encircles or forsakes one
with all the suddenness of a change of
wind. Previously to Horace's sensation
speech, the brothers had led very retired
lives, paying few visits, and being them-
selves little visited, save by one or two
young barristers of their own age, who had
been their companions during their student-
days. On the morrow of the speech there
was not a café in Paris, not a club-house,
not a drawing-room, where Horace Gerold
was not the leading subject of conversation.
For the moment, he supplanted Sebastopol,
which the Allies were doing their very best
to take, without succeeding.
It may seem strange that the maiden
Speech of an unknown barrister should have
been able to effect such a commotion ; but
Stranger things than that used to happen in
those days. Considered soberly, the speech
was not a master-work. It failed a good
deal in plain logic, and as a defence on be-
half of accused men it was disastrous, for it
had, without any doubt, caused the penalty
of the defendants to be doubled But Hor
ace had had the striking merit of speaking
out the truth flatly at a moment when
scarcely anybody dared speak at all.
Herein lay his success.
He was also helped a good deal into pub-
lic favor by the fact that the judges had dis-
barred him for six months. To get one's
clients sentenced to six months' imprison-
ment instead of three is well — it is like
inserting the thin end of the wedge; but to
get one's self disbarred into the bargain is
splendid — it is like driving the wedge
bodily in.
According to the courteous usage of a
time when avowed Liberals were so few
that they deemed themselves all friends,
Horace Gerold received a congratulatory
call from most of the men of mark in Paris.
Nineteen-twentieths of the members of the
bar, pretty nearly every one of the students
in the School of Law, and some three or
four score opposition journalists, left their
cards upon him.* It was a singular pro-
cession, which lasted three days, to the
mingled consternation and pride of M.
Pochemolle — consternation, because the
honest draper could not but wince at the
sight of so much factiousness incarnate
walking up his staircases; pride, because
the good man worshipped success, and felt
all the importance of possessing a lodger
who was getting on so famously.
After the cards came the anonymous let-
ters and the albums; the former mostly
eulogistic and feminine (there must be wo-
men who have an uncommon amount of
time to lose), the latter feminine also, and
accompanied by notes praying M. Horace
Gerold kindly to write a few verses, a sen-
timent, or any thing in the world, provided
only he signed his name to it. After this
arrived the artist of a comic paper, who re-
quested leave to portray Horace with a
head three times bigger than his body.
This was the ne plus ultra. When a gen-
tleman asks permission to draw you with a
big head you have reached the acme of
celebrity. Fame can do nothing more for
Oll.
y We must not forget the bank-note of 500
francs, which Horace Gerold received as
his honorarium. There had been no pre-
vious agreement as to fee, no allusion even
to the subject; but on the day following
the trial Nestor Roche sent his counsel a
simple and affectionate letter, in which he
said, “The usual way, my dear Horace, is
for the solicitors to settle these affairs; but
* As an bistorical illustration of this graceful cus-
tom, it may be mentioned that, in 1867, after his very
remarkable speech in the Senate in defence of free
thought, the late Monsieur Sainte Beuve received no
less than 12,300 cards. Liberalism was gathering
strength then.
54
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs. .
!
*
you and me.
there had better be no formalism between
I am just off to pay nine and
thirty thousand francs into court — twelve
thousand for fines, five-and-twenty thousand
for damages, and two thousand for costs. I
would pay the whole cheerfully enough, if I
might forward it to you along with enclosed;
but I confess it rather goes against my
heart to enrich the citizen Macrobe. How-
ever, I am not angling for sympathy; your
speech has done a fine stroke of work for
the “Sentinelle: ' we sold twenty thousand
copies more than usual this morning.”
All this was the bright side of the pic-
ture, but there was also a dark side, or
at least a side rather less agreeable. Hor-
ace was sitting in his study some two or
three mornings after his triumph, when he
was startled by a knock much more rapid
and less ceremonious than visitors are ac-
customed to give. He was alone, Emile
being absent at the law courts, and he had
just finished a letter to his father, which
was lying unfolded before him. On go-
ing to open the door it caused him some
surprise to find Mdlle. Georgette. -
* O M. Horace l’” she said blushing
terribly, “I’ve run up to tell you that
think the police are coming to search your
rooms.”
“The police?” and Horace showed
Mdlle. Georgette into his study, shutting
the door behind her. *
“Yes, yes,” she continued, hurriedly;
“ever since you made your speech there
have been two such curious men loafing
on the pavement outside the house: great
ugly men with big sticks. I believe they
took down the names of most of the gen-
tlemen who have called on you these last
few days; and yesterday evening when you
were out, you and M. Emile, they came
in with M. Louchard, the commissary of
Fº and wanted to search your rooms;
ut papa wouldn't let them.”
“What could they want to search our
rooms for 2 ° -
“I don’t know, M. Horace,” answered
Mdlle. Georgette, contemplating him half-
naively, half in terror. “M. Louchard said
you and M. Emile were dangers to the
Government, and that he'd got his orders
about you from the prefect; and when papa
refused to let him have the key of your
rooms during your absence, he said he'd
come back to-day when you were at home,
and made papa promise not to say about
his having been here; but I didn't prom-
ise: for M. Louchard didn’t know I heard
him.”
“It’s very good of you to give me this
warning, Mdlſe. Georgette,” said Horace,
don't think the police can find any thing
dangerous here.” • *.
“Have you no letters from friends, no
books against the government,” asked
Mdlle. Georgette, with ready woman's
wit. § -
Horace hesitated a moment, and then
struck his forehead: “Dear me, what am
I thinking of?” he cried; “thanks a hun-
dred times for reminding me; ” and he
went to a book-shelf half filled with vol-
umes of that uncomplimentary kind which
the presses of Belgium used to send forth,
and send forth still, in such numbers against
the Emperor of the French. There were
Belgian papers, too, brought by the broth-
ers when they came into France — papers
interdicted by the police, and the impor-
tation of which was punishable with fines
and imprisonment. Horace spread a towel
on the floor, laid all this anti-dynastic lit-
erature upon it, emptied a drawer-full of
his father's letters on to the heap, and tied
up the whole into a bundle. But when he
had done this: —“And now, where am I
to put it all,” he said, rather helplessly 7–
“We’ve no hiding-place that will be safe
from M. Louchard.”
“Give the bundle to me,” replied Geor-
gette looking at him. “I’ll hide it in my
room; they won't come and search there.”
Horace fixed his eyes on the spirited
girl, and said with a little wonder, “What
have I done, Mdlle. Georgette, that you
should act in so kindly a way towards
me.”
“Why shouldn't I save you from get-
ting into trouble if I can 2° answered Geor-
gette, in a would-be indifferent voice, with
perhaps just the faintest tremor in it. She
took up the bundle, and, without loooking
at him, added, “I must go now, M. Hor-
ace; good-by.” And in another minute
she was gone. .
Horace Gerold did not at once move;
he remained standing a few moments where
he was, gazing at the spot on which Geor-
gette had stood. . Then he returned to his
seat and slowly folded the letter he had
been writing.
This simple operation must have taken
him a long while, for he was still engaged
in it when a sharp rap at the outer door
gave him to infer that the promised M.
Louchard had arrived. -
True enough. This time it was not a
pair of bright hazel eyes, and a pink, bash-
ful face that met him; but three individuals
buttoned up to the throat. The commis-
sary and his two satellites, MM. Fouineux
and Tournetrique, of the secret police.
One must have lived in countries where
with a look of gratitude; “but,” added the police is the despised, ever-ready tool
he, throwing a glance round the room, “Il of a hated government, to realize the in-

sweets AND BITTERs of PopULARITY.
55
effable look of disdain with which Horace
Gerold received his visitors.
“I am a commissary of police” – be-
gan M. Louchard.
“That information is superfluous; your
profession is written on your face,” an-
swered Horace, curtly. “I suppose you
have come to ransack my rooms. Here are
my keys; get your job done as soon as
possible.”
Even MM. Fouineux and Tournetrique,
who were accustomed enough to be spat
upon, looked a little sheepish at this greet-
ing. Horace had not given the keys into
M. Louchard’s hands, but thrown them on
the floor for him to pick up. The commis-
sary, who was a man of education, red-
dened.
The three followed Horace into his study.
They kept their hats on, seeing which, the
}. man said, peremptorily, “Take your
ats off in my room.” It was not the cus-
tom of the three honest gentlemen to un-
cover themselves when paying domiciliary
visits; but the expression of Horace Ge-
rold’s features was not pleasant in moments
of anger. The police hate fighting about
trifles. They took their hats off.
Without thinking of what he was doing,
Horace went to his desk to resume the
operation of closing and sealing his letter,
in which he had been twice interrupted.
In a trice, M. Louchard was down upon
him with a swoop, made a grab at the let-
ter, and snatched it out of his hand. “I |
beg pardon; that’s a letter,” he said. “I
must have all letters.”
“Ah, to be sure,” rejoined Horace, un-
concernedly; and, throwing himself into
an arm-chair, he took up a newspaper,
which he read without paying any more
attention to his guests. -
It is the admirable privilege of all
Frenchmen to be liable at any moment to
a search visit, and to see all their papers
fingered and confiscated. They have no
right of appeal; no right, even, to know
why their property is being violated. And
the search is no mere formality. Messrs.
Louchard, Fouineux, and Tournetrique re-
mained above an hour ferreting in Horace
Gerold's bedroom and study. They turned
up the corners of the carpets, routed out
the drawers and cupboards, probed the
mattresses, pillows, and curtains, and made
a parcel, not only of such letters as they
could find, but of every scrap of paper,
however small, that bore a line of hand-
writing, tradesmen’s bills not excepted.
The object of a search is to obtain all the
details possible as to the searchee's habits
and acquaintances, and a tradesman's bill
may be as instructive a document for this
purpose as any other. There was a sheet.
of blotting-paper on which Horace had
scribbled a list of a few friends who had
sent him civil letters which needed answer-
ing. Messrs. Louchard and Co. took that.
There was a japanned bowl which served
as receptacle for the thousand and odd
visiting cards which Horace had received
after his speech. The young barrister was,
not unnaturally, proud of these friendly tro-
phies, and had contemplated keeping them
as mementoes. Monsieur Tournetrique
shovelled them all into his pocket-handker-
chief, tied the handkerchief into a knot, and
dropped it into the tail pocket of his coat.
Horace did not stir. Only, at the end
of an hour, when the three representatives
of justice and imperialism had inspected
his own rooms, they were for going into
Emile's. In order to do this they were
obliged to pass Horace, whose chair was so
situated that it blocked the door of com-
munication between the two sets of apart-
ments. On the first man presenting him-
self, Horace stood up and said, “Where
are you going?”
“To search those other rooms,” answered
M. Louchard.
“Those rooms are my brother's,” rejoined
Horace quietly.
“Monsieur, we have orders to search
your brother's rooms as well as yours.”
“If my brother chooses to let you search
his rooms I have nothing to say,” was
Horace's impassive reply; “but in his ab-
sence I am the defender of his property.
No one goes in there whilst I am here.”
“Do you mean to say you intend resist-
ing by force : ” asked M. Louchard, taken
aback.
Horace caught up the fire-tongs that were
lying close within his reach.
“Yes,” he said calmly.
To do M. Louchard and consorts justice,
it was not the fear of a broken head that
made them pause. If Horace Gerold had
been an ordinary rebel — a mere journalist
for instance — the three would have fallen
upon him together, knocked him down,
handcuffed him, and bundled him off to
the station in a cab to be charged with
threatening to do grievous bodily harm to
government functionaries. But a barrister
is an awkward adversary. The barristers
form a powerful corporation, and if one of
them were knocked down, the Council of
the Order, with the “Bâtonnier ’’ at its
head, would certainly insist upon repara-
tion. M. Louchard was quite perspicuous
enough to guess that this reparation would
probably consist in his own dismissal. He
thought it prudent to temporize.
“Monsieur, I am only doing my duty,”
he observed.
“And I mine,” rejoined Horace. “But

56
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
it is no use wasting further words.
have two courses open to you, either to
wait until my brother returns, or to go and
find him at the Palace of Justice and tell
him that you want his help to turn his
rooms upside down.”
Monsieur Louchard did not smile at this
joke, but he accepted the former of the
two alternatives, after venturing upon one
or two more remonstrances to which Hor-
ace did not even deign to give a reply.
When Emile returned about a couple of
hours afterwards, he found his brother com-
posedly smoking a cigarette, with a pair
of fire-tongs in his hand, and the three
myrmidons of the law seated in a row op-
posite, looking at him.
On being told what was the matter, Emile
threw down his keys as disdainfully as
Horace had done. MM. Louchard, Foui-
neux, and Tournetrique thereupon resumed
their search, repeating their conscientious
investigation of beds, cupboards, and car-
pets, and making an abundant harvest of
paper scraps as before. In Emile's rooms,
however, occurred an episode which Horace
had not foreseen; for, in exploring the top
drawer on the left-hand side of the bureau,
the detective Fouineux lighted upon the
tin box which contained the title-deed of
the Clairefontaine estates. Emile inter-
posed, observing it was only a family docu-
ment; but this was reason the more why
M. Louchard should keep firm hold of
it. Delighted to have got possession of
something that looked valuable, the com-
missary took the box from his subaltern and
expressed his determination not to part
with it on any account.
“But what can you do with it 7” cried
Horace, more amused than angry; “I tell
you it's only a title-deed.”
At the word title-deed M. Louchard re-
doubled his grip of the box, and resolves in
his own deep mind that he had captured a
prize. He set himself in the immediate
vicinity of the door, ready to bolt if any
attempt at Snatching should be made ; and
in a quick voice directed his satellites to
make haste and get done. This injunction
had the effect of abridging the search by
about half-an-hour. Less than ten minutes
after the discovery of the box, the brothers
were left alone, MM. Louchard, Fouineux,
and Tournetrique having returned to the
prefecture; where, amongst other things,
they were mindful to state that Maitre
Hºrace Gerold was “a dangerous man of
murderous propensity,” an observation that
was scrupulously recorded in that famous
and mysterious ledger, in which are in-
Scribed the names of all those who, at any
time, and for any reason, have been bro Ight
under the notice of the French police.
You ||
This domiciliary visit was destined to
bave ulterior consequences that influenced
in no slight degree the careers of the
Gerolds; but the only immediate effect of
it was to make the two brothers laugh,
and to raise Horace a cubit higher on his
newly erected pedestal. The explorations
of M. Louchard furnished a capital para-
graph for “La Sentinelle; ” the Liberals of
the Boulevard waxed indignant; and the
general opinion of the public was that this
young barrister must be a very remarkable
man, since the Government evinced such
spite towards him. So true is it that des-
potism sets a halo upon those whom it tries
to persecute.
Emile profited by his brother's triumphs.
At the very moment when MM. Louchard,
Fouineux, and Tournetrique were making
hay amongst Horace's papers, the younger
brother was being retained in three or four
press-trials, at the Palace of Justice. These
briefs would have fallen to Horace had he
not been disbarred; but the journalists who
retained Emile thought that he would no
doubt follow in his brother's footsteps and
make a sensation speech, perhaps even
more violent than the other. In this, how-
ever, they were disappointed. When the
first of the trials came on the court was
crammed to bursting, and the defendants,
whose paper had not been selling very well
of late, were building up soothing hopes on
a rattling sentence of fine and imprison-
ment, which should quadruple their circu-
lation and give them the locus standi of
martyrs. But Emile's speech was so sim-
ple that it took everybody by surprise.
There were no flights of oratory in it, no
attempts at declamation, no allusions to
the coup-d'état. It was a plain, lucid piece
of argumentation, full of truth, admirably
compact, and couched in language as un-
pretending as it was respectful. The judges
did not acquit the prisoners — that, of
course, was out of the question — but they
were so much relieved that they only in-
flicted a month's imprisonment, without
any fine at all; a result which transported
the solicitors present, who at once marked
down Emile §. for brief in the civil
courts; but which not a little chagrined
the journalists, who confided one to another
their chagrined impression that Emile had
not the same brilliant talent as his brother
-Ö-
CHAPTER IX.
HORACE STARTS IN JOURNALISM.
IT would be fair to suppose that after the
pretty rough handling he had got from
HORACE STARTS IN JourNALISM.
57
Nestor Roche's counsel, M. Macrobe would spirit, had any silent voice within ventured
have renounced all further acquaintance
with the Gerolds. But M. Macrobe's was
a soul devoid of vindictiveness. Perfectly
conversant with the fact that Horace Ge-
rold was heir to a dukedom, and that he
would some day inherit at least 500,000
francs a year, the financier had allowed
himself to indulge in certain private
schemes with regard to the young man, and
he was not to be balked of them for a few
ugly words, more or less. It was a maxim
with M. Macrobe that where there's a will
there's a way, and his will was to become
Horace Gerold’s friend. How he was to prof.
it by the friendship when he had obtained it,
and in what particular direction he was to
work his schemes, were points upon which
he had not altogether made up his mind,
having never yet had the opportunity of
becoming thoroughly acquainted with either
of the brothers. But, like a skilful angler
who knows of a fish in a certain pond,
which he will proceed to hook when he has
the time, so M. Macrobe bore Horace Ge-
rold in his mind, resolving that he would
“land ” him some day, and determined
meanwhile to lose no opportunity of throw-
ing out clever baits. Witlin a week of
the trial the two MM. Gerold received a
card from Madame Roderheim, wife of the
K. in the firm Lecoq, Roderheim and
acrobe, inviting them to a thé dansant.
Now, if this card had come by post, or
been deposited with the concierge by one
of Madame Roderheim’s plushed footmen,
Horace and Emile, out of deference to
their father's request that they should keep
on amicable terms with M.M. L. and R.,
would, on the appointed evening, have put
themselves into dress clothes and have
gone through the civility, which consists in
driving two miles to bow to a lady in a low-
bodied dress, drink a cup of weak tea, and
then drive home again. But, unfortunately,
it was M. Isidore Macrobe who left the
card (indeed, it was he who had especially
asked it of Madame Roderheim), and this
circumstance was not long in becoming
known to Horace, to whom the missive was
delivered by Mademoiselle Georgette, de-
spatched by her father on this embassy.
Mademoiselle Georgette was very glad
to be the bearer of the note. It was on
the day following the visit of the commis-
sary, and she was anxious to return the
young barrister his parcel of contraband
books and papers, which had lain hidden
in one of her bonnet-boxes a day and a
night. Perhaps she would not have been
sorry even had she had no books to give
back, but this thought was one that lurked
too deep for human eyes, and one which
she would have rejected with the utmost
to whisper it to her.
With a slight flutter at the heart, duo
possibly to the number of steps she had
been climbing, and to the fear lest anybody
should see her on the staircase with the
suspicious bundle, Mademoiselle Georgette
knocked as she had done the preceding
day. It being about four, Horace was
alone as before, but he was just preparing
to go out. The young man would have
found it difficult to explain why he colored
at the sight of the draper's daughter; but
color he did, and so did Mademoiselle
Georgette.
“Here are your books, M. Horace, and a
letter,” she said. -
She was going to retire after this, but
Horace stopped her, saying, thankfully,
“Do you know, Mademoiselle Georgette, I
have been reflecting all night that you have
rendered me a great service. If those
books had been found here they might very
well have furnished a pretext for indicting
me as a Revolutionist. You have probably
saved me from imprisonment.”
She took no pains to hide the gleam of
pleasure in her eyes, but answered with
candor: “You thanked me yesterday. I
am glad I have been of use to you. But ’’
(and here she looked up at him a little
timidly) “why do you expose yourself to
being imprisoned?”
“Oh, prison is not very dreadful!” he
answered smiling.
“Then the service I have rendered you
is not so very great,” rejoined she, biting
her red lips and smiling in her turn.
“I mean,” laughed Horace, embarrassed
—“I mean that prison in our case doesn’t
mean iron chains and a straw bed. I was
just going to see some prisoners when you
came in ; I daresay I shall find them com-
fortably enough lodged ; but loss of liberty
is always a hardship, Mademoiselle Geor-
gette.”
“I suppose you are going to see those
gentlemen whom you defended,” remarked
Georgette, feeling some little curiosity on a
subject so profoundly novel to her as the
captivity of gentlemen connected with the
Press. Mademoiselle Georgette was an
occasional reader of the Official “Moniteur,”
the only daily journal which M. Pochemolle
deemed it consistent with his opinions to
take in.
Horace nodded. -
“I am going to Sainte Pélagie to see M.
Roche and M. Delormay, who were to sur-
render to-day, Shall I tell them that you
sympathize with their misfortune 2 ”
“You may tell them so if you like,” an-
swered Mademoiselle Georgette, gravely,
“though I think you would do better to tell
58
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs. .
them not to write any more against M. Ma-
crobe. Why is it that all you gentlemen
are so much against M. Macrobe 2 ” she
continued, yielding to the temptation of
conversing for once with a person whose
whole soul was not enwrapped in cloth and
calico. “I thought he was a friend of
yours, M. Horace.” -
“Not of mine, Mademoiselle Georgette;
I know very little about him, and that little
is not to his advantage.”
“He has a very lovely daughter,” ob-
served Mademoiselle Georgette, gazing
rather steadfastly at her interlocutor.
“So he has,” replied Horace, recalling
the fair hair and seraph-like expression of
Mademoiselle Angélique; “but the daugh-
ter doesn’t change the father. He would
be a bold man who married Mademoiselle
* and accepted any dowry with
er.”
These words did not seem to displease
Georgette, but she replied generously:
“Are you quite sure, M. Horace, as to all
they say about M. Macrobe 2 Papa thinks
so highly of him, for he is always very good
to us. Though he lives right at the other
end of the town now, he comes to us when-
ever he wants to buy any thing. He was
here to-day and offered papa some shares in
that new Société du Crédit Parisien which
is making so much noise.”
“Oh M. Macrobe was here to-day, was
be ‘2’ exclaimed Horace, interested.
“Why, yes; that letter comes from him ;
at least it was he who brought it.”
Horace opened the letter with evident
curiosity ; but when he had inspected the
contents he was amused, and said, “It ap-
pears to be your vocation to do me good
turns, Mademoiselle Georgette; yesterday
rou saved me from prison, to-day you have
£º me out of a trap.”
“What trap 2" asked Georgette inno-
cently.
Horace was on the point of holding out
his hand to Mademoiselle Georgette, but
he checked himself and answered gently:
“It would take too long to explain, and I
don’t think it would much interest you.”
Georgette looked surprised, but she was
beginning to reflect, that she had been
talking long enough. She did not, however,
return to the shop down stairs for another
five minutes, and when she entered, her
brother, M. Alcibiade Pochemolle (occupied
in catching flies pending the receipt of cus-
tom), was the first to notice that she was
a little pale, and held a parcel in her hands;
which she at once went and showed her
mother. This is how Mademoiselle Geor-
gette came by the parcel.
Just as she was about to bring her inter-
view with Horace Gerold to an end, the
latter had opened a drawer and taken out
of some silver paper a handsome work-box
which he had bought the evening before,
It was one of those admirable and expen-
sive knicknacks such as are only to be
found in Paris — a thing of rosewood with
silver-gilt corners and fittings, ivory silk-
reels, satin lining, and golden thimble. To
tell the truth, the better part of Nester
Roche’s 500-franc note had been bestowed
on the purchase. *
“I want you to accept this box, Made-
moiselle Georgette, as a souvenir,” said Hor-
ace, before the young girl had even divined
his intention.
Georgette was so unprepared for the
present, that she turned first red, then white,
and echoed in a pained tone : “A souvenir 3
Are you going away then * *
“No, I am not going away; but a hun-
dred things may happen, and I should like
you to accept this keepsake whilst the rec-
ollection of your thoughtful kindness of
yesterday is still fresh with us both. Don't
refuse,” added he, seeing that Georgette
looked hurt by his offer; “I shall tell Mad-
ame Pochemolle it is a gift in return for the
number of letters you have had the trouble
of bringing me, and if you refuse I will offer
you the box in her presence.” He said
this gayly ; but it was in a more serious
tone he repeated, “Accept it in the same
spirit as it is offered, Mademoiselle Geor-
gette; if you refuse I shall think you con-
sider me guilty of impertinence "
“You would be wrong to think that,”
she murmured quietly; yet she still looked
pained, and it was only after Horace had
taken the box and gently forced it into her
hands that, not to wound him, she consented
to keep it. There was an incident that
helped to silence her objections It has
been said that Horace's parcel of books
had been hidden by Mademoiselle Geor-
gette in a bonnet-box. There were a few
artificial flowers lying in this box, and one
of them — a moss-rose-bud — had clung by
its wire-stem to the folds of the towel in
which the books were wrapped and been
brought up, unnoticed by Georgette. Hor-
ace saw the rose, and, when he had placed
the work-box in Georgette's hands, unfas-
tened it and said, “May I, too, have my
souvenir, Mademoiselle Georgette; will you
let me keep this flower?” At this, the look
of pain vanished altogether from the young
girl's face. She threw him a rapid look,
loaded with gratitude and happiness, and
fled. But her emotion had not yet disap-
peared when she returned down stairs and
—as already chronicled—encountered the
gaze of M. Alcibiade Pochemolle.
M. Pochemolle senior was delighted with
the gift. There are drapers who might

HORACE STARTS IN JOURNALISM,
59,
º up their ears at hearing that their
aughter had been presented with a costly
work-box by a gentleman on the third floor;
but M. Pochemolle was of the old school;
he believed in social distinctions: and just
as he would have deemed it presumption to
think of marrying lais daughter to any one
above her sphere, so he had a sort of hon-
est and chivalrous confidence that no man
in Monsieur Gerold's position would ever
trifle with the affections of his child. Ma-
dame Pochemolle, though not quite so hum-
ble in her matrimonial views respecting
Mademoiselle Georgette, was also pleased
with the present; she might have looked
grave at a brooch or a locket, but a work-
box was such a brotherly offering, that it
proved the purest motives on the part of
the young barrister. As for M. Alcibiade,
he was all enthusiasm, wondered what was
the price of the box, and would have been
greatly astonished had he heard that his
sister had ever refused such a gift. M. Al-
cibiade was of the new school of tradesmen.
“Georgette, my child, ” said M. Poche-
mollé, “we must make M. Horace some re-
turn for this. It is a pity that young gen-
tleman is a Republican ; but he has the
courtesy and gallantry of a count. Let me
see: what can we do for him 2 Ha, I have
it : Alcibiade, measure your sister four
yards of the finest lawn, Cambrai mark, and
she shall inaugurate her box by hemming
M. Horace a dozen pair of bands to wear
in court. Meantime, give me my hat and
gloves; I must go and offer my dutiful
thanks to our lodger.”
And the thanks of M. Pochemolle were
all that could be desired. He met Horace
Gerold on the staircase, and made him a
bow such as would not have disgraced that
famous lace-purveyor of the Trince of
Condé, who was said to bow better than
the Prince himself. And the same hour
Mademoiselle Georgette set to work upon
the cambric bands, cutting and stitching
with a diligence that somewhat surprised
M. Alcibiade, who remembered that his
sister never worked so fast when she had
to hem any of his pocket-handkerchiefs.
Now, are we to conclude from this gift
of a work-box that Horace Gerold, the heir
of the Hautbourgs, or, what is more to the
purpose, the rising pleader already re-
nowned in Paris for his good looks, his good
luck, and his eloquence, entertained any
deeper feeling towards the draper's daughter
than the parents of that young lady sus-
pected 2 Maidens of Mademoiselle Geor-
gette's age are apt to imagine that every soft
word, playful smile, and kind glance are so
many indications of attachment, and poor
Georgette, as she hemmed the cambric
bands, doubtless built many a fancy man-
sion that would have crumbled into dust
could she have witnessed the extremely
leisurely gait and placid air of M. Horace
as he went on his way to visit his friends
at Ste. Pélagic. Lovers do not wear the
expression that Horace Gerold wore. He
trod the pavement like a man who is ex-
empt from cares of every sort; whose blood
flows cheerily in his veins, and who would
not change his present lot for a kingdom.
Well-a-day, how far he was from thinking
of Clairefontaine now, and what a good
joke he would have considered it, had any
long-headed soothsayer lifted the veil of
the future and shown him — but why an-
ticipate? let us follow the young man on
his visit to the prison.
Sainte Pélagie is a fine gray building, de-
voted, like the Sixth Chamber of Correc-
tional Police, half-and-half to the accum-
modation of thieves and of journalists;
the thieves occupy the back part; the jour-
malists the front. Let us be just, however,
towards the Imperial Government. When
a journalist was sentenced in the courts of
the Empire, he was not laid hold of there and
then in the dock, and carted off to bondage
in a van, as is done in certain freer coun-
tries. He was left to surrender pretty
much when he pleased (save in very ex-
ceptional cases). He might take a fort-
night, or a month ; sometimes he took
three months; and when he at last made
up his mind to go and be locked up, he
drove to his destination in a cab, bearing
his boxes, portmanteaus, and writing ma-
terials with him, and leaving word with his
friends to come and call upon him, just as
if he was off for a hydropathic establish-
ment, and was merely about to undergo a
few months’ cure.
Of course the Government was not bound
to make things thus pleasant, and occasion-
ally, when sulkily disposed, it would order
that such and such a captive journalist be
rendered as miserable as possible by being
debarred from all intercourse with the outer
world. But such instances of waspishness
were not common. It was always borne in
mind that the imprisoned writer of to-day
may be the cabinet minister of to-morrow;
journalism being a career that leads to
any thing — provided you abandon it.
Horace Gerold's purpose in visiting
Sainte Pélagie was two-fold; in the first
place he had a duty of common courtesy
to perform, and in the next, being thrown
out of work by his six months’ interdiction,
he wished to ask for employment on the
staff of the “Sentinelle.” He found Nes-
tor Roche installed in a room that looked
much more like an apartment in a middle-
class boarding-house than a cell in a prison.
It was tolerably large, the walls were pa-
60
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
pered, there was a carpet on the floor, and
two workmen were engaged in nailing up a
bookcase, which Roche had obtained per-
mission to bring with him, as well as a
bureau, a couple of easy-chairs, an enor-
mous ottoman, and a shower-bath. On a
peg above a small camp bedstead hung the
monumental hat of the captive, which at
once arrested the eye like the helmet of a
cloistered knight; and the captive himself
was seated at a table smoking a meer-
Schaum pipe and correcting a proof, whilst
a printer's devil, his legs tucked up on the
bar of a chair, was waiting to carry the
said proof to the printing-office.
“Salve, pue" '' exclaimed Roche, holding
out his hand, “I shall have done in a
minute. Meanwhile, you’ll find Delormay
at home ; he's next door.”
M. Max Delormay had not arrived above
an hour and was standing in his shirt-
sleeves amidst a litter of portmanteaus and
carpet-bags, from which he was extracting
bottles of eau-de-cologne, hair-brushes, pots
of pomatum, razor-strops, and the adjuncts
of a well-furnished toilet-table. M. Max felt
deeply grateful to Horace Gerold for having
secured him six months' imprisonment.
Ever since his sentence, the value of his
signature as a writer had risen considerably
in the literary market. A whole collection
of articles, tales, and sketches, of which he
had been utterly unable to dispose in the
days of his freedom, had passed trium-
phantly into the columns of various broad-
sheets the moment he had become a martyr.
Moreover, he had obtained promotion on
the staff of the “Sentinelle,” having been
raised from the note and paragraph depart-
ment to that of leader-writing. Encouraged
by these results, M. Max felt equal to
facing any amount of persecution for the
truth's sake. He shook Horace warmly by
the hand, planted him in a chair, and offered
him a cigar.
“You’ll stay and dine with us, I hope 2
We make up a capital mess: Roche and I,
two writers of the “Siècle,” Jules Tartine
of the “Gazette des Boulevards,’ and three
members of a secret society who are in
here for two months more; the famous
Albi’s one of them. We’re to mess in
Roche's room, dinner from the restaurant
over the way, one franc fifty centimes a
head. Here, you, my friend, just cut down
stairs to the canteen and get us a pint of
cognac, two lemons, some sugar, and a jug
of hot water; catch hold of the money.”
This order was addressed to what ap-
eared a workman, who was putting M.
Max's clothes in a chest of drawers. Like
the two workmen in Nestor Roche’s room,
he was attired in gray garments, and wore
his hair cropped close to his head.
“Most intelligent man,” remarked Max
Delormay, when his attendant had van-
ished. “The Government, you know, gives
us some of our fellow-prisoners from the
other part of the building to wait upon us.
We have one between three. They are
chosen for their good behavior. I dare say
you saw those in Roche's room. One's in,
I believe, for spoiling the good looks of a
policeman; the other for putting stones
through the window of a publican who
refused hium credit. This one of mine used
to make mistakes in computing the change
to which his fares were entitled, and then
molest them when they objected. He was
a cab-driver, and means to reform when he
gets out.”
The cabman who made mistakes returned
with the cognac, lemons, &c., and declared
himself competent to brew, “wn grog,” if
need were. Soon after, the voice of Nestor
Roche was heard shouting, “I’ve finished
now,” and M. Max accompanied Horace
into the other room, each bearing their
share of the refreshments. The printer's
devil, a boy with one eye (but what a per-
spicuous one was that single orbit (), had slid
off his chair, and was receiving directions not
to loiter with the proof by the wayside.
He snivelled as he listened, and, I regret
to state, more than once made use of his
sleeve in guise of pocket-handkerchief.
“Have you any copy, MI'sieu Delormay?”
inquired he, upon the entrance of this gen-
tleman.
M. Max had no copy; but he laid a hand
on the shaggy poll of the small Cyclops, and
bade him tell his name to Horace Gerold.
The boy fixed his one eye on Horace,
and answered sturdily, “My name's Tripou,
but they calls me Trigger.”
“And now tell M. Gerold why they call
you Trigger.”
“They calls me Trigger,” answered the
young Tripou with pride, “because in ’51,
when there was the fighting, and I was
seven years old, I prigged the gun of a
sentry at the Louvre, when he wasn't look-
ing, and shot him through the head with
it.”
“Good lad | * exclaimed M. Max, dis-
missing him. “You’ll grow up to be a
valuable citizen,” — an assurance which
encouraged Trigger to add, for the en-
lightenment of the stranger, “The gun
kicked, and that's how I lost my eye.”
The presence of two gentlemen in gray
proving an impediment to confidential in-
tercourse, nothing was done but grog-sip-
ping and cloud-blowing for a quarter of an
hour or so; but when the bookcase had
been nailed up, the shower-bath established
in its corner, and the ottoman wheeled near
the fireplace, the gentlemen in gray van.
3.
HORACE STARTS IN JOURNALISM.
61
ished, and then Horace plunged at once in
"medias res by saying, “I’ve come to ask you
to take me on your staff, M. Roche.”
“H'm,” grunted the editor from out of a
curling wreath of shag-smoke. “Does our
condition seem so delightful as to tempt you
to become one of us * *
“If you think me good enough,” was
Horace's modest reply.
“You’d be good enough in any case,”
answered the editor shaking the ashes off
his pipe. “You’ve made yourself a name,
and the public'll read any thing you write.
Only, I'll tell you what, journalism's not
the easy thing you may think.”
Max Delormay confirmed this statement
by ejaculating with feeling that he had
often sat up a whole night elaborating
notes which wouldn’t be coaxed out of
his head, -a reminiscence which evidently
gave him a very sublime estimate of the
difficulties of literature.
“Yes, but I didn't mean that,” rejoined
Nestor Roche mildly. “What I mean is,
that there are two kinds of journalism, -
one for which any man who can spell is fit
enough; and the other, the real journalism,
which sucks in its man like a whirlpool.
Those among us who take a liking to our
craft don’t leave it. Our pens stick to our
fingers, and there we sit scribbling until
brain-fever grabs us, which it generally
does, in the long run. I don’t want to
deter you from following your own bent;
but I warn you of this, that, if you once
take to printer's-ink, you’ll soon be throw-
ing off your gown. It's easier to write
articles than to read up briefs and make
speeches. It's pleasanter work, too; but,
after a time, it squeezes your brain as flat
as a sucked orange. Yes, I know what
you were going to say,” proceeded the
editor, observing that Horace was pre-
paring to reply. “You were going to
cite half a dozen journalists who have been
at work close upon fifty years, and who
write leaders as much as ever. Yes, but
just read those leaders. They are washed-
out copies of others written long before you
were born. The authors of them take it
easy. . They have given up fabricating new
thoughts; they say the same things over
and over again; they are like those looms
that throw off, mechanically, a piece of
cotton of the same length, breadth, color,
and texture, every day. And mind, it needs
a certain merit, in its way, to be able to do
that. It requires a good thick, solid head
that goes “thud,” when you rap it, and
doesn’t contain two straws’ worth of en-
thusiasm or conviction. Those men have
no, passion for their work. Their blood
flows coolly and evenly through their veins,
like the waters of the St. Martin's Canal.
Journalism, with them, is not a calling, it
is a trade. They take to it in the same
spirit as they would have taken to boot-
making, had they been born a few steps
lower down the ladder. But you, Horace
Gerold, will never make one of this band.
If I am any judge of your character, you
will throw yourself into your work with all
your might, — ambition, vanity, conviction,
and talent, all pushing you together; and,
so sure as ever you throw yourself into
journalism, it will use you up, unless in-
deed,” added the editor, rather gloomily,
“unless it leads you to a prefecture or a
seat in the cabinet ; but I don’t see much
chance of that ; for you are not of the stuff
of which nature makes renegades, and I am
not very sanguine as to our having a re-
public whilst you and I are on earth to
enjoy it.”
“Why not ?” asked Max Delormay, as-
tonished at this dispiriting prediction.
“Because we are a nation of parrots,
Max,” rejoined Nestor Roche, laying down
his pipe.
It was not often that the editor indulged
in such long speeches. He was habitually
curt in his dialogues, and seldom went the
length of developing his views. But his
esteem for his old friend, Manuel Gerold,
was so great, that he treated Horace and
Emile to a share of it, and spoke more at
length with them than he did with any-
body, save his wife and his niece, who kept
his house for him. w
Horace answered, without much hesita-
tion, “I never thought of taking to journal-
ism as a profession. All I want is employ-
ment to keep me from rusting until I can
go into court again.”
“Dangerous,” muttered the editor. “I
took to journalism five and thirty years ago,
waiting until I could pick up a practice as
a doctor, and I have been at it ever since.
But you shall have your way. The “Senti-
nelle’ is open to you. Write me leaders,
or articles, or anything else you like; only,
in six months from this, I shall remind you
of what you’ve just said, and expect you to
drop the pen; for you can't drive two trades
together.”
A few minutes later Nestor Roche drew
a pencil from his pocket, and said “Listen.
this is just the position of the ‘Sentinelle
at the present moment: We are selling
40,000 a day ever since the trial; at three
sous a copy, that makes 5,600 francs a day ;
deduct 6 centimes per copy for the stamp-
duty, and there remains 3,200 francs. Ex-
penses of printing are 1,300 francs; pub-
lishing and remittances to agents, 800
francs; carriage, 400 francs. This leaves
us 700 francs, to which we may add another
800 from advertisements. Out of this
62
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
1,500 you must subtract again 750 as pay-
ments to the staff, and the remaining 750
may be said to constitute the profits, which
are supposed to be divided equally between
my partner and me. To my partner, how-
ever, who is a money man, I pay over and
above his share in the profits the sum of
5,000 francs a year, being the interest on
the 50,000 francs he was obliged to deposit
in the Treasury as caution-money when we
started the paper; moreover, it is I who
must meet such liabilities as may spring
up in the way of fines and damages; for
instance, the nine-and-thirty thousand
frames of the other day. This statement
will show you that the ‘Sentinelle' is at
present a paying concern; but you must
remember, on the other hand, that the nor-
mal circulation is not 40,000, but 20,000,
and that, as the “Sentinelle’ has already
received two ‘admonitions’ from Govern-
ment, it may, on its next offence, be sus-
pended for two months, and after that be
suppressed altogether, in which last event
I am bound by treaty to pay my partner
100,000 francs. Do you follow * *
“Yes,” answered Horace, a little sur-
rised.
“Well, then,” said the editor, shutting
up his pencil-case and relapsing into brief-
ness, “you won’t make any mistake as to
my reasons if I sometimes cut down your
articles until there's nothing left of them
but the paring. Supposing the ‘Senti-
nelle were suppressed I should be as good
as ruined; but, what is infinitely more se-
rious, there would be a Liberal organ the
less in Paris: for, as you are aware, it
needs a special license from Government
to start a new paper, and that license the
Government would refuse.”
“Cut down my articles as much as you
please,” answered Horace, smiling. “You
may be sure I shall respect your reasons.”
Upon this understanding the young bar-
rister temporarily joined the staff of the
“Sentinelle,” and wrote his first leader the
same evening.
CHAPTER X.
NEW FRIENDS, NEW HABITs.
A BARRISTER may go into society or
not as he pleases, and perhaps the less he
goes the better for his professional work;
but with a political journalist the case is
just the opposite. . Before long, Horace
Gerold found himself thrown into daily in-
tercourse with a number of personages
whom, hitherto, he had only considered
from afar; eminent Liberals for the most
part, and leaders of the party, whose organ
the “Sentinelle’’ was. These gentlemen
represented a considerable variety of shades
in opinion, and, under a freer form of gov-
ernment, would have been pretty certain to
detest one another cordially. But one of
the beauties of despotism is that, like fox-
hunting, “it brings parties together as
wouldn’t otherwise meet,” and Legitimists,
Orleanists, and Republicans formed in
those days one happy family, coalesced in
common hatred of the reigning dynasty.
As, owing to the law which prohibited
the founding of political newspapers with-
out special license from Government, the
number of opposition prints was extremely
limited, some honor attached to being on
the staff of an independent journal. It
was something like belonging to a crack
club. All the members of the independent
press hung very much together, maintain.
ing a sort of freemasonry, and holding
carefully aloof from the writers of the semi-
official or Government press, whom they
despised as little better than hired menials.
Naturally, the Bonapartist writers resented
this contempt, and affected to reciprocate
•it, and this kept up a feud which evinced
itself in little things, such as frequenting
different cafés, walking on opposite sidcs
of the Boulevards, and adopting dissimilar
slangs. In 1855, the favorite café of the
opposition press was the Café des Variétés,
that of Government journalists the Café
des Princes on the other side of the way.
It should be added that the face-to-face sit-
uation of these rival establishments not un-
frequently led to unpleasantnesses, such as
meetings in the middle of the road between
foes crossing from one pavement to the
other; and so sure as ever this happened,
there was either a treading on toes, or a
jostling of elbows, or something to necessi-
tate an exchange of cards, perhaps an ex-
change of slaps on the face, and on the
morrow an encounter at daybreak. Those
were times when MM. Grisier and Pons,
the fencing-masters, had a rare number of
pupils in the literary profession. Horace
was cordially received at the Café des Wa-
riétés the first time he appeared there at
the “hour of absinthe,” i.e., 5 P.M., on the
arm of a M. Hector Tampon, sub-editor of
the “Sentinelle.” Preceded by his quickly-
won reputation, he was hailed as a valuable
recruit. Nobody asked whether he wrote
well — that, in the opinion of journalists,
was a secondary consideration — but he
thought well: he seemed to hate the Gov-
ernment well, and that was enough.
M. de Tirecruchon, the stout editor of
the “Gazette des Boulevards” whom he had
NEW FRIENDS,
NEW HABITS. 63
already seen once in the Correctional Court
on the occasion of the Macrobe trial, held
out his hand and shouted with a bluffness
which at first surprised him : “Welcome,
M. Gerold. You're quite right to try the
press. I predict you'll make your way in
“Oh I'm only a visitor,” answered Hor-
ace modestly: “the “Sentinelle' has taken
me in like a passenger on a cruise.”
“Tut, tut! When passengers like you
come on board they don’t go off again in a
hurry. It's ten times pleasanter writing
leading articles than cramming briefs, and
so you’ll find when you’ve had time to com-
pare. If you leave the ‘Sentinelle’ give
me the preference; my columns are open
to you.” M. de Tirecruchon here drew an
immense flat cigar from a Russian-leather
case, and wreathed his solid face in smoke.
“I’m a Legitimist,” he continued, “but
it doesn’t matter, for it's Liberty Hall in
my paper ; all my contributors are free to
write as they please. Do you see that small
man yonder, sucking iced-punch through a
straw 2 he's my sub-editor, a Red Republi-
can like yourself, opposed to luxuries, and
all that sort of thing. Take a seat. I’m
going to prison next week, at least, as soon
as Number 9 at Ste. Pélagie is vacant. I
was sentenced yesterday, but I like being
always in my old quarters, so that when
I heard Number 9 was tenanted — (I look
upon Number 9 as almost mine, for I’ve
been there five times, and always leave
a carpet-bag and a few shirts there), - I
asked the Puolic Prosecutor not to make out
the commitment until it was vacant again.
Very civil fellow, the Public Prosecutor.
He'll do any thing for you if you treat him
properly; I called on him in dress clothes and
a white tie, and that touched him. I see
you smoke cigarettes; they're too weak for
me; try one of these panatellas. I suppose
you've made it up by this time with
Macrobe. Uncommonly clever fellow, and
gives capital dinners at that new place of
his in the Champs Elysées. His daughter's
one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. You
let fly pretty hard at the Crédit Parisien
the other day, but it's a splendid concern
upon my word ; and if you’ve any spare
cash I advise you to invest in it. I’ve done
so. Nominal value of shares 500 francs,
issued at 360 ; they're selling now at 800,
and rising steadily. That man Macrobe is
a genius.”
Thus M. de Tirecruchon. Horace had
expected a little more austerity from men
who gave themselves out as the defenders
of public, morals, the champions of right
against might, the victims of oppression, &c.;
but he soon discovered that liberal opinions
and a good-natured tolerance of successful
capitalists govery well hand in hand. Even
the Red Republican who was sucking iced-
punch through a straw, admitted that there
were few things like the shares of the Crédit
Parisien, and that though he despised
riches he had bought two dozen of them.
Excessive strait-lacing was out of fashion
at the Café des Variétés, and it was only
in his own editor, Nestor Roche, whose
rugged soul was all of a piece, that Horace
found that uncompromising sternness of
principle which he had been disposed to
think was inseparable from republicanism.
It was his habit to go and call upon
Nestor Roche every day with either a leader
or some occasional notes; and these visits
afforded him the opportunity of learning
what a real talent there lies in careful
editing. Nestor Roche was not a man of
many words, and the few he uttered were
apt to mislead those who would have taken
them as an earnest of the man's secret
thoughts. In conversation he seemed in-
different and sceptical ; in reality he was
imbued to the marrow with theories of his
own, and cherished, with a child-like ven-
eration, the political creed in which he had
been educated. This became, to a certain
extent, apparent when he corrected the
articles of his younger contributors ; for,
without appearing to do it designedly, he
would, by a word inserted or expunged
here and there, alter the whole tone of pas-
sages which jarred on any of his favorite
chords. Men seldom make very good jour-
malists until thirty, and Horace's writings
profited considerably by the searching dis-
cipline to which they were subjected. They
left the editor's hands strengthened and
furbished, and yet the corrections were so
few, that the most susceptible of literary
vanities would not have found a pretext for
taking umbrage. Horace was often aston-
ished at the fine figure his own articles cut
in print, and even wondered slightly at his
own talent. Amongst his brother journal-
ists too, it soon came to be remarked that
young Horace Gerold was an elegant and
thoughtful writer. The truth was, he wrote
neither better nor worse than most intel-
ligent young men of four-and-twenty, and
so the public would have judged had his
compositions passed straight out of his own
hands into those of the printer.
Invitations and civilities began to flow in
apace. Society does not run after those
who shun it, but it soon adopts those who
make any advances. From mixing with
journalists at the café and elsewhere, it was
not long before Horace was solicited to dine
with them at their homes and meet their
wives or connections. Then came intro-
ductions to eminent statesmen who had
held high office under former governments
64
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
and deemed it politic to surround them-
selves with the rising men of the press and
the bar, with a view to a possible return to
power in the future. There were also
nobles of the Faubourg St. Germain, who,
to cement the coalition of all parties against
the Usurper, filled their drawing-rooms
once or twice a month with human salads
concocted of all the prominent elements
then in Opposition.
Horace was everywhere received pretty
much as a budding hero. His good looks,
his literary and oratorical merits—(recom-
mendations always powerful in France)—
would alone have sufficed to open many
doors to him; but the interest he inspired
was heightened by the mystery in which he
enshrouded his real name and distinguished
birth. At the Café des Variétés few knew
or cared whether he was a nobleman or
not; but it was very different in society
where there were ladies. A little to his
vexation, although that vexation was not un-
mingled with a small dose of incipient com-
placency, Horace Gerold discovered that his
titles were a secret for nobody, and that the
fact of his repudiating them as he did was
accounted to him for stoicism and abnegation
beyond the common. In fact, he would never
have suspected how hard it was not to wear
one's coronet had not people marvelled more
than once, when they thought him out of ear-
shot, that any young man should prefer
such a name as Gerold to that of Claire-
fontaine.
One evening after he had heard himself
addressed as M. le Marquis five or six
times by different persons in the course of
an hour, he turned rather impatiently to
the lady with whom he was conversing, and
said, “Why do people insist upon labelling
one with these absurd titles 2 ”
This was at a rout given in the hospitable
mansion of a very famous man — none other
than the small and eloquent M. Tiré, who
had been Prime Minister under Louis Phi-
lippe, and had helped not a little, by the
way, in bringing the dynasty he loved to
grief. The lady in conversation with
Horace was an extremely pretty Bar-
oness de Margauld, wife of an Orleanist
banker.
“Why do you call titles absurd 7" she re-
plied. “I wear mine bravely enough, and
should be sorry not to possess it.”
“I don’t mean that they are absurd for
everybody,” he answered blushing; “though
even in your case, Madame, I might well
say, of what use is a title to you? But it
is absurd to inflict upon me a distinction
which I do not choose to bear.”
“You must blame your own friends for
that,” said the Baroness, with a little tinge
of slyness. “If they will sound your trum-
pet so loudly, you must expect people to do
you honor.”
“What friends? what trumpet?” in-
quired Horace, with innocence.
“Oh you have so many friends, M. Ger-
rold ; but to cite only one instance, there is
M. Macrobe, who misses no occasion of
praising your good qualities; he was talk-
ing to my husband, only this morning, of
your high principles and your generosity.”
“M. Macrobe my friend l’ exclaimed
Horace, sceptically; “why, he is the man
against whom I pleaded the other day.”
“I am certain he bears you no ill-will,
then,” rejoined the Baroness, “but why did
you plead against him 7 Surely you do
ńot believe aſ the wicked stories that have
been circulated against him 2 °
“I neither believe, nor disbelieve,” an-
swered Horace, “but it seems to me that
people judge M. Macrobe much more len-
iently than they would if he had failed in
his curious speculations instead of enriching
himself as he has done.”
The Baroness gave a pretty little shrug.
“Is not success the best touchstone of
merit 2 I believe, for my part, it is the
touchstone of honesty, too.”
“Of honesty l’” echoed Horace with sur-
prise.
“Yes, my confessor says so. He asserts
that Heaven would not allow bad men to
prosper, and that consequently when we
See a man very wealthy and successful, we
may be sure he has deserved his good for-
tune, however much his enemies may say
to the contrary.”
“Truly a convenient moralist,” observed
Horace, smiling; “a sort of man to consult
when one’s conscience is in trouble.”
“Yes, he is indeed,” answered the Bar-
oness naively. “You should know him.
His name is Father Glabre of the Society
of Jesus.” t
“I guessed the Society of Jesus,” re-
sponded Horace, “and I suppose Father
Glabre exemplifies his principles by being
a Bonapartist. He must regard the success
of the coup-d'état as the divine consecra-
tion of Napoleon.”
“Father Glabre never talks politics,”
answered Mdme. de Margauld. “He says
that one of the Apostles enjoined us to sub-
mit ourselves to the powers that be. And,
after all, what does it matter who is King
or Emperor 7” added she fixing her bright
eyes on the young man; “life was not
given us to spend in wrangling as to who
should sit in a velvet arm-chair. Why can-
not we put up with the government we
have, and try and make the best of it, it
would be so much pleasanter.”
Horace had too much tact to wag' a war
of opinions with a lady, but he said gayly,
NEW FRIENDS, NEW HABITS.
65
“All I wonder at, Madame, is that, holding
these views, you should risk facing such a
sturdy anti-imperialist as our host.”
“Oh I I come here because of the nice
people one meets,” answered the baroness,
playing with her fan. “If one desires to
see men of any real worth in art, or litera-
ture, or politics, one must look for them in
Opposition drawing-rooms. It has been
the great mistake of the Emperor that in-
stead of calling to him all the men
who had rendered themselves illustri-
ous under past reigns, he has made himself
a court with a crowd of persons whom no-
body knows. It’s a pity, for I adore talent,
and think that a sovereign cannot have too
many distinguished men about him.”
“I daresay he had no choice,” muttered
Horace a little dryly. “Doubtless he
would have been glad enough to fill his
court with distinguished men, if distin-
guished men had consented to be employed
for that purpose.”
“Then you believe it is the men of talent
who are holding aloof from him.”
“Why, assuredly, Madame; have we not
the proof in M. Tiré himself?”
“How good it is to be young and to have
all one's illusions,” murmured she, with
arch but not unsympathizing raillery at the
young man. “Do you see, M. Gerold, that
what has so angered all our great friends
is, that they have been played 2 Their van-
ity is stung. They deemed it impossible
that a stable government could ever be
established without their help, and the way
in which the Emperor has dispensed with
their assistance, has been like telling them
of what small account they were in the
land. Our host, M. Tiré, is a charming
man, but as vain as they say we women are.
He thought himself necessary, and the Em-
peror has obliged him to drink gall. De-
pend upon it, if he were offered place
to-morrow, he would accept, and with alac-
rity. He would consider such an offer an
avowal of weakness; it would soothe his
ruffled self-love; and self-love always goes
before principle.”
“You take a dark view of human nature,”
said Horace, rather moodily.
“I take the same view of it as you will
when you have been ten years in society
like me,” replied Madame de Margauld with
half a sigh. “You are a rising man, M.
Gerold. If you aspire to lead your contem-
poraries you must not estimate them above
their worth.”
The same night, going home, Horace re-
volved these last words in his mind with a
dawning and discomforting conviction, that
a society which condoned the shortcomings
of such people as M. Macrobe, for the sake
of the gold they possessed, did not deserve
5
to be esteemed very highly. Somehow,
though, he felt that his own contempt for the
capitalist was lessening. Suspect and dis-
like a man as we will, we can seldom be
totally indifferent to his repaying our ill-
feelings by going about and speaking well of
UlS.
It was long past midnight when Horace
reached his lodging, and he walked quietly
in on tiptoe ſor fear of awaking his brother.
Something like a pang went though his
heart on thinking of Emile. The two bro-
thers were seeing less and less of each other
every day. Since Horace had taken to
journalism, their ways lay apart. They no
longer breakfasted and dined together at
the modest table-d'hôte. Horace frequented
the restaurants of the Boulevards, Mont-
martre, and Des Italiens; he rarely got up
before ten in the morning; spent his even-
ings either out at parties or at the theatre,
and when he returned home towards the
small hours, usually found Emile in bed.
On this occasion, however, the younger.
brother was still up, at his desk, writing.
Horace crept in softly behind him and
put an arm round his neck: “Working so,
late, old fellow 2° he said kindly.
“Yes, Horace,” answered Emile, squeez-
ing his hand. He pointed to two or three
parcels of papers tied with pink tape, and
added, “I have been intrusted with a brief
that requires some study.”
This was putting the case very mildly, for
ever since that début, in which he had dis-
appointed the hopes of the unprofessional
public, but won golden opinions from the
solicitors, Emile had been intrusted with
several briefs, all most arid, voluminous, and
tough. Solicitors were delighted to find a
young man who was devoid of vanity, and
had no ambition to make himself a name at
the expense of his clients. Briefs were
offered him which were not important
enough for the stars of the profession, but
which demanded an immense amount of
reading, and required to be handled by a
man of talent, content to work hard with,
small prospect of glory, and, often, for not
very high remuneration. Barristers of this
kidney are scarce in all lands, but in France,
perhaps, more so than elsewhere. Whence
it happened that Emile was getting as much
employment as he could manage.
He was looking pale however, so that,
after they had talked a little while together,
Horace prevailed upon him to go to bed.
They wished each other affectionately
good-night; but before retiring to his own
room, Horace passed into his study to see if
there were any letters. There were sev-
eral, chiefly invitations, and in the midst of
the heap, a little packet fastened with blue
ribbons.
56
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
“From whom does this come 2 ” said he,
returning to his brother's room with the
parcel opened, and displaying a dozen cam-
bric bands and as many pocket-handker-
chiefs, exquisitely embroidered with his
initials.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you,” exclaimed
Emile, already in bed, and raising himself
on his elbow; “they were brought up to-
day by our landlord s daughter, in return for
a work-box which she says you gave her.”
“Kind little Georgettel.” ejaculated
Horace.
“She seems an amiable girl,” continued
Emile; “but I met her father to-day in the
street, and he tells me that she is growing
serious and silent, and doesn’t look well.”
C H APTE R XI.
LOVE AND WARs
No, Georgette had not been well lately,
and the excellent M. Pochemolle, his wife,
and even M. Alcibiade Pochemolle, had
been growing a little uneasy at seeing that
the blooming young girl, once so gladsome,
had become by degrees unaccountably sub-
dued and pensive. They questioned her as
to whether she felt unwell, but she replied
that she had no consciousness of being
otherwise than usual — that there was
nothing the matter.
And yet matter there was, though proba-
bly Georgette was sincere enough in assert-
ing that she was not conscious of it. Several
weeks had elapsed since the present of the
work-box by Horace Gerold. She had
hemmed him the cambric bands; then, fear-
ing that the gift would not be complete, she
bad wished to add a dozen handkerchiefs,
and this had taken time — it takes time to
work twelve times over the letters H. G.,
when there are so many pauses for reverie
between the stitches. And during the
weeks that she had slowly plied her needle
in marking the cambric with the two initials,
she had seen Horace pass the window every
morning and lift his hat and smile to her as
he went on his way to the newspaper-office;
and she had heard of his having entered
journalism and of his new triumphs in that
profession. Out of compliment to his lodger,
and although he indignantly repudiated the
doctrines advocated in that print, M. Poche-
molle had made it a point to subscribe to
the “Sentinelle,” and in the evening, when
she retired to her room, Georgette took the
paper with her and would sit up in her bed
reading the articles by Horace. She did
not always understand them at first, but she
would read them over and over until she
did ; and if she was not successful after
many readings, then she would read the
signature a multitude of times, and that
pleased her: she fancied, somehow, the let-
ters were in his own handwriting. When
she had read the papers she put them all
carefully by in a drawer. M. Alcibiade
Pochemolle sometimes wondered what be-
came of them.
She no longer carried up their letters to
the brothers when they were brought to the
wrong door. There is an instinct in these
things. But she would gaze with curious
scrutiny at the envelopes directed in femi-
nine hands. When there were none such
she was happier.
She had noticed, with the quick eye of a
woman for such trifles, that Horace Gerold
was turning fashionable. He had an eye-
glass, wore light-colored gloves and lacquered
boots, smoked cigars instead of the cigar-
ettes which he used to twirl himself, and
always came home at night in cabs. She
could hear the vehicles stop in the street
outside, and then his step as he mounted
the staircase. She never went to sleep
until she heard that step — not if it were
delayed till four o'clock in the morning.
One day, Horace had come into the shop
and brought them a, private box for the
opera—she had once remarked in his pres-
sence that she loved music. The perform-
ance was Robert le Diable. Nothing could
have been more hospitable or more full of
tact than the arrangements made by him
for their comfort. He had chartered a pri-
vate brougham to convey and bring them
back; and in the second entr’acte had paid
them a visit in their box, bringing two
bouquets, one for herself and one for her
mother, and a fine cornet of bonbons, with-
out which the happiness of a Parisian
bourgeoise at the “playhouse" is never com-
plete. Upon the drawing up of the curtain
he had discreetly taken his leave. It had
been a great evening for everybody. M. Alci-
biade Pochemolle had never put on so much
bear's-grease in the course of his existence,
and the sight of the corps-de-ballet made his
fingers tingie; M. Pochemolie had reckoned
that there were at least a hundred square
yards of canvas in the drop-scene; Madame
Pochemolle had been much impressed by
the resurrection of the ghost-nuns in the
church-yard scene. As for Georgette, she
had remarked but one thing, and that was,
that Horace on returning to his stall had
bowed to several stately and beautiful ladies
in the boxes, and that at the close of the
third act he had appeared in the box of one
covered with diamonds, whom M. Foche
molle had recognized for a Marchioness of
LOVE AND WAR.
67
the noble Faubourg. Alone in her room
after the opera, and with her bouquet in
her hand, the poor child shivered mourn-
fully. Who was she that she could hope to
vie with ladies who wore diamonds and
were Marchionesses? It was evident M.
Gerold had never given her a thought.
Nevertheless, she had moments of flitting
compensation ; and her cheeks mantled on
the morrow of the day when Horace had
found her present on his table and came
down to thank her with his bright voice,
which seemed to her more refined and
gentle each time she heard it. He drew
out one of the handkerchiefs, which was
lightly scented with mignonette, admired
the embroidery of the initials — indeed no
common piece of workmanship — and play-
fully observed he intended keeping this
fine linen for great occasions: “My wed-
ding-day, for instance,” said he, “providing
I ever do marry.” And at these words she
turned pale anew ; it was like a cloud pass-
ing rapidly over a furtive sunbeam.
The probabilities are that Horace did
not remark this pallor, though he could
not help noticing in a general way that she
was changed since he had spoken with her
last. He told her how sorry he was to
hear she had been unwell, and drew forth
the rather faltering answer that, indeed,
she felt in perfect health.
This time he was struck with the tone
of the reply, and it recurred to him at in-
tervals in the course of the day, and again
once or twice during the week when pass-
ing by the shop he remarked that Geor-
gette's eyes lowered under his with a new
expression which he did not understand.
Then this circumstance faded out of his
mind under the pressure of graver pre-occu-
pations which soon beset him.
He underwent the common lot of Pa-
risian journalists, and got engaged in a
quarrel with a brother penman in the
opposite camp. The fault was not his, nor
altogether his adversary’s, but that of the
admirable political system under which
they both lived. The conditions of the
French Press were then such that journal-
ists could not well help coming to logger-
heads, try as they might. The unlucky law
Tinguy-Laboulie (named after the two old
gentlemen who promoted it), which ren-
dered it binding upon the writer of an
article to sign his name to it, had complete-
ly disorganized the old anonymous Press by
substituting individualism for combined ac-
tion, and conflict of personalities for polem-
ic of opinions. The staff of a newspaper
was no longer a disciplined company, but
a band of sharp-shooters, each of the mem-
bers of which, being personally responsible
for the opinions he emitted, naturally did
his utmost to assert himself. Had the
Press been free, the discussions be-
tween man and man need not necessarily
have degenerated into violence, for it is
not the tendency of educated men to abuse
one another when they have fair arguments
at their command. But, hemmed in as
journalists were on every side by penal
clauses, which made it impossible to write
on any subject with latitude, the temptation
to glide from trammelled controversy into
exchange of personal invectives was often
irresistible. Opposition writers would break
out into vituperation, as a train will jump
off the line because obstacles are set in the
way of its straight course; but more fre-
quently the aggressors were the members
of the semi-official Press. These gentle-
men, being obliged to defend the acts of
their Government, by hook or by crook,
might have found the task an up-hill one
had the only weapons allowed them been
those of logic ; but matters were much
simplified when they could champion Im-
perial policy with a pen in one hand and a
foil in the other. If the pen found nothing
to say, the foil came to the rescue, and it
was not an unusual thing to attempt silen-
cing troublesome writers in the liberal ranks
by picking a series of bones with them,
until they either held their peace, overawed,
or retaliated by spitting a few of their an-
tagonists one after the other. This was
what was tried with Horace.
There was an Imperialist paper named
“Le Pavois,” and on the staff of it one M.
Paul de Cosaque, a Creole, with a frizzly
head of hair, large round eyes, and hands
like small shoulders of mutton. This prom-
ising youth, though not above five and
twenty, was the Quixote of his party, serv-
ing the dynasty in a devoted 8. way,
and hating oppositionists as a tough young
bull-dog might vermin. He was not long
in taking offence at the successes of Horace.
Hearing his name so constantly mentioned,
he ended by growing tired of it, and did not
conceal his longing for an opportunity of
coming into collision with one whose popu-
larity he was pleased to regard as in some
sort a personal affront to himself. So he
proceeded to do what is called in journal-
istic phrase “laying a man on a gridiron,”
which means that he collared Horace Ge-
rold and served him up every day to the
readers of the “Pavois,” skewered through
and through with an epigram. They were
somewhat blunt, these epigrams of M. Paul
de Cosaque, but the intention of them was
plain enough, and, at the outset, Horace
was for despatching a couple of seconds to
request that satisfaction might be afforded
him. But, with a shrug, Nestor Roche
pooh-poohed this notion, saying it were

