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Title: The Parisians, Book 7.
Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7743]
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THE PARISIANS
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
BOOK VII.
CHAPTER I.
It is the first week in the month of May, 1870. Celebrities are of rapid
growth in the salons of Paris. Gustave Rameau has gained the position
for which he sighed. The journal he edits has increased its hold on the
public, and his share of the profits has been liberally augmented by the
secret proprietor. Rameau is acknowledged as a power in literary
circles. And as critics belonging to the same clique praise each other
in Paris, whatever they may do in communities more rigidly virtuous, his
poetry has been declared by authorities in the press to be superior to
that of Alfred de Musset in vigour--to that of Victor Hugo in refinement;
neither of which assertions would much, perhaps, shock a cultivated
understanding.
It is true that it (Gustave's poetry) has not gained a wide audience
among the public. But with regard to poetry nowadays, there are plenty
of persons who say as Dr. Johnson said of the verse of Spratt, "I would
rather praise it than read."
At all events, Rameau was courted in gay and brilliant circles, and,
following the general example of French _litterateurs_ in fashion, lived
well up to the income he received, had a delightful bachelor's apartment,
furnished with artistic effect, spent largely on the adornment of his
person, kept a coupe, and entertained profusely at the cafe Anglais and
the Maison Doree. A reputation that inspired a graver and more unquiet
interest had been created by the Vicomte de Mauleon. Recent articles in
the Sens Commun, written under the name of Pierre Firmin on the
discussions on the vexed question of the plebiscite, had given umbrage to
the Government, and Rameau had received an intimation that he, as editor,
was responsible for the compositions of the contributors to the journal
he edited; and that though, so long as Pierre Firmin had kept his caustic
spirit within proper bounds, the Government had winked at the evasion of
the law which required every political article in a journal to be signed
by the real name of its author, it could do so no longer. Pierre Firmin
was apparently a _nom de plume_; if not, his identity must be proved, or
Rameau would pay the penalty which his contributor seemed bent on
incurring.
Rameau, much alarmed for the journal that might be suspended, and for
himself who might be imprisoned, conveyed this information through the
publisher to his correspondent Pierre Firmin, and received the next day
an article signed Victor de Mauleon, in which the writer proclaimed
himself to be one and the same with Pierre Firmin, and, taking a yet
bolder tone than he had before assumed, dared the Government to attempt
legal measures against him. The Government was prudent enough to
disregard that haughty bravado, but Victor de Mauleon rose at once into
political importance. He had already in his real name and his quiet way
established a popular and respectable place in Parisian society. But if
this revelation created him enemies whom he had not before provoked, he
was now sufficiently acquitted, by tacit consent, of the sins formerly
laid to his charge, to disdain the assaults of party wrath. His old
reputation for personal courage and skill in sword and pistol served,
indeed, to protect him from such charges as a Parisian journalist does
not reply to with his pen. If he created some enemies, he created many
more friends, or, at least, partisans and admirers. He only needed fine
and imprisonment to become a popular hero.
A few days after be had thus proclaimed himself, Victor de Mauleon--who
had before kept aloof from Rameau, and from salons at which he was likely
to meet that distinguished minstrel--solicited his personal acquaintance,
and asked him to breakfast.
Rameau joyfully went. He had a very natural curiosity to see the
contributor whose articles had so mainly insured the sale of the Sens
Commun.
In the dark-haired, keen-eyed, well-dressed, middle-aged man, with
commanding port and courtly address, he failed to recognise any
resemblance to the flaxen-wigged, long-coated, be-spectacled, shambling
sexagenarian whom he had known as Lebeau. Only now and then a tone of
voice struck him as familiar, but he could not recollect where he had
heard the voice it resembled. The thought of Lebeau did not occur to
him; if it had occurred it would only have struck him as a chance
coincidence. Rameau, like most egotists, was rather a dull observer of
men. His genius was not objective.
"I trust, Monsieur Rameau," said the Vicomte, as he and his guest were
seated at the breakfast-table, "that you are not dissatisfied with the
remuneration your eminent services in the journal have received."
"The proprietor, whoever he be, has behaved most liberally," answered
Rameau.
"I take that compliment to myself, _cher confrere_; for though the
expenses of starting the Sens Commun, and the caution money lodged, were
found by a friend of mine, that was as a loan, which I have long since
repaid, and the property in the journal is now exclusively mine. I have
to thank you not only for your own brilliant contributions, but for those
of the colleagues you secured. Monsieur Savarin's piquant criticisms
were most valuable to us at starting. I regret to have lost his aid.
But as he has set up a new journal of his own, even he has not wit enough
to spare for another. _A propos_ of our contributors, I shall ask you to
present me to the fair author of The Artist's Daughter. I am of too
prosaic a nature to appreciate justly the merits of a _roman_; but I have
heard warm praise of this story from the young--they are the best judges
of that kind of literature; and I can at least understand the worth of a
contributor who trebled the sale of our journal. It is a misfortune to
us, indeed, that her work is completed, but I trust that the sum sent to
her through our publisher suffices to tempt her to favour us with another
roman in series."
"Mademoiselle Cicogna," said Rameau, with a somewhat sharper intonation
of his sharp voice, "has accepted for the republication of her _roman_ in
a separate form terms which attest the worth of her genius, and has had
offers from other journals for a serial tale of even higher amount than
the sum so generously sent to her through your publisher."
"Has she accepted them, Monsieur Rameau? If so, _tant pis pour vous_.
Pardon me, I mean that your salary suffers in proportion as the Sens
Commun declines in sale."
"She has not accepted them. I advised her not to do so until she could
compare them with those offered by the proprietor of the Sens Commun."
"And your advice guides her? Ah, _cher confrere_, you are a happy man!--
you have influence over this young aspirant to the fame of a De Stael or
a Georges Sand."
"I flatter myself that I have some," answered Rameau, smiling loftily as
he helped himself to another tumbler of. Volnay wine--excellent, but
rather heady.
"So much the better. I leave you free to arrange terms with Mademoiselle
Cicogna, higher than she can obtain elsewhere, and kindly contrive my own
personal introduction to her--you have breakfasted already?--permit me to
offer you a cigar--excuse me if I do not bear you company; I seldom
smoke--never of a morning. Now to business, and the state of France.
Take that easy-chair, seat yourself comfortably. So! Listen! If ever
Mephistopheles revisit the earth, how he will laugh at Universal Suffrage
and Vote by Ballot in an old country like France, as things to be admired
by educated men, and adopted by friends of genuine freedom!"
"I don't understand you," said Rameau.
"In this respect at least, let me hope that I can furnish you with
understanding.
"The Emperor has resorted to a plebiscite--viz., a vote by ballot and
universal suffrage--as to certain popular changes which circumstances
compel him to substitute for his former personal rule. Is there a single
intelligent Liberal who is not against that plebiscite?--is there any
such who does not know that the appeal of the Emperor to universal
suffrage and vote by ballot must result in a triumph over all the
variations of free thought, by the unity which belongs to Order,
represented through an able man at the head of the State? The multitude
never comprehend principles; principles are complex ideas; they
comprehend a single idea, and the simplest idea is, a Name that rids
their action of all responsibility to thought.
"Well, in France there are principles superabundant which you can pit
against the principle of Imperial rule. But there is not one name you
can pit against Napoleon the Third; therefore, I steer our little bark in
the teeth of the popular gale when I denounce the plebiscite, and Le Sens
Commun will necessarily fall in sale--it is beginning to fall already.
We shall have the educated men with us, the rest against. In every
country--even in China, where all are highly educated--a few must be yet
more highly educated than the many. Monsieur Rameau, I desire to
overthrow the Empire: in order to do that, it is not enough to have on my
side the educated men, I must have the _canaille_--the _canaille_ of
Paris and of the manufacturing towns. But I use the canaille for my
purpose--I don't mean to enthrone it. You comprehend?--the _canaille
quiescent_ is simply mud at the bottom of a stream; the _canaille_
agitated is mud at the surface. But no man capable of three ideas builds
the palaces and senates of civilised society out of mud, be it at the top
or the bottom of an ocean. Can either you or I desire that the destinies
of France shall be swayed by coxcombical artisans who think themselves
superior to every man who writes grammar, and whose idea of a common-
wealth is the confiscation of private property?" Rameau, thoroughly
puzzled by this discourse, bowed his head, and replied whisperingly,
"Proceed. You are against the Empire, yet against the populace!--What
are you for? not, surely, the Legitimists?--are you Republican?
Orleanist? or what?"
"Your questions are very pertinent," answered the Vicomte, courteously,
"and my answer shall be very frank. I am against absolute rule, whether
under a Buonaparte or a Bourbon. I am for a free State, whether under a
constitutional hereditary sovereign like the English or Belgian, or
whether, republican in name, it be less democratic than constitutional
monarchy in practice, like the American. But as a man interested in the
fate of _le Sens Commun_, I hold in profound disdain all crotchets for
revolutionising the elements of Human Nature. Enough of this abstract
talk. To the point. You are of course aware of the violent meetings
held by the Socialists, nominally against the plebiscite, really against
the Emperor himself?"
