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diff --git a/7749-0.txt b/7749-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3ed48a --- /dev/null +++ b/7749-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,27023 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s The Parisians, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Parisians, Complete + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 16, 2009 [EBook #7749] +Last Updated: August 28, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARISIANS, COMPLETE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + + +THE PARISIANS + +By Edward Bulwer-Lytton + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. (BY THE AUTHOR’S SON.) + +“The Parisians” and “Kenelm Chillingly” were begun about the same time, +and had their common origin in the same central idea. That idea first +found fantastic expression in “The Coming Race;” and the three books, +taken together, constitute a special group, distinctly apart from all +the other works of their author. + +The satire of his earlier novels is a protest against false social +respectabilities; the humour of his later ones is a protest against the +disrespect of social realities. By the first he sought to promote social +sincerity and the free play of personal character; by the last, to +encourage mutual charity and sympathy amongst all classes, on whose +interrelation depends the character of society itself. But in these +three books, his latest fictions, the moral purpose is more definite and +exclusive. Each of them is an expostulation against what seemed to him +the perilous popularity of certain social and political theories, or a +warning against the influence of certain intellectual tendencies upon +individual character and national life. This purpose, however, though +common to the three fictions, is worked out in each of them by a +different method. “The Coming Race” is a work of pure fancy, and the +satire of it is vague and sportive. The outlines of a definite purpose +are more distinctly drawn in “Chillingly,”--a romance which has the +source of its effect in a highly wrought imagination. The humour and +pathos of “Chillingly” are of a kind incompatible with the design of +“The Parisians,” which is a work of dramatized observation. “Chillingly” + is a romance; “The Parisians” is a novel. The subject of “Chillingly” is +psychological; that of “The Parisians” is social. The author’s object in +“Chillingly” being to illustrate the effects of “modern ideas” upon an +individual character, he has confined his narrative to the biography +of that one character; hence the simplicity of plot and small number of +dramatis personae, whereby the work gains in height and depth what +it loses in breadth of surface. “The Parisians,” on the contrary, +is designed to illustrate the effect of “modern ideas” upon a whole +community. This novel is therefore panoramic in the profusion and +variety of figures presented by it to the reader’s imagination. No +exclusive prominence is vouchsafed to any of these figures. All of them +are drawn and coloured with an equal care, but by means of the bold, +broad touches necessary for their effective presentation on a canvas +so large and so crowded. Such figures are, indeed, but the component +features of one great form, and their actions only so many modes of +one collective impersonal character,--that of the Parisian Society of +Imperial and Democratic France; a character everywhere present and busy +throughout the story, of which it is the real hero or heroine. This +society was doubtless selected for characteristic illustration as +being the most advanced in the progress of “modern ideas.” Thus, for a +complete perception of its writer’s fundamental purpose, “The Parisians” + should be read in connection with “Chillingly,” and these two books +in connection with “The Coming Race.” It will then be perceived that +through the medium of alternate fancy, sentiment, and observation, +assisted by humour and passion, these three books (in all other respects +so different from each other) complete the presentation of the same +purpose under different aspects, and thereby constitute a group of +fictions which claims a separate place of its own in any thoughtful +classification of their author’s works. + +One last word to those who will miss from these pages the connecting +and completing touches of the master’s hand. It may be hoped that such a +disadvantage, though irreparable, is somewhat mitigated by the essential +character of the work itself. The aesthetic merit of this kind of novel +is in the vivacity of a general effect produced by large, swift strokes +of character; and in such strokes, if they be by a great artist, force +and freedom of style must still be apparent, even when they are left +rough and unfinished. Nor can any lack of final verbal correction +much diminish the intellectual value which many of the more thoughtful +passages of the present work derive from a long, keen, and practical +study of political phenomena, guided by personal experience of public +life, and enlightened by a large, instinctive knowledge of the human +heart. + +Such a belief is, at least, encouraged by the private communications +spontaneously made to him who expresses it, by persons of political +experience and social position in France, who have acknowledged +the general accuracy of the author’s descriptions, and noticed the +suggestive sagacity and penetration of his occasional comments on the +circumstances and sentiments he describes. + + + + +INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. + +They who chance to have read the “Coming Race” may perhaps remember that +I, the adventurous discoverer of the land without a sun, concluded the +sketch of my adventures by a brief reference to the malady which, though +giving no perceptible notice of its encroachments, might, in the opinion +of my medical attendant, prove suddenly fatal. + +I had brought my little book to this somewhat melancholy close a few +years before the date of its publication, and in the meanwhile I was +induced to transfer my residence to Paris, in order to place myself +under the care of an English physician, renowned for his successful +treatment of complaints analogous to my own. + +I was the more readily persuaded to undertake this journey,--partly +because I enjoyed a familiar acquaintance with the eminent physician +referred to, who had commenced his career and founded his reputation in +the United States; partly because I had become a solitary man, the ties +of home broken, and dear friends of mine were domiciled in Paris, with +whom I should be sure of tender sympathy and cheerful companionship. I +had reason to be thankful for this change of residence: the skill of +Dr. C______ soon restored me to health. Brought much into contact +with various circles of Parisian society, I became acquainted with the +persons and a witness of the events that form the substance of the tale +I am about to submit to the public, which has treated my former book +with so generous an indulgence. Sensitively tenacious of that character +for strict and unalloyed veracity which, I flatter myself, my account +of the abodes and manners of the Vril-ya has established, I could have +wished to preserve the following narrative no less jealously guarded +than its predecessor from the vagaries of fancy. But Truth undisguised, +never welcome in any civilized community above ground, is exposed at +this time to especial dangers in Paris; and my life would not be worth +an hour’s purchase if I exhibited her ‘in puris naturalibus’ to the eyes +of a people wholly unfamiliarized to a spectacle so indecorous. That +care for one’s personal safety which is the first duty of thoughtful man +compels me therefore to reconcile the appearance of ‘la Verite’ to the +‘bienseances’ of the polished society in which ‘la Liberte’ admits no +opinion not dressed after the last fashion. + +Attired as fiction, Truth may be peacefully received; and, despite the +necessity thus imposed by prudence, I indulge the modest hope that I do +not in these pages unfaithfully represent certain prominent types of the +brilliant population which has invented so many varieties of Koom-Posh; + + [Koom-Posh, Glek-Nas. For the derivation of these terms and their + metaphorical signification, I must refer the reader to the “Coming + Race,” chapter xii., on the language of the Vril-ya. To those who + have not read or have forgotten that historical composition, it may + be convenient to state briefly that Koom-Posh with the Vril-ya is + the name for the government of the many, or the ascendency of the + most ignorant or hollow, and may be loosely rendered Hollow-Bosh. + When Koom-Posh degenerates from popular ignorance into the popular + ferocity which precedes its decease, the name for that state of + things is Glek-Nas; namely, the universal strife-rot.] + +and even when it appears hopelessly lost in the slough of a Glek-Nas, +re-emerges fresh and lively as if from an invigorating plunge into +the Fountain of Youth. O Paris, ‘foyer des idees, et oeil du +monde!’--animated contrast to the serene tranquillity of the Vril-ya, +which, nevertheless, thy noisiest philosophers ever pretend to make the +goal of their desires: of all communities on which shines the sun and +descend the rains of heaven, fertilizing alike wisdom and folly, virtue +and vice; in every city men have yet built on this earth,--mayest +thou, O Paris, be the last to brave the wands of the Coming Race and be +reduced into cinders for the sake of the common good! + + TISH. + +PARIS, August 28, 1872. + + + + +THE PARISIANS. + + + + +BOOK I. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +It was a bright day in the early spring of 1869. All Paris seemed to +have turned out to enjoy itself. The Tuileries, the Champs Elysees, the +Bois de Boulogne, swarmed with idlers. A stranger might have wondered +where Toil was at work, and in what nook Poverty lurked concealed. +A millionaire from the London Exchange, as he looked round on the +magasins, the equipages, the dresses of the women; as he inquired +the prices in the shops and the rent of apartments,--might have asked +himself, in envious wonder, How on earth do those gay Parisians live? +What is their fortune? Where does it come from? + +As the day declined, many of the scattered loungers crowded into the +Boulevards; the cafes and restaurants began to light up. + +About this time a young man, who might be some five or six and twenty, +was walking along the Boulevard des Italiens, heeding little the throng +through which he glided his solitary way: there was that in his aspect +and bearing which caught attention. He looked a somebody; but though +unmistakably a Frenchman, not a Parisian. His dress was not in the +prevailing mode: to a practised eye it betrayed the taste and the cut +of a provincial tailor. His gait was not that of the Parisian,--less +lounging, more stately; and, unlike the Parisian, he seemed indifferent +to the gaze of others. + +Nevertheless there was about him that air of dignity or distinction +which those who are reared from their cradle in the pride of birth +acquire so unconsciously that it seems hereditary and inborn. It +must also be confessed that the young man himself was endowed with +a considerable share of that nobility which Nature capriciously +distributes among her favourites with little respect for their pedigree +and blazon, the nobility of form and face. He was tall and well shaped, +with graceful length of limb and fall of shoulders; his face was +handsome, of the purest type of French masculine beauty,--the nose +inclined to be aquiline, and delicately thin, with finely-cut open +nostrils; the complexion clear,--the eyes large, of a light hazel, with +dark lashes,--the hair of a chestnut brown, with no tint of auburn,--the +beard and mustache a shade darker, clipped short, not disguising the +outline of lips, which were now compressed, as if smiles had of late +been unfamiliar to them; yet such compression did not seem in harmony +with the physiognomical character of their formation, which was that +assigned by Lavater to temperaments easily moved to gayety and pleasure. + +Another man, about his own age, coming quickly out of one of the streets +of the Chausee d’Antin, brushed close by the stately pedestrian +above described, caught sight of his countenance, stopped short, and +exclaimed, “Alain!” The person thus abruptly accosted turned his eye +tranquilly on the eager face, of which all the lower part was enveloped +in black beard; and slightly lifting his hat, with a gesture of the +head that implied, “Sir, you are mistaken; I have not the honour to know +you,” continued his slow indifferent way. The would-be acquaintance +was not so easily rebuffed. “Peste,” he said, between his teeth, “I am +certainly right. He is not much altered: of course I AM; ten years of +Paris would improve an orang-outang.” Quickening his step, and regaining +the side of the man he had called “Alain,” he said, with a well-bred +mixture of boldness and courtesy in his tone and countenance, + +“Ten thousand pardons if I am wrong. Put surely I accost Alain de +Kerouec, son of the Marquis de Rochebriant.” + +“True, sir; but--” + +“But you do not remember me, your old college friend, Frederic +Lemercier?” + +“Is it possibly?” cried Alain, cordially, and with an animation which +charged the whole character of his countenance. “My dear Frederic, my +dear friend, this is indeed good fortune! So you, too, are at Paris?” + +“Of course; and you? Just come, I perceive,” he added, somewhat +satirically, as, linking his arm in his new-found friend’s, he glanced +at the cut of that friend’s coat-collar. + +“I have been here a fortnight,” replied Alain. + +“Hem! I suppose you lodge in the old Hotel de Rochebriant. I passed +it yesterday, admiring its vast facade, little thinking you were its +inmate.” + +“Neither am I; the hotel does not belong to me; it was sold some years +ago by my father.” + +“Indeed! I hope your father got a good price for it; those grand hotels +have trebled their value within the last five years. And how is your +father? Still the same polished grand seigneur? I never saw him +but once, you know; and I shall never forget his smile, style grand +monarque, when he patted me on the head and tipped me ten napoleons.” + +“My father is no more,” said Alain, gravely; “he has been dead nearly +three years.” + +“Ciel! forgive me; I am greatly shocked. Hem! so you are now the Marquis +de Rochebriant, a great historical name, worth a large sum in the +market. Few such names left. Superb place your old chateau, is it not?” + +“A superb place, no--a venerable ruin, yes!” + +“Ah, a ruin! so much the better. All the bankers are mad after ruins: so +charming an amusement to restore them. You will restore yours, without +doubt. I will introduce you to such an architect! has the ‘moyen age’ at +his fingers’ ends. Dear,--but a genius.” + +The young Marquis smiled,--for since he had found a college friend, +his face showed that it could smile,--smiled, but not cheerfully, and +answered, + +“I have no intention to restore Rochebriant. The walls are solid: they +have weathered the storms of six centuries, they will last my time, and +with me the race perishes.” + +“Bah! the race perish, indeed! you will marry. ‘Parlez moi de ca’: you +could not come to a better man. I have a list of all the heiresses at +Paris, bound in russia leather. You may take your choice out of twenty. +Ah, if I were but a Rochebriant! It is an infernal thing to come into +the world a Lemercier. I am a democrat, of course. A Lemercier would be +in a false position if he were not. But if any one would leave me twenty +acres of land, with some antique right to the De and a title, faith, +would not I be an aristocrat, and stand up for my order? But now we have +met, pray let us dine together. Ah! no doubt you are engaged every day +for a month. A Rochebriant just new to Paris must be ‘fete’ by all the +Faubourg.” + +“No,” answered Alain, simply, “I am not engaged; my range of +acquaintance is more circumscribed than you suppose.” + +“So much the better for me. I am luckily disengaged today, which is not +often the case, for I am in some request in my own set, though it is not +that of the Faubourg. Where shall we dine?--at the Trois Freres?” + +“Wherever you please. I know no restaurant at Paris, except a very +ignoble one, close by my lodging.” + +“‘Apropos’, where do you lodge?” + +“Rue de l’Universite, Numero --.” + +“A fine street, but ‘triste’. If you have no longer your family hotel, +you have no excuse to linger in that museum of mummies, the Faubourg St. +Germain; you must go into one of the new quarters by the Champs Elysees. +Leave it to me; I’ll find you a charming apartment. I know one to be had +a bargain,--a bagatelle,--five hundred naps a-year. Cost you about two +or three thousand more to furnish tolerably, not showily. Leave all to +me. In three days you shall be settled. Apropos! horses! You must have +English ones. How many?--three for the saddle, two for your ‘coupe’? +I’ll find them for you. I will write to London to-morrow: Reese [Rice] +is your man.” + +“Spare yourself that trouble, my dear Frederic. I keep no horses and no +coupe. I shall not change my apartment.” As he said this, Rochebriant +drew himself up somewhat haughtily. + +“Faith,” thought Lemercier, “is it possible that the Marquis is poor? +No. I have always heard that the Rochebriants were among the greatest +proprietors in Bretagne. Most likely, with all his innocence of the +Faubourg St. Germain, he knows enough of it to be aware that I, Frederic +Lemercier, am not the man to patronize one of its greatest nobles. +‘Sacre bleu!’ if I thought that; if he meant to give himself airs to me, +his old college friend,--I would--I would call him out.” + +Just as M. Lemercier had come to that bellicose resolution, the Marquis +said, with a smile which, though frank, was not without a certain grave +melancholy in its expression, “My dear Frederic, pardon me if I seem to +receive your friendly offers ungraciously. But I believe that I have +reasons you will approve for leading at Paris a life which you certainly +will not envy;” then, evidently desirous to change the subject, he said +in a livelier tone, “But what a marvellous city this Paris of ours is! +Remember I had never seen it before: it burst on me like a city in the +Arabian Nights two weeks ago. And that which strikes me most--I say +it with regret and a pang of conscience--is certainly not the Paris of +former times, but that Paris which M. Buonaparte--I beg pardon, which +the Emperor--has called up around him, and identified forever with his +reign. It is what is new in Paris that strikes and enthrals me. Here I +see the life of France, and I belong to her tombs!” + +“I don’t quite understand you,” said Lemercier. “If you think that +because your father and grandfather were Legitimists, you have not the +fair field of living ambition open to you under the Empire, you never +were more mistaken. ‘Moyen age,’ and even rococo, are all the rage. +You have no idea how valuable your name would be either at the Imperial +Court or in a Commercial Company. But with your fortune you are +independent of all but fashion and the Jockey Club. + +“And ‘apropos’ of that, pardon me,--what villain made your coat?--let +me know; I will denounce him to the police.” Half amused, half amazed, +Alain Marquis de Rochebriant looked at Frederic Lemercier much as a +good-tempered lion may look upon a lively poodle who takes a liberty +with his mane, and after a pause he replied curtly, “The clothes I wear +at Paris were made in Bretagne; and if the name of Rochebriant be of any +value at all in Paris, which I doubt, let me trust that it will make me +acknowledged as ‘gentilhomme,’ whatever my taste in a coat or whatever +the doctrines of a club composed--of jockeys.” + +“Ha, ha!” cried Lemercier, freeing himself from the arm of his friend, +and laughing the more irresistibly as he encountered the grave look of +the Marquis. “Pardon me,--I can’t help it,--the Jockey Club,--composed +of jockeys!--it is too much!--the best joke. My dear, Alain, there is +some of the best blood of Europe in the Jockey Club; they would exclude +a plain bourgeois like me. But it is all the same: in one respect +you are quite right. Walk in a blouse if you please: you are still +Rochebriant; you would only be called eccentric. Alas! I am obliged to +send to London for my pantaloons: that comes of being a Lemercier. But +here we are in the Palais Royal.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +The salons of the Trois Freres were crowded; our friends found a table +with some little difficulty. Lemercier proposed a private cabinet, +which, for some reason known to himself, the Marquis declined. + +Lemercier spontaneously and unrequested ordered the dinner and the +wines. + +While waiting for their oysters, with which, when in season, French +‘bon-vivants’ usually commence their dinner, Lemercier looked round the +salon with that air of inimitable, scrutinizing, superb impertinence +which distinguishes the Parisian dandy. Some of the ladies returned +his glance coquettishly, for Lemercier was ‘beau garcon;’ others turned +aside indignantly, and muttered something to the gentlemen dining with +them. The said gentlemen, when old, shook their heads, and continued +to eat unmoved; when young, turned briskly round, and looked at first +fiercely at M. Lemercier, but, encountering his eye through the glass +which he had screwed into his socket, noticing the hardihood of his +countenance and the squareness of his shoulders, even they turned back +to the tables, shook their heads, and continued to eat unmoved, just +like the old ones. + +“Ah!” cried Lemercier, suddenly, “here comes a man you should know, ‘mon +cher.’ He will tell you how to place your money,--a rising man, a coming +man, a future minister. Ah! ‘bon jour,’ Duplessis, ‘bon jour,’” kissing +his hand to a gentleman who had just entered and was looking about him +for a seat. He was evidently well and favourably known at the Trois +Freres. The waiters had flocked round him, and were pointing to a +table by the window, which a saturnine Englishman, who had dined off a +beefsteak and potatoes, was about to vacate. + +M. Duplessis, having first assured himself, like a prudent man, that +his table was secure, having ordered his oysters, his chablis, and his +‘potage a la bisque,’ now paced calmly and slowly across the salon, and +halted before Lemercier. + +Here let me pause for a moment, and give the reader a rapid sketch of +the two Parisians. + +Frederic Lemercier is dressed, somewhat too showily, in the extreme of +the prevalent fashion. He wears a superb pin in his cravat,--a pin worth +two thousand francs; he wears rings on his fingers, ‘breloques’ to his +watch-chain. He has a warm though dark complexion, thick black eyebrows, +full lips, a nose somewhat turned up, but not small, very fine large +dark eyes, a bold, open, somewhat impertinent expression of countenance; +withal decidedly handsome, thanks to colouring, youth, and vivacity of +regard. + +Lucien Duplessis, bending over the table, glancing first with curiosity +at the Marquis de Rochebriant, who leans his cheek on his hand and +seems not to notice him, then concentrating his attention on Frederic +Lemercier, who sits square with his hands clasped,--Lucien Duplessis +is somewhere between forty and fifty, rather below the middle height, +slender, but not slight,--what in English phrase is called “wiry.” He +is dressed with extreme simplicity: black frockcoat buttoned up; +black cravat worn higher than men who follow the fashions wear their +neckcloths nowadays; a hawk’s eye and a hawk’s beak; hair of a dull +brown, very short, and wholly without curl; his cheeks thin and smoothly +shaven, but he wears a mustache and imperial, plagiarized from those of +his sovereign, and, like all plagiarisms, carrying the borrowed beauty +to extremes, so that the points of mustache and imperial, stiffened and +sharpened by cosmetics which must have been composed of iron, looked +like three long stings guarding lip and jaw from invasion; a pale +olive-brown complexion, eyes small, deep-sunk, calm, piercing; his +expression of face at first glance not striking, except for quiet +immovability. Observed more heedfully, the expression was keenly +intellectual,--determined about the lips, calculating about the brows: +altogether the face of no ordinary man, and one not, perhaps, without +fine and high qualities, concealed from the general gaze by habitual +reserve, but justifying the confidence of those whom he admitted into +his intimacy. + +“Ah, mon cher,” said Lemercier, “you promised to call on me yesterday at +two o’clock. I waited in for you half an hour; you never came.” + +“No; I went first to the Bourse. The shares in that Company we spoke of +have fallen; they will fall much lower: foolish to buy in yet; so the +object of my calling on you was over. I took it for granted you would +not wait if I failed my appointment. Do you go to the opera to-night?” + +“I think not; nothing worth going for: besides, I have found an old +friend, to whom I consecrate this evening. Let me introduce you to the +Marquis de Rochebriant. Alain, M. Duplessis.” + +The two gentlemen bowed. + +“I had the honour to be known to Monsieur your father,” said Duplessis. + +“Indeed,” returned Rochebriant. “He had not visited Paris for many years +before he died.” + +“It was in London I met him, at the house of the Russian Princess +C____.” + +The Marquis coloured high, inclined his head gravely, and made no reply. +Here the waiter brought the oysters and the chablis, and Duplessis +retired to his own table. + +“That is the most extraordinary man,” said Frederic, as he squeezed the +lemon over his oysters, “and very much to be admired.” + +“How so? I see nothing at least to admire in his face,” said the +Marquis, with the bluntness of a provincial. + +“His face. Ah! you are a Legitimist,--party prejudice. He dresses his +face after the Emperor; in itself a very clever face, surely.” + +“Perhaps, but not an amiable one. He looks like a bird of prey.” + +“All clever men are birds of prey. The eagles are the heroes, and the +owls the sages. Duplessis is not an eagle nor an owl. I should rather +call him a falcon, except that I would not attempt to hoodwink him.” + +“Call him what you will,” said the Marquis, indifferently; “M. Duplessis +can be nothing to me.” + +“I am not so sure of that,” answered Frederic, somewhat nettled by +the phlegm with which the Provincial regarded the pretensions of the +Parisian. “Duplessis, I repeat it, is an extraordinary man. Though +untitled, he descends from your old aristocracy; in fact, I believe, as +his name shows, from the same stem as the Richelieus. His father was +a great scholar, and I believe he has read much himself. Might have +distinguished himself in literature or at the bar, but his parents died +fearfully poor; and some distant relations in commerce took charge of +him, and devoted his talents to the ‘Bourse.’ Seven years ago he lived +in a single chamber, ‘au quatrieme,’ near the Luxembourg. He has now a +hotel, not large but charming, in the Champs Elysees, worth at least six +hundred thousand francs. Nor has he made his own fortune alone, but that +of many others; some of birth as high as your own. He has the genius of +riches, and knocks off a million as a poet does an ode, by the force +of inspiration. He is hand-in-glove with the Ministers, and has been +invited to Compiegne by the Emperor. You will find him very useful.” + +Alain made a slight movement of incredulous dissent, and changed the +conversation to reminiscences of old school-boy days. + +The dinner at length came to a close. Frederic rang for the +bill,--glanced over it. “Fifty-nine francs,” said he, carelessly +flinging down his napoleon and a half. The Marquis silently drew +forth his purse and extracted the same sum. When they were out of +the restaurant, Frederic proposed adjourning to his own rooms. “I +can promise you an excellent cigar, one of a box given to me by an +invaluable young Spaniard attached to the Embassy here. Such cigars are +not to be had at Paris for money, nor even for love; seeing that women, +however devoted and generous, never offer you anything better than a +cigarette. Such cigars are only to be had for friendship. Friendship is +a jewel.” + +“I never smoke,” answered the Marquis, “but I shall be charmed to come +to your rooms; only don’t let me encroach on your good-nature. Doubtless +you have engagements for the evening.” + +“None till eleven o’clock, when I have promised to go to a soiree +to which I do not offer to take you; for it is one of those Bohemian +entertainments at which it would do you harm in the Faubourg to +assist,--at least until you have made good your position. Let me see, is +not the Duchesse de Tarascon a relation of yours?” + +“Yes; my poor mother’s first cousin.” + +“I congratulate you. ‘Tres grande dame.’ She will launch you in ‘puro +cielo,’ as Juno might have launched one of her young peacocks.” + +“There has been no acquaintance between our houses,” returned the +Marquis, dryly, “since the mesalliance of her second nuptials.” + +“Mesalliance! second nuptials! Her second husband was the Duc de +Tarascon.” + +“A duke of the First Empire, the grandson of a butcher.” + +“Diable! you are a severe genealogist, Monsieur le Marquis. How can you +consent to walk arm-in-arm with me, whose great-grandfather supplied +bread to the same army to which the Due de Tarascon’s grandfather +furnished the meat?” + +“My dear Frederic, we two have an equal pedigree, for our friendship +dates from the same hour. I do not blame the Duchesse de Tarascon for +marrying the grandson of a butcher, but for marrying the son of a man +made duke by a usurper. She abandoned the faith of her house and +the cause of her sovereign. Therefore her marriage is a blot on our +scutcheon.” + +Frederic raised his eyebrows, but had the tact to pursue the subject +no further. He who interferes in the quarrels of relations must pass +through life without a friend. + +The young men now arrived at Lemercier’s apartment, an entresol looking +on the Boulevard des Italiens, consisting of more rooms than a bachelor +generally requires; low-pitched, indeed, but of good dimensions, and +decorated and furnished with a luxury which really astonished the +provincial, though, with the high-bred pride of an oriental, he +suppressed every sign of surprise. + +Florentine cabinets, freshly retouched by the exquisite skill of Mombro; +costly specimens of old Sevres and Limoges; pictures and bronzes and +marble statuettes,--all well chosen and of great price, reflected from +mirrors in Venetian frames,--made a ‘coup d’oeil’ very favourable to +that respect which the human mind pays to the evidences of money. Nor +was comfort less studied than splendour. Thick carpets covered the +floors, doubled and quilted portieres excluded all draughts from chinks +in the doors. Having allowed his friend a few minutes to contemplate and +admire the ‘salle a manger’ and ‘salon’ which constituted his more state +apartments, Frederic then conducted him into a small cabinet, fitted up +with scarlet cloth and gold fringes, whereon were artistically arranged +trophies of Eastern weapons and Turkish pipes with amber mouthpieces. + +There, placing the Marquis at ease on a divan and flinging himself +on another, the Parisian exquisite ordered a valet, well dressed as +himself, to bring coffee and liqueurs; and after vainly pressing one of +his matchless cigars on his friend, indulged in his own Regalia. + +“They are ten years old,” said Frederic, with a tone of compassion at +Alain’s self-inflicted loss,--“ten years old. Born therefore about the +year in which we two parted--” + +“When you were so hastily summoned from college,” said the Marquis, “by +the news of your father’s illness. We expected you back in vain. Have +you been at Paris ever since?” + +“Ever since; my poor father died of that illness. His fortune proved +much larger than was suspected: my share amounted to an income from +investments in stocks, houses, etc., to upwards of sixty thousand francs +a-year; and as I wanted six years to my majority of course the capital +on attaining my majority would be increased by accumulation. My mother +desired to keep me near her; my uncle, who was joint guardian with her, +looked with disdain on our poor little provincial cottage; so promising +an heir should acquire his finishing education under masters at Paris. +Long before I was of age, I was initiated into politer mysteries of our +capital than those celebrated by Eugene Sue. When I took possession of +my fortune five years ago, I was considered a Croesus; and really for +that patriarchal time I was wealthy. Now, alas! my accumulations have +vanished in my outfit; and sixty thousand francs a-year is the least a +Parisian can live upon. It is not only that all prices have fabulously +increased, but that the dearer things become, the better people live. +When I first came out, the world speculated upon me; now, in order to +keep my standing, I am forced to speculate on the world. Hitherto I have +not lost; Duplessis let me into a few good things this year, worth one +hundred thousand francs or so. Croesus consulted the Delphic Oracle. +Duplessis was not alive in the time of Croesus, or Croesus would have +consulted Duplessis.” + +Here there was a ring at the outer door of the apartment, and in another +minute the valet ushered in a gentleman somewhere about the age of +thirty, of prepossessing countenance, and with the indefinable air +of good-breeding and ‘usage du monde.’ Frederic started up to greet +cordially the new-comer, and introduced him to the Marquis under the +name of “Sare Grarm Varn.” + +“Decidedly,” said the visitor, as he took off his paletot and seated +himself beside the Marquis,--“decidedly, my dear Lemercier,” said he, in +very correct French, and with the true Parisian accent and intonation, +“you Frenchmen merit that praise for polished ignorance of the language +of barbarians which a distinguished historian bestows on the ancient +Romans. Permit me, Marquis, to submit to you the consideration whether +Grarm Varn is a fair rendering of my name as truthfully printed on this +card.” + +The inscription on the card, thus drawn from its case and placed in +Alain’s hand, was-- + + MR. GRAHAM VANE, + + No. __ Rue d’Anjou. + +The Marquis gazed at it as he might on a hieroglyphic, and passed it on +to Lemercier in discreet silence. + +That gentleman made another attempt at the barbarian appellation. + +“‘Grar--ham Varne.’ ‘C’est ca!’ I triumph! all difficulties yield to +French energy.” + +Here the coffee and liqueurs were served; and after a short pause the +Englishman, who had very quietly been observing the silent Marquis, +turned to him and said, “Monsieur le Marquis, I presume it was your +father whom I remember as an acquaintance of my own father at Ems. It +is many years ago; I was but a child. The Count de Chambord was then at +that enervating little spa for the benefit of the Countess’s health. +If our friend Lemercier does not mangle your name as he does mine, I +understand him to say that you are the Marquis de Rochebriant.” + +“That is my name: it pleases me to hear that my father was among those +who flocked to Ems to do homage to the royal personage who deigns to +assume the title of Count de Chambord.” + +“My own ancestors clung to the descendants of James II. till their +claims were buried in the grave of the last Stuart, and I honour the +gallant men who, like your father, revere in an exile the heir to their +ancient kings.” + +The Englishman said this with grace and feeling; the Marquis’s heart +warmed to him at once. + +“The first loyal ‘gentilhome’ I have met at Paris,” thought the +Legitimist; “and, oh, shame! not a Frenchman!” Graham Vane, now +stretching himself and accepting the cigar which Lemercier offered him, +said to that gentleman “You who know your Paris by heart--everybody and +everything therein worth the knowing, with many bodies and many things +that are not worth it--can you inform me who and what is a certain lady +who every fine day may be seen walking in a quiet spot at the outskirts +of the Bois de Boulogne, not far from the Baron de Rothschild’s villa? +The said lady arrives at this selected spot in a dark-blue coupe without +armorial bearings, punctually at the hour of three. She wears always +the same dress,--a kind of gray pearl-coloured silk, with a ‘cachemire’ +shawl. In age she may be somewhat about twenty--a year or so more or +less--and has a face as haunting as a Medusa’s; not, however, a face to +turn a man into a stone, but rather of the two turn a stone into a man. +A clear paleness, with a bloom like an alabaster lamp with the light +flashing through. I borrow that illustration from Sare Scott, who +applied it to Milor Bee-ren.” + +“I have not seen the lady you describe,” answered Lemercier, feeling +humiliated by the avowal; “in fact, I have not been in that sequestered +part of the Bois for months; but I will go to-morrow: three o’clock you +say,--leave it to me; to-morrow evening, if she is a Parisienne, you +shall know all about her. But, mon cher, you are not of a jealous +temperament to confide your discovery to another.” + +“Yes, I am of a very jealous temperament,” replied the Englishman; “but +jealousy comes after love, and not before it. I am not in love; I am +only haunted. To-morrow evening, then, shall we dine at Philippe’s, +seven o’clock?” + +“With all my heart,” said Lemercier; “and you too, Alain?” + +“Thank you, no,” said the Marquis, briefly; and he rose, drew on his +gloves, and took up his hat. + +At these signals of departure, the Englishman, who did not want tact +nor delicacy, thought that he had made himself ‘de trop’ in the +‘tete-a-tete’ of two friends of the same age and nation; and, catching +up his paletot, said hastily, “No, Marquis, do not go yet, and leave +our host in solitude; for I have an engagement which presses, and only +looked in at Lemercier’s for a moment, seeing the light at his windows. +Permit me to hope that our acquaintance will not drop, and inform me +where I may have the honour to call on you.” + +“Nay,” said the Marquis; “I claim the right of a native to pay my +respects first to the foreigner who visits our capital, and,” he added +in a lower tone, “who speaks so nobly of those who revere its exiles.” + +The Englishman saluted, and walked slowly towards the door; but on +reaching the threshold turned back and made a sign to Lemercier, +unperceived by Alain. + +Frederic understood the sign, and followed Graham Vane into the +adjoining room, closing the door as he passed. + +“My dear Lemercier, of course I should not have intruded on you at this +hour on a mere visit of ceremony. I called to say that the Mademoiselle +Duval whose address you sent me is not the right one,--not the lady +whom, knowing your wide range of acquaintance, I asked you to aid me in +finding out.” + +“Not the right Duval? Diable! she answered your description, exactly.” + +“Not at all.” + +“You said she was very pretty and young,--under twenty.” + +“You forgot that I said she deserved that description twenty-one years +ago.” + +“Ah, so you did; but some ladies are always young. ‘Age,’ says a wit +in the ‘Figaro,’ ‘tis a river which the women compel to reascend to its +source when it has flowed onward more than twenty years.’ Never mind: +‘soyez tranquille;’ I will find your Duval yet if she is to be found. +But why could not the friend who commissioned you to inquire choose +a name less common? Duval! every street in Paris has a shop-door over +which is inscribed the name of Duval.” + +“Quite true, there is the difficulty; however, my dear Lemercier, +pray continue to look out for a Louise Duval who was young and pretty +twenty-one years ago: this search ought to interest me more than that +which I entrusted to you tonight, respecting the pearly-robed lady; +for in the last I but gratify my own whim, in the first I discharge a +promise to a friend. You, so perfect a Frenchman, know the difference; +honour is engaged to the first. Be sure you let me know if you find +any other Madame or Mademoiselle Duval; and of course you remember +your promise not to mention to any one the commission of inquiry you +so kindly undertake. I congratulate you on your friendship for M. de +Rochebriant. What a noble countenance and manner!” + +Lemercier returned to the Marquis. “Such a pity you can’t dine with us +to-morrow. I fear you made but a poor dinner to-day. But it is always +better to arrange the menu beforehand. I will send to Philippe’s +tomorrow. Do not be afraid.” + +The Marquis paused a moment, and on his young face a proud struggle was +visible. At last he said, bluntly and manfully, + +“My dear Frederic, your world and mine are not and cannot be the +same. Why should I be ashamed to own to my old schoolfellow that I am +poor,--very poor; that the dinner I have shared with you to-day is to +me a criminal extravagance? I lodge in a single chamber on the +fourth-story; I dine off a single plat at a small restaurateur’s; the +utmost income I can allow to myself does not exceed five thousand francs +a year: my fortunes I cannot hope much to improve. In his own country +Alain de Rochebriant has no career.” Lemercier was so astonished by this +confession that he remained for some moments silent, eyes and mouth +both wide open; at length he sprang up, embraced his friend well-nigh +sobbing, and exclaimed, “‘Tant mieux pour moi!’ You must take your +lodging with me. I have a charming bedroom to spare. Don’t say no. +It will raise my own position to say ‘I and Rochebriant keep house +together.’ It must be so. Come here to-morrow. As for not having +a career,--bah! I and Duplessis will settle that. You shall be a +millionaire in two years. Meanwhile we will join capitals: I my paltry +notes, you your grand name. Settled!” + +“My dear, dear Frederic,” said the young noble, deeply affected, “on +reflection you will see what you propose is impossible. Poor I may +be without dishonour; live at another man’s cost I cannot do without +baseness. It does not require to be ‘gentilhomme’ to feel that: it is +enough to be a Frenchman. Come and see me when you can spare the time. +There is my address. You are the only man in Paris to whom I shall be at +home. Au revoir.” And breaking away from Lemercier’s clasp, the Marquis +hurried off. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +Alain reached the house in which he lodged. Externally a fine house, +it had been the hotel of a great family in the old regime. On the first +floor were still superb apartments, with ceilings painted by Le Brun, +with walls on which the thick silks still seemed fresh. These rooms +were occupied by a rich ‘agent de change;’ but, like all such ancient +palaces, the upper stories were wretchedly defective even in the +comforts which poor men demand nowadays: a back staircase, narrow, +dirty, never lighted, dark as Erebus, led to the room occupied by the +Marquis, which might be naturally occupied by a needy student or a +virtuous ‘grisette.’ But there was to him a charm in that old hotel, +and the richest ‘locataire’ therein was not treated with a respect so +ceremonious as that which at tended the lodger on the fourth story. +The porter and his wife were Bretons; they came from the village of +Rochebriant; they had known Alain’s parents in their young days; it was +their kinsman who had recommended him to the hotel which they served: +so, when he paused at the lodge for his key, which he had left there, +the porter’s wife was in waiting for his return, and insisted on +lighting him upstairs and seeing to his fire, for after a warm day the +night had turned to that sharp biting cold which is more trying in Paris +than even in London. + +The old woman, running up the stairs before him, opened the door of his +room, and busied herself at the fire. “Gently, my good Marthe,” said he, +“that log suffices. I have been extravagant to-day, and must pinch for +it.” + +“M. le Marquis jests,” said the old woman, laughing. + +“No, Marthe; I am serious. I have sinned, but I shall reform. ‘Entre +nous,’ my dear friend, Paris is very dear when one sets one’s foot out +of doors: I must soon go back to Rochebriant.” + +“When M. le Marquis goes back to Rochebriant he must take with him a +Madame la Marquise,--some pretty angel with a suitable dot.” + +“A dot suitable to the ruins of Rochebriant would not suffice to repair +them, Marthe: give me my dressing-gown, and good-night.” + +“‘Bon repos, M. le Marquis! beaux reves, et bel avenir.’” + +“‘Bel avenir!’” murmured the young man, bitterly, leaning his cheek +on his hand; “what fortune fairer than the present can be mine? yet +inaction in youth is more keenly felt than in age. How lightly I +should endure poverty if it brought poverty’s ennobling companion, +Labour,--denied to me! Well, well; I must go back to the old rock: on +this ocean there is no sail, not even an oar, for me.” + +Alain de Rochebriant had not been reared to the expectation of poverty. +The only son of a father whose estates were large beyond those of most +nobles in modern France, his destined heritage seemed not unsuitable +to his illustrious birth. Educated at a provincial academy, he had been +removed at the age of sixteen to Rochebriant, and lived there simply and +lonelily enough, but still in a sort of feudal state, with an aunt, an +elder and unmarried sister to his father. + +His father he never saw but twice after leaving college. That brilliant +seigneur visited France but rarely, for very brief intervals, residing +wholly abroad. To him went all the revenues of Rochebriant save what +sufficed for the manage of his son and his sister. It was the cherished +belief of these two loyal natures that the Marquis secretly devoted his +fortune to the cause of the Bourbons; how, they knew not, though they +often amused themselves by conjecturing: and, the young man, as he grew +up, nursed the hope that he should soon hear that the descendant of +Henri Quatre had crossed the frontier on a white charger and hoisted the +old gonfalon with its ‘fleur-de-lis.’ Then, indeed, his own career would +be opened, and the sword of the Kerouecs drawn from its sheath. Day +after day he expected to hear of revolts, of which his noble father was +doubtless the soul. But the Marquis, though a sincere Legitimist, was +by no means an enthusiastic fanatic. He was simply a very proud, a very +polished, a very luxurious, and, though not without the kindliness and +generosity which were common attributes of the old French noblesse, a +very selfish grand seigneur. + +Losing his wife (who died the first year of marriage in giving birth to +Alain) while he was yet very young, he had lived a frank libertine life +until he fell submissive under the despotic yoke of a Russian Princess, +who, for some mysterious reason, never visited her own country and +obstinately refused to reside in France. She was fond of travel, and +moved yearly from London to Naples, Naples to Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, +Seville, Carlsbad, Baden-Baden,--anywhere for caprice or change, except +Paris. This fair wanderer succeeded in chaining to herself the heart and +the steps of the Marquis de Rochebriant. + +She was very rich; she lived semi-royally. Hers was just the house in +which it suited the Marquis to be the ‘enfant qate.’ I suspect that, +cat-like, his attachment was rather to the house than to the person of +his mistress. Not that he was domiciled with the Princess; that would +have been somewhat too much against the proprieties, greatly too +much against the Marquis’s notions of his own dignity. He had his +own carriage, his own apartments, his own suite, as became so grand a +seigneur and the lover of so grand a dame. His estates, mortgaged +before he came to them, yielded no income sufficient for his wants; he +mortgaged deeper and deeper, year after year, till he could mortgage +them no more. He sold his hotel at Paris; he accepted without scruple +his sister’s fortune; he borrowed with equal ‘sang froid’ the two +hundred thousand francs which his son on coming of age inherited from +his mother. Alain yielded that fortune to him without a murmur,--nay, +with pride; he thought it destined to go towards raising a regiment for +the fleur-de-lis. + +To do the Marquis justice, he was fully persuaded that he should shortly +restore to his sister and son what he so recklessly took from them. He +was engaged to be married to his Princess so soon as her own husband +died. She had been separated from the Prince for many years, and every +year it was said he could not last a year longer. But he completed the +measure of his conjugal iniquities by continuing to live; and one day, +by mistake, Death robbed the lady of the Marquis instead of the Prince. + +This was an accident which the Marquis had never counted upon. He was +still young enough to consider himself young; in fact, one principal +reason for keeping Alain secluded in Bretagne was his reluctance +to introduce into the world a son “as old as myself” he would say +pathetically. The news of his death, which happened at Baden after a +short attack of bronchitis caught in a supper ‘al fresco’ at the old +castle, was duly transmitted to Rochebriant by the Princess; and the +shock to Alain and his aunt was the greater because they had seen so +little of the departed that they regarded him as a heroic myth, an +impersonation of ancient chivalry, condemning himself to voluntary exile +rather than do homage to usurpers. But from their grief they were soon +roused by the terrible doubt whether Rochebriant could still be retained +in the family. Besides the mortgagees, creditors from half the capitals +in Europe sent in their claims; and all the movable effects transmitted +to Alain by his father’s confidential Italian valet, except sundry +carriages and horses which were sold at Baden for what they would fetch, +were a magnificent dressing-case, in the secret drawer of which were +some bank-notes amounting to thirty thousand francs, and three large +boxes containing the Marquis’s correspondence, a few miniature female +portraits, and a great many locks of hair. + +Wholly unprepared for the ruin that stared him in the face, the young +Marquis evinced the natural strength of his character by the calmness +with which he met the danger, and the intelligence with which he +calculated and reduced it. + +By the help of the family notary in the neighbouring town, he made +himself master of his liabilities and his means; and he found that, +after paying all debts and providing for the interest of the mortgages, +a property which ought to have realized a rental of L10,000 a year +yielded not more than L400. Nor was even this margin safe, nor the +property out of peril; for the principal mortgagee, who was a capitalist +in Paris named Louvier, having had during the life of the late Marquis +more than once to wait for his half-yearly interest longer than suited +his patience,--and his patience was not enduring,--plainly declared that +if the same delay recurred he should put his right of seizure in force; +and in France still more than in England, bad seasons seriously affect +the security of rents. To pay away L9,600 a year regularly out of +L10,000, with the penalty of forfeiting the whole if not paid,--whether +crops may fail, farmers procrastinate, and timber fall in price,--is to +live with the sword of Damocles over one’s head. + +For two years and more, however, Alain met his difficulties with +prudence and vigour; he retrenched the establishment hitherto kept at +the chateau, resigned such rural pleasures as he had been accustomed to +indulge, and lived like one of his petty farmers. But the risks of the +future remained undiminished. + +“There is but one way, Monsieur le Marquis,” said the family notary, M. +Hebert, “by which you can put your estate in comparative safety. Your +father raised his mortgages from time to time, as he wanted money, +and often at interest above the average market interest. You may add +considerably to your income by consolidating all these mortgages into +one at a lower percentage, and in so doing pay off this formidable +mortgagee, M. Louvier, who, I shrewdly suspect, is bent upon becoming +the proprietor of Rochebriant. Unfortunately those few portions of your +land which were but lightly charged, and, lying contiguous to small +proprietors, were coveted by them, and could be advantageously sold, are +already gone to pay the debts of Monsieur the late Marquis. There are, +however, two small farms which, bordering close on the town of S______, +I think I could dispose of for building purposes at high rates; but +these lands are covered by M. Louvier’s general mortgage, and he has +refused to release them, unless the whole debt be paid. Were that debt +therefore transferred to another mortgagee, we might stipulate for their +exception, and in so doing secure a sum of more than 100,000 francs, +which you could keep in reserve for a pressing or unforeseen occasion, +and make the nucleus of a capital devoted to the gradual liquidation +of the charges on the estate. For with a little capital, Monsieur le +Marquis, your rent-roll might be very greatly increased, the forests +and orchards improved, those meadows round S_____ drained and irrigated. +Agriculture is beginning to be understood in Bretagne, and your estate +would soon double its value in the hands of a spirited capitalist. My +advice to you, therefore, is to go to Paris, employ a good ‘avoue,’ +practised in such branch of his profession, to negotiate the +consolidation of your mortgages upon terms that will enable you to sell +outlying portions, and so pay off the charge by instalments agreed upon; +to see if some safe company or rich individual can be found to undertake +for a term of years the management of your forests, the draining of the +S_____ meadows, the superintendence of your fisheries, etc. They, it is +true, will monopolize the profits for many years,--perhaps twenty; but +you are a young man: at the end of that time you will reenter on your +estate with a rental so improved that the mortgages, now so awful, will +seem to you comparatively trivial.” + +In pursuance of this advice, the young Marquis had come to Paris +fortified with a letter from M. Hebert to an ‘avoue’ of eminence, and +with many letters from his aunt to the nobles of the Faubourg connected +with his house. Now one reason why M. Hebert had urged his client to +undertake this important business in person, rather than volunteer his +own services in Paris, was somewhat extra-professional. He had a sincere +and profound affection for Alain; he felt compassion for that young life +so barrenly wasted in seclusion and severe privations; he respected, +but was too practical a man of business to share, those chivalrous +sentiments of loyalty to an exiled dynasty which disqualified the man +for the age he lived in, and, if not greatly modified, would cut him +off from the hopes and aspirations of his eager generation. He thought +plausibly enough that the air of the grand metropolis was necessary to +the mental health, enfeebled and withering amidst the feudal mists of +Bretagne; that once in Paris, Alain would imbibe the ideas of Paris, +adapt himself to some career leading to honour and to fortune, for which +he took facilities from his high birth, an historical name too national +for any dynasty not to welcome among its adherents, and an intellect +not yet sharpened by contact and competition with others, but in itself +vigorous, habituated to thought, and vivified by the noble aspirations +which belong to imaginative natures. + +At the least, Alain would be at Paris in the social position which would +afford him the opportunities of a marriage, in which his birth and rank +would be readily accepted as an equivalent to some ample fortune that +would serve to redeem the endangered seigneuries. He therefore warned +Alain that the affair for which he went to Paris might be tedious, that +lawyers were always slow, and advised him to calculate on remaining +several months, perhaps a year; delicately suggesting that his rearing +hitherto had been too secluded for his age and rank, and that a year at +Paris, even if he failed in the object which took him there, would not +be thrown away in the knowledge of men and things that would fit him +better to grapple with his difficulties on his return. + +Alain divided his spare income between his aunt and himself, and had +come to Paris resolutely determined to live within the L200 a year which +remained to his share. He felt the revolution in his whole being that +commenced when out of sight of the petty principality in which he +was the object of that feudal reverence, still surviving in the more +unfrequented parts of Bretagne, for the representatives of illustrious +names connected with the immemorial legends of the province. + +The very bustle of a railway, with its crowd and quickness and +unceremonious democracy of travel, served to pain and confound and +humiliate that sense of individual dignity in which he had been +nurtured. He felt that, once away from Rochebriant, he was but a cipher +in the sum of human beings. Arrived at Paris, and reaching the gloomy +hotel to which he had been recommended, he greeted even the desolation +of that solitude which is usually so oppressive to a stranger in the +metropolis of his native land. Loneliness was better than the loss of +self in the reek and pressure of an unfamiliar throng. For the first few +days he had wandered over Paris without calling even on the ‘avoue’ to +whom M. Hebert had directed him. He felt with the instinctive acuteness +of a mind which, under sounder training, would have achieved no mean +distinction, that it was a safe precaution to imbue himself with the +atmosphere of the place, and seize on those general ideas which in great +capitals are so contagious that they are often more accurately caught +by the first impressions than by subsequent habit, before he brought his +mind into collision with those of the individuals he had practically to +deal with. + +At last he repaired to the ‘avoue,’ M. Gandrin, Rue St. Florentin. He +had mechanically formed his idea of the abode and person of an ‘avoue’ +from his association with M. Hebert. He expected to find a dull house +in a dull street near the centre of business, remote from the haunts of +idlers, and a grave man of unpretending exterior and matured years. + +He arrived at a hotel newly fronted, richly decorated, in the +fashionable quartier close by the Tuileries. He entered a wide ‘porte +cochere,’ and was directed by the concierge to mount ‘au premier.’ +There, first detained in an office faultlessly neat, with spruce young +men at smart desks, he was at length admitted into a noble salon, and +into the presence of a gentleman lounging in an easy-chair before a +magnificent bureau of ‘marqueterie, genre Louis Seize,’ engaged in +patting a white curly lapdog, with a pointed nose and a shrill bark. + +The gentleman rose politely on his entrance, and released the dog, who, +after sniffing the Marquis, condescended not to bite. + +“Monsieur le Marquis,” said M. Gandrin, glancing at the card and the +introductory note from M. Hebert, which Alain had sent in, and which +lay on the ‘secretaire’ beside heaps of letters nicely arranged and +labelled, “charmed to make the honour of your acquaintance; just arrived +at Paris? So M. Hebert--a very worthy person whom I have never seen, but +with whom I have had correspondence--tells me you wish for my advice; +in fact, he wrote to me some days ago, mentioning the business in +question,--consolidation of mortgages. A very large sum wanted, Monsieur +le Marquis, and not to be had easily.” + +“Nevertheless,” said Alain, quietly, “I should imagine that there must +be many capitalists in Paris willing to invest in good securities at +fair interest.” + +“You are mistaken, Marquis; very few such capitalists. Men worth money +nowadays like quick returns and large profits, thanks to the magnificent +system of ‘Credit Mobilier,’ in which, as you are aware, a man may place +his money in any trade or speculation without liabilities beyond his +share. Capitalists are nearly all traders or speculators.” + +“Then,” said the Marquis, half rising, “I am to presume, sir, that you +are not likely to assist me.” + +“No, I don’t say that, Marquis. I will look with care into the matter. +Doubtless you have with you an abstract of the necessary documents, +the conditions of the present mortgages, the rental of the estate, its +probable prospects, and so forth.” + +“Sir, I have such an abstract with me at Paris; and having gone into +it myself with M. Hebert, I can pledge you my word that it is strictly +faithful to the facts.” + +The Marquis said this with naive simplicity, as if his word were quite +sufficient to set that part of the question at rest. M. Gandrin smiled +politely and said, “‘Eh bien,’ M. le Marquis: favour me with the +abstract; in a week’s time you shall have my opinion. You enjoy Paris? +Greatly improved under the Emperor. ‘Apropos,’ Madame Gandrin receives +tomorrow evening; allow me that opportunity to present you to her.” + Unprepared for the proffered hospitality, the Marquis had no option but +to murmur his gratification and assent. + +In a minute more he was in the streets. The next evening he went to +Madame Gandrin’s,--a brilliant reception,--a whole moving flower-bed of +“decorations” there. Having gone through the ceremony of presentation to +Madame Gandrin,--a handsome woman dressed to perfection, and conversing +with the secretary to an embassy,--the young noble ensconced himself in +an obscure and quiet corner, observing all and imagining that he escaped +observation. And as the young men of his own years glided by him, or +as their talk reached his ears, he became aware that from top to toe, +within and without, he was old-fashioned, obsolete, not of his race, not +of his day. His rank itself seemed to him a waste-paper title-deed to +a heritage long lapsed. Not thus the princely seigneurs of Rochebriant +made their ‘debut’ at the capital of their nation. They had had the +‘entree’ to the cabinets of their kings; they had glittered in the halls +of Versailles; they had held high posts of distinction in court and +camp; the great Order of St. Louis had seemed their hereditary appanage. +His father, though a voluntary exile in manhood, had been in childhood a +king’s page, and throughout life remained the associate of princes; and +here, in an ‘avoue’s soiree,’ unknown, unregarded, an expectant on an +‘avoue’s’ patronage, stood the last lord of Rochebriant. + +It is easy to conceive that Alain did not stay long. But he stayed long +enough to convince him that on L200 a year the polite society of Paris, +even as seen at M. Gandrin’s, was not for him. Nevertheless, a day or +two after, he resolved to call upon the nearest of his kinsmen to whom +his aunt had given him letters. With the Count de Vandemar, one of his +fellow-nobles of the sacred Faubourg, he should be no less Rochebriant, +whether in a garret or a palace. The Vandemars, in fact, though for many +generations before the First Revolution a puissant and brilliant family, +had always recognized the Rochebriants as the head of their house,--the +trunk from which they had been slipped in the fifteenth century, when a +younger son of the Rochebriants married a wealthy heiress and took the +title with the lands of Vandemar. + +Since then the two families had often intermarried. The present count +had a reputation for ability, was himself a large proprietor, and might +furnish advice to guide Alain in his negotiations with M. Gandrin. The +Hotel do Vandemar stood facing the old Hotel de Rochebriant; it was less +spacious, but not less venerable, gloomy, and prison-like. + +As he turned his eyes from the armorial scutcheon which still rested, +though chipped and mouldering, over the portals of his lost ancestral +house, and was about to cross the street, two young men, who seemed two +or three years older than himself, emerged on horseback from the Hotel +de Vandemar. + +Handsome young men, with the lofty look of the old race, dressed with +the punctilious care of person which is not foppery in men of birth, +but seems part of the self-respect that appertains to the old chivalric +point of honour. The horse of one of these cavaliers made a caracole +which brought it nearly upon Alain as he was about to cross. The rider, +checking his steed, lifted his hat to Alain and uttered a word of +apology in the courtesy of ancient high-breeding, but still with +condescension as to an inferior. This little incident, and the slighting +kind of notice received from coevals of his own birth, and doubtless his +own blood,--for he divined truly that they were the sons of the Count +de Vandemar,--disconcerted Alain to a degree which perhaps a Frenchman +alone can comprehend. He had even half a mind to give up his visit +and turn back. However, his native manhood prevailed over that morbid +sensitiveness which, born out of the union of pride and poverty, has all +the effects of vanity, and yet is not vanity itself. + +The Count was at home, a thin spare man with a narrow but high forehead, +and an expression of countenance keen, severe, and ‘un peu moqueuse.’ + +He received the Marquis, however, at first with great cordiality, +kissed him on both sides of his cheek, called him “cousin,” expressed +immeasurable regret that the Countess was gone out on one of the +missions of charity in which the great ladies of the Faubourg +religiously interest themselves, and that his sons had just ridden forth +to the Bois. + +As Alain, however, proceeded, simply and without false shame, to +communicate the object of his visit at Paris, the extent of his +liabilities, and the penury of his means, the smile vanished from the +Count’s face. He somewhat drew back his fauteuil in the movement +common to men who wish to estrange themselves from some other man’s +difficulties; and when Alain came to a close, the Count remained some +moments seized with a slight cough; and, gazing intently on the carpet, +at length he said, “My dear young friend, your father behaved extremely +ill to you,--dishonourably, fraudulently.” + +“Hold!” said the Marquis, colouring high. “Those are words no man can +apply to my father in my presence.” + +The Count stared, shrugged his shoulders, and replied with ‘sang froid,’ +“Marquis, if you are contented with your father’s conduct, of course it +is no business of mine: he never injured me. I presume, however, that, +considering my years and my character, you come to me for advice: is it +so?” + +Alain bowed his head in assent. + +“There are four courses for one in your position to take,” said the +Count, placing the index of the right hand successively on the thumb and +three fingers of the left,--“four courses, and no more. + +“First. To do as your notary recommended: consolidate your mortgages, +patch up your income as you best can, return to Rochebriant, and devote +the rest of your existence to the preservation of your property. By that +course your life will be one of permanent privation, severe struggle; +and the probability is that you will not succeed: there will come one +or two bad seasons, the farmers will fail to pay, the mortgagee will +foreclose, and you may find yourself, after twenty years of anxiety and +torment, prematurely old and without a sou. + +“Course the second. Rochebriant, though so heavily encumbered as to +yield you some such income as your father gave to his chef de cuisine, +is still one of those superb ‘terres’ which bankers and Jews and +stock-jobbers court and hunt after, for which they will give enormous +sums. If you place it in good hands, I do not doubt that you could +dispose of the property within three months, on terms that would leave +you a considerable surplus, which, invested with judgment, would afford +you whereon you could live at Paris in a way suitable to your rank and +age. Need we go further?--does this course smile to you?” + +“Pass on, Count; I will defend to the last what I take from my +ancestors, and cannot voluntarily sell their roof-tree and their tombs.” + +“Your name would still remain, and you would be just as well received +in Paris, and your ‘noblesse’ just as implicitly conceded, if all Judaea +encamped upon Rochebriant. Consider how few of us ‘gentilshommes’ of +the old regime have any domains left to us. Our names alone survive: no +revolution can efface them.” + +“It may be so, but pardon me; there are subjects on which we cannot +reason,--we can but feel. Rochebriant may be torn from me, but I cannot +yield it.” + +“I proceed to the third course. Keep the chateau and give up its +traditions; remain ‘de facto’ Marquis of Rochebriant, but accept the new +order of things. Make yourself known to the people in power. They will +be charmed to welcome you a convert from the old noblesse is a guarantee +of stability to the new system. You will be placed in diplomacy; +effloresce into an ambassador, a minister,--and ministers nowadays have +opportunities to become enormously rich.” + +“That course is not less impossible than the last. Till Henry V. +formally resign his right to the throne of Saint Louis, I can be servant +to no other man seated on that throne.” + +“Such, too, is my creed,” said the Count, “and I cling to it; but my +estate is not mortgaged, and I have neither the tastes nor the age for +public employments. The last course is perhaps better than the rest; at +all events it is the easiest. A wealthy marriage; even if it must be a +‘mesalliance.’ I think at your age, with your appearance, that your name +is worth at least two million francs in the eyes of a rich ‘roturier’ +with an ambitious daughter.” + +“Alas!” said the young man, rising, “I see I shall have to go back to +Rochebriant. I cannot sell my castle, I cannot sell my creed, and I +cannot sell my name and myself.” + +“The last all of us did in the old ‘regime,’ Marquis. Though I +still retain the title of Vandemar, my property comes from the +Farmer-General’s daughter, whom my great-grandfather, happily for us, +married in the days of Louis Quinze. Marriages with people of sense and +rank have always been ‘marriages de convenance’ in France. It is only in +‘le petit monde’ that men having nothing marry girls having nothing, and +I don’t believe they are a bit the happier for it. On the contrary, the +‘quarrels de menage’ leading to frightful crimes appear by the +‘Gazette des Tribunaux’ to be chiefly found among those who do not sell +themselves at the altar.” + +The old Count said this with a grim ‘persiflage.’ He was a Voltairian. + +Voltairianism, deserted by the modern Liberals of France, has its chief +cultivation nowadays among the wits of the old ‘regime.’ They pick up +its light weapons on the battle-field on which their fathers perished, +and re-feather against the ‘canaille’ the shafts which had been pointed +against the ‘noblesse.’ + +“Adieu, Count,” said Alain, rising; “I do not thank you less for your +advice because I have not the wit to profit by it.” + +“‘Au revoir,’ my cousin; you will think better of it when you have been +a month or two at Paris. By the way, my wife receives every Wednesday; +consider our house yours.” + +“Count, can I enter into the world which Madame la Comtesse receives, in +the way that becomes my birth, on the income I take from my fortune?” + +The Count hesitated. “No,” said he at last, frankly; “not because you +will be less welcome or less respected, but because I see that you have +all the pride and sensitiveness of a ‘seigneur de province.’ Society +would therefore give you pain, not pleasure. More than this, I know, by +the remembrance of my own youth and the sad experience of my own +sons, that you would be irresistibly led into debt, and debt in your +circumstances would be the loss of Rochebriant. No; I invite you to +visit us. I offer you the most select but not the most brilliant circles +of Paris, because my wife is religious, and frightens away the birds +of gay plumage with the scarecrows of priests and bishops. But if you +accept my invitation and my offer, I am bound, as an old man of the +world to a young kinsman, to say that the chances are that you will be +ruined.” + +“I thank you, Count, for your candour; and I now acknowledge that I have +found a relation and a guide,” answered the Marquis, with nobility of +mien that was not without a pathos which touched the hard heart of the +old man. + +“Come at least whenever you want a sincere if a rude friend;” and though +he did not kiss his cousin’s cheek this time, he gave him, with more +sincerity, a parting shake of the hand. + +And these made the principal events in Alain’s Paris life till he met +Frederic Lemercier. Hitherto he had received no definite answer from M. +Gandrin, who had postponed an interview, not having had leisure to make +himself master of all the details in the abstract sent to him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +The next day, towards the afternoon, Frederic Lemercier, somewhat +breathless from the rapidity at which he had ascended to so high an +eminence, burst into Alain’s chamber. + +“‘Br-r! mon cher;’ what superb exercise for the health--how it must +strengthen the muscles and expand the chest! After this who should +shrink from scaling Mont Blanc? Well, well. I have been meditating on +your business ever since we parted. But I would fain know more of its +details. You shall confide them to me as we drive through the Bois. My +coupe is below, and the day is beautiful; come.” + +To the young Marquis, the gayety, the heartiness of his college friend +were a cordial. How different from the dry counsels of the Count de +Vandemar! Hope, though vaguely, entered into his heart. Willingly he +accepted Frederic’s invitation, and the young men were soon rapidly +borne along the Champs Elysees. As briefly as he could Alain described +the state of his affairs, the nature of his mortgages, and the result of +his interview with M. Gandrin. + +Frederic listened attentively. “Then Gandrin has given you as yet no +answer?” + +“None; but I have a note from him this morning asking me to call +to-morrow.” + +“After you have seen him, decide on nothing,--if he makes you any offer. +Get back your abstract, or a copy of it, and confide it to me. +Gandrin ought to help you; he transacts affairs in a large way. ‘Belle +clientele’ among the millionnaires. But his clients expect fabulous +profits, and so does he. As for your principal mortgagee, Louvier, you +know, of course, who he is.” + +“No, except that M. Hebert told me that he was very rich.” + +“‘Rich’ I should think so; one of the Kings of Finance, Ah! observe +those young men on horseback.” + +Alain looked forth and recognized the two cavaliers whom he had +conjectured to be the sons of the Count de Vandemar. + +“Those ‘beaux garcons’ are fair specimens of your Faubourg,” said +Frederic; “they would decline my acquaintance because my grandfather +kept a shop, and they keep a shop between them.” + +“A shop! I am mistaken, then. Who are they?” + +“Raoul and Enguerrand, sons of that mocker of man, the Count de +Vandemar.” + +“And they keep a shop! You are jesting.” + +“A shop at which you may buy gloves and perfumes, Rue de la Chaussee +d’Antin. Of course they don’t serve at the counter; they only invest +their pocket-money in the speculation; and, in so doing, treble at least +their pocket-money, buy their horses, and keep their grooms.” + +“Is it possible! nobles of such birth! How shocked the Count would be if +he knew it!” + +“Yes, very much shocked if he was supposed to know it. But he is too +wise a father not to give his sons limited allowances and unlimited +liberty, especially the liberty to add to the allowances as they please. +Look again at them; no better riders and more affectionate brothers +since the date of Castor and Pollux. Their tastes indeed differ--Raoul +is religious and moral, melancholy and dignified; Enguerrand is a lion +of the first water,--elegant to the tips of his nails. These demigods +nevertheless are very mild to mortals. Though Enguerrand is the best +pistol-shot in Paris, and Raoul the best fencer, the first is so +good-tempered that you would be a brute to quarrel with him, the last so +true a Catholic, that if you quarrelled with him you need not fear his +sword. He would not die in the committal of what the Church holds a +mortal sin.” + +“Are you speaking ironically? Do you mean to imply that men of the name +of Vandemar are not brave?” + +“On the contrary, I believe that, though masters of their weapons, they +are too brave to abuse their skill; and I must add that, though they +are sleeping partners in a shop, they would not cheat you of a farthing. +Benign stars on earth, as Castor and Pollux were in heaven.” + +“But partners in a shop!” + +“Bah! when a minister himself, like the late M. de M______, kept a shop, +and added the profits of ‘bons bons’ to his revenue, you may form +some idea of the spirit of the age. If young nobles are not generally +sleeping partners in shops, still they are more or less adventurers +in commerce. The Bourse is the profession of those who have no other +profession. You have visited the Bourse?” + +“No.” + +“No! this is just the hour. We have time yet for the Bois. Coachman, +drive to the Bourse.” + +“The fact is,” resumed Frederic, “that gambling is one of the wants of +civilized men. The ‘rouge-et-noir’ and ‘roulette’ tables are forbidden; +the hells closed: but the passion for making money without working for +it must have its vent, and that vent is the Bourse. As instead of a +hundred wax-lights you now have one jet of gas, so instead of a hundred +hells you have now one Bourse, and--it is exceedingly convenient; +always at hand; no discredit being seen there as it was to be seen at +Frascati’s; on the contrary, at once respectable, and yet the mode.” + +The coupe stops at the Bourse, our friends mount the steps, glide +through the pillars, deposit their canes at a place destined to guard +them, and the Marquis follows Frederic up a flight of stairs till he +gains the open gallery round a vast hall below. Such a din! such a +clamour! disputations, wrangling, wrathful. + +Here Lemercier distinguished some friends, whom he joined for a few +minutes. + +Alain left alone, looked down into the hall. He thought himself in some +stormy scene of the First Revolution. An English contested election in +the market-place of a borough when the candidates are running close on +each other--the result doubtful, passions excited, the whole borough in +civil war--is peaceful compared to the scene at the Bourse. + +Bulls and bears screaming, bawling, gesticulating, as if one were about +to strangle the other; the whole, to an uninitiated eye, a confusion, a +Babel, which it seems absolutely impossible to reconcile to the notion +of quiet mercantile transactions, the purchase and sale of shares and +stocks. As Alain gazed bewildered, he felt himself gently touched, and, +looking round, saw the Englishman. + +“A lively scene!” whispered Mr. Vane. “This is the heart of Paris: it +beats very loudly.” + +“Is your Bourse in London like this?” + +“I cannot tell you: at our Exchange the general public are not admitted: +the privileged priests of that temple sacrifice their victims in closed +penetralia, beyond which the sounds made in the operation do not travel +to ears profane. But had we an Exchange like this open to all the world, +and placed, not in a region of our metropolis unknown to fashion, but +in some elegant square in St. James’s or at Hyde Park Corner, I suspect +that our national character would soon undergo a great change, and that +all our idlers and sporting-men would make their books there every day, +instead of waiting long months in ‘ennui’ for the Doncaster and the +Derby. At present we have but few men on the turf; we should then +have few men not on Exchange, especially if we adopt your law, and can +contrive to be traders without risk of becoming bankrupts. Napoleon I. +called us a shopkeeping nation. Napoleon III. has taught France to excel +us in everything, and certainly he has made Paris a shopkeeping city.” + +Alain thought of Raoul and Enguerrand, and blushed to find that what he +considered a blot on his countrymen was so familiarly perceptible to a +foreigner’s eye. + +“And the Emperor has done wisely, at least for the time,” continued the +Englishman, with a more thoughtful accent. “He has found vent thus for +that very dangerous class in Paris society to which the subdivision of +property gave birth; namely the crowd of well-born, daring young men +without fortune and without profession. He has opened the ‘Bourse’ and +said, ‘There, I give you employment, resource, an ‘avenir.’’ He has +cleared the byways into commerce and trade, and opened new avenues of +wealth to the noblesse, whom the great Revolution so unwisely beggared. +What other way to rebuild a ‘noblesse’ in France, and give it a chance +of power be side an access to fortune? But to how many sides of your +national character has the Bourse of Paris magnetic attraction! You +Frenchmen are so brave that you could not be happy without facing +danger, so covetous of distinction that you would pine yourselves away +without a dash, coute quo coute, at celebrity and a red ribbon. Danger! +look below at that arena: there it is; danger daily, hourly. But there +also is celebrity; win at the Bourse, as of old in a tournament, and +paladins smile on you, and ladies give you their scarves, or, what +is much the same, they allow you to buy their cachemires. Win at +the Bourse,--what follows? the Chamber, the Senate, the Cross, the +Minister’s ‘portefeuille.’ I might rejoice in all this for the sake +of Europe,--could it last, and did it not bring the consequences that +follow the demoralization which attends it. The Bourse and the Credit +Mobilier keep Paris quiet, at least as quiet as it can be. These are +the secrets of this reign of splendour; these the two lions couchants on +which rests the throne of the Imperial reconstructor.” + +Alain listened surprised and struck. He had not given the Englishman +credit for the cast of mind which such reflections evinced. + +Here Lemercier rejoined them, and shook hands with Graham Vane, who, +taking him aside, said, “But you promised to go to the Bois, and indulge +my insane curiosity about the lady in the pearl-coloured robe?” + +“I have not forgotten; it is not half-past two yet; you said three. +‘Soyez tranquille;’ I drive thither from the Bourse with Rochebriant.” + +“Is it necessary to take with you that very good-looking Marquis?” + +“I thought you said you were not jealous, because not yet in love. +However, if Rochebriant occasions you the pang which your humble servant +failed to inflict, I will take care that he do not see the lady.” + +“No,” said the Englishman; “on consideration, I should be very much +obliged to any one with whom she would fall in love. That would +disenchant me. Take the Marquis by all means.” + +Meanwhile Alain, again looking down, saw just under him, close by one of +the pillars, Lucien Duplessis. He was standing apart from the throng, +a small space cleared round himself, and two men who had the air of +gentlemen of the ‘beau monde,’ with whom he was conferring. Duplessis, +thus seen, was not like the Duplessis at the restaurant. It would be +difficult to explain what the change was, but it forcibly struck Alain: +the air was more dignified, the expression keener; there was a look of +conscious power and command about the man even at that distance; the +intense, concentrated intelligence of his eye, his firm lip, his marked +features, his projecting, massive brow, would have impressed a very +ordinary observer. In fact, the man was here in his native element; in +the field in which his intellect gloried, commanded, and had signalized +itself by successive triumphs. Just thus may be the change in the great +orator whom you deemed insignificant in a drawing-room, when you see his +crest rise above a reverential audience; or the great soldier, who was +not distinguishable from the subaltern in a peaceful club, could you see +him issuing the order to his aids-de-camp amidst the smoke and roar of +the battle-field. + +“Ah, Marquis!” said Graham Vane, “are you gazing at Duplessis? He is the +modern genius of Paris. He is at once the Cousin, the Guizot, and +the Victor Hugo of speculation. Philosophy, Eloquence, audacious +Romance,--all Literature now is swallowed up in the sublime epic of +‘Agiotage,’ and Duplessis is the poet of the Empire.” + +“Well said, M. Grarm Varn,” cried Frederic, forgetting his recent +lesson in English names. “Alain underrates that great man. How could an +Englishman appreciate him so well?” + +“‘Ma foi!’” returned Graham, quietly. “I am studying to think at Paris, +in order some day or other to know how to act in London. Time for the +Bois. Lemercier, we meet at seven,--Philippe’s.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +“What do you think of the Bourse?” asked Lemercier, as their carriage +took the way to the Bois. + +“I cannot think of it yet; I am stunned. It seems to me as if I had been +at a ‘Sabbat,’ of which the wizards were ‘agents de change,’ but not +less bent upon raising Satan.” + +“Pooh! the best way to exorcise Satan is to get rich enough not to be +tempted by him. The fiend always loved to haunt empty places; and of all +places nowadays he prefers empty purses and empty stomachs.” + +“But do all people get rich at the Bourse? or is not one man’s wealth +many men’s ruin?” + +“That is a question not very easy to answer; but under our present +system Paris gets rich, though at the expense of individual Parisians. I +will try and explain. The average luxury is enormously increased even in +my experience; what were once considered refinements and fopperies are +now called necessary comforts. Prices are risen enormously, house-rent +doubled within the last five or six years; all articles of luxury are +very much dearer; the very gloves I wear cost twenty per cent more than +I used to pay for gloves of the same quality. How the people we meet +live, and live so well, is an enigma that would defy AEdipus if AEdipus +were not a Parisian. But the main explanation is this: speculation and +commerce, with the facilities given to all investments, have really +opened more numerous and more rapid ways to fortune than were known a +few years ago. + +“Crowds are thus attracted to Paris, resolved to venture a small capital +in the hope of a large one; they live on that capital, not on their +income, as gamesters do. There is an idea among us that it is +necessary to seem rich in order to become rich. Thus there is a general +extravagance and profusion. English milords marvel at our splendour. +Those who, while spending their capital as their income, fail in their +schemes of fortune, after one, two, three, or four years, vanish. What +becomes of them, I know no more than I do what becomes of the old moons. +Their place is immediately supplied by new candidates. Paris is thus +kept perennially sumptuous and splendid by the gold it engulfs. But +then some men succeed,--succeed prodigiously, preternaturally; they make +colossal fortunes, which are magnificently expended. They set an example +of show and pomp, which is of course the more contagious because so many +men say, ‘The other day those millionnaires were as poor as we are; they +never economized; why should we?’ Paris is thus doubly enriched,--by the +fortunes it swallows up, and by the fortunes it casts up; the last +being always reproductive, and the first never lost except to the +individuals.” + +“I understand: but what struck me forcibly at the scene we have left was +the number of young men there; young men whom I should judge by their +appearance to be gentlemen, evidently not mere spectators,--eager, +anxious, with tablets in their hands. That old or middle-aged men should +find a zest in the pursuit of gain I can understand, but youth and +avarice seem to me a new combination, which Moliere never divined in his +‘Avare.’” + +“Young men, especially if young gentlemen, love pleasure; and pleasure +in this city is very dear. This explains why so many young men frequent +the Bourse. In the old gaining now suppressed, young men were the +majority; in the days of your chivalrous forefathers it was the young +nobles, not the old, who would stake their very mantles and swords on a +cast of the die. And, naturally enough, mon cher; for is not youth +the season of hope, and is not hope the goddess of gaming, whether at +rouge-et-noir or the Bourse?” + +Alain felt himself more and more behind his generation. The acute +reasoning of Lemercier humbled his amour propre. At college Lemercier +was never considered Alain’s equal in ability or book-learning. What +a stride beyond his school-fellow had Lemercier now made! How dull and +stupid the young provincial felt himself to be as compared with the easy +cleverness and half-sportive philosophy of the Parisian’s fluent talk! + +He sighed with a melancholy and yet with a generous envy. He had too +fine a natural perception not to acknowledge that there is a rank of +mind as well as of birth, and in the first he felt that Lemercier might +well walk before a Rochebriant; but his very humility was a proof that +he underrated himself. + +Lemercier did not excel him in mind, but in experience. And just as the +drilled soldier seems a much finer fellow than the raw recruit, because +he knows how to carry himself, but after a year’s discipline the +raw recruit may excel in martial air the upright hero whom he now +despairingly admires, and never dreams he can rival; so set a mind from +a village into the drill of a capital, and see it a year after; it may +tower a head higher than its recruiting-sergeant. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +“I believe,” said Lemercier, as the coupe rolled through the lively +alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, “that Paris is built on a loadstone, +and that every Frenchman with some iron globules in his blood is +irresistibly attracted towards it. The English never seem to feel for +London the passionate devotion that we feel for Paris. On the contrary, +the London middle class, the commercialists, the shopkeepers, the +clerks, even the superior artisans compelled to do their business in the +capital, seem always scheming and pining to have their home out of it, +though but in a suburb.” + +“You have been in London, Frederic?” + +“Of course; it is the mode to visit that dull and hideous metropolis.” + +“If it be dull and hideous, no wonder the people who are compelled to do +business in it seek the pleasures of home out of it.” + +“It is very droll that though the middle class entirely govern the +melancholy Albion, it is the only country in Europe in which the middle +class seem to have no amusements; nay, they legislate against amusement. +They have no leisure-day but Sunday; and on that day they close +all their theatres, even their museums and picture-galleries. What +amusements there may be in England are for the higher classes and the +lowest.” + +“What are the amusements of the lowest class?” + +“Getting drunk.” + +“Nothing else?” + +“Yes. I was taken at night under protection of a policeman to some +cabarets, where I found crowds of that class which is the stratum below +the working class; lads who sweep crossings and hold horses, mendicants, +and, I was told, thieves, girls whom a servant-maid would not speak to, +very merry, dancing quadrilles and waltzes, and regaling themselves on +sausages,--the happiest-looking folks I found in all London; and, I must +say, conducting themselves very decently.” + +“Ah!” Here Lemercier pulled the check-string. “Will you object to a walk +in this quiet alley? I see some one whom I have promised the Englishman +to--But heed me, Alain, don’t fall in love with her.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +The lady in the pearl-coloured dress! Certainly it was a face that might +well arrest the eye and linger long on the remembrance. + +There are certain “beauty-women” as there are certain “beauty-men,” in +whose features one detects no fault, who are the show figures of any +assembly in which they appear, but who, somehow or other, inspire no +sentiment and excite no interest; they lack some expression, whether of +mind, or of soul, or of heart, without which the most beautiful face is +but a beautiful picture. This lady was not one of those “beauty-women.” + Her features taken singly were by no means perfect, nor were they set +off by any brilliancy of colouring. But the countenance aroused and +impressed the imagination with a belief that there was some history +attached to it, which you longed to learn. The hair, simply parted over +a forehead unusually spacious and high for a woman, was of lustrous +darkness; the eyes, of a deep violet blue, were shaded with long lashes. + +Their expression was soft and mournful, but unobservant. She did not +notice Alain and Lemercier as the two men slowly passed her. She seemed +abstracted, gazing into space as one absorbed in thought or revery. Her +complexion was clear and pale, and apparently betokened delicate health. + +Lemercier seated himself on a bench beside the path, and invited Alain +to do the same. “She will return this way soon,” said the Parisian, “and +we can observe her more attentively and more respectfully thus seated +than if we were on foot; meanwhile, what do you think of her? Is she +French? is she Italian? can she be English?” + +“I should have guessed Italian, judging by the darkness of the hair and +the outline of the features; but do Italians have so delicate a fairness +of complexion?” + +“Very rarely; and I should guess her to be French, judging by the +intelligence of her expression, the simple neatness of her dress, and +by that nameless refinement of air in which a Parisienne excels all +the descendants of Eve,--if it were not for her eyes. I never saw +a Frenchwoman with eyes of that peculiar shade of blue; and if a +Frenchwoman had such eyes, I flatter myself she would have scarcely +allowed us to pass without making some use of them.” + +“Do you think she is married?” asked Alain. + +“I hope so; for a girl of her age, if comme il faut, can scarcely +walk alone in the Bois, and would not have acquired that look so +intelligent,--more than intelligent,--so poetic.” + +“But regard that air of unmistakable distinction; regard that expression +of face,-so pure, so virginal: comme il faut she must be.” + +As Alain said these last words, the lady, who had turned back, was +approaching them, and in full view of their gaze. She seemed unconscious +of their existence as before, and Lemercier noticed that her lips moved +as if she were murmuring inaudibly to herself. + +She did not return again, but continued her walk straight on till at +the end of the alley she entered a carriage in waiting for her, and was +driven off. + +“Quick, quick!” cried Lemercier, running towards his own coupe; “we must +give chase.” + +Alain followed somewhat less hurriedly, and, agreeably to instructions +Lemercier had already given to his coachman, the Parisian’s coupe set +off at full speed in the track of the strange lady’s, which was still in +sight. + +In less than twenty minutes the carriage in chase stopped at the grille +of one of those charming little villas to be found in the pleasant +suburb of A-----; a porter emerged from the lodge, opened the gate; the +carriage drove in, again stopped at the door of the house, and the +two gentlemen could not catch even a glimpse of the lady’s robe as she +descended from the carriage and disappeared within the house. + +“I see a cafe yonder,” said Lemercier; “let us learn all we can as to +the fair unknown, over a sorbet or a petit verre.” Alain silently, but +not reluctantly, consented. He felt in the fair stranger an interest new +to his existence. + +They entered the little cafe, and in a few minutes Lemercier, with the +easy savoir vivre of a Parisian, had extracted from the garcon as much +as probably any one in the neighbourhood knew of the inhabitants of the +villa. + +It had been hired and furnished about two months previously in the name +of Signora Venosta; but, according to the report of the servants, that +lady appeared to be the gouvernante or guardian of a lady much younger, +out of whose income the villa was rented and the household maintained. + +It was for her the coupe was hired from Paris. The elder lady very +rarely stirred out during the day, but always accompanied the younger in +any evening visits to the theatre or the houses of friends. + +It was only within the last few weeks that such visits had been made. + +The younger lady was in delicate health, and under the care of an +English physician famous for skill in the treatment of pulmonary +complaints. It was by his advice that she took daily walking exercise in +the Bois. The establishment consisted of three servants, all Italians, +and speaking but imperfect French. The garcon did not know whether +either of the ladies was married, but their mode of life was free from +all scandal or suspicion; they probably belonged to the literary or +musical world, as the garcon had observed as their visitors the eminent +author M. Savarin and his wife; and, still more frequently, an old man +not less eminent as a musical composer. + +“It is clear to me now,” said Lemercier, as the two friends reseated +themselves in the carriage, “that our pearly ange is some Italian singer +of repute enough in her own country to have gained already a competence; +and that, perhaps on account of her own health or her friend’s, she is +living quietly here in the expectation of some professional engagement, +or the absence of some foreign lover.” + +“Lover! do you think that?” exclaimed Alain, in a tone of voice that +betrayed pain. + +“It is possible enough; and in that case the Englishman may profit +little by the information I have promised to give him.” + +“You have promised the Englishman?” + +“Do you not remember last night that he described the lady, and said +that her face haunted him: and I--” + +“Ah! I remember now. What do you know of this Englishman? He is rich, I +suppose.” + +“Yes, I hear he is very rich now; that an uncle lately left him an +enormous sum of money. He was attached to the English Embassy many years +ago, which accounts for his good French and his knowledge of Parisian +life. He comes to Paris very often, and I have known him some time. +Indeed he has intrusted to me a difficult and delicate commission. The +English tell me that his father was one of the most eminent members of +their Parliament, of ancient birth, very highly connected, but ran +out his fortune and died poor; that our friend had for some years to +maintain himself, I fancy, by his pen; that he is considered very able; +and, now that his uncle has enriched him, likely to enter public life +and run a career as distinguished as his father’s.” + +“Happy man! happy are the English,” said the Marquis, with a sigh; +and as the carriage now entered Paris, he pleaded the excuse of an +engagement, bade his friend goodby, and went his way musing through the +crowded streets. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +LETTER FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL. + + VILLA D’-----, A------. + +I can never express to you, my beloved Eulalie, the strange charm which +a letter from you throws over my poor little lonely world for days after +it is received. There is always in it something that comforts, something +that sustains, but also a something that troubles and disquiets me. +I suppose Goethe is right, “that it is the property of true genius to +disturb all settled ideas,” in order, no doubt, to lift them into a +higher level when they settle down again. + +Your sketch of the new work you are meditating amid the orange groves of +Provence interests me intensely; yet, do you forgive me when I add +that the interest is not without terror? I do not find myself able +to comprehend how, amid those lovely scenes of Nature, your mind +voluntarily surrounds itself with images of pain and discord. I stand in +awe of the calm with which you subject to your analysis the infirmities +of reason and the tumults of passion. And all those laws of the social +state which seem to me so fixed and immovable you treat with so quiet +a scorn, as if they were but the gossamer threads which a touch of your +slight woman’s hand could brush away. But I cannot venture to discuss +such subjects with you. It is only the skilled enchanter who can stand +safely in the magic circle, and compel the spirits that he summons, even +if they are evil, to minister to ends in which he foresees a good. + +We continue to live here very quietly, and I do not as yet feel the +worse for the colder climate. Indeed, my wonderful doctor, who was +recommended to me as American, but is in reality English, assures me +that a single winter spent here under his care will suffice for my +complete re-establishment. Yet that career, to the training for which so +many years have been devoted, does not seem to me so alluring as it once +did. + +I have much to say on this subject, which I defer till I can better +collect my own thoughts on it; at present they are confused and +struggling. The great Maestro has been most gracious. + +In what a radiant atmosphere his genius lives and breathes! Even in +his cynical moods, his very cynicism has in it the ring of a jocund +music,--the laugh of Figaro, not of Mephistopheles. + +We went to dine with him last week. He invited to meet us Madame S-----, +who has this year conquered all opposition, and reigns alone, the great +S-----; Mr. T--------, a pianist of admirable promise; your friend M. +Savarin, wit, critic, and poet, with his pleasant, sensible wife; and +a few others, who, the Maestro confided to me in a whisper, were +authorities in the press. After dinner S----- sang to us, magnificently, +of course. Then she herself graciously turned to me, said how much she +had heard from the Maestro in my praise, and so and so. I was persuaded +to sing after her. I need not say to what disadvantage. But I forgot my +nervousness; I forgot my audience; I forgot myself, as I always do when +once my soul, as it were, finds wing in music, and buoys itself in the +air, relieved from the sense of earth. I knew not that I had succeeded +till I came to a close, and then my eyes resting on the face of the +grand prima donna, I was seized with an indescribable sadness, with a +keen pang of remorse. Perfect artiste though she be, and with powers in +her own realm of art which admit of no living equal, I saw at once that +I had pained her: she had grown almost livid; her lips were quivering, +and it was only with a great effort that she muttered out some faint +words intended for applause. I comprehended by an instinct how gradually +there can grow upon the mind of an artist the most generous that +jealousy which makes the fear of a rival annihilate the delight in art. +If ever I should achieve S-----‘s fame as a singer, should I feel the +same jealousy?--I think not now, but I have not been tested. She went +away abruptly. I spare you the recital of the compliments paid to me +by my other auditors, compliments that gave me no pleasure; for on +all lips, except those of the Maestro, they implied, as the height of +eulogy, that I had inflicted torture upon S-----. “If so,” said he, “she +would be as foolish as a rose that was jealous of the whiteness of a +lily. You would do yourself great wrong, my child, if you tried to vie +with the rose in its own colour.” + +He patted my bended head as he spoke, with that kind of fatherly +king-like fondness with which he honours me; and I took his hand in +mine, and kissed it gratefully. “Nevertheless,” said Savarin, “when the +lily comes out there will be a furious attack on it, made by the +clique that devotes itself to the rose: a lily clique will be formed en +revanche, and I foresee a fierce paper war. Do not be frightened at its +first outburst: every fame worth having must be fought for.” + +Is it so? have you had to fight for your fame, Eulalie? and do you hate +all contests as much as I do? + +Our only other gayety since I last wrote was a soiree at M. Louvier’s. +That republican millionaire was not slow in attending to the kind letter +you addressed to him recommending us to his civilities. He called at +once, placed his good offices at our disposal, took charge of my +modest fortune, which he has invested, no doubt, as safely as it is +advantageously in point of interest, hired our carriage for us, and in +short has been most amiably useful. + +At his house we met many to me most pleasant, for they spoke with such +genuine appreciation of your works and yourself. But there were others +whom I should never have expected to meet under the roof of a Croesus +who has so great a stake in the order of things established. One young +man--a noble whom he specially presented to me, as a politician +who would be at the head of affairs when the Red Republic was +established--asked me whether I did not agree with him that all private +property was public spoliation, and that the great enemy to civilization +was religion, no matter in what form. + +He addressed to me these tremendous questions with an effeminate lisp, +and harangued on them with small feeble gesticulations of pale dirty +fingers covered with rings. + +I asked him if there were many who in France shared his ideas. + +“Quite enough to carry them some day,” he answered with a lofty smile. +“And the day may be nearer than the world thinks, when my confreres will +be so numerous that they will have to shoot down each other for the sake +of cheese to their bread.” + +That day nearer than the world thinks! Certainly, so far as one may +judge the outward signs of the world at Paris, it does not think of +such things at all. With what an air of self-content the beautiful city +parades her riches! Who can gaze on her splendid palaces, her gorgeous +shops, and believe that she will give ear to doctrines that would +annihilate private rights of property; or who can enter her crowded +churches, and dream that she can ever again install a republic too +civilized for religion? + +Adieu. Excuse me for this dull letter. If I have written on much that +has little interest even for me, it is that I wish to distract my mind +from brooding over the question that interests me most, and on which I +most need your counsel. I will try to approach it in my next. + + ISAURA. +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +Eulalie, Eulalie!--What mocking spirit has been permitted in this modern +age of ours to place in the heart of woman the ambition which is the +prerogative of men? You indeed, so richly endowed with a man’s genius, +have a right to man’s aspirations. But what can justify such ambition in +me? Nothing but this one unintellectual perishable gift of a voice that +does but please in uttering the thoughts of others. Doubtless I could +make a name familiar for its brief time to the talk of Europe,--a name, +what name? a singer’s name. Once I thought that name a glory. Shall I +ever forget the day when you first shone upon me; when, emerging from +childhood as from a dim and solitary bypath, I stood forlorn on the +great thoroughfare of life, and all the prospects before me stretched +sad in mists and in rain? You beamed on me then as the sun coming out +from the cloud and changing the face of earth; you opened to my sight +the fairy-land of poetry and art; you took me by the hand and said, +“Courage! there is at each step some green gap in the hedgerows, some, +soft escape from the stony thoroughfare. Beside the real life expands +the ideal life to those who seek it. Droop not, seek it: the ideal life +has its sorrows, but it never admits despair; as on the ear of him who +follows the winding course of a stream, the stream ever varies the note +of its music,--now loud with the rush of the falls; now low and calm as +it glides by the level marge of smooth banks; now sighing through the +stir of the reeds; now babbling with a fretful joy as some sudden curve +on the shore stays its flight among gleaming pebbles,--so to the soul of +the artist is the voice of the art ever fleeting beside and before him. +Nature gave thee the bird’s gift of song: raise the gift into art, and +make the art thy companion. + +“Art and Hope were twin-born, and they die together.” See how faithfully +I remember, methinks, your very words. But the magic of the words, which +I then but dimly understood, was in your smile and in your eye, and the +queen-like wave of your hand as if beckoning to a world which lay before +you, visible and familiar as your native land. And how devotedly, with +what earnestness of passion, I gave myself up to the task of raising my +gift into an art! I thought of nothing else, dreamed of nothing else; +and oh, now sweet to me then were words of praise! “Another year yet,” + at length said the masters, “and you ascend your throne among the queens +of song.” Then--then--I would have changed for no other throne on earth +my hope of that to be achieved in the realms of my art. And then came +that long fever: my strength broke down, and the Maestro said, “Rest, or +your voice is gone, and your throne is lost forever.” How hateful that +rest seemed to me! You again came to my aid. You said, “The time you +think lost should be but time improved. Penetrate your mind with other +songs than the trash of Libretti. The more you habituate yourself to the +forms, the more you imbue yourself with the spirit, in which passions +have been expressed and character delineated by great writers, the +more completely you will accomplish yourself in your own special art of +singer and actress.” So, then, you allured me to a new study. Ah! in +so doing did you dream that you diverted me from the old ambition? My +knowledge of French and Italian, and my rearing in childhood, which had +made English familiar to me, gave me the keys to the treasure-houses of +three languages. Naturally I began with that in which your masterpieces +are composed. Till then I had not even read your works. They were the +first I chose. How they impressed, how they startled me! what depths in +the mind of man, in the heart of woman, they revealed to me! But I owned +to you then, and I repeat it now, neither they nor any of the works +in romance and poetry which form the boast of recent French literature +satisfied yearnings for that calm sense of beauty, that divine joy in +a world beyond this world, which you had led me to believe it was the +prerogative of ideal art to bestow. And when I told you this with the +rude frankness you had bid me exercise in talk with you, a thoughtful, +melancholy shade fell over your face, and you said quietly, “You +are right, child; we, the French of our time, are the offspring of +revolutions that settled nothing, unsettled all: we resemble those +troubled States which rush into war abroad in order to re-establish +peace at home. Our books suggest problems to men for reconstructing +some social system in which the calm that belongs to art may be found at +last: but such books should not be in your hands; they are not for +the innocence and youth of women as yet unchanged by the systems which +exist.” And the next day you brought me ‘l’asso’s great poem, the +“Gerusalemme Liberata,” and said, smiling, “Art in its calm is here.” + +You remember that I was then at Sorrento by the order of my physician. +Never shall I forget the soft autumn day when I sat amongst the lonely +rocklets to the left of the town,--the sea before me, with scarce +a ripple; my very heart steeped in the melodies of that poem, so +marvellous for a strength disguised in sweetness, and for a symmetry in +which each proportion blends into the other with the perfectness of a +Grecian statue. The whole place seemed to me filled with the presence of +the poet to whom it had given birth. Certainly the reading of that poem +formed an era in my existence: to this day I cannot acknowledge the +faults or weaknesses which your criticisms pointed out; I believe +because they are in unison with my own nature, which yearns for harmony, +and, finding that, rests contented. I shrink from violent contrasts, and +can discover nothing tame and insipid in a continuance of sweetness and +serenity. But it was not till after I had read “La Gerusalemme” again +and again, and then sat and brooded over it, that I recognized the main +charm of the poem in the religion which clings to it as the perfume +clings to a flower,--a religion sometimes melancholy, but never to me +sad. Hope always pervades it. Surely if, as you said, “Hope is twin-born +with art,” it is because art at its highest blends itself unconsciously +with religion, and proclaims its affinity with hope by its faith in some +future good more perfect than it has realized in the past. + +Be this as it may, it was in this poem so pre-eminently Christian that +I found the something which I missed and craved for in modern French +masterpieces; even yours,--a something spiritual, speaking to my own +soul, calling it forth; distinguishing it as an essence apart from mere +human reason; soothing, even when it excited; making earth nearer +to heaven. And when I ran on in this strain to you after my own wild +fashion, you took my head between your hands and kissed me, and said, +“Happy are those who believe! long may that happiness be thine!” Why did +I not feel in Dante the Christian charm that I felt in Tasso? Dante in +your eyes, as in those of most judges, is infinitely the greater +genius; but reflected on the dark stream of that genius the stars are so +troubled, the heaven so threatening. + +Just as my year of holiday was expiring, I turned to English literature; +and Shakspeare, of course, was the first English poet put into my hands. +It proves how childlike my mind still was, that my earliest sensation in +reading him was that of disappointment. It was not only that, despite my +familiarity with English (thanks chiefly to the care of him whom I +call my second father), there is much in the metaphorical diction of +Shakspeare which I failed to comprehend; but he seemed to me so far like +the modern French writers who affect to have found inspiration in his +muse, that he obtrudes images of pain and suffering without cause or +motive sufficiently clear to ordinary understandings, as I had taught +myself to think it ought to be in the drama. + +He makes Fate so cruel that we lose sight of the mild deity behind her. +Compare, in this, Corneille’s “Polyeucte,” with the “Hamlet.” In the +first an equal calamity befalls the good, but in their calamity they are +blessed. The death of the martyr is the triumph of his creed. But when +we have put down the English tragedy,--when Hamlet and Ophelia are +confounded in death with Polonius and the fratricidal king, we see not +what good end for humanity is achieved. The passages that fasten on +our memory do not make us happier and holier: they suggest but terrible +problems, to which they give us no solution. + +In the “Horaces” of Corneille there are fierce contests, rude passions, +tears drawn from some of the bitterest sources of human pity; but then +through all stands out, large and visible to the eyes of all spectators, +the great ideal of devoted patriotism. How much of all that has been +grandest in the life of France, redeeming even its worst crimes of +revolution in the love of country, has had its origin in the “Horaces” + of Corneille. But I doubt if the fates of Coriolanus and Caesar and +Brutus and Antony, in the giant tragedies of Shakspeare, have made +Englishmen more willing to die for England. In fine, it was long +before--I will not say I understood or rightly appreciated Shakspeare, +for no Englishman would admit that I or even you could ever do so, but +before I could recognize the justice of the place his country claims +for him as the genius without an equal in the literature of Europe. +Meanwhile the ardour I had put into study, and the wear and tear of the +emotions which the study called forth, made themselves felt in a return +of my former illness, with symptoms still more alarming; and when the +year was out I was ordained to rest for perhaps another year before I +could sing in public, still less appear on the stage. How I rejoiced +when I heard that fiat! for I emerged from that year of study with a +heart utterly estranged from the profession in which I had centred my +hopes before--Yes, Eulalie, you had bid me accomplish myself for the +arts of utterance; by the study of arts in which thoughts originate the +words they employ; and in doing so I had changed myself into another +being. I was forbidden all fatigue of mind: my books were banished, but +not the new self which the books had formed. Recovering slowly through +the summer, I came hither two months since, ostensibly for the advice of +Dr. C-------, but really in the desire to commune with my own heart and +be still. + +And now I have poured forth that heart to you, would you persuade me +still to be a singer? If you do, remember at least how jealous and +absorbing the art of the singer and the actress is,--how completely I +must surrender myself to it, and live among books or among dreams +no more. Can I be anything else but singer? and if not, should I be +contented merely to read and to dream? + +I must confide to you one ambition which during the lazy Italian summer +took possession of me; I must tell you the ambition, and add that I have +renounced it as a vain one. I had hoped that I could compose, I mean +in music. I was pleased with some things I did: they expressed in music +what I could not express in words; and one secret object in coming here +was to submit them to the great Maestro. He listened to them patiently: +he complimented me on my accuracy in the mechanical laws of composition; +he even said that my favourite airs were “touchants et gracieux.” + +And so he would have left me, but I stopped him timidly, and said, “Tell +me frankly, do you think that with time and study I could compose music +such as singers equal to myself would sing to?” + +“You mean as a professional composer?” + +“Well, yes.” + +“And to the abandonment of your vocation as a singer?” + +“Yes.” + +“My dear child, I should be your worst enemy if I encouraged such a +notion: cling to the career in which you call be greatest; gain but +health, and I wager my reputation on your glorious success on the stage. +What can you be as a composer? You will set pretty music to pretty +words, and will be sung in drawing-rooms with the fame a little more or +less that generally attends the compositions of female amateurs. Aim at +something higher, as I know you would do, and you will not succeed. Is +there any instance in modern times, perhaps in any times, of a female +composer who attains even to the eminence of a third-rate opera-writer? +Composition in letters may be of no sex. In that Madame Dudevant and +your friend Madame de Grantmesnil can beat most men; but the genius of +musical composition is homme, and accept it as a compliment when I say +that you are essentially femme.” + +He left me, of course, mortified and humbled; but I feel he is right as +regards myself, though whether in his depreciation of our whole sex I +cannot say. But as this hope has left me, I have become more disquieted, +still more restless. Counsel me, Eulalie; counsel, and, if possible, +comfort me. ISAURA. +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +No letter from you yet, and I have left you in peace for ten days. +How do you think I have spent them? The Maestro called on us with M. +Savarin, to insist on our accompanying them on a round of the theatres. +I had not been to one since my arrival. I divined that the kind-hearted +composer had a motive in this invitation. He thought that in witnessing +the applauses bestowed on actors, and sharing in the fascination in +which theatrical illusion holds an audience, my old passion for the +stage, and with it the longing for an artiste’s fame, would revive. + +In my heart I wished that his expectations might be realized. Well for +me if I could once more concentrate all my aspirations on a prize within +my reach! + +We went first to see a comedy greatly in vogue, and the author +thoroughly understands the French stage of our day. The acting was +excellent in its way. The next night we went to the Odeon, a romantic +melodrama in six acts, and I know not how many tableaux. I found +no fault with the acting there. I do not give you the rest of our +programme. We visited all the principal theatres, reserving the opera +and Madame S------ for the last. Before I speak of the opera, let me say +a word or two on the plays. + +There is no country in which the theatre has so great a hold on the +public as in France; no country in which the successful dramatist has +so high a fame; no country perhaps in which the state of the stage +so faithfully represents the moral and intellectual condition of the +people. I say this not, of course, from my experience of countries which +I have not visited, but from all I hear of the stage in Germany and in +England. + +The impression left on my mind by the performances I witnessed is, that +the French people are becoming dwarfed. The comedies that please them +are but pleasant caricatures of petty sections in a corrupt society. +They contain no large types of human nature; their witticisms convey no +luminous flashes of truth; their sentiment is not pure and noble,--it is +a sickly and false perversion of the impure and ignoble into travesties +of the pure and noble. + +Their melodramas cannot be classed as literature: all that really +remains of the old French genius is its vaudeville. Great dramatists +create great parts. One great part, such as a Rachel would gladly have +accepted, I have not seen in the dramas of the young generation. + +High art has taken refuge in the opera; but that is not French opera. +I do not complain so much that French taste is less refined. I complain +that French intellect is lowered. The descent from “Polyeucte” to “Ruy +Blas” is great, not so much in the poetry of form as in the elevation of +thought; but the descent from “Ruy Blas” to the best drama now produced +is out of poetry altogether, and into those flats of prose which give +not even the glimpse of a mountain-top. + +But now to the opera. S------ in Norma! The house was crowded, and its +enthusiasm as loud as it was genuine. You tell me that S------ never +rivalled Pasta, but certainly her Norma is a great performance. Her +voice has lost less of its freshness than I had been told, and what is +lost of it her practised management conceals or carries off. + +The Maestro was quite right: I could never vie with her in her own line; +but conceited and vain as I may seem even to you in saying so, I feel in +my own line that I could command as large an applause,--of course taking +into account my brief-lived advantage of youth. Her acting, apart from +her voice, does not please me. It seems to me to want intelligence of +the subtler feelings, the under-current of emotion which constitutes the +chief beauty of the situation and the character. Am I jealous when I say +this? Read on and judge. + +On our return that night, when I had seen the Venosta to bed, I went +into my own room, opened the window, and looked out. A lovely night, +mild as in spring at Florence,--the moon at her full, and the stars +looking so calm and so high beyond our reach of their tranquillity. The +evergreens in the gardens of the villas around me silvered over, and the +summer boughs, not yet clothed with leaves, were scarcely visible amid +the changeless smile of the laurels. At the distance lay Paris, only to +be known by its innumerable lights. And then I said to myself, + +“No, I cannot be an actress; I cannot resign my real self for that +vamped-up hypocrite before the lamps. Out on those stage-robes and +painted cheeks! Out on that simulated utterance of sentiments learned by +rote and practised before the looking-glass till every gesture has its +drill!” + +Then I gazed on those stars which provoke our questionings, and return +no answer, till my heart grew full,--so full,--and I bowed my head and +wept like a child. + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +And still no letter from you! I see in the journals that you have left +Nice. Is it that you are too absorbed in your work to have leisure to +write to me? I know you are not ill, for if you were, all Paris would +know of it. All Europe has an interest in your health. Positively I will +write to you no more till a word from yourself bids me do so. + +I fear I must give up my solitary walks in the Bois de Boulogne: they +were very dear to me, partly because the quiet path to which I confined +myself was that to which you directed me as the one you habitually +selected when at Paris, and in which you had brooded over and revolved +the loveliest of your romances; and partly because it was there that, +catching, alas! not inspiration but enthusiasm from the genius that had +hallowed the place, and dreaming I might originate music, I nursed my +own aspirations and murmured my own airs. And though so close to +that world of Paris to which all artists must appeal for judgment or +audience, the spot was so undisturbed, so sequestered. But of late that +path has lost its solitude, and therefore its charm. + +Six days ago the first person I encountered in my walk was a man whom +I did not then heed. He seemed in thought, or rather in revery, like +myself; we passed each other twice or thrice, and I did not notice +whether he was young or old, tall or short; but he came the next day, +and a third day, and then I saw that he was young, and, in so regarding +him, his eyes became fixed on mine. The fourth day he did not come, but +two other men came, and the look of one was inquisitive and offensive. +They sat themselves down on a bench in the walk, and though I did not +seem to notice them, I hastened home; and the next day, in talking with +our kind Madame Savarin, and alluding to these quiet walks of mine, she +hinted, with the delicacy which is her characteristic, that the customs +of Paris did not allow demoiselles comme il faut to walk alone even in +the most sequestered paths of the Bois. + +I begin now to comprehend your disdain of customs which impose chains so +idly galling on the liberty of our sex. + +We dined with the Savarins last evening: what a joyous nature he has! +Not reading Latin, I only know Horace by translations, which I am told +are bad; but Savarin seems to me a sort of half Horace,--Horace on +his town-bred side, so playfully well-bred, so good-humoured in his +philosophy, so affectionate to friends, and so biting to foes. But +certainly Savarin could not have lived in a country farm upon endives +and mallows. He is town-bred and Parisian, jusqu’au bout des ongles. +How he admires you, and how I love him for it! Only in one thing +he disappoints me there. It is your style that he chiefly praises: +certainly that style is matchless; but style is only the clothing of +thought, and to praise your style seems to me almost as invidious as the +compliment to some perfect beauty, not on her form and face, but on her +taste and dress. + +We met at dinner an American and his wife,--a Colonel and Mrs. Morley: +she is delicately handsome, as the American women I have seen generally +are, and with that frank vivacity of manner which distinguishes them +from English women. She seemed to take a fancy to me, and we soon grew +very good friends. + +She is the first advocate I have met, except yourself, of that doctrine +upon the rights of Women, of which one reads more in the journals than +one hears discussed in salons. Naturally enough I felt great interest +in that subject, more especially since my rambles in the Bois were +forbidden; and as long as she declaimed on the hard fate of the women +who, feeling within them powers that struggle for air and light beyond +the close precinct of household duties, find themselves restricted from +fair rivalry with men in such fields of knowledge and toil and glory as +men since the world began have appropriated to themselves, I need not +say that I went with her cordially: you can guess that by my former +letters. But when she entered into the detailed catalogue of our exact +wrongs and our exact rights, I felt all the pusillanimity of my sex and +shrank back in terror. + +Her husband, joining us when she was in full tide of eloquence, smiled +at me with a kind of saturnine mirth. “Mademoiselle, don’t believe a +word she says: it is only tall talk! In America the women are absolute +tyrants, and it is I who, in concert with my oppressed countrymen, am +going in for a platform agitation to restore the Rights of Men.” + +Upon this there was a lively battle of words between the spouses, in +which, I must own, I thought the lady was decidedly worsted. + +No, Eulalie, I see nothing in these schemes for altering our +relations towards the other sex which would improve our condition. The +inequalities we suffer are not imposed by law,--not even by convention: +they are imposed by nature. + +Eulalie, you have had an experience unknown to me: you have loved. In +that day did you,--you, round whom poets and sages and statesmen gather, +listening to your words as to an oracle,--did you feel that your pride +of genius had gone out from you, that your ambition lived in whom you +loved, that his smile was more to you than the applause of a world? + +I feel as if love in a woman must destroy her rights of equality, that +it gives to her a sovereign even in one who would be inferior to herself +if her love did not glorify and crown him. Ah! if I could but merge this +terrible egotism which oppresses me, into the being of some one who is +what I would wish to be were I man! I would not ask him to achieve +fame. Enough if I felt that he was worthy of it, and happier methinks +to console him when he failed than to triumph with him when he won. Tell +me, have you felt this? When you loved did you stoop as to a slave, or +did you bow down as to a master? + +FROM MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL TO ISAURA CICOGNA. + +Chere enfant,--All your four letters have reached me the same day. In +one of my sudden whims I set off with a few friends on a rapid tour +along the Riviera to Genoa, thence to Turin on to Milan. Not knowing +where we should rest even for a day, my letters were not forwarded. + +I came back to Nice yesterday, consoled for all fatigues in having +insured that accuracy in description of localities which my work +necessitates. + +You are, my poor child, in that revolutionary crisis through which +genius passes in youth before it knows its own self, and longs vaguely +to do or to be a something other than it has done or has been before. +For, not to be unjust to your own powers, genius you have,--that inborn +undefinable essence, including talent, and yet distinct from it. Genius +you have, but genius unconcentrated, undisciplined. I see, though you +are too diffident to say so openly, that you shrink from the fame of +singer, because, fevered by your reading, you would fain aspire to the +thorny crown of author. I echo the hard saying of the Maestro: I should +be your worst enemy did I encourage you to forsake a career in which a +dazzling success is so assured, for one in which, if it were your true +vocation, you would not ask whether you were fit for it; you would be +impelled to it by the terrible star which presides over the birth of +poets. + +Have you, who are so naturally observant, and of late have become so +reflective, never remarked that authors, however absorbed in their +own craft, do not wish their children to adopt it? The most successful +author is perhaps the last person to whom neophytes should come for +encouragement. This I think is not the case with the cultivators of the +sister arts. + +The painter, the sculptor, the musician, seem disposed to invite +disciples and welcome acolytes. As for those engaged in the practical +affairs of life, fathers mostly wish their sons to be as they have been. + +The politician, the lawyer, the merchant, each says to his children, +“Follow my steps.” All parents in practical life would at least agree +in this,--they would not wish their sons to be poets. There must be some +sound cause in the world’s philosophy for this general concurrence of +digression from a road of which the travellers themselves say to those +whom they love best, “Beware!” + +Romance in youth is, if rightly understood, the happiest nutriment of +wisdom in after-years; but I would never invite any one to look upon the +romance of youth as a thing + + “To case in periods and embalm in ink.” + +Enfant, have you need of a publisher to create romance? Is it not in +yourself? Do not imagine that genius requires for its enjoyment the +scratch of the pen and the types of the printer. Do not suppose that the +poet, the romancier, is most poetic, most romantic, when he is striving, +struggling, labouring, to check the rush of his ideas, and materialize +the images which visit him as souls into such tangible likenesses of +flesh and blood that the highest compliment a reader can bestow on them +is to say that they are lifelike: No: the poet’s real delight is not +in the mechanism of composing; the best part of that delight is in the +sympathies he has established with innumerable modifications of life and +form, and art and Nature, sympathies which are often found equally keen +in those who have not the same gift of language. The poet is but the +interpreter. What of?--Truths in the hearts of others. He utters what +they feel. Is the joy in the utterance? Nay, it is in the feeling +itself. So, my dear, dark-bright child of song, when I bade thee open, +out of the beaten thoroughfare, paths into the meads and river-banks +at either side of the formal hedgerows, rightly dost thou add that I +enjoined thee to make thine art thy companion. In the culture of that +art for which you are so eminently gifted, you will find the ideal life +ever beside the real. Are you not ashamed to tell me that in that +art you do but utter the thoughts of others? You utter them in music; +through the music you not only give to the thoughts a new character, but +you make them reproductive of fresh thoughts in your audience. + +You said very truly that you found in composing you could put into +music thoughts which you could not put into words. That is the peculiar +distinction of music. No genuine musician can explain in words exactly +what he means to convey in his music. + +How little a libretto interprets an opera; how little we care even to +read it! It is the music that speaks to us; and how?--Through the human +voice. We do not notice how poor are the words which the voice warbles. +It is the voice itself interpreting the soul of the musician which +enchants and enthralls us. And you who have that voice pretend to +despise the gift. What! despise the power of communicating delight!--the +power that we authors envy; and rarely, if ever, can we give delight +with so little alloy as the singer. + +And when an audience disperses, can you guess what griefs the singer +may have comforted? what hard hearts he may have softened? what high +thoughts he may have awakened? + +You say, “Out on the vamped-up hypocrite! Out on the stage-robes and +painted cheeks!” + +I say, “Out on the morbid spirit which so cynically regards the mere +details by which a whole effect on the minds and hearts and souls of +races and nations can be produced!” + +There, have I scolded you sufficiently? I should scold you more, if I +did not see in the affluence of your youth and your intellect the cause +of your restlessness. Riches are always restless. It is only to poverty +that the gods give content. + +You question me about love; you ask if I have ever bowed to a master, +ever merged my life in another’s: expect no answer on this from me. +Circe herself could give no answer to the simplest maid, who, never +having loved, asks, “What is love?” + +In the history of the passions each human heart is a world in itself; +its experience profits no others. In no two lives does love play the +same part or bequeath the same record. + +I know not whether I am glad or sorry that the word “love” now falls on +my ear with a sound as slight and as faint as the dropping of a leaf in +autumn may fall on thine. + +I volunteer but this lesson, the wisest I can give, if thou canst +understand it: as I bade thee take art into thy life, so learn to look +on life itself as an art. Thou couldst discover the charm in Tasso; thou +couldst perceive that the requisite of all art, that which pleases, is +in the harmony of proportion. We lose sight of beauty if we exaggerate +the feature most beautiful. + +Love proportioned adorns the homeliest existence; love disproportioned +deforms the fairest. + +Alas! wilt thou remember this warning when the time comes in which it +may be needed? + +E----- G-------. + + + + + +BOOK II. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +It is several weeks after the date of the last chapter; the lime-trees +in the Tuileries are clothed in green. + +In a somewhat spacious apartment on the ground-floor in the quiet +locality of the Rue d’Anjou, a man was seated, very still and evidently +absorbed in deep thought, before a writing-table placed close to the +window. + +Seen thus, there was an expression of great power both of intellect and +of character in a face which, in ordinary social commune, might rather +be noticeable for an aspect of hardy frankness, suiting well with the +clear-cut, handsome profile, and the rich dark auburn hair, waving +carelessly over one of those broad open foreheads, which, according to +an old writer, seem the “frontispiece of a temple dedicated to Honour.” + +The forehead, indeed, was the man’s most remarkable feature. It could +not but prepossess the beholder. When, in private theatricals, he had +need to alter the character of his countenance, he did it effectually, +merely by forcing down his hair till it reached his eyebrows. He no +longer then looked like the same man. + +The person I describe has been already introduced to the reader as +Graham Vane. But perhaps this is the fit occasion to enter into +some such details as to his parentage and position as may make the +introduction more satisfactory and complete. + +His father, the representative of a very ancient family, came into +possession, after a long minority, of what may be called a fair squire’s +estate, and about half a million in moneyed investments, inherited on +the female side. Both land and money were absolutely at his disposal, +unencumbered by entail or settlement. He was a man of a brilliant, +irregular genius, of princely generosity, of splendid taste, of a +gorgeous kind of pride closely allied to a masculine kind of vanity. As +soon as he was of age he began to build, converting his squire’s hall +into a ducal palace. He then stood for the county; and in days before +the first Reform Bill, when a county election was to the estate of +a candidate what a long war is to the debt of a nation. He won the +election; he obtained early successes in Parliament. It was said by good +authorities in political circles that, if he chose, he might aspire to +lead his party, and ultimately to hold the first rank in the government +of his country. + +That may or may not be true; but certainly he did not choose to take the +trouble necessary for such an ambition. He was too fond of pleasure, of +luxury, of pomp. He kept a famous stud of racers and hunters. He was a +munificent patron of art. His establishments, his entertainments, were +on a par with those of the great noble who represented the loftiest (Mr. +Vane would not own it to be the eldest) branch of his genealogical tree. + +He became indifferent to political contests, indolent in his attendance +at the House, speaking seldom, not at great length nor with much +preparation, but with power and fire, originality and genius; so that +he was not only effective as an orator, but combining with eloquence +advantages of birth, person, station, the reputation of patriotic +independence, and genial attributes of character, he was an authority of +weight in the scales of party. + +This gentleman, at the age of forty, married the dowerless daughter of +a poor but distinguished naval officer, of noble family, first cousin to +the Duke of Alton. + +He settled on her a suitable jointure, but declined to tie up any +portion of his property for the benefit of children by the marriage. He +declared that so much of his fortune was invested either in mines, the +produce of which was extremely fluctuating, or in various funds, over +rapid transfers in which it was his amusement and his interest to +have control, unchecked by reference to trustees, that entails and +settlements on children were an inconvenience he declined to incur. + +Besides, he held notions of his own as to the wisdom of keeping children +dependent on their father. “What numbers of young men,” said he, “are +ruined in character and in fortune by knowing that when their father +dies they are certain of the same provision, no matter how they +displease him; and in the meanwhile forestalling that provision by +recourse to usurers.” These arguments might not have prevailed over the +bride’s father a year or two later, when, by the death of intervening +kinsmen, he became Duke of Alton; but in his then circumstances +the marriage itself was so much beyond the expectations which the +portionless daughter of a sea-captain has the right to form that Mr. +Vane had it all his own way, and he remained absolute master of his +whole fortune, save of that part of his landed estate on which his +wife’s jointure was settled; and even from this incumbrance he was very +soon freed. His wife died in the second year of marriage, leaving an +only son,--Graham. He grieved for her loss with all the passion of an +impressionable, ardent, and powerful nature. Then for a while he sought +distraction to his sorrow by throwing himself into public life with a +devoted energy he had not previously displayed. + +His speeches served to bring his party into power, and he yielded, +though reluctantly, to the unanimous demand of that party that he should +accept one of the highest offices in the new Cabinet. He acquitted +himself well as an administrator, but declared, no doubt honestly, that +he felt like Sinbad released from the old man on his back, when, a year +or two afterwards, he went out of office with his party. No persuasions +could induce him to come in again; nor did he ever again take a very +active part in debate. “No,” said he, “I was born to the freedom of +a private gentleman: intolerable to me is the thraldom of a public +servant. But I will bring up my son so that he may acquit the debt which +I decline to pay to my country.” There he kept his word. Graham had been +carefully educated for public life, the ambition for it dinned into his +ear from childhood. In his school vacations his father made him learn +and declaim chosen specimens of masculine oratory; engaged an eminent +actor to give him lessons in elocution; bade him frequent theatres, +and study there the effect which words derive from looks and gesture; +encouraged him to take part himself in private theatricals. To all +this the boy lent his mind with delight. He had the orator’s inborn +temperament; quick, yet imaginative, and loving the sport of rivalry and +contest. Being also, in his boyish years, good-humoured and joyous, he +was not more a favourite with the masters in the schoolroom than with +the boys in the play-ground. Leaving Eton at seventeen, he then entered +at Cambridge, and became, in his first term, the most popular speaker at +the Union. + +But his father cut short his academical career, and decided, for reasons +of his own, to place him at once in diplomacy. He was attached to the +Embassy at Paris, and partook of the pleasures and dissipations of that +metropolis too keenly to retain much of the sterner ambition to which +he had before devoted himself. Becoming one of the spoiled darlings of +fashion, there was great danger that his character would relax into the +easy grace of the Epicurean, when all such loiterings in the Rose +Garden were brought to abrupt close by a rude and terrible change in his +fortunes. + +His father was killed by a fall from his horse in hunting; and when his +affairs were investigated, they were found to be hopelessly involved: +apparently the assets would not suffice for the debts. The elder Vane +himself was probably not aware of the extent of his liabilities. He had +never wanted ready money to the last. He could always obtain that from a +money-lender, or from the sale of his funded investments. But it became +obvious, on examining his papers, that he knew at least how impaired +would be the heritage he should bequeath to a son whom he idolized. For +that reason he had given Graham a profession in diplomacy, and for that +reason he had privately applied to the Ministry for the Viceroyalty of +India, in the event of its speedy vacancy. He was eminent enough not to +anticipate refusal, and with economy in that lucrative post much of +his pecuniary difficulties might have been redeemed, and at least an +independent provision secured for his son. + +Graham, like Alain de Rochebriant, allowed no reproach on his father’s +memory; indeed, with more reason than Alain, for the elder Vane’s +fortune had at least gone on no mean and frivolous dissipation. + +It had lavished itself on encouragement to art, on great objects of +public beneficence, on public-spirited aid of political objects; and +even in more selfish enjoyments there was a certain grandeur in his +princely hospitalities, in his munificent generosity, in a warm-hearted +carelessness for money. No indulgence in petty follies or degrading +vices aggravated the offence of the magnificent squanderer. + +“Let me look on my loss of fortune as a gain to myself,” said Graham, +manfully. “Had I been a rich man, my experience of Paris tells me that I +should most likely have been a very idle one. Now that I have no gold, I +must dig in myself for iron.” + +The man to whom he said this was an uncle-in-law,--if I may use that +phrase,--the Right Hon. Richard King, popularly styled “the blameless +King.” + +This gentleman had married the sister of Graham’s mother, whose loss in +his infancy and boyhood she had tenderly and anxiously sought to supply. +It is impossible to conceive a woman more fitted to invite love and +reverence than was Lady Janet King, her manners were so sweet and +gentle, her whole nature so elevated and pure. + +Her father had succeeded to the dukedom when she married Mr. King, and +the alliance was not deemed quite suitable. Still it was not one to +which the Duke would have been fairly justified in refusing his assent. + +Mr. King could not indeed boast of noble ancestry, nor was even a landed +proprietor; but he was a not-undistinguished member of Parliament, of +irreproachable character, and ample fortune inherited from a distant +kinsman, who had enriched himself as a merchant. It was on both sides a +marriage of love. + +It is popularly said that a man uplifts a wife to his own rank: it as +often happens that a woman uplifts her husband to the dignity of her +own character. Richard King rose greatly in public estimation after his +marriage with Lady Janet. + +She united to a sincere piety a very active and a very enlightened +benevolence. She guided his ambition aside from mere party politics into +subjects of social and religious interest, and in devoting himself to +these he achieved a position more popular and more respected than he +could ever have won in the strife of party. + +When the Government of which the elder Vane became a leading Minister +was formed, it was considered a great object to secure a name as high +in the religious world, so beloved by the working classes, as that of +Richard King; and he accepted one of those places which, though not in +the cabinet, confers the rank of Privy Councillor. + +When that brief-lived Administration ceased, he felt the same sensation +of relief that Vane had felt, and came to the same resolution never +again to accept office, but from different reasons, all of which need +not now be detailed. Amongst them, however, certainly this: he was +exceedingly sensitive to opinion, thin-skinned as to abuse, and very +tenacious of the respect due to his peculiar character of sanctity and +philanthropy. He writhed under every newspaper article that had made +“the blameless King” responsible for the iniquities of the Government to +which he belonged. In the loss of office he seemed to recover his former +throne. + +Mr. King heard Graham’s resolution with a grave approving smile, and his +interest in the young man became greatly increased. He devoted himself +strenuously to the object of saving to Graham some wrecks of his +paternal fortunes, and having a clear head and great experience in +the transaction of business, he succeeded beyond the most sanguine +expectations formed by the family solicitor. A rich manufacturer was +found to purchase at a fancy price the bulk of the estate with the +palatial mansion, which the estate alone could never have sufficed to +maintain with suitable establishments. + +So that when all debts were paid, Graham found himself in possession of +a clear income of about L500 a year, invested in a mortgage secured on +a part of the hereditary lands, on which was seated an old hunting-lodge +bought by a brewer. + +With this portion of the property Graham parted very reluctantly. It was +situated amid the most picturesque scenery on the estate, and the lodge +itself was a remnant of the original residence of his ancestors before +it had been abandoned for that which, built in the reign of Elizabeth, +had been expanded into a Trenthain-like palace by the last owner. + +But Mr. King’s argument reconciled him to the sacrifice. “I can manage,” + said the prudent adviser, “if you insist on it, to retain that remnant +of the hereditary estate which you are so loath to part with. But how? +by mortgaging it to an extent that will scarcely leave you L50. a year +net from the rents. This is not all. Your mind will then be distracted +from the large object of a career to the small object of retaining a few +family acres; you will be constantly hampered by private anxieties and +fears; you could do nothing for the benefit of those around you,--could +not repair a farmhouse for a better class of tenant, could not rebuild a +labourer’s dilapidated cottage. Give up an idea that might be very well +for a man whose sole ambition was to remain a squire, however beggarly. +Launch yourself into the larger world of metropolitan life with energies +wholly unshackled, a mind wholly undisturbed, and secure of an income +which, however modest, is equal to that of most young men who enter that +world as your equals.” + +Graham was convinced, and yielded, though with a bitter pang. It is hard +for a man whose fathers have lived on the soil to give up all trace +of their whereabouts. But none saw in him any morbid consciousness of +change of fortune, when, a year after his father’s death, he reassumed +his place in society. If before courted for his expectations, he was +still courted for himself; by many of the great who had loved his +father, perhaps even courted more. + +He resigned the diplomatic career, not merely because the rise in +that profession is slow, and in the intermediate steps the chances of +distinction are slight and few, but more because he desired to cast +his lot in the home country, and regarded the courts of other lands as +exile. + +It was not true, however, as Lemercier had stated on report, that he +lived on his pen. Curbing all his old extravagant tastes, L500 a year +amply supplied his wants. But he had by his pen gained distinction, +and created great belief in his abilities for a public career. He had +written critical articles, read with much praise, in periodicals of +authority, and had published one or two essays on political questions +which had created yet more sensation. It was only the graver literature, +connected more or less with his ultimate object of a public career, in +which he had thus evinced his talents of composition. Such writings were +not of a nature to bring him much money, but they gave him a definite +and solid station. In the old time, before the first Reform Bill, his +reputation would have secured him at once a seat in Parliament; but +the ancient nurseries of statesmen are gone, and their place is not +supplied. + +He had been invited, however, to stand for more than one large and +populous borough, with very fair prospects of success; and, whatever the +expense, Mr. King had offered to defray it. But Graham would not have +incurred the latter obligation; and when he learned the pledges which +his supporters would have exacted, he would not have stood if success +had been certain and the cost nothing. “I cannot,” he said to his +friends, “go into the consideration of what is best for the country with +my thoughts manacled; and I cannot be both representative and slave +of the greatest ignorance of the greatest number. I bide my time, and +meanwhile I prefer to write as I please, rather than vote as I don’t +please.” + +Three years went by, passed chiefly in England, partly in travel; and at +the age of thirty, Graham Vane was still one of those of whom admirers +say, “He will be a great man some day;” and detractors reply, “Some day +seems a long way off.” + +The same fastidiousness which had operated against that entrance into +Parliament, to which his ambition not the less steadily adapted itself, +had kept him free from the perils of wedlock. In his heart he yearned +for love and domestic life, but he had hitherto met with no one who +realized the ideal he had formed. With his person, his accomplishments, +his connections, and his repute, he might have made many an advantageous +marriage. But somehow or other the charm vanished from a fair face, if +the shadow of a money-bag fell on it; on the other hand, his ambition +occupied so large a share in his thoughts that he would have fled in +time from the temptation of a marriage that would have overweighted +him beyond the chance of rising. Added to all, he desired in a wife an +intellect that, if not equal to his own, could become so by sympathy,--a +union of high culture and noble aspiration, and yet of loving womanly +sweetness which a man seldom finds out of books; and when he does find +it, perhaps it does not wear the sort of face that he fancies. Be that +as it may, Graham was still unmarried and heart-whole. + +And now a new change in his life befell him. Lady Janet died of a fever +contracted in her habitual rounds of charity among the houses of the +poor. She had been to him as the most tender mother, and a lovelier soul +than hers never alighted on the earth. His grief was intense; but what +was her husband’s?--one of those griefs that kill. + +To the side of Richard King his Janet had been as the guardian angel. +His love for her was almost worship: with her, every object in a life +hitherto so active and useful seemed gone. He evinced no noisy passion +of sorrow. He shut himself up, and refused to see even Graham. But after +some weeks had passed, he admitted the clergyman in whom on spiritual +matters he habitually confided, and seemed consoled by the visits; then +he sent for his lawyer and made his will; after which he allowed Graham +to call on him daily, on the condition that there should be no reference +to his loss. He spoke to the young man on other subjects, rather drawing +him out about himself, sounding his opinion on various grave matters, +watching his face while he questioned, as if seeking to dive into his +heart, and sometimes pathetically sinking into silence, broken but by +sighs. So it went on for a few more weeks; then he took the advice +of his physician to seek change of air and scene. He went away alone, +without even a servant, not leaving word where he had gone. After a +little while he returned, more ailing, more broken than before. One +morning he was found insensible,--stricken by paralysis. He regained +consciousness, and even for some days rallied strength. He might have +recovered, but he seemed as if he tacitly refused to live. He expired at +last, peacefully, in Graham’s arms. + +At the opening of his will it was found that he had left Graham his sole +heir and executor. Deducting government duties, legacies to servants, +and donations to public charities, the sum thus bequeathed to his lost +wife’s nephew was two hundred and twenty thousand pounds. + +With such a fortune, opening indeed was made for an ambition so long +obstructed. But Graham affected no change in his mode of life; he still +retained his modest bachelor’s apartments, engaged no servants, bought +no horses, in no way exceeded the income he had possessed before. He +seemed, indeed, depressed rather than elated by the succession to a +wealth which he had never anticipated. + +Two children had been born from the marriage of Richard King: they had +died young, it is true, but Lady Janet at the time of her own decease +was not too advanced in years for the reasonable expectation of other +offspring; and even after Richard King became a widower, he had given +to Graham no hint of his testamentary dispositions. The young man was no +blood-relation to him, and naturally supposed that such relations +would become the heirs. But in truth the deceased seemed to have no +blood-relations: none had ever been known to visit him; none raised a +voice to question the justice of his will. + +Lady Janet had been buried at Kensal Green; her husband’s remains were +placed in the same vault. + +For days and days Graham went his way lonelily to the cemetery. He might +be seen standing motionless by that tomb, with tears rolling down his +cheeks; yet his was not a weak nature,--not one of those that love +indulgence of irremediable grief. On the contrary, people who did not +know him well said “that he had more head than heart,” and the character +of his pursuits, as of his writings, was certainly not that of a +sentimentalist. He had not thus visited the tomb till Richard King had +been placed within it. Yet his love for his aunt was unspeakably greater +than that which he could have felt for her husband. Was it, then, the +husband that he so much more acutely mourned; or was there something +that, since the husband’s death, had deepened his reverence for the +memory of her whom he had not only loved as a mother, but honoured as a +saint? + +These visits to the cemetery did not cease till Graham was confined to +his bed by a very grave illness,--the only one he had ever known. His +physician said it was nervous fever, and occasioned by moral shock or +excitement; it was attended with delirium. His recovery was slow, and +when it was sufficiently completed he quitted England; and we find him +now, with his mind composed, his strength restored, and his spirits +braced, in that gay city of Paris; hiding, perhaps, some earnest purpose +amid his participation in its holiday enjoyments. He is now, as I have +said, seated before his writing-table in deep thought. He takes up a +letter which he had already glanced over hastily, and reperuses it with +more care. + +The letter is from his cousin, the Duke of Alton, who had succeeded +a few years since to the family honours,--an able man, with no small +degree of information, an ardent politician, but of very rational and +temperate opinions; too much occupied by the cares of a princely estate +to covet office for himself; too sincere a patriot not to desire office +for those to whose hands he thought the country might be most safely +entrusted; an intimate friend of Graham’s. The contents of the letter +are these:-- + + MY DEAR GRAHAM,--I trust that you will welcome the brilliant opening + into public life which these lines are intended to announce to you. + Vavasour has just been with me to say that he intends to resign his + seat for the county when Parliament meets, and agreeing with me that + there is no one so fit to succeed him as yourself, he suggests the + keeping his intention secret until you have arranged your committee + and are prepared to take the field. You cannot hope to escape a + contest; but I have examined the Register, and the party has gained + rather than lost since the last election, when Vavasour was so + triumphantly returned. The expenses for this county, where there + are so many outvoters to bring up, and so many agents to retain, are + always large in comparison with some other counties; but that + consideration is all in your favour, for it deters Squire Hunston, + the only man who could beat you, from starting; and to your + resources a thousand pounds more or less are a trifle not worth + discussing. You know how difficult it is nowadays to find a seat + for a man of moderate opinions like yours and mine. Our county + would exactly suit you. The constituency is so evenly divided + between the urban and rural populations, that its representative + must fairly consult the interests of both. He can be neither an + ultra-Tory nor a violent Radical. He is left to the enviable + freedom, to which you say you aspire, of considering what is best + for the country as a whole. + + Do not lose so rare an opportunity. There is but one drawback to + your triumphant candidature. It will be said that you have no + longer an acre in the county in which the Vanes have been settled so + long. That drawback can be removed. It is true that you can never + hope to buy back the estates which you were compelled to sell at + your father’s death: the old manufacturer gripes them too firmly to + loosen his hold; and after all, even were your income double what it + is, you would be overhoused in the vast pile in which your father + buried so large a share of his fortune. But that beautiful old + hunting-lodge, the Stamm Schloss of your family, with the adjacent + farms, can be now repurchased very reasonably. The brewer who + bought them is afflicted with an extravagant son, whom he placed in + the--Hussars, and will gladly sell the property for L5,000 more than + he gave: well worth the difference, as he has improved the farm- + buildings and raised the rental. I think, in addition to the sum + you have on mortgage, L3,000 will be accepted, and as a mere + investment pay you nearly three per cent. But to you it is worth + more than double the money; it once more identifies your ancient + name with the county. You would be a greater personage with that + moderate holding in the district in which your race took root, and + on which your father’s genius threw such a lustre, than you would be + if you invested all your wealth in a county in which every squire + and farmer would call you “the new man.” Pray think over this most + seriously, and instruct your solicitor to open negotiations with the + brewer at once. But rather put yourself into the train, and come + back to England straight to me. I will ask Vavasour to meet you. + What news from Paris? Is the Emperor as ill as the papers + insinuate? And is the revolutionary party gaining ground? + + Your affectionate cousin, + + ALTON. + +As he put down this letter, Graham heaved a short impatient sigh. + +“The old Stamm Schloss,” he muttered,--“a foot on the old soil once +more! and an entrance into the great arena with hands unfettered. Is it +possible!--is it?--is it?” + +At this moment the door-bell of the apartment rang, and a servant whom +Graham had hired at Paris as a laquais de place announced “Ce Monsieur.” + +Graham hurried the letter into his portfolio, and said, “You mean the +person to whom I am always at home?” + +“The same, Monsieur.” + +“Admit him, of course.” + +There entered a wonderfully thin man, middle-aged, clothed in black, his +face cleanly shaven, his hair cut very short, with one of those faces +which, to use a French expression, say “nothing.” It was absolutely +without expression: it had not even, despite its thinness, one salient +feature. If you had found yourself anywhere seated next to that man, +your eye would have passed him over as too insignificant to notice; +if at a cafe, you would have gone on talking to your friend without +lowering your voice. What mattered it whether a bete like that overheard +or not? Had you been asked to guess his calling and station, you might +have said, minutely observing the freshness of his clothes and the +undeniable respectability of his tout ensemble, “He must be well off, +and with no care for customers on his mind,--a ci-devant chandler who +has retired on a legacy.” + +Graham rose at the entrance of his visitor, motioned him courteously +to a seat beside him, and waiting till the laquais had vanished, then +asked, “What news?” + +“None, I fear, that will satisfy Monsieur. I have certainly hunted out, +since I had last the honour to see you, no less than four ladies of the +name of Duval, but only one of them took that name from her parents, and +was also christened Louise.” + +“Ah--Louise!” + +“Yes, the daughter of a perfumer, aged twenty-eight. She, therefore, is +not the Louise you seek. Permit me to refer to your instructions.” Here +M. Renard took out a note-book, turned over the leaves, and +resumed, “Wanted, Louise Duval, daughter of Auguste Duval, a French +drawing-master, who lived for many years at Tours, removed to Paris +in 1845, lived at No. 12, Rue de S---- at Paris for some years, but +afterwards moved to a different guartier of the town, and died 1848, +in Rue I----, No. 39. Shortly after his death, his daughter Louise +left that lodging, and could not be traced. In 1849 official documents +reporting her death were forwarded from Munich to a person (a friend of +yours, Monsieur). Death, of course, taken for granted; but nearly five +years afterwards, this very person encountered the said Louise Duval at +Aix-la-Chapelle, and never heard nor saw more of her. Demande submitted, +to find out said Louise Duval or any children of hers born in 1848-9; +supposed in 1852-3 to have one child, a girl, between four and five +years old. Is that right, Monsieur?” + +“Quite right.” + +“And this is the whole information given to me. Monsieur on giving it +asked me if I thought it desirable that he should commence inquiries +at Aix-la-Chapelle, where Louise Duval was last seen by the +person interested to discover her. I reply, No; pains thrown away. +Aix-la-Chapelle is not a place where any Frenchwoman not settled there +by marriage would remain. Nor does it seem probable that the said Duval +would venture to select for her residence Munich, a city in which she +had contrived to obtain certificates of her death. A Frenchwoman who has +once known Paris always wants to get back to it; especially, Monsieur, +if she has the beauty which you assign to this lady. I therefore +suggested that our inquiries should commence in this capital. +Monsieur agreed with me, and I did not grudge the time necessary for +investigation.” + +“You were most obliging. Still I am beginning to be impatient if time is +to be thrown away.” + +“Naturally. Permit me to return to my notes. Monsieur informs me that +twenty-one years ago, in 1848, the Parisian police were instructed to +find out this lady and failed, but gave hopes of discovering her through +her relations. He asks me to refer to our archives; I tell him that +is no use. However, in order to oblige him, I do so. No trace of such +inquiry: it must have been, as Monsieur led me to suppose, a strictly +private one, unconnected with crime or with politics; and as I have the +honour to tell Monsieur, no record of such investigations is preserved +in our office. Great scandal would there be, and injury to the peace of +families, if we preserved the results of private inquiries intrusted +to us--by absurdly jealous husbands, for instance. Honour,--Monsieur, +honour forbids it. Next I suggest to Monsieur that his simplest +plan would be an advertisement in the French journals, stating, if I +understand him right, that it is for the pecuniary interest of Madame +or Mademoiselle Duval, daughter of Auguste Duval, artiste en dessin, to +come forward. Monsieur objects to that.” + +“I object to it extremely; as I have told you, this is a strictly +confidential inquiry; and an advertisement which in all likelihood would +be practically useless (it proved to be so in a former inquiry) +would not be resorted to unless all else failed, and even then with +reluctance.” + +“Quite so. Accordingly, Monsieur delegates to me, who have been +recommended to him as the best person he can employ in that department +of our police which is not connected with crime or political +surveillance, a task the most difficult. I have, through strictly +private investigations, to discover the address and prove the identity +of a lady bearing a name among the most common in France, and of whom +nothing has been heard for fifteen years, and then at so migratory an +endroit as Aix-la-Chapelle. You will not or cannot inform me if since +that time the lady has changed her name by marriage.” + +“I have no reason to think that she has; and there are reasons against +the supposition that she married after 1849.” + +“Permit me to observe that the more details of information Monsieur can +give me, the easier my task of research will be.” + +“I have given you all the details I can, and, aware of the difficulty of +tracing a person with a name so much the reverse of singular, I adopted +your advice in our first interview, of asking some Parisian friend of +mine, with a large acquaintance in the miscellaneous societies of your +capital, to inform me of any ladies of that name whom he might chance +to encounter; and he, like you, has lighted upon one or two, who alas! +resemble the right one in name and nothing more.” + +“You will do wisely to keep him on the watch as well as myself. If it +were but a murderess or a political incendiary, then you might trust +exclusively to the enlightenment of our corps, but this seems an affair +of sentiment, Monsieur. Sentiment is not in our way. Seek the trace of +that in the haunts of pleasure.” + +M. Renard, having thus poetically delivered himself of that +philosophical dogma, rose to depart. + +Graham slipped into his hand a bank-note of sufficient value to justify +the profound bow he received in return. + +When M. Renard had gone, Graham heaved another impatient sigh, and said +to himself, “No, it is not possible,--at least not yet.” + +Then, compressing his lips as a man who forces himself to something he +dislikes, he dipped his pen into the inkstand, and wrote rapidly thus to +his kinsman: + + MY DEAR COUSIN,--I lose not a post in replying to your kind and + considerate letter. It is not in my power at present to return to + England. I need not say how fondly I cherish the hope of + representing the dear old county some day. If Vavasour could be + induced to defer his resignation of the seat for another session, or + at least for six or seven months, why then I might be free to avail + myself of the opening; at present I am not. Meanwhile I am sorely + tempted to buy back the old Lodge; probably the brewer would allow + me to leave on mortgage the sum I myself have on the property, and a + few additional thousands. I have reasons for not wishing to + transfer at present much of the money now invested in the Funds. I + will consider this point, which probably does not press. + + I reserve all Paris news till my next; and begging you to forgive so + curt and unsatisfactory a reply to a letter so important that it + excites me more than I like to own, believe me your affectionate + friend and cousin, + + GRAHAM. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +AT about the same hour on the same day in which the Englishman held +the conference with the Parisian detective just related, the Marquis de +Rochebriant found himself by appointment in the cabinet d’affaires of +his avoue M. Gandrin that gentleman had hitherto not found time to give +him a definite opinion as to the case submitted to his judgment. The +avoue received Alain with a kind of forced civility, in which the +natural intelligence of the Marquis, despite his inexperience of life, +discovered embarrassment. + +“Monsieur le Marquis,” said Gandrin, fidgeting among the papers on his +bureau, “this is a very complicated business. I have given not only my +best attention to it, but to your general interests. To be plain, +your estate, though a fine one, is fearfully encumbered--fearfully-- +frightfully.” + +“Sir,” said the Marquis, haughtily, “that is a fact which was never +disguised from you.” + +“I do not say that it was, Marquis; but I scarcely realized the +amount of the liabilities nor the nature of the property. It will be +difficult--nay, I fear, impossible--to find any capitalist to advance a +sum that will cover the mortgages at an interest less than you now pay. +As for a Company to take the whole trouble off your hands, clear off the +mortgages, manage the forests, develop the fisheries, guarantee you an +adequate income, and at the end of twenty-one years or so render up to +you or your heirs the free enjoyment of an estate thus improved, we +must dismiss that prospect as a wild dream of my good friend M. Hebert. +People in the provinces do dream; in Paris everybody is wide awake.” + +“Monsieur,” said the Marquis, with that inborn imperturbable loftiness +of sang froid which has always in adverse circumstances characterized +the French noblesse, “be kind enough to restore my papers. I see that +you are not the man for me. Allow me only to thank you, and inquire the +amount of my debt for the trouble I have given.” + +“Perhaps you are quite justified in thinking I am not the man for you, +Monsieur le Marquis; and your papers shall, if you decide on dismissing +me, be returned to you this evening. But as to my accepting remuneration +where I have rendered no service, I request M. le Marquis to put that +out of the question. Considering myself, then, no longer your avoue, +do not think I take too great a liberty in volunteering my counsel as a +friend,--or a friend at least to M. Hebert, if you do not vouchsafe my +right so to address yourself.” + +M. Gandrin spoke with a certain dignity of voice and manner which +touched and softened his listener. + +“You make me your debtor far more than I pretend to repay,” replied +Alain. “Heaven knows I want a friend, and I will heed with gratitude and +respect all your counsels in that character.” + +“Plainly and briefly, my advice is this: M. Louvier is the principal +mortgagee. He is among the six richest capitalists of Paris. He does +not, therefore, want money, but, like most self-made men, he is very +accessible to social vanities. He would be proud to think he had +rendered a service to a Rochebriant. Approach him, either through me, +or, far better, at once introduce yourself, and propose to consolidate +all your other liabilities in one mortgage to him, at a rate of interest +lower than that which is now paid to some of the small mortgagees. This +would add considerably to your income and would carry out M. Hebert’s +advice.” + +“But does it not strike you, dear M. Gandrin, that such going +cap-in-hand to one who has power over my fate, while I have none +over his, would scarcely be consistent with my self-respect, not as +Rochebriant only, but as Frenchman?” + +“It does not strike me so in the least; at all events, I could make the +proposal on your behalf, without compromising yourself, though I should +be far more sanguine of success if you addressed M. Louvier in person.” + +“I should nevertheless prefer leaving it in your hands; but even for +that I must take a few days to consider. Of all the mortgagees M. +Louvier has been hitherto the severest and most menacing, the one whom +Hebert dreads the most; and should he become sole mortgagee, my whole +estate would pass to him if, through any succession of bad seasons and +failing tenants, the interest was not punctually paid.” + +“It could so pass to him now.” + +“No; for there have been years in which the other mortgagees, who are +Bretons and would be loath to ruin a Rochebriant, have been lenient and +patient.” + +“If Louvier has not been equally so, it is only because he knew nothing +of you, and your father no doubt had often sorely tasked his endurance. +Come, suppose we manage to break the ice easily. Do me the honour to +dine here to meet him; you will find that he is not an unpleasant man.” + +The Marquis hesitated, but the thought of the sharp and seemingly +hopeless struggle for the retention of his ancestral home to which he +would be doomed if he returned from Paris unsuccessful in his errand +overmastered his pride. He felt as if that self-conquest was a duty he +owed to the very tombs of his fathers. “I ought not to shrink from the +face of a creditor,” said he, smiling somewhat sadly, “and I accept the +proposal you so graciously make.” + +“You do well, Marquis, and I will write at once to Louvier to ask him to +give me his first disengaged day.” + +The Marquis had no sooner quitted the house than M. Gandrin opened a +door at the side of his office, and a large portly man strode into the +room,--stride it was rather than step,--firm, self-assured, arrogant, +masterful. + +“Well, mon ami,” said this man, taking his stand at the hearth, as a +king might take his stand in the hall of his vassal, “and what says our +petit muscadin?” + +“He is neither petit nor muscadin, Monsieur Louvier,” replied Gandrin, +peevishly; “and he will task your powers to get him thoroughly into your +net. But I have persuaded him to meet you here. What day can you dine +with me? I had better ask no one else.” + +“To-morrow I dine with my friend O-----, to meet the chiefs of the +Opposition,” said M. Louvier, with a sort of careless rollicking +pomposity. “Thursday with Pereire; Saturday I entertain at home. Say +Friday. Your hour?” + +“Seven.” + +“Good! Show me those Rochebriant papers again; there is something I had +forgotten to note. Never mind me. Go on with your work as if I were not +here.” + +Louvier took up the papers, seated himself in an armchair by the +fireplace, stretched out his legs, and read at his ease, but with a very +rapid eye, as a practised lawyer skims through the technical forms of a +case to fasten upon the marrow of it. + +“Ah! as I thought. The farms could not pay even the interest on my +present mortgage; the forests come in for that. If a contractor for the +yearly sale of the woods was bankrupt and did not pay, how could I get +my interest? Answer me that, Gandrin.” + +“Certainly you must run the risk of that chance.” + +“Of course the chance occurs, and then I foreclose, seize,--Rochebriant +and its seigneuries are mine.” + +As he spoke he laughed, not sardonically,--a jovial laugh,--and opened +wide, to reshut as in a vice, the strong iron hand which had doubtless +closed over many a man’s all. + +“Thanks. On Friday, seven o’clock.” He tossed the papers back on the +bureau, nodded a royal nod, and strode forth imperiously as he had +strode in. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MEANWHILE the young Marquis pursued his way thoughtfully through the +streets, and entered the Champs Elysees. Since we first, nay, since we +last saw him, he is strikingly improved in outward appearances. He has +unconsciously acquired more of the easy grace of the Parisian in +gait and bearing. You would no longer detect the Provincial--perhaps, +however, because he is now dressed, though very simply, in habiliments +that belong to the style of the day. Rarely among the loungers in the +Champs Elysees could be seen a finer form, a comelier face, an air of +more unmistakable distinction. + +The eyes of many a passing fair one gazed on him, admiringly or +coquettishly. But he was still so little the true Parisian that they got +no smile, no look in return. He was wrapped in his own thoughts; was he +thinking of M. Louvier? + +He had nearly gained the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne, when he was +accosted by a voice behind, and turning round saw his friend Lemercier +arm-in-arm with Graham Vane. + +“Bonjour, Alain,” said Lemercier, hooking his disengaged arm into +Rochebriant’s. “I suspect we are going the same way.” + +Alain felt himself change countenance at this conjecture, and replied +coldly, “I think not; I have got to the end of my walk, and shall turn +back to Paris;” addressing himself to the Englishman, he said with +formal politeness, “I regret not to have found you at home when I +called some weeks ago, and no less so to have been out when you had the +complaisance to return my visit.” + +“At all events,” replied the Englishman, “let me not lose the +opportunity of improving our acquaintance which now offers. It is true +that our friend Lemercier, catching sight of me in the Rue de Rivoli, +stopped his coupe and carried me off for a promenade in the Bois. The +fineness of the day tempted us to get out of his carriage as the Bois +came in sight. But if you are going back to Paris I relinquish the Bois +and offer myself as your companion.” + +Frederic (the name is so familiarly English that the reader might think +me pedantic did I accentuate it as French) looked from one to the other +of his two friends, half amused and half angry. + +“And am I to be left alone to achieve a conquest, in which, if I +succeed, I shall change into hate and envy the affection of my two best +friends? Be it so. + + “’ Un veritable amant ne connait point d’amis.’” + +“I do not comprehend your meaning,” said the Marquis, with a compressed +lip and a slight frown. + +“Bah!” cried Frederic; “come, franc jeu; cards on the table. M. Gram +Varn was going into the Bois at my suggestion on the chance of having +another look at the pearl-coloured angel; and you, Rochebriant, can’t +deny that you were going into the Bois for the same object.” + +“One may pardon an enfant terrible,” said the Englishman, laughing, “but +an ami terrible should be sent to the galleys. Come, Marquis, let us +walk back and submit to our fate. Even were the lady once more visible, +we have no chance of being observed by the side of a Lovelace so +accomplished and so audacious!” + +“Adieu, then, recreants: I go alone. Victory or death.” The Parisian +beckoned his coachman, entered his carriage, and with a mocking grimace +kissed his hand to the companions thus deserting or deserted. + +Rochebriant touched the Englishman’s arm, and said, “Do you think that +Lemercier could be impertinent enough to accost that lady?” + +“In the first place,” returned the Englishman, “Lemercier himself tells +me that the lady has for several weeks relinquished her walks in the +Bois, and the probability is, therefore, that he will not have the +opportunity to accost her. In the next place, it appears that when she +did take her solitary walk, she did not stray far from her carriage, and +was in reach of the protection of her laquais and coachman. But to speak +honestly, do you, who know Lemercier better than I, take him to be a man +who would commit an impertinence to a woman unless there were viveurs of +his own sex to see him do it?” + +Alain smiled. “No. Frederic’s real nature is an admirable one, and if +he ever do anything that he ought to be ashamed of, ‘twill be from the +pride of showing how finely he can do it. Such was his character at +college, and such it still seems at Paris. But it is true that the lady +has forsaken her former walk; at least I--I have not seen her since the +day I first beheld her in company with Frederic. Yet--yet, pardon me, +you were going to the Bois on the chance of seeing her. Perhaps she has +changed the direction of her walk, and--and--” + +The Marquis stopped short, stammering and confused. + +The Englishman scanned his countenance with the rapid glance of a +practised observer of men and things, and after a short pause said: “If +the lady has selected some other spot for her promenade, I am ignorant +of it; nor have I ever volunteered the chance of meeting with her, since +I learned--first from Lemercier, and afterwards from others--that her +destination is the stage. Let us talk frankly, Marquis. I am accustomed +to take much exercise on foot, and the Bois is my favourite resort: one +day I there found myself in the allee which the lady we speak of used +to select for her promenade, and there saw her. Something in her face +impressed me; how shall I describe the impression? Did you ever open a +poem, a romance, in some style wholly new to you, and before you were +quite certain whether or not its merits justified the interest which the +novelty inspired, you were summoned away, or the book was taken out +of your hands? If so, did you not feel an intellectual longing to have +another glimpse of the book? That illustration describes my impression, +and I own that I twice again went to the same allee. The last time +I only caught sight of the young lady as she was getting into her +carriage. As she was then borne away, I perceived one of the custodians +of the Bois; and learned, on questioning him, that the lady was in the +habit of walking always alone in the same allee at the same hour on most +fine days, but that he did not know her name or address. A motive of +curiosity--perhaps an idle one--then made me ask Lemercier, who boasts +of knowing his Paris so intimately, if he could inform me who the lady +was. He undertook to ascertain.” + +“But,” interposed the Marquis, “he did not ascertain who she was; he +only ascertained where she lived, and that she and an elder companion +were Italians;--whom he suspected, without sufficient ground, to be +professional singers.” + +“True; but since then I ascertained more detailed particulars from +two acquaintances of mine who happen to know her,--M. Savarin, the +distinguished writer, and Mrs. Morley, an accomplished and beautiful +American lady, who is more than an acquaintance. I may boast the honour +of ranking among her friends. As Savarin’s villa is at A------, I +asked him incidentally if he knew the fair neighbour whose face had +so attracted me; and Mrs. Morley being present, and overhearing me, I +learned from both what I now repeat to you. + +“The young lady is a Signorina Cicogna,--at Paris, exchanging (except +among particular friends), as is not unusual, the outlandish designation +of Signorina for the more conventional one of Mademoiselle. Her father +was a member of the noble Milanese family of the same name, therefore +the young lady is well born. Her father has been long dead; his widow +married again an English gentleman settled in Italy, a scholar and +antiquarian; his name was Selby. This gentleman, also dead, bequeathed +the Signorina a small but sufficient competence. She is now an orphan, +and residing with a companion, a Signora Venosta, who was once a singer +of some repute at the Neapolitan Theatre, in the orchestra of which her +husband was principal performer; but she relinquished the stage several +years ago on becoming a widow, and gave lessons as a teacher. She has +the character of being a scientific musician, and of unblemished +private respectability. Subsequently she was induced to give up general +teaching, and undertake the musical education and the social charge of +the young lady with her. This girl is said to have early given promise +of extraordinary excellence as a singer, and excited great interest +among a coterie of literary critics and musical cognoscenti. She was to +have come out at the Theatre of Milan a year or two ago, but her career +has been suspended in consequence of ill-health, for which she is now +at Paris under the care of an English physician, who has made remarkable +cures in all complaints of the respiratory organs. ------, the great +composer, who knows her, says that in expression and feeling she has no +living superior, perhaps no equal since Malibran.” + +“You seem, dear Monsieur, to have taken much pains to acquire this +information.” + +“No great pains were necessary; but had they been I might have taken +them, for, as I have owned to you, Mademoiselle Cicogna, while she was +yet a mystery to me, strangely interested my thoughts or my fancies. +That interest has now ceased. The world of actresses and singers lies +apart from mine.” + +“Yet,” said Alain, in a tone of voice that implied doubt, “if I +understand Lemercier aright, you were going with him to the Bois on the +chance of seeing again the lady in whom your interest has ceased.” + +“Lemercier’s account was not strictly accurate. He stopped his carriage +to speak to me on quite another subject, on which I have consulted him, +and then proposed to take me on to the Bois. I assented; and it was +not till we were in the carriage that he suggested the idea of seeing +whether the pearly-robed lady had resumed her walk in the allee. You may +judge how indifferent I was to that chance when I preferred turning back +with you to going on with him. Between you and me, Marquis, to men of +our age, who have the business of life before them, and feel that if +there be aught in which noblesse oblige it is a severe devotion to noble +objects, there is nothing more fatal to such devotion than allowing the +heart to be blown hither and thither at every breeze of mere fancy, and +dreaming ourselves into love with some fair creature whom we never could +marry consistently with the career we have set before our ambition. I +could not marry an actress,--neither, I presume, could the Marquis de +Rochebriant; and the thought of a courtship which excluded the idea of +marriage to a young orphan of name unblemished, of virtue unsuspected, +would certainly not be compatible with ‘devotion to noble objects.’” + +Alain involuntarily bowed his head in assent to the proposition, and, it +may be, in submission to an implied rebuke. + +The two men walked in silence for some minutes, and Graham first spoke, +changing altogether the subject of conversation. “Lemercier tells me you +decline going much into this world of Paris, the capital of capitals, +which appears so irresistibly attractive to us foreigners.” + +“Possibly; but, to borrow your words, I have the business of life before +me.” + +“Business is a good safeguard against the temptations to excess in +pleasure, in which Paris abounds. But there is no business which does +not admit of some holiday, and all business necessitates commerce +with mankind. A propos, I was the other evening at the Duchese de +Tarascon’s,--a brilliant assembly, filled with ministers, senators, and +courtiers. I heard your name mentioned.” + +“Mine?” + +“Yes; Duplessis, the rising financier--who rather to my surprise was +not only present among these official and decorated celebrities, but +apparently quite at home among them--asked the Duchess if she had not +seen you since your arrival at Paris. She replied, ‘No; that though you +were among her nearest connections, you had not called on her;’ and bade +Duplessis tell you that you were a monstre for not doing so. Whether or +not Duplessis will take that liberty I know not; but you must pardon me +if I do. She is a very charming woman, full of talent; and that +stream of the world which reflects the stars, with all their mythical +influences on fortune, flows through her salons.” + +“I am not born under those stars. I am a Legitimist.” + +“I did not forget your political creed; but in England the leaders +of opposition attend the salons of the Prime Minister. A man is +not supposed to compromise his opinions because he exchanges social +courtesies with those to whom his opinions are hostile. Pray excuse me +if I am indiscreet, I speak as a traveller who asks for information: but +do the Legitimists really believe that they best serve their cause by +declining any mode of competing with its opponents? Would there not be +a fairer chance of the ultimate victory of their principles if they made +their talents and energies individually prominent; if they were known as +skilful generals, practical statesmen, eminent diplomatists, brilliant +writers? Could they combine,--not to sulk and exclude themselves from +the great battle-field of the world, but in their several ways to render +themselves of such use to their country that some day or other, in +one of those revolutionary crises to which France, alas! must long +be subjected, they would find themselves able to turn the scale of +undecided councils and conflicting jealousies.” + +“Monsieur, we hope for the day when the Divine Disposer of events +will strike into the hearts of our fickle and erring countrymen the +conviction that there will be no settled repose for France save under +the sceptre of her rightful kings. But meanwhile we are,--I see it more +clearly since I have quitted Bretagne,--we are a hopeless minority.” + +“Does not history tell us that the great changes of the world have been +wrought by minorities,--but on the one condition that the minorities +shall not be hopeless? It is almost the other day that the Bonapartists +were in a minority that their adversaries called hopeless, and the +majority for the Emperor is now so preponderant that I tremble for his +safety. When a majority becomes so vast that intellect disappears in the +crowd, the date of its destruction commences; for by the law of reaction +the minority is installed against it. It is the nature of things that +minorities are always more intellectual than multitudes, and intellect +is ever at work in sapping numerical force. What your party want is +hope; because without hope there is no energy. I remember hearing +my father say that when he met the Count de Chambord at Ems, that +illustrious personage delivered himself of a belle phrase much admired +by his partisans. The Emperor was then President of the Republic, in +a very doubtful and dangerous position. France seemed on the verge of +another convulsion. A certain distinguished politician recommended the +Count de Chambord to hold himself ready to enter at once as a candidate +for the throne. And the Count, with a benignant smile on his handsome +face, answered, ‘All wrecks come to the shore: the shore does not go to +the wrecks.’” + +“Beautifully said!” exclaimed the Marquis. + +“Not if ‘Le beau est toujours le vrai.’ My father, no inexperienced nor +unwise politician, in repeating the royal words, remarked: ‘The fallacy +of the Count’s argument is in its metaphor. A man is not a shore. Do you +not think that the seamen on board the wrecks would be more grateful to +him who did not complacently compare himself to a shore, but considered +himself a human being like themselves, and risked his own life in +a boat, even though it were a cockleshell, in the chance of saving +theirs?” + +Alain de Rochebriant was a brave man, with that intense sentiment of +patriotism which characterizes Frenchmen of every rank and persuasion, +unless they belong to the Internationalists; and, without pausing to +consider, he cried, “Your father was right.” + +The Englishman resumed: “Need I say, my dear Marquis, that I am not a +Legitimist? I am not an Imperialist, neither am I an Orleanist nor a +Republican. Between all those political divisions it is for Frenchmen +to make their choice, and for Englishmen to accept for France that +government which France has established. I view things here as a simple +observer. But it strikes me that if I were a Frenchman in your position, +I should think myself unworthy my ancestors if I consented to be an +insignificant looker-on.” + +“You are not in my position,” said the Marquis, half mournfully, half +haughtily, “and you can scarcely judge of it even in imagination.” + +“I need not much task my imagination; I judge of it by analogy. I was +very much in your position when I entered upon what I venture to call +my career; and it is the curious similarity between us in circumstances, +that made me wish for your friendship when that similarity was made +known to me by Lemercier, who is not less garrulous than the true +Parisian usually is. Permit me to say that, like you, I was reared +in some pride of no inglorious ancestry. I was reared also in the +expectation of great wealth. Those expectations were not realized: my +father had the fault of noble natures,--generosity pushed to imprudence: +he died poor and in debt. You retain the home of your ancestors; I had +to resign mine.” + +The Marquis had felt deeply interested in this narrative, and as Graham +now paused, took his hand and pressed it. “One of our most eminent +personages said to me about that time, ‘Whatever a clever man of your +age determines to do or to be, the odds are twenty to one that he has +only to live on in order to do or to be it.’ Don’t you think he spoke +truly? I think so.” + +“I scarcely know what to think,” said Rochebriant; “I feel as if you had +given me so rough a shake when I was in the midst of a dull dream, that +I am not yet quite sure whether I am asleep or awake.” + +Just as he said this, and towards the Paris end of the Champs Elysees, +there was a halt, a sensation among the loungers round them; many of +them uncovered in salute. + +A man on the younger side of middle age, somewhat inclined to +corpulence, with a very striking countenance, was riding slowly by. +He returned the salutations he received with the careless dignity of +a Personage accustomed to respect, and then reined in his horse by the +side of a barouche, and exchanged some words with a portly gentleman +who was its sole occupant. The loungers, still halting, seemed to +contemplate this parley--between him on horseback and him in the +carriage--with very eager interest. Some put their hands behind their +ears and pressed forward, as if trying to overhear what was said. + +“I wonder,” quoth Graham, “whether, with all his cleverness, the Prince +has in any way decided what he means to do or to be.” + +“The Prince!” said Rochebriant, rousing himself from revery; “what +Prince?” + +“Do you not recognize him by his wonderful likeness to the first +Napoleon,--him on horseback talking to Louvier, the great financier.” + +“Is that stout bourgeois in the carriage Louvier,--my mortgagee, +Louvier?” + +“Your mortgagee, my dear Marquis? Well, he is rich enough to be a very +lenient one upon pay-day.” + +“Hein!--I doubt his leniency,” said Alain. “I have promised my avoue to +meet him at dinner. Do you think I did wrong?” + +“Wrong! of course not; he is likely to overwhelm you with civilities. +Pray don’t refuse if he gives you an invitation to his soiree next +Saturday; I am going to it. One meets there the notabilities most +interesting to study,--artists, authors, politicians, especially those +who call themselves Republicans. He and the Prince agree in one thing; +namely, the cordial reception they give to the men who would destroy the +state of things upon which Prince and financier both thrive. Hillo! here +comes Lemercier on return from the Bois.” + +Lemercier’s coupe stopped beside the footpath. “What tidings of the +Belle Inconnue?” asked the Englishman. “None; she was not there. But I +am rewarded: such an adventure! a dame of the haute volee; I believe +she is a duchess. She was walking with a lap-dog, a pure Pomeranian. A +strange poodle flew at the Pomeranian, I drove off the poodle, rescued +the Pomeranian, received the most gracious thanks, the sweetest smile: +femme superbe, middle aged. I prefer women of forty. Au revoir, I am due +at the club.” + +Alain felt a sensation of relief that Lemercier had not seen the lady +in the pearl-coloured dress, and quitted the Englishman with a lightened +heart. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +“Piccola, piccola! com e cortese! another invitation from M. Louvier for +next Saturday,--conversazione.” This was said in Italian by an elderly +lady bursting noisily into the room,--elderly, yet with a youthful +expression of face, owing perhaps to a pair of very vivacious black +eyes. She was dressed, after a somewhat slatternly fashion, in a wrapper +of crimson merino much the worse for wear, a blue handkerchief twisted +turban-like round her head, and her feet encased in list slippers. The +person to whom she addressed herself was a young lady with dark hair, +which, despite its evident repugnance, was restrained into smooth glossy +braids over the forehead, and at the crown of the small graceful head +into the simple knot which Horace has described as “Spartan.” Her dress +contrasted the speaker’s by an exquisite neatness. + +We have seen her before as the lady in the pearl-coloured robe; but +seen now at home she looks much younger. She was one of those whom, +encountered in the streets or in society, one might guess to be +married,--probably a young bride; for thus seen there was about her an +air of dignity and of self-possession which suits well with the ideal of +chaste youthful matronage; and in the expression of the face there was a +pensive thoughtfulness beyond her years. But as she now sat by the open +window arranging flowers in a glass bowl, a book lying open on her lap, +you would never have said, “What a handsome woman!” you would have said, +“What a charming girl!” All about her was maidenly, innocent, and fresh. +The dignity of her bearing was lost in household ease, the pensiveness +of her expression in an untroubled serene sweetness. + +Perhaps many of my readers may have known friends engaged in some +absorbing cause of thought, and who are in the habit when they go out, +especially if on solitary walks, to take that cause of thought with +them. The friend may be an orator meditating his speech, a poet his +verses, a lawyer a difficult case, a physician an intricate malady. If +you have such a friend, and you observe him thus away from his home, his +face will seem to you older and graver. He is absorbed in the care that +weighs on him. When you see him in a holiday moment at his own +fireside, the care is thrown aside; perhaps he mastered while abroad the +difficulty that had troubled him; he is cheerful, pleasant, sunny. This +appears to be very much the case with persons of genius. When in their +own houses we usually find them very playful and childlike. Most +persons of real genius, whatever they may seem out of doors, are very +sweet-tempered at home, and sweet temper is sympathizing and genial in +the intercourse of private life. Certainly, observing this girl as she +now bends over the flowers, it would be difficult to believe her to be +the Isaura Cicogna whose letters to Madame de Grantinesnil exhibit the +doubts and struggles of an unquiet, discontented, aspiring mind. Only +in one or two passages in those letters would you have guessed at the +writer in the girl as we now see her. It is in those passages where she +expresses her love of harmony, and her repugnance to contest: those were +characteristics you might have read in her face. + +Certainly the girl is very lovely: what long dark eyelashes! what +soft, tender, dark-blue eyes! now that she looks up and smiles, what +a bewitching smile it is! by what sudden play of rippling dimples the +smile is enlivened and redoubled! Do you notice one feature? In +very showy beauties it is seldom noticed; but I, being in my way a +physiognomist, consider that it is always worth heeding as an index of +character. It is the ear. Remark how delicately it is formed in +her: none of that heaviness of lobe which is a sure sign of sluggish +intellect and coarse perception. Hers is the artist’s ear. Note +next those hands: how beautifully shaped! small, but not doll-like +hands,--ready and nimble, firm and nervous hands, that could work for a +helpmate. By no means very white, still less red, but somewhat embrowned +as by the sun, such as you may see in girls reared in southern climes, +and in her perhaps betokening an impulsive character which had not +accustomed itself, when at sport in the open air, to the thraldom of +gloves,--very impulsive people even in cold climates seldom do. + +In conveying to us by a few bold strokes an idea of the sensitive, +quick-moved, warm-blooded Henry II., the most impulsive of the +Plantagenets, his contemporary chronicler tells us that rather than +imprison those active hands of his, even in hawking-gloves, he would +suffer his falcon to fix its sharp claws into his wrist. No doubt +there is a difference as to what is befitting between a burly bellicose +creature like Henry II. and a delicate young lady like Isaura Cicogna; +and one would not wish to see those dainty wrists of hers seamed and +scarred by a falcon’s claws. But a girl may not be less exquisitely +feminine for slight heed of artificial prettiness. Isaura had no need +of pale bloodless hands to seem one of Nature’s highest grade of +gentlewomen even to the most fastidious eyes. About her there was +a charm apart from her mere beauty, and often disturbed instead of +heightened by her mere intellect: it consisted in a combination of +exquisite artistic refinement, and of a generosity of character by which +refinement was animated into vigour and warmth. + +The room, which was devoted exclusively to Isaura, had in it much that +spoke of the occupant. That room, when first taken furnished, had a good +deal of the comfortless showiness which belongs to ordinary furnished +apartments in France, especially in the Parisian suburbs, chiefly let +for the summer: thin limp muslin curtains that decline to draw; stiff +mahogany chairs covered with yellow Utrecht velvet; a tall secretaire in +a dark corner; an oval buhl-table set in tawdry ormolu, islanded in the +centre of a poor but gaudy Scotch carpet; and but one other table of +dull walnut-wood, standing clothless before a sofa to match the chairs; +the eternal ormolu clock flanked by the two eternal ormolu candelabra on +the dreary mantelpiece. Some of this garniture had been removed, others +softened into cheeriness and comfort. The room somehow or other--thanks +partly to a very moderate expenditure in pretty twills with pretty +borders, gracefully simple table-covers, with one or two additional +small tables and easy-chairs, two simple vases filled with flowers; +thanks still more to a nameless skill in re-arrangement, and the +disposal of the slight knick-knacks and well-bound volumes, which, even +in travelling, women who have cultivated the pleasures of taste carry +about them--had been coaxed into that quiet harmony, that tone of +consistent subdued colour, which corresponded with the characteristics +of the inmate. Most people might have been puzzled where to place the +piano, a semi-grand, so as not to take up too much space in the little +room; but where it was placed it seemed so at home that you might have +supposed the room had been built for it. + +There are two kinds of neatness,--one is too evident, and makes +everything about it seem trite and cold and stiff; and another kind +of neatness disappears from our sight in a satisfied sense of +completeness,--like some exquisite, simple, finished style of writing, +an Addison’s or a St. Pierre’s. + +This last sort of neatness belonged to Isaura, and brought to mind the +well-known line of Catullus when on recrossing his threshold he invokes +its welcome,--a line thus not inelegantly translated by Leigh Hunt, + + “Smile every dimple on the cheek of Home.” + +I entreat the reader’s pardon for this long descriptive digression; +but Isaura is one of those characters which are called many-sided, and +therefore not very easy to comprehend. She gives us one side of her +character in her correspondence with Madame de Grantmesnil, and another +side of it in her own home with her Italian companion,--half nurse, half +chaperon. + +“Monsieur Louvier is indeed very courteous,” said Isaura, looking up +from the flowers with the dimpled smile we have noticed. “But I +think, Madre, that we should do well to stay at home on Saturday,--not +peacefully, for I owe you your revenge at Euchre.” + +“You can’t mean it, Piecola!” exclaimed the Signora, in evident +consternation. “Stay at home!--why stay at home? Euchre is very well +when there is nothing else to do: but change is pleasant; le bon Dieu +likes it, + + “‘Ne caldo ne gelo + Resta mai in cielo.’ + +“And such beautiful ices one gets at M. Louvier’s! Did you taste the +pistachio ice? What fine rooms, and so well lit up! I adore light. And +the ladies so beautifully dressed: one sees the fashions. Stay at home! +play at Euchre indeed! Piccola, you cannot be so cruel to yourself: you +are young.” + +“But, dear Madre, just consider; we are invited because we are +considered professional singers: your reputation as such is of course +established,--mine is not; but still I shall be asked to sing, as I was +asked before; and you know Dr. C. forbids me to do so except to a very +small audience; and it is so ungracious always to say ‘No;’ and besides, +did you not yourself say, when we came away last time from M. Louvier’s, +that it was very dull, that you knew nobody, and that the ladies had +such superb toilets that you felt mortified--and--” + +“Zitto! zitto! you talk idly, Piccola,--very idly. I was mortified +then in my old black Lyons silk; but have I not bought since then my +beautiful Greek jacket,--scarlet and gold lace? and why should I buy it +if I am not to show it?” + +“But, dear Madre, the jacket is certainly very handsome, and will make +an effect in a little dinner at the Savarins or Mrs. Morley’s; but in a +great formal reception like M. Louvier’s will it not look--” + +“Splendid!” interrupted the Signora. + +“But singolare.” + +“So much the better; did not that great English Lady wear such a jacket, +and did not every one admire her, piu tosto invidia the compassione?” + +Isaura sighed. Now the jacket of the Signora was a subject of +disquietude to her friend. It so happened that a young English lady of +the highest rank and the rarest beauty had appeared at M. Louvier’s, +and indeed generally in the beau monde of Paris, in a Greek jacket that +became her very much. The jacket had fascinated, at M. Louvier’s, the +eyes of the Signora. But of this Isaura was unaware. The Signora, on +returning home from M. Louvier’s, had certainly lamented much over the +mesquin appearance of her old-fashioned Italian habiliments compared +with the brilliant toilette of the gay Parisiennes; and Isaura--quite +woman enough to sympathize with woman in such womanly vanities--proposed +the next day to go with the Signora to one of the principal couturieres +of Paris, and adapt the Signora’s costume to the fashions of the place. +But the Signora having predetermined on a Greek jacket, and knowing +by instinct that Isaura would be disposed to thwart that splendid +predilection, had artfully suggested that it would be better to go +to the couturiere with Madame Savarin, as being a more experienced +adviser,--and the coupe only held two. + +As Madame Savarin was about the same age as the Signora, and dressed +as became her years and in excellent taste, Isaura thought this an +admirable suggestion; and pressing into her chaperon’s hand a billet de +banque sufficient to re-equip her cap-a pie, dismissed the subject from +her mind. But the Signora was much too cunning to submit her passion +for the Greek jacket to the discouraging comments of Madame Savarin. +Monopolizing the coupe, she became absolute mistress of the situation. +She went to no fashionable couturiere’s. She went to a magasin that she +had seen advertised in the Petites Afiches as supplying superb costumes +for fancy-balls and amateur performers in private theatricals. She +returned home triumphant, with a jacket still more dazzling to the eye +than that of the English lady. + +When Isaura first beheld it, she drew back in a sort of superstitious +terror, as of a comet or other blazing portent. + +“Cosa stupenda!” (stupendous thing!) She might well be dismayed when +the Signora proposed to appear thus attired in M. Louvier’s salon. What +might be admired as coquetry of dress in a young beauty of rank so great +that even a vulgarity in her would be called distinguee, was +certainly an audacious challenge of ridicule in the elderly ci-devant +music-teacher. + +But how could Isaura, how can any one of common humanity, say to a woman +resolved upon wearing a certain dress, “You are not young and handsome +enough for that?” Isaura could only murmur, “For many reasons I would +rather stay at home, dear Madre.” + +“Ah! I see you are ashamed of me,” said the Signora, in softened tones: +“very natural. When the nightingale sings no more, she is only an +ugly brown bird;” and therewith the Signora Venosta seated herself +submissively, and began to cry. + +On this Isaura sprang up, wound her arms round the Signora’s neck, +soothed her with coaxing, kissed and petted her, and ended by saying, +“Of course we will go;” and, “but let me choose you another dress,--a +dark-green velvet trimmed with blonde: blonde becomes you so well.” + +“No, no: I hate green velvet; anybody can wear that. Piccola, I am not +clever like thee; I cannot amuse myself like thee with books. I am in a +foreign land. I have a poor head, but I have a big heart” (another burst +of tears); “and that big heart is set on my beautiful Greek jacket.” + +“Dearest Madre,” said Isaura, half weeping too, “forgive me, you are +right. The Greek jacket is splendid; I shall be so pleased to see you +wear it: poor Madre! so pleased to think that in the foreign land you +are not without something that pleases you!” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CONFORMABLY with his engagement to meet M. Louvier, Alain found himself +on the day and at the hour named in M. Gandrin’s salon. On this occasion +Madame Gandrin did not appear. Her husband was accustomed to give diners +d’hommes. The great man had not yet arrived. “I think, Marquis,” said +M. Gandrin, “that you will not regret having followed my advice: my +representations have disposed Louvier to regard you with much favour, +and he is certainly flattered by being permitted to make your personal +acquaintance.” + +The avoue had scarcely finished this little speech, when M. Louvier was +announced. He entered with a beaming smile, which did not detract from +his imposing presence. His flatterers had told him that he had a look +of Louis Philippe; therefore he had sought to imitate the dress and the +bonhomie of that monarch of the middle class. He wore a wig, elaborately +piled up, and shaped his whiskers in royal harmony with the royal wig. +Above all, he studied that social frankness of manner with which the +able sovereign dispelled awe of his presence or dread of his astuteness. +Decidedly he was a man very pleasant to converse and to deal with--so +long as there seemed to him something to gain and nothing to lose by +being pleasant. He returned Alain’s bow by a cordial offer of both +expansive hands, into the grasp of which the hands of the aristocrat +utterly disappeared. “Charmed to make your acquaintance, Marquis; still +more charmed if you will let me be useful during your sejour at Paris. +Ma foi, excuse my bluntness, but you are a fort beau garcon. Monsieur +your father was a handsome man, but you beat him hollow. Gandrin, my +friend, would not you and I give half our fortunes for one year of this +fine fellow’s youth spent at Paris? Peste! what love-letters we should +have, with no need to buy them by billets de banque!” Thus he ran on, +much to Alain’s confusion, till dinner was announced. Then there was +something grandiose in the frank bourgeois style wherewith he expanded +his napkin and twisted one end into his waistcoat; it was so manly a +renunciation of the fashions which a man so repandu in all circles might +be supposed to follow,--as if he were both too great and too much in +earnest for such frivolities. He was evidently a sincere bon vivant, and +M. Gandrin had no less evidently taken all requisite pains to gratify +his taste. The Montrachet served with the oysters was of precious +vintage; that vin de madere which accompanied the potage a la bisque +would have contented an American. And how radiant became Louvier’s face +when amongst the entrees he came upon laitances de carpes! “The best +thing in the world,” he cried, “and one gets it so seldom since the old +Rocher de Cancale has lost its renown. At private houses, what does one +get now? blanc de poulet, flavourless trash. After all, Gandrin, when we +lose the love-letters, it is some consolation that laitances de carpes +and sautes de foie gras are still left to fill up the void in our +hearts. Marquis, heed my counsel; cultivate betimes the taste for the +table,--that and whist are the sole resources of declining years. You +never met my old friend Talleyrand--ah, no! he was long before your +time. He cultivated both, but he made two mistakes. No man’s intellect +is perfect on all sides. He confined himself to one meal a day, and +he never learned to play well at whist. Avoid his errors, my young +friend,--avoid them. Gandrin, I guess this pineapple is English,--it is +superb.” + +“You are right,--a present from the Marquis of H-------.” + +“Ah! instead of a fee, I wager. The Marquis gives nothing for nothing, +dear man! Droll people the English. You have never visited England, I +presume, cher Rochebriant?” The affable financier had already made vast +progress in familiarity with his silent fellow-guest. + +When the dinner was over and the three men had reentered the salon for +coffee and liqueurs, Gandrin left Louvier and Alain alone, saying he was +going to his cabinet for cigars which he could recommend. Then Louvier, +lightly patting the Marquis on the shoulder, said with what the French +call effusion, “My dear Rochebriant, your father and I did not quite +understand each other. He took a tone of grand seigneur that sometimes +wounded me; and I in turn was perhaps too rude in asserting my +rights--as creditor, shall I say?--no, as fellow-citizen; and Frenchmen +are so vain, so over-susceptible; fire up at a word; take offence when +none is meant. We two, my dear boy, should be superior to such national +foibles. Bref--I have a mortgage on your lands. Why should that thought +mar our friendship? At my age, though I am not yet old, one is flattered +if the young like us, pleased if we can oblige them, and remove from +their career any little obstacle in its way. Gandrin tells me you wish +to consolidate all the charges on your estate into one on a lower rate +of interest. Is it so?” + +“I am so advised,” said the Marquis. + +“And very rightly advised; come and talk with me about it some day next +week. I hope to have a large sum of money set free in a few days. Of +course, mortgages on land don’t pay like speculations at the Bourse; but +I am rich enough to please myself. We will see, we will see.” + +Here Gandrin returned with the cigars; but Alain at that time never +smoked, and Louvier excused himself, with a laugh and a sly wink, on +the plea that he was going to pay his respects--as doubtless that joli +garcon was going to do likewise--to a belle dame who did not reckon the +smell of tobacco among the perfumes of Houbigant or Arabia. + +“Meanwhile,” added Louvier, turning to Gandrin, “I have something to say +to you on business about the contract for that new street of mine. No +hurry,--after our young friend has gone to his ‘assignation.’” + +Alain could not misinterpret the hint; and in a few moments took leave +of his host, more surprised than disappointed that the financier had not +invited him, as Graham had assumed he would, to his soiree the following +evening. + +When Alain was gone, Louvier’s jovial manner disappeared also, and +became bluffly rude rather than bluntly cordial. “Gandrin, what did +you mean by saying that that young man was no muscadin! Muscadin, +aristocrate, offensive from top to toe.” + +“You amaze me; you seemed to take to him so cordially.” + +“And pray, were you too blind to remark with what cold reserve he +responded to my condescensions; how he winced when I called him +Rochebriant; how he coloured when I called him ‘dear boy’? These +aristocrats think we ought to thank them on our knees when they take our +money, and” here Louvier’s face darkened--“seduce our women.” “Monsieur +Louvier, in all France I do not know a greater aristocrat than +yourself.” + +I don’t know whether M. Gandrin meant that speech as a compliment, but +M. Louvier took it as such,--laughed complacently and rubbed his hands. +“Ay, ay, millionnaires are the real aristocrats, for they have power, as +my beau Marquis will soon find. I must bid you good night. Of course I +shall see Madame Gandrin and yourself to-morrow. Prepare for a motley +gathering,--lots of democrats and foreigners, with artists and authors, +and such creatures.” + +“Is that the reason why you did not invite the Marquis?” + +“To be sure; I would not shock so pure a Legitimist by contact with the +sons of the people, and make him still colder to myself. No; when he +comes to my house he shall meet lions and viveurs of the haut ton, +who will play into my hands by teaching him how to ruin himself in the +quickest manner and in the genre Regence. Bon soir, mon vieux.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +The next night Graham in vain looked round for Alain in M. Louvier’s +salons, and missed his high-bred mien and melancholy countenance. +M. Louvier had been for some four years a childless widower, but his +receptions were not the less numerously attended, nor his establishment +less magnificently monde for the absence of a presiding lady: very much +the contrary; it was noticeable how much he had increased his status and +prestige as a social personage since the death of his unlamented spouse. + +To say truth, she had been rather a heavy drag on his triumphal car. +She had been the heiress of a man who had amassed a great deal of +money,--not in the higher walks of commerce, but in a retail trade. + +Louvier himself was the son of a rich money-lender; he had entered life +with an ample fortune and an intense desire to be admitted into those +more brilliant circles in which fortune can be dissipated with eclat. He +might not have attained this object but for the friendly countenance of +a young noble who was then-- + + “The glass of fashion and the mould of form;” + +but this young noble, of whom later we shall hear more, came suddenly to +grief, and when the money-lender’s son lost that potent protector, the +dandies, previously so civil, showed him a very cold shoulder. + +Louvier then became an ardent democrat, and recruited the fortune he had +impaired by the aforesaid marriage, launched into colossal speculations, +and became enormously rich. His aspirations for social rank now revived, +but his wife sadly interfered with them. She was thrifty by nature; +sympathized little with her husband’s genius for accumulation; always +said he would end in a hospital; hated Republicans; despised authors and +artists, and by the ladies of the beau monde was pronounced common and +vulgar. + +So long as she lived, it was impossible for Louvier to realize his +ambition of having one of the salons which at Paris establish celebrity +and position. He could not then command those advantages of wealth which +he especially coveted. He was eminently successful in doing this now. +As soon as she was safe in Pere la Chaise, he enlarged his hotel by +the purchase and annexation of an adjoining house; redecorated and +refurnished it, and in this task displayed, it must be said to his +credit, or to that of the administrators he selected for the purpose, a +nobleness of taste rarely exhibited nowadays. His collection of pictures +was not large, and consisted exclusively of the French school, ancient +and modern, for in all things Louvier affected the patriot. But each of +those pictures was a gem; such Watteaus, such Greuzes, such landscapes +by Patel, and, above all, such masterpieces by Ingres, Horace Vernet, +and Delaroche were worth all the doubtful originals of Flemish and +Italian art which make the ordinary boast of private collectors. + +These pictures occupied two rooms of moderate size, built for their +reception, and lighted from above. The great salon to which they led +contained treasures scarcely less precious; the walls were covered with +the richest silks which the looms of Lyons could produce. Every piece +of furniture here was a work of art in its way: console-tables of +Florentine mosaic, inlaid with pearl and lapis-lazuli; cabinets in which +the exquisite designs of the Renaissance were carved in ebony; colossal +vases of Russian malachite, but wrought by French artists. The very +knick-knacks scattered carelessly about the room might have been admired +in the cabinets of the Palazzo Pitti. Beyond this room lay the salle de +danse, its ceiling painted by ------, supported by white marble columns, +the glazed balcony and the angles of the room filled with tiers of +exotics. In the dining-room, on the same floor, on the other side of +the landing-place, were stored in glazed buffets not only vessels and +salvers of plate, silver and gold, but, more costly still, matchless +specimens of Sevres and Limoges, and mediaeval varieties of Venetian +glass. On the ground-floor, which opened on the lawn of a large garden, +Louvier had his suite of private apartments, furnished, as he said, +“simply, according to English notions of comfort;”--Englishmen would +have said, “according to French notions of luxury.” Enough of these +details, which a writer cannot give without feeling himself somewhat +vulgarized in doing so, but without a loose general idea of which +a reader would not have an accurate conception of something not +vulgar,--of something grave, historical, possibly tragical,--the +existence of a Parisian millionaire at the date of this narrative. + +The evidence of wealth was everywhere manifest at M. Louvier’s, but it +was everywhere refined by an equal evidence of taste. The apartments +devoted to hospitality ministered to the delighted study of artists, to +whom free access was given, and of whom two or three might be seen +daily in the “show-rooms,” copying pictures or taking sketches of rare +articles of furniture or effects for palatian interiors. + +Among the things which rich English visitors of Paris most coveted to +see was M. Louvier’s hotel, and few among the richest left it without +a sigh of envy and despair. Only in such London houses as belong to +a Sutherland or a Holford could our metropolis exhibit a splendour as +opulent and a taste as refined. + +M. Louvier had his set evenings for popular assemblies. At these were +entertained the Liberals of every shade, from tricolor to rouge, +with the artists and writers most in vogue, pele-mele with decorated +diplomatists, ex-ministers, Orleanists, and Republicans, distinguished +foreigners, plutocrats of the Bourse, and lions male and female from +the arid nurse of that race, the Chaussee d’Antin. Of his more select +reunions something will be said later. + +“And how does this poor Paris metamorphosed please Monsieur Vane?” asked +a Frenchman with a handsome, intelligent countenance, very carefully +dressed though in a somewhat bygone fashion, and carrying off his tenth +lustrum with an air too sprightly to evince any sense of the weight. +This gentleman, the Vicomte de Breze, was of good birth, and had a +legitimate right to his title of Vicomte,--which is more than can be +said of many vicomtes one meets at Paris. He had no other property, +however, than a principal share in an influential journal, to which he +was a lively and sparkling contributor. In his youth, under the reign +of Louis Philippe, he had been a chief among literary exquisites; and +Balzac was said to have taken him more than once as his model for those +brilliant young vauriens who figure in the great novelist’s comedy of +Human Life. The Vicomte’s fashion expired with the Orleanist dynasty. + +“Is it possible, my dear Vicomte,” answered Graham, “not to be pleased +with a capital so marvellously embellished?” + +“Embellished it may be to foreign eyes,” said the Vicomte, sighing, “but +not improved to the taste of a Parisian like me. I miss the dear Paris +of old,--the streets associated with my beaux jours are no more. +Is there not something drearily monotonous in those interminable +perspectives? How frightfully the way lengthens before one’s eyes! In +the twists and curves of the old Paris one was relieved from the pain +of seeing how far one had to go from one spot to another,--each tortuous +street had a separate idiosyncrasy; what picturesque diversities, +what interesting recollections,--all swept away! Mon Dieu! and +what for,--miles of florid facades staring and glaring at one with +goggle-eyed pitiless windows; house-rents trebled, and the consciousness +that if you venture to grumble underground railways, like concealed +volcanoes, can burst forth on you at any moment with an eruption of +bayonets and muskets. This maudit empire seeks to keep its hold +on France much as a grand seigneur seeks to enchain a nymph of +the ballet,--tricks her out in finery and baubles, and insures her +infidelity the moment he fails to satisfy her whims.” + +“Vicomte,” answered Graham, “I have had the honour to know you since I +was a small boy at a preparatory school home for the holidays, and you +were a guest at my father’s country-house. You were then fete as one of +the most promising writers among the young men of the day, especially +favoured by the princes of the reigning family. I shall never forget +the impression made on me by your brilliant appearance and your no less +brilliant talk.” + +“Ah! ces beaux jours! ce bon Louis Philippe, ce cher petit Joinville,” + sighed the Vicomte. + +“But at that day you compared le bon Louis Philippe to Robert Macaire. +You described all his sons, including, no doubt, ce cher petit +Joinville, in terms of resentful contempt, as so many plausible gamins +whom Robert Macaire was training to cheat the public in the interest of +the family firm. I remember my father saying to you in answer, ‘No royal +house in Europe has more sought to develop the literature of an epoch +and to signalize its representatives by social respect and official +honours than that of the Orleans dynasty. You, Monsieur de Breze, do but +imitate your elders in seeking to destroy the dynasty under which you +flourish; should you succeed, you hommes de plume will be the first +sufferers and the loudest complainers.’” + +“Cher Monsieur Vane,” said the Vicomte, smiling complacently, “your +father did me great honour in classing me with Victor Hugo, Alexandre +Dumas, Emile de Girardin, and the other stars of the Orleanist galaxy, +including our friend here, M. Savarin. A very superior man was your +father.” + +“And,” said Savarin, who, being an Orleanist, had listened to Graham’s +speech with an approving smile,--“and if I remember right, my dear +De Breze, no one was more brilliantly severe than yourself on poor De +Lamartine and the Republic that succeeded Louis Philippe; no one more +emphatically expressed the yearning desire for another Napoleon to +restore order at home and renown abroad. Now you have got another +Napoleon.” + +“And I want change for my Napoleon,” said De Breze, laughing. + +“My dear Vicomte,” said Graham, “one thing we may all grant,--that in +culture and intellect you are far superior to the mass of your fellow +Parisians; that you are therefore a favourable type of their political +character.” + +“Ah, mon cher, vous etes trop aimable.” + +“And therefore I venture to say this,--if the archangel Gabriel were +permitted to descend to Paris and form the best government for France +that the wisdom of seraph could devise, it would not be two years--I +doubt if it would be six months--before out of this Paris, which you +call the Foyer des Idees, would emerge a powerful party, adorned by +yourself and other hommes de plume, in favour of a revolution for the +benefit of ce bon Satan and ce cher petit Beelzebub.” + +“What a pretty vein of satire you have, mon cher!” said the Vicomte, +good-humouredly; “there is a sting of truth in your witticism. Indeed, +I must send you some articles of mine in which I have said much the same +thing,--les beaux, esprits se rencontrent. The fault of us French is +impatience, desire of change; but then it is that desire which keeps the +world going and retains our place at the head of it. However, at this +time we are all living too fast for our money to keep up with it, and +too slow for our intellect not to flag. We vie with each other on the +road to ruin, for in literature all the old paths to fame are shut up.” + +Here a tall gentleman, with whom the Vicomte had been conversing before +he accosted Vane, and who had remained beside De Breze listening in +silent attention to this colloquy, interposed, speaking in the slow +voice of one accustomed to measure his words, and with a slight but +unmistakable German accent. “There is that, Monsieur de Breze, which +makes one think gravely of what you say so lightly. Viewing things with +the unprejudiced eyes of a foreigner, I recognize much for which France +should be grateful to the Emperor. Under his sway her material resources +have been marvellously augmented; her commerce has been placed by the +treaty with England on sounder foundations, and is daily exhibiting +richer life; her agriculture had made a prodigious advance wherever it +has allowed room for capitalists, and escaped from the curse of petty +allotments and peasant-proprietors, a curse which would have ruined any +country less blessed by Nature; turbulent factions have been quelled; +internal order maintained; the external prestige of France, up at +least to the date of the Mexican war, increased to an extent that might +satisfy even a Frenchman’s amour propre; and her advance in civilization +has been manifested by the rapid creation of a naval power which should +put even England on her mettle. But, on the other hand--” + +“Ay, on the other hand,” said the Vicomte. + +“On the other hand there are in the imperial system two causes of decay +and of rot silently at work. They may not be the faults of the Emperor, +but they are such misfortunes as may cause the fall of the Empire. +The first is an absolute divorce between the political system and the +intellectual culture of the nation. The throne and the system rest +on universal suffrage,--on a suffrage which gives to classes the most +ignorant a power that preponderates over all the healthful elements of +knowledge. It is the tendency of all ignorant multitudes to personify +themselves, as it were, in one individual. They cannot comprehend you +when you argue for a principle; they do comprehend you when you talk +of a name. The Emperor Napoleon is to them a name, and the prefects +and officials who influence their votes are paid for incorporating all +principles in the shibboleth of that single name. You have thus sought +the well-spring of a political system in the deepest stratum of popular +ignorance. To rid popular ignorance of its normal revolutionary bias, +the rural peasants are indoctrinated with the conservatism that comes +from the fear which appertains to property. They have their roots +of land or their shares in a national loan. Thus you estrange the +crassitude of an ignorant democracy still more from the intelligence of +the educated classes by combining it with the most selfish and abject of +all the apprehensions that are ascribed to aristocracy and wealth. What +is thus embedded in the depths of your society makes itself shown on the +surface. Napoleon III. has been compared to Augustus; and there are +many startling similitudes between them in character and in fate. Each +succeeds to the heritage of a great name that had contrived to unite +autocracy with the popular cause; each subdued all rival competitors, +and inaugurated despotic rule in the name of freedom; each mingled +enough of sternness with ambitious will to stain with bloodshed the +commencement of his power,--but it would be an absurd injustice to fix +the same degree of condemnation on the coup d’etat as humanity fixes on +the earlier cruelties of Augustus; each, once firm in his seat, became +mild and clement,--Augustus perhaps from policy, Napoleon III. from a +native kindliness of disposition which no fair critic of character +can fail to acknowledge. Enough of similitudes; now for one salient +difference. Observe how earnestly Augustus strove, and how completely he +succeeded in the task, to rally round him all the leading intellects in +every grade and of every party,--the followers of Antony, the friends of +Brutus; every great captain, every great statesman, every great writer, +every mail who could lend a ray of mind to his own Julian constellation, +and make the age of Augustus an era in the annals of human intellect +and genius. But this has not been the good fortune of your Emperor. +The result of his system has been the suppression of intellect in +every department. He has rallied round him not one great statesman; his +praises are hymned by not one great poet. The celebrates of a former day +stand aloof; or, preferring exile to constrained allegiance, assail him +with unremitting missiles from their asylum in foreign shores. His +reign is sterile of new celebrites. The few that arise enlist themselves +against him. Whenever he shall venture to give full freedom to the press +and to the legislature, the intellect thus suppressed or thus hostile +will burst forth in collected volume. His partisans have not been +trained and disciplined to meet such assailants. They will be as weak as +no doubt they will be violent. And the worst is, that the intellect thus +rising in mass against him will be warped and distorted, like captives +who, being kept in chains, exercise their limbs on escaping in vehement +jumps without definite object. The directors of emancipated opinion may +thus be terrible enemies to the Imperial Government, but they will +be very unsafe councillors to France. Concurrently with this divorce +between the Imperial system and the national intellect,--a divorce +so complete that even your salons have lost their wit, and even your +caricatures their point,--a corruption of manners which the Empire, I +own, did not originate, but inherit, has become so common that every +one owns and nobody blames it. The gorgeous ostentation of the Court +has perverted the habits of the people. The intelligence abstracted from +other vents betakes itself to speculating for a fortune; and the greed +of gain and the passion for show are sapping the noblest elements of the +old French manhood. Public opinion stamps with no opprobrium a minister +or favourite who profits by a job; and I fear you will find that jobbing +pervades all your administrative departments.” + +“All very true,” said De Breze, with a shrug of the shoulders and in +a tone of levity that seemed to ridicule the assertion he volunteered; +“Virtue and Honour banished from courts and salons and the cabinet of +authors ascend to fairer heights in the attics of ouvriers.” + +“The ouvriers, ouvriers of Paris!” cried this terrible German. + +“Ay, Monsieur le Comte, what can you say against our ouvriers? A German +count cannot condescend to learn anything about ces petites gens.” + +“Monsieur,” replied the German, “in the eyes of a statesman there are +no petites gens, and in those of a philosopher no petites choses. We in +Germany have too many difficult problems affecting our working classes +to solve, not to have induced me to glean all the information I can as +to the ouvriers of Paris. They have among them men of aspirations as +noble as can animate the souls of philosophers and poets, perhaps not +the less noble because common-sense and experience cannot follow their +flight; but as a body the ouvriers of Paris have not been elevated in +political morality by the benevolent aim of the Emperor to find them +ample work and good wages independent of the natural laws that regulate +the markets of labour. Accustomed thus to consider the State bound to +maintain them, the moment the State fails in that impossible task, they +will accommodate their honesty to a rush upon property under the name of +social reform. + +“Have you not noticed how largely increased within the last few years is +the number of those who cry out, ‘La Propriete, cest le vol’? Have you +considered the rapid growth of the International Association? I do not +say that for all these evils--the Empire is exclusively responsible. +To a certain degree they are found in all rich communities, especially +where democracy is more or less in the ascendant. To a certain extent +they exist in the large towns of Germany; they are conspicuously +increasing in England; they are acknowledged to be dangerous in the +United States of America; they are, I am told on good authority, making +themselves visible with the spread of civilization in Russia. But under +the French Empire they have become glaringly rampant, and I venture to +predict that the day is not far off when the rot at work throughout all +layers and strata of French society will insure a fall of the fabric at +the sound of which the world will ring. + +“There is many a fair and stately tree which continues to throw out its +leaves and rear its crest till suddenly the wind smites it, and then, +and not till then, the trunk which seems so solid is found to be but the +rind to a mass of crumbled powder.” + +“Monsieur le Comte,” said the Vicomte, “you are a severe critic and +a lugubrious prophet; but a German is so safe from revolution that he +takes alarm at the stir of movement which is the normal state of the +French esprit.” + +“French esprit may soon evaporate into Parisian betise. As to Germany +being safe from revolution, allow me to repeat a saying of Goethe’s-but +has Monsieur le Vicomte ever heard of Goethe?” + +“Goethe, of course,--tres joli ecrivain.” + +“Goethe said to some one who was making much the same remark as +yourself, ‘We Germans are in a state of revolution now, but we do things +so slowly that it will be a hundred years before we Germans shall find +it out; but when completed, it will be the greatest revolution society +has yet seen, and will last like the other revolutions that, beginning, +scarce noticed, in Germany, have transformed the world.’” + +“Diable, Monsieur le Comte! Germans transformed the world! What +revolutions do you speak of?” + +“The invention of gunpowder, the invention of printing, and the +expansion of a monk’s quarrel with his Pope into the Lutheran +revolution.” + +Here the German paused, and asked the Vicomte to introduce him to Vane, +which De Breze did by the title of Count von Rudesheim. On hearing +Vane’s name, the Count inquired if he were related to the orator and +statesman, George Graham Vane, whose opinions, uttered in Parliament, +were still authoritative among German thinkers. This compliment to his +deceased father immensely gratified but at the same time considerably +surprised the Englishman. His father, no doubt, had been a man of much +influence in the British House of Commons,--a very weighty speaker, and, +while in office, a first-rate administrator; but Englishmen know what a +House of Commons reputation is,--how fugitive, how little cosmopolitan; +and that a German count should ever have heard of his father delighted +but amazed him. In stating himself to be the son of George Graham Vane, +he intimated not only the delight but the amaze, with the frank savoir +vivre which was one of his salient characteristics. + +“Sir,” replied the German, speaking in very correct English, but still +with his national accent, “every German reared to political service +studies England as the school for practical thought distinct from +impracticable theories. Long may you allow us to do so! Only excuse me +one remark,--never let the selfish element of the practical supersede +the generous element. Your father never did so in his speeches, and +therefore we admired him. At the present day we don’t so much care to +study English speeches; they may be insular,--they are not European. I +honour England; Heaven grant that you may not be making sad mistakes +in the belief that you can long remain England if you cease to be +European.” Herewith the German bowed, not uncivilly,--on the contrary, +somewhat ceremoniously,--and disappeared with a Prussian Secretary of +Embassy, whose arm he linked in his own, into a room less frequented. + +“Vicomte, who and what is your German count?” asked Vane. + +“A solemn pedant,” answered the lively Vicomte,--“a German count, que +voulez-vous de plus?” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A LITTLE later Graham found himself alone amongst the crowd. Attracted +by the sound of music, he had strayed into one of the rooms whence it +came, and in which, though his range of acquaintance at Paris was for an +Englishman large and somewhat miscellaneous, he recognized no familiar +countenance. A lady was playing the pianoforte--playing remarkably +well--with accurate science, with that equal lightness and strength of +finger which produces brilliancy of execution; but to appreciate +her music one should be musical one’s self. It wanted the charm +that fascinates the uninitiated. The guests in the room were musical +connoisseurs,--a class with whom Graham Vane had nothing in common. Even +if he had been more capable of enjoying the excellence of the player’s +performance, the glance he directed towards her would have sufficed +to chill him into indifference. She was not young, and with prominent +features and puckered skin, was twisting her face into strange +sentimental grimaces, as if terribly overcome by the beauty and pathos +of her own melodies. To add to Vane’s displeasure, she was dressed in +a costume wholly antagonistic to his views of the becoming,--in a Greek +jacket of gold and scarlet, contrasted by a Turkish turban. + +Muttering “What she-mountebank have we here?” he sank into a chair +behind the door, and fell into an absorbed revery. From this he was +aroused by the cessation of the music and the hum of subdued approbation +by which it was followed. Above the hum swelled the imposing voice of M. +Louvier as he rose from a seat on the other side of the piano, by which +his bulky form had been partially concealed. + +“Bravo! perfectly played! excellent! Can we not persuade your charming +young countrywoman to gratify us even by a single song?” Then turning +aside and addressing some one else invisible to Graham he said, “Does +that tyrannical doctor still compel you to silence, Mademoiselle?” + +A voice so sweetly modulated that if there were any sarcasm in the words +it was lost in the softness of pathos, answered, “Nay, Monsieur Louvier, +he rather overtasks the words at my command in thankfulness to those who +like yourself, so kindly regard me as something else than a singer.” + +It was not the she-mountebank who thus spoke. Graham rose and looked +round with instinctive curiosity. He met the face that he said had +haunted him. She too had risen, standing near the piano, with one +hand tenderly resting on the she-mountebank’s scarlet and gilded +shoulder,--the face that haunted him, and yet with a difference. There +was a faint blush on the clear pale cheek, a soft yet playful light in +the grave dark-blue eyes, which had not been visible in the countenance +of the young lady in the pearl-coloured robe. Graham did not hear +Louvier’s reply, though no doubt it was loud enough for him to hear. He +sank again into revery. Other guests now came into the room, among them +Frank Morley, styled Colonel,--eminent military titles in the United +States do not always denote eminent military services,--a wealthy +American, and his sprightly and beautiful wife. The Colonel was a clever +man, rather stiff in his deportment, and grave in speech, but by no +means without a vein of dry humour. By the French he was esteemed +a high-bred specimen of the kind of grand seigneur which democratic +republics engender. He spoke French like a Parisian, had an imposing +presence, and spent a great deal of money with the elegance of a man of +taste and the generosity of a man of heart. His high breeding was not +quite so well understood by the English, because the English are apt to +judge breeding by little conventional rules not observed by the +American Colonel. He had a slight nasal twang, and introduced “sir” with +redundant ceremony in addressing Englishmen, however intimate he might +be with them, and had the habit (perhaps with a sly intention to startle +or puzzle them) of adorning his style of conversation with quaint +Americanisms. + +Nevertheless, the genial amiability and the inherent dignity of his +character made him acknowledged as a thorough gentleman by every +Englishman, however conventional in tastes, who became admitted into his +intimate acquaintance. + +Mrs. Morley, ten or twelve years younger than her husband, had no +nasal twang, and employed no Americanisms in her talk, which was frank, +lively, and at times eloquent. She had a great ambition to be esteemed +of a masculine understanding; Nature unkindly frustrated that ambition +in rendering her a model of feminine grace. Graham was intimately +acquainted with Colonel Morley; and with Mrs. Morley had contracted one +of those cordial friendships, which, perfectly free alike from polite +flirtation and Platonic attachment, do sometimes spring up between +persons of opposite sexes without the slightest danger of changing their +honest character into morbid sentimentality or unlawful passion. The +Morleys stopped to accost Graham, but the lady had scarcely said three +words to him, before, catching sight of the haunting face, she darted +towards it. Her husband, less emotional, bowed at the distance, and +said, “To my taste, sir, the Signorina Cicogna is the loveliest girl in +the present bee,* and full of mind, sir.” + + [*Bee, a common expression in “the West” for a meeting or gathering + ]of people. + +“Singing mind,” said Graham, sarcastically, and in the ill-natured +impulse of a man striving to check his inclination to admire. + +“I have not heard her sing,” replied the American, dryly; “and the words +‘singing mind’ are doubtless accurately English, since you employ them; +but at Boston the collocation would be deemed barbarous. You fly off the +handle. The epithet, sir, is not in concord with the substantive.” + +“Boston would be in the right, my dear Colonel. I stand rebuked; mind +has little to do with singing.” + +“I take leave to deny that, sir. You fire into the wrong flock, +and would not hazard the remark if you had conversed as I have with +Signorina Cicogna.” + +Before Graham could answer, Signorina Cicogna stood before him, leaning +lightly on Mrs. Morley’s arm. + +“Frank, you must take us into the refreshment-room,” said Mrs. Morley to +her husband; and then, turning to Graham, added, “Will you help to make +way for us?” + +Graham bowed, and offered his arm to the fair speaker. “No,” said she, +taking her husband’s. “Of course you know the Signorina, or, as we +usually call her, Mademoiselle Cicogna. No? Allow me to present you. Mr. +Graham Vane, Mademoiselle Cicogna. Mademoiselle speaks English like a +native.” + +And thus abruptly Graham was introduced to the owner of the haunting +face. He had lived too much in the great world all his life to retain +the innate shyness of an Englishman; but he certainly was confused and +embarrassed when his eyes met Isaura’s, and he felt her hand on his +arm. Before quitting the room she paused and looked back. Graham’s look +followed her own, and saw behind them the lady with the scarlet jacket +escorted by some portly and decorated connoisseur. Isaura’s face +brightened to another kind of brightness,--a pleased and tender light. + +“Poor dear Madre,” she murmured to herself in Italian. “Madre!” echoed +Graham, also in Italian. “I have been misinformed, then; that lady is +your mother.” + +Isaura laughed a pretty, low, silvery laugh, and replied in English, +“She is not my mother; but I call her Madre, for I know no name more +loving.” + +Graham was touched, and said gently, “Your own mother was evidently very +dear to you.” + +Isaura’s lip quivered, and she made a slight movement as if she would +have withdrawn her hand from his arm. He saw that he had offended or +wounded her, and with the straightforward frankness natural to him, +resumed quickly, “My remark was impertinent in a stranger; forgive it.” + +“There is nothing to forgive, Monsieur.” + +The two now threaded their way through the crowd, both silent. At last +Isaura, thinking she ought to speak first in order to show that Graham +had not offended her, said, + +“How lovely Mrs. Morley is!” + +“Yes; and I like the spirit and ease of her American manner. Have you +known her long, Mademoiselle?” + +“No; we met her for the first time some weeks ago at M. Savarin’s.” + +“Was she very eloquent on the rights of women?” + +“What! you have heard her on that subject?” + +“I have rarely heard her on any other, though she is the best and +perhaps the cleverest friend I have at Paris; but that may be my fault, +for I like to start it. It is a relief to the languid small-talk of +society to listen to any one thoroughly in earnest upon turning the +world topsy-turvy.” + +“Do you suppose poor Mrs. Morley would seek to do that if she had her +rights?” asked Isaura, with her musical laugh. + +“Not a doubt of it; but perhaps you share her opinions.” + +“I scarcely know what her opinions are, but--” + +“Yes?--but--” + +“There is a--what shall I call it?--a persuasion, a sentiment, out of +which the opinions probably spring, that I do share.” + +“Indeed? a persuasion, a sentiment, for instance, that a woman should +have votes in the choice of legislators, and, I presume, in the task of +legislation?” + +“No, that is not what I mean. Still, that is an opinion, right or wrong, +which grows out of the sentiment I speak of.” + +“Pray explain the sentiment.” + +“It is always so difficult to define a sentiment; but does it not strike +you that in proportion as the tendency of modern civilization has been +to raise women more and more to an intellectual equality with men, +in proportion as they read and study and think, an uneasy sentiment, +perhaps querulous, perhaps unreasonable, grows up within their minds +that the conventions of the world are against the complete development +of the faculties thus aroused and the ambition thus animated; that they +cannot but rebel, though it may be silently, against the notions of the +former age, when women were not thus educated, notions that the aim +of the sex should be to steal through life unremarked; that it is a +reproach to be talked of; that women are plants to be kept in a hothouse +and forbidden the frank liberty of growth in the natural air and +sunshine of heaven? This, at least, is a sentiment which has sprung up +within myself; and I imagine that it is the sentiment which has given +birth to many of the opinions or doctrines that seem absurd, and very +likely are so, to the general public. I don’t pretend even to have +considered those doctrines; I don’t pretend to say what may be the +remedies for the restlessness and uneasiness I feel. I doubt if on this +earth there be any remedies; all I know is, that I feel restless and +uneasy.” + +Graham gazed on her countenance as she spoke with an astonishment not +unmingled with tenderness and compassion, astonishment at the contrast +between a vein of reflection so hardy, expressed in a style of language +that seemed to him so masculine, and the soft velvet dreamy eyes, the +gentle tones, and delicate purity of hues rendered younger still by the +blush that deepened their bloom. + +At this moment they had entered the refreshment-room; but a dense group +being round the table, and both perhaps forgetting the object for which +Mrs. Morley had introduced them to each other, they had mechancially +seated themselves on an ottoman in a recess while Isaura was yet +speaking. It must seem as strange to the reader as it did to Graham +that such a speech should have been spoken by so young a girl to an +acquaintance so new; but in truth Isaura was very little conscious of +Graham’s presence. She had got on a subject that perplexed and tormented +her solitary thoughts; she was but thinking aloud. + +“I believe,” said Graham, after a pause, “that I comprehend your +sentiment much better than I do Mrs. Morley’s opinions; but permit me +one observation. You say truly that the course of modern civilization +has more or less affected the relative position of woman cultivated +beyond that level on which she was formerly contented to stand,--the +nearer perhaps to the heart of man because not lifting her head to +his height,--and hence a sense of restlessness, uneasiness; but do you +suppose that, in this whirl and dance of the atoms which compose the +rolling ball of the civilized world, it is only women that are made +restless and uneasy? Do you not see amid the masses congregated in the +wealthiest cities of the world, writhings and struggles against the +received order of things? In this sentiment of discontent there is a +certain truthfulness, because it is an element of human nature, and how +best to deal with it is a problem yet unsolved; but in the opinions and +doctrines to which, among the masses, the sentiment gives birth, the +wisdom of the wisest detects only the certainty of a common ruin, +offering for reconstruction the same building-materials as the former +edifice,--materials not likely to be improved because they may be +defaced. Ascend from the working classes to all others in which +civilized culture prevails, and you will find that same restless +feeling,--the fluttering of untried wings against the bars between wider +space and their longings. Could you poll all the educated ambitious +young men in England,--perhaps in Europe,--at least half of them, +divided between a reverence for the past and a curiosity as to the +future, would sigh, ‘I am born a century too late or a century too +soon!’” + +Isaura listened to this answer with a profound and absorbing +interest. It was the first time that a clever young man talked thus +sympathetically to her, a clever young girl. + +Then, rising, he said, “I see your Madre and our American friends are +darting angry looks at me. They have made room for us at the table, and +are wondering why I should keep you thus from the good things of this +little life. One word more ere we join them,--consult your own mind, +and consider whether your uneasiness and unrest are caused solely by +conventional shackles on your sex. Are they not equally common to the +youth of ours,--common to all who seek in art, in letters, nay, in the +stormier field of active life, to clasp as a reality some image yet seen +but as a dream?” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +No further conversation in the way of sustained dialogue took place that +evening between Graham and Isaura. + +The Americans and the Savarins clustered round Isaura when they quitted +the refreshment-room. The party was breaking up. Vane would have +offered his arm again to Isaura, but M. Savarin had forestalled him. The +American was despatched by his wife to see for the carriage; and Mrs. +Morley said, with her wonted sprightly tone of command, + +“Now, Mr. Vane, you have no option but to take care of me to the +shawl-room.” + +Madame Savarin and Signora Venosta had each found their cavaliers, +the Italian still retaining hold of the portly connoisseur, and the +Frenchwoman accepting the safeguard of the Vicomte de Breze. As they +descended the stairs, Mrs. Morley asked Graham what he thought of the +young lady to whom she had presented him. + +“I think she is charming,” answered Graham. + +“Of course; that is the stereotyped answer to all such questions, +especially by you Englishmen. In public or in private, England is the +mouthpiece of platitudes.” + +“It is natural for an American to think so. Every child that has just +learned to speak uses bolder expressions than its grandmamma; but I am +rather at a loss to know by what novelty of phrase an American would +have answered your question.” + +“An American would have discovered that Isaura Cicogna had a soul, and +his answer would have confessed it.” + +“It strikes me that he would then have uttered a platitude more stolid +than mine. Every Christian knows that the dullest human being has a +soul. But, to speak frankly, I grant that my answer did not do justice +to the Signorina, nor to the impression she makes on me; and putting +aside the charm of the face, there is a charm in a mind that seems to +have gathered stores of reflection which I should scarcely have expected +to find in a young lady brought up to be a professional singer.” + +“You add prejudice to platitude, and are horribly prosaic to-night; +but here we are in the shawl-room. I must take another opportunity of +attacking you. Pray dine with us tomorrow; you will meet our Minister +and a few other pleasant friends.” + +“I suppose I must not say, ‘I shall be charmed,’” answered Vane; “but I +shall be.” + +“Bon Dieu! that horrid fat man has deserted Signora Venosta,--looking +for his own cloak, I dare say; selfish monster! Go and hand her to her +carriage; quick, it is announced!” + +Graham, thus ordered, hastened to offer his arm to the she-mountebank. +Somehow she had acquired dignity in his eyes, and he did not feel the +least ashamed of being in contact with the scarlet jacket. + +The Signora grappled to him with a confiding familiarity. “I am afraid,” + she said in Italian, as they passed along the spacious hall to the porte +cochere,--“I am afraid that I did not make a good effect to-night. I was +nervous; did not you perceive it?” + +“No, indeed; you enchanted us all;” replied the dissimulator. + +“How amiable you are to say so! You must think that I sought for a +compliment. So I did; you gave me more than I deserved. Wine is the milk +of old men, and praise of old women; but an old man may be killed by too +much wine, and an old woman lives all the longer for too much praise. +Buona notte.” + +Here she sprang, lithesomely enough, into the carriage, and Isaura +followed, escorted by M. Savarin. As the two men returned towards the +shawl-room, the Frenchman said, “Madame Savarin and I complain that you +have not let us see so much of you as we ought. No doubt you are greatly +sought after; but are you free to take your soup with us the day after +to-morrow? You will meet the Count von Rudesheim, and a few others more +lively if less wise.” + +“The day after to-morrow I will mark with a white stone. To dine with M. +Savarin is an event to a man who covets distinction.” + +“Such compliments reconcile an author to his trade. You deserve the +best return I can make you. You will meet la belle Isaura. I have just +engaged her and her chaperon. She is a girl of true genius; and genius +is like those objects of virtu which belong to a former age, and become +every day more scarce and more precious.” + +Here they encountered Colonel Morley and his wife hurrying to their +carriage. The American stopped Vane, and whispered, “I am glad, sir, to +hear from my wife that you dine with us to-morrow. Sir, you will meet +Mademoiselle Cicogna, and I am not without a kinkle [notion] that you +will be enthused.” + +“This seems like a fatality,” soliloquized Vane as he walked through the +deserted streets towards his lodging. “I strove to banish that haunting +face from my mind. I had half forgotten it, and now--” Here his murmur +sank into silence. He was deliberating in very conflicted thought +whether or not he should write to refuse the two invitations he had +accepted. + +“Pooh!” he said at last, as he reached the door of his lodging, “is +my reason so weak that it should be influenced by a mere superstition? +Surely I know myself too well, and have tried myself too long, to fear +that I should be untrue to the duty and ends of my life, even if I found +my heart in danger of suffering.” + +Certainly the Fates do seem to mock our resolves to keep our feet from +their ambush, and our hearts from their snare! How our lives may be +coloured by that which seems to us the most trivial accident, the merest +chance! Suppose that Alain de Rochebriant had been invited to that +reunion at M. Louvier’s, and Graham Vane had accepted some other +invitation and passed his evening elsewhere, Alain would probably have +been presented to Isaura--what then might have happened? The impression +Isaura had already made upon the young Frenchman was not so deep as +that made upon Graham; but then, Alain’s resolution to efface it was but +commenced that day, and by no means yet confirmed. And if he had been +the first clever young man to talk earnestly to that clever young +girl, who can guess what impression he might have made upon her? His +conversation might have had less philosophy and strong sense than +Graham’s, but more of poetic sentiment and fascinating romance. + +However, the history of events that do not come to pass is not in the +chronicle of the Fates. + + + + + +BOOK III. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +The next day the guests at the Morleys’ had assembled when Vane entered. +His apology for unpunctuality was cut short by the lively hostess. “Your +pardon is granted without the humiliation of asking for it; we know that +the characteristic of the English is always to be a little behindhand.” + +She then proceeded to introduce him to the American Minister, to a +distinguished American poet, with a countenance striking for mingled +sweetness and power, and one or two other of her countrymen sojourning +at Paris; and this ceremony over, dinner was announced, and she bade +Graham offer his arm to Mademoiselle Cicogna. + +“Have you ever visited the United States, Mademoiselle?” asked Vane, as +they seated themselves at the table. + +“No.” + +“It is a voyage you are sure to make soon.” + +“Why so?” + +“Because report says you will create a great sensation at the very +commencement of your career; and the New World is ever eager to welcome +each celebrity that is achieved in the Old,--more especially that which +belongs to your enchanting art.” + +“True, sir,” said an American senator, solemnly striking into the +conversation; “we are an appreciative people; and if that lady be as +fine a singer as I am told, she might command any amount of dollars.” + +Isaura coloured, and turning to Graham, asked him in a low voice if he +were fond of music. + +“I ought of course to say ‘yes,’” answered Graham, in the same tone; +“but I doubt if that ‘yes’ would be an honest one. In some moods, +music--if a kind of music I like--affects me very deeply; in other +moods, not at all. And I cannot bear much at a time. A concert wearies +me shamefully; even an opera always seems to me a great deal too long. +But I ought to add that I am no judge of music; that music was never +admitted into my education; and, between ourselves, I doubt if there be +one Englishman in five hundred who would care for opera or concert if it +were not the fashion to say he did. Does my frankness revolt you?” + +“On the contrary, I sometimes doubt, especially of late, if I am fond of +music myself.” + +“Signorina,--pardon me,--it is impossible that you should not be. Genius +can never be untrue to itself, and must love that in which it +excels, that by which it communicates joy, and,” he added, with a +half-suppressed sigh, “attains to glory.” + +“Genius is a divine word, and not to be applied to a singer,” said +Isaura, with a humility in which there was an earnest sadness. + +Graham was touched and startled; but before he could answer, the +American Minister appealed to him across the table, asking if he had +quoted accurately a passage in a speech by Graham’s distinguished +father, in regard to the share which England ought to take in the +political affairs of Europe. + +The conversation now became general, very political and very serious. +Graham was drawn into it, and grew animated and eloquent. + +Isaura listened to him with admiration. She was struck by what seemed to +her a nobleness of sentiment which elevated his theme above the level +of commonplace polemics. She was pleased to notice, in the attentive +silence of his intelligent listeners, that they shared the effect +produced on herself. In fact, Graham Vane was a born orator, and his +studies had been those of a political thinker. In common talk he was +but the accomplished man of the world, easy and frank and genial, with +a touch of good-natured sarcasm; but when the subject started drew +him upward to those heights in which politics become the science +of humanity, he seemed a changed being. His cheek glowed, his eye +brightened, his voice mellowed into richer tones, his language be +came unconsciously adorned. In such moments there might scarcely be +an audience, even differing from him in opinion, which would not have +acknowledged his spell. + +When the party adjourned to the salon, Isaura said softly to Graham, “I +understand why you did not cultivate music; and I think, too, that I can +now understand what effects the human voice can produce on human minds +without recurring to the art of song.” + +“Ah,” said Graham, with a pleased smile, “do not make me ashamed of my +former rudeness by the revenge of compliment; and, above all, do not +disparage your own art by supposing that any prose effect of voice in +its utterance of mind can interpret that which music alone can express, +even to listeners so uncultured as myself. Am I not told truly by +musical composers, when I ask them to explain in words what they say +in their music, that such explanation is impossible, that music has a +language of its own untranslatable by words?” + +“Yes,” said Isaura, with thoughtful brow but brightening eyes, “you are +told truly. It was only the other day that I was pondering over that +truth.” + +“But what recesses of mind, of heart, of soul, this untranslatable +language penetrates and brightens up! How incomplete the grand nature of +man--though man the grandest--would be, if you struck out of his reason +the comprehension of poetry, music, and religion! In each are reached +and are sounded deeps in his reason otherwise concealed from himself. +History, knowledge, science, stop at the point in which mystery begins. +There they meet with the world of shadow. Not an inch of that world can +they penetrate without the aid of poetry and religion, two necessities +of intellectual man much more nearly allied than the votaries of the +practical and the positive suppose. To the aid and elevation of both +those necessities comes in music, and there has never existed a religion +in the world which has not demanded music as its ally. If, as I said +frankly, it is only in certain moods of my mind that I enjoy music, it +is only because in certain moods of my mind I am capable of quitting +the guidance of prosaic reason for the world of shadow; that I am so +susceptible as at every hour, were my nature perfect, I should be to the +mysterious influences of poetry and religion. Do you understand what I +wish to express?” + +“Yes, I do, and clearly.” + +“Then, Signorina, you are forbidden to undervalue the gift of song. You +must feel its power over the heart, when you enter the opera-house; over +the soul, when you kneel in a cathedral.” + +“Oh,” cried Isaura, with enthusiasm, a rich glow mantling over her +lovely face, “how I thank you! Is it you who say you do not love music? +How much better you understand it than I did till this moment!” + +Here Mrs. Morley, joined by the American poet, came to the corner in +which the Englishman and the singer had niched themselves. The poet +began to talk, the other guests gathered round, and every one listened +reverentially till the party broke up. Colonel Morley handed Isaura to +her carriage; the she-mountebank again fell to the lot of Graham. + +“Signor,” said she, as he respectfully placed her shawl round her +scarlet-and-gilt jacket, “are we so far from Paris that you cannot spare +the time to call? My child does not sing in public, but at home you can +hear her. It is not every woman’s voice that is sweetest at home.” + +Graham bowed, and said he would call on the morrow. Isaura mused in +silent delight over the words which had so extolled the art of the +singer. Alas, poor child! she could not guess that in those words, +reconciling her to the profession of the stage, the speaker was pleading +against his own heart. + +There was in Graham’s nature, as I think it commonly is in that of +most true orators, a wonderful degree of intellectual conscience which +impelled him to acknowledge the benignant influences of song, and to +set before the young singer the noblest incentives to the profession +to which he deemed her assuredly destined; but in so doing he must have +felt that he was widening the gulf between her life and his own. Perhaps +he wished to widen it in proportion as he dreaded to listen to any voice +in his heart which asked if the gulf might not be overleapt. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ON the morrow Graham called at the villa at A------. The two ladies +received him in Isaura’s chosen sitting-room. + +Somehow or other, conversation at first languished. Graham was reserved +and distant, Isaura shy and embarrassed. The Venosta had the frais of +making talk to herself. Probably at another time Graham would have been +amused and interested in the observation of a character new to him, +and thoroughly southern,--lovable not more from its naive simplicity of +kindliness than from various little foibles and vanities, all of which +were harmless, and some of them endearing as those of a child whom it is +easy to make happy, and whom it seems so cruel to pain; and with all the +Venosta’s deviations from the polished and tranquil good taste of the +beau monde, she had that indescribable grace which rarely deserts a +Florentine, so that you might call her odd but not vulgar; while, though +uneducated, except in the way of her old profession, and never having +troubled herself to read anything but a libretto and the pious books +commended to her by her confessor, the artless babble of her talk +every now and then flashed out with a quaint humour, lighting up terse +fragments of the old Italian wisdom which had mysteriously embedded +themselves in the groundwork of her mind. + +But Graham was not at this time disposed to judge the poor Venosta +kindly or fairly. Isaura had taken high rank in his thoughts. He felt an +impatient resentment mingled with anxiety and compassionate tenderness +at a companionship which seemed to him derogatory to the position he +would have assigned to a creature so gifted, and unsafe as a guide +amidst the perils and trials to which the youth, the beauty, and +the destined profession of Isaura were exposed. Like most +Englishmen--especially Englishmen wise in the knowledge of life--he +held in fastidious regard the proprieties and conventions by which +the dignity of woman is fenced round; and of those proprieties and +conventions the Venosta naturally appeared to him a very unsatisfactory +guardian and representative. + +Happily unconscious of these hostile prepossessions, the elder Signora +chatted on very gayly to the visitor. She was in excellent spirits; +people had been very civil to her both at Colonel Morley’s and M. +Louvier’s. The American Minister had praised the scarlet jacket. She was +convinced she had made a sensation two nights running. When the amour +propre is pleased, the tongue is freed. + +The Venosta ran on in praise of Paris and the Parisians; of Louvier and +his soiree and the pistachio ice; of the Americans, and a certain creme +de maraschino which she hoped the Signor Inglese had not failed to +taste,--the creme de maraschino led her thoughts back to Italy. Then she +grew mournful. How she missed the native beau ciel! Paris was pleasant, +but how absurd to call it “le Paradis des Femmes,”--as if les Femmes +could find Paradise in a brouillard! + +“But,” she exclaimed, with vivacity of voice and gesticulation, “the +Signor does not come to hear the parrot talk; he is engaged to come that +he may hear the nightingale sing. A drop of honey attracts the fly more +than a bottle of vinegar.” + +Graham could not help smiling at this adage. “I submit,” said he, “to +your comparison as regards myself; but certainly anything less like a +bottle of vinegar than your amiable conversation I cannot well conceive. +However, the metaphor apart, I scarcely know how I dare ask Mademoiselle +to sing after the confession I made to her last night.” + +“What confession?” asked the Venosta. + +“That I know nothing of music and doubt if I can honestly say that I am +fond of it.” + +“Not fond of music! Impossible! You slander yourself. He who loves not +music would have a dull time of it in heaven. But you are English, and +perhaps have only heard the music of your own country. Bad, very bad--a +heretic’s music! Now listen.” + +Seating herself at the piano, she began an air from the “Lucia,” crying +out to Isaura to come and sing to her accompaniment. + +“Do you really wish it?” asked Isaura of Graham, fixing on him +questioning, timid eyes. + +“I cannot say how much I wish to hear you.” + +Isaura moved to the instrument, and Graham stood behind her. Perhaps he +felt that he should judge more impartially of her voice if not subjected +to the charm of her face. + +But the first note of the voice held him spell-bound. In itself the +organ was of the rarest order, mellow and rich, but so soft that its +power was lost in its sweetness, and so exquisitely fresh in every note. + +But the singer’s charm was less in voice than in feeling; she conveyed +to the listener so much more than was said by the words, or even +implied by the music. Her song in this caught the art of the painter who +impresses the mind with the consciousness of a something which the eye +cannot detect on the canvas. + +She seemed to breathe out from the depths of her heart the intense +pathos of the original romance, so far exceeding that of the opera,-the +human tenderness, the mystic terror of a tragic love-tale more solemn in +its sweetness than that of Verona. + +When her voice died away no applause came,--not even a murmur. Isaura +bashfully turned round to steal a glance at her silent listener, +and beheld moistened eyes and quivering lips. At that moment she was +reconciled to her art. Graham rose abruptly and walked to the window. + +“Do you doubt now if you are fond of music?” cried the Venosta. + +“This is more than music,” answered Graham, still with averted face. +Then, after a short pause, he approached Isaura, and said, with a +melancholy half-smile,-- + +“I do not think, Mademoiselle, that I could dare to hear you often; it +would take me too far from the hard real world: and he who would not be +left behindhand on the road that he must journey cannot indulge frequent +excursions into fairyland.” + +“Yet,” said Isaura, in a tone yet sadder, “I was told in my childhood, +by one whose genius gives authority to her words, that beside the real +world lies the ideal. The real world then seemed rough to me. ‘Escape,’ +said my counsellor, ‘is granted from that stony thoroughfare into the +fields beyond its formal hedgerows. The ideal world has its sorrows, +but it never admits despair.’ That counsel then, methought, decided my +choice of life. I know not now if it has done so.” + +“Fate,” answered Graham, slowly and thoughtfully, “Fate, which is not +the ruler but the servant of Providence, decides our choice of life, and +rarely from outward circumstances. Usually the motive power is within. +We apply the word ‘genius’ to the minds of the gifted few; but in all +of us there is a genius that is inborn, a pervading something which +distinguishes our very identity, and dictates to the conscience that +which we are best fitted to do and to be. In so dictating it compels our +choice of life; or if we resist the dictate, we find at the close that +we have gone astray. My choice of life thus compelled is on the stony +thoroughfares, yours in the green fields.” + +As he thus said, his face became clouded and mournful. The Venosta, +quickly tired of a conversation in which she had no part, and having +various little household matters to attend to, had during this dialogue +slipped unobserved from the room; yet neither Isaura nor Graham felt +the sudden consciousness that they were alone which belongs to lovers. +“Why,” asked Isaura, with that magic smile reflected in countless +dimples which, even when her words were those of a man’s reasoning, made +them seem gentle with a woman’s sentiment,--“why must your road through +the world be so exclusively the stony one? It is not from necessity, +it can not be from taste; and whatever definition you give to genius, +surely it is not your own inborn genius that dictates to you a constant +exclusive adherence to the commonplace of life.” + +“Ah, Mademoiselle, do not misrepresent me. I did not say that I could +not sometimes quit the real world for fairyland,--I said that I could +not do so often. My vocation is not that of a poet or artist.” + +“It is that of an orator, I know,” said Isaura, kindling; “so they tell +me, and I believe them. But is not the orator somewhat akin to the poet? +Is not oratory an art?” + +“Let us dismiss the word orator; as applied to English public life, it +is a very deceptive expression. The Englishman who wishes to influence +his countrymen by force of words spoken must mix with them in their +beaten thoroughfares; must make himself master of their practical views +and interests; must be conversant with their prosaic occupations and +business; must understand how to adjust their loftiest aspirations +to their material welfare; must avoid as the fault most dangerous to +himself and to others that kind of eloquence which is called oratory in +France, and which has helped to make the French the worst politicians +in Europe. Alas! Mademoiselle, I fear that an English statesman would +appear to you a very dull orator.” + +“I see that I spoke foolishly,--yes, you show me that the world of the +statesman lies apart from that of the artist. Yet--” + +“Yet what?” + +“May not the ambition of both be the same?” + +“How so?” + +“To refine the rude, to exalt the mean; to identify their own fame with +some new beauty, some new glory, added to the treasure-house of all.” + +Graham bowed his head reverently, and then raised it with the flush of +enthusiasm on his cheek and brow. + +“Oh, Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, “what a sure guide and what a noble +inspirer to a true Englishman’s ambition nature has fitted you to be, +were it not--” He paused abruptly. + +This outburst took Isaura utterly by surprise. She had been accustomed +to the language of compliment till it had begun to pall, but a +compliment of this kind was the first that had ever reached her ear. She +had no words in answer to it; involuntarily she placed her hand on her +heart as if to still its beatings. But the unfinished exclamation, “Were +it not,” troubled her more than the preceding words had flattered, and +mechanically she murmured, “Were it not--what?” + +“Oh,” answered Graham, affecting a tone of gayety, “I felt too ashamed +of my selfishness as man to finish my sentence.” + +“Do so, or I shall fancy you refrained lest you might wound me as +woman.” + +“Not so; on the contrary, had I gone on it would have been to say that +a woman of your genius, and more especially of such mastery in the +most popular and fascinating of all arts, could not be contented if she +inspired nobler thoughts in a single breast,--she must belong to the +public, or rather the public must belong to her; it is but a corner of +her heart that an individual can occupy, and even that individual must +merge his existence in hers, must be contented to reflect a ray of the +light she sheds on admiring thousands. Who could dare to say to you, +‘Renounce your career; confine your genius, your art, to the petty +circle of home’? To an actress, a singer, with whose fame the world +rings, home would be a prison. Pardon me, pardon--” + +Isaura had turned away her face to hide tears that would force their +way; but she held out her hand to him with a childlike frankness, +and said softly, “I am not offended.” Graham did not trust himself to +continue the same strain of conversation. Breaking into a new subject, +he said, after a constrained pause, “Will you think it very impertinent +in so new an acquaintance, if I ask how it is that you, an Italian, know +our language as a native; and is it by Italian teachers that you have +been trained to think and to feel?” + +“Mr. Selby, my second father, was an Englishman, and did not speak any +other language with comfort to himself. He was very fond of me; and +had he been really my father I could not have loved him more. We were +constant companions till--till I lost him.” + +“And no mother left to console you!” + +Isaura shook her head mournfully, and the Venosta here re-entered. +Graham felt conscious that he had already stayed too long, and took +leave. + +They knew that they were to meet that evening at the Savarins’. + +To Graham that thought was not one of unmixed pleasure; the more he knew +of Isaura, the more he felt self-reproach that he had allowed himself to +know her at all. + +But after he had left, Isaura sang low to herself the song which had +so affected her listener; then she fell into abstracted revery, but she +felt a strange and new sort of happiness. In dressing for M. Savarin’s +dinner, and twining the classic ivy wreath in her dark locks, her +Italian servant exclaimed, “How beautiful the Signorina looks to-night!” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +M. Savarin was one of the most brilliant of that galaxy of literary men +which shed lustre on the reign of Louis Philippe. + +His was an intellect peculiarly French in its lightness and grace. +Neither England nor Germany nor America has produced any resemblance to +it. Ireland has, in Thomas Moore; but then in Irish genius there is so +much that is French. + +M. Savarin was free from the ostentatious extravagance which had come +into vogue with the Empire. His house and establishment were modestly +maintained within the limit of an income chiefly, perhaps entirely, +derived from literary profits. + +Though he gave frequent dinners, it was but to few at a time, and +without show or pretence. Yet the dinners, though simple, were perfect +of their kind; and the host so contrived to infuse his own playful +gayety into the temper of his guests, that the feasts at his house were +considered the pleasantest at Paris. On this occasion the party extended +to ten, the largest number his table admitted. + +All the French guests belonged to the Liberal party, though in changing +tints of the tricolor. Place aux dames! first to be named were the +Countess de Craon and Madame Vertot, both without husbands. The Countess +had buried the Count, Madame Vertot had separated from Monsieur. The +Countess was very handsome, but she was sixty; Madame Vertot was twenty +years younger, but she was very plain. She had quarrelled with the +distinguished author for whose sake she had separated from Monsieur, and +no man had since presumed to think that he could console a lady so plain +for the loss of an author so distinguished. + +Both these ladies were very clever. The Countess had written lyrical +poems entitled “Cries of Liberty,” and a drama of which Danton was the +hero, and the moral too revolutionary for admission to the stage; but at +heart the Countess was not at all a revolutionist,--the last person in +the world to do or desire anything that could bring a washerwoman an +inch nearer to a countess. She was one of those persons who play with +fire in order to appear enlightened. + +Madame Vertot was of severer mould. She had knelt at the feet of M. +Thiers, and went into the historico-political line. She had written a +remarkable book upon the modern Carthage (meaning England), and more +recently a work that had excited much attention upon the Balance of +Power, in which she proved it to be the interest of civilization and the +necessity of Europe that Belgium should be added to France, and Prussia +circumscribed to the bounds of its original margraviate. She showed how +easily these two objects could have been effected by a constitutional +monarch instead of an egotistical Emperor. Madame Vertot was a decided +Orleanist. + +Both these ladies condescended to put aside authorship in general +society. Next amongst our guests let me place the Count de Passy and +Madame son espouse. The Count was seventy-one, and, it is needless +to add, a type of Frenchman rapidly vanishing, and not likely to find +itself renewed. How shall I describe him so as to make my English reader +understand? Let me try by analogy. Suppose a man of great birth and +fortune, who in his youth had been an enthusiastic friend of Lord Byron +and a jocund companion of George IV.; who had in him an immense degree +of lofty romantic sentiment with an equal degree of well-bred worldly +cynicism, but who, on account of that admixture, which is so rare, kept +a high rank in either of the two societies into which, speaking broadly, +civilized life divides itself,--the romantic and the cynical. The +Count de Passy had been the most ardent among the young disciples of +Chateaubriand, the most brilliant among the young courtiers of Charles +X. Need I add that he had been a terrible lady-killer? + +But in spite of his admiration of Chateaubriand and his allegiance to +Charles X., the Count had been always true to those caprices of the +French noblesse from which he descended,--caprices which destroyed them +in the old Revolution; caprices belonging to the splendid ignorance of +their nation in general and their order in particular. Speaking without +regard to partial exceptions, the French gentilhomme is essentially a +Parisian; a Parisian is essentially impressionable to the impulse or +fashion of the moment. Is it a la mode for the moment to be Liberal or +anti-Liberal? Parisians embrace and kiss each other, and swear through +life and death to adhere forever to the mode of the moment. The +Three Days were the mode of the moment,--the Count de Passy became an +enthusiastic Orleanist. Louis Philippe was very gracious to him. He +was decorated; he was named prefet of his department; he was created +senator; he was about to be sent Minister to a German Court when Louis +Philippe fell. The Republic was proclaimed. The Count caught the popular +contagion, and after exchanging tears and kisses with patriots whom a +week before he had called canaille, he swore eternal fidelity to the +Republic. The fashion of the moment suddenly became Napoleonic, and with +the coup d’etat the Republic was metamorphosed into an Empire. The Count +wept on the bosoms of all the Vieilles Moustaches he could find, and +rejoiced that the sun of Austerlitz had re-arisen. But after the affair +of Mexico the sun of Austerlitz waxed very sickly. Imperialism was +fast going out of fashion. The Count transferred his affection to Jules +Favre, and joined the ranks of the advanced Liberals. During all these +political changes, the Count had remained very much the same man in +private life; agreeable, good-natured, witty, and, above all, a devotee +of the fair sex. When he had reached the age of sixty-eight he was still +fort bel homme, unmarried, with a grand presence and charming manner. At +that age he said, “Je me range,” and married a young lady of eighteen. +She adored her husband, and was wildly jealous of him; while the Count +did not seem at all jealous of her, and submitted to her adoration with +a gentle shrug of the shoulders. + +The three other guests who, with Graham and the two Italian ladies, +made up the complement of ten, were the German Count von Rudesheim, +a celebrated French physician named Bacourt, and a young author whom +Savarin had admitted into his clique and declared to be of rare promise. +This author, whose real name was Gustave Rameau, but who, to prove, I +suppose, the sincerity of that scorn for ancestry which he professed, +published his verses under the patrician designation of Alphonse de +Valcour, was about twenty-four, and might have passed at the first +glance for younger; but, looking at him closely, the signs of old age +were already stamped on his visage. + +He was undersized, and of a feeble slender frame. In the eyes of women +and artists the defects of his frame were redeemed by the extraordinary +beauty of the face. His black hair, carefully parted in the centre, and +worn long and flowing, contrasted the whiteness of a high though narrow +forehead, and the delicate pallor of his cheeks. His feature, were very +regular, his eyes singularly bright; but the expression of the face +spoke of fatigue and exhaustion; the silky locks were already thin, +and interspersed with threads of silver; the bright eyes shone out from +sunken orbits; the lines round the mouth were marked as they are in the +middle age of one who has lived too fast. + +It was a countenance that might have excited a compassionate and +tender interest but for something arrogant and supercilious in the +expression,-something that demanded not tender pity but enthusiastic +admiration. Yet that expression was displeasing rather to men than +to women; and one could well conceive that, among the latter, the +enthusiastic admiration it challenged would be largely conceded. + +The conversation at dinner was in complete contrast to that at the +Americans’ the day before. There the talk, though animated, had been +chiefly earnest and serious; here it was all touch and go, sally and +repartee. The subjects were the light on lots and lively anecdotes of +the day, not free from literature and politics, but both treated as +matters of persiflage, hovered round with a jest and quitted with an +epigram. The two French lady authors, the Count de Passy, the physician, +and the host far outspoke all the other guests. Now and then, however, +the German Count struck in with an ironical remark condensing a great +deal of grave wisdom, and the young author with ruder and more biting +sarcasm. If the sarcasm told, he showed his triumph by a low-pitched +laugh; if it failed, he evinced his displeasure by a contemptuous sneer +or a grim scowl. + +Isaura and Graham were not seated near each other, and were for the most +part contented to be listeners. + +On adjourning to the salon after dinner, Graham, however, was +approaching the chair in which Isaura had placed herself, when the young +author, forestalling him, dropped into the seat next to her, and began a +conversation in a voice so low that it might have passed for a whisper. +The Englishman drew back and observed them. He soon perceived, with +a pang of jealousy not unmingled with scorn, that the author’s talk +appeared to interest Isaura. She listened with evident attention; and +when she spoke in return, though Graham did not hear her words, he could +observe on her expressive countenance an increased gentleness of aspect. + +“I hope,” said the physician, joining Graham, as most of the other +guests gathered round Savarin, who was in his liveliest vein of anecdote +and wit,--“I hope that the fair Italian will not allow that ink-bottle +imp to persuade her that she has fallen in love with him.” + +“Do young ladies generally find him so seductive?” asked Graham, with a +forced smile. + +“Probably enough. He has the reputation of being very clever and +very wicked, and that is a sort of character which has the serpent’s +fascination for the daughters of Eve.” + +“Is the reputation merited?” + +“As to the cleverness, I am not a fair judge. I dislike that sort of +writing which is neither manlike nor womanlike, and in which young +Rameau excels. He has the knack of finding very exaggerated phrases by +which to express commonplace thoughts. He writes verses about love +in words so stormy that you might fancy that Jove was descending upon +Semele; but when you examine his words, as a sober pathologist like +myself is disposed to do, your fear for the peace of households +vanishes,--they are Fox et proeterea nihil; no man really in love would +use them. He writes prose about the wrongs of humanity. You feel for +humanity; you say, ‘Grant the wrongs, now for the remedy,’--and you find +nothing but balderdash. Still I am bound to say that both in verse and +prose Gustave Rameau is in unison with a corrupt taste of the day, and +therefore he is coming into vogue. So much as to his writings; as to his +wickedness, you have only to look at him to feel sure that he is not +a hundredth part so wicked as he wishes to seem. In a word, then, M. +Gustave Rameau is a type of that somewhat numerous class among the youth +of Paris, which I call ‘the lost Tribe of Absinthe.’ There is a set +of men who begin to live full gallop while they are still boys. As +a general rule, they are originally of the sickly frames which can +scarcely even trot, much less gallop without the spur of stimulants, and +no stimulant so fascinates their peculiar nervous system as absinthe. +The number of patients in this set who at the age of thirty are more +worn out than septuagenarians increases so rapidly as to make one dread +to think what will be the next race of Frenchmen. To the predilection +for absinthe young Rameau and the writers of his set add the imitation +of Heine, after, indeed, the manner of caricaturists, who effect a +likeness striking in proportion as it is ugly. It is not easy to imitate +the pathos and the wit of Heine; but it is easy to imitate his defiance +of the Deity, his mockery of right and wrong, his relentless war on that +heroic standard of thought and action which the writers who exalt their +nation intuitively preserve. Rameau cannot be a Heine, but he can be to +Heine what a misshapen snarling dwarf is to a mangled blaspheming Titan. +Yet he interests the women in general, and he evidently interests the +fair Signorina in especial.” + +Just as Bacourt finished that last sentence, Isaura lifted the head +which had hitherto bent in an earnest listening attitude that seemed to +justify the Doctor’s remarks, and looked round. Her eyes met Graham’s +with the fearless candour which made half the charm of their bright yet +soft intelligence; but she dropped them suddenly with a half-start and +a change of colour, for the expression of Graham’s face was unlike that +which she had hitherto seen on it,--it was hard, stern, and somewhat +disdainful. A minute or so afterwards she rose, and in passing across +the room towards the group round the host, paused at a table covered +with books and prints near to which Graham was standing alone. The +Doctor had departed in company with the German Count. + +Isaura took up one of the prints. + +“Ah!” she exclaimed, “Sorrento, my Sorrento. Have you ever visited +Sorrento, Mr. Vane?” + +Her question and her movement were evidently in conciliation. Was the +conciliation prompted by coquetry, or by a sentiment more innocent and +artless? + +Graham doubted, and replied coldly, as he bent over the print,-- + +“I once stayed there a few days, but my recollection of it is not +sufficiently lively to enable me to recognize its features in this +design.” + +“That is the house, at least so they say, of Tasso’s father; of course +you visited that?” + +“Yes, it was a hotel in my time; I lodged there.” + +“And I too. There I first read ‘The Gerusalemine.’” The last words were +said in Italian, with a low measured tone, inwardly and dreamily. + +A somewhat sharp and incisive voice speaking in French here struck +in and prevented Graham’s rejoinder: “Quel joli dessin! What is it, +Mademoiselle?” + +Graham recoiled; the speaker was Gustave Rameau, who had, unobserved, +first watched Isaura, then rejoined her side. + +“A view of Sorrento, Monsieur, but it does not do justice to the place. +I was pointing out the house which belonged to Tasso’s father.” + +“Tasso! Hein! and which is the fair Eleonora’s?” + +“Monsieur,” answered Isaura, rather startled at that question, from a +professed homme de lettres, “Eleonora did not live at Sorrento.” + +“Tant pis pour Sorrente,” said the homme de lettres, carelessly. “No one +would care for Tasso if it were not for Eleonora.” + +“I should rather have thought,” said Graham, “that no one would have +cared for Eleonora if it were not for Tasso.” + +Rameau glanced at the Englishman superciliously. “Pardon, Monsieur, in +every age a love-story keeps its interest; but who cares nowadays for le +clinquant du Tasse?” + +“Le clinquant du Tasse!” exclaimed Isaura, indignantly. + +“The expression is Boileau’s, Mademoiselle, in ridicule of the ‘Sot de +qualite,’ who prefers-- + + “‘Le clinquant du Tasse a tout l’or de Virgile.’ + +“But for my part I have as little faith in the last as the first.” + +“I do not know Latin, and have therefore not read Virgil,” said Isaura. + +“Possibly,” remarked Graham, “Monsieur does not know Italian, and has +therefore not read Tasso.” + +“If that be meant in sarcasm,” retorted Rameau, “I construe it as a +compliment. A Frenchman who is contented to study the masterpieces of +modern literature need learn no language and read no authors but his +own.” + +Isaura laughed her pleasant silvery laugh. “I should admire the +frankness of that boast, Monsieur, if in our talk just now you had not +spoken as contemptuously of what we are accustomed to consider French +masterpieces as you have done of Virgil and Tasso.” + +“Ah, Mademoiselle! it is not my fault if you have had teachers of +taste so rococo as to bid you find masterpieces in the tiresome stilted +tragedies of Corneille and Racine. Poetry of a court, not of a people, +one simple novel, one simple stanza that probes the hidden recesses +of the human heart, reveals the sores of this wretched social state, +denounces the evils of superstition, kingcraft, and priestcraft, is +worth a library of the rubbish which pedagogues call ‘the classics.’ We +agree, at least, in one thing, Mademoiselle; we both do homage to the +genius of your friend Madame de Grantmesnil.” + +“Your friend, Signorina!” cried Graham, incredulously; “is Madame de +Grantmesnil your friend?” + +“The dearest I have in the world.” + +Graham’s face darkened; he turned away in silence, and in another minute +vanished from the room, persuading himself that he felt not one pang of +jealousy in leaving Gustave Rameau by the side of Isaura. “Her dearest +friend Madame de Grantmesnil!” he muttered. + +A word now on Isaura’s chief correspondent. Madame de Grantmesnil was +a woman of noble birth and ample fortune. She had separated from her +husband in the second year after marriage. She was a singularly eloquent +writer, surpassed among contemporaries of her sex in popularity and +renown only by Georges Sand. + +At least as fearless as that great novelist in the frank exposition +of her views, she had commenced her career in letters by a work of +astonishing power and pathos, directed against the institution of +marriage as regulated in Roman Catholic communities. I do not know that +it said more on this delicate subject than the English Milton has said; +but then Milton did not write for a Roman Catholic community, nor adopt +a style likely to captivate the working classes. Madame de Grantmesnil’s +first book was deemed an attack on the religion of the country, and +captivated those among the working classes who had already abjured that +religion. This work was followed up by others more or less in defiance +of “received opinions,”--some with political, some with social +revolutionary aim and tendency, but always with a singular purity of +style. Search all her books, and however you might revolt from her +doctrine, you could not find a hazardous expression. The novels of +English young ladies are naughty in comparison. Of late years, whatever +might be hard or audacious in her political or social doctrines softened +itself into charm amid the golden haze of romance. Her writings had +grown more and more purely artistic,--poetizing what is good and +beautiful in the realities of life rather than creating a false ideal +out of what is vicious and deformed. Such a woman, separated young +from her husband, could not enunciate such opinions and lead a life so +independent and uncontrolled as Madame de Grantmesnil had done, without +scandal, without calumny. Nothing, however, in her actual life had ever +been so proved against her as to lower the high position she occupied in +right of birth, fortune, renown. Wherever she went she was fetee, as +in England foreign princes, and in America foreign authors, are fetes. +Those who knew her well concurred in praise of her lofty, generous, +lovable qualities. Madame de Grantmesnil had known Mr. Selby; and when, +at his death, Isaura, in the innocent age between childhood and youth, +had been left the most sorrowful and most lonely creature on the face of +the earth, this famous woman, worshipped by the rich for her intellect, +adored by the poor for her beneficence, came to the orphan’s friendless +side, breathing love once more into her pining heart, and waking for +the first time the desires of genius, the aspirations of art, in the dim +self-consciousness of a soul between sleep and waking. + +But, my dear Englishman, put yourself in Graham’s place, and suppose +that you were beginning to fall in love with a girl whom for many good +reasons you ought not to marry; suppose that in the same hour in which +you were angrily conscious of jealousy on account of a man whom it +wounds your self-esteem to consider a rival, the girl tells you that +her dearest friend is a woman who is famed for her hostility to the +institution of marriage! + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +On the same day in which Graham dined with the Savarins, M. Louvier +assembled round his table the elite of the young Parisians who +constituted the oligarchy of fashion, to meet whom he had invited his +new friend the Marquis de Rochebriant. Most of them belonged to the +Legitimist party, the noblesse of the faubourg; those who did not, +belonged to no political party at all,--indifferent to the cares of +mortal States as the gods of Epicurus. Foremost among this Jeunesse +doree were Alain’s kinsmen, Raoul and Enguerrand de Vandemar. To these +Louvier introduced him with a burly parental bonhomie, as if he were the +head of the family. “I need not bid you, young folks, to make +friends with each other. A Vandemar and a Rochebriant are not made +friends,--they are born friends.” So saying he turned to his other +guests. + +Almost in an instant Alain felt his constraint melt away in the cordial +warmth with which his cousins greeted him. These young men had a +striking family likeness to each other, and yet in feature, colouring, +and expression, in all save that strange family likeness, they were +contrasts. Raoul was tall, and, though inclined to be slender, with +sufficient breadth of shoulder to indicate no inconsiderable strength of +frame. His hair worn short and his silky beard worn long were dark; +so were his eyes, shaded by curved drooping lashes; his complexion was +pale, but clear and healthful. In repose the expression of his face +was that of a somewhat melancholy indolence, but in speaking it became +singularly sweet, with a smile of the exquisite urbanity which no +artificial politeness can bestow; it must emanate from that native high +breeding which has its source in goodness of heart. + +Enguerrand was fair, with curly locks of a golden chestnut. He wore no +beard, only a small mustache rather darker than his hair. His complexion +might in itself be called effeminate, its bloom was so fresh and +delicate; but there was so much of boldness and energy in the play of +his countenance, the hardy outline of the lips, and the open breadth of +the forehead, that “effeminate” was an epithet no one ever assigned to +his aspect. He was somewhat under the middle height, but beautifully +proportioned, carried himself well, and somehow or other did not look +short even by the side of tall men. Altogether he seemed formed to be +a mother’s darling, and spoiled by women, yet to hold his own among men +with a strength of will more evident in his look and his bearing than it +was in those of his graver and statelier brother. + +Both were considered by their young co-equals models in dress, but +in Raoul there was no sign that care or thought upon dress had been +bestowed; the simplicity of his costume was absolute and severe. On +his plain shirt-front there gleamed not a stud, on his fingers there +sparkled not a ring. Enguerrand, on the contrary, was not without +pretension in his attire; the broderie in his shirt-front seemed woven +by the Queen of the Fairies. His rings of turquoise and opal, his studs +and wrist-buttons of pearl and brilliants, must have cost double the +rental of Rochebriant, but probably they cost him nothing. He was one of +those happy Lotharios to whom Calistas make constant presents. All +about him was so bright that the atmosphere around seemed gayer for his +presence. + +In one respect at least the brothers closely resembled each other,--in +that exquisite graciousness of manner for which the genuine French noble +is traditionally renowned; a graciousness that did not desert them even +when they came reluctantly into contact with roturiers or republicans; +but the graciousness became egalite, fraternite, towards one of their +caste and kindred. + +“We must do our best to make Paris pleasant to you,” said Raoul, still +retaining in his grasp the hand he had taken. + +“Vilain cousin,” said the livelier Enguerrand, “to have been in Paris +twenty-four hours, and without letting us know.” + +“Has not your father told you that I called upon him?” + +“Our father,” answered Raoul, “was not so savage as to conceal that +fact; but he said you were only here on business for a day or two, had +declined his invitation, and would not give your address. Pauvre pere! +we scolded him well for letting you escape from us thus. My mother has +not forgiven him yet; we must present you to her to-morrow. I answer for +your liking her almost as much as she will like you.” + +Before Alain could answer dinner was announced. Alain’s place at dinner +was between his cousins. How pleasant they made themselves! It was +the first time in which Alain had been brought into such familiar +conversation with countrymen of his own rank as well as his own age. His +heart warmed to them. The general talk of the other guests was strange +to his ear; it ran much upon horses and races, upon the opera and the +ballet; it was enlivened with satirical anecdotes of persons whose names +were unknown to the Provincial; not a word was said that showed the +smallest interest in politics or the slightest acquaintance with +literature. The world of these well-born guests seemed one from which +all that concerned the great mass of mankind was excluded, yet the talk +was that which could only be found in a very polished society. In it +there was not much wit, but there was a prevalent vein of gayety, and +the gayety was never violent, the laughter was never loud; the scandals +circulated might imply cynicism the most absolute, but in language the +most refined. The Jockey Club of Paris has its perfume. + +Raoul did not mix in the general conversation; he devoted himself +pointedly to the amusement of his cousin, explaining to him the point +of the anecdotes circulated, or hitting off in terse sentences the +characters of the talkers. + +Enguerrand was evidently of temper more vivacious than his brother, +and contributed freely to the current play of light gossip and mirthful +sally. + +Louvier, seated between a duke and a Russian prince, said little except +to recommend a wine or an entree, but kept his eye constantly on the +Vandemars and Alain. + +Immediately after coffee the guests departed. Before they did so, +however, Raoul introduced his cousin to those of the party most +distinguished by hereditary rank or social position. With these the name +of Rochebriant was too historically famous not to insure respect of its +owner; they welcomed him among them as if he were their brother. + +The French duke claimed him as a connection by an alliance in the +fourteenth century; the Russian prince had known the late Marquis, and +trusted that the son would allow him to improve into friendship the +acquaintance he had formed with the father. + +Those ceremonials over, Raoul linked his arm in Alain’s and said: “I am +not going to release you so soon after we have caught you. You must +come with me to a house in which I at least spend an hour or two every +evening. I am at home there. Bah! I take no refusal. Do not suppose +I carry you off to Bohemia,--a country which, I am sorry to say, +Enguerrand now and then visits, but which is to me as unknown as the +mountains of the moon. The house I speak of is comme il faut to the +utmost. It is that of the Contessa di Rimini,--a charming Italian by +marriage, but by birth and in character on ne peut plus Francaise. My +mother adores her.” + +That dinner at M. Louvier’s had already effected a great change in the +mood and temper of Alain de Rochebriant; he felt, as if by magic, the +sense of youth, of rank, of station, which had been so suddenly checked +and stifled, warmed to life within his veins. He should have deemed +himself a boor had he refused the invitation so frankly tendered. + +But on reaching the coupe which the brothers kept in common, and seeing +it only held two, he drew back. + +“Nay, enter, mon cher,” said Raoul, divining the cause of his +hesitation; “Enguerrand has gone on to his club.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +“Tell me,” said Raoul, when they were in the carriage, “how you came to +know M. Louvier.” + +“He is my chief mortgagee.” + +“H’m! that explains it. But you might be in worse hands; the man has a +character for liberality.” + +“Did your father mention to you my circumstances, and the reason that +brings me to Paris?” + +“Since you put the question point-blank, my dear cousin, he did.” + +“He told you how poor I am, and how keen must be my lifelong struggle to +keep Rochebriant as the home of my race?” + +“He told us all that could make us still more respect the Marquis de +Rochebriant, and still more eagerly long to know our cousin and the +head of our house,” answered Raoul, with a certain nobleness of tone and +manner. + +Alain pressed his kinsman’s hand with grateful emotion. “Yet,” he said +falteringly, “your father agreed with me that my circumstances would not +allow me to--” + +“Bah!” interrupted Raoul, with a gentle laugh; “my father is a very +clever man, doubtless, but he knows only the world of his own day, +nothing of the world of ours. I and Enguerrand will call on you +to-morrow, to take you to my mother, and before doing so, to consult as +to affairs in general. On this last matter Enguerrand is an oracle. Here +we are at the Contessa’s.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +The Contessa di Rimini received her visitors in a boudoir furnished with +much apparent simplicity, but a simplicity by no means inexpensive. +The draperies were but of chintz, and the walls covered with the same +material,--a lively pattern, in which the prevalents were rose-colour +and white; but the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the china stored in the +cabinets or arranged on the shelves, the small knickknacks scattered on +the tables, were costly rarities of art. + +The Contessa herself was a woman who had somewhat passed her thirtieth +year,--not strikingly handsome, but exquisitely pretty. “There is,” said +a great French writer, “only one way in which a woman can be handsome, +but a hundred thousand ways in which she can be pretty;” and it would +be impossible to reckon up the number of ways in which Adeline di Rimini +carried off the prize in prettiness. + +Yet it would be unjust to the personal attractions of the Contessa +to class them all under the word “prettiness.” When regarded more +attentively, there was an expression in her countenance that might +almost be called divine, it spoke so unmistakably of a sweet nature and +an untroubled soul. An English poet once described her by repeating the +old lines, + + “Her face is like the milky way I’ the sky, + --A meeting of gentle lights without a name.” + +She was not alone; an elderly lady sat on an armchair by the fire, +engaged in knitting; and a man, also elderly, and whose dress proclaimed +him an ecclesiastic, sat at the opposite corner, with a large Angora cat +on his lap. + +“I present to you, Madame,” said Raoul, “my new-found cousin, the +seventeenth Marquis de Rochebriant, whom I am proud to consider on the +male side the head of our house, representing its eldest branch. Welcome +him for my sake,--in future he will be welcome for his own.” + +The Contessa replied very graciously to this introduction, and made room +for Alain on the divan from which she had risen. + +The old lady looked up from her knitting; the ecclesiastic removed +the cat from his lap. Said the old lady, “I announce myself to M. le +Marquis. I knew his mother well enough to be invited to his christening; +otherwise I have no pretension to the acquaintance of a cavalier si +beau, being old, rather deaf, very stupid, exceedingly poor--” + +“And,” interrupted Raoul, “the woman in all Paris the most adored for +bonte, and consulted for savoir vivre by the young cavaliers whom she +deigns to receive. Alain, I present you to Madame de Maury, the widow +of a distinguished author and academician, and the daughter of the brave +Henri de Gerval, who fought for the good cause in La Vendee. I present +you also to the Abbe Vertpre, who has passed his life in the vain +endeavour to make other men as good as himself.” + +“Base flatterer!” said the Abbe, pinching Raoul’s ear with one hand, +while he extended the other to Alain. “Do not let your cousin frighten +you from knowing me, Monsieur le Marquis; when he was my pupil, he so +convinced me of the incorrigibility of perverse human nature, that I now +chiefly address myself to the moral improvement of the brute creation. +Ask the Contessa if I have not achieved a beau succes with her Angora +cat. Three months ago that creature had the two worst propensities of +man,--he was at once savage and mean; he bit, he stole. Does he ever +bite now? No. Does he ever steal? No. Why? I have awakened in that cat +the dormant conscience, and that done, the conscience regulates his +actions; once made aware of the difference between wrong and right, the +cat maintains it unswervingly, as if it were a law of nature. But if, +with prodigious labour, one does awaken conscience in a human sinner, it +has no steady effect on his conduct,--he continues to sin all the +same. Mankind at Paris, Monsieur le Marquis, is divided between two +classes,-one bites and the other steals. Shun both; devote yourself to +cats.” + +The Abbe delivered this oration with a gravity of mien and tone which +made it difficult to guess whether he spoke in sport or in earnest, in +simple playfulness or with latent sarcasm. + +But on the brow and in the eye of the priest there was a general +expression of quiet benevolence, which made Alain incline to the belief +that he was only speaking as a pleasant humourist; and the Marquis +replied gayly,-- + +“Monsieur L’Abbe, admitting the superior virtue of cats when taught +by so intelligent a preceptor, still the business of human life is not +transacted by cats; and since men must deal with men, permit me, as a +preliminary caution, to inquire in which class I must rank yourself. Do +you bite or do you steal?” + +This sally, which showed that the Marquis was already shaking off his +provincial reserve, met with great success. Raoul and the Contessa +laughed merrily; Madame de Maury clapped her hands, and cried “Bien!” + +The Abbe replied, with unmoved gravity, “Both. I am a priest; it is my +duty to bite the bad and steal from the good, as you will see, Monsieur +le Marquis, if you will glance at this paper.” + +Here he handed to Alain a memorial on behalf of an afflicted family who +had been burnt out of their home, and reduced from comparative ease to +absolute want. There was a list appended of some twenty subscribers, the +last being the Contessa, fifty francs, and Madame de Maury, five. + +“Allow me, Marquis,” said the Abbe, “to steal from you. Bless you +two-fold, mon fils!” (taking the napoleon Alain extended to him) “first +for your charity; secondly, for the effect of its example upon the heart +of your cousin. Raoul de Vandemar, stand and deliver. Bah! what! only +ten francs.” + +Raoul made a sign to the Abbe, unperceived by the rest, as he answered, +“Abbe, I should excel your expectations of my career if I always +continue worth half as much as my cousin.” + +Alain felt to the bottom of his heart the delicate tact of his richer +kinsman in giving less than himself, and the Abbe replied, “Niggard, +you are pardoned. Humility is a more difficult virtue to produce than +charity, and in your case an instance of it is so rare that it merits +encouragement.” + +The “tea equipage” was now served in what at Paris is called the English +fashion; the Contessa presided over it, the guests gathered round the +table, and the evening passed away in the innocent gayety of a domestic +circle. The talk, if not especially intellectual, was at least not +fashionable. Books were not discussed, neither were scandals; yet +somehow or other it was cheery and animated, like that of a happy +family in a country-house. Alain thought still the better of Raoul that, +Parisian though he was, he could appreciate the charm of an evening so +innocently spent. + +On taking leave, the Contessa gave Alain a general invitation to drop in +whenever he was not better engaged. + +“I except only the opera nights,” said she. “My husband has gone to +Milan on his affairs, and during his absence I do not go to parties; the +opera I cannot resist.” + +Raoul set Alain down at his lodgings. “Au revoir; tomorrow at one +o’clock expect Enguerrand and myself.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Raul and Enguerrand called on Alain at the hour fixed. “In the first +place,” said Raoul, “I must beg you to accept my mother’s regrets that +she cannot receive you to-day. She and the Contessa belong to a society +of ladies formed for visiting the poor, and this is their day; but +to-morrow you must dine with us en famille. Now to business. Allow me +to light my cigar while you confide the whole state of affairs to +Enguerrand. Whatever he counsels, I am sure to approve.” + +Alain, as briefly as he could, stated his circumstances, his mortgages, +and the hopes which his avow had encouraged him to place in the friendly +disposition of M. Louvier. When he had concluded, Enguerrand mused for a +few moments before replying. At last he said, “Will you trust me to call +on Louvier on your behalf? I shall but inquire if he is inclined to +take on himself the other mortgages; and if so, on what terms. Our +relationship gives me the excuse for my interference; and to say +truth, I have had much familiar intercourse with the man. I too am a +speculator, and have often profited by Louvier’s advice. You may ask +what can be his object in serving me; he can gain nothing by it. To this +I answer, the key to his good offices is in his character. Audacious +though he be as a speculator, he is wonderfully prudent as a politician. +This belle France of ours is like a stage tumbler; one can never be +sure whether it will stand on its head or its feet. Louvier very wisely +wishes to feel himself safe whatever party comes uppermost. He has no +faith in the duration of the Empire; and as, at all events, the Empire +will not confiscate his millions, he takes no trouble in conciliating +Imperialists. But on the principle which induces certain savages +to worship the devil and neglect the bon Dieu, because the devil is +spiteful and the bon Dieu is too beneficent to injure them, Louvier, +at heart detesting as well as dreading a republic, lays himself out +to secure friends with the Republicans of all classes, and pretends +to espouse their cause; next to them, he is very conciliatory to the +Orleanists; lastly, though he thinks the Legitimists have no chance, +he desires to keep well with the nobles of that party, because they +exercise a considerable influence over that sphere of opinion which +belongs to fashion,--for fashion is never powerless in Paris. Raoul and +myself are no mean authorities in salons and clubs, and a good word from +us is worth having. + +“Besides, Louvier himself in his youth set up for a dandy; and that +deposed ruler of dandies, our unfortunate kinsman, Victor de Mauleon, +shed some of his own radiance on the money-lender’s son. But when +Victor’s star was eclipsed, Louvier ceased to gleam. The dandies cut +him. In his heart he exults that the dandies now throng to his soirees. + +“Bref, the millionaire is especially civil to me,--the more so as I know +intimately two or three eminent journalists; and Louvier takes pains to +plant garrisons in the press. I trust I have explained the grounds on +which I may be a better diplomatist to employ than your avoue; and with +your leave I will go to Louvier at once.” + +“Let him go,” said Raoul. “Enguerrand never fails in anything he +undertakes; especially,” he added, with a smile half sad, half tender, +“when one wishes to replenish one’s purse.” + +“I too gratefully grant such an ambassador all powers to treat,” said +Alain. “I am only ashamed to consign to him a post so much beneath +his genius,” and “his birth” he was about to add, but wisely checked +himself. Enguerrand said, shrugging his shoulders, “You can’t do me a +greater kindness than by setting my wits at work. I fall a martyr to +ennui when I am not in action;” he said, and was gone. + +“It makes me very melancholy at times,” said Raoul, flinging away the +end of his cigar, “to think that a man so clever and so energetic as +Enguerrand should be as much excluded from the service of his country as +if he were an Iroquois Indian. He would have made a great diplomatist.” + +“Alas!” replied Alain, with a sigh, “I begin to doubt whether we +Legitimists are justified in maintaining a useless loyalty to a +sovereign who renders us morally exiles in the land of our birth.” + +“I have no doubt on the subject,” said Raoul. “We are not justified on +the score of policy, but we have no option at present on the score of +honour. We should gain so much for ourselves if we adopted the State +livery and took the State wages that no man would esteem us as patriots; +we should only be despised as apostates. So long as Henry V. lives, +and does not resign his claim, we cannot be active citizens; we must be +mournful lookers-on. But what matters it? We nobles of the old race +are becoming rapidly extinct. Under any form of government likely to be +established in France we are equally doomed. The French people, +aiming at an impossible equality, will never again tolerate a race of +gentilshommes. They cannot prevent, without destroying commerce and +capital altogether, a quick succession of men of the day, who form +nominal aristocracies much more opposed to equality than any hereditary +class of nobles; but they refuse these fleeting substitutes of born +patricians all permanent stake in the country, since whatever estate +they buy must be subdivided at their death my poor Alain, you are making +it the one ambition of your life to preserve to your posterity the home +and lands of your forefathers. How is that possible, even supposing you +could redeem the mortgages? You marry some day; you have children, and +Rochebriant must then be sold to pay for their separate portions. How +this condition of things, while rendering us so ineffective to perform +the normal functions of a noblesse in public life, affects us in private +life, may be easily conceived. + +“Condemned to a career of pleasure and frivolity, we can scarcely escape +from the contagion of extravagant luxury which forms the vice of the +time. With grand names to keep up, and small fortunes whereon to keep +them, we readily incur embarrassment and debt. Then neediness conquers +pride. We cannot be great merchants, but we can be small gamblers on the +Bourse, or, thanks to the Credit Mobilier, imitate a cabinet minister, +and keep a shop under another name. Perhaps you have heard that +Enguerrand and I keep a shop. Pray, buy your gloves there. Strange +fate for men whose ancestors fought in the first Crusade--mais que +voulez-vous?” + +“I was told of the shop,” said Alain; “but the moment I knew you I +disbelieved the story.” + +“Quite true. Shall I confide to you why we resorted to that means of +finding ourselves in pocket-money? My father gives us rooms in his +hotel; the use of his table, which we do not much profit by; and an +allowance, on which we could not live as young men of our class live at +Paris. Enguerrand had his means of spending pocket-money, I mine; but +it came to the same thing,--the pockets were emptied. We incurred debts. +Two years ago my father straitened himself to pay them, saying, ‘The +next time you come to me with debts, however small, you must pay them +yourselves, or you must marry, and leave it to me to find you wives.’ +This threat appalled us both. A month afterwards, Enguerrand made a +lucky hit at the Bourse, and proposed to invest the proceeds in a shop. +I resisted as long as I could; but Enguerrand triumphed over me, as he +always does. He found an excellent deputy in a bonne who had nursed +us in childhood, and married a journeyman perfumer who understands the +business. It answers well; we are not in debt, and we have preserved our +freedom.” + +After these confessions Raoul went away, and Alain fell into a mournful +revery, from which he was roused by a loud ring at his bell. He opened +the door, and beheld M. Louvier. The burly financier was much out +of breath after making so steep an ascent. It was in gasps that he +muttered, “Bon jour; excuse me if I derange you.” Then entering and +seating himself on a chair, he took some minutes to recover speech, +rolling his eyes staringly round the meagre, unluxurious room, and then +concentrating their gaze upon its occupier. + +“Peste, my dear Marquis!” he said at last, “I hope the next time I visit +you the ascent may be less arduous. One would think you were in training +to ascend the Himalaya.” + +The haughty noble writhed under this jest, and the spirit inborn in his +order spoke in his answer. + +“I am accustomed to dwell on heights, Monsieur Louvier; the castle of +Rochebriant is not on a level with the town.” An angry gleam shot +out from the eyes of the millionaire, but there was no other sign of +displeasure in his answer. “Bien dit, mon cher; how you remind me of +your father! Now, give me leave to speak on affairs. I have seen your +cousin Enguerrand de Vandemar. Homme de moyens, though joli garcon. +He proposed that you should call on me. I said ‘no’ to the cher petit +Enguerrand,--a visit from me was due to you. To cut matters short, M. +Gandrin has allowed me to look into your papers. I was disposed to +serve you from the first; I am still more disposed to serve you now. +I undertake to pay off all your other mortgages, and become sole +mortgagee, and on terms that I have jotted down on this paper, and which +I hope will content you.” + +He placed a paper in Alain’s hand, and took out a box, from which +he extracted a jujube, placed it in his mouth, folded his hands, and +reclined back in his chair, with his eyes half closed, as if exhausted +alike by his ascent and his generosity. + +In effect, the terms were unexpectedly liberal. The reduced interest on +the mortgages would leave the Marquis an income of L1,000 a year instead +of L400. Louvier proposed to take on himself the legal cost of transfer, +and to pay to the Marquis 25,000 francs, on the completion of the deed, +as a bonus. The mortgage did not exempt the building-land, as Hebert +desired. In all else it was singularly advantageous, and Alain could +but feel a thrill of grateful delight at an offer by which his stinted +income was raised to comparative affluence. + +“Well, Marquis,” said Louvier, “what does the castle say to the town?” + +“Monsieur Louvier,” answered Alain, extending his hand with cordial +eagerness, “accept my sincere apologies for the indiscretion of my +metaphor. Poverty is proverbially sensitive to jests on it. I owe it to +you if I cannot hereafter make that excuse for any words of mine that +may displease you. The terms you propose are most liberal, and I close +with them at once.” + +“Bon,” said Louvier, shaking vehemently the hand offered to him; “I will +take the paper to Gandrin, and instruct him accordingly. And now, may I +attach a condition to the agreement which is not put down on paper? +It may have surprised you perhaps that I should propose a gratuity of +25,000 francs on completion of the contract. It is a droll thing to +do, and not in the ordinary way of business, therefore I must explain. +Marquis, pardon the liberty I take, but you have inspired me with an +interest in your future. With your birth, connections, and figure you +should push your way in the world far and fast. But you can’t do so in +a province. You must find your opening at Paris. I wish you to spend a +year in the capital, and live, not extravagantly, like a nouveau riche, +but in a way not unsuited to your rank, and permitting you all the +social advantages that belong to it. These 25,000 francs, in addition +to your improved income, will enable you to gratify my wish in this +respect. Spend the money in Paris; you will want every sou of it in the +course of the year. It will be money well spent. Take my advice, cher +Marquis. Au plaisir.” + +The financier bowed himself out. The young Marquis forgot all the +mournful reflections with which Raoul’s conversation had inspired him. +He gave a new touch to his toilette, and sallied forth with the air of +a man on whose morning of life a sun heretofore clouded has burst forth +and bathed the landscape in its light. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Since the evening spent at the Savarins’, Graham had seen no more of +Isaura. He had avoided all chance of seeing her; in fact, the jealousy +with which he had viewed her manner towards Rameau, and the angry +amaze with which he had heard her proclaim her friendship for Madame +de Grantmesnil, served to strengthen the grave and secret reasons which +made him desire to keep his heart yet free and his hand yet unpledged. +But alas! the heart was enslaved already. It was under the most fatal of +all spells,--first love conceived at first sight. He was wretched; and +in his wretchedness his resolves became involuntarily weakened. He found +himself making excuses for the beloved. What cause had he, after all, +for that jealousy of the young poet which had so offended him; and if in +her youth and inexperience Isaura had made her dearest friend of a great +writer by whose genius she might be dazzled, and of whose opinions she +might scarcely be aware, was it a crime that necessitated her eternal +banishment from the reverence which belongs to all manly love? Certainly +he found no satisfactory answers to such self-questionings. And then +those grave reasons known only to himself, and never to be confided +to another--why he should yet reserve his hand unpledged--were not so +imperative as to admit of no compromise. They might entail a sacrifice, +and not a small one to a man of Graham’s views and ambition. But what is +love if it can think any sacrifice, short of duty and honour, too great +to offer up unknown uncomprehended, to the one beloved? Still, while +thus softened in his feelings towards Isaura, he became, perhaps in +consequence of such softening, more and more restlessly impatient to +fulfil the object for which he had come to Paris, the great step towards +which was the discovery of the undiscoverable Louise Duval. + +He had written more than once to M. Renard since the interview with that +functionary already recorded, demanding whether Renard had not made +some progress in the research on which he was employed, and had received +short unsatisfactory replies preaching patience and implying hope. + +The plain truth, however, was that M. Renard had taken no further pains +in the matter. He considered it utter waste of time and thought to +attempt a discovery to which the traces were so faint and so obsolete. +If the discovery were effected, it must be by one of those chances which +occur without labour or forethought of our own. He trusted only to such +a chance in continuing the charge he had undertaken. But during the +last day or two Graham had become yet more impatient than before, and +peremptorily requested another visit from this dilatory confidant. + +In that visit, finding himself pressed hard, and though naturally +willing, if possible, to retain a client unusually generous, yet being +on the whole an honest member of his profession, and feeling it to +be somewhat unfair to accept large remuneration for doing nothing, M. +Renard said frankly, “Monsieur, this affair is beyond me; the keenest +agent of our police could make nothing of it. Unless you can tell +me more than you have done, I am utterly without a clew. I resign, +therefore, the task with which you honoured me, willing to resume it +again if you can give me information that could render me of use.” + +“What sort of information?” + +“At least the names of some of the lady’s relations who may yet be +living.” + +“But it strikes me that, if I could get at that piece of knowledge, I +should not require the services of the police. The relations would tell +me what had become of Louise Duval quite as readily as they would tell a +police agent.” + +“Quite true, Monsieur. It would really be picking your pockets if I +did not at once retire from your service. Nay, Monsieur, pardon me, no +further payments; I have already accepted too much. Your most obedient +servant.” + +Graham, left alone, fell into a very gloomy revery. He could not but be +sensible of the difficulties in the way of the object which had brought +him to Paris, with somewhat sanguine expectations of success founded on +a belief in the omniscience of the Parisian police, which is only to +be justified when they have to deal with a murderess or a political +incendiary. But the name of Louise Duval is about as common in France +as that of Mary Smith in England; and the English reader may judge +what would be the likely result of inquiring through the ablest of our +detectives after some Mary Smith of whom you could give little more +information than that she was the daughter of a drawing-master who had +died twenty years ago, that it was about fifteen years since anything +had been heard of her, that you could not say if through marriage or for +other causes she had changed her name or not, and you had reasons for +declining resort to public advertisements. In the course of inquiry so +instituted, the probability would be that you might hear of a great many +Mary Smiths, in the pursuit of whom your employee would lose all sight +and scent of the one Mary Smith for whom the chase was instituted. + +In the midst of Graham’s despairing reflections his laquais announced M. +Frederic Lemercier. + +“Cher Grarm-Varn. A thousand pardons if I disturb you at this late hour +of the evening; but you remember the request you made me when you first +arrived in Paris this season?” + +“Of course I do,--in case you should ever chance in your wide round of +acquaintance to fall in with a Madame or Mademoiselle Duval of about the +age of forty, or a year or so less, to let me know; and you did fall in +with two ladies of that name, but they were not the right one, not the +person whom my friend begged me to discover; both much too young.” + +“Eh bien, mon cher. If you will come with me to the bal champetre in +the Champs Elysees to-night, I can show you a third Madame Duval,--her +Christian name is Louise, too, of the age you mention,--though she does +her best to look younger, and is still very handsome. You said your +Duval was handsome. It was only last evening that I met this lady at a +soiree given by Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, coryphee distinguee, in +love with young Rameau.” + +“In love with young Rameau? I am very glad to hear it. He returns the +love?” + +“I suppose so. He seems very proud of it. But apropos of Madame Duval, +she has been long absent from Paris, just returned, and looking out for +conquests. She says she has a great penchant for the English; promises +me to be at this ball. Come.” + +“Hearty thanks, my dear Lemercier. I am at your service.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +The bal champetre was gay and brilliant, as such festal scenes are at +Paris. A lovely night in the midst of May, lamps below and stars above; +the society mixed, of course. Evidently, when Graham has singled out +Frederic Lemercier from all his acquaintances at Paris to conjoin with +the official aid of M. Renard in search of the mysterious lady, he had +conjectured the probability that she might be found in the Bohemian +world so familiar to Frederic; if not as an inhabitant, at least as an +explorer. Bohemia was largely represented at the bal champetre, but not +without a fair sprinkling of what we call the “respectable classes,” + especially English and Americans, who brought their wives there to take +care of them. Frenchmen, not needing such care, prudently left their +wives at home. Among the Frenchmen of station were the Comte de Passy +and the Vicomte de Breze. + +On first entering the gardens, Graham’s eye was attracted and dazzled +by a brilliant form. It was standing under a festoon of flowers extended +from tree to tree, and a gas jet opposite shone full upon the face,--the +face of a girl in all the freshness of youth. If the freshness owed +anything to art, the art was so well disguised that it seemed nature. +The beauty of the countenance was Hebe-like, joyous, and radiant; +and yet one could not look at the girl without a sentiment of deep +mournfulness. She was surrounded by a group of young men, and the ring +of her laugh jarred upon Graham’s ear. He pressed Frederic’s arm, and +directing his attention to the girl, asked who she was. + +“Who? Don’t you know? That is Julie Caumartin. A little while ago her +equipage was the most admired in the Bois, and great ladies condescended +to copy her dress or her coiffure; but she has lost her splendour, and +dismissed the rich admirer who supplied the fuel for its blaze, since +she fell in love with Gustave Rameau. Doubtless she is expecting him +to-night. You ought to know her; shall I present you?” + +“No,” answered Graham, with a compassionate expression in his manly +face. “So young; seemingly so gay. How I pity her!” + +“What! for throwing herself away on Rameau? True. There is a great deal +of good in that girl’s nature, if she had been properly trained. Rameau +wrote a pretty poem on her which turned her head and won her heart, in +which she is styled the ‘Ondine of Paris,’--a nymph-like type of Paris +itself.” + +“Vanishing type, like her namesake; born of the spray, and vanishing +soon into the deep,” said Graham. “Pray go and look for the Duval; you +will find me seated yonder.” + +Graham passed into a retired alley, and threw himself on a solitary +bench, while Lemercier went in search of Madame Duval. In a few minutes +the Frenchman reappeared. By his side was a lady well dressed, and as +she passed under the lamps Graham perceived that, though of a certain +age, she was undeniably handsome. His heart beat more quickly. Surely +this was the Louise Duval he sought. + +He rose from his seat, and was presented in due form to the lady, with +whom Frederic then discreetly left him. “M. Lemercier tells me that you +think that we were once acquainted with each other.” + +“Nay, Madame; I should not fail to recognize you were that the case. A +friend of mine had the honour of knowing a lady of your name; and should +I be fortunate enough to meet that lady, I am charged with a commission +that may not be unwelcome to her. M. Lemercier tells me your nom de +bapteme is Louise.” + +“Louise Corinne, Monsieur.” + +“And I presume that Duval is the name you take from your parents?” + +“No; my father’s name was Bernard. I married, when I was a mere child, +M. Duval, in the wine trade at Bordeaux.” + +“Ah, indeed!” said Graham, much disappointed, but looking at her with a +keen, searching eye, which she met with a decided frankness. Evidently, +in his judgment, she was speaking the truth. + +“You know English, I think, Madame,” he resumed, addressing her in that +language. + +“A leetle; speak un peu.” + +“Only a little?” + +Madame Duval looked puzzled, and replied in French, with a laugh, “Is it +that you were told that I spoke English by your countryman, Milord Sare +Boulby? Petit scelerat, I hope he is well. He sends you a commission for +me,--so he ought; he behaved to me like a monster.” + +“Alas! I know nothing of Milord Sir Boulby. Were you never in England +yourself?” + +“Never,” with a coquettish side-glance; “I should like so much to go. I +have a foible for the English in spite of that vilain petit Boulby. Who +is it gave you the commission for me? Ha! I guess, le Capitaine Nelton.” + +“No. What year, Madame, if not impertinent, were you at +Aix-la-Chapelle?” + +“You mean Baden? I was there seven years ago, when I met le Capitaine +Nelton, bel homme aux cheveux rouges.” + +“But you have been at Aix?” + +“Never.” + +“I have, then, been mistaken, Madame, and have only to offer my most +humble apologies.” + +“But perhaps you will favour me with a visit, and we may on further +conversation find that you are not mistaken. I can’t stay now, for I am +engaged to dance with the Belgian of whom, no doubt, M. Lemercier has +told you.” + +“No, Madame, he has not.” + +“Well, then, he will tell you. The Belgian is very jealous; but I am +always at home between three and four; this is my card.” + +Graham eagerly took the card, and exclaimed, “Is this you’re your own +handwriting, Madame?” + +“Yes, indeed.” + +“Tres belle ecriture,” said Graham, and receded with a ceremonious bow. +“Anything so unlike her handwriting! Another disappointment,” muttered +the Englishman as the lady went back to the ball. + +A few minutes later Graham joined Lemercier, who was talking with De +Passy and De Breze. + +“Well,” said Lemercier, when his eye rested on Graham, “I hit the right +nail on the head this time, eh?” + +Graham shook his head. + +“What! is she not the right Louise Duval?” + +“Certainly not.” + +The Count de Passy overheard the name, and turned. “Louise Duval,” he +said; “does Monsieur Vane know a Louise Duval?” + +“No; but a friend asked me to inquire after a lady of that name whom he +had met many years ago at Paris.” The Count mused a moment, and said, +“Is it possible that your friend knew the family De Mauleon?” + +“I really can’t say. What then?” + +“The old Vicomte de Mauleon was one of my most intimate associates. In +fact, our houses are connected. And he was extremely grieved, poor man, +when his daughter Louise married her drawing-master, Auguste Duval.” + +“Her drawing-master, Auguste Duval? Pray say on. I think the Louise +Duval my friend knew must have been her daughter. She was the only child +of a drawing-master or artist named Auguste Duval, and probably +enough her Christian name would have been derived from her mother. A +Mademoiselle de Mauleon, then, married M. Auguste Duval?” + +“Yes; the old Vicomte had espoused en premieres noces Mademoiselle +Camille de Chavigny, a lady of birth equal to his own; had by her one +daughter, Louise. I recollect her well,--a plain girl, with a high nose +and a sour expression. She was just of age when the first Vicomtesse +died, and by the marriage settlement she succeeded at once to her +mother’s fortune, which was not large. The Vicomte was, however, so +poor that the loss of that income was no trifle to him. Though much past +fifty, he was still very handsome. Men of that generation did not age +soon, Monsieur,” said the Count, expanding his fine chest and laughing +exultingly. + +“He married, en secondes noces, a lady of still higher birth than the +first, and with a much larger dot. Louise was indignant at this, hated +her stepmother; and when a son was born by the second marriage she left +the paternal roof, went to reside with an old female relative near the +Luxembourg, and there married this drawing-master. Her father and the +family did all they could to prevent it; but in these democratic days +a woman who has attained her majority can, if she persist in her +determination, marry to please herself and disgrace her ancestors. After +that mesalliance her father never would see her again. I tried in vain +to soften him. All his parental affections settled on his handsome +Victor. + +“Ah! you are too young to have known Victor de Mauleon during his short +reign at Paris, as roi des viveurs.” + +“Yes, he was before my time; but I have heard of him as a young man of +great fashion; said to be very clever, a duellist, and a sort of Don +Juan.” + +“Exactly.” + +“And then I remember vaguely to have heard that he committed, or was +said to have committed, some villanous action connected with a great +lady’s jewels, and to have left Paris in consequence.” + +“Ah, yes; a sad scrape. At that time there was a political crisis; we +were under a Republic; anything against a noble was believed. But I am +sure Victor de Mauleon was not the man to commit a larceny. However, it +is quite true that he left Paris, and I don’t know what has become of +him since.” Here he touched De Breze, who, though still near, had not +been listening to this conversation, but interchanging jest and laughter +with Lemercier on the motley scene of the dance. + +“De Breze, have you ever heard what became of poor dear Victor de +Mauleon?--you knew him.” + +“Knew him? I should think so. Who could be in the great world and not +know le beau Victor? No; after he vanished I never heard more of him; +doubtless long since dead. A good-hearted fellow in spite of all his +sins.” + +“My dear Monsieur de Breze, did you know his half-sister?” asked +Graham,--“a Madame Duval?” + +“No. I never heard he had a half-sister. Halt there; I recollect that +I met Victor once, in the garden at Versailles, walking arm-in-arm +with the most beautiful girl I ever saw; and when I complimented him +afterwards at the Jockey Club on his new conquest, he replied very +gravely that the young lady was his niece. ‘Niece!’ said I; ‘why, +there can’t be more than five or six years between you.’ ‘About that, +I suppose,’ said he; ‘my half-sister, her mother, was more than twenty +years older than I at the time of my birth.’ I doubted the truth of his +story at the time; but since you say he really had a sister, my doubt +wronged him.” + +“Have you never seen that same young lady since?” + +“Never.” + +“How many years ago was this?” + +“Let me see, about twenty or twenty-one years ago. How time flies!” + +Graham still continued to question, but could learn no further +particulars. He turned to quit the gardens just as the band was striking +up for a fresh dance, a wild German waltz air; and mingled with that +German music his ear caught the sprightly sounds of the French laugh, +one laugh distinguished from the rest by a more genuine ring of +light-hearted joy, the laugh that he had heard on entering the gardens, +and the sound of which had then saddened him. Looking towards the +quarter from which it came, he again saw the “Ondine of Paris.” She was +not now the centre of a group. She had just found Gustave Rameau, and +was clinging to his arm with a look of happiness in her face, frank +and innocent as a child’s; and so they passed amid the dancers down a +solitary lamplit alley, till lost to the Englishman’s lingering gaze. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +The next morning Graham sent again for M. Renard. “Well,” he cried, when +that dignitary appeared and took a seat beside him, “chance has favoured +me.” + +“I always counted on chance, Monsieur. Chance has more wit in its little +finger than the Paris police in its whole body.” + +“I have ascertained the relations, on the mother’s side, of Louise +Duval, and the only question is how to get at them.” Here Graham related +what he had heard, and ended by saying, “This Victor de Mauleon is +therefore my Louise Duval’s uncle. He was, no doubt, taking charge of +her in the year that the persons interested in her discovery lost sight +of her in Paris; and surely he must know what became of her afterwards.” + +“Very probably; and chance may befriend us yet in the discovery of +Victor de Mauleon. You seem not to know the particulars of that story +about the jewels which brought him into some connection with the police, +and resulted in his disappearance from Paris.” + +“No; tell me the particulars.” + +“Victor de Mauleon was heir to some 60,000 or 70,000 francs a year, +chiefly on the mother’s side; for his father, though the representative +of one of the most ancient houses in Normandy, was very poor, having +little of his own except the emoluments of an appointment in the Court +of Louis Philippe. + +“But before, by the death of his parents, Victor came into that +inheritance, he very largely forestalled it. His tastes were +magnificent. He took to ‘sport,’ kept a famous stud, was a great +favourite with the English, and spoke their language fluently. Indeed +he was considered very accomplished, and of considerable intellectual +powers. It was generally said that some day or other, when he had sown +his wild oats, he would, if he took to politics, be an eminent man. +Altogether he was a very strong creature. That was a very strong age +under Louis Philippe. The viveurs of Paris were fine types for the +heroes of Dumas and Sue,--full of animal life and spirits. Victor de +Mauleon was a romance of Dumas, incarnated.” + +“Monsieur Renard, forgive me that I did not before do justice to your +taste in polite literature.” + +“Monsieur, a man in my profession does not attain even to my humble +eminence if he be not something else than a professional. He must study +mankind wherever they are described, even in les romans. To return to +Victor de Mauleon. Though he was a ‘sportman,’ a gambler, a Don Juan, a +duel list, nothing was ever said against his honour. On the contrary, +on matters of honour he was a received oracle; and even though he had +fought several duels (that was the age of duels), and was reported +without a superior, almost without an equal, in either weapon, the sword +or the pistol, he is said never to have wantonly provoked an encounter, +and to have so used his skill that he contrived never to slay, nor even +gravely to wound, an antagonist. + +“I remember one instance of his generosity in this respect; for it +was much talked of at the time. One of your countrymen, who had never +handled a fencing-foil nor fired a pistol, took offence at something +M. de Mauleon had said in disparagement of the Duke of Wellington, and +called him out. Victor de Mauleon accepted the challenge, discharged his +pistol, not in the air--that might have been an affront--but so as to be +wide of the mark, walked up to the lines to be shot at, and when missed, +said, ‘Excuse the susceptibility of a Frenchman loath to believe that +his countryman can be beaten save by accident, and accept every apology +one gentleman can make to another for having forgotten the respect due +to one of the most renowned of your national heroes.’ The Englishman’s +name was Vane. Could it have been your father?” + +“Very probably; just like my father to call out any man who insulted +the honour of his country, as represented by its men. I hope the two +combatants became friends?” + +“That I never heard; the duel was over; there my story ends.” + +“Pray go on.” + +“One day--it was in the midst of political events which would have +silenced most subjects of private gossip--the beau monde was startled by +the news that the Vicomte (he was then, by his father’s death, Vicomte) +de Mauleon had been given into the custody of the police on the charge +of stealing the jewels of the Duchesse de (the wife of a distinguished +foreigner). It seems that some days before this event, the Duc, wishing +to make Madame his spouse an agreeable surprise, had resolved to have +a diamond necklace belonging to her, and which was of setting so +old-fashioned that she had not lately worn it, reset for her birthday. +He therefore secretly possessed himself of the key to an iron safe in +a cabinet adjoining her dressing-room (in which safe her more valuable +jewels were kept), and took from it the necklace. Imagine his dismay +when the jeweller in the Rue Vivienne to whom he carried it recognized +the pretended diamonds as imitation paste which he himself had some days +previously inserted into an empty setting brought to him by a Monsieur +with whose name he was unacquainted. The Duchesse was at that time +in delicate health; and as the Duc’s suspicions naturally fell on the +servants, especially on the femme de chambre, who was in great favour +with his wife, he did not like to alarm Madame, nor through her to put +the servants on their guard. He resolved, therefore, to place the matter +in the hands of the famous --------, who was then the pride and ornament +of the Parisian police. And the very night afterwards the Vicomte de +Mauleon was caught and apprehended in the cabinet where the jewels +were kept, and to which he had got access by a false key, or at least +a duplicate key, found in his possession. I should observe that M. de +Mauleon occupied the entresol in the same hotel in which the upper rooms +were devoted to the Duc and Duchesse and their suite. As soon as this +charge against the Vicomte was made known (and it was known the next +morning), the extent of his debts and the utterness of his ruin (before +scarcely conjectured or wholly unheeded) became public through the +medium of the journals, and furnished an obvious motive for the crime +of which he was accused. We Parisians, Monsieur, are subject to the most +startling reactions of feeling. The men we adore one day we execrate the +next. The Vicomte passed at once from the popular admiration one +bestows on a hero to the popular contempt with which one regards a petty +larcener. Society wondered how it had ever condescended to receive +into its bosom the gambler, the duellist, the Don Juan. However, one +compensation in the way of amusement he might still afford to society +for the grave injuries he had done it. Society would attend his trial, +witness his demeanour at the bar, and watch the expression of his +face when he was sentenced to the galleys. But, Monsieur, this wretch +completed the measure of his iniquities. He was not tried at all. The +Duc and Duchesse quitted Paris for Spain, and the Duc instructed his +lawyer to withdraw his charge, stating his conviction of the Vicomte’s +complete innocence of any other offence than that which he himself had +confessed.” + +“What did the Vicomte confess? You omitted to state that.” + +“The Vicomte, when apprehended, confessed that, smitten by an insane +passion for the Duchesse, which she had, on his presuming to declare it, +met with indignant scorn, he had taken advantage of his lodgment in the +same house to admit himself into the cabinet adjoining her dressing-room +by means of a key which he had procured, made from an impression of the +key-hole taken in wax. + +“No evidence in support of any other charge against the Vicomte was +forthcoming,--nothing, in short, beyond the infraction du domicile +caused by the madness of youthful love, and for which there was no +prosecution. The law, therefore, could have little to say against him. +But society was more rigid; and exceedingly angry to find that a man who +had been so conspicuous for luxury should prove to be a pauper, insisted +on believing that M. de Mauleon was guilty of the meaner, though not +perhaps, in the eyes of husbands and fathers, the more heinous, of the +two offences. I presume that the Vicomte felt that he had got into a +dilemma from which no pistol-shot or sword-thrust could free him, for he +left Paris abruptly, and has not since reappeared. The sale of his stud +and effects sufficed, I believe, to pay his debts, for I will do him the +justice to say that they were paid.” + +“But though the Vicomte de Mauleon has disappeared, he must have left +relations at Paris, who would perhaps know what has become of him and of +his niece.” + +“I doubt it. He had no very near relations. The nearest was an old +celibataire of the same name, from whom he had some expectations, but +who died shortly after this esclandre, and did not name the Vicomte in +his will. M. Victor had numerous connections among the highest families, +the Rochebriants, Chavignys, Vandemars, Passys, Beauvilliers; but they +are not likely to have retained any connection with a ruined +vaurien, and still less with a niece of his who was the child of a +drawing-master. But now you have given me a clew, I will try to follow +it up. We must find the Vicomte, and I am not without hope of doing so. +Pardon me if I decline to say more at present. I would not raise false +expectations; but in a week or two I will have the honour to call again +upon Monsieur.” + +“Wait one instant. You have really a hope of discovering M. de Mauleon?” + +“Yes. I cannot say more at present.” + +M. Renard departed. Still that hope, however faint it might prove, +served to reanimate Graham; and with that hope his heart, as if a load +had been lifted from its mainspring, returned instinctively to the +thought of Isaura. Whatever seemed to promise an early discharge of the +commission connected with the discovery of Louise Duval seemed to bring +Isaura nearer to him, or at least to excuse his yearning desire to see +more of her, to understand her better. Faded into thin air was the vague +jealousy of Gustave Rameau which he had so unreasonably conceived; he +felt as if it were impossible that the man whom the “Ondine of Paris” + claimed as her lover could dare to woo or hope to win an Isaura. He even +forgot the friendship with the eloquent denouncer of the marriage-bond, +which a little while ago had seemed to him an unpardonable offence. He +remembered only the lovely face, so innocent, yet so intelligent; only +the sweet voice, which had for the first time breathed music into his +own soul; only the gentle hand, whose touch had for the first time sent +through his veins the thrill which distinguishes from all her sex the +woman whom we love. He went forth elated and joyous, and took his way +to Isaura’s villa. As he went, the leaves on the trees under which he +passed seemed stirred by the soft May breeze in sympathy with his own +delight. Perhaps it was rather the reverse: his own silent delight +sympathized with all delight in awakening Nature. The lover seeking +reconciliation with the loved one from whom some trifle has unreasonably +estranged him, in a cloudless day of May,--if he be not happy enough +to feel a brotherhood in all things happy,--a leaf in bloom, a bird in +song,--then indeed he may call himself lover, but he does not know what +is love. + + + + + +BOOK IV. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL. + +It is many days since I wrote to you, and but for your delightful note +just received, reproaching me for silence, I should still be under the +spell of that awe which certain words of M. Savarin were well fitted to +produce. Chancing to ask him if he had written to you lately, he said, +with that laugh of his, good-humouredly ironical, “No, Mademoiselle, I +am not one of the Facheux whom Moliere has immortalized. If the meeting +of lovers should be sacred from the intrusion of a third person, however +amiable, more sacred still should be the parting between an author and +his work. Madame de Grantmesnil is in that moment so solemn to a genius +earnest as hers,--she is bidding farewell to a companion with whom, once +dismissed into the world, she can never converse familiarly again; it +ceases to be her companion when it becomes ours. Do not let us disturb +the last hours they will pass together.” + +These words struck me much. I suppose there is truth in them. I can +comprehend that a work which has long been all in all to its author, +concentrating his thoughts, gathering round it the hopes and fears of +his inmost heart, dies, as it were, to him when he has completed +its life for others, and launched it into a world estranged from the +solitude in which it was born and formed. I can almost conceive that, to +a writer like you, the very fame which attends the work thus sent forth +chills your own love for it. The characters you created in a fairyland, +known but to yourself, must lose something of their mysterious charm +when you hear them discussed and cavilled at, blamed or praised, as if +they were really the creatures of streets and salons. + +I wonder if hostile criticism pains or enrages you as it seems to do +such other authors as I have known. M. Savarin, for instance, sets +down in his tablets as an enemy to whom vengeance is due the smallest +scribbler who wounds his self-love, and says frankly, “To me praise is +food, dispraise is poison. Him who feeds me I pay; him who poisons me +I break on the wheel.” M. Savarin is, indeed, a skilful and energetic +administrator to his own reputation. He deals with it as if it were a +kingdom,--establishes fortifications for its defence, enlists soldiers +to fight for it. He is the soul and centre of a confederation in which +each is bound to defend the territory of the others, and all those +territories united constitute the imperial realm of M. Savarin. +Don’t think me an ungracious satirist in what I am thus saying of our +brilliant friend. It is not I who here speak; it is himself. He avows +his policy with the naivete which makes the charm of his style as +writer. “It is the greatest mistake,” he said to me yesterday, “to talk +of the Republic of Letters. Every author who wins a name is a sovereign +in his own domain, be it large or small. Woe to any republican who wants +to dethrone me!” Somehow or other, when M. Savarin thus talks I feel +as if he were betraying the cause of, genius. I cannot bring myself +to regard literature as a craft,--to me it is a sacred mission; and in +hearing this “sovereign” boast of the tricks by which he maintains his +state, I seem to listen to a priest who treats as imposture the religion +he professes to teach. M. Savarin’s favourite eleve now is a young +contributor to his journal, named Gustave Rameau. M. Savarin said the +other day in my hearing, “I and my set were Young France; Gustave Rameau +and his set are New Paris.” + +“And what is the distinction between the one and the other?” asked my +American friend, Mrs. Morley. + +“The set of ‘Young France,’” answered M. Savarin, “had in it the hearty +consciousness of youth; it was bold and vehement, with abundant vitality +and animal spirits; whatever may be said against it in other +respects, the power of thews and sinews must be conceded to its chief +representatives. But the set of ‘New Paris’ has very bad health, and +very indifferent spirits. Still, in its way, it is very clever; it can +sting and bite as keenly as if it were big and strong. Rameau is the +most promising member of the set. He will be popular in his time, +because he represents a good deal of the mind of his time,--namely, the +mind and the time of ‘New Paris.’” + +Do you know anything of this young Rameau’s writings? You do not know +himself, for he told me so, expressing a desire, that was evidently very +sincere, to find some occasion on which to render you his homage. He +said this the first time I met him at M. Savarin’s, and before he knew +how dear to me are yourself and your fame. He came and sat by me after +dinner, and won my interest at once by asking me if I had heard that you +were busied on a new work; and then, without waiting for my answer, he +launched forth into praises of you, which made a notable contrast to the +scorn with which he spoke of all your contemporaries,--except indeed M. +Savarin, who, however, might not have been pleased to hear his favourite +pupil style him “a great writer in small things.” I spare you his +epigrams on Dumas and Victor Hugo and my beloved Lamartine. Though his +talk was showy, and dazzled me at first, I soon got rather tired of it, +even the first time we met. Since then I have seen him very often, not +only at M. Savarin’s, but he calls here at least every other day, and we +have become quite good friends. He gains on acquaintance so far that one +cannot help feeling how much he is to be pitied. He is so envious! and +the envious must be so unhappy. And then he is at once so near and so +far from all the things that he envies. He longs for riches and luxury, +and can only as yet earn a bare competence by his labours. Therefore +he hates the rich and luxurious. His literary successes, instead of +pleasing him, render him miserable by their contrast with the fame of +the authors whom he envies and assails. He has a beautiful head, of +which he is conscious, but it is joined to a body without strength or +grace. He is conscious of this too,--but it is cruel to go on with this +sketch. You can see at once the kind of person who, whether he inspire +affection or dislike, cannot fail to create an interest, painful but +compassionate. + +You will be pleased to hear that Dr. C. considers my health so improved +that I may next year enter fairly on the profession for which I was +intended and trained. Yet I still feel hesitating and doubtful. To +give myself wholly up to the art in which I am told I could excel must +alienate me entirely from the ambition that yearns for fields in +which, alas! it may perhaps never appropriate to itself a rood for +culture,--only wander, lost in a vague fairyland, to which it has not +the fairy’s birthright. O thou great Enchantress, to whom are equally +subject the streets of Paris and the realm of Faerie, thou who hast +sounded to the deeps that circumfluent ocean called “practical human +life,” and hast taught the acutest of its navigators to consider how far +its courses are guided by orbs in heaven,--canst thou solve this riddle +which, if it perplexes me, must perplex so many? What is the real +distinction between the rare genius and the commonalty of human souls +that feel to the quick all the grandest and divinest things which the +rare genius places before them, sighing within themselves, “This rare +genius does but express that which was previously familiar to us, so +far as thought and sentiment extend”? Nay, the genius itself, however +eloquent, never does, never can, express the whole of the thought or the +sentiment it interprets; on the contrary, the greater the genius is, the +more it leaves a something of incomplete satisfaction on our minds,--it +promises so much more than it performs; it implies so much more than +it announces. I am impressed with the truth of what I thus say in +proportion as I re-peruse and re-study the greatest writers that have +come within my narrow range of reading; and by the greatest writers I +mean those who are not exclusively reasoners (of such I cannot judge), +nor mere poets (of whom, so far as concerns the union of words with +music, I ought to be able to judge), but the few who unite reason and +poetry, and appeal at once to the common-sense of the multitude and +the imagination of the few. The highest type of this union to me is +Shakspeare; and I can comprehend the justice of no criticism on him +which does not allow this sense of incomplete satisfaction augmenting +in proportion as the poet soars to his highest. I ask again, In what +consists this distinction between the rare genius and the commonalty of +minds that exclaim, “He expresses what we feel, but never the whole of +what we feel”? Is it the mere power over language, a larger knowledge of +dictionaries, a finer ear for period and cadence, a more artistic craft +in casing our thoughts and sentiments in well-selected words? Is it true +what Buffon says, “that the style is the man”? Is it true what I am told +Goethe said, “Poetry is form”? I cannot believe this; and if you tell me +it is true, then I no longer pine to be a writer. But if it be not +true, explain to me how it is that the greatest genius is popular in +proportion as it makes itself akin to us by uttering in better words +than we employ that which was already within us, brings to light what +in our souls was latent, and does but correct, beautify, and publish the +correspondence which an ordinary reader carries on privately every day +between himself and his mind or his heart. If this superiority in the +genius be but style and form, I abandon my dream of being something else +than a singer of words by another to the music of another. But then, +what then? My knowledge of books and art is wonderfully small. What +little I do know I gather from very few books and from what I hear said +by the few worth listening to whom I happen to meet; and out of these, +in solitude and revery, not by conscious effort, I arrive at some +results which appear to my inexperience original. Perhaps, indeed, +they have the same kind of originality as the musical compositions of +amateurs who effect a cantata or a quartette made up of borrowed details +from great masters, and constituting a whole so original that no real +master would deign to own it. Oh, if I could get you to understand how +unsettled, how struggling my whole nature at this moment is! I wonder +what is the sensation of the chrysalis which has been a silkworm, when +it first feels the new wings stirring within its shell,--wings, alas! +they are but those of the humblest and shortest-lived sort of moth, +scarcely born into daylight before it dies. Could it reason, it might +regret its earlier life, and say, “Better be the silkworm than the +moth.” + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +Have you known well any English people in the course of your life? I say +well, for you must have had acquaintance with many. But it seems to +me so difficult to know an Englishman well. Even I, who so loved +and revered Mr. Selby,--I, whose childhood was admitted into his +companionship by that love which places ignorance and knowledge, infancy +and age, upon ground so equal that heart touches heart, cannot say that +I understand the English character to anything like the extent to which +I fancy I understand the Italian and the French. Between us of the +Continent and them of the island the British Channel always flows. There +is an Englishman here to whom I have been introduced, whom I have met, +though but seldom, in that society which bounds the Paris world to me. +Pray, pray tell me, did you ever know, ever meet him? His name is Graham +Vane. He is the only son, I am told, of a man who was a celebrite in +England as an orator and statesman, and on both sides he belongs to the +haute aristocratic. He himself has that indescribable air and mien to +which we apply the epithet ‘distinguished.’ In the most crowded salon +the eye would fix on him, and involuntarily follow his movements. +Yet his manners are frank and simple, wholly without the stiffness or +reserve which are said to characterize the English. There is an inborn +dignity in his bearing which consists in the absence of all dignity +assumed. But what strikes me most in this Englishman is an expression +of countenance which the English depict by the word ‘open,’--that +expression which inspires you with a belief in the existence of +sincerity. Mrs. Morley said of him, in that poetic extravagance of +phrase by which the Americans startle the English, “That man’s forehead +would light up the Mammoth Cave.” Do you not know, Eulalie, what it +is to us cultivators of art--art being the expression of truth through +fiction--to come into the atmosphere of one of those souls in which +Truth stands out bold and beautiful in itself, and needs no idealization +through fiction? Oh, how near we should be to heaven could we live +daily, hourly, in the presence of one the honesty of whose word we could +never doubt, the authority of whose word we could never disobey! Mr. +Vane professes not to understand music, not even to care for it, except +rarely, and yet he spoke of its influence over others with an enthusiasm +that half charmed me once more back to my destined calling; nay, might +have charmed me wholly, but that he seemed to think that I--that any +public singer--must be a creature apart from the world,--the world in +which such men live. Perhaps that is true. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +It was one of those lovely noons towards the end of May in which a rural +suburb has the mellow charm of summer to him who escapes awhile from the +streets of a crowded capital. The Londoner knows its charm when he feels +his tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at +Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the +warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief +trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet +more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, +and I know not why, but they seem more rural,--perhaps because the +contrast of their repose with the stir left behind, of their redundance +of leaf and blossom compared with the prim efflorescence of trees in the +Boulevards and Tuileries, is more striking. However that may be, when +Graham reached the pretty suburb in which Isaura dwelt, it seemed to him +as if all the wheels of the loud busy life were suddenly smitten still. +The hour was yet early; he felt sure that he should find Isaura at +home. The garden-gate stood unfastened and ajar; he pushed it aside and +entered. I think I have before said that the garden of the villa was +shut out from the road and the gaze of neighbours by a wall and thick +belts of evergreens; it stretched behind the house somewhat far for the +garden of a suburban villa. He paused when he had passed the gateway, +for he heard in the distance the voice of one singing,--singing low, +singing plaintively. He knew it was the voice of Isaura-he passed on, +leaving the house behind him, and tracking the voice till he reached the +singer. + +Isaura was seated within an arbour towards the farther end of the +garden,--an arbour which, a little later in the year, must indeed be +delicate and dainty with lush exuberance of jessamine and woodbine; now +into its iron trelliswork leaflets and flowers were insinuating their +gentle way. Just at the entrance one white rose--a winter rose that had +mysteriously survived its relations--opened its pale hues frankly to the +noonday sun. Graham approached slowly, noiselessly, and the last note of +the song had ceased when he stood at the entrance of the arbour. Isaura +did not perceive him at first, for her face was bent downward musingly, +as was often her wont after singing, especially when alone; but she felt +that the place was darkened, that something stood between her and the +sunshine. She raised her face, and a quick flush mantled over it as +she uttered his name, not loudly, not as in surprise, but inwardly and +whisperingly, as in a sort of fear. + +“Pardon me, Mademoiselle,” said Graham, entering; “but I heard your +voice as I came into the garden, and it drew me onward involuntarily. +What a lovely air! and what simple sweetness in such of the words as +reached me! I am so ignorant of music that you must not laugh at me if +I ask whose is the music and whose are the words? Probably both are so +well known as to convict me of a barbarous ignorance.” + +“Oh, no,” said Isaura, with a still heightened colour, and in accents +embarrassed and hesitating. “Both the words and music are by an unknown +and very humble composer, yet not, indeed, quite original,--they have +not even that merit; at least they were suggested by a popular song in +the Neapolitan dialect which is said to be very old.” + +“I don’t know if I caught the true meaning of the words, for they seemed +to me to convey a more subtle and refined sentiment than is common in +the popular songs of southern Italy.” + +“The sentiment in the original is changed in the paraphrase, and not, I +fear, improved by the change.” + +“Will you explain to me the sentiment in both, and let me judge which I +prefer?” + +“In the Neapolitan song a young fisherman, who has moored his boat under +a rock on the shore, sees a beautiful face below the surface of the +waters; he imagines it to be that of a Nereid, and casts in his net +to catch this supposed nymph of the ocean. He only disturbs the water, +loses the image, and brings up a few common fishes. He returns home +disappointed, and very much enamoured of the supposed Nereid. The next +day he goes again to the same place, and discovers that the face which +had so charmed him was that of a mortal girl reflected on the waters +from the rock behind him, on which she had been seated, and on which she +had her home. The original air is arch and lively; just listen to it.” + And Isaura warbled one of those artless and somewhat meagre tunes to +which light-stringed instruments are the fitting accompaniment. + +“That,” said Graham, “is a different music indeed from the other, which +is deep and plaintive, and goes to the heart.” + +“But do you not see how the words have been altered? In the song you +first heard me singing, the fisherman goes again to the spot, again and +again sees the face in the water, again and again seeks to capture the +Nereid, and never knows to the last that the face was that of the mortal +on the rock close behind him, and which he passed by without notice +every day. Deluded by an ideal image, the real one escapes from his +eye.” + +“Is the verse that is recast meant to symbolize a moral in love?” + +“In love? nay, I know not; but in life, yes,--at least the life of the +artist.” + +“The paraphrase of the original is yours, Signorina, words and music +both. Am I not right? Your silence answers ‘Yes.’ Will you pardon me +if I say that, though there can be no doubt of the new beauty you have +given to the old song, I think that the moral of the old was the sounder +one, the truer to human life. We do not go on to the last duped by an +allusion. If enamoured by the shadow on the waters, still we do look +around us and discover the image it reflects.” + +Isaura shook her head gently, but made no answer. On the table before +her there were a few myrtle-sprigs and one or two buds from the last +winter rose, which she had been arranging into a simple nosegay; +she took up these, and abstractedly began to pluck and scatter the +rose-leaves. + +“Despise the coming May flowers if you will, they will soon be so +plentiful,” said Graham; “but do not cast away the few blossoms which +winter has so kindly spared, and which even summer will not give again;” + and placing his hand on the winter buds, it touched hers,--lightly, +indeed, but she felt the touch, shrank from it, coloured, and rose from +her seat. + +“The sun has left this side of the garden, the east wind is rising, and +you must find it chilly here,” she said, in an altered tone; “will you +not come into the house?” + +“It is not the air that I feel chilly,” said Graham, with a half-smile; +“I almost fear that my prosaic admonitions have displeased you.” + +“They were not prosaic; and they were kind and very wise,” she added, +with her exquisite laugh,--laugh so wonderfully sweet and musical. She +now had gained the entrance of the arbour; Graham joined her, and they +walked towards the house. He asked her if she had seen much of the +Savarins since they had met. + +“Once or twice we have been there of an evening.” + +“And encountered, no doubt, the illustrious young minstrel who despises +Tasso and Corneille?” + +“M. Rameau? Oh, yes; he is constantly at the Savarins. Do not be severe +on him. He is unhappy, he is struggling, he is soured. An artist has +thorns in his path which lookers-on do not heed.” + +“All people have thorns in their path, and I have no great respect for +those who want lookers-on to heed them whenever they are scratched. +But M. Rameau seems to me one of those writers very common nowadays, in +France and even in England; writers who have never read anything worth +studying, and are, of course, presumptuous in proportion to their +ignorance. I should not have thought an artist like yourself could have +recognized an artist in a M. Rameau who despises Tasso without knowing +Italian.” + +Graham spoke bitterly; he was once more jealous. + +“Are you not an artist yourself? Are you not a writer? M. Savarin told +me you were a distinguished man of letters.” + +“M. Savarin flatters me too much. I am not an artist, and I have a great +dislike to that word as it is now hackneyed and vulgarized in England +and in France. A cook calls himself an artist; a tailor does the same; a +man writes a gaudy melodrame, a spasmodic song, a sensational novel, +and straightway he calls Himself an artist, and indulges in a pedantic +jargon about ‘essence’ and ‘form,’ assuring us that a poet we can +understand wants essence, and a poet we can scan wants form. Thank +heaven, I am not vain enough to call myself artist. I have written some +very dry lucubrations in periodicals, chiefly political, or critical +upon other subjects than art. But why, a propos of M. Rameau, did you +ask me that question respecting myself?” + +“Because much in your conversation,” answered Isaura, in rather a +mournful tone, “made me suppose you had more sympathies with art and its +cultivators than you cared to avow; and if you had such sympathies, +you would comprehend what a relief it is to a poor aspirant to art like +myself to come into communication with those who devote themselves to +any art distinct from the common pursuits of the world, what a relief +it is to escape from the ordinary talk of society. There is a sort of +instinctive freemasonry among us, including masters and disciples; and +one art has a fellowship with other arts. Mine is but song and music, +yet I feel attracted towards a sculptor, a painter, a romance-writer, a +poet, as much as towards a singer, a musician. Do you understand why +I cannot contemn M. Rameau as you do? I differ from his tastes in +literature; I do not much admire such of his writings as I have read; +I grant that he overestimates his own genius, whatever that be,--yet I +like to converse with him. He is a struggler upwards, though with weak +wings, or with erring footsteps, like myself.” + +“Mademoiselle,” said Graham, earnestly, “I cannot say how I thank you +for this candour. Do not condemn me for abusing it, if--” he paused. + +“If what?” + +“If I, so much older than yourself,--I do not say only in years, but +in the experience of life, I whose lot is cast among those busy and +‘positive’ pursuits, which necessarily quicken that unromantic faculty +called common-sense,--if, I say, the deep interest with which you must +inspire all whom you admit into an acquaintance even as unfamiliar as +that now between us makes me utter one caution, such as might be uttered +by a friend or brother. Beware of those artistic sympathies which you so +touchingly confess; beware how, in the great events of life, you allow +fancy to misguide your reason. In choosing friends on whom to rely, +separate the artist from the human being. Judge of the human being for +what it is in itself. Do not worship the face on the waters, blind to +the image on the rock. In one word, never see in an artist like a M. +Rameau the human being to whom you could intrust the destinies of your +life. Pardon me, pardon me; we may meet little hereafter, but you are +a creature so utterly new to me, so wholly unlike any woman I have ever +before encountered and admired, and to me seem endowed with such wealth +of mind and soul, exposed to such hazard, that--that--” again he paused, +and his voice trembled as he concluded--“that it would be a deep sorrow +to me if, perhaps years hence, I should have to say, ‘Alas’! by what +mistake has that wealth been wasted!’” + +While they had thus conversed, mechanically they had turned away from +the house, and were again standing before the arbour. + +Graham, absorbed in the passion of his adjuration, had not till now +looked into the face of the companion by his side. Now, when he had +concluded, and heard no reply, he bent down and saw that Isaura was +weeping silently. + +His heart smote him. + +“Forgive me,” he exclaimed, drawing her hand into his; “I have had no +right to talk thus; but it was not from want of respect; it was--it +was--” + +The hand which was yielded to his pressed it gently, timidly, chastely. + +“Forgive!” murmured Isaura; “do you think that I, an orphan, have never +longed for a friend who would speak to me thus?” And so saying, she +lifted her eyes, streaming still, to his bended countenance,--eyes, +despite their tears, so clear in their innocent limpid beauty, so +ingenuous, so frank, so virgin-like, so unlike the eyes of ‘any other +woman he had encountered and admired.’ + +“Alas!” he said, in quick and hurried accents, “you may remember, when +we have before conversed, how I, though so uncultured in your art, still +recognized its beautiful influence upon human breasts; how I sought to +combat your own depreciation of its rank among the elevating agencies +of humanity; how, too, I said that no man could venture to ask you to +renounce the boards, the lamps,--resign the fame of actress, of singer. +Well, now that you accord to me the title of friend, now that you so +touchingly remind me that you are an orphan, thinking of all the perils +the young and the beautiful of your sex must encounter when they abandon +private life for public, I think that a true friend might put the +question, ‘Can you resign the fame of actress, of singer?’” + +“I will answer you frankly. The profession which once seemed to me so +alluring began to lose its charms in my eyes some months ago. It was +your words, very eloquently expressed, on the ennobling effects of music +and song upon a popular audience, that counteracted the growing distaste +to rendering up my whole life to the vocation of the stage; but now I +think I should feel grateful to the friend whose advice interpreted the +voice of my own heart, and bade me relinquish the career of actress.” + +Graham’s face grew radiant. But whatever might have been his reply was +arrested; voices and footsteps were heard behind. He turned round and +saw the Venosta, the Savarins, and Gustave Rameau. + +Isaura heard and saw also, started in a sort of alarmed confusion, and +then instinctively retreated towards the arbour. Graham hurried on to +meet the Signora and the visitors, giving time to Isaura to compose +herself by arresting them in the pathway with conventional salutations. + +A few minutes later Isaura joined them, and there was talk to which +Graham scarcely listened, though he shared in it by abstracted +monosyllables. He declined going into the house, and took leave at the +gate. In parting, his eyes fixed themselves on Isaura. Gustave Rameau +was by her side. That nosegay which had been left in the arbour was in +her hand; and though she was bending over it, she did not now pluck and +scatter the rose-leaves. Graham at that moment felt no jealousy of the +fair-faced young poet beside her. + +As he walked slowly back, he muttered to himself, “But am I yet in the +position to hold myself wholly free? Am I, am I? Were the sole choice +before me that between her and ambition and wealth, how soon it would be +made! Ambition has no prize equal to the heart of such a woman; wealth +no sources of joy equal to the treasures of her love.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL. + +The day after I posted my last, Mr. Vane called on us. I was in +our little garden at the time. Our conversation was brief, and soon +interrupted by visitors,--the Savarins and M. Rameau. I long for your +answer. I wonder how he impressed you, if you have met him; how he would +impress, if you met him now. To me he is so different from all others; +and I scarcely know why his words ring in my ears, and his image rests +in my thoughts. It is strange altogether; for though he is young, +he speaks to me as if he were so much older than I,--so kindly, so +tenderly, yet as if I were a child, and much as the dear Maestro might +do, if he thought I needed caution or counsel. Do not fancy, Eulalie, +that there is any danger of my deceiving myself as to the nature of such +interest as he may take in me. Oh, no! There is a gulf between us there +which he does not lose sight of, and which we could not pass. How, +indeed, I could interest him at all, I cannot guess. A rich, high-born +Englishman, intent on political life; practical, prosaic--no, not +prosaic; but still with the kind of sense which does not admit into its +range of vision that world of dreams which is familiar as their daily +home to Romance and to Art. It has always seemed to me that for love, +love such as I conceive it, there must be a deep and constant sympathy +between two persons,--not, indeed, in the usual and ordinary trifles +of taste and sentiment, but in those essentials which form the root of +character, and branch out in all the leaves and blooms that expand to +the sunshine and shrink from the cold,--that the worldling should wed +the worldling, the artist the artist. Can the realist and the idealist +blend together, and hold together till death and beyond death? If not, +can there be true love between them? + +By true love, I mean the love which interpenetrates the soul, and once +given can never die. Oh, Eulalie, answer me, answer! + +P. S.--I have now fully made up my mind to renounce all thought of the +stage. + + +FROM MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL TOISAURA CICOGNA. + +MY DEAR CHILD,--how your mind has grown since you left me, the sanguine +and aspiring votary of an art which, of all arts, brings the most +immediate reward to a successful cultivator, and is in itself so divine +in its immediate effects upon human souls! Who shall say what may be the +after-results of those effects which the waiters on posterity presume to +despise because they are immediate? A dull man, to whose mind a ray of +that vague starlight undetected in the atmosphere of workday life has +never yet travelled; to whom the philosopher, the preacher, the poet +appeal in vain,--nay, to whom the conceptions of the grandest master of +instrumental music are incomprehensible; to whom Beethoven unlocks no +portal in heaven; to whom Rossini has no mysteries on earth unsolved +by the critics of the pit,--suddenly hears the human voice of the human +singer, and at the sound of that voice the walls which enclosed him +fall. The something far from and beyond the routine of his commonplace +existence becomes known to him. He of himself, poor man, can make +nothing of it. He cannot put it down on paper, and say the next morning, +“I am an inch nearer to heaven than I was last night;” but the feeling +that he is an inch nearer to heaven abides with him. Unconsciously he +is gentler, he is less earthly, and, in being nearer to heaven, he is +stronger for earth. You singers do not seem to me to understand that you +have--to use your own word, so much in vogue that it has become abused +and trite--a mission! When you talk of missions, from whom comes the +mission? Not from men. If there be a mission from man to men, it must be +appointed from on high. + +Think of all this; and in being faithful to your art, be true to +yourself. If you feel divided between that art and the art of the +writer, and acknowledge the first to be too exacting to admit a rival, +keep to that in which you are sure to excel. Alas, my fair child! do not +imagine that we writers feel a happiness in our pursuits and aims more +complete than that which you can command. If we care for fame (and, to +be frank, we all do), that fame does not come up before us face to +face, a real, visible, palpable form, as it does to the singer, to the +actress. I grant that it may be more enduring, but an endurance on +the length of which we dare not reckon. A writer cannot be sure of +immortality till his language itself be dead; and then he has but a +share in an uncertain lottery. Nothing but fragments remains of the +Phrynichus who rivalled AEschylus; of the Agathon who perhaps excelled +Euripides; of the Alcaeus, in whom Horace acknowledged a master and a +model; their renown is not in their works, it is but in their names. +And, after all, the names of singers and actors last perhaps as long. +Greece retains the name of Polus, Rome of Roscius, England of Garrick, +France of Talma, Italy of Pasta, more lastingly than posterity is likely +to retain mine. You address to me a question, which I have often put +to myself,--“What is the distinction between the writer and the reader, +when the reader says, ‘These are my thoughts, these are my feelings; +the writer has stolen them, and clothed them in his own words’?” And +the more the reader says this, the more wide is the audience, the more +genuine the renown, and, paradox though it seems, the more consummate +the originality, of the writer. But no, it is not the mere gift of +expression, it is not the mere craft of the pen, it is not the mere +taste in arrangement of word and cadence, which thus enables the one +to interpret the mind, the heart, the soul of the many. It is a power +breathed into him as he lay in his cradle, and a power that gathered +around itself, as he grew up, all the influences he acquired, whether +from observation of external nature, or from study of men and books, or +from that experience of daily life which varies with every human being. +No education could make two intellects exactly alike, as no culture +can make two leaves exactly alike. How truly you describe the sense of +dissatisfaction which every writer of superior genius communicates +to his admirers! how truly do you feel that the greater is the +dissatisfaction in proportion to the writer’s genius, and the admirer’s +conception of it! But that is the mystery which makes--let me borrow a +German phrase--the cloud-land between the finite and the infinite. +The greatest philosopher, intent on the secrets of Nature, feels that +dissatisfaction in Nature herself. The finite cannot reduce into logic +and criticism the infinite. + +Let us dismiss these matters, which perplex the reason, and approach +that which touches the heart, which in your case, my child, touches +the heart of woman. You speak of love, and deem that the love which +lasts--the household, the conjugal love--should be based upon such +sympathies of pursuit that the artist should wed the artist. + +This is one of the questions you do well to address to me; for +whether from my own experience, or from that which I have gained from +observation extended over a wide range of life, and quickened and +intensified by the class of writing that I cultivate, and which +necessitates a calm study of the passions, I am an authority on such +subjects, better than most women can be. And alas, my child, I come to +this result: there is no prescribing to men or to women whom to select, +whom to refuse. I cannot refute the axiom of the ancient poet, “In love +there is no wherefore.” But there is a time--it is often but a moment +of time--in which love is not yet a master, in which we can say, “I will +love, I will not love.” + +Now, if I could find you in such a moment, I would say to you, “Artist, +do not love, do not marry, an artist.” Two artistic natures rarely +combine. The artistic nature is wonderfully exacting. I fear it is +supremely egotistical,--so jealously sensitive that it writhes at the +touch of a rival. Racine was the happiest of husbands; his wife adored +his genius, but could not understand his plays. Would Racine have been +happy if he had married a Corneille in petticoats? I who speak have +loved an artist, certainly equal to myself. I am sure that he loved +me. That sympathy in pursuits of which you speak drew us together, and +became very soon the cause of antipathy. To both of us the endeavour to +coalesce was misery. + +I don’t know your M. Rameau. Savarin has sent me some of his writings; +from these I judge that his only chance of happiness would be to marry a +commonplace woman, with separation de biens. He is, believe me, but +one of the many with whom New Paris abounds, who because they have the +infirmities of genius imagine they have its strength. + +I come next to the Englishman. I see how serious is your questioning +about him. You not only regard him as a being distinct from the crowd of +a salon; he stands equally apart in the chamber of your thoughts,--you +do not mention him in the same letter as that which treats of Rameau and +Savarin. He has become already an image not to be lightly mixed up with +others. You would rather not have mentioned him at all to me, but you +could not resist it. The interest you feel in him so perplexed you, that +in a kind of feverish impatience you cry out to me, “Can you solve +the riddle? Did you ever know well Englishmen? Can an Englishman +be understood out of his island?” etc. Yes, I have known well many +Englishmen; in affairs of the heart they are much like all other men. +No; I do not know this Englishman in particular, nor any one of his +name. + +Well, my child, let us frankly grant that this foreigner has gained some +hold on your thoughts, on your fancy, perhaps also on your heart. Do +not fear that he will love you less enduringly, or that you will become +alienated from him, because he is not an artist. If he be a strong +nature, and with some great purpose in life, your ambition will fuse +itself in his; and knowing you as I do, I believe you would make an +excellent wife to an Englishman whom you honoured as well as loved; +and sorry though I should be that you relinquished the singer’s fame, I +should be consoled in thinking you safe in the woman’s best sphere,--a +contented home, safe from calumny, safe from gossip. I never had that +home; and there has been no part in my author’s life in which I would +not have given all the celebrity it won for the obscure commonplace of +such woman-lot. Could I move human beings as pawns on a chessboard, I +should indeed say that the most suitable and congenial mate for you, for +a woman of sentiment and genius, would be a well-born and well-educated +German; for such a German unites, with domestic habits and a strong +sense of family ties, a romance of sentiment, a love of art, a +predisposition towards the poetic side of life, which is very rare among +Englishmen of the same class. But as the German is not forthcoming, I +give my vote for the Englishman, provided only you love him. Ah, child, +be sure of that. Do not mistake fancy for love. All women do not require +love in marriage, but without it that which is best and highest in you +would wither and die. Write to me often and tell me all. M. Savarin is +right. My book is no longer my companion. It is gone from me, and I am +once more alone in the world. + +Yours affectionately. + +P. S.--Is not your postscript a woman’s? Does it not require a woman’s +postscript in reply? You say in yours that you have fully made up your +mind to renounce all thoughts of the stage. I ask in mine, “What has the +Englishman to do with that determination?” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Some weeks have passed since Graham’s talk with Isaura in the garden; +he has not visited the villa since. His cousins the D’Altons have passed +through Paris on their way to Italy, meaning to stay a few days; they +stayed nearly a month, and monopolized much of Graham’s companionship. +Both these were reasons why, in the habitual society of the Duke, +Graham’s persuasion that he was not yet free to court the hand of +Isaura became strengthened, and with that persuasion necessarily came a +question equally addressed to his conscience. “If not yet free to court +her hand, am I free to expose myself to the temptation of seeking to win +her affection?” But when his cousin was gone, his heart began to assert +its own rights, to argue its own case, and suggest modes of reconciling +its dictates to the obligations which seemed to oppose them. In this +hesitating state of mind he received the following note:-- + + VILLA ------, LAC D’ENGHIEN. + +MY DEAR MR. VANE,--We have retreated from Paris to the banks of this +beautiful little lake. Come and help to save Frank and myself from +quarrelling with each other, which, until the Rights of Women are firmly +established, married folks always will do when left to themselves, +especially if they are still lovers, as Frank and I are. Love is a +terribly quarrelsome thing. Make us a present of a few days out of your +wealth of time. We will visit Montmorency and the haunts of Rousseau, +sail on the lake at moonlight, dine at gypsy restaurants under trees +not yet embrowned by summer heats, discuss literature and politics, +“Shakspeare and the musical glasses,”--and be as sociable and pleasant +as Boccaccio’s tale-tellers, at Fiesole. We shall be but a small party, +only the Savarins, that unconscious sage and humourist Signora Venosta, +and that dimple-cheeked Isaura, who embodies the song of nightingales +and the smile of summer. Refuse, and Frank shall not have an easy moment +till he sends in his claims for thirty millions against the Alabama. + + Yours, as you behave, + LIZZIE MORLEY. + +Graham did not refuse. He went to Enghien for four days and a quarter. +He was under the same roof as Isaura. Oh, those happy days! so happy +that they defy description. But though to Graham the happiest days he +had ever known, they were happier still to Isaura. There were drawbacks +to his happiness, none to hers,--drawbacks partly from reasons the +weight of which the reader will estimate later; partly from reasons the +reader may at once comprehend and assess. In the sunshine of her joy, +all the vivid colourings of Isaura’s artistic temperament came forth, so +that what I may call the homely, domestic woman-side of her nature faded +into shadow. If, my dear reader, whether you be man or woman, you have +come into familiar contact with some creature of a genius to which, even +assuming that you yourself have a genius in its own way, you have no +special affinities, have you not felt shy with that creature? Have +you not, perhaps, felt how intensely you could love that creature, +and doubted if that creature could possibly love you? Now I think that +shyness and that disbelief are common with either man or woman, if, +however conscious of superiority in the prose of life, he or she +recognizes inferiority in the poetry of it. And yet this self-abasement +is exceedingly mistaken. The poetical kind of genius is so grandly +indulgent, so inherently deferential, bows with such unaffected modesty +to the superiority in which it fears it may fail (yet seldom does +fail),--the superiority of common-sense. And when we come to women, what +marvellous truth is conveyed by the woman who has had no superior in +intellectual gifts among her own sex! Corinne, crowned at the Capitol, +selects out of the whole world as the hero of her love no rival poet and +enthusiast, but a cold-blooded, sensible Englishman. + +Graham Vane, in his strong masculine form of intellect--Graham Vane, +from whom I hope much, if he live to fulfil his rightful career--had, +not unreasonably, the desire to dominate the life of the woman whom he +selected as the partner of his own; but the life of Isaura seemed to +escape him. If at moments, listening to her, he would say to himself, +“What a companion! life could never be dull with her,” at other moments +he would say, “True, never dull, but would it be always safe?” And then +comes in that mysterious power of love which crushes all beneath its +feet, and makes us end self-commune by that abject submission of reason, +which only murmurs, “Better be unhappy with the one you love than +happy with one whom you do not.” All such self-communes were unknown to +Isaura. She lived in the bliss of the hour. If Graham could have read +her heart, he would have dismissed all doubt whether he could dominate +her life. Could a Fate or an Angel have said to her, “Choose,--on one +side I promise you the glories of a Catalani, a Pasta, a Sappho, a De +Stael, a Georges Sand, all combined into one immortal name; or, on the +other side, the whole heart of the man who would estrange himself from +you if you had such combination of glories,”--her answer would have +brought Graham Vane to her feet. All scruples, all doubts, would have +vanished; he would have exclaimed, with the generosity inherent in the +higher order of man, “Be glorious, if your nature wills it so. Glory +enough to me that you would have resigned glory itself to become mine.” + But how is it that men worth a woman’s loving become so diffident +when they love intensely? Even in ordinary cases of love there is so +ineffable a delicacy in virgin woman, that a man, be he how refined +soever, feels himself rough and rude and coarse in comparison; and while +that sort of delicacy was pre-eminent in this Italian orphan, there +came, to increase the humility of the man so proud and so confident in +himself when he had only men to deal with, the consciousness that his +intellectual nature was hard and positive beside the angel-like purity +and the fairy-like play of hers. + +There was a strong wish on the part of Mrs. Morley to bring about the +union of these two. She had a great regard and a great admiration for +both. To her mind, unconscious of all Graham’s doubts and prejudices, +they were exactly suited to each other. A man of intellect so cultivated +as Graham’s, if married to a commonplace English “Miss,” would surely +feel as if life had no sunshine and no flowers. The love of an +Isaura would steep it in sunshine, pave it with flowers. Mrs. Morley +admitted--all American Republicans of gentle birth do admit--the +instincts which lead “like” to match with “like,” an equality of blood +and race. With all her assertion of the Rights of Woman, I do not think +that Mrs. Morley would ever have conceived the possibility of consenting +that the richest and prettiest and cleverest girl in the States could +become the wife of a son of hers if the girl had the taint of negro +blood, even though shown nowhere save the slight distinguishing hue of +her finger-nails. So had Isaura’s merits been threefold what they were +and she had been the wealthy heiress of a retail grocer, this fair +Republican would have opposed (more strongly than many an English +duchess, or at least a Scotch duke, would do, the wish of a son), the +thought of an alliance between Graham Vane and the grocer’s daughter! +But Isaura was a Cicogna, an offspring of a very ancient and very noble +house. Disparities of fortune, or mere worldly position, Mrs. Morley +supremely despised. Here were the great parities of alliance,--parities +in years and good looks and mental culture. So, in short, she in the +invitation given to them had planned for the union between Isaura and +Graham. To this plan she had an antagonist, whom she did not even guess, +in Madame Savarin. That lady, as much attached to Isaura as was Mrs. +Morley herself, and still more desirous of seeing a girl, brilliant and +parentless, transferred from the companionship of Signora Venosta to the +protection of a husband, entertained no belief in the serious attentions +of Graham Vane. Perhaps she exaggerated his worldly advantages, perhaps +she undervalued the warmth of his affections; but it was not within the +range of her experience, confined much to Parisian life, nor in harmony +with her notions of the frigidity and morgue of the English national +character, that a rich and high-born young man, to whom a great career +in practical public life was predicted, should form a matrimonial +alliance with a foreign orphan girl, who, if of gentle birth, had no +useful connections, would bring no correspondent dot, and had been +reared and intended for the profession of the stage. She much more +feared that the result of any attentions on the part of such a man would +be rather calculated to compromise the orphan’s name, or at least to +mislead her expectations, than to secure her the shelter of a wedded +home. Moreover, she had cherished plans of her own for Isaura’s future. +Madame Savarin had conceived for Gustave Rameau a friendly regard, +stronger than that which Mrs. Morley entertained for Graham Vane, for +it was more motherly. Gustave had been familiarized to her sight and her +thoughts since he had first been launched into the literary world under +her husband’s auspices; he had confided to her his mortification in +his failures, his joy in his successes. His beautiful countenance, his +delicate health, his very infirmities and defects, had endeared him +to her womanly heart. Isaura was the wife of all others who, in Madame +Savarin’s opinion, was made for Rameau. Her fortune, so trivial beside +the wealth of the Englishman, would be a competence to Rameau; then +that competence might swell into vast riches if Isaura succeeded on the +stage. She found with extreme displeasure that Isaura’s mind had become +estranged from the profession to which she had been destined, and +divined that a deference to the Englishman’s prejudices had something to +do with that estrangement. It was not to be expected that a Frenchwoman, +wife to a sprightly man of letters, who had intimate friends and allies +in every department of the artistic world, should cherish any prejudice +whatever against the exercise of an art in which success achieved riches +and renown; but she was prejudiced, as most Frenchwomen are, against +allowing to unmarried girls the same freedom and independence of action +that are the rights of women--French women--when married; and she would +have disapproved the entrance of Isaura on her professional career until +she could enter it as a wife, the wife of an artist, the wife of Gustave +Rameau. + +Unaware of the rivalry between these friendly diplomatists and schemers, +Graham and Isaura glided hourly more and more down the current, which as +yet ran smooth. No words by which love is spoken were exchanged between +them; in fact, though constantly together, they were very rarely, +and then but for moments, alone with each other. Mrs. Morley artfully +schemed more than once to give them such opportunities for that mutual +explanation of heart which, she saw, had not yet taken place; with art +more practised and more watchful, Madame Savarin contrived to baffle her +hostess’s intention. But, indeed, neither Graham nor Isaura sought to +make opportunities for themselves. He, as we know, did not deem himself +wholly justified in uttering the words of love by which a man of honour +binds himself for life; and she!--what girl pure-hearted and loving +truly does not shrink from seeking the opportunities which it is for +the man to court? Yet Isaura needed no words to tell her that she was +loved,--no, nor even a pressure of the hand, a glance of the eye; she +felt it instinctively, mysteriously, by the glow of her own being in +the presence of her lover. She knew that she herself could not so love +unless she were beloved. + +Here woman’s wit is keener and truthfuller than man’s. Graham, as I have +said, did not feel confident that he had reached the heart of Isaura. +He was conscious that he had engaged her interest, that he had +attracted her fancy; but often, when charmed by the joyous play of her +imagination, he would sigh to himself, “To natures so gifted what single +mortal can be the all in all.” + +They spent the summer mornings in excursions round the beautiful +neighbourhood, dined early, and sailed on the calm lake at moonlight. +Their talk was such as might be expected from lovers of books in summer +holidays. Savarin was a critic by profession; Graham Vane, if not that, +at least owed such literary reputation as he had yet gained to essays in +which the rare critical faculty was conspicuously developed. + +It was pleasant to hear the clash of these two minds encountering each +other; they differed perhaps less in opinions than in the mode by which +opinions are discussed. The Englishman’s range of reading was wider than +the Frenchman’s, and his scholarship more accurate; but the Frenchman +had a compact neatness of expression, a light and nimble grace, +whether in the advancing or the retreat of his argument, which covered +deficiencies, and often made them appear like merits. Graham was +compelled, indeed, to relinquish many of the forces of superior +knowledge or graver eloquence, which with less lively antagonists he +could have brought into the field, for the witty sarcasm of Savarin +would have turned them aside as pedantry or declamation. But though +Graham was neither dry nor diffuse, and the happiness at his +heart brought out the gayety of humour which had been his early +characteristic, and yet rendered his familiar intercourse genial +and playful, still there was this distinction between his humour and +Savarin’s wit,--that in the first there was always something earnest, in +the last always something mocking. And in criticism Graham seemed ever +anxious to bring out a latent beauty, even in writers comparatively +neglected; Savarin was acutest when dragging forth a blemish never +before discovered in writers universally read. + +Graham did not perhaps notice the profound attention with which +Isaura listened to him in these intellectual skirmishes with the more +glittering Parisian. There was this distinction she made between him +and Savarin,--when the last spoke she often chimed in with some happy +sentiment of her own; but she never interrupted Graham, never intimated +a dissent from his theories of art, or the deductions he drew from them; +and she would remain silent and thoughtful for some minutes when his +voice ceased. There was passing from his mind into hers an ambition +which she imagined, poor girl, that he would be pleased to think he had +inspired, and which might become a new bond of sympathy between them. +But as yet the ambition was vague and timid,--an idea or a dream to be +fulfilled in some indefinite future. + +The last night of this short-lived holiday-time, the party, after +staying out on the lake to a later hour than usual, stood lingering +still on the lawn of the villa; and their host, who was rather addicted +to superficial studies of the positive sciences, including, of course, +the most popular of all, astronomy, kept his guests politely listening +to speculative conjectures on the probable size of the inhabitants of +Sirius, that very distant and very gigantic inhabitant of heaven who +has led philosophers into mortifying reflections upon the utter +insignificance of our own poor little planet, capable of producing +nothing greater than Shakspeares and Newtons, Aristotles and +Caesars,--mannikins, no doubt, beside intellects proportioned to the +size of the world in which they flourish. + +As it chanced, Isaura and Graham were then standing close to each other +and a little apart from the rest. “It is very strange,” said Graham, +laughing low, “how little I care about Sirius. He is the sun of +some other system, and is perhaps not habitable at all, except by +Salamanders. He cannot be one of the stars with which I have established +familiar acquaintance, associated with fancies and dreams and hopes, +as most of us do, for instance, with Hesperus, the moon’s harbinger and +comrade. But amid all those stars there is one--not Hesperus--which has +always had from my childhood a mysterious fascination for me. Knowing as +little of astrology as I do of astronomy, when I gaze upon that star I +become credulously superstitious, and fancy it has an influence on my +life. Have you, too, any favourite star?” + +“Yes,” said Isaura; “and I distinguish it now, but I do not even know +its name, and never would ask it.” + +“So like me. I would not vulgarize my unknown source of beautiful +illusions by giving it the name it takes in technical catalogues. +For fear of learning that name I never have pointed it out to any +one before. I too at this moment distinguish it apart from all its +brotherhood. Tell me which is yours.” + +Isaura pointed and explained. The Englishman was startled. By what +strange coincidence could they both have singled out from all the host +of heaven the same favourite star? “Cher Vane,” cried Savarin, “Colonel +Morley declares that what America is to the terrestrial system Sirius is +to the heavenly. America is to extinguish Europe, and then Sirius is to +extinguish the world.” + +“Not for some millions of years; time to look about us,” said the +Colonel, gravely. “But I certainly differ from those who maintain that +Sirius recedes from us. I say that he approaches. The principles of a +body so enlightened must be those of progress.” Then addressing Graham +in English, he added, “there will be a mulling in this fogified planet +some day, I predicate. Sirius is a keener!” + +“I have not imagination lively enough to interest myself in the +destinies of Sirius in connection with our planet at a date so remote,” + said Graham, smiling. Then he added in a whisper to Isaura, “My +imagination does not carry me further than to wonder whether this day +twelvemonth--the 8th of July-we two shall both be singling out that same +star, and gazing on it as now, side by side.” + +This was the sole utterance of that sentiment in which the romance of +love is so rich that the Englishman addressed to Isaura during those +memorable summer days at Enghien. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +The next morning the party broke up. Letters had been delivered both to +Savarin and to Graham, which, even had the day for departure not been +fixed, would have summoned them away. On reading his letter, Savarin’s +brow became clouded. He made a sign to his wife after breakfast, and +wandered away with her down an alley in the little garden. His trouble +was of that nature which a wife either soothes or aggravates, according +sometimes to her habitual frame of mind, sometimes to the mood of +temper in which she may chance to be,--a household trouble, a pecuniary +trouble. + +Savarin was by no means an extravagant man. His mode of living, though +elegant and hospitable, was modest compared to that of many French +authors inferior to himself in the fame which at Paris brings a very +good return in francs; but his station itself as the head of a powerful +literary clique necessitated many expenses which were too congenial to +his extreme good-nature to be regulated by strict prudence. His hand was +always open to distressed writers and struggling artists, and his sole +income was derived from his pen and a journal in which he was chief +editor and formerly sole proprietor. But that journal had of late +not prospered. He had sold or pledged a considerable share in the +proprietorship. He had been compelled also to borrow a sum large for +him, and the debt obtained from a retired bourgeois who lent out his +moneys “by way,” he said, “of maintaining an excitement and interest +in life,” would in a few days become due. The letter was not from that +creditor; but it was from his publisher, containing a very disagreeable +statement of accounts, pressing for settlement, and declining an offer +of Savarin for a new book (not yet begun) except upon terms that the +author valued himself too highly to accept. Altogether, the situation +was unpleasant. There were many times in which Madame Savarin presumed +to scold her distinguished husband for his want of prudence and thrift. +But those were never the times when scolding could be of no use. +It could clearly be of no use now. Now was the moment to cheer and +encourage him; to reassure him as to his own undiminished powers and +popularity, for he talked dejectedly of himself as obsolete and passing +out of fashion; to convince him also of the impossibility that the +ungrateful publisher whom Savarin’s more brilliant successes had +enriched could encounter the odium of hostile proceedings; and to +remind him of all the authors, all the artists, whom he in their earlier +difficulties had so liberally assisted, and from whom a sum sufficing to +pay the bourgeois creditor when the day arrived could now be honourably +asked and would be readily contributed. In this last suggestion the +homely prudent good-sense of Madame Savarin failed her. She did not +comprehend that delicate pride of honour which, with all his Parisian +frivolities and cynicism, dignified the Parisian man of genius. Savarin +could not, to save his neck from a rope, have sent round the begging-hat +to friends whom he had obliged. Madame Savarin was one of those women +with large-lobed ears, who can be wonderfully affectionate, wonderfully +sensible, admirable wives and mothers, and yet are deficient in artistic +sympathies with artistic natures. Still, a really good honest wife is +such an incalculable blessing to her lord, that, at the end of the talk +in the solitary alley, this man of exquisite finesse, of the undefinably +high-bred temperament, and, alas! the painful morbid susceptibility, +which belongs to the genuine artistic character, emerged into the open +sunlit lawn with his crest uplifted, his lip curved upward in its joyous +mockery, and perfectly persuaded that somehow or other he should put +down the offensive publisher, and pay off the unoffending creditor when +the day for payment came. Still he had judgment enough to know that to +do this he must get back to Paris, and could not dawdle away precious +hours in discussing the principles of poetry with Graham Vane. + +There was only one thing, apart from “the begging-hat,” in which Savarin +dissented from his wife.--She suggested his starting a new journal in +conjunction with Gustave Rameau, upon whose genius and the expectations +to be formed from it (here she was tacitly thinking of Isaura wedded to +Rameau, and more than a Malibran on the stage) she insisted vehemently. +Savarin did not thus estimate Gustave Rameau, thought him a clever, +promising young writer in a very bad school of writing, who might do +well some day or other. But that a Rameau could help a Savarin to make +a fortune! No; at that idea he opened his eyes, patted his wife’s +shoulder, and called her “enfant.” + +Graham’s letter was from M. Renard, and ran thus:-- + + MONSIEUR,--I had the honour to call at your apartment this morning, + and I write this line to the address given to me by your concierge + to say that I have been fortunate enough to ascertain that the + relation of the missing lady is now at Paris. I shall hold myself + in readiness to attend your summons. Deign to accept, Monsieur, the + assurance of my profound consideration. + J. RENARD. + +This communication sufficed to put Graham into very high spirits. +Anything that promised success to his research seemed to deliver his +thoughts from a burden and his will from a fetter. Perhaps in a few days +he might frankly and honourably say to Isaura words which would justify +his retaining longer, and pressing more ardently, the delicate hand +which trembled in his as they took leave. + +On arriving at Paris, Graham despatched a note to M. Renard requesting +to see him, and received a brief line in reply that M. Renard feared he +should be detained on other and important business till the evening, +but hoped to call at eight o’clock. A few minutes before that hour he +entered Graham’s apartment. + +“You have discovered the uncle of Louise Duval!” exclaimed Graham; “of +course you mean M. de Mauleon, and he is at Paris?” + +“True so far, Monsieur; but do not be too sanguine as to the results of +the information I can give you. Permit me, as briefly as possible, to +state the circumstances. When you acquainted me with the fact that M. de +Mauleon was the uncle of Louise Duval, I told you that I was not without +hopes of finding him out, though so long absent from Paris. I will +now explain why. Some months ago, one of my colleagues engaged in the +political department (which I am not) was sent to Lyons, in consequence +of some suspicions conceived by the loyal authorities there of a plot +against the emperor’s life. The suspicions were groundless, the plot a +mare’s nest. But my colleague’s attention was especially drawn towards +a man not mixed up with the circumstances from which a plot had been +inferred, but deemed in some way or other a dangerous enemy to the +Government. Ostensibly, he exercised a modest and small calling as a +sort of courtier or agent de change; but it was noticed that certain +persons familiarly frequenting his apartment, or to whose houses he used +to go at night, were disaffected to the Government,--not by any means +of the lowest rank,--some of them rich malcontents who had been devoted +Orleanists; others, disappointed aspirants to office or the ‘cross;’ +one or two well-born and opulent fanatics dreaming of another Republic. +Certain very able articles in the journals of the excitable Midi, +though bearing another signature, were composed or dictated by this +man,--articles evading the censure and penalties of the law, but very +mischievous in their tone. All who had come into familiar communication +with this person were impressed with a sense of his powers; and also +with a vague belief that he belonged to a higher class in breeding and +education than that of a petty agent de change. My colleague set himself +to watch the man, and took occasions of business at his little office to +enter into talk with him. Not by personal appearance, but by voice, he +came to a conclusion that the man was not wholly a stranger to him,--a +peculiar voice with a slight Norman breadth of pronunciation, though a +Parisian accent; a voice very low, yet very distinct; very masculine, +yet very gentle. My colleague was puzzled till late one evening +he observed the man coming out of the house of one of these rich +malcontents, the rich malcontent himself accompanying him. My colleague, +availing himself of the dimness of light, as the two passed into a lane +which led to the agent’s apartment, contrived to keep close behind and +listen to their conversation; but of this he heard nothing,--only, +when at the end of the lane, the rich man turned abruptly, shook his +companion warmly by the hand, and parted from him, saying, ‘Never fear; +all shall go right with you, my dear Victor.’ At the sound of that +name ‘Victor,’ my colleague’s memories, before so confused, became +instantaneously clear. Previous to entering our service, he had been in +the horse business, a votary of the turf; as such he had often seen the +brilliant ‘sportman,’ Victor de Mauleon; sometimes talked to him. Yes, +that was the voice,--the slight Norman intonation (Victor de Mauleon’s +father had it strongly, and Victor had passed some of his early +childhood in Normandy), the subdued modulation of speech which had +made so polite the offence to men, or so winning the courtship to +women,--that was Victor de Mauleon. But why there in that disguise? What +was his real business and object? My confrere had no time allowed to him +to prosecute such inquiries. Whether Victor or the rich malcontent had +observed him at their heels, and feared he might have overheard their +words, I know not; but the next day appeared in one of the popular +journals circulating among the ouvriers a paragraph stating that a +Paris spy had been seen at Lyons, warning all honest men against his +machinations, and containing a tolerably accurate description of his +person. And that very day, on venturing forth, my estimable colleague +suddenly found himself hustled by a ferocious throng, from whose hands +he was with great difficulty rescued by the municipal guard. He left +Lyons that night; and for recompense of his services received a sharp +reprimand from his chief. He had committed the worst offence in our +profession, trop de zele. Having only heard the outlines of this story +from another, I repaired to my confrere after my last interview with +Monsieur, and learned what I now tell you from his own lips. As he was +not in my branch of the service, I could not order him to return to +Lyons; and I doubt whether his chief would have allowed it. But I went +to Lyons myself, and there ascertained that our supposed Vicomte had +left that town for Paris some months ago, not long after the adventure +of my colleague. The man bore a very good character generally,--was +said to be very honest and inoffensive; and the notice taken of him by +persons of higher rank was attributed generally to a respect for his +talents, and not on account of any sympathy in political opinions. I +found that the confrere mentioned, and who alone could identify M. de +Mauleon in the disguise which the Vicomte had assumed, was absent on one +of those missions abroad in which he is chiefly employed. I had to wait +for his return, and it was only the day before yesterday that I obtained +the following particulars. M. de Mauleon bears the same name as he +did at Lyons,--that name is Jean Lebeau; he exercises the ostensible +profession of a ‘letter-writer,’ and a sort of adviser on business among +the workmen and petty bourgeoisie, and he nightly frequents the cafe +Jean Jacques, Rue Faubourg Montmartre. It is not yet quite half-past +eight, and, no doubt, you could see him at the cafe this very night, if +you thought proper to go.” + +“Excellent! I will go! Describe him!” + +“Alas! that is exactly what I cannot do at present; for after hearing +what I now tell you, I put the same request you do to my colleague, +when, before he could answer me, he was summoned to the bureau of his +chief, promising to return and give me the requisite description. He did +not return; and I find that he was compelled, on quitting his chief, +to seize the first train starting for Lille upon an important political +investigation which brooked no delay. He will be back in a few days, and +then Monsieur shall have the description.” + +“Nay; I think I will seize time by the forelock, and try my chance +tonight. If the man be really a conspirator, and it looks likely enough, +who knows but what he may see quick reason to take alarm and vanish from +Paris at any hour?--Cafe Jean Jacques, Rue ------; I will go. Stay; you +have seen Victor de Mauleon in his youth: what was he like then?” + +“Tall, slender, but broad-shouldered, very erect, carrying his head +high, a profusion of dark curls, a small black mustache, fair clear +complexion, light-coloured eyes with dark lashes, fort bel homme. But he +will not look like that now.” + +“His present age?” + +“Forty-seven or forty-eight. But before you go, I must beg you to +consider well what you are about. It is evident that M. de Mauleon has +some strong reason, whatever it be, for merging his identity in that of +Jean Lebeau. I presume, therefore, that you could scarcely go up to +M. Lebeau, when you have discovered him, and say, ‘Pray, Monsieur le +Vicomte, can you give me some tidings of your niece, Louise Duval?’ If +you thus accosted him, you might possibly bring some danger on yourself, +but you would certainly gain no information from him.” + +“True.” + +“On the other hand, if you make his acquaintance as M. Lebeau, how can +you assume him to know anything about Louise Duval?” + +“Parbleu! Monsieur Renard, you try to toss me aside on both horns of the +dilemma; but it seems to me that, if I once make his acquaintance as M. +Lebeau, I might gradually and cautiously feel my way as to the best mode +of putting the question to which I seek reply. I suppose, too, that the +man must be in very poor circumstances to adopt so humble a calling, and +that a small sum of money may smooth all difficulties.” + +“I am not so sure of that,” said M. Renard, thoughtfully; “but grant +that money may do so, and grant also that the Vicomte, being a needy +man, has become a very unscrupulous one,--is there anything in your +motives for discovering Louise Duval which might occasion you trouble +and annoyance, if it were divined by a needy and unscrupulous man; +anything which might give him a power of threat or exaction? Mind, I am +not asking you to tell me any secret you have reasons for concealing, +but I suggest that it might be prudent if you did not let M. Lebeau know +your real name and rank; if, in short, you could follow his example, and +adopt a disguise. But no; when I think of it, you would doubtless be so +unpractised in the art of disguise that he would detect you at once +to be other than you seem; and if suspecting you of spying into his +secrets, and if those secrets be really of a political nature, your very +life might not be safe.” + +“Thank you for your hint; the disguise is an excellent idea, and +combines amusement with precaution. That this Victor de Mauleon must +be a very unprincipled and dangerous man is, I think, abundantly clear. +Granting that he was innocent of all design of robbery in the affair +of the jewels, still, the offence which he did own--that of admitting +himself at night by a false key into the rooms of a wife, whom he sought +to surprise or terrify into dishonour--was a villanous action; and his +present course of life is sufficiently mysterious to warrant the +most unfavourable supposition. Besides, there is another motive for +concealing my name from him: you say that he once had a duel with a +Vane, who was very probably my father, and I have no wish to expose +myself to the chance of his turning up in London some day, and seeking +to renew there the acquaintance that I had courted at Paris. As for my +skill in playing any part I may assume, do not fear; I am no novice in +that. In my younger days I was thought clever in private theatricals, +especially in the transformations of appearance which belong to light +comedy and farce. Wait a few minutes, and you shall see.” + +Graham then retreated into his bedroom, and in a few minutes reappeared +so changed, that Renard at first glance took him for a stranger. He had +doffed his dress--which habitually, when in Capitals, was characterized +by the quiet, indefinable elegance that to a man of the great world, +high-bred and young, seems “to the manner born”--for one of those coarse +suits which Englishmen are wont to wear in their travels, and by which +they are represented in French or German caricatures,--loose jacket of +tweed with redundant pockets, waistcoat to match, short dust-coloured +trousers. He had combed his hair straight over his forehead, which, as I +have said somewhere before, appeared in itself to alter the character +of his countenance, and, without any resort to paints or cosmetics, +had somehow or other given to the expression of his face an impudent, +low-bred expression, with a glass screwed on to his right eye,--such a +look as a cockney journeyman, wishing to pass for a “swell” about town, +may cast on a servant-maid in the pit of a suburban theatre. + +“Will it do, old fellow?” he exclaimed, in a rollicking, swaggering tone +of voice, speaking French with a villanous British accent. + +“Perfectly,” said Renard, laughing. “I offer my compliments, and if ever +you are ruined, Monsieur, I will promise you a place in our police. Only +one caution,--take care not to overdo your part.” + +“Right. A quarter to nine; I’m off.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +There is generally a brisk exhilaration of spirits in the return to any +special amusement or light accomplishment associated with the pleasant +memories of earlier youth; and remarkably so, I believe, when the +amusement or accomplishment has been that of the amateur stage-player. +Certainly I have known persons of very grave pursuits, of very dignified +character and position, who seem to regain the vivacity of boyhood when +disguising look and voice for a part in some drawing-room comedy or +charade. I might name statesmen of solemn repute rejoicing to raise and +to join in a laugh at their expense in such travesty of their habitual +selves. + +The reader must not therefore be surprised, nor, I trust, deem it +inconsistent with the more serious attributes of Graham’s character, if +the Englishman felt the sort of joyful excitement I describe, as, in his +way to the cafe Jean Jacques, he meditated the role he had undertaken; +and the joyousness was heightened beyond the mere holiday sense of +humouristic pleasantry by the sanguine hope that much to effect his +lasting happiness might result from the success of the object for which +his disguise was assumed. + +It was just twenty minutes past nine when he arrived at the cafe Jean +Jacques. He dismissed the fiacre and entered. + +The apartment devoted to customers comprised two large rooms. The first +was the cafe properly speaking; the second, opening on it, was the +billiard-room. Conjecturing that he should probably find the person +of whom he was in quest employed at the billiard-table, Graham passed +thither at once. A tall man, who might be seven-and-forty, with a long +black beard, slightly grizzled, was at play with a young man of perhaps +twenty-eight, who gave him odds,--as better players of twenty-eight +ought to give odds to a player, though originally of equal force, whose +eye is not so quick, whose hand is not so steady, as they were twenty +years ago. Said Graham to himself, “The bearded man is my Vicomte.” He +called for a cup of coffee, and seated himself on a bench at the end of +the room. + +The bearded man was far behind in the game. It was his turn to play; the +balls were placed in the most awkward position for him. Graham himself +was a fair billiard-player, both in the English and the French game. +He said to himself, “No man who can make a cannon there should accept +odds.” The bearded man made a cannon; the bearded man continued to make +cannons; the bearded man did not stop till he had won the game. The +gallery of spectators was enthusiastic. Taking care to speak in very +bad, very English-French, Graham expressed to one of the enthusiasts +seated beside him his admiration of the bearded man’s playing, and +ventured to ask if the bearded man were a professional or an amateur +player. + +“Monsieur,” replied the enthusiast, taking a short cutty-pipe from his +mouth, “it is an amateur, who has been a great player in his day, and is +so proud that he always takes less odds than he ought of a younger man. +It is not once in a month that he comes out as he has done to-night; but +to-night he has steadied his hand. He has had six petits verres.” + +“Ah, indeed! Do you know his name?” + +“I should think so: he buried my father, my two aunts, and my wife.” + +“Buried?” said Graham, more and more British in his accent; “I don’t +understand.” + +“Monsieur, you are English.” + +“I confess it.” + +“And a stranger to the Faubourg Montmartre.” + +“True.” + +“Or you would have heard of M. Giraud, the liveliest member of the State +Company for conducting funerals. They are going to play La Poule.” + +Much disconcerted, Graham retreated into the cafe, and seated himself +haphazard at one of the small tables. Glancing round the room, he saw no +one in whom he could conjecture the once brilliant Vicomte. + +The company appeared to him sufficiently decent, and especially what may +be called local. There were some blouses drinking wine, no doubt of the +cheapest and thinnest; some in rough, coarse dresses, drinking beer. +These were evidently English, Belgian, or German artisans. At one table, +four young men, who looked like small journeymen, were playing cards. +At three other tables, men older, better dressed, probably shop-keepers, +were playing dominos. Graham scrutinized these last, but among them +all could detect no one corresponding to his ideal of the Vicomte de +Mauleon. “Probably,” thought he, “I am too late, or perhaps he will not +be here this evening. At all events, I will wait a quarter of an hour.” + Then, the garcon approaching his table, he deemed it necessary to call +for something, and, still in strong English accent, asked for lemonade +and an evening journal. The garcon nodded and went his way. A monsieur +at the round table next his own politely handed to him the “Galignani,” + saying in very good English, though unmistakably the good English of a +Frenchman, “The English journal, at your service.” + +Graham bowed his head, accepted the “Galignani,” and inspected his +courteous neighbour. A more respectable-looking man no Englishman could +see in an English country town. He wore an unpretending flaxen wig, with +limp whiskers that met at the chin, and might originally have been +the same colour as the wig, but were now of a pale gray,--no beard, +no mustache. He was dressed with the scrupulous cleanliness of a sober +citizen,--a high white neckcloth, with a large old-fashioned pin, +containing a little knot of hair covered with glass or crystal, +and bordered with a black framework, in which were inscribed +letters,--evidently a mourning pin, hallowed to the memory of lost +spouse or child,--a man who, in England, might be the mayor of a +cathedral town, at least the town-clerk. He seemed suffering from some +infirmity of vision, for he wore green spectacles. The expression of +his face was very mild and gentle; apparently he was about sixty years +old,--somewhat more. + +Graham took kindly to his neighbour, insomuch that, in return for the +“Galignani,” he offered him a cigar, lighting one himself. + +His neighbour refused politely. + +“Merci! I never smoke, never; mon medecin forbids it. If I could be +tempted, it would be by, an English cigar. Ah, how you English beat us +in all things,--your ships, your iron, your tabac,--which you do not +grow!” + +This speech rendered literally as we now render it may give the idea of +a somewhat vulgar speaker. But there was something in the man’s manner, +in his smile, in his courtesy, which did not strike Graham as vulgar; +on the contrary, he thought within himself, “How instinctive to all +Frenchmen good breeding is!” + +Before, however, Graham had time to explain to his amiable neighbour +the politico-economical principle according to which England, growing no +tobacco, had tobacco much better than France, which did grow it, a rosy +middle-aged monsieur made his appearance, saying hurriedly to Graham’s +neighbour, “I’m afraid I’m late, but there is still a good half-hour +before us if you will give me my revenge.” + +“Willingly, Monsieur Georges. Garcon, the dominos.” + +“Have you been playing at billiards?” asked M. Georges. + +“Yes, two games.” + +“With success?” + +“I won the first, and lost the second through the defect of my +eyesight; the game depended on a stroke which would have been easy to an +infant,--I missed it.” + +Here the dominos arrived, and M. Georges began shuffling them; the other +turned to Graham and asked politely if he understood the game. + +“A little, but not enough to comprehend why it is said to require so +much skill.” + +“It is chiefly an affair of memory with me; but M. Georges, my opponent, +has the talent of combination, which I have not.” + +“Nevertheless,” replied M. Georges, gruffly, “you are not easily beaten; +it is for you to play first, Monsieur Lebeau.” Graham almost started. +Was it possible! This mild, limp-whiskered, flaxen-wigged man Victor de +Mauleon, the Don Juan of his time; the last person in the room he should +have guessed. Yet, now examining his neighbour with more attentive +eye, he wondered at his stupidity in not having recognized at once the +ci-devant gentilhomme and beau garcon. It happens frequently that our +imagination plays us this trick; we form to ourselves an idea of some +one eminent for good or for evil,--a poet, a statesman, a general, a +murderer, a swindler, a thief. The man is before us, and our ideas have +gone into so different a groove that he does not excite a suspicion; we +are told who he is, and immediately detect a thousand things that ought +to have proved his identity. + +Looking thus again with rectified vision at the false Lebeau, Graham +observed an elegance and delicacy of feature which might, in youth, have +made the countenance very handsome, and rendered it still good-looking, +nay, prepossessing. He now noticed, too, the slight Norman accent, +its native harshness of breadth subdued into the modulated tones which +bespoke the habits of polished society. Above all, as M. Lebeau moved +his dominos with one hand, not shielding his pieces with the other (as +M. Georges warily did), but allowing it to rest carelessly on the table, +he detected the hands of the French aristocrat,--hands that had never +done work; never (like those of the English noble of equal birth) been +embrowned or freckled, or roughened or enlarged by early practice in +athletic sports; but hands seldom seen save in the higher circles of +Parisian life,--partly perhaps of hereditary formation, partly owing +their texture to great care begun in early youth, and continued +mechanically in after life,--with long taper fingers and polished nails; +white and delicate as those of a woman, but not slight, not feeble; +nervous and sinewy as those of a practised swordsman. + +Graham watched the play, and Lebeau good-naturedly explained to him +its complications as it proceeded; though the explanation, diligently +attended to by M. Georges, lost Lebeau the game. + +The dominos were again shuffled, and during that operation M. Georges +said, “By the way, Monsieur Lebeau, you promised to find me a locataire +for my second floor; have you succeeded?” + +“Not yet. Perhaps you had better advertise in ‘Les Petites Affiches.’ +You ask too much for the habitues of this neighbourhood,--one hundred +francs a month.” + +“But the lodging is furnished, and well too, and has four rooms. One +hundred francs are not much.” + +A thought flashed upon Graham. “Pardon, Monsieur,” he said, “have you an +appartement de garcon to let furnished?” + +“Yes, Monsieur, a charming one. Are you in search of an apartment?” + +“I have some idea of taking one, but only by the month. I am but just +arrived at Paris, and I have business which may keep me here a few +weeks. I do but require a bedroom and a small cabinet, and the rent must +be modest. I am not a milord.” + +“I am sure we could arrange, Monsieur,” said M. Georges, “though I +could not well divide my logement. But one hundred francs a month is not +much!” + +“I fear it is more than I can afford; however, if you will give me your +address, I will call and see the rooms,--say the day after to-morrow. +Between this and then, I expect letters which may more clearly decide my +movements.” + +“If the apartments suit you,” said M. Lebeau, “you will at least be in +the house of a very honest man, which is more than can be said of every +one who lets furnished apartments. The house, too, has a concierge, with +a handy wife who will arrange your rooms and provide you with coffee--or +tea, which you English prefer--if you breakfast at home.” Here M. +Georges handed a card to Graham, and asked what hour he would call. + +“About twelve, if that hour is convenient,” said Graham, rising. “I +presume there is a restaurant in the neighbourhood where I could dine +reasonably.” + +“Je crois bien, half-a-dozen. I can recommend to you one where you can +dine en prince for thirty sous. And if you are at Paris on business, +and want any letters written in private, I can also recommend to you my +friend here, M. Lebeau. Ay, and on affairs his advice is as good as a +lawyer’s, and his fee a bagatelle.” + +“Don’t believe all that Monsieur Georges so flatteringly says of me,” + put in M. Lebeau, with a modest half-smile, and in English. “I should +tell you that I, like yourself, am recently arrived at Paris, having +bought the business and goodwill of my predecessor in the apartment I +occupy; and it is only to the respect due to his antecedents, and on the +score of a few letters of recommendation which I bring from Lyons, +that I can attribute the confidence shown to me, a stranger in this +neighbourhood. Still I have some knowledge of the world, and I am always +glad if I can be of service to the English. I love the English”--he said +this with a sort of melancholy earnestness which seemed sincere; and +then added in a more careless tone,--“I have met with much kindness from +them in the course of a chequered life.” + +“You seem a very good fellow,--in fact, a regular trump, Monsieur +Lebeau,” replied Graham, in the same language. “Give me your address. To +say truth, I am a very poor French scholar, as you must have seen, and +am awfully bother-headed how to manage some correspondence on matters +with which I am entrusted by my employer, so that it is a lucky chance +which has brought me acquainted with you.” + +M. Lebeau inclined his head gracefully, and drew from a very neat +morocco case a card, which Graham took and pocketed. Then he paid for +his coffee and lemonade, and returned home well satisfied with the +evening’s adventure. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +The next morning Graham sent for M. Renard, and consulted with that +experienced functionary as to the details of the plan of action which he +had revolved during the hours of a sleepless night. + +“In conformity with your advice,” said he, “not to expose myself to the +chance of future annoyance, by confiding to a man so dangerous as the +false Lebeau my name and address, I propose to take the lodging offered +to me, as Mr. Lamb, an attorney’s clerk, commissioned to get in +certain debts, and transact other matters of business, on behalf of +his employer’s clients. I suppose there will be no difficulty with the +police in this change of name, now that passports for the English are +not necessary?” + +“Certainly not. You will have no trouble in that respect.” + +“I shall thus be enabled very naturally to improve acquaintance with the +professional letter-writer, and find an easy opportunity to introduce +the name of Louise Duval. My chief difficulty, I fear, not being a +practical actor, will be to keep up consistently the queer sort of +language I have adopted, both in French and in English. I have too sharp +a critic in a man so consummate himself in stage trick and disguise +as M. Lebeau not to feel the necessity of getting through my role as +quickly as I can. Meanwhile, can you recommend me to some magasin +where I can obtain a suitable change of costume? I can’t always wear a +travelling suit, and I must buy linen of coarser texture than mine, and +with the initials of my new name inscribed on it.” + +“Quite right to study such details; I will introduce you to a magasin +near the Temple, where you will find all you want.” + +“Next, have you any friends or relations in the provinces unknown to +M. Lebeau, to whom I might be supposed to write about debts or business +matters, and from whom I might have replies?” + +“I will think over it, and manage that for you very easily. Your letters +shall find their way to me, and I will dictate the answers.” + +After some further conversation on that business, M. Renard made an +appointment to meet Graham at a cafe near the Temple later in the +afternoon, and took his departure. + +Graham then informed his laquais de place that, though he kept on his +lodgings, he was going into the country for a few days, and should not +want the man’s services till he returned. He therefore dismissed and +paid him off at once, so that the laquais might not observe, when he +quitted his rooms the next day, that he took with him no change of +clothes, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Graham Vane has been for some days in the apartment rented of M. +Georges. He takes it in the name of Mr. Lamb,--a name wisely chosen, +less common than Thompson and Smith, less likely to be supposed an +assumed name, yet common enough not to be able easily to trace it to any +special family. He appears, as he had proposed, in the character of an +agent employed by a solicitor in London to execute sundry commissions +and to collect certain outstanding debts. There is no need to mention +the name of the solicitor; if there were, he could give the name of his +own solicitor, to whose discretion he could trust implicitly. He dresses +and acts up to his assumed character with the skill of a man who, like +the illustrious Charles Fox, has, though in private representations, +practised the stage-play in which Demosthenes said the triple art of +oratory consisted; who has seen a great deal of the world, and has that +adaptability of intellect which knowledge of the world lends to one who +is so thoroughly in earnest as to his end that he agrees to be sportive +as to his means. + +The kind of language he employs when speaking English to Lebeau is that +suited to the role of a dapper young underling of vulgar mind habituated +to vulgar companionships. I feel it due, if not to Graham himself, at +least to the memory of the dignified orator whose name he inherits, so +to modify and soften the hardy style of that peculiar diction in which +he disguises his birth and disgraces his culture, that it is only here +and there that I can venture to indicate the general tone of it; but in +order to supply my deficiencies therein, the reader has only to call +to mind the forms of phraseology which polite novelists in vogue, +especially young-lady novelists, ascribe to well-born gentlemen, and +more emphatically to those in the higher ranks of the Peerage. No doubt +Graham, in his capacity of critic, had been compelled to read, in +order to review, those contributions to refined literature, and had +familiarized himself to a vein of conversation abounding with “swell” + and “stunner” and “awfully jolly,” in its libel on manners and outrage +on taste. + +He has attended nightly the cafe Jean Jacques; he has improved +acquaintance with M. Georges and M. Lebeau; he has played at billiards, +he has played at dominos, with the latter. He has been much surprised +at the unimpeachable honesty which M. Lebeau has exhibited in both these +games. In billiards, indeed, a man cannot cheat except by disguising +his strength; it is much the same in dominos,--it is skill combined +with luck, as in whist; but in whist there are modes of cheating which +dominos do not allow,--you can’t mark a domino as you can a card. It was +perfectly clear to Graham that M. Lebeau did not gain a livelihood by +billiards or dominos at the cafe Jean Jacques. In the former he was not +only a fair but a generous player. He played exceedingly well, despite +his spectacles; but he gave, with something of a Frenchman’s lofty +fanfaronnade, larger odds to his adversary than his play justified. In +dominos, where such odds could not well be given, he insisted on playing +such small stakes as two or three francs might cover. In short, M. +Lebeau puzzled Graham. All about M. Lebeau, his manner, his talk, was +irreproachable, and baffled suspicion; except in this,--Graham gradually +discovered that the cafe had a quasi-political character. Listening to +talkers round him, he overheard much that might well have shocked the +notions of a moderate Liberal; much that held in disdain the objects +to which, in 1869, an English Radical directed his aspirations. Vote by +ballot, universal suffrage, etc.,--such objects the French had already +attained. By the talkers at the cafe Jean Jacques they were deemed to be +the tricky contrivances of tyranny. In fact, the talk was more scornful +of what Englishmen understand by radicalism or democracy than Graham +ever heard from the lips of an ultra-Tory. It assumed a strain +of philosophy far above the vulgar squabbles of ordinary party +politicians,--a philosophy which took for its fundamental principles +the destruction of religion and of private property. These two objects +seemed dependent the one on the other. The philosophers of the Jean +Jacques held with that expounder of Internationalism, Eugene Dupont, +“Nous ne voulons plus de religion, car les religions etouffent +l’intelligence.” + + [Discours par Eugene Dupont a la Cloture du Congres de Bruxelles, + Sept. 3, 1868] + +Now and then, indeed, a dissentient voice was raised as to the existence +of a Supreme Being, but, with one exception, it soon sank into silence. +No voice was raised in defence of private property. These sages appeared +for the most part to belong to the class of ouvriers or artisans. Some +of them were foreigners,--Belgian, German, English; all seemed well off +for their calling. Indeed they must have had comparatively high wages, +to judge by their dress and the money they spent on regaling themselves. +The language of several was well chosen, at times eloquent. Some brought +with them women who seemed respectable, and who often joined in the +conversation, especially when it turned upon the law of marriage as a +main obstacle to all personal liberty and social improvement. If this +was a subject on which the women did not all agree, still they discussed +it, without prejudice and with admirable sang froid. Yet many of them +looked like wives and mothers. Now and then a young journeyman brought +with him a young lady of more doubtful aspect, but such a couple kept +aloof from the others. Now and then, too, a man evidently of higher +station than that of ouvrier, and who was received by the philosophers +with courtesy and respect, joined one of the tables and ordered a bowl +of punch for general participation. In such occasional visitors, Graham, +still listening, detected a writer of the press; now and then, a small +artist or actor or medical student. Among the habitues there was one +man, an ouvrier, in whom Graham could not help feeling an interest. +He was called Monnier, sometimes more familiarly Armand, his baptismal +appellation. This man had a bold and honest expression of countenance. +He talked like one who, if he had not read much, had thought much on the +subjects he loved to discuss. He argued against the capital of employers +quite as ably as Mr. Mill has argued against the rights of property +in land. He was still more eloquent against the laws of marriage and +Heritage. But his was the one voice not to be silenced in favour of +a Supreme Being. He had at least the courage of his opinions, and was +always thoroughly in earnest. M. Lebeau seemed to know this man, and +honoured him with a nod and a smile, when passing by him to the table +he generally occupied. This familiarity with a man of that class, and of +opinions so extreme, excited Graham’s curiosity. One evening he said to +Lebeau, “A queer fellow that you have just nodded to. + +“How so?” + +“Well, he has queer notions.” + +“Notions shared, I believe, by many of your countrymen?” + +“I should think not many. Those poor simpletons yonder may have caught +‘em from their French fellow-workmen, but I don’t think that even the +gobemouches in our National Reform Society open their mouths to swallow +such wasps.” + +“Yet I believe the association to which most of those ouvriers belong +had its origin in England.” + +“Indeed! what association?” + +“The International.” + +“Ah, I have heard of that.” + +Lebeau turned his green spectacles full on Graham’s face as he said +slowly, “And what do you think of it?” + +Graham prudently checked the disparaging reply that first occurred to +him, and said, “I know so little about it that I would rather ask you.” + +“I think it might become formidable if it found able leaders who knew +how to use it. Pardon me, how came you to know of this cafe? Were you +recommended to it?” + +“No; I happened to be in this neighbourhood on business, and walked in, +as I might into any other cafe.” + +“You don’t interest yourself in the great social questions which are +agitated below the surface of this best of all possible worlds?” + +“I can’t say that I trouble my head much about them.” + +“A game at dominos before M. Georges arrives?” + +“Willingly. Is M. Georges one of those agitators below the surface?” + +“No, indeed. It is for you to play.” + +Here M. Georges arrived, and no further conversation on political or +social questions ensued. + +Graham had already called more than once at M. Lebeau’s office, +and asked him to put into good French various letters on matters of +business, the subjects of which had been furnished by M. Renard. The +office was rather imposing and stately, considering the modest nature of +M. Lebeau’s ostensible profession. It occupied the entire ground-floor +of a corner house, with a front-door at one angle and a back-door at the +other. The anteroom to his cabinet, and in which Graham had generally to +wait some minutes before he was introduced, was generally well filled, +and not only by persons who, by their dress and outward appearance, +might be fairly supposed sufficiently illiterate to require his aid +as polite letter-writers,--not only by servant-maids and grisettes, +by sailors, zouaves, and journeymen workmen,--but not unfrequently by +clients evidently belonging to a higher, or at least a richer, class +of society,--men with clothes made by a fashionable tailor; men, again, +who, less fashionably attired; looked like opulent tradesmen and fathers +of well-to-do families,--the first generally young, the last generally +middle-aged. All these denizens of a higher world were introduced by +a saturnine clerk into M. Lebeau’s reception-room, very quickly and in +precedence of the ouvriers and grisettes. + +“What can this mean?” thought Graham; “is it really that this +humble business avowed is the cloak to some political conspiracy +concealed,--the International Association?” And so pondering, the clerk +one day singled him from the crowd and admitted him into M. Lebeau’s +cabinet. Graham thought the time had now arrived when he might safely +approach the subject that had brought him to the Faubourg Montmartre. + +“You are very good,” said Graham, speaking in the English of a young +earl in our elegant novels,--“you are very good to let me in while you +have so many swells and nobs waiting for you in the other room. But, I +say, old fellow, you have not the cheek to tell me that they want you to +correct their cocker or spoon for them by proxy?” + +“Pardon me,” answered M. Lebeau in French, “if I prefer my own language +in replying to you. I speak the English I learned many years ago, and +your language in the beau monde, to which you evidently belong, is +strange to me. You are quite right, however, in your surmise that I have +other clients than those who, like yourself, think I could correct their +verbs or their spelling. I have seen a great deal of the world,--I know +something of it, and something of the law; so that many persons come +to me for advice and for legal information on terms more moderate than +those of an avoue. But my ante-chamber is full, I am pressed for time; +excuse me if I ask you to say at once in what I can be agreeable to you +to-day.” + +“Ah!” said Graham, assuming a very earnest look, “you do know the world, +that is clear; and you do know the law of France, eh?” + +“Yes, a little.” + +“What I wanted to say at present may have something to do with French +law, and I meant to ask you either to recommend to me a sharp lawyer, or +to tell me how I can best get at your famous police here.” + +“Police?” + +“I think I may require the service of one of those officers whom we in +England call detectives; but if you are busy now, I can call to-morrow.” + +“I spare you two minutes. Say at once, dear Monsieur, what you want with +law or police.” + +“I am instructed to find out the address of a certain Louise Duval, +daughter of a drawing-master named Adolphe Duval, living in the Rue +----in the year 1848.” + +Graham, while he thus said, naturally looked Lebeau in the face,--not +pryingly, not significantly, but as a man generally does look in the +face the other man whom he accosts seriously. The change in the face he +regarded was slight, but it was unmistakable. It was the sudden meeting +of the eyebrows, accompanied with the sudden jerk of the shoulder and +bend of the neck, which betoken a man taken by surprise, and who pauses +to reflect before he replies. His pause was but momentary, + +“For what object is this address required?” + +“That I don’t know; but evidently for some advantage to Madame or +Mademoiselle Duval, if still alive, because my employer authorizes me to +spend no less than L100 in ascertaining where she is, if alive, or where +she was buried, if dead; and if other means fail, I am instructed to +advertise to the effect that if Louise Duval, or, in case of her death, +any children of hers living in the year 1849, will communicate with some +person whom I may appoint at Paris, such intelligence, authenticated, +may prove to the advantage of the party advertised for. I am, however, +told not to resort to this means without consulting either with a legal +adviser or the police.” + +“Hem! have you inquired at the house where this lady was, you say, +living in 1848?” + +“Of course I have done that; but very clumsily, I dare say, through +a friend, and learned nothing. But I must not keep you now. I think I +shall apply at once to the police. What should I say when I get to the +bureau?” + +“Stop, Monsieur, stop. I do not advise you to apply to the police. It +would be waste of time and money. Allow me to think over the matter. I +shall see you this evening at the cafe Jean Jacques at eight o’clock. +Till then do nothing.” + +“All right; I obey you. The whole thing is out of my way of business +awfully. Bonjour.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Punctually at eight o’clock Graham Vane had taken his seat at a corner +table at the remote end of the cafe Jean Jacques, called for his cup of +coffee and his evening journal, and awaited the arrival of M. Lebeau. +His patience was not tasked long. In a few minutes the Frenchman +entered, paused at the comptoir, as was his habit, to address a polite +salutation to the well-dressed lady who there presided, nodded as usual +to Armand Monnier, then glanced round, recognized Graham with a smile, +and approached his table with the quiet grace of movement by which he +was distinguished. + +Seating himself opposite to Graham, and speaking in a voice too low to +be heard by others, and in French, he then said, + +“In thinking over your communication this morning, it strikes me as +probable, perhaps as certain, that this Louise Duval or her children, +if she have any, must be entitled to some moneys bequeathed to her by a +relation or friend in England. What say you to that assumption, Monsieur +Lamb?” + +“You are a sharp fellow,” answered Graham. “Just what I say to myself. +Why else should I be instructed to go to such expense in finding her +out? Most likely, if one can’t trace her, or her children born before +the date named, any such moneys will go to some one else; and that some +one else, whoever he be, has commissioned my employer to find out. But +I don’t imagine any sum due to her or her heirs can be much, or that the +matter is very important; for, if so, the thing would not be carelessly +left in the hands of one of the small fry like myself, and clapped in +along with a lot of other business as an off-hand job.” + +“Will you tell me who employed you?” + +“No, I don’t feel authorized to do that at present; and I don’t see +the necessity of it. It seems to me, on consideration, a matter for the +police to ferret out; only, as I asked before, how should I get at the +police?” + +“That is not difficult. It is just possible that I might help you better +than any lawyer or any detective.” + +“Why, did you ever know this Louise Duval?” + +“Excuse me, Monsieur Lamb; you refuse me your full confidence; allow me +to imitate your reserve.” + +“Oho!” said Graham; “shut up as close as you like; it is nothing to me. +Only observe, there is this difference between us, that I am employed by +another. He does not authorize me to name him, and if I did commit +that indiscretion, I might lose my bread and cheese. Whereas you have +nobody’s secret to guard but your own, in saying whether or not you ever +knew a Madame or Mademoiselle Duval; and if you have some reason for +not getting me the information I am instructed to obtain, that is also +a reason for not troubling you further. And after all, old boy” (with +a familiar slap on Lebeau’s stately shoulder), “after all, it is I who +would employ you; you don’t employ me. And if you find out the lady, it +is you who would get the L100., not I.” + +M. Lebeau mechanically brushed, with a light movement of hand, the +shoulder which the Englishman had so pleasantly touched, drew himself +and chair some inches back, and said slowly,-- + +“Monsieur Lamb, let us talk as gentleman to gentleman. Put aside the +question of money altogether; I must first know why your employer wants +to hunt out this poor Louise Duval. It may be to her injury, and I would +do her none if you offered thousands where you offer pounds. I forestall +the condition of mutual confidence; I own that I have known her,--it +is many years ago; and, Monsieur Lamb, though a Frenchman very often +injures a woman from love, he is in a worse plight for bread and cheese +than I am if he injures her for money.” + +“Is he thinking of the duchess’s jewels?” thought Graham. “Bravo, mon +vieux,” he said aloud; “but as I don’t know what my employer’s motive in +his commission is, perhaps you can enlighten me. How could his inquiry +injure Louise Duval?” + +“I cannot say; but you English have the power to divorce your wives. +Louise Duval may have married an Englishman, separated from him, and he +wants to know where he can find, in order to criminate and divorce her, +or it may be to insist on her return to him.” + +“Bosh! that is not likely.” + +“Perhaps, then, some English friend she may have known has left her +a bequest, which would of course lapse to some one else if she be not +living.” + +“By gad!” cried Graham, “I think you hit the right nail on the head: +c’est cela. But what then?” + +“Well, if I thought any substantial benefit to Louise Duval might result +from the success of your inquiry, I would really see if it were in my +power to help you. But I must have time to consider.” + +“How long?” + +“I can’t exactly say; perhaps three or four days.” + +“Bon! I will wait. Here comes M. Georges. I leave you to dominos and +him. Good-night.” + +Late that night M. Lebeau was seated alone in a chamber connected with +the cabinet in which he received visitors. A ledger was open before him, +which he scanned with careful eyes, no longer screened by spectacles. +The survey seemed to satisfy him. He murmured, “It suffices, the time +has come,” closed the book, returned it to his bureau, which he locked +up, and then wrote in cipher the letter here reduced into English:-- + + “DEAR AND NOBLE FRIEND,--Events march; the Empire is everywhere + undermined. Our treasury has thriven in my hands; the sums + subscribed and received by me through you have become more than + quadrupled by advantageous speculations, in which M. Georges has + been a most trustworthy agent. A portion of them I have continued + to employ in the mode suggested,--namely, in bringing together men + discreetly chosen as being in their various ways representatives and + ringleaders of the motley varieties that, when united at the right + moment, form a Parisian mob. But from that right moment we are as + yet distant. Before we can call passion into action, we must + prepare opinion for change. I propose now to devote no + inconsiderable portion of our fund towards the inauguration of a + journal which shall gradually give voice to our designs. Trust me + to insure its success, and obtain the aid of writers who will have + no notion of the uses to which they ultimately contribute. Now that + the time has come to establish for ourselves an organ in the press, + addressing higher orders of intelligence than those which are needed + to destroy and incapable of reconstructing, the time has also + arrived for the reappearance in his proper name and rank of the man + in whom you take so gracious an interest. In vain you have pressed + him to do so before; till now he had not amassed together, by the + slow process of petty gains and constant savings, with such + additions as prudent speculations on his own account might + contribute, the modest means necessary to his resumed position; and + as he always contended against your generous offers, no + consideration should ever tempt him either to appropriate to his + personal use a single sou intrusted to him for a public purpose, or + to accept from friendship the pecuniary aid which would abase him + into the hireling of a cause. No! Victor de Mauleon despises too + much the tools that he employs to allow any man hereafter to say, + ‘Thou also wert a tool, and hast been paid for thy uses.’ + + “But to restore the victim of calumny to his rightful place in this + gaudy world, stripped of youth and reduced in fortune, is a task + that may well seem impossible. To-morrow he takes the first step + towards the achievement of the impossible. Experience is no bad + substitute for youth, and ambition is made stronger by the goad of + poverty. + + “Thou shalt hear of his news soon.” + + + + + +BOOK V. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +The next day at noon M. Louvier was closeted in his study with M. +Gandrin. + +“Yes,” cried Louvier, “I have behaved very handsomely to the beau +Marquis. No one can say to the contrary.” + +“True,” answered Gandrin. “Besides the easy terms for the transfer of +the mortgages, that free bonus of one thousand louis is a generous and +noble act of munificence.” + +“Is it not! and my youngster has already begun to do with it as I meant +and expected. He has taken a fine apartment; he has bought a coupe +and horses; he has placed himself in the hands of the Chevalier de +Finisterre; he is entered at the Jockey Club. Parbleu, the one thousand +louis will be soon gone.” + +“And then?” + +“And then! why, he will have tasted the sweets of Parisian life; he will +think with disgust of the vieux manoir. He can borrow no more. I must +remain sole mortgagee, and I shall behave as handsomely in buying his +estates as I have behaved in increasing his income.” + +Here a clerk entered and said that a monsieur wished to see M. Louvier +for a few minutes in private, on urgent business. + +“Tell him to send in his card.” + +“He has declined to do so, but states that he has already the honour of +your acquaintance.” + +“A writer in the press, perhaps; or is he an artist?” + +“I have not seen him before, Monsieur, but he has the air tres comme il +faut.” + +“Well, you may admit him. I will not detain you longer, my dear Gandrin. +My homages to Madame. Bonjour.” + +Louvier bowed out M. Gandrin, and then rubbed his hands complacently. +He was in high spirits. “Aha, my dear Marquis, thou art in my trap now. +Would it were thy father instead,” he muttered chucklingly, and then +took his stand on the hearth, with his back to the fireless grate. There +entered a gentleman exceedingly well dressed,--dressed according to the +fashion, but still as became one of ripe middle age, not desiring to +pass for younger than he was. + +He was tall, with a kind of lofty ease in his air and his movements; not +slight of frame, but spare enough to disguise the strength and endurance +which belong to sinews and thews of steel, freed from all superfluous +flesh, broad across the shoulders, thin in the flanks. His dark hair had +in youth been luxuriant in thickness and curl; it was now clipped short, +and had become bare at the temples, but it still retained the lustre of +its colour and the crispness of its ringlets. He wore neither beard +nor mustache, and the darkness of his hair was contrasted by a clear +fairness of complexion, healthful, though somewhat pale, and eyes of +that rare gray tint which has in it no shade of blue,--peculiar eyes, +which give a very distinct character to the face. The man must have been +singularly handsome in youth; he was handsome still, though probably in +his forty-seventh or forty-eighth year, doubtless a very different kind +of comeliness. The form of the features and the contour of the face were +those that suit the rounded beauty of the Greek outline, and such beauty +would naturally have been the attribute of the countenance in earlier +days; but the cheeks were now thin, and with lines of care and +sorrow between nostril and lip, so that the shape of the face seemed +lengthened, and the features had become more salient. + +Louvier gazed at his visitor with a vague idea that he had seen him +before, and could not remember where or when; but at all events he +recognized at the first glance a man of rank and of the great world. + +“Pray be seated, Monsieur,” he said, resuming his own easy-chair. + +The visitor obeyed the invitation with a very graceful bend of his head, +drew his chair near to the financier’s, stretched his limbs with the +ease of a man making himself at home, and fixing his calm bright eyes +quietly on Louvier, said, with a bland smile,-- + +“My dear old friend, do you not remember me? You are less altered than I +am.” + +Louvier stared hard and long; his lip fell, his cheek paled, and at last +he faltered out, “Ciel! is it possible! Victor, the Vicomte de Mauleon?” + +“At your service, my dear Louvier.” + +There was a pause; the financier was evidently confused and embarrassed, +and not less evidently the visit of the “dear old friend” was unwelcome. + +“Vicomte,” he said at last, “this is indeed a surprise; I thought you +had long since quitted Paris for good.” + +“‘L’homme propose,’ etc. I have returned, and mean to enjoy the rest of +my days in the metropolis of the Graces and the Pleasures. What though +we are not so young as we were, Louvier,--we have more vigour in us than +the new generation; and though it may no longer befit us to renew the +gay carousals of old, life has still excitements as vivid for the social +temperament and ambitious mind. Yes, the roi des viveurs returns to +Paris for a more solid throne than he filled before.” + +“Are you serious?” + +“As serious as the French gayety will permit one to be.” + +“Alas, Monsieur le Vicomte! can you flatter yourself that you will +regain the society you have quitted, and the name you have--” + +Louvier stopped short; something in the Vicomte’s eye daunted him. + +“The name I have laid aside for convenience of travel. Princes travel +incognito, and so may a simple gentilhomme. ‘Regain my place in +society,’ say you? Yes; it is not that which troubles me.” + +“What does?” + +“The consideration whether on a very modest income I can be sufficiently +esteemed for myself to render that society more pleasant than ever. Ah, +mon cher! why recoil? why so frightened? Do you think I am going to ask +you for money? Have I ever done so since we parted; and did I ever do +so before without repaying you? Bah! you roturiers are worse than the +Bourbons. You never learn or unlearn. ‘Fors non mutat genus.’” + +The magnificent millionaire, accustomed to the homage of grandees from +the Faubourg and lions from the Chaussee d’Antin, rose to his feet in +superb wrath, less at the taunting words than at the haughtiness of mien +with which they were uttered. + +“Monsieur, I cannot permit you to address me in that tone. Do you mean +to insult me?” + +“Certainly not. Tranquillize your nerves, reseat yourself, and +listen,--reseat yourself, I say.” + +Louvier dropped into his chair. + +“No,” resumed the Vicomte, politely, “I do not come here to insult you, +neither do I come to ask money; I assume that I am in my rights when I +ask Monsieur Louvier what has become of Louise Duval?” + +“Louise Duval! I know nothing about her.” + +“Possibly not now; but you did know her well enough, when we two parted, +to be a candidate for her hand. You did know her enough to solicit my +good offices in promotion of your suit; and you did, at my advice, quit +Paris to seek her at Aix-la-Chapelle.” + +“What! have you, Monsieur de Mauleon, not heard news of her since that +day?” + +“I decline to accept your question as an answer to mine. You went +to Aix-la-Chapelle; you saw Louise Duval, at my urgent request she +condescended to accept your hand.” + +“No, Monsieur de Mauleon, she did not accept my hand. I did not even see +her. The day before I arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle she had left it,--not +alone,--left it with her lover.” + +“Her lover! You do not mean the miserable Englishman who--” + +“No Englishman,” interrupted Louvier, fiercely. “Enough that the step +she took placed an eternal barrier between her and myself. I have never +even sought to hear of her since that day. Vicomte, that woman was the +one love of my life. I loved her, as you must have known, to folly, to +madness. And how was my love requited? Ah! you open a very deep wound, +Monsieur le Vicomte.” + +“Pardon me, Louvier; I did not give you credit for feelings so keen +and so genuine, nor did I think myself thus easily affected by matters +belonging to a past life so remote from the present. For whom did Louise +forsake you?” + +“It matters not; he is dead.” + +“I regret to hear that; I might have avenged you.” + +“I need no one to avenge my wrong. Let this pass.” + +“Not yet. Louise, you say, fled with a seducer? So proud as she was, I +can scarcely believe it.” + +“Oh, it was not with a roturier she fled; her pride would not have +allowed that.” + +“He must have deceived her somehow. Did she continue to live with him?” + +“That question, at least, I can answer; for though I lost all trace of +her life, his life was pretty well known to me till its end; and a very +few months after she fled he was enchained to another. Let us talk of +her no more.” + +“Ay, ay,” muttered De Mauleon, “some disgraces are not to be redeemed, +and therefore not to be discussed. To me, though a relation, Louise +Duval was but little known, and after what you tell me, I cannot dispute +your right to say, ‘Talk of her no more.’ You loved her, and she wronged +you. My poor Louvier, pardon me if I made an old wound bleed afresh.” + +These words were said with a certain pathetic tenderness; they softened +Louvier towards the speaker. + +After a short pause the Vicomte swept his hand over his brow, as if +to dismiss from his mind a painful and obtrusive thought; then with +a changed expression of countenance,--an expression frank and +winning,--with voice and with manner in which no vestige remained of the +irony or the haughtiness with which he had resented the frigidity of +his reception, he drew his chair still nearer to Louvier’s, and resumed: +“Our situations, Paul Louvier, are much changed since we two became +friends. I then could say, ‘Open sesame’ to whatever recesses, forbidden +to vulgar footsteps, the adventurer whom I took by the hand might +wish to explore. In those days my heart was warm; I liked you, +Louvier,--honestly liked you. I think our personal acquaintance +commenced in some gay gathering of young viveurs, whose behaviour to you +offended my sense of good breeding?” + +Louvier coloured and muttered inaudibly. De Mauleon continued: “I felt +it due to you to rebuke their incivilities, the more so as you evinced +on that occasion your own superiority in sense and temper, permit me to +add, with no lack of becoming spirit.” + +Louvier bowed his head, evidently gratified. + +“From that day we became familiar. If any obligation to me were +incurred, you would not have been slow to return it. On more than one +occasion when I was rapidly wasting money--and money was plentiful with +you--you generously offered me your purse. On more than one occasion I +accepted the offer; and you would never have asked repayment if I had +not insisted on repaying. I was no less grateful for your aid.” Louvier +made a movement as if to extend his hand, but he checked the impulse. + +“There was another attraction which drew me towards you. I recognized +in your character a certain power in sympathy with that power which I +imagined lay dormant in myself, and not to be found among the freluquets +and lions who were my more habitual associates. Do you not remember +some hours of serious talk we have had together when we lounged in +the Tuileries, or sipped our coffee in the garden of the Palais +Royal?--hours when we forgot that those were the haunts of idlers, and +thought of the stormy actions affecting the history of the world of +which they had been the scene; hours when I confided to you, as I +confided to no other man, the ambitious hopes for the future which my +follies in the present, alas! were hourly tending to frustrate.” + +“Ay, I remember the starlit night; it was not in the gardens of the +Tuileries nor in the Palais Royal,--it was on the Pont de la Concorde, +on which we had paused, noting the starlight on the waters, that you +said, pointing towards the walls of the Corps Legislatif, ‘Paul, when +I once get into the Chamber, how long will it take me to become First +Minister of France?’” + +“Did I say so?--possibly; but I was too young then for admission to +the Chamber, and I fancied I had so many years yet to spare in idle +loiterings at the Fountain of Youth. Pass over these circumstances. You +became in love with Louise. I told you her troubled history; it did not +diminish your love; and then I frankly favoured your suit. You set out +for Aix-la-Chapelle a day or two afterwards; then fell the thunderbolt +which shattered my existence, and we have never met again till this +hour. You did not receive me kindly, Paul Louvier.” + +“But,” said Louvier, falteringly, “but since you refer to that +thunderbolt, you cannot but be aware that--that--” + +“I was subjected to a calumny which I expect those who have known me as +well as you did to assist me now to refute.” + +“If it be really a calumny.” + +“Heavens, man! could you ever doubt that?” cried De Mauleon, with heat; +“ever doubt that I would rather have blown out my brains than allowed +them even to conceive the idea of a crime so base?” + +“Pardon me,” answered Louvier, meekly, “but I did not return to Paris +for months after you had disappeared. My mind was unsettled by the news +that awaited me at Aix; I sought to distract it by travel,--visited +Holland and England; and when I did return to Paris, all that I heard +of your story was the darker side of it. I willingly listen to your own +account. You never took, or at least never accepted, the Duchesse de +------‘s jewels; and your friend M. de ----- never sold them to one +jeweller and obtained their substitutes in paste from another?” + +The Vicomte made a perceptible effort to repress an impulse of rage; +then reseating himself in his chair, and with that slight shrug of the +shoulder by which a Frenchman implies to himself that rage would be out +of place, replied calmly, “M. de N. did as you say, but of course not +employed by me, nor with my knowledge. Listen; the truth is this,--the +time has come to tell it. Before you left Paris for Aix I found myself +on the brink of ruin. I had glided towards it with my characteristic +recklessness, with that scorn of money for itself, that sanguine +confidence in the favour of fortune, which are vices common to every roi +des viveurs. Poor mock Alexanders that we spendthrifts are in youth! we +divide all we have among others, and when asked by some prudent friend, +‘What have you left for your own share?’ answer, ‘Hope.’ I knew, of +course, that my patrimony was rapidly vanishing; but then my horses +were matchless. I had enough to last me for years on their chance of +winning--of course they would win. But you may recollect when we +parted that I was troubled,--creditors’ bills before me--usurers’ bills +too,--and you, my dear Louvier, pressed on me your purse, were angry +when I refused it. How could I accept? All my chance of repayment was +in the speed of a horse. I believed in that chance for myself; but for +a trustful friend, no. Ask your own heart now,--nay, I will not say +heart,--ask your own common-sense, whether a man who then put aside your +purse--spendthrift, vaurien, though he might be--was likely to steal or +accept a woman’s jewels. Va, mon pauvre Louvier, again I say, ‘Fors non +mutat genus.’” + +Despite the repetition of the displeasing patrician motto, such +reminiscences of his visitor’s motley character--irregular, turbulent, +the reverse of severe, but, in its own loose way, grandly generous and +grandly brave--struck both on the common-sense and the heart of the +listener; and the Frenchman recognized the Frenchman. Louvier doubted De +Mauleon’s word no more, bowed his head, and said, “Victor de Mauleon, I +have wronged you; go on.” + +“On the day after you left for Aix came that horse-race on which my +all depended: it was lost. The loss absorbed the whole of my remaining +fortune; it absorbed about twenty thousand francs in excess, a debt of +honour to De N., whom you called my friend. Friend he was not; imitator, +follower, flatterer, yes. Still I deemed him enough my friend to say to +him, ‘Give me a little time to pay the money; I must sell my stud, or +write to my only living relation from whom I have expectations.’ You +remember that relation,--Jacques de Mauleon, old and unmarried. By De +N.’s advice I did write to my kinsman. No answer came; but what did come +were fresh bills from creditors. I then calmly calculated my assets. The +sale of my stud and effects might suffice to pay every sou that I owed, +including my debt to De N.; but that was not quite certain. At all +events, when the debts were paid I should be beggared. Well, you know, +Louvier, what we Frenchmen are: how Nature has denied to us the quality +of patience; how involuntarily suicide presents itself to us when hope +is lost; and suicide seemed to me here due to honour, namely, to the +certain discharge of my liabilities,--for the stud and effects of Victor +de Mauleon, roi des viveurs, would command much higher prices if he died +like Cato than if he ran away from his fate like Pompey. Doubtless De N. +guessed my intention from my words or my manner; but on the very day +in which I had made all preparations for quitting the world from +which sunshine had vanished, I received in a blank envelope bank-notes +amounting to seventy thousand francs, and the post-mark on the envelope +was that of the town of Fontainebleau, near to which lived my rich +kinsman Jacques. I took it for granted that the sum came from him. +Displeased as he might have been with my wild career, still I was +his natural heir. The sum sufficed to pay my debt to De N., to all +creditors, and leave a surplus. My sanguine spirits returned. I would +sell my stud; I would retrench, reform, go to my kinsman as the penitent +son. The fatted calf would be killed, and I should wear purple yet. You +understand that, Louvier?” + +“Yes, yes; so like you. Go on.” + +“Now, then, came the thunderbolt! Ah! in those sunny days you used +to envy me for being so spoilt by women. The Duchesse de ------ had +conceived for me one of those romantic fancies which women without +children and with ample leisure for the waste of affection do sometimes +conceive for very ordinary men younger than themselves, but in whom they +imagine they discover sinners to reform or heroes to exalt. I had been +honoured by some notes from the Duchesse in which this sort of romance +was owned. I had not replied to them encouragingly. In truth, my heart +was then devoted to another,--the English girl whom I had wooed as my +wife; who, despite her parents’ retraction of their consent to our union +when they learned how dilapidated were my fortunes, pledged herself +to remain faithful to me, and wait for better days.” Again De Mauleon +paused in suppressed emotion, and then went on hurriedly: “No, the +Duchesse did not inspire me with guilty passion, but she did inspire me +with an affectionate respect. I felt that she was by nature meant to be +a great and noble creature, and was, nevertheless, at that moment +wholly misled from her right place amongst women by an illusion of mere +imagination about a man who happened then to be very much talked about, +and perhaps resembled some Lothario in the novels which she was always +reading. We lodged, as you may remember, in the same house.” + +“Yes, I remember. I remember how you once took me to a great ball given +by the Duchesse; how handsome I thought her, though no longer young; and +you say right--how I did envy you, that night!” + +“From that night, however, the Duc, not unnaturally, became jealous. He +reproved the Duchesse for her too amiable manner towards a mauvais sujet +like myself, and forbade her in future to receive my visits. It was then +that these notes became frequent and clandestine, brought to me by her +maid, who took back my somewhat chilling replies. + +“But to proceed. In the flush of my high spirits, and in the insolence +of magnificent ease with which I paid De N------ the trifle I owed him, +something he said made my heart stand still.” + +“I told him that the money received had come from Jacques de Mauleon, +and that I was going down to his house that day to thank him. He +replied, ‘Don’t go; it did not come from him.’ ‘It must; see +the post-mark of the envelope,--Fontainebleau.’ ‘I posted it at +Fontainebleau.’ ‘You sent me the money, you!’ ‘Nay, that is beyond my +means. Where it came from,’ said this miserable, ‘much more may yet +come;’ and then be narrated, with that cynicism so in vogue at Paris, +how he had told the Duchesse (who knew him as my intimate associate) +of my stress of circumstance, of his fear that I meditated something +desperate; how she gave him the jewels to sell and to substitute; how, +in order to baffle my suspicion and frustrate my scruples, he had +gone to Fontainebleau and there posted the envelope containing the +bank-notes, out of which he secured for himself the payment he deemed +otherwise imperilled. De N. having made this confession, hurried down +the stairs swiftly enough to save himself a descent by the window. Do +you believe me still?” + +“Yes; you were always so hot-blooded, and De N. so considerate of self, +I believe you implicitly.” + +“Of course I did what any man would do; I wrote a hasty letter to the +Duchesse, stating all my gratitude for an act of pure friendship so +noble; urging also the reasons that rendered it impossible for a man of +honour to profit by such an act. Unhappily, what had been sent was paid +away ere I knew the facts; but I could not bear the thought of life till +my debt to her was acquitted; in short, Louvier, conceive for yourself +the sort of letter which I--which any honest man--would write, under +circumstances so cruel.” + +“H’m!” grunted Louvier. + +“Something, however, in my letter, conjoined with what De N. had told +her as to my state of mind, alarmed this poor woman, who had deigned to +take in me an interest so little deserved. Her reply, very agitated and +incoherent, was brought to me by her maid, who had taken my letter, and +by whom, as I before said, our correspondence had been of late carried +on. In her reply she implored me to decide, to reflect on nothing till I +had seen her; stated how the rest of her day was pre-engaged; and since +to visit her openly had been made impossible by the Due’s interdict, +enclosed the key to the private entrance to her rooms, by which I could +gain an interview with her at ten o’clock that night, an hour at which +the Duc had informed her he should be out till late at his club. Now, +however great the indiscretion which the Duchesse here committed, it is +due to her memory to say that I am convinced that her dominant idea was +that I meditated self-destruction; that no time was to be lost to +save me from it; and for the rest she trusted to the influence which +a woman’s tears and adjurations and reasonings have over even the +strongest and hardest men. It is only one of those coxcombs in whom the +world of fashion abounds who could have admitted a thought that would +have done wrong to the impulsive, generous, imprudent eagerness of a +woman to be in time to save from death by his own hand a fellow-being +for whom she had conceived an interest. I so construed her note. At the +hour she named I admitted myself into the rooms by the key she sent. You +know the rest: I was discovered by the Duc and by the agents of police +in the cabinet in which the Duchesse’s jewels were kept. The key that +admitted me into the cabinet was found in my possession.” + +De Mauleon’s voice here faltered, and he covered his face with a +convulsive hand. Almost in the same breath he recovered from visible +sign of emotion, and went on with a half laugh. + +“Ah! you envied me, did you, for being spoiled by the women? Enviable +position indeed was mine that night! The Duc obeyed the first impulse of +his wrath. He imagined that I had dishonoured him; he would dishonour +me in return. Easier to his pride, too, a charge against the robber of +jewels than against a favoured lover of his wife. But when I, obeying +the first necessary obligation of honour, invented on the spur of the +moment the story by which the Duchesse’s reputation was cleared from +suspicion, accused myself of a frantic passion and the trickery of +a fabricated key, the Due’s true nature of gentilhomme came back. He +retracted the charge which he could scarcely even at the first blush +have felt to be well-founded; and as the sole charge left was simply +that which men comme il faut do not refer to criminal courts and police +investigations, I was left to make my bow unmolested and retreat to my +own rooms, awaiting there such communciations as the Duc might deem it +right to convey to me on the morrow. + +“But on the morrow the Duc, with his wife and personal suite, quitted +Paris en route for Spain; the bulk of his retinue, including the +offending Abigail, was discharged; and, whether through these servants +or through the police, the story before evening was in the mouth of +every gossip in club or cafe,--exaggerated, distorted, to my ignominy +and shame. My detection in the cabinet, the sale of the jewels, the +substitution of paste by De N., who was known to be my servile imitator +and reputed to be my abject tool, all my losses on the turf, my +debts,--all these scattered fibres of flax were twisted together in a +rope that would have hanged a dog with a much better name than mine. If +some disbelieved that I could be a thief, few of those who should have +known me best held me guiltless of a baseness almost equal to that of +theft,--the exaction of profit from the love of a foolish woman.” + +“But you could have told your own tale, shown the letters you had +received from the Duchesse, and cleared away every stain on your +honour.” + +“How?--shown her letters, ruined her character, even stated that she +had caused her jewels to be sold for the uses of a young roue! Ah, no, +Louvier! I would rather have gone to the galleys.” + +“H’m!” grunted Louvier again. + +“The Duc generously gave me better means of righting myself. Three +days after he quitted Paris I received a letter from him, very politely +written, expressing his great regret that any words implying the +suspicion too monstrous and absurd to need refutation should have +escaped him in the surprise of the moment; but stating that since the +offence I had owned was one that he could not overlook, he was under +the necessity of asking the only reparation I could make. That if it +‘deranged’ me to quit Paris, he would return to it for the purpose +required; but that if I would give him the additional satisfaction +of suiting his convenience, he should prefer to await my arrival at +Bayonne, where he was detained by the indisposition of the Duchesse.” + +“You have still that letter?” asked Louvier, quickly. “Yes; with +other more important documents constituting what I may call my pieces +justificatives. + +“I need not say that I replied stating the time at which I should arrive +at Bayonne, and the hotel at which I should await the Duc’s command. +Accordingly I set out that same day, gained the hotel named, despatched +to the Duc the announcement of my arrival, and was considering how I +should obtain a second in some officer quartered in the town--for +my soreness and resentment at the marked coldness of my former +acquaintances at Paris had forbidden me to seek a second among any of +that faithless number--when the Due himself entered my room. Judge of my +amaze at seeing him in person; judge how much greater the amaze became +when he advanced with a grave but cordial smile, offering me his hand! + +“‘Monsieur de Mauleon,’ said he, ‘since I wrote to you, facts have +become known to me which would induce me rather to ask your friendship +than call on you to defend your life. Madame la Duchesse has been +seriously ill since we left Paris, and I refrained from all explanations +likely to add to the hysterical excitement under which she was +suffering. It is only this day that her mind became collected, and she +herself then gave me her entire confidence. Monsieur, she insisted on my +reading the letters that you addressed to her. Those letters, Monsieur, +suffice to prove your innocence of any design against my peace. The +Duchesse has so candidly avowed her own indiscretion, has so clearly +established the distinction between indiscretion and guilt, that I have +granted her my pardon with a lightened heart and a firm belief that we +shall be happier together than we have been yet.’ + +“The Due continued his journey the next day, but he subsequently +honoured me with two or three letters written as friend to friend, and +in which you will find repeated the substance of what I have stated him +to say by word of mouth.” + +“But why not then have returned to Paris? Such letters, at least, you +might have shown, and in braving your calumniators you would have soon +lived them down.” + +“You forget that I was a ruined man. When, by the sale of my horses, +etc., my debts, including what was owed to the Duchesse, and which I +remitted to the Duc, were discharged, the balance left to me would +not have maintained me a week at Paris. Besides, I felt so sore, so +indignant. Paris and the Parisians had become to me so hateful. And to +crown all, that girl, that English girl whom I had so loved, on whose +fidelity I had so counted--well, I received a letter from her, gently +but coldly bidding me farewell forever. I do not think she believed me +guilty of theft; but doubtless the offence I had confessed, in order to +save the honour of the Duchesse, could but seem to her all sufficient! +Broken in spirit, bleeding at heart to the very core, still +self-destruction was no longer to be thought of. I would not die till I +could once more lift up my head as Victor de Mauleon.” + +“What then became of you, my poor Victor?” + +“Ah! that is a tale too long for recital. I have played so many parts +that I am puzzled to recognize my own identity with the Victor de +Mauleon whose name I abandoned. I have been a soldier in Algeria, and +won my cross on the field of battle,--that cross and my colonel’s +letter are among my pieces justificatives; I have been a gold-digger in +California, a speculator in New York, of late in callings obscure and +humble. But in all my adventures, under whatever name, I have earned +testimonials of probity, could manifestations of so vulgar a virtue +be held of account by the enlightened people of Paris. I come now to a +close. The Vicomte de Mauleon is about to re-appear in Paris, and the +first to whom he announces that sublime avatar is Paul Louvier. When +settled in some modest apartment, I shall place in your hands my pieces +justificatives. I shall ask you to summon my surviving relations or +connections, among which are the Counts de Vandemar, Beauvilliers, De +Passy, and the Marquis de Rochebriant, with any friends of your own who +sway the opinions of the Great World. You will place my justification +before them, expressing your own opinion that it suffices; in a word, +you will give me the sanction of your countenance. For the rest, I trust +to myself to propitiate the kindly and to silence the calumnious. I have +spoken; what say you?” + +“You overrate my power in society. Why not appeal yourself to your +high-born relations?” + +“No, Louvier; I have too well considered the case to alter my decision. +It is through you, and you alone, that I shall approach my relations. +My vindicator must be a man of whom the vulgar cannot say, ‘Oh, he is a +relation,--a fellow-noble; those aristocrats whitewash each other.’ +It must be an authority with the public at large,--a bourgeois, a +millionaire, a roi de la Bourse. I choose you, and that ends the +discussion.” + +Louvier could not help laughing good-humouredly at the sang froid of the +Vicomte. He was once more under the domination of a man who had for a +time dominated all with whom he lived. + +De Mauleon continued: “Your task will be easy enough. Society changes +rapidly at Paris. Few persons now exist who have more than a vague +recollection of the circumstances which can be so easily explained to my +complete vindication when the vindication comes from a man of your solid +respectability and social influence. Besides, I have political +objects in view. You are a Liberal; the Vandemars and Rochebriants are +Legitimists. I prefer a godfather on the Liberal side. Pardieu, mon ami, +why such coquettish hesitation? Said and done. Your hand on it.” + +“There is my hand then. I will do all I can to help you.” + +“I know you will, old friend; and you do both kindly and wisely.” Here +De Mauleon cordially pressed the hand he held, and departed. + +On gaining the street, the Vicomte glided into a neighbouring courtyard, +in which he had left his fiacre, and bade the coachman drive towards the +Boulevard Sebastopol. On the way, he took from a small bag that he +had left in the carriage the flaxen wig and pale whiskers which +distinguished M. Lebeau, and mantled his elegant habiliments in an +immense cloak, which he had also left in the fiacre. Arrived at the +Boulevard Sebastopol, he drew up the collar of the cloak so as to +conceal much of his face, stopped the driver, paid him quickly, and, bag +in hand, hurried on to another stand of fiacres at a little distance, +entered one, drove to the Faubourg Montmartre, dismissed the vehicle +at the mouth of a street not far from M. Lebeau’s office, and gained +on foot the private side-door of the house, let himself in with his +latchkey, entered the private room on the inner side of his office, +locked the door, and proceeded leisurely to exchange the brilliant +appearance which the Vicomte de Mauleon had borne on his visit to the +millionaire for the sober raiment and bourgeois air of M. Lebeau, the +letter-writer. + +Then after locking up his former costume in a drawer of his secretaire, +he sat himself down and wrote the following lines:-- + + DEAR MONSIEUR GEORGES,--I advise you strongly, from information that + has just reached me, to lose no time in pressing M. Savarin to repay + the sum I recommended you to lend him, and for which you hold his + bill due this day. The scandal of legal measures against a writer + so distinguished should be avoided if possible. He will avoid it + and get the money somehow; but he must be urgently pressed. If you + neglect this warning, my responsibility is past. Agreez mes + sentimens les plus sinceres. + J. L. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +The Marquis de Rochebriant is no longer domiciled in an attic in the +gloomy Faubourg. See him now in a charming appartement de garcon an +premier in the Rue du Helder, close by the promenades and haunts of +the mode. It had been furnished and inhabited by a brilliant young +provincial from Bordeaux, who, coming into an inheritance of one hundred +thousand francs, had rushed up to Paris to enjoy himself, and make his +million at the Bourse. He had enjoyed himself thoroughly,--he had been +a darling of the demi monde; he had been a successful and an inconstant +gallant. Zelie had listened to his vows of eternal love, and his offers +of unlimited cachemires; Desiree, succeeding Zelie, had assigned to him +her whole heart--or all that was left of it--in gratitude for the +ardour of his passion, and the diamonds and coupe which accompanied and +attested the ardour; the superb Hortense, supplanting Desiree, +received his visits in the charming apartment he furnished for her, and +entertained him and his friends at the most delicate little suppers, for +the moderate sum of four thousand francs a month. Yes, he had enjoyed +himself thoroughly, but he had not made a million at the Bourse. Before +the year was out, the one hundred thousand francs were gone. Compelled +to return to his province, and by his hard-hearted relations ordained, +on penalty of starvation, to marry the daughter of an avoue, for +the sake of her dot and a share in the hated drudgery of the avoue’s +business,--his apartment was to be had for a tenth part of the original +cost of its furniture. A certain Chevalier de Finisterre, to whom +Louvier had introduced the Marquis as a useful fellow who knew Paris, +and would save him from being cheated, had secured this bijou of an +apartment for Alain, and concluded the bargain for the bagatelle of +L500. The Chevalier took the same advantageous occasion to purchase the +English well-bred hack and the neat coupe and horses which the Bordelais +was also necessitated to dispose of. These purchases made, the Marquis +had some five thousand francs (L200) left out of Louvier’s premium of +L1,000. The Marquis, however, did not seem alarmed or dejected by the +sudden diminution of capital so expeditiously effected. The easy life +thus commenced seemed to him too natural to be fraught with danger; +and easy though it was, it was a very simple and modest sort of life +compared with that of many other men of his age to whom Enguerrand had +introduced him, though most of them had an income less than his, and +few, indeed, of them were his equals in dignity of birth. Could a +Marquis de Rochebriant, if he lived at Paris at all, give less than +three thousand francs a year for his apartment, or mount a more humble +establishment than that confined to a valet and a tiger, two horses for +his coupe and one for the saddle? “Impossible,” said the Chevalier de +Finisterre, decidedly; and the Marquis bowed to so high an authority. He +thought within himself, “If I find in a few months that I am exceeding +my means, I can but dispose of my rooms and my horses, and return to +Rochebriant a richer man by far than I left it.” + +To say truth, the brilliant seductions of Paris had already produced +their effect, not only on the habits, but on the character and cast of +thought, which the young noble had brought with him from the feudal and +melancholy Bretagne. + +Warmed by the kindness with which, once introduced by his popular +kinsmen, he was everywhere received, the reserve or shyness which is the +compromise between the haughtiness of self-esteem and the painful doubt +of appreciation by others rapidly melted away. He caught insensibly the +polished tone, at once so light and so cordial, of his new-made +friends. With all the efforts of the democrats to establish equality and +fraternity, it is among the aristocrats that equality and fraternity are +most to be found. All gentilshommes in the best society are equals; +and whether they embrace or fight each other, they embrace or fight +as brothers of the same family. But with the tone of manners Alain de +Rochebriant imbibed still more insensibly the lore of that philosophy +which young idlers in pursuit of pleasure teach to each other. Probably +in all civilized and luxurious capitals that philosophy is very much +the same among the same class of idlers at the same age; probably it +flourishes in Pekin not less than at Paris. If Paris has the credit, +or discredit, of it more than any other capital, it is because in Paris +more than in any other capital it charms the eye by grace and amuses +the ear by wit. A philosophy which takes the things of this life very +easily; which has a smile and a shrug of the shoulders for any +pretender to the Heroic; which subdivides the wealth of passion into the +pocket-money of caprices, is always in or out of love ankle-deep, never +venturing a plunge; which, light of heart as of tongue, turns “the +solemn plausibilities” of earth into subjects for epigrams and bons +mots,--jests at loyalty to kings and turns up its nose at enthusiasm +for commonwealths, abjures all grave studies and shuns all profound +emotions. We have crowds of such philosophers in London; but there they +are less noticed, because the agreeable attributes of the sect are there +dimmed and obfuscated. It is not a philosophy that flowers richly in +the reek of fogs and in the teeth of east winds; it wants for full +development the light atmosphere of Paris. Now this philosophy began +rapidly to exercise its charms upon Alain de Rochebriant. Even in the +society of professed Legitimists, he felt that faith had deserted the +Legitimist creed or taken refuge only as a companion of religion in +the hearts of high-born women and a small minority of priests. His +chivalrous loyalty still struggled to keep its ground, but its +roots were very much loosened. He saw--for his natural intellect was +keen--that the cause of the Bourbon was hopeless, at least for the +present, because it had ceased, at least for the present, to be a cause. +His political creed thus shaken, with it was shaken also that adherence +to the past which had stifled his ambition of a future. That ambition +began to breathe and to stir, though he owned it not to others, though, +as yet, he scarce distinguished its whispers, much less directed its +movements towards any definite object. Meanwhile, all that he knew of +his ambition was the new-born desire for social success. + +We see him, then, under the quick operation of this change in sentiments +and habits, reclined on the fauteuil before his fireside, and listening +to his college friend, of whom we have so long lost sight, Frederic +Lemercier. Frederic had breakfasted with Alain,--a breakfast such as +might have contented the author of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” and +provided from the cafe Anglais. Frederic has just thrown aside his +regalia. + +“Pardieu! my dear Alain. If Louvier has no sinister object in the +generosity of his dealings with you, he will have raised himself +prodigiously in my estimation. I shall forsake, in his favour, my +allegiance to Duplessis, though that clever fellow has just made a +wondrous coup in the Egyptians, and I gain forty thousand francs by +having followed his advice. But if Duplessis has a head as long as +Louvier’s, he certainly has not an equal greatness of soul. Still, my +dear friend, will you pardon me if I speak frankly, and in the way of a +warning homily?” + +“Speak; you cannot oblige me more.” + +“Well, then, I know that you can no more live at Paris in the way you +are doing, or mean to do, without some fresh addition to your income, +than a lion could live in the Jardin des Plantes upon an allowance of +two mice a week.” + +“I don’t see that. Deducting what I pay to my aunt,--and I cannot get +her to take more than six thousand francs a year,--I have seven hundred +napoleons left, net and clear. My rooms and stables are equipped, and +I have twenty-five hundred francs in hand. On seven hundred napoleons +a year, I calculate that I can very easily live as I do; and if I +fail--well, I must return to Pochebriant. Seven hundred napoleons a year +will be a magnificent rental there.” + +Frederic shook his head. “You do not know how one expense leads to +another. Above all, you do not calculate the chief part of one’s +expenditure,--the unforeseen. You will play at the Jockey Club, and lose +half your income in a night.” + +“I shall never touch a card.” + +“So you say now, innocent as a lamb of the force of example. At all +events, beau seigneur, I presume you are not going to resuscitate the +part of the Ermite de la Chaussee d’Antin; and the fair Parisiennes are +demons of extravagance.” + +“Demons whom I shall not court.” + +“Did I say you would? They will court you. Before another month has +flown you will be inundated with billets-doux.” + +“It is not a shower that will devastate my humble harvest. But, mon +cher, we are falling upon very gloomy topics. Laissez-moi tranquille in +my illusions, if illusions they be. Ah, you cannot conceive what a new +life opens to the man who, like myself, has passed the dawn of his youth +in privation and fear, when he suddenly acquires competence and hope. If +it lasts only a year, it will be something to say ‘Vixi.’” + +“Alain,” said Frederic; very earnestly, “believe me, I should not have +assumed the ungracious and inappropriate task of Mentor, if it were only +a year’s experience at stake, or if you were in the position of men like +myself,--free from the encumbrance of a great name and heavily mortgaged +lands. Should you fail to pay regularly the interest due to Louvier, +he has the power to put up at public auction, and there to buy in for +himself, your chateau and domain.” + +“I am aware that in strict law he would have such power, though I doubt +if he would use it. Louvier is certainly a much better and more generous +fellow than I could have expected; and if I believe De Finisterre, he +has taken a sincere liking to me on account of affection to my poor +father. But why should not the interest be paid regularly? The revenues +from Rochebriant are not likely to decrease, and the charge on them is +lightened by the contract with Louvier. And I will confide to you a hope +I entertain of a very large addition to my rental.” + +“How?” + +“A chief part of my rental is derived from forests, and De Finisterre +has heard of a capitalist who is disposed to make a contract for their +sale at the fall this year, and may probably extend it to future years, +at a price far exceeding that which I have hitherto obtained.” + +“Pray be cautious. De Finisterre is not a man I should implicitly trust +in such matters.” + +“Why? Do you know anything against him? He is in the best +society,--perfect gentilhomme,--and, as his name may tell you, a +fellow-Breton. You yourself allow, and so does Enguerrand, that the +purchases he made for me--in this apartment, my horses, etc.--are +singularly advantageous.” + +“Quite true; the Chevalier is reputed sharp and clever, is said to +be very amusing, and a first-rate piquet-player. I don’t know him +personally,--I am not in his set. I have no valid reason to disparage +his character, nor do I conjecture any motive he could have to injure or +mislead you. Still, I say, be cautious how far you trust to his advice +or recommendation.” + +“Again I ask why?” + +“He is unlucky to his friends. He attaches himself much to men younger +than himself; and somehow or other I have observed that most of them +have come to grief. Besides, a person in whose sagacity I have great +confidence warned me against making the Chevalier’s acquaintance, and +said to me, in his blunt way, ‘De Finisterre came to Paris with nothing; +he has succeeded to nothing; he belongs to no ostensible profession by +which anything can be made. But evidently now he has picked up a good +deal; and in proportion as any young associate of his becomes poorer, +De Finisterre seems mysteriously to become richer. Shun that sort of +acquaintance.’” + +“Who is your sagacious adviser!” + +“Duplessis.” + +“Ah, I thought so. That bird of prey fancies every other bird +looking out for pigeons. I fancy that Duplessis is, like all those +money-getters, a seeker after fashion, and De Finisterre has not +returned his bow.” + +“My dear Alain, I am to blame; nothing is so irritating as a dispute +about the worth of the men we like. I began it, now let it be dropped; +only make me one promise,--that if you should be in arrear, or if need +presses, you will come at once to me. It was very well to be absurdly +proud in an attic, but that pride will be out of place in your +appartement au premier.” + +“You are the best fellow in the world, Frederic, and I make you the +promise you ask,” said Alain, cheerfully, but yet with a secret emotion +of tenderness and gratitude. “And now, mon cher, what day will you dine +with me to meet Raoul and Enguerrand, and some others whom you would +like to know?” + +“Thanks, and hearty ones, but we move now in different spheres, and +I shall not trespass on yours. Je suis trop bourgeois to incur the +ridicule of le bourgeois gentilhomme.” + +“Frederic, how dare you speak thus? My dear fellow, my friends shall +honour you as I do.” + +“But that will be on your account, not mine. No; honestly that kind of +society neither tempts nor suits me. I am a sort of king in my own walk; +and I prefer my Bohemian royalty to vassalage in higher regions. Say no +more of it. It will flatter my vanity enough if you will now and then +descend to my coteries, and allow me to parade a Rochebriant as my +familiar crony, slap him on the shoulder, and call him Alain.” + +“Fie! you who stopped me and the English aristocrat in the Champs +Elysees, to humble us with your boast of having fascinated une grande +dame,--I think you said a duchesse.” + +“Oh,” said Lemercier, conceitedly, and passing his hand through his +scented locks, “women are different; love levels all ranks. I don’t +blame Ruy Blas for accepting the love of a queen, but I do blame him +for passing himself off as a noble,--a plagiarism, by the by, from an +English play. I do not love the English enough to copy them. A propos, +what has become of ce beau Grarm Varn? I have not seen him of late.” + +“Neither have I.” + +“Nor the belle Italienne?” + +“Nor her,” said Alain, slightly blushing. + +At this moment Enguerrand lounged into the room. Alain stopped Lemercier +to introduce him to his kinsman. “Enguerrand, I present to you M. +Lemercier, my earliest and one of my dearest friends.” + +The young noble held out his hand with the bright and joyous grace +which accompanied all his movements, and expressed in cordial words +his delight to make M. Lemercier’s acquaintance. Bold and assured as +Frederic was in his own circles, he was more discomposed than set at +ease by the gracious accost of a lion, whom he felt at once to be of a +breed superior to his own. He muttered some confused phrases, in which +ravi and flatte were alone audible, and evanished. + +“I know M. Lemercier by sight very well,” said Enguerrand, seating +himself. “One sees him very often in the Bois; and I have met him in +the Coulisses and the Bal Mabille. I think, too, that he plays at the +Bourse, and is lie with M. Duplessis, who bids fair to rival Louvier one +of these days. Is Duplessis also one of your dearest friends?” + +“No, indeed. I once met him, and was not prepossessed in his favour.” + +“Nevertheless, he is a man much to be admired and respected.” + +“Why so?” + +“Because he understands so well the art of making what we all +covet,--money. I will introduce you to him.” + +“I have been already introduced.” + +“Then I will re-introduce you. He is much courted in a society which I +have recently been permitted by my father to frequent,--the society, of +the Imperial Court.” + +“You frequent that society, and the Count permits it?” + +“Yes; better the Imperialists than the Republicans; and my father begins +to own that truth, though he is too old or too indolent to act on it.” + +“And Raoul?” + +“Oh, Raoul, the melancholy and philosophical Raoul, has no ambition +of any kind, so long as--thanks somewhat to me--his purse is always +replenished for the wants of his stately existence, among the foremost +of which wants are the means to supply the wants of others. That is the +true reason why he consents to our glove-shop. Raoul belongs, with some +other young men of the Faubourg, to a society enrolled under the name +of Saint Francois de Sales, for the relief of the poor. He visits their +houses, and is at home by their sickbeds as at their stinted boards. +Nor does he confine his visitations to the limits of our Faubourg; he +extends his travels to Montmartre and Belleville. As to our upper world, +he does not concern himself much with its changes. He says that we have +destroyed too much ever to rebuild solidly; and that whatever we do +build could be upset any day by a Paris mob, which he declares to be +the only institution we have left. A wonderful fellow is Raoul,--full of +mind, though he does little with it; full of heart, which he devotes +to suffering humanity, and to a poetic, knightly reverence (not to be +confounded with earthly love, and not to be degraded into that sickly +sentiment called Platonic affection) for the Comtesse di Rimini, who is +six years older than himself, and who is very faithfully attached to +her husband, Raoul’s intimate friend, whose honour he would guard as +his own. It is an episode in the drama of Parisian life, and one not so +uncommon as the malignant may suppose. Di Rimini knows and approves of +his veneration; my mother, the best of women, sanctions it, and deems +truly that it preserves Raoul safe from all the temptations to which +ignobler youth is exposed. I mention this lest you should imagine there +was anything in Raoul’s worship of his star less pure than it is. +For the rest, Raoul, to the grief and amazement of that disciple of +Voltaire, my respected father, is one of the very few men I know in our +circles who is sincerely religious,--an orthodox Catholic,--and the only +man I know who practises the religion he professes; charitable, chaste, +benevolent; and no bigot, no intolerant ascetic. His only weakness +is his entire submission to the worldly common-sense of his +good-for-nothing, covetous, ambitious brother Enguerrand. I cannot say +how I love him for that. If he had not such a weakness, his excellence +would gall me, and I believe I should hate him.” + +Alain bowed his head at this eulogium. Such had been the character that +a few months ago he would have sought as example and model. He seemed to +gaze upon a flattered portrait of himself as he had been. + +“But,” said Enguerrand, “I have not come here to indulge in the overflow +of brotherly affection. I come to take you to your relation, the +Duchesse of Tarascon. I have pledged myself to her to bring you, and she +is at home on purpose to receive you.” + +“In that case I cannot be such a churl as to refuse. And, indeed, I no +longer feel quite the same prejudices against her and the Imperialists +as I brought from Bretagne. Shall I order my carriage?” + +“No; mine is at the door. Yours can meet you where you will, later. +Allons.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The Duchesse de Tarascon occupied a vast apartment in the Rue Royale, +close to the Tuileries. She held a high post among the ladies who graced +the brilliant court of the Empress. She had survived her second husband +the duke, who left no issue, and the title died with him. + +Alain and Enguerrand were ushered up the grand staircase, lined with +tiers of costly exotics as if for a fete; but in that and in all kinds +of female luxury, the Duchesse lived in a state of fete perpetuelle. +The doors on the landing-place were screened by heavy portieres of Genoa +velvet, richly embroidered in gold with the ducal crown and cipher. The +two salons through which the visitors passed to the private cabinet or +boudoir were decorated with Gobelin tapestries, fresh, with a mixture +of roseate hues, and depicting incidents in the career of the first +emperor; while the effigies of the late duke’s father--the gallant +founder of a short-lived race figured modestly in the background. On a +table of Russian malachite within the recess of the central window lay, +preserved in glass cases, the baton and the sword, the epaulettes +and the decorations of the brave Marshal. On the consoles and the +mantelpieces stood clocks and vases of Sevres that could scarcely be +eclipsed by those in the Imperial palaces. Entering the cabinet, they +found the Duchesse seated at her writing-table, with a small Skye +terrier, hideous in the beauty of the purest breed, nestled at her +feet. This room was an exquisite combination of costliness and +comfort,--Luxury at home. The hangings were of geranium-coloured +silk, with double curtains of white satin; near to the writing-table a +conservatory, with a white marble fountain at play in the centre, and +a trellised aviary at the back. The walls were covered with small +pictures,--chiefly portraits and miniatures of the members of the +imperial family, of the late Duc, of his father the Marshal and Madame +la Marechale, of the present Duchesse herself, and of some of the +principal ladies of the court. + +The Duchesse was still in the prime of life. She had passed her fortieth +year, but was so well “conserved” that you might have guessed her to +be ten years younger. She was tall; not large, but with rounded figure +inclined to en bon point; with dark hair and eyes, but fair complexion, +injured in effect rather than improved by pearl-powder, and that +atrocious barbarism of a dark stain on the eyelids which has of late +years been a baneful fashion; dressed,--I am a man, and cannot describe +her dress; all I know is that she had the acknowledged fame of the +best-dressed subject of France. As she rose from her seat there was in +her look and air the unmistakable evidence of grande dame,--a family +likeness in feature to Alain himself, a stronger likeness to the picture +of her first cousin (his mother) which was preserved at Rochebriant. Her +descent was indeed from ancient and noble houses. But to the distinction +of race she added that of fashion, crowning both with a tranquil +consciousness of lofty position and unblemished reputation. + +“Unnatural cousin!” she said to Alain, offering her hand to him, with +a gracious smile,--“all this age in Paris, and I see you for the first +time. But there is joy on earth as in heaven over sinners who truly +repent. You repent truly--n’est ce pas?” + +It is impossible to describe the caressing charm which the Duchesse +threw into her words, voice, and look. Alain was fascinated and subdued. + +“Ah, Madame la Duchesse,” said he, bowing over the fait hand he lightly +held, “it was not sin, unless modesty be a sin, which made a rustic +hesitate long before he dared to offer his homage to the queen of the +graces.” + +“Not badly said for a rustic,” cried Enguerrand; “eh, Madame?” + +“My cousin, you are pardoned,” said the Duchesse. “Compliment is the +perfume of gentilhommerie; and if you brought enough of that perfume +from the flowers of Rochebriant to distribute among the ladies at +court, you will be terribly the mode there. Seducer!”--here she gave +the Marquis a playful tap on the cheek, not in a coquettish but in a +mother-like familiarity, and looking at him attentively, said: “Why, +you are even handsomer than your father. I shall be proud to present to +their Imperial Majesties so becoming a cousin. But seat yourselves here, +Messieurs, close to my arm-chair, caussons.” + +The Duchesse then took up the ball of the conversation. She talked +without any apparent artifice, but with admirable tact; put just the +questions about Rochebriant most calculated to please Alain, shunning +all that might have pained him; asking him for descriptions of the +surrounding scenery, the Breton legends; hoping that the old castle +would never be spoiled by modernizing restorations; inquiring tenderly +after his aunt, whom she had in her childhood once seen, and still +remembered with her sweet, grave face; paused little for replies; then +turned to Enguerrand with sprightly small-talk on the topics of the day, +and every now and then bringing Alain into the pale of the talk, leading +on insensibly until she got Enguerrand himself to introduce the subject +of the emperor, and the political troubles which were darkening a reign +heretofore so prosperous and splendid. + +Her countenance then changed; it became serious, and even grave in its +expression. + +“It is true,” she said, “that the times grow menacing, menacing not only +to the throne, but to order and property and France. One by one they are +removing all the breakwaters which the empire had constructed between +the executive and the most fickle and impulsive population that ever +shouted ‘long live’ one day to the man whom they would send to the +guillotine the next. They are denouncing what they call personal +government. Grant that it has its evils; but what would they +substitute,--a constitutional monarchy like the English? That is +impossible with universal suffrage and without an hereditary chamber. +The nearest approach to it was the monarchy of Louis Philippe,--we +know how sick they became of that. A republic?--mon Dieu! composed of +Republicans terrified out of their wits at each other. The moderate +men, mimics of the Girondins, with the Reds and the Socialists and the +Communists, ready to tear them to pieces. And then--What then?--the +commercialists, the agriculturists, the middle class combining to elect +some dictator who will cannonade the mob and become a mimic Napoleon, +grafted on a mimic Necker or a mimic Danton. Oh, Messieurs, I am French +to the core. You inheritors of such names must be as French as I am; and +yet you men insist on remaining more useless to France in the midst of +her need than I am,--I, a woman who can but talk and weep.” + +The Duchesse spoke with a warmth of emotion which startled and +profoundly affected Alain. He remained silent, leaving it to Enguerrand +to answer. + +“Dear Madame,” said the latter, “I do not see how either myself or our +kinsman can merit your reproach. We are not legislators. I doubt if +there is a single department in France that would elect us, if we +offered ourselves. It is not our fault if the various floods of +revolution leave men of our birth and opinions stranded wrecks of a +perished world. The emperor chooses his own advisers, and if they are +bad ones, his Majesty certainly will not ask Alain and me to replace +them.” + +“You do not answer--you evade me,” said the Duchesse; with a mournful +smile. “You are too skilled a man of the world, Monsieur Enguerrand, not +to know that it is not only legislators and ministers that are necessary +to the support of a throne, and the safeguard of a nation. Do you not +see how great a help it is to both throne and nation when that section +of public opinion which is represented by names illustrious in history, +identified with records of chivalrous deeds and loyal devotion, rallies +round the order established? Let that section of public opinion stand +aloof, soured and discontented, excluded from active life, lending no +counter-balance to the perilous oscillations of democratic passion, +and tell me if it is not an enemy to itself as well as a traitor to the +principles it embodies?” + +“The principles it embodies, Madame,” said Alain, “are those of fidelity +to a race of kings unjustly set aside, less for the vices than the +virtues of ancestors. Louis XV. was the worst of the Bourbons,--he was +the bien aime: he escapes. Louis XVI. was in moral attributes the best +of the Bourbons,--he dies the death of a felon. Louis XVIII., against +whom much may be said, restored to the throne by foreign bayonets, +reigning as a disciple of Voltaire might reign, secretly scoffing alike +at the royalty and the religion which were crowned in his person, dies +peacefully in his bed. Charles X., redeeming the errors of his youth +by a reign untarnished by a vice, by a religion earnest and sincere, is +sent into exile for defending established order from the very inroads +which you lament. He leaves an heir against whom calumny cannot invent +a tale, and that heir remains an outlaw simply because he descends from +Henry IV., and has a right to reign. Madame, you appeal to us as among +the representatives of the chivalrous deeds and loyal devotion which +characterized the old nobility of France. Should we deserve that +character if we forsook the unfortunate, and gained wealth and honour in +forsaking?” + +“Your words endear you to me. I am proud to call you cousin,” said the +Duchesse. “But do you, or does any man in his senses believe that if you +upset the Empire you could get back the Bourbons; that you would not +be in imminent danger of a Government infinitely more opposed to the +theories on which rests the creed of Legitimists than that of Louis +Napoleon? After all, what is there in the loyalty of you Bourbonites +that has in it the solid worth of an argument which can appeal to the +comprehension of mankind, except it be the principle of a hereditary +monarchy? Nobody nowadays can maintain the right divine of a single +regal family to impose itself upon a nation. That dogma has ceased to be +a living principle; it is only a dead reminiscence. But the institution +of monarchy is a principle strong and vital, and appealing to the +practical interests of vast sections of society. Would you sacrifice +the principle which concerns the welfare of millions, because you +cannot embody it in the person of an individual utterly insignificant +in himself? In a word, if you prefer monarchy to the hazard of +republicanism for such a country as France, accept the monarchy you +find, since it is quite clear you cannot rebuild the monarchy you would +prefer. Does it not embrace all the great objects for which you call +yourself Legitimist? Under it religion is honoured, a national Church +secured, in reality if not in name; under it you have united the +votes of millions to the establishment of the throne; under it all +the material interests of the country, commercial, agricultural, have +advanced with an unequalled rapidity of progress; under it Paris has +become the wonder of the world for riches, for splendour, for grace and +beauty; under it the old traditional enemies of France have been humbled +and rendered impotent. The policy of Richelieu has been achieved in the +abasement of Austria; the policy of Napoleon I. has been consummated +in the salvation of Europe from the semi-barbarous ambition of Russia. +England no longer casts her trident in the opposition scale of the +balance of European power. Satisfied with the honour of our alliance, +she has lost every other ally; and her forces neglected, her spirit +enervated, her statesmen dreaming believers in the safety of their +island, provided they withdraw from the affairs of Europe, may sometimes +scold us, but will certainly not dare to fight. With France she is but +an inferior satellite; without France she is--nothing. Add to all this +a court more brilliant than that of Louis XIV., a sovereign not +indeed without faults and errors, but singularly mild in his nature, +warm-hearted to friends, forgiving to foes, whom personally no one could +familiarly know and not be charmed with a bonte of character, lovable as +that of Henri IV.,--and tell me what more than all this could you expect +from the reign of a Bourbon?” + +“With such results,” said Alain, “from the monarchy you so eloquently +praise, I fail to discover what the emperor’s throne could possibly gain +by a few powerless converts from an unpopular, and you say, no doubt +truly, from a hopeless cause.” + +“I say monarchy gains much by the loyal adhesion of any man of courage, +ability, and honour. Every new monarchy gains much by conversions from +the ranks by which the older monarchies were strengthened and adorned. +But I do not here invoke your aid merely to this monarchy, my cousin; +I demand your devotion to the interests of France; I demand that you +should not rest an outlaw from her service. Ah, you think that France is +in no danger, that you may desert or oppose the Empire as you list, and +that society will remain safe! You are mistaken. Ask Enguerrand.” + +“Madame,” said Enguerrand, “you overrate my political knowledge in that +appeal; but, honestly speaking, I subscribe to your reasonings. I agree +with you that the empire sorely needs the support of men of honour; it +has one cause of rot which now undermines it,--dishonest jobbery in its +administrative departments; even in that of the army, which apparently +is so heeded and cared for. I agree with you that France is in danger, +and may need the swords of all her better sons, whether against the +foreigner or against her worst enemies,--the mobs of her great towns. +I myself received a military education, and but for my reluctance to +separate myself from my father and Raoul, I should be a candidate for +employments more congenial to me than those of the Bourse and my trade +in the glove-shop. But Alain is happily free from all family ties, and +Alain knows that my advice to him is not hostile to your exhortations.” + +“I am glad to think he is under so salutary an influence,” said the +Duchesse; and seeing that Alain remained silent and thoughtful, she +wisely changed the subject, and shortly afterwards the two friends took +leave. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Three days elapsed before Graham again saw M. Lebeau. The letter-writer +did not show himself at the cafe, and was not to be found at his office, +the ordinary business of which was transacted by his clerk, saying that +his master was much engaged on important matters that took him from +home. + +Graham naturally thought that these matters concerned the discovery +of Louise Duval, and was reconciled to suspense. At the cafe, awaiting +Lebeau, he had slid into some acquaintance with the ouvrier Armand +Monnier, whose face and talk had before excited his interest. Indeed, +the acquaintance had been commenced by the ouvrier, who seated himself +at a table near to Graham’s, and, after looking at him earnestly for +some minutes, said, “You are waiting for your antagonist at dominos, M. +Lebeau,--a very remarkable man.” + +“So he seems. I know, however, but little of him. You, perhaps, have +known him longer?” + +“Several months. Many of your countrymen frequent this cafe, but you do +not seem to care to associate with the blouses.” + +“It is not that; but we islanders are shy, and don’t make acquaintance +with each other readily. By the way, since you so courteously accost me, +I may take the liberty of saying that I overheard you defend the other +night, against one of my countrymen, who seemed to me to talk great +nonsense, the existence of le bon Dieu. You had much the best of it. I +rather gathered from your argument that you went somewhat further, and +were not too enlightened to admit of Christianity.” + +Armand Monnier looked pleased. He liked praise; and he liked to hear +himself talk, and he plunged at once into a very complicated sort of +Christianity,--partly Arian, partly Saint Simonian, with a little of +Rousseau and a great deal of Armand Monnier. Into this we need not +follow him; but, in sum, it was a sort of Christianity, the main heads +of which consisted in the removal of your neighbour’s landmarks, in the +right of the poor to appropriate the property of the rich, in the right +of love to dispense with marriage, and the duty of the State to provide +for any children that might result from such union,--the parents being +incapacitated to do so, as whatever they might leave was due to the +treasury in common. Graham listened to these doctrines with melancholy +not unmixed with contempt. “Are these opinions of yours,” he asked, +“derived from reading or your own reflection?” + +“Well, from both, but from circumstances in life that induced me to +read and reflect. I am one of the many victims of the tyrannical law of +marriage. When very young I married a woman who made me miserable, and +then forsook me. Morally, she has ceased to be my wife; legally, she is. +I then met with another woman who suits me, who loves me. She lives with +me; I cannot marry her; she has to submit to humiliations, to be called +contemptuously an ouvrier’s mistress. Then, though before I was only a +Republican, I felt there was something wrong in society which needed +a greater change than that of a merely political government; and then, +too, when I was all troubled and sore, I chanced to read one of Madame +de Grantmesnil’s books. A glorious genius that woman’s!” + +“She has genius, certainly,” said Graham, with a keen pang at his +heart,--Madame de Grantmesnil, the dearest friend of Isaura! “But,” he +added, “though I believe that eloquent author has indirectly assailed +certain social institutions, including that of marriage, I am perfectly +persuaded that she never designed to effect such complete overthrow +of the system which all civilized communities have hitherto held in +reverence as your doctrines would attempt; and, after all, she but +expresses her ideas through the medium of fabulous incidents and +characters. And men of your sense should not look for a creed in the +fictions of poets and romance-writers.” + +“Ah,” said Monnier, “I dare say neither Madame de Grantmesnil nor even +Rousseau ever even guessed the ideas they awoke in their readers; but +one idea leads on to another. And genuine poetry and romance touch +the heart so much more than dry treatises. In a word, Madame de +Grantmesnil’s book set me thinking; and then I read other books, and +talked with clever men, and educated myself. And so I became the man I +am.” Here, with a self-satisfied air, Monnier bowed to the Englishman, +and joined a group at the other end of the room. + +The next evening, just before dusk, Graham Vane was seated musingly in +his own apartment in the Faubourg Montmartre, when there came a slight +knock at his door. He was so wrapped in thought that he did not hear +the sound, though twice repeated. The door opened gently, and M. Lebeau +appeared on the threshold. The room was lighted only by the gas-lamp +from the street without. + +Lebeau advanced through the gloom, and quietly seated himself in the +corner of the fireplace opposite to Graham before he spoke. “A thousand +pardons for disturbing your slumbers, Monsieur Lamb.” + +Startled then by the voice so near him, Graham raised his head, looked +round, and beheld very indistinctly the person seated so near him. + +“Monsieur Lebeau?” + +“At your service. I promise to give an answer to your question; accept +my apologies that it has been deferred so long. I shall not this evening +go to our cafe. I took the liberty of calling--” + +“Monsieur Lebeau, you are a brick.” + +“A what, Monsieur!--a brique?” + +“I forgot; you are not up to our fashionable London idioms. A brick +means a jolly fellow, and it is very kind in you to call. What is your +decision?” + +“Monsieur, I can give you some information, but it is so slight that +I offer it gratis, and forego all thought of undertaking further +inquiries. They could only be prosecuted in another country, and it +would not be worth my while to leave Paris on the chance of gaining so +trifling a reward as you propose. Judge for yourself. In the year 1849, +and in the month of July, Louise Duval left Paris for Aix-la-Chapelle. +There she remained some weeks, and then left it. I can learn no further +traces of her movements.” + +“Aix-la-Chapelle! What could she do there?” + +“It is a Spa in great request; crowded during the summer season with +visitors from all countries. She might have gone there for health or for +pleasure.” + +“Do you think that one could learn more at the Spa itself if one went +there?” + +“Possibly. But it is so long,--twenty years ago.” + +“She might have revisited the place.” + +“Certainly; but I know no more.” + +“Was she there under the same name,--Duval?” + +“I am sure of that.” + +“Do you think she left it alone or with others? You tell me she was +awfully belle; she might have attracted admirers.” + +“If,” answered Lebeau, reluctantly, “I could believe the report of my +informant, Louise Duval left Aix not alone, but with some gallant; not +an Englishman. They are said to have parted soon, and the man is now +dead. But, speaking frankly, I do not think Mademoiselle Duval would +have thus compromised her honour and sacrificed her future. I believe +she would have scorned all proposals that were not those of marriage. +But all I can say for certainty is that nothing is known to me of her +fate since she quitted Aix-la-Chapelle.” + +“In 1849? She had then a child living.” + +“A child? I never heard that she had any child; and I do not believe she +could have had any child in 1849.” + +Graham mused. Somewhat less than five years after 1849 Louise Duval had +been seen at Aix-la-Chapelle. Possibly she found some attraction at +that place, and might yet be discovered there. “Monsieur Lebeau,” said +Graham, “you know this lady by sight; you would recognize her in spite +of the lapse of years. Will you go to Aix and find out there what you +can? Of course, expenses will be paid, and the reward will be given if +you succeed.” + +“I cannot oblige you. My interest in this poor lady is not very strong, +though I should be willing to serve her, and glad to know that she were +alive. I have now business on hand which interests me much more, and +which will take me from Paris, but not in the direction of Aix.” + +“If I wrote to my employer, and got him to raise the reward to some +higher amount, that might make it worth your while?” + +“I should still answer that my affairs will not permit such a journey. +But if there be any chance of tracing Louise Duval at Aix,--and there +may be,--you would succeed quite as well as I should. You must judge for +yourself if it be worth your trouble to attempt such a task; and if you +do attempt it, and do succeed, pray let me know.--A line to my office +will reach me for some little time, even if I am absent from Paris. +Adieu, Monsieur Lamb.” + +Here M. Lebeau Lose and departed. + +Graham relapsed into thought; but a train of thought much more active, +much more concentred than before. “No,” thus ran his meditations,--“no, +it would not be safe to employ that man further. The reasons that forbid +me to offer any very high reward for the discovery of this woman operate +still more strongly against tendering to her own relation a sum that +might indeed secure his aid, but would unquestionably arouse his +suspicions, and perhaps drag into light all that must be concealed. +Oh, this cruel mission! I am, indeed, an impostor to myself till it be +fulfilled. I will go to Aix, and take Renard with me. I am impatient +till I set out, but I cannot quit Paris without once more seeing Isaura. +She consents to relinquish the stage; surely I could wean her too from +intimate friendship with a woman whose genius has so fatal an effect +upon enthusiastic minds. And then--and then?” + +He fell into a delightful revery; and contemplating Isaura as his future +wife, he surrounded her sweet image with all those attributes of +dignity and respect with which an Englishman is accustomed to invest the +destined bearer of his name, the gentle sovereign of his household, +the sacred mother of his children. In this picture the more brilliant +qualities of Isaura found, perhaps, but faint presentation. Her glow of +sentiment, her play of fancy, her artistic yearnings for truths remote, +for the invisible fairyland of beautiful romance, receded into the +background of the picture. It was all these, no doubt, that had so +strengthened and enriched the love at first sight, which had shaken the +equilibrium of his positive existence; and yet he now viewed all these +as subordinate to the one image of mild decorous matronage into which +wedlock was to transform the child of genius, longing for angel wings +and unlimited space. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +On quitting the sorry apartment of the false M. Lamb, Lebeau walked +on with slow steps and bended head, like a man absorbed in thought. +He threaded a labyrinth of obscure streets, no longer in the Faubourg +Montmartre, and dived at last into one of the few courts which preserve +the cachet of the moyen age untouched by the ruthless spirit of +improvement which during the second empire has so altered the face of +Paris. At the bottom of the court stood a large house, much dilapidated, +but bearing the trace of former grandeur in pilasters and fretwork in +the style of the Renaissance, and a defaced coat of arms, surmounted +with a ducal coronet, over the doorway. The house had the aspect of +desertion: many of the windows were broken; others were jealously closed +with mouldering shutters. The door stood ajar; Lebeau pushed it open, +and the action set in movement a bell within a porter’s lodge. +The house, then, was not uninhabited; it retained the dignity of a +concierge. A man with a large grizzled beard cut square, and holding a +journal in his hand, emerged from the lodge, and moved his cap with a +certain bluff and surly reverence on recognizing Lebeau. + +“What! so early, citizen?” + +“Is it too early?” said Lebeau, glancing at his watch. “So it is; I +was not aware of the time. But I am tired with waiting; let me into +the salon. I will wait for the rest; I shall not be sorry for a little +repose.” + +“Bon,” said the porter, sententiously; “while man reposes men advance.” + +“A profound truth, citizen Le Roux; though if they advance on a reposing +foe, they have blundering leaders unless they march through unguarded +by-paths and with noiseless tread.” + +Following the porter up a dingy broad staircase, Lebeau was admitted +into a large room, void of all other furniture than a table, two benches +at its sides, and a fauteuil at its head. On the mantelpiece there was a +huge clock, and some iron sconces were fixed on the panelled walls. + +Lebeau flung himself, with a wearied air, into the fauteuil. The porter +looked at him with a kindly expression. He had a liking to Lebeau, whom +he had served in his proper profession of messenger or commissionnaire +before being placed by that courteous employer in the easy post he +now held. Lebeau, indeed, had the art, when he pleased, of charming +inferiors; his knowledge of mankind allowed him to distinguish +peculiarities in each individual, and flatter the amour propre by +deference to such eccentricities. Marc le Roux, the roughest of “red +caps,” had a wife of whom he was very proud. He would have called the +empress Citoyenne Eugenie, but he always spoke of his wife as Madame. +Lebeau won his heart by always asking after Madame. + +“You look tired, citizen,” said the porter; “let me bring you a glass of +wine.” + +“Thank you, mon ami, no. Perhaps later, if I have time, after we break +up, to pay my respects to Madame.” + +The porter smiled, bowed, and retired muttering, “Nom d’un petit +bonhomme; il n’y a rien de tel que les belles manieres.” + +Left alone, Lebeau leaned his elbow on the table, resting his chin on +his hand, and gazing into the dim space,--for it was now, indeed, night, +and little light came through the grimy panes of the one window left +unclosed by shutters. He was musing deeply. This man was, in much, an +enigma to himself. Was he seeking to unriddle it? A strange compound +of contradictory elements. In his stormy youth there had been +lightning-like flashes of good instincts, of irregular honour, of +inconsistent generosity,--a puissant wild nature, with strong passions +of love and of hate, without fear, but not without shame. In other forms +of society that love of applause which had made him seek and exult in +the notoriety which he mistook for fame might have settled down into +some solid and useful ambition. He might have become great in the +world’s eye, for at the service of his desires there were no ordinary +talents. Though too true a Parisian to be a severe student, still, on +the whole, he had acquired much general information, partly from books, +partly from varied commerce with mankind. He had the gift, both by +tongue and by pen, of expressing himself with force and warmth; time and +necessity had improved that gift. Coveting, during his brief career of +fashion, the distinctions which necessitate lavish expenditure, he had +been the most reckless of spendthrifts; but the neediness which follows +waste had never destroyed his original sense of personal honour. +Certainly Victor de Mauleon was not, at the date of his fall, a man to +whom the thought of accepting, much less of stealing, the jewels of +a woman who loved him could have occurred as a possible question of +casuistry between honour and temptation. Nor could that sort of question +have, throughout the sternest trials or the humblest callings to which +his after-life had been subjected, forced admission into his brain. +He was one of those men, perhaps the most terrible though unconscious +criminals, who are the offsprings produced by intellectual power and +egotistical ambition. If you had offered to Victor de Mauleon the crown +of the Caesars, on condition of his doing one of those base things +which “a gentleman” cannot do, pick a pocket, cheat at cards,--Victor +de Mauleon would have refused the crown. He would not have refused on +account of any laws of morality affecting the foundations of the +social system, but from the pride of his own personality. “I, Victor +de Mauleon! I pick a pocket! I cheat at cards! I!” But when something +incalculably worse for the interests of society than picking a pocket +or cheating at cards was concerned; when for the sake either of private +ambition or political experiment hitherto untested, and therefore very +doubtful, the peace and order and happiness of millions might be exposed +to the release of the most savage passions, rushing on revolutionary +madness or civil massacre, then this French dare-devil would have been +just as unscrupulous as any English philosopher whom a metropolitan +borough might elect as its representative. The system of the empire was +in the way of Victor de Mauleon,--in the way of his private ambition, in +the way of his political dogmas; and therefore it must be destroyed, no +matter what nor whom it crushed beneath its ruins. He was one of those +plotters of revolutions not uncommon in democracies, ancient and modern, +who invoke popular agencies with the less scruple because they have a +supreme contempt for the populace. A man with mental powers equal to De +Mauleon’s, and who sincerely loves the people and respects the grandeur +of aspiration with which, in the great upheaving of their masses, they +so often contrast the irrational credulities of their ignorance and +the blind fury of their wrath, is always exceedingly loath to pass the +terrible gulf that divides reform from revolution. He knows how rarely +it happens that genuine liberty is not disarmed in the passage, and what +sufferings must be undergone by those who live by their labour during +the dismal intervals between the sudden destruction of one form of +society and the gradual settlement of another. Such a man, however, has +no type in a Victor de Mauleon. The circumstances of his life had placed +this strong nature at war with society, and corrupted into misanthropy +affections that had once been ardent. That misanthropy made his ambition +more intense, because it increased his scorn for the human instruments +it employed. + +Victor de Mauleon knew that however innocent of the charges that had so +long darkened his name, and however--thanks to his rank, his manners, +his savoir vivre, the aid of Louvier’s countenance and the support of +his own high-born connections--he might restore himself to his rightful +grade in private life, the higher prizes in public life would scarcely +be within reach, to a man of his antecedents and stinted means, in the +existent form and conditions of established political order. Perforce, +the aristocrat must make himself democrat if he would become a political +chief. Could he assist in turning upside down the actual state of +things, he trusted to his individual force of character to find himself +among the uppermost in the general bouleversement. And in the first +stage of popular revolution the mob has no greater darling than +the noble who deserts his order, though in the second stage it may +guillotine him at the denunciation of his cobbler. A mind so sanguine +and so audacious as that of Victor de Mauleon never thinks of the second +step if it sees a way to the first. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +The room was in complete darkness, save where a ray from a gas-lamp at +the mouth of the court came aslant through the window, when citizen Le +Roux re-entered, closed the window, lighted two of the sconces, and drew +forth from a drawer in the table implements of writing, which he placed +thereon noiselessly, as if he feared to disturb M. Lebeau, whose head, +buried in his hands, rested on the table. He seemed in a profound +sleep. At last the porter gently touched the arm of the slumberer, and +whispered in his ear, “It is on the stroke of ten, citizen; they will be +here in a minute or so.” Lebeau lifted his head drowsily. + +“Eh,” said he--“what?” + +“You have been asleep.” + +“I suppose so, for I have been dreaming. Ha! I hear the door-bell. I am +wide awake now.” + +The porter left him, and in a few minutes conducted into the salon two +men wrapped in cloaks, despite the warmth of the summer night. Lebeau +shook hands with them silently, and not less silently they laid aside +their cloaks and seated themselves. Both these men appeared to belong to +the upper section of the middle class. One, strongly built, with a +keen expression of countenance, was a surgeon considered able in his +profession, but with limited practice, owing to a current suspicion +against his honour in connection with a forged will. The other, tall, +meagre, with long grizzled hair and a wild unsettled look about the +eyes, was a man of science; had written works well esteemed upon +mathematics and electricity, also against the existence of any other +creative power than that which he called “nebulosity,” and defined to be +the combination of heat and moisture. The surgeon was about the age of +forty, the atheist a few years older. In another minute or so, a knock +was heard against the wall. One of the men rose and touched a spring +in the panel, which then flew back, and showed an opening upon a narrow +stair, by which, one after the other, entered three other members of the +society. Evidently there was more than one mode of ingress and exit. + +The three new-comers were not Frenchmen,--one might see that at a +glance; probably they had reasons for greater precaution than those who +entered by the front door. One, a tall, powerfully-built man, with fair +hair and beard, dressed with a certain pretension to elegance,--faded +threadbare elegance,--exhibiting no appearance of linen, was a Pole. +One, a slight bald man, very dark and sallow, was an Italian. The third, +who seemed like an ouvrier in his holiday clothes, was a Belgian. + +Lebeau greeted them all with an equal courtesy, and each with an equal +silence took his seat at the table. + +Lebeau glanced at the clock. “Confreres,” he said, “our number as fixed +for this seance still needs two to be complete, and doubtless they will +arrive in a few minutes. Till they come, we can but talk upon trifles. +Permit me to offer you my cigar-case.” And so saying, he who professed +to be no smoker handed his next neighbour, who was the Pole, a large +cigar-case amply furnished; and the Pole, helping himself to two cigars, +handed the case to the man next him,--two only declining the luxury, +the Italian and the Belgian. But the Pole was the only man who took two +cigars. + +Steps were now heard on the stairs, the door opened, and citizen Le +Toux ushered in, one after the other, two men, this time unmistakably +French,--to an experienced eye unmistakably Parisians: the one, a young +beardless man, who seemed almost boyish, with a beautiful face, and +a stinted, meagre frame; the other, a stalwart man of about eight-and +twenty, dressed partly as an ouvrier, not in his Sunday clothes, rather +affecting the blouse,--not that he wore that antique garment, but that +he was in rough costume unbrushed and stained, with thick shoes and +coarse stockings, and a workman’s cap. But of all who gathered round +the table at which M. Lebeau presided, he had the most distinguished +exterior,--a virile honest exterior, a massive open forehead, +intelligent eyes, a handsome clear-cut incisive profile, and solid jaw. +The expression of the face was stern, but not mean,--an expression which +might have become an ancient baron as well as a modern workman; in it +plenty of haughtiness and of will, and still more of self-esteem. + +“Confreres,” said Lebeau, rising, and every eye turned to him, “our +number for the present seance is complete. To business. Since we last +met, our cause has advanced with rapid and not with noiseless stride. I +need not tell you that Louis Bonaparte has virtually abnegated Les idees +Napoleoniennes,--a fatal mistake for him, a glorious advance for us. The +liberty of the press must very shortly be achieved, and with it personal +government must end. When the autocrat once is compelled to go by the +advice of his ministers, look for sudden changes. His ministers will be +but weathercocks, turned hither and thither according as the wind chops +at Paris; and Paris is the temple of the winds. The new revolution is +almost at hand. [Murmurs of applause.] It would move the laughter of the +Tuileries and its ministers, of the Bourse and of its gamblers, of every +dainty salon of this silken city of would-be philosophers and wits, if +they were told that here within this mouldering baraque, eight men, so +little blessed by fortune, so little known to fame as ourselves, met +to concert the fall of an empire. The Government would not deem us +important enough to notice our existence.” + +“I know not that,” interrupted the Pole. + +“Ah, pardon,” resumed the orator; “I should have confined my remark +to the five of us who are French. I did injustice to the illustrious +antecedents of our foreign allies. I know that you, Thaddeus Loubisky, +that you, Leonardo Raselli, have been too eminent for hands hostile to +tyrants not to be marked with a black cross in the books of the police; +I know that you, Jan Vanderstegen, if hitherto unscarred by those wounds +in defence of freedom which despots and cowards would fain miscall the +brands of the felon, still owe it to your special fraternity to +keep your movements rigidly concealed. The tyrant would suppress the +International Society, and forbids it the liberty of congress. To +you three is granted the secret entrance to our council-hall. But we +Frenchmen are as yet safe in our supposed insignificance. Confreres, +permit me to impress on you the causes why, insignificant as we seem, we +are really formidable. In the first place, we are few: the great mistake +in most secret associations has been to admit many councillors; and +disunion enters wherever many tongues can wrangle. In the next place, +though so few in council, we are legion when the time comes for action; +because we are representative men, each of his own section, and each +section is capable of an indefinite expansion. + +“You, valiant Pole, you, politic Italian, enjoy the confidence of +thousands now latent in unwatched homes and harmless callings, but who, +when you lift a finger, will, like the buried dragon’s teeth, spring +up into armed men. You, Jan Vanderstegen, the trusted delegate from +Verviers, that swarming camp of wronged labour in its revolt from the +iniquities of capital,--you, when the hour arrives, can touch the wire +that flashes the telegram ‘Arise’ through all the lands in which workmen +combine against their oppressors. + +“Of us five Frenchmen, let me speak more modestly. You, sage and +scholar, Felix Ruvigny, honoured alike for the profundity of your +science and the probity of your manners, induced to join us by your +abhorrence of priestcraft and superstition,--you made a wide connection +among all the enlightened reasoners who would emancipate the mind of +man from the trammels of Church-born fable, and when the hour arrives in +which it is safe to say, ‘Delenda est Roma,’ you know where to find the +pens that are more victorious than swords against a Church and a Creed. +You” (turning to the surgeon)--“you, Gaspard le Noy, whom a vile calumny +has robbed of the throne in your profession so justly due to your skill, +you, nobly scorning the rich and great, have devoted yourself to tend +and heal the humble and the penniless, so that you have won the popular +title of the ‘Medecin des Pauvres,’ when the time comes wherein soldiers +shall fly before the sansculottes, and the mob shall begin the work +which they who move mobs will complete, the clients of Gaspard le Noy +will be the avengers of his wrongs. + +“You, Armand Monnier, simple ouvrier, but of illustrious parentage, for +your grandsire was the beloved friend of the virtuous Robespierre, your +father perished a hero and a martyr in the massacre of the coup d’etat; +you, cultured in the eloquence of Robespierre himself, and in the +persuasive philosophy of Robespierre’s teacher, Rousseau; you, the +idolized orator of the Red Republicans,--you will be indeed a chief of +dauntless bands when the trumpet sounds for battle. Young publicist and +poet, Gustave Rameau,--I care not which you are at present, I know what +you will be soon, you need nothing for the development of your powers +over the many but an organ for their manifestation. Of that anon. I now +descend into the bathos of egotism. I am compelled lastly to speak of +myself. It was at Marseilles and Lyons, as you already know, that I +first conceived the plan of this representative association. For +years before I had been in familiar intercourse with the friends of +freedom,--that is, with the foes of the Empire. They are not all poor; +some few are rich and generous. I do not say these rich and few concur +in the ultimate objects of the poor and many; ‘but they concur in the +first object, the demolition of that which exists,--the Empire. In the +course of my special calling of negotiator or agent in the towns of the +Midi, I formed friendships with some of these prosperous malcontents; +and out of these friendships I conceived the idea which is embodied in +this council. + +“According to that conception, while the council may communicate as it +will with all societies, secret or open, having revolution for their +object, the council refuses to merge itself in any other confederation; +it stands aloof and independent; it declines to admit into its code +any special articles of faith in a future beyond the bounds to which +it limits its design and its force. That design unites us; to go beyond +would divide. We all agree to destroy the Napoleonic dynasty; none of +us might agree as to what we should place in its stead. All of us here +present might say, ‘A republic.’ Ay, but of what kind? Vanderstegen +would have it socialistic; Monnier goes further, and would have it +communistic, on the principles of Fourier; Le Noy adheres to the policy +of Danton, and would commence the republic by a reign of terror; our +Italian ally abhors the notion of general massacre, and advocates +individual assassination. Ruvigny would annihilate the worship of a +Deity; Monnier holds with Voltaire and Robespierre, that, ‘if there were +no Deity, it would be necessary to man to create one.’ Bref, we could +not agree upon any plan for the new edifice, and therefore we refuse to +discuss one till the ploughshare has gone over the ruins of the old. +But I have another and more practical reason for keeping our council +distinct from all societies with professed objects beyond that of +demolition. We need a certain command of money. It is I who bring to you +that, and--how? Not from my own resources,--they but suffice to support +myself; not by contributions from ouvriers who, as you well know, +will subscribe only for their own ends in the victory of workmen over +masters. I bring money to you from the coffers of the rich malcontents. +Their politics are not those of most present; their politics are what +they term moderate. Some are indeed for a republic, but for a republic +strong in defence of order, in support of property; others--and they are +more numerous and the more rich--for a constitutional monarchy, and, if +possible, for the abridgment of universal suffrage, which in their eyes +tends only to anarchy in the towns and arbitrary rule under priestly +influence in the rural districts. They would not subscribe a sou if they +thought it went to further the designs whether of Ruvigny the atheist, +or of Monnier, who would enlist the Deity of Rousseau on the side of +the drapeau rouge; not a sou if they knew I had the honour to boast such +confreres as I see around me. They subscribe, as we concert, for the +fall of Bonaparte. The policy I adopt I borrow from the policy of the +English Liberals. In England, potent millionnaires, high-born dukes, +devoted Churchmen, belonging to the Liberal party, accept the services +of men who look forward to measures which would ruin capital, eradicate +aristocracy, and destroy the Church, provided these men combine with +them in some immediate step onward against the Tories. They have a +proverb which I thus adapt to French localities: if a train passes +Fontainebleau on its way to Marseilles, why should I not take it to +Fontainebleau because other passengers are going on to Marseilles? + +“Confreres, it seems to me the moment has come when we may venture some +of the fund placed at my disposal to other purposes than those to which +it has been hitherto devoted. I propose, therefore, to set up a journal +under the auspices of Gustave Rameau as editor-in-chief,--a journal +which, if he listen to my advice, will create no small sensation. +It will begin with a tone of impartiality; it will refrain from all +violence of invective; it will have wit, it will have sentiment, and +eloquence; it will win its way into the salons and cafes of educated +men; and then, and then, when it does change from polished satire into +fierce denunciation and sides with the blouses, its effect will be +startling and terrific. Of this I will say more to citizen Rameau in +private. To you I need not enlarge upon the fact that, at Paris, a +combination of men, though immeasurably superior to us in status or +influence, without a journal at command is nowhere; with such a journal, +written not to alarm but to seduce fluctuating opinions, a combination +of men immeasurably inferior to us may be anywhere. + +“Confreres, this affair settled, I proceed to distribute amongst you +sums of which each who receives will render me an account, except our +valued confrere the Pole. All that we can subscribe to the cause of +humanity a representative of Poland requires for himself.” (A suppressed +laugh among all but the Pole, who looked round with a grave, imposing +air, as much as to say, “What is there to laugh at?--a simple truth.”) + +M. Lebeau then presented to each of his confreres a sealed envelope, +containing no doubt a bank-note, and perhaps also private instructions +as to its disposal. It was one of his rules to make the amount of any +sum granted to an individual member of the society from the fund at his +disposal a confidential secret between himself and the recipient. +Thus jealousy was avoided if the sums were unequal; and unequal they +generally were. In the present instance the two largest sums were given +to the “Medecin des Pauvres” and to the delegate from Verviers. Both +were no doubt to be distributed among “the poor,” at the discretion of +the trustee appointed. + +Whatever rules with regard to the distribution of money M. Lebeau +laid down were acquiesced in without demur, for the money was found +exclusively by himself, and furnished without the pale of the Secret +Council, of which he had made himself founder and dictator. Some other +business was then discussed, sealed reports from each member were handed +to the president, who placed them unopened in his pocket, and resumed, +“Confreres, our seance is now concluded. The period for our next meeting +must remain indefinite, for I myself shall leave Paris as soon as I +have set on foot the journal, on the details of which I will confer with +citizen Rameau. I am not satisfied with the progress made by the two +travelling missionaries who complete our Council of Ten; and though I do +not question their zeal, I think my experience may guide it if I take a +journey to the towns of Bordeaux and Marseilles, where they now are. But +should circumstances demanding concert or action arise, you may be sure +that I will either summon a meeting or transmit instructions to such +of our members as may be most usefully employed. For the present, +confreres, you are relieved. Remain only you, dear young author.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Left alone with Gustave Rameau, the President of the Secret Council +remained silently musing for some moments; but his countenance was no +longer moody and overcast,--his nostrils were dilated, as in triumph; +there was a half-smile of pride on his lips. Rameau watched him +curiously and admiringly. The young man had the impressionable, +excitable temperament common to Parisian genius,--especially when it +nourishes itself on absinthe. He enjoyed the romance of belonging to a +secret society; he was acute enough to recognize the sagacity by which +this small conclave was kept out of those crazed combinations for +impracticable theories more likely to lead adventurers to the Tarpeian +Rock than to the Capitol, while yet those crazed combinations might, +in some critical moment, become strong instruments in the hands of +practical ambition. Lebeau fascinated him, and took colossal proportions +in his intoxicated vision,--vision indeed intoxicated at this moment, +for before it floated the realized image of his aspirations,--a journal +of which he was to be the editor-in-chief; in which his poetry, his +prose, should occupy space as large as he pleased; through which his +name, hitherto scarce known beyond a literary clique, would resound +in salon and club and cafe, and become a familiar music on the lips of +fashion. And he owed this to the man seated there,--a prodigious man. + +“Cher poete,” said Lebeau, breaking silence, “it gives me no mean +pleasure to think I am opening a career to one whose talents fit him +for those goals on which they who reach write names that posterity +shall read. Struck with certain articles of yours in the journal made +celebrated by the wit and gayety of Savarin, I took pains privately to +inquire into your birth, your history, connections, antecedents. All +confirmed my first impression,--that you were exactly the writer I +wish to secure to our cause. I therefore sought you in your rooms, +unintroduced and a stranger, in order to express my admiration of your +compositions. Bref, we soon became friends; and after comparing minds, +I admitted you, at your request, into this Secret Council. Now, in +proposing to you the conduct of the journal I would establish, for +which I am prepared to find all necessary funds, I am compelled to +make imperative conditions. Nominally you will be editor-in-chief: that +station, if the journal succeeds, will secure you position and fortune; +if it fail, you fail with it. But we will not speak of failure; I must +have it succeed. Our interest, then, is the same. Before that +interest all puerile vanities fade away. Nominally, I say, you are +editor-in-chief; but all the real work of editing will, at first, be +done by others.” + +“Ah!” exclaimed Rameau, aghast and stunned. Lebeau resumed, + +“To establish the journal I propose needs more than the genius of youth; +it needs the tact and experience of mature years.” + +Rameau sank back on his chair with a sullen sneer on his pale lips. +Decidedly Lebeau was not so great a man as he had thought. + +“A certain portion of the journal,” continued Lebeau, “will be +exclusively appropriated to your pen.” + +Rameau’s lip lost the sneer. + +“But your pen must be therein restricted to compositions of pure fancy, +disporting in a world that does not exist; or, if on graver themes +connected with the beings of the world that does exist, the subjects +will be dictated to you and revised. Yet even in the higher departments +of a journal intended to make way at its first start, we need the aid, +not indeed of men who write better than you, but of men whose fame is +established,--whose writings, good or bad, the public run to read, and +will find good even if they are bad. You must consign one column to the +playful comments and witticisms of Savarin.” + +“Savarin? But he has a journal of his own. He will not, as an author, +condescend to write in one just set up by me; and as a politician, he as +certainly will not aid in an ultrademocratic revolution. If he care for +politics at all, he is a constitutionalist, an Orleanist.” + +“Enfant! as an author Savarin will condescend to contribute to your +journal, first, because it in no way attempts to interfere with his own; +secondly,--I can tell you a secret, Savarin’s journal no longer suffices +for his existence. He has sold more than two-thirds of its property; +he is in debt, and his creditor is urgent; and to-morrow you will offer +Savarin thirty thousand francs for one column from his pen, and signed +by his name, for two months from the day the journal starts. He will +accept, partly because the sum will clear off the debt that hampers him, +partly because he will take care that the amount becomes known; and +that will help him to command higher terms for the sale of the remaining +shares in the journal he now edits, for the new book which you told me +he intended to write, and for the new journal which he will be sure to +set up as soon as he has disposed of the old one. You say that, as a +politician, Savarin, an Orleanist, will not aid in an ultra-democratic +revolution. Who asks him to do so? Did I not imply at the meeting that +we commence our journal with politics the mildest? Though revolutions +are not made with rose-water, it is rose-water that nourishes their +roots. The polite cynicism of authors, read by those who float on the +surface of society, prepares the way for the social ferment in its +deeps. Had there been no Voltaire, there would have been no Camille +Desmoulins; had there been no Diderot, there would have been no Marat. +We start as polite cynics. Of all cynics Savarin is the politest. But +when I bid high for him, it is his clique that I bid for. Without his +clique he is but a wit; with his clique, a power. Partly out of that +clique, partly out of a circle beyond it, which Savarin can more or less +influence, I select ten. Here is the list of them; study it. Entre nous, +I esteem their writings as little as I do artificial flies; but they are +the artificial flies at which, in this particular season of the year, +the public rise. You must procure at least five of the ten; and I leave +you carte blanche as to the terms. Savarin gained, the best of them will +be proud of being his associates. Observe, none of these messieurs of +brilliant imagination are to write political articles; those will be +furnished to you anonymously, and inserted without erasure or omission. +When you have secured Savarin, and five at least of the collaborateurs +in the list, write to me at my office. I give you four days to do this; +and the day the journal starts you enter into the income of fifteen +thousand francs a year, with a rise in salary proportioned to profits. +Are you contented with the terms?” + +“Of course I am; but supposing I do not gain the aid of Savarin, or five +at least of the list you give, which I see at a glance contains names +the most a la mode in this kind of writing, more than one of them of +high social rank, whom it is difficult for me even to approach,--if, I +say, I fail?” + +“What! with a carte blanche of terms? fie! Are you a Parisian? Well, to +answer you frankly, if you fail in so easy a task, you are not the man +to edit our journal, and I shall find another. Allez, courage! Take my +advice; see Savarin the first thing to-morrow morning. Of course, my +name and calling you will keep a profound secret from him, as from all. +Say as mysteriously as you can that parties you are forbidden to name +instruct you to treat with M. Savarin, and offer him the terms I have +specified, the thirty thousand francs paid to him in advance the moment +he signs the simple memorandum of agreement. The more mysterious you +are, the more you will impose,--that is, wherever you offer money and +don’t ask for it.” + +Here Lebeau took up his hat, and, with a courteous nod of adieu, lightly +descended the gloomy stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +At night, after this final interview with Lebeau, Graham took leave for +good of his lodgings in Montmartre, and returned to his apartment in +the Rue d’Anjou. He spent several hours of the next morning in answering +numerous letters accumulated during his absence. Late in the afternoon +he had an interview with M. Renard, who, as at that season of the year +he was not over-busied with other affairs, engaged to obtain leave to +place his services at Graham’s command during the time requisite for +inquiries at Aix, and to be in readiness to start the next day. Graham +then went forth to pay one or two farewell visits; and these over, +bent his way through the Champs Elysees towards Isaura’s villa, when he +suddenly encountered Rochebriant on horseback. The Marquis courteously +dismounted, committing his horse to the care of the groom, and linking +his arm in Graham’s, expressed his pleasure at seeing him again; +then, with some visible hesitation and embarrassment, he turned the +conversation towards the political aspects of France. + +“There was,” he said, “much in certain words of yours, when we last +walked together in this very path, that sank deeply into my mind at the +time, and over which I have of late still more earnestly reflected. You +spoke of the duties a Frenchman owed to France, and the ‘impolicy’ of +remaining aloof from all public employment on the part of those attached +to the Legitimist cause.” + +“True; it cannot be the policy of any party to forget that between the +irrevocable past and the uncertain future there intervenes the action of +the present time.” + +“Should you, as an impartial bystander, consider it dishonourable in me +if I entered the military service under the ruling sovereign?” + +“Certainly not, if your country needed you.” + +“And it may, may it not? I hear vague rumours of coming war in almost +every salon I frequent. There has been gunpowder in the atmosphere +we breathe ever since the battle of Sadowa. What think you of German +arrogance and ambition? Will they suffer the swords of France to rust in +their scabbards?” + +“My dear Marquis, I should incline to put the question otherwise. Will +the jealous amour propre of France permit the swords of Germany to +remain sheathed? But in either case, no politician can see without grave +apprehension two nations so warlike, close to each other, divided by a +borderland that one covets and the other will not yield, each armed +to the teeth,--the one resolved to brook no rival, the other equally +determined to resist all aggression. And therefore, as you say, war is +in the atmosphere; and we may also hear, in the clouds that give no sign +of dispersion, the growl of the gathering thunder. War may come any day; +and if France be not at once the victor--” + +“France not at once the victor?” interrupted Alain, passionately; “and +against a Prussian! Permit me to say no Frenchman can believe that.” + +“Let no man despise a foe,” said Graham, smiling half sadly. “However, I +must not incur the danger of wounding your national susceptibilities. To +return to the point you raise. If France needed the aid of her best +and bravest, a true descendant of Henri Quatre ought to blush for his +ancient noblesse were a Rochebriant to say, ‘But I don’t like the colour +of the flag.’” + +“Thank you,” said Alain, simply; “that is enough.” There was a pause, +the young men walking on slowly, arm in arm. And then there flashed +across Graham’s mind the recollection of talk on another subject in that +very path. Here he had spoken to Alain in deprecation of any possible +alliance with Isaura Cicogna, the destined actress and public; singer. +His cheek flushed; his heart smote him. What! had he spoken slightingly +of her--of her? What if she became his own wife? What! had he himself +failed in the respect which he would demand as her right from the +loftiest of his high-born kindred? What, too, would this man, of fairer +youth than himself, think of that disparaging counsel, when he heard +that the monitor had won the prize from which he had warned another? +Would it not seem that he had but spoken in the mean cunning dictated by +the fear of a worthier rival? Stung by these thoughts, he arrested his +steps, and, looking the Marquis full in the face, said, “You remind me +of one subject in our talk many weeks since; it is my duty to remind +you of another. At that time you, and, speaking frankly, I myself, +acknowledged the charm in the face of a young Italian lady. I told you +then that, on learning she was intended for the stage, the charm for me +had vanished. I said bluntly that it should vanish perhaps still more +utterly for a noble of your illustrious name; you remember?” + +“Yes,” answered Alain, hesitatingly, and with a look of surprise. + +“I wish now to retract all I said thereon. Mademoiselle Cicogna is not +bent on the profession for which she was educated. She would willingly +renounce all idea of entering it. The only counterweight which, viewed +whether by my reason or my prejudices, could be placed in the opposite +scale to that of the excellences which might make any man proud to win +her, is withdrawn. I have become acquainted with her since the date of +our conversation. Hers is a mind which harmonizes with the loveliness of +her face. In one word, Marquis, I should deem myself honoured, as well +as blest, by such a bride. It was due to her that I should say this; it +was due also to you, in case you should retain the impression I sought +in ignorance to efface. And I am bound, as a gentleman, to obey this +twofold duty, even though in so doing I bring upon myself the affliction +of a candidate for the hand to which I would fain myself aspire,--a +candidate with pretensions in every way far superior to my own.” + +An older or a more cynical man than Alain de Rochebriant might well have +found something suspicious in a confession thus singularly volunteered; +but the Marquis was himself so loyal that he had no doubt of the loyalty +of Graham. + +“I reply to you,” he said, “with a frankness which finds an example in +your own. The first fair face which attracted my fancy since my arrival +at Paris was that of the Italian demoiselle of whom you speak in terms +of such respect. I do think if I had then been thrown into her society, +and found her to be such as you no doubt truthfully describe, that +fancy might have become a very grave emotion. I was then so poor, so +friendless, so despondent! Your words of warning impressed me at the +time, but less durably than you might suppose; for that very night as I +sat in my solitary attic I said to myself, ‘Why should I shrink, with an +obsolete old-world prejudice, from what my forefathers would have termed +a mesalliance? What is the value of my birthright now? None,--worse than +none. It excludes me from all careers; my name is but a load that +weighs me down. Why should I make that name a curse as well as a burden? +Nothing is left to me but that which is permitted to all men,--wedded +and holy love. Could I win to my heart the smile of a woman who brings +me that dower, the home of my fathers would lose its gloom.’ And +therefore, if at that time I had become familiarly acquainted with her +who had thus attracted my eye and engaged my thoughts, she might have +become my destiny; but now!” + +“But now?” + +“Things have changed. I am no longer poor, friendless, solitary. I have +entered the world of my equals as a Rochebriant; I have made myself +responsible for the dignity of my name. I could not give that name to +one, however peerless in herself, of whom the world would say, ‘But +for her marriage she would have been a singer on the stage!’ I will own +more: the fancy I conceived for the first fair face, other fair faces +have dispelled. At this moment, however, I have no thought of marriage; +and having known the anguish of struggle, the privations of poverty, I +would ask no woman to share the hazard of my return to them. You might +present me, then, safely to this beautiful Italian,--certain, indeed, +that I should be her admirer; equally certain that I could not become +your rival.” + +There was something in this speech that jarred upon Graham’s sensitive +pride; but on the whole, he felt relieved, both in honour and in heart. +After a few more words, the two young men shook hands and parted. Alain +remounted his horse. The day was now declining. Graham hailed a vacant +fiacre, and directed the driver to Isaura’s villa. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +ISAURA. + +The sun was sinking slowly as Isaura sat at her window, gazing dreamily +on the rose-hued clouds that made the western borderland between earth +and heaven. On the table before her lay a few sheets of manuscript +hastily written, not yet reperused. That restless mind of hers had left +its trace on the manuscript. + +It is characteristic perhaps of the different genius of the sexes, that +woman takes to written composition more impulsively, more intuitively, +than man,--letter-writing, to him a task-work, is to her a recreation. +Between the age of sixteen and the date of marriage, six well-educated +clever girls out of ten keep a journal; not one well-educated man in ten +thousand does. So, without serious and settled intention of becoming an +author, how naturally a girl of ardent feeling and vivid fancy seeks +in poetry or romance a confessional,--an outpouring of thought and +sentiment, which are mysteries to herself till she has given them words, +and which, frankly revealed on the page, she would not, perhaps could +not, utter orally to a living ear. + +During the last few days, the desire to create in the realm of fable +beings constructed by her own breath, spiritualized by her own soul, had +grown irresistibly upon this fair child of song. In fact, when +Graham’s words had decided the renunciation of her destined career, her +instinctive yearnings for the utterance of those sentiments or thoughts +which can only find expression in some form of art, denied the one vent, +irresistibly impelled her to the other. And in this impulse she was +confirmed by the thought that here at least there was nothing which +her English friend could disapprove,--none of the perils that beset the +actress. Here it seemed as if, could she but succeed, her fame would be +grateful to the pride of all who loved her. Here was a career ennobled +by many a woman, and side by side in rivalry with renowned men. To her +it seemed that, could she in this achieve an honoured name, that name +took its place at once amid the higher ranks of the social world, and +in itself brought a priceless dowry and a starry crown. It was, however, +not till after the visit to Enghien that this ambition took practical +life and form. One evening after her return to Paris, by an effort +so involuntary that it seemed to her no effort, she had commenced a +tale,--without plan, without method, without knowing in one page what +would fill the next. Her slight fingers hurried on as if, like the +pretended spirit manifestations, impelled by an invisible agency without +the pale of the world. She was intoxicated by the mere joy of inventing +ideal images. In her own special art an elaborate artist, here she had +no thought of art; if art was in her work, it sprang unconsciously from +the harmony between herself and her subject,--as it is, perhaps, with +the early soarings of the genuine lyric poets, in contrast to the +dramatic. For the true lyric poet is intensely personal, intensely +subjective. It is himself that he expresses, that he represents; and he +almost ceases to be lyrical when he seeks to go out of his own existence +into that of others with whom he has no sympathy, no rapport. This +tale was vivid with genius as yet untutored,--genius in its morning +freshness, full of beauties, full of faults. Isaura distinguished not +the faults from the beauties. She felt only a vague persuasion that +there was a something higher and brighter--a something more true to her +own idiosyncrasy--than could be achieved by the art that “sings other +people’s words to other people’s music.” From the work thus commenced +she had now paused; and it seemed to her fancies that between her inner +self and the scene without, whether in the skies and air and sunset, or +in the abodes of men stretching far and near till lost amid the roofs +and domes of the great city, she had fixed and riveted the link of a +sympathy hitherto fluctuating, unsubstantial, evanescent, undefined. +Absorbed in her revery, she did not notice the deepening of the short +twilight, till the servant entering drew the curtains between her and +the world without, and placed the lamp on the table beside her. Then she +turned away with a restless sigh; her eyes fell on the manuscript, but +the charm of it was gone. A sentiment of distrust in its worth had crept +into her thoughts, unconsciously to herself, and the page open before +her at an uncompleted sentence seemed unwelcome and wearisome as a +copy-book is to a child condemned to relinquish a fairy tale half told, +and apply himself to a task half done. She fell again into a revery, +when, starting as from a dream, she heard herself addressed by name, and +turning round saw Savarin and Gustave Rameau in the room. + +“We are come, Signorina,” said Savarin, “to announce to you a piece of +news, and to hazard a petition. The news is this: my young friend +here has found a Maecenas who has the good taste so to admire his +lucubrations under the nom de plume of Alphonse de Valcour as to +volunteer the expenses for starting a new journal, of which Gustave +Rameau is to be editor-in-chief; and I have promised to assist him +as contributor for the first two months. I have given him notes of +introduction to certain other feuilletonistes and critics whom he has on +his list. But all put together would not serve to float the journal like +a short roman from Madame de Grantmesnil. Knowing your intimacy with +that eminent artist, I venture to back Rameau’s supplication that you +would exert your influence on his, behalf. As to the honoraires, she has +but to name them.” + +“Carte blanche,” cried Rameau, eagerly. + +“You know Eulalie too well, Monsieur Savarin,” answered Isaura, with a +smile half reproachful, “to suppose that she is a mercenary in letters, +and sells her services to the best bidder.” + +“Bah, belle enfant!” said Savarin, with his gay light laugh. “Business +is business, and books as well as razors are made to sell. But, of +course, a proper prospectus of the journal must accompany your request +to write in it. Meanwhile Rameau will explain to you, as he has done +to me, that the journal in question is designed for circulation among +readers of haute classe it is to be pleasant and airy, full of bons mots +and anecdote; witty, but not ill-natured. Politics to be Liberal, of +course, but of elegant admixture,--champagne and seltzer-water. In +fact, however, I suspect that the politics will be a very inconsiderable +feature in this organ of fine arts and manners; some amateur scribbler +in the beau monde will supply them. For the rest, if my introductory +letters are successful, Madame de Grantmesnil will not be in bad +company.” + +“You will write to Madame de Grantmesnil?” asked Rameau, pleadingly. + +“Certainly I will, as soon--” + +“As soon as you have the prospectus, and the names of the +collaborateurs,” interrupted Rameau. “I hope to send you these in a very +few days.” + +While Rameau was thus speaking, Savarin had seated himself by the table, +and his eye mechanically resting on the open manuscript lighted by +chance upon a sentence--an aphorism--embodying a very delicate sentiment +in very felicitous diction,--one of those choice condensations of +thought, suggesting so much more than is said, which are never found in +mediocre writers, and, rare even in the best, come upon us like truths +seized by surprise. + +“Parbleu!” exclaimed Savarin, in the impulse of genuine admiration, “but +this is beautiful; what is more, it is original,”--and he read the words +aloud. Blushing with shame and resentment, Isaura turned and hastily +placed her hand on the manuscript. + +“Pardon,” said Savarin, humbly; “I confess my sin, but it was so +unpremeditated that it does not merit a severe penance. Do not look +at me so reproachfully. We all know that young ladies keep commonplace +books in which they enter passages that strike them in the works they +read; and you have but shown an exquisite taste in selecting this gem. +Do tell me where you found it. Is it somewhere in Lamartine?” + +“No,” answered Isaura, half inaudibly, and with an effort to withdraw +the paper. Savarin gently detained her hand, and looking earnestly into +her tell-tale face, divined her secret. + +“It is your own, Signorina! Accept the congratulations of a very +practised and somewhat fastidious critic. If the rest of what you write +resembles this sentence, contribute to Rameau’s journal, and I answer +for its success.” + +Rameau approached, half incredulous, half envious. + +“My dear child,” resumed Savarin, drawing away the manuscript from +Isaura’s coy, reluctant clasp, “do permit me to cast a glance over these +papers. For what I yet know, there may be here more promise of fame than +even you could gain as a singer.” + +The electric chord in Isaura’s heart was touched. Who cannot conceive +what the young writer feels, especially the young woman-writer, when +hearing the first cheery note of praise from the lips of a writer of +established fame? + +“Nay, this cannot be worth your reading,” said Isaura, falteringly; “I +have never written anything of the kind before, and this is a riddle to +me. I know not,” she added, with a sweet low laugh, “why I began, nor +how I should end it.” + +“So much the better,” said Savarin; and he took the manuscript, withdrew +to a recess by the farther window, and seated himself there, reading +silently and quickly, but now and then with a brief pause of reflection. + +Rameau placed himself beside Isaura on the divan, and began talking with +her earnestly,--earnestly, for it was about himself and his aspiring +hopes. Isaura, on the other hand, more woman-like than author-like, +ashamed even to seem absorbed in herself and her hopes, and with her +back turned, in the instinct of that shame, against the reader of her +manuscript,--Isaura listened and sought to interest herself solely in +the young fellow-author. Seeking to do so she succeeded genuinely, for +ready sympathy was a prevalent characteristic of her nature. + +“Oh,” said Rameau, “I am at the turning-point of my life. Ever since +boyhood I have been haunted with the words of Andre Chenier on the +morning he was led to the scaffold ‘And yet there was something here,’ +striking his forehead. Yes, I, poor, low-born, launching myself headlong +in the chase of a name; I, underrated, uncomprehended, indebted even for +a hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler like Savarin, ranked +by petty rivals in a grade below themselves,--I now see before me, +suddenly, abruptly presented, the expanding gates into fame and fortune. +Assist me, you!” + +“But how?” said Isaura, already forgetting her manuscript; and certainly +Rameau did not refer to that. + +“How!” echoed Rameau; “how! But do you not see--or at least, do you not +conjecture--this journal of which Savarin speaks contains my present and +my future? Present independence, opening to fortune and renown. Ay,--and +who shall say? renown beyond that of the mere writer. Behind the gaudy +scaffolding of this rickety Empire, a new social edifice unperceived +arises; and in that edifice the halls of State shall be given to the men +who help obscurely to build it,--to men like me.” Here, drawing her +hand into his own, fixing on her the most imploring gaze of his dark +persuasive eyes, and utterly unconscious of bathos in his adjuration, he +added: “Plead for me with your whole mind and heart; use your uttermost +influence with the illustrious writer whose pen can assure the fates of +my journal.” + +Here the door suddenly opened, and following the servant, who announced +unintelligibly his name, there entered Graham Vane. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +The Englishman halted at the threshold. His eye, passing rapidly over +the figure of Savarin reading in the window-niche, rested upon Rameau +and Isaura seated on the same divan, he with her hand clasped in both +his own, and bending his face towards hers so closely that a loose tress +of her hair seemed to touch his forehead. + +The Englishman halted, and no revolution which changes the habitudes and +forms of States was ever so sudden as that which passed without a word +in the depths of his unconjectured heart. The heart has no history +which philosophers can recognize. An ordinary political observer, +contemplating the condition of a nation, may very safely tell us what +effects must follow the causes patent to his eyes; but the wisest and +most far-seeing sage, looking at a man at one o’clock, cannot tell us +what revulsions of his whole being may be made ere the clock strike two. + +As Isaura rose to greet her visitor, Savarin came from the window-niche, +the manuscript in his hand. + +“Son of perfidious Albion,” said Savarin, gayly, “we feared you had +deserted the French alliance. Welcome back to Paris, and the entente +cordiale.” + +“Would I could stay to enjoy such welcome! but I must again quit Paris.” + +“Soon to return, n’est ce pas? Paris is an irresistible magnet to les +beaux esprits. A propos of beaux esprits, be sure to leave orders with +your bookseller, if you have one, to enter your name as subscriber to a +new journal.” + +“Certainly, if Monsieur Savarin recommends it.” + +“He recommends it as a matter of course; he writes in it,” said Rameau. + +“A sufficient guarantee for its excellence. What is the name of the +journal?” + +“Not yet thought of,” answered Savarin. “Babes must be born before they +are christened; but it will be instruction enough to your bookseller to +order the new journal to be edited by Gustave Rameau.” + +Bowing ceremoniously to the editor in prospect, Graham said, half +ironically, “May I hope that in the department of criticism you will not +be too hard upon poor Tasso?” + +“Never fear; the Signorina, who adores Tasso, will take him under her +special protection,” said Savarin, interrupting Rameau’s sullen and +embarrassed reply. + +Graham’s brow slightly contracted. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “is then to +be united in the conduct of this journal with M. Gustave Rameau?” + +“No, indeed!” exclaimed Isaura, somewhat frightened at the idea. + +“But I hope,” said Savarin, “that the Signorina may become a contributor +too important for an editor to offend by insulting her favourites, Tasso +included. Rameau and I came hither to entreat her influence with her +intimate and illustrious friend, Madame de Grantmesnil, to insure the +success of our undertaking by sanctioning the announcement of her name +as a contributor.” + +“Upon social questions,--such as the laws of marriage?” said Graham, +with a sarcastic smile, which concealed the quiver of his lip and the +pain in his voice. + +“Nay,” answered Savarin, “our journal will be too sportive, I hope, for +matters so profound. We would rather have Madame de Grantmesnil’s aid +in some short roman, which will charm the fancy of all and offend the +opinions of none. But since I came into the room, I care less for +the Signorina’s influence with the great authoress,” and he glanced +significantly at the manuscript. + +“How so?” asked Graham, his eye following the glance. + +“If the writer of this manuscript will conclude what she has begun, we +shall be independent of Madame de Grantmesnil.” + +“Fie!” cried Isaura, impulsively, her face and neck bathed in +blushes,--“fie! such words are a mockery.” + +Graham gazed at her intently, and then turned his eyes on Savarin. He +guessed aright the truth. “Mademoiselle then is an author? In the style +of her friend Madame de Grantmesnil?” + +“Bah!” said Savarin, “I should indeed be guilty of mockery if I paid +the Signorina so false a compliment as to say that in a first effort she +attained to the style of one of the most finished sovereigns of language +that has ever swayed the literature of France. When I say, ‘Give us this +tale completed, and I shall be consoled if the journal does not gain the +aid of Madame de Grantmesnil,’ I mean that in these pages there is +that nameless charm of freshness and novelty which compensates for many +faults never committed by a practised pen like Madame de Grantmesnil’s. +My dear young lady, go on with this story,--finish it; when finished, do +not disdain any suggestions I may offer in the way of correction,--and I +will venture to predict to you so brilliant a career as author, that you +will not regret should you resign for that career the bravoes you could +command as actress and singer.” + +The Englishman pressed his hand convulsively to his heart, as if smitten +by a sudden spasm. But as his eyes rested on Isaura’s face, which had +become radiant with the enthusiastic delight of genius when the path it +would select opens before it as if by a flash from heaven, whatever of +jealous irritation, whatever of selfish pain he might before have felt; +was gone, merged in a sentiment of unutterable sadness and compassion. +Practical man as he was, he knew so well all the dangers, all the +snares, all the sorrows, all the scandals menacing name and fame, that +in the world of Paris must beset the fatherless girl who, not less +in authorship than on the stage, leaves the safeguard of private life +forever behind her, who becomes a prey to the tongues of the public. +At Paris, how slender is the line that divides the authoress from the +Bohemienne! He sank into his chair silently, and passed his hand over +his eyes, as if to shut out a vision of the future. + +Isaura in her excitement did not notice the effect on her English +visitor. She could not have divined such an effect as possible. On the +contrary, even subordinate to her joy at the thought that she had not +mistaken the instincts which led her to a nobler vocation than that of +the singer, that the cage-bar was opened, and space bathed in sunshine +was inviting the new-felt wings,--subordinate even to that joy was a joy +more wholly, more simply woman’s. “If,” thought she, in this joy, “if +this be true, my proud ambition is realized; all disparities of worth +and fortune are annulled between me and him to whom I would bring no +shame of mesalliance!” Poor dreamer, poor child! + +“You will let me see what you have written,” said Rameau, somewhat +imperiously, in the sharp voice habitual to him, and which pierced +Graham’s ear like a splinter of glass. + +“No, not now; when finished.” + +“You will finish it?” + +“Oh, yes; how can I help it after such encouragement?” She held out +her hand to Savarin, who kissed it gallantly; then her eyes intuitively +sought Graham’s. By that time he had recovered his self-possession. He +met her look tranquilly, and with a smile; but the smile chilled her, +she knew not why. + +The conversation then passed upon books and authors of the day, and was +chiefly supported by the satirical pleasantries of Savarin, who was in +high good-spirits. + +Graham, who, as we know, had come with the hope of seeing Isaura alone, +and with the intention of uttering words which, however guarded, might +yet in absence serve as links of union, now no longer coveted that +interview, no longer meditated those words. He soon rose to depart. + +“Will you dine with me to-morrow?” asked Savarin. “Perhaps I may induce +the Signorina and Rameau to offer you the temptation of meeting them.” + +“By to-morrow I shall be leagues away.” + +Isaura’s heart sank. This time the manuscript was fairly forgotten. + +“You never said you were going so soon,” cried Savarin. “When do you +come back, vile deserter?” + +“I cannot even guess. Monsieur Rameau, count me among your subscribers. +Mademoiselle, my best regards to Signora Venosta. When I see you again, +no doubt you will have become famous.” + +Isaura here could not control herself. She rose impulsively, and +approached him, holding out her hand, and attempting a smile. + +“But not famous in the way that you warned me from,” she said in +whispered tones. “You are friends with me still?” It was like the +piteous wail of a child seeking to make it up with one who wants to +quarrel, the child knows not why. Graham was moved, but what could he +say? Could he have the right to warn her from this profession also; +forbid all desires, all roads of fame to this brilliant aspirant? Even a +declared and accepted lover might well have deemed that that would be to +ask too much. He replied, “Yes, always a friend, if you could ever need +one.” Her hand slid from his, and she turned away wounded to the quick. + +“Have you your coupe at the door?” asked Savarin. + +“Simply a fiacre.” + +“And are going back at once to Paris?” + +“Yes.” + +“Will you kindly drop me in the Rue de Rivoli?” + +“Charmed to be of use.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +As the fiacre bore to Paris Savarin and Graham, the former said, “I +cannot conceive what rich simpleton could entertain so high an opinion +of Gustave Rameau as to select a man so young, and of reputation though +promising so undecided, for an enterprise which requires such a degree +of tact and judgment as the conduct of a new journal,--and a journal, +too, which is to address itself to the beau monde. However, it is not +for me to criticise a selection which brings a god-send to myself.” + +“To yourself? You jest; you have a journal of your own. It can only be +through an excess of good-nature that you lend your name and pen to the +service of M. Gustave Rameau.” + +“My good-nature does not go to that extent. It is Rameau who confers a +service upon me. Peste! mon cher, we French authors have not the rents +of you rich English milords. And though I am the most economical of our +tribe, yet that journal of mine has failed me of late; and this morning +I did not exactly see how I was to repay a sum I had been obliged to +borrow of a money-lender,--for I am too proud to borrow of friends, +and too sagacious to borrow of publishers,--when in walks ce cher petit +Gustave with an offer, for a few trifles towards starting this new-born +journal, which makes a new man of me. Now I am in the undertaking, my +amour propre and my reputation are concerned in its success; and I shall +take care that collaborateurs of whose company I am not ashamed are in +the same boat. But that charming girl, Isaura! What an enigma the gift +of the pen is! No one can ever guess who has it until tried.” + +“The young lady’s manuscript, then, really merits the praise you +bestowed on it?” + +“Much more praise, though a great deal of blame, which I did not +bestow,--for in a first work faults insure success as much as beauties. +Anything better than tame correctness. Yes, her first work, to judge by +what is written, must make a hit,--a great hit. And that will decide her +career. A singer, an actress, may retire,--often does when she marries +an author; but once an author always an author.” + +“Ah! is it so? If you had a beloved daughter, Savarin, would you +encourage her to be an author?” + +“Frankly, no: principally because in that case the chances are that she +would marry an author; and French authors, at least in the imaginative +school, make very uncomfortable husbands.” + +“Ah! you think the Signorina will marry one of those uncomfortable +husbands,--M. Rameau, perhaps?” + +“Rameau! Hein! nothing more likely. That beautiful face of his has +its fascination. And to tell you the truth, my wife, who is a striking +illustration of the truth that what woman wills heaven wills, is bent +upon that improvement in Gustave’s moral life which she thinks a union +with Mademoiselle Cicogna would achieve. At all events, the fair Italian +would have in Rameau a husband who would not suffer her to bury her +talents under a bushel. If she succeeds as a writer (by succeeding I +mean making money), he will see that her ink-bottle is never empty; and +if she don’t succeed as a writer, he will take care that the world shall +gain an actress or a singer. For Gustave Rameau has a great taste for +luxury and show; and whatever his wife can make, I will venture to say +that he will manage to spend.” + +“I thought you had an esteem and regard for Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is +Madame your wife, I suppose, who has a grudge against her?” + +“On the contrary, my wife idolizes her.” + +“Savages sacrifice to their idols the things they deem of value; +civilized Parisians sacrifice their idols themselves, and to a thing +that is worthless.” + +“Rameau is not worthless; he has beauty and youth and talent. My wife +thinks more highly of him than I do; but I must respect a man who has +found admirers so sincere as to set him up in a journal, and give him +carte blanche for terms to contributors. I know of no man in Paris more +valuable to me. His worth to me this morning is thirty thousand francs. +I own I do not think him likely to be a very safe husband; but then +French female authors and artists seldom take any husbands except upon +short leases. There are no vulgar connubial prejudices in the pure +atmosphere of art. Women of genius, like Madame de Grantmesnil, and +perhaps like our charming young friend, resemble canary-birds,--to sing +their best you must separate them from their mates.” + +The Englishman suppressed a groan, and turned the conversation. + +When he had set down his lively companion, Vane dismissed his fiacre, +and walked to his lodgings musingly. + +“No,” he said inly; “I must wrench myself from the very memory of that +haunting face,--the friend and pupil of Madame de Grantmesnil, the +associate of Gustave Rameau, the rival of Julie Caumartin, the aspirant +to that pure atmosphere of art in which there are no vulgar connubial +prejudices! Could I--whether I be rich or poor--see in her the ideal of +an English wife? As it is--as it is--with this mystery which oppresses +me, which, till solved, leaves my own career insoluble,--as it is, how +fortunate that I did not find her alone; did not utter the words that +would fain have leaped from my heart; did not say, ‘I may not be the +rich man I seem, but in that case I shall be yet more ambitious, because +struggle and labour are the sinews of ambition! Should I be rich, will +you adorn my station? Should I be poor, will you enrich poverty with +your smile? And can you, in either case, forego--really, painlessly +forego, as you led me to hope--the pride in your own art?’ My ambition +were killed did I marry an actress, a singer. Better that than the +hungerer after excitements which are never allayed, the struggler in a +career which admits of no retirement,--the woman to whom marriage is no +goal, who remains to the last the property of the public, and glories +to dwell in a house of glass into which every bystander has a right to +peer. Is this the ideal of an Englishman’s wife and home? No, no!--woe +is me, no!” + + + + + +BOOK VI. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A few weeks after the date of the preceding chapter, a gay party of +men were assembled at supper in one of the private salons of the Maison +Doree. The supper was given by Frederic Lemercier, and the guests were, +though in various ways, more or less distinguished. Rank and fashion +were not unworthily represented by Alain de Rochebriant and Enguerrand +de Vandemar, by whose supremacy as “lion” Frederic still felt rather +humbled, though Alain had contrived to bring them familiarly together. +Art, Literature, and the Bourse had also their representatives in Henri +Bernard, a rising young portrait-painter, whom the Emperor honoured with +his patronage, the Vicomte de Braze, and M. Savarin. Science was not +altogether forgotten, but contributed its agreeable delegate in +the person of the eminent physician to whom we have been before +introduced,--Dr. Bacourt. Doctors in Paris are not so serious as they +mostly are in London; and Bacourt, a pleasant philosopher of the school +of Aristippus, was no unfrequent nor ungenial guest at any banquet in +which the Graces relaxed their zones. Martial glory was also represented +at that social gathering by a warrior, bronzed and decorated, lately +arrived from Algiers, on which arid soil he had achieved many laurels +and the rank of Colonel. Finance contributed Duplessis. Well it might; +for Duplessis had just assisted the host to a splendid coup at the +Bourse. + +“Ah, cher Monsieur Savarin,” says Enguerrand de Vandemar, whose +patrician blood is so pure from revolutionary taint that he is always +instinctively polite, “what a masterpiece in its way is that little +paper of yours in the ‘Sens Commun,’ upon the connection between the +national character and the national diet! so genuinely witty!--for wit +is but truth made amusing.” + +“You flatter me,” replied Savarin, modestly; “but I own I do think there +is a smattering of philosophy in that trifle. Perhaps, however, the +character of a people depends more on its drinks than its food. The +wines of Italy, heady, irritable, ruinous to the digestion, contribute +to the character which belongs to active brains and disordered livers. +The Italians conceive great plans, but they cannot digest them. The +English common-people drink beer, and the beerish character is stolid, +rude, but stubborn and enduring. The English middle-class imbibe +port and sherry; and with these strong potations their ideas become +obfuscated. Their character has no liveliness; amusement is not one of +their wants; they sit at home after dinner and doze away the fumes of +their beverage in the dulness of domesticity. If the English aristocracy +are more vivacious and cosmopolitan, it is thanks to the wines of +France, which it is the mode with them to prefer; but still, like all +plagiarists, they are imitators, not inventors; they borrow our wines +and copy our manners. The Germans--” + +“Insolent barbarians!” growled the French Colonel, twirling his +mustache; “if the Emperor were not in his dotage, their Sadowa would ere +this have cost them their Rhine.” + +“The Germans,” resumed Savarin, unheeding the interruption, “drink acrid +wines, varied with beer, to which last their commonalty owes a quasi +resemblance in stupidity and endurance to the English masses. Acrid +wines rot the teeth Germans are afflicted with toothache from infancy. +All people subject to toothache are sentimental. Goethe was a martyr +to toothache. ‘Werther’ was written in one of those paroxysms which +predispose genius to suicide. But the German character is not all +toothache; beer and tobacco step in to the relief of Rhenish acridities, +blend philosophy with sentiment, and give that patience in detail which +distinguishes their professors and their generals. Besides, the German +wines in themselves have other qualities than that of acridity. Taken +with sourkrout and stewed prunes, they produce fumes of self-conceit. +A German has little of French vanity; he has German self-esteem. He +extends the esteem of self to those around him; his home, his village, +his city, his country,--all belong to him. It is a duty he owes to +himself to defend them. Give him his pipe and his sabre, and, Monsieur +le Colonel, believe me, you will never take the Rhine from him.” + +“P-r-r,” cried the Colonel; “but we have had the Rhine.” + +“We did not keep it. And I should not say I had a francpiece if I +borrowed it from your purse and had to give it back the next day.” + +Here there arose a very general hubbub of voices, all raised against +M. Savarin. Enguerrand, like a man of good ton, hastened to change the +conversation. + +“Let us leave these poor wretches to their sour wines and toothaches. We +drinkers of the champagne, all our own, have only pity for the rest of +the human race. This new journal ‘Le Sens Commun’ has a strange title, +Monsieur Savarin.” + +“Yes; ‘Le Sens Commun’ is not common in Paris, where we all have too +much genius for a thing so vulgar.” + +“Pray,” said the young painter, “tell me what you mean by the title ‘Le +Sens Commun.’ It is mysterious.” + +“True,” said Savarin; “it may mean the Sensus communis of the Latins, or +the Good Sense of the English. The Latin phrase signifies the sense +of the common interest; the English phrase, the sense which persons of +understanding have in common. I suppose the inventor of our title meant +the latter signification.” + +“And who was the inventor?” asked Bacourt. + +“That is a secret which I do not know myself,” answered Savarin. + +“I guess,” said Enguerrand, “that it must be the same person who writes +the political leaders. They are most remarkable; for they are so unlike +the articles in other journals, whether those journals be the best +or the worst. For my own part, I trouble my head very little about +politics, and shrug my shoulders at essays which reduce the government +of flesh and blood into mathematical problems. But these articles seem +to be written by a man of the world, and as a man of the world myself, I +read them.” + +“But,” said the Vicomte de Breze, who piqued himself on the polish +of his style, “they are certainly not the composition of any eminent +writer. No eloquence, no sentiment; though I ought not to speak +disparagingly of a fellow-contributor.” + +“All that may be very true;” said Savarin; “but M. Enguerrand is right. +The papers are evidently the work of a man of the world, and it is for +that reason that they have startled the public, and established the +success of ‘Le Sens Commun.’ But wait a week or two longer, Messieurs, +and then tell me what you think of a new roman by a new writer, which +we shall announce in our impression to-morrow. I shall be disappointed, +indeed, if that does not charm you. No lack of eloquence and sentiment +there.” + +“I am rather tired of eloquence and sentiment,” said Enguerrand. “Your +editor, Gustave Rameau, sickens me of them with his ‘Starlit Meditations +in the Streets of Paris,’ morbid imitations of Heine’s enigmatical +‘Evening Songs.’ Your journal would be perfect if you could suppress the +editor.” + +“Suppress Gustave Rameau!” cried Bernard, the painter; “I adore his +poems, full of heart for poor suffering humanity.” + +“Suffering humanity so far as it is packed up in himself,” said the +physician, dryly,--“and a great deal of the suffering is bile. But a +propos of your new journal, Savarin, there is a paragraph in it to-day +which excites my curiosity. It says that the Vicomte de Mauleon +has arrived in Paris, after many years of foreign travel; and then, +referring modestly enough to the reputation for talent which he had +acquired in early youth, proceeds to indulge in a prophecy of the future +political career of a man who, if he have a grain of sens common, must +think that the less said about him the better. I remember him well; +a terrible mauvais sujet, but superbly handsome. There was a shocking +story about the jewels of a foreign duchess, which obliged him to leave +Paris.” + +“But,” said Savarin, “the paragraph you refer to hints that that story +is a groundless calumny, and that the true reason for De Mauleon’s +voluntary self-exile was a very common one among young Parisians,--he +had lavished away his fortune. He returns, when, either by heritage or +his own exertions, he has secured elsewhere a competence.” + +“Nevertheless I cannot think that society will receive him,” said +Bacourt. “When he left Paris, there was one joyous sigh of relief +among all men who wished to avoid duels, and keep their wives out +of temptation. Society may welcome back a lost sheep, but not a +reinvigorated wolf.” + +“I beg your pardon, mon cher,” said Enguerrand; “society has already +opened its fold to this poor ill-treated wolf. Two days ago Louvier +summoned to his house the surviving relations or connections of De +Mauleon--among whom are the Marquis de Rochebriant, the Counts de Passy, +De Beauvilliers, De Chavigny, my father, and of course his two sons--and +submitted to us the proofs which completely clear the Vicomte de Mauleon +of even a suspicion of fraud or dishonour in the affair of the jewels. +The proofs include the written attestation of the Duke himself, and +letters from that nobleman after De Mauleon’s disappearance from Paris, +expressive of great esteem, and indeed, of great admiration, for the +Vicomte’s sense of honour and generosity of character. The result +of this family council was that we all went in a body to call on De +Mauleon; and he dined with my father that same day. You know enough of +the Comte de Vandemar, and, I may add, of my mother, to be sure +that they are both, in their several ways, too regardful of social +conventions to lend their countenance even to a relation without well +weighing the pros and cons. And as for Raoul, Bayard himself could not +be a greater stickler on the point of honour.” + +This declaration was followed by a silence that had the character of +stupor. + +At last Duplessis said, “But what has Louvier to do in this galere? +Louvier is no relation of that well-born vaurien; why should he summon +your family council?” + +“Louvier excused his interference on the ground of early and intimate +friendship with De Mauleon, who, he said, came to consult him on +arriving at Paris, and who felt too proud or too timid to address +relations with whom he had long dropped all intercourse. An intermediary +was required, and Louvier volunteered to take that part on himself; +nothing more natural nor more simple. By the way, Alain, you dine with +Louvier to-morrow, do you not?--a dinner in honour of our rehabilitated +kinsman. I and Raoul go.” + +“Yes, I shall be charmed to meet again a man who, whatever might be +his errors in youth, on which,” added Alain, slightly colouring, “it +certainly does not become me to be severe, must have suffered the most +poignant anguish a man of honour can undergo,--namely, honour suspected; +and who now, whether by years or sorrow, is so changed that I cannot +recognize a likeness to the character I have just heard given to him as +mauvais sujet and vaurien.” + +“Bravo!” cried Enguerrand; “all honour to courage!--and at Paris it +requires great courage to defend the absent.” + +“Nay,” answered Alain, in a low voice. “The gentilhomme who will not +defend another gentilhomme traduced, would, as a soldier, betray a +citadel and desert a flag.” + +“You say M. de Mauleon is changed,” said De Breze; “yes, he must be +growing old. No trace left of his good looks?” + +“Pardon me,” said Enguerrand; “he is bien conserve, and has still a very +handsome head and an imposing presence. But one cannot help doubting +whether he deserved the formidable reputation he acquired in youth; his +manner is so singularly mild and gentle, his conversation so winningly +modest, so void of pretence, and his mode of life is as simple as that +of a Spanish hidalgo.” + +“He does not, then, affect the role of Monte Cristo,” said Duplessis, +“and buy himself into notice like that hero of romance?” + +“Certainly not: he says very frankly that he has but a very small +income, but more than enough for his wants,--richer than in his youth, +for he has learned content. We may dismiss the hint in ‘Le Sens +Commun’ about his future political career,--at least he evinces no such +ambition.” + +“How could he as a Legitimist?” said Alain, bitterly. “What department +would elect him?” + +“But is he a Legitimist?” asked De Breze. + +“I take it for granted that he must be that,” answered Alain, haughtily, +“for he is a De Mauleon.” + +“His father was as good a De Mauleon as himself, I presume,” rejoined +De Breze, dryly; “and he enjoyed a place at the Court of Louis Philippe, +which a Legitimist could scarcely accept. Victor did not, I fancy, +trouble his head about politics at all, at the time I remember him; but +to judge by his chief associates, and the notice he received from +the Princes of the House of Orleans, I should guess that he had no +predilections in favour of Henri V.” + +“I should regret to think so,” said Alain, yet more haughtily, +“since the De Mauleons acknowledge the head of their house in the +representative of the Rochebriants.” + +“At all events,” said Duplessis, “M. de Mauleon appears to be a +philosopher of rare stamp. A Parisian who has known riches and is +contented to be poor is a phenomenon I should like to study.” + +“You have that chance to-morrow evening, Monsieur Duplessis,” said +Enguerrand. + +“What! at M. Louvier’s dinner? Nay, I have no other acquaintance with M. +Louvier than that of the Bourse, and the acquaintance is not cordial.” + +“I did not mean at M. Louvier’s dinner, but at the Duchesse de +Tarascon’s ball. You, as one of her special favourites, will doubtless +honour her reunion.” + +“Yes; I have promised my daughter to go to the ball. But the Duchesse is +Imperialist. M. de Mauleon seems to be either a Legitimist, according to +Monsieur le Marquis, or an Orleanist, according to our friend De Breze.” + +“What of that? Can there be a more loyal Bourbonite than De +Rochebriant?--and he goes to the ball. It is given out of the season, +in celebration of a family marriage. And the Duchesse de Tarascon +is connected with Alain, and therefore with De Mauleon, though but +distantly.” + +“Ah! excuse my ignorance of genealogy.” + +“As if the genealogy of noble names were not the history of France,” + muttered Alain, indignantly. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Yes, the “Sens Commun” was a success: it had made a sensation at +starting; the sensation was on the increase. It is difficult for an +Englishman to comprehend the full influence of a successful journal at +Paris; the station--political, literary, social--which it confers on +the contributors who effect the success. M. Lebeau had shown much more +sagacity in selecting Gustave Rameau for the nominal editor than Savarin +supposed or my reader might detect. In the first place, Gustave himself, +with all his defects of information and solidity of intellect, was not +without real genius,--and a sort of genius that when kept in restraint, +and its field confined to sentiment or sarcasm, was in unison with the +temper of the day; in the second place, it was only through Gustave that +Lebeau could have got at Savarin, and the names which that brilliant +writer had secured at the outset would have sufficed to draw attention +to the earliest numbers of the “Sens Commun,” despite a title which +did not seem alluring. But these names alone could not have sufficed to +circulate the new journal to the extent it had already reached. This was +due to the curiosity excited by leading articles of a style new to the +Parisian public, and of which the authorship defied conjecture. They +were signed Pierre Firmin,--supposed to be a nom de plume, as, that name +was utterly unknown in the world of letters. They affected the tone of +an impartial observer; they neither espoused nor attacked any particular +party; they laid down no abstract doctrines of government. But somehow +or other, in language terse yet familiar, sometimes careless yet never +vulgar, they expressed a prevailing sentiment of uneasy discontent, +a foreboding of some destined change in things established, without +defining the nature of such change, without saying whether it would be +for good or for evil. In his criticisms upon individuals, the writer +was guarded and moderate--the keenest-eyed censor of the press could +not have found a pretext for interference with expression of opinions so +polite. Of the Emperor these articles spoke little, but that little was +not disrespectful; yet, day after day, the articles contributed to sap +the Empire. All malcontents of every shade comprehended, as by a secret +of freemasonry, that in this journal they had an ally. Against religion +not a word was uttered, yet the enemies of religion bought that journal; +still, the friends of religion bought it too, for those articles +treated with irony the philosophers on paper who thought that their +contradictory crotchets could fuse themselves into any single Utopia, or +that any social edifice, hurriedly run up by the crazy few, could become +a permanent habitation for the turbulent many, without the clamps of a +creed. + +The tone of these articles always corresponded with the title of +the journal,--“Common-sense.” It was to common-sense that it +appealed,--appealed in the utterance of a man who disdained the subtle +theories, the vehement declamation, the credulous beliefs, or the +inflated bombast, which constitute so large a portion of the Parisian +press. The articles rather resembled certain organs of the English +press, which profess to be blinded by no enthusiasm for anybody or +anything, which find their sale in that sympathy with ill-nature to +which Huet ascribes the popularity of Tacitus, and, always quietly +undermining institutions with a covert sneer, never pretend to a spirit +of imagination so at variance with common-sense as a conjecture how the +institutions should be rebuilt or replaced. + +Well, somehow or other the journal, as I was saying, hit the taste +of the Parisian public. It intimated, with the easy grace of an +unpremeditated agreeable talker, that French society in all its classes +was rotten; and each class was willing to believe that all the others +were rotten, and agreed that unless the others were reformed, there was +something very unsound in itself. + +The ball at the Duchesse de Tarascon’s was a brilliant event. The summer +was far advanced; many of the Parisian holiday-makers had returned to +the capital, but the season had not commenced, and a ball at that time +of year was a very unwonted event. But there was a special occasion for +this fete,--a marriage between a niece of the Duchesse and the son of a +great official in high favour at the Imperial Court. + +The dinner at Louvier’s broke up early, and the music for the second +waltz was sounding when Enguerrand, Alain, and the Vicomte de Mauleon +ascended the stairs. Raoul did not accompany them; he went very rarely +to any balls,--never to one given by an Imperialist, however nearly +related to him the Imperialist might be. But in the sweet indulgence +of his good-nature, he had no blame for those who did go,--not for +Enguerrand, still less, of course, for Alain. + +Something too might well here be said as to his feeling towards Victor +de Mauleon. He had joined in the family acquittal of that kinsman as to +the grave charge of the jewels; the proofs of innocence thereon seemed +to him unequivocal and decisive, therefore he had called on the Vicomte +and acquiesced in all formal civilities shown to him. But such acts of +justice to a fellow-gentilhomme and a kinsman duly performed, he desired +to see as little as possible of the Vicomte de Mauleon. He reasoned +thus: “Of every charge which society made against this man he is +guiltless; but of all the claims to admiration which society accorded to +him before it erroneously condemned, there are none which make me covet +his friendship, or suffice to dispel doubts as to what he may be when +society once more receives him. And the man is so captivating that I +should dread his influence over myself did I see much of him.” + +Raoul kept his reasonings to himself, for he had that sort of charity +which indisposes an amiable man to be severe on bygone offences. In the +eyes of Enguerrand and Alain, and such young votaries of the mode +as they could influence, Victor de Mauleon assumed almost heroic +proportions. In the affair which had inflicted on him a calumny so +odious, it was clear that he had acted with chivalrous delicacy of +honour. And the turbulence and recklessness of his earlier years, +redeemed as they were, in the traditions of his contemporaries, by +courage and generosity, were not offences to which young Frenchmen are +inclined to be harsh. All question as to the mode in which his life +might have been passed during his long absence from the capital was +merged in the respect due to the only facts known, and these were +clearly proved in his pieces justificatives: First, that he had +served under another name in the ranks of the army in Algiers; had +distinguished himself there for signal valour, and received, with +promotion, the decoration of the cross. His real name was known only +to his colonel, and on quitting the service, the colonel placed in his +hands a letter of warm eulogy on his conduct, and identifying him as +Victor de Mauleon. Secondly, that in California he had saved a wealthy +family from midnight murder, fighting single-handed against and +overmastering three ruffians, and declining all other reward from those +he had preserved than a written attestation of their gratitude. In all +countries, valour ranks high in the list of virtues; in no country does +it so absolve from vices as it does in France. + +But as yet Victor de Mauleon’s vindication was only known by a few, and +those belonging to the gayer circles of life. How he might be judged by +the sober middle class, which constitutes the most important section of +public opinion to a candidate for political trusts and distinctions, was +another question. + +The Duchesse stood at the door to receive her visitors. Duplessis was +seated near the entrance, by the side of a distinguished member of +the Imperial Government, with whom he was carrying on a whispered +conversation. The eye of the financier, however, turned towards the +doorway as Alain and Enguerrand entered, and passing over their familiar +faces, fixed itself attentively on that of a mach older man whom +Enguerrand was presenting to the Duchesse, and in whom Duplessis +rightly divined the Vicomte de Mauleon. Certainly if no one could have +recognized M. Lebeau in the stately personage who had visited Louvier, +still less could one who had heard of the wild feats of the roi des +viveurs in his youth reconcile belief in such tales with the quiet +modesty of mien which distinguished the cavalier now replying, with +bended head and subdued accents, to the courteous welcome of the +brilliant hostess. But for such difference in attributes between the +past and the present De Mauleon, Duplessis had been prepared by the +conversation at the Maison Doree. And now, as the Vicomte, yielding his +place by the Duchesse to some new-comer, glided on, and, leaning against +a column, contemplated the gay scene before him with that expression of +countenance, half sarcastic, half mournful, with which men regard, after +long estrangement, the scenes of departed joys, Duplessis felt that no +change in that man had impaired the force of character which had made +him the hero of reckless coevals. Though wearing no beard, not even a +mustache, there was something emphatically masculine in the contour +of the close-shaven cheek and resolute jaw; in a forehead broad at the +temples, and protuberant in those organs over the eyebrows which are +said to be significant of quick perception and ready action; in the +lips, when in repose compressed, perhaps somewhat stern in their +expression, but pliant and mobile when speaking, and wonderfully +fascinating when they smiled. Altogether, about this Victor de Mauleon +there was a nameless distinction, apart from that of conventional +elegance. You would have said, “That is a man of some marked +individuality, an eminence of some kind in himself.” You would not be +surprised to hear that he was a party-leader, a skilled diplomatist, a +daring soldier, an adventurous traveller; but you would not guess him to +be a student, an author, an artist. + +While Duplessis thus observed the Vicomte de Mauleon, all the while +seeming to lend an attentive ear to the whispered voice of the Minister +by his side, Alain passed on into the ball-room. He was fresh enough to +feel the exhilaration of the dance. Enguerrand (who had survived that +excitement, and who habitually deserted any assembly at an early hour +for the cigar and whist of his club) had made his way to De Mauleon, and +there stationed himself. The lion of one generation has always a mixed +feeling of curiosity and respect for the lion of a generation before +him, and the young Vandemar had conceived a strong and almost an +affectionate interest in this discrowned king of that realm in fashion +which, once lost, is never to be regained; for it is only Youth that can +hold its sceptre and command its subjects. + +“In this crowd, Vicomte,” said Enguerrand, “there must be many old +acquaintances of yours?” + +“Perhaps so, but as yet I have only seen new faces.” + +As he thus spoke, a middle-aged man, decorated with the grand cross of +the Legion and half-a-dozen foreign orders, lending his arm to a lady of +the same age radiant in diamonds, passed by towards the ball-room, +and in some sudden swerve of his person, occasioned by a pause of +his companion to adjust her train, he accidentally brushed against De +Mauleon, whom he had not before noticed. Turning round to apologize for +his awkwardness, he encountered the full gaze of the Vicomte, started, +changed countenance, and hurried on his companion. + +“Do you not recognize his Excellency?” said Enguerrand, smiling. “His +cannot be a new face to you.” + +“Is it the Baron de Lacy?” asked De Mauleon. + +“The Baron de Lacy, now Comte d’Epinay, ambassador at the Court of +-----, and, if report speak true, likely soon to exchange that post for +the porte feuille of Minister.” + +“He has got on in life since I saw him last, the little Baron. He was +then my devoted imitator, and I was not proud of the imitation.” + +“He has got on by always clinging to the skirts of some one stronger +than himself,--to yours, I dare say, when, being a parvenu despite his +usurped title of baron, he aspired to the entree into clubs and +salons. The entree thus obtained, the rest followed easily; he became a +millionaire through a wife’s dot, and an ambassador through the wife’s +lover, who is a power in the State.” + +“But he must have substance in himself. Empty bags can not be made to +stand upright. Ah! unless I mistake, I see some one I knew better. +Yon pale, thin man, also with the grand cross--surely that is Alfred +Hennequin. Is he too a decorated Imperialist? I left him a socialistic +Republican.” + +“But, I presume, even then an eloquent avocat. He got into the Chamber, +spoke well, defended the coup-d’etat. He has just been made Prefet +of the great department of the a popular appointment. He bears a high +character. Pray renew your acquaintance with him; he is coming this +way.” + +“Will so grave a dignitary renew acquaintance with me? I doubt it.” + +But as De Mauleon said this, he moved from the column, and advanced +towards the Prefet. Enguerrand followed him, and saw the Vicomte extend +his hand to his old acquaintance. + +The Prefet stared, and said, with frigid courtesy, “Pardon me,--some +mistake.” + +“Allow me, Monsieur Hennequin,” said Enguerrand, interposing, and +wishing good-naturedly to save De Mauleon the awkwardness of introducing +himself,--“allow me to reintroduce you to my kinsman, whom the lapse of +years may well excuse you for forgetting, the Vicomte de Mauleon.” + +Still the Prefet did not accept the hand. He bowed with formal ceremony, +said, “I was not aware that Monsieur le Vicomte had returned to Paris,” + and moving to the doorway, made his salutation to the hostess and +disappeared. + +“The insolent!” muttered Enguerrand. + +“Hush!” said De Mauleon, quietly, “I can fight no more +duels,--especially with a Prefet. But I own I am weak enough to +feel hurt at such a reception from Hennequin, for he owed me some +obligations,--small, perhaps, but still they were such as might have +made me select him, rather than Louvier, as the vindicator of my name, +had I known him to be so high placed. But a man who has raised himself +into an authority may well be excused for forgetting a friend whose +character needs defence. I forgive him.” + +There was something pathetic in the Vicomte’s tone which touched +Enguerrand’s warm if light heart. But De Mauleon did not allow him time +to answer. He went on quickly through an opening in the gay crowd, +which immediately closed behind him, and Enguerrand saw him no more that +evening. + +Duplessis ere this had quitted his seat by the Minister, drawn thence by +a young and very pretty girl resigned to his charge by a cavalier with +whom she had been dancing. She was the only daughter of Duplessis, and +he valued her even more than the millions he had made at the Bourse. +“The Princess,” she said, “has been swept off in the train of some +German Royalty; so, petit pere, I must impose myself on thee.” + +The Princess, a Russian of high rank, was the chaperon that evening of +Mademoiselle Valerie Duplessis. + +“And I suppose I must take thee back into the ballroom,” said the +financier, smiling proudly, “and find thee partners.” + +“I don’t want your aid for that, Monsieur; except this quadrille, my +list is pretty well filled up.” + +“And I hope the partners will be pleasant. Let me know who they are,” he +whispered, as they threaded their way into the ball-room. + +The girl glanced at her tablet. + +“Well, the first on the list is milord somebody, with an unpronounceable +English name.” + +“Beau cavalier?” + +“No; ugly, old too; thirty at least.” + +Duplessis felt relieved. He did not wish his daughter to fall in love +with an Englishman. + +“And the next?” + +“The next?” she said hesitatingly, and he observed that a soft blush +accompanied the hesitation. + +“Yes, the next. Not English too?” + +“Oh, no; the Marquis de Rochebriant.” + +“Ah! who presented him to thee?” + +“Thy friend, petit pere, M. de Braze.” + +Duplessis again glanced at his daughter’s face; it was bent over her +bouquet. + +“Is he ugly also?” + +“Ugly!” exclaimed the girl, indignantly; “why, he is--” she checked +herself and turned away her head. + +Duplessis became thoughtful. He was glad that he had accompanied his +child into the ball-room; he would stay there, and keep watch on her and +Rochebriant also. + +Up to that moment he had felt a dislike to Rochebriant. That young +noble’s too obvious pride of race had nettled him, not the less that the +financier himself was vain of his ancestry. Perhaps he still disliked +Alain, but the dislike was now accompanied with a certain, not hostile, +interest; and if he became connected with the race, the pride in it +might grow contagious. + +They had not been long in the ball-room before Alain came up to claim +his promised partner. In saluting Duplessis, his manner was the same as +usual, not more cordial, not less ceremoniously distant. A man so able +as the financier cannot be without quick knowledge of the human heart. + +“If disposed to fall in love with Valerie,” thought Duplessis, “he would +have taken more pains to please her father. Well, thank heaven, there +are better matches to be found for her than a noble without fortune and +a Legitimist without career.” + +In fact, Alain felt no more for Valerie than for any other pretty girl +in the room. In talking with the Vicomte de Braze in the intervals of +the dance, he had made some passing remark on her beauty. De Braze had +said, “Yes, she is charming; I will present you,” and hastened to do so +before Rochebriant even learned her name. So introduced, he could but +invite her to give him her first disengaged dance, and when that was +fixed, he had retired, without entering into conversation. + +Now, as they took their places in the quadrille, he felt that effort +of speech had become a duty, if not a pleasure; and of course, he began +with the first commonplace which presented itself to his mind. + +“Do you not think it a very pleasant ball, Mademoiselle?” + +“Yes,” dropped, in almost inaudible reply, from Valerie’s rosy lips. + +“And not over-crowded, as most balls are?” + +Valerie’s lips again moved, but this time quite inaudibly. The +obligations of the figure now caused a pause. Alain racked his brains +and began, + +“They tell me the last season was more than usually gay; of that I +cannot judge, for it was well-nigh over when I came to Paris for the +first time.” + +Valerie looked up with a more animated expression than her childlike +face had yet shown, and said, this time distinctly, “This is my first +ball, Monsieur le Marquis.” + +“One has only to look at Mademoiselle to divine that fact,” replied +Alain, gallantly. + +Again the conversation was interrupted by the dance; but the ice between +the two was now broken; and when the quadrille was concluded, and +Rochebriant led the fair Valerie back to her father’s side, she felt +as if she had been listening to the music of the spheres, and that the +music had now suddenly stopped. Alain, alas for her! was under no such +pleasing illusion. Her talk had seemed to him artless indeed, but +very insipid, compared with the brilliant conversation of the wedded +Parisiennes with whom he more habitually danced; and it was with rather +a sensation of relief that he made his parting bow, and receded into the +crowd of bystanders. + +Meanwhile De Mauleon had quitted the assemblage, walking slowly through +the deserted streets towards his apartment. The civilities he had met +at Louvier’s dinner-party, and the marked distinction paid to him by +kinsmen of rank and position so unequivocal as Alain and Enguerrand, +had softened his mood and cheered his spirits. He had begun to question +himself whether a fair opening to his political ambition was really +forbidden to him under the existent order of things, whether it +necessitated the employment of such dangerous tools as those to which +anger and despair had reconciled his intellect. But the pointed way in +which he had been shunned or slighted by the two men who belonged to +political life--two men who in youth had looked up to himself, and +whose dazzling career of honours was identified with the Imperial +system--reanimated his fiercer passions and his more perilous designs. +The frigid accost of Hennequin more especially galled him; it wounded +not only his pride but his heart; it had the venom of ingratitude, and +it is the peculiar privilege of ingratitude to wound hearts that have +learned to harden themselves to the hate or contempt of men to whom +no services have been rendered. In some private affair concerning his +property, De Mauleon had had occasion to consult Hennequin, then a +rising young avocat. Out of that consultation a friendship had sprung +up, despite the differing habits and social grades of the two men. One +day, calling on Hennequin, he found him in a state of great nervous +excitement. The avocat had received a public insult in the salon of a +noble, to whom De Mauleon had introduced him, from a man who pretended +to the hand of a young lady to whom Hennequin was attached, and indeed +almost affianced. The man was a notorious spadassin,--a duellist little +less renowned for skill in all weapons than De Mauleon himself. The +affair had been such that Hennequin’s friends assured him he had no +choice but to challenge this bravo. Hennequin, brave enough at the bar, +was no hero before sword-point or pistol. He was utterly ignorant of the +use of either weapon; his death in the encounter with an antagonist +so formidable seemed to him certain, and life was so precious,--an +honourable and distinguished career opening before him, marriage with +the woman he loved. Still he had the Frenchman’s point of honour. He had +been told that he must fight; well, then, he must. He asked De Mauleon +to be one of his seconds, and in asking him, sank in his chair, covered +his face with his hands, and burst into tears. + +“Wait till to-morrow,” said De Mauleon; “take no step till then. +Meanwhile, you are in my hands, and I answer for your honour.” + +On leaving Hennequin, Victor sought the spadassin at the club of which +they were both members, and contrived, without reference to Hennequin, +to pick a quarrel with him. A challenge ensued; a duel with swords took +place the next morning. De Mauleon disarmed and wounded his antagonist, +not gravely, but sufficiently to terminate the encounter. He assisted +to convey the wounded man to his apartment, and planted himself by his +bedside, as if he were a friend. + +“Why on earth did you fasten a quarrel on me?” asked the spadassin; “and +why, having done so, did you spare my life; for your sword was at my +heart when you shifted its point, and pierced my shoulder?” + +“I will tell you, and in so doing, beg you to accept my friendship +hereafter, on one condition. In the course of the day, write or dictate +a few civil words of apology to M. Hennequin. Ma foi! every one will +praise you for a generosity so becoming in a man who has given such +proofs of courage and skill to an avocat who has never handled a sword +nor fired a pistol.” + +That same day De Mauleon remitted to Hennequin an apology for heated +words freely retracted, which satisfied all his friends. For the service +thus rendered by De Mauleon, Hennequin declared himself everlastingly +indebted. In fact, he entirely owed to that friend his life, his +marriage, his honour, his career. + +“And now,” thought De Mauleon, “now, when he could so easily requite +me,--now he will not even take my hand. Is human nature itself at war +with me?” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +Nothing could be simpler than the apartment of the Vicomte de Mauleon, +in the second story of a quiet old-fashioned street. It had been +furnished at small cost out of his savings. Yet, on the whole, it +evinced the good taste of a man who had once been among the exquisites +of the polite world. You felt that you were in the apartment of a +gentleman, and a gentleman of somewhat severe tastes, and of sober +matured years. He was sitting the next morning in the room which he used +as a private study. Along the walls were arranged dwarf bookcases, as +yet occupied by few books, most of them books of reference, others cheap +editions of the French classics in prose--no poets, no romance-writers, +with a few Latin authors also in prose,--Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus. He +was engaged at his desk writing,--a book with its leaves open before +him, “Paul Louis Courier,” that model of political irony and masculine +style of composition. There was a ring at his door-bell. The Vicomte +kept no servant. He rose and answered the summons. He recoiled a few +paces on recognizing his visitor in M. Hennequin. + +The Prefet this time did not withdraw his hand; he extended it, but it +was with a certain awkwardness and timidity. “I thought it my duty to +call on you, Vicomte, thus early, having already seen M. Enguerrand de +Vandemar. He has shown me the copies of the pieces which were inspected +by your distinguished kinsmen, and which completely clear you of the +charge that--grant me your pardon when I say--seemed to me still to +remain unanswered when I had the honour to meet you last night.” + +“It appears to me, Monsieur Hennequin, that you, as an avocat so +eminent, might have convinced yourself very readily of that fact.” + +“Monsieur le Vicomte, I was in Switzerland with my wife at the time of +the unfortunate affair in which you were involved.” + +“But when you returned to Paris, you might perhaps have deigned to make +inquiries so affecting the honour of one you had called a friend, and +for whom you had professed”--De Mauleon paused; he disdained to add--“an +eternal gratitude.” + +Hennequin coloured slightly, but replied with self-possession. + +“I certainly did inquire. I did hear that the charge against you with +regard to the abstraction of the jewels was withdrawn, that you were +therefore acquitted by law; but I heard also that society did not acquit +you, and that, finding this, you had quitted France. Pardon me again, no +one would listen to me when I attempted to speak on your behalf but +now that so many years have elapsed, that the story is imperfectly +remembered, that relations so high-placed receive you so cordially,--now +I rejoice to think that you will have no difficulty in regaining a +social position never really lost, but for a time resigned.” + +“I am duly sensible of the friendly joy you express. I was reading the +other day in a lively author some pleasant remarks on the effects of +medisance or calumny upon our impressionable Parisian public. ‘If,’ +says the writer, ‘I found myself accused of having put the two towers +of Notre Dame into my waistcoat-pocket I should not dream of defending +myself; I should take to flight. And,’ adds the writer, ‘if my best +friend were under the same accusation, I should be so afraid of being +considered his accomplice that I should put my best friend outside the +door.’ Perhaps, Monsieur Hennequin, I was seized with the first alarm. +Why should I blame you if seized with the second? Happily, this good +city of Paris has its reactions. And you can now offer me your hand. +Paris has by this time discovered that the two towers of Notre Dame are +not in my pocket.” + +There was a pause. De Mauleon had resettled himself at his desk, bending +over his papers, and his manner seemed to imply that he considered the +conversation at an end. + +But a pang of shame, of remorse, of tender remembrance, shot across the +heart of the decorous, worldly, self-seeking man, who owed all that he +now was to the ci-devant vaurien before him. Again he stretched forth +his hand, and this time grasped De Mauleon’s warmly. “Forgive me,” he +said, feelingly and hoarsely; “forgive me, I was to blame. By character, +and perhaps by the necessities of my career, I am over-timid to public +opinion, public scandal. Forgive me. Say if in anything now I can +requite, though but slightly, the service I owe you.” + +De Mauleon looked steadily at the Prefet, and said slowly, “Would you +serve me in turn? Are you sincere?” + +The Prefet hesitated a moment, then answered firmly, “Yes.” + +“Well, then, what I ask of you is a frank opinion,--not as lawyer, not +as Prefet, but as a man who knows the present state of French society. +Give that opinion without respect to my feelings one way or other. Let +it emanate solely from your practised judgment.” + +“Be it so,” said Hennequin, wondering what was to come. De Mauleon +resumed, “As you may remember, during my former career I had no +political ambition. I did not meddle with politics. In the troubled +times that immediately succeeded the fall of Louis Philippe I was but +an epicurean looker-on. Grant that, so far as admission to the salons is +concerned, I shall encounter no difficulty in regaining position; but as +regards the Chamber, public life, a political career, can I have my +fair opening under the Empire? You pause. Answer as you have promised, +frankly.” + +“The difficulties in the way of a political career would be very great.” + +“Insuperable?” + +“I fear so. Of course, in my capacity of Prefet, I have no small +influence in my department in support of a Government candidate. But +I do not think that the Imperial Government could, at this time +especially, in which it must be very cautious in selecting its +candidates, be induced to recommend you. The affair of the jewels would +be raked up; your vindication disputed, denied; the fact that for so +many years you have acquiesced in that charge without taking steps to +refute it; your antecedents, even apart from that charge; your present +want of property (M. Enguerrand tells me your income is but moderate); +the absence of all previous repute in public life. No; relinquish +the idea of political contest,--it would expose you to inevitable +mortifications, to a failure that would even jeopardize the admission +to the salons which you are now gaining. You could not be a Government +candidate.” + +“Granted. I may have no desire to be one; but an opposition candidate, +one of the Liberal party?” + +“As an Imperialist,” said Hennequin, smiling gravely, “and holding the +office I do, it would not become me to encourage a candidate against +the Emperor’s Government. But speaking with the frankness you solicit, I +should say that your chances there are infinitely worse. The Opposition +are in a pitiful minority,--the most eminent of the Liberals can +scarcely gain seats for themselves; great local popularity or property, +high established repute for established patriotism, or proved talents +of oratory and statesmanship, are essential qualifications for a seat in +the Opposition; and even these do not suffice for a third of the persons +who possess them. Be again what you were before,--the hero of salons +remote from the turbulent vulgarity of politics.” + +“I am answered. Thank you once more. The service I rendered you once is +requited now.” + +“No, indeed,--no; but will you dine with me quietly today, and allow me +to present to you my wife and two children, born since we parted? I say +to-day, for to-morrow I return to my Prefecture.” + +“I am infinitely obliged by your invitation, but to-day I dine with the +Comte de Beauvilliers to meet some of the Corps Diplomatique. I must +make good my place in the salons, since you so clearly show me that I +have no chance of one in the Legislature--unless--” + +“Unless what?” + +“Unless there happen one of those revolutions in which the scum comes +uppermost.” + +“No fear of that. The subterranean barracks and railway have ended +forever the rise of the scum, the reign of the canaille and its +barricades.” + +“Adieu, my dear Hennequin. My respectful hommages a Madame.” + +After that day the writing of Pierre Firmin in “Le Sens Commun,” though +still keeping within the pale of the law, became more decidedly hostile +to the Imperial system, still without committing their author to any +definite programme of the sort of government that should succeed it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +The weeks glided on. Isaura’s manuscript bad passed into print; it came +out in the French fashion of feuilletons,--a small detachment at a time. +A previous flourish of trumpets by Savarin and the clique at his command +insured it attention, if not from the general public, at least from +critical and literary coteries. Before the fourth instalment appeared +it had outgrown the patronage of the coteries; it seized hold of the +public. It was not in the last school in fashion; incidents were not +crowded and violent,--they were few and simple, rather appertaining +to an elder school, in which poetry of sentiment and grace of diction +prevailed. That very resemblance to old favourites gave it the +attraction of novelty. In a word, it excited a pleased admiration, and +great curiosity was felt as to the authorship. When it oozed out that it +was by the young lady whose future success in the musical world had +been so sanguinely predicted by all who had heard her sing, the interest +wonderfully increased. Petitions to be introduced to her acquaintance +were showered upon Savarin. Before she scarcely realized her dawning +fame, she was drawn from her quiet home and retired habits; she was +fetee and courted in the literary circle of which Savarin was a chief. +That circle touched, on one side, Bohemia; on the other, that realm of +politer fashion which, in every intellectual metropolis, but especially +in Paris, seeks to gain borrowed light from luminaries in art and +letters. But the very admiration she obtained somewhat depressed, +somewhat troubled her; after all, it did not differ from that which was +at her command as a singer. + +On the one hand, she shrank instinctively from the caresses of female +authors and the familiar greetings of male authors, who frankly lived +in philosophical disdain of the conventions respected by sober, decorous +mortals. On the other hand, in the civilities of those who, while they +courted a rising celebrity, still held their habitual existence apart +from the artistic world, there was a certain air of condescension, +of patronage, towards the young stranger with no other protector but +Signora Venosta, the ci-devant public singer, and who had made her debut +in a journal edited by M. Gustave Rameau, which, however disguised by +exaggerated terms of praise, wounded her pride of woman in flattering +her vanity as author. Among this latter set were wealthy, high-born men, +who addressed her as woman--as woman beautiful and young--with words of +gallantry that implied love, but certainly no thought of marriage,--many +of the most ardent were indeed married already. But once launched into +the thick of Parisian hospitalities, it was difficult to draw back. The +Venosta wept at the thought of missing some lively soiree, and Savarin +laughed at her shrinking fastidiousness as that of a child’s ignorance +of the world. But still she had her mornings to herself; and in those +mornings, devoted to the continuance of her work (for the commencement +was in print before a third was completed), she forgot the commonplace +world that received her in the evenings. Insensibly to herself the tone +of this work had changed as it proceeded. It had begun seriously indeed, +but in the seriousness there was a certain latent joy. It might be the +joy of having found vent of utterance; it might be rather a joy still +more latent, inspired by the remembrance of Graham’s words and looks, +and by the thought that she had renounced all idea of the professional +career which he had evidently disapproved. Life then seemed to her a +bright possession. We have seen that she had begun her roman without +planning how it should end. She had, however, then meant it to end, +somehow or other, happily. Now the lustre had gone from life; the tone +of the work was saddened; it foreboded a tragic close. But for the +general reader it became, with every chapter, still more interesting; +the poor child had a singularly musical gift of style,--a music which +lent itself naturally to pathos. Every very young writer knows how his +work, if one of feeling, will colour itself from the views of some +truth in his innermost self; and in proportion as it does so, how his +absorption in the work increases, till it becomes part and parcel of his +own mind and heart. The presence of a hidden sorrow may change the fate +of the beings he has created, and guide to the grave those whom, in a +happier vein, he would have united at the altar. It is not till a later +stage of experience and art that the writer escapes from the influence +of his individual personality, and lives in existences that take no +colourings from his own. Genius usually must pass through the subjective +process before it gains the objective. Even a Shakspeare represents +himself in the Sonnets before no trace of himself is visible in a +Falstaff or a Lear. + +No news of the Englishman,--not a word. Isaura could not but feel that +in his words, his looks, that day in her own garden, and those yet +happier days at Enghien, there had been more than friendship; there +had been love,--love enough to justify her own pride in whispering to +herself, “And I love too.” But then that last parting! how changed he +was! how cold! She conjectured that jealousy of Rameau might, in some +degree, account for the coldness when he first entered the room, but +surely not when he left; surely not when she had overpassed the reserve +of her sex, and implied by signs rarely misconstrued by those who love +that he had no cause for jealousy of another. Yet he had gone,--parted +with her pointedly as a friend, a mere friend. How foolish she had been +to think this rich ambitious foreigner could ever have meant to be more! +In the occupation of her work she thought to banish his image; but in +that work the image was never absent; there were passages in which +she pleadingly addressed it, and then would cease abruptly, stifled by +passionate tears. Still she fancied that the work would reunite them; +that in its pages he would hear her voice and comprehend her heart. And +thus all praise of the work became very, very dear to her. + +At last, after many weeks, Savarin heard from Graham. The letter was +dated Aix-la-Chapelle, at which the Englishman said he might yet be some +time detained. In the letter Graham spoke chiefly of the new journal: +in polite compliment of Savarin’s own effusions; in mixed praise +and condemnation of the political and social articles signed Pierre +Firmin,--praise of their intellectual power, condemnation of their moral +cynicism. + + “The writer,” he said, “reminds me of a passage in which Montesquieu + compares the heathen philosophers to those plants which the earth + produces in places that have never seen the heavens. The soil of + his experience does not grow a single belief; and as no community + can exist without a belief of some kind, so a politician without + belief can but help to destroy; he cannot reconstruct. Such writers + corrupt a society; they do not reform a system.” + +He closed his letter with a reference to Isaura: + + “Do, in your reply, my dear Savarin, tell me something about your + friends Signora Venosta and the Signorina, whose work, so far as yet + published, I have read with admiring astonishment at the power of a + female writer so young to rival the veteran practitioners of fiction + in the creation of interest in imaginary characters, and in + sentiments which, if they appear somewhat over-romantic and + exaggerated, still touch very fine chords in human nature not + awakened in our trite every-day existence. I presume that the + beauty of the roman has been duly appreciated by a public so + refined as the Parisian, and that the name of the author is + generally known. No doubt she is now much the rage of the literary + circles, and her career as a writer may be considered fixed. Pray + present my congratulations to the Signorina when you see her.” + +Savarin had been in receipt of this letter some days before he called +on Isaura, and carelessly showed it to her. She took it to the window to +read, in order to conceal the trembling of her hands. In a few minutes +she returned it silently. + +“Those Englishmen,” said Savarin, “have not the heart of compliment. I +am by no means flattered by what he says of my trifles, and I dare say +you are still less pleased with this chilly praise of your charming +tale; but the man means to be civil.” + +“Certainly,” said Isaura, smiling faintly. + +“Only think of Rameau!” resumed Savarin. “On the strength of his salary +in the ‘Sens Commun,’ and on the chateaux en Espagne which he constructs +thereon, he has already furnished an apartment in the Chaussee d’Antin, +and talks of setting up a coupe in order to maintain the dignity of +letters when he goes to dine with the duchesses who are some day or +other to invite him. Yet I admire his self-confidence, though I laugh at +it. A man gets on by a spring in his own mechanism, and he should always +keep it wound up. Rameau will make a figure. I used to pity him; I begin +to respect. Nothing succeeds like success. But I see I am spoiling your +morning. Au revoir, mon enfant.” + +Left alone, Isaura brooded in a sort of mournful wonderment over the +words referring to herself in Graham’s letter. Read though but once, +she knew them by heart. What! did he consider those characters she had +represented as wholly imaginary? In one--the most prominent, the +most attractive--could he detect no likeness to himself? What! did he +consider so “over-romantic and exaggerated” sentiments which couched +appeals from her heart to his? Alas! in matters of sentiment it is the +misfortune of us men that even the most refined of us often grate upon +some sentiment in a woman, though she may not be romantic,--not romantic +at all, as people go,--some sentiment which she thought must be so +obvious if we cared a straw about her, and which, though we prize +her above the Indies, is by our dim, horn-eyed, masculine vision +undiscernible. It may be something in itself the airiest of trifles: the +anniversary of a day in which the first kiss was interchanged, nay, of a +violet gathered, a misunderstanding cleared up; and of that anniversary +we remember no more than we do of our bells and coral. But she--she +remembers it; it is no bells and coral to her. Of course, much is to be +said in excuse of man, brute though he be. Consider the multiplicity +of his occupations, the practical nature of his cares. But granting the +validity of all such excuse, there is in man an original obtuseness of +fibre as regards sentiment in comparison with the delicacy of woman’s. +It comes, perhaps, from the same hardness of constitution which forbids +us the luxury of ready tears. Thus it is very difficult for the wisest +man to understand thoroughly a woman. Goethe says somewhere that the +highest genius in man must have much of the woman in it. If this be +true, the highest genius alone in man can comprehend and explain the +nature of woman, because it is not remote from him, but an integral part +of his masculine self. I am not sure, however, that it necessitates the +highest genius, but rather a special idiosyncrasy in genius which the +highest may or may not have. I think Sophocles a higher genius than +Euripides; but Euripides has that idiosyncrasy, and Sophocles not. I +doubt whether women would accept Goethe as their interpreter with the +same readiness with which they would accept Schiller. Shakspeare, no +doubt, excels all poets in the comprehension of women, in his sympathy +with them in the woman-part of his nature which Goethe ascribes to the +highest genius; but, putting aside that “monster,” I do not remember any +English poet whom we should consider conspicuously eminent in that lore, +unless it be the prose poet, nowadays generally underrated and little +read, who wrote the letters of Clarissa Harlowe. I say all this in +vindication of Graham Vane, if, though a very clever man in his way, +and by no means uninstructed in human nature, he had utterly failed in +comprehending the mysteries which to this poor woman-child seemed to +need no key for one who really loved her. But we have said somewhere +before in this book that music speaks in a language which cannot explain +itself except in music. So speaks, in the human heart, much which is +akin to music. Fiction (that is, poetry, whether in form of rhyme or +prose) speaks thus pretty often. A reader must be more commonplace +than, I trust, my gentle readers are, if he suppose that when Isaura +symbolized the real hero of her thoughts in the fabled hero of her +romance, she depicted him as one of whom the world could say, “That is +Graham Vane.” I doubt if even a male poet would so vulgarize any woman +whom he thoroughly reverenced and loved. She is too sacred to him to +be thus unveiled to the public stare; as the sweetest of all ancient +love-poets says well-- + + “Qui sapit in tacito gaudeat ille sinu.” + +But a girl, a girl in her first untold timid love, to let the world +know, “that is the man I love and would die for!”--if such a girl be, +she has no touch of the true woman-genius, and certainly she and Isaura +have nothing in common. Well, then, in Isaura’s invented hero, though +she saw the archetypal form of Graham Vane,--saw him as in her young, +vague, romantic dreams idealized, beautified, transfigured,--he would +have been the vainest of men if he had seen therein the reflection of +himself. On the contrary he said, in the spirit of that jealousy to +which he was too prone, “Alas! this, then, is some ideal, already seen +perhaps, compared to which how commonplace am I!” and thus persuading +himself, no wonder that the sentiments surrounding this unrecognized +archetype appeared to him over-romantic. His taste acknowledged the +beauty of form which clothed them; his heart envied the ideal that +inspired them. But they seemed so remote from him; they put the +dreamland of the writer farther and farther from his workday real life. + +In this frame of mind, then, he had written to Savarin, and the answer +he received hardened it still more. Savarin had replied, as was his +laudable wont in correspondence, the very day he received Graham’s +letter, and therefore before he had even seen Isaura. In his reply, +he spoke much of the success her work had obtained; of the invitations +showered upon her, and the sensation she caused in the salons; of her +future career, with hope that she might even rival Madame de Grantmesnil +some day, when her ideas became emboldened by maturer experience, and +a closer study of that model of eloquent style,--saying that the young +editor was evidently becoming enamoured of his fair contributor; and +that Madame Savarin had ventured the prediction that the Signorina’s +roman would end in the death of the heroine, and the marriage of the +writer. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +And still the weeks glided on: autumn succeeded to summer, the winter +to autumn; the season of Paris was at its height. The wondrous capital +seemed to repay its Imperial embellisher by the splendour and the joy +of its fetes. But the smiles on the face of Paris were hypocritical +and hollow. The Empire itself had passed out of fashion. Grave men +and impartial observers felt anxious. Napoleon had renounced les ideas +Napoleoniennes. He was passing into the category of constitutional +sovereigns, and reigning, not by his old undivided prestige, but by the +grace of party. The press was free to circulate complaints as to the +past and demands as to the future, beneath which the present reeled, +ominous of earthquake. People asked themselves if it were possible that +the Empire could co-exist with forms of government not imperial, yet not +genuinely constitutional, with a majority daily yielding to a minority. +The basis of universal suffrage was sapped. About this time the articles +in the “Sens Commun” signed Pierre Firmin were creating not only +considerable sensation, but marked effect on opinion; and the sale of +the journal was immense. + +Necessarily the repute and the position of Gustave Rameau, as the avowed +editor of this potent journal, rose with its success. Nor only his +repute and position; bank-notes of considerable value were transmitted +to him by the publisher, with the brief statement that they were sent by +the sole proprietor of the paper as the editor’s fair share of profit. +The proprietor was never named, but Rameau took it for granted that it +was M. Lebeau. M. Lebeau he had never seen since the day he had brought +him the list of contributors, and was then referred to the publisher, +whom he supposed M. Lebeau had secured, and received the first quarter +of his salary in advance. The salary was a trifle compared to the extra +profits thus generously volunteered. He called at Lebeau’s office, and +saw only the clerk, who said that his chef was abroad. + +Prosperity produced a marked change for the better, if not in the +substance of Rameau’s character, at least in his manners and social +converse. He no longer exhibited that restless envy of rivals, which is +the most repulsive symptom of vanity diseased. He pardoned Isaura her +success; nay, he was even pleased at it. The nature of her work did not +clash with his own kind of writing. It was so thoroughly woman like +that one could not compare it to a man’s. Moreover, that success had +contributed largely to the profits by which he had benefited, and to his +renown as editor of the journal which accorded place to this new-found +genius. But there was a deeper and more potent cause for sympathy with +the success of his fair young contributor. He had imperceptibly glided +into love with her,--a love very different from that with which poor +Julie Caumartin flattered herself she had inspired the young poet. +Isaura was one of those women for whom, even in natures the least +chivalric, love, however ardent, cannot fail to be accompanied with a +certain reverence,--the reverence with which the ancient knighthood, in +its love for women, honoured the ideal purity of womanhood itself. Till +then Rameau had never revered any one. + +On her side, brought so frequently into communication with the young +conductor of the journal in which she wrote, Isaura entertained for him +a friendly, almost sister-like affection. + +I do not think that, even if she had never known the Englishman, she +would have really become in love with Rameau, despite the picturesque +beauty of his countenance and the congeniality of literary pursuits; but +perhaps she might have fancied herself in love with him. And till one, +whether man or woman, has known real love, fancy is readily mistaken for +it. But little as she had seen of Graham, and that little not in itself +wholly favourable to him, she knew in her heart of hearts that his image +would never be replaced by one equally dear. Perhaps in those qualities +that placed him in opposition to her she felt his attractions. The +poetical in woman exaggerates the worth of the practical in man. Still +for Rameau her exquisitely kind and sympathizing nature conceived one of +those sentiments which in woman are almost angel-like. We have seen in +her letters to Madame de Grantmesnil that from the first he inspired her +with a compassionate interest; then the compassion was checked by her +perception of his more unamiable and envious attributes. But now those +attributes, if still existent, had ceased to be apparent to her, and the +compassion became unalloyed. Indeed, it was thus so far increased that +it was impossible for any friendly observer to look at the beautiful +face of this youth, prematurely wasted and worn, without the kindliness +of pity. His prosperity had brightened and sweetened the expression of +that face, but it had not effaced the vestiges of decay; rather perhaps +deepened them, for the duties of his post necessitated a regular labour, +to which he had been unaccustomed, and the regular labour necessitated, +or seemed to him to necessitate, an increase of fatal stimulants. He +imbibed absinthe with everything he drank, and to absinthe he united +opium. This, of course, Isaura knew not, any more than she knew of +his liaison with the “Ondine” of his muse; she saw only the increasing +delicacy of his face and form, contrasted by his increased geniality and +liveliness of spirits, and the contrast saddened her. Intellectually, +too, she felt for him compassion. She recognized and respected in him +the yearnings of a genius too weak to perform a tithe of what, in the +arrogance of youth, it promised to its ambition. She saw, too, those +struggles between a higher and a lower self, to which a weak degree of +genius united with a strong degree of arrogance is so often subjected. +Perhaps she overestimated the degree of genius, and what, if rightly +guided, it could do; but she did, in the desire of her own heavenlier +instinct, aspire to guide it heavenward. And as if she were twenty years +older than himself, she obeyed that desire in remonstrating and warning +and urging, and the young man took all these “preachments” with a +pleased submissive patience. Such, as the new year dawned upon the grave +of the old one, was the position between these two. And nothing more was +heard from Graham Vane. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +It has now become due to Graham Vane, and to his place in the estimation +of my readers, to explain somewhat more distinctly the nature of the +quest in prosecution of which he had sought the aid of the Parisian +police, and under an assumed name made the acquaintance of M. Lebeau. + +The best way of discharging this duty will perhaps be to place before +the reader the contents of the letter which passed under Graham’s eyes +on the day in which the heart of the writer ceased to beat. + +(Confidential. To be opened immediately after my death, and before the +perusal of my will.