68
TEIE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
^e
best to take no heed of the barking of a
cur; so that M. Paul, perceiving a reluc-
tance to quarrel, set down his adversary for
a chicken-heart, and began unwisely to
crow cock-a-whoop before the time.
Now one day, after this fleabiting had
been going on for some weeks, Horace
wrote a leader in the “Sentinelle” on the
subject of the privacy of the parliamentary
debates. It was a very temperate article,
though not without a dash of acid, and it
had been ably revised by Nestor Roche,
who had given it the backbone it at first
* anted. Several foreign papers, and most
of the liberal provincial organs, quoted it;
and as the law which debarred the public
from knowing what went on in their own
Parliament was an ever-chafing sore, the
author received a good many congratula-
tions from Boulevard politicians. This was
just the sort of occasion M. Paul de Co-
saque had been looking for. He was down
on the article in a trice, dipping his pen in
his smartest verjuice, and howling out abuse
much as a faithful negro might do who had
seen his master's shins scraped. Horace
was on a visit to his editor at the prison of
Ste. Pélagie when the number of the “Pa-
vois” containing M. Paul's attack fell into
his hands. Nestor Roche, Max Delormay,
and another captured journalist named
Jean Kerjou of the “Gazette des Boule-
vards,” were sitting at the table writing.
The printer's devil, Trigger, who had just
brought all the morning papers in a vast
bundle under his arm, was planted on a
chair, whence his legs dangled, and his
one eye squinted, waiting for “copy.” Hor-
ace himself was lounging on the Ottoman
and smoking as he read.
He started up with the color rising to
his face and an indignant glare in his eyes.
“Look at this, M. Roche,” he said, and
began to stride about the room, biting his
lips. “It is time this should end now. I
shall send the fellow my seconds this after-
noon.”
“No; wait till to-morrow,” put in Jean
Kerjou. “I shall be out of prison then, and
I'll act for you. Who is the man * *
Nestor Roche ran his quickglance through
the column and presently answered: “Well,
my boy, it's one of the necessities of our
trade to fight as well as scribble. This
whelp's trying to draw you; you must
break his teeth. But, first, we'll just give
him a rap with his own weapons and make
his copper-colored knuckles ring.”
. The four journalists were soon in consul-
tation round the board with the open num-
ber of the “Pavois’ before them. What
they wanted was to draw up a retort which
should strike at the weak place in M. Paul’s
armor, and make that sword-clinker yell.
This weak place was not difficult to find.
M. Paul, like many other worthy people, was
not above the foible of vanity, and had
tacked on to his patronymic a name which
did not lawfully belong to him. His real
style and title was Paul Panier; but Panier
being an ugly name, signifying “basket,”
he, or rather he and his father between
them, had discarded it in favor of the more
sounding designation De Cosaque, whicl, was
derived from the country residence of the
elder Panier. But these usurpations are
formally prohibited by law under pain of im-
prisonment; and it was, therefore, very
much like throwing projectiles out of a
glass-house when M. Paul delivered himself
as follows, in his attack upon Horace;—
. “As for these so-called Republi-
cans, who go about under false names, being
ashamed to wear the titles which their
fathers bore, lest they should compromise
their popularity with the rabble; as for
these self-styled Democrats, who refuse
homage to a king, but fawn sycophantly
upon the mob, and see no better way of
currying favor with their masters than by
making litter of all the distinctions their
own ancestors won, just like those low
birds who befoul their own nests; — as for
these men, we know what is their object in
asking that the debates of the Chamber
may again be thrown open to public
audiences. They have not forgotten 1793,
when the galleries were filled with drunken
trollops, whose blood-thirsty howls gave
our precious Republicans the courage they
needed to send old men, women, and
fallen kings to the scaffold; nor 1848,
when the scum of our galleys infested the
Strangers' tribunes to cheer the dismal
buffooneries of such men as the citizen
Manuel Gerold. We should not wonder if
those who ask that the tribunes may be
thrown open again, had an eye to some
day becoming deputies themselves; but,
being aware of the contempt with which
their utterances would be received by men
of sense, they wish to make sure of having
an audience of kindred spirits — like those
tenth-rate actors who, unable to excite ap-
plause in the stalls and boxes, pick some
poor devils out of the gutter and hire them
for five sous a night to go and clap their
hands in the pit.”
There was nothing uncommon in the
form of this effusion; it was the true semi-
official style of the period.
Nestor Roche prepared the following
reply, which Horace signed : —
“The MARQUIs of CLAIREFONTAINE to
M. PAUL PANIER.
“The gentleman on the staff of the
‘Pavois’ who calls himself M. ‘de Cosaque,’
LOVE AND WAR.
69
is respectfully informed that the undersigned
writer will resume the title he inherited
from his ancestors on the day his courteous
antagonist does likewise. M. Paul ‘de
Cosaque’ will doubtless see fit to perform
this resumption without delay, lest the
Public Prosecutor, forgetting that M. ‘de
Cosaque’ is a Bonapartist, and remember-
ing only that he is a transgressor of the
law, which forbids persons to adopt nobiliary
particles to which they have no right,
should order his transfer to Mazas, and so
afford him the opportunity of making a
closer acquaintance with those “scum of
the galleys,’ with whose language, as well
as with whose habits, M. ‘de Cosaque’
appears so conversant.
“HORACE GEROLD.”
This again was a very fair specimen of
an Opposition retort.
“This will save you the trouble of send-
ing a challenge,” remarked the editor.
“The whelp will probably begin operations
himself; ” and he handed the slip to Trig-
ger, who, after receiving his usual instruc-
tion not to loiter with fellow gamins,
shambled off with it to the printing-office.
The effect, however, was not quite what
Nestor Roche and his acolytes expected.
On reading the stinging paragraph M.
Paul de Cosaque blanched, but he did not
set out in quest of seconds. IIe caught up
his hat and went off prowling in the direc-
tion of the Boulevards, grinding his white
creole teeth, and clinching his fists so tight
that the nails left four dents in each of the
brown palms. He wanted to find Horace
and knock him down; then fight him with
steel afterwards. There is no profession
like literature for making a man mild and
brotherly.
Horace was breakfasting at one of the
great restaurants, and with him, as it’
chanced, was Jean Kerjou, the man of the
“Gazette des Boulevards,” who had been
released from confinement in the morning.
He was a Breton, this journalist, short,
but thick and powerful, and amazingly
prompt with his hands, like all Bretons.
He had taken a fancy to Horace, who knew
but little of him, and the pair were, so to
say, watering their new-sprung friendship
in this breakfast.
Suddenly Jean Kerjou, who sat opposite
the door, dissecting a woodcock, abandoned
his bird, crying, “Haro, Gerold, look out !”
and sprang to his legs. The mulatto face
of M. Paul was darkening the doorway,
and in less than two seconds was within
blow-reach of them.
M. Paul held a newspaper crunched up
in his right hand. He strode up to the
table, jabbered something unintelligible,
and, before any one in the crowded
restaurant could stop him, delivered a
tremendous cuff, which missed Horace’s
head by an ace, alighted, with a loud
thwack, on the countenance of a waiter,
and sent him sprawling on to a table where
lunched a peaceful English family, who set
up piercing cries.
There was an inconceivable uproar,
amidst which a huge slap resounded, and
simultaneously an unholy crash of broken
glass, as some one not distinguishable was
hurled, all of a lump, into a corner. The
slap was administered by Horace: the
crash was caused by Jean Kerjou, who had
caught up M. Paul like a bundle of linen,
and shot him to the other end of the
I’OOII).
Twenty arms at once pinned down the
creole, gnashing and struggling to rise;
twenty others pulled back. Horace Gerold
and Jean Kerjou, to prevent further mis-
chief. Then uprose a deafening contesta-
tion as to who was the aggressor — the
English family shrieking all together that it
was the negro, and the waiter thundering
that it was Horace, seeing that, had the
blow fallen on his cheek as it was meant
to do, half the disturbance would have been
avoided. In the midst of the hubbub en-
tered two policemen, who took down the
names of everybody all round, apprehended
the waiter on the ground that, being splashed
all over with lobster-sauce, he was pre-
sumably the culprit; and, on being even-
tually induced to release him, retired
bewildered, leaving the field clear to a
gentleman with a countenance like a
weasel’s, who, having been witness of the
whole scene, stepped forward, with his
mouth full, and sputtered, “I maintain, it's
an act of the most brutal aggression. M.
Paul de Cosaque, you've conducted your-
self like a villain. Do you hear that 7”
ere was no mistaking this twanging
voice. It was M. Macrobe's. He had been
lunching with a stock-broking friend, and
this friend, fearful that he would get himself
into trouble, now sought to restrain him by
the coat-tails; but M. Macrobe would not
be restrained. He rushed up to the in-
furiated creole, who was with difficulty kept
from flying at his throat, and shouted,
“Men like yourself are a disgrace to the
Press, M. Panier. You convert what
should be the noblest of professions into a
bravo's trade. You deserve to be stamped
out like a pestilent toad, and if M. Gerold
doesn't kill you, I will.”
M. Paul de Cosaque was forcibly dragged
out of the restaurant. M. Macrobe turned,
apparently trembling with the holiest in-
dignation and sympathy, and walked to
where Horace and his friend were standing.
70
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
!
The least Horace Gerold could do for a
man who had taken his part so warmly was
to thank him, which he did at once and
with gratitude, though coldly. M. Maerobe,
not minding the coldness, continued to
strike whilst the iron wall hot.
“My dear young friend,” said he, “that
man is a very cut-throat, lle has had
half a dozen men out already, and will nip
your brilliant eareer short if we let him;
ut trust to me: I will be your second.
It was he who first raised his hand on you.
This makes you the offended party, and
gives you choice of weapons.”
Horace did not much relish the proposal
of M. Maerobe to be his second ; but to re-
fuse would, under the circumstances, have
been both discourteous and ungracious.
Besides, Jean Kerjou did not leave him
time to do so, for, delighted with the pluck
of “ the small man with the ferret face,” he
held out his hand, and said, “Sir, my name
is Jean l'erjou, and I am M. Gerold's other
second. Between us we will see our friend
well through this scrape.”
Further breakfast being impossible,
Horace threw down five napoleons to the
landlord to pay for the breakages, and two
more to the waiter to soothe his throbbing
jaw. Then he, Jean Kerjou, and the
tie. slipped out by a back door to es-
cape the mob, which had already con-
gregated outside, wide-mouthed, and so
home to Horace's lodgings. The two po-
licemen, before retiring, had suggested
that everybody should call upon the Com-
missary of Police during the afternoon to
explain matters; but this formality was
omitted, for the police official could neither
have undone that which was accomplished,
nor prevented that which was to come. In
the course of a couple of hours Jean Ker-
jou and M. Macrobe had routed out Emile
from a musty court, in which he was acting
as junior in a fearfully musty case, and
hastily apprised him of what had happened:
after which they had called upon M. de
Cosaque, and arranged a rendezvous with
the latter's two friends at five. By dinner-
time the duel was all settled. It was to
come off at seven the next morning, in the
Bois de Vincennes, with foils.
Of course the news spread quickly along
the Boulevards, and was received with no
inconsiderable glee by the do-nothing por-
tion of the public. These tiffs between
journalists were the one thing that saved
the press of the period from monotony, and
a duel was always a welcome little episode.
All the evening papers gave accounts of
the fracas at the restaurant; but, in or-
der not to spoil sport, i.e., bring the police
on the ground, they fraternally abstained
from divulging the spot where the fight
was to take place, Nevertheless, they
rinted the names of the contending parties
in full, with those of their seconds, and
hinted significantly that M. Paul de
goshgue was one of the best swordsmen in
&ll"IS,
I3y the advice of his two friends, who
took bodily charge of him during the even-
ing, Horace dined lightly, and gave an
hour to fencing, in which he was already
tolerably proficient. At half-past mine he
was escorted to his door, with injunctions to
go to bed as soon as possible, and be up by
six the next day.
The day might be called an eventful
one, but he mounted his staircase with a
very quiet pulse for a man who was going
to risk his life at sunrise.
Just as he reached the entresol, however,
a door was timidly held ajar, and he was
confronted by Georgette.
She had read of the impending duel in
the newspaper, and ever since her mind
had been distracted by visions of blood
and death. She was pale and terrified,
and held the newspaper in her hands.
When she saw Horace she said nothing,
but shed a few tears.
He was touched by this unexpected
meeting, and by the simple display of grief,
of which he could not but guess the cause.
“Why are you crying, Mademoiselle
Georgette 2 ” he said, gently.
She made no answer, but pointed to the
paragraph in the newspaper.
He took one of her unresisting hands in
his, and said with gayety, “But there is
nothing to be afraid of in that. Duels
happen every day.”
“You may be killed,” she sobbed.
“And if I were, would you grieve for
me 2 ” he asked, half injest, half grayely.
She threw him a sad, reproachful look.
“Don’t speak like that, Monsieur Horace;
you know how unhappy I — how unhappy
we should all be,” added she, correcting
herself.
He took her other hand, looked into her
eyes, and said, “I shall run no danger
Georgette.”
This was the first time he called her
Georgette. She strove gently to free her-
self: but the effort was short-lived.
“Promise me you won’t fight to-morrow,”
she faltered.
“I promise you he shall not hurt me,
Georgette,” he answered, encircling her
waist with his arm.
“Oh, but if he should” — she said,
making another feeble attempt to disengage
herself.
“But he won’t, Georgette.”
li And, stooping, he pressed a kiss on her
198. e
*
I/OVE AND WAR,
71
But theirs was the bliss of a few instants
only, for at that moment the house-door
opened, then closed, and the steps of a
lodger in the vestibule below warned them
to separate.
“Good-night, Georgette," he whispered.
“I shall be safe to-morrow if you return
mg my kiss. It will be Iny talisman.”
IIe was still holding her waist. She
blushed; looked over the balusters to see
if the lodger was coming, and then re-
turned him his kiss.
The next morning betimes, one of the
keepers of the Bois de Vincennes, return-
ing to his cottage from night-duty, beheld
two broughams, following each other at an
interval of a few minutes, sweep along
the road to the race-course, and stop near
a scCluded knoll, distant some couple of
hundred yards from the Grand Stand ;
and, being a man of experience, he knew
what that meant. Chancing to be further
a shrewd man, he resolved upon retracing
his steps, and, instead of going home, to
take up his position at a distance, though
within eye-view, so as to be ready to come
forward when every thing was over and
earn an honest twenty-franc piece, by un-
dertaking to preserve secrecy. To these
ends he ensconced himself behind the trunks
of some felled trees. M. Macrobe, who
had managed matters for Horace, had done
every thing very well. He had brought
his brougham, with store of lint, bandages,
restoratives, &c., concealed in the pocket ;
the most eminent surgeon in Paris on
one of the front seats; and a pair of the
finest duelling-ſoils in a chamois bag. He
had quite won the graces of Jean Ker-
jou, both by his energy, his practical hints,
and the loud-spoken sympathy he evinced
for Horace. In sooth, M. Macrobe had
been somewhat gloomy the preceding af.
ternoon, on his principal insisting upon
fighting with foils; and his gloom had
not cleared up until he had seen , how
Horace bore himself in the fencing-school.
IIorace, though he never boasted of it, and
never sought to air his talent, was a good
fencer; having been originally taught by
his father, who, first as a nobleman, then
as an officer, and finally as a journalist,
had served a treble apprenticeship in sword-
craft. M. Macrobe was elated to see the
manner in which he could parry and lunge,
and though he would still have preferred
pistols, on the ground that a man with
steady nerves can blow his adversary out
of life with this weapon, and not allow
time to be shot at in return, yet he felt con-
siderably re-assured as to his principal's
prospects even against such an antagonist
as M. de Cosaque.
IIorace (Herold's party were the first on
the ground. Upon the others appearing,
the eight gentlemen all bowed together,
but there were no negotiations attempted
— the insults exchanged being buch as
could only be washed out by blood-8hed.
The two seconds of M. de Cºaque -- one
a colonel of the Imperial Guard and a
man of the coup-d'état, the other, M. de
Gargousse, an official deputy — selected the
ground along with M.M. Macrobe and Ker-
jou, and then examined the different pairs
of foils that had been brought. By com-
mon consent those of M. Macrobe were
chosen ; they were very ribbons of 8teel,
that could be bent so that the point fouched
the handle without Snapping. Whilst these
preliminaries were being adjusted, the two
principals took off their coats, waistcoats,
hats, cravats, and boots — so as not to slip
on the wet morning grass; — and opened
their shirts a little, as etiquette required,
to show that they wore no mail-coat next
the skin. Meantime, the two surgeons,
standing aside and conversing in a low
voice, fumbled in their pockets to open
their surgical cases, in order that no time
might be lost when their cheerful services
were needed. The morning was deliciously
balmy; and in the wood could be heard
the tinkling of a cart-bell, and the lively
voice of the carter speaking to his horse
as they jogged together to their work,
It is only human beings who could think
of fighting on such a morning as that.
There was a silence. The combatants
were face to face, two yards apart. The
Colonel having measured the foils, gave
one to each, then joined the two weapons
by the points, and, stepping back with
head uncovered, said, “ Allez, Messieurs.”
Then the guard ensconced behind the fallen
trees saw this: —
The strongest of the two duellists, he with
the dark face and large hands, bore down
upon his adversary with a terrific onslaught,
forcing him to “break” and parry wildly;
then, when it seemed as though the quick-
ness of the retreat must cause the slighter
combatant to lose his balance, the other
made a rapid, furious lunge. The attack
was so formidable that any but a first-rate
fencer would have been carried off his legs
by it. The guard — an old soldier —
winced. But the slighter man rallied with
desperate strength, struck up the sword that
was within a hair's breadth of his heart,
plunged forward, and with the suddenness
of lightning thrust his foil through his ad-
versary’s chest, up to the hilt. The whole
thing did not last fifty seconds. M. Paul de
Cosaque rolled over on the grass, with the
foil still in him, quite dead.
Four out of the seven spectators turned
72
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
pale. The Colonel glanced at Horace, and
saluted him with respect. M. Macrobe
pressed up and wrung his hand. The
guard loomed from behind his trees and
came up slowly, in pursuit of his twenty
francs.
CHAPTER XII.
M. MACROBR OFFERS MONEY.
THE lucky hazard that had thrown M.
Macrobe in the way of IIorace at the restau-
rant, had gratified one of that sagacious
financier's most deep-rooted wishes. A few
days before, talking with M. Louchard, the
Commissary of Police, with whom, as with a
good many strange persons, he was on affa-
ble terms, the latter had said to him : “By
the way, M. Macrobe, do you know that the
Foung radical who spoke against you in the
ibel-suit, is by birth a marquis, and owns
vast wealth ''''
“Yes, I know it,” responded M. Macrobe
curiously; “but how did you know it?”
“Why, after the trial, seeing that the
popularity of this young man threatened to
become a danger to public order, the Pre-
fect sent me to search his apartments.”
Here M. Louchard lowered his voice, for
they were in a public place, and gave an
account of his domiciliary visit to the bro-
thers' lodgings, omitting that episode, how-
ever, which related to the threat of Horace
to break his head. “And, odd to say,” he
concluded, “we found a deed by which the
old Republican, Manuel Gerold, makes over
to his two sons the whole of the estates of
Hautbourg during his own lifetime.”
M. Macrobe pricked up his ears.
“Have you that deed still in your posses-
sion, M. Louchard 2’
“Why, yes,” answered the commissary,
glad to interest the powerful financier., “I
took it to the Prefect, who read it, but ordered
me to return it, the document being a fami-
ly paper of no use to us. I should have
done so ere now, but forgot. However,
this deed has not been so useless as M. le
Prefect pretends: for it has proved to us
that these two young Gerolds are an ex-
tremely suspicious pair. Having wealth,
they yet live as if they had nothing, which is
evidence enough that they must lay out their
money to unlawful ends. We suspect they
are subsidizing secret societies, and we have
ot them under close supervision.
“Oh I they are under police surveil-
lance 7"
“The very closest. We have men watch-
ing them day and night. There is not a
thing they do but we know of it.”
“Yet, I’ll be bound you don't know who
they bank with, though this piece of knowl;
edge might have stood you in better stead
than many others which I dare say you
have picked up.” And M. Macrobe looked
rather sarcastically at the man of Police.
“No, we've not found out who they bank
with,” answered M. Louchard reflectively.
“And I suppose you can't tell us.”
“They bank with us,” replied M. Ma-
crobe carelessly; “but I can’t tell you any
thing as to where their money goes. The
revenue of the estates is paid into our hands
every quarter-day by the agent; but it is
drawn out again almost as soon by this same
agent with cheques signed by old M. Ge-
rold. That’s . we know about it.” Then
turning pensive, he added, “You will show
me that deed, M. Louchard.”
“Willingly,” rejoined the other, who
counted that his civility would be repaid
by financial hints; since none knew bet-
ter than M. Macrobe how to give hints
as to securities worth dabbling in, and
shares which, though prosperous in as-
pect, had best be avoided. Everybody
gambled on the Bourse in those days of
jobbing, and M. Louchard did like the
rest. But it was not every one who had
such a master tipster as M. Macrobe to
guide him.
The two went together to M. Louchard's
office, and the banker had a sight of the
deed of gift, which he scrutinized long and
narrowly. In return for the favor he thus
advised M. Louchard:—“The shares of the
Crédit Parisien are quoted to-day at 850.
I’ll let you have twenty of them at 800.
You shall pay me in a month. Hold
fast to them till they're quoted at 1,500,
which they will be in less than a couple
of years, and then sell out.” M. Louchard
almost went down on all fours, thanking
him with transports as a benefactor.
The deed of gift set M. Macrobe think-
ing. He was an astute man, and soon put
his thoughts into plain figures. So long as
he had imagined that Horace Gerold would
have to await his father's death before step-
ping into the Hautbourg estate, he had
treated the angling of him as a thing that
could be undertaken leisurely; but now that
Horace was actually master of his property,
he was a fish to bait and hook with the least
delay possible. M. Macrobe had reached
that pitch of wealth, where gold comes
flowing in like a Pactolus on the immutable
principle by which rivers always roll their
waters towards the sea, which has enough
without them. But his were paper riches.
They were the riches that give a man con-
sideration on 'Change, make his name
M. MACROBE OFFERS MONEY.
73
familiar among broker, and cause the out-
side public to speak of him as a warm man.
M. Macrobe, however, desired something
more than this. With opulence had come
tlie ambition which opulence begets. The
enriched stockjobber longed to be somebody,
and the surest way to become somebody is
to be at the head of an ancient name and a
substantial landed estate — neither of which
essentials M. Macrobe possessed. Under the
circumstances, it was not very surprising
that a man, accustomed like him to put
things in black and white, should think of
his daughter, and propose making her min-
ister to his honesiambition. If she should
marry a nobleman with influence at his
command, that influence would naturally
be at the service of her father, and give him
a lift into that political world, where M.
Macrobe now longed to try his powers. He
turned over this thought maturely and in an
infinite variety of lights, but always with
the same result, to wit, that Horace Gerold
and his daughter Angélique were evidently
made for one another.
With M. Macrobe to plan was to resolve.
Obstacles did not daunt him. He had sur-
mounted so many already to make himself
what he was, that the aversion which the two
Gerolds testified towards him struck him as
a mere vexatious circumstance — nothing
more. That he should finally overcome
the ill-feeling, he did not for a moment
doubt; and he set himself to the concoc-
tion of sundry diplomatic schemes, by which
he and IIorace were to be brought together.
But the merit of these schemes he never
had the need to test, for as we have seen,
hazard suddenly played his cards for him,
and did more in a day than he, by his wits
unaided, could have done in a twelve-
month.
After the duel Horace was bound to him
by one of those ties which men of honor re-
gard as strong. He had espoused the young
man's quarrel openly and fearlessly in pub-
lic, thus risking his life for him — there
being no question that, had M. Paul de
Cosaque triumphed, he would have vis-
ited M. Macrobe's interference in such a
way as to lay that gentleman and his
schemes of glory six good feet under ground.
IIorace might regret not having acted with
more caution in accepting M. Macrobe's
friendly offices; but it was too late for repent-
ance now. He was under an obligation to
the financier, and the latter determined, by
a skilful stroke, to put all that remained of
his antipathy to flight.
It had been somewhat of a shock to
Nestor Roche, when he heard that his
young ally had gone out to fight, with the
slippery stock-jobber for his second; and
though, upon Horace rushing into the
prison-room a couple of hours after the
duel, the joy at beholding him safe was
such as, for the moment, to dispel all other
pre-occupations, yet by and by, when the old
editor had had time to grow calm and gruff
again, he said, with a shade of pain, “I
could have wished to see you with a wor-
thier henchman on the field, my boy.”
“I could have wished to have had you,”
replica Horace, gravely; “but I owe a debt
to M. Macrobe.”
And he proceeded to relate what had oc-
curred, being backed in his narrative by
Jean Kerjou, who spoke of the financier as
having behaved throughout “like a trump.”
This did not convert Nestor Roche, but it
appeased him, though soon his brow grew
dark again, when Horace said, a little
timidly, “And, do you know, I have a mes-
sage from this very M. Macrobe to you, M.
Roche 2°
“To me!” exclaimed the editor, impas-
sively.
“Well, yes. This morning, after the
duel, M. Kerjou, here present, and I break-
fasted with him, and he fell to talking about
the libel-trial. He was very frank, but full
of tact about it. He said we must not bear
him a grudge for having defended his good
name, but that he sought to make no profit
out of the action, and that he hoped you
would take back the five and twenty
thousand francs damages the court had
made you pay.”
Here Horace drew out a pocket-book.
Nestor Roche frowned.
“You needn't offer me that man's money.
If he is lucky enough to persuade you that
he is an injured man, I have nothing to say;
but you know my opinion of him. I’ve not
changed it.”
“Yet it seems to me this should induce
us to mitigate our judgment,” observed
Horace, sticking up for the man who had
stood by him. “After all, I daresay he's
no worse than thousands of others we call
honest men; and here he has sent you back
your twenty-five thousand francs, which is
a great deal more than many others would
have done.”
Nestor Roche eyed him rather com-
passionately, and answered with dryness: —
“My boy, men will always get the
weather-side of you with smooth tongues.
Think well of this stock-jobber if you like,
but take him back his money.”
And he would not hear a word more
on the subject.
Horace felt hurt at this shortness, and so
did Jean Kerjou a little, for it did not suit
this straightforward Breton to suppose that
he had been shaking hands with a man
who had any taint on him. He said so
frankly, and was putting it with some
74 º
TEIE MEMBER FOR PARIS. '
éarnestness to Nestor Roche whether the
latter had any thing definite to allege
against the banker Macrobe, when Max
Delormay, the editor Tirecruchon, and a
number of other political captives, tumbled
in, attracted by the report of Horace
Gerold's presence.
Much hand-shaking ensued, as well as
congratulations on the issue of the duel;
but of pity for the fallen man not a word.
To be sure, M. de Cosaque was not a per-
Sonage in whose favor one could get up
much sympathy. He had been as a
Goliath in the midst of his party, over-
shadowing his foes with his shoulder-of-
mutton fist, slapping their faces on slender
pretexts, and transfixing them afterwards
without remorse. To have wished him
alive would have been to wish an ever-
threatening foil over one's head.
“A more bloodthirsty dog I never set
eyes on,” ejaculated the fat M. de Tire-
cruchon, with a sigh of relief. “Egad I he
had me out once. Happily, it was with
pistols, but he blew half the rim of my hat
away.”
“De mortuis’” — began homest Jean
Kerjou. He had not yet got over the
tragic episode of the morning.
Soon the room was hazy with tobacco-
Smoke, and a dozen prisoners lay or sat
recumbent on Sofa, arm-chairs, and otto-
man; Horace forming the centre of the
group, seated on a low stool, and being
made much of by the rest. Still a little
sore at Nestor Roche's strictures upon M.
Macrobe, he was rather moody and silent,
and hoped the financier and his offer would
be allowed to drop for a while, until he
could be alone with Nestor Roche, and
talk the point over with him. But Jean
Kerjou, who was uneasy, and wanted to
get his mind clear, made haste to resume
his interrupted appeal to the editor, and
so drew on a general discussion concerning
M. Macrobe's proposal to refund the
damages. The case was quite a novel one,
and tolerably difficult to pronounce upon
impartially. Opinions were pretty equally
divided.
M. de Tirecruchon, who was nothing if
not indulgent of everybody's foibles, his
own included, held stoutly with the
Macrobians.
“ Corbleu !” he exclaimed, rolling one of
his flat panatellas between two thick fingers,
and glancing at his editorial brother with
surprise – “Corbleul Roche, you’re not
going to refuse such an offer as that? Of
course Macrobe is more or less of a rogue,
but aren't we all rogues, present company
excepted 2 I wouldn’t give a fig for a man
who wasn’t something of a rogue. Besides,
don't you see that the more you’ve got to
say against the man, so much the greater
is the reason for taking his money? If what
you said against him was true, ergo, it was
no slander: consequently, the damages were
unjustly assessed, and, therefore, obviously,
you have a right to re-pocket them.”
Horace bridled up.
“I didn't wish to see the matter viewed
in that light; I would rather the offer were
accepted generously, as it was made, and
that we should acknowledge, some of us,
that we may have been a little hasty in
judging M. Macrobe.”
“Yes, so should I,” assented Jean Kerjou,
candidly; “or, at least,” added he, “I
should like to hear something plain and
provable against this man.”
M. Max Delormay here felt it due to
himself to protest emergetically. The
famous paragraph he had written against
M. Macrobe, and for which he, as well as
others, were suffering fines and imprison-
ment, had gradually come to assume in his
eyes the proportion of an historical event.
He was not very remote from the idea that
since this paragraph the financier had
become somehow his own peculiar private
property, and that to speak of him in any
way, either pro or con, without his, Max
Delormay’s, Sanction, was to defraud him,
Max Delor may, of his just privileges. Ac-
cordingly, he claimed his right to protest,
and, in that sober tone which Frenchmen
have when they don’t know what they are
saying, made a speech which nobody under-
stood, he least of all ; but which concluded
with a panegyric of the Spartan Republic,
as being a place where commercial morality
flourished. * . .
M. de Tirecruchon puffed his jovial face
with an air of bewilderment, and criod :
“Tut, Max, you're running off with the
wrong bone. The question is, whether
Roche shall accept back 25,000 francs paid
by him as damages for an article you wrote.
I say yes; and I’ve given you my reasons.
As for morality nowadays, I’ll tell you
what it just amountë Jo — Lot being found
out. Go you into the streets, and take at
haphazard out of our church-folk, politi-
cians, tradesmen, or out of us journalists,
any hundred men, and I will be bound
there are not two out of the lot whose lives
will bear looking into with a microscope.
Hang it all I let us not get to prying too
closely behind each other's curtains. I
don't know who this Macrobe is. In times
past he may have been a coiner, for all I
can tell; but at present the Government
accepts him, the Law accepts him, and
Society accepts him, so why shouldn't I?
For come! what would it profit me, if
after making the acquaintance of the man,
finding him pleasant, sensible, ready to do
gº M, POCHEMOLLE'S REQUEST.
75
one a good turn, &c., I were to go and rake
up the diary of his life, to see if I could
discover one soiled page in it 7 To-mor-
row the fellow might die; and what should
I have gained by my trouble then 7 — not
even the pleasure of cutting him. Much
better seek to know nothing about the
soiled page, and take the fellow's hand so
long as I find it agreeable. Of course if I
receive proof positive that the fellow is a
cur, that's another question; but I haven't.”
A small, dark man, squatting near the fire
and Smoking a clay pipe, whom Horace
knew as the Citizen Albi, a political con-
spirator, who unaffectedly admired Robes-
pierre, and was of opinion that the Reign
of Terror had failed in its effects from
not being quite stringent enough, here
broke in vehemently :
“Your views are as immoral as they well
can be. If adopted they would be the char-
ter of successful rogues. When you are
hiring a servant you rake up all you can
about him, and if you find a speck you draw
back. I see no difference between rich
rogues and poor. I have never yet given
my hand to a man whose life was not as
clear to me as the noon-day, and, so help
º own contempt for scoundrels, I never
Will.”
“And what is the result, my poor Albiº"
rejoined the stout editor, unruffled. “Why,
ever since you could hold a musket you have
been in open war with Society.
your short life of thirty years, you have
spent eight in transportations or imprison-
ments; and I dare say, if I could read in
your heart, I should find smouldering there
the scheme of some new communistical era
of guillotining, by which you hope to regen-
erate us. Those are gloomy principles, my
poor friend, which make you thirst for our
blood so ardently, and oblige Society in its
own defence to make you pine away the best
years of your young life behind prison
bars.”
“I do not see that I am to be pitied,” an-
swered Albi, in the same energetic tone as
before. “Every man has his ambition.
That of some men is to fill a pocket with
gold picces, that of others to tie a piece of
red silk round their necks; yours is, I be-
lieve, to sell more copies of your newspaper
than your neighbor over the way. I have
mine, too, which is to establish a Republic
of honest men. I care not the price I pay.”
“And what is your idea of an honest
man 7 ° inquired Horace, eying him with
curiosity.
Albi took the pipe out of his mouth and
looked at him hard.
“You Gerolds are honest men,” he said,
slowly; “your father is an honest man and
a credit to human nature. Your brother
Out of
promises to be like him; and I trust you
will, too. You have been so hitherto.” And
He laid a marked stress on that word hitherto.
CHAPTER XIII.
M. POCHEMOLLE'S REQUEST.
THERE was no more talk about the five
and twenty thousand francs. The conspira-
tor Albi's utterances had fallen upon the
free and easy conversation like a blast of
hot air, withering it up by the roots. M.
de Tirecruchon lapsed silent; and, pres-
ently, two of the crop-haired inmates of
the penal wing coming in to lay the lun-
cheon-cloth, Horace Gerold and Jean Ker-
jou took their leave.
“Lucky dogs | * sighed the fat editor, ac-
companying them to the end of the passage.
“Yet two months before I may taste fresh
air with you.” He shook Horace's hand
warmly, but holding it an instant, said:
“Listen, M. Gerold. You pull too strong
an oar for the “Sentinelle.’ You’re a man
of independent views, and don’t like run-
ning in grooves; as well harness a race-
horse to a stone cart, as keep you on a Rad-
ical paper. Your six months will be over
soon. Come to me, you will find no dog.
matism, and I don’t set up for lecturing my
contributors as to the acquaintances they
choose.”
Horace colored at this innuendo. Truth
to say, he felt humiliated by the rebuke of
Nestor Roche, and by the covert warning
implied in the last words of Albi. Time
was when he might have submitted to be
sermonized by the old Republican, whom
he esteemed ; but success had raised his
spirit, and he resented the stiffness with
which the overtures of M. Macrobe, as con-
veyed through him, had been repulsed.
There was something quite unreasonable
in this frame of mind; for Nestor Roche
might surely be excused for not feeling
gushingly towards the man who had put
him into prison; but reason is not the forte
of youth; and in his pique, Horace be-
thought him seriously that he had a griev-
ance against his editor.
He said as much to Jean Kerjou as they
left Sainte Pélagie; and emitted one or two
bitter reflections as to the obstinacy of old
Republicans.
Jean Kerjou, being a Breton, was a Legiti-
mist, and a Catholic, and one who did
not understand Republicans, nor quite real-
ize what it was they wanted. #. attach-
ment to Horace had been formed on entirely
76
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
personal grounds; but as he himself wore
amulets next his shirt, signed himself when
he swore, and never mentioned the name of
Henri V. without doffing his hat, it was a
subject of wonder to him how any one of
his birth and talent, could profess the opin-
ions which Horace Gerold did. In a simple
tone, and rather puzzled, he answered: “I
can’t quite make out your party; you don’t
seem to agree among you as we do.”
“Are there no men in your party who set
up for oracles?” asked Horace; the puri-
tan sternness of Nestor Roche, and the
caustic fervor of Albi, recurring to him and
nettling him.
“Perhaps there may be, hut I don’t know
them,” replied the Breton, naively. “I am
sure, though, we have none who lecture
about morality as I've heard them do every
time I have been in the company of Re-
publicans. Why don't you join our paper?”
he added. “Tirecruchon is a loose fish on
the surface, but a good fellow underneath;
and he sets us no tether, you know ; our
staff is like a winter soup, full of herbs of
all colors; we have two or three of your
hue, but we all get on together swimmingly
as beans in a pot.”
Similes were one of the strong points of
Jean Kerjou; they garnished his eloquence
as the small dice of garlic do the roast legs
of mutton in the province which was his
birthplace. Horace, however, made no
answer; and soon they reached the Rue
Ste. Geneviève, where the first person they
met was the courtly M. Pochemolle, who
fingered a long piece of stamped paper which
he had just received from an individual with
a blue bag.
“This is for you, M. Horace. Something
about this morning's business, I'm afraid,”
he added, in a tone of condolence.
True enough. It was a summons to ap-
pear before the Public Prosecutor, on the
charge of having wilfully killed and slain
one Paul Panier, commonly called de Cos-
aque. M. Macrobe and Jean Kerjou were
both included in the summons, for having
unlawfully, and of malice prepense, aided
and abetted the perpetration of that crime.
Horace had already seen the Pochemolles
once that morning, for on his way to Ste.
Pélagie, after breakfasting with M. Ma-
crobe, he had stopped to shake hands with
Emile and show Georgevec, who had been
in sickly suspense since daybreak, that he
was safe. He now walked into the shop
with Jean Kerjou, under pretence of read-
ing his summons, and found Georgette still
pale, but with a ray of happiness in her
eyes. She had just come in from out of
doors, and was drawing off some tiny gray
kid gloves, much smaller and finer than the
daughters of drapers usually wear. So at
least thought Jean Kerjou, who was ob-
serving her.
Madame Pochemolle was as gracious and
smiling as it was her wont to be whenever
M. Horace paid her a visit. M. Alcibiade
Pochemolle, from sheer admiration at the
sight of a man who had sent a fellow-being
to his last account, allowed his ell-measure
to drop. According to M. Alcibiade, the
next best thing to baving courage enough
to kill a man one's self, was to behold some
one who had performed such a deed. M.
Alcibiade much regretted that he himself
knew not how to fence. He was not fero-
cious; indeed, he was rather mild than
otherwise; but he thought he should like
to kill some other draper's son in fair com-
bat.
Jean Kerjou, casting his eyes about the
shop, which was fitted and wainscoted with
the fine old oak of a century ago, lit upon
the two famous prints showing the Rue Ste.
Geneviève such as it existed in the reigns
of Louis XIV., and Louis XV., and having
ventured to admire these heirlooms, was
soon led to discover the monarchical, aristo-
cratical, and clerical proclivities of the
Pochemolle household. The draper, his wife,
and the journalist then fell into harmonious
talk and regrets over those good times when
kings had no legislatures to plague them,
when there was a gibbet stationed perma-
nently in front of Notre Dame, and when
a tradesman of the Rue Ste. Geneviève
would not so much as have eaten an egg on
a Friday without leave from the Bishop of
Paris. Horace followed Georgette into the
little back parlor, where she went to take
off her bonnet. The door remained open,
but there was no reason why any words
spoken there should be heard in the shop.
Horace spoke low.
“You have been for a walk, Georgette 7”
“No,” she murmured; “it was not a
walk.”
“Where then 2 ”
She looked at him with more tenderness
than she was aware of in her glistening
eyes:
“To church,” she whispered.
“To church, Georgettel But this isn’t
Sunday.”
“It’s more than that to me,” she replied,
with a touching accent.
“And to what saint did you pray ?”
A tear or two welled up into her eyes as
she blushed and said, almost inaudibly :
“Could I keep away from thanking the
Virgin on the day when your life has run
such dangers and been spared ?”
There was so much delicate modesty in
her manner of murmuring these words, and
when she had uttered them the emotion
that suffused her face, and the grace which
M. POCHEMOLLE'S REQUEST.
77
love lent to her demeanor, as she wavered
between the fear of having said too much
and the consciousness that all she might
say would ill describe the tenth of what she
felt — gave her such a charm that she
looked to Horace more lovely and attrac-
tive than she had ever seemed before. He
gazed on her with a sort of spell-bound and
astonished admiration, as one contemplates
a picture whose full beauties one had not at
first suspected. But even as he was gaz-
ing the current of his thoughts was turned
by a sudden reflection. A voice rose up
within him and put the question, like a note
of reproof: — Whither was all this tend-
ing, and what did he hope would be the
result of the love which he was encoura-
ging in this poor girl 7
He was not flippant or profligate, and
the question unsettled him. The finer
feelings in his nature revolted at the
thought of trifling with the affections of a
woman — a child almost — who seemed to
have given him her heart; and yet, except
an illicit passion — seduction and its attend-
ant ties — there was but one possible
course open to him, and that was to let
Georgette think that he intended marrying
her; and to do so. He was not prepared
for this last step; and as the conviction
forced itself upon him that he was drifting
into straits where no man ever yet steered
right who did not arm himself with inflexi-
ble resolution, a cloud passed over his
brow, and he bit his lips.
Their eyes met — hers candid and trust-
ful, his restless and uncertain. Then he
said to himself: “I must remove from this
house, else there will be misfortune on us
all.”
He rose abruptly, shook hands with
Georgette without looking at her, muttered
a few words about hoping soon to see her
again, and passed through the shop, telling
Jean Kerjou they would meet by and by,
but that for the present he had letters to
write. He hurried up stairs to his rooms,
repeating to himself in a troubled frame of
mind that he must go, and would explain
why to Emile when the latter came home.
|But before he had reached his door he
heard steps behind him, and the voice of
M. Pochemolle hailed him with a petition
for a minute’s interview: “M. Horace, sir,
if you could be so kind as to give me a mo-
ment of your time. I want to ask your ad-
vice.”
“Walk in,” answered Horace, absent-
When they were alone together—M.
Pochemolle planted on a chair, and rubbing
his ear to find a suitable exordium ; Hor-
ace seated at his desk, expecting it was a
legal opinion that was going to be asked of
him—the draper began : “It’s about
Georgette, sir.”
Horace started, and felt moisture bedev-
ing his forehead.
“Yes, it's about my Georgette, sir,”
continued M. Pochemolle, not noticing any
thing. “If I might make so bold as to say
so, M. Horace, I look upon you almost as
an old friend now. You're a wiser man
too than I am, notwithstanding your years,
which comes of learning; and I want you
to give me advice. To tell you the truth,
sir, our Georgette has not been well of late;
I told your honored brother, M. Emile, so
the other day. She's grown thin and pale,
and doesn’t talk as she used to do, nor
laugh, nor seem to care much for things:
all of which signs have been alarming her
mother and me. But you know how women
are, sir, and I don't think my wife and I
would be likely to agree about our child's
ailment, nor about the remedy for it. I
ascribe a good deal of it to study and book-
reading” (Horace gave a sigh of relief),
“which is very well for men, – at least, for
gentlemen — but isn’t worth a rush for wo—
men. My respected mother—God bless her!
—never read in any book save her ledger
and her breviary, and this didn’t prevent
her making a true wife and a fine woman
of business. But in these times old customs
are dying out, and nothing would serve my
wife but to have our Georgette brought up at
a convent, where they taught her to strum on
the piano, and paint flowers, and tell
straight off on her fingers’ ends who was
Pope of Rome five hundred years ago,
which seems to me about as useless
knowledge for a tradesman's daughter as
well can be. However, it was no good my
attempting to say any thing, for when I
wanted our Georgette to be taught cook-
ing, and book-keeping, and all that makes
a useful housewife, her mother wouldn’t
hear of it. My wife, you see, is of the
modern sort. She wants me to make haste
and get rich, and outshine our neighbors,
and be a finer man than my father was ;
and as for Georgette, she dresses her up in
silk, and counts upon marrying her to some
gentleman who'll be several cuts above us,
and shut his door in our faces when we go
and call upon our child. Now, that's all
very well in its way, but in Georgette's own
interest, M. Horace, I want to prevent it.
Not that I should grudge my daughter a
husband after her own fancy, if I thought
she had set her heart upon any one, and I
found the man was respectable and paid his
bills punctually; but I don’t think she has ;
and there's a youth I have in my mind
who's in love with her, and a very thrifty,
intelligent lad into the bargain, who'd be
sure to make her happy, and I should like
78
TEIE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
to bring the two together.” Horace took
up a $." and hacked it with a pen-knife.
“Who is this youth, M. Pochemolle?”
“Well, sir, he's a commercial traveller.
He’s not often in Paris, but when he does
come he lodges up on the sixth floor above
our heads, renting a room there all the year
round. He's a cheerful young man, always
ready — too ready some say — to crack his
jokes, and has known our Georgette ever
since they were both no higher than this
chair.”
“Indeed l’” broke in Horace, rather
dryly; “is it the gentleman I have met once
or twice on the staircase, who wears a
Scotch tartan waistcoat, with a brass chain
over it, rattles pence in his pockets, and
whistles the ‘Marseillaise' every time he
comes up stairs 2"
“That's he, I daresay,” assented M.
Pochernolle thoughtfully; “though I’ve
never heard him whistle the ‘Marseillaise ; ’
but his chain's gold, M. Horace, I assure
you, and probably eighteen-carat, for he's
very well off. His name's Filoselle; he's
been travelling since he was twenty, getting
five per cent profit on all his commissions,
and he's now twenty-eight, which makes a
good deal of money. If he marries our
Georgette, as he hopes to do, he means to
set up in business for himself with the
savings he has laid by.”
Horace closed his pen-knife with a snap.
“And in what way can I assist you, M.
Pochemolle ‘’” he inquired.
“Well, sir,” responded the draper, too
intent upon his own thoughts to remark
aught unusual in the tone of his lodger, —
“Well, sir, M. Filoselle is a great favorite
with us all, on account of his amusing
ways. I sometimes think he'd make a
stuffed bird laugh, would that young man.
Of a winter evening, when he's in Paris,
he often comes in, and makes himself
sociable, telling stories, and playing tricks
with cards, and the like ; and turning the
things upside down; and my wife thinks
well of him, I’m sure; but between that
and accepting him as a husband for Geor-
gette, it is a long way; and, as for Geor-
gette herself, why, I fancy she looks upon
him as an old playfellow, but nothing else:
so that Filoselle feels in a fix, and last time
he was here, he told me that he shouldn’t
like to touch upon the question with the
women down stairs until I had put in a
good word for him.”
Here M. Pochemolle shrugged his shoul-
ders, and continued, dolefully, “But my
putting in a good word would be just about
as much use as arguing with a deaf post.
My wife is a good woman, and I don’t say
but that she and I have got on smoothly
together; but there's no tackling her about
her daughter. On that point she's hoighty-
toity, and as foolish as women are when
they get any fixed idea into their heads,
I think, though, M. Horace” (and here the
honest draper became appealing), —“I
think you might help us. My wife has a
high opinion of you, which is only natural
and properly respectful on her part, and
supposing, for instance, one day you had
dropped into the shop by hazard like, I was
to set the talk rolling on commercial trav-
ellers, and you were to join in and say
there wasn’t a more honorable profession
going, and that they earned a deal of
money, and were quite on a level with
gentlemen, I think, sir, that might settle it.”
M. Pochemolle fixed his eyes interroga-
tively on Horace.
“And have you yourself this high opin-
ion of commercial travellers ?” asked the
latter.
“Well, I’ve a good opinion of those who
get on in the business,” answered the draper.
“My wife she's all for scented gentlemen
— even when they’ve got nothing in their
pockets, which is less seldom than one Sup-
poses. If she could, she'd make a gentle-
man of me. As it is, she talked me into
doing what I’d never done in my life before
— invest money in one of those giant new
companies that are all full like a balloon to-
day, and all squash like nothing to-morrow.
Happily, it's the Crédit Parisien, which M.
Macrobe tells me is as safe as the Bank of
France — and there's no denying it pays up
well, and the shares are rising like quick-
silver ; but, to speak my mind, M. Horace,
I don't fancy those kind of things. It’s
always been a motto in our family to sell
fairly, to be content with few customers,
but good, and to look to small profits but
safe; and the man I want for my son-in-law
is a man who thinks like me as nearly as
possible — as I believe Filoselle does He's
not a genius, maybe, though geniuses be-
hind the counter seem to me as much out
of place as whales in a fish-tank ; but he's
a shrewd fellow, who'll give his wife a god
home never let himself be caught with chaft,
and keep clear of the Tribunal de Com-
merce.”
The two purple ears, which ornamented
the sides of M. Pochemolle’s head like the
handles of a jug, deepened in hue as he
concluded the panegyric of his prospective
son-in-law, and looked at the young barris-
ter for an answer.
Had Horace prayed for it he could not
have lighted upon a better opportunity of
bringing his as yet innocent, but dangerous
liaison with Georgette to an end. Never-
theless (Oh consistency of human naturel)
the idea of Georgette being married now
caused him, of a sudden, unaccountable
M. MACROBE INSERTS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE,
79
vexation bordering on jealousy. He dis-
missed M. Pochemolle with a vague assur-
ance that he would see about the matter,
and do his best ; and, when the good man
had departed, happy with having obtained
his powerful co-operation, he paced about
his room, pondering how he might best
thwart this intended marriage. Such is
man where women are concerned — a being
more capricious than woman herself.
Of course he did not acknowledge to
himself of what nature were the feelings
that prompted him to think as he was doing,
for the human mind, in its queerest fits of
selfishness, is ever ingenious at putting a
color of honesty on its schemes. He
argued with himself that Georgette was too
good for this commercial traveller, who
wore a tartan waistcoat, and looked like a
snob ; that he would be doing her a service
in preventing her being tied for life to this
man ; that she was a refined, well-educated
girl, who deserved a better fate, &c., &c.
The Devil, who was close at hand, found
him logic as much as he needed.
Whilst he was thus brooding peevishly,
not very well pleased with himself, he
strayed into his brother's room, and stopped,
with his eyes fixed on the portrait of his
and Emile's mother hanging over the man-
tle-piece.
Their mother was as a dim vision to both
the brothers, for she had died when they
were too young to miss the guiding spirit
they were losing. Horace, however, being
by three years the eldest, could remember
more than Emile, and he would often gaze
abstractedly at the portrait, trying to recall
a living image from out of the faint pen-
cilled features. He did so now ; and the
effect upon him was soothing and bene-
ficial, as all thoughts of a loved and lost
mother must be. Whilst he looked, the
unworthy impulses within him seemed
slowly to subside, then to melt. His better
nature regained the mastery. He felt
ashamed of having wavered even for a
moment, and took the resolution there and
then to do his duty. “I must not see
Georgette again,” he murmured ; “and I
had better do what her father wishes — put
in a word for this tradesman.”
“Ah! they told me you were at home,”
cried a voice behind him. “I’ve come to
fetch you off to dinner. You know we’ve
got things to talk about. We're going to
be tried for manslaughter together.”
And M. Macrobe, who had intruded him-
self noiselessly into the room, held out his
hand.
Horace gave a start, but he shook the
hand though it seemed to him that in doing
So he was swearing friendship to a sort of
black-coated Mephistopheles.
CHAPTER XIV.
M. MACROBE INSERTS THE THIN END OF
TIIE WEDGE.
... M. MACROBE's face was against him,
but if you gave him half an hour to talk it
away, and another half-hour to make you
forget the suspicious stories you had heard
concerning him, he was a pleasant compan-
ion. He took Horace to dine at his own
house in the Avenue des Champs Elysées:
not a formal repast with guests eying one
another ceremoniously over white neck-ties,
but what he called a quiet dinner sans
façon, to which he had invited a few nice
fellows, and at which there were no ladies
present. Our young friend was a little
Surprised at the luxury of the banker's resi-
dence, to which he had as yet seen nothing
comparable, not even in the one or two
lordly mansions of the Faubourg St. Ger-
main where it had been his fate to visit.
Every thing, from the glossy livery of the
porter, who swung open the gilt bronze
gates as they drove up, down to the cipher
and crest engraved on the massive plate of
the dinner-table, bore the impress of solid,
although new-made wealth. It was not fool-
ish wealth however, such as does not know
where to bestow itself, and heaps around it
vulgar and cumbersome splendor which
dazzles without exciting admiration. M.
Macrobe had seen too much of life not to
have learned good taste. As he ushered his
guest through a series of spacious and ele-
gantly appointed saloons into a dining-room
teeming with brilliancy and light, he flatter-
ed himself that if there were houses in Paris
equal to his own, there were few superior,
and he was not wrong.
The emotions of the day had been so nu-
merous and varied that they had slightly
unnerved Horace, and disposed him to ac-
cept any diversion as welcome. He was in
that state of mind when friendliness comes
as a balm, and slight attentions are received
with a gratitude deeper, sometimes, than
the occasion warrants. His duel of the
morning — the gloomy horror of which
was beginning to strike him with a dull
force now that he was cool and could reason;
— his unsatisfactory interview with Nestor
Roche ; the doubts that he could not alto-
gether allay, as to the conduct he ought to
have adopted and should adopt in the fu-
ture towards Georgette; all these were
harassing topics, which he was glad to dis-
miss for a while from his agitated brain.
So the dinner was a relief to him, and there-
fore, from M. Macrobe's point of view, a
success. That gentleman had indeed spared
nothing to make it so. The viands were
choice, the conversation agreeable, and the
80
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
guests all men famous in their respective
walks, who treated Horace with a courteous
deference which flattered him. Jean Ker-
jou was there, endowed with the excellent
appetite that befitted his mediaeval tastes,
and, like his friend, not sorry to place the
fumes of champagne between himself and the
bloody scenes of the morning. The Bre-
ton journalist had a constitutional horror of
bloodshed — which was the more remarka-
ble as he himself had been out twice, and
each time killed his man. But, perhaps, in
his opinion this did not count, for he was a
fiery Papist, and the two brother journalists
he had slain were only Voltairians.
The other guests were: Baron Margauld
the banker, husband to the Madame de
Margauld Horace had already met in so-
ciety — a grave emphatic man, suspected of
Orleanism, but respected by the Govern-
ment on account of his solid credit and his
unaffected detestation of Radicals: M. Ar-
sène Gousset, a sparkling novelist, in great
favor at court, and mightily popular with
women, though he passed his time in rail-
ing bitterly at the former and inditing cut-
ting satires upon the latter; and the Prince
of Arcola, descended from one of the first
Napoleon's Field-Marshals — a young gen-
tleman of eight and twenty, with a very
grand air and high tone, tempered, however,
with a good-humored listlessness, which
generally rose to the surface, once the ice of
formalism was broken. This, with the emi-
ment surgeon who had attended the combat
in the morning, made seven who sat down
to table. But presently, when the soup
had been removed, and two giants were
handing round turbot and salmon-trout, en-
tered, like a rush of wind, Mr. Drydust, the
celebrated correspondent of a London pen-
ny paper, who, with florid grace, excused
himself for being late, on the ground that
he had just been having an interview with
the Minister of State. It was the peculiari-
ty and good fortune of Mr. Drydust that he
was always having interviews with Cabinet
Ministers.
As the duel had created a considerable
sensation, and was for the nonce the one
subject of gossip about town, it was unavoid-
able that some allusion should be made to it,
and that Horace should receive the con-
gratulations which are customary under
such circumstances. Mr. Drydust, especial-
ly, seemed to know more about the occur-
rence than the parties themselves. He had
written a full-length and erroneous account
of it to his paper that afternoon, and on
learning that he actually had opposite to
him the man who had rid Paris of the
dreaded M. de Cosaque, he proceeded, some-
what to the dismay of M. Macrobe, to rattle
off with immense volubility, and in first-rate
French, the names of all the illustrious per-
sons of his acquaintance who had fought
duels — winding up with the case of two
distinguished British nobles who had wished
to exterminate one another on Calais sanus,
but had been happily prevented by his time-
ly interference, Horace listened with a
rather embarrassed air; and Jean Kerjou
furtively made the sign of the cross, in obe-
dience to the superstition which holds it
unlucky to speak of slaughter at table. But
Mr. Drydust soon turned his attention to
other themes. He apostrophized the Prince
of Arcola :
“Prince, I was at Chantilly the day be-
fore yesterday, and saw your filly, “Mogador,”
do her canter. Take my advice and back
her in preference to her stable-companion,
‘Namouna,” for the Prix de Diane. I was
talking about it to Lagrange; he thinks
she’ll win.”
“Ah!” said the Prince, languidly, “I
thought Count de Lagrange had got a filly
of his own in the race.”
“So he has ; but I told him it wasn’t
worth a stiver. Lord Martingale was of
the same opinion.”
“Why, what has come over the filly then?
Last week Lord Martingale backed her
against my stable at five to one.”
The Prince of Arcola had two passions:
horse-racing and nobility. On the first he
spent two-thirds of his income, which was
large ; on the second he lavished what spare
time he had, reading books of heraldry and
chivalrous chronicles. It was a most sore
point with him that his title dated no far-
ther back than half a century, and had been
conferred, in a batch, by a Napoleon. He
would have bartered it with all his heart,
high-sounding as it was, for a simple barony
of mediaeval creation; and when M. Macrobe
whispered to him, in introducing Horace
Gerold, that this was the young barrister
who might call himself Marquis of Claire-
fontaine if he chose, he eyed Horace much
as one contemplates a phenomenon, and
soon set the conversation going on the
Castle of Hautbourg, which he appeared to
know from roof to basement, furniture in-
cluded, as if he had been residing there for
the last twelvemonth. He had a way of
talking, when launched on his favorite topics,
which lacked neither fire nor grace; and
Horace followed him with a secret and alto-
gether new interest as he dilated with en-
thusiasm on the broad acres, gray towers,
old pictures, arms and sculptured halls of
Hautbourg. “One of the finest domains I
know,” said he, “in this or any other coun-
try. Do you often go down there for shoot-
ing 7” he added: and this question breaking
the spell, Horace answered, a little dryly,
that he never went there at all. Whereat
M. MACROBE INSERTS THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE.
81
the Prince stared, and by and by observed
with a sigh: “Political conviction must be
very strong, M. Gerold, to make one re-
nounce such treasures. I couldn’t do it.”
Mr. Drydust, who was patronizing the
banker Margauld, giving him information
as to scrip and share, current quotations,
and the prospects of the new %.
loan, here cut in. He had caught the word
“shooting,” and immediately started upon
a description of the great estates with which
he was familiar—Windsor Castle, Knowsley,
Chatsworth, Stowe, Eaton Court, &c.; all
places where, by his own account, he was
wont to go and divert himself with a few
weeks' sport when he had nothing better to
do. His rapid sketches were so vivid and
well-colored that M. Arsène Gousset, defer-
ring modestly to him as a superior genius,
remarked how much democratic France
was behind aristocratic England from the
artist's point of view.
“With our code of equality and our par-
celling of land,” said he, “we have sup-
pressed great wealth and pomp, and con-
sequently, picturesqueness. Wishing to be
all of a size, we have dragged the nobles
off their high towers and forced them to
stand shoulder to shoulder with us in a flat
plain, where no man's head may rise above
those of his fellows under pain of making
the rest cry out. French society has be-
come a landscape without hills, a sea without
waves, a house without gables; — any thing
ou please that is dull and commonplace.
t may be correct, but it is very ugly.”
“Yet equality is one of the first conditions
of progress,” remarked the eminent surgeon;
who, like most eminent surgeons, professed
extreme liberalism, the more so at this mo-
ment, as he had expected to be made surgeon
to the court, but been disappointed.
“Ah! progress,” exclaimed the novelist,
with a shrug, as he put down a glass of
Tokay, - “progress, doctor, is a word
coined by journalists and barristers, to sig-
nify that nowadays it is they who rule the
roast. We have superseded the nobles, and
given ourselves for a prey to the men who
talk and the men who write, and we call
that abolishing caste rule. They say merit
has better chances than it used to have ;
but, pray, when was merit more respected
than when low-born Froissart consorted on
terms of equality with the proudest noble-
men of France? When Rabelais, a witty
curate, was the friend of Francis the First
When Charles the Ninth did homage in
verse to Ronsard 2 And when Louis the
Fourteenth himself, who would not have
bared his head to an emperor, waited at
table upon Molière? If we look past his-
tory through, we shall scarce find a man of
any worth in art, politics, or science, who
was not petted, honored, and enriched by
the great of his time. With all our boast
of progress and equality, there is not a
court in Europe that would receive a gold-
Smith as Benvenuto Cellini was received at
the Court of France; there is not a potter
of our day who could hope to win the dis-
tinctions that Bernard de Palissy earned.
Charles the Fifth of France ennobled the
man who set up the first clock ; did we do
as much for the man who invented photog-
raphy? Gutemberg, it is true, led a strug-
gling life, but was George Stephenson's
path strewn with roses 2 and of the two,
which, think you, were most to blame, the
mediaevals who were tardy to acknowledge
the advantages of writing by machinery in-
stead of by hand, or the moderns who,
after recognizing what they term the bene-
fits of railways, suffered the inventor to be
laid in the earth without a single token of
gratitude from the State 2 In politics, again,
because we stock our cabinets with super-
annuated lawyers and jaded leader-writers,
carefully excluding the rest of the world, we,
cry out that we have thrown open a broad
career to talent, just as if our ancestors had
not done so before us, and more liberally.
What were Richelieu and Colbert but
friendless men of middle-class estate, who,
by mere dint of adroitness, acquired the pat-
ronage of powerful noblemen, by whom they
were introduced and pushed forward at
court ºf The ſact is, any man with brains
and pleasant manners could make his way
in former times, and was not obliged to.
wait until his teeth were loose and his hair
fell off, as seems to be indispensable in our
day. A fellow of parts attached himself to
the suite of a noble, became his patron’s
adviser, then his friend, was presented to
the king, flattered him.— and why not ?
I would as lief flatter a king to obtain, a
bunch of seals as a ragamuffin to catch a
vote — and with a little patience and wit
rose to be Prime Minister, like the two I
have named; or High Chancellor, like
L'Hôpital and Harlay; or Marshal of
France, like Turenne and Catinat (who,
were the sons of small country gentlemen);
or Bishop, like Bossuet and Fléchier, —
the latter of whom was bred a tallow-chan-
dler. The best of it was, too, that we took
these men young, when their intellects
were in their vigor: for progress had not
yet made it a law that our statesmen,
should be old men stricken with the gout,
and our generals aged cripples, with all the
genius frozen out of them by rheumatism.
Had they lived in our day, Richelieu would
not have been, at thirty, a curate with fifty
napoleons a year; Turenne a lieutenant,
wondering whether he should ever be a
major; and Colbert a government clerk il,
82
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
the office of Mr. Drydust's friend, Monsieur
Gribaud.”
Mr. Drydust nodded assent. He thought
the atmosphere of modern civilization sti-
fling. Nevertheless, he was in favor of
penny papers. All things considered, he
should like to be living under Louis XI.,
with the cheap press flourishing as an
institution.
But the novelist was averse to such a
combination. He was not fond of the
Press, and took no pains to conceal it.
Cracking filberts composedly, and smiling
within his well-trimmed yellow beard, he
amused himself and the rest of the table
by passing in review the Paris Press, and
grimly bespattering the whole journalistic
profession, without bitterness, but without
mercy. He made an exception in favor of
the “ Sentinelle’’ and the “Gazette des
Boulevards,” out of respect for the two
writers present; but he could not refrain
from giving a side cuff to the editors of
those journals, MM. de Tirecruchon and
Roche: the former of whom he described
as the most agreeable humbug he knew,
and the latter as a vinegar-cruet — cold
without and sour within. It was pleasure
to watch the starched features of the Baron
Margauld relax whilst this performance
was going on. He, too, was no friend of
the Press: “a dangerous, meddlesome in-
stitution,” as he termed it.
His satisfaction bordered upon mirth
when the novelist continued: “You are
right to call the Press a power, for it is a
power for destruction, like gunpowder or
corrosive acid : but it has never built up
any thing, and never will. Since daily
newspapers have come among us, the word
“stability’ has ceased to have any sense,
and should disappear from the dictionary.
Nothing is stable nowadays: neither
thrones, nor constitutions, nor religions.
A journalist is a man who devotes his time
to finding out the weak points in human
institutions, political or social, and ham-
mering upon them continually until the
whole structure falls to pieces. There is
wery little discrimination in his work: for
with him it is not a question of being right
or wrong, but of filling up three or six
columns a week. If the times be fertile in
large abuses, so much the wider his choice
of subjects; but if the Government be an
honest one, and there be only small abuses,
be will assail these small abuses at just the
same length, and with precisely the same
vigor of invective, as the larger ones.
Louis Philippe was attacked more severely
than Charles X., and the republic of '48
more pitilessly than Louis Philippe. There
is not a government on earth can bear up
against the three-column system; heaven
Q &
itself couldn’t stand it. If ever the mil-
lennium arrives, it will have to begin by
gagging the Press, else in twenty years it
will go the way of all other governments.”
The banker Margauld bent his head and
coughed, in token of enthusiastic concur-
rence. But the Prince of Arcola whispered,
with a smile, to his neighbor: “I fanc
M. Gousset is himself a victim of the three-
column system. His last novel met with
some rather rough handling, did it not ?”
It was now time for coffee; and M.
Macrobe rose to lead the way to his smoking-
room — an apartment of sybaritish comfort
and luxury, fitted up like an Arab tent,
with Turkey carpets a foot thick, and low
divans, into which the human form sank,
stretched enjoyably at full length.
In the passage to this buen-retiro Mr.
Drydust naturally contrived to push to the
front once more as leader of the conversa-
tion, — the only post his coruscating genius
brooked. Cigars, with curiously outlandish
names, but of exquisite smell and savor,
were produced from cedar-wood cases; the
powdered gentlemen poured fragrant coffee,
steaming hot, into cups small and transpar-
ent as egg-shells; and whilst the fumes of
Mocha, blending with those of Havanna,
were rising spirally towards the ceiling, the
British journalist resumed his observations
upon men and things, and the company
were soon wrapped in the pyrotechnic
blaze of that gentleman's utterances, which
were always entertaining, sometimes even
dazzling to his audience. The performance
was not so engrossing, however, but that
the Prince of Arcola, who was seated on the
same ottoman as Horace, found occasion to
strike up with the latter what the French
call an exchange of good proceedings.
He admired the modest young barrister.
He paid him compliments with that in-
sinuating and polished grace of which the
French are such masters, asked him to
breakfast at his house in the Rue Lafite —
one of the largest and most hospitable in
the Chaussée d’Antin — and ended by
offering to propose him for election at the
club of the Rue Royale.
“You should belong to a club,” said he
“clubs are social ménageries; one meets
all the lions there. They are one of the
many good things we have borrowed from
the English, to whom we are indebted for
pretty nearly every thing that makes exist-
ence tolerable.”
“I shall be happy to second you,” added
Baron Margauld, whom Horace struck as a
quiet, earnest young man, and worth wean-
ing from Radicalism.
Horace thanked them, but decline. ; for
a Paris club and a London one are not
quite the same things. In four cases out
§
M MACROBE INSERTS THE THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE,
of five, the former is little more than a
sumptuous gambling-house in disguise; and
of all the gambling-houses of the capital,
the Cercle de la Rue Royale was the most
celebrated, as well as the most splendid.
The prince did not press his offer, but won-
dered, a little that Horace should allege
want of means as one of the reasons for de-
clining it.
The court novelist volunteered on his
side to introduce Gerold to some of the
leading authors, and this proposal was ac-
cepted gratefully.
“I know most of the journalists,” said
Horace, “and I have seen Monsieur Hugo at
Brussels; but I should feel it an honor to be
acquainted with our other national glories
— M. de Musset, M. Ponsard, M. Gautier,
and Mdme. Sand.” He added something
º as a hint that he had perused all
4. Arsène Gousset's works, and ranked
him, too, amongst the national glories.
The novelist was sensible to the homage,
and, towards midnight, when Horace had
retired with his friend, Jean Kerjou, after
accepting the Prince of Arcola's invitation
to breakfast, and making a luncheon ap-
pointment with M. Macrobe for the next
day, that they might appear before the pub-
lic prosecutor together, he exclaimed with
Some admiration, “Good blood will out.
That young Gerold has the manners of a
duke; he is serious, dignified, and abso-
lutely unaffected. It is incomprehensible
to me that he should elect to be a sans-
culotte.”
“He has fallen into bad hands,” sighed
M. Macrobe unctuously.
“Yes, but what makes him talk about
the mediocrity of his means?” interposed
the Prince of Arcola, with curiosity. “The
Hautbourg estates are worth a million
francs a year, if they are worth a centime.
What do the Gerolds do with all their
money 2”
“Ah, there you put a question I should
like to solve myself,” replied M. Macrobe.
“The Gerolds are millionaires, I know, but
they live as if they were poor. The father
has a small lodging on a fifth floor at Brus-
sels; I had inquiries made there by our
correspondent. The police think they
spend their fortune on secret societies; but
this is probably a guess.”
“There would be no derogation in it,”
said the prince. “If a man of birth goes
in for people's rights, he is quite right to
do it grandly; and there would be some-
thing not unbecoming in young Gerold put-
ting himself at the head of an occult social
movement destined to revolutionize the
country. After all, he would only be re-
enacting the part the Montmorencys and
the Coligny's played when they took the
*
83
lead of the Huguenots, who were the Rad-
icals of their time.”
“For myself,” chimed in the court novel-
ist, composedly, “I should not be sorry if
there were a good sanguinary break-out, like
the Reign of Terror, only worse. I am con-
vinced that if the Radicals were allowed
their head for a few years, they would lead
France such a gallop, that she would leap
madly back into royalty, feudalism, and
rabid popery to get rid of them. Then
we should have a century or so of peace.”
“God bless my soul! you are surely not
speaking in earnest,” cried out the banker
Margauld in disgust. He had seen revolu-
tions face to face, and thought them no
themes for jocularity. Happily Mr. Dry-
dust was by to re-assure him. According
to this eminent person, the Second Empire
was unshakable, having the sympathies
of democratic England with it. These
sympathies found expression in the penny
sheet, to which Mr. Drydust contributed, and
were enough to keep any throne stable to all
eternity. “Besides,” added he, “you may
make-your mind perfectly easy, baron, and
you, too, M. Macrobe, for M. Gerold does
not spend his money on secret societies. I
will tell the Prefect of Police so next time
I talk to him. I know the man who is the
soul of all the French secret societies; it's
that arch-revolutionist Albi; he’s in prison
now, - an intimate friend of mine — but a
dark-minded character, who would no more
agree with young Gerold, nor roost in the
same nest with him, than a crow would
with a starling.” Then Mr. Drydust pro-
ceeded to explain how secret societies were
organized; after which he speculated as to
how the Gerolds spent their money; but
eventually finding the problem insoluble,
branched off into a disquisition upon “odd
people,” whose lives were a mystery to the
community. M. Macrobe reiterated his
regrets that Gerold had fallen into bad
hands, and Mr. Drydust assented. He fur-
ther engaged to bring him back by degrees
to the right way, by giving him as much
of his society as was compatible with his —
Mr. Drydust's—other and multifarious oc-
º
Meanwhile, the subject of these remarks,
rolling homeward in a cab, was reflecting
with satisfaction on the delicate, and even
generous behavior of M. Macrobe; for, just
as Horace was leaving, the financier had
drawn him aside and said, “My dear young
friend, I am not surprised at M. Roche
having refused the twenty-five thousand
francs; for, though honest, I fancy he is a
little opinionated — isn’t he 7–and not
uite exempt from narrow-mindedness.
§. at least, is the character he has al-
ways borne in the press, and, if you will
84
TEIE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
allow me to say so, I have heard it deplored
that a man of your wonderful and shining
abilities should be tied to the same whee
as a person so cramped in intellect. The
money must now go to the poor, and here I
should really esteem it a favor if you could
recommend me any worthy persons on
whom to bestow it. As a liberal writer,
you are, probably, often besieged with ap-
lications from needy people, whose polit-
ical opinions make it difficult for them to
obtain relief through the usual channels.
There must be numerous families of poor
JRepublicans who took part in the affair
of '48, and who would stand no chance of
obtaining anything from the Municipal Bu-
reaux de Bienfaisance: these are the very
people I should like to assist. And now, as
to this trial of ours, I suppose you are
aware that, from a certain point of view, it
is a less serious matter to kill one's adver-
sary in a duel than to wound him. If you
wound him, you are tried in the Correc-
tional Court by three judges, without jury,
and you are safe to be imprisoned; in the
other case, you are arraigned at the Assizes
before a jury, and are invariably acquitted.
However, we shall have to prepare a de-
fence of some sort, and so I have been
thinking we could not do better than have
one counsel for the three of us, and that
counsel your own brother, whose abilities I
hear so warmly eulogized. The trial will
be sure to draw a great crowd, and will help
him forward in his profession. I shall in-
struct my solicitor to offer him my brief,
and I trust you will prevail upon him to
accept it.” …”
“It was thoughtful,” mused Horace;
“ and it was gracious. The man is a gen-
tleman, and it is a pity I ever joined in
calumniating him.”
CHAPTER XV.
HOW EMPIRES ARE GOVERNED.
ON the morrow, at about the time when
Horace Gerold, Jean Kerjou, and M. Ma-
crobe were being minutely cross-questioned
by the Public Prosecutor as to their motives
for maliciously slaying an official journalist,
his Excellency M. Gribaud, Minister of
State, was holding audiences at his resi-
dence in the Louvre, and it was noticed
by all whom applications for patronage, fa-
vors, or redress brought into contact with
that great man, that his Excellency was
not at all in a good humor that morning.
Towards mid-day M. Gamille de Beau-
feuillet, one of the Minister's secretaries, a
grave diplomatic young gentleman of irre-
proachable attire, issued from his chief’s
presence, and remarked to a brother secre-
tary in an ante-room: “The governor has
turned out of bed the wrong side this
morning.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the other, with an in-
tonation that betokened neither amaze-
ment nor great concern; and looking up
from the “Moniteur” with which he was
beguiling the tedium of business hours, he
added: “Summer heat doesn’t agree with
the old fellow ; he’s been bitter as a weed
this some time past.”
“He has sent me out to take stock of
the unfortunates who are kicking their
heels about in the waiting-rooms,” resumed
M. de Beaufeuillet; and saying this, he
touched a bell on the table.
An usher with a silver chain round his
neck, appeared.
“Is the slate very full, Bernard 7"
“Very, sir; I much fear his Excellency
will have a heavy morning; there are above
twenty people waiting.” And at the bid-
ding of the young man, the venerable Ber-
nard recapitulated the names of all the
persons in attendance — a goodly list, on
which figured many ladies of beauty come
to solicit distinctions for their husbands;
many gentlemen devoid of beauty, but re-
plete with ambition, come to beg honors
for themselves; and a remnant of individ-
uals whose errands were purely disinter-
ested and undertaken only from a desire to
serve the State. Amongst these last was
our friend Mr. Drydust, who stated that
his business was important.
“I think you had better show in the
English journalist first,” hazarded M. Ca-
mille. “I believe the Government considers
him useful.” *
But at that moment entered a second
usher, who said: “M. Iuouchard, the Com-
missary of Police has just arrived.” An
intimation which caused the secretary to
vanish for a minute, and, on returning to
say: “M. Louchard takes precedence of
everybody. His Excellency will see him
at once.”
In another couple of minutes M. Lou-
chard, the commissary, had been conducted
deferentially through the ante-room, and
was closeted in private with the Minister.
The two secretaries pulled faces behind
him when he had passed ; but this M. Lou-
chard did not notice.
His Excellency M. Gribaud was one of
the bulwarks of the Second Empire. For-
merly, he had been one of the bulwarks of
the Republic, and indeed it was his mis-
sion, in a general way, to be the bulwark
of every party that happened to be in the
HOW EMPIRES ARE GOVERNED.
85
ascendent. In appearance, he somewhat
belied his Christian name of Augustus, for
he was not august at all; but he had a cu-
rious penetrating eye, that partook of the
vulture's and the money-lender's, and a
tongue as pointed and insinuating as a gim-
let It was this tongue that had helped to
make the fortune of M. Gribaud. Most peo-
ple when speaking in public are apt to hesi-
tate now and then to find the correct term ;
but not so M. Gribaud. Nobody had ever
known him pause for a word. Correct or
no, he spoke straight on with imperturba-
ble assurance, and the policy he pursued in
elocution he followed, also, in all the aims
of his life, never allowing himself to be
impeded by a scruple, nor balked by a re-
gard for others. Such a man was sure to
succeed. He was just the Minister to ride
rough-shod over opposition, for there was
no silencing him, and he was not in the
least particular as to his choice of argu-
mentative weapons. If pressed close by
the logic of an adversary, he quietly called
him a liar. One of his greatest oratorical
triumphs had been obtained by accusing
an honorable political opponent of being
sold to a foreign government. He had no
roofs to support the charge, but neither
i. his antagonist any to refute it; and,
in such cases, it is always the more worthy
of the contending parties — i.e., the man in
office — who is believed. The charge al-
most broke the heart of the political oppo-
nent, but it greatly added to the credit of
M. Gribaud, who came to be looked upon
in Imperialist circles as a debater of no
ordinary value.
When the Commissary of Police entered,
M. Gribaud was seated at his desk, dressed
in black clothes too large for him, and a
stiff white cravat, that gave him the ap-
pearance of an unusually ferocious Dissent-
ing minister. With a thick, knotty hand
he was holding up a pair of double eye-
glasses, through which he scrutinized, nar-
rowly and frowningly, a despatch from a
prefect. At sight of M. Louchard he
wasted no time in vain courtesies, but cried
out, “I can’t make out what your agents
are about, M. Louchard. They never tell
one any thing. All the information I get as
to passing events comes from private sour-
ces. Two Roman Republicans spent the
day before yesterday in Paris, and you
were quite ignorant of the fact; yet your
orders are to keep the closest watch upon
every Italian who sets foot in the city.”
“I am sure they did not put up at any
hotel, your Excellency,” pleaded M. Lou-
chard, humbly but firmly, “else I should
have known it, and sent you a report.”
“They came by the mail-train from Eng-
land, and returned the same night. Your
detectives at the railway termin is should
have recognized them for Italians, and fol-
lowed them. Had they been bent upon
assassinating any of us, they might have
done it with complete security. But that
is not all. Why have I had no report
about the three medical students who
hissed a loyal song at a music-hall last
Monday night 2 nor about M. Giroux-Ette,
my predecessor in office, and a senator,
who, on Tuesday, conversed amicably for
a whole hour in a public place, with the
radical barrister, Claude Febvre 2 nor about
Madame de Masseline, the wife of an official
deputy who spoke slightingly of me at one
of her dinner-parties? Why have I been
apprised of none of these circumstances 2
The police are growing either blind or
careless, M. Louchard.” *
“Not blind or careless, your Excellency,”
protested M. Louchard with meekness; “but
the police have a great deal to do, and it is
diſficult for them to be everywhere at once.”
“What is the use of them, then ‘’” re-
torted the Minister, roughly. “It is the
business of the police to have their eyes
everywhere. We don't stint you with money.
You should see into every house as if its
walls were of glass.”
“We do our best,” muttered M. Lou-
chard. “There are few houses of conse-
quence where we have not one or two
emissaries on the visiting list. Madame de
Masseline herself is most zealous in con-
veying information as to all she hears, and
I am certain that if she allows herself to
speak disparagingly of your Excellency, it
was rather for the purpose of sounding her
guests than to emit any opinion of her own.”
“Humph l’ murmured his Excellency,
who appeared less certain than the police
official. “I did not know Madame de Mas-
seline was on your books, M. Louchard. If
I were you I would rely as little as possible
on women ; their information is seldom ac-
curate, and there is generally some woman's
quarrel or jealous pique at the bottom of
their denunciations. I have noticed they
never tell tales of a man who has a good
figure and curly hair, unless they have been
jilted by him. But enough of this. What
have you got to tell me this morning?”
“I have come about this Gerold affair —
this duel,” began M. Louchard. “I thought
your Excellency might have some orders to
give me.”
“A pretty piece of work that duel,”
grumbled the Minister, his brow darkening.
“You suffered this pestilent young Radi-
cal to kill one of our most serviceable
writers; yet you had several hours' notice
of the duel, and might easily have stopped
it.”
“I counted that matters would turn out
86
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
differently. , imagined M. de Cosaque
would kill M. Gerold,” observed the com-
missary, naively.
“You don’t seem very lucky in your cal-
culation,” was the Minister's dry answer;
but he passed lightly over the subject, for
he too had known of the duel beforehand,
and if he had not thought expedient to stop
it, there is a presumption that some such
motive lay uppermost in his mind as had
actuated M. Louchard. He remained si-
lent a moment, stroking his short pointed
chin with his hard hand, and peering with
a brooding expression at the commissary.
Perhaps during that moment he recalled
the time when the two young Gerolds were
bright boys, whom he used to go and see at
school, and when their father was a friend
whom he honored and by whom he was
esteemed. Those were far-off days, and
probably the remembrance of them was not
over-pleasant : for M. Gribaud broke out
morosely, “Look here, M. Louchard; I’ve
had enough of this M. Horace Gerold.
Things were going on very well before he
turned up ; the Opposition were almost si-
lent ; but now it looks as if the old nonsense
were coming back. This young Gerold is
becoming a power. People talk about him
in society; he has all the women on his
side ; in a word, he is dangerous. It is
time you saw to him. That was a very
suspicious document you showed me some
time ago — I mean that deed of gift. If
those two youths are already possessors of the
Hautbourg estate, they are millionnaires,
and their leading the bread-and-water life
they do is a queer circumstance that has a
strong smell of conspiracy about it. You
must have a close surveillance set upon both
the brothers; they must not be lost sight
of a minute; you must ascertain what they
do, where they go whom they see; their
letters must be opened at the post-office,
and if you discover that they habitually
frequent or correspond with men of extreme
opinions, there will be enough in that to
furnish a handle to the Public Prosecutor.
At all events — and I hope you understand
me, M. Louchard — M. Horace Gerold must
be got rid of; we must frighten him into
running back to Belgium, and if he won’t
go, why ’’ (M. Gribaud threw a significant
glance at the commissary) – “why I dare-
say it won’t be very difficult to send him
where tougher men than he have gone — on
a forced voyage to Cayenne.”
Accustomed as M. Louchard was to the
mention of Cayenne and Lambessa as fit-
ting places of resort for Liberals, and ani-
mated as he moreover was, against Horace
Gerold by the recollection of how the latter
had treated him on the occasion of the
domiciliary visit, he felt a creeping sensa-
tion in the back at the grim coolness of the
Minister's tone. M. Gribaud, indeed, made
no more bones about removing an enemy
from his path than about filliping a speck
of dust off his coat. The commissary an-
swered with his usual abject deference,
“It shall be done as your Excellency
wishes.” Then he twirled his hat for a
few moments between his fingers, as if
doubtful whether to proceed with certain
other communications he had intended
making, until, finally, a thought seemed to
strike him, and he said:—“If your Ex-
cellency will allow me to express an opin-
ion, I think M. Horace Gerold, though
dangerous, may turn out, to be less so than
his brother. My men have had their eyes
on both for some time, and M. Emile is the
one who appears to me the most vicious.
He never goes into society nor to the thea-
tre; he works very hard; he has few friends,
and those all of the worst sort — hardened
Republicans; he distributes a great deal
of money amongst the poor, and visits them
at their own houses; he also lends them
books, which I take to be a mischievous
symptom; for the poor who read become
unmanageable. M. Horace, I am bound
to say, is just the contrary. He mixes a
good deal with everybody, and just now
he has got into good hands — those of M.
Macrobe, the banker, your Excellency. If
your Excelleney would have very precise
information as to M. Horace Gerold's say-
ings and doings, there is not a better man
to apply to than M. Macrobe. He had M.
Gerold to dinner with him last night; and
being a most loyal Imperialist, deeply at-
tached to your Excellency, I can vouch
that he would completely enter into your
views with regard to watching the young
man and reporting all he saw.”
A belief in M. Macrobe — that is, in the
man whose financial science was so pro-
found, and whose hints were such a god-
send to those on whom he deigned to be-
stow them — was one of the articles of M.
Louchard's creed. He therefore turned
completely sallow when in a short tone M.
Gribaud replied:– “M. Macrobe is coming
here presently, and possibly I may have to
give you some instructions concerning him,
M. Louchard. I have sent for him to ex-
plain his conduct in overtly taking part
against a Government writer in a public
restaurant, and in assisting this M. Gerold
as second. M. Macrobe is a gentleman
who had best mind his p’s and q's. He has
been tolerated because he was useful; but
if he thinks himself strong enough to in-
dulge in vagaries, he must be shown he is
mistaken.”
M. Louchard dug his right hand deep
into one of the hind pockets of his coat,
HOW EMPIRES
ARE GOVERNIED. • 87
and drew from it a yellow bandanna hand-
kerchief, of which he proceeded to make a
sudden and noisy use. Had any of the fa-
miliars of the commissary been present,
they would have recognized in this behavior
the infallible portent of extreme bewilder-
ment, such as could only have arisen from
the violence of internal emotion. M.
Louchard, indeed, would as soon have ex-
pected to hear M. Gribaud attack his Maj-
esty the Emperor as the powerful Director
of the Crédit Parisien. M. Gribaud, who
could not be supposed to know this, added
sharply: “Have you any thing further to
Say, M. Louchard? time is scarce and I’ve
none to waste.”
“I — I — had one or two other observa-
tions to suggest,” stammered M. Louchard,
making an effort to rally; “but another oc-
casion will do — when your Excellency is
less engaged.”
“I am not likely to be less engaged until
I am out of office,” rejoined the |Minister
with dryness. “If you have any thing to
Say, out with it at once.”
Just then there was a knock, and the ven-
erable Bernard glided into the room. He
whispered a few words to the statesman, and
withdrew.
“Here is M. Macrobe just come,” re-
marked the latter, addressing M. Louchard.
“So make haste, please.”
Perhaps it was the timely reflection that
after all, M. Macrobe was very well able to
take care of himself, and would, in all prob-
ability, not fail to do so when necessary,
or perhaps it was simply the long-acquired
habit of never letting himself be long
troubled by a care about others, that caused
M. Louchard abruptly to shake off his mo-
mentary stupefaction, and to discharge in a
business-like manner the remainder of the
errand on which he had come.
“I desire to recommend to your Excel-
lency's indulgence, a journalist at present
undergoing imprisonment,” said he. “It is
M. de Tirecruchon, the editor of the ‘Ga-
zette des Boulevards.’”
“I know him well,” responded his Excel-
lency; “as troublesome a scribbler as any
in France. His paper is always turning me
into ridicule.”
“He is certainly troublesome,” assented
M. Louchard. “But he often rendered us
Small services, and would do more if coaxed
and humored a little. He is not a penman
who could be bought with cash, like several
other of the Opposition writers in our pay;
but small favors would go a long way with
him; they would be a profitable invest-
ment.”
“Humph!” grumbled his Excellency.
“Besides,” insinuated the commissary,
“he has already been in prison some time,
and we should only be remitting two months
of his sentence. Your Excellency knows
the “Gazette des Boulevards” is a paper
with which if is politic, so far as is possible,
to keep on good terms. Everybody reads
it, and, though professing to be indepen-
dent, it gives us valuable assistance in dis-
crediting the Republicans, whom it jeers at,
and unmasks most praiseworthily. Since its
editor has been in prison, however, it has
been dead against us, and most biting in
its sarcasms. I think if we were to free M.
de Tirecruchon, and offer him some small
facilities in the way of sale, such as allowing
his paper to be sent into the provinces by
the parcels'-delivery, which would give him
a start of the other journals, who are
obliged to send theirs by post, we should find
ourselves the better for it.” .
“Well, well, I'll see,” growled the great
M. Gribaud. “I don’t like your M. de
Tirecruchon. He's one of your confounded,
sneering Parisians who respect nothing and
nobody. I don’t see that he can be better
than where he is, and I wish we had all the
other journalists in Paris under the same
lock with him, and could keep them there
to all eternity — that I do. But I tell you
what, M. Louchard : If we release this man
and throw him a bone, it must be an under-
stood thing that his paper leaves off poking
fun at me. It may laugh at my colleagues i
it pleases — it’s not my business to defend
them — but it must respect me — and —
and the Emperor,” added M. Gribaud, after
a moment’s pause. “Do you understand,
M. Louchard’” If it doesn’t, mind you, I'll
make it unpleasant for M. de Tirecruchon.
Is that all you have got to say?”
“I wished to speak to your Excellency
about Monsieur Drydust,” rejoined the com-
missary.
“Ah Monsieur Drydust,” echoed the
Minister whose countenance at once changed
and lost its stiffness. “We must be civil
to him, M. Louchard. He is an ally. He
writes in a paper read by a hundred thou-
sand English shopkeepers, who'll believe
what he tells them, as if it were in the
Bible. We send him invitations to all the
ministerial parties, and he inserts every
thing we ask him. Such a man must be
encouraged. If he makes any request of
you, that is, within the bounds of feasibility,
you must accede to it.”
“He often comes to the Prefecture for
information,” answered M. Louchard ; “and
so I’ve been thinking we could serve him
and ourselves at the same time, by furnish-
ing him with a daily bulletin, summarizing
all the intelligence the Government might
desire to see propagated. We would have
this bulletin drawn up in English by one of
our British employés, who would add such
t
88
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
comments as we dictated to him. Gradu-
ally, Monsieur Drydust would find it the
shortest way to forward our bulletin, purely
and simply, to his paper; so that it will be
like having a daily column in that journal
at our disposal. One can insert a great
deal in a column,” added M. Louchard, by
way of parenthesis.
M. Gribaud never fell into the bad habit
of praising his subalterns, but, with a keen
glance, he modded approval.
“That reminds me I’ve Monsieur Dry-
dust waiting in an ante-room all this while,”
said he. “Look in upon him as you go out,
M. Louchard. Tell him that you will have
a packet of special information ready for
him every day. Mind you say special infor-
mation. And, stay, I am so busy this morn-
ing I am really afraid I sha’n’t have time
to talk to him. Put him off politely — very
politely; and give him some bit of confi-
dential news. What shall it be 7 — Ay,
this will do — and it’s a good idea : Hint to
him that you are on the scent of a conspir-
acy against the Emperor's life; mention it
mysteriously, and he will be sure to make
it public. Designate the chiefs of the Re-
publican party as implicated; hint clearly
at M. Horace Gerold, though don’t specify
him by name. Monsieur Drydust's imagi-
nation will do the rest, and his remarks will
prepare the public mind, should we decide
upon arresting and indicting these two Ge-
rolds. Do that adroitly, M. Louchard ; and
now, good morning.”
The commissary made a respectful obeis-
ance, his eyes quavering, half with admira-
tion, half with awe at the subtle spirit of
the politician facing him. Then, his
business being over, he departed.
It was now the turn of the other postu-
lants. A few days before, on learning that M.
Macrobe, of the Crédit Parisien, was in
attendance, M. Gribaud would have had
him introduced without a moment's delay.
M. Macrobe was in favor then ; but the
part taken by him in the duel had entirely
reversed the good dispositions of M. Gri-
baud — who, to mark his displeasure, re-
solved to let the financier wait until the
whole list of visitors was exhausted —
that is, possibly two hours. And no doubt
... he would have done so but for a circum-
stance altogether without precedent in
ante-chamber annals; for scarcely had M.
Louchard retired, than the venerable Ber-
nard entered, and, with the look of a man
hopelessly flustered by the audacity of the
message he is commissioned to deliver,
said: “Your Excellency, M. Macrobe has
desired me to say that, having numerous
calls on his time this day, he would be
thankful if your Excellency could either
see him immediately, or grant him an audi-
t
ence for some appointed hour on another
day.”
The venerable Bernard stood still, ex-
pecting, but º for a thunderclap.
The great M. Gribaud answered calmly:
“Show him in.”
M. Macrobe was ushered in. He was
attired in the black kid-gloves which con-
stituted his gala costume; his brass-clasped
note-book was peeping out of his breast-
pocket; and at his button-hole glared,
Scarlet as a poppy, the ribbon of his Order.
He was collected and impenetrable.
With perfect composure he made his
bow, and, in a tone that struck surprise
into the Minister, from its firmness, said:
“Your Excellency must excuse me: my
hours are not my own, but my share-
holders’. Time was when I could have af.
forded to wait two hours in an ante-room,
but this is so no longer.”
There was something very significant in
this phrase. Thought the Minister to him-
self: “If this man is so impertinent, it is
that he feels himself strong, and has allies
with him more powerful than myself.
Don't let us commit any blunder.” And,
like a prudent statesman as he was, instead
of apostrophizing the financier in the hec-
toring tone he would certainly have adopted
had the latter displayed any humility, he
began quietly: “I desired to see you, M.
Macrobe, to ask whether I had not been
misinformed respecting the part you are
said to have taken in the fatal duel of yes
terday. It cannot surely be true that you,
a man of order — a man on whom we rely
— openly sided with a dangerous Democrat
against a gentleman known to be a trusted
partisan of ours?”
“I sided with M. Gerold because he was
my friend,” responded M. Macrobe calmly.
“As for M. de Cosaque, or Panier, I am
sorry he was a trusted partisan of your
Excellency’s, for it seems to me that the
fewer of such hangers-on a respectable
government tolerates, the better for its rep-
utation in the eyes of honest people.”
M. Gribaud’s blood rose to his face, and
he was on the point of giving a rough re-
joinder; but, at the sight of M. Macrobe's
impassive countenance, he controlled him-
self, and answered between his teeth : “I
did not say a trusted partisan of mine, but
of ours, by which I mean of the Govern-
ment's and the Emperor's. You will prob-
ably allow that if his Majesty set store by M.
de Cosaque, he had his reasons.”
“I think we shall do better, perhaps, to
come to an understanding, your Excel-
lency,” replied M. Macrobe, fixing his
sharp eyes on the Minister’s. “Whether
his Majesty set store or not by M. de Co-
saque, I am unaware; but in any case par-
MADEMOISELLE ANGELIQUE,
89
tisans of M. de Cosaque's kidney are not
scarce in the market: the Government can
find as many of them as it pleases by offer-
ing them their price. There are other men,
however, whose support it is not so easy to
obtain — men of talent, rank, means, and
popularity, whose co-operation would be an
element of strength to the Government. I
presume your Excellency would not object
if I enlisted such a recruit as that for our
ranks 2 °
“To whom are you alluding 2 ” inquired
the Minister, wondering, but still sullen.
“Your Excellency has doubtless heard
that M. Horace Gerold, whom you have
termed a dangerous Democrat, is heir to the
ancient dukedom of Hautbourg, to a splen-
did estate conferring immense territorial
influence, and to a moneyed fortune, which,
by all accounts, must be considerable. M.
Gerold is, besides, a man of talent, much
esteemed by his party, and a little dreaded,
if I mistake not, in Imperialist circles.
What would your Excellency say if I
brought this young man completely over to
our party, if I induced him to assume his
title, and to put both his landed influence
and his own personal talents at the service
of the Second Empire?”
It was now the turn of M. Gribaud to fix
his eyes on his interlocutor.
“You think you shall be able to manage
that, M. Macrobe 2 º’ he asked.
“I promise nothing,” replied the finan-
cier; “but if the Government does not
thwart me by heaping petty vexations on
M. Gerold, I am conſident of success.”
“And you will bring Manuel Gerold and
young Emile Gerold over too 2° continued
the Minister with a keen look.
“I cannot vouch for the younger brother:
and to bring Manuel Gerold over would be
impossible,” answered M. Macrobe; “but
Manuel Gerold is an old man, and in the
course of nature must soon die. As to
Emile Gerold, he is obstinate; but he will
cease to be dangerous when his brother is
with us — his party will never trust him.”
“And of course for doing this you will
require a reward 2 ” observed the Minister,
with more pungency than good taste.
“Naturally,” rejoined the financier, with
something of a sneer at the simplicity of
the remark. “But I will ask for my reward
at the fitting time and place. For the
}. all I have to beg is, that your
xcelleney will see that M. Gerold is spared
those flea-bite annoyances which will be
likely to sour him without doing the Govern-
ment any good—I mean domiciliary visits,
frivolous prosecutions, personal attacks in
the semi-official press, and such like. Then
again, I would make so bold as to request
that judicial authorities be enjoined to
evince more civility than they do at present.
We have been before the Public Prosecutor
this morning, and I assure your Excellency
his tone was such as I was obliged to resent.
He talked of the duel as a murder, which
was at once ill-bred and unwise. A little
civility never does any harm. It is a good
saying that more flies have been caught
with honey than with vinegar.”
“Well, hark you, M. Macrobe,” returned
M. Gribaud, in the quick, matter-of-fact
tone which was habitual to that statesman
when he was striking a bargain with a
person whose head he perceived to be as
long as his own — “if you are working to
bring young Gerold over to us, you shall
not be meddled with — I promise you that
much. Only, before disarming completely,
we must have some sort of guarantee that
you are not deluding yourself with false
hopes. On what do you ground your ex-
pectations of success 2 ”
“On the simple fact, that it is my interest
to succeed,” rejoined the financier, curtly ;
and this answer was so pregnant of con-
fidence that it carried conviction with it.
The Minister found nothing to reply, and
the audience terminated. M. Macrobe,
who had been kept standing all the while,
retreated as he had come, with a slight
bow, in which a little deference was
mingled with a good deal of self-possession
and no small dose of independence. M.
Gribaud watched him go, and when the
door had closed behind him, fell to rubbing
one of his thick ears, thoughtfully, with a
knotty forefinger, and muttered : “That
fellow is a rogue to beware of. I wonder
what his game is '''' And, probably,
speculations on this horny subject continued
to harass the great Minister for the rest of
the day: for M. de Beaufeuillet, the secre-
tary, and the score of ambitious supplicants
in the ante-rooms, soon had occasion to ob-
serve that his Excellency was in no better
humor after his interview with M. Macrobe
than he had been before it.
CHAPTER XVI.
MADEMOISELLE ANGELIQUE.
IN proportion as the shares of the Crédit
Parisien rose, and the position of its Chair-
man became more brilliant, the world began
to ask itself, with some curiosity, who the
daughter of that gentleman would marry.
The question was not altogether without
interest, for it was reported that Mdlle.
Angélique Macrobe would have ten million
90
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
francs to her portion: and there were
rumors that no less a person than the
Prince of Arcola sought the honor of ob-
taining her hand.
However that might be, the young lady
berself was to be seen every day in the
Bois de, Boulogne, surrounded by a glitter-
ing cavalcade of suitors, who pranced on
various qualities of hacks round her showy
barouche, bowed down to their saddle-bows
in offering her their homage, and some-
times went the length of pressing extremely
tender billet-doux into her hand when they
thought there was nobody looking.
course Mdlle. Angélique's aunt sat by to
act as chaperon, but that excellent lady,
who could never forget the time when she
had cooked the boiled beef which formed
the staple article of M. Macrobe's daily
banquets in the days when he was a strug-
gling man, thinking a good deal more about
the pence than he did now about the
pounds — Mdlle. Dorothée was too much
overawed by the dazzling presence of
dukes and marquises to have any discern-
ment left as to whether what these brilliant
W. said and did was proper or not.
When a handsome, lisping sprig of nobility
bent over the carriage-door, she would muse
in bewilderment how much that young man
could spend a year for his yellow kid-gloves;
and when some enterprising roué, seeing
her mild inquiring glance fixed on him,
fancied she was watching to see whether
he pushed things too far with her niece, he
would be completely out of his reckoning.
The poor lady was simply wondering what
his Sunday clothes could be like, since
those he wore of a week-day were so fine.
As for Mademoiselle Angélique, she de-
lighted, in her own inanimate way, in the
ife she was leading. To be dressed in light-
blue silk and soft clouds of Valenciennes
lace ; to drive about in the barouche, and
see people stare at her; to have a box at
the Opera, another at the “Italiens,”
another at every theatre when there was a
new performance on ; all this was better
than being at School under those provoking
nuns, who taught one when Clovis the
First ascended the throne, and when Clovis
the Second descended from it. Then the
gentlemen with the yellow gloves were
amusing. They said funny things to make
her laugh. That M. Gousset, for instance,
called going to church the “baptism of
new bonnets,” and confession “clearing the
conscience of its past sins in order to make
room for those to come.” The Prince of
, Arcola, to be sure, was a little grave: he
didn't laugh so much. One of her school-
friends had asked her whether it was true she
was going to marry him. She didn't know ;
papa hadn't spoken to her about it. If
Of
F. wished it, she should not mind. Thé
rince was always very kind to her, but she
should like him to laugh a little more; it
was more pleasant, *
Every morning the butler of the Hôtel
Macrobe brought in on a silver tray a whole
pyramid of letters, burning acrostics,
bouquets, and novels inscribed “with the
author's compliments,” all intended for
Mademoiselle Angélique. The letters and
acrostics were generally opened by M.
Macrobe, and with the acrostics he seldom
failed to light his cigar. . The nosegays
were stuck in vases, and the novels were
handed over to Mademoiselle Angélique to
read, if she cared to do so, which she never
did. There were dozens of them ranged
very neatly on the bookshelves of her
boudoir, with the leaves cut of course (by a
footman), so that an author, if he should
chance to call and take up his own work
for curiosity's sake, should never discover
that it had not been perused. Mademoiselle
Angélique did not like reading. “You
have no idea how much they made us read
at school,” she would tell you, with a pretty,
rueful expression on her bewitching face.
She preferred drawing thatched cottages
on a piece of white paper with a blue pen-
cil; and when she was tired of that, she
had a large red and green macaw on a gilt
perch, whom she could tease with a silver
bodkin. - - -
She was precisely engaged in this last
amusing occupation, when M. Macrobe in-
vaded her bower one fine autumn morning
some weeks after Horace Gerold’s duel.
M. Macrobe was always brisk, whether he
had any thing to say or not; but this time
he had something to say.
At sight of her father, Mademoiselle
Angélique abandoned the bird of gay
plumage, and put up her face to be kissed.
“My pet, I have pleasant news for you,”
began the financier. “I mean to give a
fancy dress and masked déjeúner in the
country next month. I have hired a large
villa and gardens for the express purpose.
M. Girth, the costumier, will be here in an
hour to show you designs for a costume — it
must be a rich one. M. Gousset, whose
taste is faultless, promised me to come and
help me choose it. And— ahem where is:
your aunt Dorothée º Ha, there you are,
sister. You will have to choose yourself a
costume too. Blanche de Castille, I should
think, or Catherine de Medicis would do
very well. -
“Oh, dear me, Prosper, you can't be
thinking of putting me into fancy dress l’”
was aunt Dorothée's scared exclamation.
“Why not? Stuff and nonsense !
Everybody must be travestied. . . You’ll
wear a mask, too — a velvet one with lace.”
MADEMOISELLE ANGELIQUE.
91
“Holy Virgin l’ cried the poor lady,
piteously. . “And shall I be obliged to
show my legs, like those women at the
play ?”
“Your legs? No; what are you talk-
ing about 7 And don’t say the play — it’s
provincial ; say the theatre. Angélique,
my pet, there will be no time to lose. As
soon as you have chosen your dress, you
must have it made up. I have called at
Pochemolle's, and they’ll send somebody
over this morning to take orders for all the
satin and velvet you may want. Girth will
supply the needle-women. Ah, and he'll
have plenty to do, preparing dresses for
this breakfast. I intend it shall be a fête
such as has never been seen within living
memory. There'll be a ball after it; and
fireworks — a twenty thousand francs’
worth. But we'll have only two thousand
invitations — people shall go down on
their knees for tickets. I have my reasons
for all this. Eh, eh, it will be a magic
sight !”
“Oh, papa, how nice l’exclaimed An-
gélique, in obedient ecstasy; and she began
to wonder whether her costume would be
pink or blue.
“Twenty thousand francs of fireworks—
two thousand invitations ! Gracious mercy
where's all that money to come from ?”
ejaculated Aunt Dorothée, feebly staring at
the chimney-piece.
But at that moment the butler opened the
door and announced: “Monsieur Girth.”
And the celebrated costumier was intro-
duced.
IIe entered with grace, composed in his
mien, irreproachable in his attire, easy in
his salutation without being familiar. Be-
hind him a satellite, with two immense
folios, which were placed on the table.
The strangest thing about Mr. Girth was
that, holding the sceptre of fashion in the
capital of fashion, he himself was a Briton
born. You could pretty well guess this
from his broad shoulders, light hair, and
correctly-cut sandy whiskers.
“You keep good time, I see, M. Girth,”
said M. Macrobe, cheerfully.
“Punctuality is the politeness of trades-
men as of kings, sir,” answered Mr. Girth,
with a slightly foreign accent; “but I
feared I was a few minutes behind my time,
from having been delayed by the Duchess
of Argenteuil — a wedding-dress, for her
Grace's daughter. I am also afraid I must
hurry away in half an hour, to remit three
dresses to a courier specially sent by the
Empress of Austria.”
Mr. Girth threw out these distinguished
names without embarrassment, as if he had
plenty more of the same grain ready to
produce as occasion should serve him.
!”
“Dear me,” rejoined M. Macrobe. “I
was in hopes you could have stayed until
M. Arsène Gousset arrived to guide us in
our choice. I expected him here by this
time.”
“Here is M. Gousset, papa,” exclaimed
Angélique.
And effectively that gentleman appeared,
smiling and irreproachably dressed, coming
up through the conservatory of camellias
and ferns that adjoined Mademoiselle An-
gélique's boudoir.
He bowed to the two ladies, and shook
hands with the financier. Mr. Girth made
obeisance to him with a respectful in-
clination of the head.
“Well, Monsieur Girth, armed with your
two manuals of elegance, I see. I have
come to take a lesson in taste.”
“Nay, sir. It is for M. Arsène Gousset
to give, not to receive such lessons,” an-
swered the costumier, amiably.
“H'm I don’t know. I gave a descrip-
tion of a lady's dress in my last novel, and
Madame de Masseline, one of your custom-
ers, told me I was at least six years be-
hindhand with the fashions. I think she
was right, for I lately saw, at one of the
Embassies, a dress in which there was blue,
green, yellow, and red, all mixed up to-
gether, somehow like in a Neapolitan ice.
But they told me it was quite correct.”
". May I ask at which of the Embassies,
Sir 2 ”
“Your own: the English.”
“Ah, yes; at the English Embassy they
will do these kind of things,” replied Mr.
Girth, with a deprecatory shrug. “My
countrywomen do not understand dressing,
which is a pity, with their beauty. In
England we have no middle class between
those who don’t dress and those who over-
dress. Yet the science of costume is not
difficult. Harmonize — there is the whole
pith of it.”
“Some pretty dresses here,” murmured
M. Gousset, turning over the leaves of the
first album — “this one especially.”
“Yes: a Francesca di Rimini, originally
made for the Princess of Cleves. Her Se-
rene Highness had been reading some
Swedish romances, and desired to be cos-
tumed as ‘Margaret Waldemar.’ I had
to use much diplomacy to persuade her
Highness that she had neither the North-
ern complexion, nor the warrior-look neces-
sary for the part. She had dark hair, and
was sentimental. As “Francesca di Rim-
ini’ she looked perfect. But that is the
historical album. This is the fancy one,
which will, perhaps, suit Mademoiselle
better.”
So the leaves of the fancy book were
turned over, and nymphs, goddesses, water,
92
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
fairies, and cardinal virtues appeared in
fascinating succession. At every page An-
gélique languidly exclaimed, “Oh 1” and
* Beautiful l’ Aunt Dorothée, from hear-
ing the prices called out, was quickly re-
duced to a state of intellectual coma, from
which M. Gousset's suggested amendments
—all of an expensive character — were
not calculated to revive her.
The financier nodded his approval now
and then, but deferred all practical decision
to the novelist.
At last, by common consent, the choice
was made to rest between a costume of
Hebe and one of The Rising Morn.
“Something rich,” hinted M. Macrobe.
“The Hebe would be simple,” remarked
the artistic Mr. Girth: “pearls, white silk
and tulle, a little blue to give relief— per-
haps a few flower-buds. The dress would
not be more than twelve hundred francs.
But I think the Hebe a little trite : I made
three Hebes last winter season. The
Rising Morn would be a much more im-
posing conception, and would harmonize
exactly with Mademoiselle's rare beauty.
Pale blue and white silk, with tulle as
before, but arranged differently in dia-
phanous clouds, and the body much more
decolleté; diamonds in profusion, to simu-
late dewdrops; gold powder in the hair
— though, really, Mademoiselle scarcely
needs it — and a tiara, with a rising sun
in topazes and brilliants. To come up to
my full idea in point of splendor, there
should be a ten thousand guineas' worth
of diamonds with this costume.”
“Nothing to prevent it — nothing,”
answered M. Macrobe, enthusiastically.
“Well, if Mademoiselle decides on this
costume, I think I can predict a success,
especially by gaslight. It will be the
finest thing seen since the ‘Night’ of the
Duchess of Alba, though that was not
finer.”
Needless to say that Mademoiselle did
decide upon that costume, and, hearing
that the “person from M. Pochemolle’s ”
had arrived, retired to give orders for all
the quantities of silk and tulle which Mr.
Girth was good enough to jot down on a
paper.
The “person’” had been shown into
Mademoiselle's dressing-room.
Angélique hastened there, and found
Georgette.
It should be mentioned that the two
girls had been at school — or rather, at
convent — together some years before.
Angélique's father was then less than
nobody; Georgette's was a respectable
well-to-do tradesman : it was, therefore,
Georgette who held the upper rank. The
parts were now reversed, and perhaps,
even in Angélique's naively serene tem-
perament, lurked a spark of that good
feeling which makes us so dearly love
to patronize those who once have seen us
lowly.
Anyhow she said, with a sweetly friend-
ly smile: “O Georgette they never told
me it was you: I wonder why they didn't.
Do you know, I’ve been choosing a dress
— at least, M. Gousset did for me — which
is to have ten thousand guineas' worth of
diamonds on it 2 It's a great deal, ten
thousand guineas, don’t you think so 7
How much is a guinea, I forget 2 ”
Georgette smiled — a little sad smile it
was, for the poor child did not look in
mirthful mood — and said : “Are these
the orders on the paper, Mademoiselle An-
gº: 7 *
“Yes, those are the orders, Dear Geor-
gette. Monsieur Girth wrote them ; and
he's going to send two needle-women to
work every day; but I am to try on be-
fore him, and the last touches are to be
made by his foreman. Yes, I think that's
what he said. But it seems odd — doesn’t
it 2–for a foreman to be sewing ladies’
dresses? Ah, but I’m forgetting you —
you’ll take a glass of Madeira and some
cake to please me. I am going to ring
for it. Then I'll show you over the house:
I think you've never seen it. It’s very
big : I don’t fancy I know my way all
over it by myself.”
“No, Mademoiselle Angélique, thank
you. Please don’t ring,” said "Georgette.
“I must be home soon; but thank you
very much, all the same.”
“Oh, dear! but you must take some-
thing,” exclaimed Angélique.
Then stopping, and gazing with a per-
plexed, rather astonished air at her friend,
she said: “But, Georgette, you don't look
as you used to —you’ve been ill, haven’t
you ? You're quite pale; why didn't you
tell me 2 ” &
And with an impulsive movement not
common with her, she seated herself on
an ottoman, drew Georgette to her, and
kissed her.
“Tell me what it is,
said. &
Georgette's heart was in that full state
when the least drop of sympathy caused
it to overflow. She burst into tears.
Angélique was much astonished and dis-
tressed.
“Dear me, I wish Aunt Dorothée were
here,” she exclaimed. “I always go to her
when I cry. But tell me, is it any thing
we can do for you? You were always
good to me, you know, and you would
never be sad if I could help it. I wish
my head were better than it is; perhaps
dear 2 * she
“TEIE FUTURE MADAME FILOSELLE.”
93
I might guess then without needing to ask
ou.”
y “No, no, it's nothing, Mdlle. Angélique:
it will pass away soon.
And Georgette made an effort to dry
her eyes.
But it was only an effort, and it failed:
so that when Aunt Dorothée came up a
few minutes afterwards to rejoin her niece
she found the two young girls sobbing by
each other's side — Georgette violently,
Angélique helplessly and silently, from be-
ing unable to console her friend. The ex-
cellent woman was not long in adding her
own tears to the group. But it was her
mission in this life, poor soul, to boil beef
and comfort the sorrowful: so after cry-
ing she gently pressed the afflicted girl to
unburden her heart; and by degrees, by
gentle questions, by dint of the confidence
her kind worthy face inspired, she got at
the truth. And that truth was the old, old
story of a first love crossed. Georgette's
father was bent upon marrying her against
her will to a man she had never loved. He
insisted upon it. Her mother, too, at first
on her side, had ended by taking her
father's, and they were importuning her so
much that she knew she could not hold
out longer. Besides, of what use was it
to resist—she could never marry the man
she loved 2 He would not have her ; he
was too high in the world, too much a
º to marry a poor girl like her.
et she had once thought he loved her a
little : it was an error. No, she would
rather not tell his name. He had done
nothing for which she could blame him.
She would dry her tears and try to for-
get him. Well-meaning Georgette I this
attempt was no more successful than the
other. After drying her eyes she faltered
again, and in this new gush of grief re-
vealed that it was Horace Gerold she
loved.
An hour later, when she was gone, An-
gélique, her eyes still red, stole down stairs
to look for her father. She had a scheme
on her mind. The financier was alone in
her boudoir examining a landscape he had
bought the day before, for about a third
of its value, of a jaded artist. He was
deliberating where he should hang this,
for the walls were pretty well covered
as it was with good pictures purchased
adroitly. His back was turned to the
door.
She touched his arm.
“O papal I am so miserable, and I
have come to ask you to flo me a favor.”
He laid down the picture a little sur-
prised. This was the first time his daugh-
ter had ever asked him to do any thing.
“It’s not for myself, papa, – at least, if
you do it, it will please me quite as much
as if it were for me. It's for Georgette,
you know, who was at school with me.
She's been here this morning, and she says
they want to marry her to a man she doesn’t
like. I think she said a commercial traveller.
So I thought I’d come to you, though she
told me not to do it, and ask you if something
couldn’t be done 2 If you spoke to her
father, he would listen to you, and you
might tell him — what she hasn’t the cour-
age to — that she loves a gentleman. I
am not sure whether I ought to tell you his
name — I mean this gentleman's — but I
will. It’s M. Horace Gerold, the same
whom you know * —
M. Macrobe, whose face had remained at
first impassive, underwent a sudden elonga-
tion of countenance at the mention of
Horace Gerold. He kissed his daughter
on the forehead and turned abruptly on
his heel.
“That's queer,” muttered he to himself.
“I wonder what it means. I suppose there's
no new unpleasantness under these cards.
H'm Horace Gerold is not the man to
marry a girl of that rank, even if he were
twenty times in love with her. I know
that much of him. Still it’s curious. Per-
haps there may be a way of turning this
new affair to account. I must think about
it.”
CHAPTER XVII.
“THE FUTURE MADAME FILOSELLE.”
“HA, Gerold ! how do you do? You
have become quite a stranger here ; but
not for long, I hope 2 ”
“Well, sir, my six months of disbarring
will be over soon. Perhaps I shall prac-
tice again then.”
“Quite right. The bar is the true
career for talents fresh and vigorous like
yours. By the way, how about your tri-
al for that duel affair; are you comm...-
ted 2 ”
“I have just come from the juge d'in-
struction's closet. That is what brought
me here this morning. But it seems I am
to hear no more about the matter. I am
discharged, as they say.”
“You owe that to your second, M. Ma-
crobe, I suppose 7"
{-
* It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader
that preliminary examinations are, in France, con-
ducted secretly ; and that the examining magistrate
has unlimited discretionary powers.
94.
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
“I think so. Perhaps a little, too, to
the strength of my case. My antagonist
was the aggressor. I acted in self-defence,
and the jury could not but have acquitted
me. The trial, however, would have af.
forded our counsel an opportunity for at-
tacking the system of official journalism,
and that I fancy would scarcely have
suited the government. They had more
interest in hushing up the affair than we
had.”
Horace was replying to the barrister
Claude Febvre, in the great hall of the
Palace of Justice, where, as his interlocu-
tor observed, he had for some time past be-
come a stranger. He was still on the staff
of the “Sentinelle,” but only waiting for the
occasion to sever a connection which had
ceased to be cordial, and which there ap-
#. little likelihood of ever re-estab-
isling on its old footing. Indeed, the
breach with Nestor Roche was widening
rather than otherwise. The editor's con-
fidence in his contributor was shaken. He
tried not to show it, but the fact was pa-
tent, revealing itself in a host of small
symptoms, not the least significant of which
was the unusual latitude he allowed Horace
as regards his articles. He never altered
these articles now ; never ran his pen
through this or that sentence, pointing out
with his gruff voice and friendly look, why
he thought it wise to do so. The articles
were printed as they came; and it is only
fair to add, that if the editor had ever been
troubled with apprehensions lest his head-
strong young friend should drag the paper
into trouble, all fears on this account were
now definitely appeased. The duel, or
rather the gathering intimacy with M.
Macrobe which followed that event, ap-
peared to have marked a new era in Hor-
ace's opinions, or at least in his style. He
now wrote temperately, with an absence
of all acrimony, sometimes even with a
courtesy of expression which made the
rougher Republicans amongst his fellow-con-
tributors quiver with astonishment. Not
that he was less liberal; on the contrary,
he was perhaps more so. But it was the
easy, philosophical liberalism of the gentle-
man — the liberalism of the fortunate man
who sees things through pink glasses,
and begins to think that after all the
world is not so black as it has been paint-
ed.
And how, indeed, could it be otherwise ?
Every day added some new sweets to Hor-
ace’s life. His walks along the Boulevards
resembled triumphal processions. Distin-
guished men saluted him ; great novelists
and journalists nodded amicably to him as
one of their own set. Bonapartist writers
gave him a wide berth. When he went to
the opera, he must have been blind not to
notice that women turned their opera-glasses
in his direction—often kept them so turned
a long time — and then M. Arsène Gousset,
or the Prince of Arcola, would come down
and claim to introduce him to Madame la
Comtesse This or That, who desired to
make his acquaintance. As Mr. Drydust
remarked, it was flattering. He knew
what it was from having gone through it
himself.
“Ah, mon cher,” would add that eminent
person, who was beginning to give him a
good deal of his company, “take my word
for it, extreme republicanism won’t do. I've
seen it act — went to America on purpose
to study it. The Americans have no opera
of their own, no theatre, no novels
worth mentioning, no pictures. And
depend upon it, these are the essentials of
life.”
“What are, novels or the opera’ ”
“Both. Liberty should be, not an end,
but a means. You don’t come into the
world to put your vote into a ballot-box;
you come to enjoy yourself. If you can't
get the enjoyment without the vote, then
agitate for the vote; but if you have
the enjoyment, where is the use of vot-
ing 2*
“You mean that despotism which gives
you operas and museums is the ne plus ultra
of good government?”
“Well, nearly. I adore despotism.
Nothing great has ever been done without
it. See this new Boulevard Malesherbes
they are building; look at the Bois de
Boulogne — two hundred million francs
spent upon it within two years. Parlia-
mentary government would never have
done that for you.”
“Then you must be very anxious to see
the form of government in your own coun-
try changed.”
“No ; with England it is different.
Freedom is necessary to the English
temperament. We must have a great
deal of freedom. But we are the excep-
tion.”
Horace Smiled ; but these conversations,
and a good many others of the kind, con-
ducted by choice spirits like M. Gousset,
were insensibly operating upon him. He
laughed at the paradoxes he heard; would
now and then take the trouble of refuting
them ; but like a man who has got into the
habit of sipping absinthe, and, after finding
his first glasses bitter, grows to like the
acrid flavor: so now it rather amused him
to hear the cynical witticisms of his new
friends; and he more than once caught
himself admitting — not aloud, but inter-
nally — that these agreeable fellows were
much more genial company than the Re-
“THE FUTURE MADAME FILOSELLE,”
95
publicans pure he occasionally met. This
was especially his train of thought on the
morning he exchanged the few words in
assing with the barrister, Claude Febvre.
t was a clear, sunny day, his blood flowed
prosperously in his veins, and the balmi-
ness of the air came as a welcome relief
after an unusually gloomy hour or two
passed the evening before in the society of
some fervid Radicals. Never had these
men—journalists and ex-politicians for the
most part — shown themselves more icono-
clastic and rabid. “Upon my word ' " mut-
tered Horace, as he descended the stair-
case of the Palace of Justice. “That may
be liberalism, but if so, libéralism, like most
other human inventions, would seem to be
perfectible.”
The streets were alive with that ani-
mation which buoyant weather begets.
Cabs flitting by crossed each other with
rapidity; on the tops of the omnibuses
passengers talked and laughed; and the
pink and yellow playbills on the kiosks
gleamed singularly fresh and new. It was
a day to be out and walking. Horace
sauntered down the quays, stopping now
and then to examine the curious collections
of old prints and books exposed at the
open-air stalls, which encumber the left
bank of the Seine; but pausing more often
to consider those wonderful pieces of rusty
armor, those cracked plates of three-cen-
tury-old chima, and the japanned bowls of
rare antique coins exposed in the windows
of the bric-a-brac shops. He had just spent
a minute thus profitably, and was turning
to resume his stroll, when a small active
pedestrian, in a showy waistcoat and loaded
with a carpet-bag, ran almost into him,
apologizing in the same breath for his
awkwardness, and laying the blame on the
narrow pavement. Horace bowed and was
passing on ; but the other, as if struck by
his face, stopped, reddened a little, raised
his hat suddenly, and said: “I beg your
pardom. I believe I have the honor of
addressing the Marquis of Clairefontaine —
M. Horace Gerold º Pardon the liberty,”
he resumed immediately, “but I feel my-
self under an obligation: I owe you a debt
of thanks, and I am thankful to have the
opportunity of repaying it. My name is
#. ity Hºlº, at º: Ser-
vice.”
“M. Filoselle – yes, perfectly; I re-
member;” and Horace began to con-
template this gentleman with some inter-
eSt.
“Yes, I owe you a debt of gratitude,
Monsieur le Marquis — that is, Monsieur,”
said M. Filoselle, who was quickly regain-
ing his self-possession, “I am told you were
good enough to employ your eloquence on
my behalf. M. Pochemolle, my future
father-in-law, has informed me of the cir-
cumstance. My future mother-in-law, you
are aware, was at first opposed to the
match. I have seen many mothers-in-law
both in France and abroad, and have had
occasion to notice that they are always
opposed to something. Marriage, Mon-
sieur le Marquis, would be a sacred institu-
tion but for mothers-in-law ; when I am
wedded I propose to keep mine at a dis-
tance. Mdlle. Georgette, my future wife,
will, I have no doubt, subscribe to these
views. Meanwhile, reciprocating my ten-
der passion as she does, I am convinced
that she entertains the same grateful feel-
ings towards Monsieur as I myself.”
Horace slightly bent his head without
answering. *
“I should have sought the opportunity of
saying all this to Monsieur before ; but the
º of business is engrossing; it has
ept me away from Paris these last six
weeks and will take me again into the
country by the early train to-morrow. To
amass money, M. le Marquis, with the in-
tention of bestowing it on the object of one's
worship, is an occupation which has always
seemed to me the noblest of all; and this
reminds me that if Monsieur should want a
few dozen of champagne, light and dry,
vintage of '49; or a flute—rosewood, with
double silver stops, and a case to match,
portable and convenient — he would find a
profit in dealing with me preferably to with
a retail house. I have another favor to ask,
but this demand ought, perhaps, to be prof-
fered by the future Madame Filoselle. How-
ever, if M. le Marquis would so far honor us
as to be present at the ceremony, the date
of which is not yet ſixed, but shall be made
known to M. le Marquis, he would be doing
a gracious thing, for which he would be
entitled to our sincerest thanks. Indeed, I
may say, that by his presence M. le Marquis
would be giving the final sanction to his
own work; for if Hymen has happy days in
store for me, I shall never be able to forget
that it is to the Marquis of Clairefontaine
that I owe it.”
Was this true? Did Monsieur Filoselle
owe his prospective connubial bliss to M. le
Marquis? §. might have doubted it on
seeing the pre-occupied and not over-
pleased look on Horace Gerold’s features
as he moved away after this chance en-
counter. Why did things turn up in this
way ? Horace had resolved that he would
think no more about Georgette, and he had
really tried not to do so. He had even
done more; he had avoided all occasions
of meeting her; and once when he was cer-
tain that she was not in the shop, he had
entered, and resolutely undertaken a furious
96
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
long eulogy of M. Filoselle, whom he didn't
know — all this with a view to mollifying
Mdme. Pochemolle: in which object he had ||
ended by succeeding. It is true that after
this achievement he had retired, not par-
ticularly satisfied that what he had done
was feeling, or even honest. But he wished
to put away temptation, and the end in such
cases generally appears to justify the means.
One thing, however, he had neglected to
do, and that the simplest of all: Why had
he not removed 2 He did not know himself.
He reasoned that the thing was not neces-
sary since Georgette herself would soon be
married and gone. But now, hearing M.
Filoselle talk, it occurred to him that he
had been unwise. It would have certainly
been better to remove. He could not stand
this commercial fellow coming many times
and thanking him like that.
He walked home out of humor. A regret
that M. Filoselle's employers had not sent
that gentleman to sell their wares in the
antipodes floated uppermost in his mind.
Then he anathematized M. Pochemolle and
all French fathers collectively who made
a traffic of marriage. He wondered how
Georgette looked now 2. It was a longtime
since he had seen her. Yes, weeks. What
had she been thinking of him during all
this while 2 She was indignant, of course;
that must inevitably be, for women never
view these things in the proper light. Still,
he should be sorry that she shotild retain a
lastingly bad opinion of him. He had acted
for the best. Where would be the harm if
he stepped in just to say a few kind words
and make peace? She was definitely
another's now ; the attention could not be
misconstrued.
He had reached the Rue Ste. Geneviève.
He entered.
Mdme. Pochemolle was at her habitual
place behind the counter. M. Pochemolle
stood in the centre of the shop, receiving
with respect a financial hint or two from
M. Macrobe.
The latter accosted Horace, extending
his hand.
“My dear young friend, I had called to
tell you about this fancy fete of mine. It's
got up mainly for you, you know.”
Horace's eyes roamed round the shop in
search of Georgette. She was seated in a
corner, and over the counter, talking to her
and smiling, leaned agentleman, fashionably
dressed. They seemed tolerably engrossed
in their conversation. “And,” thought
Horace, with a sudden sharp pang at
the heart, “their heads are very close to-
gether.”
This pang was not lessened when the
stranger, turning round, showed his face.
It was the Prince of Arcola. y
CHAPTER XVIII.
M. MACROBE AT “ HOME.”
M. MACROBE had determined that his
fête should be a success; and, in so far as
the preliminaries could augur, his wish ap-
peared likely to be realized. M. de Tire
cruchon, released from captivity, heralded
the event in the “Gazette des Boulevards.”
Mr. Drydust talked of it to his British
readers, giving them full statistics as to
the number of wax-candles that would be
burned, the menu of the supper, and the
price of the champagne — nothing inferior
to Cliquot, twelve shillings a bottle. Sub-
urban Clapham rejoiced over the feast as if
it were going to be present there; the semi-
detached villas in Camberwell, Battersea,
Islington, and Chelsea, conversed anxiously
about the entertainment during a fortnight
beforehand.
But it was naturally in Paris that the
coming revelry caused most sensation.
The windows of the drapers' shops along
the whole length of the Boulevards and the
Rue de la Paix, bloomed out with flashing
satins and rich-hued velvets, festoons of gold
and silver lace, superb plumes, and count-
less stage accessories, amongst which, skil-
fully interspersed to catch the eye, shone
gaudy designs of fancy dresses — mediaeval
queens and Hungarian peasant-girls, legen-
dary amazons and modern vivartdières. Mon-
sieur Louis, “Artiste Capillaire to the Court”
(hairdresser, as we say in English), had got
his “ list" full — which meant that on the
day of the fête he would start on his artisti-
cocapillary rounds at six sharp, in the morn-
ing, and terminate his labors towards mid-
night. Lucky the ladies who, for a hundred
francs’ fee, could obtain a quarter of an
hour of this gifted being's time ! He drove
up to the door in his brougham, raced up to
Madame's dressing-room three steps at a
time, expected to find Madame ready-seated
before her toilet-glass, the maids in attend-
dance, the combs, brushes, curling-tongs, and
pots of bandoline, all in a row within hand
reach; and even then he would glare like a
gladiator and stamp his autocratic foot if the
maid was stupid — took a quarter of a min-
ute, for instance, getting Madame's tiara out
of the jewel-case, or in her hurry dropped
a hair-pin. As for Mr. Girth, he was, of
course, run off his legs.
There were no bounds, he would say to
the exigencies of ladies. If he called upon
all who wrote to him he should never have
a spare minute at his command. So he was
really obliged to establish a rule. He
would be at home at stated hours ; other
stated hours he would confine to calls; but
his patronesses must please to understand
M. MACROBE
AT “HOME.” 97
that on no account could he ever devote more
than half an hour to one consultation. It is
not certain whether his patronesses under-
stood this or not. Anyhow, their brough-
ams extended in a three-hundred-yards
queue outside his door, and ladies who would
not have waited five minutes to please their
lawful husbands, sat, with the patience of
saints, their two and four hours at a time,
to bide the good pleasure of Mr. Girth.
Perhaps the only lady who, previous to the
fête, was not called upon to undergo some
ordeal of the kind was Mademoiselle. Angé-
lique. -
º daughter of the host, she was entitled
to exceptional regard. Mr. Girth did him-
self the honor of waiting upon her person-
ally once or twice a week, and she, apprised
beforehand of his coming, awaited it with
meditative anxiety, as we do the Doctor, or
an R. A. who is coming to paint us. It was
a scene not devoid of grandeur. Mademoi-
selle Angélique, attired in the as yet un-
finished costume, stood motionless, with a
cheval-glass to the right, another to the left,
and a third in the background. Behind,
but out of the line of sight, two attendant
needle-women and a maid, silent and awe-
struck. On a sofa Mademoiselle Dorothée
casting glances of resignation at the ceiling;
and in the foreground, Mr. Girth, gloved,
meditating and impassive: throwing out
curt orders to an aid-de-camp foreman who
deſerentially consigned them to a note-
book. Michael Angelo superintending the
works of the cupola of St. Peter's; Lenôtre,
planning the royal gardens of Versailles,
were not more great and admirable.
To say that Angélique took pleasure in
all this would be true, and yet her joy was
not quite unalloyed. Her rich dress and
the approaching fête were perplexing her a
little. No doubt it was satisfactory to be
informed that she would be queen of a pa-
geant unsurpassed in splendor and unsur-
passable; and to see the pretty eyes of her
lady friends twinkle jealously as they ex-
amined her costume, and the ten thousand
guineas worth of diamonds to be tacked
thereon, was a sensation of which any lady,
however good at heart, will easily under-
stand the sweets. But underlying these
gratifying impressions, lurked a vague pre-
sentiment that this unusually brilliant festi-
val had not been projected without some
object in view — M. Macrobe, she knew,
was not the man to invest twenty thousand
francs in fireworks for the pleasure of watch-
ing colored sparks fall — and somehow An-
gélique began to fancy that with her father's
object, whatever it was, she herself might
not be altogether dissociated. It must be
confessed that her perspicacity scarcely
went deeper than this. She thought, in-
deed, a little of the Prince of Arcola, won-
dered why, if he really intended marrying
her, he did not propose sooner; but she
was at a long way from guessing the truth,
when the financier repeated to her ſor the
fourth or fifth time :
“My pet, you must mind and be very
civil to M. Horace Gerold, who will be pres-
ent at the fête. You will find him a most
amiable young man.”
“Certainly,” thought she, “I will be civil
to M. Gerold,” and she was very glad at
having the opportunity of meeting him. As
to his being an amiable young man, her
father knew best, but it was not exceedingly
amiable to act as he had done by Georgette.
It is true that he was a rich and high-born
gentleman, so they pretended, and that
}eorgette was a tradesman's daughter; but
after all what did that matter? Had she
not heard M. Gousset say often that a
woman's rank was her beauty, that King
Coph — Coplet-something had married a
beggar-maid, and that he had done quite
right, for that the party honored by this
transaction was not the beggar-maid, but
King Coph —himself—why then should
not M. Gerold do as much 3 Georgette
was not a beggar-maid: at School she used
to carry off prizes which she — Angélique
— could never manage to do; and she was
pretty — oh, yes! prettier far than any girl
she had ever seen. Everybody declared so;
even the Prince of Arcola, who had been to
Pochemolle's the other day with her father,
had come back quite enthusiastic about the
young girl's beauty.
She wondered, in her mild, meek way,
whether she could not try something to
soften M. Gerold — he did not look like a
very hard young man, and she was truly
anxious to befriend Georgette. If her father
had done what she wanted, the whole thing
might no doubt have been settled by this
time; but her father did not seem pleased
at her interfering in the matter. He had
kissed her quite abruptly and gone away,
and the next time she had appealed to him,
he had answered, impatiently : “Tut, tut,
my pet, Georgette is a little goose, and you
too.”
She could not see why Georgette was a
goose, though she had deliberated upon the
matter gravely. It was not being a goose
to cry because one had been jilted. Aunt
Dorothée said it was a shame for gentlemen
to steal away the hearts of young girls, that
it was much more cruel and dishonorable
than robbing money. Then Georgette was
so gentle, too ! “Yes,” thought Angélique,
“I will try whether I cannot work upon
M. Gerold's good feelings. I will take
advantage of his presence at the fête to
speak to him.” This wise idea, which
7
98
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
occurred to her after many days of reflec-
tion, she kept to herself; but every day the
idea twined itself more tightly, like a strong
shoot of ivy, round her usually inert imagi-
nation. Meanwhile, on the prettiest sheet
of toned paper in the world, and with the
tiniest gold pen extracted from a liliputian
desk, she wrote to her friend “ not to be mis-
erable,” drawing three lines under the word
miserable, which, as connoisseurs in ladies'
calligraphy are aware, means that there are
three excellent reasons, if not more, why
one should not be miserable. She added
that she had got a plan for “setting every
thing right,” — words underlined as before.
It is probable that if M. Macrobe had
intercepted this affectionate communication
on its way to the post, and taken cognizance
of its contents, he would have frowned, and
with considerable vexation. But he was
too busy now to see much of his daughter.
Every spare hour he could snatch from busi-
ness he spent at Marly in the villa he had
hired, a noble residence with a beauteous
park, in which a whole army of workmen
were employed, erecting marquees, extem-
porizing terraces, and laying out parterres
of costly flowers. Nothing was to be want-
ing to the completeness of the fête. In case
of rain there were arrangements for cover-
ing in the entire grounds. Chālets, bright
with paint and gilding, verdant with creep-
ing foliage, had been run up here and there,
and furnished with a luxury that could not
have been excelled, had these ephemeral
dwellings been destined to last permanently.
To keep the grounds and line the approaches
to the ball-rooms, a hundred men, attired as
halberdiers, had been retained ; and two
laundred boys, dressed as pages of Francis
the First, and selected for their comely
looks, were to officiate as waiters. This
art of the arrangements had been effected
º, a celebrated theatrical manager, expert
in mise en scène; and the same enterprising
genius had suggested that a hundred of the
prettiest girls amongst the metropolitan
corps-de-ballet should be recruited to act as
bouquetières, and distribute to the guests flow-
ers and bonbons. The programme might be
altered according to circumstance, but for
the present it was as follows: At four, the
déjeúner; at six, the drawing of a tombola
with valuable prizes ; at ten, fireworks;
after which the grounds were to be illumi-
nated with an invention, then in its infancy,
called “electric light; ” masks were to be
put on ; and there was to be a ball, with
supper and cotillon, lasting — until it pleas-
ed Heaven to make the sun rise.
Small wonder that M. Macrobe was busy.
He had long ago been obliged to relent
from his originaſdecision of only issuing two
thousand invitations. No half-dozen post-
bags could have contained all the letters he
received, cajoling, begging, entreating, rav-
ing for tickets. What made it difficult to
refuse, too, was that there were a good many
shareholders of the Crédit Parisien amongst
the supplicants. These honest and impor-
tunate persons claimed the favor of an invi-
tation as a sort of right, and they were
delighted to hear of the fête, for it is evident
that a chairman who has so much money to
spend must be looking very closely after the
interests of his shareholders. In fine, M.
Macrobe had been obliged to increase the
tickets to four thousand, without thereby
greatly diminishing the number of those
who in private declared they were being
shamefully ill-used, and in public that they
had never solicited invitations, not they, and
that they certainly should not have gone to
the party even if they had been asked. But
M. Macrobe could afford to make light of
these fox and grapes rancors. The essen-
tial point in his eyes was that all the
personages of importance whom he had
invited had accepted with alacrity, and that
Horace Gerold — the most important of
any — had, with perfect good-nature, enter-
ed into the spirit of the thing, and promised
to come in costume. “So that's all right,”
muttered the financier; “and I think this
seed-corn we are scattering will soon begin
to fructify — barring accidents,” added this
prudent gentleman, who, in his calcula-
tions, always left a wide margin for contin-
gencies. .
At last the long-looked-for day of the fête
arrived.
The evening before, Horace had attempt-
ed, without success, to induce his brother to
accompany him. Emile had refused firmly
but gently; alleging no reason, however,
save the somewhat indefinite one, that he
should probably be busy. Horace had hired
for three hundred francs a magnificent
costume in the fashion prevailing under
Henry II. (of France). It was white satin
slashed with cerise; a short mantle of white
velvet profusely embroidered with silver fell
over the shoulders, a silver-hilted sword in
cerise-velvet sheath hung by his side, and
a flat bonnet with white plumes fastened
with an aigrette of diamonds adorned the
head. Now, it may be weakness, but when
we have attired ourselves in a garb of this
sort, and are surprised by a friend contem-
plating ourselves in a glass, we expect to
be complimented on our appearance, other-
wise we look foolish. Horace felt so when
Emile, entering unexpectedly, just as he
had put on a pair of red-heeled shoes, and
was watching the effect of them, said
gravely: “Oh I I beg your pardon, I see
you are engaged.” *
“Engagedl no,” exclaimed Horace, red-
M. MACROBE
99
AT ** HOME.”
dening with some confusion. “Come in,
man, what is it you want to say?”
“I was going to write to Brussels to-day.
Have you any message I can send ?”
“My love, of course. . But what are you
going to write about?” asked Horace,
wishing he had got his black coat and
trousers on instead of these silk stockings
and this sword.
“Well, you know, I received a letter yes-
terday: — and, by the way, what am I to
anºwer about the passage that concerns
you ?”
Horace sat down on his bed and played
moodily with his bonnet.
“How am I to say?” answered he in a
vexed tone. “The whole thing is absurd
and calumnious. Some of those Repub-
licans of Brussels have been telling my
father that they hear I am keeping loose
company, and am turning renegade; and
he ſeels pained. Tell him it is not true;
and you might add that it is only Repub-
licans who would be capable of inventing
such trash ; for I am sure I begin to think
with Jean Kerjou, that we shouldn't be
happy in our party if we didn't perpetually
accuse one another of treachery.”
“And what am I to say about M. Ma-
crobe 2'' proceeded Emile quietly.
“M. Macrobe is my friend,” replied
Horace in an impatient voice. “I’ve told
you so already, and think you might spare
me the trouble of repeating it. Write to
my father that he is misinformed about the
man. Thank God, our father is not cut
out of the same wood as his brother Repub-
licans; he has the soul of a gentleman, is
just and generous. He can require noth-
ing more when I say that I answer for M.
Macrobe's honor on my own.”
“On your own honor, brother ?” answered
Emile doubtfully. “You are not surely in
earnest; for if you really went bail for this
man’s honor, Horace, how could I hold
out any longer ? You cannot think that I
would continue to suspect the man if I
thought you convinced of his honesty.”
“But why do you suspect him 2 º’ rejoined
Horace with irritation. “What is the
meaning of this mania of yours for suspect-
ing people, you who used to be such a
ood fellow, and never spoke ill of a fly?
t seems to me that it is you who are being
spoiled by bad company — that of those
envious, bilious demagogues whom they
tell me you frequent. What has M. Ma-
crobe done to you, come, tell me that; and
what has he done to me? Why, since I have
come across his path he has done nothing
but repay me good for evil — had he been
Job himself he could not have evinced
more longanimity. I begin by vilifying
him in a court of justice—he holds out
A
his hand to me and asks me to dinner; I
cut him — he takes my part when I am
publicly insulted, and risks imprisonment
by abetting me in a duel; he knows I am
a Republican, that is a foe to his party, and
he good-naturedly asks my advice about
distributing twenty thousand francs to the
people of our clique who may have suffered
during the revolutions. Frankly, what can
be his object” I am no great man that he
should have any interest in currying favor
with me. I am a poor devil without
fortune or title, with only a rag of popular-
ity at my back, which a day has made and
which a day may take away. M. Macrobe,
on the contrary, is a millionnaire with more
power than a cabinet minister. It would
be both presumptuous and arrogant to pre-
tend that there can be any thing else but
condescension on his part in treating me in
the way he does.”
The blood rose to Emile's habitually
pale face. *
“Well, Horace, this is the last time I
shall ever speak about M. Macrobe, then,”
said he, with the slight hectic cough
which excitement of any kind generally
brought on. “I will not promise to like
the man,” added he with an effort. “But
your good word is a passport — to, at least,
my respect. For your sake I will try to
forget what I have heard and believed
about M. Macrobe.”
And he held out his hand — a white,
thin hand it was, and feverish.
“Why won't you go to this féte with
me?” asked Horace, still dogged.
“No : don’t ask me to do that,” pleaded
Emile, shaking his head. “To begin with,
I should not make a very lively guest; and
I hardly think I could afford the expense
Besides, you see it is too late now. I fancy
this is the concierge come to tell you that
your carriage is waiting.”
It was no longer Georgette who run up
on these sorts of errands now. The con-
cierge, cap in hand, informed “Monsieur”
that a gentleman in a landau with postilions
was down below, “dressed like in carnival
time.” The person meant was the Prince
of Arcola, who had arranged to call for
Horace and give him a lift. Horace put
on his glittering bonnet, wrapped himself
in a flowing cloak of white cashmere and
descended.
Never since the days of the Grand Mo-
marque, when high court and revelry were
held there, had the shady groves of Marly
resounded with the echoes of such a festival.
It was an event to be remembered evermore
by the inhabitants, and to be narrated some
eighty years hence by the youngest of them
as a reminiscence of how men lived and
caroused under the notorious Second Ems
106)
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
pire. A troop of mounted municipal guards,
their steel helmets and breastplates flashing
in the sun of a cloudless sky, had been lent
by the Prefect of the Seine to act as guard
of honor. Picked men, with flowing mus-
taches, slung carbines, and clinking sabres,
they swept up the Grand Avenue at a fast
trot half-an-hour in advance of the first
carriages; then, having reached their des-
tination, turned and separated—half form-
ing themselves into a glittering semicircle
round the park gates, the others starting off
by two's to occupy strategical points down
#be road, and silently point the way to
*oubting coachmen. Simultaneously a hun-
dred members of the Parisian police took up
their position at equidistant spaces of twenty
yards on either footway to keep back the
curious, and see that the stream of vehicles
flowed by uninterrupted. Magnificent po-
licemen these, with cocked hats, straight
swords, white gloves, folded arms — men you
would have taken for officers in any other
country. Then the carriages began to ap-
pear, first singly, then two or three almost
abreast, as if racing; then one after another,
settling gradually into a gorgeous slow-
moving procession that seemed never to
end, tapering and glimmering far into the
distance, out of the reach of sight, like the
trail of a starry meteor. The harness of
the horses jingled, the hoofs of the noble
animals pawed the ground impatiently, large
flakes of foam dropped from the furbished
bits, coronet after coronet, 'scutcheon after
'scutcheon flashed by on shining panels,
and, every now and then, down the whole
line there would be that ten minutes’ dead
stop, which acts on the nerves of fair occu-
pants of broughams, and evokes from the
powdered gentlemen on the box such doleful
replies as this : “Impossible to move faster,
Madame la Marquise; there are more than
two hundred carriages ahead of us.”
But if the scene without was sufficiently
imposing, what language can be used to
paint the spectacle within the grounds?
Such a sight needs more than a pen. Tents
of purple vellum and gold, gilt awnings
ablaze with silken streamers; squads of
radiant girls with pyramids of flowers piled
up in vase-like baskets. On plats of em-
erald grass, and under the spreading shade
of giant oaks, rich carpets and velvet
cushions spread out to invite repose; and
trenching on the marble whiteness of ter-
races, the drooping folds of blue, scarlet, and
orange draperies. If any thing, the eye had
too much of color, and turned with relief to
the cool fountains, which threw up their
waters in columns of spray, and splashed so
musically in the round deep basins. Fair
forms, leaned over these basins, dipped
their hands in, and filled the air with tink-
ling laughter. And these silvery sounds
formed a melodious interlude to the strains
that issued from the open orchestra pavil-
ions, around which eddied and flowed a
festive crowd revelling in garbs of every
variety of fashion, richness, and tint.
“Upon my word it seems to be a success,”
said the Prince of Arcola to his companion
as they passed together into a sumptuous
reception-marquee where a master of the
ceremonies, who looked cut out of a picture
by Titian, took their cards.
The master of the ceremonies bowed low
before them, and two pages in green and
gold stepping forward, relieved the one of
his white cashmere cloak, the other of a
blue roquelaure that concealed a costume
in violet velvet, of the time of Henri IV.
CHAPTER XIX.
YOUNG CANDOR, ODD subtlBTY.
“Now here you are, that's right, and 1
am going to tell you who all the people are,”
cried Mr. Drydust, laying hold of Horace's
arm as soon as he caught sight of him.
Mr. Drydust figured as a Scottish chief-
tain, presumably Rob Roy, and his intelli-
gent brow disappeared under a bonnet of
warlike dimensions. But he was none the
less affable. Slightly embarrassed by a
giant claymore from the hilt of which he
was afraid to trust his left hand very far,
his pace was perhaps less rapid than usual,
but he still made excellent play with the
hand remaining to him, and waved it about
gracefully and easily to give effect to all he
said: “Now see,” said he ; “this is true ease
—the ease of an age when men understood
costume, and fashioned it so as to give free
play to all the limbs. I always feel fettered
when I wear a frock coat—pardon, Madame”
(Mr. Drydust had tripped up over his clay-
more), “but in this, one is at home. Aha,
there is my friend Catfeesh Pasha; I’ll in-
troduce you. I declare this is like the
Corso of Rome in Easter week; one meets
everybody one knows.”
So one did. All Paris was present. Not
in truth the Paris which eminent foreigners
would have comprehended in that title.
One might have searched the whole grounds
through without finding a single one of the
men whose presence here below will be re-
membered a hundred years hence. But
the Paris of the Second Empire was there,
a throng of senators, ministers, deputies,
stock-jobbers, patchouli-novelists, eau-de-
rose journalists, and the gayer spirits of the
YOUNG CANDOR,
OLD SUBTLETY. 101
Corps Diplomatique, all in short who would
consent to clothe themselves in the garb of
departed centuries, and stalk about thus
clothed for the amusement of the commu-
nity. M. Macrobe had allowed of no ex-
ceptions in this respect: modern attire had
been pitilessly excluded, and Horace met,
within a space of five minutes, a cabinet
minister dressed as a Turk, a councillor of
state habited as a Jew peddler, and an envoy
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary
disporting himself very successfully as a
Cochin-China fowl.
In these sorts of things it is highly essen-
tºl that the guests should not be thrown
too much upon their own resources, but
that there should be a few sportive minds,
to leaven the lump, play the fool a little,
and keep the merriment from flagging.
M. Arsène Gousset had undertaken this
part. He was the presiding genius of the
fête. Assisted by M. de Tirecruchon, some
young journalists, and three or four artists,
he darted about from group to group
organizing quadrille parties, introducing
people one to another, and seeing that
there was an endless flow of champagne.
He had also composed a jocular “Gazette
des Masques,” which, printed in gold on
white satin, was distributed broadcast by
him and his acolytes with piping cries such
as news-venders utter.
Horace would have been glad to sit
down somewhere, whence he could have
seen without being himself observed; but
this would not have tallied with the plan
of his host, which was to make him an
actor in, not a mere spectator of, the
pageant. M. Macrobe had instructed
swift messengers to bring him immediate
intelligence of Horace's arrival, and the
latter had scarcely had time to accustom
his eyes to the novel show around him,
when the financier, transformed into a
Jacques Ango (famous merchant of Dieppe
who threatened to make war upon Portu-
gal at his own cost, in the reign of Francis
I.), accosted, welcomed, and drew him away
with Mr. Drydust to the déjeúner tent.
There Mademoiselle Angélique was hold-
ing her court, amidst a dense circle of
worshippers, transfixed with admiration.
Flattering murmurs circulated on all hands:
Horace himself was fairly dazzled. Certes,
the great M. Girth had triumphed. Noth-
ing could have been more beautiful, more
enchanting, than this young girl of angelic
loveliness, dressed in the graceful disguise
of the Rising Sun. Her round white arms
were bare, except where glittering bands
of jewels encircled them, her rich hair fell
in golden cascades over her snowy shoulders,
the sun of brilliants that crowned her fair
brow blazed like the fiery orb it repre-
sented, and the child herself, intoxicated
by the incense of praise, enlivened by the
music, the wine, the festivity, the compli-
ments, glowed with an animation which
heightened her beauty a hundred-fold.
“You must cater for my daughter,” said
M. Macrobe, leading Horace forward, and
introducing him.
And, noting the ill-concealed look of
envy on the countenances of some of the
suitors he was then ousting, Horace could
not avoid the reflection that, perhaps, in-
deed he was a man to be envied.
The tent was rapidly filling, for the signal
had gone forth that the déjeúner was
served, and fancy costume is no deterrent to
appetite.
orace led Angélique to one of the
numerous tables spread in view of this
tardy luncheon or early dinner. He was
more or less the cynosure of a group of
ladies, not indisposed to flirt with him on
the strength of his reputation as a “lion; ”
but his matchless partner engrossed him,
and she, to reward his assiduities, smiled,
talked, and occasionally fixed her eyes
upon his with a curious expression at once
pleased and confiding, which, devoid of
fatuity as he was, sent the blood to his
head, and caused his heart to palpitate.
M. Macrobe, from whose watchful glance
none of these signs, however slight, es-
caped, smiled to himself with contentment.
He was standing with the Prince of
Arcola.
“Well, mon prince,” he said, “ have
you forgiven me for taking you to see that
pearl of price — that bewitching Made-
moiselle Georgette — the other day ? I
remember you said it was doing an ill-
service to show you a face that would
inevitably remain fixed in your memory,
and, perhaps, trouble your peace.”
“Did I say that?” replied the Prince,
with an embarrassed laugh. One says those
things you know, without meaning them.
A handsome statue, a striking picture,
creates an impression which one at first
thinks lasting, but which wears off.”
“To be sure. But Mademoiselle Geor-
gette is a very striking picture; — at least,
I know of some one who was considerably
smitten in that quarter.”
“Who?” asked the Prince, quickly;
not noticing that, at this vivacity, which
somewhat belied his previous indifference,
M. Macrobe's eyelids slightly twinkled.
“That would be telling tales out of
school,” laughed the financier. “Still, mon
prince, as a secret between you and me,
the admirer was young Gerold. You know
he lives in the same house, as this handsome
statue.”
The Prince changed color a little. It
102
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
}
did not look as though the news much
pleased him.
M. Macrobe, to repair matters, took his
arm, and presented him to the fascinating
daughter of an American citizen, Cincin-
natus Jickling, Esq., whose ambition was
to crown a long career of democracy and
drysalting by allying himself to some one
with a title. Mr. Jickling was stirred to
the depths of his republican heart on see-
ing Miss Jickling escorted to the breakfast-
table by an authentic prince.
Amidst the popping of champagne-corks,
the clattering of plate, the running to and
fro of sprightly pages, carrying silver trays
loaded with choice viands or eccentric-
shaped flagons, Horace pursued his atten-
tions to Angélique. When the banqueting
was at length over, she accepted his arm,
and they, issued on to the lawn.
“How refreshing the air is l’” she said.
“But we must sit down — or shall we go to
one of those châlets 2 They look so nice
and cool.”
So they turned their steps towards the
châlets, which were deserted — the stream
of wassailers being directed towards another
part of the grounds, where the Tombola
was to be drawn.
M. Macrobe, who saw them walk alone,
was careful not to disturb them. He had
now mated himself with an English dowa-
ger — the Lady Margate — who had seen
the Eglinton tournament, and was regaling
him with her recollections of that historic
event. He led off her ladyship, and
charmed her with his good-humor, his per-
fect manners, and admirably-genial defer-
ence. “A most becoming Frenchman,”
was her ladyship's unuttered verdict. Yet,
if M. Macrobe could have divined the mo-
tives of his daughter for enticing Horace to
the châlet, it is not so sure that Lady Mar-
gate would have been captivated by his de-
meanor. It is probable that he might have
earned the reputation of being a very dis-
traught and ill-tempered Frenchman.
As we have said, Angélique had come to
the resolution that she would help Geor-
gette. This was the first time in her life
that the idea of helping any one — or even
the possibility of doing so — had ever oc-
curred to her; but, from the very fact of its
novelty, the determination had taken firm
hold of all her faculties, absorbing her en-
ergies, and monopolizing her thoughts.
There are no resolutions so deep as those
which have been a long time taking root.
She had turned the matter over waking,
dreamed of it sleeping, and ultimately had
resolved that, cost what it might, she would
do such and such a thing on a certain day.
As we must never make men and women
braver than they are, perhaps one ought to
!
own that, at the moment of putting her
scheme into execution, she was not a little
emboldened by the two or three glasscs of
Madame Veuve Clicquot's vintage which
she had sipped. Anyhow, they were no
sooner seated than, with the amazing cour-
age of innocence and inexperience, looking
up into Horace's face, she said:
“I am sure you must be very good.”
“Good 2’ replied he, disconcerted.
“Are men ever good 2"
“Yes, I think you are. I have heard
gentlemen speak about you : they said that,
though rich, you were a friend of the poor,
and gave all your money to them. It seems
to me that if I were a man I should like to
be like that. I see many gentlemen who
pass their lives in trying to amuse them-
selves: they do not appear to me so happy
as you. Only, if I were a man, and any-
body loved me I think I should perceive it,
and I should not despise the love; for, you
see, we women have nothing to give but
our hearts, and when we have bestowed
that, if we do not get another heart in re-
turn, our lives are dark and miserable ever
after.”
Horace sat, not knowing what could be
the meaning of this. Was it a declaration ?
He felt what is called queer. The incom-
parable beauty of the girl who was address-
ing him, the solitude, the strangeness of the
situation, all combined to form one of those
passes in which precipitate men do foolish
things. Luckily his emotion deprived him
for the moment of utterance, and thus saved
him from ridicule.
“You look astonished,” pursued Angé-
lique artlessly; “but what I say is true.
W. are strong, and should have pity on
the weak. A woman's love may not be
much in the estimation of a man, but if they
only knew what tears and suffering it costs,
I think they would be too generous to leave
it unrequited. I know people say that mar-
riages should be between persons of the
same rank and having like fortunes: but
do you really think this is the only way to
become happy 2 Is affection quite worth-
less, unless it have armorial bearings on it
like one's dinner-spoons 2 °
Altogether on the wrong tack, and grow-
ing much more excited than was prudent,
Horace seized Angélique's hand.
“Can you suppose,” he said gallantly,
“that any sordid considerations would
stand in the way of my marrying a woman
who gave me her heart?” *
She abandoned her hand to him with-
out mistrust; but in a tone of wondering
remonstrance; “Then why do you not
marry Georgette 2° she asked.
“Georgette l’ he exclaimed, suddenly re
leasing her hand.
YOUNG CANDOR,
OLD STJ BTLETY. 103
“Why, yes: of whom else could I be
speaking?” replied she simply. “I learned
your secret, at least, —it would be truer
to say that my aunt and I wrung it from
poor Georgette, for she would never have
told it us of her own accord. But she is very
unhappy, Monsieur Gerold, believe me —
so unhappy that I thought I would tell you
this, for I said to myself: “It is impossible
M. Gerold can be aware of the pain he is
causing.” Georgette is my old school-
friend, you know ; we were at the convent
together; and she was a much better and
cleverer girl than I; — oh, yes!—and there
is not a nobleman in the world but might
marry her without derogating.”
The position was perplexing. A man
always plays a rather silly part if he has
been supposing without reason that a
woman is making love to him. Horace
felt neither more nor less abashed than
most men feel under such circumstances.
Yet Angélique, in pleading for her friend,
was so naively eloquent, her voice bore the
accent of so much womanly kindness, that
he was touched. Had her design been to
win him to herself, by a comedy adroitly
played, she could not have succeeded more
completely. Perceiving that she had not
been thinking in the least about him, he
began, with man's unfailing instinct, to
think about her.
He hesitated a moment; then, drinking
in her truly uncommon beauty with his eyes,
he said, “Mademoiselle, my conduct has
been misrepresented if you have been told
that I have trifled with the affections of the
young lady you mention. Had I loved,
there are no considerations of rank or for-
tune that would have dissuaded me from
marriage. But to marry without love, or
with love existing only on one side, would
be folly; and I assure you that until this
day my heart was free. “Yes,” added he,
becoming quite serious, whilst his voice
grew more impassioned, “until I came here
two hours ago, I never knew what love
was. The aims of my life were selfish:
they tended to my own advancement only,
and I had never contemplated associating
any woman with my destiny. But from
this day”— and he fixed his eyes with an
intent gaze on her—“I have a new ambi-
tion, — one that will blend itself with and
sanctify all my other aspirations—and
this ambition it is you alone that will have
the power to fulfil’”
... He rose, looking at her with a new glance
full of love and meaning; and before she,
in her surprise and distress, had found a
word to say, he was gone.
Whilst this was taking place in the
châlet, the world was enjoying itself at the
drawing of the tombola, and Mr. Drydust
$
was explaining to the Austrian ambassa-
dress wherein this tombola, which was a
plain lottery, differed from the Italian tom-
bolas — an exposition to which her Excel-
lency listened with as much good nature as
though her husband had never been civil
governor of Milan, and specially occupied
during ten years of his life in superintend-
ing the Austro-Lombard lotteries. At every
moment there was enthusiasm and clapping
of hands, as a spirited lady, perched alo
on a platform and turning a wheel-of-for-
tune, drew out a ticket and proclaimed a
prize; which M. Gousset (capital make-up
as a court-buffoon), or one of his staff, in-
stantly fetched from behind a curtain and
handed with compliments to the owner of
the winning number. As a general rule,
these lotteries are not a boon. One gets
pen-wipers which one doesn’t want, or
paper-cutters which embarrass one the
whole evening; but M. Macrobe had or-
dained this on the same grand scale as
the other arrangements. fie had simply
invested five thousand guineas in jewellery,
and not the least pleasing feature of his
triumph was the amazement of his lady-
guests, who, examining the lockets or
brooches they had drawn, discovered them
to be real gold ! The sharpest of money-
men find it difficult to steer clear of snob-
bishness.
But amidst this riot and jubilation a
slinking somebody, draped in a Venetian
cloak and wearing a black mask, was wan-
dering about looking for the host. As the
day was waning, and it was part of the pro-
gramme that masks should be assumed
at dusk, the Venetian-cloaked gentleman
soon found his example followed, which
appeared to make his researches more diffi-
cult, for he more than once stopped and
fixed on the wrong man, interrogating him
first, and then apologizing. At last he lit
upon M. Macrobe, who had just watched his
daughter and Horace leave the châlet at a
few minutes’ interval, both flushed and
pensive, and was quietly radiant.
“M. Macrobe,” said the mask. “I
thought I should never find you.”
M. Macrobe started at the voice.
“Is it possible — can it be your Excel-
lency?” he exclaimed. “This is an honor
I dared not have counted on.”
“Well, well,” muttered M. Gribaud — for
it was he – “my wife and my daughter
were here; you had been good enough —
hem—to send them an invitation, so I
thought I would just come in like this.”
He glanced deprecatingly at the cloak
that covered his legs, and gave a slight
shrug.
“Your Excellency could not have con.
ferred a greater favor— but let me lead you
104
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
to the refreshment tent — you must be ex-
hausted.”
“No, no, thank you! By the way, if you
have a mask, too, it might be as well to put
it on ; we shall be the less noticed.”
M. Macrobe was not sorry to cover his
face. Interviews with Monsieur the Minis-
ter Gribaud were often severe tests to
physiognomical impassiveness. He knew
his Excellency well enough to be certain
that this unexpected visit was no mere act
of amiability, but must have some business
motive at the bottom of it.
“I have come because I had something
to say on a matter that concerns us both,”
began the statesman, leading the way to a
retired avenue. “You are still getting on
well with young Gerold 7°
“Your Excellency can see him yonder,”
answered M. Macrobe, turning. “There
to the left, in the cérise and white, talking
to a lady — Mdme. de Margauld.”
“Yes, I see him. Humph how the boy
has grown since I knew him. Well, M.
Macrobe, you remember the conversation
we had some time ago about this young
man 2° —
“Assuredly; and your Excellency must
have noticed that the "confidence I then
expressed was not unfounded. Compare
the political attitude of M. Horace Gerold
now, and his attitude six months ago.”
“He still gives us a great deal of trouble
with those newspaper articles of his.”
“I did not guarantee immediate results.
Your Excellency will recollect my stating
that the conversion would need a certain
time; yet even in these newspaper articles,
you must have remarked a daily increasing
moderation.”
“Moderate criticisms, M. Macrobe, are
not those which give least annoyance,” an-
swered the minister phlegmatically. “Still
I grant there is a change; what I have
now to propose, is an arrangement that
may do a great deal at a single stroke. M.
Chapoteau, the member for the Tenth
Circumscription of Paris, died this morn-
ing.”
*Which renders a seat vacant.”
“Yes, and one it will be difficult to fill as
we should like. That poor Chapoteau was
a fool, but he made an excellent member.
He was elected immediately after the coup-
d'état, when people were still frightened,
and he never gave us a minute's bother.
But it would be nonsense hoping to get
such a one elected again. People have got
over their fright now, and they will be for
electing some Radical just to spite us; it's
always the same story with these Parisians.
However, if you can answer that young
Gerold will come over to our side by and by,
it might be worth while putting him forward,
and letting him carry the seat, which he
might do, popular as he has become.”
“But how could the government help
him 2 Horace Gerold would not accept
an official candidateship; neither did he
accept it, could he hope to win the seat,
for his popularity would collapse on the
spot.”
pº You don't quite follow me,” answered
M. Gribaud, with some impatience. “My
suggestion is, that you should induce young
Gerold to stand as opposition candidate.
We, of course, shall have our official can-
didate, and we will do our utmost to get
him through; but failing the possibility
of that—and I repeat, I don’t think it is
possible — our agents will receive instruc-
tions to give Gerold all the occult assistance
they can. And supposing there should be
several opposition candidates, and that a
ballotage should be necessary by reason
of the division of votes; then, on the sec-
ond day's polling, our candidate shall with-
draw in Gerold’s favor, and so make the
seat safe for him. All you will have to do
is to prevent the young fellow from enter-
ing into any league with his brother oppo-
sition candidates.”
There was a silence. M. Macrobe mused
a moment.
“I will be frank with your Excellency,”
he said, at last. “I am rather afraid to
adopt this plan. If it were certain that
within a given time of his entering the
house, Horace Gerold would cross over to
the government benches, the scheme would
be a good one; but I greatly fear that, if
On Ce ãºi as an opposition candidate, he
would remain faithful to his party ever
after. Gratitude in the first place, and in
the next the pride of occupying an abso-
lutely unique position—that of sole liberal
member in a house full of Bonapartists—
would combine to revive his republican
sympathies, and so undo all the work we
have been so patiently pursuing of late.
But there is another way in which it strikes
me this election can be turned to account
in bringing young Gerold over more rap-
idly to our camp.” M. Macrobe paused,
and threw his eyes round him to make sure
there were no eaves-droppers. “We will
prevail upon Gerold to stand as opposition
candidate, your Excellency; but we must
contrive to get his election defeated by the
Radicals. Let the government press have
orders to combat him courteously; on the
other hand, let there be stirred up against .
him a few of those Radicals who have
affinity with the Préfecture of Police, and
let these fellows be incited to assail him
with all the ranting violence and calum-
nious abuse with which their pleasant vo-
cabulary is stored. They might be licensed
YoUNG CANDoR,
OLD SUBTLETY. 105
to start a paper, on purpose to attack him,
and furnished with the necessary funds.
This would disgust Gerold. He is ex-
tremely sensitive; he shrinks from black-
guardism, and the more signal the courtesy
shown him by his Bonapartist opponents,
so much the more would he writhe under
the low insults of his own party. If he lost
his election through their doings, it would
be all up with the connection. I should not
be surprised to see him snap, it there and
then, and desert over to us in a dudgeon
with arms and baggage.”
His Excellency M. Gribaud passed his
knotty hand over his chin. The project of
M. Macrobe evidently tallied completely
with his own ideas as to how an election
ought to be carried on under the reign of
Universal Suffrage. He saw no flaw in it.
He approved.
“The only thing is about the vacant
seat,” muttered he. “Who will have it 7”
“Not unlikely your official candidate,”
answered M. Macrobe, smiling. “If Ge-
rold breaks with the Radicals he will, prob-
ably, resign in favor of the Bonapartists to
mark his utter contempt for the party he
abandons. Then by this election your Ex-
cellency will have killed two birds with one
stone — kept the seat in the Corps Légis-
latif for the Bonapartists, and won over a
dangerous adversary.”
It was some time before these two pillars
of the political and financial worlds sepa-
rated. As their mutual esteem for each other
increased by the disclosure of kindred sen-
timents, they continued to converse, broach-
ing a variety of topics, and taking one an-
other’s moral measure. When M. Macrobe
was again free, night had set in. Signor
Scintilli, the pyrotechnician, had discharged
his twenty thousand francs’ worth of fire-
works — the most goodly blaze ever seen
— and the maskers had all retreated from
, the night-air into the brilliantly-illuminated
saloons where the ball was to take place.
The financier hurried across terraces and
up staircases in his sable gown and gold
chain. He was bent upon finding Horace
at once, and obtaining from him a promise to
stand, at the election. Wine, music, and
the revelry aiding, it was presumable the
young man would be more accessible to the
counsels of ambition, more inclined to view
his chances with a sanguine eye, than in a
soberer mood to-morrow. But first M. Ma-
crobe wished to see Angélique for a single
moment, and discover by a passing ques-
tion whether Horace had committed him-
self to any proposal.
The ball had commenced, and the finan-
cier stood regarding it from the threshold
of the room. Everybody was masked, and,
as a consequence, everybody was behaving
as he or she would not have done had their
features been unveiled. The distinguished
plenipotentiary, dressed as a fowl, was kick-
ing his legs in the air in a style that would
have secured his immediate ejection from
Mabille. A quadrille composed of official
deputies and senators' wives, figuring the
devil, a monk or two, some historical dames,
and a clown, were going through evolu-
tions, which excited shrieks of intermina-
ble laughter from a surrounding ring of
noble and illustrious spectators. Mr. Dry-
dust, long ago severed from his claymore,
and with his arm encircling the waist of a
Russian princess, was performing all his
steps Scotch-reel wise, and flinging his
manly limbs about him like the branches of
a tree, tempest-tossed. M. Gousset had so
thoroughly entered into the spirit of his
part that one would have taken him purely
and simply for one of the loose characters
of his own novels. M. Macrobe caught
sight of Angélique seated and fanning her-
self. She had just been dancing with the
Prince of Arcola, and, on account of the
heat, had for a moment taken off her mask.
Her Aunt Dorothée, utterly unrecognizable
and weird to witness as Catherine de Me-
dici, was beside her. Poor woman, she
looked like a worthy soul from the upper
world fallen by accident into pandemo-
nium.
“Well, my pet, is your card pretty
full 2 *
“O papa, look 1" she said. “I don't
know how I shall ever keep all these en-
gagements.”
In truth, the card was full from the first
dance to the twenty-second inclusive. An
instant's survey showed M. Macrobe that
Horace's name was not down.
“Have you danced with M. Gerold?”
he asked carelessly.
Angélique blushed scarlet.
“M. Gérold never asked me,” she said,
fanning herself more rapidly and speaking
shyly.
§ Macrobe knew all he cared to know.
“The courtship has begun,” he muttered
gayly; and he made for a corner of the
room where Horace, easily discernible,
though masked, was handing the fascinat-
ing daughter of Cincinnatus Jickling, ;
back to her seat after — as she prettily
termed it—“going the pace ’’ with her.
Five minutes later there were two happy
men in the room — M. Prosper Macrobe,
who had obtained his promise and been
thanked into the bargain with a sudden
and earnest effusion of gratitude that had
surprised him ; and Horace himself, who
animated by the whole day’s proceedings,
the wine, the lights, the dance, was say-
ing, with beating pulse and glistening eye :
106
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
“Deputy at twenty-five! I shall not have
a fortune to offer her, but I can make my-
self a name: and then, perhaps, her father
will not refuse his consent. That man
seems to be my guardian angel.”
CHAPTER XX.
“LE LION AMOUREUX.”
THE presence of the Prince of Arcola
in M. Pochemolle's shop — a novel incident
on the day when Horace first beheld that
nobleman there — had gradually become
an event of daily occurrence. M. Macrobe
knew what he was about when he brought
the Prince to see Mdlle. Georgette. The
Prince, to his weakness for horses and her-
aldry, added a third more artistic weakness
for women. It was not the weakness of a
debauchee, but the highly-cultivated and
epicurean worship for what he deemed the
fairer and incomparably better half of crea-
tion.
The Prince of Arcola was one of those
gentlemen who would be all the happier
for having some object to their lives. To
be sure, he cherished an ambition, which
was to win the French Derby, and when
he had accomplished that, then the English
Derby — but this dream, for the fulfilment
of which he relied much more on his train-
er's indomitable efforts than on his own, only
engrossed his energies in a partial manner,
and left him time enough on his hands to
feel that the world was occasionally weari-
some. He would have liked to possess a
large estate had that been practicable; but
it was not according to his notions. If he
were to begin forming a vast domain, it
must be split up at his death and allotted
in equal portions to his heirs, whoever they
might be : and if there were half a dozen
of these heirs, the portion of each would
be about the size of an English yeoman’s
farm. This was beggarly. Had aliens
been permitted to hold land in England,
he would have got out of his difficulties by
emigrating there and founding an estate
under the tutelary auspices of primogeni-
ture. As it was, he had more than once
turned over the project of getting himself
naturalized, only it was the probationary
residence under some roof, not his own,
which balked him.
Very correct in his attire, cut by an
English tailor, shaved a l’Anglaise—that
is, sporting mustache and whiskers, but no
beard, and irreproachably gloved, he had
adopted the habit of driving down to the
Rue Ste. Geneviève in his phaeton to see
Horace. But somehow he generally came
at hours when his friend was absent: and
this furnished a pretext for stepping into
the shop below and staying sometimes half
an hour, sometimes more. The visit of a
prince might be a rather appalling circum-
stance in the life of a British haberdasher:
especially if that prince had a prancing
equipage and a groom in livery waiting for
him at the street corner; but the shoulders
of Frenchmen are equal to any weight of
honor. After the first interview or two, M.
Pochemolle set down the frequent calls to
the pleasure M. d’Arcola probably took in
his, M. Pochemolle’s conversation. There
would be nothing strange in that. M. le
Prince and he held, he had observed, iden-
tical views on most points. When talking
politics, M. Pochemolle said: “We men of
order”—implying the solidarity existing
between all persons of conservative mind
—such as the Prince and himself— as
against the disorderly or canaille.
That Georgette was not so blind, need
hardly be said. As she plied her needle
in seeming unconsciousness, the motives of
the Prince of Arcola's frequent visits could
not quite escape her. At first they impor-
tuned her, these visits, and she scarcely
opened her lips. But women who have been
slighted are wounded in their self-love as
well as in their deeper affections, and there
was nothing unnatural in the fact that a hom-
age which raised her in her own eyes by prov-
ing that all men were not as disdainful of
her as Horace had been, should come to be
regarded, not with pleasure indeed, but
with something approaching to a mild sense
of gratitude. She now and then hazarded
a timid answer to some of the Prince’s re-
marks, and her mother said she was begin-
ning to look better.
“I am not more fortunate than usual,”
said the Prince, walking into the shop with
a smile, after inquiring uselessly for Horace
one afternoon, some five weeks after M. Ma-
crobe's féte. “Madame Pochemolle and
Mademoiselle, your servant. M. Poche-
molle, why this is seditious literature; are
you, too, on our friend's committee ?”
“Why, no, mon prince; I was just read-
ing one of the addresses M. Geri ld has cir-
culated,” responded M. Pochemolle, ruefully,
and he displayed an enormous yellow post-
er, headed : “Dixième Circonscription
Electorale de la Seine. Candidature de
l’Opposition. Circulaire à MM. les Elec-
teurs.”
“I hear the candidature is progressing re-
markably well,” said the Prince, accepting
the seat which the draper hastened to offer
him. “M. Gerold has a capital list of names
on his committee, all the Orleanist pha.
* LE LION AMOUREUX.”
107
lanx, Baron Margauld at the head of
them.”
“And yourself, M. le Prince 2 ” asked
Mdme. Pochemolle.
“No, I am not on it, being no free agent;
from father to son we must be Bonapartists
in our family, but I give good wishes, and
anonymous subscriptions.”
“Which is what M. Macrobe does, too,
I hear,” said M. Pochemolle, sighing. “Dear
me, M. le Prince, this is a most awkward
predicament; I never voted for a Republi-
can in my life, except when they were in
power, yet I could never bring myself to
vote against M. Gerold.”
“Providence has left a door of escape
out of every human dilemma, M. Poche-
molle. A cold in the head or an attack of
gout, are never-failing excuses. M. Ma-
crobe, too, was in difficulty. As Chairman
of the Crédit Parisien, and newly-ap-
pointed Knight of the Legion, he could not
decently have taken open part against the
Government. So he labors under the rose,
and is most indefatigable. If Gerold gets
through it will be mainly owing to him.”
“He is a most honest man, M. Macrobe,
and the shares of the Crédit Parisien con-
tinue to rise every day,” said M. Poche-
molle. -
“I shall be glad to see M. Horace dep-
uty,” remarked his wife ; “though there
will be no reading his speeches in the paper
now that the Government prohibits parlia-
mentary reports. He will have a silver-
laced uniform, with a sword, and twelve
thousand francs a year.”
“Supposing he be elected,” added the
Prince, doubtfully, “but I am afraid it is
not so sure. You see how the Radicals are
treating him; they have refused to support
his candidature; and that new paper of
theirs, “Le Tocsin,’ assaults him in a most
scoundrelly way.”
“Yes, I brought a copy of it home yester-
day,” grinned M. Alcibiade Pochemolle,
who was measuring enough calico to make
a petticoat. “They blackguarded him like
good 'uns—said he only wanted to get
into the House to finger the salary and then
turn his coat and betray the party. I never
read any thing like it. M. Horace killed
that other journalist for much less than
that.”
“Why should not the ‘Tocsin say all
this if it be true 7" said Georgette calmly,
without raising her eyes from her work. “It
# a newspaper's duty to enlighten the pub-
ic.”
This was the first time Georgette had
spoken, and her remark was so unexpected,
so utterly at variance with the habitual gen-
tleness of her speech, that everybody re-
mained silent-struck. The Prince, who was
seated close to the counter behind which she
worked, examined her rapidly, and noticed
that her lips were set, that her eyes gleamed,
and that her needle-hand, as it stitched
with feverish haste, trembled, and often
missed the point. She looked up and re-
peated quietly : “M. Horace Gerold has
given no proof that he is better than other
men. It seems to me that gold is the only
thing for which people care nowadays. For
that they would sell their bodies and their
souls.” -
“Georgette l’exclaimed M. Pochemolle,
Scandalized and frightened; and Mdme.
Pochemolle, letting fall her work on the
floor, grew red and white by turns.
The Prince, devining some emotion which
had found its vent in the impulse of a wild
moment, and which doubtless was already
repenting having betrayed itself, came
quickly to Georgette's relief.
“Mademoiselle speaks in a general way,”
he said. “She means that electors are so
often imposed upon that they may be ex-
cused for being a little suspicious. I agree
with her, and think that under existing cir-
cumstances we may perhaps make special
allowances for our Radical friends. They
have not a single representative in the
House, and they are naturally anxious to
get a nember who will reflect their peculiar
views better than M. Gerold, who, as Made-
moiselle says, is as fond as we all are of the
comforts and refinements which money pro-
cures.”
Georgette thanked him by a glance.
M. Pochemolle drew a sigh of satisfaction,
having swallowed the explanation with en-
tire faith. Mdme. Pochemolle, whether her
woman's acuteness accepted it or not, pre-
tended to do so; and thus the Prince was
enabled to divert the conversation into a new
channel. He had brought tickets for a new
play which was making everybody weep at
the Théâtre de la Gaieté. If there was one
thing Mdme. Pochemolle liked more than
another it was to have a good evening's cry
over a melodrama, particularly when this
satisfaction was afforded her in a stage-box
presented by some generous donor.
“And you will go too, Mademoiselle, if
you allow me to counsel you,” said the
Prince, speaking not very loud.
Though she had not yet recovered from
the quiverings of her nervous excitement,
she answered with more attention than she
had ever lent him before : “What is the
play about, Monsieur?”
“It treats of a young girl,” said he,
slowly, and looking at her, “who has been
faithlessly abandolied by a man she
loved ” —
“Yes,” continued she, interrupting him
whilst her eye flashed, “abandoned for a
108
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
woman who had gold to give. Go on,
Monsieur, the story is an old one.”
“Another man — of a different char-
acter—touched by her condition, pitying,
admiring and loving her, offers her his
heart”— -
“And she 2 ”
“Accepts” —
“I think not, Monsieur le Prince,” re-
turned she calmly. “The girl answered
that she stood in no need of pity; that
admiration is not always a tribute to be
proud of; and that for a man to offer his
heart to a girl who is not his equal, is but
another way of saying that he thinks her
fallen lower than she is.”
CHAPTER XXI.
CANVASSING.
GEORGETTE's outburst of wrath and
abrupt revulsion of feeling as regards Hor-
ace were not mere caprice. They were due
to her knowledge of what had passed be-
tween him and Angélique. In her dismay
at the unforeseen climax brought about by
her negotiations in favor of her friend, An-
gélique had at first known neither what to
say nor what to do. She had taken four
weeks meditating over the matter. Then
the conviction had gathered within her
that it would be honest to tell Georgette
the whole truth; and she had döne this,
concealing no detail, but setting down
every thing as it had happened with the
entire conscientiousness and want of tact
which distinguishes those “who mean
well.” From this confession Georgette had
had no difficulty in gleaning that if An-
élique did not actually love Horace her-
self, yet his declaration had so far unsettled
her that she would have no strength to
resist him if he prosecuted his courtship
with any thing like insistance. The fact is,
Angélique's first essay at diplomatizing had
completely exhausted all her powers of
initiative. She had laboriously collected
all her weak forces for an attack, and had
been not only repulsed, but placed suddenly
in the position of assailed. She could do
no more. If M. Gerold was in earnest in
what he said, if he had really set his mind
upon marrying her, if, above all, he had her
father for an ally, as she somehow suspected
he would have, there would be no use in
her offering any opposition.
Georgette saw this, and her mild spirit
was roused. She would have forgiven
Horace for not loving her, and had he
married any brilliant woman of his own
rank, rich or poor, from love or ambition,
she would have excused him, and borneº
her wound with resignation. But that he
should be aspiring to the hand of Angélique
Macrobe revolted her. This match was
too sordid. Angélique could have nothing
in her but her money to attract such a
man as he. She was devoid of sense, her
father's reputation was tarnished, their
wealth was sprung no one knew whence,
and had been publicly denounced as cor-
rupt by Horace himself less than a year be-
fore. She felt all her love shrink into
scorn for a man who could prostitute him- .
self to such a debasing alliance; the more
so as she was humiliated that Angélique, in
her clumsy and unauthorized attempts to
plead her cause, had probably degraded her
in the estimation of this man, whom she
now blushed at having worshipped. It is
to be remarked that the idea that Horace's
affection might be owing to other causes
than monetary ones, to Angélique's beauty,
for instance, was the only one that escaped
Georgette. But this is a venial foible.
Women are as much at a loss to discover
personal attractions in their rivals as men
to perceive talent in their adversaries.
The Prince of Arcola drove home in that
state of mind which inevitably follows a
“scene * in the case of those who are unused
to those incidents. He dined at his club
— an English habit which he was helping
to acclimatize by his example — and, being
alone, had leisure to wonder how much
truth and how much comedy there was in
Mdlle. Georgette's performance. What.
puzzled him was the part Horace Gerold
had played in all this. He should have
been glad to know more of Gerold, who
appeared to him a sort of social enigma —
a man credited with enormous wealth, and
living in the Rue Ste. Geneviève; a Re-
publican whose austere principles were
cited, and who danced at fancy dress-balls;
a strictly virtuous youth who ravaged the
hearts of drapers' daughters. Then whom
did Georgette mean by the woman to whom
Gerold had sold himself for gold * He
thought there would be no harm in trying
to elucidate some of these points next time
he met Horace. He could ask him frankly
whether there had really ever been any
thing between him and Georgette, and how
far matters had gone.
In the evening, at a party in the Faubourg
St. Germain, he stopped Jean Kerjou, the
journalist, who was passing in all the glory
of swallow-tails and crush-hat.
“It’s a while since I have seen you, M
Kerjou. Can you give me any news of
Gerold 2 He is, of course, very busy 2 ”
“You know, mon prince, he is on our
CANVAssING.
109
aper now—on the “Gazette des Boulevards.”
es, he is up to his neck in election work,
and we are toiling by his side. He will
have the Orleanist votes, and the Legiti-
mists are not disinclined to support him.
Indeed, it is rather for the object of can-
vassing that I am here this evening.”
“Then his worst enemies are the Reds.
What can they mean by mauling him so
pitilessly ‘’”
“Heigh, it is their nature; but what
makes the thing rather hard to stand is,
that amongst them are some men Gerold
knows and used to be friends with. The
Radical candidate who opposes him is that
fellow Albi, and one of the writers of that
rascally ‘Tocsin ' is no other than Max De-
lormay, whom Gerold defended in the libel
action. He is not a bad character, but has
a soft head — in fact, he is a fool — and I
expect Albi corrupted him in prison. Then
the “Sentinelle’ has not behaved over well.
Gerold counted that it would fight for him,
but Nestor Roche has answered somewhat
dryly that his principles oblige him to re-
main neutral; which, under present cir-
cumstances, is as good as being hostile.”
“Then what do you think?”
“We shall win, I hope; but it will be a
tough struggle.”
Yes, it bade fair to be that, and an ex-
citing struggle as well. For the first time
since the coup-d'état a Parisian constituency
was to have the opportunity of expressing
its opinion with regard to the diversely-
appreciated régime Frenchmen were under-
going since 1851. Bonapartists argued
that now was the time to prove one's
gratitude for the Crimean War, the victories
of Alma and Inkermann, the International
Exhibition of 1855, the cessation of street
riots, the wholesale demolition of old houses,
and the unexampled prosperity of trade.
The Opposition retorted that here was the
moment for asking where France's liberties
were gone, what was done with the millions of
increased taxes imposed upon the country
every year; and, finally, what was the
equivalent in dignity, peace, and happiness
which the country was deriving from the
suppression of its Republic 2 Paris was
the only locality in the whole empire where
the elections could be conducted with any
independence; and the tactics recommended
by the more acute amongst the leaders of
the Opposition were formidable. If adopted,
the Government could stand no chance
against them. They consisted in this: —
To bring forward as many candidates of
various shades of opposition as was possible
On the first day of polling, and to bind them
by this common agreement: — That the
one who obtained most votes on that first
day should be left to stand alone against
the official candidate on the second, all his
brother opposition candidates retiring in
his favor—i.e., requesting their electors
to vote for him.* -
As soon as it had been published that
the seat of the Tenth Circumscription was
vacant, a fair array of Oppositionists had
entered the lists: a Legitimist count, who
had not the ghost of a prospect; an ex-
deputy of Louis Philippe's time, who had
sat behind M. Thiers, and might be sup-
posed to rally the bourgeois votes; a second
ex-deputy, former supporter of M. Guizot;
and finally Horace, who, at the cautious
solicitation of M. Macrobe, announced
himself simply as “Liberal,” and whose
candidature excited that interest which
generally attends youth, courage, and a
promptly-won reputation.
Every thing was progressing favorably.
That numerous section of Liberals who did
not care who was elected provided it were
an opponent of the Government, were look-
ing sanguine, and the candidates had al-
ready entered into negotiations with a view
to forming the desired coalition, when the
sudden entry of the Radical candidate on
the scene, and his loudly-expressed inten-
tion of co-operating with nobody not in-
dorsing his own creed, had completely
changed the face of matters. M. Albi, or
the Citizen Albi as he called himself, was
too popular with the working-class element
for the coalition to offer any probability of
success without him. The policy to be
followed now was not to scatter the Oppo-
sition votes amongst the five or six candi-
dates, but to put forward one man whose
popularity might out-balance both that of
Albi himself and the influence brought to
bear in favor of the official nominee.
Horace's original competitors were modest
enough to perceive that their own popu-
larities were not equal to this double
emergency. They admitted that their only
chance of entering the House was through
the reciprocal system, and therefore they.
* To illustrate this system of tactics, which led to
the total defeat of the Government in the Paris
elections of 1863, we will take this example:– A
constituency contains 35,000 electors. There are 5
candidates in the field, 1 Official and 4 Opposition,
the latter comprising 1 Legitimist, 1 Orleanist, I
Moderate Republican, and 1 Radical. On the first
day of polling the 35,000 votes are distributed as fol-
lows: Official Candidate. 15,000; Moderate Republi-
can, 8,000; Orleanist, 6,000; Legitimist, 4,000; Rad-
ical, 2,000. No one having secured the absolute
majority—i.e., the half of the votes plus one (17,501)
— a second day’s poll becomes necessary; but this
time, in accordance with their previous agreement,
three out of the four Oppositionists retire in favor of
the foremost among them; and the result is that the
Official Candidate, who, on the first day, headed the
poll by 7,000 votes, finds himself completely swamped
on the second, the numbers being, Republican C.,
20,000; Official C., 15,000. The Imperial Govern.
ment so much dreaded this strategy that the project
of abolishing the system of ballotage (second day's
poll) was more than once seriously mooted.
110
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
had retired at once, leaving the honor of
fighting the unequal battle to Horace.
Every thing that could be accomplished
by a powerful committee disposing of eon-
siderable funds was now done to effect the
return of young Gerold, who, bitterly stung
by the animosity of his former allies, had
plunged into the struggle with a determi-
nation to spare nothing to win. He was
the man on whom, for the moment, the
eyes of all Paris — nay, of all France —
were fixed. People were hoping in him by
hundreds of thousands — perhaps by mil-
lions. Journalists he had never known,
whom he was never likely to know, were
advocating his cause day after day in terms
which made the blood thrill in his veins,
and sometimes brought tears to his eyes.
He had all the independent journals, both
of capital and provinces, behind him.
Certes, it was a fine position for a young
man who had done nothing. But this
very unanimity only made it the more ex-
asperating that the paper he would have
most liked to possess on his side — the
honest and esteemed “Sentinelle’” — had
refused to speak a word for him.
“I should not be acting comformably to
what I deem my duty as a Republican,
were I to recommend you as deputy,” had
said Nestor Roche coldly in answer to
Horace's request. “The most I can do is
to remain neutral.”
“May I know what is your ideal of a
Republican candidate 2° Horace replied,
speaking with suppressed wrath.
“I doubt whether you would be able to
realize such an ideal, even in thought,”
responded Roche, grimly. “It is not that
you dislike Republicanism, but you love
other things more.”
And Horace had been unable to elicit
any thing besides this.
As for Albi and Max Delormay, he had
made no efforts to ascertain the motives of
their enmity. Albi he had never liked,
and Max Delormay was a personage who,
ever since his imprisonment, had been
haunted by one thought — how to turn his
political martyrdom to a good -account.
Now that he was out of prison, his joining
a paper where he was twice as well paid as
he had been on the “Sentinelle,” was a
perfectly natural incident; nor was there
any thing very astonishing in his battering
suddenly, for wages' sake, at an old friend :
journalists are used to these brotherly
demonstrations. What did surprise Horace,
though, and many others with him, was
that Albi, Delormay, and the rest of the set
should have found the funds needful to start
a paper; and still more, that the Govern-
ment, which stringently prohibited new
journals of moderate liberalism, should
have licensed such a red-dyed, spit-fire or-
gån as the “Tocsin.” This last circum-
stance, taken in conjunction with the
relentless, furious war which the Radicals
were waging against him, forced him to
the conclusion that Government io9ked
upon these men as its surest auxiliaries,
and his detestation of their ignoble scur-
rility became tempered with something
very like coutempt for, what he was gen-
erous enough to consider, their blindness.
Police regulations allowed of no public
meetings in which a candidate might ad-
dress his electors, neither was a personal
canvass in a constituency numbering rather
more than fifty thousand voters a very
practicable expedient. Official candidates
got over these difficulties by convoking
meetings within covered buildings, such as
a theatre or concert-room, stuffing those
who came with cake and wine, and then
blandly declaring that this was nothing
more than a private party; but the success
of this stratagem would have been doubt-
ful in the case of liberals. Their only
means of making themselves known was to
scatter circulars profusely, to go the full
length which the Press laws allowed in the
matter of newspaper-puffing, and to visit
the workshops where a good many hands
were employed, and there make brief
speeches, if so be that the foremen allowed
it.
Horace's committee, of which M. Macrobe
appeared to be the life and soul, though he
only figured on it anonymously, had under-
taken the distribution of the circulars; it
disseminated them by cartloads, and not in
the Tenth Circumscription alone, but
throughout all Paris. It had, moreover, set
an army of agents afoot, and a legion of
bill-stickers, and a squadron of trusty ped-
dlers who went about the Boulevards hawk-
ing cigarette-papers, lucifer-matches, and
stationery, in boxes labelled GEROLD, and
were often dragged off into custody for their
pains. The newspapers launched leader
upon leader, paragraph upon paragraph, and
printed in flaming capitals on the top of
their first columns:
“ Vote, FoR GEROLD – CANDIDATE
OF THE LIBERAL AND DEMOCRATIC
OPPOSITION.”
Some published letters from eminent
politicians proscribed by the Empire, letters
dated from exile and wishing god-speed to
their young successor. Amongst these was
one from Manuel Gerold. In a private
letter to Horace he had pointed out with
emotion and pride how great and unpre-
cedented was the honor which the Liberal
party of Paris were conferring upon a man
CANVASSING.
111
so young; in his public letter he recom-
mended his son to the suffrages of the
electors in the name of those past services
for which he himself was suffering banish-
ment, and vouched for Horace's Republi-
canism and fidelity as for his own. The
visits to the workshops were performed by
Horace of an afternoon and evening — he
gave all his leisure time to them.
Emile accompanied him in these expedi-
tions, and generally Jean Kerjou or some
brother writer. The electioneering stirred
all Emile's energies into activity. Nothing
short of such an event as this could have
drawn him away from his books and his
briefs, but to further his brother's candida-
ture, he abandoned both book and brief,
gave himself up with all his steady power
of application to the object before him, and
was worth any dozen agents put together.
Workmen are always delicate electors to
handle. French workmen especially re-
quire to be managed with peculiar art, and
Emile possessed that art; which, after all,
was nothing but sterling sincerity. Where
Horace failed to touch the sympathies of
his hearers from speaking too much like a
fine gentleman, and in language evidently
coined for the occasion, Emile arrested their
attention at once, and in a few pregnant
sentences went to their hearts. They
recognized in him a man who felt what they
felt; his look, his voice, his gesture, all told
it them. More than one sullen brow relaxed
under the homely magic of his words, more
than one stubborn foe was shaken, and there
were days when murmurs of assent broke
out, worth twenty salvos of applause. Still,
the canvassing in the popular workshops
was woefully up-hill work. The candida-
ture of Albi, and the denunciations of the
“Tocsin,” made havoc of Horace’s cause
amongst the more excitable spirits; and
the neutrality of the “Sentinelle,” favorite
organ of the artisan quarters, damaged him
sorely with the intelligent workmen.
In this manner, five or six weeks flew by,
until the day when the writ was issued.
This formality precedes the election by
three weeks, and in the interval the zeal of
both sides redoubles — it is like the final
period of training before the day of the
race. Bets were being offered on this
election, and the odds were in favor of
Horace; for people, as usual, judged by the
superior noise which his candidature was
making. Emile received congratulations,
and predictions of success; but he shook
his head rather apprehensively: “I wish
peace could be made with the Albians,” he
said; “we have a common foe, and when
the enemy is so strong, disunion bodes little
good.” •
This idea preyed upon him, and he had
already turned over to small purpose an
assortment of plans likely to operate a
reconciliation, when one evening, not a
week before polling day, Horace decided
upon canvassing a large workshop where
some hundred men were employed in cabi
net-makers’ work. That day, as it happen-
ed, the “Tocsin " had been more than
usually vituperative, and honest Jean Kerjou
was indignant.
“By Heaven!” he exclaimed, as he walked
between the two brothers, “I don’t know
what withholds you from strangling these
curs with your hands. It will be all I shall
be able to do to keep my stick off Delor-
may when I meet him.” -
Horace said nothing. *
“It is infamous, certainly,” remarked
Emile; “but we had better not strangle
anybody. Disdain is as effective, if union
be completely out of the question.”
“You say “if” cried Jean Kerjou.
“Your brother has the patience of Saint
Onesiphorus, who received a box on the ear,
and begged the donor's pardon for stand-
ing in the way. Horace, you don’t mean
to say you could hold any terms with these
vermin 2 I’d coalesce with the Government
against them, and if any of those who voted
for them on the first day offered to vote for
me on the second, I'd throw their dirty
suffrages back into their faces and ask them
what the devil they take me for.”
They reached the workshop. It stood in
a not very savory alley, and was preceded
by a dingy court-yard, usually resounding
with echoes of wood-planing, grinding of
saws, and clanging of hammers. This time it
seemed as though the workmen must be
absent, for the place was silent, but as they
advanced they caught the sounds of an im-
passioned voice raised as if addressing an
assembly; and as all three climbed a dingy
staircase, with a greasy wall on the one
side and a shaky baluster on the other, a
tremendous shock of applause burst like a
thunderclap over their heads and a hun-
dred pairs of boots pounded the floor with a
din that made the building tremble.
“What's this, I wonder?” exclaimed Jean
Kerjou — they were pausing outside the
door. “Pon my word, I believe we’ve ac-
tually stumbled on the badgers.”
Horace pushed the door and they entered.
Jean Kerjou's guess was right.
On a joiner's table, encumbered with
tools, and shoved hurriedly next the wall
at the end of the room in guise of a
platform, stood Albi, his hair , dishev-
elled, his quick, wild eyes glancing fire,
and his parched body drawn up in the
attitude of one who is taking a moment's
breath after a telling oratorical hit. Max
Delormay, who had allowed his beard to
112
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
grow, and was trying, without much success,
to look as if he burned with hatred for ty-
rants, sat below him, glowering, under a
wide-awake; and the body of the hall was
filled up with workmen in paper caps and
shirt-sleeves, leaning against or sitting up-
on unfinished articles of furniture, chests Qf
drawers, cupboards and bedsteads. The
floor was littered with wood-shavings and
glue-pots; broad planks of oak, mapſe, and
rosewood met the gaze; a clean smell of
saw-dust and French polish pervaded the
atmosphere.
All eyes were fixed upon the new-comers,
and a dead silence supervened. Who were
they 2 Albi and Delormay alone winced
and changed color slightly. Horace lifted
his hat and introduced himself in a few
words, amidst a long murmur of curiosity.
He concluded by saying: “As you are be-
ing addressed by one of my competitors,
gentlemen, I will wait and claim the favor
of speaking to you in my turn when he has
finished.”
But this did not suit Albi, who, feeling no
desire to have Horace and Jean Kerjou at
arms'-length of him whilst he proceeded
with the rest of his oration, yelled out at
the moment they were moving towards the
platform : “This is no place for aristocrats
and sycophants.”
There was a sensation.
“No,” roared he, following up his advan-
tage. “Keep out those men, citizens, who
come with smooth words to ensnare your
confidence. The poor have suffered enough,
I should think, from having put faith in
men who betrayed them. If France is
bowed down in chains and tears at this min-
ute, it is from having trusted in adventurers.
Back | Tell them to go back to their masked
balls, their operas — anywhere they please
out of the sight of honest workmen whom
they and their compeers have reduced to
slavery. See they have nothing to offer
you but lying promises, and they quail
miserably before your looks. Citizens! what
the Workman wants is his lost liberties, his
independence, the sovereignty that was rav-
ished from him four years ago when he was
off his guard — these men will bring you
flatteries; your liberties and your sovereign-
ty, they would not give you if they could.”
An ominous murmur rose. It is doubtful
whether many there present cared much
for their sovereignty, or were even conscious
that they had lost it; but Albi spoke with
a communicative fervor, his hand was
stretched out menacingly, and the three
strangers, instead of cowering under his
harangue, seemed, on the contrary, both con-
temptuous and arrogant. Emile, it is true,
sought to utter some words of quiet protest;
but the Legitimist, Jean Kerjou, thwarted
this endeavor by shouting with fury, “You
rascally hound, if all your party were of
the same mud as yourself, the ravish-
ing of your liberties was the wisest thing
that was ever done, for slavery and dog-
whips are the only things you are fit for.”
At this there was an immense clamor.
“Knock him down l’ cried a young work-
man, with solid arms. “Chuck them out !”
chorussed twenty voices more. “Stand
back l’ roared Horace to an individual who
was flourishing a rule over his head, and as
the individual only answered with a grin,
a crashing blow, levelled straight between
the eyes, sent him backwards into the wood-
shavings. The rest of the scene was en-
acted amidst clouds of dust, scuffling, blas-
phemies, heavy thuds of bodies rolled over
onto the floor, and finally the opening wide
of a door, and the precipitate descent of
three persons down the staircase, with a
tempest of valedictory howls from behind.
The candidate and his two companions
found themselves in the yard, bruised, dusty,
torn, but not bloodstained, and minus their
hats. -
Jean Kerjou felt in his pockets, and
discovered that his watch and purse were
intact.
“It must have been an oversight of
theirs,” he remarked quietly.
CHAPTER XXII.
vox PopULI.
At last the day of election dawned — a
glorious day of lustrous sunshine — the
weather for great events or popular solem-
nities. Horace awoke with confidence,
though pale and full of resentment, for the
treatment he had endured in the workshop
was rankling in his memory, causing him
profound humiliation, mingled with a now
burning desire to crush his rivals. ... The
Radicals had attempted to make political
capital out of the event, and the “Tocsin "
had published a fantastic account of how
the “pseudo-liberal ” candidate had been
expelled with ignominy “by the outraged
artisans whom he had sought to cajole.”
This had led to the instant despatching of
two seconds with a demand for a formal
retractation, which had been accorded ;
Max Delormay opportunely remembering
the fate of Paul de Cosaque. But neither the
fantastic account nor the retractation had
done Horace much good. His friends
opined that he would have done well to let
the attack pass unnoticed, and the “Tocsin.”
VOX POPULI.
113
uttered piercing shrieks at what it called
this violation of the liberty of the press
by one who termed himself a Republican.
“This weather augurs favorably,” said
Emile, looking out of the window as the
neighboring belfry of Ste. Geneviève chimed
nine o'clock.
“Yes, the shopkeepers will not stay at
home as they do when it rains,” added
Jean Kerjou, who had come early. “I
have seen more than one French election
marred by showers which kept the rain-
fearing classes within doors and allowed
the tag-rag and bobtail to have it all their
own way.”
A knock, and M. Pochemolle entered, in
his Sunday coat and hat, clean-shaved and
most respectable. After much mental
tribulation and long doubts as to the course
he ought to pursue, he had arrived at the
conclusion that as the two votes of himself
and his son could not possibly affect the
general result in a constituency of fifty
thousand, he would generously give them
to M. Gerold. So he was now come to
say that he and M. Alcibiade, – who, by
the way, exercised his civic privilege for
the first time — had risen betimes in order
to record their suffrages as soon as ever
the doors of the Mairie were opened.
“And we were certainly the first who
voted, Monsieur,” added he, with effusion.
“Ay, we were alone in the room with
the Mayor and the gendarmes,” chimed in
M. Alcibiade, whose hair was profusely
oiled for the occasion. “What they call
the ‘urn’ is a long box with a slit in it,
and when I saw that, I thought I might
manage to slip in several voting tickets
together — I'd got my pocket full of them
— but the mayor didn't allow us to put
them in ourselves. It's he who does it.”
Another knock, and in sailed M. Filo-
selle with a new waistcoat of more striking
tartan pattern than any before witnessed,
and lavender gloves to match. He bowed
with ease. He too had been voting, hav-
ing come up to Paris for the special pur-
ose the night before. “Yesterday morning
was at Marseilles, M. le Marquis, and
deep in a negotiation for sending a cargo
of cracked bugles to China, where they
could pass for new, the Chinese not being
musical; but I said, ‘Duty before profit,”
and here I am. When that sun sets
may you be deputy for Paris, then I shall
return to Marseilles as pleased as if all
the cracked bugles in Christendom had
been shipped to Pekin, and I had received
Seven per cent on the commission.”
This cheerful commencement to the day
removed the cloud from Horace's brow.
He dressed himself with care and sallied
out with the intention of paying a visit to
8
the Hôtel Macrobe, professedly to see its
owner, really in the hope of , meeting
Angélique. His interviews with the finan-
cier's daughter had not been many since
the scene at the fancy fete. Whether it
was that she avoided him, or that he was
unlucky in his hours for calling, she never
seemed to be alone when he was in her
company. There was always the Marquis
of This or the Count of That, and some-
times bevies of ladies engaged in solving
grave problems affecting the shape of a
bonnet or the length of a skirt. If he
could have outstaid these nobles and these
ladies—but then M. Macrobe remained or
Aunt Dorothée, which was proper and
correct but embarrassing, insomuch as when
she was not actually obliged to take part
in the conversation, Angélique sat, resplen-
dent and divine, but silent.
On the election morning, however, M.
Macrobe pretexted having a letter to write
before going out with Horace to the
committee-room. He withdrew; Aunt
Dorothée was up stairs, and Horace found
himself for a moment alone with Angélique.
It was in the boudoir which the financieſ.
had fitted up with such luxury and taste.
for his daughter. Rare objects of art
gleamed on tables and consoles, choice
flowers reared their scented heads out of
exquisitely-tinted vases, Angélique's beau-
ty shone with greater radiance amidst these
surroundings; like a peerless jewel out of a
costly setting. She was dressed in white,
and wore a single rose in her hair. A glan-
cing sunbeam fell upon a curl that rested on
her shoulder and made it glisten like spun
o'old.
* As the door closed behind her father she
blushed and rose, feigning to examine a
scarlet jardenia. Horace approached her
with emotion.
“Will you let me offer you a flower?”
she said, as if to ward off words which she
expected yet shrank from, and she broke
off the finest sprig. But, as soon, she
clasped her hands, blushed deeper, and
said, “But no, I am forgetting that this is
the day of your election and I am offering
you the color of your adversaries—those
bad men who, they tell me, say such cruel
things. -
“And does it pain you that bad men
should say such cruel things? But give
me the flower, it has a price now that you
have culled it.”
He took it from her hand and fixed it in
his button-hole. She continued to gaze at
the jardenias, but found nothing more to
say; so he gently drew her hand in his and
murmured: “Do you know why this day is
so anxious a one in my life 2 It is because
it may prove the starting-point to a career
114
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
of honor which I shall lay as my only for-
tune at the feet of her y adore—at your
feet.”
She turned to him with blushing and
almost piteous entreaty.
“Oh! why do you say that to me, M.
Gerold, when Georgette is so much better
and worthier of you than I?—You, who
are a famous man, who will become a great
one, require a partner who is clever and
can aid you, I could not do that — I
know I could not—and I should make you
unhappy, however much I tried to do other-
wise.”
“I do not want a partner who would aid
me by cleverness,” answered Horace, softly.
“There is a help more potent than that to
brace the nerve and smooth the path of man,
and that help you could give if you tried to
love me a little. Promise me that and you
will make me more than happy.”
Her bosom heaved, and in her trouble
she could only falter:
“If it were really for your happiness, M.
Gerold; but it is not. Oh, I feel it is not
But, tell me, did you never, never love
Georgette?”
This question, which revealed the first
timid germs of feminine sentiment, trans-
ported him. He pressed her hand to his lips:
“Never,” he said, decidedly; “never.”
Footsteps resounded outside. Instinc-
tively they drew apart.
“Now then, my dear young friend, I am
at your service,” said M. Macrobe, return-
ing. “My child, make your best courtesy
to M. Gerold, who, before you see him
again, will be the most enviable man in
France.”
Elections in France under the Imperial
system were not the noisy and boisterous
events they are in certain other countries.
Although this election was regarded with
mortal anxiety by a full million of French
Liberals, who watched in it for the first
feeble symptoms of independent revival,
the streets showed little or no signs that
any thing unusual was taking place. It was
a Sunday, as French polling-days always
are; the church-bells rang, citizens, with
glossy hats on their heads and smart wives
on their arms, were trooping to the Bois de
Boulogne or to the railway stations to catch
excursion trains; and there was the cus-
tomary sprinkling of soldiers in dress uni-
forms, some of whom to be sure, stopped
and stared a moment at the yellow, red,
and white candidate's addresses glaring on
the dead walls. But this was all. It was
only in the quarters comprised in the 10th
Circumscription that any electoral move-
ments could be witnessed, and even here
the proceedings were of the simplest char-
aeter. The Čireumscription was divided
into twelve sections, and in each one of
these was a polling-place provided by the
Municipality—that is, a room hired on the
ground-floor of some eligible house deco-
rated for the occasion by a tricolor flag.
Anybody was free to enter these rooms on
condition of standing quiet. They con-
tained two gendarmes, a deal-box with a
slit in the jid, a table, and behind the
table a half-dozen gentlemen, delegates of
the Mairie and of the different candidates,
seated on chairs. The electors came up
one by one, handed their voting tickets
folded to the municipal officer, who dropped
them at once through the slit, and then re-
tired in silence. No shouting, no cheers,
no party cries. Outside some touters dis-
tributed voting papers to new-comers, and
knots of two or three electors loitered in
the roadway discussing the prospects of
the candidate they favored. But these
groups were never allowed to congregate
into crowds. A couple of sergents-de-ville
paced watchfully up and down, saying,
“Circulez, messieurs, s'il vous plait, cir-
culez.” s
Horace's committee-room was in a street
not very far from the Rue Ste. Geneviève.
When he drove up to the door with the
financier he found the nearest approach to
a throng that he had yet seen that day,
and a good many hats were lifted as he
alighted—one or two hands even pressed
forward to shake his. Inside, the room
was crowded with Horace’s friends and
with newspaper reporters come to pick up
the latest news. The “Gazette des Boule-
wards” mustered in great force, so did Mr.
Drydust, who had brought a youthful Brit-
ish peer with him, the Viscount Margate,
and was describing to his lordship the mech-
anism of universal suffrage both amongst
that and other peoples. A shout arose as
Horace darkened the doorway, and fifty
voices were raised to announce to him the
results of the first four hours’ polling, as
gathered approximately from the ticket-
distributors at the different sections:–
Gerold . . . . . 2,300
Bourbatruelle . . 1,200
Albi . . 450
There might not be much in these figures,
for a large number of electors came with
their voting tickets in their pockets and did
not accept those proffered at the doors;
still they sent a flush to the face of the tri-
umphant candidate. Mr. Drydust declared
aloud that they must be taken as conclu-
sive, the numerous elections, he had seen
having invariably been decided by the re-
sults of the first four hours' polling.
M. Bourbatruelle was he official candir
VOX POPULI.
115
date. It was not very easy to elect a per-
Sonage suited to this delicate post in a city
such as Paris, and under the circumstances,
M. Bourbatruelle was really not a bad
choice. He was a manufacturer of clay-
pipes. Every clay-pipe in Paris issued
from his stores bore the name of Bourba-
truelle printed in small letters next the
mouth-piece. On bringing him forward, the
Government had suggested that it would
do no harm to print this name of Bou RBA-
TRUELLE a little bigger, to prefix the
words VOTE FOR, and to desseminate a
hundred thousand clay-pipes, thus amended,
gratis amongst the population. M. Bour-
batruelle had improved upon the hint by
causing screws of shag to be bestowed along
with the pipes — which was not bribery,
although it might have been deemed so had
M. Bourbatruelle been a Liberal, but simply
a small token of affectionate generosity.
There was a general impression current
that M. Bourbatruelle was a fool — an
erroneous idea, for a man is not a fool who
can make himself a millionnaire by selling
clay-pipes. If the Corps Législatif were
ever called upon to pass a law affecting the
pipe-industry, every thing tended to show
that M. Bourbatruelle would prove himself
thoroughly competent to defend his in-
terests. Of course, as regards. laws that
had no connection with pipes, M. Bourba-
truelle was indifferent, and was expected
to be so, for had it been otherwise he would
not have been chosen for official candidate,
M. Bourbatruelle had behaved like a gen-
tleman towards Horace, leaving a card upon
him, and bowing to him with great civility
once when they had met in the street. Hor-
ace had followed suit in the matter of the
card, and returned the bow with respect.
He had no animosity for M. Bourbatruelle,
and it gave him keen pleasure to see that
he was completely distancing Albi.
“I see every hope of our obtaining the
victory, M. Gerold,” said the grave and em-
phatic Baron Margauld. “Madame de
Margauld has charged me to convey to you
her good wishes. I think she has been not
unoccupied in canvassing for you among
some of her friends.”
“I am most grateful,” answered Horace
earnestly, “and whatever be the result of
the election, believe me I shall never forget
the kindness that has been so freely lavished
on me.”
Jean Kerjou ran in breathless.
“I have just come from the section of the
Rue de Tournon. Emile came there to
vote, and brought ninety-two workmen
with him — all rabid supporters of Albi.
He had talked them over. Ah, you should
have heard him You've got a brother
there who is not made of ordinary stuff. If
he had time to go the round of all the
workshops by himself to-day, you would fly
to the top of the poll like a flag to the
masthead.”
The voting begins at eight in the morn-
ing and concludes at six, and it is from this
latter hour that the real excitement of a
Parisian election commences. But the cen-
tre of animation is not so much in the vot-
ing quarters as on the Boulevards. On
those three hundred yards of holy ground
between the Opéra Comique and the
Théâtre des Variétés every man flocks who
holds a pen or a pencil, who may wear a
gown or an epaulette, who is anybody or
any thing —journalists, artists, barristers,
officers, novelists, stockbrokers, all jumbled
together, smoking, chattering, gesticulating,
and waiting for the evening papers. At
half-past six on the evening of the election
you could not have dropped so much as a
pea from the balcony of one of the houses
of the Boulevard Montmartre without its
alighting on the hat of somebody. The
crowd surged rather than flowed. The
cafés were crammed to suffocation —not a
seat to be had in them.
The lamp-lighters, with their long lad-
ders, found themselves unable to make any
head against the current, and appealed dis-
tractedly to be allowed to pass. In the
kiosks, the newspaper-women, worn out
with counting money and folding broad-
sheets, had hung out the announcement
which is their signal of distress: “No
change given.” And amidst all the din,
the clinking of glasses in the cafés, the rat-
tling of dominoes on the marble tables, the
cries of “Oui, Monsieur ; tout de suite,”
from the waiters, snapped the exclamations,
“Gerold wins !” “I’ll lay on Albi: they
say the Radicals polled in the afternoon.”
“I vote an address of condolence to Bour-
batruelle.”
Of a sudden, a tremendous rush. A string
of newsboys were coming full tilt down
the Rue Montmartre, metropolis of printers,
with the second edition of the “Gazette des
Boulevards.” They are mobbed. The kiosks
are stormed. A deluge of copper coin en-
sues — those who have no sous give francs,
and the papers were torn open : —
“LATEST NEWS.
“At the moment of going to press with
our second edition, the results of the elec-
tion are still uncertain ; but the contest has
been a very severe one. Until two o'clock
the Liberal candidate maintained the head;
but the majority of electors did not poll till
late, and it is now supposed that the votes
are so equally divided that a ‘ballotage
will be necessary. The greatest order pre-
vails.”
116
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
Ten minutes later the second edition of
the “Sentinelle ” appeared, and was cleared
away in two minutes : —
“ELECTION OF THE 10TH CIRCUMSCRIP-
TION.
“The votes are being counted as fast as
possible in the different sections, and it is
now beyond doubt that the Government
have sustained an overwhelming defeat, the
aggregate of votes given to the two Opposi-
tion candidates amounting to almost double
the number polled by the Official candidate.
M. Horace Gerold's committee are sanguine;
but at M. Albi's head-quarters it is confi-
dently asserted that the immense majority
of votes polled in the afternoon were for the
Radical interest. We have no means of
ascertaining how far this rumor is correct.”
Finally, at about eight, an impossible,
indescribable scrimmage greeted the third
edition of the “Tocsin,” brought damp from
the press by men wild with excitement, and
shrieking: “Final Result l”
This is what the “Tocsin "printed: —
“CLOSE OF THE POLL.
TRIUMPH OF THE RADICAL CANDIDATE.
10th Circumscription.
Number of Registered Electors, 51,515
Number of Votes recorded, 45,963
Absolute Majority required, 22,982
ALBI . o e o 19,310
BOURBATRUELLE . 14,518
GEROLD . © © 12,125
None of the candidates having obtained
the absolute majority, a ‘ballotage ' will
take place this day fortnight.”
This news was brought to Horace in his
committee-room, and he managed to glide
out unperceived amid the consternation and
tumult which it occasioned. He had not
eaten since the morning, excitement having
left him no appetite, and he now felt faint;
his steps were hurried and unsteady. Peo-
ple passed him with contented faces, re-
turning home after their Sunday walk; and
how he envied those people, who probably
led uneventful lives and had no ambition
In a quiet street an Italian was grinding an
organ, and a ring of little children danced
around him, filling the evening air with their
gay, crowing laughter. He rather won-
dered that these children did not read on
his face how disappointed and unhappy he
was, and pause in their merry-making; but
he tried to smile to them kindly, and he
thought the music the sweetest, most pathet-
ic he had ever heard. When close to his
lodgings, he stopped, remembering Emile.
His brother would take this to heart more
than he himself would. He must go in look-
ing unconcerned, cheerful, if he could ; he
rehearsed one or two things which he could
say to console Emile. And so he reached
Rue Ste. Geneviève.
But just as he was about to cross the
road opposite M. Pochemolle's house, he
was arrested by a loud and jubilant clamor
proceeding from the end of the street, and
a joyous crowd debouched uttering shouts
of triumph, and escorting a man perched
high aloft on a pair of stalwart shoulders.
It was Albi's constituents chairing him from
his committee-room to his home. The po-
lice had made some sort of effort to prevent
it, but they were too few, and the men too
many — something like a couple of hun-
dred; besides which, the procession was
only noisy, not obstreperous, so that it
was best to let it alone. On they came,
cheering with all the power of their lungs,
and tossing their caps into the air; and the
inhabitants, attracted by this sight of by-
gone times, came out on to their doorsteps,
to look and nod, and clap their hands; suc-
cess excites applause, like sunshine the
song of birds. Horace remained standing
where he was, motionless; but just as the
exulting troop approached, a window facing
him was opened, and Georgette appeared.
She looked out and saw him at once. He
was standing in the full light of a gas-lamp
— she at an angle where her features were
plainly visible — and their eyes met. Rapid
as lightning she darted on him a look of
contempt and derisive triumph, and at the
moment when the vanquishers swept be-
neath her, leaned forward, caught up a nose-
gay that was standing on the sill, and threw
it to Albi.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MACROBE A LA RESCOUSSE.
To have been during three months the
most prominent man in one's country, to
have dreamed of becoming, at an age when
others are subalterns, the unique represent-
ative and leader of a party that numbered
the best, wisest, and greatest men of France
— and to find one's self suddenly fallen
again to the position of writer on a second-
rate newspaper, was bitter enough. But
what redoubled the chagrin and mortifica.
tion of Horace was the way in which his
supporters of yesterday — the journals that
had been his champions — hastened to de-
sert him and passed to the side of his rival.
So long as it had been a question of choos-
MACROBE A LA RESCOUSSE.
117
ing between two candidates — one an edu-
cated gentleman, the son of an illustrious
patriot, and a proved Liberal like Horace;
the other, a darksome and not over well-
known Revolutionist like Albi — the mod-
crate, cnlightened organs of public opinion
had not hesitated. But now that the ulti-
mate lay between taking the official candi-
date or having Albi, the issue was changed.
After all, Albi was a Liberal, he would not
vote as the other two hundred and sixty
members in that servile, voiceless cham-
ber. IIc would raise his cry on behalf of
proscribed freedom; he would protest
against the laws of tyranny passed in the
name of France. It was absolutely neces-
sary that the Opposition should have, at
least, one spokesman; and the liberal jour-
nals unanimously called upon Horace Ge-
rold to retire in Albi's favor. To make mat-
ters worse, Emile, though he did not ver-
bally urge this course, implied by his man-
ner that he desired its adoption; and
Manuel Gerold, writing from Brussels,
spoke of it as imperative — as a thing that
did not even admit of discussion. “The
life of a public man,” he wrote, “must be
one of self-sacrifice. Personal ambition,
redilections, rancors, must all sink be-
ore considerations of public good. This
man was your enemy yesterday, to-day you
must be his ally ; else your electors would
have the right to think it is yourself you
wished to serve, not them.”
To resign in favor of Albi, to further the
return of a man who had pursued him with
uncalled-ſor spite, marred his own certain
triumph, and who, had the positions been
reversed, would never have given way to
him — having vowed not to do so when he
started — this was an act of magnanimity
which demanded superhuman courage.
Horace blenched at it ; it chilled his heart
to think of Nor did his judgment incline
to it readily; for was not this man a mali-
cious, serpent-tongued slanderer — had he
not shown himself both tortuous-minded and
unscrupulous, and was it to be supposed
that the Liberal party could be benefited
by having such a personage as that for its
representative In his perplexity he
sought the Hôtel Macrobe, as much to
chaer himself after his cruel deception by
a look at and a word from Angélique, as to
ask counsel of the financier whom he was
beginning to look at as his mentor. But,
as though all creation were conspiring
against him, neither Angélique nor her
father were at home. So he walked back
sorrowfully and betook himself to the soci-
ety of his Iriends of the “Gazette des Bou-
levards,” the only paper which had remained
faithful to him, and whose advice, as con-
veyed emergetically by Jean Kerjou, was
“not to abet the entry of a blackguard
into Parliament.”
M. Macrobe was not at home, because
closeted in private conversation with M. le
Ministre Gribaud. This time the ſinancier
was subjected to no ante-room delay as at
his last audience. On his arrival the ven-
erable Bernard had saluted him to the
ground, and ushered him at once into the
Minister's presence, and M. Gribaud had
motioned to him with his finger to take a
Sea,t.
“Well, M. Macrobe,” began his Excel-
lency, rauher sourly. “It seems we've
overdone it.”
“I certainly thought the official candi-
date would get through, your Excellency.
It never entered my thoughts that this man
Albi could make such a hit.”
“Nineteen thousand votes, and twelve
thousand given to young Gerold ; thirty-
one thousand Oppositionists in one con-
stituency! Ah how right we are to keep
the curb well strained ; how quickly this
devil-city would overturn us if we let it!
But now what is to be done 2 Albi of
course will not retire ; but will Gerold do
so in favor of our man, as you predicted 7”
“Things have not turned out as I had
planned,” answered M. Macrobe, with his
brows knit. “I had counted that the two
rival candidatures would divide the Opposi-
tion votes and allow the Government nom-
inee to get in easily; but then I had not
foreseen that the Opposition was so strong.
As for Albi, we have no hold on him. He
came forward on the understanding that
his expenses should be paid and that he
should have the funds to start a paper. It
was necessary to find a name which would
rally a certain number of Radicals; but I
imagined that he would get ten thousand
votes at the most, and that when he had
served our purpose we could simply let him
drop and suppress his journal. But, for the
present, it would not be safe to try this.
He does not know that it is the Govern-
ment who have brought him forward; he
fancies it is a Radical Committee, and if
this committee were to play him false at
such a moment, just as he was on the point
of succeeding, he would suspect something
and denounce it aloud; for though he be a
vicious, venomous brute, he is no traitor.
No, he must never learn that the commit-
tee under whose orders he has been acting
is composed of men in the pay of the Pre-
fecture, and that all his contributors on the
‘Tocsin,” with the exception of that simple-
ton Delormay, draw their inspirations from
Ministerial source. The scandal would be-
come public and injure the Government.
What we must do is to defeat Albion Sun-
day week; then the committee can say
118
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
that, his election having failed, they see no
use in continuing the paper, and withdraw
their caution money. But first we must
beat the man, and now there remains but
Jne way to do that ; only one.”
“Which 2 If young Gerold will retire
in favor of Bourbatruelle we might manage.
There cannot be much love lost between
him and the ‘Tocsin' I should think.” And
his Excellency chuckled a little.
“No, there is not. He hates Albi ten
times more than he ever hated the Govern-
ment, and if left alone would throw the
Radicals overboard without much parley.
But he is influenced by his brother — a
young prig — and by his father, so that al-
though I should not actually despair of
bringing him to coalesce with us, yet the
thing would require an effort and more di-
plomacy than it would be worth. I say
more than it would be worth, because it is
not so sure that even if Gerold did resign
in Bourbatruelle's favor, all his electors
would obey him. The unexpected lead
taken by Albi has roused the hopes of the
Opposition. All their papers are now
backing Albi, and supposing that out of
Gerold's twelve thousand electors, eight
thousand were to vote for the official can-
didate, and four thousand only for the other
man, Albi would still win. I suggest, your
Excellency, that the man who should with-
draw is M. Bourbatruelle. His supporters
would naturally poll for Gerold whether
they were asked to do it or not, and these
fourteen thousand votes would beat the
Radicals out of the field.”
“And Gerold ; how will he behave when
he is in the House? You were not encour-
aging on this score last time we talked the
matter over.” .
. . True, your Excellency; but the condi-
tions are altered. If Gerold had been elected
as an Opposition candidate, he would have
given us trouble, but if he gets in now, he
will readily perceive that he owes it to the
Conservatives. The affair, however, must
be managed with tact. Let Monsieur Bour-
batruelle withdraw without recommending
his electors to yote for anybody. The ma–
jority of the opposition press, deeming that
Albi, with his nineteen thousand original
votes, has the best chance, will probably
continue to Support him; the Government
press, on the contrary, will take up Gerold’s
colors, and this will serve to widen the
breach which the first day's poll has made
between the Liberal candidate and the Rad-
icals. Once in the House, the conviction
that he is virtually representing a constitu-
ency of Bonapartists and temperate Lib-
erals will keep Gerold within bounds. He
is not likely to forget the party that op-
posed him so ruthlessly, and he will feel
proportionate gratitude for the men who se.
cured his triumph. A little courtesy and
tolerance on the part of his colleagues will
do the rest. But if the worst counes to the
worst—I mean, if Gerold proves unmanage-
able — he need not remain in the House
more than a year. We are in 1856; in an-
other twelvemonth come the general elec-
tions.”
His Excellency M. Gribaud rubbed his
left ear thoughtfully, then cracked the
joints of his tough fingers. f
“Well, we will try your plan,” he said,
slowly. “It’s rather like admitting a
young wolf-cub into a sheep-fold to put this
Gerold into the Corps Législatif; but per-
haps the cub's teeth are a bit blunted. I
will send for Bourbatruelle at once. We
shall have to give him something. H’m, the
Legion of Honor will do. Then we shall
have to pay his expenses. By the way, Ge-
rold has not got a centime, of course; and I
Suppose you've not found out what he and
his father do with their money 2 I learn
from the sub-prefect at Hautbourg that
charitable donations are sent by them every
quarter-day; but the town complains that
it is ruined, root and branch.”
“Better days will perhaps come for it,”
answered M. Macrobe, laconically.
“Yes, if you succeed in your rôle of Gen-
eral Monk.”
“Who is General Monk, your Excel-
lency ** asked M. Macrobe; for, though
an astute financier, his historical education
had been neglected.
“General Monk was a shrewd fellow who
restored a penniless young king to his es-
tates and then helped him to govern them,”
said M. Gribaud, grinning broadly.
A slight tinge of color came to M. Ma-
crobe's parchment countenance, but he
laughed. º
“Well, I hope he was well repaid, your
Excellency.”
“Oh, yes I it was a good speculation, as
you gentlemen of the Bourse say.” And,
continuing to grin, M. Gribaud took up his
pen and indicted a line to M. Bourbatruelle,
the clay-pipe manufacturer. “This will do
the business,” he said; “but mind, Mon-
sieur Macrobe, I am acting now in deference
to your judgment, and we shall regard you
in some way as surety for this young fel-
low's good behavior.”
The financier made an obeisance, and,
the audience being now terminated, with-
drew.
But he did not go straight off to Horace
to hold out the plank of safety which he had
just hewli out for him. Events had marched
fast, but the time had come for accelerating
them, if possible. Horace Gerold had en-
tered the net, the meshes must now be
MACROBE A LA RESCOUSSE.
119
closed upon him rapidly; he must be
brought to propose for Angélique, to break
with his party, and to place himself in M.
Macrobe's dependence, all at one swoop.
Ti,is could be effected by leaving him to
his misery for these next few days. He
must be left to drink to the dregs the cup
of his humiliation — to chafe and writhe
under his abandonment; and then, when
all the world seemed bitterness and decep-
tion to him, his future father-in-law could
step in like a deus ex machiná, smooth away
his troubles, and send him careering once
more on the high-road to glory. So M.
Macrobe merely wrote a line to request
Horace not to take any steps as to retiring
until the following Sunday — seven days
before the second ballot — when his com-
mittee would consider the subject, and by
the same post he arranged that M. Bourba-
truelle’s retirement should also be held in
suspense until the same date. This done
he sent Mdlle. Angélique into the country
with her aunt for a day or two, and took an
easy opportunity of having Horace in-
formed by a third person that this young
lady was being wooed by the Prince of Ar-
cola, and would probably soon be asked in
marriage by that nobleman. “If he really
loves her,” argued M. Macrobe, “this will
make him miserable and furious ; if it be a
mere inclination, jealousy will stimulate it,
and, no doubt, fan it into something
warmer.”
Thus the week passed by. The posters
with Albi's name were renewed on the
wall; the “Tocsin.” gloated over its victory
and reviled the conquered; the chorus of
journals which besought the Liberal candi-
date to do his “duty" swelled every day,
and Horace himself was as thoroughly
galled, distracted, and despondent, as can
be imagined.
On the Sunday he paced his room in an
agony of doubt, trying to form a resolution,
yet not daring to take it.
“I don’t see that there's any thing to
hesitate about,” grumbled royalist Jean
Keijou, who was embedded in an arm-chair
and puffed solemnly at a cigar. “The mo-
ral sense of this generation seems to be
blunted. What Here is a cur whom you
would not admit into your back-kitchen,
and half the newspapers of France are lay-
ing their heads together to plan how they
may foist him upon an assembly of gentle-
men I God bless the days when there
were no parliamentary institutions to make
such tricks look excusable in the name of
party tactics. Heaven bless the times when
there existed a freemasonry between gem-
tlemen to seni rogues to Coventry, and
when fellows like Albi were shunned like
the pest.”
“It’s not the man we should be telping
into the Corps Législatif, but his princi-
ples,” answered Horace feebly.
“Oh his principles, my dear M. Cerold,”
exclaimed Arsène Gousset, laughing. He
had come with a dainty-looking volume of
somewhat improper poems — his composi
tion — which were being much read in
fashionable spheres, and which he desired
the “Gazette des Boulevards " to hand]e
tenderly. “What principles do you think
those men have, except this immortal one,
to turn out every man that holds a place,
and to put themselves in his stead? York
will say he is a Republican ; but so is every
man who has not a centime, and sees nº
chance of ever possessing one. And this
is no more a title of honor than to say that
his trousers are ragged, his washerwoman's
bill unpaid, and that he dines off boiled
beef, not being able to afford venison. The
rich and educated who join this band are
either perspicuous citizens who want to
climb the political ladder quickly, and know
that there is no better stepping-stone for
their purpose than the heads of the un-
washed; or amiable enthusiasts, like your
father, who would govern wolves with kind
words, and jackals with forms of logic. As
soon as these excellent theorists get into
power, they begin by locking up the dog-
whips, chains, and coklars. They proclaim
the liberty of howling; and a few weeks
after they are howled out of office — as
your father was. The fact is, the doctrine
of Republicanism starts from the assump-
tion that, however ignorant and brute-like
an individual member of the lower orders
may be — and that he is both ignorant and
brute-like is sufficiently proved by our in-
terminable schemes for educating and re-
fining him — yet, that a few millions of
such individuals, putting their ignorance
and brutishness in common, become a class
full of sense and virtue, both worthy and
competent to rule; which seems to me like
contending that, although one of the jackals
above-mentioned, lean and ravenous, might
be a danger to the poultry-yard, yet that a
good big troop of such jackals turned loose
together among the hen-coops would show
the world what abstemiousness was, and
extend a brotherly protection to the fowls.
I should like to get a Republican candidly
to acknowledge — but they never will do
so – that Republicanism, as we understand
it nowadays, has never existed anywhere,
and when tried has eternally broken down.
Greece and Rome were aristocratical oligar-
chies, in which all the lower orders were
slaves. It was much the same thing at
Venice, Genoa, and in Holland. Republi-
can in name, virtually close vestries, in
which no man was admitted to power who
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TETE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
had not a square cash-box to recommend
him. In South America, democratic Re-
publicanism — considerably diluted, how-
ever, by the slavery of the negroes, who
do all the servile work — has been on its
trial nearly half a century, and has resulted
in a revolution every twelve-month. There
have been in Chili since the independence,
something like twenty coups-d'état, in Peru
rather more. In Mexico the people change
their executive as they do their shirts. As
for the United States — where again we
find the negroes, who represent the prole-
tarian classes of Europe, kept under heel—
Republicanism has hobbled along hitherto
there beeause the country, not being half
peopled, there is land, like air and water,
for all comers; and the subversive gentle-
men who in Europe swarm in our large
cities, and overturn our governments for us,
go out into the West and found states of
their own, where liberty, equality, and fra-
ternity flourish under the shade of the
bowie-knife, the revolver, and the bludgeon.
But in a few hundred years hence, when the
descendants of these squatters begin to
wash their hands and fence in their proper-
ties, when there is not a rag more land to
distribute to immigrants, and when it be-
comes a question of providing for several
million paupers, I doubt whether apostles
af the Albi school will be more appreciated
in American upper circles than they are
with us. State prisons and gibbet-trees
will be erected on their behalf, as they have
been in this land. Persecutions, revolu-
tions, and re-actions will succeed one anoth-
er like a rotation of crops, and the States
will pass through their cycle of monarchies
even as the rest of the world has done.
You see, there are certain orders of things
you will never be able to reconcile, and
amongst these is the empty stomach and
the full one. To the end of time, the man
who has not dined will be the foe of the
man who has ; and the history of revolu-
tions is but that of the alternate triumphs
of these two over one another. To-day
it is Gribaud and Company who dine, to-
morrow it may be Albi and Brothers. Only,
to think that Albi Brothers have any ob-
ject but to get this dinner, or that, if they
once had the keys of the State larder, any-
body, save themselves, would be the better
for it, is one of those bright fallacies that
denote a cheerful contempt for the lessons
of history. Revolutions never abolish
abuses—they only change them. We
have gone through three bloody revolutions,
and four changes of dynasty, to set over
us M. Gribaud, who presses as heavily on
mankind as ever did the Duc de Choiseul,
or the Marquis de Maurepas ; a fourth
revolution would give us M. Albi. Upon
my word, I cºnsider things are very well
as they are ; the change would be insigni-
ficant in so far as results went, and it would
cost money, to say nothing of comfort.”
The Court Novelist omitted all this in
his most lively tone of bantering persi(lage,
blowing wreathing clouds of smoke towards
heaven, and stroking his carefully trimmed
yellow beard with a hand on which glittered
an enormous diamond, the gift of an empress.
But his paradoxes did not offer any solution
to Horace, and when, at length, he smiling-
ly withdrew along with obdurate Jean
Kerjou, whose parting words were to “fight
till grim death, as my Breton countrymen
do,” Horace began striding up and down as
before, but more harassed, vacillating, and
moody than ever.
“Duty!” he exclaimed, bitterly, “what
do men ever gain by performing it 7” and
he thought of Georgette and her unfeeling
insult on the evening of his defeat. It was
an insult the more cruel as he was unable
to divine the motive of it. He had been
wrong in flirting with Georgette; he had
felt this, and retreated before it was too
late both for himself and for her. But was
this the way to be revenged on him 2 When
he met her by chance, she glared upon him
with the eyes of a little tigress, or, what
was worse, treated him with undisguised,
aggressive scorn, as if he were some abject
criminal. She was not even content to
trust to fortuitous occasions for making him
feel her spite. One evening, returning
home, he had found the work-box which he
had given her lying on the table, and not a
word of explanation with it, not a line to
mark what she was offended at, or what he
might do to soothe her resentment away.
She was behaving without any sense or
reserve. Had she been a misguided girl
quarrelling with her paramour, she could
not have acted otherwise; for, after all, he
had given her no direct cause for offence.
His sins, if sins they were, had been of a
negative kind. He had left off seeing her
because he wished to conduct himself as an
honest man; and when, after a long inter-
val, he had ventured upon entering the shop
again, he had found the Prince of Arcola
there. And this had recurred several times:
more than once when he had passed the
shop latterly, he had seen either the Prince
himself or his well-known phaeton waiting
at the corner of the street.
At this recollection of the Prince of
Arcola his brow grew black.
M. Macrobe had not misreckoned on the
emotion which the report of Angélique's
marriage would cause him. The news had
gone into Horace's heart like a knife. Com-
ing at such a moment, when the cup of his
mortification was already brimming, it was
MACROBE A LA REscoussF.
121
a savage sort of blow. It put him roughly
back in his place, showing him what a poor
devil he definitely was, and how extrava-
gant was the pretension for one such as he
to espouse a millionnaire's daughter. Till
that moment, he had never reflected on
Isidore Macrobe's wealth in connection with
Angélique; but he did so now, and meas-
ured at a glance the distance that separated
him — him, a struggling journalist and bar-
rister—from the brilliant Prince of Arcola.
So this Prince was destined to thwart him
in his love, as that man Albi was doing in
his ambition | At the outset of his career,
he was to be stopped dead short by a dan-
dified sportsman and a ranting demagogue;
nay, more, he was asked in the name of
duty to connive in this result | Angry and
ale, he swore this should never be. He
i. torn himself away from Georgette, that
she might be respectably married and never
know trouble; and what was the conse-
quence? She despised him for his pains,
and coquetted with a Prince whose inten-
tions towards her were clearly what those
of most other men of easy morals would be
in such a contingency. Now, people were
soliciting him to make a new sacrifice, in
order, no doubt, that Albi might laugh at
him in his turn and take him for a credulous
simpleton. No, no; as Jean Kerjou said,
this was a case for fighting till the end. He
would tell the Prince that a libertine, titled
though he were, was no fit husband for An-
gélique; and if the Prince resisted, why
there were means of settling these questions,
in France, without much loss of time or
words. As for Albi, committees or news-
papers, friends or foes, might say what they
pleased — if he could prevent that fellow
from succeeding, he would do so; and if he
could not, it should, at least, not be said,
that it had been for want of the trying.
Whether by accident or design M. Gous-
set had wrapped his pretty volume of im-
proper poems in a number of the “ Tocsin,”
and there they lay both on the table to-
gether, the improper fashionable book, and
the improper democratic gazette. Horace
suddenly caught sight of the journal, and,
full of his new resolution, snatched it up
and ran his eye over the leading article;
as usual, an attack on himself, written by
Albi, not without talent, but in a style of
violence positively reeking with hatred
and injustice. It was one of those infa-
mous articles which are intended to stab
deep, and which do stab, however steeled
we may be against them by usage. Horace
flushed all over as he read it. He crushed
the sheet in his hand, and darting to his
desk, penned a letter to the chief of the
independent journals who were calling on
him to retire.
He was so intent upon his work, his pen
flew so rapidly over his paper, that he re-
mained unconscious of the presence of M.
Macrobe, who having knocked without
eliciting an answer, had opened the door
and glided in. When he had dashed off
his signature, he looked up, gleaming.
The financier's eye was mutely interrog-
ative. Horace handed him the letter with-
out speaking.
M. Macrobe perused it with a nod.
“So far so good,” he said, “this will do
as a beginning; but men like you must do
more than talk, they must conquer. You
would not be sorry to crush this Albi ?”
Horace's eyes glistened, and he waved
his hand — an eloquent gesture—it meant,
“Give me the chance.”
“Then the day is yours,” said M. Ma-
crobe. “I have come to tell you that M.
Bourbatruelle retires; you will remain face
to face with Albi ; but as you will have the
votes of all the honest people who, thank
Heaven are a majority, your return is as-
sured.”
Horace rose to his feet; it seemed to
him in that moment that the room swam.
“Yes,” pursued the financier calmly;
“I saw M. Gribaud, and he said, ‘The
Government prefer being criticized by a
man of honor like M. Gerold, rather than
by a low-bred person like M. Albi. Be-
sides, all the votes given to M. Bourba-
truelle belong of right to M. Gerold, for the
electors of the Tenth Circumscription are
liberal to a man, and if some of them vote
for the official candidate, it is only out of
dread for theories which are neither lib-
eralism nor republicanism, nor any thing
else but blasphemy and blunder. If these
electors had not suspected M. Gerold of
making common cause with the revolu-
tionists they would have elected him the
other day.” This is what M. Gribaud
said. He is much maligned, I assure
you, is M. Gribaud. He spoke of you in
the highest terms, and affirmed that the
Government were particularly touched by
the strikingly honorable way in which you
had carried on the contest.”
A tumult of emotion welled up in Horace's
breast, and broke upon his face in changes
of color rapid as a succession of waves.
“M. Macrobe,” he faltered, springing
forward, “I am sure it is to you I owe this
—it is you who have been working to
secure me this triumph.”
“Pooh, pooh! my dear young friend, I
have done my duty, that is all. You owe
nothing to anybody save yourself.”
“No, no. You say that because you are
too generous to accept thanks. Yos are
continually befriending me, who have done
nothing to deserve it; and how I can ever
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THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
repay these acts of kindness and devotion is
more than I know or can imagine.”
“Why talk of that ? Believe me, I am
more than repaid already by the pleasure of
serving you,” said the financier, smiling, “I
have but one wish, M. Gerold, and that is
to see you prosper.”
“Then add one more to your benefits,
and complete my happiness,” cried Horace,
impulsively. “M. Macrobe, let me speak
on a subject that is nearest my heart, but
which I might not perhaps have dared to
mention, had it not been for this new
roof of the interest you bear me. I have
i. the presumption to hope that we might
some day be connected by a closer tie than
that of mere friendship. Yes, though I
have nothing to offer but an honest name,
and can compete with none who have great
rent-rolls to give, I love your daughter.
Yesterday I heard a report that Mdlle.
Angélique was already betrothed to the
Prince of Arcola, and the news caused me
inexpressible sadness. If you could only
tell me that this was not true, and cheer
me with the assurance that I shall not hope
in vain — that when I have created myself
a position, you will allow me to pay my
addresses to your daughter — you would be
fulfilling my fondest desire, and I should
look back upon this day as the most fortu-
nate in my life.”
M. Macrobe's features very cleverly
expressed the greatest surprise, and he be-
came grave.
“I had never suspected this, M. Gerold,”
he said ; “but I should be dissembling
were I to conceal how much your communi-
cation flatters me. I am unaware that the
Prince of Arcola has paid his addresses to
my daughter. I think the report must be a
false one ; but, in any case, rent-roll is the
last qualification I should consider in any
one who aspired to become my child's hus-
band. I was a poor man myself, and have not
found that wealth adds much to one's hap-
piness. Honesty, courage, and ability are
the only riches I set store by. In a word,
my dear young friend, there is no man I
would sooner own as my son-in-law than
yourself.”
In England, a man would have grasped
the speaker's hand; in France they manage
these things differently, Horace flung his
arms round M. Macrobe's neck, and kissed
him on both cheeks.
If he could have known the pleasure
which this embrace gave the worthy gentle-
man |
On the following Sunday, Horace Gerold
was elected Deputy of the City of Paris;
though it was a close shave, as cognoscenti
remarked. The Radicals, encouraged by
their first success, came up to the poll multi-
plied, united, and strong. The Bonapart.
ists rallied round the “Liberal ” candidate
and the result was : — §
Number of votes recorded, 46,847.
GEROLD. . . . .
ALBI. . . . . .
23,258
23,089
That is, a majority of ONE HUNDRED
AND SIxTY-NINE VOTES
A few weeks later, the “Gazette des
Boulevards” announced to the world that a
marriage had been arranged “between the
newly-elected member for Paris, our ex-
contributor, M. Horace Gerold (the Mar-
quis of Clairefontaine), and Mdlle. Angé-
lique Macrobe, daughter of the eminent
chairman of the Crédit Parisien.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
EPISTOLARY,
So M. Macrobe had won the first game
of his rubber. Won it promptly, cleverly,
and completely. The second now began,
and from the outset it looked as if he would
win that too. Ten months after the Paris
election the following three letters found
their way through the post : —
From Emile Gerold, Paris, to Manuel Ge-
rold, Brussels.
“RUE STE. GENEv1Eve, Jan. 7, 1857.
“MY DEAR FATHER, -I have just
come in from pleading a rather dry
case before a not very intelligent judge,
and I find your good, welcome letter await-
ing me. This weekly correspondence with
you, that is the reading of your missiyes
and the pleasure of replying to them, con-
stitutes the gleam of sunshine in my some-
what lustreless life. Not, mind you, that I
complain of this monotony, for I have failed
to perceive that those whose existences are
more variegated seem much the happier for
it. But it is nevertheless a relief to turn
now and then from my habitual studies—
the poor devices by which men may best out-
wit one another— to the perusal of language
so vivifying in tone, so humanely loving, so
full of generous truth as yours. It is like
escaping for a moment into a purer world.
“Yet, on the present occasion, are there
not traces of unusual depression in certain
passages of your letter; I mean those in
which you speak of Horace? I have no
wish to allude unnecessarily to the events
of the last few months, which I can guess
{
|
f
EPISTOLARY,
123
have pained you and which I will not con-
ceal liave to some extent disappointed me,
But be assured that, in so far as the heart
É. my brother is unchanged. He is, per-
aps, a little sore at your not having
come to Paris for his marriage, and it may
be that this feeling reveals itself, as you
say, by a slight tone of pique in his letters;
but I do not think we should be alto-
gether surprised at this, for it only argues
the great value he attaches to your approba-
tion and his extreme sensitiveness lest any
of his acts should be susceptible, in your
eyes, of misinterpretation. On this last
score, it is true, I might re-assure him; for
that his marriage was one of pure affection,
unalloyed by any mercenary thought, nei-
ther you nor I certainly ever doubted.
But it is not enough to tell him this. In
his present temper of mind, he requires us
to approve without reserve all his recent un-
dertakings. Binding up, as it were, his
marriage, his friendship with M. Macrobe,
and his political course together, he resents
any stricture upon one incident as a blame
upon all three ; and it wounds him to the
quick to suspect that you or I can even re-
motely concur in any of the harsh criticisms
which these different occurrences have
evoked from his enemies.
“No doubt this morbidly nervous mood
will give way in time to feelings more in
consonance with Horace's naturally genial
disposition; but until it does, I for one —
half of whose contentment in life would be
gone were I estranged from my brother—I
submit to the necessity of the case and
tacitly acquiesce in every thing. I wish
our party had behaved with a little more
fairness and tact to him. That they should
have called upon him to retire after that
unlucky first ballot was natural enough,
but I do think it was wanting both in
justice and generosity to support Albi
against Horace once the other man had re-
tired, and to reproach Horace when elected
with being an official candidate. From a
mere party point of view it seems to me
that it would have been more politic of the
Liberals to claim my brother's return as a
victory. He would have served their cause
then and faithfully; but their almost dis-
dainful repudiation of him, contrasting as
it does with the singular courtesy and kind-
ness shown him by the other side, are pro-
ducing the only fruits that could be expected
under the circumstances. Horace com-
plains that he has been ill-treated, and
never refers to the subject without indig-
nant bitterness. Nevertheless, from what I
can gather of the debates in the Corps Légis-
latif— scraps of which, you know, reach
the public ear through drawing-room
echoes—his is the only voice in that gloomy
building ever raised in defence of liberty.
He opposes Government bills, advocates re.
forms which in times like these might be
called subversive; and, were he stimulated
by contradiction, I suspect he would go
greater lengths in º than many of
those who essayed to brand him as a Bona-
partist would dare do. But nobody con-
tradicts him; I hear on the contrary that
he is applauded. The plan of his adversaries
appears to be to enthral him by civility; and
there could in truth be no surer way of touch-
ing one who is as open to kindly influences as
he is quick to feel injustice. However, there
is a boundary line dividing Horace's now
wavering attitude from total secession. and
when he has reached this line and sees the pit
beyond, he may recoil. Such is my hope, I
might add — my prayer.
“Meanwhile, domestically speaking, Hor-
ace is I believe happy. He resides in his
father-in-law's house, and every time I visit
him there, I find him looking bright and
pleased with his lot. His wife is a gentle,
lovable young person, shy and rather silent,
but I think good. She submits to him in all
things, and his chief pre-occupation seems to
be to make her happy. M. Macrobe, at whose
table I have once or twice dined, rather to
satisfy Horace than myself, is also – I
must do him that justice — very zealous in
catering for his son-in-law's felicity. He
bustles about, forms projects, agrees with
every thing Horace suggests, and to me in
particular he is most attentive. The fam-
ily circle has lately been completed by the
arrival of a Crimean hero just returned at
the Peace. His name is Captain Clarimon;
he was introduced to me as a kind of
nephew of M. Macrobe's, and is, so far as
I could judge, a pleasant fellow. Horace
and he appear to have already struck up a
fast friendship.
“I perceive I have covered so much paper
that I will close here. I repeat, my dear
father, how much pleasure your letters al-
ways give me; but it continues to be to me
a source of daily increasing Sorrow that
your voluntary exile should be thus per-
force prolonged, and that we should be com-
pelled to exchange our thoughts in writing
instead of by word of mouth.
“Cui dextrae jungere dextram
Non datur, ac veras audire et reddere voces.”
“Why does not this Second Empire fall
and open the gates of France anew to all
the great and good men who are sharers in
your proscription ?
“With tenderest respect and sympathy,
“Your affectionate son,
“ EMILE GEROLD.
“P.S. —I have forgotten to mention that
124
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
I may soon be obliged to date my letters
from elsewhere than here, owing to the
retirement from business of M. Pochemolle
and the consequently possible sale of this
house. The news took me a little by sur-
prise, when the good man brought it up to
me in person yesterday, enveloped in pom-
pously deferential explanations that made
the gist of the communication at first a
little obscure. He said that “my esteemed
connection by alliance, Monsieur Macrobe,’
had been the instrument of his attaining
more rapidly to fortune than he ever would
have done, had he confined himself to the
beaten tracks of commerce. He had, by
M...sieur Macrobe's advice, invested money
in the Crédit Parisien, buying shares at
five hundred which were now worth fifteen
hundred, and the result was, that Madame
Pochemolle was recommending him to retire
and purchase a villa with a garden and a
pond – Madame Pochemolle inclined, said
he, for gold-fish in the pond — somewhere
in the suburbs of Paris. I could see that it
cost, the excellent man a pang to rqlin-
quish the ‘Three Crowns’ to a stranger, and
that, so far as he was concerned, the shop
where his father traded, and the modest
gains which they earned, seemed preferable
to all the suburban villas in the world, with
or without gold-fish. But, neither Madame
Pochemolle nor Monsieur Alcibiade being
of the same opinion, the draper is out-voted
and will be set to perform — will-he, nil-he
— the comedy of ‘Le Rentier malgré lui.’
There was almost a touch of pathos in the
way he exclaimed, “Our fathers made their
earnings slowly, and prospered long; I
have gone farther in one year than they did
in fifty ; yet somehow it doesn’t give me the
pleasure I should have thought. I keep
fancying that money which comes so quickly
into the pockets of those who have done
nothing to deserve it, must have come
equally quick out of the pockets of those
who didn't deserve to lose it.’ I promised
M. Pochemolle I would apprise you of his
change of condition. His words were,
‘Pray, sir, inform my most respected pre-
server, with my humble duty, that selling
cloth or wearing it, I shall remain as much
his obliged servant as heretofore.’
“Ever affectionately,
“ E. G.”
From M. Hector Filoselle, London,
Horace Gerold, Paris.
“LEISSESTER SQUARRE, Jan. 15, 1857.
“MONSIEUR LE MARQUIs, - I date this
letter from the banks of the Thames in the
metropolis of the Queen Victoria, whither
I have journeyed upon business, and the
occasion I seize is that of the Sunday re-
to
pose, which, in this great country, reminds
me of the repose of model convict prisons.
Great Heaven l figure to yourself a square
as large as the Place Vendôme, and not
one soul visible in it but a single police-
man, who is melancholy; and around and
about this policeman closed shops and cafés
hermetically barricaded, as if they feared
an invasion; for the English law decrees
that man shall not be thirsty of a Sunday
morning, and the publican who sells him
drink is fined by the tribunal of Queen's
Bench two sterlings. These laws astonish
the stranger. Also, I have noticed that it
is interdicted to play music on the Satur-
day, for yesterday I witnessed a milord
chase from his door, with indignation, a
grinder on the organ, who was presently
pursued by a policeman, and, as they told
me, conducted to prison, where he will be
judged by the tribunal of Habeas Corpus.
However, these are details with which I
have not the heart greatly to occupy my-
self: being sad, even to the point that the
business questions themselves lose their
interest for me. Ah! Monsieur le Marquis,
it was not merely a superficial affection I
nourished for Mademoiselle Georgette. I
had long meditated the project of making
her happiness and mine, and on the day
when you interposed, speaking the good
word for me, I cried to myself, “Ah, it will
become a reality, that dream I cherish l’
But fortune and other causes, amongst
which I suspect the presence of a rival
suitor, have coalesced themselves to defeat
my ardent hopes and your benevolence.
Already, at my last visit but one to Paris
five months ago, shortly after your own
marriage, Monsieur le Marquis, I noticed
that the attitude of my future father-in-law,
M. Pochemolle, had undergone a change
towards me, and that the demeanor of my
future mother-in-law — whom I have ever
gratified with a moderate liking — was
chilly, not to say freezingly, distant. On
my next visit these impressions were more
than confirmed, and now I am in receipt
of a letter from Monsieur Pochemolle, which
leaves no longer a place for doubt. He
states that he relinquishes the draper's
trade to devote himself henceforth to a
retired life, and he adds that, under these
altered circumstances, perhaps I shall see
the propriety of breaking off an engagement
which has ceased to be so suitable as it
once looked. Alas, the good man l I know
very well that it is not he who would write
in this way; but husbands are the slaves
of their wives, notwithstanding the Code
Napoleon, and Monsieur Pochemolle does
but express the sentiments that have germed
in the feminine but unelevated soul of Mad-
ame Pochemolle. You will excuse me for
A SPEECH, A VOTE, AND A SURPRISE.
125
making you thus the confidant of my de-
stroyed illusions, Monsieur le Marquis, but
I wished to assure you that even in this
moment of grief, when the faithlessness
of woman is once more exemplified at my
expense, I retain a recollection full of grati-
tude for the manner in which you deigned
to befriend me. Life is a bale of mixed
goods, out of which one draws at the haz-
ard, to-day stuffs of bright color, to-morrow
mourning crape. I this time have lit upon
the crape. Well, well, it was fated; but,
at least, this consolation is given me, to feel
that Mademoiselle Georgette is, like myself,
the victim of destiny, not the willing accom-
plice of a plot for ruining my well-loved
castle in the air. Ah! the usages of the
world forbid my now seeking any commu-
nication with her who was my betrothed,
and my own pride will not permit me ever
again to cross the threshold of those who
have closed to me their doors. Yet should
ever the opportunity present itself, I will
say to Mademoiselle Georgette—as I would
respectfully pray you to say for me, should
the opportunity come first to you — that I
bear no malice, but wish my rival well.
This is for Mademoiselle Georgette's sake,
against whom I could not bring myself to
feel anger, even if I would. As for her
mother — but no; I will take a noble ven-
geance on that woman. I will apply my-
self with aching spirit, but with renewed
ardor, to the pursuits of commerce, in order
that when I, too, have become rich, she
may open her eyes to the mistake she has
made, and murmur, “I should have done
better to give her to Filoselle.”
“Begging to enclose a prospectus of cur-
rent prices of the house of Verjus & Tom-
melier, wine-merchants, of Paris, whose
goods I will guarantee sound; also the de-
scription of a new kind of bagpipe, patented
by Messrs. Doremi, for whose house I travel,
and three of which I have recently sold to
Milord Ardcheanochrochan, a Scotch peer
of distinction, I have the honor to offer you,
Monsieur le Marquis, the assurance of my
deepest respect and gratitude,
“HECTOR FILOSELLE.”
M. Prosper Macrobe to his Excellency M.
Gribaud.
“Avenues DES CHAMPs ELYséEs, Jan. 21, 1857.
“MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE, - I ac-
knowledge the receipt of the report from
the sub-Prefect of Hautbourg, which your
Excellency obligingly forwarded to me yes-
terday. I laid it, as arranged, on a table
where it was sure to meet my son-in-law's
eye, and he read it after asking me how it
came that such a document should have
fallen into my possession. I explained that
the sub-Prefect was an acquaintance of
mine who had sent me a duplicate of the
copy he intended despatching to the Gov-
ernment, in the hope i. I would intercede
with the Clairefontaine family to do some-
thing for the perishing town; ‘which,”
added I, ‘ I should not have ventured to do
had you not accidentally stumbled upon
that report which I had mislaid.’ IIe made
no answer; but, during the rest of the even-
ning, he remained pensive, and I could see
that those passages of the report in which
the sub-Prefect contrasts the now pitiable
plight of Hautbourg with its flourishing con-
(lition when the Castle of Clairefontaine was
tenanted, had produced upon him all the
effect which I expected. I need not. add
— ſor your Excellency has doubtless been
in a position to notice this fact yourself—
how surely the great kindness and forbear-
ance of the Government are operating on
my son-in-law. I might adduce testimony
of this in citing the very words be used
when your Excellency, in the name of the
Ministry, accepted the slight amendment
he moved to a recent Police Bill. He said
that ‘whatever might be his opinions as to
the reigning dynasty, Napoleon III. had a
merit not common to his predecessors, that
of selecting able ministers.’ I have the
honor to remain, Monsieur le Ministre, your
Excellency's most humble and obedient
servant,
“PROSPER MACROBE.”
CHAPTER XXV.
A SPEECH, A VOTE, AND A SURPRISE.
IT is two o'clock. Luncheon is just over,
and a group of five persons are congregated
in one of the most sunny morning rooms of
the Hôtel Macrobe. The financier, with his
brass-bound note-book in his hand, is jotting
down the details of some pecuniary trans-
action in which he does not look as if he
had been fleeced. Aunt Dorothée is
counting, with an air of woebegone solitude,
the patterns on the carpet, as if to divine
what average sum in copper money each
separate flower must have cost. Beside
her on the blue satin sofa her niece un-
ravels a skein of bright worsted which Cap-
tain Clarimon, the Crimean hero and her
cousin, is holding with docility; and Hor-
ace, his back to the mantle-piece, interrupts
the silence to read aloud occasional para-
graphs out of the newspaper he is skim-
ming.
A footman enters powdered and majes-
126
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
tuous, the incarnate image of “eight
hundred francs a year and perquisites.”
“Monsieur le Marquis's horse is at the
door,” he announced. Horace no longer
objects to be called M. le Marquis. Soon
after their marriage Angélique — no doubt
º instructed — remarked that she
iked the title Madame la Marquise better
than that of Madame Gerold. It was said
in the same tone she would have adopted
to state her preference for burnt almonds
over candied cherries; but from that day
Horace had suffered himself to be mar-
quisized without protest. He was not re-
sponsible, however, for the sudden and
violent eruption of coronets which, after
this little uxorial victory, burst upon every
article of furniture or piece of plate on
which it was possible to paint or engrave
these symbols. Even his linen he now
noticed had been secretly seized and
branded. º
At the announcement of the horse
Angélique laid down her worsted and ran
obligingly to fetch her husband's hat and
gloves. She was the same pretty, silent An-
gélique as of yore. A shade more of timid-
ity in her manner; a fainter shade of grav-
ity on her beautiful face, and that was all.
Captain Clarimon also rose, displaying,
when on his legs, a handsome giant six feet
bigh, with bold, military face, mustaches
waxed at either end as sharp as spear-points,
and hands that must have held a firm grip
of the cavalry sabre when cutting down
rebel proletaires in the coup-d'état affrays,
or Russians on the field of Inkermann.
Crimean heroes being still the rage at that
period, Captain Clarimon had been made
welcome at the Hôtel Macrobe, and find-
ing his quarters good, evinced no disposition
to desert them.
“So you are off to your legislative duties,
Marquis,” said he, with more veneration
than might have been expected from one
who had learned by experience what a poor
show an assembly of legislators makes
against half a troop of horse.
* Yes,” answered Horace, smiling to his
wife, and thanking her as he took his hat
from her hands. “Yes, Captain, but I
don’t know what we are going to legislate
upon to-day. I have not seen the notice-
paper.”
“I think it is a colonial question,” said
M. Macrobe, shutting up his note-book
with a well-satisfied snap ; “the political
régime of Martinique and Guadeloupe.”
“Dull countries,” remarked the Captain,
“and cursedly peppery – ahem, I beg par-
don, ma belle cousine. I lived in garri-
son there.”
“Amongst the poor negroes,” observed
Angélique.
“Ay, the poor negroes who used to be
slaves,” exclaimed Aunt Dorothée dismally,
as if the servitude of the black races had
been the canker-worm of her existence.
M. Macrobe on the sly launched a thun-
derbolt-glance in the direction of Aunt
Dorothée, and coughed to drown, her mis-
placed sympathy.
“The negroes—yes, those poor fellows
who used to be so happy a few years ago,
and who now, by all accounts, are in a
miserable state of destitution,” ejaculated
he.
“That's exactly it” laughed the Captain.
“The beggars were happy enough until a
number of Deputies, half of whom had never
seen a negro, and the other half of whom
had never talked to one, laid their heads
together to set them free. Up to that time
Martinique and Guadeloupe had been flour-
ishing. The negroes were well fed, well
housed, and had no more work than was
good for them. But, crack 1 down comes
the abolition; and what’s the result 2 Your
nigger left to himself won't work at any
price. Planters are ruined, trade dries up
by the roots, and our two colonies go to the
dogs. That's what comes of making laws,”
added he, sapiently. º
“My father was amongst those who agi-
tated for abolition,” remarked Horace
rather dryly.
“Of course, and quite right too,” returned
the Captain unabashed. “I am sure I
should have voted for emancipating the
poor devils; in fact, I’m for emancipating
everybody, and letting them all do as they
like. But if you'd been to Guadeloupe, I
fancy you’d wish they had delayed the ex-
periment until you were past visiting the
place again. Why, I have ridden twenty
miles along the coast and met not a living
soul save three niggers, all stretched on their
backs in the sun, and swearing it was too
hot to work. Like oysters, 'pon my word.”
“Well, as I know very little or nothing
about the colonies, perhaps you wouldn't
mind riding down to the House with me and
enlightening me,” said Horace, cheerful
again. “One picks up useful waifs in con-
versation. I will order a second horse to
be saddled.”
The Captain good-naturedly acquiesced,
and so did M. Macrobe, who seemed pleased
with the arrangement. A second hack was
soon brought round, and the Captain armed
himself with a riding-whip.
“Au revoir, child,” said Horace, kissing
Angélique on the forehead. “What shall
you do all the afternoon ?”
“Long to see you return,” she whispered,
with a slight, sweet smile, which brought a
ray of pleasure to his eyes, and to her fea-
tures a little color. “Then, I have my
A SPEECH, A VOTE, AND A SURPRISE.
127
round of visits to make,” added she, sub-
mitting to the second kiss with which he re-
warded her pretty compliment.
The Captain also took his leave in cousin-
ly style. Selecting by hazard, no doubt,
a moment when Horace's back was turned,
he said, “Au revoir, charmante cousine,”
and, bowing, lifted her hand to his lips.
As the gallant warrior was thus engaged,
M. Macrobe's eye was fixed upon him with
rather a curious expression.
The debate had already commenced when
Horace settled into his seat in the House —
if debate it can be called, where every hon-
orable gentleman was known to be of the
same opinion, and would infallibly vote the
same way when the hour of “division ” ar-
rived. The Corps Législatif, indeed, had not
been created that it might make itself much
heard or felt. Its function in the constitu-
tional machinery was to spin as noiselessly
as possible; to do its little piece of allot-
ted work in the way prescribed, but just that
and no more; above all to avoid clanking,
or in any way jarring upon the nerves of its
imperial proprietor. The look of the ses-
sion hall marked its altered destination from
what the place had been in days passed by.
Where was the tribune whence Royer-Col-
lard had delivered his flashing orations;
Manuel, Foy, and Benjamin Constant,
hurled their fire; and where Guizot had
stood at bay, breasting the attacks of Ber-
ryer, Lamartine, and Thiers combined 2
Gone. Where were the strangers' galleries
in which two generations of Frenchmen had
trained themselves to love of parliamentary
eloquence, to worship of freedom 2 Where
the journalists’ box, in which, turn by turn,
had sat all the master penmen who had
moulded the thoughts of young France —
Courier, Carrel, Mignet, Vitel, Sacy, Girar-
din 2 Present, but closed. Where the
benches on which at one time, and in one
array, had figured Victor Hugo and Beran-
ger, Louis Blanc, and Quinet, Montalem-
bert and Lamennais, Arago and Cousin 7
Present again, but peopled by two hundred
and sixty gentlemen of debonnair aspect
and facile manners, with not an idea be-
tween them, but plenty of small talk; gen-
tlemen culled pretty much to right and left
as we gather mushrooms, from half-ruined
estates, from the purlieus of the Stock Ex-
change, from plethoric, and, consequently,
loyal Chambers of Commerce, from the semi-
official press, from ministerial back-stairs,
last and least, from court. All of which
#. had been shoved into the Corps
égislatif to do their duty, and did it—
voting as they were bid, and roaring very
conscientiously, “Hear, hear,” when a min-
ister spoke, to the tune of five hundred
pounds a year apiece.
As a counterpoise to these two hundred
and sixty human and self-acting voting in-
struments, Horace's seat, slightly isolated
from the others, being a little to the left
of the President's chair, was the only one
which could, by any elasticity of expression
short of downright abuse of language, be
termed independent.
As Horace entered, an obese legislator
was sawing the air with his right hand,
proclaiming the reasons which would induce
him to vote in favor of the bill — a gratui-
tous piece of good nature which seemed so
entirely superfluous to his colleagues that
they serenely busied themselves in different
ways and didn't listen to him. A large
proportion of honorable members were
writing their private letters, a good number
more sprawling with legs outstretched,
hands deep in pockets, and countenances
upverted with a beatific gaze at the sky-
light, were sleeping the sleep of the just.
Four or five, whom you had fancied poring
with absorbed interest over statistical blue-
books, were palpitating over the incidents
of a steeple-chase at Chantilly, described
in the usual graphic language by a reporter
of “Le Sport; ” and a pair who kept their
backs turned to the rest of the world,
and were pushing white bits of something
composedly towards each other, looked
suspiciously as if they were playing at domi-
Il OCS.
Horace was soon surrounded in his seat
— colleagues in squads came smirking up
to kill time with a little quiet chat until
the rising of the House. He was not un-
popular, the Member for Paris. Deputies
fat and lean, jovial and bilious, broke into
smiles as he passed them. In the lobbies
he reaped as many hat-salutes and shakes
of the hand as he knew what to do with.
The prevailing notion was, that although
independent, which was certainly a point
against him, he was not dangerous, and
might be trusted.
A canine-visaged deputy, with a rasping
voice and a nose like a fig, said pleasantly:
“Shall we have the satisfaction of hear-
ing you to-day, Monsieur le Marquis? A
debate in which I take some interest. Was
a planter myself in the good times.”
“In the time of slavery 2”
“Precisely. I had five hundred slaves, and
devilish contented they were. Never cow-
hided them except when they deserved it.
Within three years of the abolition half
of them were underground; floated them-
selves to the deuce on rivers of rum. Ah l
the rascals.”
“I do think it’s so absurd to talk of
niggers as human beings,” giggled a young
viscount with features livid from long vigils
and hair in curl. “The Marquise de Ver-
128
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
meilon had a negro page she dressed in
red, and an ape she put in blue—con-
foundedly rococo she was, the Marquise.
And I used to say to her, “Marquise, if
those two exchange clothes I shall be giv-
ing sugar-plums to Snowball — this was
the nigger—and my card to Adonis —this
was the ape. Hee, hee, hee,’” Every-
body laughed. This was very funny.
“I lost a million francs by the abolition,”
resumed the fig-nosed planter, in a voice
like that of a nutmeg on a grater, “but the
colony lost more. Chaps that didn’t un-
derstand any thing about the niggers'
interest, nor about anybody else's; those
that suppressed slavery. Why, isn’t there
slavery in all countries more or less 2
Look at our peasants who are taken by the
Conscription at twenty, made to serve
seven years, and risk being shot into the
bargain. The niggers risked nothing, there
wasn’t a cleaner, happier lot going; why,
it was like a prime concert to see 'em squat
in a row and whistle in the sun. Then
we used to marry 'em ’’—
“Yes,” grinned the young viscount:
“and I’ve heard of a nigger who was
henpecked like fun, until one lucky day
his wife was sold to one master and he to
another. That's an advantage that wouldn’t
have been open to him if he'd been a free
Frenchman. Once spliced with us whites
it's always spliced.”
More merriment, interrupted this time,
however, by the sudden close of the obese
member's speech. At this the House woke
up for a moment and burst cordially, and
without a moment's hesitation, into unani-
mous cheering. The members who were
writing their letters, those who slept with
their countenances heavenwards, those who
were palpitating over the prose of the
sporting-writer, and the pair who played
dominoes, all looked up and shouted de-
fiantly, “Hear, hear !” as if there were an
invisible opposition making itself obstreper-
ous on the benches of the Left and requiring
to be put down. Then the President, a
dapper statesman, ornamented with a red
ribbon and star, consulted a list on his
table, and called out to another deputy to
rise and say something. It was very
much indeed like a schoolmaster crying,
“Boy Duval, stand up and construe.”
Unfortunately for the regularity of the
proceedings, the honorable gentleman
appeaſed to was absent, having been taken
ill in the morning; so was the next mem-
ber on the list, who had been summoned
away by telegraph at early dawn to bury
a relative; and the third deputy whose
name the President called was not yet
arrived — whence an unexpected hitch.
These debates, to tell the truth, were all
mapped out beforehand, like the pro-
grammes of a musical entertainment. In
order that a sceptic public night have no
handle for murmuring that honorable mem-
bers did small work for their 500l. per
annum, M. Gribaud, the Minister, and his
Excellency the President, provided between
them that no bill should be sent up to the
Crown without a decent amount of pre-
liminary speechifying to season it withal.
They recruited talkative members — those
preferred who had the great art of saying
nothing, and putting it into a good many
words. It would be arranged that Monsieur
A. should get up and talk from two till a
quarter past, that Monsieur B. should follow.
him from the quarter to the half hour, and .
that when Messieurs C., D., and E. had
each had their twenty minutes' or half-
hour's turn, according as they felt in con-
dition, Monsieur Gribaud himself should
rise — towards five or thereabouts—reduce
all their arguments to powder, prevail upon
them to withdraw their suggestions or
amendments, which they were not likely
to object to do, and get the bill voted by
acclamation in time for everybody to be
home and dressing for dinner at six. Now,
when Messieurs C., D., and E. all failed
to come up to time together, it was tanta-
mount to what the unforeseen eclipse of
the tenor, bass, and baritone at one of
Monsieur Hertz's morning performances
would have been. Some little consterna-
tion ensued. The honorable gentlemen
who were writing their private letters
nibbled the ends of their quills, the pair
who played dominoes looked guiltily ap-
prehensive lest they should be dragged out
of their retirement and forced to speak
whether they liked it or not; Monsieur
Gribaud, who had been sitting with his
arms folded and his head drooping on his
chest, in apparent slumber — though of all
men in the room he was certainly the most
wide-awake, drew out his watch, but seeing
it yet wanted two hours to six, put it back
again and frowned. What was to be done?
Propriety scarcely admitted of the Minister
making a general appeal for somebody to
devote himself, and it would not have con-
corded with the dignity of a legislative
council for the President to exclaim, “I
vow nobody shall go out of here until I get
my three speeches.” In this emergency
all eyes sought Horace. What is the use
of an Opposition member if he be not pre-
pared to spout by the hour at half a
minute’s notice 7
So, drawn by that magnetic attraction
which brings orators to their legs, Horace,
without well knowing what he did, rose,
and an instantaneous sigh of relief went
round. He had not in the least made up
A SPEECH, A VOTE, AND A SURPRISE.
129
**.e.
his mind as to what he should say, neither
had he caught a dozen words of what the
last speaker had uttered — moreover, he
was not quite clear as to what the bill’s
scope was. These were disadvantages;
but, being a Frenchman every inch, they
did not appall him as they might have done
the scion of a less glib-tongued race.
Certes, there was a difference between the
young. man who had stammered the first
phrases of his maiden speech before the
judges of the Police Correctionelle and the
coolly confident deputy of the people. The
confidence of twenty thousand voters must
make a man self-trusting if any thing will.
|Horace began by running his hands through
his hair, which seems to be a physical
necessity with most Parisian speakers, and
then, without hesitation, started into a retro-
spective survey of the history of the French
colonial empire, which would be sure to be
appropriate. He alluded to Duplex and
Lally-Tollendal; compared La Peyrousse
with Cook, somewhat to the disparagement
of the latter; grew lyrical over Montcalm
and the fall of Quebec; and towered to
patriotic heights when describing how
“the fairest jewels of our colonial crown’
had been reft away by the avidity of a
nation now at peace with us. This brought
him to the negroes, and the question of
compulsory and gratuitous instruction;
which, like the Messrs. Somebody's pills,
appears to be the panacea for all evils
known and unknown. “The negroes were
lazy and allowed our colonies to be ruined;
why was that? Because they were not
educated. If the negro were taught to
read, and gratified with a free press to
develop his liberal culture, not a doubt
that he would take to work with an ardent
zeal. Commerce would re-flourish under
his efforts, and France would show herself
in colonial prosperity, as in other things,
to be the mistress of the world.” This
conclusion was hailed, as it deserved to be,
with loud, long, and general applause, for
the great merit of the speech was that,
although nobody had understood it, it had
occupied a good hour in delivery. All that
now remained was for M. Gribaud to reply,
which he did with adroitness, declaring he
should not fail to remember the suggestion
of his honorable friend, and that the ques-
tion of negro instruction would for the
future be foremost amongst those involving
his most attentive consideration. Where-
upon there was more cheering, enthusiastic
and long continued; the question was put
from the chair, and carried mem. con. ; the
péns, newspapers, blotting-books, and domi-
noes were stowed away, and everybody
went home to dinner, France being the
richer. by a bill, and the Corps Législatif
9
the happier for three speeches. Such is
civilization.
In the lobby, going out, Horace
was joined by the Planter, who, raspingly
and bluffly as ever, said, “Fine words,
Monsieur le Marquis, and a good deal of
body in 'em too, I don't doubt. Only, in
practice, reading and writing don’t any
more change the nigger's nature than soap
can whiten his skin. I’ve been to Jamaica
and there seen model schools built a good
many years ago by an Englishman named
Guineaman’—
“Guineaman l’ interrupted Horace, with
a start, for he recalled the name of his
uncle's wife, the woman whose slave-
earned money had restored Clairefontaine,
and set a lasting stigma of indignity on it.
“Yes, a slave-trader,” returned the fig-
nosed planter carelessly, “but, like all
Englishmen, one who kept the Bible in
his tail-coat pocket and called it his com-
pass. When he walloped a nigger he took
car-re to quote the chapter, and verse that
gave him authority, and I believe he.
wouldn’t have exceeded forty stripes, save
one, for any money.”
“A hypocrite * *
“Wa’al, no, it's bred in the grain. Those.
English who are pr-ractical have discov-
ered that they can do a good many more.
queer things by citing the Bible than we
Fr-rench can do without it. But I didn’t
know this Monsieur Guineaman; he was
dead and gone long befor-re my time. They
used to talk about him at Jamaica, though,
and showed the schools he built when he’d
made his fortune; for it was his theory that
slavery being lawful—for the Government
didn’t for-rbid it then no more does the
Bible now—he'd just as much right to
tur-rn an honest penny that way as any-
body else, provided, of course, he didn’t
bully his niggers, which I think good
mor-rals. The-refor-re, as I say, he opened
schools and preaching-houses to make the
beggars lively, just as I at Martinique
being Fr-rench, set up dancing-booths to
the same end. Only, my dancing-booths
tur-rned up tr-rumps and Monsieur Guinea-
man's schools didn't. The niggers danced
jigs fast enough, but be hanged if they
loved r-reading and writing any more than
hoeing and digging. It's not in the nature
of the warmin.”
Which wise commentary brought the two
legislators to the door of egress where both
found their broughams. The fig-nosed planter
wedged himself smugly into his and was
whirled away to one of those banquets
which kept his physiognomy in such per-
petual glow ; Horace was going to follow
suit, and had already one foot on his brough-
am step, when a familiar equipage, drawn
130
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
by two superb bays, and driven with right
British science, came like a hurricane down
the Quai d'Orsay, ten yards off where he
was standing, whirling up a spray of mud-
drops and flint-sparks on its passage. The
driver was the Prince of Arcola, who rec-
ognized him, and instantly reined in his
steeds with consummate skill, clattering and
champing on the haunches.
“This is a lucky meeting.
you a lift.”
“With pleasure,” said Horace, who was
always glad to see the Prince ; and he
scrambled into the phaeton, which, as soon
as released by the two cockaded grooms
who had sprung to the horses’ head, sped
merrily on its course again.
“I have been on a calitosome old friends
of yours,” said the Prince, as they debouch-
ed into the Champs Elysées with a speed
that made the gaslights flit past them like
flakes of fire thrown up by an engine in
motion.
“I have almost as many friends as ene-
mies now, Prince,” was the smiling answer.
“I mean the Pochemolles.”
“I have not seen them for an age,” said
Horace, with interest. “I heard last month
they were going to retire, but when I went
to congratulate M. Pochemolle on his rise
in the ladder, he had already removed.
They are all well, I hope, and the good
draper is not yet counter-sick 2 °
“They are installed at Meudon,” rejoined
the Prince without smiling. “The villa is a
pretty one, devoid of vulgarity, the dwelling
of an honest man who retires on a loyally-
earned competence. Both Monsieur and
Madame Pochemolle are very well.”
“And Georgette 7" inquired Horace,
after a moment's silence, though looking with
something of archness at his interlocutor.
As if he had been expecting the question,
the Prince quivered slightly. He did not
immediately reply, but lashed his horses
nervously into a faster trot. Then abruptly
he turned his face full on Horace’s and
said : “Gerold, I have been wanting for the
last twelve months to put you a question,
but have never dared — you will guess why,
perhaps, some day. Tell me now, on your
word, between man and man, has there ever
been anything between you and Georgette?”
Horace, though he had long suspected
the Prince of paying a more or less avow-
able court to the draper's daughter, was
little prepared for the attack, and changed
color.
“Nothing of any importance,” said he,
evasively, and rather trying to laugh off the
subject. -
“Then there has been something,” mut-
tered the Prince, and it seemed to Horace
that he turned pale.
I will give
“I swear to you that, so far as I know
and believe, Georgette is a virtuous girl, if
that is what you mean,” he said.
The Prince seemed relieved; but musing-
ly he exclaimed: “Then what is the signifi-
cance of her flaming up as she does when-
ever your name is mentioned 2*
Horace wondered. Why Georgetteshould
thus flame up was to him inexplicable
except under the hypothesis that she was
an extremely forward person. He had not
forgotten the whimsical display of spleen to
which she had treated him a few months
before, when the report of his marriage was
beginning to gain ground: but this was a
thing of the past now, which he was fain
to dismiss from his mind as not worth
brooding over. Besides, a woman’s fair
fame is a thing against which a man with
the least spark of feeling is so loath to
breathe a careless word, even when he has
cause for suspicion and motives of personal
rancor, that Horace checked himself on the
point of making a rejoinder that would have
reflected slightingly on Georgette's conduct
towards him, and answered guardedly :
“As her father's lodger, I frequently saw
Mdlle. Georgette, and it may be that by
occasional civilities, by those unmeaning
compliments which we men pay without
attaching any weight to them, I suffered
my intentions to be misinterpreted. In this
case the blame would be mine, not Mdlle.
Georgette's, and she might feel some resent-
ment at what may seem to her to have
been levity on my part. This is the expla-
nation I suggest.”
“And that is all that passed between you
— positively all 7”
“That is all.”
“Well, you have taken a load off me,”
murmured the Prince, with an unaffected
sigh. He flicked an invisible speck of dust
off his near horse's collar, and looked as
though he meant what he said.
“But tell me now, in your turn, why you
catechize me like this ‘’” inquired Horace,
not without raillery, as his former not very
charitable misgivings as to the Prince's own
designs upon Georgette recurred to him.
They were not above a hundred yards'
distance from the Hôtel Macrobe, and the
phaeton was still going like wildfire. The
Prince said: “Repeat to me once more
what you affirmed about Georgette's blame-
lessness.”
“I do; I affirm her entirely blameless,
upon my word,” said Horace earnestly.
“Well, then,” answered the Prince with
gravity, “if Mdlle. Georgette will do me
the honor to accept me, I will make her
my wife.”
Horace looked quickly round, as if his
first thought was that the Prince was jok:
A RECOGNITION.
131
ing. But M. d’Arcola was perfectly com-
posed. He spoke as if he had just an-
nounced his coming marriage to a princess
of his own rank.
CHAPTER XXV.
A RECOGNITION,
THE Prince's communication ought to
have left Horace indifferent, but somehow
is did not. Let those explain this who,
having ever formed the manly resolution
not to love a girl because she was poor, or
low-born, or any thing else uneligible, find
these scruples accounted as nought by oth-
ers richer, higher, and prouder than them-
selves. Horace was aware that there was
not a living man who would have shrunk
more sensitively from a mésalliance than
the Prince of Arcola. But, apparently,
his notions of a mésalliance were not those
of the common world.
At dinner, without alluding to the cir-
cumstance, Horace asked his wife whether
she had yet called on the Pochemolles at
their new residence.
“Perhaps it would be civil,” said he pen-
sively, “as they sent us a letter, mention-
ing they were going to move.”
“I will call, dear, if you wish it,” an-
swered Angélique in her tranquil voice;
“but I could not do so before, for they gave
no address.”
“M. d'Arcola tells me they are at Meu-
don,” said Horace. &
“Very wise of them to choose the coun-
try,” remarked M. Macrobe: “pure air,
broad fields, life healthy and cheap.”
“And shooting for those who can shoot,”
chimed in the Crimean hero.
“And shooting, as you say, Captain,” as-
sented his uncle.
For some time past it had become a sort
of mania with M. Macrobe to depict rural
bliss. Virgil never took greater pains to
vaunt the charms of a rustic life, the sweet
breath of kine, the scent of new-mown hay,
and the unadulterated purity of country
milk and butter than did the financier.
Especially was it good to, hear him hold
forth on the pride and pomp of a manorial
estate, the waving acres, the wagons
groaning under loads of storied sheaves,
the rows of peasants bowing with glad
homage before their lord, and the turreted
castle gleaming majestuously in the summer ||
sun over river, field, and wood. Angé-
lique, as if repeating a music lesson, would
take up this pastoral in a minor key, say-
ing that she addred the country, and would
“so like to have a small castle where they
might spend the autumn.” Captain Clari.
mon, not less bucolie, opined that a great
noble should slaughter winged fowl on a
grandiose scale, organize battues that would
muster a whole country side, and run down
a stag now and then with accompaniment
of horn-tooting to stir up the minds of the
clodhoppers.
That was a true saying of the ancients:
Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed socpe ca-
dendo. Under the frequency of these
Georgic aspersions Horace was impercepti-
bly beginning to feel that the man who had
no landed property, nor horned cattle, nor
preserves, had missed the pre-ordained pur-
pose of existence. To be sure, he might
have purchased all these things on the very
morrow with his wife's dowry had it pleased
him. But he did not look upon this money
as his. At her marriage M. Macrobe had
given his daughter two millions and a half
of francs, but Horace had insisted they
should stand in Angélique's own name on
the books of the Crédit Parisien, and be
tied down absolutely to her by contract: and
there he meant to fº them, never claim-
ing the privilege of touching a centime.
Besides, his notions of an enviable de-
mesne were not associated with a brand-
new estate, cut out to order and bought
with ready money. When he thought of
the matter the towers of Clairefontaine
rose vaguely before him — Clairefontaine
which might have been his, had his rela-
tive Guineaman made his fortune by swind-
ling his contemporaries under the rose, in-
stead of selling them openly in the broad
light of day.
“Everybody likes the country,” he re-
marked mechanically, in answer to M. Ma-
crobe's observation.
It was Italian Opera night, and, on leav-
ing the dining-room, Angélique was cloaked
in a flowing white burnous by the attentive
Crimean hero, who was continually and
jealously on the watch to render little ser-
vices. The same warrior brought the opera-
glass, and took Angélique's fan into his
special custody. He also made himself
useful in fastening those six button gloves
which ladies were then inaugurating, and
which, had they existed in the time of Job,
might have added one more to that sorely-
vexed patriarch's trials of patience.
“You will take me to the opera, won't
you, Horace 7" asked Angélique, helplessly
surrendering her small wrists to the gallant
Captain.
“Yes, dear,” answered Horace with the
docility characteristic of husbands during
the first year of their marriage; and he in-
quired what opera it was.
IS3
THE MEMBER FOR PAIRIS, ,
“I think it's Don Giovanni.”
“Oh, dear!” sished Aunt Dorothée,
whose venerable head was erowned with
an assortment of limp feathers that gave
her the appearanee of a demoralized bus-
tsurd. “ } st's the play where the stage
opens up and swallows a living being in
the flames. You'll eome away before that
happens, won't you, dear? I'm always
afraid to see that young man burn his
elothes.”
“You shall eome away when you like,
aunt dear,” promised Angélique. “Are
sou ready. Horace 3 *
Horaee was ready, and so was the Cap-
tain, who, as in duty bound, offered the
Marquise his arm. But as they all sailed
out together, with the exeeption of M. Ma-
erobe, who partieipated in the belief of M.
Alphonse Rarr that music is but the most
expensive of all noises, a servant announced
* Monsieur Emile,” and this upset the ar-
rangements. Horace, not over sorry to be
reprieved from four hours' stewing in a
grand tier box, settled to join his wife later
in the evening, the Crimean hero mean-
while undertaking to guard her under his
valiant protection. *
* The night is so fine that Emile and I
will walk down,” said Horace; “and I
will be with you about the second act.”
* And will you come too, Emile 2° asked
Angélique a little timidly, for she never
brought herself without hesitation to call
her grave young brother-in-law by his
Christian name. -
“I am scarcely in opera attire, sister,” he
answered kindly. “I only looked in on
the chance of finding Horace disengaged,
but I blame myself for monopolizing him
in this way.”
“Oh! you are quite right to come,
brother, but you should let us see you
oftener, and be here earlier, so as to dine
with us.”
She said this amiably, glancing up a
little to her husband for approval, for she
knew it was the surest way to please him
to show civility to his brother. Then she
held out her tiny hand to Emile, which he
shook, thanking her.
“Well, old fellow, it's a long while since
we two took an evening walk like this,”
began Horace, as he and Emile paced to-
gether arm-in-arm.
They were in the Champs Elysées, under
the crystal dome of a clear sky, blue with
the dark-blue of night, and irradiated by a
moon of such silvery brightness that it made
the gaslights look like dull red dots. Paris
shows well on such nights, when the trees
throw long lace-pattern shadows on the
pavements, rows of fair white mansions
gleam like polished marble, and lovers
stroll in pairs, whispering that Je t'aims
which is of daily use in none but the
“Latin” tongues,
“Do you remember those pleasant walks,”
eontinued Horace, “when we first came to
Paris, three years ago It seems like ten
years oft. We worked all day, often half
the night, but now and them we gave our-
selves a holiday, and took it out like this,
wandering about the streets and guessing
at the future. How gay they appeared to
me them, the streets; and what smiles I
used to see on the faces of the passers-by l
Paris always struck me as a perpetual fair.
Ah, those were the happy times l’”
“But you are happy now, Horace?”
“Oh, yes!”
And there was a pause.
“But tell me about yourself,” added
Horace, breaking off from some internal
reflection which had brought a flitting
frown to his brow. “Let me look at you —
you grow paler and paler. Why do you
work so much, ell ? Everybody talks of
your indefatigableness. A judge told me
the other night that if he had worked as
you do at his age he would have been a
Chief Justice of Appeal by this time.”
“Then, you see, work does lead to
something,” smiled Emile.
“Ah, but my judge added the proviso:
“Or I should have been in my coffin,’ which
didn’t re-assure me.” -
“I don’t feel as if I were near my coffin,
dear fellow. Pale men, like threatened
men, live long.”
“And you are happy in your way, and
satisfied ?” *
“Why should I not be?”
“But you have no ambition, restlessness,
eagerness to outpass somebody, or do some-
thing before the appointed time 2 I some-
times marvel at your calmness; we don’t
seem to be moulded out of the same clay.”
“I suppose everybody has his small
beacon of ambition beckoning him, Horace,
but I fancy the surest way of attaining it is
by plainly following the beaten track. It
may be the longest road, but cuts across
country often lead one into quagmires.”
A short silence, and then they reached
the Rue de Rivoli, that noblest of modern
streets, with its half-mile colonnade, forum
of foreigners, Via Sacra of hotel-keepers.
Broughams glanced along the broad high-
way, bearing muffled forms to theatre and
routs. Unbroken lines of flaming jets, in-
tensified by dazzling reflectors, flooded the
arches with light. Spaniards, Americans,
Germans, Englishmen, sauntered up and
down, smoking their after-dinner cigars,
and examining the accumulated treasures
of the shops.
“What wealth !” exclaimed Horace
A RECOGNITION.
133
“Paris has indeed under this reign become
Cosmopolis. But, now, I wonder" — and
he laughed — “I wonder if all these people
we see here, and all the people in the shops
there, were suddenly to sit down and say,
“We will make restitution of every franc
that we have ever unduly earned, and of
every franc that our fathers before us un-
duly earned and bequeathed to us in in-
heritance; ' and supposing some power of
another sphere were to inspire them with
the faculty of making a faultless estimate
of these sums — I wonder, I say, when the
balance had been struck, how many of these
persons we bellold congregated from all
the corners of the globe would have money
enough left to smoke their cigars, or to
keep those sumptuous shops going.”
“What can have put such a thought as
that into your head 7” asked Emile, as-
tonished. “This is disquieting philosophy.”
“I was thinking about the nice dis-
cussions we barristers could raise as to
what was honest gold and what was not.
Given two men with large fortunes and
relatives to inherit them. The first has
been, say, a wine-merchant, and has con-
scientiously mixed his wines with logwood
and water for a stated series of years. The
second has with integrity followed a trade,
which, during his lifetime, was lawful, but
which was prohibited later, though even
then opinions were divided respecting it.
Now, which is the cleaner money of the two;
that of the wine-merchant who regaled the
public with a purple decoction at fancy
prices, or that of the other man, who, pur-
suing a doubtful trade, yet conducted it
according to his lights, straightforwardly 2”
“I should like to hear more about the
doubtful trade,” answered Emile, quietly.
“There are possibly in this crowd some
police-spies from the Prefecture, sent out
to worm themselves into the confidence of
unsuspecting men, trap them into anti-
Bonapartist utterances, and get them trans-
ported to Cayenne. As times go, the trade
is a lawful one, but I should be sorry to
finger any of its profits.”
“Naturally. You speak like the good
fºllow you are. Still, I ask myself how
many men would feel bound to do what
we have dome, and renounce the estate
where their fathers lived because it had
been bought back after arbitrary confis-
cation, with the money of a dealer who —
well, who did what the custom of those
days perfectly sanctioned.”
This was the first time since many a long
month that Horace so much as alluded to a
subject which Emile had dismissed from
his own mind once and for all as not admit-
ting of discussion. Emile looked at his
brother with an expression in which sudden
**
surprise and dismay were painfully blended
and it was in quite an altered voice that he
Haid: “You are Hurely not regretting a sac-
rifice that was made of your own free will,
Horace f *
“Not in the least. No, there's no re-
gret whatever,” and Horace laughed again
in an oſſ-hand way, though somewhat con-
strainedly. “To begin with, our father
made the sacrifice before us, and I know he
would take it 80 Inucli to heart if either of
us abandoned our resolution, that I wouldn’t
assume the responsibility even if I had
changed my inind. But I liaven’t — no —
so don’t be alarmed. I was only speaking
on supposition — supposing there were two
other men placed in our predicament, and
you and I were commenting on what they
ought to do, I think, then, the case might
afford scope for argument. That’s all.”
And argue it they did, walking slowly
during two hours through the streets, often
retracing their steps, occasionally stopping
altogether; the one conversing with ani-
mation but simulated unconcern, the other
too much troubled to say all he would have
said had he felt the debate to be as hypo-
thetical a one as his brother would have had
it seem. At eleven they stood outside the
Opera House, and the theme was not yet
exhausted; for, bidding each other good-
night under the portico of the theatre, Hor-
ace said, a little flushed, but cheerfully :
“Mind, old fellow, all this is purely specu-
lative; talk to while away the time and
nothing else. It was our walk set me think-
ing of Clairefontaine. You recollect our
visit there ; that old woman who showed
us over the place, our ovation when we re-
turned to the worthy town, and the stones
with which the good people pelted us in
guise of paz vobiscum to the railway-sta-
tion. It was just such a night as this. By
the way, you hear oftener from Brussels
than I do : our father was quite well, at the
last writing?”
“Quite well, thank God.”
“I will write to him myself in a day or
two. But his letters to me are sad; they
give one the idea that he is suffering. Well,
good-night, dear fellow, and mind what I
repeat, this evening's chat has been words,
nothing more.”
“Good-night, Horace.”
They shook hands and parted; but had
Horace followed his brother round the cor-
ner of the street, he would have seen that,
collected as Emile had been all the evening,
tears started to his eyes as soon as his
brother's back was turned, and that he
walked home with the lagging step of one
who had received a blow, whose faith in a
oved being has been shaken.
Horace was conducted by a bustling at-
134
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
j
&
tendant to the box of Mdme, la Marquise de
Clairefontaine. A prima-donna was in-
dulging in terrific screams under pretence of
singing, and the audience hung spell-bound
on the enchanting sounds. The fig-nosed
planter, alone, whom Horace descried slum-
bering in a pit-tier lodge under the mutely
reproachful eye of Mrs. Planter, appeared to
protest by his attitude against this manner
of spending an evening. Every part of the
house was crowded, and the Italian Opera
being the only theatre in which the play-
going Frenchwoman will unveil her shoul-
ãers, and the Frenchman submit to the
tyranny of swallow-tails, the effect was not
bad.
“Do you recognize any one you know?”
asked Angélique, prettily, making way for
Horace on the chair beside her, which the
Crimean hero had vacated on his entrance.
Angélique's large, limpid eyes were al-
ways so intently fixed when uttering the
simplest questions, that Horace detected
nothing unusually attentive in their gaze
on this occasion.
“Let me see, dear child,” he said, taking
her glass. “On the tier above there's
Mdme. de Margauld ; is that who you mean?
a pretty woman, and dresses sensibly; then
there's Mdme. de Masseline, wife of my co-
deputy. They say her pin-money comes
from the Prefecture, where she carries all
that she picks up in society. I refuse to
believe it, though, for you ladies malign one
another mercilessly, and it was a lady gave
me that pretty piece of scandal. Then
there's the Austrian ambassadress, and
Mdle. Cora, the dancer, costumed with in-
finitely more propriety than her Excellency,
and Mdme. Gribaud — why, yes, dear child,
I recognize everybody. But there's not a
face " — restoring the glass and nodding
with a smile, “more pretty, or a dress more
tasteful than those of some one whose name
you may guess.”
“Look again,” said Angèlique, her mild
eyes calmly, inquiringly intent as before.
“There, almost opposite us.”
Horace looked again, and this time his
researches were guided by several pairs of
eyes in the stalls converging towards one
point, a box where shone a truly imperial
beauty. She was the most striking face in
the house; but it took Horace some sec-
onds to rally his fluttering impressions, and
to grasp who it was. Georgette
“Their coming in caused quite a sensa-
tion during the first entr’acte,” pursued
Angélique, quietly ; but she never with-
drew her eyes from her husband, who now
did not put down the glass. “Everybody
seems to admire her.”
“Reminds me of those Georgian beauties
whom I saw at Constantinople; lustrous
faces, scarlet lips, and dark hair,” struck in
the Crimean hero; “but I prefer blonde
features.”
In spite of himself, Horace's gaze seemed
riveted. The box was occupied by Mad-
ame Pochemolle and the draper, but these
excellent people, not knowing much of eti-
Quette, had given the place of honor to their
daughter. in the background the Prince
of Arcola was dimly recognizable. Geor-
gette was pensively rapt in the music, but
at intervals she turned to answer some re-
mark of the Prince's, or bent her head with
modest grace in token that she was listen-
ing to him. Could this be the Georgette -
of the Rue Ste. Geneviève’? Was it pos-
sible that a few yards of silk and a trimket
or two had been able to convert the hum-
ble girl of the linen-shop into a beauty out-
vying all the most courted women of the
chief city of cities? When Horace put
down the glass it was with a slight tremor
of the hand.
“Is she not beautiful ?” said Angélique,
in whose voice no unaccustomed inflection
was noticeable, at least to her husband.
“Yes — that is, no — I find her altered
a little, improved, perhaps,” answered Hor-
ace, affecting an indifference which his
reverie-struck mood belied.
“Good gracious !” dolefully exclaimed
Aunt Dorothée, at this opportune juncture.
“Here is that dreadful Statue come to take
that young man down into the flames. My
dear, I was quite unwell last time I saw this.”
“Well, madame, we will leave them,”
said Horace, at once rising. “Angélique,
child, shall we go?”
“Yes, dear,” she murmured simply, and
there was a putting on of cloaks and screw-
ing down of opera-glasses, which called into
play the Crimean hero's chivalry, and filled
up a minute. During that minute, after
assisting in the swathing of his aunt, Hor-
ace came to the front of the box and gazed
again across the house. His glance may
have been charged with something of elec-
tricity, for Georgette almost instantly looked
up and saw him. But had he been a stran-
ger seen for the first time, had he been one
of those curly-pated dandies in the stalls,
one of the box-openers in the lobbies, one
of the chorus-singers on the stage, her ex-
pression could not have been more stony,
more coldly unconscious. She turned her
head away without vouchsafing a mark of
recognition, either unfriendly or the re-
verse. Horace turned away too, and drew
out his handkerchief to wipe away a drop
of moisture from his brow. As he did so
he observed the cipher on his handker-
chief. It was one of those which Geor-
gette had embroidered for him as a gift two
years before.
PRINCE COPHETUA'S WOOING.
13%)
CHAPTER XXVI.
PRINCE COPHETUA’s WOOING.
THE Prince of Arcola's mansion was re-
markable for other things besides the ar-
chitectural perfections which made it one
of the finest in a capital where, Revolution
and Equality aiding, the only fine palaces
extant are those belonging to Government;
the rest of mankind lodging themselves in
edifices showy enough when looked at by
the hundred, but separately, cramped and
partaking of the doll-house. The Hôtel
d'Arcole had an essentially English aspect,
which it owed to the Anglophilist tastes
of its proprietor, and to the valuable coun-
sels of the eminent Mr. Drydust, who had
laid himself out to show the Prince, his
friend, what the dwelling of a British noble
ought to be, and had done so with success.
An air of home greeted the invader. The
floors both in corridors and rooms were
covered with carpets; nobody was exposed
to come down flat over superlatively pol-
ished boards as slippery as glazed frost.
The doors all shut properly, which French-
made doors do not, the Gallic workman
being particular about the trim look of his
}. and the smooth roundness of his
andles, but careless as to his hinges and
lintels. Then you saw branching antlers
and trophies of hunting-whips in the vesti-
bules; bound books on the tables (not
those disastrous brochures which tumble to
pieces in one's hands); and the walls
teemed with the works of British artists in
oil and water-color; for the Prince dearly
loved English landscapes, and sporting
cracks, and was a little severe upon the ar-
tists of his own country, saying that unless
you gave them women to paint they were
fit for nothing.
On the morrow, however, of the Don
Giovanni night at the opera, the Prince
might have been detected in the un-En-
glish act of putting himself into dress
clothes at eleven o’clock in the morning.
And he did this gravely, for the business
he had before him is never a light one in
any country, and in France is generally
attended with a certain degree of ceremony
— the asking a lady's hand of her par-
entS.
Yes, he had taken the resolution to seal
his fate that day; and as he adjusted his
speckless white cravat in the looking-glass,
said to himself, what so many have mut-
tered before him, and so many since — that
in another couple of hours he should be the
most fortunate or the wretchedest of men.
Not that he had any reason to foresee that
he should be the wretchedest ; this did not
appear likely, but a little modesty never
comes amiss. It ought, perhaps, tº be men-
tioned that there is no binding necessity
for a Frenchman about to call upon his
prospective father-in-law to attile himself
in black. Aristocratic fathers-in-law are
content to regard many-hued trousers and
buff-dogskins as sufficient evidences of the
intention to render their daughters happy;
but the bourgeoisie cling more fondly to
venerable traditions. It was certain that
M. Pochemolle must have plighted his troth
to . Madame Pochemolle in a dress coat,
and the Prince was but evincing his natu-
ral tact in seeking to avoid in any way
hurting the worthy man's sense of the be-
coming. In addition to the staidness of
his apparel, the Prince had determined
that his equipage would have a suitable
degree of solemnity. He had ordered
round his family coach, which habitually
saw service only at the burial of his kins-
men, and was an imposing vehicle with
hammer-cloth, four coronetted lamps, and
room behind for two vassals with cocked
hats to overawe the populace and staves
to keep them at a distance.
The Prince was ministered to by a valet
of such unmistakable British complexion
that one would have sworn he had an-
swered to some such advertisement as this;
“Wanted a man with red whiskers and a
stiff shirt-collar. Must have an impassive
mien, drop his H's with dignity, always
look as if he had just been brushing his
hair, and say, ‘Yes, my lord.’ in a tone of
well-bred composure. It is indispensable
that this individual should tacitly, but firmly
decline having any language but his own
imposed upon him, and should distinctly
object to adopt either the diet, habits, or
sentiments of the foreigners amongst whom
he may reside.” This loftily spruce gen-
tleman stood behind his master holding
white gloves, crush-hat, and perfumed
handkerchief; and the Prince conversed
with him, wielding his English with the
intrepidity of a nobleman who read his
“Times” every morning and really under-
stood four-fifths of it.
“I am right, like this, Bateson ?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And the cravat goes well
“Yes, my lord.”
“I think, Bateson, I will wear my rosette;
this occasion is exceptional.”
Bateson extracted from the dressing-case
a rosette the size of a Napoleon, and pre-
senting a combination of colors. The
Prince had been decorated for an act of
courage performed when almost a boy in
saving somebody's life at the risk of his
own; but he never sported this order, for
which half his countrymen would have
given their ears; nor two others less striking,
9 *
136
THE MEMBER FOR. PARIS,
one conferred by the mighty monarch of
Monaco, in whose principality he had won
with éclat a gentleman-rider steeple-chase,
and the other by the grand potentate of
Baden, as a reward, perhaps, for once
breaking the bank in that serenely gambling
duchy.
“Now, Bateson, it is well,” said the
Prince, fastening the rosette to his button-
hole. “For what hour have you com-
manded the coach **
“For half-past eleven, my lord.”
“And it is now 2 – Mon Dieu, it is only
eleven five | The time seems long when
the heart beats.”
At the moment when the Prince was
emitting this aphorism, some similar re-
flection, though suggested by different
causes, was possibly obtruding itself upon
three at least out of the four members of
the Pochemolle family. It is all very well
to give up business and establish one's
self at Meudon, but the difficulty is to
devise the where with to make the hours
lº when one has been used all one's
ife to measure calico, and finds one's
self suddenly deprived of that occu-
pation. M. Pochemolle, with a newspaper
under his arm, which he had read and re-
read, advertisements and shipping intelli-
gence included, was asking himself what on
earth he should do to bridge over the
interval between the déjeúner a la fourchette,
just over, and the dinner, yet five hours
distant. An immense garden-hat that
covered his homest head, gave him the
appearance of a melancholy mushroom as
he meditated this proposition. Madame
Pochemolle, with less reason to vex herself,
seeing that she had her household cares to
attend to, and the never-failing resource of
slipper-working when those were deficient,
nevertheless thought that there were
days when the Rue Ste. Geneviève, with
its ceaseless flow of customers, its lively
gossip of all that was going on in Paris,
and the hum of the great city, audible
without, was not always such a very dull
residence. Of course, she would have
suffered herself to be tortured by the rack
sooner than acknowledge, even internally,
that she regretted the Rue Ste. Geneviève ;
only her opinion was that if M. Pochemolle
had been “a little less in a hurry to re-
move into the country,” if he had postponed
his retirement for, say, another year or so,
it would have done no harm. Note that
the good draper had only been driven to
retire after the most energetic and valiant
resistance on his part. Domestic strife had
raged long and ardently; and Madame
Pochemolle had only carried her point b
shedding tears, and exclaiming she saw M.
Pochemolle was brutally bent on condemn-
*
ing her and her children to a life of
drudgery. But ladies have short memories
for these kinds of particulars.
As for M. Alcibiade Pochemolle, the
exaltation of his sire to the rentier class had
opened before him an endless vista of
leisure hours, which he had immediately
inaugurated by a series of walks from one'
extremity of the capital to the other. After
a fortnight, however, these excursions had
become slightly monotonous, partly from
being conducted in tight, new boots, partly
because M. Alcibiade was forced to stride
alone, his former friends, who had not risen
to fortune simultaneously with himself,
being busy behind their several counters
till long after the going down of the sun.
So M. Alcibiade now spent his days at
Meudon, where small occurrences assumed
giant proportions in his eyes. The falling
down of a chimney, the escape of a neigh-
bor's rabbit, the discovery of a mole-hill
dug furtively during the night under the
shelter of a wall-flower, gave him subjects
for reflection, and varied, if not always
entertaining, talk until it was bedtime.
And a true godsend was afforded him when
three workmen, in fustian and with pick-
axes, for all the world like Paris workmen,
came and took up the road in the vicinity
of the villa Pochemolle, in order to lay
down a water-pipe. M. Alcibiade, perched
upon a garden-mound, followed their move-
ments with absorbed interest, like a Layard
watching the excavations of Nineveh, and
he was thus intent when suddenly his vision
was dazzled, and his voice uprose, shrill
and amazed.
“My eye I here's a swell turn-out coming
down the Paris road. Coachman with a
wig on, horses with gold-plated harness —
what steppers, and what a dust 1 It's one
of the Court nobs going somewhere. No.
Eh, by jingol I say, father, mother, blessed
if it ain't stopping here !”
M. Alcibiade stood dumb-stricken on his
mound. Madame and M. Pochemolle
looked up bewildered, but instinctively
began, the former to smoothe her gown, the
latter to rumple his mecktie in a wild and
distracting effort to make it sit straight.
Who could it be 2 But they were not kept
long in suspense, for the maid-servant, ar-
riving with the air of one who heralds
something startling and incomprehensible,
said : “Monsieur the Prince of Arcola.”
Although the visits of the Prince were
sufficiently frequent to give him the char-
acter of an established friend of the house,
yet his name was never announced without
causing pleasurable emotions to the draper
and his wife. M. Pochemolle was relieved
from all solicitude about the flight of time,
which sped by fast enough when the
PRINCE coPHETUA’s wool NG.
137
t
amiable nobleman was there to chat and
to listen, for, above all, the Prince was a
capital listener, and Madame Pochemolle
liked the finished manners and pleasant
smile of M. d’Arcola. Being, moreover,
never quite able to forget that he was a
prince, and a rich one, she enjoyed these
advantages twice as much as if he had
possessed finished manners and a pleasant
Smile, but been some one else, not a prince,
and not rich — which is only natural.
On the present occasion, however, it was
at once evident, both to M. and Madame
Pochemolle, that the Prince of Arcola had
not come to chat, or to make himself sim-
ply agreeable. His mien was too serious,
his deportment too ceremonious, and Ma-
dame Pochemolle's matronly heart went
thump, thump, against her stays.
mother's idle, impossible wish she had
formed about to be realized 2 It was an
old dream, and had been more than once
laid aside, then taken up again, like all
other dreams, good or bad. For a while
she had timidly dared to hope that Horace
Gerold, who they said was a marquis, would
ask for Georgette ; but that had come to
nothing. Then the Prince had introduced
himself into their small circle, and, with
maternal quickness, she had begun hoping—
very timidly and very silently, to be sure —
again. But it seemed as slender a chance
as the first. The Prince came, indeed, and
was kindly, and there was a good deal in
his ways and words that encouraged the
supposition that he was courting. But it
never went farther than very friendly at-
tentions, so that Madame Pochemolle had
often resolved that she had pitched her am-
bition too high, and that she must be con-
tent with such a son-in-law as her own
draper's sphere could afford. Still, she
ersevered in her fond fancy, and, woman-
ike, had, in view of possibilities, set her-
self to thwart the Filoselle engagement —
ultimately achieving success, though it had
cost her honest husband a pang, and had
made him feel uncomfortable and con-
science-stricken ever since.
Now, what was to be the issue of all this 2
During the prefatory interchange of
courtesies Madame Pochemolle, in one
glance, devoured every article of dress the
Prince had on, noticing also his rosette —
magic symbol, fascinating to the eye of
Frenchwomen l The Prince had followed
the servant-maid into the garden, where
Madame Pochemoile had been sitting work-
ing under a tree, and M. Pochemolle staring
at the clouds. Georgette happened to be
in doors.
There was a moment's animated bustle
on the part of the maid and M. Pochemolle
to get another garden-chair, and then the
Was the
Prince said, with quiet earnestness, “I hope
I am not intruding at this early hour, ma-
dame and monsieur, but I have a commu-
nication of importance — of great impor-
tance — to make, and I wished to be certain
of finding you at home.”
Madame Pochemolle bent her head, and
the heart went thump, thump, at an accel-
erated pace. M. Pochemolle looked in the
direction of M. Alcibiade, as though to in-
quire whether that gentleman were one too
Imany.
The Prince saw and hastened to add : “I
beg Monsieur Alcibiade will remain. As a
member of the family he has a right to
hear what I am about to say.”— He
coughed. —“Monsieur Pochemolle, I do
not think it necessary to search for circui-
tous phrases to prefer a request which,
perhaps you already divine. Besides, my
emotion at this moment counsels me to be
brief. I have the honor to ask your per
mission” (here he rose) “to offer my hand
to your daughter.”
A red blush suffused Madame Poche-
molle's features. In that second the poor
woman looked twenty years younger. For
nothing she would have got up and kissed
the Prince. As it was, her still buxom
face broke into dimples and smiles, and
her eyes sparkled as they had not done for
many a long day.
The effect on M. Pochemolle was not so
instantaneous. He sat as a man who would
like to hear the thing over again ; but pres-
ently, when the truth, with its flattering
train of consequences, flashed upon him, the
latent fire in his French nature burst out
as a conflagration over eyes, ears, and coun-
tenance at once. He became purple. He
let fall his straw hat, and, in trying to pick
up that, let go his newspaper. There was he,
Pochemolle, going to marry his daughter to
a member of the highest nobility, and to
become the cynosure and envy of the Syn-
dicate of Drapers | The ground seemed to
swell under his feet, and it is to be feared
that M. Filoselle, that pearl of young men,
was, for the nonce, relegated to a very ob-
scure nook in the temple of memory.
With respect to M. Alcibiade, the idea that
presented itself to this gentle youth's imagi-
nation, with the inexorable force of logic,
was that he should henceforth be able to
talk of “my brother, the Prince,” and heap
humiliation on the head of his best friend
and schoolfellow, Jules Paquet, whose sis-
ter had married a doctor. #. grinned, and
for the next quarter of an hour, fixed his
gaze in enrapt contemplation on the Prince's
white gloves. IIow they fitted him, those
gloves, and what small hands those “mobs”
lad |
It would be superfluous to describe the
I38
TELE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
rest of the interview; the inevitable vows
proffered on one side, the assurances of feel-
ing unspeakably honored, touched, and so
forth, on the other. Those who have wit-
nessed one of these scenes have seen a do-
zen, and those who have never beheld one,
may satisfy themselves by dividing as much
sunshine, smiles, pleasant awkwardness, and
incoherent sentences among three people
as may be managed without making all
three ridiculous. The element which oc-
casionally tempers these interviews with a
little cold shade — the dowry question —
was adroitly suppressed by the Prince's re-
marking at an early stage that it was his
desire to take Mdlle. Georgette without a
portion ; and mentioning at the same time
a settlement so overpoweringly and unpre-
cedentedly handsome, that a grand duke
himself might have accepted it. Whereat,
Mdme. Pochemolle was very tiearly entering
into the melting mood; M. Pochemolle
stammered and became purpler than ever;
and M. Alcibiade, who was quite acute
enough to appreciate the amelioration which
was being thus introduced into his own
share of the paternal heritage, giggled and
formed an infinity of reflections favorable to
the method in which “nobs” managed
money-matters.
It was not until full twenty golden min-
utes had elapsed, that it occurred to either
of the delighted parents to call into coun-
cil her whom the negotiations most con-
cerned. But at a point where the conver-
sation, emotional as it was, began insensi-
bly to flag, Mdme. Pochemolle rose, and,
with a sweet smile, said: “Monsieur le
Prince, I will call Georgette. She had a
letter to write to one of her friends, but it
must be finished by this time.”
M. Pochemolle understood that this was
a hint, and rose likewise to leave the coast
clear. He would have retired with one of
those bows which he used to reserve for
customers who had bought a thousand
francs’ worth of goods at a sitting, but the
Prince extended both hands together, and
there was a cordial, sturdy grasp. Embol-
dened, and feeling that he had yet his part
to play in the domestic event, M. Alcibiade
thereupon came forward too, with the words
“my brother ” already itching on his lips.
But he bottled them in with an effort, as, per-
haps, premature, and vented his enthusiasm
by working the Prince's arm energetically up
and down llke a pump-handle. Then he
vanished.
It was not long before Georgette came out,
sheltering her dark eyes under a light para-
sol, and glancing with some inquisitiveness
to see who the “friend * could be whom her
mother had announced with such mysterious
archness as desiring to see her. She was
so used to the Prince that she had not
thought it could be he. Since that day.
now distant, when he had offered her his
homage in terms slightly ambiguous, and
been indignantly rebuffed, he had behaved
towards her rather as an affectionate elder
brother. She had grown to feel at ease with
him, and his visits were agreable, but un-
exciting events to her. When, however,
she caught sight of the formal dress, the face
lit up by a hopeful and expectant gaze, the
ray of pleasure that greeted her appearance,
she saw what was impending. Any other
girl would have done so, for there is an in-
tuition in these things, and the language of
the eyes is plainer to comprehend than any.
She advanced, her parasol trembling a lit-
tle, and a bright blush mantling on her hand-
Some cheek; and the next minute found
her confronting a proposal as tender and
respectful as lover had ever made, or as
maiden could ever wish to hear.
What passed within her heart at that min-
ute, she herself, and the spirits who read the
human heart, alone knew. Considering the
attentions which the Prince had for so long
a time bestowed on her, it could scarcely be
said that she felt surprised, yet the quick
heaving of her bosom, the sudden trouble of
her manner, argued that she had almost
ceased to expect the proposal, and that it
had been a relief to her to think it might
never come. For a moment hesitation
painted itself on her features. A struggle
followed that no eye could detect, for the
pangs of it only revealed themselves by that
quivering of the lips that resembles the rip-
ple on the surface of water when there is
a violent commotion very deep beneath.
Then a forgotten passion seemed to rise
amidst this strife, like a combatant who has
been left for dead upon the battle-fic' l and
revives. She essayed to resist, she mur-
mured some uncertain words; but it was of
no use. The old passion mastered her; all
the color fled from her face; and when she
gave the answer — trembling all over, yet
endeavoring to show gratitude through the
tears in her eyes — it was a refusal.
The Prince was not prepared for this.
Without more infatuation than is the una-
voidable lot of those who have never found
the other sex very hard of conquest, — rath-
er the contrary — he had counted upon suc-
cess — an easy success. On hearing Geor-
gette's refusal he turned whiter than the
cloud which at that moment darkened the
sun as if ironically to symbolize the eclipse
of his hopes.
Georgette took pity upon his distress.
She liked him too well not to be moved by
the look of astonished pain that had settled
on his features.
“Monsieur le Prince,” she said, trying to
IDLE REGRETS AND BAD RESOLUTIONS.
139
*:
keep in her tears and to speak calmly, “I
will not conceal the truth from you. Gen-
erous and good as you are, you deserve to
have a heart that would be wholly yours,
and that I could not give you.”
“Were my fears, then, founded ?” he
asked, sorrowfully. “Can it be that ?”—
“You guessed many months ago that I
had a secret grief,” she continued, complet-
ing his thoughts, and leaning for support
with her hand against a chair. “You
guessed my grief, and respected it. I
thank you for that very gratefully, and for
all the kindness you have shown me since.
I cannot tell you how gratefully I thank you.
I thought I should surmount this — grief.
By not thinking about it, by persuading
myself that the person who had caused it
was not worthy to inspire such a sentiment,
I had brought myself to believe that I had
done so. But it seems there are feelings
which neither time, nor reason, nor con-
tempt even, can extirpate. Perhaps —
But no; I was going to say that if it had
been anybody I esteemed less than you I
might have acted differently to what I am
doing. There are men who would ask
nothing more of me than to be a good wife,
and would never have questioned my heart
to know whether there was an image in it
besides theirs. I could have accepted such
a part, which would have required only
obedience, and a show of cheerfulness.
But I cannot bear to deceive you. I might
be your wife, but there would always be
between me and you the thought of the
man I once loved, whom I thought till just
now I had forgotten, but whom I find I love
still — for indignation, jealousy, resentment,
are in these cases only other forms of love.
You will forgive me,” she added, looking at
him with a timid, appealing smile, “for
speaking so frankly.” -
Would he forgive her | He would have
cast himself at her feet in that minute and
told her that he loved her more deeply and
truly than he had ever done before, and
this would have been true. But if a habit
of society does nothing else, it teaches a
man when to pause, teaches him to know
when pleading will be of no effect. Geor-
gette's sincerity, though mild and timorous,
would prove as resisting as a wall of steel,
and the Prince saw it.
“Georgette,” he said, in a voice which
he was quite unable to control so as to stifle
the quaver, “I will not say that I shall go
away from here resigned to my fate, for this
would be promising beyond my strength.
I shall leave you with a wound which Time,
I know, will not heal; but let me assure
}. that if my respect and admiration had
een capable of increase they would have
been heightened by this interview. And if
I may beg a favor in this supreme meeting
it is that you should remember, always re.
member, that there are circumstances in
which the boundless devotion of a friend