"Yes, I know at least that the working class are extremely discontented;
the numerous strikes last month were not on a mere question of wages--
they were against the existing forms of society. And the articles by
Pierre Firmin which brought me into collision with the Government, seemed
to differ from what you now say. They approve those strikes; they
appeared to sympathise with the revolutionary meetings at Belleville and
Montmartre."
"Of course--we use coarse tools for destroying; we cast them aside for
finer ones when we want to reconstruct.
"I attended one of those meetings last night. See, I have a pass for all
such assemblies, signed by some dolt who cannot even spell the name he
assumes--'Pom-de-Tair.' A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of
the orchestra, his secretary by his side, while the orators stammer out
fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of police yawns more
wearily than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his
penknife and pares his nails. Up rises a wild-haired, weak-limbed
silhouette of a man, and affecting a solemnity of mien which might have
become the virtuous Guizot, moves this resolution: 'The French people
condemns Charles Louis Napoleon the Third to the penalty of perpetual
hard labour.' Then up rises the commissary of police and says quietly,
'I declare this meeting at an end.'
"Sensation among the audience--they gesticulate--they screech--they
bellow--the commissary puts on his greatcoat--the secretary gives a last
touch to his nails and pockets his penknife--the audience disperses--the
silhouette of a man effaces itself--all is over."
"You describe the scene most wittily," said Rameau, laughing, but the
laugh was constrained. A would-be cynic himself, there was a something
grave and earnest in the real cynic that awed him.
"What conclusion do you draw from such a scene, _cher poete_" asked De
Mauleon, fixing his keen quiet eyes on Rameau.
"What conclusion? Well, that--that--"
"Yes, continue."
"That the audience were sadly degenerated from the time when Mirabeau
said to a Master of the Ceremonies, 'We are here by the power of the
French people, and nothing but the point of the bayonet shall expel us.'"
"Spoken like a poet, a French poet. I suppose you admire M. Victor Hugo.
Conceding that he would have employed a more sounding phraseology,
comprising more absolute ignorance of men, times, and manners in
unintelligible metaphor and melodramatic braggadocio, your answer might
have been his; but pardon me if I add, it would not be that of Common
Sense."
"Monsieur le Vicomte might rebuke me more politely," said Rameau,
colouring high.
"Accept my apologies; I did not mean to rebuke, but to instruct. The
times are not those of 1789. And Nature, ever repeating herself in the
production of coxcombs and blockheads, never repeats herself in the
production of Mirabeaus. The Empire is doomed--doomed, because it is
hostile to the free play of intellect. Any Government that gives
absolute preponderance to the many is hostile to intellect, for intellect
is necessarily confined to the few.
"Intellect is the most revengeful of all the elements of society. It
cares not what the materials through which it insinuates or forces its
way to its seat.
"I accept the aid of Pom-de-Tair. I do not demean myself to the extent
of writing articles that may favor the principles of Pom-de-Tair, signed
in the name of Victor de Mauleon or of Pierre Firinin.
"I will beg you, my dear editor, to obtain clever, smart writers, who
know nothing about Socialists and Internationalists, who therefore will
not commit _Le Sens Commun_ by advocating the doctrines of those idiots,
but who will flatter the vanity of the _canaille_--vaguely; write any
stuff they please about the renown of Paris, 'the eye of the world,'
'the sun of the European system,' &c., of the artisans of Paris as
supplying soul to that eye and fuel to that sun--any _blague_ of that
sort--_genre Victor Hugo_; but nothing definite against life and
property, nothing that may not be considered hereafter as the harmless
extravagance of a poetic enthusiasm. You might write such articles
yourself. In fine, I want to excite the multitude, and yet not to commit
our journal to the contempt of the few. Nothing is to be admitted that
may bring the law upon us except it be signed by my name. There may be a
moment in which it would be desirable for somebody to be sent to prison:
in that case, I allow no substitute--I go myself.
"Now you have my most secret thoughts. I intrust them to your judgment
with entire confidence. Monsieur Lebeau gave you a high character, which
you have hitherto deserved. By the way, have you seen anything lately of
that bourgeois conspirator?"
"No, his professed business of letter-writer or agent is transferred to a
clerk, who says M. Lebeau is abroad."
"Ah! I don't think that is true. I fancy I saw him the other evening
gilding along the lanes of Belleville. He is too confirmed a conspirator
to be long out of Paris; no place like Paris for seething brains."
"Have you known M. Lebeau long?" asked Rameau. "Ay, many years. We are
both Norman by birth, as you may perceive by something broad in our
accent."
"Ha! I knew your voice was familiar to me; certainly it does remind me of
Lebeau's."
"Normans are like each other in many things besides voice and accent--
obstinacy, for instance, in clinging to ideas once formed; this makes
them good friends and steadfast enemies. I would advise no man to make
an enemy of Lebeau.
"_Au revoir, cher confrere_. Do not forget to present me to Mademoiselle
Cicogna."
CHAPTER II.
On leaving De Mauleon and regaining his coupe, Rameau felt at once
bewildered and humbled, for he was not prepared for the tone of careless
superiority which the Vicomte assumed over him. He had expected to be
much complimented, and he comprehended vaguely that he had been somewhat
snubbed. He was not only irritated--he was bewildered; for De Mauleon's
political disquisitions did not leave any clear or definite idea on his
mind as to the principles which as editor of the Sens Commun he was to
see adequately represented and carried out. In truth, Rameau was one of
those numerous Parisian politicians who have read little and reflected
less on the government of men and States. Envy is said by a great French
writer to be the vice of Democracies. Envy certainly had made Rameau a
democrat. He could talk and write glibly enough upon the themes of
equality and fraternity, and was so far an ultra-democrat that he thought
moderation the sign of a mediocre understanding.
De Mauleon's talk, therefore, terribly perplexed him. It was unlike
anything he had heard before. Its revolutionary professions, accompanied
with so much scorn for the multitude, and the things the multitude
desired, were Greek to him. He was not shocked by the cynicism which
placed wisdom in using the passions of mankind as tools for the interests
of an individual; but he did not understand the frankness of its avowal.
Nevertheless the man had dominated over and subdued him. He recognized
the power of his contributor without clearly analysing its nature--
a power made up of large experience of life, of cold examination of
doctrines that heated others--of patrician calm--of intellectual sneer--
of collected confidence in self.
Besides, Rameau felt, with a nervous misgiving, that in this man, who so
boldly proclaimed his contempt for the instruments he used, he had found
a master. De Mauleon, then, was sole proprietor of the journal from
which Rameau drew his resources; might at any time dismiss him; might at
any time involve the journal in penalties which, even if Rameau could
escape in his official capacity as editor, still might stop the Sens
Commun, and with it Rameau's luxurious subsistence.
Altogether the visit to De Mauleon had been anything but a pleasant one.
He sought, as the carriage rolled on, to turn his thoughts to more
agreeable subjects, and the image of Isaura rose before him. To do him
justice he had learned to love this girl as well as his nature would
permit: he loved her with the whole strength of his imagination, and
though his heart was somewhat cold, his imagination was very ardent.
He loved her also with the whole strength of his vanity, and vanity was
even a more preponderant organ of his system than imagination. To carry
off as his prize one who had already achieved celebrity, whose beauty and
fascination of manner were yet more acknowledged than her genius, would
certainly be a glorious triumph.
Every Parisian of Rameau's stamp looks forward in marriage to a brilliant
salon. What salon more brilliant than that which he and Isaura united
could command? He had long conquered his early impulse of envy at
Isaura's success,--in fact that success had become associated with his
own, and had contributed greatly to his enrichment. So that to other
motives of love he might add the prudential one of interest. Rameau well
knew that his own vein of composition, however lauded by the cliques, and
however unrivalled in his own eyes, was not one that brings much profit
in the market. He compared himself to those poets who are too far in
advance of their time to be quite as sure of bread and cheese as they are
of immortal fame.
But he regarded Isaura's genius as of a lower order, and a thing in
itself very marketable. Marry her, and the bread and cheese were so
certain that he might elaborate as slowly as he pleased the verses
destined to immortal fame. Then he should be independent of inferior
creatures like Victor de Mauleon. But while Rameau convinced himself
that he was passionately in love with Isaura, he could not satisfy
himself that she was in love with him.
Though during the past year they had seen each other constantly, and
their literary occupations had produced many sympathies between them--
though he had intimated that many of his most eloquent love-poems were
inspired by her--though he had asserted in prose, very pretty prose too,
that she was all that youthful poets dream of,--yet she had hitherto
treated such declarations with a playful laugh, accepting them as elegant
compliments inspired by Parisian gallantry; and he felt an angry and sore
foreboding that if he were to insist too seriously on the earnestness of
their import and ask her plainly to be his wife, her refusal would be
certain, and his visits to her house might be interdicted.