--Richard King.) + +TO GRAHAM VANE, Esq. + +My DEAR GRAHAM,--By the direction on the envelope of this letter, +“Before the perusal of my will,” I have wished to save you from the +disappointment you would naturally experience if you learned my bequest +without being prevised of the conditions which I am about to impose upon +your honour. You will see ere you conclude this letter that you are the +only man living to whom I could intrust the secret it contains and the +task it enjoins. + +You are aware that I was not born to the fortune that passed to me by +the death of a distant relation, who had, in my earlier youth, children +of his own. I was an only son, left an orphan at the age of sixteen +with a very slender pittance. My guardians designed me for the medical +profession. I began my studies at Edinburgh, and was sent to Paris to +complete them, It so chanced that there I lodged in the same house with +an artist named Auguste Duval, who, failing to gain his livelihood as a +painter, in what--for his style was ambitious--is termed the Historical +School, had accepted the humbler calling of a drawing-master. He had +practised in that branch of the profession for several years at Tours, +having a good clientele among English families settled there. This +clientele, as he frankly confessed, he had lost from some irregularities +of conduct. He was not a bad man, but of convivial temper, and easily +led into temptation. He had removed to Paris a few months before I made +his acquaintance. He obtained a few pupils, and often lost them as soon +as gained. He was unpunctual and addicted to drink. But he had a small +pension, accorded to him, he was wont to say mysteriously, by some +high-born kinsfolk, too proud to own connection with a drawing-master, +and on the condition that he should never name them. He never did name +them to me, and I do not know to this day whether the story of this +noble relationship was true or false. A pension, however, he did receive +quarterly from some person or other, and it was an unhappy provision for +him. It tended to make him an idler in his proper calling; and whenever +he received the payment he spent it in debauch, to the neglect, while it +lasted, of his pupils. This man had residing with him a young daughter, +singularly beautiful. You may divine the rest. I fell in love with +her,--a love deepened by the compassion with which she inspired me. Her +father left her so frequently that, living on the same floor, we saw +much of each other. Parent and child were often in great need,--lacking +even fuel or food. Of course I assisted them to the utmost of my scanty +means Much as I was fascinated by Louise Duval, I was not blind to great +defects in her character. She was capricious, vain, aware of her beauty, +and sighing for the pleasures or the gauds beyond her reach. I knew that +she did not love me,--there was little, indeed, to captivate her fancy +in a poor, thread-bare medical student,--and yet I fondly imagined that +my own persevering devotion would at length win her affections, I spoke +to her father more than once of my hope some day to make Louise my +wife. This hope, I must frankly acknowledge, he never encouraged. On the +contrary, he treated it with scorn,--“His child with her beauty +would look much higher;” but be continued all the same to accept my +assistance, and to sanction my visits. At length my slender purse was +pretty well exhausted, and the luckless drawing-master was so harassed +with petty debts that further credit became impossible. At this time +I happened to hear from a fellow-student that his sister, who was the +principal of a lady’s school in Cheltenham, bad commissioned him to look +out for a first-rate teacher of drawing with whom her elder pupils +could converse in French, but who should be sufficiently acquainted with +English to make his instructions intelligible to the young. The salary +was liberal, the school large and of high repute, and his appointment +to it would open to an able teacher no inconsiderable connection among +private families. I communicated this intelligence to Duval. He caught +at it eagerly. He had learned at Tours to speak English fluently; and +as his professional skill was of high order, and he was popular with +several eminent artists, he obtained certificates as to his talents, +which my fellow-student forwarded to England with specimens of Duval’s +drawings. In a few days the offer of an engagement arrived, was +accepted, and Duval and his daughter set out for Cheltenham. At the +eve of their departure, Louise, profoundly dejected at the prospect of +banishment to a foreign country, and placing no trust in her father’s +reform to steady habits, evinced a tenderness for me hitherto new; she +wept bitterly; she allowed me to believe that her tears flowed at the +thought of parting with me, and even besought me to accompany them to +Cheltenham, if only for a few days. You may suppose how delightedly I +complied with the request. Duval had been about a week at the watering +place, and was discharging the duties he had undertaken with such +unwonted steadiness and regularity that I began sorrowfully to feel I +had no longer an excuse for not returning to my studies at Paris, when +the poor teacher was seized with a fit of paralysis. He lost the power +of movement, and his mind was affected. The medical attendant called +in said that he might linger thus for some time, but that, even if he +recovered his intellect, which was more than doubtful, he would never be +able to resume his profession. I could not leave Louise in circumstances +so distressing,--I remained. The little money Duval had brought from +Paris was now exhausted; and when the day on which he had been in the +habit of receiving his quarter’s pension came round, Louise was unable +even to conjecture how it was to be applied for. It seems he had always +gone for it in person; but to whom he went was a secret which he had +never divulged, and at this critical juncture his mind was too enfeebled +even to comprehend us when we inquired. I had already drawn from the +small capital on the interest of which I had maintained myself; I now +drew out most of the remainder. But this was a resource that could +not last long. Nor could I, without seriously compromising Louise’s +character, be constantly in the house with a girl so young, and whose +sole legitimate protector was thus afflicted. There seemed but one +alternative to that of abandoning her altogether,--namely, to make her +my wife, to conclude the studies necessary to obtain my diploma, and +purchase some partnership in a small country practice with the scanty +surplus that might be left of my capital. I placed this option before +Louise timidly, for I could not bear the thought of forcing her +inclinations. She seemed much moved by what she called my generosity: +she consented; we were married. I was, as you may conceive, wholly +ignorant of French law. We were married according to the English +ceremony and the Protestant ritual. Shortly after our marriage we all +three returned to Paris, taking an apartment in a quarter remote from +that in which we had before lodged, in order to avoid any, harassment +to which such small creditors as Duval had left behind him might +subject us. I resumed my studies with redoubled energy, and Louise was +necessarily left much alone with her poor father in the daytime. The +defects in her character became more and more visible. She reproached me +for the solitude to which I condemned her; our poverty galled her; she +had no kind greeting for me when I returned at evening, wearied out. +Before marriage she had not loved me; after marriage, alas! I fear she +hated. We had been returned to Paris some months when poor Duval died; +he had never recovered his faculties, nor had we ever learned from whom +his pension had been received. Very soon after her father’s death I +observed a singular change in the humour and manner of Louise. She was +no longer peevish, irascible, reproachful; but taciturn and thoughtful. +She seemed to me under the influence of some suppressed excitement, her +cheeks flushed and her eye abstracted. At length, one evening when I +returned I found her gone. She did not come back that night nor the next +day. It was impossible for me to conjecture what had become of her. +She had no friends, so far as I knew; no one had visited at our squalid +apartment. The poor house in which we lodged had no concierge whom +I could question; but the ground-floor was occupied by a small +tobacconist’s shop, and the woman at the counter told me that for some +days before my wife’s disappearance, she had observed her pass the +shop-window in going out in the afternoon and returning towards the +evening. Two terrible conjectures beset me either in her walk she +had met some admirer, with whom she had fled; or, unable to bear the +companionship and poverty of a union which she had begun to loathe, she +had gone forth to drown herself in the Seine. On the third day from her +flight I received the letter I enclose. Possibly the handwriting may +serve you as a guide in the mission I intrust to you. + + MONSIEUR,--You have deceived me vilely,--taken advantage of my + inexperienced youth and friendless position to decoy me into an + illegal marriage. My only consolation under my calamity and + disgrace is, that I am at least free from a detested bond. You will + not see me again,--it is idle to attempt to do so. I have obtained + refuge with relations whom I have been fortunate enough to discover, + and to whom I intrust my fate; and even if you could learn the + shelter I have sought, and have the audacity to molest me, you would + but subject yourself to the chastisement you so richly deserve. + + Louise DUVAL. + +At the perusal of this cold-hearted, ungrateful letter, the love I had +felt for this woman--already much shaken by her wayward and perverse +temper--vanished from my heart, never to return. But as an honest +man, my conscience was terribly stung. Could it be possible that I +had unknowingly deceived her,--that our marriage was not legal? When +I recovered from the stun which was the first effect of her letter, I +sought the opinion of an avoue in the neighbourbood, named Sartiges, and +to my dismay, I learned that while I, marrying according to the customs +of my own country, was legally bound to Louise in England, and could +not marry another, the marriage was in all ways illegal for her,--being +without the consent of her relations while she was under age; without +the ceremonials of the Roman Catholic Church,--to which, though I never +heard any profession of religious belief from her or her father, it +might fairly be presumed that she belonged; and, above all, without the +form of civil contract which is indispensable to the legal marriage of a +French subject. + +The avoue said that the marriage, therefore, in itself was null, and +that Louise could, without incurring legal penalties for bigamy, +marry again in France according to the French laws; but that under the +circumstances it was probable that her next of kin would apply on her +behalf to the proper court for the formal annulment of the marriage, +which would be the most effectual mode of saving her from any +molestation on my part, and remove all possible questions hereafter as +to her single state and absolute right to remarry. I had better remain +quiet, and wait for intimation of further proceedings. I knew not what +else to do, and necessarily submitted. + +From this wretched listlessness of mind, alternated now by vehement +resentment against Louise, now by the reproach of my own sense of honour +in leaving that honour in so questionable a point of view, I was aroused +by a letter from the distant kinsman by whom hitherto I had been so +neglected. In the previous year he had lost one of his two children; the +other was just dead. No nearer relation now surviving stood between me +and my chance of inheritance from him. He wrote word of his domestic +affliction with a manly sorrow which touched me, said that his health +was failing, and begged me, as soon as possible, to come and visit him +in Scotland. I went, and continued to reside with him till his death, +some months afterwards. By his will I succeeded to his ample fortune on +condition of taking his name. + +As soon as the affairs connected with this inheritance permitted, I +returned to Paris, and again saw M. Sartiges. I had never heard from +Louise, nor from any one connected with her since the letter you have +read. No steps had been taken to annul the marriage, and sufficient time +had elapsed to render it improbable that such steps would be taken now; +but if no such steps were taken, however free from the marriage-bond +Louise might be, it clearly remained binding on myself. + +At my request, M. Sartiges took the most vigorous measures that occurred +to him to ascertain where Louise was, and what and who was the relation +with whom she asserted she had found refuge. The police were employed; +advertisements were issued, concealing names, but sufficiently clear to +be intelligible to Louise if they came under her eye, and to the effect +that if any informality in our marriage existed, she was implored for +her own sake to remove it by a second ceremonial--answer to be addressed +to the avoue. No answer came; the police had hitherto failed of +discovering her, but were sanguine of success, when a few weeks after +these advertisements a packet reached M. Sartiges, enclosing the +certificates annexed to this letter, of the death of Louise Duval at +Munich. The certificates, as you will see, are to appearance officially +attested and unquestionably genuine. So they were considered by M. +Sartiges as well as by myself. Here, then, all inquiry ceased; the +police were dismissed. I was free. By little and little I overcame the +painful impressions which my ill-starred union and the announcement of +Louise’s early death bequeathed. Rich, and of active mind, I learned to +dismiss the trials of my youth as a gloomy dream. I entered into public +life; I made myself a creditable position; became acquainted with your +aunt; we were wedded, and the beauty of her nature embellished mine. +Alas, alas! two years after our marriage--nearly five years after I +had received the certificates of Louise’s death--I and your aunt made a +summer excursion into the country of the Rhine; on our return we rested +at Aix-la-Chapelle. One day while there I was walking alone in the +environs of the town, when, on the road, a little girl, seemingly about +five years old, in chase of a butterfly, stumbled and fell just before +my feet; I took her up, and as she was crying more from the shock of the +fall than any actual hurt, I was still trying my best to comfort her, +when a lady some paces behind her came up, and in taking the child from +my arms as I was bending over her, thanked me in a voice that made my +heart stand still. I looked up, and beheld Louise. + +It was not till I had convulsively clasped her hand and uttered her +name that she recognized me. I was, no doubt, the more altered of the +two,--prosperity and happiness had left little trace of the needy, care +worn, threadbare student. But if she were the last to recognize, she was +the first to recover self-possession. The expression of her face became +hard and set. I cannot pretend to repeat with any verbal accuracy the +brief converse that took place between us, as she placed the child on +the grass bank beside the path, bade her stay there quietly, and walked +on with me some paces as if she did not wish the child to hear what was +said. + +The purport of what passed was to this effect: She refused to explain +the certificates of her death further than that, becoming aware of what +she called the “persecution” of the advertisements issued and inquiries +instituted, she had caused those documents to be sent to the address +given in the advertisement, in order to terminate all further +molestation. But how they could have been obtained, or by what art so +ingeniously forged as to deceive the acuteness of a practised lawyer, I +know not to this day. She declared, indeed, that she was now happy, in +easy circumstances, and that if I wished to make some reparation for +the wrong I had done her, it would be to leave her in peace; and in +case--which was not likely--we ever met again, to regard and treat her +as a stranger; that she, on her part, never would molest me, and that +the certified death of Louise Duval left me as free to marry again as +she considered herself to be. + +My mind was so confused, so bewildered, while she thus talked, that +I did not attempt to interrupt her. The blow had so crushed me that I +scarcely struggled under it; only, as she turned to leave me, I suddenly +recollected that the child, when taken from my arms, had called her +“Maman,” and, judging by the apparent age of the child, it must have +been born but a few months after Louise had left me,--that it must +be mine. And so, in my dreary woe, I faltered out, “But what of your +infant? Surely that has on me a claim that you relinquish for yourself. +You were not unfaithful to me while you deemed you were my wife?” + +“Heavens! can you insult me by such a doubt? No!” she cried out, +impulsively and haughtily. “But as I was not legally your wife, the +child is not legally yours; it is mine, and only mine. Nevertheless, if +you wish to claim it”--here she paused as in doubt. I saw at once that +she was prepared to resign to me the child if I had urged her to do +so. I must own, with a pang of remorse, that I recoiled from such a +proposal. What could I do with the child? How explain to my wife the +cause of my interest in it? If only a natural child of mine, I should +have shrunk from owning to Janet a youthful error. But as it was,--the +child by a former marriage, the former wife still living!--my blood ran +cold with dread. And if I did take the child, invent what story I +might as to its parentage, should I not expose myself, expose Janet, to +terrible constant danger? The mother’s natural affection might urge +her at any time to seek tidings of the child, and in so doing she might +easily discover my new name, and, perhaps years hence, establish on me +her own claim. + +No, I could not risk such perils. I replied sullenly, “You say rightly; +the child is yours,--only yours.” I was about to add an offer of +pecuniary provision for it, but Louise had already turned scornfully +towards the bank on which she had left the infant. I saw her snatch from +the child’s hand some wild flowers the poor thing had been gathering; +and how often have I thought of the rude way in which she did it,--not +as a mother who loves her child. Just then other passengers appeared on +the road; two of them I knew,--an English couple very intimate with Lady +Janet and myself. They stopped to accost me, while Louise passed by with +the infant towards the town. I turned in the opposite direction, and +strove to collect my thoughts. Terrible as was the discovery thus +suddenly made, it was evident that Louise had as strong an interest +as myself to conceal it. There was little chance that it would ever be +divulged. Her dress and that of the child were those of persons in +the richer classes of life. After all, doubtless, the child needed not +pecuniary assistance from me, and was surely best off under the mother’s +care. Thus I sought to comfort and to delude myself. + +The next day Janet and I left Aix-la-Chapelle and returned to England. +But it was impossible for me to banish the dreadful thought that Janet +was not legally my wife; that could she even guess the secret lodged in +my breast she would be lost to me forever, even though she died of +the separation (you know well how tenderly she loved me). My nature +underwent a silent revolution. I had previously cherished the ambition +common to most men in public life,--the ambition for fame, for place, +for power. That ambition left me; I shrank from the thought of becoming +too well known, lest Louise or her connections, as yet ignorant of my +new name, might more easily learn what the world knew; namely that I had +previously borne another name,--the name of her husband,--and finding me +wealthy and honoured, might hereafter be tempted to claim for herself or +her daughter the ties she adjured for both while she deemed me poor and +despised. But partly my conscience, partly the influence of the angel +by my side, compelled me to seek whatever means of doing good to others +position and circumstances placed at my disposal. I was alarmed +when even such quiet exercise of mind and fortune acquired a sort of +celebrity. How pain fully I shrank from it! The world attributed my +dread of publicity to unaffected modesty. The world praised me, and +I knew myself an impostor. But the years stole on. I heard no more of +Louise or her child, and my fears gradually subsided. Yet I was consoled +when the two children born to me by Janet died in their infancy. Had +they lived, who can tell whether something might not have transpired to +prove them illegitimate. + +I must hasten on. At last came the great and crushing calamity of my +life,--I lost the woman who was my all in all. At least she was spared +the discovery that would have deprived me of the right of tending her +deathbed, and leaving within her tomb a place vacant for myself. + +But after the first agonies that followed her loss, the conscience I had +so long sought to tranquillize became terribly reproachful. Louise had +forfeited all right to my consideration, but my guiltless child had +not done so. Did it live still? If so, was it not the heir to my +fortunes,--the only child left to me? True, I have the absolute right to +dispose of my wealth: it is not in land; it is not entailed: but was +not the daughter I had forsaken morally the first claimant; was no +reparation due to her? You remember that my physician ordered me, some +little time after your aunt’s death, to seek a temporary change of +scene. I obeyed, and went away no one knew whither. Well, I repaired to +Paris; there I sought M. Sartiges, the avoue. I found he had been +long dead. I discovered his executors, and inquired if any papers or +correspondence between Richard Macdonald and himself many years ago +were in existence. All such documents, with others not returned to +correspondents at his decease, had been burned by his desire. No +possible clew to the whereabouts of Louise, should any have been gained +since I last saw her, was left. What then to do I knew not. I did not +dare to make inquiries through strangers, which, if discovering my +child, might also bring to light a marriage that would have dishonoured +the memory of my lost saint. I returned to England, feeling that my days +were numbered. It is to you that I transmit the task of those researches +which I could not institute. I bequeath to you, with the exception of +trifling legacies and donations to public charities, the whole of my +fortune; but you will understand by this letter that it is to be held +on a trust which I cannot specify in my will. I could not, without +dishonouring the venerated name of your aunt, indicate as the heiress of +my wealth a child by a wife living at the time I married Janet. I cannot +form any words for such a devise which would not arouse gossip and +suspicion, and furnish ultimately a clew to the discovery I would shun. +I calculate that, after all deductions, the sum that will devolve to you +will be about L220,000. That which I mean to be absolutely and at once +yours is the comparatively trifling legacy of L20,000. If Louise’s +child be not living, or if you find full reason to suppose that despite +appearances the child is not mine, the whole of my fortune lapses to +you; but should Louise be surviving and need pecuniary aid, you will +contrive that she may have such an annuity as you may deem fitting, +without learning whence it come. You perceive that it is your object, if +possible, even more than mine, to preserve free from slur the name and +memory of her who was to you a second mother. All ends we desire would +be accomplished could you, on discovering my lost child, feel that, +without constraining your inclinations, you could make her your wife. +She would then naturally share with you my fortune, and all claims of +justice and duty would be quietly appeased. She would now be of age +suitable to yours. When I saw her at Aix she gave promise of inheriting +no small share of her mother’s beauty. If Louise’s assurance of her easy +circumstances were true, her daughter has possibly been educated and +reared with tenderness and care. You have already assured me that you +have no prior attachment. But if, on discovering this child, you find +her already married, or one whom you could not love nor esteem, I leave +it implicitly to your honour and judgment to determine what share of +the L200,000 left in your hands should be consigned to her. She may have +been corrupted by her mother’s principles. She may--Heaven forbid!--have +fallen into evil courses, and wealth would be misspent in her hands. In +that case a competence sufficing to save her from further degradation, +from the temptations of poverty, would be all that I desire you to +devote from my wealth. On the contrary, you may find in her one who, in +all respects, ought to be my chief inheritor. All this I leave in full +confidence to you, as being, of all the men I know, the one who unites +the highest sense of honour with the largest share of practical sense +and knowledge of life. The main difficulty, whatever this lost girl may +derive from my substance, will be in devising some means to convey it +to her so that neither she nor those around her may trace the bequest +to me. She can never be acknowledged as my child,--never! Your reverence +for the beloved dead forbids that. This difficulty your clear strong +sense must overcome; mine is blinded by the shades of death. You too +will deliberately consider how to institute the inquiries after mother +and child so as not to betray our secret. This will require great +caution. You will probably commence at Paris, through the agency of the +police, to whom you will be very guarded in your communications. It +is most unfortunate that I have no miniature of Louise, and that any +description of her must be so vague that it may not serve to discover +her; but such as it is, it may prevent your mistaking for her some other +of her name. Louise was above the common height, and looked taller than +she was, with the peculiar combination of very dark hair, very fair +complexion, and light-gray eyes. She would now be somewhat under the +age of forty. She was not without accomplishments, derived from the +companionship with her father. She spoke English fluently; she drew +with taste, and even with talent. You will see the prudence of confining +research at first to Louise, rather than to the child who is the +principal object of it; for it is not till you can ascertain what +has become of her that you can trust the accuracy of any information +respecting the daughter, whom I assume, perhaps after all erroneously, +to be mine. Though Louise talked with such levity of holding herself +free to marry, the birth of her child might be sufficient injury to her +reputation to become a serious obstacle to such second nuptials, not +having taken formal steps to annul her marriage with myself. If not thus +remarried, there would be no reason why she should not resume her maiden +name of Duval, as she did in the signature of her letter to me: finding +that I had ceased to molest her by the inquiries, to elude which she had +invented the false statement of her death. It seems probable, therefore, +that she is residing somewhere in Paris, and in the name of Duval. Of +course the burden of uncertainty as to your future cannot be left to +oppress you for an indefinite length of time. If at the end, say, of two +years, your researches have wholly failed, consider three-fourths of +my whole fortune to have passed to you, and put by the fourth to +accumulate, should the child afterwards be discovered, and satisfy your +judgment as to her claims on me as her father. Should she not, it will +be a reserve fund for your own children. But oh, if my child could be +found in time! and oh, if she be all that could win your heart, and be +the wife you would select from free choice! I can say no more. Pity me, +and judge leniently of Janet’s husband. + + R. K. + +The key to Graham’s conduct is now given,--the deep sorrow that took +him to the tomb of the aunt he so revered, and whose honoured memory +was subjected to so great a risk; the slightness of change in his +expenditure and mode of life, after an inheritance supposed to be so +ample; the abnegation of his political ambition; the subject of his +inquiries, and the cautious reserve imposed upon them; above all, the +position towards Isaura in which he was so cruelly placed. + +Certainly, his first thought in revolving the conditions of his trust +had been that of marriage with this lost child of Richard King’s, +should she be discovered single, disengaged, and not repulsive to his +inclinations. Tacitly he subscribed to the reasons for this course +alleged by the deceased. It was the simplest and readiest plan of +uniting justice to the rightful inheritor with care for a secret so +important to the honour of his aunt, of Richard King himself,--his +benefactor,--of the illustrious house from which Lady Janet had sprung. +Perhaps, too, the consideration that by this course a fortune so useful +to his career was secured was not without influence on the mind of a +man naturally ambitious. But on that consideration he forbade himself to +dwell. He put it away from him as a sin. Yet, to marriage with any one +else, until his mission was fulfilled, and the uncertainty as to the +extent of his fortune was dispelled, there interposed grave practical +obstacles. How could he honestly present himself to a girl and to her +parents in the light of a rich man, when in reality he might be but a +poor man? How could he refer to any lawyer the conditions which rendered +impossible any settlement that touched a shilling of the large sum which +at any day he might have to transfer to another? Still, when once fully +conspicuous how deep was the love with which Isaura had inspired him, +the idea of wedlock with the daughter of Richard King, if she yet lived +and was single, became inadmissible. The orphan condition of the young +Italian smoothed away the obstacles to proposals of marriage which +would have embarrassed his addresses to girls of his own rank, and with +parents who would have demanded settlements. And if he had found Isaura +alone on that day on which he had seen her last, he would doubtless have +yielded to the voice of his heart, avowed his love, wooed her own, and +committed both to the tie of betrothal. We have seen how rudely such +yearnings of his heart were repelled on that last interview. His English +prejudices were so deeply rooted, that, even if he had been wholly free +from the trust bequeathed to him, he would have recoiled from marriage +with a girl who, in the ardour for notoriety, could link herself +with such associates as Gustave Rameau, by habits a Bohemian, and by +principles a Socialist. + +In flying from Paris, he embraced the resolve to banish all thought of +wedding Isaura, and to devote himself sternly to the task which had so +sacred a claim upon him. Not that he could endure the idea of marrying +another, even if the lost heiress should be all that his heart could +have worshipped, had that heart been his own to give; but he was +impatient of the burden heaped on him,--of the fortune which might not +be his, of the uncertainty which paralyzed all his ambitious schemes for +the future. + +Yet, strive as he would--and no man could strive more resolutely--he +could not succeed in banishing the image of Isaura. It was with him +always; and with it a sense of irreparable loss, of a terrible void, of +a pining anguish. + +And the success of his inquiries at Aix-la-Chapelle, while sufficient +to detain him in the place, was so slight, and advanced by such slow +degrees, that it furnished no continued occupation to his restless mind. +M. Renard was acute and painstaking. But it was no easy matter to obtain +any trace of a Parisian visitor to so popular a Spa so many years ago. +The name Duval, too, was so common, that at Aix, as we have seen at +Paris, time was wasted in the chase of a Duval who proved not to be the +lost Louise. At last M. Renard chanced on a house in which, in the year +1849, two ladies from Paris had lodged for three weeks. One was named +Madame Duval, the other Madame Marigny. They were both young, both very +handsome, and much of the same height and colouring. But Madame Marigny +was the handsomer of the two. Madame Duval frequented the gaming-tables +and was apparently of very lively temper. Madame Marigny lived very +quietly, rarely or never stirred out, and seemed in delicate health. +She, however, quitted the apartment somewhat abruptly, and, to the best +of the lodging-house-keeper’s recollection, took rooms in the country +near Aix--she could not remember where. About two months after the +departure of Madame Marigny, Madame Duval also left Aix, and in company +with a French gentleman who had visited her much of late,--a handsome +man of striking appearance. The lodging house-keeper did not know what +or who he was. She remembered that he used to be announced to Madame +Duval by the name of M. Achille. Madame Duval had never been seen again +by the lodging-house-keeper after she had left. But Madame Marigny +she had once seen, nearly five years after she had quitted the +lodgings,--seen her by chance at the railway station, recognized her at +once, and accosted her, offering her the old apartment. Madame Marigny +had, however, briefly replied that she was only at Aix for a few hours, +and should quit it the same day. + +The inquiry now turned towards Madame Marigny. The date on which the +lodging-house-keeper had last seen her coincided with the year in +which Richard King had met Louise. Possibly, therefore, she might have +accompanied the latter to Aix at that time, and could, if found, give +information as to her subsequent history and present whereabouts. + +After a tedious search throughout all the environs of Aix, Graham +himself came, by the merest accident, upon the vestiges of Louise’s +friend. He had been wandering alone in the country round Aix, when a +violent thunderstorm drove him to ask shelter in the house of a small +farmer, situated in a field, a little off the byway which he had taken. +While waiting for the cessation of the storm, and drying his clothes +by the fire in a room that adjoined the kitchen, he entered into +conversation with the farmer’s wife, a pleasant, well-mannered person, +and made some complimentary observation on a small sketch of the house +in water-colours that hung upon the wall. “Ah,” said the farmer’s wife, +“that was done by a French lady who lodged here many years ago. She drew +very prettily, poor thing.” + +“A lady who lodged here many years ago,--how many?” + +“Well, I guess somewhere about twenty.” + +“Ah, indeed! Was it a Madame Marigny?” + +“Bon Dieu! That was indeed her name. Did you know her? I should be so +glad to hear she is well and--I hope--happy.” + +“I do not know where she is now, and am making inquiries to ascertain. +Pray help me. How long did Madame Marigny lodge with you?” + +“I think pretty well two months; yes, two months. She left a month after +her confinement.” + +“She was confined here?” + +“Yes. When she first came, I had no idea that she was enceinte. She had +a pretty figure, and no one would have guessed it, in the way she +wore her shawl. Indeed I only began to suspect it a few days before it +happened; and that was so suddenly, that all was happily over before we +could send for the accoucheur.” + +“And the child lived?--a girl or a boy?” + +“A girl,--the prettiest baby.” + +“Did she take the child with her when she went?” + +“No; it was put out to nurse with a niece of my husband who was confined +about the same time. Madame paid liberally in advance, and continued to +send money half-yearly, till she came herself and took away the little +girl.” + +“When was that,--a little less than five years after she had left it?” + +“Why, you know all about it, Monsieur; yes, not quite five years after. +She did not come to see me, which I thought unkind, but she sent me, +through my niece-in-law, a real gold watch and a shawl. Poor dear +lady--for lady she was all over,--with proud ways, and would not bear to +be questioned. But I am sure she was none of your French light ones, but +an honest wife like myself, though she never said so.” + +“And have you no idea where she was all the five years she was away, or +where she went after reclaiming her child?” + +“No, indeed, Monsieur.” + +“But her remittances for the infant must have been made by letters, and +the letters would have had post-marks?” + +“Well, I dare say; I am no scholar myself. But suppose you see Marie +Hubert, that is my niece-in-law, perhaps she has kept the envelopes.” + +“Where does Madame Hubert live?” + +“It is just a league off by the short path; you can’t miss the way. Her +husband has a bit of land of his own, but he is also a carrier--‘Max +Hubert, carrier,’--written over the door, just opposite the first church +you get to. The rain has ceased, but it may be too far for you to-day.” + +“Not a bit of it. Many thanks.” + +“But if you find out the dear lady and see her, do tell her how pleased +I should be to hear good news of her and the little one.” + +Graham strode on under the clearing skies to the house indicated. He +found Madame Hubert at home, and ready to answer all questions; but, +alas! she had not the envelopes. Madame Marigny, on removing the child, +had asked for all the envelopes or letters, and carried them away with +her. Madame Hubert, who was as little of a scholar as her aunt-in-law +was, had never paid much attention to the post-marks on the envelopes; +and the only one that she did remember was the first, that contained a +bank-note, and that post-mark was “Vienna.” + +“But did not Madame Marigny’s letters ever give you an address to which +to write with news of her child?” + +“I don’t think she cared much for her child, Monsieur. She kissed it +very coldly when she came to take it away. I told the poor infant that +that was her own mamma; and Madame said, ‘Yes, you may call me maman,’ +in a tone of voice--well, not at all like that of a mother. She brought +with her a little bag which contained some fine clothes for the child, +and was very impatient till the child had got them on.” + +“Are you quite sure it was the same lady who left the child?” + +“Oh, there is no doubt of that. She was certainly tres belle, but I did +not fancy her as aunt did. She carried her head very high, and looked +rather scornful. However, I must say she behaved very generously.” + +“Still you have not answered my question whether her letters contained +no address.” + +“She never wrote more than two letters. One enclosing the first +remittance was but a few lines, saying that if the child was well and +thriving, I need not write; but if it died or became dangerously ill, I +might at any time write a line to Madame -----, Poste Restante, Vienna. +She was travelling about, but the letter would be sure to reach her +sooner or later. The only other letter I had was to apprise me that +she was coming to remove the child, and might be expected in three days +after the receipt of her letter.” + +“And all the other communications from her were merely remittances in +blank envelopes?” + +“Exactly so.” + +Graham, finding he could learn no more, took his departure. On his way +home, meditating the new idea that his adventure that day suggested, he +resolved to proceed at once, accompanied by M. Renard, to Munich, and +there learn what particulars could be yet ascertained respecting those +certificates of the death of Louise Duval, to which (sharing Richard +King’s very natural belief that they had been skilfully forged) he had +hitherto attached no importance. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +No satisfactory result attended the inquiries made at Munich save indeed +this certainty,--the certificates attesting the decease of some person +calling herself Louise Duval had not been forged. They were indubitably +genuine. A lady bearing that name had arrived at one of the principal +hotels late in the evening, and had there taken handsome rooms. She was +attended by no servant, but accompanied by a gentleman, who, however, +left the hotel as soon as he had seen her lodged to her satisfaction. +The books of the hotel still retained the entry of her name,--Madame +Duval, Francaise rentiere. On comparing the handwriting of this entry +with the letter from Richard King’s first wife, Graham found it to +differ; but then it was not certain, though probable, that the entry had +been written by the alleged Madame Duval herself. She was visited the +next day by the same gentleman who had accompanied her on arriving. +He dined and spent the evening with her. But no one at the hotel could +remember what was the gentleman’s name, nor even if he were announced by +any name. He never called again. Two days afterwards, Madame Duval was +taken ill; a doctor was sent for, and attended her till her death. This +doctor was easily found. He remembered the case perfectly,--congestion +of the lungs, apparently caused by cold caught on her journey. Fatal +symptoms rapidly manifested themselves, and she died on the third day +from the seizure. She was a young and handsome woman. He had asked her +during her short illness if he should not write to her friends; if there +were no one she would wish to be sent for. She replied that there was +only one friend, to whom she had already written, and who would arrive +in a day or two; and on inquiring, it appeared that she had written such +a letter, and taken it herself to the post on the morning of the day she +was taken ill. + +She had in her purse not a large sum, but money enough to cover all her +expenses, including those of her funeral, which, according to the law in +force at the place, followed very quickly on her decease. The arrival of +the friend to whom she had written being expected, her effects were, in +the meanwhile, sealed up. The day after her death a letter arrived for +her, which was opened. It was evidently written by a man, and apparently +by a lover. It expressed an impassioned regret that the writer was +unavoidably prevented returning to Munich so soon as he had hoped, but +trusted to see his dear bouton de rose in the course of the following +week; it was only signed Achille, and gave no address. Two or three +days after, a lady, also young and handsome, arrived at the hotel, and +inquired for Madame Duval. She was greatly shocked at hearing of her +decease. When sufficiently recovered to bear being questioned as to +Madame Duval’s relations and position, she appeared confused; said, +after much pressing, that she was no relation to the deceased; that she +believed Madame Duval had no relations with whom she was on friendly +terms,--at least she had never heard her speak of any; and that her own +acquaintance with the deceased, though cordial, was very recent. She +could or would not give any clew to the writer of the letter signed +Achille, and she herself quitted Munich that evening, leaving the +impression that Madame Duval had been one of those ladies who, in +adopting a course of life at variance with conventional regulations, +are repudiated by their relations, and probably drop even their rightful +names. + +Achille never appeared; but a few days after, a lawyer at Munich +received a letter from another at Vienna, requesting, in compliance +with a client’s instructions, the formal certificates of Louise Duval’s +death. These were sent as directed, and nothing more about the ill-fated +woman was heard of. After the expiration of the time required by law, +the seals were removed from the effects, which consisted of two malles +and a dressing-case. But they only contained the articles appertaining +to a lady’s wardrobe or toilet,--no letters, not even another note +from Achille,--no clew, in short, to the family or antecedents of the +deceased. What then had become of these effects, no one at the hotel +could give a clear or satisfactory account. It was said by the mistress +of the hotel, rather sullenly, that they had, she supposed, been sold by +her predecessor, and by order of the authorities, for the benefit of the +poor. + +If the lady who had represented herself as Louise Duval’s acquaintance +had given her own name, which doubtless she did, no one recollected it. +It was not entered in the books of the hotel, for she had not +lodged there; nor did it appear that she had allowed time for formal +examination by the civil authorities. In fact, it was clear that poor +Louise Duval had been considered as an adventuress by the hotel-keeper +and the medical attendant at Munich; and her death had excited so little +interest, that it was strange that even so many particulars respecting +it could be gleaned. + +After a prolonged but fruitless stay at Munich, Graham and M. Renard +repaired to Vienna; there, at least, Madame Marigny had given an +address, and there she might be heard of. + +At Vienna, however, no research availed to discover a trace of any such +person; and in despair Graham returned to England in the January of +1870, and left the further prosecution of his inquiries to M. Renard, +who, though obliged to transfer himself to Paris for a time, promised +that he would leave no stone unturned for the discovery of Madame +Marigny; and Graham trusted to that assurance when M. Renard, rejecting +half of the large gratuity offered him, added, “Je suis Francais; this +with me has ceased to be an affair of money; it has become an affair +that involves my amour propre.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +If Graham Vane had been before caressed and courted for himself, he +was more than ever appreciated by polite society, now that he added the +positive repute of wealth to that of a promising intellect. Fine ladies +said that Graham Vane was a match for any girl. Eminent politicians +listened to him with a more attentive respect, and invited him to +selecter dinner-parties. His cousin the Duke urged him to announce +his candidature for the county, and purchase back, at least, the old +Stamm-schloss. But Graham obstinately refused to entertain either +proposal, continued to live as economically as before in his old +apartments, and bore with an astonishing meekness of resignation the +unsolicited load of fashion heaped upon his shoulders. At heart he was +restless and unhappy. The mission bequeathed to him by Richard King +haunted his thoughts like a spectre not to be exorcised. Was his whole +life to be passed in the weary sustainment of an imposture which in +itself was gall and wormwood to a nature constitutionally frank and +open? Was he forever to appear a rich man and live as a poor one? Was he +till his deathbed to be deemed a sordid miser whenever he refused a just +claim on his supposed wealth, and to feel his ambition excluded from the +objects it earnestly coveted, and which he was forced to appear too much +of an Epicurean philosopher to prize? + +More torturing than all else to the man’s innermost heart was the +consciousness that he had not conquered, could not conquer, the yearning +love with which Isaura had inspired him, and yet that against such love +all his reasonings, all his prejudices, more stubbornly than ever were +combined. In the French newspapers which he had glanced over while +engaged in his researches in Germany-nay, in German critical journals +themselves--he had seen so many notices of the young author,--highly +eulogistic, it is true, but which to his peculiar notions were more +offensive than if they had been sufficiently condemnatory of her work +to discourage her from its repetition; notices which seemed to him the +supreme impertinences which no man likes exhibited towards the woman to +whom he would render the chivalrous homage of respect. Evidently this +girl had become as much public property as if she had gone on the stage. +Minute details of her personal appearance,--of the dimples on her cheek, +of the whiteness of her arms, of her peculiar way of dressing her hair; +anecdotes of her from childhood (of course invented, but how could +Graham know that?); of the reasons why she had adopted the profession of +author instead of that of the singer; of the sensation she had created +in certain salons (to Graham, who knew Paris so well, salons in which he +would not have liked his wife to appear); of the compliments paid to her +by grands seigneurs noted for their liaisons with ballet-dancers, or by +authors whose genius soared far beyond the flammantia maenia of a world +confined by respect for one’s neighbours’ land-marks,--all this, which +belongs to ground of personal gossip untouched by English critics of +female writers, ground especially favoured by Continental, and, I am +grieved to say, by American journalists,--all this was to the sensitive +Englishman much what the minute inventory of Egeria’s charms would have +been to Numa Pompilius. The nymph, hallowed to him by secret devotion, +was vulgarized by the noisy hands of the mob, and by the popular +voices, which said, “We know more about Egeria than you do.” And when he +returned to England, and met with old friends familiar to Parisian life, +who said, “of course you have read the Cicogna’s roman. What do you +think of it? Very fine writing, I dare say, but above me. I go in for +‘Les Mysteres de Paris’ or ‘Monte Cristo;’ but I even find Georges Sand +a bore,” then as a critic Graham Vane fired up, extolled the roman he +would have given his ears for Isaura never to have written; but retired +from the contest muttering inly, “How can I--I, Graham Vane--how can +I be such an idiot; how can I in every hour of the twenty-four sigh to +myself, ‘What are other women to me? Isaura, Isaura!’” + + + + + +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 he 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. + + + + + +BOOK VIII. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +On the 8th of May the vote of the plebiscite was recorded,--between +seven and eight millions of Frenchmen in support of the Imperial +programme--in plain words, of the Emperor himself--against a minority of +1,500,000. But among the 1,500,000 were the old throne-shakers-those who +compose and those who lead the mob of Paris. On the 14th, as Rameau was +about to quit the editorial bureau of his printing-office, a note +was brought in to him which strongly excited his nervous system. +It contained a request to see him forthwith, signed by those two +distinguished foreign members of the Secret Council of Ten, Thaddeus +Loubinsky and Leonardo Raselli. + +The meetings of that Council had been so long suspended that Rameau +had almost forgotten its existence. He gave orders to admit the +conspirators. The two men entered, the Pole, tall, stalwart, and with +martial stride--the Italian, small, emaciated, with skulking, noiseless, +cat-like step, both looking wondrous threadbare, and in that state +called “shabby genteel,” which belongs to the man who cannot work for +his livelihood, and assumes a superiority over the man who can. +Their outward appearance was in notable discord with that of the +poet-politician--he all new in the last fashions of Parisian elegance, +and redolent of Parisian prosperity and extrait de Mousseline! + +“Confrere,” said the Pole, seating himself on the edge of the table, +while the Italian leaned against the mantelpiece, and glanced round the +room with furtive eye, as if to detect its innermost secrets, or decide +where safest to drop a Lucifer-match for its conflagration,--“confrere,” + said the Pole, “your country needs you--” + +“Rather the cause of all countries,” interposed the Italian +softly,--“Humanity.” + +“Please to explain yourselves; but stay, wait a moment,” said Rameau; +and rising, he went to the door, opened it, looked forth, ascertained +that the coast was clear, then reclosed the door as cautiously as a +prudent man closes his pocket whenever shabby-genteel visitors appeal +to him in the cause of his country, still more if they appeal in that of +Humanity. + +“Confrere,” said the Pole, “this day a movement is to be made--a +demonstration on behalf of your country--” + +“Of Humanity,” again softly interposed the Italian. “Attend and share +it,” said the Pole. + +“Pardon me,” said Rameau, “I do not know what you mean. I am now +the editor of a journal in which the proprietor does not countenance +violence; and if you come to me as a member of the Council, you must be +aware that I should obey no orders but that of its president, whom I--I +have not seen for nearly a year; indeed I know not if the Council still +exists.” + +“The Council exists, and with it the obligation it imposes,” replied +Thaddeus. + +“Pampered with luxury,” here the Pole raised his voice, “do you dare to +reject the voice of Poverty and Freedom?” + +“Hush, dear but too vehement confrere,” murmured the bland Italian; +“permit me to dispel the reasonable doubts of our confrere,” and he took +out of his breast-pocket a paper which he presented to Rameau; on it +were written these words: + +“This evening May 24th. Demonstration.--Faubourg du Temple.--Watch +events, under orders of A. M. Bid the youngest member take that first +opportunity to test nerves and discretion. He is not to act, but to +observe.” + +No name was appended to this instruction, but a cipher intelligible to +all members of the Council as significant of its president, Jean Lebeau. + +“If I err not,” said the Italian, “Citizen Rameau is our youngest +confrere.” + +Rameau paused. The penalties for disobedience to an order of the +President of the Council were too formidable to be disregarded. There +could be no doubt that,--though his name was not mentioned, he, Rameau, +was accurately designated as the youngest member of the Council. Still, +however he might have owed his present position to the recommendation +of Lebeau, there was nothing in the conversation of M. de Mauleon which +would warrant participation in a popular emeute by the editor of a +journal belonging to that mocker of the mob. Ah! but--and here again he +glanced over the paper--he was asked “not to act; but to observe.” To +observe was the duty of a journalist. He might go to the demonstration +as De Mauleon confessed he had gone to the Communist Club, a +philosophical spectator. + +“You do not disobey this order?” said the Pole, crossing his arms. + +“I shall certainly go into the Faubourg du Temple this evening,” + answered Rameau, drily, “I have business that way.” + +“Bon!” said the Pole; “I did not think you would fail us, though you do +edit a journal which says not a word on the duties that bind the French +people to the resuscitation of Poland.” + +“And is not pronounced in decided accents upon the cause of the human +race,” put in the Italian, whispering. + +“I do not write the political articles in Le Seas Commun,” answered +Rameau; “and I suppose that our president is satisfied with them since +he recommended me to the preference of the person who does. Have you +more to say? Pardon me, my time is precious, for it does not belong to +me.” + +“Eno’!” said the Italian, “we will detain you no longer.” Here, with a +bow and a smile, he glided towards the door. + +“Confrere,” muttered the Pole, lingering, “you must have become +very rich!--do not forget the wrongs of Poland--I am their +Representative--I--speaking in that character, not as myself +individually--I have not breakfasted!” + +Rameau, too thoroughly Parisian not to be as lavish of his own money as +he was envious of another’s, slipped some pieces of gold in the Pole’s +hand. The Pole’s bosom heaved with manly emotion: “These pieces bear the +effigies of the tyrant--I accept them as redeemed from disgrace by their +uses to Freedom.” + +“Share them with Signor Raselli in the name of the same cause,” + whispered Rameau, with a smile he might have plagiarised from De +Mauleon. + +The Italian, whose ear was inured to whispers, heard and turned round as +he stood at the threshold. + +“No, confrere of France--no, confrere of Poland--I am Italian. All ways +to take the life of an enemy are honourable--no way is honourable which +begs money from a friend.” + +An hour or so later, Rameau was driven in his comfortable coupe to the +Faubourg du Temple. + +Suddenly, at the angle of a street, his coachman was stopped--a +rough-looking man appeared at the door--__“Descends, mon petit +bourgeois__.” Behind the rough-looking man were menacing faces. + +Rameau was not physically a coward--very few Frenchmen are, still fewer +Parisians; and still fewer no matter what their birthplace, the men whom +we call vain--the men who over-much covet distinction, and over-much +dread reproach. + +“Why should I descend at your summons?” said Rameau, haughtily. “Bah! +Coachman, drive on!” + +The rough-looking man opened the door, and silently extended a hand to +Rameau, saying gently: “Take my advice, mon bourgeois. Get out--we want +your carriage. It is a day of barricades--every little helps, even your +coupe!” + +While this man spoke others gesticulated; some shrieked out, “He is an +employer! he thinks he can drive over the employed!” + +Some leader of the crowd--a Parisian crowd always has a classical +leader, who has never read the classics--thundered forth, +“Tarquin’s car! Down with Tarquin!” Therewith came a yell, “A la +lanterne--Tarquin!” + +We Anglo-Saxons, of the old country or the new, are not familiarised +to the dread roar of a populace delighted to have a Roman authority for +tearing us to pieces; still Americans know what is Lynch law. Rameau +was in danger of Lynch law, when suddenly a face not unknown to him +interposed between himself and the rough-looking man. + +“Ha!” cried this new comer, “my young confrere, Gustave Rameau, welcome! +Citizens, make way. I answer for this patriot--I, Armand Monnier. He +comes to help use! Is this the way you receive him?” Then in a low voice +to Rameau, “Come out. Give your coupe to the barricade. What matters +such rubbish? Trust to me--I expected you. Hist!--Lebeau bids me +see that you are safe.” Rameau then, seeking to drape himself in +majesty,--as the aristocrats of journalism in a city wherein no other +aristocracy is recognised naturally and commendably do, when ignorance +combined with physical strength asserts itself to be a power, +beside which the power of knowledge is what a learned poodle is to a +tiger--Rameau then descended from his coupe, and said to this Titan of +labour, as a French marquis might have said to his valet, and as, when +the French marquis has become a ghost of the past, the man who keeps +a coupe says to the man who mends its wheels, “Honest fellow, I trust +you.” + +Monnier led the journalist through the mob to the rear of the barricade +hastily constructed. Here were assembled very motley groups. + +The majority were ragged boys, the gamins of Paris, commingled with +several women of no reputable appearance, some dingily, some gaudily +apparelled. The crowd did not appear as if the business in hand was a +very serious one. Amidst the din of voices the sounds of laughter rose +predominant, jests and bon mots flew from lip to lip. The astonishing +good-humour of the Parisians was not yet excited into the ferocity that +grows out of it by a street contest. It was less like a popular emeute +than a gathering of schoolboys, bent not less on fun than on mischief. +But, still, amid this gayer crowd were sinister, lowering faces; the +fiercest were not those of the very poor, but rather of artisans, who, +to judge by their dress, seemed well off of men belonging to yet higher +grades. Rameau distinguished amongst these the medecin des pauvres, the +philosophical atheist, sundry young, long-haired artists, middle aged +writers for the Republican press, in close neighbourhood with ruffians +of villainous aspect, who might have been newly returned from the +galleys. None were regularly armed; still revolvers and muskets and long +knives were by no means unfrequently interspersed among the rioters. The +whole scene was to Rameau a confused panorama, and the dissonant tumult +of yells and laughter, of menace and joke, began rapidly to act on his +impressionable nerves. He felt that which is the prevalent character of +a Parisian riot--the intoxication of an impulsive sympathy; coming there +as a reluctant spectator, if action commenced he would have been borne +readily into the thick of the action--he could not have helped it; +already he grew impatient of the suspense of strife. Monnier having +deposited him safely with his back to a wall, at the corner of a street +handy for flight, if flight became expedient, had left him for several +minutes, having business elsewhere. Suddenly the whisper of the Italian +stole into his ear--“These men are fools. This is not the way to do +business; this does not hurt the robber of Nice--Garibaldi’s Nice: they +should have left it to me.” + +“What would you do?” + +“I have invented a new machine,” whispered the Friend of humanity; “it +would remove all at one blow--lion and lioness, whelp and jackals--and +then the Revolution if you will! not this paltry tumult. The cause of +the human race is being frittered away. I am disgusted with Lebeau. +Thrones are not overturned by gamins.” + +Before Rameau could answer, Monnier rejoined him. The artisan’s face +was overcast--his lips compressed, yet quivering with indignation. +“Brother,” he said to Rameau, “to-day the cause is betrayed”--(the word +trahi was just then coming into vogue at Paris)--“the blouses I counted +on are recreant. I have just learned that all is quiet in the other +quartiers where the rising was to have been simultaneous with this. We +are in a guet-apens--the soldiers will be down on us in a few minutes; +hark! don’t you hear the distant tramp? Nothing for us but to die like +men. Our blood will be avenged later. Here,” and he thrust a revolver +into Rameau’s hand. Then with a lusty voice that rang through the crowd, +he shouted “Vive le peuple!” The rioters caught and re-echoed the +cry, mingled with other cries,’ “Vive la Republique!” “Vive le drapeau +rouge!” + +The shouts were yet at their full when a strong hand grasped Monnier’s +arm, and a clear, deep, but low voice thrilled through his ear: “Obey! +I warned you. No fight to-day. Time not ripe. All that is needed is +done--do not undo it. Hist! the sergens de ville are force enough to +disperse the swarm of those gnats. Behind the sergens come soldiers who +will not fraternise. Lose not one life to-day. The morrow when we shall +need every man--nay, every gamin--will dawn soon. Answer not. Obey!” The +same strong hand quitting its hold on Monnier, then seized Rameau by the +wrist, and the same deep voice said, “Come with me.” Rameau, turning in +amaze, not unmixed with anger, saw beside him a tall man with sombrero +hat pressed close over his head, and in the blouse of a labourer, but +through such disguise he recognized the pale grey whiskers and green +spectacles of Lebeau. He yielded passively to the grasp that led him +away down the deserted street at the angle. + +At the further end of that street, however, was heard the steady thud of +hoofs. + +“The soldiers are taking the mob at its rear,” said Lebeau, calmly; +“we have not a moment to lose--this way,” and he plunged into a dismal +court, then into a labyrinth of lanes, followed mechanically by Rameau. +They issued at last on the Boulevards, in which the usual loungers were +quietly sauntering, wholly unconscious of the riot elsewhere. “Now, take +that fiacre and go home; write down your impressions of what you have +seen, and take your MS. to M. de Mauleon.” Lebeau here quitted him. + +Meanwhile all happened as Lebeau had predicted. The sergens de ville +showed themselves in front of the barricades, a small troop of mounted +soldiers appeared in the rear. The mob greeted the first with yells +and a shower of stones; at the sight of the last they fled in all +directions; and the sergens de ville, calmly scaling the barricades, +carried off in triumph, as prisoners of war, 4 gamins, 3 women, and 1 +Irishman loudly protesting innocence, and shrieking “Murther!” So ended +the first inglorious rise against the plebiscite and the Empire, on the +14th of May, 1870. + +From Isaura Cicogna to Madame de Grantmesnil. Saturday. May 21. + +“I am still, dearest Eulalie, under the excitement of impressions wholly +new to me. I have this day witnessed one of those scenes which take us +out of our private life, not into the world of fiction, but of history, +in which we live as in the life of a nation. You know how intimate I +have become with Valerie Duplessis. She is in herself so charming in her +combination of petulant wilfulness and guileless naivete, that she might +sit as a model for one of your exquisite heroines. Her father, who is in +great favour at Court, had tickets for the Salle des Etats of the +Louvre today--when, as the journals will tell you, the results of the +plebiscite were formally announced to the Emperor--and I accompanied him +and Valerie. I felt, on entering the hall, as if I had been living for +months in an atmosphere of false rumours, for those I chiefly meet in +the circles of artists and men of letters, and the wits and flaneurs who +haunt such circles, are nearly all hostile to the Emperor. They agree, +at least, in asserting the decline of his popularity--the failure of his +intellectual powers; in predicting his downfall--deriding the notion +of a successor in his son. Well, I know not how to reconcile these +statements with the spectacle I have beheld to-day. + +“In the chorus of acclamation amidst which the Emperor entered the hall, +it seemed as if one heard the voice of the France he had just appealed +to. If the Fates are really weaving woe and shame in his woof, it is in +hues which, to mortal eyes, seem brilliant with glory and joy. + +“You will read the address of the President of the Corps Legislatif; I +wonder how it will strike you! I own fairly that me it wholly carried +away. At each sentiment I murmured to myself, ‘Is not this true? and, if +true, are France and human nature ungrateful?’ + +“‘It is now,’ said the President, ‘eighteen years since France, wearied +with confusion, and anxious for security, confiding in your genuis and +the Napoleonic dynasty, placed in your hands, together with the Imperial +Crown, the authority which the public necessity demanded.’ Then the +address proceeded to enumerate the blessings that ensued--social +order speedily restored--the welfare of all classes of society +promoted--advances in commerce and manufactures to an extent hitherto +unknown. Is not this true? and, if so, are you, noble daughter of +France, ungrateful? + +“Then came words which touched me deeply--me, who, knowing nothing of +politics, still feel the link that unites Art to Freedom: ‘But from +the first your Majesty has looked forward to the time when this +concentration of power would no longer correspond to the aspirations of +a tranquil and reassured country, and, foreseeing the progress of +modern society, you proclaimed that ‘Liberty must be the crowning of the +edifice.’’ Passing then over the previous gradual advances in popular +government, the President came to the ‘present self-abnegation, +unprecedented in history,’ and to the vindication of that plebiscite +which I have heard so assailed--viz., Fidelity to the great principle +upon which the throne was founded, required that so important a +modification of a power bestowed by the people should not be made +without the participation of the people themselves. Then, enumerating +the millions who had welcomed the new form of government--the President +paused a second or two, as if with suppressed emotion--and every one +present held his breath, till, in a deeper voice, through which there +ran a quiver that thrilled through the hall, he concluded with--‘France +is with you; France places the cause of liberty under the protection of +your dynasty and the great bodies of the State.’ Is France with him? I +know not; but if the malcontents of France had been in the hall at +that moment, I believe they would have felt the power of that wonderful +sympathy which compels all the hearts in great audiences to beat in +accord, and would have answered, ‘It is true.’ + +“All eyes now fixed on the Emperor, and I noticed few eyes which were +not moist with tears. You know that calm unrevealing face of his--a face +which sometimes disappoints expectation. But there is that in it which +I have seen in no other, but which I can imagine to have been common +to the Romans of old, the dignity that arises from self-control--an +expression which seems removed from the elation of joy, the depression +of sorrow--not unbecoming to one who has known great vicissitudes of +Fortune, and is prepared alike for her frowns or her smiles. + +“I had looked at that face while M. Schneider was reading the +address--it moved not a muscle, it might have been a face of marble. +Even when at moments the words were drowned in applause and the Empress, +striving at equal composure, still allowed us to see a movement of +her eye lids, a tremble on her lips. The boy at his right, heir to his +dynasty, had his looks fixed on the President, as if eagerly swallowing +each word in the address, save once or twice, when he looked around the +hall curiously, and with a smile as a mere child might look. He struck +me as a mere child. Next to the Prince was one of those countenances +which once seen are never to be forgotten--the true Napoleonic type, +brooding, thoughtful, ominous, beautiful. But not with the serene energy +that characterises the head of the first Napoleon when Emperor, and +wholly without the restless eagerness for action which is stamped in the +lean outline of Napoleon when First Consul: no--in Prince Napoleon there +is a beauty to which, as woman, I could never give my heart--were I a +man, the intellect that would not command my trust. But, nevertheless, +in beauty, it is signal, and in that beauty the expression of intellect +is predominant. + +“Oh, dear Eulalie, how I am digressing! The Emperor spoke--and believe +me, Eulalie, whatever the journals or your compatriots may insinuate, +there is in that man no sign of declining intellect or failing health. I +care not what may be his years, but that man is in mind and in health as +young as Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon. + +“The old cling to the past--they do not go forward to the future. There +was no going back in that speech of the Emperor. There was something +grand and something young in the modesty with which he put aside all +references to that which his Empire had done in the past, and said with +a simple earnestness of manner which I cannot adequately describe-- + +“‘We must more than ever look fearlessly forward to the future. Who +can be opposed to the progressive march of a regime founded by a great +people in the midst of political disturbance, and which now is fortified +by liberty?’ + +“As he closed, the walls of that vast hall seemed to rock with an +applause that must have been heard on the other side of the Seine. + +“‘Vive l’Empereur!’” “‘Vive l’Imperatrice!’” “‘Vive le Prince +Imperial!’”--and the last cry was yet more prolonged than the others, as +if to affirm the dynasty. + +“Certainly I can imagine no Court in the old days of chivalry more +splendid than the audience in that grand hall of the Louvre. To the +right of the throne all the ambassadors of the civilised world in the +blaze of their rich costumes and manifold orders. In the gallery at the +left, yet more behind, the dresses and jewels of the dames d’honneur +and of the great officers of State. And when the Empress rose to depart, +certainly my fancy cannot picture a more queenlike image, or one that +seemed more in unison with the representation of royal pomp and power. +The very dress, of colour which would have been fatal to the beauty of +most women equally fair--a deep golden colour--(Valerie profanely called +it buff)--seemed so to suit the splendour of the ceremony and the day; +it seemed as if that stately form stood in the midst of a sunlight +reflected from itself. Day seemed darkened when that sunlight passed +away. + +“I fear you will think I have suddenly grown servile to the gauds and +shows of mere royalty. I ask myself if that be so--I think not. Surely +it is a higher sense of greatness which has been impressed on me by the +pageant of to-day I feel as if there were brought vividly before me +the majesty of France, through the representation of the ruler she has +crowned. + +“I feel also as if there, in that hall, I found a refuge from all the +warring contests in which no two seem to me in agreement as to the sort +of government to be established in place of the present. The ‘Liberty’ +clamoured for by one would cut the throat of the ‘Liberty’ worshipped by +another. + +“I see a thousand phantom forms of LIBERTY--but only one living symbol +of ORDER--that which spoke from a throne to-day.” + +Isaura left her letter uncompleted. On the following Monday she was +present at a crowded soiree given by M. Louvier. Among the guests were +some of the most eminent leaders of the Opposition, including that +vivacious master of sharp sayings, M. P-------, whom Savarin entitled +“the French Sheridan;” if laws could be framed in epigrams he would be +also the French Solon. + +There, too, was Victor de Mauleon, regarded by the Republican party with +equal admiration and distrust. For the distrust, he himself pleasantly +accounted in talk with Savarin. + +“How can I expect to be trusted? I represent ‘Common Sense;’ every +Parisian likes Common Sense in print, and cries ‘Je suis trahi’ when +Common Sense is to be put into action.” + +A group of admiring listeners had collected round one (perhaps the most +brilliant) of those oratorical lawyers by whom, in France, the respect +for all laws has been so often talked away: he was speaking of the +Saturday’s ceremonial with eloquent indignation. It was a mockery +to France to talk of her placing Liberty under the protection of the +Empire. + +There was a flagrant token of the military force under which civil +freedom was held in the very dress of the Emperor and his insignificant +son: the first in the uniform of a General of Division; the second, +forsooth, in that of a sous-lieutenant. The other liberal chiefs chimed +in: “The army,” said one, “was an absurd expense; it must be put down:” + “The world was grown too civilised for war,” said another: “The Empress +was priest-ridden,” said a third: “Churches might be tolerated; Voltaire +built a church, but a church simply to the God of Nature, not of +priestcraft,”--and so on. + +Isaura, whom any sneer at religion pained and revolted, here turned +away from the orators to whom she had before been listening with earnest +attention, and her eyes fell on the countenance of De Mauleon, who was +seated opposite. + +The countenance startled her, its expression was so angrily scornful; +that expression, however, vanished at once as De Mauleon’s eyes met her +own, and drawing his chair near to her, he said, smiling: “Your look +tells me that I almost frightened you by the ill-bred frankness with +which my face must have betrayed my anger, at hearing such imbecile +twaddle from men who aspire to govern our turbulent France. You remember +that after Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake a quack advertised +‘pills against earthquakes.’ These messieurs are not so cunning as the +quack; he did not name the ingredients of his pills.” + +“But, M. de Mauleon,” said Isaura, “if you, being opposed to the Empire, +think so ill of the wisdom of those who would destroy it, are you +prepared with remedies for earthquakes more efficacious than their +pills?” + +“I reply as a famous English statesman, when in opposition, replied to a +somewhat similar question,--‘I don’t prescribe till I’m called in.’” + +“To judge by the seven millions and a half whose votes were announced +on Saturday, and by the enthusiasm with which the Emperor was greeted, +there is too little fear of an earthquake for a good trade of the +pills of these messieurs, or for fair play to the remedies you will not +disclose till called in.” + +“Ah, Mademoiselle! playful wit from lips not formed for politics makes +me forget all about emperors and earthquakes. Pardon that commonplace +compliment--remember I am a Frenchman, and cannot help being frivolous.” + +“You rebuke my presumption too gently. True, I ought not to intrude +political subjects on one like you--I understand so little about +them--but this is my excuse, I do so desire to know more.” + +M. de Mauleon paused, and looked at her earnestly with a kindly, half +compassionate look, wholly free from the impertinence of gallantry. +“Young poetess,” he said, softly, “you care for politics. Happy, indeed, +is he--and whether he succeed or fail in his ambition abroad, proud +should he be of an ambition crowned at home--he who has made you desire +to know more of politics!” + +The girl felt the blood surge to her temples. How could she have been so +self-confessed? She made no reply, nor did M. de Mauleon seem to expect +one; with that rare delicacy of high breeding which appears in France +to belong to a former generation, he changed his tone, and went on as if +there had been no interruption to the question her words implied. + +“You think the Empire secure--that it is menaced by on earthquake? You +deceive yourself. The Emperor began with a fatal mistake, but a mistake +it needs many years to discover. He disdained the slow natural process +of adjustment between demand and supply--employer and workmen. He +desired--no ignoble ambition--to make Paris the wonder of the world, +the eternal monument of his reign. In so doing, he sought to create +artificial modes of content for revolutionary workmen. Never has any +ruler had such tender heed of manual labour to the disparagement of +intellectual culture. Paris is embellished; Paris is the wonder of the +world; other great towns have followed its example; they, too, have +their rows of palaces and temples. Well, the time comes when the +magician can no longer give work to the spirits he raises; then they +must fall on him and rend: out of the very houses he built for the +better habitation of workmen will flock the malcontents who cry, ‘Down +with the Empire!’ On the 21st of May you witnessed the pompous ceremony +which announces to the Empire a vast majority of votes, that will be +utterly useless to it except as food for gunpowder in the times that are +at hand. Seven days before, on the 14th of May, there was a riot in the +Faubourg d’Temple--easily put down--you scarcely hear of it. That riot +was not the less necessary to those who would warn the Empire that it is +mortal. True, the riot disperses--but it is unpunished; riot unpunished +is a revolution begun. The earthquake is nearer than you think; and for +that earthquake what are the pills you quacks advertise? They prate +of an age too enlightened for war; they would mutilate the army--nay, +disband it if they could--with Prussia next door to France. Prussia, +desiring, not unreasonably, to take that place in the world which France +now holds, will never challenge France; if she did, she would be too +much in the wrong to find a second: Prussia knowing that she has to do +with the vainest, the most conceited, the rashest antagonist that ever +flourished a rapier in the face of a spadassin--Prussia will make France +challenge her. + +“And how do ces messieurs deal with the French army? Do they dare to say +to the ministers, ‘Reform it’? Do they dare say, ‘Prefer for men +whose first duty it is to obey, discipline to equality--insist on the +distinction between the officer and the private, and never confound it; +Prussian officers are well-educated gentlemen, see that yours are’? Oh +no; they are democrats too stanch not to fraternise with an armed mob; +they content themselves with grudging an extra sou to the Commissariat, +and winking at the millions fraudulently pocketed by some ‘Liberal +contractor.’ Dieu des dieux! France to be beaten, not as at Waterloo +by hosts combined, but in fair duel by a single foe! Oh, the shame! the +shame! But as the French army is now organised, beaten she must be, if +she meets the march of the German.” + +“You appal me with your sinister predictions,” said Isaura; “but, +happily, there is no sign of war. M. Duplessis, who is in the confidence +of the Emperor, told us only the other day that Napoleon, on learning +the result of the plebiscite, said: ‘The foreign journalists who have +been insisting that the Empire cannot coexist with free institutions, +will no longer hint that it can be safely assailed from without.’ And +more than ever I may say L’Empire c’est la paix!” + +Monsieur de Mauleon shrugged his shoulders. “The old story--Troy and the +wooden horse.” + +“Tell me, M. de Mauleon, why do you, who so despise the Opposition, join +with it in opposing the Empire?” + +“Mademoiselle, the Empire opposes me; while it lasts I cannot be even a +Depute; when it is gone, Heaven knows that I may be, perhaps Dictator; +one thing, you may rely upon, that I would, if not Dictator myself, +support any man who was better fitted for that task.” + +“Better fitted to destroy the liberty which he pretended to fight for.” + +“Not exactly so,” replied M. de Mauleon, imperturbably--“better fitted +to establish a good government in lieu of the bad one he had fought +against, and the much worse governments that would seek to turn France +into a madhouse, and make the maddest of the inmates the mad doctor!” He +turned away, and here their conversation ended. + +But it so impressed Isaura, that the same night she concluded her letter +to Madame de Grantmesnil, by giving a sketch of its substance, prefaced +by an ingenuous confession that she felt less sanguine confidence in +the importance of the applauses which had greeted the Emperor at the +Saturday’s ceremonial, and ending thus: “I can but confusedly transcribe +the words of this singular man, and can give you no notion of the manner +and the voice which made them eloquent. Tell me, can there be any truth +in his gloomy predictions? I try not to think so, but they seem to rest +over that brilliant hall of the Louvre like an ominous thunder-cloud.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +The Marquis de Rochebriant was seated in his pleasant apartment, +glancing carelessly at the envelopes of many notes and letters lying yet +unopened on his breakfast-table. He had risen late at noon, for he had +not gone to bed till dawn. The night had been spent at his club--over +the card-table--by no means to the pecuniary advantage of the Marquis. +The reader will have learned, through the conversation recorded in a +former chapter between De Mauleon and Enguerrand de Vandemar, that the +austere Seigneur Breton had become a fast viveur of Paris. He had long +since spent the remnant of Louvier’s premium of L10,000., and he owed +a year’s interest. For this last there was an excuse. M. Collot, the +contractor to whom he had been advised to sell the yearly fall of his +forest-trees, had removed the trees, but had never paid a sou beyond +the preliminary deposit; so that the revenue, out of which the mortgagee +should be paid his interest, was not forthcoming. Alain had instructed +M. Hebert to press the contractor; the contractor had replied, that if +not pressed he could soon settle all claims--if pressed, he must declare +himself bankrupt. The Chevalier de Finisterre had laughed at the alarm +which Alain conceived when he first found himself in the condition +of debtor for a sum he could not pay--creditor for a sum he could not +recover. + +“Bagatelle!” said the Chevalier. “Tschu! Collot, if you give him time, +is as safe as the Bank of France, and Louvier knows it. Louvier will not +trouble you--Louvier, the best fellow in the world! I’ll call on him and +explain matters.” + +It is to be presumed that the Chevalier did so explain; for though both +at the first, and quite recently at the second default of payment, Alain +received letters from M. Louvier’s professional agent, as reminders of +interest due, and as requests for its payment, the Chevalier assured him +that these applications were formalities of convention--that Louvier, in +fact, knew nothing about them; and when dining with the great financier +himself, and cordially welcomed and called “Mon cher,” Alain had taken +him aside and commenced explanation and excuse, Louvier had cut him +short. “Peste! don’t mention such trifles. There is such a thing as +business--that concerns my agent; such a thing as friendship--that +concerns me. Allez!” + +Thus M. de Rochebriant, confiding in debtor and in creditor, had +suffered twelve months to glide by without much heed of either, and more +than live up to an income amply sufficient indeed for the wants of an +ordinary bachelor, but needing more careful thrift than could well be +expected from the head of one of the most illustrious houses in France, +cast so young into the vortex of the most expensive capital in the +world. + +The poor Marquis glided into the grooves that slant downward, much as +the French Marquis of tradition was wont to glide; not that he appeared +to live extravagantly, but he needed all he had for his pocket-money, +and had lost that dread of being in debt which he had brought up from +the purer atmosphere of Bretagne. + +But there were some debts which; of course, a Rochebriant must +pay--debts of honour--and Alain had, on the previous night, incurred +such a debt and must pay it that day. He had been strongly tempted, when +the debt rose to the figure it had attained, to risk a change of luck; +but whatever his imprudence, he was incapable of dishonesty. If the luck +did not change, and he lost more, he would be without means to meet his +obligations. As the debt now stood, he calculated that he could just +discharge it by the sale of his coupe and horses. It is no wonder he +left his letters unopened, however charming they might be; he was quite +sure they would contain no cheque which would enable him to pay his debt +and retain his equipage. + +The door opened, and the valet announced M. le Chevalier de +Finisterre--a man with smooth countenance and air distinque, a pleasant +voice and perpetual smile. + +“Well, mon cher,” cried the Chevalier, “I hope that you recovered the +favour of Fortune before you quitted her green table last night. When I +left she seemed very cross with you.” + +“And so continued to the end,” answered Alain, with well-simulated +gaiety--much too bon gentilhomme to betray rage or anguish for pecuniary +loss. + +“After all,” said de Finisterre, lighting his cigarette, “the uncertain +goddess could not do you much harm; the stakes were small, and your +adversary, the Prince, never goes double or quits.” + +“Nor I either. ‘Small,’ however, is a word of relative import; the +stakes might be small to you, to me large. Entre nous, cher ami, I am +at the end of my purse, and I have only this consolation-I am cured of +play: not that I leave the complaint, the complaint leaves me; it can no +more feed on me than a fever can feed on a skeleton.” + +“Are you serious?” + +“As serious as a mourner who has just buried his all.” + +“His all? Tut, with such an estate as Rochebriant!” + +For the first time in that talk Alain’s countenance became overcast. + +“And how long will Rochebriant be mine? You know that I hold it at the +mercy of the mortgagee, whose interest has not been paid, and who could +if, he so pleased, issue notice, take proceedings--that--” + +“Peste!” interrupted de Finisterre; “Louvier take proceedings! Louvier, +the best fellow in the world! But don’t I see his handwriting on that +envelope? No doubt an invitation to dinner.” + +Alain took up the letter thus singled forth from a miscellany of +epistles, some in female handwritings, unsealed but ingeniously +twisted into Gordian knots--some also in female handwritings, carefully +sealed--others in ill-looking envelopes, addressed in bold, legible, +clerk-like caligraphy. Taken altogether, these epistles had a character +in common; they betokened the correspondence of a viveur, regarded from +the female side as young, handsome, well-born--on the male side, as a +viveur who had forgotten to pay his hosier and tailor. + +Louvier wrote a small, not very intelligible, but very masculine hand, +as most men who think cautiously and act promptly do write. The letter +ran thus: + +“Cher petit Marquis” (at that commencement Alain haughtily raised his +head and bit his lips). + + “CHER PETIT MARQUIS,--It is an age since I have seen you. No + doubt my humble soirees are too dull for a beau seigueur so + courted. I forgive you. Would I were a beau seigneur at your age! + Alas! I am only a commonplace man of business, growing old, too. + Aloft from the world in which I dwell, you can scarcely be aware + that I have embarked a great part of my capital in building + speculations. There is a Rue de Louvier that runs its drains right + through my purse. I am obliged to call in the moneys due to me. My + agent informs me that I am just 7000 louis short of the total I + need--all other debts being paid in--and that there is a trifle more + than 7000 louis owned to me as interest on my hypotheque on + Rochebriant: kindly pay into his hands before the end of this week + that sum. You have been too lenient to Collot, who must owe you + more than that. Send agent to him. Desole to trouble you, and am + au desespoir to think that my own pressing necessities compel me + to urge you to take so much trouble. Mais que faire? The Rue de + Louvier stops the way, and I must leave it to my agent to clear it. + + “Accept all my excuses, with the assurance of my sentiments the most + cordial. PAUL LOUVIER.” + +Alain tossed the letter to De Finisterre. “Read that from the best +fellow in the world.” + +The Chevalier laid down his cigarette and read. “Diable!” he said, when +he returned the letter and resumed the cigarette--“Diable! Louvier must +be much pressed for money, or he would not have written in this strain. +What does it matter? Collot owes you more than 7000 louis. Let your +lawyer get them, and go to sleep with both ears on your pillow.” + +“Ah! you think Collot can pay if he will?” + +“Ah! foi! did not M. Gandrin tell you that M. Collot was safe to buy +your wood at more money than any one else would give?” + +“Certainly,” said Alain, comforted. “Gandrin left that impression on my +mind. I will set him on the man. All will come right, I dare say; but if +it does not come right, what would Louvier do?” + +“Louvier do!” answered Finisterre, reflectively. “Well do you ask my +opinion and advice?” + +“Earnestly, I ask.” + +“Honestly, then, I answer. I am a little on the Bourse myself--most +Parisians are. Louvier has made a gigantic speculation in this new +street, and with so many other irons in the fire he must want all the +money he can get at. I dare say that if you do not pay him what you owe, +he must leave it to his agent to take steps for announcing the sale +of Rochebriant. But he detests scandal; he hates the notion of being +severe; rather than that, in spite of his difficulties, he will buy +Rochebriant of you at a better price than it can command at public sale. +Sell it to him. Appeal to him to act generously, and you will flatter +him. You will get more than the old place is worth. Invest the +surplus--live as you have done, or better--and marry an heiress. +Morbleu! a Marquis de Rochebriant, if he were sixty years old, would +rank high in the matrimonial market. The more the democrats have sought +to impoverish titles and laugh down historical names, the more do rich +democrat fathers-in-law seek to decorate their daughters with titles +and give their grandchildren the heritage of historical names. You look +shocked, pauvre anti. Let us hope, then, that Collot will pay. Set your +dog--I mean your lawyer--at him; seize him by the throat!” + +Before Alain had recovered from the stately silence with which he had +heard this very practical counsel, the valet again appeared, and ushered +in M. Frederic Lemercier. + +There was no cordial acquaintance between the visitors. Lemercier was +chafed at finding himself supplanted in Alain’s intimate companionship +by so new a friend, and De Finisterre affected to regard Lemercier as a +would-be exquisite of low birth and bad taste. + +Alain, too, was a little discomposed at the sight of Lemercier, +remembering the wise cautious which that old college friend had wasted +on him at the commencement of his Parisian career, and smitten with vain +remorse that the cautions had been so arrogantly slighted. + +It was with some timidity that he extended his hand to Frederic, and he +was surprised as well as moved by the more than usual warmth with which +it was grasped by the friend he had long neglected. Such affectionate +greeting was scarcely in keeping with the pride which characterised +Frederic Lemercier. + +“Ma foi!” said the Chevalier, glancing towards the clock, “how time +flies! I had no idea it was so late. I must leave you now, my dear +Rochebriant. Perhaps we shall meet at the club later--I dine there +to-day. Au plaisir, M. Lemercier.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +When the door had closed on the Chevalier, Frederic’s countenance became +very grave. Drawing his chair near to Alain, he said: “We have not seen +much of each other lately,--nay, no excuses; I am well aware that it +could scarcely be otherwise. Paris has grown so large and so subdivided +into sets, that the best friends belonging to different sets become +as divided as if the Atlantic flowed between them. I come to-day in +consequence of something I have just heard from Duplessis. Tell me, have +you got the money for the wood you sold to M. Collot a year ago?” + +“No,” said Alain, falteringly. + +“Good heavens! none of it?” + +“Only the deposit of ten per cent., which of course I spent, for it +formed the greater part of my income. What of Collot? Is he really +unsafe?” + +“He is ruined, and has fled the country. His flight was the talk of the +Bourse this morning. Duplessis told me of it.” + +Alain’s face paled. “How is Louvier to be paid? Read that letter!” + +Lemercier rapidly scanned his eye over the contents of Louvier’s letter. + +“It is true, then, that you owe this man a year’s interest--more than +7,000 louis?” + +“Somewhat more--yes. But that is not the first care that troubles +me--Rochebriant may be lost, but with it not my honour. I owe the +Russian Prince 300 louis, lost to him last night at ecarte. I must +find a purchaser for my coupe and horses; they cost me 600 louis last +year,--do you know any one who will give me three?” + +“Pooh! I will give you six; your alezan alone is worth half the money!” + +“My dear Frederic, I will not sell them to you on any account. But you +have so many friends--” + +“Who would give their soul to say, ‘I bought these horses of +Rochebriant.’ Of course I do. Ha! young Rameau, you are acquainted with +him?” + +“Rameau! I never heard of him!” + +“Vanity of vanities, then what is fame? Rameau is the editor of Le Sens +Commun. You read that journal?” + +“Yes, it has clever articles, and I remember how I was absorbed in the +eloquent romance which appeared in it.” + +“Ah! by the Signora Cicogna, with whom I think you were somewhat smitten +last year.” + +“Last year--was I? How a year can alter a man! But my debt to the +Prince. What has Le Sens Commun to do with my horses?” + +“I met Rameau at Savarin’s the other evening. He was making himself out +a hero and a martyr! his coupe had been taken from him to assist in a +barricade in that senseless emeute ten days ago; the coupe got smashed, +the horses disappeared. He will buy one of your horses and coupe. + +“Leave it to me! I know where to dispose of the other two horses. At +what hour do you want the money?” + +“Before I go to dinner at the club.” + +“You shall have it within two hours; but you must not dine at the club +to-day. I have a note from Duplessis to invite you to dine with him +to-day!” + +“Duplessis! I know so little of him!” + +“You should know him better. He is the only man who can give you sound +advice as to this difficulty with Louvier; and he will give it the more +carefully and zealously because he has that enmity to Louvier which one +rival financier has to another. I dine with him too. We shall find an +occasion to consult him quietly; he speaks of you most kindly. What a +lovely girl his daughter is!” + +“I dare say. Ah! I wish I had been less absurdly fastidious. I wish I +had entered the army as a private soldier six months ago; I should have +been a corporal by this time! Still it is not too late. When Rochebriant +is gone, I can yet say with the Mouszquetaire in the melodrame: ‘I am +rich--I have my honour and my sword!’” + +“Nonsense! Rochebriant shall be saved; meanwhile I hasten to Rameau. Au +revoir, at the Hotel Duplessis--seven o’clock.” + +Lemercier went, and in less than two hours sent the Marquis bank-notes +for 600 louis, requesting an order for the delivery of the horses and +carriage. + +That order written and signed, Alain hastened to acquit himself of his +debt of honour, and contemplating his probable ruin with a lighter heart +presented himself at the Hotel Duplessis. + +Duplessis made no pretensions to vie with the magnificent existence of +Louvier. His house, though agreeably situated and flatteringly styled +the Hotel Duplessis, was of moderate size, very unostentatiously +furnished; nor was it accustomed to receive the brilliant motley crowds +which assembled in the salons of the elder financier. + +Before that year, indeed, Duplessis had confined such entertainments as +he gave to quiet men of business, or a few of the more devoted and loyal +partisans of the Imperial dynasty; but since Valerie came to live with +him he had extended his hospitalities to wider and livelier circles, +including some celebrities in the world of art and letters as well as of +fashion. Of the party assembled that evening at dinner were Isaura, with +the Signora Venosta, one of the Imperial Ministers, the Colonel +whom Alain had already met at Lemercier’s supper, Deputes (ardent +Imperialists), and the Duchesse de Tarascon; these, with Alain and +Frederic, made up the party. The conversation was not particularly gay. +Duplessis himself, though an exceedingly well-read and able man, had not +the genial accomplishments of a brilliant host. Constitutionally grave +and habitually taciturn--though there were moments in which he was +roused out of his wonted self into eloquence or wit--he seemed to-day +absorbed in some engrossing train of thought. The Minister, the Deputes +and the Duchesse de Tarascon talked politics, and ridiculed the trumpery +emeute of the 14th; exulted in the success of the plebiscite; and +admitting, with indignation, the growing strength of Prussia, and--with +scarcely less indignation, but more contempt, censuring the selfish +egotism of England in disregarding the due equilibrium of the European +balance of power,--hinted at the necessity of annexing Belgium as a +set-off against the results of Sadowa. + +Alain found himself seated next to Isaura--to the woman who had so +captivated his eye and fancy on his first arrival in Paris. + +Remembering his last conversation with Graham nearly a year ago, he felt +some curiosity to ascertain whether the rich Englishman had proposed to +her, and if so, been refused or accepted. + +The first words that passed between them were trite enough, but after a +little pause in the talk, Alain said: + +“I think Mademoiselle and myself have an acquaintance in common-Monsieur +Vane, a distinguished Englishman. Do you know if he be in Paris at +present? I have not seen him for many months.” + +“I believe he is in London; at least, Colonel Morley met the other day a +friend of his who said so.” + +Though Isaura strove to speak in a tone of indifference, Alain’s ear +detected a ring of pain in her voice; and watching her countenance, he +was impressed with a saddened change in its expression. He was touched, +and his curiosity was mingled with a gentler interest as he said “When I +last saw M. Vane I should have judged him to be too much under the spell +of an enchantress to remain long without the pale of the circle she +draws around her.” + +Isaura turned her face quickly towards the speaker, and her lips moved, +but she said nothing audibly. + +“Can there have been quarrel or misunderstanding?” thought Alain; and +after that question his heart asked itself, “Supposing Isaura were free, +her affections disengaged, could he wish to woo and to win her?” and his +heart answered--“Eighteen months ago thou wert nearer to her than now. +Thou wert removed from her for ever when thou didst accept the world +as a barrier between you; then, poor as thou wert, thou wouldst have +preferred her to riches. Thou went then sensible only of the ingenuous +impulses of youth, but the moment thou saidst, ‘I am Rochebriant, and +having once owned the claims of birth and station, I cannot renounce +them for love, Isaura became but a dream. Now that ruin stares thee in +the face--now that thou must grapple with the sternest difficulties of +adverse fate--thou hast lost the poetry of sentiment which could alone +give to that dream the colours and the form of human life.” He could not +again think of that fair creature as a prize that he might even dare to +covet. And as he met her inquiring eyes, and saw her quivering lip, +he felt instinctively that Graham was dear to her, and that the tender +interest with which she inspired himself was untroubled by one pang of +jealousy. He resumed: + +“Yes, the last time I saw the Englishman he spoke with such respectful +homage of one lady, whose hand he would deem it the highest reward of +ambition to secure, that I cannot but feel deep compassion for him +if that ambition has been foiled; and thus only do I account for his +absence from Paris.” + +“You are an intimate friend of Mr. Vane’s?” + +“No, indeed, I have not that honour; our acquaintance is but slight, +but it impressed me with the idea of a man of vigorous intellect, frank +temper, and perfect honour.” + +Isaura’s face brightened with the joy we feel when we hear the praise of +those we love. + +At this moment, Duplessis, who had been observing the Italian and the +young Marquis, for the first time during dinner, broke silence. + +“Mademoiselle,” he said, addressing Isaura across the table, “I hope I +have not been correctly informed that your literary triumph has induced +you to forego the career in which all the best judges concur that your +successes would be not less brilliant; surely one art does not exclude +another.” + +Elated by Alain’s report of Graham’s words, by the conviction that these +words applied to herself, and by the thought that her renunciation of +the stage removed a barrier between them, Isaura answered, with a sort +of enthusiasm: + +“I know not, M. Duplessis, if one art excludes another; if there be +desire to excel in each. But I have long lost all desire to excel in +the art you refer to, and resigned all idea of the career in which it +opens.” + +“So M. Vane told me,” said Alain, in a whisper. + +“When?” + +“Last year--on the day that he spoke in terms of admiration so merited +of the lady whom M. Duplessis has just had the honour to address.” + +All this while, Valerie, who was seated at the further end of the table +beside the Minister, who had taken her in to dinner, had been watching, +with eyes, the anxious tearful sorrow of which none but her father had +noticed, the low-voiced confidence between Alain and the friend, whom +till that day she had so enthusiastically loved. Hitherto she had been +answering in monosyllables all attempts of the great man to draw her +into conversation; but now, observing how Isaura blushed and looked +down, that strange faculty in women, which we men call dissimulation, +and which in them is truthfulness to their own nature, enabled her to +carry off the sharpest anguish she had ever experienced, by a sudden +burst of levity of spirit. She caught up some commonplace the Minister +had adapted to what he considered the poverty of her understanding, with +a quickness of satire which startled that grave man, and he gazed at her +astonished. Up to that moment he had secretly admired her as a girl well +brought up--as girls fresh from a French convent are supposed to be; +now, hearing her brilliant rejoinder to his stupid observation, he said +inly: “Dame! the low birth of a financier’s daughter shows itself.” + +But, being a clever man himself, her retort put him on his mettle, and +he became, to his own amazement, brilliant himself. With that matchless +quickness which belongs to Parisians, the guests around him seized the +new esprit de conversation which had been evoked between the statesman +and the childlike girl beside him; and as they caught up the ball, +lightly flung among them, they thought within themselves how much +more sparkling the financier’s pretty, lively daughter was than that +dark-eyed young muse, of whom all the journalists of Paris were writing +in a chorus of welcome and applause, and who seemed not to have a word +to say worth listening to, except to the handsome young Marquis, whom, +no doubt, she wished to fascinate. + +Valerie fairly outshone Isaura in intellect and in wit; and neither +Valerie nor Isaura cared, to the value of a bean-straw, about that +distinction. Each was thinking only of the prize which the humblest +peasant women have in common with the most brilliantly accomplished of +their sex--the heart of a man beloved. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +On the Continent generally, as we all know, men do not sit drinking wine +together after the ladies retire. So when the signal was given all the +guests adjourned to the salon; and Alain quitted Isaura to gain the ear +of the Duchesse de Tarascon. + +“It is long--at, least long for Paris life,” said the Marquis--“since +my first visit to you, in company with Enguerrand de Vandemar. Much that +you then said rested on my mind, disturbing the prejudices I took from +Bretagne.” + +“I am proud to hear it, my kinsman.” + +“You know that I would have taken military service under the Emperor, +but for the regulation which would have compelled me to enter the ranks +as a private soldier.” + +“I sympathise with that scruple; but you are aware that the Emperor +himself could not have ventured to make any exception even in your +favour.” + +“Certainly not. I repent me of my pride; perhaps I may enlist still in +some regiment sent to Algiers.” + +“No; there are other ways in which a Rochebriant can serve a throne. +There will be an office at Court vacant soon, which would not misbecome +your birth.” + +“Pardon me; a soldier serves his country--a courtier owns a master; and +I cannot take the livery of the Emperor, though I could wear the uniform +of France.” + +“Your distinction is childish, my kinsman,” said the Duchesse, +impetuously. “You talk as if the Emperor had an interest apart from the +nation. I tell you that he has not a corner of his heart--not even one +reserved for his son and his dynasty--in which the thought of France +does not predominate.” + +“I do not presume, Madame la Duchesse, to question the truth of what +you say; but I have no reason to suppose that the same thought does not +predominate in the heart of the Bourbon. The Bourbon would be the first +to say to me: ‘If France needs your sword against her foes, let it +not rest in the scabbard.’ But would the Bourbon say, ‘The place of a +Rochebriant is among the valetaille of the Corsican’s successor’?” + +“Alas for poor France!” said the Duchesse; “and alas for men like you, +my proud cousin, if the Corsican’s successors or successor be--” + +“Henry V.” interrupted Alain, with a brightening eye. “Dreamer! No; +some descendant of the mob-kings who gave Bourbons and nobles to the +guillotine.” + +While the Duchesse and Alain were thus conversing, Isaura had seated +herself by Valerie, and, unconscious of the offence she had given, +addressed her in those pretty caressing terms with which young-lady +friends are wont to compliment each other; but Valerie answered curtly +or sarcastically, and turned aside to converse with the Minister. A +few minutes more, and the party began to break up. Lemercier, however, +detained Alain, whispering, “Duplessis will see us on your business so +soon as the other guests have gone.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +“Monsieur le Marquis,” said Duplessis, when the salon was cleared of all +but himself and the two friends, “Lemercier has confided to me the +state of your affairs in connection with M. Louvier, and flatters me by +thinking my advice may be of some service; if so, command me.” + +“I shall most gratefully accept your advice,” answered Alain, “but I +fear my condition defies even your ability and skill.” + +“Permit me to hope not, and to ask a few necessary questions. M. Louvier +has constituted himself your sole mortgagee; to what amount, at what +interest, and from what annual proceeds is the interest paid?” + +Herewith Alain gave details already furnished to the reader. Duplessis +listened, and noted down the replies. + +“I see it all,” he said, when Alain had finished. “M. Louvier had +predetermined to possess himself of your estate: he makes himself +mortgagee at a rate of interest so low, that I tell you fairly, at the +present value of money, I doubt if you could find any capitalist who +would accept the transfer of the mortgage at the same rate. This is not +like Louvier, unless he had an object to gain, and that object is your +land. The revenue from your estate is derived chiefly from wood, out +of which the interest due to Louvier is to be paid. M. Gandrin, in a +skilfully-guarded letter, encourages you to sell the wood from your +forests to a man who offers you several thousand francs more than it +could command from customary buyers. I say nothing against M. Gandrin, +but every man who knows Paris as I do, knows that M. Louvier can +put, and has put, a great deal of money into M. Gandrin’s pocket. The +purchaser of your wood does not pay more than his deposit, and has +just left the country insolvent. Your purchaser, M. Collot, was an +adventurous speculator; he would have bought anything at any price, +provided he had time to pay; if his speculations had been lucky he would +have paid. M. Louvier knew, as I knew, that M. Collot was a gambler, +and the chances were that he would not pay. M. Louvier allows a year’s +interest on his hypotheque to become due-notice thereof duly given +to you by his agent--now you come under the operation of the law. Of +course, you know what the law is?” + +“Not exactly,” answered Alain, feeling frostbitten by the congealing +words of his counsellor; “but I take it for granted that if I cannot pay +the interest of a sum borrowed on my property, that property itself is +forfeited.” + +“No, not quite that--the law is mild. If the interest which should be +paid half-yearly remains unpaid at the end of a year, the mortgagee has +a right to be impatient, has he not?” + +“Certainly he has.” + +“Well, then, on fait un commandement tendant de saisie immobiliere, viz: +The mortgagee gives a notice that the property shall be put up for sale. +Then it is put up for sale, and in most cases the mortgagee buys it in. +Here, certainly, no competitors in the mere business way would vie with +Louvier; the mortgage at three and a half per cent. covers more than the +estate is apparently worth. Ah! but stop, M. le Marquis; the notice is +not yet served: the whole process would take six months from the day it +is served to the taking possession after the sale; in the meanwhile, if +you pay the interest due, the action drops. Courage, M. le Marquis! Hope +yet, if you condescend to call me friend.” + +“And me,” cried Lemercier; “I will sell out of my railway shares +to-morrow-see to it, Duplessis--enough to pay off the damnable interest. +See to it, mon ami.” + +“Agree to that, M. le Marquis, and you are safe for another year,” said +Duplessis, folding up the paper on which he had made his notes, but +fixing on Alain quiet eyes half concealed under drooping lids. + +“Agree to that!” cried Rochebriant, rising--“agree to allow even my +worst enemy to pay for me moneys I could never hope to repay--agree +to allow the oldest and most confiding friends to do so--M. Duplessis, +never! If I carried the porter’s knot of an Auverguat, I should still +remain gentilhomme and Breton.” + +Duplessis, habitually the driest of men, rose with a moistened eye and +flushing cheek--“Monsieur le Marquis, vouchsafe me the honour to shake +hands with you. I, too, am by descent gentilhomme, by profession a +speculator on the Bourse. In both capacities I approve the sentiment you +have uttered. Certainly, if our friend Frederic lent you 7000 Louis or +so this year, it would be impossible for you even to foresee the year +in which you could repay it; but,”--here Duplessis paused a minute, and +then lowering the tone of his voice, which had been somewhat vehement +and enthusiastic, into that of a colloquial good-fellowship, equally +rare to the measured reserve of the financier, he asked, with a lively +twinkle of his grey eye, “Did you never hear, Marquis, of a little +encounter between me and M. Louvier?” + +“Encounter at arms--does Louvier fight?” asked Alain, innocently. + +“In his own way he is always fighting; but I speak metaphorically. You +see this small house of mine--so pinched in by the houses next to +it that I can neither get space for a ball-room for Valerie, nor a +dining-room for more than a friendly party like that which has honoured +me to-day. Eh bien! I bought this house a few years ago, meaning to buy +the one next to it and throw the two into one. I went to the proprietor +of the next house, who, as I knew, wished to sell. ‘Aha,’ he thought, +‘this is the rich Monsieur Duplessis;’ and he asked me 2000 louis more +than the house was worth. We men of business cannot bear to be too much +cheated; a little cheating we submit to--much cheating raises our gall. +Bref--this was on Monday. I offered the man 1000 louis above the fair +price, and gave him till Thursday to decide. Somehow or other Louvier +hears of this. ‘Hillo!’ says Louvier, ‘here is a financier who desires a +hotel to vie with mine!’ He goes on Wednesday to my next-door neighbour. +‘Friend, you want to sell your house. I want to buy--the price?’ The +proprietor, who does not know him by sight, says: ‘It is as good as +sold. M. Duplessis and I shall agree.’ ‘Bah! What sum did you ask M. +Duplessis?’ He names the sum; 2000 louis more than he can get elsewhere. +‘But M. Duplessis will give me the sum.’ ‘You ask too little. I will +give 3000. A fig for M. Duplessis. I am Monsieur Louvier.’ So when I +call on Thursday the house is sold. I reconcile myself easily enough to +the loss of space for a larger dining-room; but though Valerie was then +a child at a convent, I was sadly disconcerted by the thought that I +could have no salle de bal ready for her when she came to reside with +me. Well, I say to myself, patience; I owe M. Louvier a good turn; my +time to pay him off will come. It does come, and very soon. M. Louvier +buys an estate near Paris--builds a superb villa. Close to his property +is a rising forest ground for sale. He goes to the proprietor: says the +proprietor to himself, ‘The great Louvier wants this,’ and adds 5000 +louis to its market price. Louvier, like myself, can’t bear to be +cheated egregiously. Louvier offers 2000 louis more than the man +could fairly get, and leaves him till Saturday to consider. I hear of +this--speculators hear of everything. On Friday night I go to the man +and I give him 6000 louis, where he had asked 5000. Fancy Louvier’s face +the next day! But there my revenge only begins,” continued Duplessis, +chuckling inwardly. “My forest looks down on the villa he is building. I +only wait till his villa is built, in order to send to my architect +and say, Build me a villa at least twice as grand as M. Louvier’s, then +clear away the forest trees, so that every morning he may see my palace +dwarfing into insignificance his own.” + +“Bravo!” cried Lemercier, clapping his hands. Lemercier had the spirit +of party, and felt for Duplessis against Louvier much as in England Whig +feels against Tory, or vice versa. + +“Perhaps now,” resumed Duplessis, more soberly,--“perhaps now, M. +le Marquis, you may understand why I humiliate you by no sense of +obligation if I say that M. Louvier shall not be the Seigneur de +Rochebriant if I can help it. Give me a line of introduction to your +Breton lawyer and to Mademoiselle your aunt--let me have your letters +early to-morrow. I will take the afternoon train. I know not how many +days I may be absent, but I shall not return till I have carefully +examined the nature and conditions of your property. If I see my way to +save your estate, and give a mauvais quart d’heure to Louvier, so much +the better for you, M. le Marquis; if I cannot, I will say frankly, +‘Make the best terms you can with your creditor.’” + +“Nothing can be more delicately generous than the way you put it,” + said Alain; “but pardon me, if I say that the pleasantry with which you +narrate your grudge against M. Louvier does not answer its purpose in +diminishing my sense of obligation.” So, linking his arm in Lemercier’s, +Alain made his bow and withdrew. + +When his guests had gone, Duplessis remained seated in +meditation--apparently pleasant meditation, for he smiled while +indulging it; he then passed through the reception-rooms to one at the +far end appropriated to Valerie as a boudoir or morning-room, adjoining +her bed-chamber; he knocked gently at the door, and, all remaining +silent within, he opened it noiselessly and entered. Valerie was +reclining on the sofa near the window-her head drooping, her hands +clasped on her knees. Duplessis neared her with tender stealthy steps, +passed his arm round her, and drew her head towards his bosom. “Child!” + he murmured; “my child, my only one!” + +At that soft loving voice, Valerie flung her arms round him, and wept +aloud like an infant in trouble. He seated himself beside her, and +wisely suffered her to weep on, till her passion had exhausted itself; +he then said, half fondly, half chillingly: “Have you forgotten our +conversation only three days ago? Have you forgotten that I then drew +forth the secret of your heart? Have you forgotten what I promised you +in return for your confidence? and a promise to you have I ever yet +broken?” + +“Father! father! I am so wretched and so ashamed of myself for being +wretched! Forgive me. No, I do not forget your promise; but who can +promise to dispose of the heart of another? and that heart will never be +mine. But bear with me a little, I shall soon recover.” + +“Valerie, when I made you the promise you now think I cannot keep, I +spoke only from that conviction of power to promote the happiness of a +child which nature implants in the heart of parents; and it may be also +from the experience of my own strength of will, since that which I have +willed I have always won. Now I speak on yet surer ground. Before the +year is out you shall be the beloved wife of Alain de Rochebriant. Dry +your tears and smile on me, Valerie. If you will not see in me mother +and father both, I have double love for you, motherless child of her +who shared the poverty of my youth, and did not live to enjoy the wealth +which I hold as a trust for that heir to mine all which she left me.” + +As this man thus spoke you would scarcely have recognized in him the +old saturnine Duplessis, his countenance became so beautified by the +one soft feeling which care and contest, ambition and money-seeking, had +left unaltered in his heart. Perhaps there is no country in which the +love of parent and child, especially of father and daughter, is so +strong as it is in France; even in the most arid soil, among the +avaricious, even among the profligate, it forces itself into flower. +Other loves fade away: in the heart of the true Frenchman that parent +love blooms to the last. Valerie felt the presence of that love as a +divine protecting guardianship. She sank on her knees and covered his +hand with grateful kisses. + +“Do not torture yourself, my child, with jealous fears of the fair +Italian. Her lot and Alain de Rochebriant’s can never unite; and +whatever you may think of their whispered converse, Alain’s heart at +this moment is too filled with anxious troubles to leave one spot in it +accessible even to a frivolous gallantry. It is for us to remove these +troubles; and then, when he turns his eyes towards you, it will be +with the gaze of one who beholds his happiness. You do not weep now, +Valerie!” + + + + + +BOOK IX. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +On waking some morning, have you ever felt, reader, as if a change for +the brighter in the world, without and within you, had suddenly come to +pass-some new glory has been given to the sunshine, some fresh balm to +the air-you feel younger, and happier, and lighter, in the very beat of +your heart-you almost fancy you hear the chime of some spiritual music +far off, as if in the deeps of heaven? You are not at first conscious +how, or wherefore, this change has been brought about. Is it the effect +of a dream in the gone sleep, that has made this morning so different +from mornings that have dawned before? And while vaguely asking yourself +that question, you become aware that the cause is no mere illusion, +that it has its substance in words spoken by living lips, in things that +belong to the work-day world. + +It was thus that Isaura woke the morning after the conversation with +Alain de Rochebriant, and as certain words, then spoken, echoed back on +her ear, she knew why she was so happy, why the world was so changed. + +In those words she heard the voice of Graham Vane--nor she had not +deceived herself--she was loved! she was loved! What mattered that long +cold interval of absence? She had not forgotten--she could not believe +that absence had brought forgetfulness. There are moments when we insist +on judging another’s heart by our own. All would be explained some +day--all would come right. + +How lovely was the face that reflected itself in the glass as she stood +before it, smoothing back her long hair, murmuring sweet snatches of +Italian love-song, and blushing with sweeter love-thoughts as she sang! +All that had passed in that year so critical to her outer life--the +authorship, the fame, the public career, the popular praise--vanished +from her mind as a vapour that rolls from the face of a lake to which +the sunlight restores the smile of a brightened heaven. + +She was more the girl now than she had ever been since the day on which +she sat reading Tasso on the craggy shore of Sorrento. + +Singing still as she passed from her chamber, and entering the +sitting-room, which fronted the east, and seemed bathed in the sunbeams +of deepening May, she took her bird from its cage, and stopped her song +to cover it with kisses, which perhaps yearned for vent somewhere. + +Later in the day she went out to visit Valerie. Recalling the altered +manner of her young friend, her sweet nature became troubled. She +divined that Valerie had conceived some jealous pain which she longed +to heal; she could not bear the thought of leaving any one that day +unhappy. Ignorant before of the girl’s feelings towards Alain, she now +partly guessed them--one woman who loves in secret is clairvoyante as to +such secrets in another. + +Valerie received her visitor with a coldness she did not attempt to +disguise. Not seeming to notice this, Isaura commenced the conversation +with frank mention of Rochebriant. “I have to thank you so much, dear +Valerie, for a pleasure you could not anticipate--that of talking about +an absent friend, and hearing the praise he deserved from one so capable +of appreciating excellence as M. de Rochebriant appears to be.” + +“You were talking to M. de Rochebriant of an absent friend--ah! you +seemed indeed very much interested in the conversation--” + +“Do not wonder at that, Valerie; and do not grudge me the happiest +moments I have known for months.” + +“In talking with M. de Rochebriant! No doubt, Mademoiselle Cicogna, you +found him very charming.” + +To her surprise and indignation, Valerie here felt the arm of Isaura +tenderly entwining her waist, and her face drawn towards Isaura’s +sisterly kiss. + +“Listen to me, naughty child-listen and believe. M. de Rochebriant can +never be charming to me--never touch a chord in my heart or my fancy +except as friend to another, or--kiss me in your turn, Valerie--as +suitor to yourself.” + +Valerie here drew back her pretty childlike head, gazed keenly a moment +into Isaura’s eyes, felt convinced by the limpid candour of their +unmistakable honesty, and flinging herself on her friend’s bosom, kissed +her passionately, and burst into tears. + +The complete reconciliation between the two girls was thus peacefully +effected; and then Isaura had to listen, at no small length, to the +confidences poured into her ears by Valerie, who was fortunately too +engrossed by her own hopes and doubts to exact confidences in return. +Valerie’s was one of those impulsive eager natures that longs for a +confidante. Not so Isaura’s. Only when Valerie had unburthened her +heart, and been soothed and caressed into happy trust in the future, +did she recall Isaura’s explanatory words, and said, archly: “And your +absent friend? Tell me about him. Is he as handsome as Alain?” + +“Nay,” said Isaura, rising to take up the mantle and hat she had laid +aside on entering, “they say that the colour of a flower is in our +vision, not in the leaves.” Then with a grave melancholy in the look +she fixed upon Valerie, she added: “Rather than distrust of me should +occasion you pain, I have pained myself, in making clear to you the +reason why I felt interest in M. de Rochebriant’s conversation. In turn, +I ask of you a favour--do not on this point question me farther. There +are some things in our past which influence the present, but to which +we dare not assign a future--on which we cannot talk to another. What +soothsayer can tell us if the dream of a yesterday will be renewed on +the night of a morrow? All is said--we trust one another, dearest.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +That evening the Morleys looked in at Isaura’s on their way to a crowded +assembly at the house of one of those rich Americans, who were then +outvying the English residents at Paris in the good graces of Parisian +society. I think the Americans get on better with the French than the +English do--I mean the higher class of Americans. They spend more money; +their men speak French better; the women are better dressed, and, as a +general rule, have read more largely, and converse more frankly. Mrs. +Morley’s affection for Isaura had increased during the last few months. +As so notable an advocate of the ascendancy of her sex, she felt a +sort of grateful pride in the accomplishments and growing renown of +so youthful a member of the oppressed sisterhood. But, apart from that +sentiment, she had conceived a tender mother-like interest for the girl +who stood in the world so utterly devoid of family ties, so destitute of +that household guardianship and protection which, with all her assertion +of the strength and dignity of woman, and all her opinions as to woman’s +right of absolute emancipation from the conventions fabricated by the +selfishness of man, Mrs. Morley was too sensible not to value for the +individual, though she deemed it not needed for the mass. Her great +desire was that Isaura should marry well, and soon. American women +usually marry so young that it seemed to Mrs. Morley an anomaly in +social life, that one so gifted in mind and person as Isaura should +already have passed the age in which the belles of the great Republic +are enthroned as wives and consecrated as mothers. We have seen that +in the past year she had selected from our unworthy but necessary sex, +Graham Vane as a suitable spouse to her young friend. She had divined +the state of his heart--she had more than suspicions of the state of +Isaura’s. She was exceedingly perplexed and exceedingly chafed at the +Englishman’s strange disregard to his happiness and her own projects. +She had counted, all this past winter, on his return to Paris; and +she became convinced that some misunderstanding, possibly some lover’s +quarrel, was the cause of his protracted absence, and a cause that, +if ascertained, could be removed. A good opportunity now presented +itself--Colonel Morley was going to London the next day. He had business +there which would detain him at least a week. He would see Graham; and +as she considered her husband the shrewdest and wisest person in the +world--I mean of the male sex--she had no doubt of his being able +to turn Graham’s mind thoroughly inside out, and ascertain his exact +feelings and intentions. If the Englishman, thus assayed, were found +of base metal, then, at least, Mrs. Morley would be free to cast him +altogether aside, and coin for the uses of the matrimonial market some +nobler effigy in purer gold. + +“My dear child,” said Mrs. Morley, in a low voice, nestling herself +close to Isaura, while the Colonel, duly instructed, drew off the +Venosta, “have you heard anything lately of our pleasant friend Mr. +Vane?” + +You can guess with what artful design Mrs. Morley put that question +point-blank, fixing keen eyes on Isaura while she put it. She saw the +heightened colour, the quivering lip of the girl thus abruptly appealed +to, and she said inly: “I was right--she loves him!” + +“I heard of Mr. Vane last night--accidentally.” + +“Is he coming to Paris soon?” + +“Not that I know of. How charmingly that wreath becomes you! it suits +the earrings so well, too.” + +“Frank chose it; he has good taste for a man. I trust him with my +commissions to Hunt and Roskell’s but I limit him as to price, he is +so extravagant--men are, when they make presents. They seem to think we +value things according to their cost. They would gorge us with jewels, +and let us starve for want of a smile. Not that Frank is so bad as the +rest of them. But a propos of Mr. Vane--Frank will be sure to see him, +and scold him well for deserting us all. I should not be surprised if he +brought the deserter back with him, for I send a little note by Frank, +inviting him to pay us a visit. We have spare rooms in our apartments.” + +Isaura’s heart heaved beneath her robe, but she replied in a tone of +astonishing indifference: “I believe this is the height of the London +season, and Mr. Vane would probably be too engaged to profit even by an +invitation so tempting.” + +“Nous verrons. How pleased he will be to hear of your triumphs! He +admired you so much before you were famous: what will be his admiration +now! men are so vain--they care for us so much more when people praise +us. But till we have put the creatures in their proper place, we must +take them for what they are.” + +Here the Venosta, with whom the poor Colonel had exhausted all the arts +at his command for chaining her attention, could be no longer withheld +from approaching Mrs. Morley, and venting her admiration of that lady’s +wreath, earrings, robes, flounces. This dazzling apparition had on her +the effect which a candle has on a moth--she fluttered round it, +and longed to absorb herself in its blaze. But the wreath especially +fascinated her--a wreath which no prudent lady with colourings less +pure, and features less exquisitely delicate than the pretty champion +of the rights of women, could have fancied on her own brows without a +shudder. But the Venosta in such matters was not prudent. “It can’t be +dear,” she cried piteously, extending her arms towards Isaura. “I must +have one exactly like. Who made it? Cara signora, give me the address.” + +“Ask the Colonel, dear Madame; he chose and bought it,” and Mrs. Morley +glanced significantly at her well-tutored Frank. + +“Madame,” said the Colonel, speaking in English, which he usually did +with the Venosta--who valued herself on knowing that language and was +flattered to be addressed in it--while he amused himself by introducing +into its forms the dainty Americanisms with which he puzzled the +Britisher--he might well puzzle the Florentine,--“Madame, I am too +anxious for the appearance of my wife to submit to the test of a rival +schemer like yourself in the same apparel. With all the homage due to a +sex of which I am enthused dreadful, I decline to designate the florist +from whom I purchased Mrs. Morley’s head-fixings.” + +“Wicked man!” cried the Venosta, shaking her finger at him coquettishly. +“You are jealous! Fie! a man should never be jealous of a woman’s +rivalry with women;” and then, with a cynicism that might have become +a greybeard, she added, “but of his own sex every man should be +jealous--though of his dearest friend. Isn’t it so, Colonello?” + +The Colonel looked puzzled, bowed, and made no reply. “That only shows,” + said Mrs. Morley, rising, “what villains the Colonel has the misfortune +to call friends and fellow-men.” + +“I fear it is time to go,” said Frank, glancing at the clock. + +In theory the most rebellious, in practice the most obedient, of wives, +Mrs. Morley here kissed Isaura, resettled her crinoline, and shaking +hands with the Venosta, retreated to the door. + +“I shall have the wreath yet,” cried the Venosta, impishly. “La speranza +e fenamina” (Hope is female). + +“Alas!” said Isaura, half mournfully, half smiling, “alas! do you +not remember what the poet replied when asked what disease was most +mortal?--‘the hectic fever caught from the chill of hope.’” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +Graham Vane was musing very gloomily in his solitary apartment one +morning, when his servant announced Colonel Morley. + +He received his visitor with more than the cordiality with which every +English politician receives an American citizen. Graham liked the +Colonel too well for what he was in himself to need any national title +to his esteem. After some preliminary questions and answers as to the +health of Mrs. Morley, the length of the Colonel’s stay in London, what +day he could dine with Graham at Richmond or Gravesend, the Colonel took +up the ball. “We have been reckoning to see you at Paris, sir, for the +last six months.” + +“I am very much flattered to hear that you have thought of me at all; +but I am not aware of having warranted the expectation you so kindly +express.” + +“I guess you must have said something to my wife which led her to do +more than expect--to reckon on your return. And, by the way, sir, I am +charged to deliver to you this note from her, and to back the request it +contains that you will avail yourself of the offer. Without summarising +the points I do so.” + +Graham glanced over the note addressed to him + + “DEAR MR. VANE,--Do you forget how beautiful the environs of Paris + are in May and June? how charming it was last year at the lake of + Enghien? how gay were our little dinners out of doors in the garden + arbours, with the Savarins and the fair Italian, and her + incomparably amusing chaperon? Frank has my orders to bring you + back to renew these happy days, while the birds are in their first + song, and the leaves are in their youngest green. I have prepared + your rooms chez nous--a chamber that looks out on the Champs + Elysees, and a quiet cabinet de travail at the back, in which you + can read, write, or sulk undisturbed. Come, and we will again visit + Enghien and Montmorency. Don’t talk of engagements. If man + proposes, woman disposes. Hesitate not--obey. Your sincere little + friend, Lizzy.” + +“My dear Morley,” said Graham, with emotion, “I cannot find words to +thank your wife sufficiently for an invitation so graciously conveyed. +Alas! I cannot accept it.” + +“Why?” asked the Colonel, drily. + +“I have too much to do in London.” + +“Is that the true reason, or am I to suspicion that there is anything, +sir, which makes you dislike a visit to Paris?” + +The Americans enjoy the reputation of being the frankest putters of +questions whom liberty of speech has yet educated into la recherche de +la verite, and certainly Colonel Morley in this instance did not impair +the national reputation. + +Graham Vane’s brow slightly contracted, and he bit his lip as if +stung by a sudden pang; but after a moment’s pause, he answered with a +good-humoured smile: + +“No man who has taste enough to admire the most beautiful city, and +appreciate the charms of the most brilliant society in the world, can +dislike Paris.” + +“My dear sir, I did not ask you if you disliked Paris, but if there were +anything that made you dislike coming back to it on a visit.” + +“What a notion! and what a cross-examiner you would have made if you had +been called to the bar! Surely, my dear friend, you can understand that +when a man has in one place business which he cannot neglect, he may +decline going to another place, whatever pleasure it would give him +to do so. By the way, there is a great ball at one of the Ministers’ +to-night; you should go there, and I will point out to you all those +English notabilities in whom Americans naturally take interest. I will +call for you at eleven o’clock. Lord ------, who is a connection of +mine, would be charmed to know you.” + +Morley hesitated; but when Graham said, “How your wife will scold you if +you lose such an opportunity of telling her whether the Duchess of ---- +is as beautiful as report says, and whether Gladstone or Disraeli seems +to your phrenological science to have the finer head!” the Colonel gave +in, and it was settled that Graham should call for him at the Langham +Hotel. + +That matter arranged, Graham probably hoped that his inquisitive visitor +would take leave for the present, but the Colonel evinced no such +intention. On the contrary, settling himself more at ease in his +arm-chair, he said, “if I remember aright, you do not object to the +odour of tobacco?” + +Graham rose and presented to his visitor a cigar-box which he took from +the mantelpiece. + +The Colonel shook his head, and withdrew from his breast pocket a +leather case, from which he extracted a gigantic regalia; this he +lighted from a gold match-box in the shape of a locket attached to his +watch-chain, and took two or three preliminary puffs, with his head +thrown back and his eyes meditatively intent upon the ceiling. + +We know already that strange whim of the Colonel’s (than whom, if he so +pleased, no man could speak purer English as spoken by the Britisher) to +assert the dignity of the American citizen by copious use of expressions +and phrases familiar to the lips of the governing class of the great +Republic--delicacies of speech which he would have carefully shunned in +the polite circles of the Fifth Avenue in New York. Now the Colonel +was much too experienced a man of the world not to be aware that the +commission with which his Lizzy had charged him was an exceedingly +delicate one; and it occurred to his mother wit that the best way to +acquit himself of it, so as to avoid the risk of giving or of receiving +serious affront, would be to push that whim of his into more than wonted +exaggeration. Thus he could more decidedly and briefly come to the +point; and should he, in doing so, appear too meddlesome, rather provoke +a laugh than a frown-retiring from the ground with the honours due to a +humorist. Accordingly, in his deepest nasal intonation, and withdrawing +his eyes from the ceiling, he began: + +“You have not asked, sir, after the signorina, or as we popularly call +her, Mademoiselle Cicogna?” + +“Have I not? I hope she is quite well, and her lively companion, Signora +Venosta.” + +“They are not sick, sir; or at least they were not so last night when +my wife and I had the pleasure to see them. Of course you have read +Mademoiselle Cicogna’s book--a bright performance, sir, age considered.” + +“Certainly, I have read the book; it is full of unquestionable genius. +Is Mademoiselle writing another? But of course she is.” + +“I am not aware of the fact, sir. It may be predicated; such a mind +cannot remain inactive; and I know from M. Savarin and that rising +young man Gustave Rameau, that the publishers bid high for her brains +considerable. Two translations have already appeared in our country. +Her fame, sir, will be world-wide. She may be another George Sand, or at +least another Eulalie Grantmesnil.” + +Graham’s cheek became as white as the paper I write on. He inclined his +head as in assent, but without a word. The Colonel continued: + +“We ought to be very proud of her acquaintance, sir. I think you +detected her gifts while they were yet unconjectured. My wife says so. +You must be gratified to remember that, sir--clear grit, sir, and no +mistake.” + +“I certainly more than once have said to Mrs. Morley, that I esteemed +Mademoiselle’s powers so highly that I hoped she would never become a +stage-singer and actress. But this M. Rameau? You say he is a rising +man. It struck me when at Paris that he was one of those charlatans +with a great deal of conceit and very little information, who are always +found in scores on the ultra-Liberal side of politics;-possibly I was +mistaken.” + +“He is the responsible editor of Le Sens Commun, in which talented +periodical Mademoiselle Cicogna’s book was first raised.” + +“Of course, I know that; a journal which, so far as I have looked into +its political or social articles, certainly written by a cleverer and +an older man than M. Rameau, is for unsettling all things and settling +nothing. We have writers of that kind among ourselves--I have no +sympathy with them. To me it seems that when a man says, ‘Off with +your head,’ he ought to let us know what other head he would put on our +shoulders, and by what process the change of heads shall be effected. +Honestly speaking, if you and your charming wife are intimate friends +and admirers of Mademoiselle Cicogna, I think you could not do her a +greater service than that of detaching her from all connection with men +like M. Rameau, and journals like La Sens Commun.” + +The Colonel here withdrew his cigar from his lips, lowered his head to a +level with Graham’s, and relaxing into an arch significant smile, said: +“Start to Paris, and dissuade her yourself. Start--go ahead--don’t +be shy--don’t seesaw on the beam of speculation. You will have more +influence with that young female than we can boast.” Never was England +in greater danger of quarrel with America than at that moment; but +Graham curbed his first wrathful impulse, and replied coldly: + +“It seems to me, Colonel, that you, though very unconsciously, derogate +from the respect due to Mademoiselle Cicogna. That the counsel of a +married couple like yourself and Mrs. Morley should be freely given to +and duly heeded by a girl deprived of her natural advisers in parents, +is a reasonable and honourable supposition; but to imply that the most +influential adviser of a young lady so situated is a young single man, +in no way related to her, appears to me a dereliction of that regard to +the dignity of her sex which is the chivalrous characteristic of your +countrymen--and to Mademoiselle Cicogna herself, a surmise which she +would be justified in resenting as an impertinence.” + +“I deny both allegations,” replied the Colonel serenely. “I maintain +that a single man whips all connubial creation when it comes to +gallantising a single young woman; and that no young lady would be +justified in resenting as impertinence my friendly suggestion to the +single man so deserving of her consideration as I estimate you to be, to +solicit the right to advise her for life. And that’s a caution.” + +Here the Colonel resumed his regalia, and again gazed intent on the +ceiling. + +“Advise her for life! You mean, I presume, as a candidate for her hand.” + +“You don’t Turkey now. Well, I guess, you are not wide of the mark +there, sir.” + +“You do me infinite honour, but I do not presume so far.” + +“So, so--not as yet. Before a man who is not without gumption runs +himself for Congress, he likes to calculate how the votes will run. +Well, sir, suppose we are in caucus, and let us discuss the chances of +the election with closed doors.” + +Graham could not help smiling at the persistent officiousness of his +visitor, but his smile was a very sad one. + +“Pray change the subject, my dear Colonel Morley--it is not a pleasant +one to me; and as regards Mademoiselle Cicogna, can you think it would +not shock her to suppose that her name was dragged into the discussions +you would provoke, even with closed doors?” + +“Sir,” replied the Colonel, imperturbably, “since the doors are closed, +there is no one, unless it be a spirit-listener under the table, who can +wire to Mademoiselle Cicogna the substance of debate. And, for my part, +I do not believe in spiritual manifestations. Fact is, that I have +the most amicable sentiments towards both parties, and if there is a +misunderstanding which is opposed to the union of the States, I wish to +remove it while yet in time. Now, let us suppose that you decline to be +a candidate; there are plenty of others who will run; and as an elector +must choose one representative or other, so a gal must choose one +husband or other. And then you only repent when it is too late. It is a +great thing to be first in the field. Let us approximate to the point; +the chances seem good-will you run? Yes or no?” + +“I repeat, Colonel Morley, that I entertain no such presumption.” + +The Colonel here, rising, extended his hand, which Graham shook with +constrained cordiality, and then leisurely walked to the door; there he +paused, as if struck by a new thought, and said gravely, in his natural +tone of voice, “You have nothing to say, sir, against the young lady’s +character and honour?” + +“I!