may be of help, and, should such circum-
stances ever arise, not to deprive me of the
happiness of serving you.”
Perhaps she was never so near loving
him as after this simple and feeling renun-
ciation.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
IDLE REGRETS AND BAD RESOLUTIONs.
MEN make one great mistake with regard
to women : they fancy they can deceive
them, which they seldom can. For all the
good that dissimulation does a man, he
might just as well write out his secret at
full length and pin it to his breast — that
is, of course, when his secret concerns a wo-
man, and the person who wishes to discover
it is another woman. Horace was laboring
under the convenient impression that An-
gélique had detected none of his agitation
at the theatre; that his tremor, the last look
he had cast at Georgette's box, and his sub-
sequent paleness, had all escaped her.
Coming down the staircase of the opera,
he had even had the naiveness to ask his
wife why her hand shook slightly on his
arm, and on her answering that it must be
the cold, had accepted this reply with that
undisturbed serenity which is one of the
salient traits of husbandship.
The next day Horace rose pre-occupied.
He had no appetite for his ten o'clock break-
fast. Took up the “Moniteur" when the
table was cleared away, and set himself to
read it — but did not read it, and held it
listlessly on his knee whilst his eye wan-
dered away to some point on the horizon,
visible out of the window across an ex-
panse of leafless garden. And, again, he
was intimately persuaded that no one ob-
served his absent mood, that no eye followed
his, that no change indeed was noticeable
in his manner. And what wonder ? Did
he remark any change in Angélique?
Angélique was pretending to read too.
Of late she had taken to reading, not be-
cause she found any greater interest in
books than before, but because Horace had
good-naturedly bantered her once or twice
on not knowing who Bernardin de St.
Pierre was, and on imagining that Jean-
Jacques Rousseau was the inventor of the
Post Office.* So she read as she would
* The General Post Office of Paris is situated
Rue J. J. Rousseau,
140
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS
have done any thing else to please him —
taken poison, or put her hand in the fire.
For her notions of wifely duty were simply
summed up in this : passively to obey, and
do all in her power to render happy the
man who had married her in spite of her
own timidly expressed forebodings that he
would repent of his course later.
The book she held was “Paulet Virginie,”
and, perhaps, at any other time the touch-
ing adventures of this loving pair would
have arrested her attention; but now she
turned the leaves of the old book with ab-
stractedness, casting glances, which be-
eame each time more furtive and longer in
the direction of her husband. This had
been going on for some time when there
was a knock, and a servant entered, bear-
ing a number of letters and some more
papers on a tray.
It was one of the little pleasures of Hor-
age's married life to ask Angélique to read
his letters aloud for him. She delighted
in the practice so far as it was in her tran-
quil nature to delight in any thing, so when
the letters had been laid on the table, she
put down her book and said: “Shall I
read for you, Horace?”
“Yes, please, dear child,” he answered,
and as was his wont handed her a pencil
with which she jotted down in the tiniest
of handwritings the substance of the re-
plies that were to be sent. The letters
were all collected afterwards and trans-
ferred to a secretary, whose office, by the
Way, was no sinecure.
From all quarters of the empire came
the letters which matutinally worried the
elect of the Tenth Circumscription. Con-
stituents wrote in great force, begging fa-
Vors for themselves and for their sons, who
were ambitious of government clerkships,
or for aged and afflicted relatives needing
admission to privileged lunatic asylums.
The ballot system is a godsend to those
electors who regard political rights as
blessed instruments for the furtherance
of private objects; for when the suffrages
are recorded openly, one is exposed to the
unpleasant risk of not being able to ask
favors at all of one's representative, should
he unfortunately be a man whose candida-
ture one has opposed. Then there were
letters from old barrister friends, or to speak
more correctly, young barrister friends,
who, having been rabid Republicans at
twenty, aspired at twenty-five to be ap-
pointed deputies to the Procureur Impérial,
and would feel eternally grateful if, &c.;
and petitions from inventors, and applica-
tions for charitable subscriptions, and folio
sheets from persons who had been aggrieved
and craved the favor of an interview to
relate their trouble; and heaps of invita-
tions requesting the honor of M. le Mar. .
quis's and Mdme, la Marquise's company to
various festive entertainments. Finally,
there was a missive dated from Hautbourg
ou the Loire. -
“I wonder what possesses those people
to write to me with such importunity,”
broke in Horace, whose attention had not
been very well sustained up to that point,
but who shifted his place impatiently when
Angélique read the heading of the letter.
“There's not a day passes,” added he, “but
I get a petition from one of those Haut-
bourg burgesses. They seem to fancy I
am a free agent in this matter.”
“This looks like a round-robin,” said
Angélique, gently.
“Ay, that was inevitable. They have
got to round-robins now. We shall have
deputations of them next.”
Angélique continued to read. The me-
morial was signed by influential citizens.
Ballanchu, seed-merchant, Market Place;
Scarpin, boot-maker, Rue de Clairefon-
taine; Hochepain, tax-gatherer; Duval,
hotel-keeper; Toulmouche, Truchepoule,
and Follavoine, farmers, and many more
of the same eminence. It set forth in
humble language that Hautbourg did not
despair of seeing its ancient lords return
with splendor to fill the home of their
forefathers, but that whether the ancient
lords did so or not, “we, the undersigned,”
ventured to submit that there was a means
open by which the Marquis of Clairefon-
taine might confer both a great honor and
a great joy upon the town. The general
elections of 1857 would take place within
a month or two, and it was to be presumed
that M. le Marquis would stand again for
the city of Paris. But there was nothing
to prevent his being put up in nomination
at the same time for Hautbourg, so that,
should the Parisian Constituency “fail to
do its duty,” — which Heaven forbid! —
France might not be deprived of M. le .
Marquis's valuable presence in the Na-
tional Assembly.
Whereat Horace fell a-thinking. What
if the Parisian Constituency should ſail to
do its duty : The thought of the general
election had never presented itself to him
in that shape before; yet his colleagues,
he knew, were already busying themselves
about their own constituencies, and the
papers told him every day what desperate
efforts the Liberal Opposition intended
making to secure the return of “uncompro-
mising” candidates. It was not likely that
he would be regarded as uncompromising—
he whom the Liberals accounted as a black
sheep. There would even be some incon-
gruity in saying, “Here am I, a Republi-
can, the Marquis of Clairefontaine, who
IDLE REGRETS AND BAD RESOLUTIONs.
141
•:
live in a palace, exchange bows with M.
Gribaud, and get on capitally with all the
legislators who are keeping my country
under the gag.” The press would laugh in
his face, and the small boys in the streets
hoot him. Then, what chance had he of
winning his seat by the same sleight-of-
hand sort of performance as last time 2
Why, his majority was not two hundred
votes, and at the next election, if the Op-
position put forward some name less revo-
lutionary than Albi's, more Liberal than
his own — which would not be difficult—
all the votes he should get would be those of
his personal friends, and those of the Bona-
partists — though how to accept these latter
a second time without presenting himself
frankly as an official candidate, and hope-
lessly damaging himself as a Liberal for-
ever after, was a point which now began
to appear to him in the light of a problem.
Insensibly he was led into reflecting on
what his position might have been had he
never known M. Macrobe, but followed the
career he had at first marked out for him-
self—that of a hard-working barrister. He
might have been the rising hope of the
Liberals by this time. Albi would not
have dared — perhaps not have sought, to
hinder his election, and, if elected once, he
need have had no fears at future contests
— for it is especially in electoral matters
that possession is nine points of law.
The familiar acquaintance of M. Macrobe
must have seemed a very insufficient com-
pensation to him for what he had lost, since
the picture he evoked drew from him some-
thing like a sigh; and his mind must have
been very full of an image other than his
wife’s, since it did not even occur to him
that, had his first projected destiny been
accomplished, he should never have known
Angélique !
He was plucked from his meditations by
the question, submissively put, “What an-
swer must be given to this, Horace 7"
“What is your own opinion, child?” he
asked, with a quick, searching look at her
whom he was thus interrogating for the
first time on a matter of importance.
There was anxiety in his glance. He
was gauging the measure of his wife's in-
telligence.
“Why, dear,” said she, a little troubled,
and during rather plaintive looks at the
letter, “I see they are kind people, who
wish you well. But "- She caught the
words “Paris” and “re-election,”—“you
will be re-elected at Paris, I suppose ?”
“It is not sure.”
“But why not ?” And her blue eyes
expressed grave astonishment.
“They say that I am not Liberal enough
—that, because I choose the friends I
like, and wear a name that is mine, and am
not churlish as a bear to those who are civil
to me, and do not flatter the people, I am
no true man.”
Her small hands clasped themselves in a
sort of silent perplexity, and a little sigh
broke from her.
“I wish, Horace, I understood these po-
litical questions; but when I try, it all seems
darkness. I thought you were more Liberal
—as you say—than all the other deputies
together, and I am sure you must be,
despite all that unkind people may think.
Why,” added she, looking up, “at the Pres-
ident of the Chamber's last party M. Gri-
baud told me you were an incorrigible
Radical. He was laughing, I know ; but
he must have meant part of what he
said.” -
“Yes; but this is an affair of optics.
The gray silk dress you are wearing looks
pink from this side, where it faces those pur-
ple curtains, and opal-tinted from the other,
where it has the sun's rays on it. M. Gri-
baud and the Liberals consider me from op-
posite points of view.
She did not appear to understand, but
continued, with some concern beginning
slowly to depict itself on her features, –
“But if you are not elected at Paris, Horace,
you will be without a seat.”
“Yes, I suppose so, and my political ca-
reer will be broken, unless, indeed, I hack
myself out as an official candidate to M.
Gribaud. But that is a trade that brings a
man a little too low. I would rather take
to one of my old vocations — pleading, or
scribbling, or even starving, which is some-
times synonymous.”
This time she understood and changed
color. Besides the loss of position, there
was another to which Horace had not al-
luded, the salary of twelve thousand five
hundred francs which deputies received.
Though Angélique's experience of money
matters was absolute null, she vaguely knew
that her husband was morbidly scrupulous
that every centime of the interest derived
from her dowry should be expended on her-
self; he himself confining his personal ex-
penditure — the keep of his brougham, pay
of his valet and secretary — within the
eight or nine hundred pounds, made up of
the above twelve thousand five hundred
francs, of three thousand francs a year, the
allowance his father gave him, and of three
or four thousand francs which he contin-
ued to earn by occasional anonymous con-
tributions to the “Gazette des Boulevards.”
So the first thing that struck her in connec-
tion with Horace's possible failure was the
diminution of comfort that might accrºle to
him as a consequence. She saw him (lis-
charging his brougham or disbanding his
142
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
valet or some such catastrophe; and there-
fore exclaimed in distress, “Oh, but, Horace,
you will answer Yes to this letter, won't
you? They are good-hearted people at
Hautbourg, you see—they will elect you,
and not cause you the annoyance which
these Parisians do. Besides”— (for one of
M. Macrobe's oft-repeated injunctions was
recurring to her) — “Besides, Hautbourg
is your own town, after all ; that of your
family I mean; and it is quite right they
should do something for you after all that
your family has done for them.”
“Well, they complain that my family are
starving them now.”
“Yes, but that is not your fault: you said
so just now.”
“And what if they and I should not be
of the same political opinions 2 ”
“But Hautbourg is in the country; there
will be no politics there,” she rejoined seri-
ously. “And they will be of your opinion
if you go down and talk to them; and if
you promise that you will return to live
with them some day, which I know you will
do if you can ; for, indeed, dear” — and
she glanced up at him artlessly — “I don't
think it can so much matter about the cas-
tle having been built by negroes.”
Horace gave a puzzled stare, then laughed,
and, stooping, kissed her. But aside, he
moaned and recalled the poor child's past
words; that day when she repeated to him
so earnestly that Georgette was much
cleverer than she. The fact is, all that An-
gélique knew of the Clairefontaine busi-
ness, was what her father had told her;
and he, not sanguine of ever being able to
make her comprehend all the details of the
secret he had learned from Horace, had put
the thing into a nut-shell, by telling her that
her husband's only prejudice against Claire-
fontaine was its having been reared by
blacks — which she had believed calmly, as
she would have believed any other thing,
possible or impossible, that he might have
told her.
“We will send the answer to Hautbourg
another day,” said Horace, grave again;
“it deserves to be pondered over;” and he
lanced through the memorial himself, and
thoughtfully examined its large, straggling
circle of signatures, something like a con-
gregation of clod-hoppers dancing in a
ring.
There remained two letters to be read.
Both were from persons acknowledging
and accepting invitations to a dinner at
Macrobe House — invitations issued by
Angélique, at M. Macrobe's desire, in her
husband's name and in her own. These dis-
posed of without any remark on Horace's
part, Angélique sorted the letters that re-
quired answers from those that did not,
those that were to be replied to in the
affirmative from those that were to be
negatived, and so on, all for the conve-
nience of the secretary. The sun played
upon her pure features, and cast a lialo
over her golden hair, as she noiselessly did
this, and Horace, had he looked at her,
might have been reminded of some Ma-
donna of Raphael engaged in domestic
work, but he had taken up his “Moniteur"
again, and was trying to decipher a leader
on some treaty question in which the
words “balance of power,” and “M. Wa-
lewski,” “supremacy of France,” and “Na-
poleon III.” were blurred by, and mixed
up, with the names of “M. Macrobe" and
“Hautbourg,” “Tenth Circumscription,”
and “Georgette,” so as to render the whole
not very intelligible. Angélique, having
arranged her letters, glided back to her
book, and beginning the same chapter
over and over twenty times, never suc-
ceeded in dissociating Paul from the Ital-
ian Opera, and Virginie from a private
box, when she saw a rival in a box oppo-
site and her husband beside her fascinated
and troubled by the sight of that rival.
The silence was hardly interrupted until
the discreet clatter of silver and china
which heralds the luncheon has made it-
self heard in the adjoining breakfast-room.
Horace was not a luncheon-man, holding by
the old French system of late breakfast and
clear day till dinner-time; but lunch was
a transmarine institution which served to
bring all the members of the Macrobe
bousehold together for the first time every
day, and led to varied conversation on the
morning's events and plans for the after-
noon and evening. Accordingly, when the
major-domo announced “Madame la Mar-
quise est servie,” Horace prepared to go
through the ceremony of shaking hands
with his father-in-law, making his bow to
his aunt, and being greeted affectionately
by his cousin the Crimean hero, who was
always demonstratively charmed to see
him.
“Bonjour, belle cousine,” exclaimed this
distinguished officer, advancing with an
enormous bouquet as Angélique entered
with her husband. The nosegay was of
white and dark violets, redolent with the
perfume of budding spring. -
“You have been to the flower-market,
cousin,” she said, thanking him, and inlal-
ing the fragrant breath of the flowers.
“No, belle cousine, a country ride. A
spurt straight away into the meadows, as
if I were charging Cossacks; and, by the
way, Marquis, I met a friend of ours as I
was returning. It was on the Meudon
road. A tremendously swell trap was
cavalcading in the dust like the Pope's
M. MACROEE'S ASPIRATIONS,
143
mule-coach on a gala-day, so I reined up,
ready to salute if it should be king,
emperor, or field-marshal. But it was the
Prince of Arcola, draped in a swallow-tail,
like a Roman in his toga, and looking
whiter than the lawn cravat he was sport-
ing. If his servants hadn't been so spruce
and shiny, I'd have wagered he'd been to
a funeral. But I daresay it was worse: he
may have been to a christening.”
“Meudon,” said the financier, sitting
down to table. “Perhaps the Prince
was simply on his way from a call to the
Pochemolles, Captain.”
“A morning call in black and white, sir,
with a powdered periwig on the box, and
two pairs of pink silk calves holding on
behind That would be prince and mag-
nate with a vengeance. Yet, I don’t know.”
(He unfolded his napkin.) “We
saw monsieur in the same box as the
Torche—Toche—what is it 2— Porche –
molles last night. Maybe he had been
offering his coronet to that handsome girl
with the red lips, whom the marchioness
admired. If so, it looked for all the world
as if she had said to him what my colonel
did to me last time I asked for more
furlough. — Ma cousine, I have a maſon-
naise of lobster before me, will you allow
me to send you some 2 ”
The captain's light words struck two at
least out of the four persons seated round the
table much deeper than he fancied. Angé-
lique found the getting through her may-
onnaise a rather difficult operation; and
Horace, who had not been able to restrain
an abrupt raising of the head at the men-
tion of the Prince’s name, hurried over his
glass of hock and biscuit, and withdrew
much earlier than was his custom, to go
down to the House. On alighting, how-
ever, before the Palace of the Assembly, he
did not go in, but dismissed his coachman,
and when the brougham was out of sight,
walked up and down on the pavement for a
few minutes in evident doubt. He was
flustered and uncertain. He knew that the
Prince must have been proposing to Geor-
ette; but what answer had she given him 2
ould it be true that she had refused him,
and if so why? He was surprised at the
vehemence with which his heart beat at the
thought that Georgette was possibly still
free. He turned the thought over and
over in his mind, and the more he did so,
the more pleasure it gave him. At last he
said: “If I could only know for certain’’—
and as this perplexing reflection occurred
his eye lit upon a cab that was plying
desultorily for hire along the quay. . He
hailed it and jumped in. Once seated, he
º to hesitate, and pressed his hand
to his eyes; but on the driver asking him
*=
/
for the second time, “Where to, sir?” he
answered rapidly,– “To Meudon.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
M. MACROBE’s ASPIRATION5.
A FEw hours after Horace had started
for Meudon, M. Macrobe might have been
found in his study. The time of evening
six o'clock, the curtains drawn, a warm fire
shedding its glow on the hearth, and the
low moaning of the February wind audible
outside through the closely-barred windows.
M. Macrobe, just returned from his office,
sat poring over his desk and making what
seemed to be abstruse calculations in pencil
on a sheet of paper. Open before him lay
a ponderous folio ledger, extracted from a
strong cupboard with an iron door, and
locks enough to defy all the burglars in
Christendom. This ledger was marked on
its chamois-leather back, “SocIÉTÉ DU
CRéDIT PARISIEN.”
Everybody in Paris, and in Europe, too,
for that matter, talked about this “Crédit
Parisien,” and appeared knowing about it.
Its shares were quoted at London and New
York, Frankfort and Rotterdam: it was ex-
tolled in the money articles of the leading
journals in these respectable cities; and in
Paris—“sceptical " Paris—the confidence
accorded to it was so entire that any per-
son hinting his dissent would have been
eyed askance. and found himself in a hope-
less minority, and been held up to contume-
ly. But the best of it was, that when you
came to inquire into the titles of the Crédit
Parisien to be regarded with esteem and
proclaimed the pride and pinnacle of finan-
cial enterprises, nobody could enlighten
you. Jules had bought his shares because
advised to do so by Alphonse; Alphonse
had speculated in deference to the loudly-
expressed opinion of Antoine; and Antoine
had expressed himself loudly because a cer-
tain Auguste, who knew a certain Achille,
had gathered from the latter the unshakable
impression of a certain Ulysse, himself a
director in the concern, that the Crédit
Parisien was the safest investment going.
So that, reduced to its simplest terms, the
fact amounted to this—that the Crédit
Parisien grew and flourished, and absorbed
the economies of high and low, of senator
and concierge, of washerwoman and ballet-
girl, and blazed at the top of the share-list,
and occupied with majesty the place of hon-
or in money articles, because it enjoyed the
unlimited confidence of its own promoters.
144
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
It seems that there are, or have been, a
considerable number of credit institutions
based upon the same sort of solid founda-
tion as this; and under the circumstances,
the only wonder is, not that a desultory
i. promoter should now and then
e signalled landing at a foreign port with
the funds of some eight or nine hundred
share-holders in his carpet-bag, but that the
whole universe should not blossom over
with migratory promoters like a fruitful
tree with caterpillars. In short, it is a mar-
vel that humanity itself should not be divid-
ed uniquely into two categories — the
one jovial and replete, having fattened
itself with promoting, the other reduced to
a condition of hunger, collapse, and manual
labor, by a wilful, incomprehensible, and
utterly guileless course of shareholding.
On the earth's surface there was, probably,
but one man who really understood the
Crédit Parisien, held all the cues of the en-
terprise in his hands, and knew to what
extent the public were dancing on a volcano
in trusting to it, and this was the much-res-
ected chairman and chief promoter, M.
Macrobe. Of course his co-promoters, the
directors, were supposed to understand and
hold cues, and all the rest of it, but they
didn’t — which is not a rare occurrence
with those who are supposed to know things.
M. Macrobe had originated the idea of the
Crédit Parisien at a fortunate moment. On
the morrow of the coup-d'etat of 1851 there
was a large and most interesting class of
persons, who, having previously never pos-
sessed a centime, found themselves sudden-
ly raised to posts of honor and emolument.
These persons, whom a factious opposition
styled adventurers, but whom history,
more impartial, designates simply as Bona-
partists, with more loyalty than small coin,
were, not unnaturally, desirous to place
their private means as soon as possible on a
level with their public position. M. Ma-
crobe had stepped in and suggested the way.
Being known to most of the new dignitaries
intimately — having, indeed, trodden the
shady paths of Bohemianism with some of
them—he was able to point out in the con-
fidential language of friendship, how super-
fluous a thing is capital when one holds
such an excellent substitute as place, and
the special information it gives access to.
What else he added—what alluring pros-
pects he flashed before yearning eyesights—
are secrets locked in the bosom of mystery;
but the upshot was, that one morning the
Crédit Parisien rose like a star in the east,
and that forthwith it fared well with it.
For the Company bought land in Paris,
and lo! by a strange coincidence, a new
boulevard would soon after be constructed
thereon and quintuple the value of the land:
©
it bought ships, and behold the new line
of packets was scarcely inaugurated, before
it obtained Government contracts for carry-
ing mails, transport of troops, laying down
of submarine cables: it purchased iouses,
and straightway the Government found it
necessary to expropriate these houses as
sites for barracks, churches, theatres, for
sums double or treble what they had cost.
Perhaps it may be remarked that this mode
of making money has a suspicious look of
kinship with the time-honored expedient of
winning a game by means of loaded dice.
But to such unsophisticated objections it will
be enough to reply that hazard is often a
strange thing; that men high in office are
always maligned; and that if it certainly
did happen that a few eminent functionaries,
suspected of occult connection with the
Crédit Parisien, became unaccountably
prosperous in a surprisingly short space of
time, there is nothing in this circumstance
which may not have been purely fortuitous,
or a simple freak of chance.
Anyhow, hazard or no hazard, M. Ma-
crobe, as he dotted down his calculations,
and threw occasional glances at his ledger,
looked well pleased enough with the busi-
ness in which he was embarked. The shares
were at 1,550 francs; the evening paper
showed a new rise of 5 francs that very day.
“There is no reason why this should ever
stop,” muttered he half aloud, “except that
nothing here below is perpetual. So long
as the Government holds its own, and keeps
the Budget from being overhauled by a set
of factious Radicals, we shall do. Our
sources of information are inexhaustible for
the moment.”
He turned over the leaves of the ledger
and came to a series of pages entitled
“Names, Professions, &c., of Original Share-
holders.” It was singular the array of Du-
vals and Leroys, Joneses and Browns, Mül-
lers and Bauers, who were inscribed as
holding the greatest number of shares, and
more singular still were the vague addresses
of these Duvals and Müllers, Joneses and
Leroys. But doubtless there was a key to
this in the asterisks prefixed to most of
these apocryphal-looking names, and in a
small volume with a lock to it which the
financier drew from a secret drawer, and
began to con musingly, comparing it with
the larger book.
“Some of them,” he murmured, “ have
sold out and bought in again several times,
making good hauls by each transaction,
which is not difficult when one can foresee
the rises and falls on 'Change a day or two
before the rest of the public. Others have
kept firm hold of their shares, and will
probably sell out when we reach two thou-
sand, which, considering they had their
IM. MACROBE'S
ASPIRATIONS. 145
shares for nothing, will also be no bad
investient. What a list of names they
are, and what a pretty sensation it would
cause if these columns were published some
morning in the papers Um it's my life-
preserver, this book. If ever things turned
out badly, I should only have to threaten
with it—the Second Empire could better
stand a revolution than the printing of such
pages. But things won't turn out badly in
my time. No " — he closed the small
book — “when the smash comes, if come it
do, I must be clear out of the concern. I
don’t see why the affair ever should smash,
but these giant enterprises, that run such a
whirlwind pace to begin with, always do.
Nature seems jealous of greatness; great
empires, great men, great companies, all
break up before the time. I must hie me
away to some secure position whilst the
Crédit Parisien is still in its heyday, and
there will be nothing suspicious in my re-
tirement. I must get into power. Why
shouldn't I? This is a reign under which
a man of brains can hope for anything.”
He laid down his pencil, threw himself
back in his chair, and rested his chin in his
hand.
“There are so many ways of getting into
the Ministry or the Senate nowadays, and
such curious fish slip in there! But my
plan was as good as any. With Horace
Gerold in possession of Clairefontaine, we
could both of us make our own terms with
Government. The Clairefontaine influ-
ence would be enough to insure our both
being returned for the department, and then
he, as a Duke of Hautbourg, might blossom
out into an ambassador, by and by into a
minister for foreign affairs— dukes are the
very men for those posts when Government
can prevail on ’em to accept them. As for
me, I should not be long in the House as
an independent member, before Gribaud
came over to me and offered me my own
conditions. Gribaud doesn’t like me — in
fact, he doesn’t like anybody who has a
longer head than his own; but he recog-
nizes merit when he sees it, and if I struck
for a seat in the cabinet, minister of finance,
trade, public works, or something in that
line, or for a barony and a senatorship, he's
not the man to say me nay. But if he did,
it. wouldn’t matter. Gerold and I could
put ourselves at the head of a dynastic-op-
position party, accepting the Emperor, but
attacking the ministry; it might rally forty
or fifty adherents after the next elections,
and lead Gribaud the very deuce of a life.
I should get what I wanted then, in spite
of Gribaud, perhaps by overturning him —
who knows? Ministers are never thor-
oughly popular either with their masters or
their followers. And all this might come
9
to pass within a few months of this, if Ge-
rold had a little nerve in him l He’s not
much of a fellow, and it's uphill work lead-
ing him to where his own interest lies.
Let us re-read what Louchard says.”
M. Macrobe selected a letter from a port-
folio in his pocket. The envelope was
franked, not stamped, which indicated its
administrative origin. It ran this wise: —
“PRéFECTURE DE POLICE, Feb., 1857.
“MoRSIEUR,-- One of my men has just
returned from Hautbourg, where, under the
guise of a commercial traveller, he has been
sounding the opinions of the principal
townsfolk with regard to M. le Marquis de
Clairefontaine, your son-in-law, and pursu-
ing your instructions as conveyed to me
verbally last time I had the honor of an in-
terview with you. He has suggested that
the townspeople should separately and one
after the other appeal to M. le Marquis,
and collectively offer him the candidature,
at the elections, which has been, or is being,
done. My agent reports, however, that
public feeling in Hautbourg is the reverse,
of favorable to M. le Marquis and his fam-
ily, and that liis candidature would have.
little chance of succeeding if the Govern-
ment were to oppose it. Supposing M. le
Marquis were installed at Clairefontaine.
the case would be different; it seems the
town and all the country around have been,
accustomed to take their cue from the
Castle, and would be quite disposed to,
continue that course. F enclose, by your.
desire, the bill of expenses incurred by my
agent, and await, with respect, your further
orders. But I would beg again, as a favor,
that you would not let anybody into the
secret that I have placed myself at your
serviees for these negotiations, the Govern-
ment objecting most strongly to the inter-
ference of the police in private concerns.
“I have the honor to remain, sir,
“Your most obedient servant,
“MOISE LOUCHARD.”
“F am sure I don’t know what further.
orders to give,” resumed M. Macrobe.
“Short of bringing the whole borough of
Hautbourg down by special trains to memo-
rialize him, we have tried almost every
thing without effect. Angélique has no
influence over him. IIe is fond of the
child, I know, but treats her like a wax,
doll. By the by — ahem l’’ (M. Macrobe
frowned) — “I must have that jolter-headed
captain sent back to his regiment. He is
getting on too fast with his ‘Ma belle cou-
sines' and his nosegays; I don’t understand
these modern husbands; they allow their
wives to be made love to under their very
noses. No; Angélique has no influence
146
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
*
over him, nor have I beyond a certain
point. He feels as we do; he would like
to go to Clairefontaine, but daren’t because
of his father. What a man that father
of his l To have an estate of that value,
and to pour the revenue every quarter-day
into the poor-box. There is some sublime
lunacy amongst those old Republicans !
Then he seems to be tough, too, the old
fellow; his health is all right. Uml how it
would solve matters if he were to retire
opportunely to a better world’—
The jasper-faced clock on M. Macrobe's
mantle-shelf tinkled the half-hour after
six, prelude to the note of the dinner-
gong, which sounded at seven. The
financier restored his papers to their draw-
ers and his ledger to its cupboard, locking
and double-locking the latter with a key
no bigger than his little finger, pygmy
driver to such Brobdingnagian bolts.
Then he went and leaned against the
chimney-piece, and repeated thoughtfully:
“How it would solve matters ”
It may be said that the words were yet
on his lips when the house-door bell was
rung with violence, startling the echoes of
the silent vestibule and corridors. It was
one of those unusual peals that bring a
resentiment of something unforeseen. M.
ſacrobe started, and listened, motionless.
A servant quickly crossed the hall, the
door was opened, and, after a moment,
footsteps were heard going in the direction
of the reception-rooms. Then the servant
appeared, and said: “Monsieur Emile Ge-
rold is in the drawing-room, sir, and would
be glad to see you for a minute, if you are
disengaged.”
Monsieur Macrobe, with his pulse at nine-
iy, went to the drawing-room.
Emile had never thawed much in his re-
serve towards his brother's father-in-law.
Their mutual relations were ceremonious.
But this time there was nothing but unaf.
fected grief and impulsiveness in the young
man’s manner as he advanced and said:
“Do you know where my brother is, M.
Macrobe 2 I have news which should be
communicated to him at once.”
Angélique, who was present, and looking
with alarm at Emile's discomposed fea-
tures, answered: “But Horace must be at
the House. He left to go there at two.”
“No : I have been to the House,” replied
Emile. “They told me he has not gone
there this afternoon; -- at least, he went,
but left immediately in a cab, and a link-
man heard him tell the coachbaan to drive
to Meudon. I thought he might have been
back.”
Absorbed and bewildered as he was,
Emile was struck by the sudden pallor that
overspread Angélique's face at the meation
of Meudon, and by the way in which she
pressed a hand to her side, as if to stop a
sharp spasm.
“I hope there is nothing wrong 2" began
M. Macrobe with concern. “Horace will
certainly be back for dinner. No bad
news I trust 2 ”
“Our father has been taken ill,” sail
Emile in a voice that he endeavored to
keep steady. “I trust the illness is not
serious, but I have been apprised of it by
telegraph, and must start for Brussels this
very evening. There is a train at eight.
I came to fetch Horace so that we might go
together.”
“IHe will undoubtedly go, and I will have
Some of his things packed for him,” said
Angélique, rising, with a look of sympathy
surmounting the evidences of the shock she
herself had just received. “But,” added
she, with unwilling bitterness, “if Horace
is at Meudon, perhaps a messenger had
better be sent for him ; else it is not sure
he will be back so soon.”
“I am unfeignedly grieved to hear that
your excellent father should be unwell,” ex-
claimed M. Macrobe, dolorously, though in-
wardly that worthy man seemed to be
reflecting how inscrutably providential are
the ways of Fate.
“I don’t think it is possible to send to
Meudon and to return in time for eight,”
ejaculated Emile, glancing regretfully at
his watch. “I must leave a note, and ”—
“There is a noise of carriage-wheels.”
interrupted Angélique, listening, and going
to the window. “This is, no doubt, Hor-
ace.”
Emile sprung out and met his brother as
he was descending from his cab. Horace
wore the look of a man who has just passed
through keen emotions, and is not prepared
for more immediate trials, but, seeing
Emile's face, he paused on the doorstep,
and faltered: “You have bad news,
Emile 2 ”
Emile took his arm, and handed him the
despatch.
“This is a visitation,” exclaimed Horace,
hoarsely.
CHAPTER XXX.
ONE GOOD MAN LESS.
THE Brussels of the Second Empire — a
sentinel city perpetually on the watch : on
the watch for all sorts of things; — for the
whim of that Unfathomable Tenant of the
Tuileries, which might bring an army of
ONE GOOD
MAN LESS. 147
&
four hundred thousand Frenchmen within
sight of its Brabantine streets; for a revo-
lution in Paris, which might drive away
the Unfathomable Tenant, Heaven knew
whither, and empty the Brabantine streets
of the Republican refugees, who clustered
thick within their attics as mice in corn-
lofts; for the British regiments, which
some thought would come, and some were
persuaded wouldn't, if the integrity of
brave Belgium were ever menaced.
And meanwhile, that is, pending these
contingencies, Brussels looked like a pocket-
edition of Paris. Its streets were as clean,
its boulevards as trim, its cafés as jingling
and full of chatter, as those of the elder
sister-city, and the Brussels theatres gave
French pieces, and the Brussels publishers
sold pirated editions of French novels, and
the Brussels learned societies extended hos-
pitality to proscribed French savants; and
the Brussels people wore French hats, and
grinned before the print-shops where, to the
great disgust of the French Ambassador,
figured comical cartoons, representing the
Emperor Napoleon, and practised parlia-
mentary government, and venerated the
honest man and true gentleman who was
their king, and eschewed revolution — for
Belgians are Frenchmen, with the froth
taken off.
In a secluded street of the Faubourg
Ixelles, which is to the radiant quarter of
the Place Royale, what the Quartier de
Mont Parnasse is to the Parisian Champs
Elysées, and decent Chelsea to proud Bel-
gravia, stood the small house where Manuel
Herold was lying.
These houses were not built on the
French system—of six stories, a large door,
and a porter in a lodge to take care of the
door. The architects of the Faubourg
Ixelles have studied in England. There
structures are the three-floor lodging-houses
we all know, and miles of which may be
seen in all the London suburbs, where
“Dodgings to Let” stares cheerlessly on
stiff cards out of parlor windows. There
is always a woman with a hot face who
answers the doors of these places, and a
cat who comes purring behind, rubbing her
sides along the walls of the marrow passage,
and a smell of dinner steaming up from
some underground recess; and, when you
have examined the bleak parlor and chilly
bedroom — limp white curtains to the bed,
and blue pattern wash-hand basin — it is
always the same reply: “The sitting-room
and bedroom, sir, will be fifteen shillings
a week. Fire and lighting hextra.”
Horace and Emile were driven up to a
house of this model as day was dawning,
rather aſter six. At the time they lived in
Brussels with their father, their lodgings
had been elsewhere, so that they did not
know this house.
The hot-faced woman who opened the
door for them was, in this instance, a girl,
down at heel, with cheeks puffy, and eyes
blinking from having been started out of
sleep, and compelled to huddle on her
clothes in a hurry. She guessed who the
young men were, and making a pretence of
washing her face with her sleeve, whimpered
dismally: “He was took ill, gentlemen, all,
of a heap like. The doctor's with him,
and have not left him since. It was him as
sent the despatch to Paris.
Receiving but a muttered answer, she
closed the door behind them, and, in hushed .
silence, the whole party proceeded up a
creaking staircase to the sick-room, which
was on the highest story, and looked out
on a gray back-yard. A night-light was
flickering feebly in a saucer, and vying in
sadness with the leaden hue of the morn-
ing sky. The ashes were cold in the grate.
The furniture, of the commonest, barest
kind, scarcely gave an inhabited look to the
chamber, and the poorness of the place was
discernible in such tokens as the cracked
cup that had been used to pour medicine
in, and the battered tray on which were
the remnants of the doctor's supper. It
was not a room to live in, much less one
that should have been a home during ill-
ness; but when it was remembered that
the occupier of this poor apartment was a
man who had held the coffers of a nation
in his keeping, who had discarded a colos-
sal fortune because he thought that he
could not honestly touch it, and who,
though he possessed a competence that
would have enabled him to live at ease,
preferred pinching himself in order to have
more to give away amongst needy fellow-
refugees—there was something indescriba-
bly great in all this misery. The poverty-
stricken room ceased, them, to be a garret
—it became a sanctuary. Nevertheless,
when Horace saw this desolate scene a
great sob escaped him, and he threw him-
self weeping on his knees by his father's
bedside.
Emile, less demonstrative in his grief,
grasped the hand of the doctor who had
been sitting near the head of the bed, and
in a sorrowful whisper asked him for par-
ticulars, and for a word of hope.
The doctor was a short, gray-haired man,
with round eyes and rather lugubrious
ways. In a tone of condolence he said
what he knew. Manuel Gerold had been
struck down suddenly by paralysis — that
grim foe to men of mind; which lies in
ambush for them treacherously and lays
them prostrate as with a mace. Ever
since the attack he had been in a state of
148
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
coma. The usual remedies had been ap-
plied and he might revive; or, he might
pass away unconsciously, like a man in
sleep. He was a refugee, too, this doctor,
and spoke of Manuel Gerold with some-
thing of the devotion of a soldier for a
great, and revered chief.
“I have observed a decline in his health
for the last twelvemonth,” he murmured,
shaking his head. “It came on slowly, but
it was marked. He no longer smiled, and
his gait had lost its elasticity.”
Emile shivered and drew nearer to the
bed. He wished to prevent his brother
from hearing. But the doctor unable to
divine and prone to diagnostic talk, like
most of his cloth, pursued innocently.
“The symptoms of incipient paralysis
were all there. It is the most insidious of
diseases. I had seldom seen a man more
vigorous in mind and body for his age than
your father; but for this vigor to remain
unimpaired to the end, there must be a com-
lete absence of all shocks to the system.
Men who undergo the natural infirmities of
age will bear up better against certain
chance accidents, than these exceptional
and overwrought organizations will. "I have
known feeble old men pass unscathed
through physical and moral trials that have
proved fatal in cases where the constitution
of the patient was seemingly stronger;
whence I infer that strength of body or of
the mental faculties can only be prolonged
beyond their accustomed time at the ex-
pense of the nerves. Your father was
highly impressionable. You are not cog-
nizant of his having experienced any great
sº or disappointment during this last
ear 2 ”
“No,” said Emile, and taking one of his
father's unresisting hands in his, he gazed
with hot tears in his eyes at the saddest of
till wrecks; that of a loved being, of a great,
good man. Oppressed breathing, as though
there were some heavyweight on the chest,
and flushed features, told, indeed, that this
was sleep and not death in which Manuel
Gerold was plunged. But what a sleep
this, whence the slumberer can only awake
to vacant-minded senility | Is not death a
thousand times preferable?
The two sons sat watching beside their
father all the morning. The doctor, who
had gone through a thirty hours’ vigil and
was knocked up, though he refused to own
it, went home, *... directions as to what
was to be done in different contingencies,
and promised to return in the evening.
Then the hot-faced servant girl re-appeared
dressed properly, but grimy, from lighting
the kitchen-fire, and asked whether the
gentlemen would take any thing; and soon
after came her mistress, a hot-faced, warm-
hearted Walloon lodging-house keeper, with
a bowl of arrow-root which could be of no
possible use to any one, but which she placed
nevertheless on the table with an air of pro-
found conviction, as if it were instantly going
to set every thing to rights. And then began
the trivial, worrying, shabby round of in-
cidents of which lodging-house liſe is, made
up; incidents all audible in the sick-room.
The call for yet uncleaned boots by the
first-floor lodger; the lamentations of sec-
ond-pair back, who wanted to shave him-
self, but had not got his hot water; the
ring-a-ding procession of tradesmen at the
front door, and their conſabulations with
the mistress about the last joint, which has
proved to be three ounces short when
weighed in the larder scales, and amidst
all this, the re-entry of the hot-faced girl
with a slip of paper, saying that this was
the day when M. Gerold was used to pay
his washing-bills, and please, was she to tell
the laundress to call another time 7 In
which manner the forenoon glided by.
But at one, the Walloon landlady, with
cheeks aglow, a tray laden with omelette-
au-lard, and bottle of Macon on her arms,
and a proclamation of beefsteaks to follow
on her lips, swept into the adjoining sitting-
room, and, resolutely laying the cloth, de-
clared that if the messieurs did not eat,
there would soon be three patients in the
house instead of one. So Emile and Horace
had to take their respective turns of sitting
down and attempting to swallow, whilst
their entertainer discoursed with a well-
meant kindness, which deprived them of
every vestige of appetite they might have
possessed, on what a good gentleman their
father was.
“I never saw a gentleman that could
talk so, nor look one so gently in the face,”
said she, warming up into emotion; “and
you should have seen how his purse was
open to everybody that had need, ay, and
to them that hadn’t. Why I've counted as
many as a dozen come here of a morning
with begging letters, stout, strong, good-for-
noughts too, some of them, who ought to
have been ashamed to take money which
they hadn’t earned. It was the same story
with all. They were Republicans who had
been exiled from France; and I’d have
told Marie to republicanize them with the
broomstick if he had let me. But he al-
ways had a kind word to say for them :
they were hungry, or persecuted, or what
not, and so he used to work all day, and
the better half of the night, and deny him-
self and starve himself to make money for
the vagabonds. Ah, saving your presence,
sir, you gentlemen are simpler than us
women; it's not a woman that would have
allowed herself to be taken in in that way.”
ONE GOOD
MAN LESS. 149
a-
This was quite true, that Manuel Gerold
had worked indefatigably. The heaps of
books and manuscripts in the room bore
enough evidence to the fact. It was a plain
sitting-room, but more habitable than the
bed-chamber, from the books just mentioned
and from portraits on the wall, prints be-
fore the letter most of them, and represent-
ing well-known Republican figures: La-
martine, Arago, Beranger, Dupont de l'Eure.
They were all signed, these portraits, with
some such dedication as souvenir d’amitié or
homage affectueux. Then there were a few
keepsakes of a more curious kind : a framed
sheet of paper with a quill pen attached to
it, and underneath : “Que mon ami Victor
Hugo veuillle bien certifier que cette plume
lui a servi à écrire quelques pages de ses im-
mortels ‘Chá'iments,’” to which Victor
Hugo had subscribed a large “Oui ; ” a
crucifix given by Lamennais; an unedited
ode to Liberty in Beranger's own hand; a
group of terra-cotta figures of the Provis-
ional Government of 1848 by the carica-
turist Dantan, humorously but good-na-
turedly conceived, Manuel Gerold being
shown in the act of striking the fetters off
a slave, who, to reward him, was picking
his pocket. This group, by the way, was
lettered: “En matière de Gouvernement,
faut de l’honnéteté; pas trop n'en faut.”
The numerous book-shelves revealed the
only real luxuries of the apartment—rare
editions of old works, and richly-bound vol-
umes of modern authors, the latter gifts for
the most part from the authors themselves;
also, what Manuel Gerold must have con-
sidered his most precious treasure, from the
prominent place he gave it, a unique copy of
Montesquieu's “Espirit des Lois” presented
by the compositors of Paris after a speech
delivered under the Restoration in defence
of the liberty of the press. The composi-
tors had printed this one copy of a unique
quarto edition on vellum, and then broken
up the type. It was more than a kingly
gift, for kings never make such presents;
it was a people's gift. On Manuel Gerold's
desk lay the unfinished manuscript of a
political essay he had been writing at the
moment of his attack, with the pen lying
slantwise on the blotting-book as it had
fallen from his fingers, and a large blot be-
neath to show that when the pen had so
dropped it was full.
When the landlady had at length retired,
leaving Horace alone — for Horace had
lunched after Emile, in order that both
should not be away together from their
father's bedside — he looked with dim eyes
and yearning heart on all the objects in
this modest room. But what moved him
most was an album he found on the writing-
table filled with newspaper cuttings relat-
ing to himself and Emile.
There was his
own maiden speech in the Affaire Macrobe,
as reported in a Belgian paper, with a
laudatory leader, and all the articles he
had written in the “Sentinelle” and
“Gazette des Boulevards; ” but here the
cuttings as regarded himself stopped.
There was no account of his election, no
report of any of his doings in the Chamber,
no notice of his marriage; and these could
not have been chance omissions, for the
extracts relating to Emile's speeches at the
Palais de Justice continued uninterrupted,
the latest of them being but a few days
old. Horace would have given a great
deal at that moment could he have ex-
punged the whole of his life during the
last twelve. months and brought himself
back to the point denoted by the date of
his last newspaper article. The silent
censure implied by the exile of his name
from this album during the past year cut
him to the quick. “And yet,” thought he,
dejectedly, “what havé I done 2 I accepted
Bonapartist alliance to win a victory
against a man who had goaded me to mad-
ness, but I have performed my duty in the
Chamber as well as he would have done.
He might have advocated liberty more
rantingly than I do; he could not have
pleaded for it more earnestly. Then I
married, and that they seemed to think
was another crime. But I imagined then,
that I loved Angélique. In fact I do love
her, but — but—; ” and his mind strayed
excitedly to a scene enacted not four and
twenty hours before, when he had called at
Meudon, seen Georgette, and being alone
with her, had pressed her for an explanation
of her coldness towards him in such terms
as to bring down an explosion of impatience
and anger. Georgette, beside herself, had
spoken all that was in her heart, not up-
braiding him indeed for his faithlessness
to her—she was too proud to do that —
but doing what women do, taking up a line
that was no business of hers, and taunting
him with uncontrolled bitterness and scorn
for having married a woman whom he
could never have loved, all on account of
her money. Upon which, he, stung and
infuriated by the unjust accusation, had
retorted as a man never should retort upon
a woman even when she is a hundred times
in the wrong. He had made capital out
of the unfortunate Filoselle, cast the jilt-
ing of that individual in her teeth, and left
her speechless under the reproach that she
too must have been actuated by a sordid
motive, some scheming after a richer lover,
in acting thus faithlessly. Altogether it
had been a miserable scene of which it
made him redden to think. And the more so,
as he said to himself, that the e was a time
150
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
when no woman or man would have deemed
him capable of the baseness Georgette had
imputed to him; and when he himself
would have suffered his tongue to be cut
out sooner than to use it in insulting a
defenceless girl as he had done. He ex-
perienced that undefinable feeling of hav-
ing fallen in the estimation of men generally,
and of being lowered in his own; yet
without being exactly able to perceive why.
Emile's voice calling to him in a low
tone from the bedroom aroused him. Man-
uel Gerold had shifted his head on the
pillow, his breathing was less heavy, and
the inflammatory hue of the complexion
seemed to be subsiding. Horace hastened
in, and the two brothers watched anxiously
the signs of returning life. The patient's
movements were those of a man trying to
shake off in sleep fetters weighing down
the whole of one side of the body. It was
only the right side that could move, the
other was inert. At one time it seemed
as though the attempt must be a vain one,
and exhaustion paralyze what little strength
remained in that once robust frame. But
gradually — though this was the work of
hours, not of minutes — life resumed a
sluggish course; the blood slowly deserted
the head and flowed to the extremities, a
feeble but restoring stream, and, just as
dusk darkened the small window of the
room, with its drab clouds, Manuel Gerold
opened his eyes.
At almost the same minute the doctor
returned. -
The brothers were leaning over their
father in watchful suspense, to see if he
would recognize them. Horace passed an
arm under him, and propped him up gently
with pillows.
“Father,” said Emile, “do you know
US º 25 -
Manuel Gerold turned his eyes vaguely
from one to the other, going through the
efforts that follow the awakening from a
long and painful dream. There was a
hushed stillness whilst he labored to join
together the broken threads of memory.
At last a ray of consciousness stole over
his features, and he strove to speak; but
the sounds that left his lips were inarticu-
late, the tongue appearing to roll heavily,
like a once strong bark that has lost
its rudder. The endeavor was renewed,
once, twice, but without success, and then
a look of distress painted itself over the
old Republican's face.
The doctor approached with a cheering
word, and felt the patient's pulse. The ex-
amination did not last above a minute, but
when the doctor turned there was a ver-
dict in his eye. He silently withdrew into
the next room to leave the sons alone with
{
their father. His science could be of no
further help here, and he knew it.
“Father, do you feel pain 2" asked
Emile, trembling in every limb.
Manuel Gerold made a sign that he did
not.
Horace lowered his head, and, after a
struggle with himself, faltered: “Father,
if I have done any thing that has displeased
or grieved you; if I have — if I have acted
otherwise than as you would have had me
act, will you tell me that you forgive me?”
Manuel Gerold fastened on his eldest son
a glance full of mournful affection; and
the tear that glistened in his eye and them
coursed furtively down his wan cheek
showed that the forgiveness sought had
been given and given over again long be-
fore it had been asked. But at this same
moment the old patriot's countenance be-
came illumined as it were with a bright-
ness not of this earth; there was no mis-
taking the presage. Both sons sank on
their knees.
Emile happened to be on the left side of
the bed, so his father laid his sound
hand — the right — on his head in a mute,
parting blessing. Simultaneously he strove
to do the like with Horace, but his left
hand refused its office. There was some-
thing plaintive in the look of embarrass-
ment and sorrow that flitted over the dy-
ing man's brow as he recognized his inabil-
ity to do what he desired. He summoned
up all his remnant of strength in a last ef.
fort : but it was to no purpose. The at-
tempt only exhausted what little strength
yet remained in him. His head dropped
softly back into his pillow, and he passed
away.
So Horace rose from his knees without
feeling his father's dying hand pressed with
a benediction upon him as Emile had done.
CHAPTER XXXI.
REQUIESCAT.
WHEN all was over, when the body had
been laid out, and the landlady, subdued
and crying, had placed upon the table the
usual sad ornaments of Catholic death-
rooms — the two lighted tapers, the cruci-
fix, the cup of holy water with sprig of
blessed box-wood; — when the priest had
arrived who was to watch all night by the
body and pray for its departed soul, Hor-
ace sat down at his father's desk to write a
line to Angélique, apprising her of his be-
reavement. He had promised her to write,
* *. - *.
\,
him on the paper.
REQUIES CAT.
whatever happened, and it was more in
redemption of this promise than out of any
natural impulse that he took up his pen.
. This was the first time that he had ever
written to Angélique, and the words “your
affectionate husband” looked strange to
Angélique his wife,
and the daughter-in-law of him who had
just gone to rest ? He could only dimly
realize this two-fold relationship. The truth
is, a woman is only half a wife who is not
recognized by her husband's family, for the
union between man and wife can never be
complete if they do not love the same peo-
ple, if a death that bows down one of the
two with grief leaves the other indifferent.
The terms of IIorace's letter, which would
have been tender and confiding had he
been addressing one sure to feel as he felt,
were necessarily cold and brief. As he
wrote, his pen was clogged by the thought :
“What can she care about this death, she
who never saw my father, and had no rea-
son for liking him ''''
The next day there were those custom-
ary steps to be taken which relieve the
mind of some part of its load of grief by
occupying it. The declaration of the de-
cease had to be made at the Mairie, the
orders for the funeral to be given, the fu-
neral letters be issued to friends, and, also,
there was the will to be read; for, abroad,
this formality does not follow the burial,
but precedes it.
It was a very short and simple will,
which a Brussels notary brought and read
out before the two sons, the doctor, and a
clerk, who came as witness. The date
was of about six months back: —
“I, MANUEL GEROLD, called by some
Duke of Hautbourg and Clairefontaine, be-
ing of sound mind, declare that this is my
last will and testament; and I hereby can-
cel all wills made by me prior to this date.
“I request that my body may be buried
in the foreign land where I may die, and
this without pomp of any kind. Let my
hearse be such as is used for the poor, and
let no monument be set over my grave, but
only a plain stone with my name.
“Should France become a free land
again during the lifetime of my sons, they
will be fulfilling my very dear wish if they
disinter my remains and transport them to
the cemetery of Père-la-Chaise in Paris,
beside those of my beloved wife; but so
long as my country is ruled by its present
Government I desire torest, as I have lived,
in exile.
“I bequeath all my books, papers, por-
traits, and personal property generally to
my two sons, Horace and Emile, to be di-
vided between them as they mutually shall
151
determine ; and I desire that the income
derived from the sale of my literary works
shall, so long as the copyright of those
works remains by law the property of my
heirs, that is, for the term of twenty-five
years after my decease, be divided annu-
ally into three equal parts: one part for
my son Horace, another for my son Emile,
and the third to be devoted to some liberal
and charitable object: that is, eithel to the
relief of men who have suffered for their
political convictions, or to the assistance
of enslaved nations who shall take up arms
for their emancipation. And I appoint, as
trustees of this fund, my son Emile and
my friend Nestor Roche, to whom I be-
queath as a token of my esteem and affec-
tion the copy of Montesquieu’s “Esprit
des Lois’ given me by the compositors of
Paris.
“At my death my son Horace will in-
herit the title of Duke of Hautbourg. I
desire that he will consult only his own
choice as to adopting this title, or suffering
it to remain in abeyance, for in these mat-
ters the convictions of one man cannot and
should not influence those of another. Let
my son only remember that when a man
assumes a great historical name he enters
into a tacit covenant with his ancestors to
keep it pure from all stain.
“I beg that my friend Nestor Roche and
Maitre Devinck, notary at Brussels, will act
as executors to this will; and I sign in the
humble faith of God, and the belief in an
immortal life,
“MANUEL GEROLD.
“10th September, 1856.”
Horace listened in silence to the reading
of this will, which Maitre Devinck scanned
with monotonous solemnity, as if he were
perusing a capias. He could not be in-
sensible to the passages which revealed how
much his father’s confidence in him had
been shaken, and his mortification was in-
creased, if possible, by the embarrassment
of Emile, whom the substitution of Nestor
Roche’s name for Horace's as co-trustee of
the charitable bequest truly surprised and
grieved. This will could only have been
written in an hour of dejection, perhaps of
physical suffering. In his usual mood of
health and kindness, Manuel Gerold would
never have put this slight upon his son,
nor offered him such a serious rebuke as that
implied in the paragraph relative to the
title. So reasoned Emile, but his tongue
was tied, for before he could venture on
any consolation Horace forestalled him,
and said resignedly: “Our father judged
me like the rest. Don’t let us ever talk
about this, Emile. I bear no rancor, for I
loved my father with all my heart; but
152
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
some of the men in this Republican party
oisoned his mind against me. It was just
É. them. You saw he died without giving
me his blessing”—
The funeral had been fixed at a week’s
interval from the decease — this by request
of a large body of refugees, who said that
numbers of Manuel Gerold’s political
friends would come from London, Geneva,
and from France itself to give him a parting
token of respect. Horace was not much
disposed at first to listen to these men, who
arrived by scores every day to leave their
cards, asked to be allowed to view the
body, and did not kneel before it, being
mostly “free-thinkers,” and who treated
him – Horace — with a cold and studied
civility of which it was impossible not to
divine the meaning. He remarked to
Emile, that as their father had desired to
be buried without pomp, there would be
some transgression of his wishes in suffering
the funeral to be made the pretext of a
reat Republican demonstration. But
§. interpreted the absence of pomp to
mean merely simplicity in the arrange-
ments; no plumes, emblazoned cataſalque,
or mourning coaches, nothing but the plain
hearse which the will mentioned. Horace
asked if there would not be something like
the pride that apes humility in the contrast
of a pauper's hearse with the position which
Manuel Gerold once held, and with the
immense concourse of mourners who would
follow him to his grave. He submitted that
if the burial had been strictly private, a
poor man's hearse, might have been suit-
able; but that if a great public procession
were to be organized, it would look less
Ostentatious to have the funeral conducted
in the usual middle-way class, not pompously
but becomingly. Emile, however, was too
sincerely a Republican to indorse these
sentiments. He could not see that.there
was any vanity in using a pauper's hearse
when one was not a pauper. Every party
has its foibles, and Republicans dearly love
a little Spartanism. Accordingly Horace
t;ave in, and the hearse that drove up to
the door of the lodging-house on the ap-
jointed morning to convey the great tribune
to his last home was a common one of black
wood, open to the four winds, devoid of
Krappings, and drawn by a single horse.
The evening before, the brothers had re-
reived the visit of a Brussels commissary
of police, who came with the scared coun-
tenance which Belgian officials always wore
when their country was being made the
scene of any episode likely to displease the
great Emperor of the French, to say that
the projected demonstration seemed much
more important than had been contemplated
—whereupon he mopped his brow with a
red cotton handkerchief. “Reſugees were
arriving by all the trains, and from every-
where; an enormous number of French
Liberals had also come by the last expresses
from Paris, and the French Government,
as usual, had sent a good many spies to
accompany these Liberals, and to attend at
the funeral, to hear what they might say.
It was too late to ask the Messieurs Gerold
to alter any of the arrangements, but the
commissary hoped that they would lindly
exert their influence to have as few speeches
as possible pronounced over the grave, and,
above all, to have those speeches moderate;
it was the Belgian Minister of Foreign
Affairs who requested this as a very great
favor.”
Horace would have promised readily
enough, if Emile had not interrupted him
by inquiring somewhat excitedly of the
commissary if Belgium were not a free land.
“Alas, yes!” answered that official; “a
free land, bounded on all sides by the
French ambassador.” -
Which meek reply disarmed Emile,
though, said he, they could promise nothing,
for it was not their part to dictate to their
father's friends what they should or should
not say.
At which the commissary bowed; but
added, dolefully, that he hoped the
Messieurs Gerold would not view it as a
mark of disrespect to their father if the
Belgian Government took precautions
against order being disturbed on the morrow.
And these precautions consisted in six
policemen, who came to the door at the
same time as the hearse, with black thread
gloves on, and appeared extremely anxious
not to offend anybody or to stand in any-
body's way.
The commissary’s evaluations as to the
number of people who would swell Manuel
Gerold’s funeral train were not exaggerated;
only, the concourse, from its very vastness,
was, contrary to his timorous expectations,
an orderly one. At ten o’clock, a score of
the leading. French Republicans — great
names, all of them — who had been deputed
to act as pall-bearers, entered the house
between two dense but silent rows of
spectators, bordering the street outside, and
claimed the honor of carrying the coffin
themselves to the hearse. . It was a plain
deal coffin, painted black, but it was not
unadorned, for the wives and daughters of
the refugees in Brussels had sent that morn-
ing a velvet pall with a cross embroidered
by their own hands, and a beautiful wreath
of white camellias. As the coffin issued
through the door every head in the street
was bared; and when Horace and Emile
took up their positions behind the hearse,
they noticed that in every hand was a
TEQUIESCAT.
153
crown of yellow immortelles, to he laid by
and by on the grave.
The hearse began slowly to move ; but it
was not one thoroughfare alone that was
lined with spectators. As street after
street unwound itself before the gaze, rows
upon rows of people appeared, standing in
..., with heads uncovered, and these
wreaths of amaranths in their hands.
There were not a few women in the crowd,
who were crying; and here and there a
Belgian soldier, who respectfully made the
military salute. As the hearse passed, the
throngs of mourners in perfect order and
with a mechanical sort of discipline left the
pavement, and formed themselves in rows
ten abreast in the rear of the procession.
This was done at every step, at every foot
of ground along the road, so that the cor-
tège, gathering in depth and strength as it
advanced, like a river swollen by tributary
torrents, numbered thousands by the time
the church was reached. All the shop-
keepers on the line of the procession had
put up their shutters, and every house,
without exception, had its blinds drawn.
Emile’s tears rained fast, warm tears of
thankfulness and pride; Horace was ghastly
pale. What were the splendors and tri-
umphs he had been courting beside this un-
paralleled homage offered to the memory of
a man who had simply remained true to his
faith ?
At the church there was a halt. The
building was too small to contain a tenth
part of the concourse; so only the pall-
bearers and the first two or three hundred
in the close-pressed ranks went in, the rest
remaining stationary in the road with im-
perturbable patience. Contrary to what
the brothers had any right to expect from
the price of the funeral, all the clergy of
the church were assembled in the chancel.
This is usually a matter of money, there
being more or less priests according to the
sum paid by the undertaker: but there is
nothing so much flatters foreign clergies as
a great Republican dying religiously and
being buried pursuant to the ritual of the
Catholic church: wherefore the priests of
St. X , ever full of tact, as all their or-
der are, had waived the pecuniary question
in this case, and mustered together twenty
strong to impart unusual solemnity to the
obsequies of Manuel Gerold. Also, the
choir were at their post, but strengthened,
as the custom is on such occasions, by some
singers of the Brussels opera, who had vol-
unteered their services, and sung magnifi-
cently the “Dies Irae:”—
“Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet sacclum in favillá.
Tuba mirum spargens somum
Per sepulchra regionum,
Cogetomnes ante Thromum.”
The grand verses of the old anthem pealing
under the sacred vault, stirred hidden
echoes in the breasts of many unbelieving
there present. When this was terminated,
and the absolution had been given, and the
coffin was being borne out again, whilst
the organist filled the church with the di-
vine sounds of Mozart’s “Requiem" Horace
turned with his brother to follow out the
pall-bearers. As he did so he caught sight
of a figure standing with eyes, or rather
spectacles, downcast, and an air of devout
unction, amidst a group of Parisian Liber-
als. He knew the face, but without being
instantly able to recollect where he had
seen it. In another moment, however, it
flashed upon him : the spectacles and the
false mustache did not much alter the
physiognomy. It was the honest M. Lou-
chard: and on either side of that worthy
stood the two acolytes MM. Fouineux and
Tournetrique, who had assisted him in the
domiciliary visit to Horace's rooms.
Once more the procession started on its
course, and again it was swelled by increas-
ing troops of mourners, until it gained the
Cemetery of Laeken, outside Brussels.
The hearse passed the gates, and de-
bouched into the long avenue of white
tombs, and then, for the first time, the im-
mense host broke up, spreading like a black
sea over the whole of one side of the ceme-
tery — everybody being anxious to secure a
place near to the grave.
The hearse, with a few score followers,
branched off the main highway, threaded
Some by-paths, and reached its last halting-
place just as the crowd had settled down —
a countless multitude choking up all the
footways, covering the tomb-stones, stand-
ing on and clinging to monuments, and
stretching in a compact, surging mass as far
as the eye could see. J;
The coffin was lifted out, and the priest
recited the final prayers, and a “De Pro-
fundis.” Then the coffin was lowered with
a grating sound of ropes, the parting “Requi-
escat ” was pronounced, and the priest with-
drew. At that moment, when a deep hush
fell upon the whole assemblage in expecta-
tion of what was to follow, the scene was an
imposing one.
Above, the sky glistening with a pale
gold sunshine, and those opal tints which
clothe the heavens at that neutral season
when it is no longer winter, nor yet quite
spring ; below, this ocean of human faces,
the majority of which belonged to men who
had devoted their lives to an idea, who had
been persecuted for that idea, but who were
sustained by a profound unwavering faith
154
TEIE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
in the future; in front of them an open pit,
with the coffin, and on the coffin a handful
of clay.
A man stepped out of the throng on to
the brink of the grave, and began to speak
anidst a silence so intense, that a pebble,
which rolled from under his foot, and
dropped on the coffin with a hollow sound,
was heard distinctly by everybody.
The orator was a man of world-wide
fame. He had swayed assemblies, and his
words struck upon responsive chords, awak-
ing long and but half-suppressed murmurs
of assent as he confessed the creed that
bound them all there together, and uttered
the praises of the honest, steadfast Repub-
lican they were met to mourn. To him
succeeded a second speaker, and then a
third — each of whom paid feeling tributes
to the patriot, who had been the glory of
his own generation, and would be looked
back to as an example by those to come.
And these speeches, which made the tem-
ples of Emile throb, and poured balm upon
his wounds, fell like lashes upon Horace.
Every word rang as a reproach in his ear.
The speakers seemed to revile him, to point
ironically to the contrast between him and
his father. He fancied that all eyes were
fixed upon him with wondering contempt,
and when he tried to look up he could not ;
his glance was anchored by shame to the
ground. Suddenly he started, and raised
his eyes, flashing and astounded, upon the
fourth speaker.
After the third oration there had been a
pause, for it had been in some way settled
that three speeches only should be deliver-
ed; but, just as that hum was commencing
which precedes the disbanding of a multi-
tude, a small wild-haired man had elbowed
his way to the front, and, by a gesture of
his hand, rooted everybody to the spot.
It was Albi.
As well nigh all the spectators knew of
the enmity between him and Horace Gerold,
astonishment and curiosity, not unmingled
with apprehension, broke upon every face,
and the people pressed forward closer as if
they were nudging one another.
Albi paid no heed, but, in quick, dry,
fevered accents, began a panegyric of
Manuel Gerold more glowing, more heart-
felt, more thorough, than any which had
been pronounced before. But there was
the exaltation of a fanatic in the burning
phrases, and when the orator had emptied his
heart of all the goodin it the ſamatic's mania
for invective re-took possession of him. His
voice became sardonic, like a trumpet that
cracks, and undeterred by the sacredness
of the spot — forgetting it, indeed, and all
laws of humanity—consulting only his
political passion, his spleen, his hatred, he
turned his eyes to where Horace stood and
regretted aloud that Manuel Gerold had left
no son — or, at least, but one son — who
could follow in his footsteps.
Horace watched Albi as a leopard may
eye a panther. He had submitted to a great
deal. To the coldness of his father's ad-
mirers, to their ill-concealed scorn of him;
to their speeches, in which — without
meaning it, possibly — they had trampled
all his self-respect under foot; but nobody
could expect him to stand this.
At the first words of Albi's speech he had
clenched his fists, and held in his breath,
and now that the man was doing what he
expected he would do from the first —
slavering his venom over an unclosed tomb
— he sprung forward, and shouted, “Si-
lence l’”
A thunderclap bursting abruptly over-
head could not have produced a greater
commotion.
“Silence l’” repeated Horace, in a furi-
ous voice, “who are you that come to speak
beside the grave of an honest man 2 Manuel
Gerold had nothing in common with Repub-
licans of your sort. You and your fellows
belong to no party. You murdered the first
Republic, you ruined the second, and if our
country is fettered now it is that French-
men prefer despotism to the crimes and
follies by which you have rendered freedoni
hateful. Stand aside l Patriots should
shun you like a pestilence, for you and those
who think like you are the enemies of the
human race.” And as Albi continued to
stand where he was, Horace laid a hand
on his chest and pushed him roughly
back.
A great clamor arose, and immediately
there was a dismayed rush to keep the
two men apart. Numbers of acquaintances
whom Horace had not noticed in the crowd,
Nestor Roche, Jean Kerjou, Claude Febvre,
M. Pochemolle, Mr. Drydust, the black-clad
commercial traveller Filoselle, held him
back, Emile aiding ; and another throng,
amongst whom Max Delormay was active,
did the same with Albi. But Albi, glaring
and mad, shook himself free, and, rushing to
his antagonist, hissed: “The men who be-
long to no party are those who will sell
themselves to any. They are the harlots
of politics. Prostitute l’ and he spat in
Horace’s face.
Horace sprung from the hands of those
who were restraining him, like a lion
through a thread net, and clutched Albi by
the throat. The two men closed and wrest-
led; and, amidst the appalled cries of thou-
sands horrified by this frightful scene, both
fell and rolled headlong together into the
open grave, on to the coſin at the bottom.
which crashed under them.
DECLARATIONS OF WAR.
155
CHAPTER XXXII.
IDECLARATIONS OF WAR.
M. GRIBAUD, the Minister, was out of
sorts again. Not that the Corps Législatif
had voted against a Government bill, or
evinced any inclination ever to do such a
thing; but an individual member of that
Assembly, a square-headed Alsatian count,
Protestant and gaiter-wearing, had taken
him privately to task in a rich German
brogue about certain abuses flourishing in
his department, to wit, the appointment of
Catholic school-masters in purely Protestant
parishes. M. Gribaud had answered that if
the noble count would examine well, he
would, no doubt, find in other parts of
France Catholic parishes blessed with Pro-
testant school-masters; but the noble count
had shown himself sceptic on this point,
adding that even if it were so he saw noth-
ing to admire in the arrangement. M.
Gribaud was not much used to these replies,
the less so as the count had given him to
understand, in accents more and more
Rhenish, that the support he vouchsafed to
the Government was quite conditional, for
that he was sure to be re-elected by his
Lutheran constituency whether the “admin-
istration ” liked it or not — and hereupon
had stalked away. Scarcely had this un-
satisfactory episode been enacted than anoth-
er nobleman-deputy had supervened
this time a Gascon marquis, Catholic to the
roots of his red hair, and twanging his words
gayly through his nose — to ask that his
brother might be made a bishop. Now there
was not the slightest reason in the world
why this marquis's brother should be made
a bishop, though there were numerous rea-
sons against such a course. But as the
marquis himself had been made a deputy
for no cause whatever, it was quite natural
that he should suppose the same qualifica-
tions would do for his brother; so that on
being rather curtly denied what he wanted
—for smooth-speaking was not M. Gribaud’s
forte — he had turned on his heel in a huff,
mumbling meridional expletives sulkily.
“This comes of having land-holding aris-
tocrats' in the Chamber,” growled M. Gri-
baud, rolling homewards in his brougham.
“It’s the hobby of the court, not mine. If
I had my way we should send the depart-
ments their deputies as we do their prefects
and their dancing-dogs, all ready reared and
trained in Paris. Manufacturers make the
best deputies. All they ever ask for is to
be decorated or ennobled, which costs noth-
ing. Or, failing manufacturers, I’d have
sportsmen ; they let one alone and have no
religion.”
M. Gribaud reflected in this strain dur-
ing his dinner, and again after it. The
evening was that of the day of Manuel
Gerold’s funeral, and happened fur-
ther to be that which M. Gribaud de-
voted every week to the reception of his
political adherents, masculine and feminine.
The saloons were always crowded to suffo-
cation on these auspicious nights. Mdme.
Gribaud was “at home.” Diamonds
twinkled by the myriad, laced uniforms
blazed in dense battalions, veteran func-
tionaries trod on the distressed skirts of
heated dowagers hopelessly jammed in
impassable doorways, and younger func-
tionaries, with the administrative bloom
still fresh on them, breasted their way
through avalanches of snowy shoulders,
embellishing but obstructing the staircase.
M. Gribaud, in a swallow-tail coat, with
much gold to it, a red ribbon and star, and
his hair brushed, stood on a hearth-rug and
Smiled a welcome to the company as they
defiled before him. But when M. Gribaud
was not in a good humor these smiles
much resembled those which a man, who
has a whitlow on his hand gives, when
that hand is warmly squeezed.
M. Gribaud had returned about a dozen
hundred bows and stretched as many of
these yellow Smiles just alluded to, when
he became aware of the presence of M.
Macrobe, who was performing a worshipful
though collected obeisance to him. M.
Macrobe ought by rights to have been at
Brussels attending the funeral, but having
heard that there was to be a great Repub-
lican demonstration, and feeling small
inclination to figure in the midst of such an
assemblage where he was not likely to be
regarded with deep sympathy, he had sent
an excuse to his son-in-law pleading a con-
venient indisposition. At the same time,
as he much desired to see M. Gribaud on
behalf of his son-in-law's interest and his
own, he had come in the hope of obtaining
a few minutes' talk with his Excellency,
and was not disappointed.
“How do you do, M. Macrobe’” growled
the Minister, holding out his knotty hand,
which now that it was covered with a
white kid-glove, looked every moment as
if it was going to burst; and he eyed
the financier with an interrogative glance
which seemed to say: “I wonder what this
rogue is going to tell me this evening?”
But, suddenly, as if recollecting some-
thing, he added: “By the by, what is
that Brussels telegram in this evening's
paper?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” answered M.
Macrobe, whose countenance wore an air
of perplexity. “I have no further details
than your Excellency has. The despatch
is very summary and only says that there
156
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
was a disturbance at the funeral between
my son-in-law and M. Albi.”
“And that there was a tremendous con-
course at the burial,” grumbled the Minis-
ter, and he led the way to a table in
an embrasure where lay some evening jour-
mals. Some other guests in the room seeing
the Pillar of Politics and the Pillar of
Finance, engaged in loving converse, with-
drew discreetly out of earshot. “Yes, you
see, there it is, a countless multitude, all
Brussels afoot, democratic speeches and the
rest of it. Manuel Gerold was a great
fool; I used to know him well. He might
have become a minister like me if he had
liked.”
“But he had the infatuation to prefer
being an exile.”
“And that’s a form of vanity like any
other, M. Macrobe. I’ll wager the man
thought he stood higher on his pedestal
than any of us.”
“There's no accounting for opinions,
your Excellency. But I am glad that his
eldest son shows but slight disposition to
follow his example. I desired to speak to
you about him this evening. Taking the
newspaper account as it stands, I gather
that my son-in-law has had some brutal
affront put upon him and that the breach
between him and the Opposition will be
widened beyond mending.”
“So much the better.”
“As your Excellency says, so much the
better. My son-in-law has become Duke
of Hautbourg now, and under that new name
I trust to see him begin a new and more
becoming life. At the approaching elec-
tions I look to his standing for Hautbourg,
and soon we may count upon seeing him
return to the Castle of Clairefontaine and
take his proper rank in the world. Your
Excellency will not, I hope, throw any
impediment in the way of the Hautbourg
election ?”
M. Gribaud’s face assumed a cold ex-
pression, but without beating about the
bush he replied:
“I am beginning to ask myself what Gov-
ernment is likely to gain by furthering the
Clairefontaine scheme, and I fail to see our
advantage in it.” His voice grew business-
like. “When first you broached the sub-
ject the conditions were not what they are
now. Young Gerold was an adversary who
was giving us trouble. It was essential to
suppress him, and we should have done so,
had you not proposed to win him over to
our side. But he is harmless now, thanks
to the way we managed that last election.
The Liberals have cast him off, and if
Government does not give him a lift next
time, it is not diſficult to see that he will be
left without a seat.”
4.
“Perhaps he might not be returned for
the Tenth Circumscription,” said M. Ma-
crobe, beginning to look blue. “But he
would be safe of winning the seat at Haut-
bourg if the Government helped him.”
“But why should we help him 7” re-
sponded the Minister, gruffly. “He has
never joined our ranks as you promised he
would. All he has done is to tone down
his speeches a little; but what we want are
not deputies who tone down, but deputies
who don’t speak at all, at least against us.”
“Everybody cannot turn his coat in a
day, your Excellency,” answered M. Ma-
crobe, with half a sneer.
M. Gribaud was generally as thick-
skinned as a rhinoceros where epigrams
were concerned, but this time the barb
penetrated a little too deep.
“A man cannot turn his coat too soon
who has begun by wearing it wrong side
out,” he rejoined with a scowl. “If young
Gerold will accept an official candidature
on the usual terms, that is, issue an address
that we shall dictate, and pledge his word
to vote as he is told, we shall not oppose
him. But his support must be unreserved.
We certainly shall not help him to get
into the House as an independent member.”
And M. Gribaud folded and refolded the
newspaper he was holding in a deliberate
way that signified: “This is my ultima-
tum.” *
“Then am I to understand that in the
event of the Duke refusing these condi-
tions, which he naturally will, the Govern-
ment will contest the seat of IIautbourg’”
asked M. Macrobe, gazing uneasily into
his opera-hat, as if to ask counsel of it in
this emergency. “I beg to remind your
Excellency,” he resumed, “that the death
of M. Manuel Gerold has removed what
I believe to be the last obstacle in the way
of my son-in-law's assuming his estates and
adopting the rank that belongs to him;
and that as Lord of Clairefontaine the
Duke of Hautbourg will be in a position
amply to repay any courtesies that may
be shown him at present.”
“I should be sorry to speculate on any
gratitude of that kind,” muttered M. Gri-
baud dryly. “I know it was a seductive
scheme that which you first unfolded, of
winning over young Gerold to us, get-
ting him to put his name and landed in-
fluence at our service, and so on, but these
projects never become facts. Landed pro-
prietors are the stubbornest cattle in exist-
ence ; you can't drive but must forever be
coaxing them. Why, two of them bandied
words with me this very afternoon.”
And at the recollection of his Alsatian
Count and Gascon Marquis, M. Gribaud
grew agitated, and stuttered indignantly
DECLARATIONs of war.
157
gº
f
“Two beggarly clod-crushers whom we
had put into the Chamber out of charity,
simply that they might have a decent
salary to add to their trumpery rents, and
this pair come lording it over me, threaten-
ing me with their displeasure, and all be-
cause they know that the peasant electors
vote stubbornly at each election, as they
did the time before, and that to turn a
landed proprietor out of the seat you have
once allowed him to occupy is about as
pleasant a job as trying to root up a live
oak with a pocket-knife. May the deuce
take them But if these two, with their
five hundred acres apiece, feel independent
enough to bully in this style, what can the
Government expect of the owner of such a
holding as Clairefontaine?”
“All the more reason for not offending
him,” suggested M. Macrobe shrewdly.
“There would be reason enough for not
offending him if young Gerold were already
in his castle; but he isn't. Hark you,
M. Macrobe.” broke off the Minister, re-
curring to his favorite method of going
bluntly to the point: if young Gerold re-
turns to Clairefontaine he will have no
need to come begging our support, for we
should give it him as a matter of course,
there being no use in doing otherwise; but
you have your doubts about this return, and
you apparently count upon the Hautbourg
election to advance your aims. Well,
wish you good luck; only, you won’t get
any thing else from us. For the moment
young Gerold has ceased to be a danger to
us, and that is all I wanted. As Duke of
Ha',tbourg and Lord of Clairefontaine he
wºuld certainly become troublesome again,
so that to help him thither would be un-
commonly like sowing stinging-nettles on
my own path. I’ve given you our terms —
unconditional surrender on Gerold’s part,
or else war.”
“Then I think we shall have to accept
war,” said M. Macrobe with a feigned laugh
on his lips, but a gleam in his ferret eyes.
“Your Excellency will excuse us if, when
our turn comes, we give no quarter.”
M. Gribaud assumed the Olympian atti-
tude — half wonder and half grim contempt
— of Jupiter hearing himself defied by
Mercury.
“Why do you say, ‘we,” M. Macrobe’”
he inquired. “Do you intend opening hos-
tilities on us, too 7”
“I am in the same camp as the Duke of
Hautbourg, your Excellency,” was M. Ma-
crobe's curt rejoiner.
The scowl on the Minister's countenance
deepened abruptly into a glare. Some of
the coarse aggressiveness of the old days
when he was a blustering criminal-court
barrister rose to his tongue, and was only
repressed with an effort. He laid one of
his huge white gloves on the financier's
arm, and, first looking round to see that
there was nobody at hand, said in a Husky
voice: “Don’t you think this is enough fool-
ing, Macrobe 2 Do you fancy I don’t know
how the Crédit Parisien is kept on its legs?
Why, man, beware what you are doing
in taking up the cudgels against us, for we
could smash your company like a filbert,
and you with it, so I give you warning.”
But he found more than his match in M.
Prosper Macrobe, who shot back his answer
like a dart from a bow.
“I dare you to do your worst, M. Gri-
baud. You can smash the Crédit Parisien
if those of your colleagues who are inter-
ested in its welfare will let you; but you
can’t Smash me, nor even injure me in
reputation or in fortune. And let me tell
you this—that if those whom you serve
were ever driven to choose between offend-
ing me or dismissing you, it is not me whom
they would deem it most prudent to sacri-
fice. So it is for you to beware and take
warning.”
And with a disdainful shrug he strode
away, leaving his Excellency disconcerted.
So disconcerted that left alone M. Gri-
baud began walking straight ahead in a
purposeless sort of way through the
crowded rooms, his gilt sword-sheath beat-
ing on the thick calf of his leg, his cocked
hat crushed under his arm, and his hands
pinching each other and cracking each
other's kid teguments behind his back.
Before him, as he advanced, the subservient
throng parted in two rows of bowing heads
right, and left. But many a sub-prefect,
who had come up to town to urge a claim
to promotion, many a fair dame who had
decked herself in her gayest robes and
softest looks to wring from the great man's
generosity a post of emolument for her hus-
band, brother, or peculiar friend, forbore
their suits on marking his Excellency’s
eyes fixed with no inviting expression on
the carpet. Mechanically Gribaud
made a series of curt bows as he proceeded,
throwing them at hap-hazard to any one
who chose to take them, as one flings half-
pence amongst rabble. Then, presently, he
stopped, having caught sight of a brother
statesman making himself agreeable to a
bevy of ladies on an ottoman.
A glance from his chief brought this emi-
nent politician to M. Gribaud’s side. He
was a lanky celebrity with not more than
half a nounce of hair on his head, and that
half-ounce dyed coal-black. His mustache
and tuft were of the same jet. He had
false teeth, wore a double eye-glass on the
bridge of his nose, and evidently considered
himself handsome. Rumor affirmed that he
158
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
had been appointed minister because his
aunt — But this is beside the question.
He simpered to M. Gribaud, who at once
whispered to him : “I say, De Verny, you
have shares in the Crédit Parisien, have you
not ???
The coal-black dyed colleague changed
color a little, and exclaimed, “Yes; but
how do you know * *
“Well, you see I do know ; but there is
nothing to be ashamed of in the matter.
Only, if I were you, I'd sell out.”
“Why, is there any thing wrong 2" and
the dyed one's visage lengthened of a sud-
den, visibly.
“No, not as yet. But of late these joint-
stock companies have been running riot.
Paris has become a gambling hell. In high
quarters they don’t like it; they say it gives
a raſfish color to the Dynasty.” Here M.
Gribaud lowered his voice and muttered
some words scarcely audible. “So you see,”
he resumed, “if it should ever be necessary,
for form's sake, to make an example, we must
be certain that the company we attack hasn’t
any of our own men on its books. I don't
say the Crédit Parisien is in any danger,
ºut you would be doing wisely to cut the
connection. One never knows what may
happen.”
And two minutes later M. de Verny might
have been seen scuttling down stairs to his
carriage, with what little hair remained to
him standing up on end, oblivious of the bevy
of ladies on the ottoman, and bent only on
gaining the Cercle Impérial to see if per-
chance he might find his stock-broker there,
and instruct that worthy to sell out to-mor-
row morning—the first thing.
Further on, M. Gribaud observed a sec-
ond brother statesman, who had just been
treating himself to a glass of Malmsey,
which was good at the Hôtel Gribaud, as
are most wines purchased with the money
of the tax-payer. This second statesman
held his head high, as if there were a set of
plumes on the top of it, which was the more
imposing as he could hardly have measured
five foot one, boots included. Almost the
same dialogue ensued as before, with this
difference in the results, that at the first
mention of the Crédit Parisien the small gray
head crested with invisible plumes sunk to
below the owner's shoulders, causing him to
look forthwith as if he had lost a cubit from
his stature. M. Gribaud re-assured him, but
said: “Doesn’t that long bit of land that
skirts the fortifications in the Faubourg
M belong to the Crédit Parisien, and
wasn’t there a talk of buying it for Govern-
ment magazines 7"
“I believe there was,” replied the second
statesman, rather sheepishly.
“But the bargain isn't struck yet?”
“No, the affair was to be concluded
next week. A very good affair for every
one concerned.”
“Well, I think it had better stand over.
There's no great hurry for magazines, and l
don't think the site a good one.”
And five minutes afterwards the second
statesman might have been seen hurrying
through the hall of egress, and leaping into
his brougham like the first, with brow knit
and thoughts intent upon selling out there
and then, if by chance a buyer could be
found.
M. Gribaud continued his walk, glad
within his soul at what he had just done.
But he felt the need for a little rest and di-
verting talk, so he raised his eyes and cast
about him for a likely guest, that is, one
who would converse with him without
asking him for any thing.
A few of the ambitious sub-prefects, ac-
cepting this look as a hint that M. Gribaud’s
glumness had quite melted away, smirkcd
forward precipitately. But his Excellency
rebuffed them with a hasty “Good-night —
good-night,” uttered in the same tone as
the “ Down, Dash, down,” with which we
regale an affectionate dog who jumps upon
us with muddy paws; and so passed on till
he beheld that valuable member of the Corps
Législatif, the fig-nosed Planter, who had
escorted Mrs. Planter to the entertainment,
and seemed to be enjoying himself thor-
oughly, being profoundly asleep in a corner;
and not far distant from this legislator, the
Prince of Arcola, a little languid, but socia-
ble, and conversing with a lady. There
was no hesitating between these two. If
he awoke the fig-nosed Planter, that deputy
would infallibly ask for promotion in the
Legion of Honor ; so M. §. made for
the Prince of Arcola.
The Prince was chatting with Madame
de Masseline — the lady who rendered im-
portant services to the cause of order, as rep-
resented by M. Louchard, and the Préfec-
ture de Police. She was a brilliant dame,
with winning manners, eyes like sloes, and
pretty confiding ways, that convinced every
man she desired to pump that her one fond
wish was to nestle under his strong arm,
and unfold to him the whole tale of her
chequered existence. Man being the silliest
of bipeds, this stratagem never failed, so
that, in half-an-hour, she had generally
coaxed out of her interlocutor all she cared
to know, and restored him to Society
squeezed morally flat as a biſfin. Never-
theless, though there was not an event oc-
curred within Paris but that she was as fa-
miliar with all its details as though she had
been on the spot and taken ocular notes,
yet it was part of her delightful system to
feign ignorance of every thing; and she
DECLARATIONS of WAR.
159
would go into little ecstasies of wonder to
hear that it had rained in the morning;
clasp her charming hands in amazement at
learning that So-and-So — whose wedding
she had attended — had just been married;
and exclaim, in her silvery tones, “Dear,
dear! that's news, indeed ” on being ap-
prised that her own husband — every one
of whose steps in this life she had directed
— had secured an honor or an appointment,
which she herself had obtained for him.
Women saw through her, called her an odi-
ous, mischievous, affected thing, and de-
tested her. She returned the compliment,
and in the prettiest way possible, without
seeming to be aware of what she was doing,
would pick the most virtuous woman's rep-
utation to bits in five minutes — leaving
not so much of it as would suffice for the
needs of a courtesan. For all of which
things men adored her, stoutly took her
part when she was attacked by her own sex,
and gave her credit for all the innocence,
good-nature, and candor to which she chose
to lay claim.
The Prince of Arcola was one of her
admirers; or, rather, she was one of the
thousand women to whom the Prince had,
at different times, paid a languid court,
without ever being able to make up his
mind to love one of them. Indeed, the
rincipal secret of the Prince's attachment
or Georgette was that women in society
seemed to him so similar — that is, so uni-
formly pretty, frivolous, insignificant, and
wax-doll-like, that it was impossible to
choose between them. It had required a
woman who was not of his class—who con-
trasted totally with all the women he had
ever seen — to fire the latent spark in his
amative, but rather blasé, heart; and his
rejection had been such a blow to him, that
the first remark Madame de Masseline
made when, obedient to her beck he had
subsided into a seat beside her, was, “Mon
prince, you are becoming Byronian. You
wear a tired, disenchanted look, as if you
were joining the horrible army of misogy-
nists.”
He smiled rather wearily, but answered
gallantly,–"If ever Itake to hating women
it will be when you have left P. P. C. cards
on us all, which will be never — at least, in
my time.”
Madame de Masseline being of that
elastic age called thirty-five—that is, by
her own computation, seven or eight years
the Prince’s senior — viewed this as a com-
pliment, and replied mincingly, with much
fluttering of her fan, and sparkling of her
dark eyes, – “Well, that's pretty, and more
like yourself. But I am sure my poor
prince, you have some peine de coeur. Ah!
what a tyrant the heart is. How it does
make one suffer. I have often thought we
should be better without hearts—I know I
should. For instance, She must have no
heart — I mean that cruel creature, who is
making you look so—so-interesting.”
“Oh, yes, she has plenty of heart!” re-
joined the Prince, naïvely, “but not for
me.”
“Then she has none for anybody else,
you may depend upon it, unless she be blind,
or deaf, or both. Perhaps she is.” And
she laughed, beating her skirts down, and
moving her chair a little, so as to make
more room, and said sympathizingly,–
“Draw nearer, mon pauvre prince, and tell
me all about it. You and I are old friends,
and can confide our sorrows to each other
with Platonic affection.”
Men are never quite insensible to the in-
terest which pretty women pretend to take
in their affairs. It is an old, but not the
less true, saying, that the surest way to
flatter them is to talk to them about them-
selves. Moreover, it relieves a sorrow to
confide it to a commiserating listener.
So the Prince acknowledged, with tolera-
ble frankness, that he had been wooing,
and failed. He omitted, of course, all
mention of names or particulars that could
put his hearer upon the right clew; but this
happened to be quite a superfluous precau-
tion, for Madame de Masseline was ac-
quainted with the whole story from first to
last. The Pochemolles had been far too
much dazed by the offer of the Prince's
Jhand to their daughter to be able to hold
their peace as to the fact. Even when the
refusal of Georgette had plunged them ab–
ruptly from the seventh heaven to the seventh
region of Hades, they had found no rest un-
til they had asked all their kinsfolk and
acquaintances to condole with them in their
sore trial. And thus the story was begin-
ning to filter its way through Paris with
the proverbial rapidity of all such kind of
news, and Madame de Masseline, accord-
ing to her wont, had been amongst the
first to be informed of it.
She ignored, however, wherefore the
Prince had been refused; so, on learning
it from his own lips, exclaimed, with an
astonished sigh, “ º dear, how shock-
ing ! Loved some one else, did she 3– and
that some one else a married man. That is
always awkward, because a man of wit has
but one revenge open to him in such a case.”
“And what is that ?”
“Oh, you are pretending to be more in-
nocent than Il’” said she, simulating an
air of bashfulness, and giving a tinkling
little laugh. “Why, what was it the Duke
of Richélieu said?' 'When a marriedman
crosses my path, I make love to his wife —
on principle.’”
160
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
“The Duke was evidently wittier than I
am,” sighed the Prince; “but I might fare
no better with my rival’s wife thani did in
the other quarter.”
“Impossible to be more modest. But
don’t you long for revenge of some sort 2
You talk with distressing placidity about
your rival. I should not deem that flattery
if I were the lady in the case.”
“I have no great love for my rival if that
is what you mean,” answered the Prince,
and he knit his brow. “I am certain he
has not behaved well. He deceived the-
the lady, and he deceived me; for I asked
him before proposing, whether some suspi-
cions which I had were founded, and he
swore to me they were not. But the only
revenge we witless men can resort to in
such a contingency is not to believe the
purjurer again, and to show him that we do
not.”
It was at this moment that the Minister
Gribaud loomed in sight, steering straight
for the nook where the two were seated.
“How provoking | Here is that wretched
mummy of a Grand Vizier coming to break
our téte-à-tête,” muttered Mdme. de Masse-
line, pouting, and the same instant, with a
charming smile, – “This is an unhoped-for
pleasure, your Excellency. I was just say-
ing to Monsieur le Prince what a delight it
is to get a few minutes of your society;
but it is so rarely one has that good for-
tune.”
“Your humble servant, madame,
ed M. Gribaud. “Good-evening, mon
Prince;” and he took a chair with the air
of one who says, “I know this woman is
humbugging me, but it does no harm.”
“We were talking about the elections,”
resumed Mdme. de Masseline, with radiant
fascination. “We were computing the ma-
jority Government would have, and M. le
Prince agreed with me that the Opposition
would scarcely win a seat.”
“Then you take interest in polities, mon
Prince f * remarked M. Gribaud, looking
with interest at the nobleman. “Why don’t
you come forward? There would be no diffi-
culty in getting you elected.”
“What could I represent, your Excellen-
cy?” asked the Prince, laughing. “A depu-
ty should have land, and fhave none. My
fortune consists of dogs, horses, and Crédit
Parisien shares; it would hardly do to come
forward as the representative of these inter-
ests.”
“Oh, the land idea is a fallacy l’’ returned
M. Gribaud, bluntly; “it is just because you
have no land you would do so well. We
could present you anywhere; start you as a
candidate untrammelled by landed or any
other interests, and consequently offering
every guarantee of independence. \
99
grunt-
“Yes, that is what my husband put in his
last address, and he got thirty thousand
votes,” observed Mdme. de Masseline.
“You have no idea, M. le Prince, how good-
natured the peasantry are — and believing!”
“We have a seat that would exactly do
for you,” pursued the Minister, as an idea
appeared to strike him ; and his tone curi-
ously reminded the Prince of his horse-deal-
er saying, “A mare that will just carry your
weight, mon Prince.” “A mixed constitu-
ency, halfborough, half country,” continued
M. Gribaud, vaunting his merchandise:
“the present holder of the seat is old and
used up; we have promised to put him into
the Senate. Any how, he will not come for-
ward again. The place is Hautbourg, and,
as a sporting-man, the contest will amuse
you. Your competitor will be young Ge-
rold — you know the man; he calls himself
Duke of Hautbourg now.”
The Prince gave a slight start, and a flush
rose to his face so rapidly that Mdme. de
Masseline, ever observant, fastened her two
sapphire eyes upon him like a pair of cor-
uscating points of interrogation.
With a prompt determination that amazed
but amused the lady, and gave pleasure to
the statesman, the Prince answered, - “To
tell your Excellency the truth, I had never
dreamed of embracing politics; but the
name of M. Gerold would almost induce me
to accept your proposal. I do not think that
gentleman worthy to sit in a National As-
sembly.”
“No, he is not ; and it pleases me to hear
you say so,” returned the Minister, with
satisfaction. “He is a Radical, and makes
speeches — we have tried every thing to con-
vert him, but it was of no use.”
The Prince did not think it necessary to
undeceive M. Gribaud as to the motives for
his stricture on Horace Gerold. The Min-
ister was therefore left to suppose that the
remark proceeded from an exuberance of
Bonapartist zeal highly natural in a Prince
of Arcola.
“Then we may rely on you,” said he, with
something like a gracious snort, “and we
may order the prefect to start your candi-
dature — enter you for the running, as they
say at Chantilly 7° and his hard mouth bor-
dered on a grin.
“Of course your Excellency offers me an
independent candidature ?” asked the
Prince seriously.
“Undoubtedly, my dear Prince,” rejoined
the Minister, who knew that there was not
much to be apprehended from one bearing
the name of Arcola, and a sportsman to boot.
“You shall tell your electors what you
please,” and his contentment was such, that,
rising to go, after a few minutes' more con-
versation, he said: “By the way, didn't you
AFE AIRS OF INTEREST AND OF HONOR,
161
say something about the Crédit Parisien 7
If you have shares in that concern let me
advise you to sell out. I don't understand
much about those affairs, but a shrewd finan-
cier, whose opinions I value, told me to-
night that there were symptoms of a break-
up. I give you the warning for what it's
worth, and in confidence.”
M. Gribaud guessed that a thing commu-
nicated in confidence within the hearing of
Mdme. de Masseline was likely to be re-
peated confidentially to a good many per-
sons before the º: WaS Out.
Soon afterwards the Prince offered his
arm to Mdme. de Masseline, to conduct her
to her carriage. On the staircase she said to
him with gay malice, — “So it's the new
Duke of Hautbourg who is your rival, mon
Prince. Well, you can spare yourself the
trouble of trying the revenge à la Richelieu
on him, for I suspect somebody else has al-
ready done it for you.”
“No, no, you mistake,” answered the
Prince, stopping her and looking rather
shocked. “Horace Gerold's wife is the
purest little thing in existence. Rather
silly, I know, but nobody has ever breathed
a word against her.”
“Nor do I, my dear Prince,” said she,
drawing her cloak closer round her, with a
pretty little shiver; “and, indeed, I was
quite astounded when I heard it. Very
much pained, too, I was, I assure you, for I
love the little thing. I often go to see her,
and she comes to see us. But why does she
go about everywhere with a Captain of Car-
bineers? And why does that Captain sit
behind her in her box at the opera and whis-
per compliments in her ear when her hus-
band is not there? Those were questions
I heard asked this very day, and I stood up
for the poor child and said it wasn’t true,
and that I wouldn’t have such things said
about her.”
“And you did quite right,” rejoined the
Prince, gravely, “for those facts you men-
tion are the best proofs possible of her inno-
cence. If she and the Captain were guilty
they would act more cautiously, to avert
susicpion.”
“Well, I like to see men so chivalrous in
defending us poor women,” said Mdme. Mas-
seline, smiling, and holding her little hand
out of the brougham window for him to shake;
“but we mustn't be so confident in every
thing, my dear Prince. Mind, for instance,
you don’t forget to sell out your shares in
the Crédit Parisien. That old Grand Wi-
zier's warning made me feel quite cold, for
my husband has shares, too, and we must
get rid of them at once.”
“I can’t see that at all,” muttered the
5
Prince, in perplexity, as this charming apos-
tle of morality was whirled away. “If the
11
company were all right we might sell out;
— in fact, I, personally, wa thinking of do-
ing so. But now that I learn there's a
screw loose, it would be as good as palming
off a spawined horse on somebody, and let-
ting him believe it was a sound one. That
old Minister and this giddy woman can’t
have reflected on what they were saying.”
And so this guileless nobleman sought
his mansion, rather upset by M. Gribaud’s
warning For the interpretation he chose
to put upon it was, that he must not part
with his shares on any account, lest by so
doing he should pass them on to some un-
wary man, and cause his ruin. Which for
the year of grace one thousand eighteen
fifty-seven was as out-of-date a piece of
reasoning as well might be.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
AFFAIRS OF INTEREST AND OF HONOR.
As for M. Macrobe, he went home from
the Minister's reception in as fine a temper
as he had ever experienced in his life. He
did not attach much importance to M,
Gribaud’s threats concerning himself or the
Crédit Parisien, but he was stung and
exasperated by the opposition his projects
respecting Horace had encountered. The
hostility of the Government was going to
plunge him into dilemmas. If IIorace re-
turned from Brussels re-puritanized by the
week he had spent near his father's death-
bed, and if he were still averse to installing
himself at Clairefontaine, the realization of
all his, M. Macrobe's, day-dreams would be
indefinitely adjourned. Luckily for the
financier's peace of mind and night's rest,
his thoughts reverted to the newspaper
telegram reporting the fracas between his
son-in-law and Albi, and he blessed this,
Radical from the bottom of his heart.
The next morning M. Macrobe entered
his daughter's boudoir early, for the pur
pose of instructing her as to what she
should say to her husband, who was ex-
pected home during the day. Angélique
was dressed in the deepest mourning. Mr.
Girth had been called into requisition to
furnish the most elegant and appropriate
black costumes he could devise; and M.
Macrobe had also put his entire household
into sables, the footmen gliding about with
black epaulets and aiglets, and Aunt
Dorothée as much covered with lawn and
crape as if she were inconsolable. M.
Macrobe might, perhaps, have trusted his
daughter to see to these not very arduous
162
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
details herself; but his distrust of her
capacities seemed to increase instead of
diminish as she grew older. His was the
mind that bustled and superintended every
thing; and he had not forgotten, as soon as
Manuel Gerold was dead, to have all the
|Marquis's coronets on the carriages, and
hall chairs of the Hôtel Macrobe replaced
by ducal ones, and to direct the servants to
address the new duke on his return as
“Monseigneur.”
Angélique was alone. The evening before
she had let fall a few words in her cousin's
hearing about the difficulty of getting some
worsted matched; and the Crimean Hero
had started off, immediately he was up, to
scour Paris with a ball of the rare wool in
his pocket, and the determination to find
one like it at any hazard in his gallant
soul. Aunt Dorothée was in the seclusion
of her own chamber darning pocket-hand-
kerchiefs, or some work of darkness. She
hid and barred herself in to perpetrate
these crimes, for her brother allowed her
enough pin-money to keep ten families in
comfort, and having once discovered a
basketful of stockings she had carefully
mended, had pitched them unhesitatingly
into the fire, and bought her six dozen
pairs of new ones — an act of wastefulness
that had kept her sleepless for a week.
“My child,” began the financier, throw-
ing himself on the sofa beside his daughter,
and speaking much more brusquely than
was his wont, “I hope you feel the impor-
tance of inducing your husband to renounce
£ne Quixotism that is keeping him out of
his estates. That was all very well for a
time, whilst your father-in-law was alive;
but the comedy would turn to a farce if it
were played much longer.”
“I do not think Horace intends it
for a comedy,” observed Angélique, meek-
ly.
“No, but it is one nevertheless ; and now
is the time for you, if you are a woman of
sense, to insist upon your husband doing
what is proper and becoming. You should
direct all your energies towards this object.
What were you reading there 2° and he
took the book she was holding out of her
hands. “‘Wies des Grands Hommes par
Plutarque, Edition expurgée.’ Fancy read-
ing such trash as that I Who cares now
about Epaminondas of Thebes, or Lycurgus
of Lacedaemon 2 Why don’t you take to
Balzac, who painted our own times, and
gives you a glimpse of the world we live in ;
or to M. Gousset's novels He brings us
one every six months, and I’m sure they’re
very good reading. ... Gousset is a witty
fellow; he would enliven you, teach you
what a grande dame should be, and how she
sbould manage her husband.”
f
“It was Horace who reconnended me
to read this book,” said Angélique.
“Then do; but read the others as well
You're not a school-girl now, and your
happiness is in your own hands. What I
tell you is for your good. If a woman can't
do what she likes with her husband, her
life is a blank, and so is his. Men like
being led, and they only like the women
who lead them.”
Angélique sighed.
“I always knew I was not the wife for
Horace,” she said, with sadness.
“Stuff!” answered the financier, bluntly.
“But the way to secure a man's affection
is not to be in perpetual adoration before
him, as before a shrine. A woman must
have spirit, and bring her husband to
respect her. Look at that young Georgette
Pochemolle, whom you took under your
protection, and wanted me to abet in her
husband hunt. She has spirit enough for
two. She had set her cap at your husband,
and would have probably married him if
you hadn’t, and depend upon it that,
counter-girl as she is, she would have twirled
him round her little finger, and been star-
ring it as mistress of Clairefontaine long
before this time.”
“I know she is cleverer than I am,” an-
swered Angélique, wiping some tears, which
had sprung to her eyes. “She would have
made him happier than I do, and I believe
he sees it now.” &
“You are a little goose,” cried M. Ma-
crobe, with anger. “You are in hysterics
because your husband looks dull in your
company, and because it turns out he spent
an afternoon at Meudon last week. But
what rivalry have you got to fear now *
You are married; your husband can’t di-
vorce you; and as for Georgette, she is too
shrewd a girl to become Horace's mistress.
So all the cards are in your hands, and if
your husband finds your company dull, it is
merely because you sit and mope, reading
‘Plutarch's Lives’ instead of being up and
stirring and remembering that you are
Duchess of Hautbourg, and clearing your
husband's mind of that mawkish, cheap-
newspaper philanthropy which has got
there like a cobweb into a knight's helmet.
Lead him, push him to Clairefontaine, girl.
You will make my fortune, and his, and he
will thank you all his life for it.”
This was the first time Angélique had
seen her father so peremptory. His coun-
sels were more often conveyed by hints
than by direct injunctions; and the hints,
though broad, were always given in cl.eer-
ful, sangúine terms, with a kiss to seal them
at the end. But now M. Macrobe gave no
kiss; his words were incisive; the expres-
sion of his face was anxious; and Angélique,
AFFAIRS OF INTEREST AND OF HONOR,
163
as she looked at him through her tears, felt
frightened.
She had not the remotest hope of bring-
ing Horace to do any thing by her own
powers of persuasion, and it was adding to
her miseries to think that her father had
any direct interest dependent upon her
efforts. What could he mean by saying
that she might make his fortune—he who
was so rich already ?
She was pondering over this in helpless
silence, after making the faltering answer
that she would do her best, when M.
Macrobe was summoned away by a servant,
who came to say that Monsieur Drydust
and Monsieur Gousset had called to ask
for news of the Duke of Hautbourg.
For news of the Duke | Why should
they come for news of him 7
Angélique had not seen the telegrams
relative to the disturbance at Brussels, for,
when Horace was not there to tell her what
was in the paper, it was generally her cousin
the Captain who read the chief items of inter-
est to her, and as the Captain was this morn-
ing absent, she had been deprived of this
recreation. But there was something in
the word “news,” as pronounced by the
footman, with an air of bewilderment, as
iſ he only half understood what the two
visitors meant, which startled her.
“What news 2 ” she asked, forgetting, in
her sudden stupor, that she had been cry-
ing, and that her eyes were red.
“The gentlemen said news from Brus-
sels, Madame la Duchesse,” replied the
servant, with hesitation. “They spoke of
an accident.”
“Accident 7” And Angélique rose, her
face abruptly bleached of all its color.
“No, no,” ejaculated M. Macrobe,
motioning to the man to withdraw. But
Angélique was too deeply alarmed to be
thus easily pacified, and though her father
attempted to dissuade her, she followed
him into the drawing-room.
Mr. Drydust and M. Gousset were both
there, dressed in that complimentary mourn-
ing implied by gray gloves, and a hat-band
two inches broad.
They pressed forward with looks of con-
dolence befitting a visit to a house bereaved
of an illustrious member; but M. Gousset
did not open his mouth, for where Mr.
Drydust was, a second spokesman was
superfluous. To do the eminent English-
man justice, however, the sight of the
young wife in her woeful crape dress, and
with her terrified countenance, for a mo-
ment paralyzed even his eloquent tongue.
But perceiving that there would, after all,
be more cruelty in remaining silent than
in speaking, he launched forth and de-
scribed, with picturesque vividness, just as
he had done it already for the behoof of
the readers of his penny paper, the scene at
Brussels on the preceding day, the fine-
ness of the weather, the speeches at the
cemetery, the appearance of Albi, his insult
of Horace, the tussle of the two men at the
graveside (at which Angélique turned icy
cold), and the final climax where both had
been dragged out of the pit, bleeding, and
half-stunned by the fall. Then had followed,
it seems, an indescribable uproar — a tumult
of shouts and excited recriminations. The
great majority, who had not caught the sense
of what Albi had said, looked upon Horace
Gerold as the aggressor. They regarded
his outbreak as a rancorous bit of spite
that, considering the circumstances and the
place, was ignoble and sacrilegious. He
had been hissed as he left the burying-
ground, and the event had thrown the
whole French colony of Brussels into the
wildest state of commotion. But Mr. Dry-
dust knew no more than this, for his im-
portant duties did not allow of his absenting
himself from Paris more than twenty-four
hours, and he had left Brussels by the
evening mail, just hearing, as he departed,
that a meeting had been arranged between
Horace Gerold and Albi for that night or
the morrow morning.
Angélique sank on a sofa fainting, and
some confusion followed with ringing of
bells and racing about to fetch salts and
glasses of water. Mr. Drydust, whilst ex-
periencing an artist’s pride in the effect
his well-told narrative had produced, made
himself useful in prescribing the way in
which the salt-bottle should be held, the
..". of water that should be used to
chafe the temples, and in recapitulating
the symptoms of faintness he had observed
after violent emotions in other people of
his acquaintance. Then, when Angélique
had been so far restored as to be able to
say it was nothing, and that she should be
well again immediately, he offered more
valuable consolation by the remark that
no news was good news, and that if no
tidings had come it was certainly because
no disaster had happened.
“You say the meeting was to take place
last night or this morning?” said Angé-
lique, trembling.
“I think last night, for it was moonlight,
and they would want to get every thing
over before the Belgian police had time to
interfere,” answered Mr. Drydust; “but
this is the more re-assuring as we must have
heard by this time had there been any ac-
cident.”
“Duels between civilians, both ex-
journalists, are not very serious,” put in M.
Gousset, soothingly, with a smile. “I have
been in many of them. We penmen bark
*64
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
more than we bite,” which was an observa-
tion he repented of a moment after, in ree-
ollecting the attair between Horace Gerold
And the unlucky Governument writer Paul
de Cosague.
M. Maerobe was more unsettled by the
intelligenee just brought than he eared to
show ; and asked in a low, quiek voice,
whether Mr. Drydust knew what weapons
had been selected, and who were the see-
onds,
Mr. Drydust did not know about the
weapons, but opined they must have been
sither foils or pistols. His Polish friend,
\'ount Cutandslitski, had fought with a cav-
alry sabre, and he had been present at the
duel of his other friend, El Conde y Colero, y
Mastieados, y Podagras, who had done bat-
tle with his grand-uncle's rapier; but sueh
oeeurrenees were exceptional. As for the
seeends, Mr. Drydust had heard that all the
Liberals, even one of Manuel Gerold's ex-
ecutors, Nestor Roehe, had refused to act
for Horace; but as Jean Kerjou was there,
and had energetieally taken part on Hor-
ace’s side in the Cemetery riot, there was
little doubt that he would be one of the see-
onds, and probably Emile Gerold would be
the other. Mr. Drydust followed up with
a story of his Bavarian friend, Baron
Kortpflaster, who had been attended on
the ground, in an emergeney, by his under-
gardener and his head cook.
* At what time does the next train come
in from Brussels?” inquired Angélique,
resisting her father's advice that she should
go and lie down a little, whilst a telegram
was sent to Brussels with a request for an
immediate answer, if Horace had not al-
ready left.
“I believe a special train was to leave
two hours after midnight, on purpose to
bring back the Parisians who had been to
the funeral; and it ought to be due about
this time,” replied M. Gousset.
“Then let us go to the railway-station,”
pleaded Angélique to her father; “any
thing is better than this suspense.”
M. Macrobe offered no opposition, and
the carriage was ordered. But it was not
required for this journey, for Angélique had
scarcely returned to the drawing-room from
putting on her bonnet, and Mr. Drydust
was still expatiating to the financier on the
possibilities and probabilities connected
with affairs of honor, when the unconscious
cause of all this anxiety, Horace himself,
entered unannounced. He had let himself
in with his latch-key, and was accompanied
by Eunile. His right arm was in a sling.
Angélique started, gave a cry of joy, and —
for the first time in her life — ran forward
to throw herself in his arms. He kissed
her, but coldly; and the poor child thought
*
he looked ten years older than when she
had seen him last. The men clustered
round to shake his hand, and question him
about his wound, which he hastened to de-
clare was a trifle.
“And Albi º 'º asked M. Macrobe, im-
patient to satisfy his curiosity.
Horace threw down his hat, and answered
in a way that made his hearers' flesh creep.
“After my first duel I promised my father,
I would never again take human life.
But I have shattered this man's wrist; and
if ever again he edits a libel about me, it
will not have been penned with his own
hand l’”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SUB ROSA.
THIs second duel was the one thing
wanted to give the definite stamp to IIor-
ace's reputation. The Liberals were unani-
mous in holding that Albi had been as
good as butchered by a bravo; and as
Liberals, being the loudest talkers, gener-
ally end by imposing their opinions on the
rest of the community, so it came to be
generally admitted amongst the public,
that the eldest son of Manuel Gerold was
becoming a dangerous character. At the
Café de Madrid opinions were unshakable
on this point; so unshakable that Horace's
friend Jean Kerjou exchanged warm words
that were nearly begetting warm blows, in
trying to din into an obtuse head that IIor-
ace had been first insulted, and that any-
body else with an ounce of pluck would
have acted as he had done. Of course,
this convinced no one, nor could it be ex-
pected to do so, for the question as to who
was right in the dispute and who wrong
was quite beside the issues of the case.
Albi had obtained twenty thousand opposi-
tion votes at the last election, and Manuel
Gerold's son had suffered himself to be re-
turned in the official interest — these were
the true bases of the problem: and the
conclusions to be drawn from them self-
evident. In picking a quarrel with Albi
and then maiming him, Horace Gerold had
been actuated by the basest motives of per-
sonal vengeance, and all talk about provo-
cation received was so much wantonness,
a slander on the fair fame of an ill-used
Liberal. By the end of a week, there was
a great majority prepared to swear that
Albi had never unsealed his lips by the
grave-side at all; nay, that Horace had
->
•--,
SUB
first invited him to speak, and then clutched
him by the throat as he was going to be-
gin,
As for the government supporters on the
Boulevards and in drawing-rooms, they
waited before expressing an opinion to
hear what the great M. Gribaud would
Say; but that statesman having remarked
hitmorously to somebody: “Ball ! two
lładicals ſight, and one wings the other;
c'est (oujours whe patte de noins,” the fiat
went forth that there was one Radical
paw the less, and that was all. Some
even pretended for a day or two not to
remember which it was that had damaged
the other, a good joke that took very well
in ministerial ante-rooms, and IIorace's
only champions were his fellow deputies,
who from esprit de corps were naturally
pleased that a member of their House
should have bruised one of the outer world;
and the women, who, following the tender
bent of their sex, thought the whole inci-
dent sensational and shocking, but admired
the hero of it, deeming there was some-
thing mediaeval and chivalrous in his readi-
mess to go out and smash a fellow-being's
limbs for a yea or a nay.
The event, however, served to draw
down public attention on IIorace in more
ways than one. It was known that the
Member for Paris inherited a dukedom by
his father's death, and it was said that he
also inherited a large fortune. During
Manuel Gerold’s lifetime the Clairefontaine
mystery, as it was called, occupied few
people, for the reason that society is not
prone to credit particular individuals with
virtues that it does not possess itself as a
body. The construction put upon Manuel
Gerold’s selſ-banishment from Claireſon-
taine was simply that he preferred spend-
ing the revenues of that estate abroad;
and when a few people hinted that the
Republican exile laid out the whole of his
income in charities, society smiled at such
credulity — many answering that it was a
notorious fact that Manuel Gerold owned
a large mansion at Brussels, that he might
be seen driving there any day in a barouche
and four, that they had seen him there
themselves — all of which things were re-
ligiously believed, for if it takes a long
time to make us swallow truth, we gulp
down slander without asking questions.
Now, however, that Manuel Gerold was
dead, and that people could give him his
due without humiliating themselves. Some
began to admit that he had really died in
a garret, and that it was a mistake about
his barouche and four. But this only made
them the more anxious to inquire what his
son was going to do with the ancestral
property; and they kept their eyes upon
&
IROSA, 165
Horace, who, living amongst them, could
not hide his acts under a bushel as his
father did.
“It is all on account of ghosts,” said
Mr. Drydust, conſidentially, to an admiring
circle of listener8. Manuel Gerold was
superstitious. I never knew a Republican
who wasn't — and he believed Clairefon-
taine was haunted. A very curious story,
footsteps heard along the passages at night;
a screech-owl inaking himself unpleasant
at Sunset, and so on. The Marquis of
Stronachlachar, who has a castle in the
Shetlands, told me a story like it. His
great-grandfather comes and bays the moon
seven days out of every month under the
form of a black sheep-dog. The keepers
have orders to let him alone. I shouldn’t
wonder if the screech-owl were a Gerold
who had done something or other in days
gone by. All the old families have an
ancestor or two in trouble.” And satisfied
with having caused the hair of his gentle
hearers to uncurl itself with horror, Mr.
Drydust went home to write an extremely
clever column of ghost legendry, which was
devoured in Islington, Camberwell, and
Upper Peckham ; though the denizens of
these Drydust-worshipping localities were
informed that “my friend the new Duke
of Hautbourg’’ was above being frighten-
ed away from his domain by disagreeable
peculiaritiesjust mentioned, and would prob-
ably hoist his pennon on Clairefontaine
towers before the year was out. In fact,”
concluded Mr. Drydust, “I may inform
you positively that he will do so. It is
already announced that he will stand for
the Hautbourg circumscription at the next
elections; and I am told that the famous
upholsterers, the Messrs. Palissandre, have
been sent to the Castle to refurnish it from
roof to basement. Perhaps some of my
letters to you next autumn will be dated
thence, as I count on going there for a few
days’ shooting.”
It would have greatly relieved M. Ma-
crobe to be as positive about all this as the
English correspondent, for the financier
was beginning to see that a great deal
more hinged upon his son-in-law's resolu-
tions than ever he had intended should be
the case. The Crédit Parisien had been
struck a blow in the dark — a vital blow
that astounded M. Macrobe by its sudden-
ness and alarming effects — and the ques-
tion was now coming to this : — that unless
Horace did what was required of him, and
did it quickly, so as to place himself on a
vantage-ground whence peace could be
made on beneficial terms with M. Gribaud,
the Crédit Parisien might crash down and
involve its chairman in its utter ruin. Bit-
terly did the latter now curse himself for
166
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
the unguarded display of temper by which
he had exposed himself to the animosity of
the powerful Minister of an autocratic
Sovereign. But even the shrewdest of us
commit blunders, and M. Macrobe in that
precipitate moment, when he defied M.
. Gribaud, really fancied he was the stronger.
He had not given himself the time to reflect
that all the influential men who supported
the Crédit Parisien were the abject menials
of their despotic chief, and that just as in
their own interest they had founded the
Crédit Parisien, so in their own interest
they would desert it at the first frown of
the man who held their political destinies
in his hands. The financier saw this now,
when it was too late. The credit of the
Company was not yet shaken amongst the
bulk of the shareholders; there had been
no public panic, but all the principal
holders of scrip were quietly withdrawing
their stake in the game. It was like the
departure of the rats before the crew of the
sinking vessel have yet perceived the leak.
Then, there was the more serious symptom
of the breaking off of the bargain concern-
ing that land which was to have been sold
to Government for magazine building. The
land had been bought at a high price under
the certainty that the tax-payer would be
made to purchase it for three times the
sum given; but if this arrangement were
cancelled, the Company must either re-sell
the land —and there was little chance of
their obtaining for it the sum they had paid
— or build upon it at their own risks, that
is, at obvious loss, for the quarter was not
a likely one for building speculations.
Anyhow, therefore, the operation would
bear an ugly look in the next statement to
the shareholders —those statements which
the chairman was wont to make from an
enthusiastic platform to an audience wild
with confidence and delight ! Yes, there
was ruin lurking under those rocks ahead,
towards which the gale he had invoked
was driving the financier; though by ruin
must not be understood in this case pecu-
niary destitution, for the chairman of the
Crédit Parisien had taken good care that
whatever befell the Company he himself
should always remain well provided for.
But the collapse of the Crédit Parisien
would damage him morally, wreck all the
ambitious schemes that were his passion ;
and under the circumstances his position
would perhaps be worse than if he was
beggared. For when a man of restless
mood has more money than he wants, cares
nothing for love, has no artistic tastes, and
is so far shattered in reputation as to find
the road to all the honors he covets hope-
lessly closed to him, what has he to live
for 2
Horace would have pitied his father-in-
law if he could have divined the sickening
anxiety that was gnawing at his heart.
But the financier cloaked his feelings so
that there was nothing of them visible in
his face. Only he was more deferential
with Horace than ever; agreed emphati-
cally in all he said, and in the matter of
the duel especially gave his approval with-
out stint, in a hearty, admiring way, which
was imitated in various keys by all the
members of the household circle. Horace,
however, abstained from all mention of
the subject that was pre-occupying so many
heads, both under the Microbe roof and
without it. He threw, indeed, a ray of
hope across the financier's path by an-
nouncing proprio motu, on his return from
Brussels, that he should accept the offer
of the Hautbourg citizens; but allusions
to Clairefontaine seemed tacitly adjourned
until the day when the agent to the estate
should pay the quarter's rents into the
hands of Mºs Lecoq, Roderheim and
Macrobe, and when the latter would have
to ask in his banking capacity what was to
be done with the money. It was Manuel
Gerold who had always disposed of the
funds hitherto; for, notwithstanding the
deed of gift, his sons had insisted upon
charging him with this trust; but for the
future Horace and Emile were the masters,
and the payments would be made in their
name. M. Macrobe looked forward to this
day of rent much as a criminal does to his
trial. &
Meanwhile, he one evening received a
call from M. Louchard. That functionary
had not been sent for, but sneaked in at
nightfall with a false beard on, and giving
a card with a fictitious name on it to the
servant. A few pencil hieroglyphics on
the back of the card, however, revealed his
identity to M. Macrobe, and he was at once
admitted into the financier's study.
He never looked at peace with himself,
did this official, and on the present occasion
he was more than usually agitated, as though
he had been followed all the way from the
Rue de Jerusalem by one of his own men,
and expected to be apprehended by the
neck. On the other hand, the troubled .
glance he cast at M. Macrobe, and the
dishevelled appearance of his spurious
black beard might have given one to sup-
pose that he had private orders to arrest
the financier and did not like the job.
“M. Macrobe,” he began, removing the
spectacles that encumbered his eyesight,
and staring in alarm at the financier, “ you
have been quarrelling with M. Gribaud 2 ”
“Yes. #. do you know it, and what
are your instructions with regard to me?”
answered M. Macrobe calmly.
-- ' STJB ROSA.
167
“Not many instructions about you, sir,”
rejoined the Director of Police, making as
if he would remove his beard also, but, on
second thoughts, allowing it to remain, as
not easy to re-fix. “Not many instructions
about you, but we are to send down five
men to Hautbourg to sap your son-in-law's
candidature.”
“That is, to tell lies about him 7”
“Well, M. Macrobe, you know how we
generally work in such cases. We must
say as much good as possible about the
official candidate, and spread all the ru-
mors we can about his opponent.”
“What kind of rumors, for instance 2"
“It all depends on the locality, on the
character of the candidate, and on that of
the electors,” said M. Louchard piteously.
“What answers in one case will not always
do in the other. This time we have to
whisper that your son-in-law is stingy, that
he is a Radical who hoards up all his
money, and will never go to live at Claire-
fontaine because of the expense it would
entail. Also, that he doesn't pay his bills,
and one of our agents is to pretend to be a
small tradesman who has had a debt owing
to him for years. This will disgust the
men. Then, to put the women against
him, we have got to report that—I beg
your pardon, sir — that he drinks, and
beats his young wife; that he seduced a
girl in Paris, and deserted her with her
child, refusing to give her a centime; and
that he killed two poor men in duels, leav-
ing their wives with children to bring up
and no money to do it with. Then we
should urge that if the official candidate
were elected, he would buy Clairefontaine
of the new duke, and hold high state there,
which, being a rich man, he can afford to
do.”
M. Macrobe quietly went to his bureau,
unlocked a pigeon-hole, and fingered some
bank-notes.
“What is the pay of the five men who
are to do this work 2 °
“Bribery is not possible here,” answered
M. Louchard, with a shake of the head.
“Besides, it would be of no use, for the
mayors of all the communes, the priests,
the justices of the peace, the schoolmasters,
will every one of them be against Monsieur
le, Duc. An election in the country is not
the same thing as one in Paris. If I were
M. le Duc I would retire. The defeat will
be certain.”
“Here are ten thousand francs,” re-
marked M. Macrobe, paying no heed to
what the other was saying. “If I thought
they would be of no use I shouldn’t give
them you. The five men must be bought,
and, instead of running down the Duke
of Hautbourg, they must malign his adver-
sary. Now tell me about the prefect. What
sort of a 'man is he 7”
“H'm, one of the usual sort,” replied M.
Louchard, not resisting above a quarter of
a minute to the temptation of the notes.
“He has nothing but his pay, thinks a good
deal of himself, and is an ass. He used to
be a journalist.”
“I fancy I remember the man. Used to
be in the Republican press, then became
one of Guizot's semi-officials; after '51
found himself a Bonapartist.”
“Those men are expensive to bribe when
they get to be prefects,” observed M. Lou-
chard, despondingly. “His salary is thirty
thousand francs, and M. Gribaud’s rule is
inflexible. A prefect who lets a mem-
ber of the Opposition through loses his
place.” -
“Well, listen, Louchard,” said the finan.
cier, sinking his tone and speaking quickly.”
“Gribaud trusts you, and you have power.
I have put you in the way of a fair number
of good things since we first became ac-
quainted, but all that is nothing to what
you will reap if you serve me in this. I
must win this election; — do you under-
stand, I must 2 Now manage in your own
way. Give the prefect his price, and tell
him we’ll see he doesn’t lose his place
Buy the sub-prefect of the arrondissement,
and as many priests and Schoolmasters as
you may deem it worth while. I don't care
much about the mayors, for country mayors
are dolts, and obey either the vicar or the
school-teacher, whichever happens to have
the most intriguing head-pieceſſ. But cajole
the women. Women are the hinges of the
political door, it won't swing to order with-
out their help. As to money, I give you
earte blanche : and, if we win, your own
fee, mind, is five thousand napoleons.”
M. Louchard was unnerved. -
“If we fail it shall not be for want of ef-
forts,” stuttered he, drawing out the pock-
et-handkerchief, which was the signal he
hoisted in cases of mastering emotion.
“Yes, but we musn't fail. You must go
to work as I’ve seen the Government do in
past elections. There's no Opposition pa-
per in Hautbourg, of course. You must
supply the deficiency with lampoons against
the other man. Circulate them widely,
slily; have them pasted everywhere in the
villages, scattered broadcast in the fields —
good, unscrupulous, plain-spoken lampoons,
such as the peasants will understand and
commit to memory. Those were capital
lampoons your office circulated against that
Orleanist count who contested the Charente
last year.”
“Ay, they were, and they almost drove
the man mad,” exclaimed M. Louchard,
brightening at the recollection. “It’s a
168
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
very clever fellow who writes them. He is
one of our jays.”
“One of your — ?” -
“I beg your pardon ; ”— and M. Lou-
chard grinned slightly — “jay is the name
we give to the writers of the Opposition
press who are in our pay, and whose busi-
ness it is to sow dissensions in the other
camp by accusing the foremost men in the
party of being backsliders. The trade re-
quires talent. One of the jays shall do
us these lampoons. The work will be the
easier here, as the Duke's opponent is a
stranger to Hautbourg, and there will be no
prejudices in his favor to overcome.”
“Who is he 7” asked M. Macrobe, with-
out interest, for official candidates were
generally the personages of least impor-
tance in the contests to which they lent
their names.
“Why, it's the Prince of Arcola. Has
it not appeared in the papers yet 7”
The financier dropped a packet of letters
he was holding.
“The Prince of Arcola, l’” he echoed,
pensively. “What can this mean?
he is one of the Duke’s intimate friends.”
“He may have been, M. Macrobe; but
the friendship has cooled now,” answered
the police director glumly. “I heard from
M. Gribaud’s own lips that the Prince owed
a grudge to the Duke of Hautbourg and
would fight him hotly; and a lady who
notes for our office—I may as well give
you the name: it's Mame. de Masseline —
told me that the grudge is one with a wo-
man at the “bottom of it. Stay, I have it
on paper” — M. Louchard drew out a
dingy pocket-book and read: “‘ When
Deputy Horace Gerold lived Rue Ste. Gene-
viève, seduced daughter of his landlord, dra-
per Pochemolle. Name of girl Georgette.
N. S.; ' this means that there was no scan-
dal, that the neighbors didn't get wind of
it. ‘P. of A. took a fancy to Georg. I. I. : ’
that is, in all innocence. ‘Proposed to her
and was refused. Bec. mist. 1st lov. : * be-
cause she is still the mistress of her first
lover. ‘ K. Meudon, styl. dec. 2 par. 1 bro.
= resp.: ’ he keeps her at Meudon, in a be-
coming style, and she has her parents and
her brother living under the same roof with
her for respectability's sake.”
M. Louchard closed his pocket-book, and
restored it to its lair, without appearing to
reflect that there was any thing in his com-
munication of a nature to jar upon a fa-
ther’s ears. “This accounts for the Prince
of Arcola’s animosity,” he added, sapiently.
“He is a very proud nobleman, and doesn’t
like to be crossed.”
M. Macrobe had stood staring whilst M.
Louchard read his memorandum. He was
inclined to credit every word of it; but the
Why,
circumstances unfolded rather astonished
than shocked him, for he was too much of a
Frenchman and too little of a moralist to
be over-scandalized at his son-in-law's keep-
ing a mistress. What he ruminated was
how the intelligence could be made to serve
his own particular ends; and this pre-occu-
pation took shape in his next words.
“Do you know whether, the Duke goes
often to Meudon : "
“I do not, M. Macrobe,” answered M.
Louchard, “but we could easily find out.”
“Yes, I wish you would. Set a man to
watch when he visits there, and drop me a
line. As for the election, all that I have
said before holds good. Commence opera-
tions at once, and ply your money clever-
l .”
*M. Macrobe had a second recourse to the
pigeon-hole, and M. Louchard, for the sec-
ond time, drew out his handkerchief.
“There's not a person in the world I
would do this for but you,” said he, evident-
ly anxious to compound a little with his
own conscience. “You act very generous-
ly, M. Macrobe, and the pay at the Rue de
Jerusalem is not good; indeed, I should
have retired ere this, but for expecting the
cross of honor and a small pension at the
end of my twenty years' service. I risk
both those, and my liberty as well, by do-
ing this.”
“Nothing venture, nothing have, Lou-
chard; but you will lose nothing if you be-
stir }. at your best.”
“I will forward you daily reports of the
progress we make,” said the police-direct-
or; and with a new attempt at self-com-
pounding, he added: “After all, I shall be
acting according to my own convictions in
helping the Duke of Hautbourg. I am of
his opinion in politics. I don’t like M.
Gribaud.”
“You are a Liberal, then, Louchard 2 ”
“Yes, and have been from father to son,”
replied the other, innocently; “and I ad-
mire M. de Hautbourg for his spirits, I
was at Brussels the other day in a profes-
sional capacity, and saw the fight in the
cemetery. It was like a bull-dog shaking a
pole-cat. M. de Hautbourg was very near
shaking me once in that way; but I have
forgiven that little unpleasantness: we
were both doing our duty on that occa-
sion.”
There was a few more minutes’ business
conversation, after which M. Louchard
made his bow. But on the point of regain-
ing the door he turned round abruptly and
ejaculated, “By the by, I was very nearl
forgetting another matter—the Crédit Pari-
sien.”
“What about the Crédit Parisien 7” re-
turned M. Macrobe, sharply. .
INTER
POCULA. 169
“Well, nothing that concerns me, sir;
for when you were obliging enough to let
me have those shares, I sold out six months
after, as you directed me, and made a good
deal by your advice. But I rather fancy
M. Gribaud has quarrelled with the Crédit
Parisien as well as with you; and I thought
you might like being warned.”
“What makes you think this?”
“Oh, there are signs by which to detect
it !” and M. Louchard's false beard smiled.
“At the central telegraph station the C. P.
telegrams had precedence of all except
those of the Government; now, they are
made to take their chance with the ruck.
Then we have our secret inspector of the
Bourse, who is a barometer in financial
matters. Not so long ago he scowled at
one of his subs for saying that the Crédit
Parisien was like an over-blown balloon,
and would burst some morning; yesterday
that same sub remarked that the Crédit
Parisien was certainly the best thing in the
money market, and the barometer scowled
again.”
“The Crédit Parisien is a granite rock,”
said M. Macrobe, dismissing his interlocu-
tor, “and next time you have money to
spare buy shares in it and keep them.
Good evening, Louchard.
about setting one of your men to watch
when my son-in-law goes to Meudon.”
The door closed behind M. Louchard,
and the financier was left to his reflections.
“My son-in-law is a better comedian than
I imagined,” he muttered. “Fancy his be-
ing able to keep a mistress within a year
of his marriage, and whilst living under my
roof, without my suspecting it! Well,
there's comfort to be drawn from the fact
in one way. If he makes so light of altar
vows, he's not likely to let himself be ham-
pered long by his late father's crotchets.”
But M. Macrobe wished to make certain
that there was no mistake in this, so he
went and found Horace, and said to him at
once, without preliminaries, “I have just
been told the name of your opponent: it's
the Prince of Arcola. Have you quarrelled
with him 2 They say he is very bitter
against you.”
Horace colored, and the reply he made
was stammered. The fact is, he felt sur-
prised; but M. Macrobe not unnaturally
set it down to guilt. “Louchard was
right,” said the financier to himself, whilst
a gleam of genuine satisfaction lit up his
face. “Well now, my son-in-law, this is
lucky, for we can oblige you to do what we
desire. A man who wants to seem pure in
public life must begin by being so in pri-
vate. You shall take us all to Clairefon-
taine before long, or else you will have to
reckon with me as your wife's ſather.”
Don't forget
CHAPTER XXXV.
INTER POCULA,
UNCONSCIous of his father-in-law's sus-
picions, unconscious of his wife's drift in
recurring daily, with timid persistence, to
the subject of Clairefontaine, unmindful
of that pensive melancholy which was be-
coming her habitual mood, and which would
have excited the anxiety of a more vigilant
husband, Horace was wrapt in a state of
mind that was none of the brightest. He
was conscious of not being happy, of being
on the brink of decisive events, and he
asked himself with uncertainty in his heart
what he should do next. A problem which
only the weak pore over, for the strong
solve it at once by instinctive action.
There were few places more propitious
for strolling reveries than the equestrian
alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, at that
period of the Second Empire when artistic
designs and irresponsible control of the
municipal budget had made of that suburban
wood the modern garden of Eden. Horace
often rode there of an early morning, whilst
the fawns and dryads that haunt the syl-
van scene in the later day — vulgo the
demi-monde and its worshippers — were
yet a-sleeping. It was pleasant to amble
up the shady avenue of the Triumphal Arch
whilst M. Haussmann's watermen were lay-
ing the dust with their flexible tubes, whilst
the milk-carts rattled into Paris with their
hosts of tin cans, whilst the air was fresh,
and the singing of the birds as yet un-
drowned by the voices of men. In the
wood itself the lilacs put forth their first
tender shoots, the drooping laburnums gave
early promise of golden blossoms, the
spreading chestnuts ahead of their brother
trees dotted the spongy sand of the rows
with white flowerlets like snow-flakes.
Horace had all the alleys to himself. Not
a human being visible, save the wood-keep-
ers, who, however, are not human, belong-
ing to the genus functionary; or here and
there a matutinal British colonist galloping
away his spleen, according to French no-
tions, or simply giving himself an appetite
for breakfast, if we accepted his own view
of the case.
The environs of Paris on the outskirts
of the Bois de Boulogne are so picturesque
and varied, that Horace might have struck
out a ride of new interest for himself every
morning; and, as a matter of fact, he did
spur forward now in one direction, now in
another. But no matter what the line
might be that he took up on starting, the
end of his ride always brought him back
to the same point, and that point was Meu-
don,
170
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
He would ride past the house where
Georgette lived, or rein up his horse under
a clump of trees, and survey it from a dis-
tance. He loved Georgette; there was no
rooting up that passion from his heart; it
had sprung like a weed, and like a weed it
grew, steadily and irrepressibly. At least,
irrepressibly in this sense, that he made no
attempt to check it. He let it quietly in-
tertwine itself with all his thoughts, and if,
perchance, remorseful promptings crept up
as thorns beside the weed, and threatened
to choke it, it was the thorns and not the
weed which he pulled up and cast aside.
It seems a dismal thing that bad passions
should thrive so luxuriantly when good ones
are often so slow to take germ; but so it is
all the world over; and in loving a woman
of whom he had no business to think —
between whom and him stood the most
sacred barrier that laws and custom could
interpose — Horace was only pointing the
old but eternally true story of the forbidden
fruit.
It would have been fair to suppose that
the contempt with which Georgette had
treated him in that short, violent scene,
which formed the subject of his bitter mus-
ings at Brussels, would have helped to ex-
tinguish his senseless passion. But when
did vitriol ever quench fire ? Smarting
under the lash of the girl's reproaches, stung
to fury by the falseness of her accusation,
he had in a first paroxysm repaid anger
with anger, invective with invective; but
onee this outbreak over, he had felt more
drawn than ever towards the woman who
spurned him. Georgette seemed to rise
above him in her indignation, and to be
only the more fascinating. Horace was too
morally weak himself to admire weakness
in woman. Nevertheless he prowled about
her abode without daring to go in. He
would have had a pretext for a visit, for the
draper and his son had made a special jour-
ney to Brussels to attend Manuel Gerold's
funeral, and courtesy required that he
should thank them. But he left cards.
When the servant opened the door, and he
was about to dismount, he abruptly changed
his mind, and gave himself as an excuse
that it was too early for a call, it being ten
o'clock. Perhaps what he trusted to most
was a chance encounter. He might meet
her one day going to visit a neighbor or to
mass. Then he would speak to her, apolo-
gize for his insults; exculpate himself from
the charges she had brought against
him; say all that men do say who wish
to persuade a woman that they love her.
And Horace had a presentiment, that
if he could obtain a meeting he should
be listened to ; at least in silence, for he
knew this much of human nature — that
where indignation is very strong in wo.
man, love is not quite dead; there is a
spark still smouldering, which can, with a
little effort, be revived into flame. So to in-
crease the probabilities of his chance rencon-
tre, Horace insensibly lingered a little later
every morning about Meudon, and some-
times would find himself there long after
the hour at which he usually breakfasted.
This occurred a few mornings after he had
heard from M. Macrobe that the Prince of
Arcola had become his fºe, Looking at the
clock of the Meudon mairie as he rode down
the trim main street of that toy-village, he
saw it was nearing eleven. Upon which he
did as was his wont when he had tarried
too long — put up at the chief restaurant of
Meudon, to ...; a small hotel and stabling
were attached, committed his hack to an
ostler, and ordered breakfast for himself.
It was a charmingly fresh restaurant,
with its pink and white awning outside,
shading a row of white marble tables, where
easy Meudonites were sipping coffee, bit-
ters, and reading those spicy collections
of false news, mad leaders and improper
anecdotes called French papers. Within,
more Meudonites were discussing déjeúners
à la fourchette at three francs a head, wine
included, and chatting in a neighborly way
to one another from their respective tables,
for all seemed to know each other in the
little place, and it was the running fire of
familiar inquiries, such as “How are your
crocuses coming up this year, M. Mar-
chagy 2" “Captain, I noticed your syr-
ingas over the hedge coming along. How
do you manage to make 'em bud so early 2”
&c., &c. And presiding over this scene
of comfortable retired tradesmen and half-
pay officers, a smart dame du comptoir in
flounces, jewelry, and a slight suspicion of
rouge, who favored Horace with a gracious
bow as he entered, and nodded to a waiter
to hasten and dance attendance on him.
Horace liked this rural restaurant, be-
cause he was not known there, which was
more than he could have said in any public
place within Paris, where he cºld scarcely
have presented himself since his last duel
without being mobbed as a curiosity. He
gave his hat and riding-whip to the waiter,
who, in a trice, had set a table for him,
planted a swimming butter-boat and pink
radishes on it, and thrust the menu into his
hands. A French waiter always does this
with a glib accompaniment of the names of
dishes ready, or likely to be so, within
twenty minutes; and thus did this waiter,
rattling out his items with a jerky action of
the head and many interrogatory pauses,
But Horace was not fated to breakfast alone,
for at this moment a lanky figure emerged
from a corner somewhere, stalked giggling
INTER
171
POCULA.
across the room, and put out a moist hand
to be squeezed.
It was M. Alcibiade Pochemolle.
Now, if there was a person in the world
who evoked conflicting emotions in Horace's
breast, it was this M. Alcibiade. When
Horace thought of Georgette, it was to ask
himself whether he would not have done
better to marry her; but when his eyes fell
upon M. Alcibiade, the reflection that arose
was that, if he had married Georgette, this
well-meaning but utterly insupportable
youth would have been his brother. How-
ever, as the paw was there, no course lay
open but to squeeze it, and the ceremony
was performed with a tolerably successful
pretence at cordiality. For this once—
and, probably, by accident — M. Alcibiade
looked almost a gentleman, being devoid of
the scarlet and green scarfs, and the ex-
cessive hair-oil which were his customary
adornments. It transpired later that he
had been taking a bath in the river, and
considered himself only half-dressed.
“Been up to the house, M. Horace—a —
Monsieur le Duc 2’’ he giggled, spasmodi-
cally. “No” Then come to have a chop
here * That's what I was just going to
order myself.”
This was apparently designed for a timid
hint, and Horace foreseeing that if not invit-
ed M. Alcibiade might possibly invite him-
self, suggested they could both take their
chops together. At the same time, not
desirous of being seen publicly banqueting
with M. Alcibiade, he remarked on the
advantages of a private room, and the waiter
was bidden to show them to such a one.
“Yes, a private room's more stylish,”
approved M. Alcibiade, raising himself with
some little awe on his boot-tips, as if Sud-
denly mistrustful whether the number of his
inches qualified him for lunching in private.
“But stay, though; I mustn't forget, I expect
a friend here by and by. You won’t mind
his being sent up to our private room, Mon-
sieur le Duc * *
And M. Alcibiade articulated the words,
“Monsieu: le Duc,” in an audibly stam-
mered tone, with the intention of impres-
sing them upon the waiter, who pricked up
his ears.
But the waiter and the rest of the com-
pany were much more impressed upon when
M. Alcibiade pursued, with the nervous
boldness of one who makes a successful
maiden-speech in public, “I say, waiter, a
gentleman will be asking for me here, pres-
ently. His name's M. de Filoselle. When
he comes, you’ll show him up to the private
room where I and my friend the Duke of
Hautbourg will be eating. Mind you don't
make a mistake.”
Had the Czar of all the Muscovies or the
Schah of all the Persiad been announced,
their names could not have produced a more
galvanic effect. Every fork stopped mid-
way to every mouth ; every bottle paused
at half-cock in replenishing every glass;
the smart lady at the counter made a Sud-
den blot with the pen where with she was
adding up a bill; and Horace passed through
the public room, up to the staircase leading
to the Cabinets Particuliers, between two
rows of fixed eyeballs, like a cutter running
the blockade of a double row of forts.
When he had vanished there was a buzz,
as of many startled wasps.
“That's the member for Paris.”
“Horace Gerold, the new Duke of Haut-
bourg, who winged the Revolutionist the
other day.”
“He doesn’t look a very pleasant cus
tomer, with those black clothes of his, and
that frowning face,” remarked an ex-blanket
vendor, rather scared.
“He is very handsome,” put in the Smart
lady of the counter, scratching out her blot.
“I guessed he must be somebody when he
first came here.” &
“Don’t say but he hasn’t good looks; but
what a proud face to him —just as if he was
ready to stick one through for a nothing, *
commented another dealer, also rather
scared, and late in the pickle way.
“I’ve seen him riding about here pretty
often lately,– fine nag,” observed a retired
captain, cross of the Legion of Honor, hair
clipped into bristles, purple physiognomy.
“So have I,” assented he of the ex-
pickles.
“Did you say he rode about here every
day?” quickly inquired a sociable stranger,
who had entered the restaurant very soon
after Horace, and seemed smilingly anxious
to strike up a conversation.
“I didn't say every day, but I might have
done it,” returned the captain, with a praise-
worthy regard for exactness. “The fact is,
the Duke has been here every day this past
fortnight or more, I do believe.”
“Ah, dear me !” said the sociable stran-
ger, and he began assaulting a bifleck with
great vigor. Nobody knew the affable
gentleman, but it was noticed by and by that
he somehow persisted in lingering over his
finished breakfast until the Duke of Haut-
bourg had gone. Then he jumped up, went
out and looked very much as if he were fol-
lowing the young nobleman.
Meanwhile, M. Alcibiade, always gig-
gling and moist, was doing the best honor
in his power to the breakfast which Horace
had ordered, and ingurgitating Rhine wine
with the admirable confidence of those who
are unused to that class of beverage. He
drank it in tumblers: “For,” said he prac-
tically, “ those 'ere long-stemmed glasses
172
THE MEMBER For PARIS
do slip about so in your fingers:” which
was true enough, for one of the long-
stemmed glasses had slipped about so from
his fingers on to the floor.
“So you expect Monsieur Filoselle 7”
remarked Horace, as M. Alcibiade poured
down his fourth tumbler.
“Yes, M. Horace — I mean, M. le Duc.
This 'ere fizzing hock's good stuff, I've
never tasted any of it before,” and he
smacked his lips. -
“Pray let me fill your glass.”
“Don’t mind if I do, M. Horace—I beg
pardon. I wish I could get into the way
of calling you M. le Duc.”
“Call me M. Horace. I prefer it.”
“Oh, no that would never do; a duke's
a duke, - hang it ! — and it's not every
day I get the treat of breakfasting with
one, or off such a feed as this. What did
you say this here dish was, salmis of
pheasant Devilish good l But, as you
was asking, M. le Duc, I expect Filoselle.
And I’ll tell you, - I don't mind telling you,
for you’ll keep a secret — me and him is
mounting a plot.”
“A plot ?”
“Ay” (down went tumbler number
five); “you know Filoselle was spoony off
my sister. I don't mind Filoselle; he's
not of our rank, for we’re rentiers, and he's
obliged to work for his bread: but he's a
good fellar. When we used to be at the
shop, and I was in my school-days, he used
to tip me a map. now and then when I was
hard up. I don’t want any of 'em now ;
I've got plenty of cash" (M. Alcibiade
slapped the twin pockets of his trousers,
and some loose silver and copper therein
liſted up their jingling voices in testimony).
“But all the same, I remember what Filo-
selle did for me, and one good turn deserves
another. Well, Filoselle thinks he’s been
treated shabbily because he was cut out by
the Prince of Arcola. You’ve heard about the
Prince proposing to Georgette. No 2 Tiens
c'est drôle, I thought the Prince might have
told you, per'aps, being your friend. Well,
he did ; he proposed ; came down in the
nobbiest trap you ever saw, in black togs,
with his decorations, and pink stockings to
his footman's legs, quite the swell. And as
I said to Filoselle, ‘You couldn't expect,
old chap, we should think about you when
we had a chance of making Georgette a
Princess. Bis'ness is bis'ness, hang it.
However, Georgette refused the Prince —
slap-up she did — told him she wouldn’t
have him.”
M. Alcibiade heaved a chagrined sigh
that degenerated into a hiccough. Horace
was paying the keenest attention.
“Yes, refused him,” continued M. Alci-
biade, lugubriously. “It was a shocking
sell for us all. Mother she became yaller
as a quince; father took it better — said
something about its serving us right; but I
didn’t like it better than mother, for I’d
already cut off and told some chaps about
it's being cock sure; and when they see me
now some of 'em says, ‘’Ow about the
Prince 2' which, you know, isn't pleasant
for a fellºr.”
M. Alcibiade made an abrupt effort to
reach the hock bottle, but only succeeded
in knocking over the salt-cellar.
“Allow me,” said Horace, replenishing
his guest’s glass, though not without some
apprehension, for the sparkling iced liquid
was beginning to produce its effect on M.
Alcibiade's manner, but especially on his
countenance.
“How hot it is l’exclaimed the latter,
when his sixth tumbler had gone at one
gulp the way of the fifth; and he drew out
his handkerchief to fan himself. As he did
so a key fell out of his pocket on to the
carpet. g
Horace picked it up and restored it to
him.
“This is yours, I think?” •
“Oh, thank you, M. le Ducl—(hiccough)
— I mushn’ lose that. Admits into our
house and garden. It's my latch-key, that
I let myself in with when I go to Paris on
a spree, and don't return —(hiccough, grin
and wink)—t —t — till morning.”
The impressed waiter here entered after
the cannon-ball manner of his kind, cleared
away the salmi and broken salt-cellar, in-
troduced omelette soufflée, Roquefort cheese
and pulled bread, and vanished with an
order for coffee, chartreuse, and cigars.
Whilst he was in the room M. Alcibiade
endeavored to maintain a dignified attitude,
which resulted in his almost rolling off his
chair and having to be propped up. When
the waiter was gone, he fell to on the ome-
lette and remarked perplexedly on the
giddying properties of fresh air, which had
almost knocked him off his chair just now.
He rallied at the coffee, perhaps under the
influence of a giant glass of Seltzer-water,
which Horace counselled him to take ; and
having inserted a flat panatella screw-wise
into the corner of his mouth, and begun to
suck it as if it were a stick of liquorice,
showed himself disposed for more talk.
“You were telling me about the interest-
ing plot between yourself and M. Filoselle,”
said Horace, handing him a lighted match
for his cigar.
“Ha! I've got to go on with that — let's
see where I was — I was saying how that
silly girl shad refused the Prince —yes,
that's it — and how the chaps was chaffing
me, which wasn’t pleasant,” resumed M,
Alcibiade, with intermingled hiccoughing
INTER POCULA,
173
and puffing. “Well, we was down in the
mouth for a good ten days afterwards, ask-
ing ourselves what she should be so stoopid
for, and hoping she would think better of
it, and send back for the Prince, but she
didn’t, but only moped and cried by her-
self. And then came your father's funeral,
M. le Duc, to which me and the guv'nor
both went, because M. Gerold (hiccough)
once saved the guv'nor's life, and gratitude,
as the guv'nor says, ought to come as regu-
lar after a good deed, as profits after a good
investment. We was at the cemetery, M.
le Duc, me and the guv'nor (hiccough), and
we was quite close when you grabbed hold
of that radical cove by the throstle and
tort him to behave himself by rolling him
into the pit and yourself on to the top of him.
And we waited in Brussels till next day to
hear what would come of it, and me and
the guv'nor was precious glad when we
heard that you’d spoilt his fin for him so
that he wouldn’t jaw away out of his turn
again.” (Two consecutive hiccoughs. M.
Alcibiade struck a match to relight his
panatella, which had gone out.) 2
“M. Filoselle was at the funeral too. Is
that what you were going to say?” inter-
rupted Horace, frowning slightly, and with
Some impatience.
“Ha! I was coming to that. Yes, M. le
Duc, that's just it. We met Filoselle there,
too, glum and genteel in his black clothes,
but he made believe to be short-sighted and
stared the other wav when we passed (hic-
cough), and I don’t believe he’d have spo-
ken to us at all, if the guv'nor hadn’t waited
for him afterwards, and held out his hand
and asked him to make it up; for the guv'-
nor always stuck by Filoselle. Filoselle
hesitated a bit, but then gave in and asked
how Georgette was, in a stiff-starched voice
like. But when he heard how Georgette
had turned the Prince off— for the guv'nor
spouted it all out— (hiccough), he bright-
ened up — my eye how he did brighten up,
and you couldn’t have seen him happier if
he'd become emperor. “Ah, my adored
Georgette l’ shouted he, right out aloud; ‘I
knew you’d remain faithful to your’Ector;”
then he almost blubbed, and so did the
guv'nor (hiccough), saying nothing ever
came of turning off one man to try and get
a better one; and as I knew it was no good
hoping to make Georgette understand rea-
son, now, I said the same thing, and we all
went and dined together, Filoselle standing
treat, for he said he'd been earning cash
by the heaps lately. And when the sweets
was on the table — compote d'ananas and
such like — the guv'nor (hiccough) drank
Filoselle's health, and said that all might
come right yet, and then us three — me,
the guv'nor and him—mounted that plot
of ours, which is to help Filoselle to get
married, as if nothing had happened.”
“How so?” Horace's eyes peered anx-
iously into the besotted physiognomy oppo-
site him.
“Oh, it’s like this, (puff-hiccough-puff)
Georgette only told mother, but not father
why she had refused the Prince, but father
knows it was because she loved somebody
else; and that somebody else can only be
Filoselle, as he says, and Filoselle is of the
same opinion. But mother wouldn't hear
talk of Filoselle yet, for she's too sore about
the Prince, and maybe she hopes he'll still
come back and get Georgette to accept
him — which 'ud be stunning, but too good
to be true. So I come here twice a week
to meet Filoselle, and take letters from him
to Georgette and bring back the answers.
This here cigar of mine won't keep alight,
(hiccough) — this is the second time I’ve
come. I took a letter last time, and I bring
back the answer to-day. That is, I don’t
bring one, for there wasn't any.”
“There was no answer ?”
“No,” M. Alcibiade grinned, hiccoughed,
and put on an arch leer. “Georgette
seemed surprised when she got the letter,
but that of course was all gammon, such as
girls love to play. She won’t give me an
answer just yet, but by and by she will ; and
meantime I’ll warrant she'll get talking
mother round on the sly, as Filoselle advises
her to do in the letter. My eye, Filoselle
does love her, and if you want to see a
chap spoony, look at him — he says that the
girl who'll turn off a Prince to keep faith-
ful to the man she likes, deserves to be fed
on gold out of a diamond spoon, that's what
Filoselle says.”
Horace swallowed his glass of chartreuse
in silence and then said, looking hard at
M. Alcibiade : “Did Mademoiselle Geor-
gette refuse the Prince beyond recall.”
“Oh, yes! (hiccough), cooked his goose
completely. Manette, our maid, said a
pin's head might have knocked him down
when he went out. This here second cigar
won’t (p-p-puff) draw better than the first
—M. le Duc, when a gal is spoony off one
chap, it seems it ain’t like with us men;
she can’t abide the sight of the others. I’m
not like that—I love all the gals. Still, I
bet if Filoselle had had a sister that had
been making love to me, and the Prince of
Arcola had had another sister that had
been doing the same, I should have sent
Filoselle's sister to the rightabout in very
quick time and not been such a muff as
Georgette.”
Horace looked at his watch. There was
some agitation in his manner.
“I see it is nearly one, M. Pochemolle.
You will excuse my ringing for the waiter.”
174
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
, “I wonder at Filoselle not coming yet,”
hiccoughed M. Alcibiade, “but, by gad,
now I think of it, per'aps he may be in the
billiard-room all this while, and so missed
the waiter.” He staggered to his legs.
“I say, though, M. le Duc,” (this as the
bill was being settled), “it’s awfully kind of
your stumpin' up for me in this way, hanged
if it isn't. I owe you a feed, mind, and
we’ll have some more of that fizzing hock.
I sha’n’t forget it in a hurry, that I won't.”
He clutched at his hat on the peg, but los-
ing his balance at that critical moment, and
being obliged to hold on by his head cover-
ing, was within an ace of tearing it in two.
“Will you come down and shake hands
with Filoselle, M. le Duc * * was his next
remark. He was grasping the back of the
chair to steady himself, and speaking with
a meritoriously determined attempt at
gravity.
“I am afraid I must forego that pleasure :
I must be at the Corps Législatif at two.
Pray remember me to him.”
Horace was obliged to submit, not to the
handshaking, but to the affectionate em-
brace of M. Alcibiade, whose sole regret
was that this brotherly ceremony was not
witnessed by the whole population of Meu-
don assembled. The embrace of a Duke
had, however, this satisfactory effect, that
it for a moment sobered him and enabled
him to totter down stairs, holding his head
erect, without breaking his neck, thanks
partly to the kindly assistance of the wai-
ter, the collar of whose coat he clutched.
Horace, having to wait till his horse was
round, did not immediately follow him. He
paced the small room with an excited step
but a beaming eye.
“Then she loves me still as much as
ever,” were the words he would have doubt-
less uttered had he spoke his thoughts
aloud. “She loves me above every thing
on earth since she can make such a sacri-
fice as this for me. And I who accused
her of having jilted that wretched traveller
so as to win the Prince I who cast in her
teeth that her refusal of the Prince was only
a comedy she was playing to some schem-
ing end or other How see her now to
ask her, pardon, to make my peace with
her and vow that nothing shall ever come
between us again. I must see her alone,
but how 2 ”
His foot struck against something on the
ground. He looked down. There was the
key which M. Alcibiade ought to have put
back into his pocket, but which he had put
on to the carpet instead, his faculties being
absorbed in hock. The key, M. Alcibiade
had mentioned, admitted to the garden as
well as to the house. Horace had only to
go down stairs to restore it to the owner.
He hesitated half a moment, and then
kept it.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
M. GRIBAUD MAKES A SPEECH.
ON leaving Meudon, he rode straight
into Paris. Like most ambitious men,
whose range of mind is not extensive, Hor-
ace Gerold could devote himself but to one
thing at a time; but to that thing, what-
ever it was, he gave himself up wholly.
When he was pursuing love affairs the en-
tire world might have been dead for all the
thoughts he bestowed upon it; all his own
interests even, except the particular one in
hand, were for the time being banished
from his reflections. On the other hand,
when he was engaged in politics, politics
were the only aims he had present before
him. They engrossed him as if he loved
them, which he did not; or as if he under-
stood them, which he did still less. Thus
it was that twenty minutes after leaving
Meudon, where he had resolved that before
long he would see Georgette, and see her
alone, he was riding down the Champs
Elysées in a brown study, his mind already
roaming on to scenes where M. Gribaud,
official candidatures, and parliamentary
speeches, played the leading parts, and
whence love consequently was excluded.
At home he found Angélique not anxious
about his absence during the whole morn-
ing, as he had rather feared she would be.
His morning rides were become so regular;
and so regularly did they lengthen every
day, that she was resigned to them, never
asked where he had been, never showed
that she suspected it ; but only inquired in
her sweet way whether he had had a good
ride, and on occasions like the present, when
he returned extra-late, whether he had
lunched.
Answering both questions in the affir-
mative this time, he kissed his young wife
rather more tenderly than usual. This is
a way with husbands who have faithless-
ness on their conscience; and try to per-
suade themselves that by simulating a great
deal of love, they are making honorable
amends for the total want of it. The only
possible inconvenience of the system is...that
of the wife seeing through the device, which
generally happens. -
“Nothing new, child?” he asked, in ap-
pendix to the more than usually tender kiss,
and Angélique replied that there was noth-
ing; the remark being echoed by the Cri-
M. GRIBAUD MAKES A SPEECH.
175
sº
mean Hero, who, astride upon a camp-
stool, in the garden, opposite to Angélique
and Aunt Dorothée, on chairs, had been
reading them the morning papers.
“There has been a shocking murder. An
uncle cut into small pieces by his nephew,
and left wrapped up in bits of newspapers
on curb-stones,” ejaculated Aunt Dorothée,
dismally. “I shall dream about this to-
night.”
“Yes, there's that in the way of news,’
laughed the Crimean Hero, “and amongst
the electoral intelligence I see that Arcola
has issued his address. You must have had
a pretty serious tiff with him, Duke, to
bring him up against you like this. Why,
not a month ago you were hand in glove
together.”
“The Prince is a Bonapartist and I am
not,” answered Horace, uneasily, and tak-
ing up the paper.
“The address is tame,” observed the
Hero, as he saw Horace glancing at it.
“Very,” said Horace, when he had read
it through; but, perhaps, in his inmost
mind he thought differently, for when he
went out again to go down to the House,
his brow was knit, and he stepped out of
his brougham, saying to himself, that it
would be a pretty thing if his political ca-
reer was to be cut abruptly short by this
Prince of Arcola. -
It was the first time he had appeared at
the Corps Législatif since his father's fu-
neral, and on his crossing the threshold of
the Debate Room, a hush fell on the assem-
bly, then gathered for the last time prior
to the dissolution. Much curiosity was
there amongst the honorable members to
see how their colleague would disport him-
self after his famous duel; some anxiety to
behold whether his ducal honors had
changed him, and whether he would be as
much of a Radical as before. The Minis-
terialists on the extreme Right, who knew
no compromise with duty, but voted fear-
lessly before God and man as they were or-
dered to do, wondered how M. Gribaud
would bear himself towards the new duke.
They had heard that M. de Hautbourg was
to be opposed by Government, but they
were half prepared for some touching scene
of reconciliation on this last day. A sol-
emn recantation of errors on the one hand,
a magnanimous absolution on the other;
much as on the breaking-up day at a pri-
vate school, the boy who has been unruly
during the half-year makes his humble mea-
culpa, and promises to behave better next
term on condition of not being expelled.
Indeed, the proceedings on the closing day
of session in the Corps Législatif, closely
reminded one of going-home-day, in a well-
conducted academy for young gentlemen.
3.
First, the head-usher, Minister M. Gribaud,
made a speech, shortly summarizing the
events of the term, complimenting the pu-
pils on the amount of work they had done,
and extolling the virtue of obedience, with-
out which no progress is possible. Then
the best pupil in the school — that is, the
most prominent member on the Right — I
rose, and bore grateful testimony to the as-
sistance received during work-hours by their
much-esteemed teacher. He hoped M. Gri-
baud had found no reason to complain of
the conduct of his schoolfellows, and prom-
ised on their behalf that they would en-
deavor to merit his approbation, both by
studious attention to his precepts during
the recess, and by diligent practice of the
same when they returned to their work next
half. Lastly, the Head-Master, President,
blandly reminded everybody that they
would go back to the bosom of their fami
lies with that satisfaction which the accom-
plishment of duty always brings—the
mens conscia recti of which the poet speaks.
He had nothing more to say but to wish
them pleasant holidays, and hope that next
time he and they met again, he would see
them all in the enjoyment of good health;
and so : —
Ite domum, saturae; venit hesperus; ite Capellae.
Horace's arrival did not interrupt this
programme, for nothing had yet commenced.
The boys were emptying their desks of
their contents and making convenient bun-
dles of them to carry away. Some amused
themselves by turning the keys of their
desks in the locks, making snap, snap
noises. The keys were to be left in the
desks to-day, and not carried away, so that
there was no harm in damaging them.
Everybody was more or less eccentrically
attired in shooting-coats and colored shirts,
indicative of precipitate departure to the
railway-station as soon as the school-gates
should be opened; and everybody was
talking at his loudest, until the entry of the
unruly pupil produced the lull already
mentioned.
Then, just as at school when the unruly
pupil appears, all the other boys who are
in disgrace instinctively rally 'round him in
order to feel less isolated in their guiltiness;
So when Horace took his seat he at once
became the centre of a group of some thirty
or forty honorable members, who, having
either made incautious speeches, or so far
forgotten themselves as once or twice to
vote wrong; or been in any other way dis-
obedient to M. Gribaud, during the past
session, were aware that they would be left
to shift for-themselves at the next elections.
Amongst these were the Alsatian count
176
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
Z
who wanted Protestant school-teachers, the
Gascon marquis who wished to have his
brother made a Catholic bishop, and num-
bers of other worthies of the same calibre.
All these gentlemen were vehemently op-
osed to the system of official candidatures.
hey had been official candidates them-
selves; but that didn’t matter. Liberalism
simmered in their patriotic souls. They
were full of the people's rights. They
could no longer conscientiously submit to
see France deprived of her just liberties.
Next session when re-elected — and every
one of these interesting neo-liberals made
certain that he would be re-elected — they
would form a constitutional opposition
arty of which they trusted M. le Duc de
Hautbourg would assume the leadership;
and they would turn out M. Gribaud, not a
doubt of it.
A peculiarity about these gentlemen was
that, although each felt sure of his own
return, they all struck commiserating atti-
tudes in alluding to one another's chances.
“So Gribaud is going to oppose us?
Well, I don’t care for myself; in fact I
wouldn’t have accepted Government assist-
ance, if it had been offered me. But it’s
uncommonly hard on you—you who only
got in by an ace last time, with the bishop,
prefect, and two hundred mayors, all push-
ing you together.”
IIorace was favored with condolences of
this pattern by the whole of the forty.
“A crying shame, I call it, Monsieur le
Duc.”
“I’m proud to say Gribaud hasn’t in-
sulted me with any offers of patronage, else
I would have cast them back in his face,
after the manner in which he has behaved
towards you.” (This from a deputy who
an hour before had told M. Gribaud that
he had a wife and family, and that the loss
yof his seat would be beggary to him.)
/
“It seems, M. le Duc, that the Prince
of Arcola is making himself very popular
at Hautbourg. He has gone down there
for a canvass, and is sowing his money
bróadcast.” (This was a charitable fiction,
invented on the spot.)
“I hear he is going to build them a new
church.” (Other charitable invention.)
“I despise the Government that sanc-
tions bribery.” (This from an honorable
member who on his last return had, under
Government sanction, invested ten thou-
sand francs in corduroys, five thousand in
felt hats, eight thousand in new vestments
for rural clergy, and kept seventy-seven
parishes drunk on the day of poll from
morn till even-tide.)
“I never felt any esteem for Gribaud.
Did you see what an insolent look he gave
you, M. le Duc 2"
*
“Ay, he would have deserved a slap on
the face for that look.”
“And would have got it, if he had given
it to me.”
Now here was another fiction. In order
to reach his place Horace was obliged to
pass M. Gribaud, and, in so doing, habitu-
ally favored him with an inclination of the
head, which the Minister, of course, re-
turned. But his Excellency’s bows were
far from insolent, or even stiff. They were
the cautious bobs of a statesman, who, with
not much diplomacy to aid him, had got to
steer his way between excess of affability
and the counter-excess of reserve. M.
Gribaud had no desire to take up the cud-
gels with Horace. If the latter would koo-
too to him, he asked for nothing more. As
to his opposing him at Hautbourg, that was
a trifle, for Horace had only to make his
submission any time before the poll to be
hoisted into a seat somewhere or other —
only the seat would not be Hautbourg, if
M. Gribaud could help it. It would be a
seat whence Horace could be turned out on
misbehavior — say one of those halcyon
constituencies near the Pyrenees, where the
wittiest nation under heaven went to the
poll in droves of a thousand head, and, on
a wink from their prefect, would attach
thirty thousand names to a petition, calling
upon their deputy to resign his place, or
leave off making speeches against the Gov-
ernment. M. Gribaud infused all these
sentiments into his bow, which would have
been a very essay on Imperialist statecraft
if bows, like verbal utterances, could have
been taken down in short-hand. And the
Minister did more, for, in the usher-like
speech to his pupils going home, he held
out the fold of salvation to Horace, offered
him extrication from the Radical whirlpool
where he was floundering, and a safe
standing-ground on the terra firma of
Bonapartism.
“I cannot conclude,” said he, amidst the
loud, long, and continued cheering which
had greeted the first part of his oration,
commenting upon the industrious labors of
the session, — “I cannot conclude without
a reference to one of our young and distin-
guished colleagues, whom we all rejoice to
see in his place to-day, after the recent
heavy domestic calamity which has over-
taken him. (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, I
need not say that, in his bereavement, the
honorable gentleman has our most heartfelt
sympathies. It was my fortunate privilege
to be, at one time, bound by ties of close
friendship with the eminent Patriot who has
died upon a foreign soil, and though we,
were afterwards estranged from each other
by those differences which, alas ! too often
divide public men — for, in devoting our-
*
M. GRIBAUD MAKES A SPEECH, 177
selves to our country's welfare, gentlemen, it
is seldom that we are not compelled to sacri-
fice our private feelings — I can say that no
one regretted the circumstance more than
myself; that no one felt to the last more ad-
miration for the chivalrous illusions of the
statesman, more reverence and affection for
the personal character of the man. (Loud
cheers.) I would it were possible to pass
unnoticed an event with which the lamented
decease of our great countryman is in some
way associated — I mean the scene that at-
tended that noble Patriot’s funeral ; but I
feel that to do so would be to miss the occasion
of deducing a moral, which I hope our hom-
orable colleague will lay seriously to heart.
There are political classes and political
theorists with whom no man can sympathize.
(Loud and prolonged cheering.) Our honor-
able colleague has been able to judge for him-
self what is the worth of the fraternity which
these persons preach and never practice.
But let him be assured that, in that party,
such men are not the exception ; they are
the rule. It is the party of envy, calumny,
and incapacity, the party where every man
thinks himself born with a soul to command,
who has not even the patience, fortitude, and
modesty to obey. For men of mere honesty to
ally themselves with this faction is to risk
contamination in its most insidious forms;
but for a man who is gifted with youth, a
great historical name, and surpassing tal-
ents to lend even his fellowship to it, would
be a thing in every way sad and deplorable.
It would be the wreck of a promising ca-
reer, which might shine with a peerless lus-
tre if devoted to the cause which we on these
ber,otes serve — that of order, of justice, of
the prosperity and true greatness of France.
(Enthusiastic and continued cheering from
the legislators on the right. The forty mal-
contents, clustered together in a lump,
sneer, Snigger, dig their elbows into one an-
other's ribs, and whisper, “Gammon l’’)
Half an hour afterwards the portals had
closed upon Horace's first session as a law-
maker. Vehicles of every description were
Scurrying away from the door of the House
to the four great termini. Honorable ex-
deputies were bidding each other good-by
and good luck; and Horace himself, ex-
member for Paris, sauntered eastwards
through the streets of the Circumscription
which he no longer represented. There
was a crowd collected without the gates of
the building to watch the deputies disperse,
and as every one of these gentlemen was
cordially and contemptuously detested by
the Radical element of the Parisian popu-
lation, IIorace benefited by the contrast
which his relative liberalism afforded, and
was cheered by about two dozen gamins.
As he lifted his hat in acknowledgment of
12
(§
this cheap ovation, he remembered that on
that same spot, many years before he himself
was born, his father had been rapturously
acclaimed by a countless multitude stretch-
ing as far as the eye could see. It was un-
der the reign of Charles X., when outspoken
Liberals were few, and when every parlia-
mentary session offered a series of stirring
popular triumphs to those who dared speak.
How different his father's beginning from
his own l Yet, the liberal cause had even
greater need of champions now than under
the Bourbons, and a career as distinguished
as his father's had been open to him had he
chosen to follow it. Why had he not?
Then came the reflections — But what
had Manuel Gerold’s career, what had his
speeches and example profited, since
France was in 1857 politically lower than
in 1827? Was it worth while to preach
freedom all one's days, to see it at last stran-
gled in a night by a crew of adventurers,
who, red-handed after the murder, had only
to appeal to the nation to be forthwith ab-
solved by seven million voices ! Amongst
those seven millions there were assuredly
many, who, before cheering the hero of the
coup-d'état, had cheered Manuel Gerold ;
and was it not the vanity of vanities to en-
deavor to please such weathercocks 2 Hor-
ace asked himself whether his father would
not have done more for the true interests of
France, if instead of advocating an ideal
Republic for which men were not yet ripe,
he had accepted the forms of Government
existing, and applied himself to improve,
without subverting them. If, for instance,
all the men of intellect who assailed the
dynasty of Louis Philippe (and Manuel
Gerold was of the number), had joined in.
consolidating it, the senseless revolution of
'48 would never have happened, and in 1857
France would have been in the enjoyment
of one of the freest constitutional mon-
archies in Europe. “My father was ahead
of his time; I will keep on a level with
mine,” mentally ejaculated Horace. “If
France is not Republican why should I be 2
The majority of the country accept the Em-
pire: they vote for it, they prefer it to other
forms of government: I may be of a contrary
opinion, but as a citizen the most patriotic
thing I can do is to submit. They talk to
us of the prosperity of England, but Eng-
land is only prosperous and free because
the minorities there have learned to obey the
majorities. Every man does not set up a
standard of government for himself, and try
and force it upon his fellows. Where is
the inducement to the men who rule us to.
give us liberties if we say: “Whatever you.
do, whether you govern us well or ill, we
will combat you ?” Systematic opposition
excuses systematic despotism. An Eng-
178
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
lishman in my place would manage to be
loyal and liberal at the same time: — lib-
eral from principle, loyal by expediency.
So will I be. By loyalty is not meant ser-
vility; I shall be no official candidate or
supporter of Gribaud's. I will struggle to
establish in France the parliamentary liber-
ties which our neighbors have; and if I suc-
ceed I shall have spent my life to better
purpose than as a Republican agitator, hur-
rying on my countrymen by utopian doc-
trines to bootless revolutions.”
He quickened his pace. There were
seductions enough in the career of French
Whig, which he was sketching out for him-
self: it led to honors and power, in the first
place, to reputation in the next. But it was
indispensable that he should not lose his
seat in the House; and, here, the dispiriting
prognostications of his forty malcontent col-
leagues of a sudden chilled him. They had
done their very utmost as good colleagues
that they were to represent his case as des-
perate, and as he was in total ignorance of
the steps which M. Macrobe had taken to
insure his return (to do him justice, he
would never have lent his countenance to
those steps), he saw the Prince of Arcola
in his mind's eye as already triumphant.
There was but one way — one infallible
way—to prevent that triumph, and Horace
shook off the last relics of repugnance which
he had for it.
“I must go to Clairefontaine,” murmured
he resolutely. “The estate is mine. It was
unjustly confiscated by the ruffians of '93,
and if it was bought back with slave money,
the five million francs we have paid to
charities during the last five years are a
sufficient expiation. There is not another
family would have done so much. And
besides, in my hands the estate will be an
instrument of good : I shall use the influence
it gives me for the welfare of France.”
And he shaped his course towards the
Law Courts, where he hoped to find Emile.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MANUEL GEROLD'S SONS DIVIDE HIS
INHERITANCE.
“I THINK you will find Maitre Emile
Gerold in the Second Chamber,” said an
affable Briefless, in the Pleaders' Hall
The Second Chamber was one of the
Civil Courts, and not often crowded.
Horace proceeded to it, pushed the folding.
doors, and entered into quasi solitude.
The auditory was scantily attended, the
barristers’ benches almost empty; but the
judges were at their post, — seven of them
—and, what is more, they were all atten-
tive.
Emile was speaking.
Horace subsided noiselessly into a seat,
and behind him heard the following mut-
tered dialogue between a shabby man who
took snuff and an old woman who com-
plained of rheumatics: —
The Shabby Man. —“Hark to him
there, Madame Pomardier, he has made
another point. His logic's close.”
The Rheumatic Woman. — “Mon dieu,
Monsieur Garbillaud, I knew that the
young man had talent, and that's why I
said to the poor young thing: ‘My dear,
if you will go to law — though, in my
opinion, going to law for justice is like go-
ing to a puddle for spring-water — I'd see
young M. Gerold. He won a suit for some
neighbors of mine, poor bodies, that would
never have had a sou to this day if it hadn't
been for his taking up their case; but that,
my dear, doesn’t prove that he’ll get you
righted, for good luck doesn’t come twice
in one season,’ said I.”
The S. M. — “Hark to him again
Madame Pomardier. That last argument
came pat down on the nail. Do you take
a pinch * *
The R. W. — “Thank you, not any for
me, M. Garbillaud. There is that Muni-
cipal Guardsman who has swung open that
door again: that man can never have had
the rheumatics to let in draughts of cold
air as he does. Well, as I was saying, the
poor young creature she would go to law,
for, says she ‘Madame Pomardier, there
must be a God in heaven to prevent the
weak being wronged; ' and said I, “My
dear, about there being a God in heaven I
don't doubt, but as to his interfering with
these sort of matters I don’t believe it’s his
way, for,” says I, ‘if I was to count up on
my fingers all the folk I’ve seen get less
than they deserve, and all the other folks
I’ve seen get more than they had a right
to, I shouldn’t have fingers enough ; and I
should be sorry to say that all was God's
fault, my dear, it would be laying too much
on him.’ However, good words never yet
mended sore trouble. She said she had
right on her side, and so far as that goes, it
would be a sin to gainsay her. She was
properly married to her dead husband, and
for that man's family to say that she wasn’t
and that there was some irregularity in the
wedding, owing to its having been done
abroad, and for them to seize that pretex.
to try and take away from her the two
thousand francs a year, that ought to be
hers, and her title of wife and widow which
is what the poor young creature most cares
MANUEL GEROILD’S SONS DIVIDE HIS INHERITANCE.
179
for, is a crying shame as I do say; and so
did M. Gerold say it when she went to him
about it. And I declare, it goes to one's
heart, it does, to see the way the poor
thing is looking at him, there, as he speaks
for her — see, M. Garbillaud.”
Horace followed the direction of the
worthy Madame Pomardier's glance, and
saw a slight young woman with a careworn
face, dressed in deep black and holding a
child of three or four on her knee, and
gazing at Fmile with an expression of anx-
iety and yearning suspense utterly impos-
sible to depict. She seemed to be
restraining her breath, lest the faintest
sound should prevent her defender's voice
from reaching the judge's ears; and when
he produced any telling argument, looked
from him to them with suppliant, wistful
inquiry to see whether they were attending
and had caught the words; and then from
the judges to her child as though to mark
whether, young as he was, he did not un-
derstand that it was his mother's honor
that was being debated. Horace turned
from this group to Emile, who was speak-
ing as he always spoke, unaffectedly and
persuasively. His manner was not that of
some of his more eminent colleagues who
pocket an enormous fee, read your brief
half through, and plead your cause like a
tired parson reading the evening lessons.
There was, probably, no fee at all in this
case, but the brief had been read through,
every line; and more than read through—
pondered over long and thoughtfully, for
the words in their eloquent earnestness
flowed limpid and unhesitating, coming
from a mind and heart both full of their
subject. There would have been a fine
opportunity for a true Radical barrister
to have howled democratic platitudes,
shrieked amathemas against the rich who
trample down the poor, and earned the
good graces of the gallery by insulting the
judges. But Emile as usual neglected this
mode of serving his client's interests.
He was modest and respectful towards the
judges; and the result was no failure, for
when the Imperial Magistrates returned
from their council-room, it was with a judg-
ment for the Plaintiff, on all points.
The young woman rose with her child in
her arms, tottered forward to grasp the
hands of her defender and swooned at his
feet.
Emile lifted her gently, committed her
to the care of some friends, amongst whom
the worthy Madame Pomardier, who was
blessing his name aloud; and came away,
happy from his humble triumph, but court-
ing no thanks. Horace met him at the
door.
It was evening and the courts were being
closed, so after Emile had unrobed himself
in the vestiary, the brothers set off for the
Rue Ste. Geneviève, where Emile still
resided notwithstanding that the retirement
of M. Pochemolle had given him a new
landlord, this new landlord was aſso a
draper and kept the name of Pochemolle
with the sign of the Three Crowns over
his door as of old, the privilege of doing
so having been conceded to him for an
increase of purchase-money. This practice,
by the way, is not an uncommon one in
trade, and nobody ever appears to suspect
that writing Pochemolle over a house where
Pochemolle no longer flourishes, has the
same sort of morality about it as pasting
“Old Port” on a bottle that does not
contain that beverage. On the way from
the Law Courts, Horace did not allude to
the subject which had brought him to see
Emile. He talked about the trial with
emotion and admiration; and was still full
of the topic when he found himself seated
in his old quarters in the lodgings on the
third floor above. Nothing was changed
there any more than down stairs, where
Horace had almost expected to see Georgette
seated at her counter behind the window and
look up at him as he passed. At Horace's
marriage, Emile had removed into his
rooms, abandoning his own to a stranger,
and there stood all the things as Horace
had left them, books, pictures, the table
where Georgette used to lay his letters;
and the shelves off which she had helped
him collect the prohibited writings, that
day when she had come to warn him of
the domiciliary visit: “Why, I declare,
you even use my old pen-holder,” said
he, glancing at the desk and smiling at
Emile.
“My favorite pen-holder,” answered his
brother affectionately.
Horace took up a roll of paper that lay
on the sofa — it looked like a music-roll
— and, playing with it mechanically, said:
“And do you mean to cleave forever to
these rooms and to this life, old fellow 2 I
was listening to you to-day. There is not
a man in the Corps Législatif who can
speak as you do, and I don't believe there
are three at the Bar who can speak better.
Every thing would be open to you if you had
any ambition. Do you remember my asking
you some time ago what your day-dreams
were ? You surely have some visions of
greatness, glory, or public usefulness?”
As if to answer Horace's question, a
waiter from a neighboring cookshop at that
moment appeared with a basket containing
Emile's dinner — the fare of an anchorite;
and whilst this pitifully frugal repast was
being set on the table, flanked by a half.
pint decanter of the commonest vin ordinaire,
180
TEIE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
a poor-looking girl of twelve, who had
come in behind the waiter, and turned
suddenly shy at beholding a stranger,
stammered : “Mother said you had jefi.
word I was to call for some wine, M.
Gerold.”
Blushing as if he were being caught in
a mean act, Emile went to a cupboard and
drew out two bottles with the well-known
crimson seals of the Château Lafite, also a
parcel. The girl seemed doubtful about
the parcel being for her; but Emile whis-
pered something, and the girl withdrew,
.hanking and courtesying. The same in-
stant entered the concierge.
“M. Emile, there's that cripple down
below who called the other day. He want-
ed to thank you for what you had sent him,
but couldn't get through the streets fast
enough to be at the door against you return.
As he isn't able to climb the staircase, he
asked me to come up and say how much
obliged he is to you.”
“You see,” said Emile to Horace, and
reddening anew, “you have lighted at the
hour when I sometimes receive visits.”
And as he was speaking the door opened
before a third applicant. This time it was
a young and intelligent workman in a
blouse. He had some books under his
arm, and had come to return them, as well
as borrow others.
“Well, Denis,” said Emile, when the
workman had chosen the volumes he want-
ed — volumes of Diderot’s “Encyclopédie.”
—“I hope you and your friends have
settled matters amicably with your em-
ployers, and that there will be no strike 2 ”
“We feel that we have a grievance, M.
Gerold,” answered the workman, in a
frank, respectful voice. “The profits of
our employers have gone on increasing, and
so has the price of living, yet the wages in
our trade have not changed since the last
ten years. But I have told the men what
you thought, and they deputed me to say
that they would be guided by you, and
that if, after giving them a hearing, you
were of opinion that their present demands
were not fair, they would modify them.”
Horace had not uttered a word during
this succession of interviews; but whilst
the workman was speaking he opened the
scroll he had taken up. It was an address
signed by five thousand mechanics of the
Tenth Circumscription, and offering Emile
their suffrages for the seat which he him-
self was about to vacate. The memorial-
ists wrote that they had been reluctantly
compelled to vote against M. Horace
Gerold at the last election, being persuad-
ed that his views did not tally with theirs,
but they had the utmost confidence in the
principles of M. Emile, and, if he would
come forward, undertook to return him free
of expense. Horace laid down this docu-
ment with feelings easy to understand,
and watched the workman take his leave :
which he did with the air of a man who
bows to nothing save intellect, but bends
the knee before that.
When he was gone Horace took up the
Scroll again.
“And have you accepted this offer?”
said he to Emile.
“Accepted an offer that contains an im-
plied slight on you!” answered Emile, sadly
and a little reproachfully. “You could not
think it. In so far as public opinion is
concerned, together we stand or fall.”
“Yes, we will, will we not ?” exclaimed
Horace in an outburst of eagerness, laying
his hand on his brother's shoulders. “Let
us stand by each other, Emile; and we
may attain fame side by side. I have re-
Solved upon going to Clairefontaine, and
do you come with me. Our landed interest
can insure our being both elected in the de-
partment, and we can labor together for the
true interests of France, and for the glory
of our own family name. Whilst our
father was alive I respected his ideas about
Clairefontaine, but by renouncing that es-
tate any longer we shall be discarding the
means of doing a great good: we shall be
like soldiers throwing away their best
weapons before battle.”
He spoke at length and enthusiastically,
unfolding all the plans he was forming,
and revealing new ones, as they started
extemporized to his brain. The immense
services that could be rendered to the
Liberal cause was the chord om which he
harped most strenuously, knowing that it
was the one which would strike the surest
echo; and the burden of his whole dis-
course was that for such an end as that
any honorable means were justifiable.
Emile listened to him without apparent
surprise, though not able to repress the
shade of disappointment that stole over his
face.
“I was prepared for your resolution
about Clairefontaine,” said he quietly.
“And the moment you differed from any of
the opinions which rendered the sacrifice
imperative on our father, a like sacrifice
ceased to be binding upon you. But it
gives me some pain, dear fellow, to think
of your rallying to the Second Empire; I
would have heard a great deal of bad news
sooner than that.”
“But I don’t rally in the sense of liking
or respecting this régime, nor for my own
profit,” exclaimed Horace. “Why, man,
to take a comparison, I shall be only doing
what you did this very afternoon. Did you
respect the judges before whom you
MANUEL GEROLD'S SONS DIVIDE IIIS INHERITANCE.
181
pleaded? You know what kind of men
the Empire has placed on the judicial
bench, yet in your client's interest you
silenced all your own feelings, spoke rever-
entially to these men, and won your cause,
Well, France will be my client; I will
plead for her rights, and in order to obtain
them will deſer to those who hold her
freedom in their keeping. That is all.”
The comparison was not inapt, but it
failed to shake Emile, who answered: “We
cannot always make our sentiments fit with
logic; and perhaps I shall have given you
the best of my reasons when I say that as
our father s bones must rest in exile so long
as this empire lasts, I could never have the
courage to support it. Then, I do not be-
lieve the Empire will ever restore our liber-
ties, for those who respect freedom do not
begin by destroying it. But supposing I
should be mistaken, it seems to me there
would still be grounds for refusing our
allegiance. The establishment of the Second
Empire was one of the most wanton out-
rages ever perpetrated upon a peaceful
community, and it is like offering a pre-
mium for such acts when honorable men lend
their countenance to those who commit
them.”
“That is all very well,” cried Horace,
excitedly, “but the remark may be reduced
to this: that you would rather see France
fettered under the Second Empire than
free from it?”
“Yes, I would,” replied Emile firmly.
“I think in the first place our country should
learn what it costs to set up a despot; and
in the next I would not let crowned des-
peradoes suppose that they may be left to
reign in peace by restoring liberties which
they have dishonestly plundered. Of a
robber we ask more than restitution, we
demand alonement. I would have patriots
hold aloof from the authors of coups-
d'état—leave them to themselves until they
fell by their own weakness, or finished as
they began in violence.”
There was a silence. Emile had spoken
with perſect calm, but with a kindling light
in his eye—just the light that comes of
immovable purpose assailed by sharp ar-
guments, the spark that flashes between
flint and steel. Horace exclaimed deject-
edly : “It is no use trying to convert you.
You reason like a man who sets up an
ideal world for himself, and will not see
that you can benefit your species more by
taking account of their foibles and errors
and bearing with them, than by preaching
to them a standard of political excellence
that is quite beyond their reach. Progress
does not fly on the wing, it plods on te-
diously. . In a hundred years men will not
yet be ripe for the republic you prooose.
Why then sacrifice your life to it? Look at
our father's career. What was it?— a pure
and generous one; but whom has it bene-
fited ‘’”
“Every lover of what is good,” answered
Emile, quickly. “Every man who pro-
poses to his fellows a high standard of ex-
cellence in politics, art, or social conduct,
is a benefactor of humanity. And what
does it matter if our father's example has
found few imitators? Did Raphael paint
his “Transfiguration in vain because no
picture like it has since been produced; or
did Milton write to no purpose because
“Paradise Lost’ will remain unrivalled? The
life of an honest man is a beautiful poem;
and every human being who reads it will
feel better, stronger, more hopeful from it.
But even if none understood the life, and
if none were found to take pattern by
it, there it would still remain — the high-
est, finest, and noblest work of God.” He
took down from a shelf one of the early
editions of a book, then but lately pub-
lished, and interdicted in France, Victor
Hugo’s “Châtiments;” and pointing to a
page, said, “Read this passage. Do you
think this will be thrown away ? It will re-
deem our character as a people in the eyes of
future generations. When historians write
that seven million Frenchmen fell down
and worshipped the man who enslaved them,
it will be remembered that there was a pat-
riot who wrote this, and that he found com-
panions, our father amongst them, and the
memory of these few men will save a whole
nation from odium.”
Horace read the verses. They were the
immortal lines of the poet speaking in his
exile.
“Devant les trahisons et les tétes courbées
Je croiserailes bras, indigné mais serein;
Sombre fidèlité pour les choses tombées,
Sois ma force et majoie et mon pilier d’airain l
Qui, tant qu’II, sera lä, qu'on cede ou qu'on persiste,
O France, France aimée et qu'on pleure toujours,
Je ne reverrai pas ta terre douce et triste;
Tombeau de mes aſſeux et Did de mes amours;
Je ne reverrai pasta rive quinous tente,
France, hors le devoir, helas ! j’oublurai tout;
Parmi les éprouves je planterai ma tente :
Je resterai proscrit, woulant rester debout.
J’accepte Pāpre exiln’eut il mi fin, ni terme;
Sans chercher a savoir et sans considerer
Si quelqu'un a pliè qu'on aurait cru plus ferme,
Et si plusieurs s'en vont qui devraient demeurer.
Si l’on n'est plus que mille, et bien j'en suis, si même
Ils ne sont plus que cent, je brave encore Sylla;
Sºil en demel re dix, je serai le dixième :
Et s'il n'en r, ste qu'un, je serai celui-la.”
“Well, I have nothing more to say.”
replied Horace, closing the book, “I see
we must walk our separate ways. If I am
wrong, let me bear the consequences; but I
am acting for the best. I have no vocation
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THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
*
for the life you would lead: to adopt it
would therefore he hypocrisy. In a few days
I shall start for Clairefontaine. My wife
and my father-in-law both urge me to this
course, and it would have given me strength
and courage if your good wishes had accom-
panied me.”
“My good wishes you have,” exclaimed
Emile, earnestly ; “and my approval, too,
if you are following the bent of your con-
science — a man's best guide. Besides, you
are my brother, and if your opinions were
ten times more opposed to mine than they
are, I would still wish them success for your
sake.”
“And what do you mean to do with your
own share of the estate 7” asked Horace,
a little moved ; “remember, half of it is
yours.”
“I had almost forgotten it,” answered
Emile, with a sigh; and he began reflecting
a moment: then turning with an appealing
look of affection to his brother, he faltered:
“Look here, Horace : you won’t think I am
trying to sermonize you or put you to the
blush; but don't ask me to have any thing
to do with this money. You say the landed
influence of Clairefontaine is what you
most want : well, then, let the whole estate
remain yours. And as to the revenues of
that part of it which would have been mine,
dispose of them as you will : I give them
over to you in trust for the public good—
yes, for the public good.”
He laid both hands on his brother's
shoulders and kissed him, impulsively, fer-
vently.
In this way they parted; but when an
hour or two later the waiter from the cook-
shop returned to fetch his plates away, he
found the dinner standing untasted as he
had laid it. Emile was sitting by the open
window, his arms resting on the sill and his
head buried in them.
“Don’t you dine, sir?” asked the waiter,
coaxingly.
Emile started, and the question had to be
repeated. Then he answered absently that
he had no appetite. The epilogue to which
was that on reaching the cookshop the
waiter observed, “That poor M. Emile does
take on terribly about his father's death; 1
found him broken down like just now, and
I’ll stake my head he'd been crying.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ANGELIQUE's CONFESSION.
CERTAINLY the most edifying priest in
Paris was Father Glabre of the Reverend
Society of Jesus. He had a voice like a
sweet barrel-organ, a smile that did one
good to witness, and walked the road to the
Kingdom of Heaven in polished leather
shoes. This holy man’s church was that of
St. Hyacinth, and on the Sundays when he
preached there was a great tail of car-
riages stretching outside the church door
on both sides of the street, and footmen in
plush hanging about the porch enough to
make a goodly battalion. But Father Gla-
bre was seen to greatest advantage on
“Confession Mornings.” Confession morn-
ings were Wednesdays and Fridays. On
those days Father Glabre gave ear to the
sins of his flock, chided gently and be-
stowed absolution. It is to be supposed
that the male element in the St. Hyacinth
congregation were either singularly free
from human error or lamentably blind to
their own shortcomings, or painfully remiss
in their religious duties; anyhow, no trou-
sered penitent was ever seen to kneel in
Father Glabre's confessional and declare
himself a miserable sinner. But the
women made up for this. What a throng,
and what devotion I What a rustling of
silk dresses, what contrite rows of six-but-
toned gloves clasped daintily over velvet
missals, what pretty attempts to corrupt
that righteous servant of the church, the
beadle, in order to secure a privileged seat
whence one might dart into the tribunal of
repentance out of one's turn There were
so many ladies that it was a sort of point
of honor between them that none should
take more than five minutes over the recital
of their sins. Most of them cheated and
took ten minutes, and said even then that
they had not half done; which used to
make M. Gousset remark, that, next to the
pleasure of sinning itself, there was nothing
women liked better than remembering
their sins and talking about them. This
M. Gousset used to make other impertinent
speeches. To one lady acquaintance who
told him she was about to confess herself,
he had been known to say: “I protest
against your going and demoralizing that
good man; ” and to another who had just
come from confession: “And how did the
poor fellow bear up against it?”
The church of St. Hyacinth was in the
same quarter as the Hôtel Macrobe, and
one of Father Glabre's most punctual
parishioners was Angélique. She was
punctual in this sense, that she and her
aunt had sittings close to the chancel,
and might be seem in them every Sunday
morning at high mass, whether the reverend
father preached or not. But she did not
often attend confession, and when she did,
had more than enough with the regulation
five minutes. The fact is, she scarcely
ANGELIQUE's CONFESSION.
183
understood the ceremony. She had a kind
of idea that those of her own sex who did
not attend Father Glabre's confessional at
least once in the half-year would find it
disagreeable for them at some distant day
of reckoning; but wherefore it should be
so, why women should need this ordeal
more than men, and wherefore, above all,
an indispensable preliminary to salvation
should consist of kneeling for ten minutes
in the year in an oak box, were questions
which she was content to class amongst the
sublime mysteries of the holy Catholic
Church, not intended to be fathomed by
the faithful. One day, however, it occurred
to her—as a new use for some long familiar
object may strike an observer — that there
might, perhaps, be something more in this
F. of confession than appeared in the
neeling and avowing that one had been
reading good books and found them dull,
which was what Angélique's disclosures
generally amounted to. Might not the
§: be a friend to whom one could un-
urden one’s heart in moments of sore dif-
ficulty, and from whom one could receive
advice that one dare not ask of mundane
friends or relatives? . . That Angélique
should have arrived at this thought by her
own unaided self; that it should have come
to her in the light of a boon; and that she
should have contemplated at once availing
herself of the opportunities it revealed to
her, were proofs of how lonely she must
have felt her life to be, and of how great a
fund of trouble must have been stored up
in her simple heart since she yearned to
relieve herself to any one, even to a
stranger.
Yes, lonely and full of trouble, though
she would have been at a loss to define
what was the nature of the confession she
wished to make, and what sort of solace it
was she hoped to obtain. Womanlike, or
rather childlike, she went no farther in her
reflections than beyond this point, — that
she was unhappy; and, with the touching
confidence of those who suffer, believed
that all save herself could prescribe for her
pain, and assuage it. So, when Father
Glabre preached she listened to him with
the anxious attention we bestow on those
in whom we think of confiding, examined
his features intently, and felt her heart
flutter when he looked and spoke in her di-
rection. And when, one Sunday, he an-
nounced that during the Easter season he
would be at home at stated times to hear
the confessions of penitents who were un-
able to attend at the church hours, – or
those, he might have added, whose con-
fessions necessitated developments, – she
took mental note of the days he had named,
and waited for the first of them with a
trepidation that almost counted the ruin-
utes.
It was on the day of the close of the
Corps Législatif session that Angélique
went to Father Glabre's. She had, of
course, spoken her intention to no one, and
had even been compelled to use stratagem
to rid herself of the Crimean Hero.
Father Glabre had not been apprised
beforehand of her visit, but, on receiving
the name of the Duchess of Hautbourg,
hurried out with more than his usually
unctuous welcome. Somehow, he seemed
agitated and unduly pleased at her visit,
as if it were a stroke of good luck that he
had not expected, but which he had par-
ticular and private reasons for rejoicing at.
The sanctum where he led her was dim,
half oratory, half study. The furniture,
scanty, but rich and prelatial, attracted
the eye by its appropriateness, and reposed
it by its good taste. There were no books,
excepting a red-leaved breviary; but, —
unlooked-for thing in such a place, — an
open newspaper had been thrown on a
chair; and had Angélique been collected
enough to make such an observation, she
might have noticed that this was not a
clerical journal, but a purely financial or-
gan.
However, she was not collected enough
for any thing; for now that she was alone
with the priest, who was to smooth her
troubles away, every thing she had thought
of saying seemed to have oozed completely
out of her memory. But Father Glabre
was cognizant of this symptom from having
often witnessed it before; and in his most
dulcet, winning tones, set himself to allay
the nervousness. There was a comfortable
softly-cushioned fall-stool for such of the
fair penitents as held strictly to the rubric
of observances, and could not have been
pursuaded to recite their mea-culpas other-
wise than in a posture of humiliation, kneel-
ing on thick velvet; but Father Glabre
liked an unformal conversation better. He
was a man of the world. He saw with
pleasure Angélique drop into the arm-chair
he offered her; took another for himself,
not too close, nor too far from her; and,
pending the moment when she should have
recovered from her shyness, spoke in an
easy, re-assuring way with modulated ac-
cents about nothing in particular, and more
or less about every thing. It was mere
child's play to this consummate ecclesias-
tic to draw a confession from such a peni-
tent as Angélique. He saw that at a
glance, and quietly bided his time. Mon
dieu, there were ladies who gave him
trouble I Certain lovely but provoking
sinners were quite willing to render their
confession to the h9ly church Catholic;
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THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
but they were determined, as it were, that
the holy church Catholic should not get
things too cheap. The reverend father
had to wrestle with these, to cajole, to fin-
esse, to extract the confession in unshapely
fragments piecemeal; and, when at last it
was all out, there would sometimes be noth-
ing to show but a little bit of a sin that
would not pay for the trouble of pulling up.
An hysteric penitent, who looked as much
overwhelmed as if she was fresh from com-
mitting six at least out of the seven deadly
sins, had one day kept herself on her knees,
and the reverend Father Glabre on tenter-
hooks, for three-quarters of an hour by the
onyx clock on the mantle-piece, only to
avow in the end that she had eaten a ham
sandwich on Ash Wednesday ! Ah all is
not couleur de rose in the life of a con-
fessor
But Angélique gave none of this trouble.
When Father Glabre had sufficiently laid
the dust on the penitent's path by the re-
freshing dew of his small-talk, he began
discreetly to touch upon the soothing mis-
Sion of the church, in receiving secrets and
giving comfort in exchange. And then —
after a last self-struggle – Angélique con-
fessed herself—said all she had to say, in
a low, plaintive voice, with interjection of
sighs and occasional tears; but without
stopping. Women who are habitually reti-
cent of words will speak in exceptional
moments with a quiet fluency that is aston-
ishing. Angélique unfolded the whole tale
of her life; which on her lips sounded a
very disappointed, unhappy story indeed.
She related how she had been married;
the history of Georgette's attachment for
her husband; the comparative felicity of
the first months of her wedded life when
she thought her husband perhaps really
loved her as much as he said. Then, her
perplexities in her divided allegiance be-
tween husband and father; her attempts
to obey the latter in prevailing upon Hor-
ace to resume his estates; her powerless-
ness to influence him; and finally the cer-
tainty that he no longer loved her, and that
she had made his life wretched by marry-
ing him. Horace was always kind to her,
but she could see that he was weary of her.
He remained less and less with her every
day; and every day took long rides, she
had no need to be told where. She knew
it was to Meudon.
Father Glabre had nothing to do but to
listen in silence. Now and then he put a
short, pertinent question to help him con-
nect all the links of the narrative, but he
made no answer, until half relieved, but
bruised and shivering after her confession,
ãº. ceased speaking and hid her
face in her handkerchief. - -
“You could not have come to a surer
fountain of comfort than the church, dear
lady,” he then said in his most assuaging
tones. “Your sorrows are great, but our
sympathy is proportionate.”
It was not Father Glabre's way to re.
mind his fair votaries much that he was a
priest. He preferred the character and
language of friend ; but his discourse was
just enough garnished with ecclesiastical
phrase to give it the extra force and pres-
tige that were needed to carry it home. So
his exhortations to Angélique were exactly
what they should have been — benign,
compassionate, hopeful; savoring a little
of the pulpit, a great deal of the drawing-
room, still more of the place where they
were — the confidential retreat. As to the
part of the narrative respecting the Claire-
fontaine intrigue, the Catholic priest could
have but one opinion, which was shared
by the man of the world and the brotherly
adviser. It was a wife's duty to rescue her
husband from all such contamination as
would result from a long connection with
the enemies of religion (read “Liberals”),
and the Duke of Hautbourg should un-
doubtedly be urged to resume a position,
where, properly guided (read, “by you,
Madame, under my instruction ”), he would
render most signal services to the church.
Coming to Angélique's domestic sorrows,
Father Glabre trod lightly on the delicate
ground; though he knew every inch of it,
and had nothing to fear from its pitfalls.
This was not, by a good many dozens, the
first story of connubial woe he had been
made to listen to. But his experience of
such cases was that women confess their
suspicions in order that the priest may dis-
pel them ; so that he carefully eschewed
the blunder of admitting even by implica-
tion that there was any foundation for An-
gélique's fears. On the contrary, he strove
to show that we often take alarm on slen-
der proof, and that our doing so is a virtue
since it only argues excess of love; “but,”
added he softly, “let us not neglect proba-
bilities,” and the probabilities on which he
dilated were that the Duke of Hautbourg,
being a man of taste and culture, was not
likely to prefer a person in a very subordi-
nate sphere of life, and no doubt unedu-
cated, to the gifted and accomplished lady
he had before him. There are few lines of
argument more sure of success than that
which consists of proving to a woman that
her rival is not to be named in the same
day with her; and the Rev. Father Glabre
said enough to dismiss a dozen ordinary
women on their way with tears dried and
hearts leaping. But Angélique was not an
ordinary woman.
“Ah,” said she, sadly, shaking her head,
ANGELIQUE's conFESSION.
185
“you don't know Iny husband, nor Geor-
gette Pochemolle, Father. She is more ed-
ucated than I am, and her rank is not lower
than what mine would have been had my
father not become so rich. But I am not
jealous of her. She is worthier of him than
, and how can I blame my husband be-
cause he has eyes to see it? But it would
have been so much better if he had per-
ceived this before our marriage ; for, now,
what am I to do 2 Yet it is a terrible thing
for him to be joined all his life to a woman
he does not like, when there is another near
who might make him so happy.”
Unaccustomed as he was to betray as-
tonishment at any thing—indeed there
were few things surprised him — the Rev.
Father Glabre slightly opened his eyes at
this; not quite sure whether he had heard
aright. Angélique caught his look and
guessed the meaning of it.
“Oh, yes!” continued she, with artless
melancholy, “I love my husband. I did
not know at first what love was ; but when
I came to feel happy at his being near me,
and sad when he looked sad, I understood
that this was love. Only I don’t think it
would be love if I thought of him only for
myself. Sometimes, when he was not look-
ing at me, I have watched him, and seen
his face darken, and I have said to myself:
‘This is because of me,’ and then I have
felt that I would do any thing — any thing
on earth, to keep that cloud from his brow.
Do you know what it is to feel this? To
sit and reflect whether there is any means
by which we can take away some one's
suffering and add it to our own, and not to
find any? For the more I looked, the more
dark things seemed to me; and something
like a voice in the might—yes, it was like
that, the voice of something within that
only speaks when one is alone, or when one
lies awake and cannot sleep — kept saying
to me that I was guilty for this. You see,
I had only to say no when he asked me to
be his wife, and he would have gone away
and soon forgotten me; for he never really
loved me — never felt for me as I do now
for him. But I was afraid. I was afraid
of my father,” repeated she, with something
of shuddering terror in her accent. “He
desired this marriage, and though I did not
understand why, then, I have begun to think
lately that I could guess; and if what I sus-
ect is true, and that the poor boy was
; inveigled into the match, then I am
more guilty than human words can tell,
and all the sorrow that overtakes me is
just. But it is not just that he should suf.
fer because I was weak and cowardly,” and
she fixed her eyes upon the priest with
such a deep expression of sorrow, that he
stood speechless before this grief, of which
he had never yet seen an example, and
which he could scarcely comprehend.
But sensibility was not a foible against
which the reverend father was often obliged
to pray Heaven to guard him. To be just,
he must have been endowed at his birth
with a larger share of this virtue than usu-
ally falls to one man, had he retained much
of it after all he had heard in that room
A town doctor may be said to lose his il-
lusions before his hair turns gray, a solicit-
or before his teeth have begun to loosen,
but a town confessor loses his before the
gloss has yet vanished from his first cassock,
So it was not the fault of Father Glabre,
but rather of the generation which had
whispered its sins into his ear, if, after a
moment's stupéfaction, he should have dart-
ed a rather keen glance at the woman, who,
for a moment, had thrown him off his im-
passiveness; and then fallen to musing.
Imagine a man who has a new contrivance .
presented to him: knows there is a catch
in it, and wants to discover what that catch
is; and you will have before you the Rev-
erend Father Glabre attempting to divine
what could be at the bottom of the Duch-
ess of Hautbourg's confession, and feeling
baffled.
Seeing him looking at her with benevo-
lence—for whatever might be brewing
within the reverend father's head, his coun-
tenance remained unalterably benevolent
— Angélique murmured mournfully : “It
has done me good, father, to confide all this
to you, for I have no one at home to whom
I could speak. There is my aunt, but I
should only sadden her, and she could do
nothing for me; and of course this is not a
matter for my cousin's ears.”
“Your cousin is married?” asked Father
Glabre.
“It is not a lady,” said Angélique. “He
is staying with us until he rejoins his regi-
ment. He is in the Carbineers.”
* Oh!” replied Father Glabre; and this
“Oh l’’ as it was uttered by him was a
thing to hear. The number of cousins in
the Carbineers whom the reverend father
had met lurking in the side-shifts of domes-
tic dramas was one of the curious facts of
his experience. Nevertheless, he abstained
from embracing hasty conclusions, and it
was well that he did so, for a few more ques-
tions answered with the naivest candor con-
vinced him that, whether he felt disposed
to own it or no, he had come this day upon
a — to him — new type of Parisian woman
— one who, amidst the corruptions of the
Babel City, and, though placed in circum-
stances where every thing conspired to en-
snare her, had kept the guileless innocence
of a child. Then something akin to pity
took possession of this priest. It was the
186
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
feeling of a hard soldier who finds, wander-
ing, in the midst of a raging battle, a young
and defenceless woman. The sceptica
Jesuit felt tempted to exclaim: “What are
ou doing amongst us, my poor child 2 what
ope is there for you in a world like ours ?”
And with a perceptible shrug he reflected
to himself: “Here is a fair creature who
has more love for her husband than he de-
serves. But how will it end? A part of
this affection, which he disdains, she will
One day transfer to the Carbineer. Ehew
me / what an oft-told fable is this ”
But aloud he said, with most considerate
gentleness: “Dear lady, there is nothing
in all you have related from which I can
gather that the slightest particle of blame
attaches to you. Your own conduct has
been exempt from reproach; and let me
persist in hoping that such is also the case
with the Duke of Hautbourg. But were it
otherwise I would remind you, less as a
priest than as a man who has seen much
and had many opportunities of marking the
courses of human weakness, that illicit pas-
Sions never last long, and that the man
whose affections stray for a while from his
own hearth, soon returns to it contrite, with
a new craving for that peace which can only
be found in domestic life. It is Heaven's
will that it should be so. The satiety that
cloys irregular appetites is a visible mani-
festation of the protection which Heaven
accords to the holy institution of matrimony.
Dear lady, trust in this to the healing grace
of time. Your husband's heart will surely
be yours again, and the sooner if you per-
severe in the wise and feeling course you
have adopted of not letting it be seen that
you have suspected him. This is but a
passing trial : “Heaviness may endure for
a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”.”
He gave her absolution pro formá, push-
ing a hassock for her to kneel on during the
rite ; but she knelt humbly on the floor,
and in accepting the assistance of his arm
to rise when it was over, thanked him in a
meek feeble voice for his forbearance in lis-
tening to her. He replied with a few more
cheering and politic counsels, and this put
an end to the clerical portion of the inter-
view. The priest then gave way to the
man of the world, or rather, in this case,
to the man of business; for it was then
that stood revealed the signification of the
sudden look of gladness that had illumined
the reverend Father's features at the sight
of Angélique, and also the secret of the
financial organ displayed on a chair. As
he conducted Angélique out of the oratory,
her black glove lightly resting on his sleeve,
like a small bird, the eloquent Jesuit said,
not without some anxiety in his voice :
“Madame la Duchesse, have you heard
quotations of this day a month ago.”
that the Crédit Parisien is ailing in any
way ?” *
“No,” answered Angélique, surprised but
uninterested, for the Crédit Parisien and its
concerns were as so much Sanscrit to her.
“You relieve me,” exclaimed the Rev.
Father, who looked in truth relieved.
“There were some disquieting rumors afloat,
but your denial of course shows me they
were unfounded. If you will permit me,”
said he, stopping, and running back to fetch
the paper— “you will see Madame la
Duchesse”— and he pointed to the column
headed “Bours E*— “the money article
adopts a certain tone of alarm. It says
(excuse me for reading): —“There was a
new fall on Crédit Parisien securities this
day. The closing price of the shares was
one thousand two hundred and thirty francs,
showing a decrease of thirty francs on yes-
terday's quotations, and of three hundred
and twenty francs as compared with the
Not
that I personally have any reason to feel un-
quiet at this,” added the Father, with a de-
precating little smile; “but I have been
given to understand that sundry members
of the church — some religious corporations
I believe — have invested a part of their
small means in the company which your
eminent father governs so ably, and it was
on their behalf that I experienced a little
uneasiness.”
Translated into French this speech meant,
that the Rev. Father Glabre being not unpro-
vided with this world's goods, and enter-
taining that same affection for ten per cent.
as his contemporaries, had been touched by
the prevailing epidemic, and bought some
Crédit Parisien shares at one thousand four
hundred francs. . Whence a certain degree
of stupefaction, followed by doubt and dis-
tracting meditations, when these shares,
after rising to one thousand five hundred
and fifty francs, had suddenly begun to fall.
Should he sell out at the unpleasant, but
comparatively small loss of one hundred
and seventy francs per share, so as to avoid
a greater sacrifice by and by ; or was this
merely a temporary depression from which
the company would recover in a week or
two 2 This is what he would have liked to
learn of the eminent M. Macrobe's daugh-
ter, and it is this that had caused him to
look upon her visit as a truly providential
event.
Angélique glanced ruefully at the share-
list, much as a girl of the Malay Archipelago
might in trying to decipher a music-scroll.
“I have not heard that there was any
thing wrong,” said she, “My father has
not told me any thing. But I will ask him,
if you like.”
“Oh, pray do not take that trouble l’an-
A PANIC.
187
swered Father Glabre, smirking unctuously.
“Only if Madame la Duchesse can gather
indirectly ” (a slight stress on this word)
“from M. Macrobe what the state of the
case really is, perhaps she will kindly re-
member that the servants of the Church re-
semble Lazarus more than Dives, and give
me such information as may enable me to
º: them in time from losing their little
all.” *.
“Oh, certainly 1” said Angélique, with
feeling, and this reminded her that she had
in her pocket a purse filled with money that
she never wanted, and which generally
melted in instalments to beggars. She
fumbled for it furtively and extracted a
thousand-franc note which she pressed into
the father's hand at parting: “For the
poor of your parish, Father,” she murmur-
ed.
But riding homewards she did not feel as
though her confession had given her the re-
lief she had sought. The palliation to her
suffering had been only temporary. Whilst
Father Glabre spoke, she had seen a faint
ray of Sunshine gleaming through the
clouds; but, now, the horizon on which her
mind's eyes were fixed seemed as colorless,
as bereft of hope, as ever. It seemed even
vaguely menacing. For, − as in moments
when the atmosphere is heavy, - an op-
pressive sensation stole over her spirit, an
andefined presentiment of events near at
hand, which would concern her, towards
which she was slowly drifting, and which
loomed ahead of her, like reefs in the hazy
night of the future.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A PANIC.
THE Reverend Vicar of St. Hyacinth's
had not exaggerated matters in talking of
the disquieting rumors that were bruited
about the Crédit Parisien. The rumors
were very disquieting indeed to those who
had money in that enterprise; and amongst
these, to our friend, the Prince of Arcola.
Seated at his breakfast-table in travelling
attire, with a British-looking teapot and a
still more British-looking muffin before him,
he read “The Times” newspaper, and thus
conversed with Bateson, who, railway-tables
in hand, was taking a survey of the trains
that left for Hautbourg that day: —
“Bateson, have you not shares in the
Crédit Parisien 2 ”
- “Yes, my lord.”
“And it is I who did council you to buy
them. How long ago was that, do you re-
member 2 ”
“Two years ago, my lord.” -
“And at how much the shares were
they?”
“I bought ten shares, my lord,” responded
the punctilious Bateson, “at seven hundred
and eighty-five francs each.”
The Prince drew out his pencil-case,
scrawled a multiplication sum on the mar-
gin of his “Times,” and said, half-apolo-
getically : — “Bateson, I have much fear
that this company is not what I thought.
They have made to run noises on its ac-
count, and if these noises be true the share-
holders will lose their money.”
Bateson stood calmly motionless. The
idea that a French company, trading in a
French land, could presume to make him,
Bateson, a British subject, lose his money,
was a thing slow to strike him as being with-
in the range of possibilities. There are
forms of audacity which it requires an effort
to realize. At length he asked, with im-
perturbable composure: “Then the compa-
ny is a swindle, my lord 2’” And one could
divine the unspoken corollary: “In which
case, I shall feel it my duty, on public
grounds, to lodge a complaint against them
at Bow Street.”
“Well, Bateson, one rarely knows in
these misadventures whom to blame,” said
the Prince with a patient shrug. “What I
wanted to say is, that you must not lose by
my advice. You should sell your shares
now ; but, as we are going out of town to-
day, perhaps it would be difficult to see your
broker in time. Suppose, then, you pass
them to me. I will take them at the day
before yesterday's quotations, as given here
in ‘The Times,’ — 1,275 francs.”
“And yourself, my lord?”
“Oh I do not be in pain for me, I will sell
yours along with mine. But you shall have
what they call a clause of redemption, Bate-
son ; that is in the case where the shares
should come to rise again, I will return them
to you for what I gave. That shall be only
fair.”
The mind of Bateson took in the business-
like aspects of this operation, and dis-
covered that the proposal was advantageous,
not to say uncommonly handsome, for which
ever way the wind veered, he, Bateson, a
British subject, would be the gainer.
“I am infinitely obliged to you, my lord,”
he said.
“Then, Bateson, it is an affair concluded.
If you will give me my cheque-book, which
is on that table, I will sign you a draft for
the sum, twelve thousand seven hundred
and fifty francs, or five hundred and ten
pounds sterling, in your currency.”
Which was done.. Then the Prince be-
188
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
gan a second sum in pencil for his own par-
ticular behoof, and by multiplying five hun-
dred and fifty francs (money paid for his
own shares) by eight thousand (number of
shares bought) arrived at the pleasant con-
clusion that if the Crédit Parisien were to
founder, he should be four million four hun-
dred thousand francs, or one hundred and
seventy-six thousand pounds sterling, out of
pocket. But this was not all. There were
one or two other persons besides Bateson
whom the Prince had advised in all good
faith to invest their savings in the Crédit
Parisien ; and that he was morally bound
not only to guarantee these people from loss,
but also to prevent them from selling to
others, shares which he now knew to be
worthless, seemed to him a fact as incon-
trovertible as noonday. So Bateson was
despatched below to make financial inqui-
ries of, and enter into transfer negotiations
with, the coachman, major-domo, and chef-
de-cuisine, three important functionaries
who lived in clover under the princely roof,
and by dint of occult perquisites, accumu-
lated salaries which allowed them to look
down upon captains of the line, country vi-
ears, and judges of first instance, as meanly
paid officials. And the upshot of Mr. Bate-
son’s embassy was, that before another half-
hour had sped, three more cheques on the
bank of MM. Lecoq, Roderheim and Ma-
crobe found their way from the breakfast-
room to the commons.
Thereupon, the Prince, rid of a double
load — load of uneasiness, and load of
money — finished breakfasting, and endeav-
ored, with as much coolness as the cir-
cumstances admitted, to foresee what would
become of him if he were ever ruined. He
should have to renounce his hopes of win-
ning the English Derby, that was clear;
but he might have to renounce many other
things besides that. Perhaps this political
life — which he was now about to embrace
for the sake of punishing a rival—he
might be compelled to cleave to from ne-
cessity.
It would be something to have the dep-
uty's salary of 500l. on which to fall back;
and then the deputyships led to other things
— senatorships, ambassadorships, Ministe-
rial portfolios. He mentally followed him-
self, pursuing the steep by-paths, the tor-
tuous labyrinths, the break-neck highways
that conduct one to places such as that
which M. Gribaud occupied ; and, at the
prospect, he winced a little, for it was not
one that consorted with his ideal of an
agreeable life's journey. In which predic-
ament of mind he betook himself to reading
his letters, of which a goodly heap had
been brought in contemporaneously with
“The Times.” There was one he had been
M
expecting from M. Gribaud's secretary.
Some days before, alarmed at the congratu-
lations of friends, who had been assuring
him that the Government was going to have
the peasantry round Hautbourg marched to
the poll in imposing columns, like herds of
horned cattle, he had written to request
...that no support of that kind might be af.
forded him, but that he might be allowed
to fight out the battle with his adversary
on equal terms — a fair field, and no favor.
In answer to this M. Gribaud's secretary
Wrote : —
“MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, - I am directed
by M. Gribaud to acknowledge the receipt
of your letter, and to say that Government
will, at your desire, abstain from taking any
active part in the contest between yourself
and M. le Duc de Hautbourg. At the
same time, his Excellency requests me to
state that it cannot be expected, neither
would it be desirable, that the authorities
should conceal their very sincere wishes
for your success.
“I have the honor to remain,
“Monsieur le Prince,
“Your most obedient humble servant,
“C. DE BEAUFEUILLET.”
The Prince had not restored this letter
to its envelope before Bateson re-appeared
to say that M. Macrobe had called. Was
his lordship at home 2
The hour was early, but his lordship was
at home. He had no reason to shirk seeing
the financier, who was his friend as well as
his banker, for conventionally, at least, the
coolness with Horace was not supposed to
cause any estrangement from Horace's
father-in-law. Moreover, the rumors that
were busy with the good name of the Crédit
Parisien rendered the Prince not unnatu-
rally anxious to sound the respected chair-
man as to what might definitely happen to
the mammoth enterprise, erst so lusty. He
was not quite naive enough to expect that
M. Macrobe would confess it if the reports
were true; but he fancied he should have
sagacity enough to discern, by the finan-
cier's manner, whether there were any real
danger under the surface. As for M. Ma-
crobe, the secret of his visit to the Prince
might have been found in a confidential
note from M. Louchard, which he carried
in the breast-pocket of his coat. Here
was that note : —
* “SIR,--The big goose has proved tough;
* “SIR,--The Prefect has proved incorruptible ;
no amount of bribing will buy him. Some of the
minor officials are open to offers, but thcy can be of
but little use to us without the Prefect. My most
trusted agent has canvassed the borough electors,
and those in the country districts. He is not dissatº
A. PANIC.
189
no amount of boiling will sodden him.
Some of the goslings are tender enough,
but they will not make a dish without the
goose. My farm bailiff has examined the
#. in the sty, and those in the meadow.
e is not dissatisfied with the former, but
gives a poor account of the latter. The
rooks will cut up tender, if seasoned with
the patent sauce; otherwise I fear they will
be uneatable. This is the story with the rest
of the fowls. The sauce, the sauce else
your friend will never be able to digest his
dinner | -
“Robert VINCENT.
“P. S. —I put the tenderest, plumpest,
and handsomest of our chickens into the
same pot as the goose. It was of no use.
That bird must have been furiously strong
on the wing. His weight is enormous.”
Coupled with the very serious complexion
which the affairs of the Crédit Parisien
were assuming, and with this circumstance,
that, on the preceding day — being that on
which the Corps Législatif had been dis-
solved — M. Macrobe had not seen his son-
in-law, and was consequently in ignorance
of the resolution to which he had finally
come, this note of M. Louchard’s was a
most portentous warning. The financier
was beginning to feel that the odds were
turning against him. He had yet two cards
to play, however, and the first of these was
to try and effect a reconciliation between
Horace and the Prince, in order that the
latter might be induced to retire. He did
not despair of this chance. *
The two men being mutually interested
in keeping on good terms with each other,
shook hands with tolerable cordiality; and
M. Macrobe at once took the bull by the
horns, by saying cheerily : “In travelling
garb I see, mom Prince. Bound for Haut-
bourg 2 ” -
“Yes, saddled for the road,” Smiled the
Prince. “The session only closed yester-
day, and I believe it is a point of etiquette
not to begin canvassing until the dissolu-
tion, in order that all the candidates may
have an equal start.”
“Good practice, if well observed,” re-
turned the financier, as cheerily as before,
“but it isn’t. To continue the racing
isfied with the former, but gives a poor account of
the latter. The clergy will be on our side, if the
Duke of Hautbourg goes to his estates ; otherwise
there is no reliance to be placed on them. This is
the story with the rest of the constituency. Let the
Duke return to Clairefontaine, or he will never win
his election.
“MOISE LOUCHARD.
“P. S. —I set the wiliest, most influential, and
rettiest of the ladies in our fº. to cajole the Prefect.
t was of no use. He must have been promised pro-
motion in the event of his defeating the Duke. He
is working the screw with tremendous vigor.”
metaphor, your prefect is putting all his
nags into training, and spiking the course
for our colt.”
“I have heard that he has been showing
too much zeal and am sorry for it. See,
wrote to the Government on the very sub-
ject, and here is their answer” (he handed
the secretary’s letter). “I have no wish
to win any victory, but such as I may be
proud of.”
“But come, why do you want a victory
at all ?” exclaimed M. Macrobe, sinking
into an arm-chair, and looking coaxingly
into the Prince’s face. “Don’t let us have
any mystery about this, mon Prince. I
know why you have quarrelled with my
son-in-law. It is about that little bit of a
girl, Georgette Pochemolle. But frankly,
is it worth the while of two gentlemen to
fall out about such a trifle ''''
“It is no trifle in my eyes when a friend
of mine misconducts himself,” answered
the Prince dryly. “Since our quarrel is no
secret to you, M. Macrobe, you must be
aware of what occasioned it. On the eve
of proposing to Mdlle. Pochemolle, I ap-
pealed to the Duke of Hautbourg, with the
utmost confidence, as to a brother, to know
whether there had ever been any thing be-
tween him and the woman I wished to
make my wife; and in return he deceived
me. If the consequence of this behavior
had been only to entail upon me the cruel
humiliation of the refusal which followed,
I should say nothing. But my proposal
revived painful memories in Mdlle. Geor-
gette's mind; it distressed her; and I have
a right to resent that sorrow which I was
the unwilling means of inflicting upon a
lady.” -
“Your proposal distressing to Mdlle.
Georgette that I will swear it was not,”
replied the financier with a coarse laugh.
“As to the other points, mon Prince, I had
always imagined that where a lady's honor
was involved, gentlemen were expected to
be silent — nay, in some cases even to per-
jure themselves. You would not have had
the Duke of Hautbourg blight a poor girl's
reputation by too candid avowals.”
“I would not have had a Duke of Haut-
bourg blight a poor girl's happiness by mak-
ing sport of her affections,” answered the
Prince, excitedly.
“Well, but, let us be reasonable, mon
Prince,” said the financier; “when Horace
Gerold seduced this shop-girl, he could not
foresee that she would one day be honored
with your love.”
“ Seduced her l’” and the Prince looked
at Prosper Macrobe with an expression in
which sudden amazement was largely blend.
ed with indignation. “What do you mean
by that, Monsieur Macrobe 2°
190
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS,
“Well, made her his mistress, if you like
the euphemism better,” answered the finan-
cier, not less surprised. “You surely hadn’t
any illusions on this head?”
“Good heavens !” groaned the Prince,
turning ghastly pale.
The financier had not suspected that the
Prince could be unaware of the liaison be-
tween Horace and Georgette. Indeed, he
fancied that the quarrel had been mainly
caused by the Prince's intimate knowledge
of what he – M. Macrobe — had only ascer-
tained latterly. On beholding the Prince’s
woe-struck attitude he was for an instant
disconcerted ; but next moment the reflec-
tion occurred that here was an opportunity
of terminating at a stroke the difference be-
tween the antagonists by proving to the
Prince that Georgette was not worthy of the
interest of an honest man.
“Why, don't you know?” said he, with
affected concern. “Georgette Pochemolle
was the mistress of my son-in-law long be-
fore his marriage, and — it is a cruel thing
for me to acknowledge, but I do so to you —
I have reason to fear that she is so still. I
obtained evidence of this wretched fact but a
few days ago; and I need not tell you what
a blow it was to me. But least said soonest
mended in such cases. I should only com-
promise my daughter's domestic peace by
interfering. There is nothing for it but to
let these passions wear themselves out.”
The Prince was walking distractedly up
and down.
“And to think I had set up this girl on a
shrine in my heart,” exclamed he, in a bitter
voice. “I believed in her — oh, what ac-
tresses women are l But,” and he turned al-
most fiercely on M. Macrobe, “this does not
alter my opinion as to your son-in-law’s be-
havior, for even this fallen girl is proved to
have acted more honorable than he. He
would have suffered me, his friend, to give
my hand to a courtesan, to his leman, and
have polluted my hearth by and by by re-
maining my wife's paramour; but it was the
courtesan who had too much delicacy for this
arrangement l”
“Softly, sir,” cried the financier, nettled;
“I am sure my son-in-law had no such base
design as that. He would have respected
your hearth.”
“Why should he have respected mine
since he does not respect his own 2" ex-
claimed the Prince, laughing contemptuous-
ly. “And is it you who defend him º "ad-
ded he, surprise mingling with his disdain.
“Why, of what clay can he be moulded, this
man who not a year after his marriage, keeps
a mistress whom he has seduced, and makes
so little secret of the fact that his father-in-
law, and perhaps his wife, are aware of it!
A man so reckless of his good reputation, so
regardless of the decencies which even pro-
fessed libertines observe, can have no soul
worth the name. God forgive me, I am no
Puritan, but I pity the poor lady who has
wedded her lot to his; and you, sir, whom
this marriage has made the relative of so de-
generate a nobleman. As to wishing to
win a victory over him, I desire to bar him
out of the Legislature, as I would black-ball.
him at a club.”
“I beg you to remark, mon Prince,” in-
terposed the financier, choler rising to his
gimlet eyes, “that if I thought my son-in-
law's conduct justified any of the stringent
expressions which you use, I should not
have delayed even a day in interfering.
But if I have deemed it wise to make allow-
ances for a young man enthralled by a
clever and designing girl, and perhaps
chained to her by that very fear of scandal
which you accuse him of braving — for
you certainly know by what manner of
threats these women are accustomed to
retain their victims by their side — I think,
the least which a stranger can do is to
imitate me. After all, the matter concerns
me more than anybody else.” -
“Well, so it does,” replied the Prince,
wincing, but in a quiet voice; for after
pacing in agitation on the hearth-rug dur-
ing a moment or two, he was recollecting
that M. Macrobe, as his visitor, had a claim.
to be spoken to undemonstratively. JHe
resumed his seat, penned up his feelings
with an effort, as a man might bottle
generous, effervescing wine, and putting on
a ghastly semblance of cheerfulness, said:
“Minora canamus. I was just brooding
when you came in over the chances of my
having to adopt politics as a trade, should
the company in which both our fortunes
are cast meet with the fate that is being
predicted for it.”
“The Crédit Parisien is as safe as the
Bank of France,” said M. Macrobe, hastily,
but still scowling. “Have you all your
shares still 7” and his tone as well as his
glance quickened as he asked this question.
“All,” answered the Prince, with some
dolefulness. “A ten-million francs’ worth
according to present quotations, though I
had them for less than half that, as I
believe you know ; to-morrow, however,
they may be worth less than I gave, and
next year nothing at all if this fall con-
tinues.”
“If you apprehend that, what is to pre-
vent your realizing to-day?” retorted M.
Macrobe, sharply. & *
“Just this,” said the Prince, and this
time it was his eyes that wore the search-
ing expression. “I was warned the other
day by somebody whose name I am not
free to mention, but whose position gave
A PANIC.
191
§
almost oracular weight to his words” (M.
Macrobe seemed to prick up his ears),
“that the Crédit Parisien was tottering.
If I were to sell my shares I should be
obliged to impart this bit of information to
the man who bought them ; and naturally
he would, then, refuse to buy. Thus until
I get sound proof that the &ai. Parisien
is not tottering, my shares are tied to my
hands.”
M. Macrobe looked the Prince through.
and through : “And you would sacrifice
: million francs to this scruple 7" said
€.
“Please to fancy a moment that instead
of so many thousand shares I possessed a
like number of sardine boxes,” answered
the Prince, with good-natured calmness:
“and that these boxes, all shining exter-
nally, were full within of rancid oil and
uneatable fish. It would scarcely be an
honest transaction, I think, to go and sell
these receptacles on the market as full of
good sardines 2° and he arched his eye-
brows with an air of inquiring remon-
Strance. -
A ray as that of a dark lantern gleamed
into the dark cavern where M. Macrobe
was groping, and seemed to show him a
way out.
“But what if I bought your shares?”
he asked.
“That would be another affair,” replied
the Prince with pardonable alacrity. “You
are the chairman of this company, and
Know all its secrets. If you buy, it will be
with your eyes open to the risks you run,
and I shall be your obliged servant.”
“Then prove it,” exclaimed M. Macrobe,
deluded by his own agitation into attaching
an earnest sense to these conventional
words, “Yes, Prince, I have no dearer
wish than to see you and my son-in-law
reconciled. Let us put an end to this un-
happy difference”—
“Oh! pardon me,” interrupted the Prince,
coloring, and drawing himself up with his
grandest air, “this sounds like a bribe.”
And he added in a significant tone, to
warn his interlocutor from venturing twice
on the same ground: “Let us talk of some-
thing else.” -
, But they did not talk of something else,
for, baffled and raging, M. Macrobe fled
the Hôtel d'Arcole, leaving his heavy mali-
son on it from roof to basement. It would
have been better for him had he then pro-
ceeded quietly to his own house, and there
seen Horace, who was waiting at home on
}. to tell him of the resolution he
ad formed with respect to Clairefontaine.
This would at once have cleared off the
clouds from his mind and set his noble soul
at rest. But instead of that he drove to
the offices of the Crédit Parisien, and thus
came in for a day of extremely unpleasant
emotions. -
The offices of the Crédit Parisien were
of course situated in a palatial edifice.
With the same spirit of generosity as had
led the promoters of the company at the
outset of affairs to vote themselves a hand-
some salary apiece, a commission had been
given to an eminent architect to build a
mansion regardless of expense — out of
the shareholders’ money. Humble stone
was too poor to carry out the elaborate
designs that were projected. The Crédit
Parisien must needs be treated to marble and
porphyry, granite and gilt bronze, also to
statues of Commerce, Industry, and Finance,
very expensive and slightly clad, beaming
down on the public from sculptured frontal.
And it may be accepted as one of the
characteristic symptoms of the sharehold-
ing mind, that there was not one of the
shareholders who passed by this sculptured
frontal and scanned its semi-nude deities,
and not one who strode through its por-
phyry portico and noted the fretted vermi-
celli work thereon, but felt the richer for
these utterly unseemly luxuries that had
been distrained out of his pocket. Nay,
there is ground for supposing that had the
board economized at starting the two or
three million francs it had wasted in build-
ing itself a house four times larger that it
wanted, the shareholder, mind would lave
thought meanly of that board, and have
complaimed of the lack of enterprise dis-
cernible in its undertakings. O share-
bolder, shareholder, my friend, and thou,
tax-payer, his brother, what flats on earth
so flat as yel -
Often had the well-pleased chairman
seen the street in which his offices, stood
thronged with beatific physiognomies serene
with the pocketing of fifteen per cent divi-
depds. Pretty pink faces peeping out of
broughams, and stopping him as he hurried
by, crying: “O dear M. Macrobe I do
come here and tell me what I am to do.
See these papers; I gave seven hundred
francs for them, and they are now worth
fifteen hundred. If I were to sell them, you
would let me have some more for seven hun-
dred, wouldn't you?” Sleek citizens with
round paunches greeting him bareheaded:
“This is better than investing in three per
cent rentes, monsieur.” Playful co-promo-
ters digging him in the ribs, and chuckling :
“The pot boils, Macrobe, eh? the pot
boils.” But this morning it was another
story. There were plenty of broughams
and no lack of greetings as he descended
from his own conveyance: but what greet-
ings | Small gloved hands, and rough un-
gloved ones, griping him firmly by the
192
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
coat-tails; blanched feminine features, and
haggard masculine ones pressing distract-
edly around him; anguishful soprano
voices and hoarse basses calling upon him
wildly for explanations: “What are these
rumors, M. Macrobe?” “Is there any
truth in this report?” “Why are the
shares falling in this way ?” “Have you
seen that article in the “Constitutionnel 7”.”
Unceremoniously shaking off these assail-
ants like a pack of yelping curs, the chair-
man shouted to them : “There's nothing
the matter at all. Hold to your shares or
you'll be throwing coined gold out of the
window,” and darted up stairs. In the
board-room most of the directors were as-
sembled, a gloomy conclave; nor were they
cheered by M. Macrobe's protestations:
“This is nothing but a cabal got up by
Gribaud, with whom I am at loggerheads.”
All eyes seemed to say: “Why the devil
did you fall to loggerheads with Gribaud 2 ”
And the evident impression was that the
chairman's speech was tantamount to what
a captain's would be who were to sing out
to his crew during a gale: “This is noth-
ing. I am only at loggerheads with the
north wind. It will be over presently.”
Yes, indeed, it might be over presently,
when the north wind had worked his will,
but then where would the good ship Crédit
Parisien be 2 In the midst of grievous
cogitations on this point, and tart debates
on what had best be done, and what ought
to be left undone, a clerk hurried in breath-
less, and said: “M. Macrobe, there is a
panic at the Bourse. Shares have opened
with a fall of 150 francs. . If you could go
there it might appease the public ; but it
should be done at once, for they have gone
mad.” -
How do panics occur? Like storms,
their course may be prognosticated by the
vigilant, but upon the vulgar they come all
of a heap, unawares. From the day when
the formidable M. Gribaud had begun to
blow Boreas-like upon it, the Crédit Pa-
risien had ridden in troubled waters, first
encountering small ripples, then little waves;
and now these waves were becoming crested,
were gathering ominously in strength and
height, and beyond, long lines of surf, and
rolling mountains of thundering sea, were
breaking into sight. The small ripples
were the influential shareholders, who had
been set into motion by M. Gribaud himself;
the little waves, the friends of these share-
holders who had caught the alarm second-
hand; the large waves were the great public
who had got wind of coming evil by see-
ing the richer shareholders moving. It had
taken about a month for the rumors to filter
down from the topmost strata of sharehold-
ers to the undermost. But the final im-
petus to the panic, the last drop, as it
were, that caused the cup to overflow, had
been furnished by the closing of the Corps
Législatif session. This being the signal
for everybody, to desert Paris and depart
into the country, all who, possessing shares,
had heard any adverse reports against the
company, hastened to sell out heſore leav-
ing town. Hence repeated falls several
days in succession, and hence also the un-
avoidable consequence that the great herd
of small shareholders being scared by these
falls, it should have been a case of turba ruit
or ruunt on the day following the dissolu-
tion. We beg here to notice another pecu-
liarity in the shareholding, idiosyncrasy.
Your panic-stricken shareholder does not
cloak his feelings under a decent garb of
exterior nonchalance. He bolts out into the
highway with his shares in his hands and
his hair on end, as who should say a coster-
monger endeavoring to sell his fruit with
this cry: “Who'll buy Who'll buy 2
Rotten apples Rotten apples l’”
In the Bourse, a dozen hundred of these
shareholders with their nearest kinsfolk and
dependents, making up an infuriated swarm
of some two thousand black hats, were bel-
lowing like ten herds of agonized buffaloes
giving tongue in concert. In the gallery
overlooking the stone-paved Exchange and
running all round it, frantic members of the
gentler sex — no longer gentle at this mo-
ment — shrieked and wept and gesticulated
to attract the attention of their stock-bro-
kers below — in defiance of the by-law
which enjoins that women visiting the
Bourse should be seen and not heard, and
to this end excludes them from the body of
the hall. But who cares in such moments
for by-laws? Maybe there is a by-law
forbidding individuals to rush upon a bro-
ker twelve and twenty together, to seize
him, hustle him, rend his heart and eke his
garments, and yelp orders to sell into his
ears under threats of personal violence?
Maybe there is another by-law formally in-
terdicting one man from ramming his fist
into his neighbor's eye, under pretext that
the neighbor having selfishly cornered a
broker wants to keep him all to himself?
And maybe a third by-law lays a total ban
on the hurling of one's hat at a distant bro-
ker's physiognomy as an expedient for
making him look your way ? But if so no-
body paid any heed to these regulations,
nor, indeed, to any others which might be
adorning the notice-board. Everybody was
thinking about himself, howling, pushing,
fighting, and perspiring in his own interests
— and what a dignified animal man looks
under these auspicious circumstancest
Shouts of “Crédit Parisiens at ten fifty!”
“Ten forty-five l’” “Ten twenty, then;
A PANIC.
193
who'll take at ten twenty ?” flew upwards
like sky-rockets.-- “They say Macrobe has
bolted l’” — “Bon Dieu ! I always knew it
would happen; and to think I bought only
a month ago at fifteen seventy l’” — “Sacré
baudet, will you let me pass 7”—“Is it me
you are addressing?”—“Yes, you; do
you think I am going to stand waiting here
all day until you’ve done jabbering 2*—
“Take that, you unwhipped cur. Piff.
Paff.” – “Sacré nom d’un chien / Paff.
Piff.”—“Hullo, there's a fight down there.”
– “Monsieur, you must give up your um-
brella at the door” (this from a policeman).
—“Damn my umbrella, sir!”—“Madame,
up stairs is the way for ladies.” – “Mon-
sieur, I don't care for the rules, I must see
my broker, and I shall.” — Policeman im-
pedes madame, who screams, slaps his face,
and sheds tears. — “Crédit Parisien, nine
fifty l’” — “Bah I I wouldn't take it at
eight, nor at seven l’”—“Nine twenty l’”
“Nine ten l’” “Nine | Crédit Parisien,
nine hundred l’”—“Good God! do you
hear that ? It’s down to nine hundred l’”
—“Just heavens ! I am father of a family,
and invested all my life's savings in it when
the shares were at fourteen hundred —
Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu !” (moans, yells,
and tears his hair out in bunches). — “Cré-
dit Parisien at eight seventy l’” “Eight
fifty-five l’” “Eight hundred l’’ (wildest
uproar.)
At this moment somebody near the door
rushed in with eyeballs starting and bawl-
ed : “Here is Macrobe, AND HE IS COM-
ING IN | *
“Macrobel Macrobel ” thundered two
thousand voices, and the Chairman was
soon visible, hot, dishevelled, panting, strug-
gling, being mobbed along like a deliverer
entering a besieged city, or like a brigand
being lynched.
But now the uproar was raised to its
highest pitch by a conflict of opinions, be-
tween bears and bulls, the formergentlemen
being well satisfied at the depression of
stocks, and in no way anxious to see them
rise again; the latter being just of the other
way of thinking, and shouting lustily to M.
Macrobe to make a speech. The scene that
followed was hell let loose. Charenton in
its cups, or the Zoological Gardens emptied
on to the Boulevards des Italiens. Many
a noble silk hat that had weathered gales
and showers was doomed that day to an
untimely end. Many a glossy coat, joy of
its owner and object of envy to the tattered,
was reft of its two skirts and converted into
a mark for opprobrium and jesting; many
a cambric shirt-front, rest to the eye of the
beholder, was lacerated beyond the remedy-
ing of needle-craft. But, at last, the bulls,
by reason of the number of their allies,
13
proving victorious, M. Macrobe was hoisted
on to the table that stood within the iron
pen railed off for the brokers' use; and after
the bears, most of them with noses punched
and cravats twisted awry by kindly efforts
made to strangulate them, had bawled them-
selves hoarse during seventeen minutes and
a half by the big clock in the gallery, M.
Macrobe contrived to obtain a hearing. He
had stood firm during the tempest, like Na-
poleon on his rock in the well-known picture
“St. Helena.” His coat was buttoned up
to his throat, one of his hands thrust into
the breast of it, the other behind his back
holding his hat ; his pointed face and
weas’ly eyes contemplated the multitude
with no more expression than a steel mask
might. But when he uttered his short ha-
rangue he did so with his might; and never
was speech better appreciated. After all,
the shareholding intellect desired nothing
better than to be convinced, to believe and
to go on trusting to any unlimited extent
which its chairman might require. The
words of the financier were therefore picked
up and swallowed like bread-crumbs by
famished poultry. When he concluded he
was tumultuously cheered; and the effect
of his consoling assurances became at once
apparent in a cessation of the panic and a
rise of the stocks.
But for all that the Crédit Parisien had
received a rough shaking, and none knew
it better than the chairman. Credit in
finance is like the bloom on a plum — only
touch it with the finger and that is the last
of it. When M. Macrobe returned home
late that afternoon he could almost have
counted the number of days which must
form the utmost span of the company's life,
if nothing occurred to bring a turn in the
tide. On the table in his study he found a
new letter from M. Louchard.
This one was not couched in figurative
style, being a comparatively harmless com-
munication — at least so M. Louchard
opined:—
“ (Private and confidential.)
“SIR,-M. le Duc de Hautbourg has been
followed and it seems that he has been in
the habit of going to Meudon to see Made-
moiselle Georgette Pochemolle every morn-
ing for this past fortnight. He went there yes-
terday early, breakfasted at the restaurant
with mistress's brother, and returned again
in the evening. He then admitted himself
with a latch-key into the grounds and remain-
ed there more than two hours. His visits are
matters of public notoriety at Meudon.
“I have the honor to remain, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
z’ “Moise. LOUCHARD.”
194
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
M. Macrobe refolded this letter, and his
grasp tightened over it.
“This is my last card,” said he, “my last;
and I must play it.”
He went to the drawing-room, expecting
to find his daughter there, and intending to
ask her whether Horace had left word at
what time he should be home that day. But
Horace himself was in the room; and M.
Macrobe perceived at a glance that Angé-
lique, who was seated near him, looked hap-
pier than he had seen her for many weeks
past. Horace rose, and, taking his wife's
hand playfully, led her towards her father.
“I think, sir,” said he, “Angélique has
something to communicate to you.”
And Angélique said with glistening eyes:
“Papa, Horace has just been writing to his
agent to prepare Clairefontaine Castle for us.
We are going to live there for the future.”
M. Macrobe by a master effort brought
his features under control, so as to reveal
little or nothing of what he inwardly felt ;
and he ºnrew himself on to the sofa. But
the effort must indeed have been a strong
one, for he remained several moments with-
out speaking, and during that pause the
letter he was holding dropped unnoticed
from his hand and fell among the sofa-
cushions.
CHAPTER XL.
LOVE's CALVARIES.
As M. Louchard accurately wrote, Hor-
ace had returned in the evening and let
himself with a latch-key into M. Poche-
molle's grounds, which grounds consisted of
a garden about half an acre in extent, and
embellished at one of its extremities with a
belvidere, commanding an inspiriting view
of not less than half a mile of country.
Knowing the indomitable passion of newly-
retired tradesfolk for out-door walks on a
week-day (such having been forbidden-fruit
to them during their commercial existence),
he had calculated that M. and Mdme. Poche-
molle might perhaps be in the habit of going
out visiting neighbors, and sometimes leav-
ing Georgette — less enthusiastic about this
pastime—at home. It was the season of
the year when the days are just lengthening
sufficiently to admit of after-dinner outings.
Accordingly, he had glided into the garden,
after first reconnoitring over the hedge to
see that the coast was clear; and, under
cover of a propitious laurel-grove, had crept
to the belvidere and there ensconced him-
self, waiting for events. Setting aside the
morality of the matter, this was a foolish
thing to do; for a man who introduces him-
self by stealth into a garden runs the risk
of being collared at a turning by a gar-
dener, or waylaid by an unexpected watch-
dog, or descried from a top bedroom window
by a housemaid, and set down for one bur-
glariously intent — in which last case the
usual way is noiselessly to apprise the police,
who march upon one strategically, and drag
one out of concealment triumphantly and
by the scruff of the neck. But when did
lovers ever hesitate to do a foolish thing 2
Horace, however, earned no recompense
for his adventurousness. M. and Mdme.
Pochemolle did, indeed, go out whilst he
was watching; but Georgette remained in
doors, and did not come out into the gar-
den. Horace had not quite enough effron-
tery to enter into a dwelling-house with a
purloined latch-key, or it may be that he
was restrained by ignoring in what part of
the house Georgette might be. Anyhow,
after two hours’ weary waiting, the draper
and his wife having meanwhile returned,
he withdrew.
But withdrew only to come another time.
He was at his post again on the next night,
and again on the next, and so on three or
four nights a week for well nigh a month.
Owing to his recent bereavement, he could
not tell Angélique after dinner that he was
going into society or to the opera. He was
reduced to simulating a desire for a stroll,
or an appointment at his club; and such is
the proneness of marital nature to believe
in its own sagacity, that he rather congrat-
ulated himself on the specious pretexts
which he invented every night to rout sus-
picion. If men would but devote to worthy
ends one-half the ingenuity they bestow on
evil, what a change we might live to see on
the world's surface After the fifth night
of bootless watching, Horace's passion be-
ing increased rather than diminished by the
material obstacles it encountered, he re-
solved that, come what might, on a certain
night at the end of the third week, he
would see and speak to Georgette. He
was mainly driven to this resolution by the
fact that the Monday of the fourth week
was the day on which he had arranged to
start for Clairefontaine, so that, unless he
saw Georgette now, he might not have the
opportunity again for some time. -
Dinner over, he hinted at a headache, to
which Angélique assented with a pious
falsehood, saying he looked a little unwell,
and recommending fresh air. M. Macrobe,
who, now that all his own wishes were be-
ing crowned, would not have grudged pearls
to strew on his son-in-law's path, followed
in the same strain; as did likewise Aunt
Dorothée, who, however, suggested a wet
"LOVE's CALVARIES.
195
towel round one's head as a beneficent ad-
junct to the walk. So Horace was shortly
clearing the road to Meudon. -
That evening M. Pochemolle, on rising
from table, remarked that it was a long
time since he had seen his friend Bourba-
truelle, late in the crockery way, now re-
tired and owning a villa at Auteuil. Sup-
pose they were to drive over and spend the
evening with Bourbatruelle 2 othing
loath to show off to Mdme. Bourbatruelle a
brave watered silk gown resplendent with
bugles, Mdme. Pochemolle consented; and
so did M. Alcibiade, remembering that
there was a Mdlle. Bourbatruelle, mirthful
and goodly to look upon. Georgette would
have been happy to go, too, but being en-
gaged in finishing a piece of tapestry,
which she had promised the curé of Meu-
don against Easter to deck one of his altars
with, thought she had better remain at
home, so as not to risk delay with her
work.
“As you please, child,” said Mdme.
Pochemolle, a little tartly, for ever since
that unlucky rejection of the Prince of Ar-
cola's suit, Mdme. Pochemolle’s maternal
heart had borne a load of bitterness. There
are filial offences which a mother never
quite forgives this side of the grave, and
refusal of an eligible offer is one of them.
More affectionate in his tone and look,
the worthy ex-draper simply said, “Well,
Georgette, we will take your love to the
Bourbatruelles.” - w
And so Georgette was left alone to finish
her tapestry. -
She went up stairs and sat down by the
open window of her room — one that was
located in a corner of the house overlook-
ing both the garden and part of the road-
way skirting it. The evening was mild and
fine. On the lawns of all the villas within
view, Meudonites were sipping coffee or
wreathing blue clouds of cigarette smoke
into the thin air, whilst their offspring
crowed over gravel pies laboriously con-
structed, or gambolled with their little
close-cropped French heads in and out
of lilac-bushes. It was also a pleasant
sight to see such Meudonites as had been
for a stroll into the fields trudging home-
wards in groups down the hedge-lined
roads, laden with rustic spoils, a little foot-
sore, but contented and hungering for their
pot-au-feu. Papa to the front, with straw
hat in one hand, and prickly branch of
scented may in the other; mamma, a little
behind, with more may and cowslips; hope-
fuls closing the procession; small girl with
bunches of limp daisies and buttercups,
much the worse for being plucked; small
boy holding a dead dormouse by the tail,
slain in single combat. Then there were
red-breeched soldiers, who enlivened the
road, trampling along fast, to be back in
barracks in time for tattoo: a desultory
knife-grinder pushing his vehicle towards
Paris, and whistling le Sieur de Framboisy
as loudly as though that melody were not
interdicted by the police, for its disrespect-
ful allusions to his Majesty; and presently
came the sounds of a hurdy-gurdy, and of a
voice singing sweetly an old and popular
ballad to its accompaniment.
Georgette listened. It was a woman's
voice; and she sang with that plaintive sad-
ness which the instrument she was playing
requires. But she seemed to be returning
home after a toilsome day, for trudging
slowly, she stopped no longer before any
one house than the time to repeat a single
verse of her song, and then proceeded, her
hurdy-gurdy droning mournfully, almost
weirdly, in the mean time. In this way she
reached the Pochemolle villa, and would
have passed on, but, looking up, perceived
Georgette at her window, and so paused in
the road. Turning the handle of her in-
strument in measured cadence, and draw-
ing notes so low, tender, and melancholy,
that they were like the strains of a young
girl's dirge, she sang this: —
“Pour chasser de sa souvenance,
L'ami sécret,
On se donne tant de souffrance,
Pour peu d'effet;
Une si douce fantaisie
Toujours revient;
Lorsqu'on songe qu'il faut qu'on l'oublie,
On s'en souvient.”
Georgette dropped her needle. There
was not a word in these lines so true to
nature, but might have been penned for
her special case. How often had she not
tried to forget Horace, and how often had
not some douce fantaisie returned to keep
his image ever present in her memory !
She threw out some money to the woman,
who called on the Virgin to bless her, and
then she would have resumed her work, but
the hands, unguided by the mind, which
was just then straying far from gold and
silver thread patterns, rested on the tam-
bour-frame without moving. Of whom was
she thinking 2 Of whom do women think?
Of the men who love them most 7 Seldom.
Of the men who have caused them most
suffering, and whom they love the more for
that reason. Georgette thought — and this
was not the first time that month, that
week, nor even that day — of the last time
when she had seen Horace, of that short,
cruel interview, when she had reviled him,
and he had insulted her. But she did not
think with anger, or resentment, of that
scene; on the contrary, Horace had cleared
196
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
himself by his violent indignation. In
hurling back upon her without restraint,
without pity, the accusations she had
launched against him, he had proved his
innocence in her eyes more signally than
if he had adduced innumerable arguments
and circumstantial proofs. She blessed
that passionate outburst which had restored
again to his place in her esteem the man
she loved; for the insults he had heaped
upon her bore no grudge. Like a penitent
kissing the rod that has lashed her, she
murmured that she deserved them. But
she felt contrite — bitterly, unspeakably
$ontrite—for her unfounded suspicions
against him. These she magnified into
crimes, and would have done penance for
on bended knees. A loving woman's heart
is an unfathomable abyss of humility.
“That he should love another, what more
natural, since my own heart and temper
are so wicked,” was her meek self-confes-
sion. And then she accused herself for
ever having hoped to be loved by a man
who was above her in every thing — in
mind and soul as well as worldly rank —
accused herself for having mentally despised
Angélique, who was gentler and purer than
she — accused herself for dreaming still
about Horace, who ought to be sacred to
her as if he were dead. Yet, underlying
these repentant self-denunciations, was a
heart-felt, though scarcely defined wish to
see Horace, if but once more to ask his for-
giveness for having wronged him. She
deluded herself into fancying that this ex-
piation was a duty; she knew it would be
a relief. So these two, Horace and Geor-
gette, were both tending towards the same
point; they desired to meet and ask each
other's pardons. -
For several minutes after the minstrel-
woman had disappeared—her touching
notes lingering behind her like the trail
that follows light — Georgette sat, full of
emotion, applying the words she had just
heard to herself, and thrilling at the echoes
of them that vibrated in her heart. At
last — it may have been after ten minutes,
perhaps after twenty — she looked up from
a particular flower in her embroidery, to
which her gaze seemed riveted, and glanced
into the garden. On the gravel path below
her window stood a man, and that man was
Horace.
He looked so sepulchral in his dark
clothes— his black gloves and his face
beaming paler from the dusk — that she
started, and pressed her hand to her side
as if she had seen an apparition.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, with bated
voice and in an appealing tone, “can I
speak to you — a single instant”
She descended into the garden instinc-
tively, having no control over her own will
in the matter. She wondered, when she
got there, how and why she had come
down.
“Thank you,” he cried fervently; then
with impassioned ardor, “O Georgette I
Call you ever forgive me for my brutality to
you? I have come on purpose to crave
your pardon — for no other purpose than
this. Remorse has been devouring me for
my heartless conduct.” *
Paler than himself, more troubled, and
more faltering, she answered: “It is for me
to beg your pardon, M. le Duc — Monsieur
Horace,” added she, correcting herself on
seeing a disappointed look flit over his
features. “What can you have thought of
me? Believe me, I did not speak what I
feel. I hate myself for what I said to you !”
And her eyes brimmed over with tears as
she glanced up into his face.
He seized one of her hands, and pressed
it to his lips.
“Hear me, Georgette,” said he ; “I love
you, love you with all the might of my
heart. Like a madman, I rushed into a
marriage with a woman whom I did not
really care for; I was blind as well as mad,
for I did not see that it was you alone whom
I loved. Let us not prolong our misunder-
standing. Tell me that you love me. ... I
have heard how you refused M. d’Arcola.
Let me hear from your own lips that it was
for my sake you did so.” And, encircling
her waist with his arm, he drew her to him,
and lowered his face so close to hers that
their lips almost touched.
She quivered from head to foot, struggled
feebly, and then closed her eyes, as if to
shut out the sun's rays.
“Yes, yes, I love you !” she sobbed de-
liriously. “I have loved you always, you
know it.”
This time their lips met. He covered
her face, eyes, hands, with burning kisses;
and her head drooped languidly, unresist-
ingly, on his shoulder.
“We have wasted enough happiness.
Georgette,” whispered Horace wildly.
“You know that if I were free, I would
make you my wife; but human laws and
conventionalities must not stand in the way
of our felicity. We are wedded in the
sight of Heaven, for the only marriages that
can be sanctioned above are those of hearts
linked together by love.” -
He spoke with the fervid tenderness of
passion; but his words seemed suddenly to
revive Georgette. She tremblingly dis-
engaged herself from his embrace, and with
wistful looks and voice of entreaty, said:
“O M. Horace I let us not mar this one
hour of happiness in our lives. I shall re-
member it all my days as the sweetest I
LovE's CALVARIES.
197
have ever spent; but we can never be more
to each other than we are. Never, never !”
“But, hear me, Georgette,” he exclaimed,
trying to retake her hand.
“No, no; ” and she sank on a form,
burying her face in her hands. “We are
both bound by duties — you to your wife,
whom it would be cruelty to betray; I to —
to” — Her sobs choked her. “I wanted
to say, that I, too, am engaged — or nearly.”
“You engaged ?” cried Horace, starting
back, colorless.
She did not immediately answer. Her
tears were raining fast, and her frame shook
with agitation.
“Do not judge me wrongly again,”
sobbed she at last. “You see, after I made
}. those — those wicked reproaches at our
ast meeting, accusing you of having married
for money, and when you answered me
that I, too, had jilted an honest man who
loved me — that M. Filoselle — I thought
that all you said was right; and I have
been reflecting ever since that perhaps M.
Filoselle imagined I had refused him for
bad motives.” She sighed sorrowfully.
“And I would not have him think this,”
added she, shaking her head, “for such
thoughts sour one's heart and make it un-
just to others. You cannot conceive how
perverse and uncharitable I was when I
allowed myself to suspect ill of you. So, as
poor M. Filoselle has been sending me
letters for this last month by my brother,
and as I see that he has been really expect-
ing all along that I would marry him, and
says that the happiness of his life depends
upon it, I told my brother to answer him
to-day, that I would keep the word my
father once gave, and become his wife.”
A few more tears coursed each other
down her cheeks, and her hand shook as
she wiped them away.
“Good heavens !” you married to that
ludicrous counter-jumper!” exclaimed Hor-
ace, frenzied. “Why, I would a million
times sooner see you wedded to the Prince
of Arcola | *
“If I were to marry the Prince, and pre-
tend to love him when I did not, I should
feel as if I had sold myself to him,” mur-
mured Georgette, reddening. “I can pre-
tend to love M. Filoselle, because I have
.1othing to gain by this marriage but the
consciousness of doing right, by making a
man who loves and suits me happy.”
“But have you no pity on me?” broke
out Horace, distractedly; “must this poem
of our love be cut short at the first verse 2
Do you not see that you are condemning
me to a whole life of unhappiness; and
have I, who both love and trust and adore
you, no greater claim to your compassion
than this man, Filoselle 2" He took her
hands beseechingly, and poured out a new
torrent of vows and adjurations: “Geor-
gette, Georgette l are you going to let this
ſove rankle within me, all my days through,
unchafed ?”
She hesitated ; then rose, and with the
light of innocence beaming from her eyes,
and her hand laid tremblingly on her lover's
arm, whispered : “Horace, our love would
rankle within us if we had ever cause to
blush for it. But let us make of it some-
thing pure and sacred, enshrine it in our
hearts as a second conscience to stimulate
us to good and noble deeds, to kindly
thoughts, to generous acts of self-sacrifice.
We shall be distant from one another, we
may not meet again ; but let us each feel
that the other's silent love is with him to
sustain and encourage in all the trials
with which life is crossed. Then will
these trials seem lighter. Wherever you
may be, whatever you do, my heart will
follow you, throbbing for all your pains,
exulting at your triumphs. I have heard,
though only lately, of your father's chival-
rous honor and your own in spurning an
estate which you could not accept with con-
sistency; and if you knew how much I
worshipped and admired you for this act
We women, you know, will always have our
lovers heroes; and spotless honor, honor
which knows no compromise nor weakness,
is the highest form of heroism we conceive.
For myself, there is no sorrow or pang that
will seem hard to me to bear, now that I
have your love. And after all, this sacrifice
we are embracing will not last long. What
are the few years of human life in com-
parison with eternity? For beyond this,
there must assuredly be a world where
those who have suffered here have their
time of joy; and there, Horace, there, if we
keep stainless in this life, we may meet
never to be parted again.”
She uttered these words in a quick tone,
with almost inspired serenity on her face,
and when she had concluded she raised her-
self, kissed him chastely on the forehead,
and said, “God bless you, and good-by.”
“Georgette, stay,” he exclaimed in de-
spair, darting forward to hold her back.
But she turned with a look so loving yet
so full of maidenly dignity and reliance on
his honor, that he remained rooted where
he stood. Before crossing the threshold of
the house she turned once more and waved
him a last kiss with her hand, glanced to
him a last good-by with her eyes. Then it
was as if all light had suddenly vanished
from his presence. w
He was roused by the noise of wheels,
caused by the Pochemolle family returning
from their excursion. Night had com-
pletely set in. He snatched up his hat
198
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
from a form, and as soon as the house-door
had closed upon the draper, his wife, and
son, and the cab had rolled away, let him-
self out with his stolen latch-key, which he
then threw over the gate on to the gravel
path, in order that it might be found again
by its owner. He would never need it
7 again, that he knew. -
Then he walked toward Paris with de-
#.". gait and a heavy weight at his heart.
e despised himself; yet, man-like, en-
deavored to shift some of the responsibility
of his own abasement on to other and un-
offending shoulders: “If I had married
this girl,” brooded he, “I should have been
a different man. Curse my marriage, curse
it ”
Whilst Horace was thus madly laying a
ban on his own roof-tree, this is what was
passing under it. After Horace had sal-
lied out on his supposed stroll to cure his
fanciful headache, M. Macrobe had very
soon retired to go to a party, and left An-
gélique to the improving society of Aunt
Dorothée and the Crimean Hero. The
financier, by the by, had become very as-
siduous during the last three weeks in fre-
quenting parties, and this with the object
of letting everybody who still lingered in
town hear that he was going to spend his
summer at Clairefontaine, and that Claire-
fontaine was an estate worth two million
francs a year (a little exaggeration does no
harm). He was not mistaken in supposing
that these recitals would operate benefi-
cially on Crédit Parisien stock. The share-
holding mind, with its habitual sagacity,
opined that if the chairman admitted his
son-in-law's income to be two million francs,
four millions must be accounted as nearer
the true mark: for did not these function-
aries systematically understate their private
worth 2 Whence it followed, as clear as a
proposition in Euclid, that M. de Haut-
bourg having four millions a year in no
way connected with the Crédit Parisien, it
behooved every shareholder of that Com-
pany to sleep in peace, and rest assured
that fifteen per cent was the stablest of
institutions. But M. Macrobe did not
merely succeed in dazzling the shareholder,
which would have been a poor triumph.
Wherever he turned, Society's smiles met
him. There were not many members of
the haute fashion, as French sporting pa-
pers call it, still in Paris; but such few as
there were smiled as bountifully between
them as though their numbers had been
quintuple; and at one house where a “liq-
uidation ” rout was being given (i.e., an
omnium gatherum of all the visiting list
overlooked in previous invitations during
the season), M. Gribaud, who had dropped
in to talk with the master of the house,
*
one of his colleagues, took an early and
eas; opportunity of sidling up to the finan-
cier, and striking up a sort of truce with
him.
“So you have reached the goal of your
hopes, M. Macrobe’” said he, with the
grim bluffness of an unfriendly bear.
l “Not quite, your Excellency, but near-
92
y. And I see you have come forward to
contest the second seat in the Hautbourg
department. If you win it you will be call-
ing yourself a Liberal, and voting with the
Opposition ?” ---
“Heaven forbid I shall ever be a Ma-
crobist, and vote for Macrobe l’”
M. Gribaud was pleased to grin.
“Well, you know, we have given orders
to our people to remain neutral between
Duke and Prince. We hinted to the latter
that he would do well to retire, but he de-
clined. He seems bitter against you, and
is fighting you on his own hook.”
“He is like his grandfather the field-
marshal, who feared not treble odds, and
took his thrashings gallantly,” replied the
financier, with smooth sarcasm, “And I,
your Excellency, am I to be opposed ?”
“Give us a pledge, Macrobe, give us a
pledge,” growled the Minister, button-hol-
ing the other, and drawing him into a cor-
ner. “What the devil can possess a man
like you to make war on us? Why, you
might be a minister yourself, if you were
our ally.” *
“My address is Bonapartist from the ex-
ordium to the peroration, your Excellency.
It concludes with the cry, Vive l'Empe-
Teur.’”
“Ay, but there is not a word about Vive
Gribaud.’” grumbled his Excellency, wag-
ging his head with distrust.
“That was a terrific shaking you gave
the Crédit Parisien,” laughed the financier,
rather sourly.
“Bygones are bygones, Macrobe,” grum-
bled the other, though a little shamefa-
cedly. “I serve the state. It was not our
interest to see you and your son-in-law be-
come powers; but now that you are likely
to become so whether you will it or not,
our interest is to be friends with you.
Statemanship is all summed up in that.
It’s sail with the wind.”
“I have little fear about my election,”
said the financier with an air of half-mock-
ing assurance, for which his Excellency
would have cheerfully buffeted his weas’ly
head, “But if my competitor is not sup-
ported, and if your Excellency will speak
a good word or two for the Crédit Parisien
in the same quarters where you have been
whispering evil, your Excellency’s name
goes into the second edition of my address
LOVE'S CALWARIES.
199
with a laudatory notice attached to it. My
conditions are not hard,” added the finan-
cier, his voice beginning to grate; “for
whatever you may say or do, you can never
repair the mischief you have done the
Crédit Parisien. From the day when you
drove all its official wire-pullers from it, its
hours were numbered, but if you instruct
the Government organs who have been
abusing it by your desire to change their
tune, and if you let it alone yourself, it
may run on for another year or two; and
this will enable me to retire from it before
the crash, which is all I want.”
“Well, well, I like a plain bargain: Ilet
the Crédit Parisien alone and you let me
alone, eh?” and M. Gribaud holding out
his hand griped the financier's fingers be-
tween its knotty joints like filberts between
a nut-cracker.
So the peace seemed signed; and M.
Macrobe gadded about night after night,
from drawing-room to drawing-room, hold-
ing his head aloft, and evincing all the good-
humor of success. But we must return to
Angélique.
Ileft alone with her aunt and her cousin
after her father had gone out, she thank-
fully assented to the Captain's offer to read
to her, and composed herself on the sofa to
work—or rather to play mechanically with
colored wools — and to listen to him, or
feign to do so. Reading, however, was but
an amatory device of the gallant officer's.
He read until he had sent Aunt Dorothée
to sleep, which was never long; then he
would lay down his book and talk confi-
dentially and tenderly about himself by
the hour—the only method he knew of
making love. Captain Clarimon was of
opinion that the French Army was to re-
generate the whole civilized world by
thrashing it — every nation taking its turn
— the Russians had just had theirs; next
would come the English, who had been
wanting a thrashing for some time; then
Austria and the Prussians, and lastly those
miserable Spaniards and Swedes. He de-
veloped these views with no lack of fire,
and was especially descriptive as to the
parts he himself would take in the double
work of civilizing and discomfiting, basing
his predictions as to the future on his en-
tirely satisfactory achievements in the past.
Angélique always listened kindly, though
sometimes venturing on some such simple
question as whether it would not be possi-
ble to civilize some of the nations without
thrashing them; but the Captain complained
to himself that there was an absence of
glow in her enthusiasm, none of that rap-
ture, none of those effusive transports which
the novels he had read had led him to be-
lieve were usual with fair women hearken-
ing to the deeds of heroes. To ºveak in
military phrase, the brave was “iol uad been
laying siege to his cousin ſo, some time,
and he found that the fortress was a little
long in capitulating. This was so much
the case that on the particular evening in
question, having kept up a close bombard-
ment for two hours, and having finally
awaked Aunt Dorothée with a start by his
furore in picturing for about the fifty-sixth
time how those pauvres diables d'Anglars
would all have been stewed at Inkermann
if he and his men had not delivered them
from the frying-pan, he retreated disheart-
ened as he had done on many former occa
sions, and went out to solace himself with
a night walk and a cigar on the Boulevards.
Then Angélique, a little wearied by thin
sanguino-civilizing talk, laid aside her ball,
of red and yellow worsted, and closed hei
eyes as if for a nap.
“That young man's conversation is most
terrifying and makes one’s flesh creep,”
exclaimed Aunt Dorothée lugubriously
“My dear, it's ten o’clock and your hus:
band is not in yet. He will make his head.
ache worse instead of better, by walking so
long.” *
“He will be in soon, I dare say, deat
aunt,” said Angélique, patiently. She, too,
had noticed how long her husband remained
absent; but she was used to it now.
“My dear, you are getting sleepy. That
all comes of the late hours we kept before
we went into mourning,” resumed Aunt
Dorothée, with conviction; “which mourn-
ing – Heaven forgive me for saying so —
is almost a mercy, for how people could
remain out night upon night as we did, and
not get into their beds until three or four
in the morning, and sometimes not until
the milkman had come, is more than I can
understand in a Christian land. You must
lie down and sleep, my dear. I won’t
speak.”
Angélique faintly combated the impeach-
ment of being sleepy, but, as the twinkling
of her eyes belied her, she was soon fain to
give in, and let her head sink back into the
cushions. In less than five minutes more
her regular breathing told that she was
asleep.
And in that short sleep she dreamed —
dreamed that she was in a lonely spot amidst
trees, whose branches were tossed about by
the wind, whilst deluges of rain fell around
her from a dark, thundering sky. , Seeking
for shelter, she came to an oak, whose
spreading canopy of foliage seemed to offer
her protection, and there crouched. But
at that moment some of the mist and rain
before her cleared away like a curtain, and
disclosed two figures walking hand-in-hand,
They were the figures that were constantly
t
200
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
in her thoughts day and right— her hus-
band's and Georgette's. She could see them
distinctly, as if they were but a few yards
off, and they were walking slowly; but
there was this difference between their po-
sition and hers, that, whereas the storm
raged in all its black fury above where she
was standing, Horace and Georgette ap-
peared to be in the sunshine, in a garden
full of flowers and songs of birds. They
looked lovingly into each other's eyes,
stopped and kissed each other — then part-
ed. And Horace, hurrying quickly away,
came towards her under the oak. And she
would have fled, but her limbs refused to
move: she was petrified, and could not even
utter a cry. He came rapidly and straight
in her direction, but apparently without
seeing her, for not until he almost touched
her did he pause. Then the love that still
gleamed on his face changed suddenly to
anger and menace. He raised his hand
and cursed her
She started from her sleep, and sat up-
right with blanched face and starting eyes.
“Aunt, where is he Did you hear what
he said 7" she asked, wildly.
“What, dear?” answered Aunt Doro-
thée, frightened and rising.
Angélique looked round her with horror-
stricken gaze, as if the image she had just
seen was still present to her there in the
TOOOO!.
“Oh pity, pity,” she cried at last, putting
her hands before her eyes to avert the light.
What a dream—what a frightful dream l’”
Aunt Dorothée, in alarm, pressed to her,
and endeavored to comfort her. “You are
agitated, child. It's those long walks this
winter. I knew they could only do harm.”
“It is over now, dear aunt,” pleaded
she, faintly and shivering. “It was only
a dream ” — but at her aunt's urgent re-
quest, she agreed to go to bed.
In her affrighted start from her dream,
however, she had upset one of the sofa
cushions on to the floor. She picked it up,
but, in restoring it to its place, and settling
it with the others, she noticed an edge of
white paper peeping out of the cavity,
ſormed by the tight drawing of the satin
covering of the sofa at one of its corners.
Thinking it was a letter she herself had
dropped, she drew it from its nook. As fate
would have it, it was the letter written to
the financier with respect to Horace's doings,
by M. Louchard, three weeks before, and
which had lain there ever since it had fallen
out of M. Macrobe's hand — a mute wit-
ness to the careful way in which drawing-
room furniture is dusted in great houses by
well-paid servants.
The letter had no ºnvelope. She opened
it and read:— - -
“SIR,- M. le Duc de Hautbourg has
been followed, and it seems that he has
been in the habit of going to Meudon to see
Mdlle. Georgette Pochemolle every morn-
ing for this past fortnight. He went there
yesterday early, breakfasted at the restau
rant with his mistress's brother, and re-
turned again in the evening. He then ad-
mitted himself with a latch-key into the
grounds, and remained there more than two
hours. His visits are matters of public no-
toriety at Meudon.
“MoISE LOUCHARD.”
What passed within Angélique as she read
this, none but God and herself ever knew.
But the look of silent, agonizing, deadly
woe and resignation that impressed it-
self on her face, would have moved a
heart of stone. Aunt Dorothée, seeing
her stand lifeless as a statue exclaimed,
“Gracious mercy, my dear, what is the mat-
ter with you? Your face has completely
changed this minute. Speak, dear, you
frighten me.”
And Angélique spoke: —
“It was not a dream, aunt dear,” she
said plaintively.
CHAPTER XLI.
IN EXCELSIS.
Not since that day of glory, when the
mighty Count Alaric had ridden triumph-
antly into his good town, after routing his
excellent king in the field adjoining it, had
the borough of Hautbourg been thrown
into such a state of commotion as that
caused by the announcement that Claire-
fontaine Castle was to be opened again,
and that the new lord thereof was coming
to reside there. The oldest inhabitants af.
firmed that the return of the first Duke af.
ter Waterloo and the Restoration was noth-
ing beside it; and that the solemn visit
paid to the Castle by King Charles X. and
Court was a paltry event in comparison.
These were great concessions for the civic
Nestors to make, for the depreciation of the
past is not a common foible with those who
are leaning towards three-score and ten.
But then, it should be said, that the admis-
sion was, so to speak, imposed upon the
Nestors by the imperious voice of public
opinion, which would have flouted and
scorned and held up to ignominy any indi-
vidual so abandoned as to hint that the re-
turn of the young Duke to his ancestral
towers, and the consequent flow of custom
IN EXCELSIS.
201
that would accrue to Hautbourg tills, was
not the most important episode in the mod-
ern annals of France.
All our old friends of the “Hôtel de
Clairefontaine” table d’hôle were to the front
in their jubilations. M. Ballanchu, the
Seedsman, in a new velveteen coat, for had
he not been sent for by M. Claude the agent
to furnish seeds to the Clairefontaine gar-
deners for all their flower-beds º M. Scar-
pin, the bootmaker, who had taken the
measures for five grooms, three footmen,
two cooks, and the gamekeepers—all lately
engaged at the Castle, and who saw bound-
less avenues of future boots unwind them-
selves before his imagination. M. Hoche-
pain, the tax-gatherer, who would now re-
sume the quarterly calls he used to make at
the Castle, and with them the quarterly
dinners in the butler's room that were wont
to Solemnize these occasions; and Farmers
Toulmouche, Truchepoule, and Follavoine,
who were not contented about their crops,
and wanted improvements on their farms,
and thought their rents ought to be lowered,
and hoped to set all these points right out
of the new Duke's pocket.
Asſor M. Filoselle, who ran down for a day
or two, and with an eye to business, during
the ferment of excitement, he was received
with cordiality, and a generous forgiveness
for past errors ; but M. Ballanchu called
upon him complacently to remember how
thoroughly all his — M. Ballanchu's — pre-
dictions had been justified by the event, and
how egregiously he, M. Filoselle, had strayed
in his prophesyings.
“Do you recollect that discussion we had,
M. Filoselle, when you attacked the Claire-
fontaine family, and I defended them 2 You
said that the Hautbourgs would never come
back among us, and I offered you to bet all
my fortune that they would — knowing
them, as I did, to be true noblemen.”
“You did, you did,” rejoined M. Filoselle,
at first surprised, but then laughing, “ and
I remember I took the bet. It was ten
sous. Here they are.”
“I would never listen to any calumnies
that were uttered against the Dukes of
Hautbourg,” exclaimed M. Scarpin, with
determination.
“Noa,” echoed Farmers Toulmouche and
Truchepoule, with their mouths' full.
“”Twarn’t likely,” continued Farmer
Follavoine, licking some sauce off his
fingers. '
“Was I the only one, though, at the
table who ſell foul of the Duke 2 ” asked M.
Filoselle, amused. “I fancied I had some
supporters round the board.”
All eyes became intent upon their plates;
then, the pause being awkward, rose and
tonverged, with touching unanimity, to-
wards M. Hochepain, who, being deaf, was
not in a position to defend himself. . .
“So you and I minced the same meat,
did we, M. Hochepain’” cried the traveller
across the table.
M. Hochepain caught the words “mince
meat.”
“Yes,” said he, “it’s not bad, but ought
to be served with poached eggs and a bit
of lemon.”
“Allow me to send you some more of
this goose, M. de Filoselle,” exclaimed M.
Duval, the host, blandly. He had not for-
gotten the wordy tournament between M.
Filoselle and M. Ballanchu three years
before, nor the fears he had entertained
lest the peace and some of his plates
should be broken. He was anxious to
avoid a repetition.
“No goose ever appealed to me in vair,
M. Duval. Madelon, my child, here is my
plate. I expected to find you in the
possession of a husband, Madelon, and hold
the gallantry of Hautbourg cheap, since I
see you still a spinster.”
“As if I wanted husbands !” exclaimed
Mdlle. Madelon, pertly. -
“Not many husbands, child, but one,”
suggested the traveller.
*I drink to the health of Monseigneur le
Duc de Hautbourg,” cried M. Ballanchu,
as the sweets appeared on the table, and
he filled his glass to the brim, undiluted.
“Stay,” interposed M. Filoselle. “M.
Duval, these gentlemen will allow me to
offer them some champagne in which to
drink this auspicious toast. Some of
Mdme. Clicquot's vintage, if you have it.”
The wine was fetched, the corks popped,
the long glasses foamed, and M. Filoselle,
on his legs, amidst convivial rapping of
knives, said: “Gentlemen, I second the
toast of M. Ballanchu. This is to the
health of M. le Duc de Hautbourg, and
God bless him l ; Gentlemen, I have the
honor to inform you that I hope soon to be
married (sensation ), and my happiness on
this occasion I shall owe greatly to the
distinguished and amiable nobleman who
is about to return to his estates, to scatter
prosperity amongst you all. It is not using
a liberty to term him my friend, gentlemen,
for we have lived under the same roof.
(Renewed sensation.) I have had the
honor of grasping his hand (stupefaction),
and he deigned to plead my cause with the
very tortuous-minded person, whom I hope
soon to call my mother-in-law (prolonged
marks of astonishment). But this is not
all, gentlemen. In the course of business, I
lately did myself the pleasure of forwarding
to M. le Duc de Hautbourg a list of current
prices of my employers, the MM. Campèche,
wine-merchants, 367, Rue Lafite, second
202
THE MEMBER FOR PARIs.
house from the corner, and the answer I
received was equally flattering and mag-
nanimous — being an order for twelve
dozen bottles of Burgundy, and with it a
cheque for the amount — one thousand four
hundred and forty francs— not a centime
less. (Emotion.) Messieurs, I contend
that the nobleman who, whilst aiding the
projects of true love, thus furthers the de-
velopment of commerce — giving his orders
on a liberal scale, cash down, and without
asking questions, is — is all that can be
said on the subject. (Loud and continued
cheering – enthusiasm.) Gentlemen, I
have but a word to add before finishing
this after-dinner speech, which the Greek
poet Virgil said ought to be short and
sweet, like a burned almond. Last year,
at the Paris elections, I voted for M. de
Hautbourg — coming from Marseilles in
the 7.55 mail express for the special pur-
pose, and this year I look to your all fol-
lowing my example, in despite of prefects,
curés, and all other functionaries, whom I
respect when they are of my own way of
thinking, but do not value that ” (M.
Filoselle courageously snapped his fingers)
“when it is otherwise. Gentlemen, here is
uly toast: Long live the ex-Member for
Paris! Long live the new Member for
Hautbourg l’”
M. Filoselle sat down amidst obstreperous
, attling of knives, and energetic shouts of
“Long live the Member for Hautbourg l’”
- M. Hochepain bawling the loudest,
though he bawled wrong, saying, “Long
live the Mayor and the Municipal Čouncilſº
under the impression that it was these civic
dignitaries who were being toasted. Farm-
ers Toulmouche, Truchepoule, and Folla-
voine, having never before drank cham-
pagne, gulped theirs down the wrong way,
and then sneezed in unison — a touching
sight. M. Ballanchu mopped his brow with
his napkin, and then stoutly bellowed,
“Vote for M. le Duc Of course we will.
I should like to know who wouldn't I’d
call him a cur.” -
“Quite right — never stick at trifles,”
responded M. Filoselle. “But, by the by,
you've not forgotten that M. de Hautbourg
is a sort of Radical, have you ?” and he
grinned with good-natured malice at the
seedsman. “ Unless my memory fails me, you
have set your face against ‘ those vermin.’”
“What, I ?” exclaimed M. Ballanchu, in
the voice of one crying: “Just Heavens !
was there ever so foul a charge 7” “Why,
I have been a Radical ever since — ever
since, I don’t know how long; and so are
we all Radicals at this table — every man
jack of us, except Hochepain here,” added
e, adroitly. “It must have been he who
told you that.”
| worse, these instructions came late.
And the entire table, except the Hoche-
pain afore-named, protested with one ac-
cord, “Yes, yes, it must have been Hoche-
pain.”.
But it was not only at the table-d'hôte
of the “Hôtel de Clairefontaine” that the
resolution to vote for the Duke of Haut-
bourg was included in the programme of
arrangements destined to celebrate his re-
turn. Everywhere the Hautbourgian con- .
science became penetrated with the sudden,
force of liberal principles; and the Prince
of Arcola, who, on first coming down, had
found the borough not indisposed against
him, had, on the third or fourth day, seen
the wind veer round completely. Nor was
the prefect more fortunate. The private
instructions given to this gentleman were
enigmatical ; and, to a less expert function-
ary, might have seemed distressing. He
was not to oppose the Duke of Hautbourg,
and he was not to let him get through, if
he could help it; which means, that out-
wardly his demeanor was to be smiles and
honey; but that inwardly his soul was free
to brew crafty rumors, which the trusty
agents of the prefecture would disseminate
perfidiously on village swards, and in
borough market-places, to undermine the
candidature, if possible. To make matters
The
prefect was in the heat of battle when he
got them. Already had the four hundred
mayors of the department been drilled and
equipped for the fray; already had the four
hundred vicars been put through their
political catechism, reproved, exhorted, and
taught the way they should go; already
had justices of the peace, commissaries of
police, and rural guards been told in no
devious language wherein — and wherein
alone — their hopes of promotion lay ; and
already had the prefectoral organ, unique
journal of Hautbourg, fired volley upon
volley of leading articles very heavy to
read, but effective nevertheless, as heavy
shot is. It was rather hard that all this
labor should have been in vain. Rail-er
hard to disband the mayors, to unlecture the
vicars, to enjoin the justices of the peace,
policemen, and others to remain religiously
neutral; and to make the furious artillery
of the prefectoral organ vomit pretty sugar-
plums instead of bomb-shells. Still, all
this had to be done. When. M. Gribaud
requested one of his prefects to swallow a
leek, that prefect swallowed the leek, an
made no bones about it. - *
So Church and State, the governing and
the governed, all seemed in league to make
things pleasant for the Lord of Clairefon-
taine. Carpenters began running up tri-
umphal arches, painters to adorn them,
drapers to deck, and gardeners to festoon
IN EXCELSIS.
203
*
them. Lumbering wagons were seen groan-
ing on the road to Clairefontaine under
piles of new furniture, and the Hautbourg
upholsterer, exalted by a cubit in his stat-
ure, communicated to all who would hear
him, that it was he who had executed the
order for these goods, none but he. Like
stories told the grocer, the chinaman, and
the candlestick-maker, whose merchan-
dise was finding its way to the Castle in
bales; and the butcher and baker smiled,
foreseeing that their turn would come pres-
ently. Then the clergy and the mayoralty
laid their heads together to plan whether
the two should amalgamate in receiving
Monsieur le Duc, or each give him a sepa-
rate reception. And hereupon a tremen-
dous question of etiquette arose as to
whether the mayoralty should receive M.
le Duc in official capacity, i.e. clothed in its
insignia of office, or merge its welcome within
that of the multitude. The point was
deemed so important that the united wits
of the prefect, his whole council of prefec-
ture, and two sub-prefects, declared them-
selves unable to solve it, and it was referred
to the Ministry, who in doubt submitted it
to the Tuileries, and the Tuileries, always
full of tact, decided, that as the return of
the lord of Clairefontaine was an event with
which his Majesty could not but sympa-
thize, the authorities should receive M. le
Duc in state; may more, that as the crowd
would probably be great, and, perhaps, im-
portunately affectionate, the ducal carriages
should have a brigade of mounted gen-
darmes to escort them from the station to
the Castle. Here was honor with a ven-
geance, though, to be sure, there were some
who hinted that as the duke's entry had
been fixed to take place on the very day
of the Hautbourg election, the gendarmes
might be intended quite as much to over-
awe the population from uttering seditious
shouts against his Majesty, as to swell the
triumph of his Grace.
Whatever may have been the opinions
of the prefect on this head, he kept them
to himself; but about this time a really
transcendent expedient for satisfying every-
body, Tuileries, ministry, affectionate popu-
lation, at d his own self, occurred to his
great mind. It was obviously quite unsafe
and useless to spread defamatory rumors
against the duke — unsafe because these
rumors might be traced to their source, and
useless because the affectionate population
could no longer be brought to believe them.
I}ut there was a way of making the very
enthusiasm of the electoral mind act as a
lever for overturning the duke's election, as
who should say steam set to explode the
engine it is propelling. The prefectoral
agents—generally much esteemed and un-
suspected members of municipal councils—
began to be lyrical and gushing about the
bright young Seigneur who was coming
back to his home. Only, they sighed and
muttered what a pity it was he should be
wanting to get into the Chamber again, for
if returned, he would certainly live three-
fourths of the year at Paris, whereas, in the
contrary case, they would enjoy the ines-
timable benefit of his society all the year
round. The prefectoral organ scored the
the music to these laments, and came out
diurnally with little insidious notes, such
as, “M. le Duc, who is returning amongst
us for a few short weeks.” “M. le Duc, who
will henceforth be with us at least a monſh
or so every year.” “M. le Duc, who wi'l
soon be absorbed again in the vortex of
politics,” &c., &c. These were good tactics.
They allowed the prefect to turn the ene-
my's flank, to work havoc, and to sow con-
fusion without appearing to do it. There
was no elector, however opaque, but took
in this maxim: If the duke is at Paris he
can't be here, too. Several faces began
insensibly to lengthen; sundry brows to
brood; the election grew to be a less popu-
lar subject of conversation than it had been
before. But nobody said any thing. It was
one of those under-water commotions that
perform their ravages at a silent depth below
the surface. Somehow, though, an observer
might have fancied that people glanced
often and pensively at M. Hochepain the
tax-gatherer; as though, under certain con-
tingencies not as yet definable, that person-
age might be turned to practical account.
It would always be feasible to say, “I pro-
test and vow that I voted for M. le Duc.
It must have been Hochepain who did all
the mischief.”
At last the great day dawned.
Dawned with golden sunshine, speckless
blue sky, and pealing of bells, as if for a
marriage feast. Hautbourg fluttered all
over in bunting from its methermost street
to its uppermost. The “Hôtel de Claire-
fontaine” seemed one mighty laurel-bush
blossoming with flags. The statue of the
Count Alaric had a crown of bays set con-
spicuously on its head; and the museum of
stuffed birds — pride of the department—
had displayed a white eagle with a scroll
between its claws —
Au Fils de ses bienfaiteurs
La Villo de Hautbourg
Souhaute Bienvenue.
On the pavements thronged densely, ex-
pectantly, Solemnly, and palpitatingly, more
suits of Sunday best than had ever been
seen gathered together in one spot within
that borough, on the same day. Peasants
from the villages in indigo blouses, and
204
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
with scarlet umbrellas under their arms;
peasant women with white cone-caps tower-
ing sprucely out of sight, smart kerchiefs
pinned cross-wise on their bosoms, golden
crosses pendent from black velvet ribbons
round their throats. Every window was
abloom with new bonnet-strings; every
door-way had its cluster of sight-seers hold-
ing on anyhow, as it pleased Heaven, by
the lintels, by the backs of chairs placed so
that those behind might see over the heads
of those to the fore, by the shop-fronts.
Now and then a wag would cry: “Here
they come; ” and there would be a rock-
ing forward, a headlong heave, and some
well-laden chairs, taken unawares, would
crash down supine, they and their cargoes.
Upon which general merriment: people are
easily exhilarated in such moments. Sud-
denly a shout, a long murmur, and then
suppressed excitement as three splendid
barouches, each drawn by four horses, and
flashing with fresh paint, armorial scutch-
eons, and purple and gold liveries of pos-
filions and outriders sweep, at a stately trot
down the main street from the castle on
their way to the station. Horace had left
his agent to manage matters, and the agent,
directed by M. Macrobe, had managed
them royally. Almost immediately, new
murmur, and then imposing apparition of
the Mayor and Municipal Council: the for-
mer in a new hat, and with a tri-colored
scarf round his girth; the latter treading
on each other's heels, clean shaved, shy at
being looked at, but impressed with the
gravity of the situation, and prepared, like
Roman senators, to do their duty to the
last. Then, triumphant march in lonely
glory of Monsieur the sub-Prefect of Haut-
bourg, majestuous in a silver-spangled swal-
lowtail, a cocked-hat too big for him, and
white gloves, which he cracks as he strides
in trying to get into them. Next, the local
clergy in cassocks, not chasubles, but headed
by an archdeacon great at controversy,
gaunt-eyed, and evidently pregnant of a
speech. Lastly, the gendarmes, yellow-
belted, pipe-clayed, prancing, and much ad-
mired by the cone-capped peasant-womer.
Then a lull. The tower-clock of Ste. Bri-
gitte's chimes musically the three-quarters
past something. It is the hour. A mo-
ment more, and the piercing whistle of the
express is heard in the distance. &
Then — but why describe such a sight,
or how describe it 2 How phonograph de-
lirium on to paper? Again and again,
peal upon peal, round upon round, rose
the cheers, the shouts of welcome, the ben-
edictions. Down fell the nosegays in
showers, thick, fragrant, pitiless, every-
where, on the horse's heads, under their
feet, in the carriages, on the laps of the
carriages’ occupants, covering hoods, seats,
spatterdashes, with white, red, pink, and li-
lac petals. Handkerchiefs, banners, scrolls,
waved, flapped, tossed to and fro as if blown
by a gale. The gendarmes, clearing the
way, ploughed slowly through a mass of
outstretched hands, uplifted children, agi-
tated hats, like fishing-smacks steering
their keels through a surf; and above
this astounding din, this frantic tumult
of a city in a fever, rose the riot of the
belfries and the crashing strains of brass
bands drawn up under the triumphal
arches.
Horace moved his hat off and on, very
pale, and bowed without respite during
three miles. He was startled and dazzled,
but if ever man felt himself master of a
town and king of it thenceforth, assuredly
that man was he. And his heart beat fast,
and his temples throbbed as he thought
that this ovation was but the prelude to
others, the first step in a long vista of power
and fame then opening before him. In the
second barouche, M. Macrobe, by no means
overcome, but beaming, smiled and bowed
to the crowd as General Monk may have
done, to whom M. Gribaud had not inaptly
compared him. But it was General Monk
become Duke of Albemarle, knowing what
was what, and saying within himself; “All
those cheers of yours, my friends, are of my
manufacture — don’t let's have any mis-
take about it.” Beside the financier sat
Aunt Dorothée, but the worthy lady could
scarcely be compared to the Duke of Albe-
marle's sister, if that illustrious man pos-
sessed such a relative. Scared, in an utter
state of collapse, and ready to cry, she
whimpered her orisons beneath her breath,
and dismally expected to meet the end of
the world at the termination of all this.
And ever and anon in her bewilderment
she gazed stupefied at the bunting, reflect-
ing that there was enough there to clothe
ten villages; and at the purple vestments
of the outriders, and the satin linings of the
carriages, and at the prodigal waste of
flowers, with disjointed thoughts as to what
all these things must have cost. In the
third vehicle was another scene. There
the delighted Mr. Drydust, self-invited,
held forth to Jean Kerjou, come as
special reporter to the “Gazette des Boule-
wards,” to M. Gousset and to the Crimean
Hero, about the marriage of his Pomera-
nian friend, Count Trinkgeld, of which the
present festivities reminded him. The
coming of age of his other friend, Lord
Wildoats, had also been very remarkable.
But he was inclined to award the palm to
French solemnities of this kind. To begin
with, they were rarer, and then the people
shouted more, and weren't ashamed to shed
IN ExcELSIs.
205
tears at the sight of one; “Which is what
I like,” said Mr. Drydust.
And so saluting and full of emotion, or
radiant and quietly chuckling, or terrified
and miserable, or agreeably anecdotical
and loguacious, according to the mood and
temper of its individual members, the cor-
tège moved on its way : until the park-gates
of Clairefontaine were passed, and all other
feelings became immersed in one dominant,
though voiceless, burst of admiration for
the lordly castle, over whose towers the
standard of the Hautbourgs was now wav-
ing for the first time after such a long
period of mourning.
The tenantry were marshalled in respect-
ful rows; on the marble staircase the de-
pendents had arrayed themselves to do
obeisance ; and as the carriages stopped,
the bare-headed steward stepped forward
to assist the Duke and Duchess to alight,
and said, “Welcome to Clairefontaine,
Madame; welcome to your home, Mon-
seigneur.”
It was mellow evening before Angélique
could withdraw from the feasting, and
toasting, and speech-making, which, under
the form of a breakfast to local magnates,
officials, tenants and guests, took up the
whole afternoon from mid-day till six. Then
she contrived to glide out into the park
with Aunt Dorothée, whilst a good many
of the gentlemen sped Hautbourgwards to
be present at the close of the poll, and
bring back the result early.
She wanted to be alone, and to think.
With the letter she had found a day or
two before pressing on her bosom like a
cilice, with the memory of her short, fright-
ful dream glaring before her eyes like a
fixed vision, how wonder, that during the
rejoicings of the morning, her own spirit
should have been as heavy as that of one
bereaved amidst a banquet”
Bereaved indeed l Bereaved of all that
made life worth living for. Confidence,
hope, the sense of being loved and of hav-
ing a blessed part to perform in effecting
the happiness of a loved heart.
All this was gone now. All washed
away by one black tide. Omnes fluctus twi
et omnes gurgites tui super me transierunt.
She had not had the thought of destroy-
ing the letter. She had kept it next her
heart. Why, she scarcely knew. But
there was a vague idea, a trust, that it
might help her to take a resolution, and ac-
complish it. Early Christians going to
martyrdom hung amulets about their necks
to give them fortitude.
n the way through. Hautbourg the
women had been moved by the pale, young,
and beautiful duchess, who smiled to them
so softly, yet with such wistful melancholy
as she bowed. “She was a ſittle dazed,
poor thing,” said they. And the men, not
less compassionate, remarked, “It seemed
to frighten her, poor lady.”
Angélique was feeling all the way as if
she was usurping the place she held, as if
the cheers and welcomes she received were
not hers. She entered Clairefontaine like
a stranger. She had beard of those death's-
heads put on the table at feasts. She was
as one of these. What right had she to a
place in her husband's castle, she who had
no room in his heart 2
“Where shall we go to, dear?” asked
Aunt Dorothée. “Gracious mercy it is a
boon to be out in the fresh air alone again.
How people can go through all we have
this day, and not be struck ill in their beds
is more than I know, my dear.”
Angélique looked round and saw a sheet
of water glancing under distant trees in the
golden light of the setting sun.
“Let us go that way, aunt, dear,” she
murmured.
The lake was a broad and deep one, with
a leafy island of willows in the middle, and .
an ornamental grotto or two dotting its
margin. These grottoes had been used as
boat-houses, or arbors in which to picnic in
summer weather; but, deserted for years,
they were now carpeted with velvet moss,
and drops of crystal water fell like stalac-
tites from their roofs.
To the largest of these grottoes went An-
gélique and her aunt. The evening was
fairy-like, and the herds of red and fallow
deer trooping away, affrighted at the ap-
proach of footsteps, lent an air of sylvan
beauty to the noiseless scene. The grotto
stood in a retired bend of the lake, and na-
ture was so still around it, the water so
profound, the foliage so dark and cluster-
ing, that Aunt Dorothée, a little awe-struck,
whispered, “My dear, how death-like this
is It makes one think of graves.”
“Let us go into the grotto,” said Angé-
lique.
This grotto had two chambers, one be-
low and the other above. They were con-
nected by a winding staircase of rocks and
shells, and from the upper room, which,
like the lower, had only three walls, the
fourth side being open over the lake, a
wide view of the surrounding park could
be had. Both women stood gazing at the
lake during a minute, and then Angélique,
with a strange expression in her eyes,
which her aunt called to mind later, Sud-
denly kissed her, — once, twice, — silently.
“Aunt, dear, I am going to ascend the
staircase to see the view,” she then said.
“Oh, my dear, we shall never be able tº
get up those stairs l’”
206
THE MEMBER FOR PARIS.
“No, don't you follow me, aunt; it will
be too steep. I shall not be a minute.”
And she began her ascent; but half-way
she stopped, turned, and again looked at
her aunt. There was that same strange
look in her eyes, only deeper and mois-
tened. She kissed her hand to the good
woman who had been all her life as a
mother to her, and the next instant was in
the upper grotto. 0.
Then she looked round. There was no-
body in sight. The air was so still that the
willow-branches scarce touched the water
with their green lips; the water was calm,
deep, and clear; one could see the white
bed of sand some twelve feet below the
surface.
“It must be a gentle death,” said Angé-
lique, gazing at that white bed, - “like
sleep.”
Then she looked once more around her,
and at the corners of the grotto, and below
her feet at the slippery ledge overlooking
the lake.
“It will free him,” she murmured, “and
I shall make him happy, which I could not
do by living. But he must never know
that it was done on purpose. They will
think it was an accident, — that I slipped.
I will scream as I fall.”
She unfastened her dress, took out the
letter, and threw it into the lake, with a
little stone in it, so that it might sink.
“You will not punish me for this, Al-
mighty God!” she said, dropping on her
knees on the brink, and clasping her hands
humbly ; then, raising her hands aloft at
the precise moment when the sun sunk out
of sight, she uttered a wailing cry, and al-
lowed herself to fall forward.
It was not till almost an hour afterwards
that the crowd reached the spot—appalled,
hurrying, bringing drags, ropes, and restora-
tives. Aunt Dorothée had at first fainted,
and could not tell how long she had re-
mained senseless, before strength returned
to her to crawl away, and summon help ;
but when she reached the Castle she found
it already dismayed. A startling piece of
news had just been brought in by reluctant
messengers. The new lord of Clairefon-
t
taine and his father-in-law had both missed
their elections, and simultaneously a tele-
gram from Paris had brought the news that
M. Emile Gerold had been elected, in spite
of himself, in the Tenth Circumscription
of the Seine. The Duke had made no
remark, but he had bit his lips, and turned
ashy white. As for Monseigneur's father-
in-law, he looked like to have a stroke of
apoplexy.
This is what the servants were whisper-
ing to one another in the quadrangle of the
Castle when Aunt Dorothée appeared
amongst them, like a ghost, and shrieked,
“Help! help ! — my child — the Duchess
— your mistress — has fallen into the
lake l’”
But the crowd might have spared itself
its haste, its efforts, its well-meant ministra-
tions; for when they drew the fair young
body from the water, it had sunk into that
last sleep from which no restoratives can
revive us. A great circle, was made, and
every head was uncovered, as, whiter than
a marble image in the moonlight, Angélique
was laid on a hurdle-bier covered with soft
branches.
“Poor child, poor child !” cried some.
“She slipped off the grotto.”
“Monseigneur,” said a diver, reeking
wet, and approaching Horace, who was
holding his wife's head whilst the men were
lifting the bier; “I found this paper close
to the poor lady so to say, near her hand.”
Horace unfolded the paper with trembling
hand. It was M. Louchard’s letter. Then
those who watched him saw his knees
shake and his body stagger forward heavily.
He fell prostrate with his face to the earth,
and his lips sealed on the hem of his wife's
garment.
The great circle standing around respect-
ed this grief and remained motionless
waiting till he should rise; but as his
position did not change, somebody advanced
and said: “Monseigneur,” and laid a hand
gently on his shoulder. Then he swayed
a little to his left and rolled over by his
wife's side, her hand falling softly on his
in that motion, in silent token of forgive-
In eSS.
He was dead.
A ROLLING STONE.
BY
GEORGE SAND.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCEI
BY
C AIR ROLL OWIEN.
NEW YORK :
R. WORTHINGTON, 750 BROADWAY.
I88O.
A R OLLING STON E.
I.
WAS on a tour of inspection of
finance in the little town of
Arvers, in Auvergne, and I had been
staying for two days at the hotel of
the Grand Monarque. What grand
monarch 2 and why this classic sign,
still so widely spread in provincial
towns ? Is it a tradition of the reign
of Louis XIV. 2 I am absolutely ig-
norant, and I ask any one who knows.
The image which characterized this
illustrious and mysterious personage
has disappeared almost everywhere.
In my childhood I remember having
seen one which represented him
dressed like a Turk.
The hostess of the Grand Monarque,
Madame Ouchafol, was a comely and
very respectable woman, devoted to
all that pertained to any sort of estab-
lished authority, ancient or modern
nobility, plebeian Opulence, official
position, or local influence, — all this
without prejudice to that considera-
tion due to the minor functionaries
and commercial travellers who con-
stitute the standing source of profit,
the regular rotation of an inn. Ad-
ditionally, Madame Ouchafol had
religious sentiments, and opposed the
Sceptics of her neighborhood.
One evening, when I was smoking
my cigar on the hotel balcony, I saw,
upon the place which divides the
church from the mayoralty and the
inn, a tall young man whose face and
bearing would attract attention any-
where. He was arm in arm with a
very ugly peasant-girl. Two young
fellows, slightly inebriated, who
looked like artisans in holiday garb,
followed him, walking like him with
girls in peasant-caps, but pretty
enough. Why had this handsome
youth, whose simple dress did not
lack taste, and who did not appear
intoxicated, selected for partner or
companion the ugliest and least
smartly dressed ?
This little problem would not have
arrested my attention beyond a min-
ute, if Madame Ouchafol, who was
dusting the leaves of a blighted
Orange-tree placed upon the bal-
cony, had not taken care to make me
notice it.
“You are looking at handsome
Lawrence, are you not ?” she said to
me, casting on the merry-making
Antinois the most ironical and Scorn-
ful glance.
And, replying to my answer with-
out waiting for it: —
“He is a pretty fellow, I do not
deny it; but see always in bad
company He may be the son of a
peasant, but he has a rich and titled
uncle, and besides, when one has re-
4
A ROLLING STONE.
ceived an education, and dresses like
a gentleman, he does not hobnob
with everybody at the village wed-
dings; above all, he does not pass
through the town in broad daylight,
with frights like that upon his arm
But that boy is mad; he cares for
nothing; and there is one surprising
thing, monsieur, he never devotes
himself to a pretty girl who might
do him credit. He always drags
about some monster, and not the
most straight-laced, I beg you to
believe l’’
“I will believe whatever you wish,
Madame Ouchafol; but how do you
explain this singular taste 7"
“I do not take it upon myself to
explain it. One can make nothing
of the conduct of this poor boy; for
still, monsieur, I am interested in
him. His godmother has been my
friend from childhood, and often we
lament together to see him turn out
so badly.”
“He is then a downright good-for-
nothing 2 °
“Ah ! monsieur, if that were all !
If he was only a little fast and reck-
less If one could say, ‘He amuses
himself, he is wild, he is a scape-
grace, who will reform like so many
others l’ But no, monsieur. He
drinks a little, but he does not run
in debt; he has not bad habits exact-
ly ; neither is he quarrelsome, except
on Some occasion, when he sees at
the village fêtes or at the mechanics'
balls a man maltreated, he fights off
those who bully him, and beats them
well, according to accounts. In short,
he might be something, for he is
neither stupid nor idle; but here is
the trouble, – monsieur has ideas,
and one idea in particular, which is
the despair of his relations !”
“You make me curious to know
this famous idea.”
“I will tell you so much, that, in-
stead of accepting a situation in the
custom-house, or in the telegraph-
office, or a tobacconist's shop, or
Something at the record office, the
registry or the mayoralty, - for they
have offered him all these, - he pre-
ferred to live in the faubourg with his
father, who is arold-farmer-and who
has bought a piece of ground which
he has converted into a nursery.
This poor Father Lawrence is a wor-
thy man, very industrious, who has
only this one child, and who would
have liked to raise him above his
condition, hoping that his elder
brother, who is very wealthy, would
take a fancy to him, and make him
his heir. Not at all; the young man,
who, after his bachelor's degree, had
gone to Normandy, where the rich
uncle resides, allowed himself to be
led away into frightful misconduct,
monsieur, and disappeared for two or
three years, without giving any report
of himself.”
“What misconduct, Madame Ou-
Chafol?”
“Ah monsieur, permit me not to
tell you, from esteem for Father Law-
rence, who raises fruit along his walls,
and has always supplied me with
fine peaches and raisins, not to men-
tion vegetables, which he raises also
at the foot of his enclosure, for which
he buys the manure from my stable,
and pays for it better than many
people , of higher station; through
friendship likewise for the young
man's godmother, who has been my
** A ROLLING STONE. 5
friend, as I have told you, ever since
we made our first communion togeth-
er, I ought to conceal the misfortune
and the shame, that this handsome
Lawrence, as they call him here, has
brought upon his friends, and which
would spread throughout the town,
if by some mischance the thing
should get about.”
It became evident that Madame
Ouchafol was dying with the wish to
impart to me the mystery of hand-
some Lawrence's “misconduct.” More
mischievous than curious just then,
I punished her for her reticence by
taking my hat, and going out to
breathe the air beside a pretty
streamlet, which glides along the
slope where the town is charmingly
situated.
Many small towns are, like this,
charming in appearance when viewed
as a whole from without, hideous and
dirty within. A projecting crag, a ray
of sunlight resting on an old spire, a
fine wooded line in the background,
a streamlet at the foot, suffice to
make up a picture which sets them
off to perfection, and of which they
form the principal accident, whose
arrangement leaves nothing to de-
sire.
I gave myself up entirely to the
calm pleasure of contemplation, and
1 saw the last reflections of the sunset
die out in an admirably clear sky.
This presage of fine weather for the
morrow recalled a plan which I had
formed of visiting a cascade that one
of my predecessors in the office which
I filled had recommended to me. It
was too late to undertake any walk
whatever; but, as I was passing near
a rustic tavern whence issued noise
and light, I resolved to make inquir-
ies there.
I fell into the midst of a village
wedding. They were drinking and
dancing. The first person who be-
came aware of my presence was pre-
cisely handsome Lawrence.
“Ah Father Tournache,” cried he,
with a fine, clear, strong voice, which
rose above all the others, “a travel-
ler serve him. Because there is a
merry-making at your house, you
must not neglect those who have a
right to stay there. Come, monsieur,”
added he, giving me his chair; “there
is no longer a seat anywhere. Take
mine, I am going to dance a bourrée
in the barn, and on my way out I
will tell them to wait on you.”
“I wish to disturb no one,” re-
joined I, touched by his politeness,
but not much attracted by the ap-
pearance and odor of the feast. “I
came to ask a direction.”
“Can they give it to you?”
“You probably better than any
one else. I would like to know on
which side and at what distance are
the rock and cascade of the Vol-
pie 2
“Very well, come with me. I will
give you an idea.”
As, this time, despite his courtesy
and obliging spirit, the fine fellow
seemed to me a little tipsy, I followed
him, rather from politeness, than in
the hope of receiving a very lucid
explanation.
“Stay,” said he, after having con-
ducted me, somewhat unsteadily,
about ten steps from the little house;
“you see that long, uniform hill,
which cuts off the horizon 2 It is
higher than it looks; it is really a
6 A ROLLING STONE.
mountain, that takes an hour's walk
to climb it. Now, do you see a sort
of Slanting gap at the highest point,
just above the point of the village
spire 2. It is there.”
“I confess that I see nothing.
Night is approaching, and to-morrow
I should have, perhaps, some difficul-
ty in finding my way.”
“I was about to propose my com-
pany to you for the day after, since I
think of going there; but to-morrow,
it is too soon.”
“I regret it.”
“So do I ; but what can we do 2
I absolutely must get drunk to-night,
and it is probable that I shall sleep
all day to-morrow.”
“It is an urgent necessity that you
get drunk?”
“Yes, I could not do otherwise
than drink a little to celebrate the
wedding of a playmate of my child-
hood. In quarter of an hour, if I left
off there, I should be sad ; with me
the first stage is always clear and
reasonable. I like better to finish off,
grow gay, tender, mad, and idiotic ;
after that, one sleeps, and there's an
end of it.”
“There is no harm in becoming
gay, tender, mad, and even Idiotic, as
you anticipate ; but sometimes, be-
neath the influence of wine, one be-
comes wicked. You are not afraid
of that, then 2 ”
“No ; I am convinced that wine,
when it is not drugged, develops
and reveals in us only the qualities
and defects that exist there. I am
—Bet—wieked,
I am sure of myself.”
“That is fortunate. But you spoke
of dancing 2*
/
º →
t drink absinthe.
“Yes, dancing intoxicates too.
The great bagpipe which brays out
in your ears, the motion, the heat, the
dust, all that is charming. Come!”
While thus speaking he had an
accent of Sadness, almost of despair,
in which I fancied I perceived the
revelation of some secret grief or of
Some bitter remorse. The words of
my hostess recurred to me, and I was
seized with a feeling of pity for this
man, who was so handsome, who
expressed himself so well, and who
appeared so amiable and frank.
“Why not, instead of ‘finishing
off” so quickly,” said I, “remain here
a little longer, and Smoke a good
cigar with me !”
“No, I should grow melancholy,
and should bore you.”
“That is my concern, I be-
lieve 2 ”
“Mine also. Stay, I see plainly
that you are a well-bred man, and
that it would be pleasant to converse
with you. Do not visit the Volpie
until day after to-morrow.”
“Do me the favor to come there
to-morrow, and not to get intoxicated
to-night.”
“Ah! you seem to be interested
in me ! Do you know me !”
“I see you to-day for the first
time.”
“Truly 2 I know that you are the
inspector of finance, who has been
staying for the last two days at
Mother Ouchafol's. You go about
the province for four months every
year. You have met me nowhere 7°
“Nowhere. You are then known
away from here ?”
“I travelled over almost every
part of France, for three years. Tell
A ROLLING STONE. 7
me why you advise me not to
drink.”
“Because I have no fondness either
for soiled things or deteriorated men.
Mere matter of order and propriety,
that is all.”
He reflected a moment, then asked
me my age. -
“About the same as yours, – thirty
years.”
“No, I am twenty-six. I have the
appearance of being thirty then 7°
“I see you indistinctly in the twi-
light.”
He replied sadly : —
“No, on the contrary, I believe
that you see truly. I have lost four
years of my life, since my face has
four years too many. I will not
commit an excess to-night, and, if
you will go to the Volpie to-morrow,
I will knock on your door at four
o'clock in the morning. The collector
has spoken to me of you. He says
that you are a charming man.”
“Thanks. I count upon you.”
“Would you like to see the true
bourrée of Auvergne danced before
you go?”
“I will even dance it with you, if
they will permit me.”
“They will be delighted, but I
must present you as my friend.”
“Very well It is not impossible
that I become so.”
“I accept the omen.”
He pleased me ; I could not help
it; and, whatever might be the
“frightful misconduct” with which
the hostess of the Grand Monarque
had reproached him, the curiosity
which he aroused in me was almost
sympathy.
In the barn, where he introduced
me, and where the noise, the dust,
and the heat, predicted by him, left
nothing to desire, I was received
with much cordiality, and invited to
drink freely.
“No, no,” cried Lawrence, “he
does not drink, but he dances. Stay,
friend, be my vis-à-vis.”
He had invited the bride; I in-
vited the tall, ugly girl that I had
seen upon his arm, an hour before.
I thought to excite no jealousy, but
soon perceived that she was greatly
sought after, perhaps on account of
her bold and sprightly air, perhaps
for the sake of her wit. I had
wished to make her talk of Lawrence;
the hubbub, which was, so to speak,
suffocating, did not allow me to en-
gage in continued conversation.
Lawrence was dancing opposite
me, and certainly he threw some-
thing of coquetry into it. He had
taken off his coat and waistcoat, like
the others. His shirt, still irre-
proachably white, outlined his fine
figure, his broad shoulders, and his
full chest ; perspiration made his
thick jet-black hair curl more close-
ly; his eyes, heavy but a moment
before, flashed fire. He had the
grace inseparable from beautiful out-
lines and finely attached muscles; and
although he danced the classic bour-
née like a true peasant, he converted
this dull and monotonous thing into
a characteristic dance, full of anima-
tion and plastic art. Some intoxica-
tion certainly lingered in his legs;
but in a few moments this unsteadi-
ness disappeared, and it seemed to
me that he was anxious to display
himself before me in all his physical
advantages, to dispel the bad opinion
8 A ROLLING STONE.
with which he might have inspired
me at first sight.
While conjecturing for what pur-
pose he had travelled throughout
nearly all of France, it occurred to me
that he might have been a model.
When he returned to the tavern,
whither I accompanied him, and
where they called upon him to sing,
I was persuaded that he had been a
strolling singer. But his voice was
fresh, and he rendered the country
songs with a charming simplicity
which bespoke the artist, and not the
cross-roads performer.
Gradually my ideas about him
grew confused. I was warm, and I
had accepted without distrust several
bumpers of a pale-colored wine,
which looked very innocent, but
which was in reality remarkably
heady. I felt that, if I did not wish
to set a bad example to the very one
whom I had just been lecturing, and
if I did not wish to be accused by
Madame Ouchafol of some “frightful
misconduct,” I must escape from the
convivialities of these worthy peas-
ants. So I slipped off adroitly, and
on my way to the town had the
mortification of perceiving that my
gait was a trifle unsteady, that I saw
the telegraph-posts double, and that
I felt a most unusual desire to laugh
and sing.
In proportion as I fancied I ap-
proached the town the trouble in-
creased. My feet grew heavy, and,
when I had walked a little longer
than seemed necessary, I ascertained
that the town had left the hill, or
I had left the road to the town.
Charming predicament for a public
functionary, and especially for one
of the soberest of men, who had
never in his life been overcome by
wine !
I thought — for my brain re-
mained perfectly clear — that this
intoxication had come on too quickly
not to pass away as soon. I resolved
to wait until it had vanished; and
catching sight of an open hovel which
seemed untenanted, I entered it and
threw myself upon a heap of straw,
without particularly noticing the
neighborhood of an ass, who was
sleeping in an upright position, his
nose in the empty rack.
I followed his example; I slept a
sleep as peaceful as his own. When
I awoke it was daybreak; the ass
was still asleep, although his legs
moved restlessly, and he clinked his
chain from time to time. I had
some trouble in recalling how I came
in such a place and in such com-
pany. At length memory returned.
I arose, shook my clothes, smoothed
my hair, and, finding that I had not
lost my hat, recovered a portion of
my self-respect. Then, feeling per-
fectly sobered, I regained without dif-
ficulty the way to the hotel of the
Grand Monarque, telling myself that
Madame Ouchafol would not fail to
attribute my tardy return to some
piece of good fortune. I had just
time to make my toilet and Swal-
low a cup of coffee : punctually at
four o'clock handsome Lawrence
knocked at my door. He had not
slept ; he had danced and sung all
night: but he had not been intoxi-
cated; he had kept his word. On
leaving the wedding he had thrown
himself into the river; this bath had
refreshed and rested him: he prided
A ROLLING STONE. - 9
himself on swimming and diving like
a duck. He was gay, lively, su-
perbly handsome, and looked four
years younger. I sincerely compli-
mented him upon it, unable mean-
while to overcome the confusion
which took possession of me when he
remarked that my bed was not tum-
bled. Shame ! I dared to answer
that I had worked all night; happily
the ass, sole witness of my disgrace,
was incapable of revealing it.
Lawrence had eaten supper at two
o'clock in the morning; he was
neither hungry nor thirsty. For all
baggage he had provided himself
with a stick and a sketch-book,
which he permitted me to look over.
He drew very well, reproducing na-
ture with boldness and fidelity. We
crossed the fields, and soon ascended
the long mountain by a path which,
though steep, was delightful in its
scenery and shadows.
Conversation really began only
when we had reached the rugged
crags where the Volpie plunges
down and loses itself in a deep and
angular abyss. It is a very beautiful
little thing, difficult to approach for
a good view. -
We remained there some hours,
and it was there that Lawrence re-
vealed to me the fearful mystery of
his existence.
I omit the conversation which
gradually led to this confidence. He
frankly confessed that he had felt
for a long time a desire to open his
heart to a man of sufficient liberality
and culture to understand him. He
fancied that I was such a man. I
promised that he should not repent
it, and he spoke as follows: —
STORY OF A ROLLING STONE.
I know that I am handsome ; not
only have I heard it said, but it has
been said to me under circumstances
which I shall never forget. Besides:
I possess enough artistic cultivation
to know what constitutes beauty,
and I know that I am endowed with
all the requisite qualities.
You will soon do justice to the
lack of vanity with which it inspires
me when you learn that it is the
source of my greatest grief. I loved
a woman who rejected me because I
was not ugly.
You know that my name is Pierre
Lawrence, and that I am the Son of a
peasant of this vicinity, now a nurs-
eryman and kitchen-gardener. My
father is the best of men, absolutely
uneducated, which does not prevent
me from adoring his goodness and
amiability. My uncle is Baron
Lawrence, a parvenu ennobled by
Louis Philippe, and enriched by in-
dustry. He resides in Normandy
in a fine old château, where I once
visited him in my vacation, by the
order of my father, who trusted to
his remembrance and his promises.
I know not whether he is selfish,
whether he scorns the humble stock
from which he sprang, or whether I
had not the luck to please him. It
is true that, leaving college imbued
with new ideas, and afflicted with
an ungovernable pride, I must have
let him see that I did not come to
him of myself, that I would sooner
die than share his opinions and
covet his property. In short, he
asked me if I needed anything; I
answered loftily that I needed noth-
10
A ROILING STONE.