Still Isaura was unmarried, still she had refused offers of marriage from
men higher placed than himself,--still he divined no one whom she could
prefer. And as he now leaned back in his coupe he muttered to himself,
"Oh, if I could but get rid of that little demon Julie, I would devote
myself so completely to winning Isaura's heart that I must succeed!--but
how to get rid of Julie? She so adores me, and is so headstrong! She is
capable of going to Isaura--showing my letters--making such a scene!"
Here he checked the carriage at a cafe on the Boulevard--descended,
imbibed two glasses of absinthe,--and then feeling much emboldened,
remounted his coupe and directed the driver to Isaura's apartment.
CHAPTER III.
Yes, celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Far more
solid than that of Rameau, far more brilliant than that of De Mauleon,
was the celebrity which Isaura had now acquired. She had been unable to
retain the pretty suburban villa at A------. The owner wanted to alter
and enlarge it for his own residence, and she had been persuaded by
Signora Venosta, who was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer,
to remove (towards the close of the previous year) to apartments in the
centre of the Parisian _beau monde_. Without formally professing to
receive, on one evening in the week her salon was open to those who had
eagerly sought her acquaintance--comprising many stars in the world of
fashion, as well as those in the world of art and letters. And as she
had now wholly abandoned the idea of the profession for which her voice
had been cultivated, she no longer shrank from the exercise of her
surpassing gift of song for the delight of private friends. Her
physician had withdrawn the interdict on such exercise. His skill,
aided by the rich vitality of her constitution, had triumphed over all
tendencies to the malady for which he had been consulted. To hear Isaura
Cicogna sing in her own house was a privilege sought and prized by many
who never read a word of her literary compositions. A good critic of a
book is rare; but good judges of a voice are numberless. Adding this
attraction of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank powers of
converse--an innocent sweetness of manner free from all conventional
affectation--and to the fresh novelty of a genius which inspired the
young with enthusiast and beguiled the old to indulgence, it was no
wonder that Isaura became a celebrity at Paris.
Perhaps it was a wonder that her head was not turned by the adulation
that surrounded her. But I believe, be it said with diffidence, that a
woman of mind so superior that the mind never pretends to efface the
heart, is less intoxicated with flattery than a man equally exposed to
it.
It is the strength of her heart that keeps her head sober. Isaura had
never yet overcome her first romance of love; as yet, amid all her
triumphs, there was not a day in which her thoughts did not wistfully,
mournfully, fly back to those blessed moments in which she felt her cheek
colour before a look, her heart beat at the sound of a footfall. Perhaps
if there had been the customary _finis_ to this young romance--the
lover's deliberate renunciation, his formal farewell--the girl's pride
would ere this have conquered her affection,--possibly--who knows?--
replaced it.
But, reader, be you male or female, have you ever known this sore trial
of affection and pride, that from some cause or other, to you mysterious,
the dear intercourse to which you had accustomed the secret life of your
life, abruptly ceases; you know that a something has come between you and
the beloved which you cannot distinguish, cannot measure, cannot guess,
and therefore cannot surmount; and you say to yourself at the dead of
solitary night, "Oh for an explanation! Oh for one meeting more! All
might be so easily set right; or if not, I should know the worst, and
knowing it, could conquer!"
This trial was Isaura's. There had been no explanation, no last farewell
between her and Graham. She divined--no woman lightly makes a mistake
there--that he loved her! She knew that this dread something had
intervened between her and him when he took leave of her before others so
many months ago; that this dread something still continued--what was it?
She was certain that it would vanish, could they but once meet again and
not before others. Oh for such a meeting!
She could not herself destroy hope. She could not marry another. She
would have no heart to give to another while he was free, while in doubt
if his heart was still her own. And thus her pride did not help her to
conquer her affection.
Of Graham Vane she heard occasionally. He had ceased to correspond with
Savarin; but among those who most frequented her salon were the Morleys.
Americans so well educated and so well placed as the Morleys knew
something about every Englishman of the social station of Graham Vane.
Isaura learned from them that Graham, after a tour on the Continent, had
returned to England at the commencement of the year, had been invited to
stand for Parliament, had refused, that his name was in the list
published by the Morning Post of the elite whose arrivals in London, or
whose presence at dinner-tables, is recorded as an event. That the
Athenaeum had mentioned a rumour that Graham Vane was the author of a
political pamphlet which, published anonymously, had made no
inconsiderable sensation. Isaura sent to England for that pamphlet: the
subject was somewhat dry, and the style, though clear and vigorous, was
scarcely of the eloquence which wins the admiration of women; and yet she
learned every word of it by heart.
We know how little she dreamed that the celebrity which she hailed as an
approach to him was daily making her more remote. The sweet labours she
undertook for that celebrity continued to be sweetened yet more by secret
associations with the absent one. How many of the passages most admired
could never have been written had he been never known!
And she blessed those labours the more that they upheld her from the
absolute feebleness of sickened reverie, beguiled her from the gnawing
torture of unsatisfied conjecture. She did comply with Madame de
Grantmesnil's command--did pass from the dusty beaten road of life into
green fields and along flowery river-banks, and did enjoy that ideal by-
world.
But still the one image which reigned over her human heart moved beside
her in the gardens of fairyland.
CHAPTER IV.
Isaura was seated in her pretty salon, with the Venosta, M. Savarin, the
Morleys, and the financier Louvier, when Rameau was announced.
"Ha!" cried Savarin, "we were just discussing a matter which nearly
concerns you, _cher poete_. I have not seen you since the announcement
that Pierre Firmin is no other than Victor de Mauleon. _Ma foi_, that
worthy seems likely to be as dangerous with his pen as he was once with
his sword. The article in which he revealed himself makes a sharp lunge
on the Government. 'Take care of yourself. When hawks and nightingales
fly together the hawk may escape, and the nightingale complain of the
barbarity of kings, in a cage: 'flebiliter gemens infelix avis.''"
"He is not fit to conduct a journal," replied Rameau, magniloquently,
"who will not brave a danger for his body in defence of the right to
infinity for his thought."
"Bravo!" said Mrs. Morley, clapping her pretty hands. "That speech
reminds me of home. The French are very much like the Americans in their
style of oratory."
"So," said Louvier, "my old friend the Vicomte has come out as a writer,
a politician, a philosopher; I feel hurt that he kept this secret from me
despite our intimacy. I suppose you knew it from the first, M. Rameau?"
"No, I was as much taken by surprise as the rest of the world. You have
long known M. de Mauleon?"
"Yes, I may say we began life together--that is, much at the same time."
"What is he like in appearance?" asked Mrs. Morley. "The ladies thought
him very handsome when he was young," replied Louvier. "He is still a
fine-looking man, about my height."
"I should like to know him!" cried Mrs. Morley, "if only to tease that
husband of mine. He refuses me the dearest of woman's rights.--I can't
make him jealous."
"You may have the opportunity of knowing this _ci-devant_ Lovelace very
soon," said Rameau, "for he has begged me to present him to Mademoiselle
Cicogna, and I will ask her permission to do so, on Thursday evening when
she receives."
Isaura, who had hitherto attended very listlessly to the conversation,
bowed assent. "Any friend of yours will be welcome. But I own the
articles signed in the name of Pierre Firmin do not prepossess me in
favour of their author."
"Why so?" asked Louvier; "surely you are not an Imperialist?"
"Nay, I do not pretend to be a politician at all, but there is something
in the writing of Pierre Firmin that pains and chills me."
"Yet the secret of its popularity," said Savarin, "is that it says what
every one says--only better."
"I see now that it is exactly that which displeases me; it is the Paris
talk condensed into epigram: the graver it is the less it elevates--the
lighter it is, the more it saddens."
"That is meant to hit me," said Savarin, with his sunny laugh--"me whom
you call cynical."
"No, dear M. Savarin; for above all your cynicism is genuine gaiety, and
below it solid kindness. You have that which I do not find in M. de
Mauleon's writing, nor often in the talk of the salon--you have
youthfulness."
"Youthfulness at sixty--flatterer!"
"Genius does not count its years by the almanac," said Mrs. Morley.
"I know what Isaura means--she is quite right; there is a breath of
winter in M. de Mauleon's style, and an odour of fallen leaves. Not that
his diction wants vigour; on the contrary, it is crisp with hoar-frost.
But the sentiments conveyed by the diction are those of a nature sear and
withered. And it is in this combination of brisk words and decayed
feelings that his writing represents the talk and mind of Paris. He and
Paris are always fault-finding: fault-finding is the attribute of old
age."
Colonel Morley looked round with pride, as much as to say, "Clever talker
my wife."