--heavens, no! Colonel Morley, such a question insults me.” + +The Colonel resumed his deepest nasal bass: “It is only, then, because +you don’t fancy her now so much as you did last year--fact, you are +soured on her and fly off the handle. Such things do happen. The same +thing has happened to myself, sir. In my days of celibacy, there was a +gal at Saratoga whom I gallantised, and whom, while I was at Saratoga, +I thought Heaven had made to be Mrs. Morley: I was on the very point of +telling her so, when I was suddenly called off to Philadelphia; and at +Philadelphia, sir, I found that Heaven had made another Mrs. Morley. I +state this fact, sir, though I seldom talk of my own affairs, even when +willing to tender my advice in the affairs of another, in order to prove +that I do not intend to censure you if Heaven has served you in the +same manner. Sir, a man may go blind for one gal when he is not yet +dry behind the ears, and then, when his eyes are skinned, go in for one +better. All things mortal meet with a change, as my sisters little +boy said when, at the age of eight, he quitted the Methodys and turned +Shaker. Threep and argue as we may, you and I are both mortals--more’s +the pity. Good morning, sir (glancing at the clock, which proclaimed the +hour of 3 P.M.),--I err--good evening.” + +By the post that day the Colonel transmitted a condensed and laconic +report of his conversation with Graham Vane. I can state its substance +in yet fewer words. He wrote word that Graham positively declined the +invitation to Paris; that he had then, agreeably to Lizzy’s instruction, +ventilated the Englishman, in the most delicate terms, as to his +intentions with regard to Isaura, and that no intentions at all existed. +The sooner all thoughts of him were relinquished, as a new suitor on +the ground, the better it would be for the young lady’s happiness in the +only state in which happiness should be, if not found, at least sought, +whether by maid or man. + +Mrs. Morley was extremely put out by this untoward result of the +diplomacy she had intrusted to the Colonel; and when, the next day, came +a very courteous letter from Graham, thanking her gratefully for the +kindness of her invitation, and expressing his regret briefly, though +cordially, at his inability to profit by it, without the most distant +allusion to the subject which the Colonel had brought on the tapis, or +even requesting his compliments to the Signoras Venosta and Cicogna, +she was more than put out, more than resentful,--she was deeply grieved. +Being, however, one of those gallant heroes of womankind who do not give +in at the first defeat, she began to doubt whether Frank had not rather +overstrained the delicacy which he said he had put into his “soundings.” + He ought to have been more explicit. Meanwhile she resolved to call +on Isaura, and, without mentioning Graham’s refusal of her invitation, +endeavour to ascertain whether the attachment which she felt persuaded +the girl secretly cherished for this recalcitrant Englishman were +something more than the first romantic fancy--whether it were +sufficiently deep to justify farther effort on Mrs. Morley’s part to +bring it to a prosperous issue. + +She found Isaura at home and alone; and, to do her justice, she +exhibited wonderful tact in the fulfilment of the task she had set +herself. Forming her judgment by manner and look--not words--she +returned home, convinced that she ought to seize the opportunity +afforded to her by Graham’s letter. It was one to which she might very +naturally reply, and in that reply she might convey the object at her +heart more felicitously than the Colonel had done. “The cleverest man +is,” she said to herself, “stupid compared to an ordinary woman in +the real business of life, which does not consist of fighting and +moneymaking.” + +Now there was one point she had ascertained by words in her visit to +Isaura--a point on which all might depend. She had asked Isaura when +and where she had seen Graham last; and when Isaura had given her that +information, and she learned it was on the eventful day on which Isaura +gave her consent to the publication of her MS. if approved by Savarin, +in the journal to be set up by the handsome-faced young author, she +leapt to the conclusion that Graham had been seized with no unnatural +jealousy, and was still under the illusive glamoury of that green-eyed +fiend. She was confirmed in this notion, not altogether an unsound one, +when asking with apparent carelessness, “And in that last interview, did +you see any change in Mr. Vane’s manner, especially when he took leave?” + +Isaura turned away pale, and involuntarily clasping her hands-as women +do when they would suppress pain-replied, in a low murmur, “His manner +was changed.” + +Accordingly, Mrs. Morley sat down and wrote the following letter: + +“DEAR MR. VANE,--I am very angry indeed with you for refusing my +invitation--I had so counted on you, and I don’t believe a word of your +excuse. Engagements! To balls and dinners, I suppose, as if you were not +much too clever to care about such silly attempts to enjoy solitude in +crowds. And as to what you men call business, you have no right to have +any business at all. You are not in commerce; you are not in Parliament; +you told me yourself that you had no great landed estates to give you +trouble; you are rich, without any necessity to take pains to remain +rich, or to become richer; you have no business in the world except to +please yourself: and when you will not come to Paris to see one of your +truest friends--which I certainly am--it simply means, that no matter +how such a visit would please me, it does not please yourself. I call +that abominably rude and ungrateful. + +“But I am not writing merely to scold you. I have something else on my +mind, and it must come out. Certainly, when you were at Paris last year +you did admire, above all other young ladies, Isaura Cicogna. And I +honoured you for doing so. I know no other young lady to be called her +equal. Well, if you admired her then, what would you do now if you +met her? Then she was but a girl--very brilliant, very charming, it is +true--but undeveloped, untested. Now she is a woman, a princess among +women, but retaining all that is most lovable in a girl; so courted, yet +so simple--so gifted, yet so innocent. Her head is not a bit turned +by all the flattery that surrounds her. Come and judge for yourself. I +still hold the door of the rooms destined to you open for repentance. + +“My dear Mr. Vane, do not think me a silly match-making little woman, +when I write to you thus, a coeur ouvert. + +“I like you so much that I would fain secure to you the rarest prize +which life is ever likely to offer to your ambition. Where can you hope +to find another Isaura? Among the stateliest daughters of your English +dukes, where is there one whom a proud man would be more proud to show +to the world, saying, ‘She is mine!’ where one more distinguished--I +will not say by mere beauty, there she might be eclipsed--but by +sweetness and dignity combined--in aspect, manner, every movement, every +smile? + +“And you, who are yourself so clever, so well read--you who would be so +lonely with a wife who was not your companion, with whom you could not +converse on equal terms of intellect,--my dear friend, where could you +find a companion in whom you would not miss the poet-soul of Isaura? +Of course I should not dare to obtrude all these questionings on your +innermost reflection, if I had not some idea, right or wrong, that since +the days when at Enghien and Montmorency, seeing you and Isaura side by +side, I whispered to Frank, ‘So should those two be through life,’ some +cloud has passed between your eyes and the future on which they gazed. +Cannot that cloud be dispelled? Were you so unjust to yourself as to +be jealous of a rival, perhaps of a Gustave Rameau? I write to you +frankly--answer me frankly; and if you answer, ‘Mrs. Morley, I don’t +know, what you mean; I admired Mademoiselle Cicogna as I might admire +any other pretty, accomplished girl, but it is really nothing to me +whether she marries Gustave Rameau or any one else,’--why, then, burn +this letter--forget that it has been written; and may you never know +the pang of remorseful sigh, if, in the days to come, you see her--whose +name in that case I should profane did I repeat it--the comrade of +another man’s mind, the half of another man’s heart, the pride and +delight of another man’s blissful home.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +There is somewhere in Lord Lytton’s writings--writings so numerous that +I may be pardoned if I cannot remember where-a critical definition of +the difference between dramatic and narrative art of story, instanced by +that marvellous passage in the loftiest of Sir Walter Scott’s works, in +which all the anguish of Ravenswood on the night before he has to meet +Lucy’s brother in mortal combat is conveyed without the spoken words +required in tragedy. It is only to be conjectured by the tramp of his +heavy boots to and fro all the night long in his solitary chamber, +heard below by the faithful Caleb. The drama could not have allowed that +treatment; the drama must have put into words, as “soliloquy,” agonies +which the non-dramatic narrator knows that no soliloquy can describe. +Humbly do I imitate, then, the great master of narrative in declining +to put into words the conflict between love and reason that tortured the +heart of Graham Vane when, dropping noiselessly the letter I have just +transcribed, he covered his face with his hands and remained--I know +not how long--in the same position, his head bowed, not a sound escaping +from his lips. + +He did not stir from his rooms that day; and had there been a Caleb’s +faithful ear to listen, his tread, too, might have been heard all that +sleepless night passing to and fro, but pausing oft, along his solitary +floors. + +Possibly love would have borne down all opposing seasonings, doubts, and +prejudices, but for incidents that occurred the following evening. On +that evening Graham dined en famille with his cousins the Altons. After +dinner, the Duke produced the design for a cenotaph inscribed to the +memory of his aunt, Lady Janet King, which he proposed to place in the +family chapel at Alton. + +“I know,” said the Duke, kindly, “you would wish the old house from +which she sprang to preserve some such record of her who loved you as +her son; and even putting you out of the question, it gratifies me to +attest the claim of our family to a daughter who continues to be famous +for her goodness, and made the goodness so lovable that envy forgave it +for being famous. It was a pang to me when poor Richard King decided on +placing her tomb among strangers; but in conceding his rights as to +her resting-place, I retain mine to her name,--Nostris liberis virtutis +exemplar.” + +Graham wrung his cousin’s hand-he could not speak, choked by suppressed +tears. + +The Duchess, who loved and honoured Lady Janet almost as much as did +her husband, fairly sobbed aloud. She had, indeed, reason for grateful +memories of the deceased: there had been some obstacles to her marriage +with the man who had won her heart, arising from political differences +and family feuds between their parents, which the gentle meditation of +Lady Janet had smoothed away. And never did union founded on mutual and +ardent love more belie the assertions of the great Bichat (esteemed by +Dr. Buckle the finest intellect which practical philosophy has exhibited +since Aristotle), that “Love is a sort of fever which does not last +beyond two years,” than that between those eccentric specimens of a +class denounced as frivolous and artless by philosophers, English and +French, who have certainly never heard of Bichat. + +When the emotion the Duke had exhibited was calmed down, his wife pushed +towards Graham a sheet of paper, inscribed with the epitaph composed by +his hand. “Is it not beautiful,” she said, falteringly--“not a word too +much or too little?” + +Graham read the inscription slowly, and with very dimmed eyes. It +deserved the praise bestowed on it; for the Duke, though a shy and +awkward speaker, was an incisive and graceful writer. + +Yet, in his innermost self, Graham shivered when he read that epitaph, +it expressed so emphatically the reverential nature of the love which +Lady Janet had inspired--the genial influences which the holiness of +a character so active in doing good had diffused around it. It brought +vividly before Graham that image of perfect spotless womanhood. And +a voice within him asked, “Would that cenotaph be placed amid the +monuments of an illustrious lineage if the secret known to thee could +transpire? What though the lost one were really as unsullied by sin as +the world deems, would the name now treasured as an heirloom not be a +memory of gall and a sound of shame?” + +He remained so silent after putting down the inscription, that the Duke +said modestly: “My dear Graham, I see that you do not like what I have +written. Your pen is much more practised than mine. If I did not ask +you to compose the epitaph, it was because I thought it would please +you more in coming, as a spontaneous tribute due to her, from the +representative of her family. But will you correct my sketch, or give me +another according to your own ideas?” + +“I see not a word to alter,” said Graham; “forgive me if my silence +wronged my emotion; the truest eloquence is that which holds us too mute +for applause.” + +“I knew you would like it. Leopold is always so disposed to underrate +himself,” said the duchess, whose hand was resting fondly on her +husband’s shoulder. “Epitaphs are so difficult to write-especially +epitaphs on women of whom in life the least said the better. Janet was +the only woman I ever knew whom one could praise in safety.” + +“Well expressed,” said the Duke, smiling: “and I wish you would make +that safety clear to some lady friends of yours, to whom it might serve +as a lesson. Proof against every breath of scandal herself, Janet King +never uttered and never encouraged one ill-natured word against another. +But I am afraid, my dear fellow, that I must leave you to a tete-a-tete +with Eleanor. You know that I must be at the House this evening--I only +paired till half-past nine.” + +“I will walk down to the House with you, if you are going on foot.” + +“No,” said the Duchess; “you must resign yourself to me for at least +half an hour. I was looking over your aunt’s letters to-day, and I found +one which I wish to show you; it is all about yourself, and written +within the last few months of her life.” Here she put her arm into +Graham’s, and led him into her own private drawing-room, which, though +others might call it a boudoir, she dignified by the name of her study. +The Duke remained for some minutes thoughtfully leaning his arm on the +mantelpiece. It was no unimportant debate in the Lords that night, and +on a subject in which he took great interest, and the details of which +he had thoroughly mastered. He had been requested to speak, if only a +few words, for his high character and his reputation for good sense gave +weight to the mere utterance of his opinion. But though no one had more +moral courage in action, the Duke had a terror at the very thought of +addressing an audience, which made him despise himself. + +“Ah!” he muttered, “if Graham Vane were but in Parliament, I could trust +him to say exactly what I would rather be swallowed up by an earthquake +than stand up and say for myself. But now he has got money he seems to +think of nothing but saving it.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +The letter from Lady Janet, which the Duchess took from the desk and +placed in Graham’s hand, was in strange coincidence with the subject +that for the last twenty-four hours had absorbed his thoughts and +tortured his heart. Speaking of him in terms of affectionate eulogy, the +writer proceeded to confide her earnest wish that he should not longer +delay that change in life which, concentrating so much that is vague in +the desires and aspirations of man, leaves his heart and his mind, made +serene by the contentment of home, free for the steadfast consolidation +of their warmth and their light upon the ennobling duties that unite the +individual to his race. + +“There is no one,” wrote Lady Janet, “whose character and career a +felicitous choice in marriage can have greater influence over than this +dear adopted son of mine. I do not fear that in any case he will be +liable to the errors of his brilliant father. His early reverse of +fortune here seems to me one of those blessings which Heaven conceals +in the form of affliction. For in youth, the genial freshness of his gay +animal spirits, a native generosity mingled with desire of display +and thirst for applause, made me somewhat alarmed for his future. But, +though he still retains these attributes of character, they are no +longer predominant; they are modified and chastened. He has learned +prudence. But what I now fear most for him is that which he does not +show in the world, which neither Leopold nor you seem to detect,--it is +an exceeding sensitiveness of pride. I know not how else to describe it. +It is so interwoven with the highest qualities, that I sometimes dread +injury to them could it be torn away from the faultier ones which it +supports. + +“It is interwoven with that lofty independence of spirit which has made +him refuse openings the most alluring to his ambition; it communicates a +touching grandeur to his self-denying thrift; it makes him so tenacious +of his word once given, so cautious before he gives it. Public life to +him is essential; without it he would be incomplete; and yet I sigh to +think that whatever success he may achieve in it will be attended with +proportionate pain. Calumny goes side by side with fame, and courting +fame as a man, he is as thin-skinned to calumny as a woman. + +“The wife for Graham should have qualities, not taken individually, +uncommon in English wives, but in combination somewhat rare. + +“She must have mind enough to appreciate his--not to clash with it. +She must be fitted with sympathies to be his dearest companion, his +confidante in the hopes and fears which the slightest want of sympathy +would make him keep ever afterwards pent within his breast. In herself +worthy of distinction, she must merge all distinction in his. You have +met in the world men who, marrying professed beauties, or professed +literary geniuses, are spoken of as the husband of the beautiful Mrs. +A------, or of the clever Mrs. B-------: can you fancy Graham Vane in +the reflected light of one of those husbands? I trembled last year when +I thought he was attracted by a face which the artists raved about, and +again by a tongue which dropped bons mots that went the round of the +club. I was relieved, when, sounding him, he said, laughingly, ‘No, dear +aunt, I should be one sore from head to foot if I married a wife that +was talked about for anything but goodness.’ + +“No,--Graham Vane will have pains sharp enough if he live to be talked +about himself. But that tenderest half of himself, the bearer of the +name he would make, and for the dignity of which he alone would be +responsible,--if that were the town talk, he would curse the hour he +gave any one the right to take on herself his man’s burden of calumny +and fame. I know not which I should pity the most, Graham Vane or his +wife. + +“Do you understand me, dearest Eleanor? No doubt you do so far, that you +comprehend that the women whom men most admire are not the women we, as +women ourselves, would wish our sons or brothers to marry. But perhaps +you do not comprehend my cause of fear, which is this--for in such +matters men do not see as we women do--Graham abhors, in the girls of +our time, frivolity and insipidity. Very rightly, you will say. True, +but then he is too likely to be allured by contrasts. I have seen him +attracted by the very girls we recoil from more than we do from those +we allow to be frivolous and insipid. I accused him of admiration for a +certain young lady whom you call ‘odious,’ and whom the slang that has +come into vogue calls ‘fast;’ and I was not satisfied with his answer, +‘Certainly I admire her; she is not a doll--she has ideas.’ I would +rather of the two see Graham married to what men call a doll, than to a +girl with ideas which are distasteful to women.” + +Lady Janet then went on to question the Duchess about a Miss Asterisk, +with whom this tale will have nothing to do, but who, from the little +which Lady Janet had seen of her, might possess all the requisites that +fastidious correspondent would exact for the wife of her adopted son. + +This Miss Asterisk had been introduced into the London world by the +Duchess. The Duchess had replied to Lady Janet, that if earth could be +ransacked, a more suitable wife for Graham Vane than Miss Asterisk could +not be found; she was well born--an heiress; the estates she inherited +were in the county of--(viz., the county in which the ancestors of +D’Altons and Vanes had for centuries established their whereabout). Miss +Asterisk was pretty enough to please any man’s eye, but not with the +beauty of which artists rave; well informed enough to be companion to a +well-informed man, but certainly not witty enough to supply bons mots to +the clubs. Miss Asterisk was one of those women of whom a husband might +be proud, yet with whom a husband would feel safe from being talked +about. + +And in submitting the letter we have read to Graham’s eye, the Duchess +had the cause of Miss Asterisk pointedly in view. Miss Asterisk had +confided to her friend, that, of all men she had seen, Mr. Graham Vane +was the one she would feel the least inclined to refuse. + +So when Graham Vane returned the letter to the Duchess, simply saying, +“How well my dear aunt divined what is weakest in me!” the Duchess +replied quickly, “Miss Asterisk dines here to-morrow; pray come; you +would like her if you knew more of her.” + +“To-morrow I am engaged--an American friend of mine dines with me; but +‘tis no matter, for I shall never feel more for Miss Asterisk than I +feel for Mont Blanc.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +On leaving his cousin’s house Graham walked on, he scarce knew or +cared whither, the image of the beloved dead so forcibly recalled the +solemnity of the mission with which he had been intrusted, and which +hitherto he had failed to fulfil. What if the only mode by which he +could, without causing questions and suspicions that might result in +dragging to day the terrible nature of the trust he held, enrich the +daughter of Richard King, repair all wrong hitherto done to her, and +guard the sanctity of Lady Janet’s home,--should be in that union which +Richard King had commended to him while his heart was yet free? In such +a case, would not gratitude to the dead, duty to the living, make that +union imperative at whatever sacrifice of happiness to himself? The two +years to which Richard King had limited the suspense of research were +not yet expired. Then, too, that letter of Lady Janet’s,--so tenderly +anxious for his future, so clear-sighted as to the elements of his +own character in its strength or its infirmities--combined with graver +causes to withhold his heart from its yearning impulse, and--no, not +steel it against Isaura, but forbid it to realise, in the fair creature +and creator of romance, his ideal of the woman to whom an earnest, +sagacious, aspiring man commits all the destinies involved in the +serene dignity of his hearth. He could not but own that this gifted +author--this eager seeker after fame--this brilliant and bold competitor +with men on their own stormy battle-ground-was the very person from whom +Lady Janet would have warned away his choice. She (Isaura) merge her own +distinctions in a husband’s;--she leave exclusively to him the burden of +fame and calumny!--she shun “to be talked about!” she who could feel +her life to be a success or a failure, according to the extent and the +loudness of the talk which it courted! + +While these thoughts racked his mind, a kindly hand was laid on his arm, +and a cheery voice accosted him. “Well met, my dear Vane! I see we are +bound to the same place; there will be a good gathering to-night.” + +“What do you mean, Bevil? I am going nowhere, except to my own quiet +rooms.” + +“Pooh! Come in here at least for a few minutes,”--and Bevil drew him +up to the door-step of a house close by, where, on certain evenings, +a well-known club drew together men who seldom meet so familiarly +elsewhere--men of all callings; a club especially favoured by wits, +authors, and the flaneurs of polite society. + +Graham shook his head, about to refuse, when Bevil added, “I have just +come from Paris, and can give you the last news, literary, political, +and social. By the way, I saw Savarin the other night at the +Cicogna’s--he introduced me there.” Graham winced; he was spelled by the +music of a name, and followed his acquaintance into the crowded room, +and, after returning many greetings and nods, withdrew into a remote +corner, and motioned Bevil to a seat beside him. + +“So you met Savarin? Where, did you say?” + +“At the house of the new lady-author--I hate the word +authoress--Mademoiselle Cicogna! Of course you have read her book?” + +“Yes.” + +“Full of fine things, is it not?--though somewhat highflown and +sentimental: however, nothing succeeds like success. No book has been +more talked about at Paris: the only thing more talked about is the +lady-author herself.” + +“Indeed, and how?” + +“She doesn’t look twenty, a mere girl--of that kind of beauty which +so arrests the eye that you pass by other faces to gaze on it, and the +dullest stranger would ask, ‘Who, and what is she?’ A girl, I say, like +that--who lives as independently as if she were a middle-aged widow, +receives every week (she has her Thursdays), with no other chaperon than +an old ci-devant Italian singing woman, dressed like a guy--must set +Parisian tongues into play even if she had not written the crack book of +the season.” + +“Mademoiselle Cicogna receives on Thursdays,--no harm in that; and if +she have no other chaperon than the Italian lady you mention, it is +because Mademoiselle Cicogna is an orphan, and having a fortune, such as +it is, of her own, I do not see why she should not live as independently +as many an unmarried woman in London placed under similar circumstances. +I suppose she receives chiefly persons in the literary or artistic +world, and if they are all as respectable as the Savarins, I do not +think ill-nature itself could find fault with her social circle.” + +“Ah! you know the Cicogna, I presume. I am sure I did not wish to say +anything that could offend her best friends, only I do think it is a +pity she is not married, poor girl!” + +“Mademoiselle Cicogna, accomplished, beautiful, of good birth (the +Cicogna’s rank among the oldest of Lombard families), is not likely to +want offers.” + +“Offers of marriage,--h’m--well, I dare say, from authors and artists. +You know Paris better even than I do, but I don’t suppose authors and +artists there make the most desirable husbands; and I scarcely know a +marriage in France between a man-author and lady-author which does not +end in the deadliest of all animosities--that of wounded amour propre. +Perhaps the man admires his own genius too much to do proper homage to +his wife’s.” + +“But the choice of Mademoiselle Cicogna need not be restricted to +the pale of authorship--doubtless she has many admirers beyond that +quarrelsome borderland.” + +“Certainly-countless adorers. Enguerrand de Vandemar--you know that +diamond of dandies?” + +“Perfectly--is he an admirer?” + +“Cela va sans dire--he told me that though she was not the handsomest +woman in Paris, all other women looked less handsome since he had seen +her. But, of course, French lady-killers like Enguerrand, when it comes +to marriage, leave it to their parents to choose their wives and arrange +the terms of the contract. Talking of lady-killers, I beheld amid the +throng at Mademoiselle Cicogna’s the ci-devant Lovelace whom I remember +some twenty-three years ago as the darling of wives and the terror of +husbands-Victor de Mauleon.” + +“Victor de Mauleon at Mademoiselle Cicogna’s!--what, is that man +restored to society?” + +“Ah! you are thinking of the ugly old story about the jewels--oh, +yes, he has got over that; all his grand relations, the Vandemars, +Beauvilliers, Rochebriant, and others, took him by the hand when he +reappeared at Paris last year; and though I believe he is still avoided +by many, he is courted by still more--and avoided, I fancy, rather from +political than social causes. The Imperialist set, of course, execrate +and prescribe him. You know he is the writer of those biting articles +signed Pierre Firmin in the Sens Commun; and I am told he is the +proprietor of that very clever journal, which has become a power.” + +“So, so--that is the journal in which Mademoiselle Cicogna’s roman +first appeared. So, so--Victor de Mauleon one of her associates, her +counsellor and friend--ah!” + +“No, I didn’t say that; on the contrary, he was presented to her the +first time the evening I was at the house. I saw that young silk-haired +coxcomb, Gustave Rameau, introduce him to her. You don’t perhaps know +Rameau, editor of the Sens Commun--writes poems and criticisms. They say +he is a Red Republican, but De Mauleon keeps truculent French politics +subdued if not suppressed in his cynical journal. Somebody told me +that the Cicogna is very much in love with Rameau; certainly he has a +handsome face of his own, and that is the reason why she was so rude to +the Russian Prince X-----.” + +“How rude! Did the Prince propose to her?” + +“Propose! you forget--he is married. Don’t you know the Princess? Still +there are other kinds of proposals than those of marriage which a rich +Russian prince may venture to make to a pretty novelist brought up for +the stage.” + +“Bevil!” cried Graham, grasping the man’s arm fiercely, “how dare you?” + +“My dear boy,” said Bevil, very much astonished, “I really did not know +that your interest in the young lady was so great. If I have wounded +you in relating a mere on dit picked up at the Jockey Club, I beg you a +thousand pardons. I dare say there was not a word of truth in it.” + +“Not a word of truth, you may be sure, if the on dit was injurious to +Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is true, I have a strong interest in her; any +man--any gentleman--would have such interest in a girl so brilliant and +seemingly so friendless. It shames one of human nature to think that +the reward which the world makes to those who elevate its platitudes, +brighten its dulness, delight its leisure, is Slander! I have had +the honour to make the acquaintance of this lady before she became a +‘celebrity,’ and I have never met in my paths through life a purer +heart or a nobler nature. What is the wretched on dit you condescend to +circulate? Permit me to add: + +“‘He who repeats a slander shares the crime.’” + +“Upon my honour, my dear Vane,” said Bevil seriously (he did not want +for spirit), “I hardly know you this evening. It is not because duelling +is out of fashion that a man should allow himself to speak in a tone +that gives offence to another who intended none; and if duelling is out +of fashion in England, it is still possible in France.--Entre nous, I +would rather cross the Channel with you than submit to language that +conveys unmerited insult.” + +Graham’s cheek, before ashen pale, flushed into dark red. “I understand +you,” he said quietly, “and will be at Boulogne to-morrow.” + +“Graham Vane,” replied Bevil, with much dignity, “you and I have known +each other a great many years, and neither of us has cause to question +the courage of the other; but I am much older than yourself--permit +me to take the melancholy advantage of seniority. A duel between us in +consequence of careless words said about a lady in no way connected +with either, would be a cruel injury to her; a duel on grounds so slight +would little injure me--a man about town, who would not sit an hour in +the House of Commons if you paid him a thousand pounds a minute. But +you, Graham Vane--you whose destiny it is to canvass electors and make +laws--would it not be an injury to you to be questioned at the hustings +why you broke the law, and why you sought another man’s life? Come, +come! shake hands and consider all that seconds, if we chose them, would +exact, is said, every affront on either side retracted, every apology on +either side made.” + +“Bevil, you disarm and conquer me. I spoke like a hotheaded fool; forget +it--forgive. But--but--I can listen calmly now--what is that on dit?” + +“One that thoroughly bears out your own very manly upholding of the +poor young orphan, whose name I shall never again mention without such +respect as would satisfy her most sensitive champion. It was said that +the Prince X------ boasted that before a week was out Mademoiselle +Cicogna should appear in his carriage at the Bois de Boulogne, and wear +at the opera diamonds he had sent to her; that this boast was enforced +by a wager, and the terms of the wager compelled the Prince to confess +the means he had taken to succeed, and produce the evidence that he +had lost or won. According to this on dit, the Prince had written to +Mademoiselle Cicogna, and the letter had been accompanied by a parure +that cost him half a million of francs; that the diamonds had been +sent back with a few words of such scorn as a queen might address to +an upstart lackey. But, my dear Vane, it is a mournful position for the +girl to receive such offers; and you must agree with me in wishing she +were safely married, even to Monsieur Rameau, coxcomb though he be. +Let us hope that they will be an exception to French authors, male and +female, in general, and live like turtle-doves.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A few days after the date of the last chapter, Colonel Morley returned +to Paris. He had dined with Graham at Greenwich, had met him afterwards +in society, and paid him a farewell visit on the day before the +Colonel’s departure; but the name of Isaura Cicogna had not again been +uttered by either. Morley was surprised that his wife did not question +him minutely as to the mode in which he had executed her delicate +commission, and the manner as well as words with which Graham had +replied to his “ventilations.” But his Lizzy cut him short when he began +his recital: + +“I don’t want to hear anything more about the man. He has thrown away a +prize richer than his ambition will ever gain, even if it gained him a +throne.” + +“That it can’t gain him in the old country. The people are loyal to the +present dynasty, whatever you may be told to the contrary.” + +“Don’t be so horribly literal, Frank; that subject is done with. How was +the Duchess of ------ dressed?” + +But when the Colonel had retired to what the French call the cabinet de +traivail--and which he more accurately termed his “smoke den”--and +there indulged in the cigar which, despite his American citizenship, +was forbidden in the drawing-room of the tyrant who ruled his life, +Mrs. Morley took from her desk a letter received three days before, +and brooded over it intently, studying every word. When she had +thus reperused it, her tears fell upon the page. “Poor Isaura!” she +muttered--“poor Isaura! I know she loves him--and how deeply a nature +like hers can love! But I must break it to her. If I did not, she would +remain nursing a vain dream, and refuse every chance of real happiness +for the sake of nursing it.” Then she mechanically folded up the +letter--I need not say it was from Graham Vane--restored it to the desk, +and remained musing till the Colonel looked in at the door and said +peremptorily, “Very late--come to bed.” + +The next day Madame Savarin called on Isaura. + +“Chere enfant,” said she, “I have bad news for you. Poor Gustave is very +ill--an attack of the lungs and fever; you know how delicate he is.” + +“I am sincerely grieved,” said Isaura, in earnest tender tones; “it must +be a very sudden attack: he was here last Thursday.” + +“The malady only declared itself yesterday morning, but surely you must +have observed how ill he has been looking for several days past? It +pained me to see him.” + +“I did not notice any change in him,” said Isaura, somewhat +conscience-stricken. Wrapt in her own happy thoughts, she would not have +noticed change in faces yet more familiar to her than that of her young +admirer. + +“Isaura,” said Madame Savarin, “I suspect there are moral causes for our +friend’s failing health. Why should I disguise my meaning? You know well +how madly he is in love with you, and have you denied him hope?” + +“I like M. Rameau as a friend; I admire him--at times I pity him.” + +“Pity is akin to love.” + +“I doubt the truth of that saying, at all events as you apply it now. I +could not love M. Rameau; I never gave him cause to think I could.” + +“I wish for both your sakes that you could make me a different answer; +for his sake, because, knowing his faults and failings, I am persuaded +that they would vanish in a companionship so pure, so elevating as +yours: you could make him not only so much happier but so much better a +man. Hush! let me go on, let me come to yourself,--I say for your sake +I wish it. Your pursuits, your ambition, are akin to his; you should +not marry one who could not sympathise with you in these. If you did, +he might either restrict the exercise of your genius or be chafed at its +display. The only authoress I ever knew whose married lot was serenely +happy to the last, was the greatest of English poetesses married to a +great English poet. You cannot, you ought not, to devote yourself to the +splendid career to which your genius irresistibly impels you, without +that counsel, that support, that protection, which a husband alone +can give. My dear child, as the wife myself of a man of letters, and +familiarised to all the gossip, all the scandal, to which they who +give their names to the public are exposed, I declare that if I had a +daughter who inherited Savarin’s talents, and was ambitious of attaining +to his renown, I would rather shut her up in a convent than let her +publish a book that was in every one’s hands until she had sheltered +her name under that of a husband; and if I say this of my child, with a +father so wise in the world’s ways, and so popularly respected as my bon +homme, what must I feel to be essential to your safety, poor stranger +in our land! poor solitary orphan! with no other advice or guardian +than the singing mistress whom you touchingly call ‘Madre!’ I see how +I distress and pain you--I cannot help it. Listen! The other evening +Savarin came back from his favourite cafe in a state of excitement that +made me think he came to announce a revolution. It was about you; he +stormed, he wept--actually wept--my philosophical laughing Savarin. +He had just heard of that atrocious wager made by a Russian barbarian. +Every one praised you for the contempt with which you had treated the +savage’s insolence. But that you should have been submitted to such an +insult without one male friend who had the right to resent and chastise +it,--you cannot think how Savarin was chafed and galled. You know how he +admires, but you cannot guess how he reveres you; and since then he says +to me every day: ‘That girl must not remain single. Better marry any +man who has a heart to defend a wife’s honour and the nerve to fire a +pistol: every Frenchman has those qualifications!’” + +Here Isaura could no longer restrain her emotions; she burst into sobs +so vehement, so convulsive, that Madame Savarin became alarmed; but when +she attempted to embrace and soothe her, Isaura recoiled with a visible +shudder, and gasping out, “Cruel, cruel!” turned to the door, and rushed +to her own room. + +A few minutes afterwards a maid entered the salon with a message to +Madame Savarin that Mademoiselle was so unwell that she must beg Madame +to excuse her return to the salon. + +Later in the day Mrs. Morley called, but Isaura would not see her. + +Meanwhile poor Rameau was stretched on his sick-bed, and in sharp +struggle between life and death. It is difficult to disentangle, one by +one, all the threads in a nature so complex as Rameau’s; but if we +may hazard a conjecture, the grief of disappointed love was not the +immediate cause of his illness, and yet it had much to do with it. The +goad of Isaura’s refusal had driven him into seeking distraction in +excesses which a stronger frame could not have courted with impunity. +The man was thoroughly Parisian in many things, but especially in +impatience of any trouble. Did love trouble him--love could be drowned +in absinthe; and too much absinthe may be a more immediate cause of +congested lungs than the love which the absinthe had lulled to sleep. + +His bedside was not watched by hirelings. When first taken thus ill--too +ill to attend to his editorial duties--information was conveyed to the +publisher of the Sens Commun, and in consequence of that information, +Victor de Mauleon came to see the sick man. By his bed he found Savarin, +who had called, as it were by chance, and seen the doctor, who had said, +“It is grave. He must be well nursed.” Savarin whispered to De Mauleon, +“Shall we call in a professional nurse, or a soeur de charite?” + +De Mauleon replied, also in a whisper, “Somebody told me that the man +had a mother.” + +It was true--Savarin had forgotten it. Rameau never mentioned his +parents--he was not proud of them. + +They belonged to a lower class of the bourgeoisie, retired shopkeepers, +and a Red Republican is sworn to hate of the bourgeoisie, high or low; +while a beautiful young author pushing his way into the Chaussee d’Antin +does not proclaim to the world that his parents had sold hosiery in the +Rue St. Denis. + +Nevertheless Savarin knew that Rameau had such parents still living, +and took the hint. Two hours afterwards Rameau was leaning his burning +forehead on his mother’s breast. + +The next morning the doctor said to the mother, “You are worth ten of +me. If you can stay here we shall pull him through.” + +“Stay here!--my own boy!” cried indignantly the poor mother. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +The day which had inflicted on Isaura so keen an anguish was marked by a +great trial in the life of Alain de Rochebriant. + +In the morning he received the notice “of un commandement tendant a +saisie immobiliere,” on the part of his creditor, M. Louvier; in plain +English, an announcement that his property at Rochebriant would be +put up to public sale on a certain day, in case all debts due to the +mortgagee were not paid before. An hour afterwards came a note from +Duplessis stating that “he had returned from Bretagne on the previous +evening, and would be very happy to see the Marquis de Rochebriant +before two o’clock, if not inconvenient to call.” + +Alain put the “commandement” into his pocket, and repaired to the Hotel +Duplessis. + +The financier received him with very cordial civility. Then he began: +“I am happy to say I left your excellent aunt in very good health. +She honoured the letter of introduction to her which I owe to your +politeness with the most amiable hospitalities; she insisted on my +removing from the auberge at which I first put up and becoming a guest +under your venerable roof-tree--a most agreeable lady, and a most +interesting chateau.” + +“I fear your accommodation was in striking contrast to your comforts +at Paris; my chateau is only interesting to an antiquarian enamoured of +ruins.” + +“Pardon me, ‘ruins’ is an exaggerated expression. I do not say that the +chateau does not want some repairs, but they would not be costly; the +outer walls are strong enough to defy time for centuries to come, and +a few internal decorations and some modern additions of furniture would +make the old manoir a home fit for a prince. I have been over the whole +estate, too, with the worthy M. Hebert,--a superb property.” + +“Which M. Louvier appears to appreciate,” said Alain, with a somewhat +melancholy smile, extending to Duplessis the menacing notice. + +Duplessis glanced at it, and said drily: “M. Louvier knows what he is +about. But I think we had better put an immediate stop to formalities +which must be painful to a creditor so benevolent. I do not presume +to offer to pay the interest due on the security you can give for the +repayment. If you refused that offer from so old a friend as Lemercier, +of course you could not accept it from me. I make another proposal, to +which you can scarcely object. I do not like to give my scheming rival +on the Bourse the triumph of so profoundly planned a speculation. Aid +me to defeat him. Let me take the mortgage on myself, and become sole +mortgagee--hush!--on this condition,--that there should be an entire +union of interests between us two; that I should be at liberty to make +the improvements I desire, and when the improvements be made, there +should be a fair arrangement as to the proportion of profits due to me +as mortgagee and improver, to you as original owner. Attend, my dear +Marquis,--I am speaking as a mere man of business. I see my way to +adding more than a third, I might even say a half--to the present +revenues of Rochbriant. The woods have been sadly neglected, drainage +alone would add greatly to their produce. Your orchards might be +rendered magnificent supplies to Paris with better cultivation. Lastly, +I would devote to building purposes or to market gardens all the lands +round the two towns of ------ and ---------. I think I can lay my hands +on suitable speculators for these last experiments. In a word, though +the market value of Rochebriant, as it now stands, would not be +equivalent to the debt on it, in five or six years it could be made +worth--well, I will not say how much--but we shall be both well +satisfied with the result. Meanwhile, if you allow me to find purchasers +for your timber, and if you will not suffer the Chevalier de Finisterre +to regulate your expenses, you need have no fear that the interest due +to me will not be regularly paid, even though I shall be compelled, for +the first year or two at least, to ask a higher rate of interest than +Louvier exacted--say a quarter per cent. more; and in suggesting that, +you will comprehend that this is now a matter of business between us, +and not of friendship.” + +Alain turned his head aside to conceal his emotion, and then, with the +quick affectionate impulse of the genuine French nature, threw himself +on the financier’s breast and kissed him on both cheeks. + +“You save me! you save the home and the tombs of my ancestors! Thank +you I cannot; but I believe in God--I pray--I will pray for you as for +a father; and if ever,” he hurried on in broken words, “I am mean enough +to squander on idle luxuries one franc that I should save for the debt +due to you, chide me as a father would chide a graceless son.” + +Moved as Alain was, Duplessis was moved yet more deeply. “What father +would not be proud of such a son? Ah, if I had such a one!” he said +softly. Then, quickly recovering his wonted composure, he added, with +the sardonic smile which often chilled his friends and alarmed his foes, +“Monsieur Louvier is about to pass that which I ventured to promise him, +a ‘mauvais quart-d’heure.’ Lend me that commandement tendant a saisie. +I must be off to my avoue with instructions. If you have no better +engagement, pray dine with me to-day and accompany Valerie and myself to +the opera.” + +I need not say that Alain accepted the invitation. How happy Valerie was +that evening! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +The next day Duplessis was surprised by a visit from M. Louvier--that +magnate of millionaires had never before set foot in the house of his +younger and less famous rival. + +The burly man entered the room with a face much flushed, and with more +than his usual mixture of jovial brusquerie and opulent swagger. + +“Startled to see me, I dare say,” began Louvier, as soon as the door was +closed. “I have this morning received a communication from your agent +containing a cheque for the interest due to me from M. Rochebriant, and +a formal notice of your intention to pay off the principal on behalf of +that popinjay prodigal. Though we two have not hitherto been the best +friends in the world, I thought it fair to a man in your station to come +to you direct and say, ‘Cher confrere, what swindler has bubbled you? +You don’t know the real condition of this Breton property, or you +would never so throw away your millions. The property is not worth the +mortgage I have on it by 30,000 louis.” + +“Then, M. Louvier, you will be 30,000 louis the richer if I take the +mortgage off your hands.” + +“I can afford the loss--no offence--better than you can; and I may +have fancies which I don’t mind paying for, but which cannot influence +another. See, I have brought with me the exact schedule of all details +respecting this property. You need not question their accuracy; they +have been arranged by the Marquis’s own agents, M. Gandrin and M. +Hebert. They contain, you will perceive, every possible item of revenue, +down to an apple-tree. Now, look at that, and tell me if you are +justified in lending such a sum on such a property.” + +“Thank you very much for an interest in my affairs that I scarcely +ventured to expect M. Louvier to entertain; but I see that I have a +duplicate of this paper, furnished to me very honestly by M. Hebert +himself. Besides, I, too, have fancies which I don’t mind paying for, +and among them may be a fancy for the lands of Rochebriant.” + +“Look you, Duplessis, when a man like me asks a favour, you may be sure +that he has the power to repay it. Let me have my whim here, and ask +anything you like from me in return!” + +“Desole not to oblige you, but this has become not only a whim of mine, +but a matter of honour; and honour you know, my dear M. Louvier, is +the first principle of sound finance. I have myself, after careful +inspection of the Rochebriant property, volunteered to its owner to +advance the money to pay off your hypotheque; and what would be said on +the Bourse if Lucien Duplessis failed in an obligation?” + +“I think I can guess what will one day be said of Lucien Duplessis if he +make an irrevocable enemy of Paul Louvier. Corbleu! mon cher, a man +of thrice your capital, who watched every speculation of yours with a +hostile eye, might some beau jour make even you a bankrupt!” + +“Forewarned, forearmed!” replied Duplessis, imperturbably, “Fas est ab +hoste doceri,--I mean, ‘It is right to be taught by an enemy;’ and +I never remember the day when you were otherwise, and yet I am not a +bankrupt, though I receive you in a house which, thanks to you, is so +modest in point of size!” + +“Bah! that was a mistake of mine,--and, ha! ha! you had your revenge +there--that forest!” + +“Well, as a peace offering, I will give you up the forest, and content +my ambition as a landed proprietor with this bad speculation of +Rochebriant!” + +“Confound the forest, I don’t care for it now! I can sell my place for +more than it has cost me to one of your imperial favourites. Build a +palace in your forest. Let me have Rochebriant, and name your terms.” + +“A thousand pardons! but I have already had the honour to inform you, +that I have contracted an obligation which does not allow me to listen +to terms.” + +As a serpent, that, after all crawlings and windings, rears itself on +end, Louvier rose, crest erect: + +“So then it is finished. I came here disposed to offer peace--you +refuse, and declare war.” + +“Not at all, I do not declare war; I accept it if forced on me.” + +“Is that your last word, M. Duplessis?” + +“Monsieur Louvier, it is.” + +“Bon jour!” + +And Louvier strode to the door; here he paused: “Take a day to +consider.” + +“Not a moment.” + +“Your servant, Monsieur,--your very humble servant.” Louvier vanished. + +Duplessis leaned his large thoughtful forehead on his thin nervous hand. +“This loan will pinch me,” he muttered. “I must be very wary now with +such a foe. Well, why should I care to be rich? Valerie’s dot, Valerie’s +happiness, are secured.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Madame Savarin wrote a very kind and very apologetic letter to Isaura, +but no answer was returned to it. Madame Savarin did not venture to +communicate to her husband the substance of a conversation which had +ended so painfully. He had, in theory, a delicacy of tact, which, if he +did not always exhibit it in practice, made him a very severe critic of +its deficiency in others. Therefore, unconscious of the offence given, +he made a point of calling at Isaura’s apartments, and leaving word with +her servant that “he was sure she would be pleased to hear M. Rameau was +somewhat better, though still in danger.” + +It was not till the third day after her interview with Madame Savarin +that Isaura left her own room,--she did so to receive Mrs. Morley. + +The fair American was shocked to see the change in Isaura’s countenance. +She was very pale, and with that indescribable appearance of exhaustion +which betrays continued want of sleep; her soft eyes were dim, the play +of her lips was gone, her light step weary and languid. + +“My poor darling!” cried Mrs. Morley, embracing her, “you have indeed +been ill! What is the matter?--who attends you?” + +“I need no physician, it was but a passing cold--the air of Paris is +very trying. Never mind me, dear--what is the last news?” + +Therewith Mrs. Morley ran glibly through the principal topics of the +hour: the breach threatened between M. Ollivier and his former +liberal partisans; the tone unexpectedly taken by M. de Girardin; the +speculations as to the result of the trial of the alleged conspirators +against the Emperor’s life, which was fixed to take place towards the +end of that month of June,--all matters of no slight importance to the +interests of an empire. Sunk deep into the recesses of her fauteuil, +Isaura seemed to listen quietly, till, when a pause came, she said in +cold clear tones: + +“And Mr. Graham Vane--he has refused your invitation?” + +“I am sorry to say he has--he is so engaged in London.” + +“I knew he had refused,” said Isaura, with a low bitter laugh. + +“How? who told you?” + +“My own good sense told me. One may have good sense, though one is a +poor scribbler.” + +“Don’t talk in that way; it is beneath you to angle for compliments.” + +“Compliments, ah! And so Mr. Vane has refused to come to Paris; never +mind, he will come next year. I shall not be in Paris then. Did Colonel +Morley see Mr. Vane?” + +“Oh, yes; two or three times.” + +“He is well?” + +“Quite well, I believe--at least Frank did not say to the contrary; but, +from what I hear, he is not the person I took him for. Many people told +Frank that he is much changed since he came into his fortune--is grown +very stingy, quite miserly indeed; declines even a seat in Parliament +because of the expense. It is astonishing how money does spoil a man.” + +“He had come into his fortune when he was here. Money had not spoiled +him then.” + +Isaura paused, pressing her hands tightly together; then she suddenly +rose to her feet, the colour on her cheek mantling and receding +rapidly, and fixing on her startled visitor eyes no longer dim, but +with something half fierce, half imploring in the passion of their gaze, +said: “Your husband spoke of me to Mr. Vane: I know he did. What did Mr. +Vane answer? Do not evade my question. The truth! the truth! I only ask +the truth!” + +“Give me your hand; sit here beside me, dearest child.” + +“Child!--no, I am a woman!--weak as a woman, but strong as a woman +too!--The truth!” + +Mrs. Morley had come prepared to carry out the resolution she had formed +and “break” to Isaura “the truth,” that which the girl now demanded. But +then she had meant to break the truth in her own gentle, gradual way. +Thus suddenly called upon, her courage failed her. She burst into tears. +Isaura gazed at her dry-eyed. + +“Your tears answer me. Mr. Vane has heard that I have been insulted. A +man like him does not stoop to love for a woman who has known an insult. +I do not blame him; I honour him the more--he is right.” + +“No-no-no!--you insulted! Who dared to insult you? (Mrs. Morley had +never heard the story about the Russian Prince.) Mr. Vane spoke to +Frank, and writes of you to me as of one whom it is impossible not +to admire, to respect; but--I cannot say it--you will have the +truth,--there, read and judge for yourself.” And Mrs. Morley drew forth +and thrust into Isaura’s hands the letter she had concealed from her +husband. The letter was not very long; it began with expressions of +warm gratitude to Mrs. Morley, not for her invitation only, but for the +interest she had conceived in his happiness. It went on thus “I join +with my whole heart in all that you say, with such eloquent justice, of +the mental and personal gifts so bounteously lavished by nature on the +young lady whom you name. + +“No one can feel more sensible than I of the charm of so exquisite a +loveliness; no one can more sincerely join in the belief that the praise +which greets the commencement of her career is but the whisper of the +praise that will cheer its progress with louder and louder plaudits. + +“He only would be worthy of her hand, who, if not equal to herself in +genius, would feel raised into partnership with it by sympathy with its +objects and joy in its triumphs. For myself, the same pain with which I +should have learned she had adopted the profession which she originally +contemplated, saddened and stung me when, choosing a career that confers +a renown yet more lasting than the stage, she no less left behind her +the peaceful immunities of private life. Were I even free to consult +only my own heart in the choice of the one sole partner of my destinies +(which I cannot at present honestly say that I am, though I had +expected to be so ere this, when I last saw you at Paris); could I even +hope--which I have no right to do--that I could chain to myself any +private portion of thoughts which now flow into the large channels +by which poets enrich the blood of the world,--still (I say it in +self-reproach, it may be the fault of my English rearing, it may rather +be the fault of an egotism peculiar to myself)--still I doubt if I could +render happy any woman whose world could not be narrowed to the Home +that she adorned and blessed. + +“And yet not even the jealous tyranny of man’s love could dare to say to +natures like hers of whom we speak, ‘Limit to the household glory of +one the light which genius has placed in its firmament for the use and +enjoyment of all.’” + +“I thank you so much,” said Isaura, calmly; “suspense makes a woman so +weak--certainty so strong.” Mechanically she smoothed and refolded the +letter--mechanically, with slow, lingering hands--then she extended it +to her friend, smiling. + +“Nay, will you not keep it yourself?” said Mrs. Morley. “The more you +examine the narrow-minded prejudices, the English arrogant man’s jealous +dread of superiority--nay, of equality--in the woman he ‘can only +value as he does his house or his horse, because she is his exclusive +property, the more you will be rejoiced to find yourself free for a more +worthy choice. Keep the letter; read it till you feel for the writer +forgiveness and disdain.” + +Isaura took back the letter, and leaned her cheek on her hand, looking +dreamily into space. It was some moments before she replied, and her +words then had no reference to Mrs. Morley’s consolatory exhortation. + +“He was so pleased when he learned that I renounced the career on which +I had set my ambition. I thought he would have been so pleased when I +sought in another career to raise myself nearer to his level--I see +now how sadly I was mistaken. All that perplexed me before in him is +explained. I did not guess how foolishly I had deceived myself till +three days ago,--then I did guess it; and it was that guess which +tortured me so terribly that I could not keep my heart to myself when I +saw you to-day; in spite of all womanly pride it would force its way--to +the truth. + +“Hush! I must tell you what was said to me by another friend of mine--a +good friend, a wise and kind one. Yet I was so angry when she said it +that I thought I could never see her more.” + +“My sweet darling! who was this friend, and what did she say to you?” + +“The friend was Madame Savarin.” + +“No woman loves you more except myself--and she said?” + +“That she would have suffered no daughter of hers to commit her name to +the talk of the world as I have done--be exposed to the risk of insult +as I have been--until she had the shelter and protection denied to +me. And I have thus overleaped the bound that a prudent mother would +prescribe to her child, have become one whose hand men do not seek, +unless they themselves take the same roads to notoriety. Do you not +think she was right?” + +“Not as you so morbidly put it, silly girl,--certainly not right. But +I do wish that you had the shelter and protection which Madame Savarin +meant to express; I do wish that you were happily married to one very +different from Mr. Vane--one who would be more proud of your genius than +of your beauty--one who would say, ‘My name, safer far in its enduring +nobility than those that depend on titles and lands--which are held on +the tenure of the popular breath--must be honoured by posterity, for +She has deigned to make it hers. No democratic revolution can disennoble +me.” + +“Ay, ay, you believe that men will be found to think with complacency +that they owe to a wife a name they could not achieve for themselves. +Possibly there are such men. Where?--among those that are already united +by sympathies in the same callings, the same labours, the same hopes and +fears with the women who have left behind them the privacies of home. +Madame de Grantmesnil was wrong. Artists should wed with artists. +True--true!” + +Here she passed her hand over her forehead--it was a pretty way of hers +when seeking to concentrate thought--and was silent a moment or so. + +“Did you ever feel,” she then asked dreamily, “that there are moments in +life when a dark curtain seems to fall over one’s past that a day before +was so clear, so blended with the present? One cannot any longer look +behind; the gaze is attracted onward, and a track of fire flashes upon +the future,--the future which yesterday was invisible. There is a line +by some English poet--Mr. Vane once quoted it, not to me, but to M. +Savarin, and in illustration of his argument, that the most complicated +recesses of thought are best reached by the simplest forms of +expression. I said to myself, ‘I will study that truth if ever I take to +literature as I have taken to song;’ and--yes--it was that evening +that the ambition fatal to woman fixed on me its relentless fangs--at +Enghien--we were on the lake--the sun was setting.” + +“But you do not tell me the line that so impressed you,” said Mrs. +Morley, with a woman’s kindly tact. + +“The line--which line? Oh, I remember; the line was this: + +“‘I see as from a tower the end of all.” + +“And now--kiss me, dearest--never a word again to me about this +conversation: never a word about Mr. Vane--the dark curtain has fallen +on the past.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Men and women are much more like each other in certain large elements +of character than is generally supposed, but it is that very resemblance +which makes their differences the more incomprehensible to each other; +just as in politics, theology, or that most disputatious of all things +disputable, metaphysics, the nearer the reasoners approach each other in +points that to an uncritical bystander seem the most important, the +more sure they are to start off in opposite directions upon reaching the +speck of a pin-prick. + +Now there are certain grand meeting-places between man and woman--the +grandest of all is on the ground of love, and yet here also is the great +field of quarrel. And here the teller of a tale such as mine ought, +if he is sufficiently wise to be humble, to know that it is almost +profanation if, as man, he presumes to enter the penetralia of a woman’s +innermost heart, and repeat, as a man would repeat, all the vibrations +of sound which the heart of a woman sends forth undistinguishable even +to her own ear. + +I know Isaura as intimately as if I had rocked her in her cradle, played +with her in her childhood, educated and trained her in her youth; and +yet I can no more tell you faithfully what passed in her mind during +the forty-eight hours that intervened between her conversation with that +American lady and her reappearance in some commonplace drawing-room, +than I can tell you what the Man in the Moon might feel if the sun that +his world reflected were blotted out of creation. + +I can only say that when she reappeared in that commonplace drawing-room +world, there was a change in her face not very perceptible to the +ordinary observer. If anything, to his eye she was handsomer--the eye +was brighter--the complexion (always lustrous, though somewhat pale, +the limpid paleness that suits so well with dark hair) was yet more +lustrous,--it was flushed into delicate rose hues--hues that still +better suit with dark hair. What, then, was the change, and change not +for the better? The lips, once so pensively sweet, had grown hard; on +the brow that had seemed to laugh when the lips did, there was no longer +sympathy between brow and lip; there was scarcely seen a fine threadlike +line that in a few years would be a furrow on the space between the +eyes; the voice was not so tenderly soft; the step was haughtier. What +all such change denoted it is for a woman to decide-I can only guess. +In the mean while, Mademoiselle Cicogna had sent her servant daily to +inquire after M. Rameau. That, I think, she would have done under any +circumstances. Meanwhile, too, she had called on Madame Savarin--made it +up with her--sealed the reconciliation by a cold kiss. That, too, under +any circumstances, I think she would have done--under some circumstances +the kiss might have been less cold. + +There was one thing unwonted in her habits. I mention it, though it is +only a woman who can say if it means anything worth noticing. + +For six days she had left a letter from Madame de Grantmesnil +unanswered. With Madame de Grantmesnil was connected the whole of her +innermost life--from the day when the lonely desolate child had seen, +beyond the dusty thoroughfares of life, gleams of the faery land +in poetry and art-onward through her restless, dreamy, aspiring +youth-onward--onward--till now, through all that constitutes the +glorious reality that we call romance. + +Never before had she left for two days unanswered letters which were to +her as Sibylline leaves to some unquiet neophyte yearning for solutions +to enigmas suggested whether by the world without or by the soul within. +For six days Madame de Grantmesnil’s letter remained unanswered, unread, +neglected, thrust out of sight; just as when some imperious necessity +compels us to grapple with a world that is, we cast aside the romance +which, in our holiday hours, had beguiled us to a world with which we +have interests and sympathies no more. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Gustave recovered, but slowly. The physician pronounced him out of all +immediate danger, but said frankly to him, and somewhat more guardedly +to his parents, “There is ample cause to beware.” “Look you, my young +friend,” he added to Rameau, “mere brain-work seldom kills a man +once accustomed to it like you; but heart-work, and stomach-work, and +nerve-work, added to brain-work, may soon consign to the coffin a frame +ten times more robust than yours. Write as much as you will--that is +your vocation; but it is not your vocation to drink absinthe--to preside +at orgies in the Maison Doree. Regulate yourself, and not after the +fashion of the fabulous Don Juan. Marry--live soberly and quietly--and +you may survive the grandchildren of viveurs. Go on as you have done, +and before the year is out you are in Pere la Chaise.” + +Rameau listened languidly, but with a profound conviction that the +physician thoroughly understood his case. + +Lying helpless on his bed, he had no desire for orgies at the Maison +Doree; with parched lips thirsty for innocent tisane of lime-blossoms, +the thought of absinthe was as odious to him as the liquid fire of +Phlegethon. If ever sinner became suddenly convinced that there was +a good deal to be said in favour of a moral life, that sinner at the +moment I speak of was Gustave Rameau: Certainly a moral life--‘Domus +et placens uxor’,--was essential to the poet who, aspiring to immortal +glory, was condemned to the ailments of a very perishable frame. + +“Ah,” he murmured plaintively to himself, “that girl Isaura can have no +true sympathy with genius! It is no ordinary man that she will kill in +me!” + +And so murmuring he fell asleep. When he woke and found his head +pillowed on his mother’s breast, it was much as a sensitive, delicate +man may wake after having drunk too much the night before. Repentant, +mournful, maudlin, he began to weep, and in the course of his weeping he +confided to his mother the secret of his heart. + +Isaura had refused him--that refusal had made him desperate. + +“Ah! with Isaura how changed would be his habits! how pure! how +healthful!” His mother listened fondly, and did her best to comfort him +and cheer his drooping spirits. + +She told him of Isaura’s messages of inquiry duly twice a day. Rameau, +who knew more about women in general, and Isaura in particular, than his +mother conjectured, shook his head mournfully. “She could not do less,” + he said. “Has no one offered to do more?”--he thought of Julie when he +asked that--Madame Rameau hesitated. + +The poor Parisians! it is the mode to preach against them; and before +my book closes, I shall have to preach--no, not to preach, but to +imply--plenty of faults to consider and amend. Meanwhile I try my best +to take them, as the philosophy of life tells us to take other people, +for what they are. + +I do not think the domestic relations of the Parisian bourgeoisie are +as bad as they are said to be in French novels. Madame Rameau is not +an uncommon type of her class. She had been when she first married +singularly handsome. It was from her that Gustave inherited his beauty; +and her husband was a very ordinary type of the French shopkeeper--very +plain, by no means intellectual, but gay, good-humoured, devotedly +attached to his wife, and with implicit trust in her conjugal virtue. +Never was trust better placed. There was not a happier nor a more +faithful couple in the quartier in which they resided. Madame Rameau +hesitated when her boy, thinking of Julie, asked if no one had done more +than send to inquire after him as Isaura had done. + +After that hesitating pause she said, “Yes--a young lady calling herself +Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin wished to instal herself here as your +nurse. When I said, ‘But I am his mother--he needs no other nurses,’ she +would have retreated, and looked ashamed--poor thing! I don’t blame her +if she loved my son. But, my son, I say this,--if you love her, don’t +talk to me about that Mademoiselle Cicogna; and if you love Mademoiselle +Cicogna, why, then your father will take care that the poor girl +who loved you not knowing that you loved another is not left to the +temptation of penury.” + +Rameau’s pale lips withered into a phantom-like sneer! Julie! the +resplendent Julie!--true, only a ballet-dancer, but whose equipage in +the Bois had once been the envy of duchesses--Julie! who had sacrificed +fortune for his sake--who, freed from him, could have millionaires again +at her feet!--Julie! to be saved from penury, as a shopkeeper would save +an erring nursemaid--Julie! the irrepressible Julie! who had written +to him, the day before his illness, in a pen dipped, not in ink, but in +blood from a vein she had opened in her arm: + + “Traitor!--I have not seen thee for three days. Dost thou dare to + love another? If so, I care not how thou attempt to conceal it--woe + to her! Ingrat! woe to thee! Love is not love, unless, when + betrayed by Love, it appeals to death. Answer me quick--quick. + JULIE.” + +Poor Gustave thought of that letter and groaned. Certainly his mother +was right--he ought to get rid of Julie; but he did not clearly see +how Julie was to be got rid of. He replied to Madame Rameau peevishly, +“Don’t trouble your head about Mademoiselle Caumartin; she is in no want +of money. Of course, if I could hope for Isaura--but, alas! I dare not +hope. Give me my tisane.” + +When the doctor called next day, he looked grave, and, drawing Madame +Rameau into the next room, he said, “We are not getting on so well as +I had hoped; the fever is gone, but there is much to apprehend from the +debility left behind. His spirits are sadly depressed.” Then added the +doctor, pleasantly, and with that wonderful insight into our complex +humanity in which physicians excel poets, and in which Parisian +physicians are not excelled by any physicians in the world: “Can’t you +think of any bit of good news--that ‘M. Thiers raves about your son’s +last poem! that ‘it is a question among the Academicians between him and +Jules Janin’--or that ‘the beautiful Duchesse de ------- has been placed +in a lunatic asylum because she has gone mad for love of a certain young +Red Republican whose name begins with R.’--can’t you think of any bit of +similar good news? If you can, it will be a tonic to the relaxed state +of your dear boy’s amour propre, compared to which all the drugs in the +Pharmacopoeia are moonshine and water; and meanwhile be sure to remove +him to your own house, and out of the reach of his giddy young friends, +as soon as you possibly can.” + +When that great authority thus left his patient’s case in the hands of +the mother, she said, “The boy shall be saved.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Isaura was seated beside the Venosta,--to whom, of late, she seemed +to cling with greater fondness than ever,--working at some piece of +embroidery--a labour from which she had been estranged for years; but +now she had taken writing, reading, music, into passionate disgust. +Isaura was thus seated, silently intent upon her work, and the Venosta +in full talk, when the servant announced Madame Rameau. + +The name startled both; the Venosta had never heard that the poet had +a mother living, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that Madame +Rameau must be a wife he had hitherto kept unrevealed. And when a woman, +still very handsome, with a countenance grave and sad, entered the +salon, the Venosta murmured, “The husband’s perfidy reveals itself on +a wife’s face,” and took out her handkerchief in preparation for +sympathising tears. + +“Mademoiselle,” said the visitor, halting, with eyes fixed on Isaura. +“Pardon my intrusion-my son has the honour to be known to you. Every one +who knows him must share in my sorrow--so young--so promising, and in +such danger--my poor boy!” Madame Rameau stopped abruptly. Her tears +forced their way--she turned aside to conceal them. + +In her twofold condition of being--womanhood and genius--Isaura was +too largely endowed with that quickness of sympathy which distinguishes +woman from man, and genius from talent, not to be wondrously susceptible +to pity. + +Already she had wound her arm round the grieving mother--already drawn +her to the seat from which she herself had risen--and bending over her +had said some words--true, conventional enough in themselves,--but cooed +forth in a voice the softest I ever expect to hear, save in dreams, on +this side of the grave. + +Madame Rameau swept her hand over her eyes, glanced round the room, and +noticing the Venosta in dressing-robe and slippers, staring with those +Italian eyes, in seeming so quietly innocent, in reality so searchingly +shrewd, she whispered pleadingly, “May I speak to you a few minutes +alone?” This was not a request that Isaura could refuse, though she was +embarrassed and troubled by the surmise of Madame Rameau’s object in +asking it; accordingly she led her visitor into the adjoining room, and +making an apologetic sign to the Venosta, closed the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +When they were alone, Madame Rameau took Isaura’s hand in both her +own, and, gazing wistfully into her face, said, “No wonder you are so +loved--yours is the beauty that sinks into the hearts and rests there. +I prize my boy more, now that I have seen you. But, oh, Mademoiselle! +pardon me--do not withdraw your hand--pardon the mother who comes from +the sick-bed of her only son and asks if you will assist to save him! A +word from you is life or death to him!” + +“Nay, nay, do not speak thus, Madame; your son knows how much I value, +how sincerely I return, his friendship; but--but,” she paused a moment, +and continued sadly and with tearful eyes--“I have no heart to give to +him-to any one.” + +“I do not--I would not if I dared--ask what it would be violence to +yourself to promise. I do not ask you to bid me return to my son and +say, ‘Hope and recover,’ but let me take some healing message from your +lips. If I understand your words rightly, I at least may say that you do +not give to another the hopes you, deny to him?” + +“So far you understand me rightly, Madame. It has been said, that +romance-writers give away so much of their hearts to heroes or heroines +of their own creation, that they leave nothing worth the giving to human +beings like themselves. Perhaps it is so; yet, Madame,” added Isaura, +with a smile of exquisite sweetness in its melancholy, “I have heart +enough left to feel for you.” + +Madame Rameau was touched. “Ah, Mademoiselle, I do not believe in the +saying you have quoted. But I must not abuse your goodness by pressing +further upon you subjects from which you shrink. Only one word more: +you know that my husband and I are but quiet tradesfolks, not in the +society, nor aspiring to it, to which my son’s talents have raised +himself; yet dare I ask that you will not close here the acquaintance +that I have obtruded on you?--dare I ask, that I may, now and then, call +on you--that now and then I may see you at my own home? Believe that I +would not here ask anything which your own mother would disapprove if +she overlooked disparities of station. Humble as our home is, slander +never passed its threshold.” + +“Ah, Madame, I and the Signora Venosta, whom in our Italian tongue I +call mother, can but feel honoured and grateful whenever it pleases you +to receive visits from us.” + +“It would be a base return for such gracious compliance with my request +if I concealed from you the reason why I pray Heaven to bless you for +that answer. The physician says that it may be long before my son is +sufficiently convalescent to dispense with a mother’s care, and resume +his former life and occupation in the great world. It is everything +for us if we can coax him into coming under our own roof-tree. This is +difficult to do. It is natural for a young man launched into the world +to like his own chez lui. Then what will happen to Gustave? He, +lonely and heart-stricken, will ask friends, young as himself, but +far stronger, to come and cheer him; or he will seek to distract his +thoughts by the overwork of his brain; in either case he is doomed. But +I have stronger motives yet to fix him a while at our hearth. This +is just the moment, once lost never to be regained, when soothing +companionship, gentle reproachless advice, can fix him lastingly in the +habits and modes of life which will banish all fears of his future from +the hearts of his parents. You at least honour him with friendship, with +kindly interest--you at least would desire to wean him from all that a +friend may disapprove or lament--a creature whom Providence meant to be +good, and perhaps great. If I say to him, ‘It will be long before you +can go out and see your friends, but at my house your friends shall come +and see you--among them Signora Venosta and Mademoiselle Cicogna will +now and then drop in’--my victory is gained, and my son is saved.” + +“Madame,” said Isaura, half sobbing, “what a blessing to have a mother +like you! Love so noble ennobles those who hear its voice. Tell your son +how ardently I wish him to be well, and to fulfil more than the promise +of his genius; tell him also this--how I envy him his mother.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +It needs no length of words to inform thee, my intelligent reader, +be thou man or woman--but more especially woman--of the consequences +following each other, as wave follows wave in a tide, that resulted from +the interview with which my last chapter closed. Gustave is removed to +his parents’ house; he remains for weeks confined within doors, or, on +sunny days, takes an hour or so in his own carriage, drawn by the horse +bought from Rochebriant, into by-roads remote from the fashionable +world; Isaura visits his mother, liking, respecting, influenced by her +more and more; in those visits she sits beside the sofa on which Rameau +reclines. Gradually, gently--more and more by his mother’s lips--is +impressed on her the belief that it is in her power to save a human +life, and to animate its career towards those goals which are never +based wholly upon earth in the earnest eyes of genius, or perhaps in the +yet more upward vision of pure-souled believing woman. + +And Gustave himself, as he passes through the slow stages of +convalescence, seems so gratefully to ascribe to her every step in his +progress--seems so gently softened in character--seems so refined from +the old affectations, so ennobled above the old cynicism--and, above +all, so needing her presence, so sunless without it, that--well, need I +finish the sentence?--the reader will complete what I leave unsaid. + +Enough, that one day Isaura returned home from a visit at Madame +Rameau’s with the knowledge that her hand was pledged--her future life +disposed of; and that, escaping from the Venosta, whom she so fondly, +and in her hunger for a mother’s love, called Madre, the girl shut +herself up in her own room with locked doors. + +Ah, poor child! ah, sweet-voiced Isaura! whose delicate image I feel +myself too rude and too hard to transfer to this page in the purity of +its outlines, and the blended softnesses of its hues--thou who, +when saying things serious in the words men use, saidst them with a +seriousness so charming, and with looks so feminine--thou, of whom no +man I ever knew was quite worthy--ah, poor, simple, miserable girl, as I +see thee now in the solitude of that white-curtained virginal room; hast +thou, then, merged at last thy peculiar star into the cluster of all +these commonplace girls whose lips have said “Ay,” when their hearts +said “No”?--thou, O brilliant Isaura! thou, O motherless child! + +She had sunk into her chair--her own favourite chair, the covering of it +had been embroidered by Madame de Grantmesnil, and bestowed on her as a +birthday present last year--the year in which she had first learned what +it is to love--the year in which she had first learned what it is to +strive for fame. And somehow uniting, as many young people do, love and +fame in dreams of the future, that silken seat had been to her as the +Tripod of Delphi was to the Pythian: she had taken to it, as it were +intuitively, in all those hours, whether of joy or sorrow, when youth +seeks to prophesy, and does but dream. + +There she sat now, in a sort of stupor--a sort of dreary +bewilderment--the illusion of the Pythian gone--desire of dream and of +prophecy alike extinct--pressing her hands together, and muttering to +herself, “What has happened?--what have I done?” + +Three hours later you would not have recognised the same face that you +see now. For then the bravery, the honour, the loyalty of the girl’s +nature had asserted their command. Her promise had been given to one +man--it could not be recalled. Thought itself of any other man must be +banished. On her hearth lay ashes and tinder--the last remains of every +treasured note from Graham Vane; of the hoarded newspaper extracts that +contained his name; of the dry treatise he had published, and which had +made the lovely romance-writer first desire “to know something about +politics.” Ay, if the treatise had been upon fox-hunting, she would have +desired “to know something about” that! Above all, yet distinguishable +from the rest--as the sparks still upon stem and leaf here and there +faintly glowed and twinkled--the withered flowers which recorded that +happy hour in the arbour, and the walks of the forsaken garden--the hour +in which she had so blissfully pledged herself to renounce that career +in art wherein fame would have been secured, but which would not have +united Fame with Love--in dreams evermore over now. + + + + + +BOOK X. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +Graham Vane had heard nothing for months from M. Renard, when one +morning he received the letter I translate: + +“MONSIEUR,--I am happy to inform you that I have at last obtained one +piece of information which may lead to a more important discovery. When +we parted after our fruitless research in Vienna, we had both concurred +in the persuasion that, for some reason known only to the two ladies +themselves, Madame Marigny and Madame Duval had exchanged names--that +it was Madame Marigny who had deceased in the name of Madame Duval, and +Madame Duval who had survived in that of Marigny. + +“It was clear to me that the beau Monsieur who had visited the false +Duval must have been cognisant of this exchange of name, and that, if +his name and whereabouts could be ascertained, he, in all probability, +would know what had become of the lady who is the object of our +research; and after the lapse of so many years he would probably have +very slight motive to preserve the concealment of facts which might, +no doubt, have been convenient at the time. The lover of the soi-disant +Mademoiselle Duval was by such accounts as we could gain a man of some +rank--very possibly a married man; and the liaison, in short, was one of +those which, while they last, necessitate precautions and secrecy. + +“Therefore, dismissing all attempts at further trace of the missing +lady, I resolved to return to Vienna as soon as the business that +recalled me to Paris was concluded, and devote myself exclusively to the +search after the amorous and mysterious Monsieur. + +“I did not state this determination to you, because, possibly, I +might be in error--or, if not in error, at least too sanguine in my +expectations--and it is best to avoid disappointing an honourable +client. + +“One thing was clear, that, at the time of the soi-disant Duval’s +decease, the beau Monsieur was at Vienna. + +“It appeared also tolerably clear that when the lady friend of the +deceased quitted Munich so privately, it was to Vienna she repaired, +and from Vienna comes the letter demanding the certificates of Madame +Duval’s death. Pardon me, if I remind you of all these circumstances no +doubt fresh in your recollection. I repeat them in order to justify the +conclusions to which they led me. + +“I could not, however, get permission to absent myself from Paris for +the time I might require till the end of last April. I had meanwhile +sought all private means of ascertaining what Frenchmen of rank and +station were in that capital in the autumn of 1849. Among the list of +the very few such Messieurs I fixed upon one as the most likely to be +the mysterious Achille--Achille was, indeed, his nom de bapteme. + +“A man of intrigue--a bonnes fortunes--of lavish expenditure withal; +very tenacious of his dignity, and avoiding any petty scandals by +which it might be lowered; just the man who, in some passing affair of +gallantry with a lady of doubtful repute, would never have signed his +titular designation to a letter, and would have kept himself as much +incognito as he could. But this man was dead--had been dead some years. +He had not died at Vienna--never visited that capital for some years +before his death. He was then, and had long been, the ami de la maison +of one of those grandes dames of whose intimacy grands seigneurs are not +ashamed. They parade there the bonnes fortunes they conceal elsewhere. +Monsieur and the grande dame were at Baden when the former died. Now, +Monsieur, a Don Juan of that stamp is pretty sure always to have a +confidential Leporello. If I could find Leporello alive I might learn +the secrets not to be extracted from a Don Juan defunct. I ascertained, +in truth, both at Vienna, to which I first repaired in order to verify +the renseignements I had obtained at Paris, and at Baden, to which I +then bent my way, that this brilliant noble had a favourite valet who +had lived with him from his youth--an Italian, who had contrived in +the course of his service to lay by savings enough to set up a hotel +somewhere in Italy, supposed to be Pisa. To Pisa I repaired, but the man +had left some years; his hotel had not prospered--he had left in debt. +No one could say what had become of him. At last, after a long and +tedious research, I found him installed as manager of a small hotel at +Genoa--a pleasant fellow enough; and after friendly intercourse with +him (of course I lodged at his hotel), I easily led him to talk of his +earlier life and adventures, and especially of his former master, of +whose splendid career in the army of ‘La Belle Deesse’ he was not a +little proud. It was not very easy to get him to the particular subject +in question. In fact, the affair with the poor false Duval had been so +brief and undistinguished an episode in his master’s life, that it was +not without a strain of memory that he reached it. + +“By little and little, however, in the course of two or three evenings, +and by the aid of many flasks of Orviette or bottles of Lacrima (wines, +Monsieur, that I do not commend to any one who desires to keep his +stomach sound and his secrets safe), I gathered these particulars. + +“Our Don Juan, since the loss of a wife in the first year of marriage, +had rarely visited Paris where he had a domicile--his ancestral hotel +there he had sold. + +“But happening to visit that capital of Europe a few months before we +come to our dates at Aix-la-Chapelle, he made acquaintance with Madame +Marigny, a natural daughter of high-placed parents, by whom, of course, +she had never been acknowledged, but who had contrived that she should +receive a good education at a convent; and on leaving it also contrived +that an old soldier of fortune--which means an officer without +fortune--who had served in Algiers with some distinction, should offer +her his hand, and add the modest dot they assigned her to his yet more +modest income. They contrived also that she should understand the +offer must be accepted. Thus Mademoiselle ‘Quelque Chose’ became Madame +Marigny, and she, on her part, contrived that a year or so later she +should be left a widow. After a marriage, of course the parents washed +their hands of her--they had done their duty. At the time Don Juan made +this lady’s acquaintance nothing could be said against her character; +but the milliners and butchers had begun to imply that they would rather +have her money than trust to her character. Don Juan fell in love with +her, satisfied the immediate claims of milliner and butcher, and +when they quitted Paris it was agreed that they should meet later at +Aix-la-Chapelle. But when he resorted to that sultry and, to my mind, +unalluring spa, he was surprised by a line from her saying that she had +changed her name of Marigny for that of Duval. + +“‘I recollect,’ said Leporello, ‘that two days afterwards my master said +to me, ‘Caution and secrecy. Don’t mention my name at the house to which +I may send you with any note for Madame Duval. I don’t announce my name +when I call. La petite Marigny has exchanged her name for that of Louise +Duval; and I find that there is a Louise Duval here, her friend, who +is niece to a relation of my own, and a terrible relation to quarrel +with--a dead shot and unrivalled swordsman--Victor de Mauleon. My master +was brave enough, but he enjoyed life, and he did not think la petite +Marigny worth being killed for.’ + +“Leporello remembered very little of what followed. All he did remember +is that Don Juan, when at Vienna, said to him one morning, looking less +gay than usual, ‘It is finished with ca petite Marigny-she is no more.’ +Then he ordered his bath, wrote a note, and said with tears in his eyes, +‘Take this to Mademoiselle Celeste; not to be compared to la petite +Marigny; but la petite Celeste is still alive.’ Ah, Monsieur! if only +any man in France could be as proud of his ruler as that Italian was of +my countrymen! Alas! we Frenchmen are all made to command--or at least +we think ourselves so--and we are insulted by one who says to us, ‘Serve +and obey.’ Nowadays, in France, we find all Don Juans and no Leporellos. + +“After strenuous exertions upon my part to recall to Leporello’s mind +the important question whether he had ever seen the true Duval, passing +under the name of Marigny--whether she had not presented herself to his +master at Vienna or elsewhere--he rubbed his forehead, and drew from it +these reminiscences. + +“‘On the day that his Excellency,’--Leporello generally so styled his +master--‘Excellency,’ as you are aware, is the title an Italian would +give to Satan if taking his wages, told me that la petite Marigny was no +more, he had received previously a lady veiled and mantled, whom I did +not recognise as any one I had seen before, but I noticed her way of +carrying herself--haughtily--her head thrown back; and I thought to +myself, that lady is one of his grandes dames. She did call again two or +three times, never announcing her name; then she did not reappear. She +might be Madame Duval--I can’t say.’ + +“‘But did you never hear his Excellency speak of the real Duval after +that time?’ + +“‘No--non mi ricordo--I don’t remember.’ + +“‘Nor of some living Madame Marigny, though the real one was dead?’ + +“‘Stop, I do recollect; not that he ever named such a person to me, but +that I have posted letters for him to a Madame Marigny--oh, yes! even +years after the said petite Marigny was dead; and once I did venture to +say, ‘Pardon me, Eccellenza, but may I ask if that poor lady is really +dead, since I have to prepay this letter to her?’” + +“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘Madame Marigny! Of course the one you know is dead, but +there are others of the same name; this lady is of my family. Indeed, +her house, though noble in itself, recognises the representative of mine +as its head, and I am too bon prince not to acknowledge and serve any +one who branches out of my own tree.’” + +“A day after this last conversation on the subject, Leporello said to +me: ‘My friend, you certainly have some interest in ascertaining what +became of the lady who took the name of Marigny (I state this frankly, +Monsieur, to show how difficult even for one so prudent as I am to beat +about a bush long but what you let people know the sort of bird you are +in search of). + +“‘Well,’ said I, ‘she does interest me. I knew something of that Victor +de Mauleon, whom his Excellency did not wish to quarrel with; and it +would be a kindly act to her relation if one could learn what became of +Louise Duval.’ + +“‘I can put you on the way of learning all that his Excellency was +likely to have known of her through correspondence. I have often heard +him quote, with praise, a saying so clever that it might have been +Italian, “Never write, never burn;” that is, never commit yourself by +a letter--keep all letters that could put others in your power. All the +letters he received were carefully kept and labelled. I sent them to his +son in four large trunks. His son, no doubt, has them still.’ + +“Now, however, I have exhausted my budget. I arrived at Paris last +night. I strongly advise you to come hither at once, if you still desire +to prosecute your search. + +“You, Monsieur, can do what I could not venture to do; you can ask the +son of Don Juan if, amid the correspondence of his father, which he may +have preserved, there be any signed Marigny or Duval--any, in +short, which can throw light on this very obscure complication of +circumstances. A grand seigneur would naturally be more complaisant to +a man of your station than he would be to an agent of police. Don +Juan’s son, inheriting his father’s title, is Monsieur le Marquis de +Rochebriant; and permit me to add, that at this moment, as the journals +doubtless inform you, all Paris resounds with the rumour of the coming +war; and Monsieur de Rochebriant--who is, as I have ascertained, now +in Paris--it may be difficult to find anywhere on earth a month or +two hence.--I have the honour, with profound consideration, &c., &c., +RENARD.” + +The day after the receipt of this letter Graham Vane was in Paris. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Among things indescribable is that which is called “Agitation” in +Paris--“Agitation” without riot or violence--showing itself by no +disorderly act, no turbulent outburst. Perhaps the cafes are more +crowded; passengers in the streets stop each other more often, and +converse in small knots and groups; yet, on the whole, there is little +externally to show how loudly the heart of Paris is beating. A traveller +may be passing through quiet landscapes, unconscious that a great battle +is going on some miles off, but if he will stop and put his ear to the +ground he will recognise by a certain indescribable vibration, the voice +of the cannon. + +But at Paris an acute observer need not stop and put his ear to the +ground; he feels within himself a vibration--a mysterious inward +sympathy which communicates to the individual a conscious thrill--when +the passions of the multitude are stirred, no matter how silently. + +Tortoni’s cafe was thronged when Duplessis and Frederic Lemercier +entered it: it was in vain to order breakfast; no table was vacant +either within the rooms or under the awnings without. + +But they could not retreat so quickly as they had entered. On catching +sight of the financier several men rose and gathered round him, eagerly +questioning: + +“What do you think, Duplessis? Will any insult to France put a drop of +warm blood into the frigid veins of that miserable Ollivier?” + +“It is not yet clear that France has been insulted, Messieurs,” replied +Duplessis, phlegmatically. + +“Bah! Not insulted! The very nomination of a Hohenzollern to the crown +of Spain was an insult--what would you have more?” + +“I tell you what it is, Duplessis,” said the Vicomte de Breze, whose +habitual light good temper seemed exchanged for insolent swagger--“I +tell you what it is, your friend the Emperor has no more courage than a +chicken. He is grown old, and infirm, and lazy; he knows that he can’t +even mount on horseback. But if, before this day week, he has not +declared war on the Prussians, he will be lucky if he can get off as +quietly as poor Louis Philippe did under shelter of his umbrella, and +ticketed ‘Schmidt.’ Or could you not, M. Duplessis, send him back to +London in a bill of exchange?” + +“For a man of your literary repute, M. le Vicomte,” said Duplessis, “you +indulge in a strange confusion of metaphors. But, pardon me, I came here +to breakfast, and I cannot remain to quarrel. Come, Lemercier, let us +take our chance of a cutlet at the Trois Freres.” + +“Fox, Fox,” cried Lemercier, whistling to a poodle that had followed him +into the cafe, and, frightened by the sudden movement and loud voices of +the habitues, had taken refuge under the table. + +“Your dog is poltron,” said De Breze; “call him Nap.” At this stroke +of humour there was a general laugh, in the midst of which Duplessis +escaped, and Frederic, having discovered and caught his dog, followed +with that animal tenderly clasped in his arms. + +“I would not lose Fox for a great deal,” said Lemercier with +effusion; “a pledge of love and fidelity from an English lady the most +distinguished: the lady left me--the dog remains.” + +Duplessis smiled grimly: “What a thoroughbred Parisian you are, my dear +Frederic! I believe if the tramp of the last angel were sounding, the +Parisians would be divided into two sets: one would be singing the +Marseillaise, and parading the red flag; the other would be shrugging +their shoulders and saying, ‘Bah! as if le Bon Dieu would have the bad +taste to injure Paris--the Seat of the Graces, the School of the Arts, +the Fountain of Reason, the Eye of the World;’ and so be found by +the destroying angel caressing poodles and making bons mots about les +femmes.” + +“And quite right, too,” said Lemercier, complacently; “what other people +in the world could retain lightness of heart under circumstances so +unpleasant? But why do you take things so solemnly? Of course there will +be war idle now to talk of explanations and excuses. When a Frenchman +says, ‘I am insulted,’ he is not going to be told that he is not +insulted. He means fighting, and not apologising. But what if there be +war? Our brave soldiers beat the Prussians--take the Rhine--return +to Paris covered with laurels; a new Boulevard de Berlin eclipses the +Boulevard Sebastopol. By the way, Duplessis, a Boulevard de Berlin will +be a good speculation--better than the Rue de Louvier. Ah! is not that +my English friend, Grarm Varn?” here, quitting the arm of Duplessis, +Lemercier stopped a gentleman who was about to pass him unnoticing. “Bon +jour, mon ami! how long have you been at Paris?” + +“I only arrived last evening,” answered Graham, “and my stay will be so +short that it is a piece of good luck, my dear Lemercier, to meet with +you, and exchange a cordial shake of the hand.” + +“We are just going to breakfast at the Trois Freres--Duplessis and +I--pray join us.” + +“With great pleasure--ah, M. Duplessis, I shall be glad to hear from +you that the Emperor will be firm enough to check the advances of that +martial fever which, to judge by the persons I meet, seems to threaten +delirium.” + +Duplessis looked very keenly at Graham’s face, as he replied slowly: +“The English, at least, ought to know that when the Emperor by his last +reforms resigned his personal authority for constitutional monarchy, it +ceased to be a question whether he could or could not be firm in +matters that belonged to the Cabinet and the Chambers. I presume that +if Monsieur Gladstone advised Queen Victoria to declare war upon the +Emperor of Russia, backed by a vast majority in Parliament, you would +think me very ignorant of constitutional monarchy and Parliamentary +government if I said, ‘I hope Queen Victoria will resist that martial +fever.’” + +“You rebuke me very fairly, M. Duplessis, if you can show me that the +two cases are analogous; but we do not understand in England that, +despite his last reforms, the Emperor has so abnegated his individual +ascendency, that his will, clearly and resolutely expressed, would not +prevail in his Council and silence opposition in the Chambers. Is it so? +I ask for information.” + +The three men were walking on towards the Palais Royal side by side +while this conversation proceeded. + +“That all depends,” replied Duplessis, “upon what may be the increase +of popular excitement at Paris. If it slackens, the Emperor, no doubt, +could turn to wise account that favourable pause in the fever. But if +it continues to swell, and Paris cries, ‘War,’ in a voice as loud as +it cried to Louis Philippe ‘Revolution,’ do you think that the Emperor +could impose on his ministers the wisdom of peace? His ministers would +be too terrified by the clamour to undertake the responsibility of +opposing it--they would resign. Where is the Emperor to find another +Cabinet? a peace Cabinet? What and who are the orators for peace?--whom +a handful!--who? Gambetta, Jules Favre, avowed Republicans,--would they +even accept the post of ministers to Louis Napoleon? If they did, +would not their first step be the abolition of the Empire? Napoleon is +therefore so far a constitutional monarch in the same sense as Queen +Victoria, that the popular will in the country (and in France in such +matters Paris is the country) controls the Chambers, controls the +Cabinet; and against the Cabinet the Emperor could not contend. I say +nothing of the army--a power in France unknown to you in England, +which would certainly fraternise with no peace party. If war is +proclaimed,--let England blame it if she will--she can’t lament it more +than I should: but let England blame the nation; let her blame, if she +please, the form of the government, which rests upon popular suffrage; +but do not let her blame our sovereign more than the French would blame +her own, if compelled by the conditions on which she holds her crown to +sign a declaration of war, which vast majorities in a Parliament just +elected, and a Council of Ministers whom she could not practically +replace, enforced upon her will.” + +“Your observations, M. Duplessis, impress me strongly, and add to the +deep anxieties with which, in common with all my countrymen, I regard +the menacing aspect of the present hour. Let us hope the best. Our +Government, I know, is exerting itself to the utmost verge of its power, +to remove every just ground of offence that the unfortunate nomination +of a German Prince to the Spanish throne could not fail to have given to +French statesmen.” + +“I am glad you concede that such a nomination was a just ground of +offence,” said Lemercier, rather bitterly; “for I have met Englishmen +who asserted that France had no right to resent any choice of a +sovereign that Spain might make.” + +“Englishmen in general are not very reflective politicians in foreign +affairs,” said Graham; “but those who are must see that France could +not, without alarm the most justifiable, contemplate a cordon of hostile +states being drawn around her on all sides,--Germany, is, itself so +formidable since the field of Sadowa, on the east; a German prince +in the southwest; the not improbable alliance between Prussia and the +Italian kingdom, already so alienated from the France to which it +owed so much. If England would be uneasy were a great maritime power +possessed of Antwerp, how much more uneasy might France justly be if +Prussia could add the armies of Spain to those of Germany, and launch +them both upon France. But that cause of alarm is over--the Hohenzollern +is withdrawn. Let us hope for the best.” + +The three men had now seated themselves at a table in the Trois Freres, +and Lemercier volunteered the task of inspecting the menu and ordering +the repast, still keeping guard on Fox. + +“Observe that man,” said Duplessis, pointing towards a gentleman who +had just entered; “the other day he was the popular hero--now, in the +excitement of threatened war, he is permitted to order his bifteck +uncongratulated, uncaressed; such is fame at Paris! here to-day and gone +to-morrow.” + +“How did the man become famous?” + +“He is a painter, and refused a decoration--the only French painter who +ever did.” + +“And why refuse?” + +“Because he is more stared at as the man who refused than he would have +been as the man who accepted. If ever the Red Republicans have their +day, those among them most certain of human condemnation will be the +coxcombs who have gone mad for the desire of human applause.” + +“You are a profound philosopher, M. Duplessis.” + +“I hope not--I have an especial contempt for philosophers. Pardon me a +moment--I see a man to whom I would say a word or two.” + +Duplessis crossed over to another table to speak to a middle-aged man of +somewhat remarkable countenance, with the red ribbon in his buttonhole, +in whom Graham recognised an ex-minister of the Emperor, differing from +most of those at that day in his Cabinet, in the reputation of being +loyal to his master and courageous against a mob. Left thus alone with +Lemercier, Graham said: + +“Pray tell me where I can find your friend the Marquis de Rochebriant. I +called at his apartment this morning, and I was told that he had gone on +some visit into the country, taking his valet, and the concierge could +not give me his address. I thought myself so lucky on meeting with you, +who are sure to know.” + +“No, I do not; it is some days since I saw Alain. But Duplessis will be +sure to know.” Here the financier rejoined them. + +“Mon cher, Grarm Varn wants to know for what Sabine shades Rochebriant +has deserted the ‘fumum opes strepitumque’ of the capital.” + +“Ah! the Marquis is a friend of yours, Monsieur?” + +“I can scarcely boast that honour, but he is an acquaintance whom I +should be very glad to see again.” + +“At this moment he is at the Duchesse de Tarascon’s country-house near +Fontainebleau; I had a hurried line from him two days ago stating +that he was going there on her urgent invitation. But he may return +to-morrow; at all events he dines with me on the 8th, and I shall be +charmed if you will do me the honour to meet him at my house.” + +“It is an invitation too agreeable to refuse, and I thank you very much +for it.” + +Nothing worth recording passed further in conversation between Graham +and the two Frenchmen. He left them smoking their cigars in the garden, +and walked homeward by the Rue de Rivoli. As he was passing beside the +Magasin du Louvre he stopped, and made way for a lady crossing quickly +out of the shop towards her carriage at the door. Glancing at him with +a slight inclination of her head in acknowledgment of his courtesy, the +lady recognised his features,-- + +“Ah, Mr. Vane!” she cried, almost joyfully--“you are then at Paris, +though you have not come to see me.” + +“I only arrived last night, dear Mrs. Morley,” said Graham, rather +embarrassed, “and only on some matters of business which unexpectedly +summoned me. My stay will probably be very short.” + +“In that case let me rob you of a few minutes--no, not rob you even of +them; I can take you wherever you want to go, and as my carriage moves +more quickly than you do on foot, I shall save you the minutes instead +of robbing you of them.” + +“You are most kind, but I was only going to my hotel, which is close +by.” + +“Then you have no excuse for not taking a short drive with me in the +Champs Elysees--come.” + +Thus bidden, Graham could not civilly disobey. He handed the fair +American into her carriage, and seated himself by her side. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +“Mr. Vane, I feel as if I had many apologies to make for the interest in +your life which my letter to you so indiscreetly betrayed.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Morley! you cannot guess how deeply that interest touched me.” + +“I should not have presumed so far,” continued Mrs. Morley, unheeding +the interruption, “if I had not been altogether in error as to the +nature of your sentiments in a certain quarter. In this you must blame +my American rearing. With us there are many flirtations between boys and +girls which come to nothing; but when in my country a man like you meets +with a woman like Mademoiselle Cicogna, there cannot be flirtation. His +attentions, his looks, his manner, reveal to the eyes of those who care +enough for him to watch, one of two things--either he coldly admires +and esteems, or he loves with his whole heart and soul a woman worthy to +inspire such a love. Well, I did watch, and I was absurdly mistaken. I +imagined that I saw love, and rejoiced for the sake of both of you to +think so. I know that in all countries, our own as well as yours, love +is so morbidly sensitive and jealous that it is always apt to invent +imaginary foes to itself. Esteem and admiration never do that. I thought +that some misunderstanding, easily removed by the intervention of a +third person, might have impeded the impulse of two hearts towards each +other--and so I wrote. I had assumed that you loved--I am humbled to the +last degree--you only admired and esteemed.” + +“Your irony is very keen, Mrs. Morley, and to you it may seem very +just.” + +“Don’t call me Mrs. Morley in that haughty tone of voice,--can’t +you talk to me as you would talk to a friend? You only esteemed and +admired--there is an end of it.” + +“No, there is not an end of it,” cried Graham, giving way to an +impetuosity of passion, which rarely, indeed, before another, escaped +his self-control; “the end of it to me is a life out of which is ever +stricken such love as I could feel for woman. To me true love can only +come once. It came with my first look on that fatal face--it has never +left me in thought by day, in dreams by night. The end of it to me +is farewell to all such happiness as the one love of a life can +promise--but--” + +“But what?” asked Mrs. Morley, softly, and very much moved by the +passionate earnestness of Graham’s voice and words. + +“But,” he continued with a forced smile, “we Englishmen are trained to +the resistance of absolute authority; we cannot submit all the elements +that make up our being to the sway of a single despot. Love is the +painter of existence, it should not be its sculptor.” + +“I do not understand the metaphor.” + +“Love colours our life, it should not chisel its form.” + +“My dear Mr. Vane, that is very cleverly said, but the human heart is +too large and too restless to be quietly packed up in an aphorism. Do +you mean to tell me that if you found you had destroyed Isaura Cicogna’s +happiness as well as resigned your own, that thought would not somewhat +deform the very shape you would give to your life? Is it colour alone +that your life would lose?” + +“Ah, Mrs. Morley, do not lower your friend into an ordinary girl in whom +idleness exaggerates the strength of any fancy over which it dreamily +broods. Isaura Cicogna has her occupations--her genius--her fame--her +career. Honestly speaking, I think that in these she will find a +happiness that no quiet hearth could bestow. I will say no more. I feel +persuaded that were we two united I could not make her happy. With the +irresistible impulse that urges the genius of the writer towards its +vent in public sympathy and applause, she would chafe if I said, ‘Be +contented to be wholly mine.’ And if I said it not, and felt I had no +right to say it, and allowed the full scope to her natural ambition, +what then? She would chafe yet more to find that I had no fellowship in +her aims and ends--that where I should feel pride, I felt humiliation. +It would be so; I cannot help it, ‘tis my nature.” + +“So be it then. When, next year perhaps, you visit Paris, you will +be safe from my officious interference! Isaura will be the wife of +another.” + +Graham pressed his hand to his heart with the sudden movement of one who +feels there an agonising spasm--his cheek, his very lips were bloodless. + +“I told you,” he said bitterly, “that your fears of my influence over +the happiness of one so gifted, and so strong in such gifts, were +groundless; you allow that I should be very soon forgotten?” + +“I allow no such thing--I wish I could. But do you know so little of a +woman’s heart (and in matters of heart, I never yet heard that genius +had a talisman against emotion),--do you know so little of a woman’s +heart as not to know that the very moment in which she may accept a +marriage the least fitted to render her happy, is that in which she has +lost all hope of happiness in another?” + +“Is it indeed so?” murmured Graham--“Ay, I can conceive it.” + +“And have you so little comprehension of the necessities which that +fame, that career to which you allow she is impelled by the instincts of +genius, impose on this girl, young, beautiful, fatherless, motherless? +No matter how pure her life, can she guard it from the slander of +envious tongues? Will not all her truest friends--would not you, if you +were her brother--press upon her by all the arguments that have most +weight with the woman who asserts independence in her modes of life, and +yet is wise enough to know that the world can only judge of virtue by +its shadow--reputation, not to dispense with the protection which a +husband can alone secure? And that is why I warn you, if it be yet time, +that in resigning your own happiness you may destroy Isaura’s. She will +wed another, but she will not be happy. What a chimera or dread your +egotism as man conjures up! Oh! forsooth, the qualities that charm and +delight a world are to unfit a woman to be helpmate to a man. Fie on +you!--fie!” + +Whatever answer Graham might have made to these impassioned reproaches +was here checked. + +Two men on horseback stopped the carriage. One was Enguerrand de +Vandemar, the other was the Algerine Colonel whom we met at the supper +given at the Maison Doree by Frederic Lemercier. + +“Pardon, Madame Morley,” said Enguerrand; “but there are symptoms of a +mob-epidemic a little further up the fever began at Belleville, and is +threatening the health of the Champs Elysees. Don’t be alarmed--it may +be nothing, though it may be much. In Paris, one can never calculate +an hour beforehand the exact progress of a politico-epidemic fever. At +present I say, ‘Bah! a pack of ragged boys, gamins de Paris;’ but my +friend the Colonel, twisting his moustache en souriant amerement, says, +‘It is the indignation of Paris at the apathy of the Government under +insult to the honour of France;’ and Heaven only knows how rapidly +French gamins grow into giants when Colonels talk about the indignation +of Paris and the honour of France!” + +“But what has happened?” asked Mrs. Morley, turning to the Colonel. + +“Madame,” replied the warrior, “it is rumoured that the King of Prussia +has turned his back upon the ambassador of France; and that the pekin +who is for peace at any price--M. Ollivier--will say tomorrow in the +Chamber, that France submits to a slap in the face.” + +“Please, Monsieur de Vandemar, to tell my coachman to drive home,” said +Mrs. Morley. + +The carriage turned and went homeward. The Colonel lifted his hat, and +rode back to see what the gamins were about. Enguerrand, who had no +interest in the gamins, and who looked on the Colonel as a bore, rode by +the side of the carriage. + +“Is there anything serious in this?” asked Mrs. Morley. + +“At this moment, nothing. What it may be this hour to-morrow I cannot +say. Ah! Monsieur Vane, bon jour I did not recognise you at first. Once, +in a visit at the chateau of one of your distinguished countrymen, I saw +two game-cocks turned out facing each other: they needed no pretext for +quarrelling--neither do France and Prussia--no matter which game-cock +gave the last offence, the two game-cocks must have it out. All that +Ollivier can do, if he be wise, is to see that the French cock has +his steel spurs as long as the Prussians. But this I do say, that if +Ollivier attempts to put the French cock back into its bag, the Empire +is gone in forty-eight hours. That to me is a trifle--I care nothing for +the Empire; but that which is not a trifle is anarchy and chaos. Better +war and the Empire than peace and Jules Favre. But let us seize the +present hour, Mr. Vane; whatever happens to-morrow, shall we dine +together to-day? Name your restaurant.” + +“I am so grieved,” answered Graham, rousing himself, “I am here only on +business, and engaged all the evening.” + +“What a wonderful thing is this life of ours!” said Enguerrand. “The +destiny of France at this moment hangs on a thread--I, a Frenchman, +say to an English friend, ‘Let us dine--a cutlet to-day and a fig for +to-morrow;’ and my English friend, distinguished native of a country +with which we have the closest alliance, tells me that in this crisis +of France he has business to attend to! My father is quite right; he +accepts the Voltairean philosophy, and cries, Vivent les indifferents!” + +“My dear M. de Vandemar,” said Graham, “in every country you will find +the same thing. All individuals massed together constitute public life. +Each individual has a life of his own, the claims and the habits and +the needs of which do not suppress his sympathies with public life, +but imperiously overrule them. Mrs. Morley, permit me to pull the +check-string--I get out here.” + +“I like that man,” said Enguerrand, as he continued to ride by the fair +American, “in language and esprit he is so French.” + +“I use to like him better than you can,” answered Mrs. Morley, “but +in prejudice and stupidity he is so English. As it seems you are +disengaged, come and partake, pot au feu, with Frank and me.” + +“Charmed to do so,” answered the cleverest and best bred of all Parisian +beaux garcons, “but forgive me if I quit you soon. This poor France! +Entre nous, I am very uneasy about the Parisian fever. I must run away +after dinner to clubs and cafes to learn the last bulletins.” + +“We have nothing like that French Legitimist in the States,” said the +fair American to herself, “unless we should ever be so silly as to make +Legitimists of the ruined gentlemen of the South.” + +Meanwhile Graham Vane went slowly back to his apartment. No false excuse +had he made to Enguerrand; this evening was devoted to M. Renard, who +told him little he had not known before; but his private life overruled +his public, and all that night he, professed politician, thought +sleeplessly, not over the crisis to France, which might alter the +conditions of Europe, but the talk on his private life of that +intermeddling American woman. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +The next day, Wednesday, July 6th, commenced one of those eras in +the world’s history in which private life would vainly boast that it +overrules Life Public. How many private lives does such a terrible time +influence, absorb, darken with sorrow, crush into graves? + +It was the day when the Duc de Gramont uttered the fatal speech which +determined the die between peace and war. No one not at Paris on that +day can conceive the popular enthusiasm with which that speech was +hailed--the greater because the warlike tone of it was not anticipated; +because there had been a rumour amidst circles the best informed that +a speech of pacific moderation was to be the result of the Imperial +Council. Rapturous indeed were the applauses with which the sentences +that breathed haughty defiance were hailed by the Assembly. The ladies +in the tribune rose with one accord, waving their handkerchiefs. Tall, +stalwart, dark, with Roman features and lofty presence, the Minister +of France seemed to say with Catiline in the fine tragedy: “Lo! where I +stand, I am war!” + +Paris had been hungering for some hero of the hour--the Duc de Gramont +became at once raised to that eminence. All the journals, save the +very few which were friendly to peace, because hostile to the Emperor, +resounded with praise, not only of the speech, but of the speaker. It is +with a melancholy sense of amusement that one recalls now to mind those +organs of public opinion--with what romantic fondness they dwelt on the +personal graces of the man who had at last given voice to the chivalry +of France: “The charming gravity of his countenance--the mysterious +expression of his eye!” + +As the crowd poured from the Chambers, Victor de Mauleon and Savarin, +who had been among the listeners, encountered. + +“No chance for my friends the Orleanists now,” said Savarin. “You who +mock at all parties are, I suppose, at heart for the Republican--small +chance, too, for that.” + +“I do not agree with you. Violent impulses have quick reactions.” + +“But what reaction could shake the Emperor after he returns a conqueror, +bringing in his pocket the left bank of the Rhine?” + +“None--when he does that. Will he do it? Does he himself think he will +do it? I doubt--” + +“Doubt the French army against the Prussian?” + +“Against the German people united--yes, very much.” + +“But war will disunite the German people. Bavaria will surely assist +us--Hanover will rise against the spoliator--Austria at our first +successes must shake off her present enforced neutrality?” + +“You have not been in Germany, and I have. What yesterday was a Prussian +army, to-morrow will be a German population; far exceeding our own in +numbers, in hardihood of body, in cultivated intellect, in military +discipline. But talk of something else. How is my ex-editor--poor +Gustave Rameau?” + +“Still very weak, but on the mend. You may have him back in his office +soon.” + +“Impossible! even in his sick-bed his vanity was more vigorous than +ever. He issued a war-song, which has gone the round of the war journals +signed by his own name. He must have known very well that the name of +such a Tyrtaeus cannot reappear as the editor of Le Sens Commun; that in +launching his little firebrand he burned all vessels that could waft him +back to the port he had quitted. But I dare say he has done well for his +own interests; I doubt if Le Sens Commun can much longer hold its ground +in the midst of the prevalent lunacy.” + +“What! it has lost subscribers?--gone off in sale already, since it +declared for peace?” + +“Of course it has; and after the article which, if I live over to-night, +will appear to-morrow, I should wonder if it sell enough to cover the +cost of the print and paper.” + +“Martyr to principle! I revere, but I do not envy thee.” + +“Martyrdom is not my ambition. If Louis Napoleon be defeated, what then? +Perhaps he may be the martyr; and the Favres and Gambettas may roast +their own eggs on the gridiron they heat for his majesty.” + +Here an English gentleman, who was the very able correspondent to a +very eminent journal, and in that capacity had made acquaintance with De +Mauleon, joined the two Frenchmen; Savarin, however, after an exchange +of salutations, went his way. + +“May I ask a frank answer to a somewhat rude question, M. le Vicomte?” + said the Englishman. “Suppose that the Imperial Government had to-day +given in their adhesion to the peace party, how long would it have been +before their orators in the Chamber and their organs in the press would +have said that France was governed by poltrons?” + +“Probably for most of the twenty-four hours. But there are a few who are +honest in their convictions; of that few I am one.” + +“And would have supported the Emperor and his Government?” + +“No, Monsieur--I do not say that.” + +“Then the Emperor would have turned many friends into enemies, and no +enemies into friends.” + +“Monsieur--you in England know that a party in opposition is not +propitiated when the party in power steals its measures. Ha!--pardon +me, who is that gentleman, evidently your countryman, whom I see yonder +talking to the Secretary of your Embassy?” + +“He.--Mr. Vane-Graham Vane. Do you not know him? He has been much in +Paris, attached to our Embassy formerly; a clever man--much is expected +from him.” + +“Ah! I think I have seen him before, but am not quite sure. Did you +say Vane? I once knew a Monsieur Vane, a distinguished parliamentary +orator.” + +“That gentleman is his son--would you like to be introduced to him?” + +“Not to-day--I am in some hurry.” Here Victor lifted his hat in parting +salutation, and as he walked away cast at Graham another glance keen +and scrutinising. “I have seen that man before,” he muttered, +“where?--when?--can it be only a family likeness to the father? No, the +features are different; the profile is--ha!--Mr. Lamb, Mr. Lamb--but why +call himself by that name?--why disguised?--what can he have to do +with poor Louise? Bah--these are not questions I can think of now. This +war--this war--can it yet be prevented? How it will prostrate all the +plans my ambition so carefully schemed! Oh!--at least if I were but in +the Chamber. Perhaps I yet may be before the war is ended--the Clavignys +have great interest in their department.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Graham had left a note with Rochebriant’s concierge requesting an +interview on the Marquis’s return to Paris, and on the evening after +the day just commemorated he received a line, saying that Alain had come +back, and would be at home at nine o’clock. Graham found himself in the +Breton’s apartment punctually at the hour indicated. + +Alain was in high spirits: he burst at once into enthusiastic +exclamations on the virtual announcement of war. + +“Congratulate me, mon cher!” he cried--“the news was a joyous surprise +to me. Only so recently as yesterday morning I was under the gloomy +apprehension that the Imperial Cabinet would continue to back Ollivier’s +craven declaration ‘that France had not been affronted!’ The Duchesse +de Tarascon, at whose campagne I was a guest, is (as you doubtless know) +very much in the confidence of the Tuileries. On the first signs of war, +I wrote to her, saying that whatever the objections of my pride to enter +the army as a private in time of peace, such objections ceased on the +moment when all distinctions of France must vanish in the eyes of sons +eager to defend her banners. The Duchesse in reply begged me to come to +her campagne and talk over the matter. I went; she then said that if +war should break out it was the intention to organise the Mobiles and +officer them with men of birth and education, irrespective of previous +military service, and in that case I might count on my epaulets. But +only two nights ago she received a letter--I know not of course from +whom--evidently from some high authority--that induced her to think the +moderation of the Council would avert the war, and leave the swords of +the Mobiles in their sheaths. I suspect the decision of yesterday must +have been a very sudden one. Ce cher Gramont! See what it is to have a +well-born man in a sovereign’s councils.” + +“If war must come, I at least wish all renown to yourself. But--” + +“Oh! spare me your ‘buts’; the English are always too full of them where +her own interests do not appeal to her. She had no ‘buts’ for war in +India or a march into Abyssinia.” + +Alain spoke petulantly; at that moment the French were very much +irritated by the monitory tone of the English journals. Graham prudently +avoided the chance of rousing the wrath of a young hero yearning for his +epaulets. + +“I am English enough,” said he, with good-humoured courtesy, “to care +for English interests; and England has no interest abroad dearer to her +than the welfare and dignity of France. And now let me tell you why +I presumed on an acquaintance less intimate than I could desire, to +solicit this interview on a matter which concerns myself, and in which +you could perhaps render me a considerable service.” + +“If I can, count it rendered; move to this sofa--join me in a cigar, and +let us talk at ease comme de vieux amis, whose fathers or brothers might +have fought side by side in the Crimea.” Graham removed to the sofa +beside Rochebriant, and after one or two whiffs laid aside the cigar and +began: + +“Among the correspondence which Monsieur your father has left, are there +any letters of no distant date signed Marigny--Madame Marigny? Pardon +me, I should state my motive in putting this question. I am intrusted +with a charge, the fulfilment of which may prove to the benefit of this +lady or her child; such fulfilment is a task imposed upon my honour. But +all the researches to discover this lady which I have instituted stop +at a certain date, with this information,--viz., that she corresponded +occasionally with the late Marquis de Rochebriant; that he habitually +preserved the letters of his correspondents; and that these letters were +severally transmitted to you at his decease.” + +Alain’s face had taken a very grave expression while Graham spoke, and +he now replied with a mixture of haughtiness and embarrassment: + +“The boxes containing the letters my father received and preserved +were sent to me as you say--the larger portion of them were from +ladies--sorted and labelled, so that in glancing at any letter in each +packet I could judge of the general tenor of these in the same packet +without the necessity of reading them. All packets of that kind, +Monsieur Vane, I burned. I do not remember any letters signed ‘Marigny!” + +“I perfectly understand, my dear Marquis, that you would destroy all +letters which your father himself would have destroyed if his last +illness had been sufficiently prolonged. But I do not think the letters +I mean would have come under that classification; probably they were +short, and on matters of business relating to some third person--some +person, for instance, of the name of Louise, or of Duval!” + +“Stop! let me think. I have a vague remembrance of one or two letters +which rather perplexed me, they were labelled, ‘Louise D--. Mem.: to +make further inquiries as to the fate of her uncle.’” + +“Marquis, these are the letters I seek. Thank heaven, you have not +destroyed them?” + +“No; there was no reason why I should destroy, though I really cannot +state precisely any reason why I kept them. I have a very vague +recollection of their existence.” + +“I entreat you to allow me at least a glance at the handwriting, and +compare it with that of a letter I have about me; and if the several +handwritings correspond, I would ask you to let me have the address, +which, according to your father’s memorandum, will be found in the +letters you have preserved.” + +“To compliance with such a request I not only cannot demur, but perhaps +it may free me from some responsibility which I might have thought the +letters devolved upon my executorship. I am sure they did not concern +the honour of any woman of any family, for in that case I must have +burned them.” + +“Ah, Marquis, shake hands there! In such concord between man and man, +there is more entente cordiale between England and France than there was +at Sebastopol. Now let me compare the handwritings.” + +“The box that contained the letters is not here--I left it at +Rochebriant; I will telegraph to my aunt to send it; the day after +to-morrow it will no doubt arrive. Breakfast with me that day--say at +one o’clock, and after breakfast the Box!” + +“How can I thank you?” + +“Thank me! but you said your honour was concerned in your +request--requests affecting honour between men comma il faut is a +ceremony of course, like a bow between them. One bows, the other returns +the bow--no thanks on either side. Now that we have done with that +matter, let me say that I thought your wish for our interview originated +in a very different cause.” + +“What could that be?” + +“Nay, do you not recollect that last talk between us, when with such +loyalty you spoke to me about Mademoiselle Cicogna, and supposing that +there might be rivalship between us, retracted all that you might have +before said to warn me against fostering the sentiment with which she +had inspired me; even at the first slight glance of a face which cannot +be lightly forgotten by those who have once seen it.” + +“I recollect perfectly every word of that talk, Marquis,” answered +Graham, calmly, but with his hand concealed within his vest and pressed +tightly to his heart. The warning of Mrs. Morley flashed upon him. “Was +this the man to seize the prize he had put aside--this man, younger than +himself--handsomer than himself--higher in rank?” + +“I recollect that talk, Marquis! Well, what then?” + +“In my self-conceit I supposed that you might have heard how much I +admired Mademoiselle Cicogna--how, having not long since met her at the +house of Duplessis (who by the way writes me word that I shall meet you +chez lui tomorrow), I have since sought her society wherever there was a +chance to find it. You may have heard, at our club, or elsewhere, how I +adore her genius--how, I say, that nothing so Breton--that is, so +pure and so lofty--has appeared and won readers since the days of +Chateaubriand,--and--you, knowing that les absents ont toujours tort, +come to me and ask Monsieur de Rochebriant, Are we rivals? I expected a +challenge--you relieve my mind--you abandon the field to me?” + +At the first I warned the reader how improved from his old mauvaise +honte a year or so of Paris life would make our beau Marquis. How a year +or two of London life with its horsey slang and its fast girls of the +period would have vulgarised an English Rochebriant! Graham gnawed his +lips and replied quietly, “I do not challenge! Am I to congratulate +you?” + +“No, that brilliant victory is not for me. I thought that was made clear +in the conversation I have referred to. But if you have done me the +honour to be jealous I am exceedingly flattered. Speaking, seriously, if +I admired Mademoiselle Cicogna when you and I last met, the admiration +is increased by the respect with which I regard a character so simply +noble. How many women older than she would have been spoiled by the +adulation that has followed her literary success!--how few women so +young, placed in a position so critical, having the courage to lead +a life so independent, would have maintained the dignity of their +character free from a single indiscretion! I speak not from my own +knowledge, but from the report of all, who would be pleased enough to +censure if they could find a cause. Good society is the paradise of +mauvaises langues.” + +Graham caught Alain’s hand and pressed it, but made no answer. + +The young Marquis continued: + +“You will pardon me for speaking thus freely in the way that I would +wish any friend to speak of the demoiselle who might become my wife. +I owe you much, not only for the loyalty with which you address me in +reference to this young lady, but for words affecting my own position +in France, which sank deep into my mind--saved me from deeming myself +a proscrit in my own land--filled me with a manly ambition, not stifled +amidst the thick of many effeminate follies--and, in fact, led me to the +career which is about to open before me, and in which my ancestors have +left me no undistinguished examples. Let us speak, then, a coeur ouvert, +as one friend to another. Has there been any misunderstanding between +you and Mademoiselle Cicogna which has delayed your return to Paris? If +so, is it over now?” + +“There has been no such misunderstanding.” + +“Do you doubt whether the sentiments you expressed in regard to her when +we met last year, are returned?” + +“I have no right to conjecture her sentiments. You mistake altogether.” + +“I do not believe that I am dunce enough to mistake your feelings +towards Mademoiselle--they may be read in your face at this moment. +Of course I do not presume to hazard a conjecture as to those of +Mademoiselle towards yourself. But when I met her not long since at the +house of Duplessis, with whose daughter she is intimate, I chanced to +speak to her of you; and if I may judge, by looks and manner, I chose no +displeasing theme. You turn away--I offend you?” + +“Offend!--no, indeed; but on this subject I am not prepared to converse. +I came to Paris on matters of business much complicated and which ought +to absorb my attention. I cannot longer trespass on your evening. The +day after to-morrow, then, I will be with you at one o’clock.” + +“Yes, I hope then to have the letters you wish to consult; and, +meanwhile, we meet to-morrow at the Hotel Duplessis.