ing. He told me that I was a hand-
some lad because I resembled him,
that he was glad to see me, and that he
was going away to urge on his nomina-
tion as deputy. I returned to Paris,
without unlocking my valise. That
was seven years ago; I have never
seen him since ; I have never written
to him. I am very sure that he will
disinherit me ; he is a bachelor, but
he has a housekeeper. I bear him
no ill-will on that account. I know
that, save for his devotion to all the
powers, he is a very worthy man,
properly charitable. He owes me
nothing. I have not the least re-
proach to bring against him. He
earned his fortune himself; he is
free to dispose of it to his liking.
My father does not take the thing
so philosophically. If he made sacri-
fices for my education, it was in the
hope that I should be a gentleman.
That is not my fault. I asked no
better than to be a peasant. I was
happy in our humble station, and I
always returned to it with regrets
that I must leave it. My only
pleasure now is to water the flowers
and vegetables of our enclosure, to
prune the trees, to wheel the barrow,
and to force my old father to take a
little rest.
I love the companions of my child-
hood. Their rustic fashions are far
from distasteful to me; as far as I
can shake off my troubles, it is with
them that I attempt it. Singing
and dancing, working and chatting,
with these good people, these are
my chief amusements. I abuse my
strength a little; as much as I would
wish to preserve it, to press on in
would wish to exhaust it, in order to
forget it.
^ Everybody can tell you in the
country hereabouts that I am very
good-natured, very faithful, very dis-
\creet, and very devoted. Only, the
bourgeois reproach me with having
no ambition and no profession; as if
U. not one to till the ground !
My father is very well off, accord-
ing to his wants. He has twenty
thousand francs invested, and I have
never made him pay the smallest
debt. As for me, I had inherited ten
thousand francs from my mother. I
have made way with nearly all of it.
After having passed my bacca-
laureate examination at Paris, and
paid my respects to my uncle in Nor-
mandy, I came back here to ask my
father what he wished me to do.
“You must return to Paris,” he
told me, “and become an advocate or
magistrate there. You speak easily,
you cannot fail to become a great
speaker. Study law. I know that
you will need ten thousand francs to
live some years there. I will sell
half my property. If I come to
want when I am old, you will see
that I do not lack for bread.”
I refused my father's offer. I
sacrificed -my—personal—inheritance
alone. He consented to it, and I
went back to Paris, resolved to study
hard, and to become & great Speaker,
to gratify my father, a little, also, for
my own satisfaction. I know not
what natural instinct impelled me to
display myself, to extend or round
my strong and flexible arms, to please
myself with the sound of my power-
ful voice. How shall I explain it !
pursuit of my dream, so much I
A sort of exhibition of my natural
- A ROTLING STONE.
11
advantages seemed to me like a duty
or a right, I know not which ; but
the ambition was not for nothing, as
you will see.
There was still a Latin Quarter
at this period. The students had not
passed the Seine. They did not as-
Sociate with young ladies; they still
danced with grisettes, a species al-
ready beginning to disappear, and
which since then has disappeared.
That was in the beginning of 1848.
My constitution was too strong for
me to fear to plunge boldly into work
and pleasure. I speedily had friends.
A strong, bold lad, generous and af-
* fectionäſe, g55(Tempered and noisy,
lways gathers a troop about him.
W. took part in every disturbance at
ball or theatre, at the races or in the
Street.
I will not relate to you my ad-
ventures and my scrapes during the
first year. I returned to the country
for the holidays. I had studied well,
and not spent too much. My father
was in ecstasies with me, and said,
“The Baron will be delighted.”
My comrades in the faubourg were
pleased with me, because I turned
peasant again with them. The fol-
lowing winter, after the reopening
ſof the school, a woman decided my
life.
We attended all the first perform-
ances at the Odéon. We made a
great noise over both those plays
which we wished to support and those
which we disliked. There was at that
time a little actress at this theatre,
who was styled Impéria on the post-
er. She played unnoticed, in what
was called the répertoire. She was
wonderfully pretty, ladylike, and cold,
either by nature, or from inexperience
or timidity; the public did not trou-
ble themselves about her. At that
time one might play, for ten years,
Molière's Isabelles or Lucindes, and
the secondary rôles of tragedy, with-
out attracting the public attention,
or obtaining the least promotion, un-
less through influential protection.
This young girl had no acquaint-
ance in the Ministry, no friend in the
press; she did not even solicit the
sympathy of the public. She spoke
well; she had a modest grace ; one
perceived in her the conscientious-
ness of an artist, but no inspiration,
no fervor, and not the shadow of
coquetry. Her eyes never questioned
the proscenium, and when, in obedi-
ence to the effect of her rôle, she cast
them down, she did not let fall upon
the orchestra that veiled and wanton
glance, which seems to say, “I know
very well what my rôle seems not to
know.”
I could not tell why, after having
seen her with indifference in several
minor parts, I was so struck by her
proud and modest face, that between
the acts I asked my companions if
they did not think her charming.
They pronounced her pretty, but not
attractive on the stage. One of them
had seen her play Agnès; he pre-
tended that she had totally misun-
derstood this classical creation, and a
discussion ensued. Was Agnès a sly-
boots who assumes innocence, or a
veritable child who says very for-
ward things without fathoming their
meaning 2 I supported the latter
opinion; and although I cared little
to be right, the first time that I, Ecole
des Femmes appeared upon the play-
12
A ROLLING STONE.
bills I left the café Molière to see
the piece. I don’t know why I hesi-
tated to mention it to any one. The
students never listen to the reper-
tory, which is nevertheless imposed
upon them, in view of their instruc-
tion, at the Second Théâtre-Français.
We are all supposed to know the
classics by heart, and many declare
themselves satiated with this antique
feast who know only short fragments
of it, and have never understood its
wit or appreciated its merit.
I was like many others in this
respect, and, at the end of several
scenes, I felt almost a remorse for
never having duly valued so admira-
ble a masterpiece. We are romantic
no longer; we are too sceptical for
that ; yet romanticism has penetrated
troubles them; for if they obey the
shadow's tearful sense, the stupid
public comprehends nothing of it,
fancies they parody the suffering,
and laughs still more heartily. In
the midst of this coarse laughter
there are very few who whisper in
their neighbor's ear that Molière is
a wounded eagle, a soul profoundly
sad. Nevertheless he is so, for I also
have studied him, and in all his
jealous husbands I perceive the mis-
anthrope. Arnolphe is a humble
Alceste, Agnès a rustic Célinnène.
But Mademoiselle Impéria ren-
dered Agnès interesting by the abso-
lute good—faith of her—in aeeence, by
certain accents not so much plaintive
as emergetic and indignant at oppres-
sion. While questioning if she were
into the air which we breathe; we in the right, it was impossible not to
have preserved its unjust and arro- be impressed and swayed by her face
gant side, and we despise the classics, and attitude. That night I dreamed
without rendering more justice to of her; the next day, under pretext
those which have superseded them.
In proportion as I relished the
profound and humorous work of
the old master, I was struck with the
charm of the cruel Agnès: I say cruel,
because Arnolphe is certainly an un-
happy character, interesting in spite
of his folly; he loves and is not loved;
in return He is selfish in love; he
is man. His suffering finds vent by
snatches in admirable verses, which
have, whatever they may say, an
echo in the heart of every lover.
Jn nearly all the plays of Molière
there is a depth of heart-rending grief,
which at a given moment effaces the
absurdity of the jealous dupe. The
stupid public does not suspect it.
The actors who study their rôles are
struck by it, and this deep shadow
of looking for old books, I walked
along the galleries of the Odéon, al-
ways returning to the little trellised
gate, where the employees of the
theatre and the artists attending re-
hearsal go in and out: but in vain
I watched and waited ; they were
rehearsing a new play in which Im-
péria had no part. All that I could
gather from the words of those who
came and went was that she was
summoned to attend the rehearsal
on the following day, the actress who
played the part of Ingénue being in-
disposed and likely to be ill the day
of the first performance. An urchin
made his appearance, carrying a bul-
letin for her, and, as he held this
little paper in the ends of his fingers,
with an absent air, I followed him
A ROLLING STONE.
13
with treacherous intent; I feigned
to be abstracted as he ; I jostled
against him at the moment when he
slipped past the coaches stationed by
the theatre. The paper fell, I picked
it up and returned it to him, after
having wiped it on my sleeve, al-
though it was not soiled. I had had
time to read the address: “Mademoi-
selle Impéria, Rue Carnot, No. 17.”
When the boy was setting off
again I had a mind to give him five
francs, and do the errand in his
stead. I dared not.
Besides, I was intoxicated with
my discovery as with a triumph.
The first thing that a simple lover
dreams of, is to know the address of
his ideal, as if that brought him one
step nearer to success!
However, I followed the little mes-
senger at a distance. I saw him
enter at No. 17, one of the poorest
houses of this poor street, which was
neither paved nor lighted with gas.
I redoubled my steps, and met him
as he came out, calling to the porter
to deliver the note as soon as Mad-
emoiselle What's-her-name returned.
Mademoiselle What's-her-name :
Profanation I knew nothing of
that freedom which invariably char-
acterizes the theatre, even serious
theatres. I grew bolder; she was
not there. I could learn some-
thing of her from the concierge. I
entered resolutely under a sombre
peristyle, and, in my turn, asked for
Mademoiselle Impéria through the
window.
“Out,” bruskly replied a fat old
WOIO all. -
“When will she return ?”
“I don’t know.”
And Scanning me from head to
foot with a half-contemptuous, half-
good-humored air, she added, –
“Have you her permission to visit
her ?” -
“Certainly,” I answered, wretch-
edly disconcerted.
“Let us see l’ rejoined the old
woman, extending her hand.
I was about to withdraw ; she
detained me, saying, —
“Hark you, my young friend, you
are one of those pretty fellows who
fancy they have only to show them-
selves; they come every day, and
that annoys this young actress, who
is discreet as an angel. We are di-
rected to tell these fine gentlemen
that she receives no one. So don't
take the trouble to come again; good
evening, and success to you.”
Laughing maliciously, she raised
again with a loud slam the blind
that she had let down to speak to
Iſle.
I retired, mortified and enchanted.
Impéria was virtuous, innocent per-
haps, as she appeared. I no longer
laughed at myself for my fancy; I
clung to it as to my life.
I will not tell you all the schemes
that I devised to gain admittance to
the theatre the next day. I dared
not ; but, the day after, seeing many
people of every sort going in and out
at this little entrance, which did not
seem to be guarded, and which is
never closed, I pushed on boldly and
passed a tiny porter's box, of which
a child had charge. I had seized
the moment when two workmen
were entering. I followed close upon
their heels; the child, who was play-
ing with a cat, hearing steps and
14
A ROLLING STONE,
voices that he knew, did not even
raise his eyes in my direction.
The workmen who preceded me
ascended five or six steps, made a
half-turn to the right, went up two
or three steps more, which ended the
principal staircase, pushed open a
heavy swing-door, and disappeared.
I stopped a moment irresolute. The
child perceived me then, and cried
Out, —
“Whom do you want 2 ”
“Monsieur Eugène !” replied I,
entirely at random, and not knowing:
why this name rose to my lips rather
than any other.
“Don’t know him,” replied the
little fellow. . “It is perhaps M.
Constant that you mean 2°
“Yes, yes, beg pardon . That’s it !
M. Constant.” *
“Go straight ahead : *
And he returned to his cat, whose
face he was carefully cleaning with a
woman's cap, probably his mother's.
What should I say to M. Con-
stant, and who was M. Constant 2 I
prepared to follow the workmen
through the Swing-door.
“Not that way !” cried the child
again; “that is the stage l’
“I know that well enough, con-
found it !” replied I in an angry
voice. “I have business there first.”
He was nonplussed by my au-
dacity. With two strides I gained
the stage, attracted by the reassuring
darkness which I had perceived
there, and in which it took me some
moments to make sure of my where-
abouts.
I was at the back of the stage, and
my first movement was to slip be-
hind a curtain—which I shall always
remember it—represented a strip of
garden with enormous hydrangeas
that I took at first for pumpkins. I
stood there, palpitating and unde-
cided, until my two machinists,
passing close to me, and taking up
two ropes with pulleys, said to
me, –
“If you please, monsieur, step
aside make way for the planta-
tion 1 °
They took away my refuge and my
shelter. Two others, Working in a
contrary direction, uncoiled the roll
which was to replace the garden by
the back part of a room, and these
cried to me in their turn, -
“Room for the plantation 1"
The plantation / what did that
mean A guilty mind believes
readily in direct allusions. I re-
called the sign over the paternal
enclosure: Plantation of Thomas
Lawrence 1 and I imagined they
were laughing at me. It was not so,
however. The plantation at the
theatre consists in placing curtains
and whatever pieces of scenery are
used at the rehearsal to show the
arrangement of the scenery repre-
sented in the play, and to regulate
the entrances and exits of the
characters. If the scenery in the
play is to be changed, the ma-
chinists, after each act of the re-
hearsal, alter or modify the planta-
tion.
I took refuge on a great wooden
staircase which ascended to the back
of the stage behind the scenery, and
I ventured to gain the platform
above. I found myself face to face
with a hairdresser who was combing
a splendid peruke in the style of,
}
\
}
A ROLLING STONE.
15
Louis XIV., and who paid no atten-
tion to me. A voice issuing, I knew
not whence, cried, –
“Constant ”
The hairdresser did not stir.
was not he. I breathed again.
“Constant l” cried another voice.
And some one opened at my right
the padded door of a room furnished
with red benches, which I judged to
be the actors' green-room. The
hairdresser moved then, for the per-
son who appeared, and whom I
dared not look at, seemed invested
with the Supreme authority.
“Monsieur Jourdain,” said the
artist in hair, “Constant is in that
direction.”
And turning to the left, he began
calling in his turn,--
“Constant The manager wants
you.”
I was caught between two fires, –
the manager in person on one side,
on the other this fantastic personage
Constant, with whom I had pre-
tended. I wished to speak, and with
whom I had not the least acquaint-
ance. I retreated by the way I had
come, and keeping always in the
shadow, I precipitated myself into
the left side-scene, where I tumbled
over a fireman in undress uniform,
who said to me with an oath, –
“Take care Are you blind 2*
As I very politely begged his par-
don, and as he was concerned only
in guarding against the danger of
fire, he had no hesitation in telling
me where I could find a refuge with-
out troubling any one.
me a sort of flying bridge which
descended from the stage to the
orchestra, and which I cleared with
It
He showed
one leap, although it was very in-
SeOUITé. . - •
The hall was as gloomy as the
stage; I tried to sit down, and find-
ing myself very uncomfortable, I
ascertained that the seats in the
stalls were tipped back, and that
great bands of green cloth were
stretched over the whole range of
the orchestra. And then they il- .
luminated something on the stage;
several persons descended the flying
staircase, and came towards me. I
slipped away again. I reached the
lobbies on the ground-floor, and
catching sight of an open box, I
crouched down there and kept still.
There, unless by a fit of coughing or
an unwary Sneeze, I could not be
discovered. -
But how did that benefit me 2 In
the first place, Impéria was not at
rehearsal; her companion, the lead-
ing one in that line of character, was
recovered, and performed her part
without any prospect of being super-
seded. Impéria, her duties as sub-
stitute over, must be in the hall,
studying the general effect, and
listening to the suggestions that the
author and the manager were mak-
ing to the ingénue. But how dis-
tinguish and recognize any one in
this immense hall, nearly empty and
lighted only by three Argand lamps
fastened to posts placed on the stage,
and casting a greenish light with
great shadows over the surrounding
objects 2 This dim and smoky light,
which a sharp ray of Sunshine, fall-
ing from the frieze upon a projecting
corner of the scenery, rendered still
more deceptive, did not penetrate at
all into the interior of the house.
16
A ROLLING STONE.
The entire audience was composed
of a dozen persons seated in the
orchestra and with their backs to
me. These were, perhaps, the man-
ager, the costumer, the leader of the
clague, one of the physicians; in
short, people connected with the es-
tablishment, artists or employees,
besides three or four women, one of
whom must be the object of my
aspirations; but how approach her ?
Certainly, strangers to the theatre
were forbidden to intrude at the
rehearsals, and I could not, without
falsehood, claim acquaintance with
any one ; besides, my falsehood
easily detected, I should be shame-
fully expelled, without having a
right to demand any ceremony about
it.
From time to time a noise of
sweeping, shaking of carpets, and
slamming of doors issued from the
upper part of the hall. One of
the persons seated in the orchestra
Cried: “ Hush : silence l’ and turn-
ing around seemed to examine every-
thing with a piercing and angry
glance that I fancied I felt falling
on myselt. I shrank up together; I
Jºeld lay Freath. I dared not go out
for fear of betraying my presence.
At last this Cerberus, the manager,
arose, interrupted the rehearsal, and
declared that the clearing of the
boxes and galleries must take place
either before or after the rehearsals,
since it was impossible to perform in
the midst of this uproar and disturb-
ance. Thus my last hope was taken
from me, for I had conceived the
idea of bribing one of these minor
employees, and taking his place my-
self next day.
Another idea passed through my
mind. Was it impossible to present
myself as an actor What I had
witnessed of the rehearsal showed
me how little the artist takes the
initiative, and how his work is cut
out for him. I had not the least idea
of what is called the mise en scène,
and the generality of spectators are
quite as ignorant. They fancy, sim-
ply, that this admirable order, this
dexterity of movement, this sureness
of encounter, which are established
on the stage, and which permit the
interchange of cues, without appar-
ent premeditation, are spontaneous
effects, due to the intelligence of the
actors or to the sequence of the
scenes. That is not the case, how-
ever. Either ordinary actors lack
intelligence, or they have too much,
or they cannot bring out their points,
or they are much occupied with pro-
ducing an effect, and to that end
willingly sacrifice probability of at-
titude and situation on the part of
the other characters. This mise en
scène is like military rule, which
regulates the carriage, gesture, and
face of each, even the most insignifi-
cant. One could chalk out upon the
boards the space where each may
move at a given moment, the num-
ber of steps which he must take,
measure the extension of his arm in
certain gestures, determine the exact
place where an object is to fall, out-
line the posé of the body in the fic-
tions of sleep, fainting, or falling in
burlesque or dramatic performance.
All this is regulated in the classic
repertory by absolute traditions. In
new productions these things demand
long trials, experiments that are re-
A ROLLING STONE.
17