Savarin understood that look, and replied to it courteously. "Madame has
a gift of expression which Emile de Girardin can scarcely surpass. But
when she blames us for fault-finding, can she expect the friends of
liberty to praise the present style of things?"
"I should be obliged to the friends of liberty," said the Colonel, drily,
"to tell me how that state of things is to be mended. I find no
enthusiasm for the Orleanists, none for a Republic; people sneer at
religion; no belief in a cause, no adherence to an opinion. But the
worst of it is that, like all people who are _blases_, the Parisians are
eager for strange excitement, and ready to listen to any oracle who
promises a relief from indifferentism. This it is which makes the Press
more dangerous in France than it is in any other country. Elsewhere the
Press sometimes leads, sometimes follows, public opinion. Here there is
no public opinion to consult, and instead of opinion the Press represents
passion."
"My dear Colonel Morley," said Savarin, "I hear you very often say that
a Frenchman cannot understand America. Permit me to observe that an
American cannot understand France--or at least Paris. _Apropos_ of Paris
that is a large speculation of yours, Louvier, in the new suburb."
"And a very sound one; I advise you to invest in it. I can secure you at
present 5 per cent. on the rental; that is nothing--the houses will be
worth double when the Rue de Louvier is completed."
"Alas! I have no money; my new journal absorbs all my capital."
"Shall I transfer the money I hold for you, Signorina, and add to them
whatever you may have made by your delightful _roman_, as yet lying idle,
to this investment? I cannot say more in its favour than this: I have
embarked a very large portion of my capital in the Rue de Louvier, and I
flatter myself that I am not one of those men who persuade their friends
to do a foolish thing by setting them the example."
"Whatever you advise on such a subject," said Isaura, graciously, "is
sure to be as wise as it is kind!"
"You consent, then?"
"Certainly."
Here the Venosta, who had been listening with great attention to
Louvier's commendation of this investment, drew him aside, and whispered
in his ear: "I suppose, M. Louvier, that one can't put a little money-a
very little money--poco-poco pocolino, into your street."
"Into my street! Ah, I understand--into the speculation of the Rue de
Louvier! Certainly you can. Arrangements are made on purpose to suit
the convenience of the smallest capitalists--from 500 francs upwards."
"And you feel quite sure that we shall double our money when the street
is completed--I should not like to have my brains in my heels."
["'Avere il cervello nella calcagna,"--viz., to act without prudent
reflection.]
"More than double it, I hope, long before the street is completed."
"I have saved a little money--very little. I have no relations, and I
mean to leave it all to the Signorina; and if it could be doubled, why,
there would be twice as much to leave her."
"So there would," said Louvier. "You can't do better than put it all
into the Rue de Louvier. I will send you the necessary papers to-morrow,
when I send hers to the Signorina."
Louvier here turned to address himself to Colonel Morley, but finding
that degenerate son of America indisposed to get cent. per cent. for his
money when offered by a Parisian, he very soon took his leave. The other
visitors followed his example, except Rameau, who was left alone with the
Venosta and Isaura. The former had no liking for Rameau, who showed her
none of the attentions her innocent vanity demanded, and she soon took
herself off to her own room to calculate the amount of her savings, and
dream of the Rue de Louvier and "golden joys."
Rameau approaching his chair to Isaura's then commenced conversation,
drily enough, upon pecuniary matters; acquitting himself of the mission
with which De Mauleon had charged him, the request for a new work from
her pen for the Sens Commun, and the terms that ought to be asked for
compliance. The young lady-author shrank from this talk. Her private
income, though modest, sufficed for her wants, and she felt a sensitive
shame in the sale of her thoughts and fancies.
Putting hurriedly aside the mercantile aspect of the question, she said
that she had no other work in her mind at present--that, whatever her
vein of invention might be, it flowed at its own will, and could not be
commanded.
"Nay," said Rameau, "this is not true. We fancy, in our hours of
indolence, that we must wait for inspiration; but once force ourselves to
work, and ideas spring forth at the wave of the pen. You may believe me
here, I speak from experience: I, compelled to work, and in modes not to
my taste--I do my task I know not how. I rub the lamp, 'the genius
comes.'"
"I have read in some English author that motive power is necessary to
continued labour: you have motive power, I have none."
"I do not quite understand you."
"I mean that a strong ruling motive is required to persist in any regular
course of action that needs effort: the motive with the majority of men
is the need of subsistence; with a large number (as in trades or
professions), not actually want, but a desire of gain, and perhaps of
distinction, in their calling: the desire of professional distinction
expands into the longings for more comprehensive fame, more exalted
honours, with the few who become great writers, soldiers, statesmen,
orators."
"And do you mean to say you have no such motive?"
"None in the sting of want, none in the desire of gain."
"But fame?"
"Alas! I thought so once. I know not now--I begin to doubt if fame
should be sought by women." This was said very dejectedly.
"Tut, dearest Signorina! what gadfly has stung you? Your doubt is a
weakness unworthy of your intellect; and even were it not, genius is
destiny and will be obeyed: you must write, despite yourself--and your
writing must bring fame, whether you wish it or not."
Isaura was silent, her head drooped on her breast--there were tears in
her downcast eyes.
Rameau took her hand, which she yielded to him passively, and clasping it
in both his own, he rushed on impulsively--
"Oh, I know what these misgivings are when we feel ourselves solitary,
unloved: how often have they been mine! But how different would labour
be if shared and sympathised with by a congenial mind, by a heart that
beats in unison with one's own!"
Isaura's breast heaved beneath her robe, she sighed softly.
"And then how sweet the fame of which the one we love is proud! how
trifling becomes the pang of some malignant depreciation, which a word
from the beloved one can soothe! O Signorina! O Isaura! are we not made
for each other? Kindred pursuits, hopes, and fears in common; the same
race to run, the same goal to win! I need a motive stronger than I have
yet known for the persevering energy that insures success: supply to me
that motive. Let me think that whatever I win in the strife of the world
is a tribute to Isaura. No, do not seek to withdraw this hand, let me
claim it as mine for life. I love you as man never loved before--do not
reject my love."
They say the woman who hesitates is lost. Isaura hesitated, but was not
yet lost. The words she listened to moved her deeply. Offers of
marriage she had already received: one from a rich middle-aged noble,
a devoted musical virtuoso; one from a young avocat fresh from the
provinces, and somewhat calculating on her dot; one from a timid but
enthusiastic admirer of her genius and her beauty, himself rich,
handsome, of good birth, but with shy manners and faltering tongue.
But these had made their proposals with the formal respect habitual to
French decorum in matrimonial proposals. Words so eloquently impassioned
as Gustave Rameau's had never before thrilled her ears; Yes, she was
deeply moved; and yet, by that very emotion she knew that it was not to
the love of this wooer that her heart responded.
There is a circumstance in the history of courtship familiar to the
experience of many women, that while the suitor is pleading his cause,
his language may touch every fibre in the heart of his listener, yet
substitute, as it were, another presence for his own. She may be saying
to herself, "Oh that another had said those words!" and be dreaming of
the other, while she hears the one. Thus it was with Isaura, and not
till Rameau's voice had ceased did that dream pass away, and with a
slight shiver she turned her face towards the wooer sadly and pityingly.
"It cannot be," she said, in a low whisper; "I were not worthy of your
love could I accept it. Forget that you have so spoken; let me still be
a friend admiring your genius, interested in your career. I cannot be
more. Forgive me if I unconsciously led you to think I could, I am so
grieved to pain you."
"Am I to understand," said Rameau, coldly, for his _amour propre_ was
resentful, "that the proposals of another have been more fortunate than
mine?" And he named the youngest and comeliest of those whom she had
rejected. "Certainly not," said Isaura.
Rameau rose and went to the window, turning his face from her. In
reality he was striving to collect his thoughts and decide on the course
it were most prudent for him now to pursue. The fumes of the absinthe
which had, despite his previous forebodings, emboldened him to hazard his
avowal, had now subsided into the languid reaction which is generally
consequent on that treacherous stimulus, a reaction not unfavourable to
passionless reflection. He knew that if he said he could not conquer his
love, he would still cling to hope, and trust to perseverance and time,
he should compel Isaura to forbid his visits and break off their familiar
intercourse. This would be fatal to the chance of yet winning her, and
would also be of serious disadvantage to his more worldly interests. Her
literary aid might become essential to the journal on which his fortunes
depended; and at all events, in her conversation, in her encouragement,
in her sympathy with the pains and joys of his career, he felt a support,
a comfort, nay, an inspiration. For the spontaneous gush of her fresh
thoughts and fancies served to recruit his own jaded ideas, and enlarge
his own stinted range of invention. No, he could not commit himself to
the risk of banishment from Isaura.