jected or insisted on; hence ensue
occasional stormy discussions, when
the author, as a last resort, is chosen
umpire, at the risk of committing an
error, if he lacks judgment, taste,
and experience. The actors—at least
such as derive a certain authority
from talent — join in the argument ;
they rebel against just or unjust
exigencies. The inferior artists have
no voice; they suffer and are silent.
If they are awkward and ungraceful,
effects which had been thought ad-
visable have to be sacrificed, and
what natural abilities they may pos-
sess turned to account ; still, it is
necessary to determine the use of
these abilities, for they must change
nothing during a hundred repre-
sentations. The actor who impro-
vises in performance runs a risk of
killing the play: he disconcerts all
his fellow-actors. They are put out,
not only by an additional word, but
by an unexpected gesture, an un-
looked-for attitude. So the mise
en scène is a collective operation;
the actor has no more freedom in it
than the soldier in his drill.
Perceiving this, I thought that
the profession could certainly be
learned very quickly, without special
study or talent, since throughout
you are taught and prompted; for
I noticed also that they dictated
and emphasized the intonations, syl-
lable by syllable, to beginners, and
even to those of more experience,
when they mistook the meaning of a
passage.
“Why,” said I to myself, “should
I not submit to this apprenticeship,
even should it lead me to nothing
her whom I love 7 I will make the
When my resolution was taken,
I felt more comfortable in my con-
cealment. Illusion gains ground
readily in a mind of twenty. It
already seemed to me as if I were a
member of the company, belonged
to the house, and had a right to be
where I was.
When a project has entered my
head, I have no rest until I have set
about its execution. The rehearsal
of the second act was finished; they
left off there. A loud argument went
on between the stage and the or-
chestra stalls upon the necessity of
repeating these two acts next day,
or beginning on the third. The
manager rose, and turned toward the
flying bridge to reascend the stage.
I seized this moment to quit my
box, and spring coolly toward the
entrance of the orchestra. I reached
it at the same time with three wo-
men : one was tall and thin ; another
old and stout; the third was young,
but it was not Impéria. So I had
no other emotion to fear than that of
contending with authority. I went
back to the stage, and mingled boldly
in a group surrounding the author
and the manager. The latter insisted
upon the necessity of cutting out a
portion of the play. The author,
crestfallen, consented unwillingly.
“Come into my study,” said the
manager, “we will arrange it at once.”
In my great confusion I had not
thought of recognizing this manager;
everybody knew him, however; it
was Bocage, the great actor Bocage
himself. Since I was new to Paris,
beyond the happiness of approaching
I had never seen him play, but his
i8
A ROLLING STONE.
noble figure was like one of the
monuments of the place, and it
needed but to be a student to love
Bocage. He allowed us to sing the
Marseillaise between the acts; and
when we called for it, the orchestra
gave it to us unhesitatingly. This
continued till the day when the
Marseillaise was decreed rebellious.
Bocage resisted, and was removed.
The sight of him inspired me with
an heroic courage. There was not a
moment to lose. I approached him
resolutely. -
“What do you wish with me, sir?”
asked he, with polite bluntness.
“I would like to speak to you five
minutes.”
“Five minutes that’s a long time,
I can't spare it.”
“Three minutes two l’’
“And one has passed already.
Wait for me a quarter of an hour, in
the green-room.”
He went out and I heard him
saying, “ Constant, who is that tall
fellow that you have admitted to the
stage 2"
“A tall fellow 2° repeated Con-
stant, who was in fact the concierge
Jactotum of the Odéon.
“Yes, a very handsome fellow.”
“Upon my word, I know nothing
about it. Who let him in 2 ”
“Say it was I,” called out the
leading young comedian, the Frontin
of the troupe, as he passed by me
with a careless air.
He came into the green-room.
Bocage had only crossed it. Con-
stant, summoned and beset by five
or six other persons, and replying
to their demands and quéstions with
the coolness of a man accustomed to
live in a tumult, went out by another
door. For one moment I found my-
Self alone with the comedian adored
by the public.
“May I really,” said I to him,
“make use of your name 2"
“The deuse !” cried he, without
noticing me. And he vanished, call-
ing to the hair-dresser: “My wig,
Thomas, my wig for this evening !”
I was left alone in a low, oblong
apartment, adorned with portraits of
authors and celebrated actors, but
taking heed of nothing, and counting
the beatings of my agitated heart.
When the clock struck five, I had
waited three quarters of an hour.
The movements and noises in the
theatre died gradually away; every
one had gone to dinner. I dared not
move a step ; the manager had surely
forgotten me. -
At last Constant reappeared, nap-
kin in hand. He had remembered
me in the midst of his meal, the
excellent man *.
“M. Bocage is still there,” he said;
“will you speak to him 2 °
“Certainly,” replied I.
And he conducted me into one of
the director's studies, where I found
myself in the presence of Bocage.
The great artist looked at me with
a kindly glance which did not lack
penetration, showed me a seat, begged
me to wait a moment, gave five or
six orders to Constant in less than
a minute, wrote a few lines on half a
dozen sheets of paper, and, when we
were alone, asked me what I wished,
in a tone which, although very pleas-
ant, indicated “Make haste.”
“I would like to enter the theatre.”
He regarded me again.
A ROLLING STONE.
19

“You certainly would not make a
bad figure there. A fine young pre-
mier / From whom do you come 2 °
“I have no recommendation.”
“Then you are not from the Con-
servatory !” ...------~~~~~~<------
“No, monsieur, I am a law-stu
dent.” -
“And you wish to forsake a career
where your relatives doubtless ="
“I do not mean to leave it, Mon-
sieur Bocage; I am an industrious
student, although I love pleasure. I
count on pursuing my studies and
being received as an advocate; after
that I shall see.”
“You think, then, that one needs
no special study toºprepare for the
stage 2"
“I have tried none.
ever, attempt it.”
“Then do so, and come to see me
again. I can judge at present only
of your exterior.”
“Is it sufficient 2 ”
“More than sufficient. The voice
is fine, the pronunciation excellent.
You appear easy in your movements.”
“Ts that all that is necessary 2”
“O no, certainly not
study. I engage you to begin.”
“Since you are so good, so patient
as to grant me a moment's attention,
tellime what I must do 2 °
Pſe considered a moment, and re-
plied, “You must see a great deal of
acting. Do you attend the theatres?”
“About like the other students.”
“That is not enough, Stay, your
face pleases me, but I don’t know you.
Bring me proof to-morrow that you
are a very well-behaved lad, and you
shall have your entrances, not only
into the house, but also to the stage,
I can, how-
2
that you may follow the performance
of the repertory; that is all I can do
for you at present. I need not tell
you that if you lack discretion and
propriety in the relations which may
be established between yourself, the
artists, and the employees, I cannot
prevent your being immediately put
out.”
“I will bring you proof to-morrow
that you have nothing to fear. I
should be a wretch, if I made you
repent of your kindness to me !”
He felt the sincerity of my emo-
tion; tears of joy and gratitude trem-
bled on my eyelashes. He extended
his hand to me, and took his hat,
saying, “To-morrow, at this same
hour.” -
I hastened at once in search of
everybody with whom I was ac-
quainted. Without revealing to
them my love for an actress, I told
them that I could obtain admission
to the theatre, if they would give a
good account of me. In two hours I
had a list of more than twenty sig-
natures. My landlord, my tailor, my
shoemaker, and my hatter attested
charming young man, irreproachable
in every respect. My comrades did
still better. They insisted on accom-
panying me, the student-card in their
hats, to the manager's. They were
not admitted; Constant was on
guard; but Bocage saw them from
the window, smiled at them in reply
to their salutations, and signed my
complete admission into the estab-
lishment. It was a great favor,
granted to a few young actors only,
and as yet I was nothing.
That same evening I attended the
You mustwº equal enthusiasm that I was a
20
A ROLLING STONE.
performance. Alas! Impéria did not
play till Friday; but I resolved to
strike up a friendship with the actors
of my age, and gain a footing in the
green-room, to be sure of meeting her
there. *
Naturally enough, I went to thank
the young comedian for the protec-
tion he had offered me. He knew
my adventure already. He had seen
the sort of ovation that had recom-
mended me to the confidence of
Bocage. He presented me to his
comrades as a warranted candidate,
fired off a thousand dazzling witti-
cisms, and left me nonplussed at this
theatrical brilliancy, beside which the
wit of students in their second year
is still very dull, tame, and provincial.
By the end of three days I was
quite at home there, save that I per-
ceived all I lacked to be in tune with
the spirit of the house. I realized
that this position of Supernumerary
on tolerance gave me no right to
take liberties. I shrank from de-
serving the least reproach on the
part of a manager who had so gener-
ously opened the door to me. So I
imposed upon myself a politeness
and reserve so much the easier that,
feeling my inferiority, I could not
have shone in pleasantry. I must
say, also, that generally the actors
were people of good-breeding and
polished manners; without stiffness
or affectation, they had the air of the
best society, and it is certain that I
learned still more from hearing them
converse between the acts than from
seeing them perform. Two or three
had, however, a way of talking rather
freely, but they refrained from it
before the women: all knew how to
toilet.
respect the stage, whatever might be
their private manners elsewhere.
So I received there lessons in de-
portment, and that simplicity of
manner which is the stamp of good-
breeding. All these persons had
learned by precept the customs of
good Society, and they would have
appeared, in the highest circles, quite
as fine gentlemen as on the stage.
They had fallen into the habit of
being so. There was no difference
now, even in their moments of care-
less merriment, between the charac-
ters that they had just been repre-
senting and those they really were.
I comprehended all I lacked to be
a well-bred man; love suggested to
me the desire to please. I was
almost glad not to have to meet the
gaze of Impéria yet ; and, not to
delay the metamorphosis which I
had determined on, I left the smok-
ing-room, I gave up billiards, I disap-
peared from the Closerie, and devoted
all the time I did not spend at the