And mingled with meaner motives for discretion, there was one of which he
was but vaguely conscious, purer and nobler. In the society of this
girl, in whom whatever was strong and high in mental organisation became
so sweetened into feminine grace by gentleness of temper and kindliness
of disposition, Rameau felt himself a better man. The virgin-like
dignity with which she moved, so untainted by a breath of scandal, amid
salons in which the envy of virtues doubted sought to bring innocence
itself into doubt, warmed into a genuine reverence the cynicism of his
professed creed.
While with her, while under her chastening influence, he was sensible of
a poetry infused within him far more true to the Camoenae than all he had
elaborated into verse. In these moments he was ashamed of the vices he
had courted as distractions. He imagined that with her all his own, it
would be easy to reform.
No; to withdraw wholly from Isaura was to renounce his sole chance of
redemption.
While these thoughts, which it takes so long to detail, passed rapidly
through his brain, he felt a soft touch on his arm, and, turning his face
slowly, encountered the tender, compassionate eyes of Isaura.
"Be consoled, dear friend," she said, with a smile, half cheering, half
mournful. "Perhaps for all true artists the solitary lot is the best."
"I will try to think so," answered Rameau; "and meanwhile I thank you
with a full heart for the sweetness with which you have checked my
presumption--the presumption shall not be repeated. Gratefully I accept
the friendship you deign to tender me. You bid me forget the words I
uttered. Promise in turn that you will forget them--or at least consider
them withdrawn. You will receive me still as friend?"
"As friend, surely: yes. Do we not both need friends?" She held out her
hand as she spoke; he bent over it, kissed it with respect, and the
interview thus closed.
CHAPTER V.
It was late in the evening that day when a man who had the appearance of
a decent bourgeois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive class,
entered one of the streets in the Faubourg Montmartre, tenanted chiefly
by artisans. He paused at the open doorway of a tall narrow house, and
drew back as he heard footsteps descending a very gloomy staircase.
The light from a gas lamp on the street fell full on the face of the
person thus quitting the house--the face of a young and handsome man,
dressed with the quiet elegance which betokened one of higher rank or
fashion than that neighbourhood was habituated to find among its
visitors. The first comer retreated promptly into the shade, and,
as by sudden impulse, drew his hat low down over his eyes.
The other man did not, however, observe him, went his way with a quick
step along the street, and entered another house some yards distant.
"What can that pious Bourbonite do here?" muttered the first comer.
"Can he be a conspirator? Diable! 'tis as dark as Erebus on that
staircase."
Taking cautious hold of the banister, the man now ascended the stairs.
On the landing of the first floor there was a gas lamp which threw upward
a faint ray that finally died at the third story. But at that third
story the man's journey ended; he pulled a bell at the door to the right,
and in another moment or so the door was opened by a young woman of
twenty-eight or thirty, dressed very simply, but with a certain neatness
not often seen in the wives of artisans in the Faubourg Montmartre. Her
face, which, though pale and delicate, retained much of the beauty of
youth, became clouded as she recognised the visitor; evidently the visit
was not welcome to her.
"Monsieur Lebeau again!" she exclaimed, shrinking back.
"At your service, _chere dame_. The goodman is of course at home? Ah,
I catch sight of him," and sliding by the woman, M. Lebeau passed the
narrow lobby in which she stood, through the open door conducting into
the room in which Armand Monnier was seated, his chin propped on his
hand, his elbow resting on a table, looking abstractedly into space. In
a corner of the room two small children were playing languidly with a set
of bone tablets, inscribed with the letters of the alphabet. But
whatever the children were doing with the alphabet, they were certainly
not learning to read from it.
The room was of fair size and height, and by no means barely or shabbily
furnished. There was a pretty clock on the mantelpiece. On the wall
were hung designs for the decoration of apartments, and shelves on which
were ranged a few books.
The window was open, and on the sill were placed flowerpots; you could
scent the odour they wafted into the room. Altogether it was an
apartment suited to a skilled artisan earning high wages. From the room
we are now in, branched on one side a small but commodious kitchen; on
the other side, on which the door was screened by a portiere, with a
border prettily worked by female hands--some years ago, for it was faded
now--was a bedroom, communicating with one of less size in which the
children slept. We do not enter those additional rooms, but it may be
well here to mention them as indications of the comfortable state of an
intelligent skilled artisan of Paris, who thinks he can better that state
by some revolution which may ruin his employer.
Monnier started up at the entrance of Lebeau, and his face showed that he
did not share the dislike to the visit which that of the female partner
of his life had evinced. On the contrary, his smile was cordial, and
there was a hearty ring in the voice which cried out--
"I am glad to see you--something to do? Eh!"
"Always ready to work for liberty, _mon brave_."
"I hope so: what's in the wind now?"
"O Armand, be prudent--be prudent!" cried the woman, piteously. "Do not
lead him into further mischief, Monsieur Lebeau;" as she faltered forth
the last words, she bowed her head over the two little ones, and her
voice died in sobs.
"Monnier," said Lebeau, gravely, "Madame is right. I ought not to lead
you into further mischief; there are three in the room who have better
claims on you than--"
"The cause of millions," interrupted Monnier.
"No."
He approached the woman and took up one of the children very tenderly,
stroking back its curls and kissing the face, which, if before surprised
and saddened by the mother's sob, now smiled gaily under the father's
kiss.
"Canst thou doubt, my Heloise," said the artisan, mildly, "that whatever
I do thou and these are not uppermost in my thoughts? I act for thine
interest and theirs--the world as it exists is the foe of you three. The
world I would replace it by will be more friendly."
The poor woman made no reply, but as he drew her towards him, she leant
her head upon his breast and wept quietly. Monnier led her thus from the
room, whispering words of soothing. The children followed the parents
into the adjoining chamber. In a few minutes Monnier returned, shutting
the door behind him, and drawing the portiere close.
"You will excuse me, Citizen, and my poor wife--wife she is to me and to
all who visit here, though the law says she is not."
"I respect Madame the more for her dislike to myself," said Lebeau, with
a somewhat melancholy smile.
"Not dislike to you personally, Citizen, but dislike to the business
which she connects with your visits, and she is more than usually
agitated on that subject this evening, because, just before you came,
another visitor had produced a great effect on her feelings--poor dear
Heloise!"
"Indeed! how?"
"Well, I was employed in the winter in redecorating the salon, and
boudoir, of Madame de Vandemar; her son, M. Raoul, took great interest in
superintending the details. He would sometimes talk to me very civilly,
not only on my work, but on other matters. It seems that Madame now
wants something done to the _salle-a-manger_, and asked old Gerard--my
late master, you know--to send me. Of course he said that was
impossible--for, though I was satisfied with my own wages, I had induced
his other men to strike, and was one of the ringleaders in the recent
strike of artisans in general--a dangerous man, and he would have nothing
more to do with me. So M. Raoul came to see and talk to me--scarce gone
before you rang at the bell--you might have almost met him on the
stairs."
"I saw a beau monsieur come out of the house. And so his talk has
affected Madame."
"Very much; it was quite brother-like. He is one of the religious set,
and they always get at the weak side of the soft sex."
"Ay," said Lebeau, thoughtfully; "if religion were banished from the laws
of men, it would still find a refuge in the hearts of women. But Raoul
de Vandemar did not presume to preach to Madame upon the sin of loving
you and your children?"
"I should like to have heard him preach to her," cried Monnier, fiercely.
"No, he only tried to reason with me about matters he could not
understand."
"Strikes?"
"Well, not exactly strikes--he did not contend that we workmen had not
full right to combine and to strike for obtaining fairer money's worth
for our work; but he tried to persuade me that where, as in my case, it
was not a matter of wages, but of political principle--of war against
capitalists--I could but injure myself and mislead others. He wanted to
reconcile me to old Gerard, or to let him find me employment elsewhere;
and when I told him that my honour forbade me to make terms for myself
till those with whom I was joined were satisfied, he said, 'But if this
lasts much longer, your children will not look so rosy;' then poor
Heloise began to wring her hands and cry, and he took me aside and wanted
to press money on me--as a loan. He spoke so kindly that I could not be
angry; but when he found I would take nothing, he asked me about some
families in the street of whom he had a list, and who, he was informed,
were in great distress. That is true; I am feeding some of them myself
out of my savings. You see, this young Monsieur belongs to a society of
men, many as young as he is, which visits the poor and dispenses charity.
I did not feel I had a right to refuse aid for others, and I told him
where his money would be best spent. I suppose he went there when he
left me."
"I know the society you mean, that of St. Francois de Sales. It
comprises some of the most ancient of that old noblesse to which the
_ouvriers_ in the great Revolution were so remorseless."
"We _ouvriers_ are wiser now; we see that in assailing them, we gave
ourselves worse tyrants in the new aristocracy of the capitalists. Our
quarrel now is that of artisans against employers."
"Of course, I am aware of that; but to leave general politics, tell me
frankly, How has the strike affected you as yet? I mean in purse? Can
you stand its pressure? If not, you are above the false pride of not
taking help from me, a fellow-conspirator, though you were justified in
refusing it when offered by Raoul de Vandemar, the servant of the
Church."