g theatre to my legal and literary
studies. My friends complained of
me; they had never seen me so se-
* ~
rious and orderly.
Friday came at last. During five
days that I had been sure of meeting
her, of speaking to her, perhaps, I
had not once dared to utter Impéria's
name, and, whether through chance
or indifference, no one around me
had made the least mention of her.
Phèdre was on the programme ; Im-
péria's name was there also. She
played Aricie. I had already learned
to dress properly with my modest
wardrobe. I passed an hour at my
I looked at myself in the
glass, like a Woman, I asked myself
A ROLLING STONE.
21.

a hundred times if my face, which
had pleased Bocage and Constant,
might not displease her. I forgot
my dinner. I passed under the gal-
leries of the Odéon before the gas
was lighted. I was in mortal fear,
even while a delirious joy made me
dizzy.
At last the hour arrived. I entered
the green-room. No one there yet,
but an old woman accompanying a
tall slender girl clad in Greek cos-
tume, who looked at herself in the
glass with a frightened air, and de-
clared that she was going to faint.
I bowed, and seated myself on a
bench. I wondered if this dress and
these white fillets were not the
somewhat careful toilet of a super-
numerary. CEnone arrived in her
Scarlet tunic, covered with a large
fawn-colored peplum. She sat down
in an arm-chair, her feet upon the
fender, and exclaimed, -
“What infernal weather ſ”
The elder tragediennes frequently
copy the dashing and military style
of the Empire, which Mademoiselle
Georges affected. Comedy imparts
dignity to the deportment; tragedy,
which deals with the superhuman,
produces by reaction a desire to re-
turn as far as possible to reality.
The old woman in tartan, who
accompanied the young Greek, made
a deep reverence to OEnone, begging"
her to give a glance to her daughter's
toilet.
“What l” cried the nurse of Phèdre,
“does she act Aricie to-night !”
“For the first time, Madame Ré-
gine. She is very much afraid, my
poor child ! As for me, I tell her it
is a lucky chance that Mademoiselle
Impéria is ill ; were it not for
that — ” -
“Impéria ill ?” cries Theseus, en-
tering ; “so much the worse Is it
serious !”
“It would seem so I’’ replies the
mother; “for Mademoiselle Impéria
would not resign her part for a
trifle.”
Hypolite enters in his turn.
“Did you know that little Impéria
was ill ?”
“I have just been told so. It
would even appear that it is se-
rious.”
“What then,” says OEnone; “what
is the matter with the child 2 ”
“There is the doctor,” says Thira-
mene; “what is the matter with our
Aricie 2 ° ... *.
“I fear a typhoid fever,” replies the
doctor.
“The deuse !
It is too bad |
to-day ?”
“Two hours ago.”
“It must have come on suddenly,
since we knew nothing of it,” con-
tinues CEnone.
“So suddenly,” says the mother
of the new Aricie, “that my girl
could not even have a rehearsal.”
“She thinks only of her daughter,
that woman l’’ says CEnone, rising.
“As for me, I am greatly distressed.
Imperia is poor, without family,
without support of any kind, you
know. I wager that there is not so
much as a cat with her, and not
twenty francs in her little purse !
Gentlemen, ladies, we will club to-
gether between the acts, and as soon
as I am dead I shall hasten to the
invalid's. Who will come with me
Poor little thing !
Have you seen her
22
A ROLLING STONE.
to assist me in watching with her, if
she is delirious !”
“I l’ cried I, pale, and unable to
contain myself longer.
“Who you ?” said CEnone, re-
garding me with an air of astonish-
Iment.
“Ladies and gentlemen, they are
beginning !” cried the call-boy, ring-
ing his bell.
This sudden interruption warded
off the attention that would other-
wise have been attracted by my con-
fusion and my despair. I ran to
the house of Impéria. In the door-
keeper's box there was only a deaf
old man, who understood at last that
I was inquiring for the young ac-
tress, and who replied to me, –
“It seems she is not very well:
my wife is with her.”
I sprang toward the staircase,
Calling out to him that I came from
the physician at the theatre. He
pointed to the back of the passage,
and a half-opened door on the
ground-floor. I passed through two
Small rooms, very poorly furnished,
but exquisitely neat, which over-
looked a bit of garden, and found
myself face to face with the por-
tress, to whom I repeated the lie I
had just been telling her husband.
She recognized me directly, and said
to me with a shake of her head, -
“Are you telling me another fib 2°
“How should I know that Made-
moiselle Impéria is ill, if I did not
come from the theatre ?”
“What is the physician's name 2"
I gave it.
“I begin to believe you. After
all, in her present state — Come in
with me.”
º
She opened the door which she
had held half shut behind her, and
I followed her; but when I stood
within that chamber, where, op-
pressed with fever, the poor young
actress lay sleeping on a child's bed,
I was seized with fear and penitence.
It seemed to me as if I were out-
raging a death-agony, and I dared
neither to approach nor look at her.
“Ah well | feel her pulse !” said
the good woman. “See if the fever
increases. She is not conscious.
Come !” -
I must either feel her pulse, or
renounce my physician's rôle. I
must lift up this poor, helpless arm,
and take in my own this little hand,
burning with fever. Nothing more
harmless than this examination,
Surely, but I was not a medical
student; I could do nothing for her.
I had no right to impose my devo-
tion on her. If she should open her
eyes and see her hand in that of a
Stranger, she so cold and shy, her
illness would be augmented through
my fault. While making these sad
reflections, I looked mechanically at
a photograph placed on the little
table: it was the picture of a man
neither young nor handsome, a rela-
tive, doubtless, perhaps her father.
It seemed to me as if the refined and
gentle face reproached me. I re-
treated from the bed, and decided to
tell the truth to the young girl's
humble guardian.
“I am not a physician l’
“Ah, you see I suspected it !”
“But I am connected with the
theatre, and I know that the artists
are anxious about the loneliness of
| their young comrade, about her
A ROLLING STONE.
23

poverty also. They are going to get
up a collection, and one of the ladies
proposes to watch with her. Having
nothing to do this evening, and fear-
ing lest you might be embarrassed,
I bring you my share. I see that
you are devoted to her, and your face
tells me that you are good and hon-
est. Let her want for nothing. Care
for her as if she were your daughter;
they will assist you. As for me, I
will come again only when I am
summoned; I have no right to offer
my services.”
“But you are in love with her, like
so many others, are you not ? It is
not a crime. You, too, look good and
honest. I will permit you to inquire
for her at the lodge. That is all.
You are too young for a husband:
she will not have a lover; and it is
not I who will counsel her to com-
mit a folly. Come, retire and be
tranquil. Whether they bring me
money or not, whether they aid me
or not, she shall be cared for like my
daughter, as you say ; it was very
pretty, but it was unnecessary. Good
by Take back your money. I have
Some myself, if the little one needs it.”
I dared not return to the theatre ;
I felt that I should be questioned
and betray myself. In the state in
which I had left poor Impéria, I
could not assume a careless air, nor
invent a fresh falsehood.
Besides, I was tired of lying, and I
blushed at my artifices. Sincerity is
the foundation of my character.
***. and
my love, I resolved in reality to de-
vote myself to the stage. Hitherto
I had not seriously weighed the ques-
tion; now I no longer asked myself
|
f
if my love would be sufficiently last-
ing to lead me to marriage. This
honest old woman, who had just put
the case so simply to me, had touched
the root of the matter. I was not,
perhaps, too poor to marry a girl who
had nothing, but I was too young to
give her confidence in me. I had no
profession; the theatre alone could
furnish me with one offhand, if I
knew how to turn to account my
natural gifts. Only a few months
might have to pass before I should
be suitably remunerated; and even if
I had to wait several years, what dif-
ference did it make, if Impéria loved
me, and deigned to betroth herself to
me 2
I did not forget my father in the
midst of my dream. The darling wish
of this dear good man was to see me
become a fine speaker. He meant by
that, an advocate or deputy ; the
thing was not very clear in his mind:
but he could have no prejudice
against the theatre ; he did not know
what it was. I do not believe that
he ever entered a playhouse in his
life. I possessed an influence over
him that grew stronger every year.
I did not despair of making him
understand that, when one is a fine
speaker, it is sometimes better to
recite the fine things that others
have written, than to utter one's own
folly.
Thus reflecting, I hurried through
the neighboring quarter. I ran along
the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, I
traversed the garden of the Luxem-
bourg, the Rue de l'Ouest, the Rue
Wavin, and returned to the poor Rue
Carnot, awaiting, in the shadow, the
arrival of CEnone, and at ten o'clock

24
A ROLLING STONE.
I saw her enter in company with
another woman. These ladies; as
later I became aware, knew Impéria
very slightly; but they were kind-
hearted. With very few exceptions,
all actors are so. Whatever may
be their faults, their passions, their
vices even, they have a mutual
charity and devotion that are admi-
rable. I have reason to know that
no other profession admits of such
compassionate and brotherly love.
I passed the night in wandering
about like a restless shade, through
the wind and rain. Day had hardly
dawned when I knocked timidly at
No. 17. The door was opened to me
at once, and I saw the good portress,
who addressed me with a smile :
“Already up 2 Come, you care a
great deal for her, it would seem.
Comfort yourself, for she is much
better. She has recognized her com-
panions, and the fever has left her.
I have just been taking a nap, and
am going back to her. Those ladies
will come back again at noon.”
“May I come and inquire at
eleven 2 °
“Yes, but if she is out of danger,
you will leave us in peace, won't
you ?”
I went away, and threw myself on
my bed.
At eleven Madame Romajoux —
that was the name of the portress —
told me that the physician had been
there. He had said, “It will be
nothing serious; we need have no
fear for her. Let her stay in for five
or six days; that is all.”
When I heard Madame Roma-
joux's name, I said to her, seizing a
pretext to prolong the conversation,
that either she or her husband must
be from Auvergne.
“So we are, both,” replied she ;
“and you ?” -
“I am from Arvers.”
“And we from Wolvic ; that is far
enough. What is your name 2 ”
I told her at random a name that
was not mine.
“What are your parents 2°
“They are peasants.”
“Like us. But say, then, my
countryman, you are of the same
rank as we, and you aspire to this
young lady ?”
“She is an actress; I am studying
for an actor; and I suppose she is
not a prince's daughter.”
“There’s where you mistake. Per-
haps there are princes in her family.
She is a noble young lady.”
“Whose name is ?”
“I shall not tell you. She con-
ceals her name. She works at the
theatre and at home, to pay her fa-
ther's board, who is — who is incura-
ble and in destitution; but enough of
this. You are drawing me out, and I
ought not to tell you what she has
confided to me. Come, forget this
pretty girl. She is not for your
handsome eyes, and I suppose that
you might turn her from her duty.
Would you be very proud of having
made a precious little pearl fall into
the gutter? If you have a heart,
leave her in peace.”
“I respect her so much that I beg
you will not mention me to her.”
“Have no fear ! I do not wish to
have her ruined, and I say nothing
to her of all the money I refuse, and
all the gallants I send away.”
“Continue, my dear countrywo-
A ROLLING STONE.
25

man, continue ! you are an adorable
woman.”
She began to laugh ; but the hour
was approaching when the physician
might surprise me there; so I with-
drew, and went to the rehearsal.
They had begun on the third act,
and were changing the arrange-
ment of the scenery. There was a
respite of quarter of an hour for th
actors.
“Ah ! there he is l’ cried Ma-
dame Régine, when she saw me en-
ter the greenroom; “inform us, my
young friend, how you came to know
our Impéria.”
“Iſ I do not know her,” answered
I. “I have never spoken a word to
her.”
“On your honor 7 °
“On my honor.”
“But you are in love with her ?”
“Why so 2" -
“You offered to watch with her,
as if you were her brother or —
He blushes, gentlemen I See how
he blushes 1’’
“One blushes easily, and for no
special reason, at my age; particu-
larly when questioned by a person
of talent like yourself.”
“Thanks, you are very polite:
what next 2 °
“Next, next | You said before me
that this young lady was poor, re-
spectable, without family; you spoke
of fever, of delirium. Her misfor-
tune, and, more particularly, your
devotion, touched, affected me. I
volunteered, without thinking of the
impropriety of my first impulse; and
that is all.”
She looked me in the face mis-
chievously, and added : “Is it true
that you obtained admittance here
to fit for the stage, on her account 2"
I was sure of myself this time,
and I replied in a manner to con-
vince her.
The subject was dropped. They
|º of Impéria; they esteemed
her greatly, although, outside the
theatre, they did not know her ; but
they appreciated her good-breeding,
her deference to advice, her modesty
and pride.
“Is it true, really true,” asked
some one, “that she is the star of
purity that she seems ?”
“I am certain of it,” responded
Madame Régine. “If you had seen
that poor little house, so neat, so
modest and retired Besides, you
know what Bellamare told us of his
pupil 2"
“Yes; she was seventeen when he
brought her here, but she is eighteen
now.” -
“Ah well, it’s all the same,”
replied Régine. “Truly, I will not
answer for it that when she is twen-
ty — ”
They were interrupted by the re-
commencement of the play, and they
descended to the stage. I remained
alone in the greenroom with the
leader of the orchestra, an excellent
and very intelligent man, who was
reading over the manuscript of the
first acts, to see where he should
have to put some musical phrases.
He was very kind and fatherly with
me; I ventured to ask him who was
this Bellamare, and, as this personage
will play an important part in my
narrative, I invite your attention to
the details which were given me.
“Bellamare ?” said the leader of
26
A ROLLING STONE.

the orchestra; “you have never heard
of Bellamare ? He is a friend of the
establishment, a former actor of ours.
He played the comic rôles, and had
a good deal of talent, but he spoke
through his nose, and his voice was
not equal to so large a stage. He
met with great success in the prov-
inces. Here the public tolerated
him, but would not adopt him, so
that after a few years he returned to
the province with a troupe which he
had recruited and trained according
to his fancy. He has conducted his
affairs, sometimes successfully, some-
times the reverse, but always with so
much delicacy and generosity that he
has acquired for himself a thorough
respect; and when he is sinking he
invariably finds friendly and trusting
hands to set him afloat again. He
has continued on terms of friendship,
with us all; and every year, when we
are closing, he comes to see us, in
order to engage those artists who
are out of employment, to go about
the province with him. Those whom
he cannot himself employ he advises,
recommends, and finds occupation for
them. Whoever comes from Bella-
mare is well received everywhere.
In short, he is an authority and a ce-
lebrity in the profession. And now"
I think of it, what you had better do,
when you have profited a little by
what you see here, is to ask Bella-
mare to bring you out somewhere.
If you can prevail on him to attach
you to his company, you will find
him a valuable adviser, a professor
of the first order, in serious even
more than in comic drama; for if
Nature has denied him in some re-
spects, intellect has made up for it,
and he is perhaps the ablest master
who exists. He sees at a glance all
that can be done with a subject; and
When he procured an engagement for
little Impéria here last year, he told
the manager: “She will be correct,
but cold, this first year. I will take
her again next vacation, and will re-
turn her better. The third year you
would not let her go, and you will
give her a salary of ten thousand
francs.’”
“And meanwhile 2° said I.
“She earns eighteen hundred,
which is very insufficient for a vir-
tuous girl who has relatives to Sup-
port ; but it is all a débutante can
expect. Fortunately she is very
courageous and very skilful. While
learning her rôles, she makes beauti-
ful thread-lace that the ladies buy
very willingly. They know that she
is poor; and truly, although they
may not be very straitlaced here, one
cannot help admiring them. Of
course they know this probably will
not last, since poverty almost always
ends by overcoming principle, that a
day will come when the desire for
rest and amusement will gain the
victory.”
“ Unless some honorable artist
Čomes forward to marry her.”
“That is a possibility like any
other. I wager now, that you would
think of it, if you had a profession
and were ten years older.”
“Maestro,” I said to him, “they
pretend that youth is the finest pe-
riod of life.”
“It is a generally received opin-
ion.” -
“For my part I think that opin-
ion lacks common sense. At my
A ROLLING STONE, -
27.
age, whenever one is supposed to
form any plan whatever, everybody
hastens to cry out, ‘You are too
i + | in outline, that she had seemed much
| > *
young
And I left him, cursing my beau-
tiful youth, swearing at the same
time that I would attach myself to
ellamare as to an anchor.
Three days later, as I was entering
this same greenroom, I trembled to
See Impéria seated near the fire,
awaiting the end of the second act
of rehearsal, in order to take part in
the third. The poor child still looked
Her little cloak was
very thin, and her shoes very wet.
She dried them with a calm and in-
different air, her eyes fixed upon the
coals, which were not burning very|
brightly. I summoned Constant to ||
She thanked him,
without perceiving that the motion.
had originated with me.
“Ah well,” said Constant to her,
Do you know
that you are changed ? Aren't you
| was about to leave her seat, in order
“I must do my duty, Monsieur
pale and worn.
rekindle the fire.
“So you are better ?
going out too soon ?”
Constant,” she answered, in that pure
and vibrant voice which thrilled me
to the heart.
She took up her embroidery, and
began to work at that marvellous
lace that she made so quickly and so
well. I watched her in profile, for I
dared not move a step to look at her
front face. She was ten times pret-
tier by daylight than by gas-light.
Her skin was of a lustrous delicacy ;
her long brown eyelashes caressed her
cheeks; her beautiful bright chest-
nut hair was knotted upon her white,
firm neck, where waved a cloud of
tiny curls, escaped from their con-
finement. She was smaller than I
had supposed, decidedly petite, but
so well proportioned and so elegant
taller on the stage ; her feet and
hands, her pretty little mouth, were
masterpieces.
I happened to cough, for I had.
almost caught a pleurisy from pass-
ing the night out of doors, during
her fever. She turned around as if
surprised, and as she returned my
bow her eyes had a cold or distrust-
ful expression that seemed to say,
“What is this gentleman 2° But her
attention was not especially attracted
by a new face more or less; she bent
her eyes again upon her work, and I
ad no cause to hope that my con-
unded handsome face had struck her.
I took my courage in both hands,
as the saying goes. I pretended to
|look at the portrait of Talma, hung
on one side of the mantel-piece. I
approached it, but I almost turned
my back to it; and then I fancied she
to withdraw from my proximity. I
did not wish to see her movement of
retreat accomplished, and coughing
again, this time to keep myself in
countenance, I went out by the door
which led to the stage. I was about
to take a seat in the orchestra, when
I heard M. Bocage say to the director,
pointing to the ºngenue who was
rehearsing: “Léon, that little thing
won’t do at all; she is impossible !
At the end of this act we must re-
move her. Impéria might not be
more spirited, but she would not be
awkward and vulgar. Is she not
well yet 2" -
“I believe not.”,


&
wº
28
“Make inquiries.”
I ventured to say that Mademoi-
selle Impéria was in the greenroom.
“And why the devil does she stay
there 2 — My dear boy,” added he,
addressing himself to me, “ have the
kindness to tell her that we desire
her presence in her own interest.”
I went with one bound from the
stage to the greenroom. I performed
my errand in so humble a manner,
that she was astonished, and could
not restrain a slight Smile.
“Yes, monsieur,” she replied, “I
will have the goodness to obey.”
She put her work into her pocket,
and took a seat at the entrance of
the orchestra. Bocage bowed to her,
and she responded by a salutation at
once dignified and respectful. Sum-
moning me with another nod, he
passed me his fur foot-warmer.
“That child is still unwell,” he
said to me; “give her that.”
I almost knelt to place the fur
beneath Impéria's feet. She thanked
me with the ease of a woman accus-
tomed to attention, and thanked the
manager with another bow. She
received this charity as a gracious
princess receives the homage which
is hers of right. I was struck by the
calm and firm expression of her face;
I was even awed by it. She had no
need to study the other actors, to
acquire noble and simple manners;
she might have taught them all the
lesson. How awkward and insignifi-
cant I felt before her
While the ingénue was wading
through the last scene in the act, the
impatient manager, after exchanging
a few words with the author, drew
near Impéria.
A ROLLING STONE,
“Notice what fault they find with
your companion. The rôle is to be
taken away from her. Be ready to
rehearse it to-morrow.” -
Impéria made no reply, but a tear
trickled over her cheek.
“Ah well, what is it !” asked the
manager.
“O monsieur, I have never yet
had to wound any one's feelings . "
“You must get used to that, my
child; that is the way of the thea-
tre!” \,
The next day she replaced Made-
moiselle Corinne, who declared her-
self her implacable enemy.
The play went off better and more
briskly. I observed that when they
wished Impéria to add a little warmth
to her unimpassioned acting, they
always addressed her with extreme
deference, and that in those passages
which brought out her good qualities
they gave her great encouragement.
Evidently, they had a respect for her
beyond her age and position. She
owed it to her politeness and amia-
bility, which awoke esteem and
interest at the same time. In the
greenroom, this secret influence was
still more perceptible. Actors are
children, sometimes rebellious, ca-
pricious, and passionate ; but they
are impressionable children, nice ob-
servers, most sensitive instruments,
that a breath sets all a-quiver.
Merciless and cruel in their condem-
nation, they yield equally to their
enthusiasm; and it often happens
that two irreconcilable enemies ap-
plaud each other rapturously, beneath
the spell of a sincere admiration.
They have the freedom of opinion
which belongs to irresponsible vir-
A ROLLING STONE.
29
tuosos. The unconcern of their in-
tellectual life vibrates between the
extremes of generosity and cruelty.
Obliged to speak whatever falls to
their part, whether good or bad, so
they yield to every feeling, infatua-
tion as well as contempt.
Impéria was appreciated then ;
and when she was brought in con-
tact with the company for the first
time, in a new play, - always a
source of great excitement, both for
those who are in it and those who
wish to be, – they were convinced of
that purity of soul and nobility of
nature which they had ascribed to
her, but hitherto had had no oppor-
tunity of proving. They were inter-
ested in her, and constrained her to
talk with them by addressing her as
she deserved to be addressed; they
took especial pains to become ac-
quainted with her, and when she
passed through the greenroom, in
the midst of a rather excited discus-
sion, the young Frontin would ex-
claim, “Hush, gentlemen, the angel
is passing !”
At length, seeing her free from all
suspicion, I dared to take part in the
conversations carried on with her
and the other women. I always ad-
dressed myself, however, to some one
else. She was the last to whom I
ventured to speak; but destiny drew
me on, and, in spite of myself, my
first words to her were a declara-
tion.
They were discussing marriage, in
connection with the publication of
the banns of a young tragedian be-
longing to the company, who was
about to marry a young and beauti-
ful soubrette.
“They are right, these children,”
said one.
“Utter folly l’” said another.
And as each one volunteered an
opinion on the advantages and the
cares of a family, my friend Frontin
appealed to me.
“And the handsome supernume-
rary,” said he, “the ‘warranted aspi-
rant, what does he think of it !”
“O,” replied I, “I am a child; I
have the confidence of my age ; I do
not see why a man should not wed
the woman he loves.”
“That is very pretty,” said Régine;
“but since at your age he loves all
women, he would have a great many
marriages on his hands.”
“At my age,” replied I, desper-
ately, addressing Impéria, who was
smiling, “one loves but one wo-
man — ”
“At a time, perhaps I’’ responded
Régine; “but, to a dead certainty,
you take the first who passes under
your nose for your ideal.”
“The ideal 2 There is no such
thing !” said the stout personage who
played the financial rôles, addressing
the logician. ---
The logician here put in a speech
that seemed to be borrowed from his
repertory. By dint of reasoning upon
the stage, he had become very fluent.
He affirmed that the ideal was a rel-
ative thing, which issued full-armed
from the brain of every individual,
the visible result of those allurements
to which his tempérament rendered
him susceptible.
“I knew,” said he, “a man of re-
fined intellect, and exquisite appear-
ance, whose ideal was a stout woman
well versed in culinary matters. At
30
A ROLLING STONE.
your age,” added he, turning to me,
“it is quite the contrary. Then one
loves ethereal women, who live only
on dew.” -
“Don’t defend yourself,” cried the
young comedian, “a young premier
should be like that. He must cut
his bread in thin slices and dip it
into a rosebud; for his breakfast,
nothing delicate or perfumed enough
for Lindor or Célio ; also nothing less
suited to the cares of a household.
Hence you do not see Cinthio del Sole
occupied in washing his little mon-
key's faces. No, the access, he who is
always on fire with love, is too hand-
some, too nice, and too beribboned,
to fall into the grease of the soup-
pot —What says the discreet Im-|
péria Ž" -
“What?” said Impéria, who had
not been attending to the question;
“ of what are you speaking 2"
“Regard the shepherd Paris, who
contemplates you blushing,” replied
the comedian, pushing me before her.
“How do you find him 2 °
“Very well bred, always I" an-
swered Impéria, without raising her
eyes to me. “That is all I know of
monsieur.”
“He is always so 2° went on
Erontin; “you could not say as
much for me!”
“I have no more to complain of
in you than in the others.”
“She is a Jesuit ! she detests me !
Come, I will remodel myself! The
aspirant shall give me lessons; he
shall make me rehearse the morning
Salutation, the presentation of the
arm-chair, the manner of picking up
work that has fallen, and replacing
the needle in it without breaking off
| 2,
the point; for he knows how to do
all those things, the sly boots l’’
“I should know how to be still
more devoted,” I replied, “ and in
earnest perhaps I’ &
“Devote yourself even to the
death, would you not ?” rejoined
Frontin with emphasis.
And as Impéria, surprised at last,
regarded me with some attention, I
repeated, “Even to the death,” with
an accent of passionate conviction
that made her ‘tremble slightly. -
“The shot is fired l’ cried. Fron-
tin; “the arrow is sped, straight to
the heart l” -
“To whose heart 2" she asked,
with a discouraging composure.
“To the only heart still free that
I know of in the company.”
“Mine 3 how do you know it,
Monsieur ?” -
“Ah! it is not so; pardon.' I did
not suppose — They said — See
how deceitful women are, and how
the Agneses deceive you!”
“I am not an Agnes.
tyrannizes over me.”
“But Horace — ”
“I know no Horace”
“Come !” exclaimed Régine, “tell
us the truth, petite / You are virtu-
ous; still, you are not a prude, and
you have not reached eighteen with-
out a preference for some one 3’
I was ready to faint, and they com-
mented on my pallor. Impéria had
the implacable cruelty of virtue, and
replied, with a smile : — -
“You wish to know 2 Ah well, I
do not care to conceal it. Very far .
away from here there is some one
No one
that I love most sincerely.”
I know notif they were inquisitive,
A ROLLING STONE.
31
nor how she parried them; I rushed
out precipitately, and went to take
counsel with my despair under the
chestnuts of the Luxembourg.
What a wound, what a fall, what
anger, and what grief! I can laugh
now at the cause, but my heart still
bleeds at remembrance of the effect.
It was so serious that I was
alarmed by it myself. Was I mad
then How and why had I fallen
in love, to such a degree, with a per-
son whom I had known only a few
days, and to whom I had just spoken
for the first time 2 What did I know
of her, after all? Why had I taken
it into my head that I must touch
her fancy first, and please her at first
sight ! -
As I went back through the alley
of the Observatory I encountered
Léonce, one of our young actors, a
pretty lad, but very wild and a very
poor player; whom I could easily
have superseded in a twinkling, had
I been treacherously disposed. He
had a sad and gloomy air.
“Ah my dear Lawrence,” cried
he, almost throwing himself into my
arms, “if you knew how I suffer l’’
“Why so 2 What is the matter?”
“She loves some one !”
“She, who 2°
“Impéria | She has just said so,
with an air of bravado, before us all!”
“I know that very well: I was
there !”
“You were there 2 Stay, it is
true, it was in connection with you;
but it was not on your account that
she spoke in that way !
because of me, to discourage me.”
“You love her then 2°
“Madly.”
It was
I had known nothing of it, and in
that respect I was as vain as he, who
fancied himself the only aspirant. I
refrained from opening my heart to
him, and feigned to pity him, de-
lighted to find some one with whom
I could talk of her. He had loved
her ever since her arrival at the
Odéon; he had come from the Con-
servatory, she from the province;
and he had made inquiries, and kept
up an untiring search, until he
knew the real origin, the true history,
of Impéria. He had sworn to him-
self that he would never betray the
secrets thus surprised, and here he
was relating them to me, – to me
whom he had known about eight
days, and whom he now called
“ thou” for the first time.
Impéria's name was Nancie de
Valcos. She was from Dauphiny.
Her father, the Marquis de Valclos,
was an intelligent man, generous,
and highly esteemed in his province.
He adored his wife, who was very
beautiful, and took charge himself
of the education of his daughter, in
whom he felt a pardonable pride.
Madame de Valclos, who had never
given occasion for remark, had Sud-
denly, at forty, a horribly scandalous
affair with an officer of the garri-
son. The husband killed the lover ;
the wife committed suicide. Three
months later M. de Valclos became
insane, after having lost all his for-
tune in an absurd enterprise, to
which he had been driven by his
impatience to realize his property,
in order to expatriate himself with
his daughter.
“Mademoiselle de Valclos thus
found herself virtually orphaned at
32
A ROLLING STONE.
the age of twenty; for she deceives
us,” observed Léonce in the midst
of his recital. “She is twenty-two.
She conceals her age, to disguise her
identity by all possible means; she
could as well assume that she is
even younger than she is. So perfect
a face has no age.” -
He continued: “As M. de Valclos
had been cheated on the eve of a
clearly established insanity, and
when he was probably already de-
ranged, his daughter might have had
recourse to law, and regained at
least some fragments of her patri-
mony. When advised to do so, she
coldly refused. Her mother's adven-
ture, the cause of her father's mad-
ness, had made too much noise for
her to remain in ignorance of it, and
she could not bring forward a suit
without alluding to that cause. She
let herself be stripped of her entire
fortune; and when she was certain
that there was not left her even the
means of supporting her unhappy fa-
ther, she resolved to earn her living.
“Although she had talent and
education, she found no immediate
resource, and she made a secret res-
olution. Bellamare, the impresario —
an excellent man, of whom you must
have heard us speak — had given
representations at various times in
the town where she resided. In the
happy days of the De Valclos family
he had even had the direction of
private theatricals at the château de
Valclos. He had spent several days
there, had taken a part himself, and
had brought out the little Nancie,
then twelve years old, before her
friends and relatives. He found she
possessed such ability, that he said,
laughingly, before her, “It is a great
pity that she is wealthy. There is
the making of an artist in her.’
“The child had never forgotten
these words. The poor young lady
recalled them, and hastened to Bella-
mare, who was playing at Besançon.
She needed not to tell him her sad
story : he knew it. He told her all
an honorable man could tell a virtu-
ous girl about the theatre. It did
not alarm her. It even appears that
she replied to him: ‘I am invul-
nerable. The memory of our misfor-
tunes and our anguish is branded
on my Soul, as with a red-hot iron.
Never shall I be tempted to com-
mit an indiscretion.’ -
“Bellamare yielded, swore to be a
father to her, and, not wishing to
depart with her from a place where
she was known, appointed a rendez-
vous for her in Belgium, where she
made her début under the name of
Impéria, and where no one suspected
the mystery of her life. In Dau-
phiny they did not know what had
become of her. They heard that she
had conducted her father from Lyons
to the residence of an old domestic,
thoroughly devoted to him, who took
care of him like a child. He is not
violent, it seems. He has entirely
lost his memory, and to make him
regain it would be doing him no ser-
vice. They believe that Mademoi-
Selle de Valclos has gone to Russia,
in the capacity of governess. Here
they have discovered nothing. It is
only Father Bocage who knows all,
and myself, who have learned all—
alas! shall I confess it ! — by listen-
ing at the door Because I am mad,
you see I Because to win her I am
A ROLLING STONE.
33
capable of anything: because — |
But all is lost She is, she will be,
always virtuous, it is true, but she
loves another | *
“Who do you think it is 2 " I |
asked Léonce, pretending to be in-
terested in his sorrow.
“Ah! who can tell ?” cried he,
gesticulating wildly; “she said some
one, very far off. Perhaps he is an
artist whom she knew in Brussels;
perhaps: a nobleman to whom she
was betrothed in Dauphiny, before
her misfortunes.”
“If he is a nobleman; he acts like
a villain in leaving her to perform
the hard work that she does. Doubt-
less he is rich, and has forgotten her
When she is sure of it, she will for-
get him likewise !”
“Yes, you give me some hope.
Thank you for it ! And then I say
to myself also, that perhaps she has
invented this love to put mine to the
test.”
“Then she knows you love her ?”
“Certainly. I have written it to
her, several times, in the most per-
Suasive and respectful terms ”
“Offering her marriage 2"
“Yes; my father is a notary ; he
has property which I shall inher-
it.” -
“And he will consent to the mar-
riage 2"
“He certainly must 1”
“And Impéria replied —”
“Nothing. She appears as if she
had not received my letter.”
“Which does not prevent you
from hoping 2" -
“I have hoped, but now I fear !
What do you advise me !”
“Nothing. Observe her and wait.”
“Then you think I need not give
her up 2 ° -
“I know absolutely nothing about
it.” -
“Let us dine together,” he went
on. “You will suffer me to talk
about her. If I were left alone, I
should commit some folly.”
I heard him ramble on throughout
the evening, for the most part with-
out comprehending a word he said to
me. I thought him stupidly pre-
sumptuous in aspiring to the favor
of Impéria, and I took for my own
comfort the petty consolations that I
had offered him. Without consider-
ing that I was as vain as he, I flat-
tered myself with the persuasion that
she had told a falsehood to free her-
self from the pursuit of Léonce, and
that it was not I whom she had in-
tended to discourage.
Seeing Léonce so ridiculous, I
nevertheless profited by my rivalso
far as to resolve that I would act
like him in no respect. He took no
pains to hide his great despair from
any one, and the outcry that he made
about it prevented them from con-
necting it with me. I appeared very
gay and very careless, denying that
I had made an indirect declaration
to Impéria; I pretended that I had
merely expressed my general views
on the subject of love and devotion.
I succeeded in not being too fool-
ish, and in averting, if not suspicion,
at least raillery. Léonce seemed to
provoke it by his absurdity, and did
me the service of monopolizing it.
Impéria had a small success in the
new piece. She played well, and
gave general satisfaction. Her head
was not at all turned by it, however;
34
A ROLLING STONE.
and she replied to all our compli-
ments, that she did not shut her eyes
to all there yet remained for her to
learn, before she could take any posi-
tion in the theatre. Still, she gained
confidence. She mounted a step
upon the ladder, and appeared grati-
fied. We knew that Bellamare had
written to encourage and congratu-
late her. Mademoiselle Corinne was
overcome by her sweetness and con-
sideration, more especially as she had
been severely put down by every-
body when she had attempted to
slander Impéria.
The new play brought Impéria to
the theatre every evening.
ready had a part in the next piece,
which was soon to be rehearsed. So
she passed nearly all her time in
working, and I could see her con-
stantly ; but, unwilling that my
father should fancy that idleness
had made me change my profession,
and wishing to decide on nothing
without his consent, I took care to
continue my law-studies, and I
retired at nine o'clock at night to
study until two in the morning. I
rose late, and went at noon to the
theatre, where I spent the remainder
of the day, with the exception of my
dinner hour. Impéria performed the
hard task of rehearsing three or four
hours during the day, and playing
three or four hours in the evening,
with a change of costume between
each act. The rest of the time she
worked at her lace or studied at
home. She did not lose a moment,
and the calmness that she exhibited
in this terrible life was inconceiva-
ble. She possessed so much intelli-
gence and information, that no sub-
She al-
ject appeared foreign to her, and she
talked of everything with modest
ease. She never seemed either sad
or gay. The discovery of her real
age had calmed me somewhat, at
first ; not that she was less beautiful
or less desirable for being older, but
how her two years' seniority over me
had thrown me back Certainly, the
leader of the Orchestra was right, in
telling me that I was too young to in-
dulge in any future plans whatever !
Despite this new and very evident
obstacle in my path, despite the care
I devoted to appearing sensible, I
Soon felt my desire revive in all its
intensity: it was like a madness, a
monomania. The senseless preten-
sions of Léonce gave me strength to
conceal my malady, but not to con-
quer it. I was attracted by Impéria,
— unwittingly on her part, like the
moth by the candle. I absolutely
wished to burn myself. She had the
advantage of me in birth and edu-
cation; in her already assured posi-
tion and decided future; in her talent,
to which, though incomplete as yet,
I, perhaps, could never attain; lastly,
in her age, which gave her supe-
rior judgment, in her experience of
misfortune, which gave her greater
strength and worth.
What could I offer her ? A face
that people praised, but which might
nqt please her; a paltry sum that
represented a meagre livelihood dur-
g the two or three years of my
apprenticeship ; and an enthusiastic
ldve that she had no reason to think
pÉrmanent. -
She made me comprehend this per-
fectly, when she was forced to notice
my struggles and guess the emotion


A ROLLING STONE.
35
of my silence. I exerted still more
self-control, for what I specially
feared was that she should conceive
a distrust of me, and beg me never
to address her again. I strove to
ward off her suspicions, and in pro-
portion to my former desire that she
should know my love were my pres-
ent endeavors to make her think that
she had been in error. I even car-
ried my dissimulation and cowardice
so far as to pay a little court to Made-
moiselle Corinne, trembling lest she
should fancy my compliments seri-
ous. She troubled herself very little
about them ; she dreamed of more
substantial conquests. Léonge, re-
jected by Impéria, displayed his
pique by attempting to take up Co-
rinne in earnest. She laughed at him ;
and as for me, she told me confiden-
tially that she regretted my precari-
ous situation, as she did not intend to
make a love-match.
Heaven knows that I had never
spoken to her of either love or mar-
riage. I had contented myself with
talking of her beauty, which was
somewhat problematical; neverthe-
less, my simple stratagem succeeded.
Impéria, who was herself very simple
in reality, was at length persuaded
that I did not care for her, and then
she spoke to me with the same sweet-
ness and confidence that she accorded
to the others.
I remained divided between the
º and fear of undeceiving her,
when one fine day she forced me to
\reassure her completely. They had
been talking of this very Corinne,
. let everybody make love to her
without caring for any one, and, as
|º usual, the general conversation
was interrupted by the summons of
the call-boy. At last I found myself
alone with Impéria for the first time.
“I think you are a little cruel to-
ward my companion,” she said to me;
“is it from pique 7"
“I assure you that it is not,” I
replied.
“It is because you are all without
mercy for women who do not respond
to your flatteries, I see plainly "
“If I were to reproach Mademoi-
selle Corinne, it would be for the rea-
son that, without responding to them,
she listens to them ; but what do
our childish spite and bitterness mat-
ter to you, - to you who will not
even allow us to tell you the truth 2 ”
“HOW SO 2* -
“If one told you the good he
thought of you, you would be angry.
So you need not fear that you will
be tried by trivial flatteries.”
Impéria assumed no affectation, to
embarrass me. She went straight to
the point.
“If you think well of me,” she re-
joined, “you may tell me so without
offending me. I believe I have de-
clared in your presence that my heart
belongs to some one who is absent
I repeat it to you, to set you at sº
ease, because, if you esteem me, you
will not put me to any trial.”
I replied that I would give her a
proof of my respect by entreating her
to regard me as her devoted servant.
“After the declaration you have
just made,” I added, “and which, be-
sides, I had not forgotten, I think
you should see, in the fidelity of the
devotion that I offer you, the absence
of impertinent curiosity and mis-
placed presumption.” -
36
A ROLLING STQNE.
“What you say, is very true and
very good,” she replied, holding out
her hand to me, “and I thank you
for it.” -
“You accept my devotion ?”
“And your friendship, since it is
absolutely disinterested.”
She left the greenroom, smiling at
me; as for me, I remained to weep in
silence. I had just burned my ships.
One morning, while they were re-
hearsing the last piece to be played
before the annual closing, I found
myself alone in the greenroom, with
a man of medium height and very
well formed, whose face impressed
me like one of those memories that
we cannot exactly account for. His
age might have been from thirty-five
to forty years. He had small eyes,
dark brown in color, a face large and
square without being massive, a large
mouth, a short irregular nose, a flat,
closely shaved chin, and hair brushed
down over the forehead and temples.
All this made up a pleasant and at-
tractive sort of ugliness. The least
smile raised the corners of his lip
and deepened the half-dimples in his
His black eyeballs had a.
piercing vivacity, his jaw showed
angles of indomitable energy; but ||
the smoothness of his forehead and
the delicacy of his nostrils counter-
balanced by something pure and ex-
quisite the appetites of a combative
One could not
cheeks.
and sensual nature.
fail to recognize in him, at first sight,
a comic actor of a certain rank; and
I was wondering if he were not a ce-
lebrity, when he addressed me, to ask
Inearly
answered him with a burst of laugh-
if I belonged to the theatre,
ter, his voice and nasal accent Were
so peculiar; but I restrained myself.
quickly, for this voice was like a flash.
of light. So I was, at last, in the
presence of the illustrious impresario,
Bellamere !. At the same time, by a
very logical connection of ideas, I re-
called the associations. I had had with
his face: I had seen it on a photo-
graph, at the bedside of Impéria,
I greeted him respectfully, and in
three words. I told him my position,
expressing a wish to make my début,
as soon as possible in the province,
He regarded me. Somewhat as a
jockey does a horse, walking- round
me, examining my feet, knees, teeth,
hair, and requesting me to take a few
steps before him, but all this with a
playful and paternal air that could
not wound mé. -
“The deuse !” he said, after a mo-
ment's reflection, “you must be bad
indeed, not to please half the audi-
ence, the half that wears, the petti-
coats. You are twenty, and are
studying-law 7 Do you know, how,
to dance 2 °
“The bourrée of Auvergne, – yes!
And I know all the spirited dances
of the students' balls, besides; but I
do not intend— ”
“I do-not speak of your dancing
on the stage, but a knowledge of
dancing is necessary; it imparts an
ease, if not a distinction, to the gait.
However, that does not always make
one graceful on the stage. Let us
see hand me that came chair. O,
with one hand, if you please ; it is
not heavy | Why use the right hand,
since it was within reach of the left
You must learn to employ both hands
equally. Stay, take the chair so
and do this l’
A ROLLING STONE.
37
He took it, placed it in the middle
of the room, and seated himself on it.
I imagined that it was the easiest
thing in the world, and that he was
making sport of me; however, when
I attempted the same thing, “It is
not ungraceful,” he said, “but it is
very inconvenient. That is the way
to do in the rôle of a bashful youth
who sits down in a drawing-room
for the first time in his life.
have placed the chair so that you
would sit down sideways, and make
a most ridiculous failure; also you
took care to look behind you before
seating yourself, which is a signal
awkwardness; and then you let your-
self drop down abruptly, as if you
The movement of the actor on the
stage should not be felt. He must
be seated as if he had no body, for
the act of sitting is always a very
vulgar thing. The very furniture
designated for that purpose is laugh-
able, when you think of it! By an
ingenious jugglery, the actor must
make both the use of the furniture,
and the act of employing it, forgot-
ten ; in tragedy everything must be
noble, above all, this movement,
which is the most delicate and most
difficult of all; in comedy it must be
graceful, even when it is burlesque.
That which is neither graceful nor
noble is necessarily unbecoming.
Stay, look at me. This is how you
sat down.”
And he copied me so drolly, that I
began to laugh. Then he rose and
reseated himself several times, chang-
ing his position, and revealing to me
what none of the actors, whom I had
seen rehearse and perform, had given
You
me the least idea of, -a natural grace,
‘the highest degree of art carried into
the most insignificant details, the
perfection of expression in the most
trifling action.
“Among ten thousand spectators,”
'added he, “there might, perhaps, be
three, who would know that you sat
down so, intentionally, and that there
is a complete science in it, the result
of long study; but, of these ten
thousand spectators, there would not
be one who was not unconsciously
influenced by your least act. With-
out knowing why it is good, all will
feel that it is good; and there I give
you, in two words, the whole secret
of the profession.”
“I should be very happy,” I replied,
“to become a member of your com-
pany, and receive your lessons.”
“That can be arranged,” he replied.
“Will you be here in an hour?”
“I will be here any time you wish.”
“Good; wait for me.”
Probably he went at once to make
inquiries about me. When he re-
joined me, Impéria was on his arm.
“I engage you,” he said; “it is set-
tled. Every one speaks well of you,
and Mademoiselle Impéria among the
rest. What salary do you expect, my
dear boy 2 You should know that a
débutant is not remunerated in a way
to light his cigar with bank-notes.”
I replied that I expected no re-
muneration, since I might be of no
use to him. In receiving from him
only his good advice, I should still be
his debtor.
“ Undoubtedly,” said he, “all dé-
butants should understand that; but
you must have something to live on,
to dress yourself decently —”
38
A ROLLING STONE.
“I have money and clothes. I can
wait two or three months very easily,
if my apprenticeship demands that
time.”
“I see that you are a very worthy
lad, and that you know Bellamare to
beincapable of abusing your delicacy;
you shall not repent it. Come to see
me to-morrow. I will give you a
short rôle to learn; next day you will
come to study it with me, but know
it well !”
He gave me his address, and left
me with a pressure of the hand.
When I took my first lesson, al-
though he really treated me with as
much indulgence as if I had been his
son, I was quite terrified by his nice
appreciation.
“Listen,” he said to me, in reca-
pitulation, at the end of the lesson ;
“ certainly it is a great advantage to
be gifted as you are ; and if you were
a fool, you might easily persuade
yourself that you had nothing to
learn. You are an intelligent lad,
and you will comprehend that the
beauty of your person and the per-
ection of your voice are sources of
failure as well as of success. When
you appear upon the stage, well
dressed and gotten up, prepare for a
murmur of approval; but, directly
after, the audience will be severe and
distrustful. At the first words that
you speak, however, there will be an-
other favorable murmur; your voice
is admirable. And then 2 You will
speak well, I answer for that. A
new danger | Hence the audience,
alert and attentive, will be fearfully
exacting. That is the case with the
men of our day, - with Frenchmen
above all. We have passed the period
- only at the first moment.
when, under the happy sky of South-
ern civilizations, beauty was consid-
ered almost equal to a virtue. An-
tiquity has transmitted to us the
names of artists who had no other
merit than that of being beautiful.
To-day, no one cherishes the memory
of an actor without talent, had he the
physique of Antinous or Meleager.
At present, they demand everything,
everything; nothing less than that.
But what is least required, perhaps,
is classic beauty. It has a prestige
It is tire-
Some, provoking, irritating, if art can
lend it no attraction, which is quite
another thing, and which sometimes
Succeeds in rendering ugliness agree-
able and sympathetic. Modern ideas
are all for realism, and, to a certain
extent, that is an advance; for man
is not made merely to serve as a
model for a sculptor, and it is not a
moral advantage for him to be dis-
tinguished above other men by his
physical perfection: if he is vain of
it, they ridicule him; if he does not
turn it to account, they think him
unintelligent. One must know how
to be handsome, which is much more
difficult than to know how to be
plain; and in our art, which consists
in producing all effects personally
and directly, the chief point is to
know exactly what one is, in order
to know what one must be.
“Ah well! I am going to tell you,
as an actor, a painter, and an anato-
mist, — for I am something of each,
— what you are, when repeating
your part ; a smoking-room Apollo,
neither more nor less. Your eyes
sparkling, but too bold; your Smile
very frank, but too unsteady, from

A ROLLING STONE.
39

nerves impregnated with alcohol;
your body very supple and very
strong, but addicted to fantastic atti-
tudes, which lack meaning and origi-
mality; your voice clear and Sono-
rous, but seeking by preference the
less musical and less natural into-
nations, and full of false inflections.
You would be a detestable comedian.
You would always overdo it. You
have, I should say, a restless, anxious
spirit. You would arrive at bon-
homie with difficulty, and you would
not know how to say in a natural
manner, “Well, how are you ?’ You
might have played the romantic dra-
ma; that exists no longer; and pub-
lic taste inclines more and more to
the simple style. If you could have
rôles made for you, where, in spite
of the black coat, your character
would have emergetic manners, and
a certain eccentricity of mind, you
would be good ; but one finds, per-
haps once or twice in his life, the
rôle which is exactly suited to the
type that he can represent perfectly.
Before becoming famous, he has to
submit to all sorts of characters, in-
significant or uncongenial to his na-
ture. The great thing in commen-
cing, is to adapt himself, to efface his
personality, if necessary; to make
himself ready, in a word, to do
everything suitably without hoping
to be admired and applauded in
his own proper person. When you
have, to some degree, got rid of your-
self, of him who was a handsome
student, but not even a tolerable
actor, you will begin to study, to
invent, to create. Three years of
study, at the least, my boy, may
make you a charming young premier.
It is a good situation; it demands,
in addition to all that you have, all
that you have not. It is paid very
well, because the handsome, intelli-
gent type is rarest. If you do not
grow stout, your bust is worth its
weight in gold. Even now your legs
are equivalent to a pretty sum of
money, and under any circumstances
your voice is a capital; unfortunate-
ly, all this is nothing and worse than
nothing, I tell you again, if you take
a—wrong-course. You will not be
insignificant, you will be impas-
Sioned, but your energy may be
ridiculous and your anger that of a
bully. Beware of that. If you are
tractable, I will save you from that
danger; but, if you have not a great
amount of sensibility and truth, you
will become cold and commonplace.
In conclusion, my conscience com-
mands me to tell you this; you have
to work prodigiously at the most
difficult and thankless of trades.
The result may be a life of glory and
fortune; again, it may be nothing of
the Sort: and I will not guarantee at
all that in three years you will not
be a dead failure. The profession,
which is indispensable, in nine cases
out of twenty overpowers original-
ity. Reflect, then, before quitting
your present position and your fu-
ture career for the stage. You will
tell me to-morrow if you feel the
courage to transform radically your
individuality, at the risk-of-becoming
a being absolutely annihilated, hope-
less, empty tº *
“And again, consider this: that
one may change his profession so
long as he walks in the beaten track
of Society; but the man, once entered
40
A ROLLING STONE.

into the Bohemia of the theatre, can
never return to any othèr. It is not
because prejudice thrusts you back.
That matters little. An energetic
man triumphs over it, and obtains
everywhere the place that he knows
how to take; but after the theatre,
he no longer possesses an available
energy. The theatre uses him up,
consumes him, devours him. One
lives as long there as elsewhere, on
condition of not leaving it, and of
keeping up this factitious strength,
nervous over-excitement, and intoxi-
cation that are found nowhere else;
once return to a quiet life, even
when you have felt an imperious |
mind fills with phantoms, the train
of actual life disheartens you, real
feelings are confounded with the
fictions of the past, the days seem
ages, and in the evening, at the hour
when you were wont to see the foot-
lights rise to illuminate your face,
and the public hastening in to be
entertained with your performance,
you fancy you are nailed alive into
your coffin.
“No, no, my child, do not enter the
theatre unless you are drawn thither
by an irresistible call; for it is a lot-
tery, where the winners, after having
risked everything, are forced to stake
their life and soul.
“I ought to tell you this. Do not
imagine that it is the result of the
trial we have just been making. If
I consulted only my own interest, I
should conceal my thoughts from
you ; for such as you are, in a very
short time you will be of great use
to me. They are not fastidions-in
the provinces, they are not spoiled
there; and for a success of appear.
ance you have every requisite. To
an actor already launched, I should
make no suggestion; but you interest
me, you please me, and you are rush- *
ing headlong intô the unknown. I
owe the truth to you.”
I thanked him warmly, and prom-
ised to consider; but I did not con-
sider; I only thought of Impéria,
from whom I could not see myself
eternally separated. I summoned
all the strength of my will for a
desperate enterprise, and one month
later I departed for the province,
- --"
“So I was an actor, monsieur, an
lactor for three years; and as Tāſways
bore myself like an honorable man
in the profession, I left it without
reproach. But I have, none the less,
forfeited the future I could have
aspired to, and I have nearly made
my father die of grief, as I will tell
you another time, for I have been
talking so long that you must be
tired of hearing me.”
“Not in the least ; if you are not
fatigued, continue. I wish to know
the result of your love for the
charming Impéria.” º
“And I intend to tell you, but
not just now, if you will permit me.
To take breath, I will sketch the
profile of the cascade.”
“Very well. One word more,
however : what is the fearful mis-
conduct, then, of which certain good
souls in the vicinity accuse you ?”
“You ask. I have been an actor;
and, according to them, that is all
that is needed to insure damnation.”
A ROLLING STONE.
41
ºf
II
*
When Lawrence had sketched a
little, and reflected a little, as if to
arrange his reminiscences in due
order, he resumed his recital:—
I should not see my father before
vacation, and I had three months of
freedom until then, I wrote him
that I was going to travel with a
friend for my instruction. This
short explanation was sufficient for
the worthy man. Unused to any
sort of study, ignorant of any social
mechanism outside his own sphere,
he could easily believe that I was
going to study during my travels,
since I assured him of my resolution
to devote myself untiringly to my
future profession.
Before taking you with me in my
nomadic life, I must introduce to
you the principal personages with
whom I united my destiny. Some
left Paris with us, others joined us
on the way.
Bellamare's inseparable compan-
ion and perhaps his best friend,
although his antipodes in character
and appearance, was a man whose
singular history deserves to be relat-
ed. He was called Moranbois; and,
though the least mirthful man in the
world, his real name was Hilarion.
He had never known his family. A
hospital foundling, he had taken care
of the pigs at the house of a peasant.
who beat him and left him to die
of hunger. Carried off, half willing,
half reluctant, by passing mounte-
banks, he had proved, however, little
qualified to divert the public ; they
soon abandoned him on a road where
a man from Auvergne had picked
| him up to carry his pack. This
trade pleased him; he had food
enough, he loved to travel, and his
new master was not a bad man. He
found that Hilarion was a brave lad,
|very patient, resigned, and faithful.
The pedler had but one fault ; he
was a perfect Sot, and very often,
bending under the weight of his
wares, he scattered them upon the
road. Hilarion, with a little exer-
cise, became a packhorse capable of
bearing the commercial stores of his
employer. Besides, as he had a kind
heart, he did not leave him in the
bottom of the ditches, where he took
frequent naps in the course of his
journey. When he saw him reel
and stagger, he prudently led him
|away into some open field, remote
from quarrels and secure from
thieves. He watched over both
master, and load. He united the
duties of the horse and the dog.
The pedler became attached to
Hilarion, and shared his profits with
him. Thus the child might have
earned and laid by something; but
when his master was thirsty, he bor-
rowed the lad's portion, and forgot to
return it. It is true that Hilarion
forgot to claim it.
lasted a long time. Hilarion was.
twenty when his master died of
dropsy in a hospital, leaving a little
money, which his young associate
carried to the heirs, without deduct-
ing anything to pay him for his
services. They were poor peasants
burdened with a family, from whom
he had not the heart to demand any-
thing. He left them without consid-
42
A ROLLING STONE.
ering his future. By dint of seeing
others careless of their lot, he had
grown accustomed to do likewise.
Already misanthropic, he had seen
and known nothing good in his life,
unless, perhaps, his drunken master,
who had not maltreated him, but
who also had not remunerated him.
However, he brought no reproach
against his memory. This man had
taught him to read and write pass-
ably, also how to use a cudgel in
self-defence. He had developed his
physical strength, his coolness in
danger, his inclination for a wander-
ing life. Going steadily on alone,
Hilarion believed that a courageous,
strong, and sober man could not die
of hunger, even in the midst of a
selfish world.
He was in error; it needs a capital
to start with, be it ever so small.
No work can dispense with the ne-
cessary tools. Hilarion had not the
wherewithal to purchase the most
trifling stock. He did not know how
to utilize his empty hands, until, after
two days of fasting, passing over a
public place, he saw a wrestler, who
threw all the soldiers of the garrison,
and he bethought himself that his
fists might render him good service.
This athlete seemed to him more
skilful than robust, and he presented
himself as a competitor, after having
carefully observed his performance.
Only, while wagering that he could
conquer him, he confessed to the
audience that he was dying of hun-
ger and thirst.
“Eat and drink,” said the cross-
roads Alcides, loftily ; “I do not
throw those who would fall of them-
selves.”
An improvised collection permit-
ted the new-comer to devour a bit
of bread, and to swallow a glass of
wine, after which he descended into
the arena.
It was truly an arena, the Roman
amphitheatre of Nismes; and when
Hilarion Moranbois related his story,
he said that, seeing for the first time
this vast monument, so fine in its
proportions, without knowing what
it was, without the slightest idea of
the past, he felt as strong and val-
iant as ten thousand men.
The professional Hercules was
worsted by the improvised Hercules.
The next day he demanded his re-
venge. Hilarion had dined well; the
amateurs of the vicinity had cele-
brated his victory at the tavern. He
gained a new conquest, so brilliant
that other strolling wrestlers were
summoned to compete with him.
He threw them all, and was engaged,
with the understanding that he
should receive one fourth of the
profits. He left this troupe, how-
ever, because it was proposed that
he should let himself be thrown by
a man in a mask, who was no other
than the wrestler whose place he had
taken. They made him very advan-
tageous offers, if he would take part
in this comedy, which always proved
a great success with the public, and
brought them a good deal of money.
His self-love got the better of his
interest; he refused with scorn, flew
into a passion, knocked down his
employer, broke the big drum with
a blow of his fist, for which they
made him pay a hundred-fold its
value, and made his escape, his
hands still empty, to repair to Arles,
A ROLLING STONE. 43
where he had been told he would
find other arenas. He had decidedly
a taste for classic monuments.
On the way he encountered
Mademoiselle Plume-au-Went, who
danced a species of tarantella, ac-
companying herself with the Span-
ish tambourine and the triangle, with
much skill; this was his first love.
They made their début together in
several towns upon the route, one of
which proved nearly fatal to him.
When he had finished exhibiting
his talents in the public place, the
evening of his arrival, he was cau-
tiously addressed by a servant-maid,
who conducted him through a laby-
rinth of obscure streets, to a house
of good appearance, buried in a wil-
derness of gardens. Here, a slender,
dark lady, with a quick, flashing eye,
addressed him in these words: “Will
you enter my employment as under-
gardener You will do nothing.
You will sleep during the day. At
night you will quietly mount guard
in the garden. I am tormented by
a garrison officer who is madly in
love with me, and threatens to carry
me off. He is a desperado, a devil,
who will do as he says, and who is
very strong; I give you warning.
"My people are cowards, bribed by
him, perhaps, and you see that alone,
in this isolated dwelling, I could
receive no assistance from without.
If you see this man prowling under
my windows, or even in my grounds,
knock him down. Do not kill him,
but treat him so that he will never
wish to come again. Every time
that you give him a lesson of this
kind you will receive a hundred
francs.”
“But if he is stronger than I ?”
replied Hilarion; “if he kills me !”
“Nothing venture, nothing have,”
replied the lady. z
“That is fair enough,” thought the
wrestler.
And he accepted.
Eight nights passed away with-
out a leaf's rustling or a grain of
sand stirring in the garden. On the
ninth night, by the clear light of the
moon, an officer, whose appearance
corresponded to the description given
Hilarion, opened a gate, to which he
had a key, and approached the house.
Hilarion was unwilling to attack him
without warning. He had the sim-
plicity to tell him that he was about
to do him an injury, if he did not
withdraw immediately. The stran-
ger laughed in his face, called him a
fool, and threatened to roll him in
the melon-patch, if he tried to hinder
him. Hilarion could not suffer this
language, and the contest began.
The visitor's impertinence had an-
gered him, and the vigorous defence
he made did not permit him to han-
dle him gently. Hilarion rolled him
in the artichokes, and left him there,
so badly worsted that he believed
him dead. He ran to inform the
lady, who came out with a torch and
her chambermaid, to ascertain the
result.
“Wretch I’’ cried she, “what have
you done You have assassinated my
husband, who had just returned from
a journey ! Make your escape, and
let me never hear of you again l’’
Hilarion was stupefied.
“Claim your hundred francs,”
whispered the maid, suddenly ; “she
knew very well that it was monsieur,
44
A ROLLING STONE.
and she owes you a grudge for not
having killed him outright.”
Hilarion was so terrified at having
committed a crime while thinking
to perform good service as guardian,
that he would claim nothing, and ran
away, swearing they should never
catch him there again.
At Arles he rejoined Mademoi-
selle Plume-au-Went, who had al-
ready entered into partnership with
an Alsacian giant and a (so-called)
Lapland dwarf. He met with toler-
able success; but the time of the
conscription was at hand, and he
drew the Number One. He served
as soldier in Algiers for seven years,
and gained some advantage from it.
He finished his education there, that
is, he learned French and Arabic,
and as he wrote a very fair hand
and reckoned very accurately, as he
was a model soldier, brave and punc-
tual, his comrades, who loved him in
spite of his roughness, thought that
he would be promoted. He was not,
however, and, notwithstanding his
good deportment and assiduity in
the service, he was struck off the
rolls for insubordination. It is true
that he detested his superiors, who-
ever they were, and that he replied
to them disrespectfully. Obedient
- to the military rule, he could not
endure a personal command, when
it seemed to overstep the limits of
strict authority, or not to observe
them scrupulously. A spirit of criti-
cism, very singular in a man of his
low rank, very unfortunate in his
present position, had developed it-
self in him, and bade fair to become
the foundation of his character, the
obstacle of his future.
He received
more punishments than rewards; and
when he had served his time, hoping
nothing from a re-enlistment, he re-
turned to France, as solitary, as des-
titute, as he had left it.
In the regiment he had had much
practice in all kinds of gymnastics,
and in all he had been the first.
Still, he did not like the profession of
gymnast, and the prospect of recom-
mencing his exercises in full blast
did not please him. For some years
he was porter on the port at Toulon;
hommé de peine, as it is called, - a
dolorous expression which sufficient-
ly describes a hard and gloomy life.
Physical strength is a more perilous
gift than one would think. Men seek
to turn everything to their advantage,
and the exceptional strength of Hi-
larion exposed him to all sorts of ex-
periments. He was sounded by the
thieves, and nearly involved unwit-
tingly in attempts at murder. En-
lightened in time, he held malefactors
in execration, and believed he saw
them everywhere; his misanthropy
increased; and as in the midst of fa-
tigue and sadness he reflected more
than suited his wretched condition,
he became a sort of Diogenes. Alone
in life, he made himself still more
alone by his habits and his thoughts.
Very disinterested, very careless
of the morrow and indifferent for
himself, he turned nothing to account,
not even his own brave acts. He
distinguished himself in several res-
cues, and received several medals, but
without thinking of asking any re-
ward, without caring to join any
association, without consenting to
accept the slightest thanks. He was
accustomed to say that, not loving
A ROLLING STONE.
45
the human race, he exposed his life
only for the pleasure of using his
muscles and exercising his judgment.
Several persons from the South, who
afterwards met him again in civilized
life, recalled the strange and proud ||
individual whom they had seen a
porter at Toulon, and had even em-
ployed for the peculiarity of his char-
acter. Silent, absorbed, haughty, his
glance was always stern and suspi-
cious, his speech harsh, often abusive,
and always cynical, his gesture angry,
and all at once a scornful calm would
succeed his threatening manner.
Everything was to him a source of
irritation, and almost immediately
after an object of Scorn or of indif-
ference.
One fine day he found an infant
entirely abandoned, who attached it-
self to him. It was a pretty little
boy, who, although very cowardly,
was not frightened by the bearded
face of Hilarion. Touched by this
proof of confidence, or struck with its
singularity, he carried the child to his.
den, tended and reared him after his
fashion, but without succeeding the
least in modifying his instincts of
idleness, cowardice, and Vanity. This
vain, and feeble creature, who was
no other than the young premier
Léonce, of whom I told you in the
first part of my story, became Hi-
The sternest man
needs apparently to be governed by
larion's tyrant.
Some secret sympathy; to gratify
Léonce, to procure him playthings
and new clothes, to protect him from
the ridicule and ill-treatment of other.
children, in a word, to watch over him
and have him always near him, Hi-
larion left the port and bales of Tou-
lon, and resumed his old profession
of wrestler, his life of adventure, his
spangled waistband, his tinsel dia-
dem, and his ancient Sobriquet of
Coq-en-Bois,
It was in this capacity that he
happened to perform one day, some
ten years ago, in the presence of Bel-
lamare, whom, chance had brought to
the fair at Beaucaire. The sinister
face, harsh voice, and odd pronuncia-
tion of this personage certainly did
not attract the impresario, and he
could only admiré the strength of his
biceps; but next day, as Bellamare
was returning in a hired cab, he en-
countered on the road this Hercules
coming from the quarter where he
lived, with Léonce on his shoulders,
— Léonce, ten or twelve years old,
but too grand a prince to travel other-
wise than on the backs of others.
Hilarion Coq-en-Bois remembered
having carried the pack at the age
when his protégé made others carry
him, and not feeling sensible of suffi-
cient charm of mind or attraction of
character to amuse his pupil, he did
what he could for him, what he knew
how to do, -he spared him all phys-
ical fatigue, and fatigued himself in-
stead. Was, he not born homme de
pcine !
While absorbed in these philo-
sophical reflections, upon the hill be-
fore him Coq-en-Bois perceived a
carriage which grazed the edge of
the precipice in an alarming manner.
He judged that the driver of this
vehicle was asleep, and he quickened
his pace; but before he had time to
reach it the horse took fright at a
goat, Swerved to the right, and then
to the left. It was all over with
46
A ROLLING STONE.

Bellamare, for the driver of the car-
riage, while asleep, had dropped the
reins. Fortunately Coq-en-Bois had
hurriedly laid down his burden, had
hastened up, had seized one wheel in
his mighty grasp. The horse, which
had already lost footing, rolled into
the abyss alone, the two shafts being
fortunately broken clean off with the
lines. The cab, stopped by Coq-en-
Bois, recoiled, and Bellamare, leaping
out, saw that his rescuer had one
hand mangled by the unprecedented
effort that he had just made, at the
risk of being involved in the general
ruin.
Thus commenced their friendship.
They travelled together as far as
Lyons, and the wrestler, being pressed
with questions, related his story.
The proud modesty with which he
mentioned the heroic actions of his
life, that something grand or trivial
which in every word revealed his
noble and sullen character, impressed
the artist vividly.
Bellamare's dream was to discover
ifferent types and bring them to
erfection; he fancied, not without
eason, that a man so inured to fatigue,
so resigned to all contingencies, SO
firm and so proud, so distrustful and
so incorruptible, would be an invalu-
able factotum for him and his com-
pany. Coq-en-Bois, or we will now
say Moranbois, – for the first thing
Bellamare did was to find him a suit-
able name, whose euphony would not
be too strange in his ears, – Moran-
bois had but one really insupportable
defect, the coarseness of his language.
He promised to correct it, and could
never keep his word; but he displayed
sential qualities, such as honesty, de-
votion, courage, practical intelligence,
that the impresario could never con:
sent to part with him. He even car-
ried his friendship so far as to under-
take to make an actor of Léonce. He
could only make him a pretty, empty-
headed boy, thinly veneered with the
wit of others, and a somewhat more
than average performer; but he pro-
cured engagements for him in the
province, and even at Paris, where he
still vegetates in insignificant rôles.
I need not tell you that this self-
infatuated personage believes himself
the victim of injustice, that he ac-
cuses all the managers of having sac-
rificed him through jealousy of his
success with women; finally, that he
has completely forgotten the fatherly
devotion of Moranbois, that he does
not care a rush for him, and would
see him reduced to utter destitution,
without remembering that he owed
him everything. This race of in-
grates are rendered striking in dra-
matic life by their folly; but does
not one encounter it elsewhere ? It
is my opinion that it abounds every-
where.
Moranbois, Bellamare's right-hand
man, soon found that he had not
enough to do in travelling as courier
to engage the theatres, to prepare the
lodgings, to make arrangements with
the hotel-keepers, lamp-makers, hair-
dressers, and machinists, to order the
posters, organize the means of con-
veyance, etc. He wished to utilize
himself by reason of his strength,
and one fine day Bellamare's com-
pany were convulsed with laughter
at the declaration of the ex-pedler,
in Bellamare's service so many es-
ex-porter, ex-wrestler, that he had
A ROILING STONE.
47
health enough to act plays into the
bargain. Offended by the mirth of
his audience, he called all the actors
mouthpieces, harlequins, and buf-
foons (I soften the epithets singu-
larly).
They were used to his peculiari-
ties, and laughed the more. He grew
seriously angry, and affirmed that he
could play the brigands of melodrama
better than any one.
“Why not ?” said Bellamare.
“Learn a rôle. Let us rehearse it
by ourselves, and we will see.”
Moranbois made the attempt, and
gave the rough voice of his part in
the most satisfactory manner; but he
lacked imagination. Bellamare fur-
nished him with ideas, and taught
him to turn his natural defects to ac-
count. Tractable with this ingenious
and persuasive master, Moranbois be-
came a very tolerable brigand for the
province. He did no injury to the
play, and pleased the populace great-
ly. His success did not intoxicate
him, however ; he consented to fill the
most inferior rôles in the plays where
he was only a “utility.” He never
thought it beneath him to speak but
three lines, to represent a thief, a
peasant, a drunkard, a workman, in a
short scene, or even to put on livery
and carry a letter. This humility
was all the more touching from his
Secret conviction of being a great
actor, – an erroneous but naïve belief
which did not increase his pride; for
which Bellamare felt grateful to him.
But I have not yet told you the
oddest result of this association be-
tween a person of exquisite tact and
culture, like Bellamare, and the
rugged, ill-dressed being, always im-
possible in his manner and language,
whose portrait I am sketching for
you. Bellamare, who sees and ob-
serves everything, without appearing
to notice anything, discovered that
M. Hilarion Moranbois was a very
keen and accurate critic. When
visiting the Paris theatre in his
company, he was struck with his
judgment on the plays, and his just
appreciation of the actors. He took
him to the museum, to see if he
had discernment outside the theatre ;
Moranbois stopped instinctively be-
fore the paintings of the masters,
and was enthusiastic over the Greek
statues and the Roman busts. He
could not state what constituted the
ideal and what the realistic, but he
expressed the difference in his own
way, and Bellamare perceived that:
he had understood it thoroughly.
He consulted him in regard to
the spirit and sense of monuments,
and the art of scenic decoration, and
found him full of suggestions and
invention. It was settled; the spe-
cialty of Moranbois was revealed.
He was pre-eminently the man of
good advice and prompt apprecia-
tion. When he witnessed a re-
hearsal at Paris, - where he accom-
panied his manager everywhere, —
in ten words, mostly coarse and
brutal, he told Bellamare what parts
of the play would fail, and which
would be successful, and what would
be its final fate. He never made a
mistake. He was, in himself, the
susceptible, vibrating public, simple
and uncorrupted; generous toward
the slightest effort, cruel toward the
least falling off; always ready to
laugh or to cry, but remorseless
48
A ROLLING STONE
when they bored him. He was in-
stinct personified. His mind, still.
undeveloped in mature age, was like.
a thermometer of the crowd. What
authors of high literary rank would
have thought of consulting this man,
with a long aquiline nose, elevated
head, sprinkled with thin locks, a
brown, sunken cheek, small hollow
eyes, keen and gloomy ; this Sombre
personage in rough coat, waistcoat of
Scotch plaid, and tumbled cravat,
with hands innocent of gloves, who
kept in a corner with the machinists,
and who might have been taken for
the least attentive of them 2 And
had you said to this literary élite,
“The poor devil; that you see yon-
der, who hears and judges you, is a
former mountebank, who balanced a
carriage-wheel upon his chin, and
juggled with cannon-balls, by no
means hollow ; ah well, ask him his
opinion and follow it; he is the
embodied public, by whom you will
be hissed or borne in triumph : " —
what surprise these masters of the art
would testify, what, scorn perhaps
Bellamare consulted Moranbois.
like an oracle, and the oracle was:
infallible. I have related to you
this long history, I have told you
all these details, and allowed myself.
this digression, to give you an idea
of that intellectual. Bohemia of the
stage which is recruited from all
classes, consequently from both ex-
tremes of the social scale. The most
\ different destinies, the most dissimi-
lar educations, the most opposite
faculties, seem carried thither, like
the various ruins that the tide drifts
and heaps up at random upon a
rock. From these fragments of a
}
World of dead passion, disappointed
ambition, spontaneous growths, ar-
dent dreams, gloomy despairs, men-
|tal maladies, marvellous unfoldings,
mad, sublime, or stupid inspirations,
is reared the fairy palace called dras
matie art, the Sanctuary of splendid
or miserable fiction, open to all the
winds of heaven. It is something
fleeting as a dream, confused as a
chaos, where all that is false is
|linked to the representation of the
true; where the purple of the sun-
|Set and the azure of the night are
|the result of electricity; where the
trees are painted canvas, the mist a
Screen of gauze, the rocks and colon-
nades of distemper; you are aware
of this, you know all the artifices,
you see through all the tricks, but
what you do not know is the phan-
tasmagoria of moral life which lives
there with a life as artificial as the
rest. This bent old man with a
cracked voice and dull eye, wh9
makes a thousand spectators say
every evening, “Where have they
fished up that old fellow who plays
an octogenarian to the life, and who
still preserves his memory 2" is a
young man of twenty-five, who has
all his teeth and all his hair, who
is fresh and healthy, and whom his
mistress expects when he shall have
wiped off his wrinkles, and placed
his false bald head upon a wooden
block. He straightens himself and
sings with a manly voice, going
down stairs four steps at a time.
His rôle of old man is: easy for him,
and does not diminish his gayety,
|In contrast with him you admired
that handsome conquering hero,
whose fiery eye and fresh voice
A ROLLING STONE.
49
express passion and triumphant gal-
lantry. Alas! he has been young
these forty years, and his love-mak-
ing costs him very dear. This ex-
cellent comedian, who makes you
nearly die of laughter, is a wretch
who thinks of suicide, or seeks
forgetfulness in intoxication. This
third-rate valet, whose classical em-
ployment consists in receiving kicks
in the back, is a scholar who makes
archaeological researches of great
importance, or an antiquarian who
collects rare works. That other, who
represents the tyrants or the traitors,
is a father of a family who takes his
children into the country whenever
he has a day of leisure. There is
another who paints charmingly, and
who acts the grocers' parts; another,
who represents persons of high rank,
dukes and princes, has a passion for
chess or for angling; others are
sportsmen, Oarsmen, pianists, engi-
neers, what not. And the ladies 2
This one is a courtesan, and plays the
part of ingénue to perfection. That is
a respectable matron, and personates
courtesans admirably. This one has
a wonderful elegance and purity of
diction; she can scarcely read her
parts, and understands not the first
word of them. That one speaks
badly, and seems to lack intelli-
gence; she is very thoroughly edu-
cated, and fit to keep a boarding-
school. Here is an austere duenna;
she is a speaker of doubles-entendres.
There is a plump, bold peasant-girl,
a sprightly waiting - maid ; hush,
these are perfect devotees, perhaps
mystic doves of Father Three-Stars,
who makes a specialty of theatrical
conversions.
So everything in this pretended
life belonging to the stage is contrast,
empty seeming, and authorized decep-
tion. Sometimes, again, the actor
so identifies himself with his charac-
ter, that he never throws it off. Such
a one, who cared only for pipe and
billiards, becomes a profound politi-
cian, because he has acted grave,
historical parts. Such another, who
believed himself a radical republican,
becomes conservative, because he
plays financial rôles. Thus, con-
trasts are sometimes effaced ; fiction
and reality become confounded in a
man to such a point that he who
deserves a Monthyon prize would
renounce his profession sooner than
consent to perform a bad action on
the stage; sometimes contrast reaches
the last limit, where the most unself-
ish of men can excel in personating
Shylock.
I had a brother actor who had
been a Trappist for some years, and
related Strange and romantic inci-
dents to me about the inner life of
convents. It appears that monastic
life is also a rock where the most in-
congruous fragments of human society
are stranded, and that the caprices
of destiny are there personified, very
much as in the theatre: but there,
everything dies out and ceases to
exist; the stupefying influence of
uniformity puts an end to all ec-
centricity. In dramatic life noth-
ing is confounded, but all stands out
in broad relief; individuality grows
more and more distinct. There are
rôles for each, and even I, who tell
you this, have been peasant, student,
actor, peasant again, peasant for-
ever, perhaps, but peasant henceforth
50
A ROLLING STONE.
against my will. In what social
series could I be reckoned ? Every
one who passes through convent or
theatre is, with few exceptions, for-
ever unclassed.
Let us return to the troupe of Bel-
lamare. He had at that time a
grand premier rôle who cost him a
great deal, and caused him no small
trouble. He endured him, in the
hope that I could replace him at
the end of the quarter. This person,
who was still handsome, though no
longer young, did not lack talent;
unfortunately, his mania was to ob-
ject to it in any one but himself. He
rehearsed like an amateur, without
ever attending to his own effects, so
intent was he on watching those of
others, in Order to suppress or paralyze
them. In the province, they often
abbreviate the text of the plays that
they perform; according to the ability
of their performers, or the suscepti-
bility of the local public; they cut out
words that would be misunderstood
or ill received, situations that would
require impossible scenery, entire
rôles that are lacking in the company.
These erasures, ingenious or absurd,
according to the skill of the director,
very frequently pass unperceived.
Lambesq, our leading actor, had only
one idea in his head, - to efface all
the parts except his own. In a scene
for three, he wished to appropriate
the cue of the second interlocutor; in
a dialogue, he wished to monopolize
both question and answer. I shall
always remember the ninth Scene of
the third act of the “Marriage of
Figaro,” where the grace and pretti-
ness of Suzanne offended him. In
this scene, cut up into terse and lively
dialogue, he declared at rehearsal that
Mademoiselle Anna did not answer
Soon enough, and his own part
dragged on that account. So he pro-
posed very seriously to modify it
thus. Hear first how the dialogue
begins: —
SUZANNE, breathless.
My lord – pardon, my lord
COUNT ALMAVIVA.
What is it, mademoiselle 7
SUZANNE.
You are angry !
THE Count.
You wish something, apparently
SUZANNE.
My mistress has the hysterics.
I came to ask you to lend us your
smelling-bottle. I will bring it back
directly. -
- THE COUNT.
No, no, keep it for yourself. It
may perhaps be useful to you, etc.
Lambesq determined not to allow
Suzanne to say a word. Scarcely
had she left the greenroom, when he
forestalled her by crying out : –
“What is it, made moiselle 3 You
See me angry / Your mistress has hys-
terics / She wishes me to lend her my
smelling-bottle ! Ah well, here it is,
but do not bring it back ; keep it for
yourself! It may be useful to you.”
The entire scene, four pages in
length, was thus continued in mono-
logue.
“Why not ?” said Lambesq; “Al-
maviva is a roué; then he is not a
fool. He knows very well that Su-
Zanne seeks him on some futile pre-
text. This pretext is the nerves of
A ROLLING STONE.
51
madam. Since he always has a
smelling-bottle about him, he under-
stands further that she has come to
borrow it. In the course of the
Scene he has a surprise, however. It
is at the moment when Suzanne en-
courages him; but is there any need
of Suzanne's speaking 2 Cannot her
admirer sufficiently interpret and
translate her eyes, her smile, her
simulated confusion. See how well
it goes l’’
And he recited the remainder of
the dialogue as follows : —
“If you would consent to hear me !
. . . Is it not your duty to hear MY
Excellency? . . . Why, then, cruel girl,
have you not said it sooner 3 But
*t is never too late to tell the truth.
You will repair to the garden at twi-
light; do you not walk there every
evening & You treated me so harshly
this morning ! . . . It is true that the
page was behind the arm-chair / You
are right, I forgot it / . . . However,
listem, Sweetheart, no rendezvous, no
dowry, no marriage / You told me,
NO MARRIAGE, NO MASTER’s RIGHTS.
Where does she catch up what she
says £ On my honor, I shall dote upon
her / . . . But your mistress awaits
this bottle; delicious creature, I will
embrace you. . . . Such is the world !—
She is mime !”
Thus coolly did Lambesq adapt
Beaumarchais and other writers, an-
cient or modern, when he fell in with
a troupe where he was allowed free
play. Bellamare would not suffer it,
and he regarded Bellamare as a stu-
pid, obstinate routinist. He lost his
temper, Sulked, spoiled the rehearsals,
and during the performance nº one
knew what folly he would improvise
to display himself, and Sound the
stubborn spectator by a persistent
wnderlining of words, glances, and
gestures, which was not always ap-
proved of, but which forced all his
disconcerted comrades to yield him
the monopoly of the effect.
Another leading actor, who person-
ated at will the lovers, logicians, and
traitors, was Léon, whose sole resem-
blance to Léonce was in his name.
Léon was handsomé, good, brave, and
generous. He loved the art, and un-
derstood it, but he did not love the
profession, and he was habitually
melancholy. He believed himself
created for some loftier expression of
his intellect than reciting rôles. He
wrote plays that we sometimes acted,
and which were not without merit;
but a timidity that was, so to speak,
bilious, a self-distrust that bordered
on inertia, prevented him from pub-
lishing them. He belonged to a
good family and was well educated.
A difference with his parents had
thrown him on the stage. He was
much loved, very useful, and greatly
esteemed ; however, he was never
happy, and lived wrapped up in him-
self. I exerted myself to gain his
friendship, and obtained it : I know
not whether I have preserved it.
Madame Régine, who, from time
to time, had taken second and third
rate parts at the Odéon, was a mem-
ber of our company, and played the
leading parts in the province. She
acted Phèdre, Athalie, Clytemnestra.
She was neither young nor handsome,
spoke a little too thickly, and lacked
dignity, but she had spirit and confi-
dence, and gained the applause of the
audience by main force. She was a
52
A ROLLING STONE.
very good-natured person, of suffi-
ciently average morality, generous
heart, great appetite, inexhaustible
gayety, and iron constitution. She
was very devoted to Bellamare, and
on very good terms with us, render-
ing herself useful or agreeable to all,
but inclined to take advantage of
everybody, now and then.
Isabelle Champlain, styled Lu-
cinde, personated fashionable co-
quettes. She was very handsome,
with the exception of too long a nose.
This nose could never secure an en-
gagement at Paris: a physical defect
condemns much real talent to per-
petual banishment in the province.
Lucinde was not an ordinary person.
She understood her rôles, she had a
fine voice, she spoke well, and dressed
with elegance and taste. Supported
by a rich wine-grower, who, being
married in Burgundy, could not main-
tain her near him, she was very faith-
ful to him, partly from prudence,
partly from love of her art and of her
person. She was anxious to preserve
her full voice, her fine form, and won-
derful memory. Honest and avari-
cious, selfish and cold, she neither
benefited nor injured others. Her
service at the theatre was most as-
siduous. There was never any cause
to reproach her ; but she was very
eager in the arrangement of terms,
and demanded a large salary. We
had a pretty soubrette, arch, lively,
and quick as a rocket on the stage.
In real life, Anna Teroy was a Senti-
mental blonde, who read romances,
and was always struggling with some
unhappy passion. Now she loved
Lambesq, now Léon, now me. She
was so sincere and Sweet, that I
never feigned to be in love with her
I respected her : Léon scorned her,
because Lambesq had compromised
and humiliated her. She lived in
tears, awaiting a new love, which al-
ways recommenced the series of her
deceptions and her lamentations.
So the masculine rôles were sus-
tained by Bellamare, Moranbois,
Lambesq, Léon, and myself; the
feminine parts by Régine, Impéria,
Lucinde, and Anna. A dressing-
maid, who served them all, whom
they called La Picarde, played the
silent parts, or those of only three or
four words. The man who performed
the same offices for us, and who, out-
side the theatre, had been for a long
time attached to Bellamare in the
capacity of body-servant, must not
be passed over in silence. He bore
the strange nickname of Purpurin,
and styled himself Purpurino Pur-
purini, a Venetian nobleman. This
jest, of whose origin I am ignorant, -
he did not know it himself, - had
become reality in his mind. Never
having known of any relative, except
a great-uncle, who had been, he said,
wnder assistant hay-bearer in the '
stables of Louis XVI., he was per-
suaded, by some association of ideas
difficult to understand, that he might
be of Venetian origin and patrician
descent. Bellamare related Purpu-
rin's strange notions pleasantly, with-
out seeking to explain them. This
person, he said, amused him by put-
ting him out of patience, and he had
the privilege of always astonishing
him by some folly impossible to
foresee, or by some fancy impossible
to account for. In fact, he was a
thorough blockhead, three fourths
A ROLLING STONE.
53
idiot, full of esteem for himself and
scorn for those beneath him. His
only virtue was his love for Bella-
mare, and he would have shared,
if necessary, his worst misfortunes
with a superstitious confidence in
his destiny.
“M. Bellamare,” he would say,
“must needs be what he is, that is,
a man of courage and genius, for me
to have attached myself to the per-
son of an actor, – I who have served
in grand houses in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, and to a republican,
—I who am legitimist from father
to son.”
If he had been met with the
objection, that, being of Venetian
origin, he should be republican on
principle, he would have been great-
ly astonished, and replied by some
argument taken from the history of
China, or the Apocalypse; for he was
never silenced, and his replies were
so utterly inconsequent, that who-
ever argued with him was himself
nonplussed.
“He always shuts my mouth by
the wandering of his wits,” declared
Bellamare. “One day when I asked
him why he brought me blue stock-
ings to play Figaro, he replied that
‘M. Lambesq looked very well with
long hair.’ Another time, when I
was complaining of the headache, he
pretended that it was the fault of the
barber, who had shaved him badly.
And that is always the way, like a
game of cross-purposes.”
Purpurin made himself useful on
the stage, however; he played the
simpletons, and played them with
such an utter misconstruction, mak-
ing use of his natural well-qualified |
manner to represent the simplicity
of his character, that he unconscious-
ly succeeded in being very comic.
It was always the same face, that of
a fool, namely, his own, that he dis-
played to the public, and the public
did not suspect the innocence of the
proceeding. They fancied that Pur-
purin created this burlesque type,
and they thought it very amusing.
You imagine, perhaps, that a suc-
cess acquired so cheaply satisfied the
self-love of Purpurin 3 Far from it.
He was unintentionally ludicrous,
and despised his rôle profoundly
He had a passion for blank verse,
and dreamed only of tragedy and
tragic parts. He tormented Bella-
mare and Moranbois to let him re-
hearse Théramène, and I must Say
that this rôle thus rendered would
have created a sensation, for it was
impossible to conceive of anything
more astonishing and more side-
splitting. *
Bellamare's company was very ec-
Centric. It played a little of every-
thing, — the drama, modern comedy,
Vaudeville, classic tragedy, and com-
edy. The repertory was considera-
ble, and was renewed throughout
with incredible facility. Familiar
with the province and the tastes of
different places, Bellamare adapted
wonderfully to this varied public
the choice of the works with which
it furnished him. Certain towns
like only the pathetic or the terrible;
others, again, care only for the bur-
lesque ; others prefer new plays, the
latest productions, coming from the
capital ; others still are classical,
and wish for alexandrimes.
The first qualities which Bella-
54
A ROLLING STONE.
y
mare required in his actors were
quickness in learning their parts,
and docility for the mise en scène.
He knew that it was impossible to
bring out in the province a troupe
composed of first-class actors, but he
also knew that what is chiefly want-
ing in the representations of stroll-
ing artists is the general effect ; and
he applied all his strength of will to
obtain this: by which means, with
average performers, he succeeded in
producing plays well learned and
well acted.
We opened our performances at
Orleans, and there I made my début,
before a scanty and dispiriting audi-
ence. I was not much frightened,
however; Impéria was absent. She
had left Paris first, to visit her un-
happy father, I suppose; and she
would not rejoin us until the third
day.
It was a great relief for me not to
make my first venture in the pres-
ence of a judge whom I dreaded
more than all the world beside.
Moreover, I came out in a rôle of
small importance, one of M. Scribe's
insignificant lovers. It only needs
some address, and, thanks to Bella-
mare, my personal appearance was
all it should be. But I felt that I
was very cold, and, in the second
act, I became completely frozen on
discovering the pretty graceful head
of Impéria, who was looking out at
me, from the side scene. She had
arrived a moment before, and know-
ing how much Bellamare was inter-
ested in me, she also felt an interest
in my début. She listened to me,
she studied me ; nothing could es-
cape her examination. Everything
seemed to spin round before my
eyes, which, probably, became con-
fused and wild. I felt as if flooded
with light, although the illumination
was not brilliant, and I could have
wished to hide myself in any twi-
light which would have veiled my
defects. The fear of being ridiculous
paralyzed me, and when I should
have shown a little passion, I felt
that my acting was so awkward and
So bad, that I had a mad impulse to
escape into the greenroom ; I can-
not say how I regained it, or if I
shortened my part. I was ready to
faint ; I staggered like a drunken
man. Bellamare was entering on
the stage ; he had only time to say
to me in passing: — -
“Courage that was very well!”
“No, it was very bad,” I said to
Impéria, who extended her hand to
me, as if to sustain me ; “have I not
been bad, superlatively bad 7"
“Bah!” she answered, “you are
timid, that is all; certainly more
timid than I would have believed,
and more than you yourself expected
probably. It is always so, but it
passes off with habit.”
I had passed. unnoticed with the
public, but not with my companions.
Léon, who already loved me, was
sad. Lambesq, who already detested
me, was radiant; he affected to pity
me. Léon shunned me ; he did not
feel the courage to address me; Ré-
gine said unceremoniously, “What
a pity that he should have an empty
stomach such a handsome fellow !”
Even Purpurin muttered between
his teeth : “It is not M. Lawrence
who will cast M. Talma into the
shade just yet !”
A ROLLING STONE.
55
I was retiring sadly to my gar-
ret, certain that I should not close
my eyes all night, when Moranbois
called me to take a bock with him.
I longed only to hide myself, and I
refused.
“You are proud,” said he, “be-
cause you have been at college, while
I was brought up on the dunghill ?”
“If you take it so,” I replied, “I
will drink anything you wish.”
When we were seated in a corner
of the brewery, “I wish to speak to
you,” he said; “and it is in the name
of Bellamare, who has not time this
evening. Must he not be chattering
with this princess that he calls his
daughter ?” -
“Is it of Mademoiselle Impéria
that you speak in that fashion ?”
“Yes. I permit myself that liber-
ty, with your leave, youngster | Im-
péria is no more to me than any one
else. She does nothing wrong as
yet ; but patience, her turn will come,
and Bellamare, who always sees an-
gels hovering above her, will find
out later that he must not trust in
any daughter of the theatre, let her
stockings be of silk or all in holes.
But enough of that; Bellamare
charged me to console you for your
misadventure of this evening. The
fact is, you were very bad. I expect-
ed that, but you have gone beyond
my expectations.”
“If this is the way you console
me — ”
“Does monsieur want compli-
ments 2" -
“I know that I was detestable ;
and I am mortified, profoundly mor-
tified by it. What pleasure can you
find in $ncreasing it !”
“If you take it in that way, little
one, that is another thing. Tell me,
then, why, having rehearsed passably,
you became all at once so cold and
gloomy 2” -
“How do I know Ż
be accounted for 2 °
“Ah, here it is You had gone
So far without embarrassment, and
believing yourself above your audi-
ence. You were like the Savage who
drinks wine without knowing that it
will make him tipsy. Ah well! dis-
trust yourself in future. Have your
fright beforehand, and you will have
less on the stage. The tribute must
be paid, either in advance or at the
time. I say this for your good, and
on the part of your director. He be-
lieves that nothing is lost, and that
you will do better next time.”
“He believes it because he is good,
indulgent, and an optimist ; but you,
who are candid, do not believe a
word of it.”
“Do you wish me to tell you your
trouble, without mincing matters ?”
“Yes, tell me everything.”
“Well, then, my boy, you will
never succeed so long as you wish to
please Impéria.”
And as, surprised by the penetra-
tion of this Hercules, my hand shook,
in setting down my glass, he added,
fixing his pale and steady eyes on
mine : “You are astonished that
Moranbois sees clearer than the oth—
ers ? It is even so; he sees every-
thing. You are infatuated with this
young lady; you are with us to be
near her. It is an affected creature,
and a true cabotine, who looks only
for success. When one does not
work for the sole pleasure of doing
Can timidity
56
A ROLLING STONE.
well, one works badly, you see ; and
when he does it for the sake of a
woman, he only commits follies. I.
have warned you : that is enough. I
have nothing more to say to you.”
And he left me, without allowing
me to answer.
I had leisure to meditate on the
sad consequence of my failure, for I
could not sleep all night. My mis-
hap naturally assumed inordinate
proportions in my eyes. Sleepless-
ness is a magnifying-glass which, on
the walls of the brain, exaggerates
hairs to beams, or an ant to a hippo-
potamus. I began to doze, only to
awake with a start, beneath a shower
of apples, which a gust of wind blew
even over my bedclothes. Some-
times it seemed to me as if, in this
good town of Orleans, where certain-
ly no one thought of me, they were
walking through the streets with lan-
terms in their hands, and that the ob-
ject of this illumination was that all
the citizens might assemble and say,
“Did you notice how bad that young
actor was in the comedy ?”
“You were not bad,” said Léon to
me, next day. “You merely lost the
opportunity to be good.”
“But can one be good in so weak
a rôle 2 °
“One can play it properly; that is,
seek the exact limit of the character.
You found that boundary at rehears-
al. Why did you stop short of it !”
“I was paralyzed.”
“It is a very slight accident, and
may perhaps be the only one. Try
not to do like me, who, since the be-
ginning, have failed, never to retrieve
myself again.”
“What is that you say ? If I had
a quarter of your talent, I should
think myself very fortunate.”
“My dear Lawrence, I have not
the shadow of talent. Do not speak
of that, it saddens me, and does no
good.” - -
As he really seemed sad, I dared
not insist. He was one of those who
will not be consoled. But how sur-
prised I was by his discouragement
What had he then aspired to, since
he was not content with success in
all his rôles, and had more parts at
his disposal than he cared for ?
I asked Bellamare's opinion on the
subject. He considered a little, and
replied:—
“Léon speaks and thinks like a
man of disappointed ambition. To
hear him, one would often fancy him
ungrateful; but when you see him
act, you feel the lofty generosity of a
noble character. So I can only at-
tribute his disgust with life to some
morbid tendency of his temperament.
If he were at the topmost round of
the ladder, at the pinnacle of every
species of triumph, he would still be
dreaming of some purer glory, though
to find it he might have to go to the
moon. But let us talk of yourself,
my boy. You were put out last
night. That is no matter. You
must learn your lesson over, and be-
gin again to-morrow. This time, you
have a better part in the second play,
and can retrieve yourself.”
Instead of making amends, I was
colder than at my début. The same.
terror took possession of me, although
I entered on the stage without ap-
parent emotion. My face and person
sustained the public gaze without
confusion, and I appeared sufficiently
A ROLLING STONE,
57
at my ease. As soon as my own
voice struck my ear, my head whirled
dizzily. I hastened to recite my rôle
like a task from which I longed to be
rid, and produced on the spectator
the effect of a self-sufficient gentle-
man, who despises his audience, and
takes no pains with his performance.
The actor's embarrassment assumes
every imaginable form, contrary to
his purpose. There is no false ap-
pearance that it does not borrow, no
lie that it does not invent for its dis-
guise. The phenomenon it wrought
in my case was the most grievous
which could have happened to me;
for I was genuinely modest and de-
sirous of doing well, while I was con-
demned to the mask of impertinence.
The condition was not absolutely new
to Bellamare, who had seen every-
thing in the course of his strolling
professorship; nevertheless, I afforded
So glaring an instance of it, that he
was somewhat taken aback, and I
read in his expressive glance more
compassion than encouragement.
As for me, I was so thoroughly
wretched, that my companions sought
to console me. Moranbois himself,
after his characteristic fashion, said a
few encouraging words; but Impéria
Said nothing, and that cut me to the
quick. In all other respects she
talked to me with sweetness and
good-will; only she shunned the
least allusion to my disaster, and I
knew not what to think of her opin-
ion of my future. I resolved to un-
burden my mind, and made bold to
seek a tête-d-téte with her.
It was much easier to find an op-
portunity for this in the province
than in Paris. If the lot of inferior
companies is unhappy and distress-
ing, that of those who are merely
passable is very agreeable, in the
generality of towns. For those which
have no permanent theatre, the arri-
val of a strolling troupe is always an
event. Besides, there is everywhere
a certain number of amateurs who
have a passion, not so much for act-
ing as for actors. Everywhere, the
young men of family attempt to hov-
er and strut about the actresses.
Everywhere, also, there are literary
persons, young or old, with unpub-
lished manuscripts in their pockets,
who, without hoping to secure their
performance, dream at least of the
delightful pleasure of reading them
to actors. Whence ensued relations
in which those interested naturally
bore all the expenses, invitations,
country excursions, with hunting,
fishing, dinners, and entertainments,
according to the gºver's means. These
amusements were always very gay,
thanks to the good-humor of the
actors, who knew how to escape with
tact from literary wasp's-nests; and
to the coquetry of the actresses, who
knew how to avoid the pitfalls of
gallantry, when it seemed advisa-
ble. - -
Bellamare had no objection to these
pleasure-parties. He was too well
known everywhere to be accused of
taking any mean advantage. His
wit and knowledge were a full equiv-
alent, and his good advice well worth
all the dinners in the world. They
knew that he was very fatherly with
his pensionnaires, and he was rarely
invited without the rest of us. Ré-
gine loved good eating, and Lucinde
to make fine toilets; but Léon,
58
A. ROLLING STONE,
fond of solitude, fastidious in the
choice of his acquaintance, and sen-
sitively proud, declined almost all
the invitations. Moranbois, who was
the busiest of the company, and who,
besides, did not like the constraint
of good society, preferred to rest an
hour or two at the café, with Purpu-
rino Purpurini, on whom he lavished
fearful invectives while regaling him,
and who treated him in return with
profound disdain. These two irrecon-
cilable enemies could never do with-
out each other, for some unknown
Tea,SOIl.
I confess that on receiving the
first collective invitation, in which
our manager included me, I was
strongly inclined to follow Léon's
example. I had not, like him, the
ideas and habits of a gentleman, but
I had preserved the pride of the
peasant, who dislikes to receive what
he cannot return. Léon did not
blame Bellamare for loving this joy-
ous and easy life, since he brightened
it with the light of his intelligence
and the charm of his playfulness;
but he considered himself disagreea-
ble, and nothing was more tedious,
according to him, than an ill-humored
parasite.
I had not the same motive for en-
tertaining scruples. I was naturally
gay ; but, as an artist, I had, as yet,
shown only my defects. I was, per-
haps, doomed to be a nonentity. I
had no right to the cordial reception
vouchsafed to the others. Discretion
would have commanded me, then, to
abstain; but Impéria was at all these
entertainments, and I decided to join
them, however my pride might suf-
fer. I saw plainly that Léon disap-
proved of me.
notice it.
The first party was given us by
Some garrison officers, a half-dozen
of whom came to invite us to a pic-
nic which they had been planning
among themselves for a long time.
It was all arranged with us, when
Captain Vachard, the highest in com-
mand, changed the project from a
boating excursion, with dinner on the
grass, to that of a regatta on the wa-
ters of his brother, Baron Vachard,
who had a country-seat, and a park
intersected by a small arm of the
Loire. The offer did not greatly
please the others, but among the mil-
7tary they do not consult their own
preference when a superior is of the
party and they had to renounce the
picnic to accept the Baron's invita-
tion. It was privately suggested to
us that the Captain much preferred
dispensing the hospitality of his
brother's larder and wine-cellar to
pay in his share of the costs, and
that he amused himself only at the
expense of others.
These first ideas which I received
of the Captain's character prejudiced
me so strongly against him, that I
proposed to renounce the fête. Léon
expressed himself very plainly as to
our folly in submitting to the whim
of such a miserly fellow. Impéria
said that she would do whatever
Bellamare decided. Bellamare, who,
by dint of strolling, had become a
little careless in matters of small
consequence, decided that it should
be put to vote. The majority de-
clared gayly for the regatta in the wa-
ters of the Baron. They delighted
in ridiculing the hospitality proffered
I pretended not to
A. ROLLING STONE.
59
them, when it afforded a chance for
criticism; and to punish the Captain
for the tone of authority which he
had assumed with his lieutenants
and sub-lieutenants in this affair,
the women resolved to keep a light
rein over him.
We had to travel three leagues in
a carriage or on horseback to reach
the Baron's chateau. Saddle-horses
were procured for the ladies who
wished to display their horseman-
ship. Neither Bellamare nor Lam-
besq cared for riding, and a carriage
was brought us, in which they invited
me to take a seat, together with them
and Régine. By this arrangement
our three young actresses, Impéria,
Lucinde, and Anna, were accompa-
nied by the officers, and we followed
after, like peaceful and confident
guardians. It seemed to us that
Vachard had premeditated this tri-
umphal departure from the town,
and had reserved for himself the
principal rôle, for he prepared to
lead the procession with Impéria,
who abandoned herself without re-
flection to the innocent pleasure of
managing the Captain's gentle mare.
I remarked openly that we, the man-
ager, my companions, and myself,
should form a most ridiculous rear-
guard. A young Second comedian,
called Marco, whom we had enlisted
a few days before, and who was a
thorough madcap, caught my mean-
ing and bounded into the saddle be-
hind Lucinde, swearing that he would
descend from it only at the point of
the bayonet, since it was the duty of
the cavalry to bear the infantry, in
case of need. Lucinde, whose stately
equilibrium was deranged by this
invasion, grew red with anger, and
Bellamare interfered very gently, for
he declared that he was not manager
in the country; and this comical dis-
cussion was prolonged, to the great
chagrin of Vachard, and amid the
loud laughter of the audience, when
I cut it short. Seeing everybody in
good-humor, and catching sight of
the Captain's horse, which a soldier
held, while the Captain strove to re-
call Marco to more suitable conduct,
I vaulted upon this handsome and
well-equipped horse; I mounted so
quickly that the soldier, astounded,
dropped the reins, and I went off like
an arrow, signing to Impéria to fol-
low me. She understood me, she
approved my course, and besides her
mare was accustomed to follow the
beast of which I had taken posses-
Sion. I did not know how to mount
by rule, but I had nervous legs, a
Supple body, and the hardihood of a
peasant. To be surer of myself, I had
dispensed with the stirrups, and I
galloped as when across the fields I
bruised the freshly cut grass without
Saddle or bridle, and with a rope for
all rein. Impéria, likewise reared in
the country, and well versed in all
noble exercises, was a remarkable
horsewoman. In the twinkling of
an eye we had cleared the great.
Place du Martroy and the whole
town of Orleans, followed at a con-
siderable distance by the cavalcade,
who laughed, shouted, and applauded.
The young officers were delighted
with my audacity, and the trick
played off upon their Captain. As
for him, he did not laugh very heart-
ily, as you may imagine; but not to
attract attention to the ridiculous
60
A ROLLING STONE.
incident to which he must submit, he
hastily took his place in the carriage,
with Bellamare and Marco, who had
given up protecting the ladies, when
he saw me rise so opportunely to the
honor of our company. Naturally,
the carriage-horse, whose reins Wa-
chard had taken, and which he lashed
vainly with his whip, could not over-
take the equestrians. Impéria had
begged me to wait for them; but when
they were near us, excited by their
cheers, we set off again at a furious
pace, resolved not to let them pass
us, and not to give the Captain the
possibility of rejoining us.
At length we reached the place
where we must leave the banks of
the Loire, and go inland, and there
we no longer knew the way. The
race had given my companion an ani-
mation that I had never seen in her
before.
“How beautiful you are 1* I cried,
desperately, when she stopped to ask
me what direction we must take.
She had had confidence in me, you
remember, since the day when I had
sworn not to think of making love to
her. So she did not take my excla-
mation and emotion in bad part.
“I ought to be like that upon the
stage, you think 7" rejoined she,
“ and not cold as I am. Ah well, I
could say as much for you; unfortu- |
nately we cannot act on horseback.”
The moment had come to ask her
what she thought of me, and the op-
portunity was excellent. Our horses
needed to breathe, they were stream-
ing with sweat. We let the bridles
fall upon their necks, rightly think-
ing that they would find the way
themselves, and, as we were now in
advance of the others, we could ex-
change a few words.
“You pretend,” said I to Impéria,
“that you are cold upon the stage. Is
it to console me for being frigid 7”
“You are frigid, it is true; but
that is little matter, if you are not
frozen.” -
“Indeed, I fear that I shall always
be both.” - *
“You cannot be certain.”
“What do you think of it your-
Self 2 ”
“Nothing, yet; it is too soon.”
“And, besides, you do not care.”
“Why do you say that ?”
“It seemed so to me.”
“Why?”
“You cannot feel much interest in
me.” *
“What have I done, then, to lose
the confidence that you accorded me !
Come, say ?” -
“You have the air of no longer
knowing if I exist.”
“If I have that air, it is false. I
talk of you constantly with Bella-
mare, and I told him yesterday that
I loved you and esteemed you more
every day.” - .
“Why? I entreat you, tell me
why. I would like so much to know
in what I can deserve your friendship,
and that of M. Bellamare l’
“I can very easily tell you why;
you are kind, sincere, devoted, intel-
ligent, free from vice. In short, you
are equal to Léon, and you are more
lively, more amiable, and more so-
cial.” -
“I am very happy, then ; but still,
if I never have ability.”
“Then, unhappily, you will leave
25
l].S.
A ROLLING STONE.
61
“Why? Could I not make myself
useful in some other rôle than that
of lover ? Many people make a liv-
ing on the stage, without possessing
talent.”
“'They live poorly. One should
not follow a profession that he does
not love.”
“But I love the theatre, in spite of
my inferiority, and there are many
others like me.”
“Then keep on, if you are not
ambitious — ”
“I am not ambitious, I am — I
really do not know what I am.”
“I will tell you. You have artis-
tic tastes, and you will probably be
an artist, whether you succeed as an
actor or do something else. You
love this careless life, because it is
precarious, these travels, these new
faces and new countries, to observe,
enjoy, or criticise; above all, you like
what I like best about it, being asso-
ciated with a group, amiable or not,
a medley, diverting or affecting, or
faulty and irritating, —a multiplicity
of life, in short. It is like family
life, after all, without its intermina-
ble chains, its deep anguish, and its
horrible responsibilities. But it seems
to me that with Bellamare for man-
ager, one cannot be absolutely unhap-
py, and everything in the lot which he
creates for us amuses or interests me.”
“I feel like you, in all respects.
Then, if forever lacking in talent and
success, I still cling to this sweet
and careless life, you will not regard
me as one of those unhappy fools
who cherish a ridiculous delusion ?
You will not despise me?”
“Certainly not, for I am in the
selfsame situation, I follow a ca-
reer in which I am by no means
sure of success; and I feel that I
should persist in it, in one way or
another, even if I found I had no
real ability. That is the way, you
See When one is stage-struck,
everything else loses its relish.”
“Still, it is not your natural and
final lot. From day to day you
meet with opportunities of making
what is called a brilliant marriage.”
“I do not wish to make a bril-
liant marriage.” -
“Still, you would not wish to
make one that would plunge you
into destitution ?”
“No, on account of the children
I might have ; for, if it concerned
only myself, for my own part I am
indifferent to all privations. With
economy and industry one can al-
ways obtain the necessaries of life.”
“Let me tell you, then, that no
one knows you. All our comrades
think you prudent, cold, ambitious
even. Bellamare has predicted a
grand future for you, and they im-
agine that you would sacrifice every-
thing to this end.”
“If I believed it, perhaps I should
regard it as a sacred duty to sacrifice
all to it; but I credit it too little to
consider it seriously. I do my best ;
I try to understand, and wait.”
“And you do not suffer while
waiting 2 you are gay ?”
“So you see . "
“Because you are sure of him who
loves you — ”
“Have I said that any one loves
me 2 ”
“You have said that you loved
some one.”
“That is another thing.”
62
A ROLLING STONE.
“Would you love
ful—” .
“Perhaps he is not ungrateful;
suppose he does not suspect my
preference — ”
“Then he is blind, an idiot, a
regular brute 1”
She burst out laughing, and her
gayety made my heart leap with joy.
I fancied she had invented this love
as a defence from foolish declara-
tions, in some moment of fear or
ennui, and that her heart was as
free as her existence. She was play-
ful enough to have improvised this
malice; for since the beginning of
our journey she had revealed her
character, always reserved before
strangers, but admirably lively and
even mischievous with her compan-
ions; and, as she was neither cunning
nor deceitful, she could not seek to
impose on me in téte-à-téte.
“Then,” I cried, “you have been
making sport of us; you love no
One 2 ° -
She turned around, as if about to
reply; but, seeing a horseman who
had advanced beyond the others, her
cheek whitened, and she said, direct-
ing my attention to him : “It is the
Captain I believe he has taken the
horse of one of his young officers.
So they are cowards, these soldiers ?
They dared not preserve us from this
encounter l’
“Ah well, what then 2 What do
you fear from this Vachard 7"
“I fear — I know not what, a
quarrel with you !”
“In your presence 2 I will not
grant him that satisfaction. Let us
give him a race, since he invites us
to it.”
an ungrate-
“That is best,” she answered, “let
us fly I’’ -
We were borne on, as if by the
wind, until we reached a great, ugly
house, absurdly painted rose-color,
and our horses plunged us into a
court-yard, where three pots of gera-
niums, barred from the sun, together
with two hideous lions, in terra-cotta,
completed the decorations of the
mansion.
It was Baron de Vachard in per-
son, who received us with a stupe-
fied air, but who, recognizing our
horses, understood, or supposed, that
we belonged to the number of his
invited guests. He was a man of
about forty-five, very little older
than his brother, the Captain; in-
deed, they may have been twins, I
have forgotten now. They bore an
extraordinary likeness to each other;
the same short, strongly built figure,
high shoulders, fresh color, thin and
grizzled light hair, short nose, that
seemed as if it had been forgotten,'
prominent eyes, projecting ears, set
on toward the front like those of
skittish horses, angular and very
heavy jaw ; only the expression of
these two faces, cast in the same
mould, differed essentially. That of
the elder was mild and stupid, that
of the Captain stupid and irritable.
They seemed equally addicted to
habits of order and economy. They
had another habit, or rather infirmity
in common, which we were not slow
to perceive.
The Baron, having noticed that
the horses were in a frightful state,
gave Orders for their grooming, with-
out asking if we were not warm or
thirsty ourselves; then he conducted
A ROLLING STONE,
63
us in silence, into a very cool and
very gloomy saloon, and there, after
a certain effort, as if to collect his
thoughts, he said to us, with an air
of distress, “Where is my brother,
then 2 ”
“He is coming,” I replied; “he
was close upon our heels.”
“Ah, very well!” replied he.
And he waited for us to take the
initiative in conversation ; Impéria
maliciously waited for him to begin
it; and I waited, through curiosity,
the result of this reciprocal waiting.
The Baron, either from absence of
mind or lack of brains, found abso-
lutely nothing to say to us, and
walked up and down the apartment,
pursing up his lips in a singular
manner; one would have said that
he was mentally whistling some
musical reminiscence. We were as-
sured of it, when the sound, grown
almost distinct, permitted us to rec-
ognize an interpretation Sui generis
of the bravura of La Dame Blanche.
He became aware of his preoccupa-
tion, and looked at us, made a great
effort to break the silence, and re-
marked that it was fine weather.
The same perfidious silence on the
part of Impéria. He turned his
round eyes toward me, as if to ques-
tion me. I averted mine to see how
he would extricate himself from his
embarrassment. He freed himself
from it, by a short pause before the
window, and by a more distinct rep-
etition of the phrase, Ah quel plai-
sir d'être soldat I with the accompa-
niment of a rhythm drummed upon
the glass; after which he sprang out-
side, without appearing to remember
llS.
Impéria laughed merrily. I made
a sign to her, for I had just perceived
in the farther part of the room a
person whom the abrupt transition
from bright sunlight to obscurity
had at first rendered invisible to
us. She was a tall, stout woman,
of brunette complexion, once hand-
some, Mademoiselle de Sainte-Claire,
of whom we had heard, formerly
Mademoiselle Clara, a provincial ac-
tress, who personated fashionable co-
quettes, now M. de Vachard's com-
panion and housekeeper.
“Pay no attention to the Baron's
manners,” she said with unconcern.
“His brother and he, – well, they
are a pair You did not come to be
entertained by his conversation, did
you, but to pass a day in the coun-
try It will not be very amusing, I
warn you. Among stupid people
all is stupid ; but the dinner will be
choice, I give you my word. The
Baron is an epicure, — his only tal-
ent, as far as I know ; as to the other,
he has not even that. But what have
you done with the more idiotic of
the Wachards 2 ”
And without waiting for any an-
Swer, she ordered refreshments for
us, and kept on talking to us, with-
out reserve or ceremony before the
Servants.
“Come, now, my little ones,” she
resumed, “which ones of Balandar's
company are you ? Ah pardon,
you call him Bellamare, at present;
it is his theatrical name ; he called
himself Ballandar, formerly; perhaps
that was not his name either. You
know we take what names we wish,
or can. Just now, I am a noble
maiden lady who has had misfor-
64
A ROLLING STONE.
tunes. Always the same trick, you
know ! The Wachards that we meet
on the way do not believe it, but
they love to persuade themselves of
it, and they repeat it to their friends
and acquaintances; it sounds well.
Your manager must have spoken of
me to you. He loved me well once,
in the days when I was a young and
pretty girl, slender as you, my little
one, and he – I will not say, my boy,
that he was handsome as you, but he
had youth, wit, and a certain charm
with women. Does he still adore
them all at once, the good-for-noth-
ing 2 On my word, I have been very
jealous of him, and I revenged my-
self well. But tell me, little one,
you are not the one that they say is
his delight at present, — the beauti-
ful Impéria 2°
Impéria reddened for the second
time. She had already colored, when
this woman had spoken of noble
adventuresses; she was entirely dis-
concerted on receiving this open
insult; but, as I was about to reply,
she forestalled me, and answered
with vivacity, -
“I am the delight of no one ;
I am not beautiful, as you see.”
“That is true, you are small and
without brilliancy; but you are
pretty, and, since you come alone,
with this tall, handsome fellow, you
are lovers, my turtle-doves, married
perhaps ? In short, it is not you
who are the latest fancy of your man-
ager and of our Captain. This hand-
some Leander who accompanies you
would not suffer it.”
“Then there is in our troupe,” I
demanded, “a person whom the Cap-
tain boasts of having captivated ?”
and
“Ah yes! the famous Impéria,
whom I am wild to see 1”
“He boasts of it !” I repeated,
crimson with anger, while poor Im-
péria grew pale, and cast on me one
of those agonized glances that seem
involuntarily to appeal to the first
honest man for protection or ven-
geance. -
“He does not boast of it, perhaps,”
replied Sainte-Claire; “he confides
it to all his regiment, and it is in
response to this confidence that the
Baron, who is not liberality itself, has
launched out to-day with a grand
dinner for his brother's mistress. I
must tell you that the Baron is jeal-
ous of me, because the Captain also
makes love to me; so he is charmed
when the Captain pays court to
others. But however the Captain
diverts himself, he will always re-
turn to me, who hold the purse-
strings, you understand "
Impéria took my arm, as if to go
away. She was so agitated that I
thought she was about to swoon, and
her name escaped me. Sainte-Claire,
perceiving the blunder she had just
made, perhaps intentionally, evinced
no confusion, but, with the uncon-
cern of ill-bred people, burst out
laughing. .
“Let us go,” said Impéria, leading
me away. “It is a shame for me to
come in contact with such persons.”
“Let us stay,” I answered. “Stay,
since you are with me ; despise this
impudent duenna, who lies perhaps
through jealousy; and let us see if
the Captain really boasts of it.”
“I understand you, Lawrence
you wish to give him a lesson. I
forbid you. You have no right.”
A ROLLING STONE.
65
“It is my right and my duty : re-
member, you said farewell forever to
the world which you left. You are
an artist; you have in me, in each
of your associates, a brother, whose
honor is responsible for yours. I
cannot say if Lambesq is of my opin-
ion; but in my place Bellamare, Léon,
Moranbois himself, perhaps even lit-
tle Marco, would not let you be in-
sulted. If we were gentlemen, our
protection might compromise you ;
but we are actors, and prejudice does
not forbid us to have courage.”
“If all do not possess it,” she re-
plied, “ you are one of those who
have it in abundance, I know well;
and therefore I am unwilling — ”
She could not say more : the Cap-
tain, red as a beet, and covered with
perspiration, approached us, with the
evident intention of reproaching us
for our prank. I advanced three
steps to meet him, and looked at him
in a way to disconcert him, for he
stammered some unintelligible words,
wreaked his wrath on a geranium,
which he nearly uprooted from the
pot in which it languished, assumed
a forced Smile, contracted his lips, as
his brother had done when receiving
us in the saloon, and passed on whis-
tling the same air. They had the
same odd trick, and in the regiment
they had christened them the broth-
ers Fufu.
When Impéria saw that the Cap-
tain did not seek to quarrel with me,
she grew more and more reassured,
and determined to laugh off the ad-
Venture.
“Truly, I am foolish,” she said to
me; “I still have pruderies that do
not suit my profession. I assure
you, Lawrence, that I blushed at my
anger directly after. Our vocation
is to amuse others; our philosophy
should be to amuse ourselves with
them when they are ridiculous, and
not suffer ourselves to be wounded,
especially when we are good for any-
thing.”
I allowed her to believe that the
affair was ended, and we hastened to
rejoin the "joyous band, who were
already starting on the Baron's wa-
ters. Figure to yourself three, wher.
ries upon a long, stagnant pool, and
you can fancy the regatta. In a
twinkling I perceived that all my
companions had evil intentions, and
that the young officers had guilty
hopes, the project or desire of all
being to give the Captain a duck-
ing. The women understood us, and
would not enter the boats, except
Sainte-Claire, who jumped heavily
and resolutely on board the leading
craft, and took the rudder, while the
Captain seized the oars and begged
Impéria to trust herself to him. In-
stead of her, it was I who accepted
the invitation, after having commu-
nicated by signs with Marco, who
steered the second boat, and Bella-
mare, who had charge of the third.
Soon, in place of a regatta, a naval
combat was improvised, and the two
boats together executed a furious
onslaught against Ours. Their object
was to throw the Captain over, in the
confusion of the struggle, and amid a
fearful hubbub. I strove to effect it,
while appearing to defend him; and
the thing would have been easily
managed, if Sainte-Claire, who was
not duped, and who bore up bravely
against fortune, had not turned
66
A ROLLING STONE.
against me, calling me traitor, with
loud laughter and coarse jests. She
was strong as a man, and brave as a
woman who is fighting. I allowed
her to declare herself against me, and
try to throw me overboard. Then I
called to my aid my natural dexter-
ity, for I would not use my strength
with a woman, however little femi-
nine she might be ; and with the
Same trip I launched into the
Baron's green waters his amiable
brother and his valiant housekeeper.
Then I leaped on board the other
boat, which let itself be captured,
and shouted victory, which brought
more honor than pleasure to Vachard,
pickling with Sainte-Claire in the
shallow but turbid water.
They seemed to take it in good
part, and every one was deceived
except me.
tain had a better temper than they
had given him credit for ; and dinner
passed off with a noisy gayety that
did not suffer any particular allusion
to the events of the morning; but,
as we were passing under an arbor.
to smoke and drink coffee, the
younger Vachard, approaching me,
said in a low voice, with a dry clear
tone that contrasted with his wine-
seasoned look, “You have ruined my
horse and spoiled my uniform ; you
have done it purposely.”
“I have done it purposely,” I an-
swered calmly.
“It is enough,” replied he.
And he withdrew.
At daybreak the next morning I
received a visit from two officers,
friends of the Captain, who sum-
moned me to retract the declaration
I had made him, or to render him
They thought the Cap-
satisfaction for my words. The first
point I refused; the second I
accepted, and the meeting was
appointed for the day following at
the close of the performance, for I
was needed in the play. Singularly
enough, I was not agitated by this
first duel as I have been since then
in other encounters. My cause ap-
peared so just to me; I hated so
cordially the man who insulted Im-
péria, and who had intended to com-
promise her before the very eyes of
her companions ! I regarded myself
as the natural champion of the com-
pany; and although I possessed very
little knowledge of fencing, while
Vachard was well skilled in it, I did
not doubt for a moment that fate
would favor the right. What was
stranger still, I played very well this
evening. I had, it is true, a good
rôle, which I had accepted with
Some trepidation, but which I filled
to the satisfaction of every one. I
felt raised above myself, by my con-
fidence in myself as a man, and I
forgot to distrust myself as an actor.
At one time in the performance I
even played very finely, and was
applauded for the first and last time
in my life. The excellent Bellamare
embraced me, weeping for joy, as
soon as the curtain had fallen ;
Impéria pressed my hands with effu-
Sion.
“Come, beautiful princess,” said a
harsh voice from behind me, “em-
brace him also, if you have a par-
ticle more heart than a grasshop-
per.” -
At this agreeable interruption
from Moranbois Impéria smiled, and
turned her cheek to me, saying, “If
A ROLLING STONE.
67
it is any recompense, let him take
it ” - -
I kissed her with too much confu-
sion to appreciate the pleasure; my
heart choked me. Moranbois struck
me on the shoulder, saying in my
ear, “ Chevalier of the fair sex, they
await you !”
How did he know of my affair,
when I had concealed it with the
greatest care 2 I have no idea, but
his announcement made me leap with
joy. My lips had just been drinking
in the perfume of my ideal, and I
felt as if my stature had gained a
hundred cubits. I could have over-
thrown a legion of devils.
“Friend,” said I to Moranbois,
who had followed me into the dress-
ing-room, and, with most unprece-
dented politeness, was assisting me
to dress; “you have been fencing-
master in a regiment; how does one
go to work, when he knows nothing
about it, to disarm his man 2 °
“He goes to work as best he can,”
he answered; “have you coolness,
idiot. 2”
“Yes.”
“Ah well, have no hesitation ; go
straight ahead, blockhead, and you
will kill him.”
This prediction produced no sinis-
ter impression upon me. Did I desire
to kill him 7 No, certainly, I am
very humane and not revengeful. I
could not see clearly beneath the
spell that influenced me,
myself skilful enough to choose the
means of doing so. I knew my ad-
versary to be formidable, but I did
not fear him ; that is all I recollect
of this rapid drama, in which I
I wished
to conquer, but I did not think
played the part of an impassioned
man. At that moment I should have
regarded any philosophic scruple as
an argument of fear.
I had taken Léon and Marco for
Seconds; I desired that the affair
should be clearly an engagement be-
tween Soldiers and artists. Vachard
having the choice of weapons, we
fought with swords. I do not know
what passed. For two or three min-
utes I saw a Scintillation at the end
of my arm, I felt a burning heat in
my breast, as if my blood, in haste
to leave me, was rushing out to meet
a thousand Sword-points. I thought
to parry an attack, when Vachard
rolled upon the grass. It seemed to
me as if my weapon had crossed the
space : I sought my adversary oppo-
site, and he was dying at my feet.
I had fancied myself cool, but I
perceived that I was completely
intoxicated ; and when I heard the
regimental surgeon say, “He is dead,”
I thought that he was speaking of
me, and was astonished to find my-
self still standing.
At last I understood that I had
just killed a man ; but I felt no re-
morse, for he had had ninety-nine
chances to my one, and I was wound-
ed in the arm. I did not perceive it
till they came to dress it, and at that
moment I saw the livid face of Wa-
chard, who seemed absolutely life-
less. I felt a chill through all my
body, but my mind took no real cog-
nizance of it.
He was seriously injured, but he
recovered ; he was not worthy of a
dramatic end. He has lost his
brother since then, and has married
the Sainte-Claire, who styles herself
68
A ROLLING STONE,
at present Baroness de Vachard, but
who gives no more regattas.
As for me, I was surprised on
leaving the scene of the duel to see
Moranbois beside me. He had fol-
lowed me, and, without showing
himself, had witnessed the affair.
Silently he conducted me home, and
silently he passed the night with me.
I was agitated, and I dreamed con-
tinually, but only of the theatre, not
of the combat. On awaking I per-
ceived my Hercules sleeping in a
chair behind my curtains. He re-
plied to my thanks by a vituperation;
but he pressed my hand, saying that
he was satisfied with me.
My wound was not serious, and
notwithstanding the warning of the
surgeon, for whose visit I did not
wait, I hastened to make inquiries
concerning my victim's condition.
It seemed hopeless; but by evening
there was less cause for anxiety, and
I was able to attend rehearsal, with-
out emotion, and without having my
arm in a sling.
I supposed that no one at the the-
atre knew anything about the matter,
for in the city nothing had as yet
transpired ; but Moranbois had told
my companions everything, and Bel-
lamare received me with open arms.
“You showed us last night,” he
said, “that you were an actor, but it
needed not this affair of honor to
convince us that you were a man.
Ah do not habituate yourself to
these amusements; now that you
have talent, it would be disagreeable
for me to see my handsome young
premier return with his eyes put out,
or crippled. I shall insert it in your
next engagement that duelling is for-
bidden on account of your duties at
the theatre.” *
While thus jesting with a lively
manner, he had a tear in the corner
of his eye. I saw that he loved me,
and I embraced him tenderly. Im-
péria also embraced me, saying, —
“Do not repeat this.”
She then added in an undertone,
“Lawrence, you are good and brave,
but every one here believes — what
is not, and what cannot be. Be con-
siderate also, and let it be under-
stood that you do not think of me.”
“And what matters it to you?” I
replied, wounded by her preoccupa-
tion, after the crisis from which I
had hardly emerged, and whose
palpitations still shook my breast.
“When they would tell you that I
love you, would it be a disgrace for
you?”
“No, certainly,” said she, “but —”
“But what? That one whom you
prefer would be unwilling 2 °
“If I prefer any one, he does not
think of me, as I have told you.
Only, I accepted your friendship,
and cannot pledge myself to any-
thing more. Must everything be
changed between us? Shall I be
obliged to put a constraint upon my-
self, to be reserved, to treat you as a
young man with whom one counts
her words and even her glances, that
she may not seem to act coquettishly
or foolishly 2 You know well that I
wish to remain free, and that, on that
account, I must not suffer myself to
love. If you are my friend, you will
not enter on a contest which has
always terrified me and put me to
flight. You do not wish to spoil a
happiness that I have gained with so
A ROLLING STONE.
69
much difficulty, after troubles and
misfortunes of which you have no
idea 2" -
I was governed by her. I swore
to her that I would always be her
brotherly associate, and that she
should not have to protect herself
from my besiegings. I did not think
to accuse her of coldness or selfish-
ness, although the fact might have
appeared patent to me, since she was
not in love with another, or overcome
that love that she might not under-
go its consequences.
Léon was pleased with me also,
and he told me so with effusion.
Régime overwhelmed me with caress-
es, Anna began to admire me as a
hero, Lambesq detested me more,
little Marco conceived an infatuation
for me, and made himself my shadow.
Purpurin, wishing to testify his es-
teem, called me M. de Lawrence ;
Moranbois, while continuing to treat
me roughly, ceased to call me bump-
kin. The lowest employee of the
theatre believed himself ennobled by
my glory; in one day I had become
the lion of the troupe.
They soon began to discuss the
event in the city. The regiment ac-
knowledged as little as possible the
rude lesson, given by a strolling
player to an officer. Vachard was
neither loved nor respected; but
although at heart their sympathies
were with me and not with him, the
esprit de corps did not allow them
to take my part, and some of them
spoke of a chance thrust on my side,
followed by an awkward one. The
civilians did not consent that I
should play so insignificant a rôle,
and in the coffee-houses there were
tolerably sharp arguments concerning
me. The soldier loves the actor,
without whom he would perish of
ennui in the barracks, but he does
not like to have a pékin * an adept
with the sword; while among the
civilians they were delighted to see
a pekin of the lowest rank, that is,
an actor, cope with military bul-
lies. -
In higher circles, at the prefection
at the general's, and in the city draw-
ing-rooms, they were excited, they
questioned and commented; the ul-
tra respectable people were Scandal-
ized at the ardor with which over-
hasty young spirits extolled me, to
such a degree that Bellamare, acute
and prudent as experience, assembled
us on the eve of the advertised per-
formance, and said to us with his
accustomed playfulness : —
“My little children, we have
gathered palms of glory in this good
town; but military glory is denied
the artist, and from various intelli-
gence that I have received, it seems
that we bid fair to have a dis-
turbance to-morrow evening in the
parterre and even in the orchestra.
We shall serve as a pretext for
antipathies or ill-feeling of which we
are ignorant, but for which the ad-
ministration or public opinion would
hold us responsible. The surest way
is to paste a slip across the poster,
and to secure our second-class car-
riage for this evening. Our persons
absent, our glory will remain untar-
nished by the fisticuffs which may
be forced to buffet apple-cores to-
morrow ; for if the artist has his
* A name given to civilians bearing arms
during insurrections or other disturbances.
70
A ROLLING STONE,
devoted partisans, the warrior has his
likewise. Let us make off, then, and
may the gods of Olympus, Apollo,
and Mars protect us !” -
“Hurrah for Bellamare, who is
always right !” cried Marco; “but
hurrah for Lawrence also, whom none
of us will ever disown l’
“Let us all cry “Hurrah for Law-
rence I’ replied Bellamare. “He is
our pride, all the same !”
“You counted on making money
here,” said I, “and my laurels cost
you dearer than they are worth.”
“My son,” he replied, “money
always comes to him who knows
how to wait for it; and if it never
comes, honor is more precious.”
Before leaving, I wished to obtain
some further news of Vachard, and
I hastened to his house. The Baron
himself, received me in the dining-
room, where his breakfast was served,
and where, without recognizing me,
so absent-minded was he, he offered
me a chair. I thanked him, and was
about to withdraw, when he remem-
bered me. -
“Ah very well!” said he ; “it
is you who — fu — fu — you who
have nearly killed my—fu — fu —
You regret it; very well—fu—fu—
An absurd quarrel, very unfortunate,
very unfortunate | But what could
he do A soldier — fu – fu — is
obliged to be hasty, and you had
taken away his — fu — fu — his
mistress — ”
I felt that the blood mounted to
my head, and that I was ready to
quarrel with the Baron for having
believed, and persisting in believing,
his brother's impudent lie.
“How is he 3’ I broke in precipi-
}
tately ; “I have nothing else to hear;
do you hope to save him 2 °
“Yes, yes, fu — fu — we have
hopes.”
“Ah well, when he is recovered,
have the kindness to tell him that
I did not wish to quit the country,
without leaving him my address,
in case he should wish to repeat
it.” • , ,
And I gave him the name and
address of my father, which he took
and examined with a stupid air,
saying: “Repeat it 2– but no —
Why Z repeat it with whom ? Law-
rence, fu — fu — nurseryman and
kitchen-gardener, that is not you ?”
“It is my father l’’
“You are not a gentleman, then 2
They said fu—fu — that you were
of good family l’ -
“I am of good family, with all
deference to you.”
“Then, – don't understand —”
And his stupefaction found vent
in a humming so prolonged, that I
profited by it to shrug my shoulders
and retire. . -
Before the door I encountered one
of the lieutenants who had been my
accomplice at the regatta, and he
detained me to chat about my duel
for quarter of an hour. I was on
the point of leaving him, having
bidden him adieu, when we heard a
strange and mysterious duet issue
from the apartment on the ground-
floor; it was the whistling of two
persons, who seemed to repeat a
lesson, sometimes replying to each
other, and sometimes joining in Con-
Cert.
“The Captain is out of danger,”
said the young officer to me; “he
A ROLLING STONE.
71
whistles with his brother; I recog-
nize his fu fu.”
“How you are sure ? Day be-
fore yesterday he was as good as
dead, and to-day he hums ?”
“It is even so. When he was
three quarters dead he whistled
mentally, I'll be bound; and when
he is really dead he will whistle in
etermity.”
“But in his present condition his
idiot of a brother, instead of exciting
him, ought to keep him quiet !”
“If you believe that either of them
knows what he is about, you attrib-
ute more sense to them than they
ever had. This muffled imitation of
a flute, this collection of musical
scraps, has been given them by
Providence, to conceal from their
own eyes, and to reveal to those of
others, the absolute emptiness of
their minds.”
It was thus that I separated from
the Vachard whom I had run through,
but who has never sought his re-
venge.
Now, monsieur, I shall soon ar-
rive at the principal events of my
recital, and I will pass over in si-
lence that mass of adventures, disa-
greeable or ludicrous, which occur
daily in the life of travellers, in that
of actors more particularly. Of all
nomads, we observe the closest and
laugh the most at human life, be-
cause we seek everywhere for types
to reproduce and exaggerate. Every
ridiculous or eccentric person is a
model who unwittingly poses for
us. Comedians find an ample and
continual harvest to reap. Serious
actors, CSpecially the lovers, are less
ifavored. They can study manner,
expression, costume, and accent ; but
they very seldom have an opportu-
nity (if they ever have it) of Seeing
acted and of hearing spoken the
passion which they desire to express
with charm or energy. One circum-
stance in their favor, however, is that
they are generally endowed with
very little intelligence, and are con-
tent with attitudes and intonations
stereotyped and learned by heart.
Unfortunately for me, I had a little
good sense and reflection, and I
found this fashion of speaking like
everybody else a mere jugglery of
all serious work and true inspiration.
I told my trouble to Bellamare.
“You are right,” he answered; “I
can only teach you the notes with
which one can repeat his playing,
when he cannot grasp the chord.
Each person should express accord-
ing to his own nature, and the great
artists are those who are all powerful
in themselves. Know yourself, try
yourself, and risk yourself.”
I made vain efforts. I was filled
with passion, but I could express it
on the stage no more than in real
life. This necessity of concealing
love from her who inspired it was,
perhaps, too great a sacrifice of my
will, too great a sacrifice of my-
self. I could not find in fiction the
accent which my inmost emotion
wanted. At Beaugency, where I
made my second essay, I did not re-
gain the spirit which had animated
me at Orleans, on the day of my
duel. I was, according to my com—
rades, very good, that is to say,
according to myself, very mediocre.
I had improved in one respect, how-
ever, I had rid myself of the air
72
A ROLLING STONE.
of impertinence or ennui. I acted
suitably; if my rôle had a shade of
timidity, I rendered it naturally; in
short, I had found the air which be-
came my age and my character. I
had grown supportable, but I must
remain insignificant ; and the worst
of the matter, was that Bellamare
was satisfied with it, and all my com-
panions sided with him. They loved
me ; they had begun to love me too
well, to ask me only to stay with
them, and not to see my faults.
This was also Impéria's frame of
mind. I was too handsome, she de-
clared, to displease the public. I was
too good and too amiable for the com-
pany to be able to dispense with me.
As to the present, my object was
attained. I had dreamed only of
living near her, without being disa-
greeable to her; but as regarded the
future, I saw not the slightest pros-
pect of the fortune or renown which
would have permitted me to aspire
to be her support, and I must live
on, from day to day, very gay, very
spoiled, very happy, and at heart
very hopeless.
On leaving Beaugency a very ro-
mantic adventure happened to me,
which left its trace upon my life. I
can relate it to you, without Com-
promising any one, as you will see.
We were to go on to Tours, with-
out stopping at Blois, where another
company was in operation at that
time. Léon asked Bellamare if he
was willing to leave him in that
town for a day or two. He had a
friend there, who urged him to spend
twenty-four hours with him. Bella-
mare replied that he could refuse
nothing to so devoted a pensionnaire,
and that, besides, he also counted on
stopping at Blois. Impéria asked to
pass the night at the hotel, to take
care of Anna, who had found herself
quite seriously indisposed on leaving
Beaugency, and needed a little rest.
The remainder of the troupe con-
tinued on their way toward Tours,
under the direction of Moranbois.
Bellamare installed himself with the
two young actresses, in a hotel of the
lower town; and Léon insisted on my
taking up my quarters with him at
the house of his friend, who would
be pleased to know me and to enter-
tain me. I accepted on condition
that I should go there after the per-
formance, and that he should not pre-
sent me to his friend until the next
morning; Bellamare had allowed me
also twenty-four hours' leisure.
“Do not stand on ceremony,” Léon
said to me; “my friend is a bache-
lor, and you will be perfectly free at
his house. At any hour of the night
that you present yourself with your
valise, the concierge will admit you
and show you to your room. I will
warn him, and he will expect you
without waiting for you.”
He gave me the address, and some
directions, after which he left me.
I was curious to see the acting of
the troupe that occupied the town,
and to know if other provincial lov-
ers were better or worse than I.
They were worse, which was little
consolation. During the perform-
ance a fearful storm swept over the
town, and it was still raining in
torrents when we left the theatre
amid a great confusion of carriages
and umbrellas.
In the lobby of the theatre I met
A ROLLING STONE,
73
a young artist whom I had known
Somewhat at Paris, and who took me
to a neighboring café to await the
end of the shower. He even offered
to share his room with me, which
was very near the theatre, and tried
to dissuade me from seeking my
lodging in the old town behind the
hill, in the lost quarters, as he said,
where it would be very difficult to
direct me. I feared lest Léon, de-
spite his promise, had taken the
trouble to await me, and, as soon as
the sky had grown a little clearer, I
hastened in search of No. 23 of the
street specified, whose name, with
your permission, I will not speak.
I was indeed compelled to search
for some time, to ascend I know not
how many perpendicular flights of
steps, to descend several others, and
find my way at random in the pic-
turesque, narrow, Sombre, and com-
pletely deserted streets. The clock
on an old church was striking one in
the morning, when I at last ascer-
tained that I was in the wished-for
street, before the door of No. 23.
Was it really 23 * Was it not 25
I was about to ring, when a wicket
was opened as if some one had heard
me coming. Some one looked out at
me ; the door also was opened, and
an old servant, whose face even I
did not see, asked me, in a low voice,
“Is it you?”
“It is I, certainly,” I replied; “the
friend whom they expect.”
“Hush hush l’ she answered ;
“follow me.”
I thought that everybody was
asleep, or that there was some one
sick in the house, and I followed my
guide on tiptoe. She wore list shoes,
and walked like a phantom, her face
veiled by her white cap. I ascended
after her a winding staircase of the
renaissance style, dimly lighted by
a night-lamp, but seemingly of ex-
quisite workmanship. I was in one
of those ancient, well-preserved houses
which form the interest and orna-
ment of provincial towns, – of Blois
in particular. At the first landing
the old woman paused, opened a door
with a delicately wrought lock, and
said to me, “Enter, and above all do
not go out.” &
“Never ?” said I, laughing.
“Hush hush ' " she replied with
a fearful tone, placing one finger on
her lips.
Then I saw her pale and austere
face, which appeared fantastic to me,
and which faded into the shadow of
the staircase like a dream.
“Evidently,” thought I, “there is
in this charming mansion a person
at the point of death. This will not
be cheerful, but perhaps I may be of
Some assistance to Léon at this pain-
ful moment.”
And I penetrated into an apart-
ment delicious in form, carving, and
furniture. I reckoned on finding
Léon there. I stepped noiselessly
across an antechamber which pre-
ceded a delightful drawing-room, or
rather boudoir, where there was a
fire, an agreeable precaution in this
stormy weather, which had drenched
and chilled me; wax tapers burned
in the candelabra, two great arm-
chairs of rare design occupied the
chimney-corners; but their cushions
of Tours brocade, fresh and rounded,
did not indicate that any one had sat
there recently. The rich furniture,
74
A ROLLING STONE.
arranged with scrupulous care, had
the appearance of a residence long
unoccupied. The lustre flashed its
crystals discreetly, beneath a cover-
ing of silver gauze. The lace ruffles
and covers on the arm-chairs were
irreproachably white and stiff. Two
pretty glass cupboards containing,
one Chinese knick-knacks, the other
little ornaments of old Saxony ware,
were closed and locked. There was
a work-table, denoting a woman's so-
journ, whether transient or perma-
nent; but this piece of furniture was
empty, not a particle of thread or
silk remained attached to its velvet
lining.
At the back of the boudoir I saw
a tapestry curtain which faced the
chimney-piece, and which I lifted
cautiously. Nothing but obscurity
and silence. I took a taper, and
penetrated into the most delicious
sleeping-room that I had ever seen.
It was blue, all hung with azure silk
damask finished with fringes of white
silk. A bed, white and gold, with
fringed canopy and ample curtains
of the same color and material as the
hangings, Occupied, like a monument,
nearly one whole side of the cham-
ber, which was not large, but was
very lofty. Opposite the bed a
mantel-piece of white marble, em-
bossed with gilded copper, supported
a timepiece in the Louis XVI. style,
and of rare elegance ; candlesticks
with three branches, white and gold,
like the clock; and two white marble
Loves, which must have been the
work of Some quaint and skilful
master. A commode, a secretary,
and étageres of rosewood, with me-
dallions of old Sèvres, a little sofa of
Chinese satin, two or three arm-chairs
marvellously embroidered by hand,
a red-brown carpet, sprinkled over
with delicate sprays, a Venetian mir-
ror in its frame of diamonded flow-
ers, two large pastels representing
beautiful ladies, very décolletée, and
who had a right to be so ; I know
not what beside ; exquisite nothings
placed on all the brackets ; – all
marked the sleeping-room of a wo-
man, wealthy, artistic, fastidious, and
elegant, — voluptuous, perhaps.
When I had made the inventory
of this too comfortable asylum, I.
wondered if it had really been des-
tined for me, and if the old house-
keeper had not committed the mon-
strous blunder of introducing me there
in the place of some marchioness.
Then I remembered that Léon had
wealthy parents, that he had lived.
in the aristocratic world, and had
friends in high life, and that the one
whose hospitality I was receiving,
being a bachelor and independent,
there was nothing wonderful in his
having fitted up a fine apartment in
his elegant mansion for the use of
Some extravagant mistress, or some
person of higher station, who came
occasionally to his house for a mys-
terious rendezvous. -
But why the deuse had they thus
honored a poor strolling player,
drenched and muddy, who would,
have been contented with a cross-
bed in an attic, without descending,
from his usual habits 2 It seemed
to me like an ironical magnificence.
Had they no more modest lodging to
offer a modest visitor in this princely
house ? Was it the apartment es-
pecially designed for friends? In
A ROLLING STONE.
75
that case Léon should occupy it,
and I began to look about for a
second sleeping-room locked with
the same key.
There was none. I resolved to
install myself there gayly, convinced
that I should discover next day that
the housekeeper had lost her wits.
It was her affair, and not mine : I
was weary, I was cold, and my slight
wound was somewhat painful, and
my first astonishment giving place
to the need of rest and sleep, I seated
myself on the Sofa, touched a match
to the pile of kindlings heaped up in
the fireplace, and began to take off
my shoes, whose dusty-white prints
I was ashamed to leave upon the
Carpet. -
While regarding the reflection of
the bed in the Venetian mirror, in-
clined toward me, I noticed that the
silk counterpane had not been turned
back, and there was nothing to in-
dicate that this handsome couch was
not merely for Ornament. I raised
the folds of damask, and perceived
that there were neither sheets nor
blankets on the mattress of white
Satin. This made me consider again.
Evidently this luxurious lodging had
not been designed for me, or surely
there was a more modest bed some-
where within the reach of simple
mortals. In vain I sought for it.
Nothing in the dressing-closets; no
alcove hidden in the wall; nothing
to lie down on, unless the normal
occupant of the blue room was a tiny
lady capable of compressing herself
within the limits of the little Chinese
Satin sofa. But as I already measured
five feet five inches in height, there
was no hope for me, even if I occupied
the whole of it, and I resigned my-
Self, at first, to sleeping in a sitting
posture; but after five minutes I
was too warm, and stretched myself
out on the carpet, in the middle of
the chamber ; five minutes later I
was too cold. Decidedly, my scratch
made me a little feverish ; I found
that Léon's proffered hospitality was
a sorry jest, and forbidding me to
leave the apartment appeared to me
like the transparent stamp of a hoax.
Still, Léon was not facetious. So
absolute a silence reigned through-
out the house, that one would have
thought it deserted. The same si-
lence in the street. The moon now
fully lighted up this sloping road,
which descended in windings, bor-
dered by walls overhung by wide-
branched trees. The gardens were
interspersed here and there by hous-
es, which seemed to grow smaller
and smaller, by reason of the declivi-
ty; there was no chance at night to
distinguish between ancient hotels
and modern villas, our age not hav-
ing invented a characteristic archi-
tecture. -
I dared not open the window, for
I might still suppose that there was
the precious sleep of illness to be
regarded. But I saw very distinctly
through the blue glass, and the pic-
ture I contemplated received a fan-
tastic brightness from it, like that of
an operatic moonlight. There were
no shutters, the renaissance windows
being in prismatic cross-bars. The
lindens, all in blossom, lifted their
great round heads above the wall in
front; a little farther off, a vine-clad
arbor was supported by pilasters on
a terrace; on the right, a little struc-
76
A ROLLING STONE.
ture, which might be a porter's lodge,
resembled an antique tomb. I know
not why this empty, silent street,
with its low edifices, its elegant
forms, and its squares of greenery,
made me fancy how a suburb of
Pompeii or a part of Tusculum
must once have looked, seen in the
gray of the morning. As a distant
clock was striking half past one I
decided to roll myself in my trav-
elling-blanket, and stretch myself
upon the satin mattress, drawing over
me the vast counterpane, by which
means I found myself most comfort-
ably established, and fell speedily
into that agreeable wandering which
precedes a sweet sleep. -
It was the first time in my life
that I had occupied so rich and so
downy a couch ; it would probably
be the last; I was not sorry to inhale
the perfume of this elegant wealth
and refined taste. The fire continued
to crackle, and to cast great waves
of light over the pictures, furniture,
and ceiling, which last was painted
to simulate light clouds"upon a rosy
sky. Gradually the fire died down,
and clothed the whole with a soft and
luminous atmosphere, which must
have resembled the famous azure
grotto. I asked myself if the influ-
ence of some kindred association
might not have caused my dream.
I recalled the farm-house where I
had grown up; the great family-room
with rough beams for a ceiling,
whence hung clusters of shining
onions and scarlet tomatoes by way
of lustres; the walls covered with
stew-pans and basins of gleaming
copper; the noises which broke in
upon my first sleep; the rocking of
the children's cradles; the dogs that
barked in the court-yard, when the
oxen stirred in the stable, or when
a distant wagoner passed by, whose
heavy cart crushed the gravel in
regular cadence, and whose horses
walking with equal step made the
bells on their collars sing do fa do re
mi do. Again I saw my mother,
and the three poor children, younger
than myself, who died in the same
year; my father, still young, putting
me to bed, while my mother nursed
the last-born and drawing over my
face the great rough linen sheet,
which would prevent me from being
disturbed by flies that might be ear-
lier astir than I.
“Here,” thought I, “there are no
flies, but there are no sheets.” -
And I wondered naïvely if it was
the custom of grandees to do without
them. At every question that I asked
myself I felt the heaviness of sleep,
which replied with supreme uncon-
cern, “What matter ?” A clear and
silvery sound awoke me ; it was
the voice of a nightingale, perched
in the garden opposite, which came
to me through the glass and the cur-
tains with a slender ray of moonlight.
I said to myself that the bird, an
eloquent artist, without taking any
trouble, and without fear of failure,
a satisfied lover and accepted pro-
tector, was happier on his branch
than I upon the satin and the down;
and I slept again profoundly, so pro-
foundly that I did not hear some one
enter the next room, and was aroused
only by a noise of tongs with which
the drawing-room fire was being
stirred.
Some sudden insight restrained
A ROLLING STONE.
77
me from calling out, “Léon, is it
you ?” Had I slept long 2 My fire
was burned out; the moon now shone
before my window, one of whose
curtains I had left a little raised. I
sprang up and walked noiselessly to
the tapestry door, which separated
me from the boudoir, and which I
drew aside a hair's breadth to take
a cautious survey. My anticipation
was realized. A woman of elegant
appearance, richly dressed in black,
and wearing a lace veil, had taken
possession of the apartment. Was it
the marchioness of my expectations 2
It was impossible for me to see her
face, which was turned aside from
the mantel-piece, and was not re-
flected by the mirror, placed very
high, to agree with its surroundings;
but through the black lace I distin-
guished a head of splendid blond
hair, and a magnificent neck. The
figure was supple, slight without be-
ing fragile, the movements youthful,
confident, and graceful. I perceived
all this, for she raised her arm to ex-
tinguish the tapers, still burning in
the candelabra ; she drew one arm-
chair from the chimney-corner,
brought the other nearer, and put a
cushion under her feet. The only
illumination now was that of a sin-
gle taper, overshadowed by a little
blue capital. She seated herself with
a weary air, and disappeared in the
depths of the great arm-chair, leav-
ing in sight only the silhouette of
her charming foot before the fire.
A little Russia leather bag and a
large travelling-wrap of English wa-
terproof cloth were placed on the
round table. No other package, no
Waiting-maid, no member of the
household, taking the trouble to re-
ceive her. Evidently, it was an in-
timate friend, with whom they used
no ceremony, to whom they had said
as to me, “Come when you please,
you will trouble no one, and no one
will trouble himself.” Some near
relative of the master, a sister per-
haps ? A mistress; certainly not, he
would not have left her alone.
Whoever she was, she was there,
she was cold, she followed my ex-
ample and warmed herself before
going to bed. What would she
think of that bed without sheets or
blankets, which had puzzled me so
much 3 That was not my concern;
but what caused me a very serious
perplexity was the other surprise
that awaited her, — that of finding a
previous occupant in this blue cham-
ber on which she seemed to count
implicitly, since she did not take the
pains to examine it in advance, as I
had done. -
One does not think to profit by
such a situation when one is twenty,
and bears with him all the bashful-
ness and modesty of an ideal love.
I felt only dread of the approaching
Scene ; the shrieks of the woman be-
lieving in an ambush, the absurdity
of my apparent boldness, the arous-
ing of my host, hastening in the di-
rection of her cries, the laughter or
reproaches, who could tell ? A ridic-
ulous situation for me, painful for
the lady, embarrassing for the master
of the house. In an instant I turned
over in my dizzy head all the means
of escaping without exposure; to
retreat by the window was danger-
ous, but possible ; only it must be
opened, this window, and the lady
78
A ROLLING STONE.
would cry, “Thieves 1” It would be
still worse if I concealed myself un-
der the bed or in the curtains. I
had had leisure to ascertain that
there was no egress from the dress-
ing-closet. I could arrive at only
one decision, which was to show my-
self at once, and explain all immedi-
ately, hastening to yield the place to
her. This was what I was about to
do, and was preparing for it, when the
lady started at the sound of a foot-
step coming from the anteroom, and
ran to meet the new arrival. I prof-
ited by this diversion to rearrange
the bed, to take my travelling-bag
and blanket, and put on my shoes
again, that I might not be surprised
in the very act of house-breaking.
I had not yet finished these speedy
preparations, and was still seated on
the sofa, drawing on my boots with
a nervous hand, when I heard in the
boudoir the sound of a voice too pe-
culiar to leave me in doubt for a mo- ||
ment ; it was the voice of Bellamare.
While complicating the problem still
further, this unlooked-for circum-
stance reassured me. The lady, not
finding herself alone with me, would
have no fear, and on my side, I
knew that Bellamare would explain ||
my presence so quickly and so well,
that there would not be a moment's
suspicion of the purity of my inten-
tions. Besides, who knew if this
person meant to stay, and if this
were not merely a business appoint-
ment 2 Theatrical affairs are some-
times conducted with the most cau-
tious secrecy. I resolved to await
the end of the overture and not to
listen ; but the silence about us was
so profound, and the wainscoted
boudoir so resonant, that, in spite of
the care the lady took to subdue her
voice, it was impossible for me to
lose a word of the dialogue, which I
will try to give you, word for word.
“You were admitted without hav-
ing to wait, were you not, Monsieur
Bellamare ?” . .
“And without being questioned;
yes, madame, with the recommenda-
tion not to make a noise.”
“Yes, on account of the next
house, No. 23, which is occupied at
present.” .
“I know it. Two of my actors are
staying there.”
“Two 2 a.h heavens ! who 2 ”
“I presume that you know neither
of them.” -
“I know them all. I have fol-
lowed your performances to Orleans
and Beaugency. Is it M. Léon
“Yes, madame, Léon and Law-
rence.”
“What a singular coincidence I
am so confused — I do not know if
I shall have the courage to tell you,
now— Heavens ! how extraordinary
my conduct must seem to you !
What an opinion you must have of
me !” -
“I am a man who has seen so
many extraordinary things, that he
has ceased to be astonished at any-
thing; and as to my opinion, it ought
not to disturb you. I have not the
honor of your acquaintance; I know
neither your name nor your condi-
tion, neither your country nor your
residence, since you are not at home
here; neither your age nor your face,
since you conceal it from me by a
veil. I understood perfectly that it
concerned an affair of the heart, and
A ROLLING STONE.
79
did not for a moment suppose you
were enamored of my forty years and
sunburned visage. Your letter was
urgent and charming. I am kind-
hearted and obliging; I came. You
have requested Secrecy; I make a
point of justifying your confidence.
So I am here at your service; speak;
come to the point, without fear. The
nights are short at this season ; lose
no time, if you fear to be seen on
leaving the house.”
“You seem so good to me, and I
know you to be so delicate, that I
will take courage. I love a young
man who is a member of your troupe.”
“Lawrence or Léon 2."
“Lawrence.”
“He deserves to be loved ; he is a
brave and worthy fellow.”
“I know it ; I have obtained all
the information possible about him.
I witnessed his début : he pleased
me. He did not display his talent
to advantage that evening; he was
confused. His face awoke my sym-
pathy; his voice went to my heart.
Another evening I saw him again,
and he was admirable ; he made me
tremble and weep. I felt that I loved
him madly; but this secret would
never have left my heart, had it not
been for the events which followed
this performance.”
“The duel with Captain Wa-
chard 2"
“Precisely. I know this Wa-
chard : he wished to address me; he
was ill received, for he was inexpres-
sibly disagreeable to me. Wounded
by the bluntness of my refusal, he
slandered me. It is his habit; he
is a dishonorable man. He then be-
came odious to me, although he had
done me no injury. My life is with-
out reproach, I might even say with-
out emotion, and no one who knew
me credited his falsehoods; but the
men of the present day have lost the
chivalric instinct; and among those
who were my natural defenders there
was not one who dared Say to this
soldier, “You have lied " The les-
son he deserved must needs be given
him in connection with another wo-
man, an actress, and by a very young
man. I resolved, from that moment,
to struggle no longer against the pas-
sion with which the artist had in-
spired me, and to make his fortune
and his happiness, – if he would con-
sent l”
“The deuse ! ‘fortune and happi-
ness’; when one can unite those
two extremes, one always con-
sents l’’
“Stay ! It was not for me that he
fought. I have been informed of all
the particulars; it was for a com-
rade, for this charming Impéria,
with whom I should be in love,
were I a man, and whom I have
applauded since then just the same,
and with all my heart. I am good-
natured, and I know how to be just.
If these young people love each oth-
er, as it is very possible and very
natural to suppose, keep my Secret.
I have told you nothing; and as for
me, I will be resigned; I will con-
quer myself; I will have hoped
nothing, felt nothing; but if, as some
say, there is absolutely nothing be-
tween them, if Lawrence merely
wished to make the dignity of the
artist respected in her, you who
must know the truth, you whose
character and reputation are of the
80
A ROLLING STONE. .
greatest weight in my eyes, you will
reassure me, and assist me in mak-
ing myself known.”
“The last version is the true one.
Impéria is a person of perfect purity,
and even somewhat shy. She con-
fides in me as if I were her father.
If Lawrence had spoken of love to
her, and if she had loved him, she
would have taken me for confidant
and adviser. If he had spoken of
love to her, and she had not re-
sponded to it, she would, perhaps,
have concealed it from me; but she
would have treated him with cold-
ness and distrust, whereas I see a
peaceful and lively friendship exist-
ing between them.”
“You are sure, then, that he does
not love her ?” -
“I think I may be sure of it. I
can ascertain by observing him,
without saying anything, or by ques-
tioning him in your behalf.”
“In my behalf? O no, certain-
ly not yet ! You must first know
who I am. I am twenty-four years
old; I am the daughter of an artist
who left me some fortune ; I mar-
ried a man of rank who had none,
who did not make me happy, and
who left me a widow at nineteen. I
went to live with my father again,
who also died, last year, leaving me
alone in the world, and since then I
have lived in retirement. I am still
in mourning. I adored my father,
and swore that if I ever married
again, I would wed an artist, and
that I would marry only for love. I
have the right; I have the means, as
they say, vulgarly; I have twenty
thousand francs a year, and all the
elegant comfort that my father knew
how to create for himself. My hus-
band did not have time to squander
my dowry. So I can choose, and I
have chosen. It is for you to learn
if I am worthy of being happy and
capable of being loved. Ascertain;
my name and address are on this
card. I fear no inquiries. As for
my person, you must judge of that,
also ; I remove my veil.”
At this word, without thinking of
my situation, I sprang from the sofa,
which creaked feebly, and would
have betrayed my presence, if a
quick exclamation from Bellamare
had not covered this slight noise.
“Ah my Lady Countess,” cried
he, after having glanced at the card,
probably, “you are as beautiful as
Lawrence is handsome, and you
would be very wrong to doubt your
omnipotence.”
I was behind the curtain ; I tried
to draw it aside ; my hand trem-
bled; when I succeeded in ventur-
ing a peep, it was too late ; the
accursed black veil, cruelly thick,
was replaced upon the head and
shoulders of my Galatea. I stayed
there, not daring to look longer, for,
if her back was turned to me, Bella-
mare, seated in the corner opposite,
was so situated that he could see
the tapestry move. So, standing as
if petrified, I heard the remainder
of the dialogue.
“I am glad that my face pleases
you, Monsieur Bellamare ; you will
tell him, when the time comes, that
I am not ugly.”
“O the deuse !” replied Bellamare,
naïvely, well knowing that the spon-
taneous expression of conviction nev-
er offends a woman; “you are dis-
A ROLLING STONE.
81
tractingly beautiful! Come! I will
do what you wish. I will make
inquiries cautiously.”
“Yes, very cautiously, but very
conscientiously, I insist upon it; and
when you are convinced that I am
a serious person, who, after much
ennui, reason, and virtue, has admit-
ted into her heart and head a lively
affection and a noble folly, you will
help me to make my hand accepted
by him whom I have chosen for my
husband.” *
“You know that Lawrence is at
most but one-and-twenty ?”
“I know it.” *
“That his father is a peasant 2"
“I know it.”
“That he loves the theatre pas-
sionately 3" -
“I know it.”
“Very well. I cannot tell you that
your choice is reasonable, according
to the world; you have, yourself,
passed sentence on it and judged it;
you must have foreseen what the
world will say about it 3"
“Perfectly; do you blame me !”
“I blame love, devotion, courage,
and unselfishness On the contrary,
I should like to kneel before you,
madame, and even to tell you that,
in my opinion, you have taken the
path of wisdom. I have always seen
that what is commonly called so
leads to deception and regret ; but
here is the daylight, I believe, and
I should do well to withdraw —”
“No, no | Monsieur Bellamare, it is
I who must retreat very quickly, for
I wish to take the train that leaves
in an hour.” Q
“Do you go to Tours?”
“No, I shall follow you no longer
*
in your journey. Now that my
mind is at rest, I shall wait, at my
country house, until you write to me
and tell me: “I have gained the
information you desire ; Lawrence's
heart is entirely free ; it is time to
act.’ Then, in whatever place you
may be, you will see me arrive.
Adieu, and Heaven bless you for the
good that you have done me. I leave
in your hands the care of my honor
and my pride. I have your word,
Lawrence shall know nothing?”
“I swear it.”
“Farewell again. I am going
away by the gardens behind the
house. This house belongs to a
friend of mine who is travelling, and
must know nothing. A Worthy Wo-
man, who was destitute, and whom I
have had installed as guardian here,
will come directly to let you out.
She is entirely devoted to me, and
will not betray me.”
Bellamare conducted the Countess
to the door of the anteroom. When
he returned to the boudoir he started
with surprise on seeing me seated in
the place he had just left.
III.
“With your permission,” said Law-
rence, “I will interrupt my story for
a while. If it has not wearied you, I
can continue it, with as much exact-
ness and sincerity as I have suc-
ceeded in doing up to this point.
My reminiscences are very fresh,
because they were very simple, and
recurred to an exclusive preoccu-
pation. After the adventure of the
blue room, this preoccupation was
divided, and I need to find the clew
82
A ROLLING STONE.
to the labyrinth, in which I was, for
a long time, lost.”
“That is to say,” I remarked to
Lawrence, “that you loved the beau-
tiful Countess and the charming ac-
tress at the same time !”
“Yes and no, no and yes; perhaps,
how do I know 2 You will assist me
to read my feelings clearly. Would
you like to walk a little way ? I
am not used to remaining so in one
place, and thinking so long about
myself.”
“Let us return to the town,” said
I; “share my dinner, and we will
resume your recital this evening, or
to-morrow, if you please.”
He accepted, but on condition that
I should go to his father's house with
him, as he had not seen him during
the day, and feared lest he might be
anxious about him. We descended
the mountain quickly, and, following
the rapid course of the Volpie, we
were soon upon the plain. Lawrence
took me straight across the magnifi-
cent meadows, to the faubourg of the
town, which was not much more
squalid and ugly than the town
itself. Between two stately walls
of manure, we reached the house and
grounds of Father Lawrence, which
had nothing poetical about them, I
assure you. The absence of any wo-
man was perceptible in all the details
of the yard and the interior, for one
could not apply the name of woman
to the old virago who was performing
her household labors, while giving an
occasional glance or turn to the pot
upon the fire. The garden alone
was well kept, and we found the
elder Lawrence there engaged in
digging a bed. He was a man of
seventy, well preserved and remark-
ably handsome, but without expres-
sion and deaf as a post. He could
exchange with his son alone the few
ideas he seemed to have, for Law–
rence replied to all his questions
without raising his voice, and ac-
Companying his words with a some-
What mysterious pantomime arranged
between them. He understood that
I was a friendly visitor, and that I
should feel much interest in his veg-
etables, for he did not spare me the
description of a single root, and relat-
ed minutely, in an incomprehensible
patois, the story of all his horticultu-
ral essays. Unable to communicate
my impressions to him, I bore the
infliction patiently, seeing Lawrence
Catch up the Spade, and hastily com-
plete the bed begun by his father.
“You must pardon me,” he said,
“I had not done my task to-day,
and my poor old man would have
worked too much, for he never com-
plains, and often punishes me by
doing double duty.”
I asked him if this was an abso-
lute necessity.
“No,” he replied, “we have enough
to live on, without fatiguing our-
selves; but my father has a passion
for the ground, and if he gave it a
moment's rest, he would think that
he had committed a crime towards
it. He is a genuine peasant, as you
see, and outside his garden the world
does not exist. The manure that we
heap up around us is the horizon by
which his thought is bounded, and
within it are enclosed treasures of
activity, patience, practical intelli-
gence, prudence, and resignation. If
you passed a day with him, you
A ROLLING STONE. 83
would love him in spite of yourself.
He has every virtue, –gentleness,
chastity, charity, self-sacrifice. He
does not understand what I have re-
linquished in returning to share his
life; but if it were necessary to make
a greater sacrifice for me, he would
not hesitate. In short, monsieur, I
respect and love him with all my
heart. I was very glad to show you
his handsome face, and tell you what
I think of him, before resuming my
story. It is a good hour yet before
you dine. We shall be quiet here, it
is the day after the wedding, and all
my companions are fatigued. I will
conduct you to my tiny oasis, for I
have one which consoles me for the
monotony of my occupations and my
habitation.”
He led the way to the back of the
enclosure, which was spread out, in a
gentle slope, upon the side of the hill,
and was surrounded by walls high
enough to intercept the view.
“Formerly, our enclosure was
charming,” said Lawrence to me;
“it commanded an admirable country,
and when, on returning from my last
absence, my father proudly showed
me this rampart that converted it
into a tomb, Saying, “I hope that
you will enjoy yourself here now,' I
was seized with a frightful chagrin;
but he was so proud of his enclosure
and his young fruit-trees, that I said
nothing; only, I reserved for myself
the part you are about to see, — a
bit of earth the size of a pocket-
handkerchief, but which is my de-
light, because nothing in it has been
touched and spoiled.”
He opened a little gate, whose key
he had about him, and we found our-
selves upon a narrow strip of uncul-
tivated ground which was supported
by a bank of great rocks.
“This is only the upper part,” he
said, when I had admired the view;
“I possess the lower portion also.
Descend a little cautiously.”
He disappeared between two blocks
of stone; I followed him, and we de-
scended perpendicularly from projec-
tion to projection, till we reached a
little torrent which glided along a
rocky channel, without other noise
than a mysterious murmuring. We
were in a sort of natural oval well,
for at the two extremities the rock
united in such a way that it formed
an arch above the running water,
and the margin of the excavation
was covered with a charming vegeta-
tion. The soil of the kitchen garden
probably oozed through its walls, and
the rains carried thither, in spite of
the partition, the choicest of its earth
and seeds, for the cultivated plants
were intermingled there with the
wild flora which had attained un-
wonted proportions. In the bottom,
the Spicy arum, the elegant papyrus,
the wonderfully graceful cotton-aster
intertwined themselves, or grew side
by side, with water-plantains, cal-
trops, water-lilies, and alimas, which
had sprung up of their own free will
in a limpid pool, a sort of spring or
drainage of the land, placed like a
moveless diamond a little above the
bed of the running stream.
The whole extent was extremely
limited, but of considerable depth,
and nature had embellished it with
so much beauty and luxuriance that
I was charmed.
“I call this my Lethe,” said Law-
84
A ROLLING STONE.
rence; “it is a gulf of flowers, rocks,
moss, and wild plants, where I come
to forget the past, when it tortures
me too much. I lose myself in the
contemplation of a cluster of wild
roses, or a tuft of grass, and I imagine
that I have never lived otherwise
than as the stones and leaves; they
are happy as possible, living in their
natural state, and not tormented in
their passive existence. Why should
not I be as glad as they, I, who in
addition, possess the faculty of know-
ing my happiness % But I cannot
long remain so ; I feel that while my
will says Yes, the cowardly tears that
fall upon my idle hands say No 1"
“Then let us not remain here. Do
not relate your sorrows here ; per-
haps they would destroy forever the
virtue of your Lethe.”
“Who knows? perhaps it will
produce the opposite effect. The
thoughts we strive to banish always
return most obstinately. Stay; to-
morrow I may not have the courage
to continue my story, and I know
that you must leave us at an early |
day. Let us swallow the bitter bev-
erage at one draught !”
And the gardener's son, having
washed his earth-stained hands in
the stream, thus resumed the history
of his dramatic life.
CONTINUATION OF THE STORY
OF A ROLLING STONE.
THE SHIPWRECK.
I left you in the boudoir attached
to the blue room, Bellamare returning
for his hat, myself issuing from be-
hind the tapestry curtain, and appear-
ing to him like the statue of the
Commander.
He was surprised, uneasy, dis-
turbed; these emotions passed rapid-
ly over his expressive countenance,
and resolved themselves irresistibly
into an immense burst of laughter.
“You understand,” said I, “that
I came here firmly persuaded that
I was entering No. 23; I was im-
prisoned; I understood nothing; I
slept — ”
“And you heard nothing 2* .
“I heard everything. I saw the
lady, but with her veil down; I
guessed at the figure, I could not
see the face.” -
“So much the worse for you, -
a marvel ! a blond Fornarina, l’
“You are enamored of her, my
dear manager ?” *
“Disinterestedly enamored.”
“You would not marry her ?”
“Certainly not.”
“Why?”
“You do not know, then, that I
am already married ?”
“On my honor, no.”
“I am, and charmed to be so, be-
cause if I were not I might perhaps
have a fancy for marriage, and meet
with even worse luck.” .
“Your wife — ”
“Is at the devil, I don’t know
where; but we have nothing to do
with her. I am charged to Sound
you cautiously. Fate laughs at the
precautions of the adorable Countess.
Now I have only to question you,
but not in this house, which is nei-
ther ours nor hers. I know you to
be honorable, I have no need to
recommend silence. Let us go out
quietly, and do not visit the next
A ROLLING STONE,
85
house now. Come to my hotel:
we will talk of the matter on Our
way.”
The old woman who let us out
testified no curiosity, said not a word
to us, and closed the door noiselessly.
When we had gone far enough not to
disturb the stillness of this mysteri-
ous street into which the daylight
began to steal, Bellamare said to me:
“Ah well, here is a pretty début in
your love career I can tell you
nothing; since you know all, my
commission is at an end. It remains
for you to consider, and ask yourself
if you are willing that this first ad-
venture of your life should be the
last one ; for that is the lady's inten-
tion, and she has a right to demand
it. What answer shall I give her ?”
“You would do better to advise
me than to question me,” said I; “I
cannot be in love with a woman
whom I have not seen, and I am so
surprised and confused, that I have
not an idea in my head. What
should you think in my place 7"
“Shall I tell you how I reasoned,
under similar circumstances ! ”
“Yes, I beg you will do so.”
“I was young, and no handsomer
than I am now, but passionately fond
of women, and women are always at-
tracted by these earnest natures. So
I had a very fair success, but a suc-
cess as peculiar as my face and mind.
An English lady possessed of mil-
lions, whose niece I had saved from
drowning, in a passage across Lake
Geneva, fancied that she loved me,
and wished to be loved in return.
I asked nothing better, although I
should have preferred the niece; but
the niece, with the eyes of fifteen,
thought me very ugly, and the aunt,
who had somewhat passed her thirti-
eth year, wished to bind and enrich
me by marriage. I shunned the
question as much as possible; but
when I saw that she clung to it with
the obstinacy that these islanders
display in their eccentricities, I
packed my portmanteau, and slipped
off, in the early dawn, from the gar-
dens of Armida. I never heard of
my lady afterward, who was, for all
that, a handsome and amiable crea-
ture ; and I preferred to wed a lit-
tle Columbine, of whom I was enam-
ored, but who forsook me for a Lindor
from Toulouse, who used to say to
the dresser when going on the stage,
Dómez-moi mes bötes mêles. I was
very wrong to marry this dancer, but
I was very right in preferring her to
the virtuous and romantic English-
woman. Columbine, by regaining
her liberty, did not deprive me of
mine. By preferring an ass to me,
she did not take away my mind; in
short, by appreciating neither my
talent nor my heart, she has left in-
tact my heart and my talent.”
“I understand,” said I; “a wo—
man who had given you fortune and
respectability would have exercised
over you morally a right of life and
death.”
“And the more sweetness she dis-
played in monopolizing and subdu-
ing me, the more fettered and en-
slaved I should feel, because I am,
like you, kind and loyal ; but how
unhappy I should have been in the
padded cage of social observance
A comic actor who is not as absurd
in his private life as on the boards
soon turns to melancholy and Sui-
86
A ROLLING STONE.
cide. In short, I have rejected
wealth, and more than once under
other forms than that of marriage.
I never would have chains. Every-
body thinks that I have been wrong;
but as for me, I justify myself, be-
cause I still feel young and joyous.
Do not tell me your opinion as far
as I am concerned ; that is of no
use; think of your own particular
case. You are handsome, and not a
comedian. The person whose heart
you have gained appears as serious-
ly in love as possible; you are not
yet sufficiently launched in the the-
atrical life to leave it with ineffacea-
ble regret. Perhaps you are ambitious
without knowing it, and capable of
playing your part upon the stage of
real life. If it be so, marry, my
dear boy, marry ! Iife is a hillside ;
it is the destiny of some to descend
into the plains, where gold and wheat
abound ; of others to ascend to the
sterile rocks, where they reap only
the wind and the clouds. Put your
mind through a course of gymnas-
tics; you will see whether it is light
or heavy, if it inclines toward the
practical or lets itself be blown
away by the idle breeze. And on
this, let us go and take a nap.”
I followed him without replying,
uncertain and weary. I threw my-
self upon a bed, and found no escape
from my perplexities.
Bellamare slept for several hours,
and then prepared to leave with Im-
péria and Anna, who was entirely
recovered.
“I leave you here, free until to-
morrow,” he said to me; “go find
Léon and see the lions of the city
with him. And you can even ask
his advice, without mentioning No.
25 to him, and without giving him
any particular, any hint, which might
chance to lead him to guess the per-
Son afterwards. For the rest, Léon
is as Safe as myself; he is a serious
young man, a mind of lofty temper.
His opinion ought to have more
weight with you than mine.”
“Will you not tell me the name
of the Countess.”
“Never, unless she authorizes me
to do so. At present, I am charged,
if you remember, to ascertain if your
heart is free. Is it, yes or no 2 °
At that moment Impéria came
out of her room, carrying her little
Carpet-bag, all worn and faded, and
gathering together the folds of her
small travelling-cloak, to cover up
her dress, frayed at the armholes.
The contrast of this modest poverty
with the opulence of the lady whom
I had caught a glimpse of through
her rich laces occurred to me like a
revelation of my true instinct. Was
I ambitious ! Was I susceptible to
the spell of luxury, so dazzling to
eyes not wont to view it 2 Was
poverty repugnant to me ! Could
my imagination conceive of an en-
joyment of riches capable of making
me forget the cherished image of my
little comrade 2 My soul cried no
with all its might and all its spon-
taneity. -
“Ah well,” continued Bellamare
in a low voice, “I ask if your heart
is free ? Are you deaf 2 °
“Upon my word,” I answered in
an undertone, “the Countess is too
curious.” * w
Bellamare took me by the arm,
withdrew me two or three steps from
A ROLLING STONE.
87
Impéria, and said to me, “If you
Care for this one, you cannot care for
the other ?” 4.
I dared not impart my secret to
Bellamare. I dreaded too much lest
he should oppose me. I replied that
I was free in every way, and that I
should consider twice before renoun-
cing so great an advantage.
“You will rejoin us to-morrow at
Tours ?” said Impéria, as she was
entering the railway carriage ; “re-
member that without you and Léon
we shall not dare to take a step.”
“Have you not the others and the
dear manager ?”
“The dear manager will be too
busy with the general installations,
and the others are very nice, but they
are not you. Adieu ! amuse yourself
well, and do not forget us.”
She departed, regarding me with
so purely affectionate an expression,
that the emotion of the blue room
appeared like an empty dream. One
would have said Impéria had divined
my situation, and I persuaded my-
self that her eyes said to me, “Do
not love any other than me.”
I did not speak of these things to
Léon. Since I was no longer unde-
cided, I had no reason to consult
him. I talked to him only of him-
self. His friend of No. 23 was a
scion of good family, serious and
well informed enough for a man of
leisure. We visited the castle of
Blois together, whose history he
related to us, interspersed with in-
teresting details. That evening he
invited us to spend with him, and
have a cosey chat over our punch
and excellent cigars. It was in this
quiet conversation that I understood,
for the first time, the mysterious pre-
occupation of Léon.
Léon was no longer a boy: he was
thirty-two; he had lived much and
learned much in living. His ruling
passion had always been the stage.
He loved all its fictions, and accepted
none of its realities. It was the
spirit, and not the letter, that sus-
tained him. He loved all his rôles,
inasmuch as he completed them in
his mind; and, very careful as to his
exterior costume and make-up, he
always went upon the stage per-
suaded that he was the character he
was representing ; but, at the same
time, he detested all his rôles, be-
cause he did not find them conceived
or written in his spirit. In short, he
was too much a master to be a vir-
tuoso, too literary to be a performer ;
and inwardly he never ceased to re-
bel against his task, unwilling to
renounce it, however, and unable to
think of anything but his dear and
odious profession.
He wrote, as I have told you, and I
was always convinced, I am still con-
Vinced, that he had genius, but the
most unfortunate sort of genius that
can fall to one's portion, — genius
without talent. His plays were full
of originality, vigorous flights, strong
and simple situations; they had that
stamp of grandeur and austerity of
means which characterize the great
masters of former times. Despite
these Superior qualities, they were,
for the most part, unavailable; they
needed to be entirely recast, and
partly translated, to make the public
comprehend them. Acted before ten
or twelve persons of culture, they
would have been found charming;
88
A ROLLING STONE,"
but every numerous audience repre-
sents a majority of ignorant or idle
minds, who can neither study, nor
compare, nor reflect, nor conjecture.
In the province, above all, nothing
must be left to the vulgar interpre-
tation; when they meddle with it,
they overshoot the mark, and are
horribly scandalized at what would
not shock serious and cultivated
minds.
Léon was somewhat offended at
Bellamare, because he would act only
One or two of his productions, and
because he had required certain alter-
ations and sacrifices. He said that
the duty of a man of intelligence and
a genuine artist, like our manager,
was to endeavor to instruct and form
the public, to create one, if necessary,
no matter where, instead of submit-
ting to the bad taste, and subjecting
himself to the ignorance of the ready-
made public of every district. Bel-
lamare had replied to these re-
proaches: “Give me a theatre and a
grant of a hundred thousand francs,
and I swear to bring out your
plays, and those of all unknown au-
thors, who give evidence of genius
or of talent. — in Short, those plays
destined to meet with no success.
I shall not put a sou in my pocket,
and I shall be very happy to ad-
vance art; but, with nothing, one
can do nothing.”
Léon was crestfallen. He did not
reproach Bellamare; he esteemed
and loved him ; but he reproached
the age and mankind; he scorned his
century, he found himself straitened
by it, and dragged himself about like
a condemned prisoner who has not
merited his sentence. He was un-
willing to make any concession to
the vulgar, and his friend of Blois
encouraged him in preserving this
pride in his genius. As for me, I
felt that this genius was too incom-
plete to show itself so intolerant ;
but I dared not say so to him, for
he said it himself, he felt it, and it
was the real cause of his sadness.
He thirsted for the beautiful, and
knew not how to find in himself the
source at which the truly gifted man
refreshes himself without needing the
support of others.
As for me, I was no better at Tours
than at Beaugency, and Vendôme did
not witness the unfolding of my ar-
tistic talent. The other towns where
Bellamare gained and lost money
paid no great attention to me. I
was, at best, passable. I brought no
disgrace upon the performance, but
I added no lustre to it, and my as-
sociates deluded themselves on my
account. Bellamare, always fatherly,
assured me that I was useful to him.
Still, I could not replace Lambesq.,
who was insupportable to him, and
he could not discharge him till the
end of our engagement. It finished
without anything to justify the hope
I had entertained of becoming Impé-
ria's husband and support. She was
to return to the Odéon, and I could
not think of Soliciting an engagement
at that theatre. There were others
there, it is true, as tame as I, but
they came from the Conservatory.
Bocage did not like them. He said
that, unless endowed with a special
genius, they were all marked with
the same stamp, and incapable of
rendering their stiff lines supple at
his direction; but these people had
A ROLLING STONE.
C3
situations there and I had none. I
did not wish to make a fruitless at-
tempt. I hoped only to preserve my
admission, that I might be near Im-
péria. Besides, the vacation was at
hand, and my father counted on me.
I parted from my comrades at Limo-
ges, and there Bellamare proposed to
engage me for the winter, which he
intended to pass in the North of
France, or to secure, an engagement
for me in some company stationed
in a large city. I thanked him. I
wished to resume my studies at
Paris, until further orders, and not
to banish myself from Impéria. Her
friendship, in the absence of her love,
was all my joy; and, without know-
ing by what path I might arrive
there, I still hoped that I might offer
her my life.
I gave as pretext that, before en-
tering finally on a dramatic career,
I wished to consult my family. Bel-
lamare approved my course.
“Then that affair,” he said, “is
settled for the present. If you
change your mind, come and rejoin
me. By writing to the Odéon, you
will always learn my whereabouts.
For the rest, it will be sufficient to
address your letters to Constant. He
will forward them to me; but we
have another account to dispose of
I have not spoken to you again of
the Countess; you have asked me
no questions regarding her; it was
the duty of us both. I awaited your
first move, you perhaps awaited
mine; until now that we are about
to Separate, we must come to an
understanding about her.”
“Have you not written yet to this
lady ?” -
“Certainly, I have written her the
truth. I have told her that you
had very unwillingly overheard her
confidences, but that you were fa-
miliar neither with her name nor
her face. I added that you had
seemed undecided, that I had ad-
vised you to reflect, and that I
would not leave you without hav-
ing asked you the result of your
reflections. Speak; the moment has
come.”
“Tell her,” I replied, “that I am
touched, grateful; that I was struck
with her grace, even through impen-
etrable draperies; that I perceived
the tip of a divine foot and the gold
of royal tresses. Do not tell her
that these tresses may be false, and
that it is difficult to be in love with
a woman who conceals her counte-
nance and even the Sound of her
voice ; but you can truly tell her
that the good faith of her language
filled me with confidence and respect.
Yes, tell her that, for it is the truth,
and the more I think of it the more
esteem I feel for her. You need not
add that, if she had not spoken of
marriage — But this serious thing
has rendered me serious, and you
can conclude by saying that I am
too young to accept so high a destiny
without alarm. It would require
excessive confidence to think myself
worthy of it and to be sure of always
deserving it.”
“Very well,” cried Bellamare, “it
is worded in such a way that I
could not improve upon it; but
have you not in your heart a little
postScript of regret, which would
soften the solemnity of the refusal 2
For it is a refusal, there is no de-
90
A ROLLING STONE.
nying it, and who knows if two or
three years hence you will not re-
pent it !” -
“My dear manager, I have awaited
your advice, in a state of perplexity
of which you do not divine the true
cause; and it is this: if you found
that I really possessed talent, you
would have said to me, without hes-
itation, “Do not think of countess-
es; study your rôles 1’ Your silence
proves to me how little faith you
have in my future as an artist.
it is possible that I may commit a
great folly in terminating my charm-
ing adventure by a refusal; but,
without having considered the sub-
ject much, I believe that I must
come to that decision, or play the
part of ridiculous affectation and
bad faith. I am too young for a
Don Juan ; I should wish in vain
to abuse advantages that chance has
given me over this woman; I should
not know how. I prefer to confess
my simplicity and console myself
with her esteem.”
“Very well,” replied Bellamare;
“it is always very well ! You have
truly a heart of gold, and I still hope
that you may be an artist. Consult
your family; it is your duty, and,
if they are willing, await the time
when, according to my custom, I
shall pass some weeks in Paris,
toward the close of the season at
the Odéon. We will resume our
studies by ourselves, and I have an
idea that I shall develop in you all
that your nature contains. Of good
and beautiful.”
I left him with tears. All my
comrades clasped me in their arms;
Moranbois, alone, turned his back,
SO |
shrugging his shoulders when I
wished to embrace him also.
“Have I been guilty of some bad
action, then 2" I asked him; “you
esteem me no longer.”
“That is a lie,” replied he in his
most contemptuous tone. “I am
idiot enough to love you, but you
are a brute to leave us at the mo-
ment when we become attached to
you. That is the way with young
folks! Always ungratefull”
“I am not Léonce,” I answered
him, embracing him in spite of him-
self; “and if I ever resemble him, I
permit you to despise me.”
As for Impéria, she seemed to me
much more occupied with a new
rôle she was studying than with my
departure; and I was so grievously
wounded thereat, that I resolved to
go away without bidding her adieu.
She was at the theatre with Anna,
rehearsing a scene with unwearied
persistency; but just as I was enter-
ing the diligence, I saw her hasten-
ing up, all out of breath, with her
companion. They brought me a
pretty keepsake that they had em-
broidered for me in the side-scenes,
during the rehearsals, and Impéria
bade me adieu with a tearful smile
that restored me, body and Soul, to
her allegiance.
My father was overjoyed to see
me again, and hardly questioned me
on the employment of my time.
Seeing me studious, and apparently
contented with my lot, he did not
seek to comprehend why I had trav-
elled all summer.
Nevertheless, I felt almost desper-
ate, and, for the first time, I found
my village, my home, my existence,
A ROLLING STONE,
91
intolerable. I measured the abyss
that divided me from the compan-
ions of my childhood, and the coarse-
ness of my normal sphere wounded
me like an injustice of destiny. On
reflection, I quickly recognized that
it was the fault neither of this sta-
tion, if I could accept it no longer,
nor of myself, if it had ceased to Sat-
isfy me. The whole trouble pro-
ceeded from my father's simple am-
bition to raise me above his own
condition. To leave it in reality, I
needed not only years of constant
study and unflinching courage, and
I felt myself capable of it; but a
certain superiority of intellect, and
my mediocre theatrical essay, had
given me a great self-distrust. You
will say that this was unreasona-
ble; that the stage being a very evi-
dent specialty, my awkwardness and
timidity should not discourage me
from the bar, which is quite another
specialty. I persuaded myself, I still
imagine, that the two are only one,
and that I should be a still worse
orator than actor.
By torturing myself with this fear,
I finished by rendering myself un-
able to conquer it, and I conceived a
profound distaste for my law studies.
I had no means to buy an advocate
or notary's office, I was as willing to
be gardener as head clerk for life. I
would not think of the magistracy;
we were then in a political current
which was preparing the dictatorship.
I had the opinions of my age, and
all the ardor of a student. I would
resort neither to the protection of
my uncle the deputy baron, nor to
that of any of the bigwigs of my
department ; to obtain their sup-
port I should have had to bind my-
self to assist a reaction which my
hot head did not relish, and whose
continuance the youth of that time
did not credit. g
We are not here to discuss poli-
tics. I do not know your opinions,
and I will not unfold my own to
you; but I must tell you that my
character remains uncivilized in
moral independence, and that, in this
respect, I did not err in entering on
the life of an artist; Only, this ambi-
tion for liberty, should have been
made lawful by genuine talent, and
I had, perhaps, no talent at all !
What should I do 2 It was so much
the worse for me !
Ennui preyed upon me ; for of all
causes of ennui, irresolution is the
most wearing. I was agonized to
find no object for my life, and to
know no longer how to employ my
energy, my intellect, my facility in
learning, my memory, the forces of
my nature, my heart, and my brain.
I had fancied that I was somebody,
that I might become something, and
suddenly I found in myself only im-
potence and discouragement around
me, only obstacles or precipices.
Léon's malady gained upon me, and
I felt the horror of it. :
There are thousands of young º
in this position; for the man of the
people, when he has risen somewhat
above want, aspires to push his chil-
dren higher than himself. Well-
born youth, whose position is already
achieved, know not what we suffer
at that triumphant age when we
have done with the hated slavery of
college, to gain a liberty which leads
only to unhappiness, unless by su-
\
| \ Y
\,
92
A ROLLING STONE,
preme effort or some unlikely chance.
He who succeeds among us merely
does his duty in the eyes of the par-
ents who have sacrificed themselves
for him ; he who fails, for lack of in-
telligence or energy, is harshly con-
demned. They do too much and
too little for us. It would be better
to give less and exact less.
My father was not a man to con-
demn me thus; but I knew what he
would suffer in seeing me fail, and I
asked myself if it was not my duty
to dissuade him from his chimera of
raising me above my class, before his
hopes became more deeply rooted.
There was still time to tell him that
I did not possess the talent which he
had gratuitously attributed to me;
that I had attempted to speak in
public, and had spoken badly; last-
ly, that I preferred to assist him in
his work, and learn his calling under
his direction. Certainly, I should
have done so at this period; but on
the one hand love restrained me,
and with it the desire of following
my idol’s footsteps; on the other,
manual labor, to which I had not
been accustomed, filled me with
horror, and I could not overcome
the disgust which seized me, at
the thought of that stupefaction in
which I must drown my mind. I
felt an inclination to do nothing
with my will, rather than enslave it
thus. I was very wrong, monsieur,
I was utterly mistaken; the accept-
ance of idleness is the most fatal
thought that can enter a human
head. I did not dream how much
strength the mind preserves, when it
is resolved, to defend itself; but you
See I was too young to know that.
In the midst of this secret anguish
I received — the same day, it is to
be observed — two letters, which 1
carried with all speed to my own
room, and which I will read you.
The first is from Impéria: —
THE HAGUE, October 1, 1850.
MY DEAR COMRADE: You prom-
ised to write us, and we begin to be
uneasy at your silence. M. Bella-
mare charges me to tell you so, and
Have you so soon forgotten your
companions, your friends, your fa-
therly director, and your little sister
Impéria, who could not come to
that conclusion without regret : No,
it is impossible. Either you are too
happy in your family to steal an
hour from them and devote it to us,
Or you have Some sad preoccupation
of which you do not wish to tell us
until afterward: perhaps a sick rela-
tive, perhaps your father, whom you
love So much, and of whom you
have spoken so fondly to us, Take
at least one minute to reassure us
all; and, if it is pleasure, vacation,
hunting, excursions, country, and
family amusements that engross you,
we shall be content to know it, and
will not demand a long letter.
For fear of reaching you at a mo-
ment when you will not feel much
interest in it, my own must give
you certain details about us all.
I will begin with myself, for you
will be surprised to see by the post-
mark that I am not at Paris.
It is because this year I suddenly
took a great resolution. The Odéon
had accepted the conditions of my
re-engagement, and a few days after
A ROLLING STONE.
93
you bade adieu to Limoges, M. Bel-
lamare received the said engagement,
signed by M. Bocage, and awaiting
only my own signature. I had con-
sidered ; I felt that in increasing my
small salary, they would demand
more progress of me than I had
made. Then I remembered how ex-
pensive and gloomy it was to live
in Paris, when one is alone in the
world. I was heart-broken at the
idea of leaving, for three fourths of
the year, the troupe which has be-
come my family, and with which I
am so happy, to go and shut myself
up in my little dark, damp room at
Paris, where my health suffered so
much last winter, and where a longer
illness would reduce me to receiving
the charity of my companions or that
of my concierge, or dying like a bird
fallen from its nest. In short, Paris
has made me fear for the present
and for the future. If I must have
talent, it is not there that I can ac-
quire it, not having the means to pay
a good professor, and not wishing to
owe my success to his charity. I
am distrustful, you know, where I
am not acquainted, and I take refuge
under the wings where I know how
to be at peace. So I entreated M.
Bellamare to retain me as pupil and
pensionnaire; and after having used
all his generous eloquence to persuade
me that I was acting contrary to my
own interests, he was very willing to
yield. So you will not see me again
at Paris this winter, or perhaps next
winter, for I do not feel that ambi-
tion to seek my fortune and attract
attention there that they attributed
to me. I feel better suited in these
provincial towns, where they do not
IOleIl.
demand so much, and where we do
not remain long enough for them to
lose their fancy for us. I feel myself
a true Bohemian, as I have told you.
It is as much a matter of modesty
and reason as of taste.
You are enlightened on my ac-
count, I pass to the other members
of our roman comique. Anna is still
with us, and still charming as an art-
ist, excellent as friend and pension-
naire, although Moranbois still shows
himself pitiless toward her megrims.
The Moranbois has not softened the
coloring of his language, but he has
ceased to think me mercenary and
selfish, and is at heart the best of
Léon has finished a drama
which is very fine in reading, but is
as wnplayable as the others. I be-
lieve, however, that we could risk
it here. The impassible Dutch, who
listen to us religiously, without ap-
pearing to comprehend a word we
Say, would accept the greatest ec-
centricities as well as the other nov-
elties of our repertory. All would
pass with them like water through
a sieve; I believe that the hiss is an
instrument of which they have never
heard. It is true that they are equal-
ly ignorant of the custom of applaud-
ing; and if we had not before our
eyes all these great faces shining with
health, we might fancy we were act-
ing in a desert. There are moments,
I assure you, when their immobility,
the fixedness of their enamelled eyes,
the absolute indifference of their
faces, all of the same color, produce
the effect of an assembly of wax fig-
ures all cast in the same mould, with
which an empty hall had been fur-
nished to simulate an audience. It
94
A ROLLING STONE.
is something inexpressible which
freezes and stops one's breath ; so I
am worse here than I have ever been
before. º:
Lambesq is replaced by Mercoeur,
a “general-utility man,” who plays
Frederick Lemaitre, not very suc-
cessfully; but he is a worthy man,
who has a wife and children, who
works like a horse, and roars like a
hoarse lion. Little Marco improves
every day. He is the most success-
ful of us with the public, who always
love the comedian. But he is a wor-
thy lad, who loves you and regrets
you.
Lucinde is in winter quarters with
her wine-merchant, who has become
a widower, and whom she expects
to marry. No matter. In her place
we have Camille, who has been beau-
tiful, and who still has talent. Pur-
purino has but little to do, since
Marco plays his rôles. He is grow-
ing thin with jealousy; to console
him Bellamare promises to make
him speak the part of Théramene, at
the next benefit. That is all, I be-
lieve. I finish by pressing your
hands, and I do not allude to the
possibility of your return to the wan-
dering fold. Our manager will write
you about it at his earliest leisure.
For me, and for your other faith-
ful and devoted comrades,
IMPéRIA.
At first I felt restored to life on
reading these little fly-tracks; I
kissed them a thousand times, I be-
dewed them with my tears, I inter-
preted to my liking their gayety,
their unconcern, their gentle kind-
ness. It needed but for me to read
the other letter to comprehend the
emptiness and coldness of the first;
hear it: —
M. B has written to me at
last. You say no. It is really no ;
it will be no for me also. Without
pique, without shame, without de-
spair, I accept the sentence of your
sincerity, and I appreciate so much
the more your character. Perhaps I
should have had some fear of myself,
if you had said yes; but now I am
reassured, and very proud of my
choice, for you will remain, whether
you will or no, the one whom I have
chosen, whom I have desired, whom
I respect, and whom I love. You
will never hear of me again, and you
will never have the sorrow of learn-
ing that my love has caused my
death. On the contrary, I shall sur-
vive it. It will be the event, the
serious romance, the good and beau-
tiful souvenir, of my woman's life. I
know not what this life will be, as
regards the world that surrounds me;
but I know that at the bottom of my
reanimated soul there will never
again be dismay nor weariness.
There will be a certainty there, a
thought, a faith, a tenderness, a grati-
tude; there will be you, to-day and
always. wº
THE UNKNOWN OF BLOIS.
Permit me not to show you her
handwriting; but I can assure you
that it is clear, firm, elegant, and
rapid. It is legible as an infant's
soul, as a mother's heart. It awoke
palpitations in me, as if I felt this
generous and faithful hand placed
on my head, and as if the mysterious
A ROLLING STONE.
95
voice that I had heard from the blue
room said in my ear, “Madman that
thou art, how canst thou hesitate
and doubt 2 °
I read over the letter from Impé-
ria; it told me very clearly that in
the dislike and dread of life at Paris
the idea of meeting me there had
not weighed a hair's weight. Either
from modesty or truthfulness, it
spoke of friendship for me, only as
the spokesman of a collectivity; but
the heart, which might have slipped,
adroitly or instinctively, its personal
note into the concert, had neither
unveiled nor betrayed itself. The
desire to recall me to the wandering
fold had not manifested itself. I
had fought for her, and I had never
spoken of love to her; she was grate-
ful. She esteemed me enough to
write to me; but all the company
might have seen her letter, and all
the world might comment on it.
What she said of her tenderness for
her Bohemian companions was in-
tended for them, and not for me.
IMoranbois was right. She would
never love any one ; cold and pru-
dent as her talent, she needed a
strolling life, to thaw a little, and
not to grow weary of her own reason.
It was not the art that she loved ; it
was the movement and distraction,
necessary to her fearful and reserved
temperament.
What whim, what monomania, had
then inclined me toward her ? Why
had I scorned this stranger, who did
not fear to reveal herself to the very
depths of her soml?. I had the entire
heart, I possessed the intoxicating
Secret of an invisible woman, whose
name I did not know ; the veritable
unknown was the companion who
thou'd me in the animation of our
daily studies, and who, to conceal
the frightful emptiness of her heart,
had invented a mysterious love that
she did not feel.
Without hesitating or reflecting,
and entirely on my first impulse, I
took two sheets of paper, and wrote
on one, “Success to you !” on the
other, “I adore you !” I put the
name of Impéria on the first ; I
wrote on the second, “To the un-
known"; and I put the two sealed
letters in one envelope, addressed to
Bellamare; but at the moment of
closing the latter, I grew cowardly,
I withdrew the three words destined
for Impéria. I persuaded myself
that I was too proud to testify pique
to her. I effected a compromise, and
feigning not to have received her
letter yet, I wrote to Bellamare: –
“You forget me. I learn by acci-
cident where you are. I wish to tell
you that I love you still as a father,
and beg you to remember me kindly
to my comrades. Will you have the
goodness to transmit to the unknown
—whom you know — the brief letter
here enclosed ?”
And the letter departed. I over-
came the fright which my audacity
caused me. My hand trembled on
throwing into the letter-box these
three words to the Countess, which
perhaps enchained my conscience
and my life forever. I felt it, I per-
sisted in it. It was sweet to me
to break with Impéria. I relished a
sort of vengeance that I dared not
tell her, which would have injured
her in no way, which would have
96 i
A ROLLING STONE,
made her laugh if she had known it,
and which might recoil cruelly on
me alone, but which flattered my
pride, and set me free, as I thought,
from a year of constraint and torture.
Thus matters stood for several
days; then I thought that I must,
nevertheless, reply to Impéria. I
succeeded in writing her a long let-
ter of the most absurd and gayest
character. I took much pains with
it, and I verily believe that subdued
anger gave me wit. I meted out to
her exactly the dose of attachment
that she had so skilfully measured to
me, and testified no desire to rejoin
her. Once more I burned my ships,
and fancied that I burned them for
the last time. -
This incident rekindled my desire
to study. If the Countess accepted
my change, and understood this
spontaneous outburst of my heart,
I must employ the time that kept
me far from her in rendering myself
worthy of her. It was not necessary,
On that account, that I should be
received as advocate, or make a trial
of a doubtful talent; but I ought to
study law, not to be incompetent for
the struggles of practical life, and I
ought, at the same time, to develop
and improve my intellect, in every
Sense, as much as possible. So I
returned to the task with a sort of
fury. I procured all the serious
books that they could lend me in
the country. I began to learn, by
myself, the languages, music, draw-
ing, natural history, promising my-
self to pass the following year in
Paris, and to take as many lessons
there as my portion would pay for
and the days would admit of
My father, who was so proud to see
me read and write occasionally, was
amazed to see me read and write day
and night. He had no idea of any-
thing like fatigue of the brain.
I awaited with anxiety the effect
of my declaration to the Countess.
I was disappointed at receiving no
reply. The vacation ended. I de-
parted for Paris, without any set-
tled purpose; but having acquired a
taste for study, and led on by self-
love, wishing to repair my failure on
the stage by gaining some sort of
value, I kept my resolution. I sep-
arated myself from my former gay
companions; I shut myself up with
my books, and went out, only to
attend court or special recitations.
I had been there a month, when
I received from her these few
words: —
“I have been travelling. I find
your note. How it troubles me !
What does it mean 2 Explain your-
self. Why was that no 2 Why is
this yes 2
“Reply to me under the name of
Mademoiselle Agathe Bouret, poste
'restante, at Paris. In two days I
shall receive your letter.”
I replied:—
“I love you without having seen
you. I have loved you in spite of
all that separates us. I will be as
sincere as you. When I heard you
at Blois, I was bewitched. Your
letter chased away the empty phan-
tom ; it took me as the tide takes
the shipwrecked man, and does with
him what it will. E was mad when
I dared to tell you so. I am so still,
to dare to repeat it. I lower myself,
A ROLLING STONE.
97
I humble myself, in your eyes, by
confessing to you that I am only a
waif, perhaps I destroy myself; but
I will conceal nothing from you.
You have named, you have guessed,
her whom I loved. She knows it
not, she has not divined it herself!
She will never know it ; and now
you will see in me only what I am,
a child | Yes, but a child who will
become a man, and who studies with
ardor, to know, to understand, to be.
Do not tell me again that I must
give you my obscure name, and re-
ceive your fortune, which humiliates
and disheartens me. Tell me that
you will love me again, that you
will write me, that you will permit
me to love you. Love, love, let us
speak only of love I comprehend
and feel nothing else; the rest is a
dream | *
Eight days later she wrote me:–
“Impéria is adorably gracious, re-
fined, pretty. I know who she is ;
she is of a better family than I. She
is destined to regain by her talent
the brilliancy of her former lot, tar-
nished by no fault of hers. You
loved her; that was a matter of
course. She did not guess it ; proof
that she is pure, and that you re-
spect her profoundly. Not to dare to
tell her | That is the greatest love
that one can feel ! Do you wish me
to tell her myself? At present it
would be all my happiness, all my
pride, to make her life secure by
uniting her to a man worthy of her.
It is impossible that you do not love
her. Do not struggle with yourself;
you might lose thereby that sincerity
of heart which now constitutes the
nobility and charm of your good and
beautiful nature. Stay thus ; it is
thus that I will love you, as a sister
loves her brother, as a mother loves
her child, since you are still a child,
One word, and I hasten to the
Hague; I explain all to Bellamare.
and we work together skilfully, deli-
cately, resolutely, for you. I bring
you Impéria; I marry her to you,
and then I reveal myself.”
This letter crushed me. I realized
that I was ruined. My unknown
was the bravest, the most generous
of women, but she was a woman. I
had been wrong in my frankness;
she returned me to Impéria ; what I
had nearly written to the latter she
wrote to me without remorse, “Suc-
cess to you !” that is to say, “Love
whom you please.” Proud and lofty
in her romance, she preferred to play
a grand rôle, and deigned not to
descend to the contest. She would
not aid me in struggling against a
possible relapse, or give herself the
trouble of curing some half-stifled
regret. She had had the energy to
offer herself; she had not the energy
to conquer.
On recalling all that I had heard
in the blue room, I recognized that
her whole course expressed and con-
tained this mingling of courage and
prudence. She had wished to know
if my heart was entirely free, if she
could take possession of it without
danger; she would not talk of me
before assuring herself of this essen-
tial point. Without doubt, Bella-
mare had satisfied her in this respect;
and at that time she attributed my
refusal only to the modest pride of a
98
A ROLLING STONE. '
poor devil, alarmed by a rôle above
his abilities. That was why she had
written me this adorable letter that
had overcome me, me! and which
left her soaring above me in the se-
rene might of her magnanimous at-
tachment. I should have understood
her; I should have been silent, and
allowed the sincere and delicate con-
fidant of our love to act in my stead.
I had not dared to trust my secrets
to him, this excellent Bellamare.
He was too near Impéria. He might
suffer her to guess that I loved her,
— or that I loved her no longer.
How ought I to have answered the
Countess 2 I do not know, but I
could answer her nothing. I tried
in vain. Each burst of love, each
protestation of sincerity that I strove
to express, plunged me deeper into
the slough of humiliation. I no
longer found in myself the strength
to convince her ; her confidence had
deprived me of mine. She treated
me like an irresolute child, almost
like a lying child. I asked myself
if she was not right, if she did not
read my feelings more correctly than
I did. How could I write or speak,
when I knew that each word would
give a handle to a suspicion well
grounded and systematically rea-
soned out 2 It seemed to me that
I was face to face with her, as I had
been with the public, when at each
frozen word of my utterance I fan-
cied I heard each spectator answer
me, “Bad actor, you feel nothing of
what you express l’
I did not reply ; that is to say that
I wrote twenty letters, thirty perhaps;
and burned them all. And every
time that I burned one I was glad and
said to myself, “Do not begin a con-
test in which you will be worsted.
Even though this woman should love
you enough to free you from the fear
of a disproportioned marriage, and to
give herself to you, she will recover
herself at a given time; she is the
stronger, because she is the calmer,
because her rôle governs yours and
crushes it. You will love her pas-
Sionately, madly, with the violence
of youth, and the faults of inexperi-
ence ; always generous, her resolution
taken, she will crush you with her
Sweetness, her forgetfulness, her dis-
dain, perhaps | No, a hundred times
no; tear her from your imagination;
and if her charms have found their
way into your heart, grind your heart
to powder, rather than dishonor it.”
I kept my resolution ; I did not
write again. I plunged desperately
into work once more. I abstained
from all pleasure, I forbade myself
the theatre; I was seen no more
upon the benches nor in the side-
scenes at the Odéon. I acquired
not much knowledge, but many ideas,
and I perceived, with a pleasure min-
gled with alarm, that I had a gift for
everything, that is, perhaps a gift for
nothing. Thus the winter glided by.
I thought no longer of Impéria; I
believed myself cured of my fancy
for her. As spring approached, I
felt a trouble in my weary head, diz-
ziness, and loss of appetite. I refused
to pay attention to it. In the month
of April, these slight symptoms re-
curring, I took a long walk in the
sun, about the environs of Paris, fan-
cying that I should refresh my blood
by violent exercise. I went to bed
on my return; I had a brain-fever.
A ROLLING STONE.
99.
Between sleep and delirium, I
know not what happened to me.
One morning, I became conscious of
a great languor. I recognized my
chamber. I believed I was alone,
and I went to sleep again, conscious
of wishing to sleep. I was out of
danger.
I awoke; clear images replaced
the formless, nameless phantoms
that had swept me along with them
in the chaos of delirium. I beheld
. Impéria again. She was in a garden
full of flowers, and I called her for
rehearsal, which was held in another
garden, beside it. I raised myself,
and called her, with a feeble voice.
I was still dréaming while awake.
“What do you wish, my dear
friend ?” replied a sweet and very
real voice. And the beloved head
of my dear comrade appeared to me,
bending over mine.
I closed my eyes again, thinking
it was still a dream ; I reopened
them, feeling her little hand on my
forehead, from which she wiped away
the perspiration. It was she ; it was
truly she ; I was no longer feverish
nor wandering. She had been there
for three days. She cared for me
as if I had been her brother. Bella-
mare and Moranbois, who had come
to Paris to make their annual en-
gagements, relieved her, alternately,
with me. She rested, then, in the
next room ; she did not leave me.
She explained all this to me, to pre-
vent me from astonishment or ques-
tions.
“You are safe,” she said. “You
need much rest ; you have nothing
better to do; we are here; we will
not leave you until you can walk.
Do not thank us; it is a duty for us
to assist you, and a pleasure, now
that we are no longer anxious.”
For the first time she began freely
to call me “thou,” either through a
feeling of maternal interest, or be-
cause she had entirely adopted the
habits of the strolling theatre, little
ceremonious at that time. I covered
her hands with kisses; I wept like a
child; I adored her; I thought no
longer.
She helped me to take a little
lemonade, which she had herself
prepared for me. They had scarified
my shoulders with cupping-glasses,
and she had inspected and dressed
them, as a sister of charity might
have done. I am not sure that, dur-
ing my unconsciousness, she had not
condescended to the humblest func-
tions of sick-nurse. This girl, so
pure and so reserved, felt neither
shame nor disgust beside the bed of
illness. She tended me as she had
probably tended her father.
This boundless charity is a virtue
which it is impossible to deny to
actors. Impéria had acquired it in
this station where she was not born,
and she exercised it with all the
sweetness of her attentive, consider-
ate, and delicate nature. The kind-
hearted Régine, who had returned to
the Odéon, came to nurse me also,
but with too much noise and zeal.
I felt really better only when Impé-
ria was near me. Anna paid me a
brief, though very affectionate visit,
but she had a jealous lover, who
would not permit her to come again.
One evening Moranbois said to
Impéria : “Princess,” — he always
addressed her so, with a half-respect-
100
A ROLLING STONE.
ful, half-derisive tone, – “you are
pale and yellow, not to say green.
I wish you to
You are worn out.
go home, go to bed, and sleep a
whole night. I will take charge of
your patient, and will be answerable
for him. Go || Moranbois has said
it ; Moranbois desires it !”
I joined my entreaties to his. She
was obliged to yield; but while she
was preparing my medicines, and
explaining carefully their use to
Moranbois, I cried like a baby who
has promised his mamma to behave
very well, but who cannot see her
depart without sorrow and dismay.
Fortunately I hid my head between
the sheets, and no one Saw my poor
weak tears.
This was my first feint. After-
wards, when reflection returned to
me, I continued the deception. In
the room they often talked of me in
a low voice, and the torpor of con-
valescence rendered me indifferent
to what they might be saying.
Gradually, on regaining my con-
sciousness more fully, I bethought
myself to listen, and if possible sur-
prise some revelation of Impéria's
true sentiments in regard to me. So,
from time to time, I simulated a pro-
found sleep that no noise could dis-
turb, and I was careful not to lose a
word, while giving to my features
the immobility of utter deafness.
This time I acted my part very well.
The only interesting dialogue that
I overheard was this one, between
Impéria and Bellamare. It was de-
cisive, as you will see.
this 2 ”
“Always.”
“And you, -you are not tired ?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you know that he is still
handsomer, with that pallor and that
black beard?”
“Yes, he reminds me of Delacroix's
Hamlet.”
“Come now, my child, what sur-
prises me is, that you are not enam-
ored, all in good faith, with this hand-
some and worthy boy.”
“But I assure you, I do not love
handsome boys.”
“Because they are fools.
one is intelligent.”
“Certainly, I love him morally,
and with all my heart.”
“‘Morally '' a delicate word in
your mouth, Mademoiselle de Wal-
Clos | * - -
“Do not be mischievous, Monsieur
Bellamare. I am twenty-three, and
I see all that the stage unveils, more
frankly than society. So I will not
affect ignorance with you. I know
that love is a fever which certain
This
glances kindle; I know that ugly
persons inspire passion, and that
handsome ones can experience it,
when they are not exclusively
wrapped up in themselves. Yet not-
withstanding all this, I have never
felt the least agitation with Lawrence
or with Léon, who is also very hand-
some, and in no wise vain. Why?
It is impossible for me to say. I am
inclined to fancy that my eyes are
not artistic, and do not perceive the
influence of a fine physique.” -
“That is singular ! Was he whom
|you preferred ugly "
“He always sleeps as well as
“He must be l’’
“Ah it is a long time since I
|have had an opportunity to talk se-
A ROLLING STONE.
101
riously with you, my dear pupilſ
Does this preference really exist 2"
“You do not believe it !”
“I have never believed it.”
“And you were very right,” replied
Impéria, stifling an odd little laugh.
“Why did you invent this ro-
mance 2"
“So that they should leave me in
peace.”
“Then you distrust me also, since
you did not confide the stratagem to
me 2" -
“I have never distrusted you, my
friend, never !”
“And you are resolved not to
love 2 ”
“Very resolved.”
“You think it possible 2"
“It has been possible so far.”
“If Lawrence loved you, himself 2 °
“Do you believe that ?” -
“I believe it. He may have aban-
doned us from pique at your indiffer-
ence l’
“I hope that you are mistaken I
am very much attached to him, but
I am not in love with him, my friend,
and it is not my fault.” &
“I have told you, without reveal-
ing anything to you, that he was
loved by a lady of rank.”
“You have told me so ; it did not
inspire me with the wish to please
him. I am not coquettish.”
“You are perfect, I know, and I
am not one of those who will tell
you that a woman without love is a
monster. I have seen so many amo-
rous monsters of both sexes, and I
dreamed in my youth so many stupid
things that I thought sublime — ”
“That at present you believe in
nothing?” -
“In nothing but virtue, for I have
encountered it two or three times in
my life, walking like a tranquil god-
dess over the foul streets of the in-
fernal regions, and receiving not a
stain upon its robe, which passed
white and shining in the midst of
impurity. You are one of these
strange exceptions, before whom I
bow down to the ground, Mademoi-
selle de Valclos! I find it so beauti-
ful, that I shall carefully refrain from
dissecting an ideal like yourself I
think men senseless to demand puri-
ty from women in order to Iove them
seriously, and to wish straightway to
destroy this purity for their own
profit. They have only scorn for the
weak, anger at the strong. What
would they have, then 2 For my
part, I am all indulgence and pardon
for the first, all respect and adoration
for the second. Upon this, dear
child, I will despatch my dinner.
What do you wish me to send you
for yours ?”
“Tell the restauratewr to send me
what he likes.” -
“He will send you veal l’’
“Very well I’’ -
“Veal it is ignoble ; it is not
nourishing; a mutton-chop, en 2 ”
“As you choose, my dear friend;
I am not an epicure.”
“Sensual in no fashion, it is well
known.” -
“Stay, however; I adore pota-
toes.”
“They shall send you potatoes.”
“And first of all, some good broth
for my patient; but say, then, mana-
ger of my heart, have you money 2”
“Not a Sou to-day, my little one ;
but that makes no difference; the
102
A ROLLING STONE.
innkeeper knows me, and to-morrow
I receive some.”
“But this evening you are going
to the Vaudeville 3’”
“Ah well I Have I not my ad-
mission ?”
“It is wretched weather; take
something to pay for an omnibus.”
“You have money then 2 ”
“I have twelve sous.”
“The deuse !”
“Take them, come 1”
“Sooner death !” cried he, with a
tragic-comic air, that made Impéria
laugh, after he had gone out.
This mixture of delicate and triv-
ial things which I relate to you,
this sudden transition from elevated
thoughts to the vulgar realities of
every-day life, this exquisite, pro-
found, and sincere respect which
Bellamare had for Mademoiselle de
Walclos, returning abruptly to the
paternal familiarity with the little
actress of his troupe, paint for you, I
think, in their true colors, the height
and depth of the minds of intelligent
actors. I was more struck by it to-
day than I had ever been before ; I
had just heard the irrevocable truth
in all its candor, and, what will per-
haps surprise you, I was not griev-
ously afflicted by it. A convalescent
has not keen impressions; one would
say that he has but one object,
which is to live, no matter at what
price; and then I had sincerely re-
nounced Impéria, in offering my
leart to the Countess. I should
have scorned myself if the slightest
irresolution had justified the inju-
rious suspicions of my unknown.
Even after the tacit rupture which
these suspicions had brought about.
between us, I should have hesitated.
in returning to my first love. So I
assured myself that I would hence-
forth be to Impéria what she wished
me to be, her brother and her friend.
To the Sentiment with which she in-
spired me I gave the names of ten-
derness and gratitude. At twenty,
one accepts these impossible com-
promises boldly and in good faith.
We think ourselves so strong we
have so naïve a pride -
When I could leave my bed, Im-
péria quitted me ; the next day,
which I passed in an arm-chair, be-
side a very moderate fire, she re-
turned, and, without removing her.
hat and cloak, kept me company
during the afternoon. I was strong
enough to talk without fatigue, and
I greatly desired to know the pecu-
niary situation of Bellamare. What
I had heard made me think with
reason that it was not brilliant. I
asked if he had been successful in
Belgium and Holland.
“No,” said Impéria, “ quite the
contrary. Our tour with you was
profitable enough ; but as soon as
Bellamare has any profits in his
hands, the love of improvement
takes possession of him. You know
that he always dreams of advancing
art, while making a living; and then
he is so generous ! So he hastened
to increase all our salaries, and to
engage Mercoeur, who is inferior to
Lambesq, but is better paid, because
he is the father of a family. The
same with Camille, who is not equal
to Lucinde, but supports herself only
by the stage. The receipts dimin-
ished ; living is expensive in the
North. It was in vain that Anna,
s
A ROLLING STONE.
103
Léon, and I restored to Moranbois's) was always satisfied when he made
treasury, unknown to Bellamare, the
surplus of the salary that he had
forced us to accept. The season fin-
ished, he came out honorably, as he
always does in his engagements; but
we arrived here with nothing; and if
I had not had a tolerably good quan-
tity of my lace to sell, still without
the knowledge of Bellamare, I know
not how we should have lived.
Now we are sure of paying for our
food and lodgings. Léon has been at
Blois, on a visit to his friend, whom
I believe you know, and who has
lent him a sum that Bellamare ac-
cepts. He always accepts, because
he always finds means to repay, and
when he has repaid, he begins to
have nothing again ; it has been so
for so long, that his serenity is never
affected by it, and we have grown
accustomed to share his confidence.”
I resolved that I, too, would put
one of my thousand franc-notes into
the treasury, and I began to consid-
both ends meet, at the end of the
year, and, according to Moranbois,
Bellamare was right.
“Because,” said he, “if a man makes
an honest living, what does it matter
if he lays up nothing 2 The wisest
and the best ale those who succeed
in just escaping poverty. They have
not the trouble of possessing, preserv-
ing, investing, and increasing. The
responsibility toward others is enough
to satisfy an honest man, without the
need of adding that stupid respon-
sibility toward himself, which they
call the faculty of management, which
prematurely ages people in the prime
of life. It is this anxiety in direct-
ing their money matters,” said Mo-
rambois, in his figurative language,
that expands their stomachs and de-
cays their teeth. The master’ — so
he styled Bellamare – “will always
be young, because he will be niggard-
ly neither to himself nor to others.
He will not waste his freshness in
building a palace to hold the dried
apple that he will be twenty-five or
thirty years hence. ** --
body speak of providing for their old
age, as if they were sure of having
an old age, and as if they ought to
desire one The pretty calculation
of devouring their blood so long as '
they have it, in order to have some-
thing to mourish them, when they
will be nothing but rubbish fit for
the rag-picker's basket ! They say to
the improvident, ‘You will then ask \
alms when you can work no longer?’ !
As for me, I answer that the peas- i.
ants till the ground till the day when tº
they are buried in it, and that they .
are buried just so surely, whether
er. Bellamare had great Schemes for
the summer: he wished to leave
France, where we had too many
competitors, and he said that French
being the universal language, if
good actors starved at home, it was
because they lacked the courage to
travel. That evening it was Moran-
bois who kept me company. I
wished to hand him my offering: he
refused it. They could run in debt
a little with Léon, he said, because
he would eventually inherit a rich
patrimony, and was a beggar only
because he chose to be so; but they
knew very well that I was not in a
situation to sustain Bellamare's en-
terprise with my money. Bellamare
104.
A ROLLING STONE.
they have a fine linen sheet or an
old cloth for a shroud.”
In spite of my agreeing to this
high philosophy, I insisted that I
should be permitted to furnish Bella-
mare and his friends with the means
of agreeably occupying and improv-
ing their youth as artists.
“We have a thousand francs from
Léon,” replied Moranbois. “It is
enough to set us afloat again. 1
could get the master in debt, without
his knowing it, but it would not be
rendering him a service. If you
wish to be useful to him, come and
travel with us as a member of our
association.”
He then explained to me that Bel-
lamare, Léon, Impéria, Anna, Marco,
and himself had resolved to share in
common the proceeds of their per-
formances, and that, after having
deducted the payment of the pension-
'naires and the common expenses,
they would divide the entire profits
in equal parts among themselves.
“As for the profits,” he added,
“there will be none, but we shall
have lived, worked, eaten, travelled,
for a year, without being a burden to
any one. See if you wish to be of
the party. You need to shake up
your Sauce-pan, and extinguish your
furnace, so the physicians say. You
will not travel alone, that costs too
much, and is too gloomy; with us
you will enjoy yourself, and the ex-
penses will be paid by the receipts.”
“I would accept gladly,” I an-
swered, “if I had enough talent to
contribute effectively to the receipts;
but as I have not, I should be only
one expense the more.”
“You are mistaken ; talent or not,
you draw the women, and fill our
front seats for us.
Léon, in the ten-
der rôles, is worse than you, and they
like him only in the drama. We
have not replaced you, for lack of the
wherewithal to engage a lover; you
were very useful to us; we perceived
it after your departure; our audi-
ences fell off.”
I confessed to Moranbois that this
exhibition of my person humiliated
me greatly. To justify a man in
posing as a model before the public,
he should know how to speak to their
understanding as well as to their
eyes. Moranbois, with all his pene-
tration and intelligence, could not
understand my scruple, and laughed
at me for it. He thought that, when
One is handsome and well made, there
is no lack of modesty in displaying
himself. I saw the former mounte-
bank reviving in him, the cross-roads
Hercules, exhibiting with satisfaction
the muscle of his neck and shoulders.
I consulted Impéria in regard to
Moranbois's proposition ; her first
impulse was to welcome the thought
with a sincere and amiable joy; then
I saw her grow uneasy and irresolute.
I guessed that, warned by the sup-
position of Bellamare, she feared to
encourage my love. I reassured her
by telling her that I was betrothed to
Some one in my own province, but
that I was too young to think of
marriage, and that I was free to go
about the world as I fancied, at
least for a season. I thought that I
could tell her a falsehood, as she had
done with me; and as she had pre-
tended an affection to preserve her-
self from my hopes, I assumed one
to preserve myself from her fears.
A ROLLING STONE.
105
Then she insisted strongly on
taking me away with them, and the
physician who had attended me sec-
onded her. If I recommenced my
studies before six months, it was all
over with me. I wrote this to my
father, who signified his approval by
the hand of the village schoolmaster,
his secretary. Moranbois and Bella-
mare welcomed me with delight.
Bellamare drew up a handsomely
written page, which set forth the
rules of our association, and we de-
sired that a clause should be added,
by means of which he should pre-
serve his absolute authority as man-
ager over his pensionnaires. We
were unwilling that any one among
us, in some day of nervous excite-
ment or misanthropic weariness,
should impede by idle discussions
the exercise of a direction as active
and intelligent as his.
Anna courageously left her lover,
who abused her, and whom she
mourned for just the same. This
girl, always unreasonable and un-
happy in love, was the most estima-
ble and faithful of women in friend-
ship. She had neither spite nor
bitterness, and she was even grateful
to me for not having taken advantage
of some emotion which she had ex-
perienced for me, in the earlier days
of our wanderings. So she rejoiced
to see me associated with the new
enterprise. Léon, who returned from
Blois, and Marco, who came back
from Rouen, accorded me the same
welcome, and maintained that I was
an artist. We departed for Italy
the last of August, without waiting
for the closing of the Odéon, and
without taking Régine, who was to
rejoin us as soon as she was free.
We had to engage a fashionable
coquette, and some kind of a Fred-
erick Lemaitre, on the way. This
was Lambesq, whom we chanced
upon again, at Lyons. He had been
unsuccessful, and was more tractable
than formerly. However annoying
he might be, we had owed a consid—
erable portion of our success to him,
and we were glad to get him back.
Impéria voted for him, saying that
we were used to his faults, and we
should not easily replace his good
qualities.
We were about to make arrange-
ments with a Mademoiselle Arsène,
who had played the confidantes at
the Théâtre Français, and who be-
lieved herself qualified thereby to
take the parts of Rachel in the
province. We were not as sure of
it as she, and were still hesitating,
when Lucinde wrote us that she had
always wished to visit Italy, and that
she would be satisfied with the salary
that she had formerly received among
us. She had not succeeded in ob-
taining a promise of marriage from
her wine-merchant, who still sup-
plied her with a certain luxury, but
who wearied her. She hoped, per-
haps, to revive his passion by leav-
ing him alone, and feigning to prefer
the stage to him. We waited for
her, and crossed the frontier with
her. The troupe was quite complete;
and, the business arrangements set-
tled, they were glad to meet again.
On the route we performed more
than one play which required more
rôles than we had in the company.
At this period, when France was in
a state of great disturbance, many
106 -
A ROLLING STONE.
actors, thrown out of employment,
sought their fortunes abroad, and we
could enlist some of them for a time.
These Bohemian actors were occa-
sionally very curious specimens, es-
pecially those who, in the midst of
the strangest vicissitudes, had con-
tinued honest. If I do not speak of
those whom poverty had corrupted,
or who, in their idleness and vice,
had been necessarily and fatally
overtaken by it, it is because among
those types there is such a sameness,
that there is no interest in observing
and describing them. Those who,
on the contrary, would sooner starve
than dishonor themselves, deserve
biographies composed by people of
ability. It is the peculiar and re-
spectable band of the brotherhood
that the practical world do not pity
nor assist, because their misfortunes
justly prove their lack of common
sense, and may be ascribed without
mercy to their improvidence and dis-
interestedness. I confess that I have
more than once experienced a very
lively sympathy for those honest ad-
venturers, and that, if I had not re-
garded my little capital as religious-
ly devoted to the accidents which
threatened my own comrades, I
should have expended it in ready
money for the assistance of these
chance companions. I will specify
One instance out of a hundred, to give
you an idea of certain destinies.
His name was Fontanet, — De
Fontanet; for he was a gentleman,
and neither displayed nor concealed
his prefix. He had enjoyed a capital
of five hundred thousand francs, and
during his simple and Serious youth
he had lived in the country, on his
own estate, addicted to the collection
of works which treated of the theatre.
Why this mania rather than another? .
In point of whims, it is useless to be
astonished at anything. Could one
ascend to the mysterious source
whence flow the innumerable fancies
of the human brain, chance would be
found the necessary consequence of
inclination.
So it was that Fontanet found
himself ruined, one fine morning of
1849, by a friend engaged in busi-
ness, whom he had allowed to place
a mortgage of fifty thousand francs
upon his property. It was, at that
time, a frequent speculation to bor-
row a slight sum on some valuable
estate, not to repay it, to effect by
underhand means the sale of the es-
tate, and to repurchase it, still Secretly,
at a low price. So in this manner
stocks frequently fell, to enrich pru-
dent and wary capitalists.
A victim to this amiable operation,
Fontanet found it useless to complain;
and, fancying that his archaeological
knowledge of the theatre qualified
him to go upon the stage, he became
an actor. Nature had denied him
everything save intellect ; he had
neither voice, physique, delivery,
ease, memory, nor presence of mind.
He met with no success, which did
not prevent him from finding his
new profession very amusing, and
continuing to collect for others the
books and engravings which he could
no longer buy for himself. Having
obtained a subordinate situation in
the theatre at Lyons, and Seeking a
lodging, he found for a very low
price a sort of shop, which by rea-
son of its small size could never be
A ROLLING STONE.
107
let to any merchant. He installed
his pallet there; but the next day he
said to himself, that, having a shop,
he ought to sell something, and he
bought for twenty francs a stock of
children's toys, tops, balls, skipping-
ropes, and hoops. At the same time
he busied himself in constructing
little wooden shovels and wheelbar-
rows. His business was very good,
and he might still have prospered,
but the troupe to which he was at-
tached left Lyons, and he could not
make up his mind to quit the stage.
He resigned his stock to a Jew who
knew his weakness, and gave him
in exchange an apocryphal portrait
of an antique actor. It was a little
bronze affair, cunningly adorned with
a fictitious legend. Fontanet be-
lieved he had secured a treasure, and
sought to sell it. He asked a thou-
sand francs for it, and could not re-
solve to part with it, until the day
that he discovered the fraud, and
consoled himself for it by saying,
“How fortunate that I did not sell
it for a thousand francs How I
should have cheated the purchaser I’’
In a town of Piedmont he en-
countered a pious lady, who begged
him to direct her to a good painter.
She wished to ornament her private
chapel with a picture, two yards in
height by one in breadth, represent-
ing her patron saint, and she would
pay the artist one hundred francs.
Fontanet offered to paint the picture
himself. He had never drawn a face
nor touched a paint-brush in his life.
He set about the work boldly, copied
as well as he could some saint upon
the first fresco he came across, and
signed his name with pride: De Fon-
tanet, painter of religious subjects. He
had other commissions, hung out a
flaming sign, and began to make a
living, when chance carried him to
another place, where a passion for
pottery seized upon him, and he
made a number of Etruscan vases,
which he sold to the English, but
for so moderate a price that they
were not cheated, and congratulated
themselves on cheating the ignorant
vendor.
What Fontanet had earned by his
pictures he lent to the manager of a
strolling company, who did not re-
pay it ; what he had earned by his
vases he gave to a poor beggar, to
educate a child whose figure had
served him as a model, and whom he
placed at School. So it was that, af-
ter having engaged in a hundred lit-
tle professions and a hundred little
trades, without having saved any-
thing for himself, and still unable to
resolve to leave the theatre, which
of all his callings was the most
ruinous, inasmuch as it allowed him
to establish himself nowhere, and
brought him into constant contact
with adventurers or needy people
who despoiled him, he offered him-
self to us at Florence, to play the
financiers. He had ended by ac-
quiring a certain talent since his
début. He was useful to us; and he
Was So amiable, so gay, so original,
and so sympathetic, that we regret-
ted greatly when we were forced to
leave him. -
I will not relate to you my trav-
els; it would take me three days,
and my reminiscences, very good,
perhaps, to fill up a desultory con-
versation, would retard what inter-
108
A ROLLING STONE.
ests you, - the history of my feel-
ings and my thoughts.
So I will make you pass swiftly
by Turin, Florence, Trieste; I will
bring you back through Austria and
Switzerland, where we reckoned up
our gains at Geneva, after some tol-
erably successful nights. We had, as
Moranbois said, we had seventy-five
francs clear profit to divide among
seven partners; but we had had an
interesting and almost comfortable
journey, the pensionnaires were paid,
and Léon's friend was reimbursed.
Lucinde, Lambesq, and Régine left
us. My vacation had come, and
my father expected me. The other
members of the company were go-
ing to try their fortune, they did
not yet know where. I promised to
rejoin them after the winter, which I
intended to pass at Paris; and this
time Moranbois accepted the loan of
my thousand francs, necessary to en-
able my manager and my associates
to reorganize themselves.
Back in my little country Fau-
bourg, surrounded by the paternal
radishes and asparagus, I had leisure
to recapitulate, as I will try to do
for you.
I had made some progress at the
theatre. I had acquired an excellent
manner, without appearing embar-
rassed, although I really felt so. I
had gained sufficient self-possession
not to give, through agitation, the
misinterpretations which my intelli-
gence rejected. I still pleased wo-
men, and did not displease men. I
resigned myself to being always ap
paralled like a man of taste. At first
I had felt humiliated by this circum-
stance, saying that I would not owe
my success to the tailor. I saw that
the public took more notice of my
waistcoats than of my attainments,
and held in high consideration a
man so well gotten up. My com-
panions, in a moment of facetious-
ness, had amused themselves by rep-
resenting me as a young man of
high rank, and they dispensed with
my being a good actor because I ap-
peared to be a man of the world.
“Do not laugh at that,” said Bel-
lamare to me; “you are our ensign;
your nobility is productive, and at
each new station the imagination of
the loungers enriches the company
with an additional hidalgo. At Ven-
ice I was il Signor di Bellamare,
manager of a troupe of titled per-
sonages, and I had only to say, the
word to make you a duke and my-
self a marquis. The prestige of no-
bility still exists abroad. In France
it mingles drolly with democratic
vanity; and if you were enough of
an adventurer to put a de before
your name, the people in the Small
towns would be proud of having a
grandee for an actor. So do not
deny being one, and do not take all
this seriously; we are travelling tô
amuse ourselves. Be certain that it
detracts nothing from the talent that
you should have, and that you shall
have, I give you my word for it.”
He strove to inspire me with it;
he did impart it to me, when I re-
peated my parts to him. We have
declaimed Corneille while crossing
the Alps on donkeys. The glaciers
of Switzerland, the shores of the
Mediterranean, the ruins, the grottos,
all the picturesque solitudes that
we explored together, re-echoed the
A. ROLLING STONE.
109
sound of our voices, raised to the
pitch of dramatic passion. I felt
myself powerful, I thought myself
inspired. Before the foot-lights, all
disappeared. I was too conscien-
tious; I judged myself too severely;
I was my own critic and my own
obstacle.
So much for my talent ; as to my
love, it had taken a new aspect.
Mademoiselle de Valclos's calmness of
mind and serenity of character, which
were not disturbed for a single mo-
ment, amid the inevitable reverses,
mishaps, fatigues, and accidents of
travel, had insensibly awakened in
me that calm and tender respect
which they inspired in Bellamare,
without exciting in him the slightest
thought of passion. Bellamare was,
notwithstanding, not profligate, but
devoted to pleasure. He knew no
medium between desire without af-
fection, and affection without desire.
This man, so happy in his disposition,
and so seductive from the kindness
of his heart, exercised a powerful in-
fluence over my mind. I wished to
adopt his views and feelings. I
strove to imitate him in his errors
and his wisdom; but where he found
calm, the clearing up of faculties after
the eafogation * of instincts, I felt
only self-contempt and profound sad-
ness. I was an idealist, and, besides,
I was but half his age. It was absurd
of me to fancy that one can arrange
his life like that of another. Reason
* I have retained this word in Lawrence's
recital, because it struck me. I do not think
it French, but I could wish that it was so. On
the part of my narrator, it was, doubtless, a
reminiscence of Italy, where the verb sfogarsi,
admirably expressive, has no equivalent in our
language.—Author's Note.
does not fit us like a borrowed gar-
ment; each one should know how to
adapt his own to his own individu-
ality.
This infatuation for Bellamare, and
this fancy of wishing to resemble
him, succeeded at least in stifling my
passion. Perhaps the rapid and vio-
lent passage of another love through
my heart, the dream of the unknown,
had somewhat effaced the image of
Impéria. It is certain that I dread-
ed her no longer, and that a deep
tenderness assuaged the Secret vio-
lence of my desire. Seeing her so
respected by my other associates, I
should have thought myself a cox-
comb to dream of vanquishing her.
By dint of no longer dreaming of it,
I no longer even desired it. -
At least it was in this frame of
mind that I left Geneva. After re-
turning home, I thought of her with-
out agitation; but soon it was im-
possible to conceal from myself that
she was necessary to my intellectual
life, and that away from her I was sub-
ject to profound ennui. I had not the
courage to resume my serious studies.
Music and drawing pleased me bet-
ter, because they permitted me to
think of her. She had a charming
thread of a voice, was a good musi-
cian, and sang deliciously. While
endeavoring to become a good musi-
cian myself, I thought only of sing-
ing with her or accompanying her.
During our travels she had made me
practise from time to time, and, in
the main, her lessons were the best
that I have received.
For some time I cherished the de-
lusion that the society of Bellamare,
Léon, Anna, and Marco was as es-
110
A ROLLING STONE.
sential to me as that of Impéria.
They loved me so much They were
So amiable and so interesting ! How
insupportable the lot to which I had
returned appeared to me ! In vain
I reproached myself for this gulf be-
tween my former friends and me. I
thought myself guilty, for regretting
the conversation of Bellamare, when
with my father; but was it not my
poor father himself, who, by intro-
ducing me to civilization, had con-
demned me to break with barbarism 2
Still, when I was candid with my-
self, I felt that I could have forgot-
ten Bellamare and all my comrades,
except Impéria. It was not my fa-
ther's fault if I had conceived a fool-
ish attachment for a person who was
unwilling to love any one.
One day when I was crossing the
Alps in a sledge with Bellamare, he
had asked me the result of my affair
with the Countess. I then told him
the whole truth, or very nearly all.
At that time I was fully persuaded
that I had ceased to love Impéria,
that I should never love her again,
and that Bellamare could repeat my
confidences to her without injuring
me. I had, besides, considerably soft-
ened the ardor of my first passion in
my revelations, and I had left its
Origin untold. I did not plume my-
self on having embraced a theatrical
career on her account. I simply con-
fessed that at the time of my adven-
ture at Blois I had been more in
love with her than with the unknown.
All the rest I could relate frankly.
Bellamare's judgment on this situ-
ation struck me greatly. He ap-
proved of me at first, and then added,
“Without knowing it, you have tak-
en the best course to be truly )-->ed
by this Countess; sincerity in the
first place, followed by pride. When
allowing you to see her suspicions,
she expected a speedy reply, a con-
test in which she would declare her.
self vanquished, only after having
rolled you, to her liking, over the
dust of the arena. At that moment
she had ceased to love you. That is
the way with women. It is render-
ing them a service not to indulge
them in their combative instincts,
but to teach them to love sincerely,
as they know so well how to love,
when not misled by a quest for the
impossible. Love is a fine, a sublime
thing with them, at the début. Be-
ware of the second and third acts of
the drama When one cannot has-
ten the dénouement, one must await
it. Wait, then, in silence, cover the
fire, and you will see her return,
faithful and brave, as in the day of
the blue room. If she does return,
receive my congratulations. If she
does not, rejoice at having escaped
a love of the head. Those are the
worst.” - .
And Bellamare had added further,
“If Impéria had not formed a resolu-
tion, I should have blessed your love.
For my part, I think you worthy of
each other; but she is discreet, and
will not have a lover. Again she is
reasonable, and will not rush into
the misery of marriage. Lastly, she
is happy in her virtue, and I believe
in it, although I do not understand
it. So, if you are reasonable your-
self, do not think of it again. Do
you fancy that the first day when
she came to me, mysteriously, as the
Countess, but with ideas otherwise
A ROLLING STONE.
111
serious and decided, to tell me her
family misfortunes, and to entreat
me to give her a profession and sup-
port, that I was not agitated, as
much as, and perhaps more than,
you were in the blue chamber 2 She
was so pretty in her sorrow, so se-
ductive in her confidence. I was
seized with dizziness ten times, in
these two hours of tete-à-tête conver-
sation; but if Bellamare has a nose
to scent an opportunity, and a claw
to seize it by the forelock, he has an
eye to distinguish true virtue, and a
hand which purifies itself in blessing
it. On leaving her, I had promised
to be her father, and to every after-
thought I had said, “Never, never,
never !” Now, when things present
themselves so clearly to my con-
Science, I cease to have the slightest
merit, because there is no longer the
slightest struggle, and I confess that
I cannot comprehend how it costs an
honorable man more not to deceive a
woman than not to cheat at cards.”
At that moment Bellamare's argu-
ment seemed unanswerable ; I re-
flected on it all through my vacation.
I could find no reply to it ; but it
did not prevent me from being very
dejected and unhappy. I tried to
rekindle my affection for the Count-
ess, and often I dreamed of the joy
of mutual love; but on awaking I
cared for her no more. Her image
appealed to my heart only through
imagination. -
When the vacation was ended, I
asked myself whether I should not
renounce law, which conducted me
to nothing, and rejoin Bellamare's
company. I was unwilling to take
this resolution without consulting
my father. I expected that he
would dissuade me from it ; he had
no idea of it. At first I had some
difficulty in making him understand
what the theatre was ; for a dramatic
troupe had never come among us;
we had no hall. What my father
called comedians were the Swiss tea-
dealers, exhibitors of menageries, and
the mountebanks, whom he had seen
at fairs and public gatherings. So I
was very careful not to utter the
words “comedy” or “comedian,” which
would only have inspired him with
a profound scorn. Despite my reso-
lution to be open, I gave him expla-
nations which, although really true,
conveyed to his mind only a vague
and somewhat fantastic meaning.
My father has always had the primi-
tive simplicity of a man devoted to
manual labor, as to a duty, a religion
from which no idea foreign to this
labor can distract him, without dis-
qualifying him for it. My mother,
who was very intelligent, had laughed
at him a little for his credulity and
his good-nature. He suffered her to
do so, and was very willing to laugh
with her; they adored each other,
notwithstanding but he would not
have permitted me to notice his in-
feriority to me. He wished me to
be different from himself, but not
Superior ; he esteemed his vocation
as unlike mine, but equal to it.
His adoration for the earth did not
allow him to think otherwise, and he
was really quite in the right of it,
and entertained a high philosophy
without suspecting it. He respected
learning very humbly, but it was on
condition of according equal respect
to culture of the soil. If he had dis-
112
A ROLLING STONE.
couraged me from it, it was because
he imagined, by making me a peas-
ant, he would unfit me for the fan-
cied succession to my uncle, the par-
Q96???!.
When I had told him that I de-
sired to join a company of persons,
who spoke in public to exercise
themselves in declaiming finely, he
was satisfied, and asked no more
about it. He had feared to show
me by his questions how little he
knew of the nature of this study.
So I departed, carrying with me his
blessing, as heretofore, and my little
capital, which, since the preceding
year, I had always borne about with
me in an under-waistband. It was
not heavy enough to trouble me, es-
pecially as I had already diminished
it one half.
In the beginning of the winter,
then, I rejoined the troupe at Tou-
lon, and was received enthusiastical-
The situation was not
ly by them.
brilliant, but they were still “getting
along,” as Moranbois phrased it, and
they held a council to decide if they
should continue the exploration of
the coasts.
At this period the towns along the
sea-shore had hardly begun to enjoy
the vogue which they have since ac-
quired. There was, as yet, no ques-
tion of railroads, gas, or gaming-
houses. Europe had not yet laid
siege to that narrow coast which
stretches like an espalier in the Sun,
from Toulon to Monaco, and which,
will soon extend to Genoa.
us, “we shall still “get along, if we
do not make a great figure.
I have
never made money except outside of
France; no one is a prophet in his
own country. I have made very
nearly the tour of the world, and I
know that the farther off one comes
from, the more he attracts the curi-
ous. Do you remember that last
year we succeeded better at Trieste,
the extreme limit of our journey,
than anywhere else ? I wished to
push on to Odessa, across the Danu-
bian provinces. I recollected having
been successful there; we should
have returned by Moscow. You re-
coiled before the Russian campaign.
If you trust me with it, we will un-
dertake it; but as winter is ap-
proaching, we will begin with the
warm countries. We will go to
Constantinople, we will remain there
two months; we will go from thence
to Temesvar and Bucharest, which is
also a good city; then as soon as the
weather will permit we will cross
the Balkan, reach Jassy, and arrive
at Odessa with the swallows.”
Some one remarked that the cost
of the trip would be considerable.
He showed us letters from a success-
ful contractor, who would be respon-
|sible for our passage, and promised
to take charge of our return, if we
could not pay the expenses; it was
a former partner, on whose honesty
he believed he could rely. It was put
to vote. Each one tossed up a coin,
for “heads or tails.” The majority
of the throws decided the voyage. I
confess that on Seeing Impéria desire
it, I cheated to make the balance in-
| cline to the affirmative side.
“My children,” Bellamare said to
Once more I will make you take
a stride over the tiresome or amus-
ing details that would be irrelevant
to my subject. I will only tell you,
A ROLLING STONE.
113
that, if the majority were valiant and
hopeful, the minority, represented by
Lucinde, Lambesq., Régine, and Pur-
purin, were only partially or not at
all so. This last did not pardon for-
eigners for not knowing French bet-
ter than himself, and Lambesq, who
pretended to speak Italian, was furi-
ous at being less misunderstood
when he spoke his own language.
His nature was imbittered, like that
of Léon, by disappointments, but he
had not, like Léon, the good taste to
conceal his wounds. He believed
himself the only great genius in the
World, and the only unappreciated
one. According to him, the artists
loved by the public and favored by
fortune had owed their success only
to intrigue.
Régine laughed at everything; no
one was more inured to the miseries
of nomadic life; but she augured ill
of our pecuniary success, and kept
repeating that it was nothing to go
away, the difficulty would be to re-
turn. Lucinde feared nothing on
her own account. She was not a wo-
man to embark with empty hands.
But she feared lest we should be
forced to pay the expenses of the re-
turn passage, and she did not conceal
her anxiety.
Singularly enough, Moranbois, the
most stoical and self-contained of
all, was no longer without uneasi-
ness; he did not know Zamorini, the
contractor to whom Bellamare had
intrusted himself, but he had, he
said, had a bad dream about him ;
and this man of stone and iron, who
feared no peril, and knew no hesita-
tion, was superstitious, – he believed
in dreams |
THE END.
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