"Pardon, I refuse aid from any one, except for the common cause. But do
not fear for me, I am not pinched as yet. I have had high wages for some
years, and since I and Heloise came together, I have not wasted a sous
out of doors, except in the way of public duty, such as making converts
at the Jean Jacques and elsewhere; a glass of beer and a pipe don't cost
much. And Heloise is such a house-wife, so thrifty, scolds me if I buy
her a ribbon, poor love! No wonder that I would pull down a society that
dares to scoff at her--dares to say she is not my wife, and her children
are base born. No, I have some savings left yet. War to society, war to
the knife!"
"Monnier," said Lebeau, in a voice that evinced emotion, "listen to me: I
have received injuries from society which, when they were fresh, half-
maddened me--that is twenty years ago. I would then have thrown myself
into any plot against society that proffered revenge; but society, my
friend, is a wall of very strong masonry, as it now stands; it may be
sapped in the course of a thousand years, but stormed in a day--no. You
dash your head against it--you scatter your brains, and you dislodge a
stone. Society smiles in scorn, effaces the stain, and replaces the
stone. I no longer war against society. I do war against a system in
that society which is hostile to me--systems in France are easily
overthrown. I say this because I want to use you, and I do not want to
deceive."
"Deceive me, bah! You are an honest man," cried Monnier; and he seized
Lebeau's hand, and shook it with warmth and vigour.
"But for you I should have been a mere grumbler. No doubt I should have
cried out where the shoe pinched, and railed against laws that vex me;
but from the moment you first talked to me I became a new man. You
taught me to act, as Rousseau and Madame de Grantmesnil had taught me to
think and to feel. There is my brother, a grumbler too, but professes to
have a wiser head than mine. He is always warning me against you--
against joining a strike--against doing any thing to endanger my skin.
I always went by his advice till you taught me that it was well enough
for women to talk and complain; men should dare and do."
"Nevertheless," said Lebeau, "your brother is a safer counsellor to a
_pere de famille_ than I. I repeat what I have so often said before: I
desire, and I resolve, that the Empire of M. Bonaparte shall be
overthrown. I see many concurrent circumstances to render that desire
and resolve of practicable fulfilment. You desire and resolve the same
thing. Up to that point we can work together. I have encouraged your
action only so far as it served my design; but I separate from you the
moment you would ask me to aid your design in the hazard of experiments
which the world has never yet favoured, and trust me, Monnier, the world
never will favour."
"That remains to be seen," said Monnier, with compressed, obstinate lips.
"Forgive me, but you are not young; you belong to an old school."
"Poor young man!" said Lebeau, readjusting his spectacles, "I recognise
in you the genius of Paris, be the genius good or evil. Paris is never
warned by experience. Be it so. I want you so much, your enthusiasm is
so fiery, that I can concede no more to the mere sentiment which makes me
say to myself, 'It is a shame to use this great-hearted, wrong-headed
creature for my personal ends.' I come at once to the point--that is,
the matter on which I seek you this evening. At my suggestion, you have
been a ringleader in strikes which have terribly shaken the Imperial
system, more than its Ministers deem; now I want a man like you to assist
in a bold demonstration against the Imperial resort to a rural priest-
ridden suffrage, on the part of the enlightened working class of Paris."
"Good!" said Monnier.
"In a day or two the result of the plebiscite will be known. The result
of universal suffrage will be enormously in favour of the desire
expressed by one man."
"I don't believe it," said Monnier, stoutly. "France cannot be so
hoodwinked by the priests."
"Take what I say for granted," resumed Lebeau, calmly. "On the 8th of
this month we shall know the amount of the majority--some millions of
French votes. I want Paris to separate itself from France, and declare
against those blundering millions. I want an _emeute_, or rather a
menacing demonstration--not a premature revolution, mind. You must avoid
bloodshed."
"It is easy to say that beforehand; but when a crowd of men once meets in
the streets of Paris--"
"It can do much by meeting, and cherishing resentment if the meeting be
dispersed by an armed force, which it would be waste of life to resist."
"We shall see when the time comes," said Monnier, with a fierce gleam in
his bold eyes.
"I tell you, all that is required at this moment is an evident protest of
the artisans of Paris against the votes of the 'rurals' of France. Do
you comprehend me?"
"I think so; if not, I obey. What we _ouvriers_ want is what we have not
got--a head to dictate action to us."
"See to this, then. Rouse the men you can command. I will take care
that you have plentiful aid from foreigners. We may trust to the
_confreres_ of our council to enlist Poles and Italians; Gaspard le Noy
will turn out the volunteer rioters at his command. Let the _emeute_ be
within, say a week, after the vote of the plebiscite is taken. You will
need that time to prepare."
"Be contented--it shall be done."
"Good night, then." Lebeau leisurely took up his hat and drew on his
gloves--then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he turned briskly on the
artisan and said in quick blunt tones:
"Armand Monnier, explain to me why it is that you--a Parisian artisan,
the type of a class the most insubordinate, the most self-conceited that
exists on the face of earth--take without question, with so docile a
submission, the orders of a man who plainly tells you he does not
sympathise in your ultimate objects, of whom you really know very little,
and whose views you candidly own you think are those of an old and
obsolete school of political reasoners."
"You puzzle me to explain," said Monnier, with an ingenuous laugh, that
brightened up features stern and hard, though comely when in repose.
"Partly, because you are so straightforward, and do not talk _blague_;
partly, because I don't think the class I belong to would stir an inch
unless we had a leader of another class--and you give me at least that
leader. Again, you go to that first stage which we all agree to take,
and--well, do you want me to explain more?"
"Yes."
"_Et bien_! you have warned me, like an honest man; like an honest man I
warn you. That first step we take together; I want to go a step further;
you retreat, you say, 'No:' I reply you are committed; that further step
you must take, or I cry '_Traitre_!--_au la lanterne_!' You talk of
'superior experience:' bah! what does experience really tell you? Do you
suppose that Philippe Egalite, when he began to plot against Louis XVI.,
meant to vote for his kinsman's execution by the guillotine? Do you
suppose that Robespierre, when he commenced his career as the foe of
capital punishment, foresaw that he should be the Minister of the Reign
of Terror? Not a bit of it. Each was committed by his use of those he
designed for his tools: so must you be--or you perish."
Lebeau, leaning against the door, heard the frank avowal he had courted
without betraying a change of countenance. But when Armand Monnier had
done, a slight movement of his lips showed emotion; was it of fear or
disdain?
"Monnier," he said, gently; "I am so much obliged to you for the manly
speech you have made. The scruples which my conscience had before
entertained are dispelled. I dreaded lest I, a declared wolf, might
seduce into peril an innocent sheep. I see I have to deal with a wolf of
younger vigour and sharper fangs than myself, so much the better: obey my
orders now; leave it to time to say whether I obey yours later. _Au
revoir_."
CHAPTER VI.
Isaura's apartment, on the following Thursday evening, was more filled
than usual. Besides her habitual devotees in the artistic or literary
world, there were diplomatists and deputies commixed with many fair
chiefs of _la jeunesse doree_; amongst the latter the brilliant
Enguerrand de Vandemar, who, deeming the acquaintance of every celebrity
essential to his own celebrity in either Carthage, the _beau monde_, or
the _demi-monde_, had, two Thursdays before, made Louvier attend her
soiree and present him. Louvier, though gathering to his own salons
authors and artists, very rarely favoured their rooms with his presence;
he did not adorn Isaura's party that evening. But Duplessis was there,
in compensation. It had chanced that Valerie had met Isaura at some
house in the past winter, and conceived an enthusiastic affection for
her: since then, Valerie came very often to see her, and made a point of
dragging with her to Isaura's Thursday reunions her obedient father.
Soirees, musical or literary, were not much in his line; but he had no
pleasure like that of pleasing his spoilt child. Our old friend Frederic
Lemercier was also one of Isaura's guests that night. He had become more
and more intimate with Duplessis, and Duplessis had introduced him to the
fair Valerie as "_un jeune homme plein de moyens, qui ira loin_."
Savarin was there of course, and brought with him an English gentleman of
the name of Bevil, as well known at Paris as in London--invited
everywhere--popular everywhere,--one of those welcome contributors to the
luxuries of civilised society who trade in gossip, sparing no pains to
get the pick of it, and exchanging it liberally sometimes for a haunch of
venison, sometimes for a cup of tea. His gossip not being adulterated
with malice was in high repute for genuine worth.
If Bevil said, "This story is a fact," you no more thought of doubting
him than you would doubt Rothschild if he said, "This is Lafitte of '48."
Mr. Bevil was at present on a very short stay at Paris, and, naturally
wishing to make the most of his time, he did not tarry beside Savarin,
but, after being introduced to Isaura, flitted here and there through the
assembly.
"Apis Matinae--
More modoque--
Grata carpentis thyma"--
The bee proffers honey, but bears a sting.
The room was at its fullest when Gustave Rameau entered, accompanied by
Monsieur de Mauleon.
Isaura was agreeably surprised by the impression made on her by the
Vicomte's appearance and manner. His writings, and such as she had heard
of his earlier repute, had prepared her to see a man decidedly old, of
withered aspect and sardonic smile--aggressive in demeanour--forward or
contemptuous in his very politeness--a Mephistopheles engrafted on the
stem of a Don Juan. She was startled by the sight of one who, despite
his forty-eight years--and at Paris a man is generally older at forty-
eight than he is elsewhere--seemed in the zenith of ripened manhood--
startled yet more by the singular modesty of a deportment too thoroughly
high-bred not to be quietly simple--startled most by a melancholy
expression in eyes that could be at times soft, though always so keen,
and in the grave pathetic smile which seemed to disarm censure of past
faults in saying, "I have known sorrows."
He did not follow up his introduction to his young hostess by any of the
insipid phrases of compliment to which she was accustomed; but, after
expressing in grateful terms his thanks for the honour she had permitted
Rameau to confer on him, he moved aside, as if he had no right to detain
her from other guests more worthy her notice, towards the doorway, taking
his place by Enguerrand amidst a group of men of whom Duplessis was the
central figure.
At that time--the first week in May, 1870--all who were then in Paris
will remember that there were two subjects uppermost in the mouths of
men: first, the plebiscite; secondly, the conspiracy to murder the
Emperor--which the disaffected considered to be a mere fable, a pretence
got up in time to serve the plebiscite and prop the Empire.
Upon this latter subject Duplessis had been expressing himself with
unwonted animation. A loyal and earnest Imperialist, it was only with
effort that he could repress his scorn of that meanest sort of gossip
which is fond of ascribing petty motives to eminent men.
To him nothing could be more clearly evident than the reality of this
conspiracy, and he had no tolerance for the malignant absurdity of
maintaining that the Emperor or his Ministers could be silly and wicked
enough to accuse seventy-two persons of a crime which the police had been
instructed to invent.
As De Mauleon approached, the financier brought his speech to an abrupt
close. He knew in the Vicomte de Mauleon the writer of articles which
had endangered the Government, and aimed no pointless shafts against its
Imperial head.
"My cousin," said Enguerrand, gaily, as he exchanged a cordial shake of
the hand with Victor, "I congratulate you on the fame of journalist, into
which you have vaulted, armed cap-a pie, like a knight of old into his
saddle; but I don't sympathise with the means you have taken to arrive at
that renown. I am not myself an Imperialist--a Vandemar can be scarcely
that. But if I am compelled to be on board a ship, I don't wish to take
out its planks and let in an ocean, when all offered to me instead is a
crazy tub and a rotten rope."
"_Tres bien_," said Duplessis, in Parliamentary tone and phrase.
"But," said De Mauleon, with his calm smile, "would you like the captain
of the ship, when the sky darkened and the sea rose, to ask the common
sailors 'whether they approved his conduct on altering his course or
shortening his sail'? Better trust to a crazy tub and a rotten rope than
to a ship in which the captain consults a plebiscite."
"Monsieur," said Duplessis, "your metaphor is ill chosen no metaphor
indeed is needed. The head of the State was chosen by the voice of the
people, and, when required to change the form of administration which the
people had sanctioned, and inclined to do so from motives the most
patriotic and liberal, he is bound again to consult the people from whom
he holds his power. It is not, however, of the plebiscite we were
conversing, so much as of the atrocious conspiracy of assassins--so
happily discovered in time. I presume that Monsieur de Mauleon must
share the indignation which true Frenchmen of every party must feel
against a combination united by the purpose of murder."
The Vicomte bowed as in assent. "But do you believe," asked a Liberal
Depute, "that such a combination existed, except in the visions of the
police or the cabinet of a Minister?"
Duplessis looked keenly at De Mauleon while this question was put to him.
Belief or disbelief in the conspiracy was with him, and with many, the
test by which a sanguinary revolutionist was distinguished from an honest
politician.
"Ma foi," answered De Mauleon, shrugging his shoulders, "I have only one
belief left; but that is boundless. I believe in the folly of mankind in
general, and of Frenchmen in particular. That seventy-two men should
plot the assassination of a sovereign on whose life interests so numerous
and so watchful depend, and imagine they could keep a secret which any
drunkard amongst them would blab out, any tatterdemalion would sell, is a
_betise_ so gross that I think it highly probable. But pardon me if I
look upon the politics of Paris much as I do upon its mud--one must pass
through it when one walks in the street. One changes one's shoes before
entering the salon. A word with you, Enguerrand,"--and taking his
kinsman's arm he drew him aside from the circle. "What has become of
your brother? I see nothing of him now."
"Oh, Raoul," answered Enguerrand, throwing himself on a couch in a
recess, and making room for De Mauleon beside him--"Raoul is devoting
himself to the distressed _ouvriers_ who have chosen to withdraw from
work. When he fails to persuade them to return, he forces food and fuel
on their wives and children. My good mother encourages him in this
costly undertaking, and no one but you who believe in the infinity of
human folly would credit me when I tell you that his eloquence has drawn
from me all the _argent de poche_ I get from our shop. As for himself,
he has sold his horses, and even grudges a cab-fare, saying, 'That is a
meal for a family.' Ah! if he had but gone into the Church, what a saint
would have deserved canonisation!"
"Do not lament--he will probably have what is a better claim than mere
saintship on Heaven--martyrdom," said De Mauleon, with a smile in which
sarcasm disappeared in melancholy. "Poor Raoul!--and what of my other
cousin, the _beau Marquis_? Several months ago his Legitimist faith
seemed vacillating--he talked to me very fairly about the duties a
Frenchman owed to France, and hinted that he should place his sword at
the command of Napoleon III. I have not yet heard of him as a _soldat de
France_--I hear a great deal of him as a _viveur de Paris_."
"Don't you know why his desire for a military career was frost-bitten?"
"No! why?"
"Alain came from Bretagne profoundly ignorant of most things known to a
_gamin_ of Paris. When he conscientiously overcame the scruples natural
to one of his name and told the Duchesse de Tarascon that he was ready to
fight under the flag of France whatever its colour, he had a vague
reminiscence of ancestral Rochebriants earning early laurels at the head
of their regiments. At all events he assumed as a matter of course that
he, in the first rank as _gentilhomme_, would enter the army, if as a
_sous-lieutenant_, still as _gentilhomme_. But when told that, as he had
been at no military college, he could only enter the ranks as a private
soldier--herd with private soldiers--for at least two years before,
passing through the grade of corporal, his birth, education, habits of
life could, with great favour, raise him to the station of a sous-
lieutenant, you may conceive that the martial ardour of a Rochebriant was
somewhat cooled."
"If he knew what the dormitory of French privates is, and how difficult
a man well educated well brought up, finds it, first, to endure the
coarsest ribaldry and the loudest blasphemy, and then, having endured and
been compelled to share them, ever enforce obedience and discipline as a
superior among those with whom just before he was an equal, his ardour
would not have been merely cooled--it would have been changed into
despair for the armies of France, if hereafter they are met by those
whose officers have been trained to be officers from the outset and have
imbibed from their cradle an education not taught to the boy-pedants from
school--the two-fold education how with courtesy to command, how with
dignity to obey. To return to Rochebriant, such salons as I frequent are
somewhat formal--as befits my grave years and my modest income; I may
add, now that you know my vocation, befits me also as a man who seeks
rather to be instructed than amused. In those salons I did, last year
sometimes, however, meet Rochebriant--as I sometimes still meet you; but
of late he has deserted such sober reunions, and I hear with pain that he
is drifting among those rocks against which my own youth was shipwrecked.
Is the report true?"
"I fear," said Enguerrand, reluctantly, "that at least the report is not
unfounded. And my conscience accuses me of having been to blame in the
first instance. You see, when Alain made terms with Louvier by which he
obtained a very fair income, if prudently managed, I naturally wished
that a man of so many claims to social distinction, and who represents
the oldest branch of my family, should take his right place in our world
of Paris. I gladly therefore presented him to the houses and the men
most _a la mode_--advised him as to the sort of establishment, in
apartments, horses, &c., which it appeared to me that he might reasonably
afford--I mean such as, with his means, I should have prescribed to
myself--"
"Ah! I understand. But you, dear Enguerrand, are a born Parisian, every
inch of you: and a born Parisian is, whatever be thought to the contrary,
the best manager in the world. He alone achieves the difficult art of
uniting thrift with show. It is your Provincial who comes to Paris in
the freshness of undimmed youth, who sows his whole life on its barren
streets. I guess the rest: Alain is ruined." Enguerrand, who certainly
was so far a born Parisian that with all his shrewdness and _savoir
faire_, he had a wonderfully sympathetic heart, very easily moved, one
way or the other--Enguerrand winced at his elder kinsman's words
complimentarily reproachful, and said in unwonted tones of humility:
"Cousin, you are cruel, but you are in the right. I did not calculate
sufficiently on the chances of Alain's head being turned. Hear my
excuse. He seemed to me so much more thoughtful than most at our age
are, so much more stately and proud; well, also so much more pure, so
impressed with the responsibilities of station, so bent on retaining the
old lands in Bretagne; by habit and rearing so simple and self-denying,
--that I took it for granted he was proof against stronger temptations
than those which a light nature like my own puts aside with a laugh. And
at first I had no reason to think myself deceived, when, some months ago,
I heard that he was getting into debt, losing at play, paying court to
female vampires, who drain the life-blood of those on whom they fasten
their fatal lips. Oh, then I spoke to him earnestly!"
"And in vain?"
"In vain. A certain Chevalier de Finisterre, whom you may have
heard of--"
"Certainly, and met; a friend of Louvier's--"
"The same man--has obtained over him an influence which so far subdues
mine, that he almost challenged me when I told him his friend was a
scamp. In fine, though Alain and I have not actually quarrelled, we pass
each other with, '_Bon jour, mon ami._'"
"Hum! My dear Enguerrand, you have done all you could. Flies will be
flies, and spiders, spiders, till the earth is destroyed by a comet.
Nay, I met a distinguished naturalist in America who maintained that we
shall find flies and spiders in the next world."
"You have been in America? Ah, true--I remember, California!"
"Where have I not been? Tush! music--shall I hear our fair hostess
sing?"
"I am afraid not to-night: because Madame S---------- is to favour us,
and the Signorina makes it a rule not to sing at her own house when
professional artists do. You must hear the Cicogna quietly some day;
such a voice, nothing like it."
Madame S---------, who, since she had learned that there was no cause to
apprehend that Isaura might become her professional rival, conceived for
her a wonderful affection, and willingly contributed her magnificent
gifts of song to the charms of Isaura's salon, now began a fragment from
_I Puritani_, which held the audience as silent as the ghosts listening
to Sappho, and when it was over, several of the guests slipped away,
especially those who disliked music, and feared Madame S--------- might
begin again. Enguerrand was not one of such soulless recreants, but he
had many other places to go to. Besides, Madame S-------- was no novelty
to him.
De Mauleon now approached Isaura, who was seated next to Valerie, and
after well-merited encomium on Madame S------'s performance, slid into
some critical comparisons between that singer and those of a former
generation, which interested Isaura, and evinced to her quick perceptions
that kind of love for music which has been refined by more knowledge of
the art than is common to mere amateurs.
"You have studied music, Monsieur de Mauleon," she said. "Do you not
perform yourself?"
"I? No. But music has always had a fatal attraction for me. I ascribe
half the errors of my life to that temperament which makes me too
fascinated by harmonies--too revolted by discords."
"I should have thought such a temperament would have led from errors--are
not errors discords?"
"To the inner sense, yes; but to the outer sense not always. Virtues are
often harsh to the ear--errors very sweet-voiced. The sirens did not
sing out of tune. Better to stop one's ears than glide on Scylla or be
merged into Charybdis."
"Monsieur," cried Valerie, with a pretty _brusquerie_ which became her
well, "you talk like a Vandal."
"It is, I think, by Mademoiselle Duplessis that I have the honour to be
rebuked. Is Monsieur your father very susceptible to music?"
"Well, I cannot say that he cares much for it. But then his mind is so
practical--"
"And his life so successful. No Scylla, no Charybdis for him. However,
Mademoiselle, I am not quite the Vandal you suppose, I do not say that
susceptibility to the influence of music may not be safe, nay, healthful,
to others it was not so to me in my youth. It can do me no harm now."
Here Duplessis came up and whispered his daughter "it was time to leave;
they had promised the Duchesse de Tarascon to assist at the soiree she
gave that night." Valerie took her father's arm with a brightening smile
and a heightened colour. Alain de Rochebriant might probably be at the
Duchesse's.
"Are you not going also to the Hotel de Tarascon, M. de Mauleon?" asked
Duplessis.
"No; I was never there but once. The Duchesse is an Imperialist, at once
devoted and acute, and no doubt very soon divined my lack of faith in her
idols."
Duplessis frowned, and hastily led Valerie away.
In a few minutes the room was comparatively deserted. De Mauleon,
however, lingered by the side of Isaura till all the other guests were
gone. Even then he lingered still, and renewed the interrupted
conversation with her, the Venosta joining therein; and so agreeable did
he make himself to her Italian tastes by a sort of bitter-sweet wisdom
like that of her native proverbs--comprising much knowledge of mankind on
the unflattering side of humanity in that form of pleasantry which has a
latent sentiment of pathos--that the Venosta exclaimed, "Surely you must
have been brought up in Florence!"
There was that in De Mauleon's talk hostile to all which we call romance
that excited the imagination of Isaura, and compelled her instinctive
love for whatever is more sweet, more beautiful, more ennobling on the
many sides of human life, to oppose what she deemed the paradoxes of a
man who had taught himself to belie even his own nature. She became
eloquent, and her countenance, which in ordinary moments owed much of its
beauty to an expression of meditative gentleness, was now lighted up by
the energy of earnest conviction--the enthusiasm of an impassioned zeal.
Gradually De Mauleon relaxed his share in the dialogue, and listened to
her, rapt and dreamily as in his fiery youth he had listened to the songs
of the sirens. No siren Isaura! She was defending her own cause, though
unconsciously--defending the vocation of art as the embellisher of
external nature, and more than embellisher of the nature which dwells
crude, but plastic in the soul of man: indeed therein the creator of a
new nature, strengthened, expanded, and brightened in proportion as it
accumulates the ideas that tend beyond the boundaries of the visible and
material nature, which is finite; for ever seeking in the unseen and the
spiritual the goals in the infinite which it is their instinct to divine.
"That which you contemptuously call romance," said Isaura, "is not
essential only to poets and artists. The most real side of every life,
from the earliest dawn of mind in the infant, is the romantic."
"When the child is weaving flower-chains, chasing butterflies, or sitting
apart and dreaming what it will do in the future, is not that the child's
real life, and yet is it not also the romantic?"
"But there comes a time when we weave no flower-chains, and chase no
butterflies."
"Is it so?--still on one side of life, flowers and butterflies may be
found to the last; and at least to the last are there no dreams of the
future? Have you no such dreams at this moment? and without the romance
of such dreams, would there be any reality to human life which could
distinguish it from the life of the weed that rots on Lethe?"
"Alas, Mademoiselle," said De Mauleon, rising to take leave, "your
argument must rest without answer. I would not, if I could, confute the
beautiful belief that belongs to youth, fusing into one rainbow all the
tints that can colour the world. But the Signora Venosta will
acknowledge the truth of an old saying expressed in every civilised
language, but best, perhaps in that of the Florentine--'You might as well
physic the dead as instruct the old.'"
"But you are not old!" said the Venosta, with Florentine politeness,--"
you! not a grey hair."
"'Tis not by the grey of the hair that one knows the age of the heart,"
answered De Mauleon, in another paraphrase of Italian proverb, and he was
gone.
As he walked homeward, through deserted streets, Victor de Mauleon
thought to himself, "Poor girl, how I pity her! married to a Gustave
Rameau--married to any man--nothing in the nature of man, be he the best
and the cleverest, can ever realise the dream of a girl who is pure and
has genius. Ah, is not the converse true? What girl, the best and the
cleverest, comes up to the ideal of even a commonplace man--if he ever
dreamed of an ideal!"
Then he paused, and in a moment or so afterwards his thought knew such
questionings no more. It turned upon personalities, on stratagems and
plots, on ambition. The man had more than his share of that peculiar
susceptibility which is one of the characteristics of his countrymen--
susceptibility to immediate impulse--susceptibility to fleeting
impressions. It was a key to many mysteries in his character when he
owned his subjection to the influence of music, and in music recognised
not the seraph's harp, but the siren's song. If you could have
permanently fixed Victor de Mauleon in one of the good moments of his
life--even now--some moment of exquisite kindness--of superb generosity
--of dauntless courage--you would have secured a very rare specimen of
noble humanity. But so to fix him was impossible.
That impulse of the moment vanished the moment after; swept aside by the
force of his very talents--talents concentrated by his intense sense of
individuality--sense of wrongs or of rights--interests or objects
personal to himself. He extended the royal saying, "_L'etat, c'est moi_,"
to words far more grandiloquent. "The universe, 'tis I." The Venosta
would have understood him and smiled approvingly, if he had said with
good-humoured laugh, "I dead, the world is dead!" That is an Italian
proverb, and means much the same thing.
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