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Graham had scarcely quitted Alain, and the young Marquis was about to +saunter forth to his club, when Duplessis was announced. + +These two men had naturally seen much of each other since Duplessis had +returned from Bretagne and delivered Alain from the gripe of Louvier. +Scarcely a day had passed but what Alain had been summoned to enter into +the financier’s plans for the aggrandisement of the Rochebriant +estates, and delicately made to feel that he had become a partner in +speculations, which, thanks to the capital and the abilities Duplessis +brought to bear, seemed likely to result in the ultimate freedom of his +property from all burdens, and the restoration of his inheritance to a +splendour correspondent with the dignity of his rank. + +On the plea that his mornings were chiefly devoted to professional +business, Duplessis arranged that these consultations should take place +in the evenings. From those consultations Valerie was not banished; +Duplessis took her into the council as a matter of course. “Valerie,” + said the financier to Alain, “though so young, has a very clear head for +business, and she is so interested in all that interests myself, that +even where I do not take her opinion, I at least feel my own made +livelier and brighter by her sympathy.” + +So the girl was in the habit of taking her work or her book into the +cabinet de travail, and never obtruding a suggestion unasked, still, +when appealed to, speaking with a modest good sense which justified her +father’s confidence and praise; and a propos of her book, she had taken +Chateaubriand into peculiar favour. Alain had respectfully presented to +her beautifully bound copies of Atala and Ls Genie du Christianisme; +it is astonishing, indeed, how he had already contrived to regulate +her tastes in literature. The charms of those quiet family evenings had +stolen into the young Breton’s heart. + +He yearned for none of the gayer reunions in which he had before sought +for a pleasure that his nature had not found; for, amidst the amusements +of Paris, Alain remained intensely Breton--viz., formed eminently for +the simple joys of domestic life, associating the sacred hearthstone +with the antique religion of his fathers; gathering round it all the +images of pure and noble affections which the romance of a poetic +temperament had evoked from the solitude which had surrounded a +melancholy boyhood-an uncontaminated youth. + +Duplessis entered abruptly, and with a countenance much disturbed from +its wonted saturnine composure. + +“Marquis, what is this I have just heard from the Duchesse de Tarascon? +Can it be? You ask military service in this ill-omened war?--you?” + +“My dear and best friend,” said Alain, very much startled, “I should +have thought that you, of all men in the world, would have most approved +of my request--you, so devoted an Imperialist--you, indignant that the +representative of one of these families, which the First Napoleon +so eagerly and so vainly courted, should ask for the grade of +sous-lieutenant in the armies of Napoleon the Third--you, who of all men +know how ruined are the fortunes of a Rochebriant--you, feel surprised +that he clings to the noblest heritage his ancestors have left to +him--their sword! I do not understand you.” + +“Marquis,” said Duplessis, seating himself, and regarding Alain with +a look in which were blended the sort of admiration and the sort of +contempt with which a practical man of the world, who, having himself +gone through certain credulous follies, has learned to despise the +follies, but retains a reminiscence of sympathy with the fools they +bewitch, “Marquis, pardon me; you talk finely, but you do not talk +common sense. I should be extremely pleased if your Legitimist scruples +had allowed you to solicit, or rather to accept, a civil appointment +not unsuited to your rank, under the ablest sovereign, as a civilian, +to whom France can look for rational liberty combined with established +order. Such openings to a suitable career you have rejected; but who +on earth could expect you, never trained to military service, to draw +a sword hitherto sacred to the Bourbons, on behalf of a cause which +the madness, I do not say of France but of Paris, has enforced on a +sovereign against whom you would fight to-morrow if you had a chance of +placing the descendant of Henry IV. on his throne.” + +“I am not about to fight for any sovereign, but for my country against +the foreigner.” + +“An excellent answer if the foreigner had invaded your country; but +it seems that your country is going to invade the foreigner--a very +different thing. Chut! all this discussion is most painful to me. I feel +for the Emperor a personal loyalty, and for the hazards he is about to +encounter a prophetic dread, as an ancestor of yours might have felt for +Francis I. could he have foreseen Pavia. Let us talk of ourselves and +the effect the war should have upon our individual action. You are +aware, of course, that, though M. Louvier has had notice of our +intention to pay off his mortgage, that intention cannot be carried into +effect for six months; if the money be not then forthcoming his hold on +Rochebriant remains unshaken--the sum is large.” + +“Alas! yes.” + +“The war must greatly disturb the money-market, affect many speculative +adventures and operations when at the very moment credit may be most +needed. It is absolutely necessary that I should be daily at my post +on the Bourse, and hourly watch the ebb and flow of events. Under these +circumstances I had counted, permit me to count still, on your presence +in Bretagne. We have already begun negotiations on a somewhat extensive +scale, whether as regards the improvement of forests and orchards, or +the plans for building allotments, as soon as the lands are free for +disposal--for all these the eye of a master is required. I entreat you, +then, to take up your residence at Rochebriant.” + +“My dear friend, this is but a kindly and delicate mode of relieving me +from the dangers of war. I have, as you must be conscious, no practical +knowledge of business. Hebert can be implicitly trusted, and will carry +out your views with a zeal equal to mine, and with infinitely more +ability.” + +“Marquis, pray neither to Hercules nor to Hebert; if you wish to get +your own cart out of the ruts, put your own shoulder to the wheel.” + +Alain coloured high, unaccustomed to be so bluntly addressed, but he +replied with a kind of dignified meekness: “I shall ever remain grateful +for what you have done, and wish to do for me. But, assuming that you +suppose rightly, the estates of Rochebriant would, in your hands, become +a profitable investment, and more than redeem the mortgage, and the sum +you have paid Louvier on my account, let it pass to you irrespectively +of me. I shall console myself in the knowledge that the old place will +be restored, and those who honoured its old owners prosper in hands so +strong, guided by a heart so generous.” + +Duplessis was deeply affected by these simple words; they seized him on +the tenderest side of his character--for his heart was generous, and +no one, except his lost wife and his loving child, had ever before +discovered it to be so. Has it ever happened to you, reader, to be +appreciated on the one point of the good or the great that is in you--on +which secretly you value yourself most--but for which nobody, not +admitted into your heart of hearts, has given you credit? If that +has happened to you, judge what Duplessis felt when the fittest +representative of that divine chivalry which, if sometimes deficient +in head, owes all that exalts it to riches of heart, spoke thus to the +professional moneymaker, whose qualities of head were so acknowledged +that a compliment to them would be a hollow impertinence, and whose +qualities of heart had never yet received a compliment! + +Duplessis started from his seat and embraced Alain, murmuring, “Listen +to me, I love you--I never had a son--be mine--Rochebriant shall be my +daughter’s dot.” + +Alain returned the embrace, and then recoiling, said: “Father, your +first desire must be honour for your son. You have guessed my secret--I +have learned to love Valerie. Seeing her out in the world, she seemed +like other girls, fair and commonplace--seeing her--at your house, I +have said to myself, ‘There is the one girl fairer than all others in my +eyes, and the one individual to whom all other girls are commonplace.’” + +“Is that true?--is it?” + +“True! does a gentilhomme ever lie? And out of that love for her has +grown this immovable desire to be something worthy of her--something +that may lift me from the vulgar platform of men who owe all to +ancestors, nothing to themselves. Do you suppose for one moment that I, +saved from ruin and penury by Valerie’s father, could be base enough +to say to her, ‘In return be Madame la Marquise de Rochebriant’? Do you +suppose that I, whom you would love and respect as son, could come +to you and say: ‘I am oppressed by your favours--I am crippled with +debts--give me your millions and we are quits.’ No, Duplessis! You, so +well descended yourself--so superior as man amongst men that you +would have won name and position had you been born the son of a +shoeblack,--you would eternally despise the noble who, in days when +all that we Bretons deem holy in noblesse are subjected to ridicule and +contempt, should so vilely forget the only motto which the scutcheons +of all gentilhommes have in common, ‘Noblesse oblige.’ War, with all +its perils and all its grandeur,--war lifts on high the banners of +France,--war, in which every ancestor of mine whom I care to recall +aggrandised the name that descends to me. Let me then do as those before +me have done; let me prove that I am worth something in myself, and +then you and I are equals; and I can say with no humbled crest, ‘Your +benefits are accepted:’ the man who has fought not ignobly for France +may aspire to the hand of her daughter. Give me Valerie; as to her +dot,--be it so, Rochebriant,--it will pass to her children.” + +“Alain! Alain! my friend! my son!--but if you fall.” + +“Valerie will give you a nobler son.” + +Duplessis moved away, sighing heavily; but he said no more in +deprecation of Alain’s martial resolves. + +A Frenchman, however practical, however worldly, however philosophical +he may be, who does not sympathise with the follies of honour--who +does not concede indulgence to the hot blood of youth when he says, “My +country is insulted and her banner is unfurled,” may certainly be a man +of excellent common sense; but if such men had been in the majority, +Gaul would never have been France--Gaul would have been a province of +Germany. + +And as Duplessis walked homeward--he the calmest and most far-seeing of +all authorities on the Bourse--the man who, excepting only De Mauleon, +most decidedly deemed the cause of the war a blunder, and most +forebodingly anticipated its issues, caught the prevalent enthusiasm. +Everywhere he was stopped by cordial hands, everywhere met by +congratulating smiles. “How right you have been, Duplessis, when you +have laughed at those who have said, ‘The Emperor is ill, decrepit, done +up.’” + +“Vive l’Empereur! at least we shall be face to face with those insolent +Prussians!” + +Before he arrived at his home, passing along the Boulevards, greeted by +all the groups enjoying the cool night air before the cafes, Duplessis +had caught the war epidemic. + +Entering his hotel, he went at once to Valerie’s chamber. “Sleep well +to-night, child; Alain has told me that he adores thee, and if he will +go to the war, it is that he may lay his laurels at thy feet. Bless +thee, my child, thou couldst not have made a nobler choice.” + +Whether, after these words, Valerie slept well or not ‘tis not for me +to say; but if she did sleep, I venture to guess that her dreams were +rose-coloured. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +All the earlier part of that next day, Graham Vane remained in-doors--a +lovely day at Paris that 8th of July, and with that summer day +all hearts at Paris were in unison. Discontent was charmed into +enthusiasm--Belleville and Montmartre forgot the visions of Communism +and Socialism and other “isms” not to be realised except in some +undiscovered Atlantis! + +The Emperor was the idol of the day--the names of Jules Favre and +Gambetta were by-words of scorn. Even Armand Monnier, still out of work, +beginning to feel the pinch of want, and fierce for any revolution that +might turn topsy-turvy the conditions of labour,--even Armand Monnier +was found among groups that were laying immortelles at the foot of the +column in the Place Vendome, and heard to say to a fellow malcontent, +with eyes uplifted to the statue of the First Napoleon, “Do you not +feel at this moment that no Frenchman can be long angry with the Little +Corporal? He denied La Liberte, but he gave La Gloire.” + +Heeding not the stir of the world without, Graham was compelling into +one resolve the doubts and scruples which had so long warred against the +heart which they ravaged, but could not wholly subdue. + +The conversations with Mrs. Morley and Rochebriant had placed in a light +in which he had not before regarded it, the image of Isaura. + +He had reasoned from the starting-point of his love for her, and had +sought to convince himself that against that love it was his duty to +strive. + +But now a new question was addressed to his conscience as well as to +his heart. What though he had never formally declared to her his +affection--never, in open words, wooed her as his own--never even +hinted to her the hopes of a union which at one time he had fondly +entertained,--still was it true that his love had been too transparent +not to be detected by her, and not to have led her on to return it? + +Certainly he had, as we know, divined that he was not indifferent to +her: at Enghien, a year ago, that he had gained her esteem, and perhaps +interested her fancy. + +We know also how he had tried to persuade himself that the artistic +temperament, especially when developed in women, is too elastic to +suffer the things of real life to have lasting influence over happiness +or sorrow,--that in the pursuits in which her thought and imagination +found employ, in the excitement they sustained, and the fame to which +they conduced, Isaura would be readily consoled for a momentary pang +of disappointed affection. And that a man so alien as himself, both by +nature and by habit, from the artistic world, was the very last person +who could maintain deep and permanent impression on her actual life or +her ideal dreams. But what if, as he gathered from the words of the fair +American--what if, in all these assumptions, she was wholly mistaken? +What if, in previously revealing his own heart, he had decoyed +hers--what if, by a desertion she had no right to anticipate, he had +blighted her future? What if this brilliant child of genius could love +as warmly, as deeply, as enduringly as any simple village girl to whom +there is no poetry except love? If this were so--what became the first +claim on his honour, his conscience, his duty? + +The force which but a few days ago his reasonings had given to the +arguments that forbade him to think of Isaura, became weaker and weaker, +as now in an altered mood of reflection he resummoned and reweighed +them. + +All those prejudices--which had seemed to him such rational common-sense +truths, when translated from his own mind into the words of Lady Janet’s +letter,--was not Mrs. Morley right in denouncing them as the crotchets +of an insolent egotism? Was it not rather to the favour than to the +disparagement of Isaura, regarded even in the man’s narrow-minded view +of woman’s dignity, that this orphan girl could, with character so +unscathed, pass through the trying ordeal of the public babble, the +public gaze-command alike the esteem of a woman so pure as Mrs. Morley, +the reverence of a man so chivalrously sensitive to honour as Alain de +Rochebriant? + +Musing thus, Graham’s countenance at last brightened--a glorious joy +entered into and possessed him. He felt as a man who had burst asunder +the swathes and trammels which had kept him galled and miserable with +the sense of captivity, and from which some wizard spell that took +strength from his own superstition had forbidden to struggle. + +He was free!--and that freedom was rapture!--yes, his resolve was taken. + +The day was now far advanced. He should have just time before the dinner +with Duplessis to drive to A------, where he still supposed Isaura +resided. How, as his fiacre rolled along the well-remembered road--how +completely he lived in that world of romance of which he denied himself +to be a denizen. + +Arrived at the little villa, he found it occupied only by workmen--it +was under repair. No one could tell him to what residence the ladies who +occupied it the last year had removed. + +“I shall learn from Mrs. Morley,” thought Graham, and at her house he +called in going back, but Mrs. Morley was not at home; he had only just +time, after regaining his apartment, to change his dress for the +dinner to which he was invited. As it was, he arrived late, and +while apologising to his host for his want of punctuality, his tongue +faltered. At the farther end of the room he saw a face, paler and +thinner than when he had seen it last--a face across which a something +of grief had gone. + +The servant announced that dinner was served. + +“Mr. Vane,” said Duplessis, “will you take into dinner Mademoiselle +Cicogna?” + + + + + +BOOK XI. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +Amoung the frets and checks to the course that “never did run smooth,” + there is one which is sufficiently frequent, for many a reader will +remember the irritation it caused him. You have counted on a meeting +with the beloved one unwitnessed by others, an interchange of +confessions and vows which others may not hear. You have arranged almost +the words in which your innermost heart is to be expressed; pictured to +yourself the very looks by which those words will have their sweetest +reply. The scene you have thus imagined appears to you vivid and +distinct, as if foreshown in a magic glass. And suddenly, after long +absence, the meeting takes place in the midst of a common companionship: +nothing that you wished to say can be said. The scene you pictured is +painted out by the irony of Chance; and groups and backgrounds of which +you had never dreamed start forth from the disappointing canvas. Happy +if that be all! But sometimes, by a strange, subtle intuition, you feel +that the person herself is changed; and sympathetic with that change, a +terrible chill comes over your own heart. + +Before Graham had taken his seat at the table beside Isaura, he felt +that she was changed to him. He felt it by her very touch as their hands +met at the first greeting,--by the tone of her voice in the few words +that passed between them,--by the absence of all glow in the smile which +had once lit up her face, as a burst of sunshine lights up a day in +spring, and gives a richer gladness of colour to all its blooms. Once +seated side by side they remained for some moments silent. Indeed, it +would have been rather difficult for anything less than the wonderful +intelligence of lovers between whom no wall can prevent the stolen +interchange of tokens, to have ventured private talk of their own amid +the excited converse which seemed all eyes, all tongues, all ears, +admitting no one present to abstract himself from the common emotion. +Englishmen do not recognise the old classic law which limited the number +of guests, where banquets are meant to be pleasant, to that of the +Nine-Muses. They invite guests so numerous, and so shy of launching talk +across the table, that you may talk to the person next to you not less +secure from listeners than you would be in talking with the stranger +whom you met at a well in the Sahara. It is not so, except on state +occasions, at Paris. Difficult there to retire into solitude with your +next neighbour. The guests collected by Duplessis completed with himself +the number of the Sacred Nine--the host, Valerie, Rochebriant, Graham, +Isaura, Signora Venosta, La Duchesse de Tarascon, the wealthy and +high-born Imperialist, Prince --------, and last and least, one who +shall be nameless. + +I have read somewhere, perhaps in one of the books which American +superstition dedicates to the mysteries of Spiritualism, how a gifted +seer, technically styled medium, sees at the opera a box which to other +eyes appears untenanted and empty, but to him is full of ghosts, well +dressed in costume de-regle, gazing on the boards and listening to +the music. Like such ghosts are certain beings whom I call Lookers-on. +Though still living, they have no share in the life they survey, they +come as from another world to hear and to see what is passing in ours. +In ours they lived once, but that troubled sort of life they have +survived. Still we amuse them as stage-players and puppets amuse +ourselves. One of these Lookers-on completed the party at the house of +Duplessis. + +How lively, how animated the talk was at the financier’s pleasant table +that day, the 8th of July! The excitement of the coming war made itself +loud in every Gallic voice, and kindled in every Gallic eye. Appeals at +every second minute were made, sometimes courteous, sometimes sarcastic, +to the Englishman--promising son of an eminent statesman, and native +of a country in which France is always coveting an ally, and always +suspecting an enemy. Certainly Graham could not have found a less +propitious moment for asking Isaura if she really were changed. And +certainly the honour of Great Britain was never less ably represented +(that is saying a great deal) than it was on this occasion by the young +man reared to diplomacy and aspiring to Parliamentary distinction. +He answered all questions with a constrained voice and an insipid +smile,--all questions pointedly addressed to him as to what +demonstrations of admiring sympathy with the gallantry of France +might be expected from the English Government and people; what his +acquaintance with the German races led him to suppose would be the +effect on the Southern States of the first defeat of the Prussians; +whether the man called Moltke was not a mere strategist on paper, a +crotchety pedant; whether, if Belgium became so enamoured of the glories +of France as to solicit fusion with her people, England would have a +right to offer any objection,&c., &c. I do not think that during that +festival Graham once thought one-millionth so much about the fates of +Prussia and France as he did think, “Why is that girl so changed to me? +Merciful heaven! is she lost to my life?” + +By training, by habit, even by passion, the man was a genuine +politician, cosmopolitan as well as patriotic, accustomed to consider +what effect every vibration in that balance of European power, which +no deep thinker can despise, must have on the destinies of civilised +humanity, and on those of the nation to which he belongs. But are +there not moments in life when the human heart suddenly narrows the +circumference to which its emotions are extended? As the ebb of a tide, +it retreats from the shores it had covered on its flow, drawing on with +contracted waves the treasure-trove it has selected to hoard amid its +deeps. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +On quitting the dining-room, the Duchesse de Tarascon said to her host, +on whose arm she was leaning, “Of course you and I must go with the +stream. But is not all the fine talk that has passed to-day at your +table, and in which we too have joined, a sort of hypocrisy? I may say +this to you; I would say it to no other.” + +“And I say to you, Madame la Duchesse, that which I would say to no +other. Thinking over it as I sit alone, I find myself making a ‘terrible +hazard;’ but when I go abroad and become infected by the general +enthusiasm, I pluck up gaiety of spirit, and whisper to myself, ‘True, +but it may be an enormous gain.’ To get the left bank of the Rhine is +a trifle; but to check in our next neighbour a growth which a few years +hence would overtop us,--that is no trifle. And, be the gain worth the +hazard or not, could the Emperor, could any Government likely to hold +its own for a week, have declined to take the chance of the die?” + +The Duchesse mused a moment, and meanwhile the two seated themselves on +a divan in the corner of the salon. Then she said very slowly-- + +“No Government that held its tenure on popular suffrage could have done +so. But if the Emperor had retained the personal authority which once +allowed the intellect of one man to control and direct the passions of +many, I think the war would have been averted. I have reason to know +that the Emperor gave his emphatic support to the least bellicose +members of the Council, and that Gramont’s speech did not contain the +passage that precipitates hostilities when the Council in which it +was framed broke up. These fatal Ministers found the Chamber, and the +reports of the popular excitement which could not be resisted without +imminent danger of revolution. It is Paris that has forced the war on +the Emperor. But enough of this subject. What must be, must, and, as you +say, the gain may be greater than the hazard. I come to something else +you whispered to me before we went in to dinner,--a sort of complaint +which wounds me sensibly. You say I had assisted to a choice of danger +and possibly of death a very distant connection of mine, who might have +been a very near connection of yours. You mean Alain de Rochebriant?” + +“Yes; I accept him as a suitor for the hand of my only daughter.” + +“I am so glad, not for your sake so much as for his. No one can know +him well without appreciating in him the finest qualities of the finest +order of the French noble; but having known your pretty Valerie so long, +my congratulations are for the man who can win her. Meanwhile, hear my +explanation: when I promised Alain any interest I can command for +the grade of officer in a regiment of Mobiles, I knew not that he had +formed, or was likely to form, ties or duties to keep him at home. I +withdraw my promise.” + +“No, Duchesse, fulfil it. I should be disloyal indeed if I robbed a +sovereign under whose tranquil and prosperous reign I have acquired, +with no dishonour, the fortune which Order proffers to Commerce, of one +gallant defender in the hour of need. And, speaking frankly, if Alain +were really my son, I think I am Frenchman enough to remember that +France is my mother.” + +“Say no more, my friend--say no more,” cried the Duchesse, with the +warm blood of the heart rushing through all the delicate coatings of +pearl-powder. “If every Frenchman felt as you do; if in this Paris of +ours all hostilities of class may merge in the one thought of the common +country; if in French hearts there yet thrills the same sentiment as +that which, in the terrible days when all other ties were rent asunder, +revered France as mother, and rallied her sons to her aid against the +confederacy of Europe,--why, then, we need not grow pale with dismay +at the sight of a Prussian needle-gun. Hist! look yonder: is not that a +tableau of Youth in Arcady? Worlds rage around, and Love, unconcerned, +whispers to Love!” The Duchesse here pointed to a corner of the +adjoining room in which Alain and Valerie sat apart, he whispering into +her ear; her cheek downcast, and, even seen at that distance, brightened +by the delicate tenderness of its blushes. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +But in that small assembly there were two who did not attract the notice +of Duplessis or of the lady of the Imperial Court. While the Prince ---- +and the placid Looker-on were engaged at a contest of ecarte, with the +lively Venosta, for the gallery, interposing criticisms and admonitions, +Isaura was listlessly turning over a collection of photographs, strewed +on a table that stood near to an open window in the remoter angle of the +room, communicating with a long and wide balcony filled partially +with flowers and overlooking the Champs Elysees, softly lit up by the +innumerable summer stars. Suddenly a whisper, the command of which she +could not resist, thrilled through her ear, and sent the blood rushing +back to her heart. + +“Do you remember that evening at Enghien? how I said that our +imagination could not carry us beyond the question whether we two should +be gazing together that night twelve months on that star which each of +us had singled out from the hosts of heaven? That was the 8th of +July. It is the 8th of July once more. Come and seek for our chosen +star--come. I have something to say, which say I must. Come.” + +Mechanically, as it were,--mechanically, as they tell us the +Somnambulist obeys the Mesmeriser,--Isaura obeyed that summons. In a +kind of dreamy submission she followed his steps, and found herself on +the balcony, flowers around her and stars above, by the side of the man +who had been to her that being ever surrounded by flowers and lighted by +stars,--the ideal of Romance to the heart of virgin Woman. + +“Isaura,” said the Englishman, softly. At the sound of her own name for +the first time heard from those lips, every nerve in her frame quivered. +“Isaura, I have tried to live without you. I cannot. You are all in all +to me: without you it seems to me as if earth had no flowers, and +even heaven had withdrawn its stars. Are there differences between us, +differences of taste, of sentiments, of habits, of thought? Only let me +hope that you can love me a tenth part so much as I love you, and such +differences cease to be discord. Love harmonises all sounds, blends all +colours into its own divine oneness of heart and soul. Look up! is not +the star which this time last year invited our gaze above, is it not +still there? Does it not still invite our gaze? Isaura, speak!” + +“Hush, hush, hush,”--the girl could say no more, but she recoiled from +his side. + +The recoil did not wound him: there was no hate in it. He advanced, he +caught her hand, and continued, in one of those voices which become so +musical in summer nights under starry skies: + +“Isaura, there is one name which I can never utter without a reverence +due to the religion which binds earth to heaven--a name which to man +should be the symbol of life cheered and beautified, exalted, hallowed. +That name is ‘wife.’ Will you take that name from me?” + +And still Isaura made no reply. She stood mute, and cold, and rigid as +a statue of marble. At length, as if consciousness had been arrested +and was struggling back, she sighed heavily, and passed her hands slowly +over her forehead. + +“Mockery, mockery,” she said then, with a smile half bitter, half +plaintive, on her colourless lips. “Did you wait to ask me that question +till you knew what my answer must be? I have pledged the name of wife to +another.” + +“No, no; you say that to rebuke, to punish me! Unsay it! unsay it!” + +Isaura beheld the anguish of his face with bewildered eyes. “How can +my words pain you?” she said, drearily. “Did you not write that I had +unfitted myself to be wife to you?” + +“I?” + +“That I had left behind me the peaceful immunities of private life? I +felt you were so right! Yes! I am affianced to one who thinks that in +spite of that misfortune--” + +“Stop, I command you--stop! You saw my letter to Mrs. Morley. I have +not had one moment free from torture and remorse since I wrote it. But +whatever in that letter you might justly resent--” + +“I did not resent--” + +Graham heard not the interruption, but hurried on. “You would forgive +could you read my heart. No matter. Every sentiment in that letter, +except those which conveyed admiration, I retract. Be mine, and instead +of presuming to check in you the irresistible impulse of genius to the +first place in the head or the heart of the world, I teach myself to +encourage, to share, to exult in it. Do you know what a difference there +is between the absent one and the present one--between the distant image +against whom our doubts, our fears, our suspicions, raise up hosts of +imaginary giants, barriers of visionary walls, and the beloved face +before the sight of which the hosts are fled, the walls are vanished? +Isaura, we meet again. You know now from my own lips that I love you. +I think your lips will not deny that you love me. You say that you are +affianced to another. Tell the man frankly, honestly, that you mistook +your heart. It is not yours to give. Save yourself, save him, from a +union in which there can be no happiness.” + +“It is too late,” said Isaura, with hollow tones, but with no trace of +vacillating weakness on her brow and lips. “Did I say now to that other +one, ‘I break the faith that I pledged to you,’ I should kill him, body +and soul. Slight thing though I be, to him I am all in all; to you, Mr. +Vane, to you a memory--the memory of one whom a year, perhaps a month, +hence, you will rejoice to think you have escaped.” + +She passed from him--passed away from the flowers and the starlight; and +when Graham,--recovering from the stun of her crushing words, and with +the haughty mien and stop of the man who goes forth from the ruin of his +hopes, leaning for support upon his pride,--when Graham re-entered +the room, all the guests had departed save only Alain, who was still +exchanging whispered words with Valerie. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +The next day, at the hour appointed, Graham entered Alain’s apartment. +“I am glad to tell you,” said the Marquis, gaily, “that the box has +arrived, and we will very soon examine its contents. Breakfast claims +precedence.” During the meal Alain was in gay spirits, and did not at +first notice the gloomy countenance and abstracted mood of his guest. At +length, surprised at the dull response to his lively sallies on the part +of a man generally so pleasant in the frankness of his speech, and +the cordial ring of his sympathetic laugh, it occurred to him that the +change in Graham must be ascribed to something that had gone wrong in +the meeting with Isaura the evening before; and remembering the curtness +with which Graham had implied disinclination to converse about the fair +Italian, he felt perplexed how to reconcile the impulse of his good +nature with the discretion imposed on his good-breeding. At all events, +a compliment to the lady whom Graham had so admired could do no harm. + +“How well Mademoiselle Cicogna looked last night!” + +“Did she? It seemed to me that, in health at least, she did not look +very well. Have you heard what day M. Thiers will speak on the war?” + +“Thiers? No. Who cares about Thiers? Thank heaven his day is past! +I don’t know any unmarried woman in Paris, not even Valerie--I mean +Mademoiselle Duplessis--who has so exquisite a taste in dress as +Mademoiselle Cicogna. Generally speaking, the taste of a female author +is atrocious.” + +“Really--I did not observe her dress. I am no critic on subjects so +dainty as the dress of ladies, or the tastes of female authors.” + +“Pardon me,” said the beau Marquis, gravely. “As to dress, I think that +so essential a thing in the mind of woman, that no man who cares about +women ought to disdain critical study of it. In woman, refinement of +character is never found in vulgarity of dress. I have only observed +that truth since I came up from Bretagne.” + +“I presume, my dear Marquis, that you may have read in Bretagne books +which very few not being professed scholars have ever read at Paris; +and possibly you may remember that Horace ascribes the most exquisite +refinement in dress, denoted by the untranslatable words, ‘simplex +munditiis,’ to a lady who was not less distinguished by the ease and +rapidity with which she could change her affection. Of course that +allusion does not apply to Mademoiselle Cicogna, but there are many +other exquisitely dressed ladies at Paris of whom an ill-fated admirer + + ‘fidem + Mutatosque deos flebit.’ + +“Now, with your permission, we will adjourn to the box of letters.” + +The box being produced and unlocked, Alain looked with conscientious +care at its contents before he passed over to Graham’s inspection a +few epistles, in which the Englishman immediately detected the same +handwriting as that of the letter from Louise which Richard King had +bequeathed to him. + +They were arranged and numbered chronologically. + + LETTER I. + + DEAR M. LE MARQUIS,--How can I thank you sufficiently for obtaining + and remitting to me those certificates? You are too aware of the + unhappy episode in my life not to know how inestimable is the + service you render me. I am saved all further molestation from the + man who had indeed no right over my freedom, but whose persecution + might compel me to the scandal and disgrace of an appeal to the law + for protection, and the avowal of the illegal marriage into which I + was duped. I would rather be torn limb from limb by wild horses, + like the Queen in the history books, than dishonour myself and the + ancestry which I may at least claim on the mother’s side, by + proclaiming that I had lived with that low Englishman as his wife, + when I was only--O heavens, I cannot conclude the sentence! + + “No, Mons. le Marquis, I am in no want of the pecuniary aid you so + generously wish to press on me. Though I know not where to address + my poor dear uncle,--though I doubt, even if I did, whether I could + venture to confide to him the secret known only to yourself as to + the name I now bear--and if he hear of me at all he must believe me + dead,--yet I have enough left of the money he last remitted to me + for present support; and when that fails, I think, what with my + knowledge of English and such other slender accomplishments as I + possess, I could maintain myself as a teacher or governess in some + German family. At all events, I will write to you again soon, and I + entreat you to let me know all you can learn about my uncle. I feel + so grateful to you for your just disbelief of the horrible calumny + which must be so intolerably galling to a man so proud, and, + whatever his errors, so incapable of a baseness. + + “Direct to me Poste restante, Augsburg. + + “Yours with all consideration, +LETTER II. + +(Seven months after the date of Letter 1.) + + “AUGSBURG. + + “DEAR M. LE MARQUIS,--I thank you for your kind little note + informing me of the pains you have taken, as yet with no result, to + ascertain what has become of my unfortunate uncle. My life since I + last wrote has been a very quiet one. I have been teaching among a + few families here; and among my pupils are two little girls of very + high birth. They have taken so great a fancy to me that their + mother has just asked me to come and reside at their house as + governess. What wonderfully kind hearts those Germans have,--so + simple, so truthful! They raise no troublesome questions,--accept + my own story implicitly.” Here follow a few commonplace sentences + about the German character, and a postscript. “I go into my new + home next week. When you hear more of my uncle, direct to me at the + Countess von Rudesheim, Schloss --------, near Berlin.” + +“Rudesheim!” Could this be the relation, possibly the wife, of the Count +von Rudesheim with whom Graham had formed acquaintance last year? LETTER +III. + +(Between three and four years after the date of the last.) + + “You startle me indeed, dear M. le Marquis. My uncle said to have + been recognised in Algeria under another name, a soldier in the + Algerian army? My dear, proud, luxurious uncle! Ah, I cannot + believe it, any more than you do: but I long eagerly for such + further news as you can learn of him. For myself, I shall perhaps + surprise you when I say I am about to be married. Nothing can + exceed the amiable kindness I have received from the Rudesheims + since I have been in their house. For the last year especially I + have been treated on equal terms as one of the family. Among the + habitual visitors at the house is a gentleman of noble birth, but + not of rank too high, nor of fortune too great, to make a marriage + with the French widowed governess a misalliance. I am sure that he + loves me sincerely; and he is the only man I ever met whose love I + have cared to win. We are to be married in the course of the year. + Of course he is ignorant of my painful history, and will never learn + it. And after all, Louise D---- is dead. In the home to which I am + about to remove, there is no probability that the wretched + Englishman can ever cross my path. My secret is as safe with you as + in the grave that holds her whom in the name of Louise D---- you + once loved. Henceforth I shall trouble you no more with my letters; + but if you hear anything decisively authentic of my uncle’s fate, + write me a line at any time, directed as before to Madame ----, + enclosed to the Countess von Rudesheim. + + “And accept, for all the kindness you have ever shown me, as to one + whom you did not disdain to call a kinswoman, the assurance of my + undying gratitude. In the alliance she now makes, your kinswoman + does not discredit the name through which she is connected with the + yet loftier line of Rochebriant.” + +To this letter the late Marquis had appended in pencil. “Of course +Rochebriant never denies the claim of a kinswoman, even though a +drawing-master’s daughter. Beautiful creature, Louise, but a termagant. +I could not love Venus if she were a termagant. L.’s head turned by the +unlucky discovery that her mother was noble. In one form or other, +every woman has the same disease--vanity. Name of her intended not +mentioned--easily found out.” + +The next letter was dated May 7, 1859, on black-edged paper, and +contained but these lines: “I was much comforted by your kind visit +yesterday, dear Marquis. My affliction has been heavy: but for the last +two years my poor husband’s conduct has rendered my life unhappy, and I +am recovering the shock of his sudden death. It is true that I and +the children are left very ill provided for; but I cannot accept your +generous offer of aid. Have no fear as to my future fate. Adieu, my +dear Marquis! This will reach you just before you start for Naples. +Bon voyage.” There was no address on this note-no postmark on the +envelope-evidently sent by hand. + +The last note, dated 1861, March 20, was briefer than its predecessor. +“I have taken your advice, dear Marquis; and, overcoming all scruples, +I have accepted his kind offer, on the condition that I am never to be +taken to England. I had no option in this marriage. I can now own to you +that my poverty had become urgent.--Yours, with inalienable gratitude. +This last note, too, was without postmark, and was evidently sent by +hand. + +“There are no other letters, then, from this writer?” asked Graham; “and +no further clue as to her existence?” + +“None that I have discovered; and I see now why I preserved these +letters. There is nothing in their contents not creditable to my poor +father. They show how capable he was of good-natured disinterested +kindness towards even a distant relation of whom he could certainly not +have been proud, judging not only by his own pencilled note, or by the +writer’s condition as a governess, but by her loose sentiments as to the +marriage tie. I have not the slightest idea who she could be. I never at +least heard of one connected, however distantly, with my family, whom I +could identify with the writer of these letters.” + +“I may hold them a short time in my possession?” + +“Pardon me a preliminary question. If I may venture to form a +conjecture, the object of your search must be connected with your +countryman, whom the lady politely calls the ‘wretched Englishman;’ but +I own I should not like to lend, through these letters, a pretence to +any steps that may lead to a scandal in which my father’s name or that +of any member of my family could be mixed up.” + +“Marquis, it is to prevent the possibility of all scandal that I ask you +to trust these letters to my discretion.” + +“Foi de gentilhomme?” + +“Foi de gentilhomme!” + +“Take them. When and where shall we meet again?” + +“Soon, I trust; but I must leave Paris this evening. I am bound to +Berlin in quest of this Countess von Rudesheim: and I fear that in a +very few days intercourse between France and the German frontier will be +closed upon travellers.” + +After a few more words not worth recording, the two young men shook +hands and parted. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +It was with an interest languid and listless indeed, compared with +that which he would have felt a day before, that Graham mused over the +remarkable advances towards the discovery of Louise Duval which were +made in the letters he had perused. She had married, then, first a +foreigner, whom she spoke of as noble, and whose name and residence +could be easily found through the Countess von Rudesheim. The marriage +did not seem to have been a happy one. Left a widow in reduced +circumstances, she had married again, evidently without affection. She +was living so late as 1861, and she had children living is 1859: was the +child referred to by Richard King one of them? + +The tone and style of the letters served to throw some light on the +character of the writer: they evinced pride, stubborn self-will, and +unamiable hardness of nature; but her rejection of all pecuniary aid +from a man like the late Marquis de Rochebriant betokened a certain +dignity of sentiment. She was evidently, whatever her strange ideas +about her first marriage with Richard King, no vulgar woman of +gallantry; and there must have been some sort of charm about her to +have excited a friendly interest in a kinsman so remote, and a man of +pleasure so selfish, as her high-born correspondent. + +But what now, so far as concerned his own happiness, was the hope, the +probable certainty, of a speedy fulfilment of the trust bequeathed to +him? Whether the result, in the death of the mother, and more especially +of the child, left him rich, or, if the last survived, reduced his +fortune to a modest independence, Isaura was equally lost to him, and +fortune became valueless. But his first emotions on recovering from the +shock of hearing from Isaura’s lips that she was irrevocably affianced +to another, were not those of self-reproach. They were those of intense +bitterness against her who, if really so much attached to him as he had +been led to hope, could within so brief a time reconcile her heart +to marriage with another. This bitterness was no doubt unjust; but I +believe it to be natural to men of a nature so proud and of affections +so intense as Graham’s, under similar defeats of hope. Resentment is +the first impulse in a man loving with the whole ardour of his soul, +rejected, no matter why or wherefore, by the woman by whom he had cause +to believe he himself was beloved; and though Graham’s standard of +honour was certainly the reverse of low, yet man does not view honour in +the same light as woman does, when involved in analogous difficulties of +position. Graham conscientiously thought that if Isaura so loved him +as to render distasteful an engagement to another which could only very +recently have been contracted, it would be more honourable frankly so to +tell the accepted suitor than to leave him in ignorance that her heart +was estranged. But these engagements are very solemn things with girls +like Isaura, and hers was no ordinary obligation of woman-honour. Had +the accepted one been superior in rank-fortune--all that flatters the +ambition of woman in the choice of marriage; had he been resolute, and +strong, and self-dependent amid the trials and perils of life--then +possibly the woman’s honour might find excuse in escaping the penalties +of its pledge. But the poor, ailing, infirm, morbid boy-poet, who looked +to her as his saving angel in body, in mind, and soul-to say to him, +“Give me back my freedom,” would be to abandon him to death and to sin. +But Graham could not of course divine why what he as a man thought right +was to Isaura as woman impossible: and he returned to his old prejudiced +notion that there is no real depth and ardour of affection for human +lovers in the poetess whose mind and heart are devoted to the creation +of imaginary heroes. Absorbed in reverie, he took his way slowly and +with downcast looks towards the British embassy, at which it was well to +ascertain whether the impending war yet necessitated special passports +for Germany. + +“Bon-jour, cher ami,” said a pleasant voice; “and how long have you been +at Paris?” + +“Oh, my dear M. Savarin! charmed to see you looking so well! Madame well +too, I trust? My kindest regards to her. I have been in Paris but a day +or two, and I leave this evening.” + +“So soon? The war frightens you away, I suppose. Which way are you going +now?” + +“To the British embassy.” + +“Well, I will go with you so far--it is in my own direction. I have to +call at the charming Italian’s with my congratulations--on news I only +heard this morning.” + +“You mean Mademoiselle Cicogna--and the news that demands +congratulations--her approaching marriage!” + +“Mon Dieu! when could you have heard of that?” + +“Last night at the house of M. Duplessis.” + +“Parbleu! I shall scold her well for confiding to her new friend Valerie +the secret she kept from her old friends, my wife and myself.” + +“By the way,” said Graham, with a tone of admirably-feigned +indifference, “who is the happy man? That part of the secret I did not +hear.” + +“Can’t you guess?” “NO.” + +“Gustave Rameau.” + +“Ah!” Graham almost shrieked, so sharp and shrill was his cry. “Ah! I +ought indeed to have guessed that!” + +“Madame Savarin, I fancy, helped to make up the marriage. I hope it may +turn out well; certainly it will be his salvation. May it be for her +happiness!” + +“No doubt of that! Two poets-born for each other, I dare say. Adieu, my +dear Savarin! Here we are at the embassy.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +That evening Graham found himself in the coupe of the express train to +Strasbourg. He had sent to engage the whole coupe to himself, but that +was impossible. One place was bespoken as far as C-------, after which +Graham might prosecute his journey alone on paying for the three places. + +When he took his seat another man was in the further corner whom he +scarcely noticed. The train shot rapidly on for some leagues. Profound +silence in the coupe, save at moments those heavy impatient sighs that +came from the very depths of the heart, and of which he who sighs is +unconscious, burst from the Englishman’s lips, and drew on him the +observant side-glance of his fellow-traveller. + +At length the fellow-traveller said in very good English, though +with French accent, “Would you object, sir, to my lighting my little +carriage-lantern? I am in the habit of reading in the night train, and +the wretched lamp they give us does not permit that. But if you wish to +sleep, and my lantern would prevent you doing so, consider my request +unasked.” + +“You are most courteous, sir. Pray light your lantern--that will not +interfere with my sleep.” + +As Graham thus answered, far away from the place and the moment as his +thoughts were, it yet faintly struck him that he had heard that voice +before. + +The man produced a small lantern, which he attached to the window-sill, +and drew forth from a small leathern bag sundry newspapers and +pamphlets. Graham flung himself back, and in a minute or so again came +his sigh. + +“Allow me to offer you those evening journals--you may not have had +time to read them before starting,” said the fellow-traveller, leaning +forward, and extending the newspapers with one hand, while with the +other he lifted his lantern. Graham turned, and the faces of the two men +were close to each other--Graham with his travelling-cap drawn over his +brows, the other with head uncovered. + +“Monsieur Lebeau!” + +“Bon soir, Mr. Lamb!” + +Again silence for a moment or so. Monsieur Lebeau then broke it-- + +“I think, Mr. Lamb, that in better society than that of the Faubourg +Montmartre you are known under another name.” Graham had no heart then +for the stage-play of a part, and answered, with quiet haughtiness, +“Possibly--and what name?” + +“Graham Vane. And, sir,” continued Lebeau, with a haughtiness equally +quiet, but somewhat more menacing, “since we two gentlemen find +ourselves thus close, do I ask too much if I inquire why you condescend +to seek my acquaintance in disguise?” + +“Monsieur le Vicomte de Mauleon, when you talk of disguise, is it too +much to inquire why my acquaintance was accepted by Monsieur Lebeau?” + +“Ha! Then you confess that it was Victor de Mauleon whom you sought when +you first visited the cafe Jean Jacques?” + +“Frankly I confess it.” + +Monsieur Lebeau drew himself back, and seemed to reflect. + +“I see! Solely for the purpose of learning whether Victor de Mauleon +could give you any information about Louise Duval. Is it so?” + +“Monsieur le Vicomte, you say truly.” + +Again M. Lebeau paused as if in reflection; and Graham, in that state +of mind when a man who may most despise and detest the practice of +duelling, may yet feel a thrill of delight if some homicide would be +good enough to put him out of his misery, flung aside his cap, lifted +his broad frank forehead, and stamped his foot impatiently as if to +provoke a quarrel. + +M. Lebeau lowered his spectacles, and, with those calm, keen, searching +eyes of his, gazed at the Englishman. + +“It strikes me,” he said, with a smile, the fascination of which not +even those faded whiskers could disguise--“it strikes me that there are +two ways in which gentlemen such as you and I are can converse: firstly, +with reservation and guard against each other; secondly, with perfect +openness. Perhaps of the two I have more need of reservation and wary +guard against any stranger than you have. Allow me to propose the +alternative--perfect openness. What say you?” and he extended his hand. + +“Perfect openness,” answered Graham, softened into sudden liking for +this once terrible swordsman, and shaking, as an Englishman shakes, the +hand held out to him in peace by the man from whom he had anticipated +quarrel. + +“Permit me now, before you address any questions to me, to put one to +you. How did you learn that Victor de Mauleon was identical with Jean +Lebeau?” + +“I heard that from an agent of the police.” + +“Ah!” + +“Whom I consulted as to the means of ascertaining whether Louise Duval +was alive,--if so, where she could be found.” + +“I thank you very much for your information. I had no notion that the +police of Paris had divined the original alias of poor Monsieur Lebeau, +though something occurred at Lyons which made me suspect it. Strange +that the Government, knowing through the police that Victor de Mauleon, +a writer they had no reason to favour, had been in so humble a position, +should never, even in their official journals, have thought it prudent +to say so! But, now I think of it, what if they had? They could prove +nothing against Jean Lebeau. They could but say, ‘Jean Lebeau is +suspected to be too warm a lover of liberty, too earnest a friend of +the people, and Jean Lebeau is the editor of La Sens Commun.’ Why, that +assertion would have made Victor de Mauleon the hero of the Reds, the +last thing a prudent Government could desire. I thank you cordially for +your frank reply. Now, what question would you put to me?” + +“In one word, all you can tell me about Louise Duval.” + +“You shall have it. I had heard vaguely in my young days that a +half-sister of mine by my father’s first marriage with Mademoiselle +de Beauvilliers had--when in advanced middle life he married a second +time--conceived a dislike for her mother-in-law, and, being of age, with +an independent fortune of her own, had quitted the house, taken up her +residence with an elderly female relative, and there had contracted +a marriage with a man who gave her lessons in drawing. After that +marriage, which my father in vain tried to prevent, my sister was +renounced by her family. That was all I knew till, after I came into my +inheritance by the death of both my parents, I learned from my father’s +confidential lawyer that the drawing-master, M. Duval, had soon +dissipated his wife’s fortune, become a widower with one child--a +girl--and fallen into great distress. He came to my father, begging for +pecuniary aid. My father, though by no means rich, consented to allow +him a yearly pension, on condition that he never revealed to his child +her connection with our family. The man agreed to the condition, and +called at my father’s lawyer quarterly for his annuity. But the lawyer +informed me that this deduction from my income had ceased, that M. Duval +had not for a year called or sent for the sum due to him, and that he +must therefore be dead. One day my valet informed me that a young lady +wished to see me--in those days young ladies very often called on me. I +desired her to be shown in. There entered a young creature, almost of my +own age, who, to my amazement saluted me as uncle. This was the child of +my half-sister. Her father had been dead several months, fulfilling very +faithfully the condition on which he had held his pension, and the girl +never dreaming of the claims that, if wise, poor child, she ought not +to have cared for, viz.,--to that obsolete useless pauper birthright, +a branch on the family tree of a French noble. But in pinch of +circumstance, and from female curiosity, hunting among the papers her +father had left for some clue to the reasons for the pension he had +received, she found letters from her mother, letters from my father, +which indisputably proved that she was grandchild to the fue Vicomte de +Mauleon, and niece to myself. Her story as told to me was very pitiable. +Conceiving herself to be nothing higher in birth than daughter to this +drawing-master, at his death, poor, penniless orphan that she was, she +had accepted the hand of an English student of medicine whom she did not +care for. Miserable with this man, on finding by the documents I refer +to that she was my niece, she came to me for comfort and counsel. What +counsel could I or any man give to her but to make the best of what +had happened, and live with her husband? But then she started another +question. It seems that she had been talking with some one, I think her +landlady, or some other woman with whom she had made acquaintance--was +she legally married to this man? Had he not entrapped her ignorance into +a false marriage? This became a grave question, and I sent at once to +my lawyer. On hearing the circumstances, he at once declared that the +marriage was not legal according to the laws of France. But, doubtless, +her English soi-disant husband was not cognisant of the French law, and +a legal marriage could, with his assent, be at once solemnised. Monsieur +Vane, I cannot find words to convey to you the joy that poor girl showed +in her face and in her words when she learned that she was not bound +to pass her life with that man as his wife. It was in vain to talk and +reason with her. Then arose the other question, scarcely less important. +True, the marriage was not legal, but would it not be better on all +accounts to take steps to have it formally annulled, thus freeing her +from the harassment of any claim the Englishman might advance, and +enabling her to establish the facts in a right position, not injurious +to her honour in the eyes of any future suitor to her hand? She would +not hear of such a proposal. She declared that she could not bring to +the family she pined to re-enter the scandal of disgrace. To allow that +she had made such a misalliance would be bad enough in itself; but to +proclaim to the world that, though nominally the wife, she had in fact +been only the mistress of this medical student--she would rather throw +herself into the Seine. All she desired was to fund some refuge, some +hiding-place for a time, whence she could write to the man informing him +that he had no lawful hold on her. Doubtless he would not seek then to +molest her. He would return to his own country, and be effaced from +her life. And then, her story unknown, she might form a more suitable +alliance. Fiery young creature though she was--true De Mauleon in +being so fiery--she interested me strongly. I should say that she was +wonderfully handsome; and though imperfectly educated, and brought up in +circumstances so lowly, there was nothing common about her--a certain je +ne sais quoi of stateliness and race. At all events she did with me what +she wished. I agreed to aid her desire of a refuge and hiding-place. Of +course I could not lodge her in my own apartment, but I induced a female +relation of her mother’s, an old lady living at Versailles, to receive +her, stating her birth, but of course concealing her illegal marriage. + +“From time to time I went to see her. But one day I found this restless +bright-plumaged bird flown. Among the ladies who visited at her +relative’s house was a certain Madame Marigny, a very pretty young +widow. Madame Marigny and Louise formed a sudden and intimate +friendship. The widow was moving from Versailles into an apartment at +Paris, and invited Louise to share it. She had consented. I was +not pleased at this; for the widow was too young, and too much of a +coquette, to be a safe companion to Louise. But though professing much +gratitude and great regard for me, I had no power of controlling the +poor girl’s actions. Her nominal husband, meanwhile, had left France, +and nothing more was heard or known of him. I saw that the best thing +that could possibly befall Louise was marriage with some one rich enough +to gratify her taste for luxury and pomp; and that if such a marriage +offered itself, she might be induced to free it from all possible +embarrassment by procuring the annulment of the former, from which she +had hitherto shrunk in such revolt. This opportunity presented itself. +A man already rich, and in a career that promised to make him +infinitely richer, an associate of mine in those days when I was rapidly +squandering the remnant of my inheritance--this man saw her at the opera +in company with Madame Marigny, fell violently in love with her, and +ascertaining her relationship to me, besought an introduction. I was +delighted to give it; and, to say the truth, I was then so reduced to +the bottom of my casket, I felt that it was becoming impossible for me +to continue the aid I had hitherto given to Louise, and--what then would +become of her? I thought it fair to tell Louvier--” + +“Louvier--the financier?” + +“Ah, that was a slip of the tongue, but no matter; there is no reason +for concealing his name. I thought it right, I say, to tell Louvier +confidentially the history of the unfortunate illegal marriage. It did +not damp his ardour. He wooed her to the best of his power, but she +evidently took him into great dislike. One day she sent for me in much +excitement, showed me some advertisements in the French journals which, +though not naming her, evidently pointed at her, and must have been +dictated by her soi-disant husband. The advertisements might certainly +lead to her discovery if she remained in Paris. She entreated my consent +to remove elsewhere. Madame Marigny had her own reason for leaving +Paris, and would accompany her. I supplied her with the necessary +means, and a day or two afterwards she and her friend departed, as I +understood, for Brussels. I received no letter from her; and my own +affairs so seriously pre-occupied me, that poor Louise might have passed +altogether out of my thoughts, had it not been for the suitor she had +left in despair behind. Louvier besought me to ascertain her address; +but I could give him no, other clue to it than that she said she was +going to Brussels, but should soon remove to some quiet village. It +was not for a long time--I can’t remember how long--it might be several +weeks, perhaps two or three months, that I received a short note from +her stating that she waited for a small remittance, the last she would +accept from me, as she was resolved, so soon as her health would permit, +to find means to maintain herself--and telling me to direct to her, +Poste restante, Aix-la-Chapelle. I sent her the sum she asked, perhaps a +little more, but with a confession reluctantly wrung from me that I was +a ruined man; and I urged her to think very seriously before she refused +the competence and position which a union with M. Louvier would insure. + +“This last consideration so pressed on me that, when Louvier called on +me, I think that day or the nests I gave him Louise’s note, and told him +that, if he were still as much in love with her as ever, les absents ont +toujours tort, and he had better go to Aix-la-Chapelle and find her +out; that he had my hearty approval of his wooing, and consent to his +marriage, though I still urged the wisdom and fairness, if she would +take the preliminary step--which, after all, the French law frees as +much as possible from pain and scandal--of annulling the irregular +marriage into which her childlike youth had been decoyed. + +“Louvier left me for Aix-la-Chapelle. The very next day came that cruel +affliction which made me a prey to the most intolerable calumny, which +robbed me of every friend, which sent me forth from my native country +penniless, and resolved to be nameless--until--until--well, until my +hour could come again--every dog, if not hanged, has its day;--when that +affliction befell me, I quitted France, heard no more of Louvier nor of +Louise; indeed, no letter addressed to me at Paris would have reached--” + +The man paused here, evidently with painful emotion. He resumed in the +quiet matter-of-fact way in which he had commenced his narrative. + +“Louise had altogether faded out of my remembrance until your question +revived it. As it happened, the question came at the moment when I +meditated resuming my real name and social position. In so doing, I +should of course come in contact with my old acquaintance Louvier; and +the name of Louise was necessarily associated with us. I called on him, +and made myself known. The slight information I gave you as to my niece +was gleaned from him. + +“I may now say more. It appears that when he arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle +he found that Louise Duval had left it a day or two previously, and +according to scandal had been for some time courted by a wealthy and +noble lover, whom she had gone to Munich to meet. Louvier believed +this tale: quitted Aix indignantly, and never heard more of her. The +probability is, M. Vane, that she must have been long dead. But if +living still, I feel quite sure that she will communicate with me +some day or other. Now that I have reappeared in Paris in my own +name--entered into a career that, for good or for evil, must ere long +bring my name very noisily before the public--Louise cannot fail to hear +of my existence and my whereabouts; and unless I am utterly mistaken +as to her character, she will assuredly inform me of her own. Oblige +me with your address, and in that case I will let you know. Of course +I take for granted the assurance you gave me last year, that you only +desire to discover her in order to render her some benefit, not to +injure or molest her?” + +“Certainly. To that assurance I pledge my honour. Any letter with which +you may favour me had better be directed to my London address; here is +my card. But, M. le Vicomte, there is one point on which pray pardon me +if I question you still. Had you no suspicion that there was one reason +why this lady might have quitted Paris so hastily, and have so shrunk +from the thought of a marriage so advantageous, in a worldly point +of view, as that with M. Louvier,--namely, that she anticipated the +probability of becoming the mother of a child by the man whom she +refused to acknowledge as a husband?” + +“That idea did not strike me until you asked me if she had a child. +Should your conjecture be correct, it would obviously increase her +repugnance to apply for the annulment of her illegal marriage. But if +Louise is still living and comes across me, I do not doubt that, the +motives for concealment no longer operating, she will confide to me the +truth. Since we have been talking together thus frankly, I suppose I +may fairly ask whether I do not guess correctly in supposing that this +soi-disant husband, whose name I forget,--Mac--something, perhaps, +Scotch-I think she said he was Ecossais,--is dead and has left by will +some legacy to Louise and any child she may have borne to him?” + +“Not exactly so. The man, as you say, is dead; but he bequeathed no +legacy to the lady who did not hold herself married to him. But there +are those connected with him who, knowing the history, think that some +compensation is due for the wrong so unconsciously done to her, and yet +more to any issue of a marriage not meant to be irregular or illegal. +Permit me now to explain why I sought you in another guise and name than +my own. I could scarcely place in M. Lebeau the confidence which I now +unreservedly place in the Vicomte de Mauleon.” + +“Cela va sans dire. You believed, then, that calumny about the jewels; +you do not believe it now?” + +“Now! my amazement is, that any one who had known you could believe it.” + +“Oh, how often, and with tears of rage in my exile--my wanderings--have +I asked that question of myself! That rage has ceased; and I have but +one feeling left for that credulous, fickle Paris, of which one day I +was the idol, the next the byword. Well, a man sometimes plays chess +more skilfully for having been long a mere bystander. He understands +better how to move, and when to sacrifice the pieces. Politics, M. Vane, +is the only exciting game left to me at my years. At yours, there is +still that of love. How time flies! we are nearing the station at which +I descend. I have kinsfolk of my mother’s in these districts. They are +not Imperialists; they are said to be powerful in the department. But +before I apply to them in my own name, I think it prudent that M. Lebeau +should quietly ascertain what is their real strength, and what would be +the prospects of success if Victor de Mauleon offered himself as depute +at the next election. Wish him joy, M. Vane! If he succeed, you will +hear of him some day crowned in the Capitol, or hurled from the Tarpeian +rock.” + +Here the train stopped. The false Lebeau gathered up his papers, +readjusted his spectacles and his bag, descended lightly, and, pressing +Graham’s hand as he paused at the door, said, “Be sure I will not forget +your address if I have anything to say. Bon voyage!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Graham continued his journey to Strasbourg. On arriving there he felt +very unwell. Strong though his frame was, the anguish and self-struggle +through which he had passed since the day he had received in London +Mrs. Morley’s letter, till that on which he had finally resolved on +his course of conduct at Paris, and the shock which had annihilated his +hopes in Isaura’s rejection, had combined to exhaust its endurance, +and fever had already commenced when he took his place in the coupe. +If there be a thing which a man should not do when his system is +undermined, and his pulse between 90 and 100, it is to travel all night +by a railway express. Nevertheless, as the Englishman’s will was yet +stronger than his frame, he would not give himself more than an hour’s +rest, and again started for Berlin. Long before he got to Berlin, +the will failed him--as well as the frame. He was lifted out of the +carriage, taken to a hotel in a small German town, and six hours +afterwards he was delirious. It was fortunate for him that under such +circumstances plenty of money and Scott’s circular-notes for some +hundreds were found in his pocketbook, so that he did not fail to +receive attentive nursing and skilful medical treatment. There, for +the present, I must leave him--leave him for how long? But any village +apothecary could say that fever such as his must run its course. He was +still in bed, and very dimly--and that but at times--conscious, when the +German armies were gathering round the penfold of Sedan. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +When the news of the disastrous day at Sedan reached Paris, the first +effect was that of timid consternation. There were a few cries of +Decheance! fewer still of Vive la Republique among the motley crowds; +but they were faint, and chiefly by ragged gamins. A small body repaired +to Trochu and offered him the sceptre, which he politely declined. A +more important and respectable body--for it comprised the majority +of the Corps Legislatif--urged Palikao to accept the temporary +dictatorship, which the War Minister declined with equal politeness. In +both these overtures it was clear that the impulse of the proposers was +towards any form of government rather than republican. The sergens de +ville were sufficient that day to put down riot. They did make a charge +on a mob, which immediately ran away. + +The morning of that day the Council of Ten were summoned by +Lebeau--minus only Rameau, who was still too unwell to attend, and the +Belgian, not then at Paris; but their place was supplied by the +two travelling members, who had been absent from the meeting before +recorded. These were conspirators better known in history than those I +have before described; professional conspirators--personages who from +their youth upwards had done little else but conspire. Following the +discreet plan pursued elsewhere throughout this humble work, I give +their names other than they bore. One, a very swarthy and ill-favoured +man, between forty and fifty, I call Paul Grimm--by origin a German, but +by rearing and character French; from the hair on his head, staring up +rough and ragged as a bramblebush, to the soles of small narrow feet, +shod with dainty care, he was a personal coxcomb, and spent all he +could spare on his dress. A clever man, not ill-educated--a vehement and +effective speaker at a club. Vanity and an amorous temperament had made +him a conspirator, since he fancied he interested the ladies more in +that capacity than any other. His companion, Edgar Ferrier, would have +been a journalist, only hitherto his opinions had found no readers; the +opinions were those of Marat. He rejoiced in thinking that his hour for +glory, so long deferred, had now arrived. He was thoroughly sincere: +his father and grandfather had died in a madhouse. Both these men, +insignificant in ordinary times, were likely to become of terrible +importance in the crisis of a revolution. They both had great power with +the elements that form a Parisian mob. The instructions given to these +members of the Council by Lebeau were brief: they were summed up in the +one word, Decheance. The formidable nature of a council apparently so +meanly constituted became strikingly evident at that moment, because it +was so small in number, while each one of these could put in movement a +large section of the populace; secondly, because, unlike a revolutionary +club or a numerous association, no time was wasted in idle speeches, and +all were under the orders of one man of clear head and resolute purpose; +and thirdly, and above all, because one man supplied the treasury, and +money for an object desired was liberally given and promptly at hand. +The meeting did not last ten minutes, and about two hours afterwards +its effects were visible. From Montmartre and Belleville and Montretout +poured streams of ouvriers, with whom Armand Monnier was a chief, +and the Medecin des Pauvres an oracle. Grimm and Ferrier headed other +detachments that startled the well-dressed idlers on the Boulevards. +The stalwart figure of the Pole was seen on the Place de la Concorde, +towering amidst other refugees, amid which glided the Italian champion +of humanity. The cry of Decheance became louder. But as yet there were +only few cries of Vive la Republique!--such a cry was not on the orders +issued by Lebeau. At midnight the crowd round the hall of the Corps +Legislatif is large: cries of La Dechaeance loud--a few cries, very +feeble, of Vive la Republique! + +What followed on the 4th--the marvellous audacity with which +half-a-dozen lawyers belonging to a pitiful minority in a Chamber +elected by universal suffrage walked into the Hotel de Ville and said, +“The Republic is established, and we are its Government,” history has +told too recently for me to narrate. On the evening of the 5th the +Council of Ten met again: the Pole; the Italian radiant; Grimm +and Ferrier much excited and rather drunk; the Medecin des Pauvres +thoughtful; and Armand Monnier gloomy. A rumour has spread that General +Trochu, in accepting the charge imposed on him, has exacted from the +Government the solemn assurance of respect for God, and for the rights +of Family and Property. The Atheist is very indignant at the assent of +the Government to the first proposition; Monnier equal indignant at the +assent to the second and third. What has that honest ouvrier conspired +for?--what has he suffered for?--of late nearly starved for?--but to +marry another man’s wife, getting rid of his own, and to legalise a +participation in the property of his employer,--and now he is no better +off than before. “There must be another revolution,” he whispers to the +Atheist. + +“Certainly,” whispers back the Atheist; “he who desires to better this +world must destroy all belief in another.” The conclave was assembled +when Lebeau entered by the private door. He took his place at the head +of the table; and, fixing on the group eyes that emitted a cold gleam +through the spectacles, thus spoke: + +“Messieurs, or Citoyens, which ye will--I no longer call ye +confreres--you have disobeyed or blundered my instructions. On such an +occasion disobedience and blunder are crimes equally heinous.” + +Angry murmurs. + +“Silence! Do not add mutiny to your other offences. My instructions were +simple and short. Aid in the abolition of the Empire. Do not aid in any +senseless cry for a Republic or any other form of government. Leave +that to the Legislature. What have you done? You swelled the crowd that +invaded the Corps Ligislatif. You, Dombinsky, not even a Frenchman, dare +to mount the President’s rostrum, and brawl forth your senseless jargon. +You, Edgar Ferrier, from whom I expected better, ascend the tribune, and +invite the ruffians in the crowd to march to the prisons and release +the convicts; and all of you swell the mob at the Hotel de Ville, and +inaugurate the reign of folly by creating an oligarchy of lawyers to +resist the march of triumphal armies. Messieurs, I have done with you. +You are summoned for the last time: the Council is dissolved.” + +With these words Lebeau put on his hat, and turned to depart. But the +Pole, who was seated near him, sprang to his feet, exclaiming, “Traitor, +thou shalt not escape! Comrades, he wants to sell us!” + +“I have a right to sell you at least, for I bought you, and a very bad +bargain I made,” said Lebeau, in a tone of withering sarcasm. + +“Liar!” cried the Pole, and seized Lebeau by the left hand, while with +the right he drew forth a revolver. Ferrier and Grimm, shouting, “A +bas le renegat!” would have rushed forward in support of the Pole, but +Monnier thrust himself between them and their intended victim, crying +with a voice that dominated their yell, “Back!--we are not assassins.” + Before he had finished the sentence the Pole was on his knees. With a +vigour which no one could have expected from the seeming sexagenarian, +Lebeau had caught the right arm of his assailant, twisted it back so +mercilessly as almost to dislocate elbow and shoulder joint. One barrel +of the revolver discharged itself harmlessly against the opposite wall, +and the pistol itself then fell from the unnerved hand of the would-be +assassin; and what with the pain and the sudden shock, the stalwart +Dombinsky fell in the attitude of a suppliant at the feet of his +unlooked-for vanquisher. + +Lebeau released his hold, possessed himself of the pistol, pointing the +barrels towards Edgar Ferrier, who stood with mouth agape and lifted arm +arrested, and said quietly: “Monsieur, have the goodness to open that +window.” Ferrier mechanically obeyed. “Now, hireling,” continued +Lebeau, addressing the vanquished Pole, “choose between the door and the +window.” + +“Go, my friend,” whispered the Italian. The Pole did not utter a word; +but rising nimbly, and rubbing his arm, stalked to the door. There +he paused a moment and said, “I retire overpowered by numbers,” and +vanished. + +“Messieurs,” resumed Lebeau, calmly, “I repeat that the Council is +dissolved. In fact its object is fulfilled more abruptly than any of us +foresaw, and by means which I at least had been too long out of Paris +to divine as possible. I now see that every aberration of reason is +possible to the Parisians. The object that united us was the fall of the +Empire. As I have always frankly told you, with that object achieved, +separation commences. Each of us has his own crotchet, which differs +from the other man’s. Pursue yours as you will--I pursue mine--you will +find Jean Lebeau no more in Paris: il s’eface. Au plaisir, mais pas au +revoir.” + +He retreated to the masked door and disappeared. + +Marc le Roux, the porter or custos of that ruinous council-hall, alarmed +at the explosion of the pistol, had hurried into the room, and now +stood unheeded by the door with mouth agape, while Lebeau thus curtly +dissolved the assembly. But when the president vanished through the +secret doorway, Le Roux also retreated. Hastily descending the stairs, +he made as quickly as his legs could carry him for the mouth of the +alley in the rear of the house, through which he knew that Lebeau must +pass. He arrived, panting and breathless, in time to catch hold of +the ex-president’s arm. “Pardon, citizen,” stammered he, “but do I +understand that you have sent the Council of Ten to the devil?” + +“I? Certainly not, my good Paul; I dismiss them to go where they +like. If they prefer the direction you name, it is their own choice. I +declined to accompany them, and I advise you not to do so.” + +“But, citizen, have you considered what is to become of Madame? Is she +to be turned out of the lodge? Are my wages to stop, and Madame to be +left without a crust to put into her soup?” + +“Not so bad as that; I have just paid the rent of the baraque for three +months in advance, and there is your quarter’s pay, in advance also. +My kind regards to Madame, and tell her to keep your skin safe from the +schemes of these lunatics.” Thrusting some pieces of gold into the hands +of the porter, Lebeau nodded his adieu, and hastened along his way. + +Absorbed in his own reflections, he did not turn to look behind. But if +he had, he could not have detected the dark form of the porter, creeping +in the deep shadow of the streets with distant but watchful footsteps. + + + + +CHAPTER, IX. + +The conspirators, when left by their president, dispersed in deep, not +noisy resentment. They were indeed too stunned for loud demonstration; +and belonging to different grades of life, and entertaining different +opinions, their confidence in each other seemed lost now that the chief +who had brought and kept them together was withdrawn from their union. +The Italian and the Atheist slunk away, whispering to each other. Grimm +reproached Ferrier for deserting Dombinsky and obeying Lebeau. Ferrier +accused Grimm of his German origin, and hinted at denouncing him as a +Prussian spy. Gaspard le Noy linked his arm in Monnier’s, and when they +had gained the dark street without, leading into a labyrinth of desolate +lanes, the Medicin des Pauvres said to the mechanic: “You are a brave +fellow, Monnier. Lebeau owes you a good turn. But for your cry, ‘We are +not assassins,’ the Pole might not have been left without support. No +atmosphere is so infectious as that in which we breathe the same air +of revenge: when the violence of one man puts into action the anger or +suspicion of others, they become like a pack of hounds, which follow the +spring of the first hound, whether on the wild boar or their own master. +Even I, who am by no means hot-headed, had my hand on my case-knife when +the word ‘assassin’ rebuked and disarmed me.” + +“Nevertheless,” said Monnier, gloomily, “I half repent the impulse which +made me interfere to save that man. Better he should die than live to +betray the cause we allowed him to lead.” + +“Nay, mon ami, speaking candidly, we must confess that he never from the +first pretended to advocate the cause for which you conspired. On the +contrary, he always said that with the fall of the Empire our union +would cease, and each become free to choose his own way towards his own +after-objects.” + +“Yes,” answered Armand, reluctantly; “he said that to me privately, with +still greater plainness than he said it to the Council. But I answered +as plainly.” + +“How?” + +“I told him that the man who takes the first step in a revolution, and +persuades others to go along with him, cannot in safety stand still or +retreat when the next step is to be taken. It is ‘en avant’ or ‘a la +lanterne.’ So it shall be with him. Shall a fellow-being avail himself +of the power over my mind which he derives from superior education or +experience,--break into wild fragments my life, heretofore tranquil, +orderly, happy,--make use of my opinions, which were then but harmless +desires, to serve his own purpose, which was hostile to the opinions he +roused into action,--say to me, ‘Give yourself up to destroy the +first obstacle in the way of securing a form of society which your +inclinations prefer,’ and then, that first obstacle destroyed, cry, +‘Halt! I go with you no further; I will not help you to piece together +the life I have induced you to shatter; I will not aid you to substitute +for the society that pained you the society that would please; I leave +you, struggling, bewildered, maddened, in the midst of chaos within and +without you’? Shall a fellow-being do this, and vanish with a mocking +cry: ‘Tool! I have had enough of thee; I cast thee aside as worthless +lumber’? Ah! let him beware! The tool is of iron, and can be shaped +to edge and point.” The passion with which this rough eloquence was +uttered, and the fierce sinister expression that had come over a +countenance habitually open and manly, even when grave and stern, +alarmed and startled Le Noy. “Pooh, my friend!” he said, rather +falteringly, “you are too excited now to think justly. Go home and kiss +your children. Never do anything that may make them shrink from their +father. And as to Lebeau, try and forget him. He says he shall disappear +from Paris. I believe him. It is clear to me that the man is not what +he seemed to us. No man of sixty could by so easy a sleight of hand have +brought that giant Pole to his knee. If Lebeau reappear it will be +in some other form. Did you notice that in the momentary struggle his +flaxen wig got disturbed, and beneath it I saw a dark curl. I suspect +that the man is not only younger than he seemed, but of higher rank--a +conspirator against one throne, perhaps, in order to be minister under +another. There are such men.” + +Before Monnier, who seemed struck by these conjectures, collected his +thoughts to answer, a tall man in the dress of a sous lieutenant stopped +under a dim gas-lamp, and, catching sight of the artisan’s face, seized +him by the hand, exclaiming, “Armand, mon frere! well met; strange +times, eh? Come and discuss them at the cafe de Lyon yonder over a bowl +of punch. I’ll stand treat.” + +“Agreed, dear Charles.” + +“And if this monsieur is a friend of yours, perhaps he will join us.” + +“You are too obliging, Monsieur,” answered Le Noy, not ill-pleased to +get rid of his excited companion; “but it has been a busy day with me, +and I am only fit for bed. Be abstinent of the punch, Armand. You are +feverish already. Good-night, Messieurs.” + +The cafe de Lyon, in vogue among the National Guard of the quartier, was +but a few yards off, and the brothers turned towards it arm in arm. “Who +is the friend?” asked Charles; “I don’t remember to have seen him with +thee before.” + +“He belongs to the medical craft--a good patriot and a kind man--attends +the poor gratuitously. Yes, Charles, these are strange times; what dost +thou think will come of them?” + +They had now entered the cafe; and Charles had ordered the punch, and +seated himself at a vacant table before he replied. “What will come of +these times? I will tell thee. National deliverance and regeneration +through the ascendency of the National Guard.” + +“Eh? I don’t take,” said Armand, bewildered. + +“Probably not,” answered Charles, with an air of compassionate conceit; +“thou art a dreamer, but I am a politician.” He tapped his forehead +significantly. “At this custom-house, ideas are examined before they are +passed.” + +Armand gazed at his brother wistfully, and with a defence he rarely +manifested towards any one who disputed his own claims to superior +intelligence. Charles was a few years older than Monnier; he was of +large build; he had shaggy lowering eyebrows, a long obstinate +upper lip, the face of a man who was accustomed to lay down the law. +Inordinate self-esteem often gives that character to a physiognomy +otherwise commonplace. Charles passed for a deep thinker in his own +set, which was a very different set from Armand’s--not among workmen but +small shopkeepers. He had risen in life to a grade beyond Armand’s; he +had always looked to the main chance, married the widow of a hosier and +glover much older than himself, and in her right was a very respectable +tradesman, comfortably well off; a Liberal, of course, but a Liberal +bourgeois, equally against those above him and those below. Needless +to add that he had no sympathy with his brother’s socialistic opinions. +Still he loved that brother as well as he could love any one except +himself. And Armand, who was very affectionate, and with whom family +ties were very strong, returned that love with ample interest; and +though so fiercely at war with the class to which Charles belonged, was +secretly proud of having a brother who was of that class. So in +England I have known the most violent antagonist of the landed +aristocracy--himself a cobbler--who interrupts a discourse on the crimes +of the aristocracy by saying, “Though I myself descend from a county +family.” + +In an evil day Charles Monnier, enrolled in the National Guard, had +received promotion in that patriotic corps. From that date he began to +neglect his shop, to criticise military matters, and to think that if +merit had fair play he should be a Cincinnatus or a Washington, he had +not decided which. + +“Yes,” resumed Charles, ladling out the punch, “thou hast wit enough +to perceive that our generals are imbeciles or traitors; that gredin +Bonaparte has sold the army for ten millions of francs to Bismarck, and +I have no doubt that Wimpffen has his share of the bargain. McMahon was +wounded conveniently, and has his own terms for it. The regular army is +nowhere. Thou wilt see--thou wilt see--they will not stop the march of +the Prussians. Trochu will be obliged to come to the National Guard. +Then we shall say, ‘General, give us our terms, and go to sleep.’ + +“I shall be summoned to the council of war. I have my plan. I explain +it--‘tis accepted--it succeeds. I am placed in supreme command--the +Prussians are chased back to their sour-krout. And I--well--I don’t like +to boast, but thou’lt see--thou’lt see--what will happen.” + +“And thy plan, Charles--thou hast formed it already?” + +“Ay, ay,--the really military genius is prompt, mon petit Armand--a +flash of the brain. Hark ye! Let the Vandals come to Paris and invest +it. Whatever their numbers on paper, I don’t care a button; they can +only have a few thousands at any given point in the vast circumference +of the capital. Any fool must grant that--thou must grant it eh?” + +“It seems just.” + +“Of course. Well, then, we proceed by sorties of 200,000 men repeated +every other day, and in twelve days the Prussians are in full flight. +The country rises on their flight--they are cut to pieces. I depose +Trochu--the National Guard elects the Saviour of France. I have a +place in my eye for thee. Thou art superb as a decorator--thou shalt be +Minister des Beaux Arts. But keep clear of the canaille. No more strikes +then--thou wilt be an employer--respect thy future order.” + + [Charles Monnier seems to have indiscreetly blabbed out his “idea,” + for it was plagiarised afterwards at a meeting of the National + Guards in the Salle de la Bourse by Citizen Rochebrune (slain 19th + January, 1871, in the affair of Montretout). The plan, which he + developed nearly in the same words as Charles Monnier, was received + with lively applause; and at the close of his speech it was proposed + to name at once Citizen Rochebrune General of the National Guard, an + honour which, unhappily for his country, the citizen had the modesty + to decline.] + +Armand smiled mournfully. Though of intellect which, had it been +disciplined, was far superior to his brother’s, it was so estranged +from practical opinions, so warped, so heated, so flawed and cracked +in parts, that he did not see the ridicule of Charles’s braggadocio. +Charles had succeeded in life, Armand had failed; and Armand believed in +the worldly wisdom of the elder born. But he was far too sincere for any +bribe to tempt him to forsake his creed and betray his opinions. And +he knew that it must be a very different revolution from that which his +brother contemplated, that could allow him to marry another man’s wife, +and his “order” to confiscate other people’s property. + +“Don’t talk of strikes, Charles. What is done is done. I was led into +heading a strike, not on my own account, for I was well paid and well +off, but for the sake of my fellow-workmen. I may regret now what I +did, for the sake of Marie and the little ones. But it is an affair +of honour, and I cannot withdraw from the cause till my order, as thou +namest my class, has its rights.” + +“Bah! thou wilt think better of it when thou art an employer. Thou hast +suffered enough already. Remember that I warned thee against that old +fellow in spectacles whom I met once at thy house. I told thee he would +lead thee into mischief, and then leave thee to get out of it. I saw +through him. I have a head! Va!” + +“Thou wert a true prophet--he has duped me. But in moving me he has set +others in movement; and I suspect he will find he has duped himself. +Time will show.” + +Here the brothers were joined by some loungers belonging to the National +Guard. The talk became general, the potations large. Towards daybreak +Armand reeled home, drunk for the first time in his life. He was one +of those whom drink makes violent. Marie had been sitting up for him, +alarmed at his lengthened absence. But when she would have thrown +herself on his breast, her pale face and her passionate sobs enraged +him. He flung her aside roughly. From that night the man’s nature was +changed. If, as a physiognomist has said, each man has in him a portion +of the wild beast, which is suppressed by mild civilising circumstances, +and comes uppermost when self-control is lost, the nature of many an +honest workman, humane and tender-hearted as the best of us, commenced +a change into the wild beast that raged through the civil war of the +Communists, on the day when half-a-dozen Incapables, with no more claim +to represent the people of Paris than half-a-dozen monkeys would have, +were allowed to elect themselves to supreme power, and in the very fact +of that election released all the elements of passion, and destroyed all +the bulwarks of order. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +No man perhaps had more earnestly sought and more passionately striven +for the fall of the Empire than Victor de Mauleon; and perhaps no man +was more dissatisfied and disappointed by the immediate consequences +of that fall, In first conspiring against the Empire, he had naturally +enough, in common with all the more intelligent enemies of the dynasty, +presumed that its fate would be worked out by the normal effect of civil +causes--the alienation of the educated classes, the discontent of +the artisans, the eloquence of the press and of popular meetings, +strengthened in proportion as the Emperor had been compelled to relax +the former checks upon the license of either. And De Mauleon had no less +naturally concluded that there would be time given for the preparation +of a legitimate and rational form of government to succeed that which +was destroyed. For, as has been hinted or implied, this remarkable man +was not merely an instigator of revolution through the Secret Council, +and the turbulent agencies set in movement through the lower strata of +society;--he was also in confidential communication with men eminent for +wealth, station, and political repute, from whom he obtained the funds +necessary for the darker purposes of conspiracy, into the elaboration of +which they did not inquire; and these men, though belonging like himself +to the Liberal party, were no hot-blooded democrats. Most of them +were in favour of constitutional monarchy; all of them for forms of +government very different from any republic in which socialists or +communists could find themselves uppermost. Among these politicians were +persons ambitious and able, who, in scheming for the fall of the Empire, +had been prepared to undertake the task of conducting to ends compatible +with modern civilisation the revolution they were willing to allow a mob +at Paris to commence. The opening of the war necessarily suspended +their designs. How completely the events of the 4th September mocked the +calculations of their ablest minds, and paralysed the action of their +most energetic spirits, will appear in the conversation I am about to +record. It takes place between Victor de Mauleon and the personage +to whom he had addressed the letter written on the night before the +interview with Louvier, in which Victor had announced his intention of +reappearing in Paris in his proper name and rank. I shall designate this +correspondent as vaguely as possible; let me call him the Incognito. He +may yet play so considerable a part in the history of France as a potent +representative of the political philosophy of De Tocqueville--that is, +of Liberal principles incompatible with the absolute power either of a +sovereign or a populace, and resolutely opposed to experiments on the +foundations of civilised society--that it would be unfair to himself and +his partisans if, in a work like this, a word were said that could +lead malignant conjecture to his identity with any special chief of the +opinions of which I here present him only as a type. + +The Incognito, entering Victor’s apartment: + +“My dear friend, even if I had not received your telegram, I should have +hastened hither on the news of this astounding revolution. It is only in +Paris that such a tragedy could be followed by such a farce. You were on +the spot--a spectator. Explain it if you can.” + +DE MAULEON.--“I was more than a spectator; I was an actor. Hiss me--I +deserve it. When the terrible news from Sedan reached Paris, in the +midst of the general stun and bewilderment I noticed a hesitating +timidity among all those who had wares in their shops and a good coat on +their backs. They feared that to proclaim the Empire defunct would be to +install the Red Republic with all its paroxysm of impulsive rage and all +its theories of wholesale confiscation. But since it was impossible +for the object we had in view to let slip the occasion of deposing the +dynasty which stood in its way, it was necessary to lose no time +in using the revolutionary part of the populace for that purpose. I +assisted in doing so; my excuse is this--that in a time of crisis a +man of action must go straight to his immediate object, and in so doing +employ the instruments at his command. I made, however, one error in +judgment which admits no excuse: I relied on all I had heard, and all I +had observed, of the character of Trochu, and I was deceived, in common, +I believe, with all his admirers, and three parts of the educated +classes of Paris.” + +INCOGNITO.--“I should have been equally deceived! Trochu’s conduct is a +riddle that I doubt if he himself can ever solve. He was master of the +position; he had the military force in his hands if he combined with +Palikao, which, whatever the jealousies between the two, it was his +absolute duty to do. He had a great prestige--” + +DE MAULEON.--“And for the moment a still greater popularity. His ipse +dixit could have determined the wavering and confused spirits of the +population. I was prepared for his abandonment of the Emperor--even of +the Empress and the Regency. But how could I imagine that he, the man of +moderate politics, of Orleanistic leanings, the clever writer, the fine +talker, the chivalrous soldier, the religious Breton, could abandon +everything that was legal, everything that could save France against +the enemy, and Paris against civil discord; that he would connive at the +annihilation of the Senate, of the popular Assembly, of every form of +Government that could be recognised as legitimate at home or abroad, +accept service under men whose doctrines were opposed to all his +antecedents, all his professed opinions, and inaugurate a chaos under +the name of a Republic!” + +INCOGNITO.--“How, indeed? How suppose that the National Assembly, just +elected by a majority of seven millions and a half, could be hurried +into a conjuring-bog, and reappear as the travesty of a Venetian +oligarchy, composed of half-a-dozen of its most unpopular members! +The sole excuse for Trochu is, that he deemed all other considerations +insignificant compared with the defence of Paris, and the united action +of the nation against the invaders. But if that were his honest desire +in siding with this monstrous usurpation of power, he did everything +by which the desire could be frustrated. Had there been any provisional +body composed of men known and esteemed, elected by the Chambers, +supported by Trochu and the troops at his back, there would have been +a rallying-point for the patriotism of the provinces; and in the wise +suspense of any constitution to succeed that Government until the enemy +were chased from the field, all partisans--Imperialists, Legitimists, +Orleanists, Republicans--would have equally adjourned their differences. +But a democratic Republic, proclaimed by a Parisian mob for a nation in +which sincere democratic Republicans are a handful, in contempt of +an Assembly chosen by the country at large; headed by men in whom the +provinces have no trust, and for whom their own representatives are +violently cashiered;--can you conceive such a combination of wet +blankets supplied by the irony of Fate for the extinction of every spark +of ardour in the population from which armies are to be gathered in +haste, at the beck of usupers they distrust and despise? Paris has +excelled itself in folly. Hungering for peace, it proclaims a Government +which has no legal power to treat for it. Shrieking out for allies among +the monarchies, it annihilates the hope of obtaining them; its sole +chance of escape from siege, famine, and bombardment, is in the +immediate and impassioned sympathy of the provinces; and it revives +all the grudges which the provinces have long sullenly felt against +the domineering pretensions of the capital, and invokes the rural +populations, which comprise the pith and sinew of armies, in the name +of men whom I verily believe they detest still more than they do the +Prussians. Victor, it is enough to make one despair of his country! All +beyond the hour seems anarchy and ruin.” + +“Not so!” exclaimed De Mauleon. “Everything comes to him who knows how +to wait. The Empire is destroyed; the usurpation that follows it has +no roots. It will but serve to expedite the establishment of such a +condition as we have meditated and planned--a constitution adapted to +our age and our people, not based wholly on untried experiments, taking +the best from nations that do not allow Freedom and Order to be the +sport of any popular breeze. From the American Republic we must borrow +the only safeguards against the fickleness of the universal suffrage +which, though it was madness to concede in any ancient community, once +conceded cannot be safely abolished,--viz., the salutary law that no +article of the Constitution, once settled, can be altered without the +consent of two-thirds of the legislative body. By this law we insure +permanence, and that concomitant love for institutions which is +engendered by time and custom. Secondly, the formation of a senate on +such principles as may secure to it in all times of danger a confidence +and respect which counteract in public opinion the rashness and heat of +the popular assembly. On what principles that senate should be formed, +with what functions invested, what share of the executive--especially +in foreign affairs, declarations of war, or treaties of peace--should +be accorded to it, will no doubt need the most deliberate care of the +ablest minds. But a senate I thus sketch has alone rescued America from +the rashness of counsel incident to a democratic Chamber; and it is +still more essential to France, with still more favourable elements for +its creation. From England we must borrow the great principle that has +alone saved her from revolution--that the head of the State can do +no wrong. He leads no armies, he presides over no Cabinet. All +responsibility rests with his advisers; and where we upset a dynasty, +England changes an administration. Whether the head of the State should +have the title of sovereign or president, whether he be hereditary or +elected, is a question of minor importance impossible now to determine, +but on which I heartily concur with you that hereditary monarchy is +infinitely better adapted to the habits of Frenchmen, to their love +of show and of honours--and infinitely more preservative from all the +dangers which result from constant elections to such a dignity, with +parties so heated, and pretenders to the rank so numerous--than any +principle by which a popular demagogue or a successful general is +enabled to destroy the institutions he is elected to guard. On these +fundamental doctrines for the regeneration of France I think we are +agreed. And I believe when the moment arrives to promulgate them, +through an expounder of weight like yourself, they will rapidly commend +themselves to the intellect of France. For they belong to common sense; +and in the ultimate prevalence of common-sense I have a faith which I +refuse to medievalists who would restore the right divine; and still +more to fanatical quacks, who imagine that the worship of the Deity, the +ties of family, and the rights of property are errors at variance with +the progress of society. Qui vivera, verra.” + +INCOGNITO.--“In the outlines of the policy you so ably enunciate I +heartily concur. But if France is, I will not say to be regenerated, but +to have fair play among the nations of Europe, I add one or two items +to the programme. France must be saved from Paris, not by subterranean +barracks and trains, the impotence of which we see to-day with a +general in command of the military force, but by conceding to France +its proportionate share of the power now monopolised by Paris. All +this system of centralisation, equally tyrannical and corrupt, must be +eradicated. Talk of examples from America, of which I know little--from +England, of which I know much,--what can we more advantageously borrow +from England than that diffusion of all her moral and social power +which forbids the congestion of blood in one vital part? Decentralise! +decentralise! decentralise! will be my incessant cry, if ever the time +comes when my cry will be heard. France can never be a genuine France +until Paris has no more influence over the destinies of France than +London has over those of England. But on this theme I could go on till +midnight. Now to the immediate point: what do you advise me to do in +this crisis, and what do you propose to do yourself?” + +De Mauleon put his hand to his brow, and remained a few moments silent +and thoughtful. At last he looked up with that decided expression of +face which was not the least among his many attributes for influence +over those with whom he came into contact. + +“For you, on whom so much of the future depends, my advice is +brief--have nothing to do with the present. All who join this present +mockery of a Government will share the fall that attends it--a fall from +which one or two of their body may possibly recover by casting blame on +their confreres,--you never could. But it is not for you to oppose that +Government with an enemy on its march to Paris. You are not a soldier; +military command is not in your rode. The issue of events is uncertain; +but whatever it be, the men in power cannot conduct a prosperous war nor +obtain an honourable peace. Hereafter you may be the Deus ex machina. No +personage of that rank and with that mission appears till the end of +the play: we are only in the first act. Leave Paris at once, and abstain +from all action.” + +INCOGNITO (dejectedly).--“I cannot deny the soundness of your advice, +though in accepting it I feel unutterably saddened. Still you, the +calmest and shrewdest observer among my friends, think there is cause +for hope, not despair. Victor, I have more than most men to make life +pleasant, but I would lay down life at this moment with you. You know me +well enough to be sure that I utter no melodramatic fiction when I +say that I love my country as a young man loves the ideal of his +dreams--with my whole mind and heart and soul! and the thought that I +cannot now aid her in the hour of her mortal trial is--is--” + +The man’s voice broke down, and he turned aside, veiling his face with a +hand that trembled. + +DE MAULEON--“Courage--patience! All Frenchmen have the first; set them +an example they much need in the second. I, too, love my country, though +I owe to it little enough, heaven knows. I suppose love of country is +inherent in all who are not Internationalists. They profess only to love +humanity, by which, if they mean anything practical, they mean a rise in +wages.” + +INCOGNITO (rousing himself, and with a half smile). “Always cynical, +Victor--always belying yourself. But now that you have advised my +course, what will be your own? Accompany me, and wait for better times.” + +“No, noble friend; our positions are different. Yours is made--mine yet +to make. But for this war I think I could have secured a seat in the +Chamber. As I wrote you, I found that my kinsfolk were of much influence +in their department, and that my restitution to my social grade, and the +repute I had made as an Orleanist, inclined them to forget my youthful +errors and to assist my career. But the Chamber ceases to exist. My +journal I shall drop. I cannot support the Government; it is not a +moment to oppose it. My prudent course is silence.” + +INCOGNITO.--“But is not your journal essential to your support?” + +DE MAULEON.--“Fortunately not. Its profits enabled me to lay by for the +rainy day that has come; and having reimbursed you and all friends +the sums necessary to start it, I stand clear of all debt, and, for +my slender wants, a rich man. If I continued the journal I should be +beggared; for there would be no readers to Common Sense in this interval +of lunacy. Nevertheless, during this interval, I trust to other ways for +winning a name that will open my rightful path of ambition whenever we +again have a legislature in which Common Sense can be heard.” + +INCOGNITO.--“But how win that name, silenced as a writer?” + +DE MAULEON.--“You forget that I have fought in Algeria. In a few days +Paris will be in a state of siege; and then--and then,” he added, +and very quietly dilated on the renown of a patriot or the grave of a +soldier. + +“I envy you the chance of either,” said the Incognito; and after a few +more brief words he departed, his hat drawn over his brows, and entering +a hired carriage which he had left at the corner of the quiet street, +was consigned to the station du --------, just in time for the next +train. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Victor dressed and went out. The streets were crowded. Workmen were +everywhere employed in the childish operation of removing all insignia, +and obliterating all names that showed where an Empire had existed. One +greasy citizen, mounted on a ladder, was effacing the words “Boulevard +Haussman,” and substituting for Haussman, “Victor Hugo.” + +Suddenly De Mauleon came on a group of blouses, interspersed with +women holding babies and ragged boys holding stones, collected round a +well-dressed slender man, at whom they were hooting and gesticulating, +with menaces of doing something much worse. By an easy effort of his +strong frame the Vicomte pushed his way through the tormentors, and gave +his arm to their intended victim. + +“Monsieur, allow me to walk home with you.” Therewith the shrieks and +shouts and gesticulations increased. “Another impertinent! Another +traitor! Drown him! Drown them both! To the Seine! To the Seine!” A +burly fellow rushed forward, and the rest made a plunging push. The +outstretched arm of De Mauleon kept the ringleader at bay. “Mes enfans,” + cried Victor with a calm clear voice, “I am not an Imperialist. Many +of you have read the articles signed Pierre Firmin, written against the +tyrant Bonaparte when he was at the height of his power. I am Pierre +Firmin--make way for me.” Probably not one in the crowd had ever read a +word written by Pierre Firmin, nor even heard of the name. But they +did not like to own ignorance; and that burly fellow did not like to +encounter that arm of iron which touched his throat. So he cried out, +“Oh! if you are the great Pierre Firmin, that alters the case. Make way +for the patriot Pierre!” + +“But,” shrieked a virago, thrusting her baby into De Mauleon’s face, +“the other is the Imperialist, the capitalist, the vile Duplessis. At +least we will have him.” + +De Mauleon suddenly snatched the baby from her, and said, with +imperturbable good temper, “Exchange of prisoners. I resign the man, and +I keep the baby.” + +No one who does not know the humours of a Parisian mob can comprehend +the suddenness of popular change, or the magical mastery over crowds +which is effected by quiet courage and a ready joke. The group was +appeased at once. Even the virago laughed; and when De Mauleon restored +the infant to her arms, with a gold piece thrust into its tiny clasp, +she eyed the gold, and cried, “God bless you, citizen!” The two +gentlemen made their way safely now. + +“M. de Mauleon,” said Duplessis, “I know not how to thank you. Without +your seasonable aid I should have been in great danger of life; +and--would you believe it?--the woman who denounced and set the mob on +me was one of the objects of a charity which I weekly dispense to the +poor.” + +“Of course I believe that. At the Red clubs no crime is more denounced +than that of charity. It is the ‘fraud against Egalite’--a vile trick +of the capitalist to save to himself the millions he ought to share with +all by giving a sou to one. Meanwhile, take my advice, M. Duplessis, +and quit Paris with your young daughter. This is no place for rich +Imperialists at present.” + +“I perceived that before to-day’s adventure. I distrust the looks of my +very servants, and shall depart with Valerie this evening for Bretagne.” + +“Ah! I heard from Louvier that you propose to pay off his mortgage on +Rochebriant, and make yourself sole proprietor of my young kinsman’s +property.” + +“I trust you only believe half what you hear. I mean to save Rochebriant +from Louvier, and consign it, free of charge, to your kinsman, as the +dot of his bride, my daughter.” + +“I rejoice to learn such good news for the head of my house. But Alain +himself--is he not with the prisoners of war?” + +“No, thank heaven. He went forth an officer of a regiment of Parisian +Mobiles--went full of sanguine confidence; he came back with his +regiment in mournful despondency. The undiscipline of his regiment, +of the Parisian Mobiles generally, appears incredible. Their +insolent disobedience to their officers, their ribald scoffs at their +general--oh, it is sickening to speak of it! Alain distinguished himself +by repressing a mutiny and is honoured by a signal compliment from +the commander in a letter of recommendation to Palikao. But Palikao is +nobody now. Alain has already been sent into Bretagne, commissioned to +assist in organising a corps of Mobiles in his neighbourhood. Trochu, +as you know, is a Breton. Alain is confident of the good conduct of the +Bretons. What will Louvier do? He is an arch Republican; is he pleased +now he has got what he wanted?” + +“I suppose he is pleased, for he is terribly frightened. Fright is one +of the great enjoyments of a Parisian. Good day. Your path to your hotel +is clear now. Remember me kindly to Alain.” + +De Mauleon continued his way through streets sometimes deserted, +sometimes thronged. At the commencement of the Rue de Florentin he +encountered the brothers Vandemar walking arm in arm. + +“Ha, De Mauleon!” cried Enguerrand; “what is the last minute’s news?” + +“I can’t guess. Nobody knows at Paris how soon one folly swallows up +another. Saturn here is always devouring one or other of his children.” + +“They say that Vinoy, after a most masterly retreat, is almost at our +gates with 80,000 men.” + +“And this day twelvemonth we may know what he does with them.” + +Here Raoul, who seemed absorbed in gloomy reflections, halted before +the hotel in which the Contessa di Rimini lodged, and with a nod to his +brother, and a polite, if not cordial salutation to Victor, entered the +porte cochere. + +“Your brother seems out of spirits,--a pleasing contrast to the +uproarious mirth with which Parisians welcome the advance of calamity.” + +“Raoul, as you know, is deeply religious. He regards the defeat we have +sustained, and the peril that threatens us, as the beginning of a divine +chastisement, justly incurred by our sins--I mean, the sins of Paris. In +vain my father reminds him of Voltaire’s story, in which the ship goes +down with a fripon on board. In order to punish the fripon, the honest +folks are drowned.” + +“Is your father going to remain on board the ship, and share the fate of +the other honest folks?” + +“Pas si bete. He is off to Dieppe for sea-bathing. He says that Paris +has grown so dirty since the 4th September, that it is only fit for +the feet of the Unwashed. He wished my mother to accompany him; but she +replies, ‘No; there are already too many wounded not to need plenty of +nurses.’ She is assisting to inaugurate a society of ladies in aid of +the Soeurs de Charite. Like Raoul, she is devout, but she has not his +superstitions. Still his superstitions are the natural reaction of a +singularly earnest and pure nature from the frivolity and corruption +which, when kneaded well up together with a slice of sarcasm, Paris +calls philosophy.” + +“And what, my dear Enguerrand, do you propose to do?” + +“That depends on whether we are really besieged. If so, of course I +become a soldier.” + +“I hope not a National Guard?” + +“I care not in what name I fight, so that I fight for France.” + +As Enguerrand said these simple words, his whole countenance, seemed +changed. The crest rose; his eyes sparkled; the fair and delicate +beauty which had made him the darling of women--the joyous sweetness +of expression and dainty grace of high breeding which made him the most +popular companion to men,--were exalted in a masculine nobleness of +aspect, from which a painter might have taken hints for a study of the +young Achilles separated for ever from effeminate companionship at the +sight of the weapons of war. De Mauleon gazed on him admiringly. We have +seen that he shared the sentiments uttered--had resolved on the same +course of action. But it was with the tempered warmth of a man who seeks +to divest his thoughts and his purpose of the ardour of romance, +and who, in serving his country, calculates on the gains to his own +ambition. Nevertheless he admired in Enguerrand the image of his own +impulsive and fiery youth. + +“And you, I presume,” resumed Enguerrand, “will fight too, but rather +with pen than with sword.” + +“Pens will now only be dipped in red ink, and commonsense never writes +in that colour; as for the sword, I have passed the age of forty-five, +at which military service halts. But if some experience in active +service, some knowledge of the art by which soldiers are disciplined +and led, will be deemed sufficient title to a post of command, however +modest the grade be, I shall not be wanting among the defenders of +Paris.” + +“My brave dear Vicomte, if you are past the age to serve, you are in the +ripest age to command; and with the testimonials and the cross you +won in Algeria, your application for employment will be received with +gratitude by any general so able as Trochu.” + +“I don’t know whether I shall apply to Trochu. I would rather be elected +to command even by the Mobiles or the National Guard, of whom I have +just spoken disparagingly; and no doubt both corps will soon claim and +win the right to choose their officers. But if elected, no matter by +whom, I shall make a preliminary condition; the men under me shall +train, and drill, and obey,--soldiers of a very different kind from the +youthful Pekins nourished on absinthe and self-conceit, and applauding +that Bombastes Furioso, M. Hugo, when he assures the enemy that Paris +will draw an idea from its scabbard. But here comes Savarin. Bon jour, +my dear poet.” + +“Don’t say good day. An evil day for journalists and writers who do not +out-Herod Blanqui and Pyat. I know not how I shall get bread and cheese. +My poor suburban villa is to be pulled down by way of securing Paris; +my journal will be suppressed by way of establishing the liberty of the +press. I ventured to suggest that the people of France should have some +choice in the form of their government.” + +“That was very indiscreet, my poor Savarin,” said Victor; “I wonder your +printing-office has not been pulled down. We are now at the moment when +wise men hold their tongues.” + +“Perhaps so, M. de Mauleon. It might have been wiser for all of us, +you as well as myself, if we had not allowed our tongues to be so free +before this moment arrived. We live to learn; and if we ever have what +may be called a passable government again, in which we may say pretty +much what we like, there is one thing I will not do, I will not +undermine that government without seeing a very clear way to the +government that is to follow it. What say you, Pierre Firmin?” + +“Frankly, I say that I deserve your rebuke,” answered De Mauleon +thoughtfully. “But, of course, you are going to take or send Madame +Savarin out of Paris.” + +“Certainly. We have made a very pleasant party for our hegira this +evening-among others the Morleys. Morley is terribly disgusted. A Red +Republican slapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘American, we have +a republic as well as you.’ ‘Pretty much you know about republics,’ +growled Morley; ‘a French republic is as much like ours as a baboon is +like a man.’ On which the Red roused the mob, who dragged the American +off to the nearest station of the National Guard, where he was accused +of being a Prussian spy. With some difficulty, and lots of brag about +the sanctity of the stars and stripes, he escaped with a reprimand, and +caution how to behave himself in future. So he quits a city in which +there no longer exists freedom of speech. My wife hoped to induce +Mademoiselle Cicogna to accompany us; I grieve to say she refuses. You +know she is engaged in marriage to Gustave Rameau; and his mother dreads +the effect that these Red Clubs and his own vanity may have upon his +excitable temperament if the influence of Mademoiselle Cicogna be +withdrawn.” + +“How could a creature so exquisite as Isaura Cicogna ever find +fascination in Gustave Rameau!” exclaimed Enguerrand. + +“A woman like her,” answered De Mauleon, “always finds a fascination in +self-sacrifice.” + +“I think you divine the truth,” said Savarin, rather mournfully. “But +I must bid you good-bye. May we live to shake hands reunis sons des +meilleurs auspices.” + +Here Savarin hurried off, and the other two men strolled into the Champs +Elysees, which were crowded with loungers, gay and careless, as if there +had been no disaster at Sedan, no overthrow of an Empire, no enemy on +its road to Paris. + +In fact the Parisians, at once the most incredulous and the most +credulous of all populations, believed that the Prussians would never be +so impertinent as to come in sight of the gates. Something would occur +to stop them! The king had declared he did not war on Frenchmen, but on +the Emperor: the Emperor gone, the war was over. A democratic republic +was instituted. A horrible thing in its way, it is true; but how could +the Pandour tyrant brave the infection of democratic doctrines among +his own barbarian armies? Were not placards, addressed to our “German +brethren,” posted upon the walls of Paris, exhorting the Pandours to +fraternise with their fellow-creatures? Was not Victor Hugo going to +publish “a letter to the German people”? Had not Jules Favre graciously +offered peace, with the assurance that “France would not cede a stone of +her fortresses--an inch of her territory? She would pardon the +invaders and not march upon Berlin!” To all these, and many more such +incontestable proofs, that the idea of a siege was moonshine, did +Enguerrand and Victor listen as they joined group after group of +their fellow-countrymen: nor did Paris cease to harbour such pleasing +illusions, amusing itself with piously laying crowns at the foot of the +statue of Strasbourg, swearing “they would be worthy of their Alsatian +brethren,” till on the 19th of September the last telegram was received, +and Paris was cut of from the rest of the world by the iron line of +the Prussian invaders. “Tranquil and terrible,” says Victor Hugo, “she +awaits the invasion! A volcano needs no assistance.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +We left Graham Vane slowly recovering from the attack of fever which had +arrested his journey to Berlin in quest of the Count von Rudesheimn. He +was, however, saved the prosecution of that journey, and his direction +turned back to France by a German newspaper which informed him that +the King of Prussia was at Rheims, and that the Count von Rudesheim was +among the eminent personages gathered there around their sovereign. In +conversing the same day with the kindly doctor who attended him, Graham +ascertained that this German noble held a high command in the German +armies, and bore a no less distinguished reputation as a wise political +counsellor than he had earned as a military chief. As soon as he +was able to travel, and indeed before the good doctor sanctioned his +departure, Graham took his way to Rheims, uncertain, however, whether +the Count would still be found there. I spare the details of his +journey, interesting as they were. On reaching the famous and, in the +eyes of Legitimists, the sacred city, the Englishman had no difficulty +in ascertaining the house, not far from the cathedral, in which the +Count von Rudesheim had taken his temporary abode. Walking towards it +from the small hotel in which he had been lucky enough to find a room +disengaged--slowly, for he was still feeble--he was struck by the quiet +conduct of the German soldiery, and, save in their appearance, the +peaceful aspect of the streets. Indeed, there was an air of festive +gaiety about the place, as in an English town in which some popular +regiment is quartered. The German soldiers thronged the shops, buying +largely; lounged into the cafes; here and there attempted flirtations +with the grisettes, who laughed at their French and blushed at their +compliments; and in their good-humoured, somewhat bashful cheeriness, +there was no trace of the insolence of conquest. + +But as Graham neared the precincts of the cathedral his ear caught a +grave and solemn music, which he at first supposed to come from within +the building. But as he paused and looked round, he saw a group of the +German military, on whose stalwart forms and fair manly earnest faces +the setting sun cast its calm lingering rays. They were chanting, in +voices not loud but deep, Luther’s majestic hymn: + +“Nun danket alle Gott.” The chant awed even the ragged beggar boys who +had followed the Englishman, as they followed any stranger, would have +followed King William himself, whining for alms. “What a type of the +difference between the two nations!” thought Graham; “the Marseillaise, +and Luther’s Hymn!” While thus meditating and listening, a man in a +general’s uniform came slowly out of the cathedral, with his hands +clasped behind his back, and his head bent slightly downwards. He, too, +paused on hearing the hymn; then unclasped his hand and beckoned to one +of the officers, to whom approaching he whispered a word or two, and +passed on towards the Episcopal palace. The hymn hushed, and the singers +quietly dispersed. Graham divined rightly that the general had thought +a hymn thanking the God of battles might wound the feelings of the +inhabitants of the vanquished city--not, however, that any of them were +likely to understand the language in which the thanks were uttered. +Graham followed the measured steps of the general, whose hands were +again clasped behind his back--the musing habit of Von Moltke, as it +had been of Napoleon the First. Continuing his way, the Englishman soon +reached the house in which the Count von Rudesheim was lodged, and, +sending in his card, was admitted at once through an anteroom in which +sate two young men, subaltern officers apparently employed in draughting +maps, into the presence of the Count. + +“Pardon me,” said Graham, after the first conventional salutation, “if +I interrupt you for a moment or so in the midst of events so grave, on a +matter that must seem to you very trivial.” + +“Nay,” answered the Count, “there is nothing so trivial in this world +but what there will be some one to whom it is important. Say how I can +serve you.” + +“I think, M. le Comte, that you once received in your household, as +teacher or governess, a French lady, Madame Marigny.” + +“Yes, I remember her well--a very handsome woman. My wife and daughter +took great interest in her. She was married out of my house.” + +“Exactly--and to whom?” + +“An Italian of good birth, who was then employed by the Austrian +Government in some minor post, and subsequently promoted to a better one +in the Italian dominion, which then belonged to the house of Hapsburg, +after which we lost sight of him and his wife.” + +“An Italian--what was his name?” + +“Ludovico Cicogna.” + +“Cicogna!” exclaimed Graham, turning very pale. “Are you sure that was +the name?” + +“Certainly. He was a cadet of a very noble house, and disowned by +relations too patriotic to forgive him for accepting employment under +the Austrian Government.” + +“Can you not give me the address of the place in Italy to which he was +transferred on leaving Austria?” + +“No; but if the information be necessary to you, it can be obtained +easily at Milan, where the head of the family resides, or indeed in +Vienna, through any ministerial bureau.” + +“Pardon me one or two questions more. Had Madame Marigny any children by +a former husband?” + +“Not that I know of: I never heard so. Signor Cicogna was a widower, +and had, if I remember right, children by his first wife, who was also +a Frenchwoman. Before he obtained office in Austria, he resided, I +believe, in France. I do not remember how many children he had by his +first wife. I never saw them. Our acquaintance began at the baths of +Toplitz, where he saw and fell violently in love with Madame Marigny. +After their marriage, they went to his post, which was somewhere, I +think, in the Tyrol. We saw no more of them; but my wife and daughter +kept up a correspondence with the Signora Cicogna for a short time. It +ceased altogether when she removed into Italy.” + +“You do not even know if the Signora is still living?” + +“No.” + +“Her husband, I am told, is dead.” + +“Indeed! I am concerned to hear it. A good-looking, lively, clever man. +I fear he must have lost all income when the Austrian dominions passed +to the house of Savoy.” + +“Many thanks for your information. I can detain you no longer,” said +Graham, rising. + +“Nay, I am not very busy at this moment; but I fear we Germans have +plenty of work on our hands.” + +“I had hoped that, now the French Emperor, against whom your king made +war, was set aside, his Prussian majesty would make peace with the +French people.” + +“Most willingly would he do so if the French people would let him. But +it must be through a French Government legally chosen by the people. +And they have chosen none! A mob at Paris sets up a provisional +administration, that commences by declaring that it will not give up ‘an +inch of its territory nor a stone of its fortresses.’ No terms of peace +can be made with such men holding such talk.” After a few words more +over the state of public affairs,--in which Graham expressed the English +side of affairs, which was all for generosity to the vanquished; and the +Count argued much more ably on the German, which was all for security +against the aggressions of a people that would not admit itself to be +vanquished,--the short interview closed. + +As Graham at night pursued his journey to Vienna, there came into his +mind Isaura’s song of the Neapolitan fisherman. Had he, too, been blind +to the image on the rock? Was it possible that all the while he had been +resisting the impulse of his heart, until the discharge of the mission +entrusted to him freed his choice and decided his fortunes, the very +person of whom he was in search had been before him, then to be for +ever won, lost to him now for ever? Could Isaura Cicogna be the child +of Louise Duval by Richard King? She could not have been her child by +Cicogna: the dates forbade that hypothesis. Isaura must have been five +years old when Louise married the Italian. Arrived at Milan, Graham +quickly ascertained that the post to which Ludovico Cicogna had been +removed was in Verona, and that he had there died eight years ago. +Nothing was to be learned as to his family or his circumstances at the +time of his death. The people of whose history we know the least are +the relations we refuse to acknowledge. Graham continued his journey +to Verona. There he found on inquiry that the Cicognas had occupied an +apartment in a house which stood at the outskirts of the town and had +been since pulled down to make way for some public improvements. But +his closest inquiries could gain him no satisfactory answers to the +all-important questions as to Ludovico Cicogna’s family. His political +alienation from the Italian cause, which was nowhere more ardently +espoused than at Verona, had rendered him very unpopular. He visited at +no Italian houses. Such society as he had was confined to the Austrian +military within the Quadrilateral or at Venice, to which city he made +frequent excursions: was said to lead there a free and gay life, very +displeasing to the Signora, whom he left in Verona. She was but little +seen, and faintly remembered as very handsome and proud-looking. Yes, +there were children--a girl, and a boy several years younger than the +girl; but whether she was the child of the Signora by a former marriage, +or whether the Signora was only the child’s stepmother, no one could +say. The usual clue, in such doubtful matters obtainable through +servants, was here missing. The Cicognas had only kept two servants, and +both were Austrian subjects, who had long left the country,--their very +names forgotten. + +Graham now called to mind the Englishman Selby, for whom Isaura had such +grateful affection, as supplying to her the place of her father. This +must have been the Englishman whom Louise Duval had married after +Cicogna’s death. It would be no difficult task, surely, to ascertain +where he had resided. Easy enough to ascertain all that Graham wanted to +know from Isaura herself, if a letter could reach her. But, as he knew +by the journals, Paris was now invested--cut off from all communication +with the world beyond. Too irritable, anxious, and impatient to wait for +the close of the siege, though he never suspected it could last so long +as it did, he hastened to Venice, and there learned through the +British consul that the late Mr. Selby was a learned antiquarian, an +accomplished general scholar, a fanatico in music, a man of gentle +temper though reserved manners; had at one time lived much at Venice: +after his marriage with the Signora Cicogna he had taken up his abode +near Florence. To Florence Graham now went. He found the villa on the +skirts of Fiesole at which Mr. Selby had resided. The peasant who had +officiated as gardener and shareholder in the profits of vines and +figs, was still, with his wife, living on the place. Both man and wife +remembered the Inglese well; spoke of him with great affection, of his +wife with great dislike. They said her manners were very haughty, her +temper very violent; that she led the Inglese a very unhappy life; that +there were a girl and a boy, both hers by a former marriage; but +when closely questioned whether they were sure that the girl was the +Signora’s child by the former husband, or whether she was not the child +of that husband by a former wife, they could not tell; they could only +say that both were called by the same name--Cicogna; that the boy was +the Signora’s favourite--that indeed she seemed wrapt up in him; that +he died of a rapid decline a few months after Mr. Selby had hired the +place, and that shortly after his death the Signora left the place and +never returned to it; that it was little more than a year that she had +lived with her husband before this final separation took place. The girl +remained with Mr. Selby, who cherished and loved her as his own child. +Her Christian name was Isaura, the boy’s Luigi. A few years later, Mr. +Selby left the villa and went to Naples, where they heard he had died. +They could give no information as to what had become of his wife: Since +the death of her boy that lady had become very much changed--her spirits +quite broken, no longer violent. She would sit alone and weep bitterly. +The only person out of her family she would receive was the priest; till +the boy’s death she had never seen the priest, nor been known to attend +divine service. + +“Was the priest living?” + +“Oh, no; he had been dead two years. A most excellent man--a saint,” + said the peasant’s wife. + +“Good priests are like good women,” said the peasant, drily; “there are +plenty of them, but they are all underground.” + +On which remark the wife tried to box his ears. The contadino had +become a freethinker since the accession of the house of Savoy. His wife +remained a good Catholic. Said the peasant as, escaping from his wife, +he walked into the high-road with Graham, “My belief, Eccellenza, is, +that the priest did all the mischief.” + +“What mischief?” + +“Persuaded the Signora to leave her husband. The Inglese was not a +Catholic. I heard the priest call him a heretic. And the padre, who, +though not so bad as some of his cloth, was a meddling bigot, thought it +perhaps best for her soul that it should part company with a heretic’s +person. I can’t say for sure, but I think that was it. The padre seemed +to triumph when the Signora was gone.” Graham mused. The peasant’s +supposition was not improbable. A woman such as Louise Duval appeared to +be--of vehement passions and ill-regulated mind--was just one of those +who, in a moment of great sorrow, and estranged from the ordinary +household affections, feel, though but imperfectly, the necessity of a +religion, and, ever in extremes, pass at once from indifferentism into +superstition. + +Arrived at Naples, Graham heard little of Selby except as a literary +recluse, whose only distraction from books was the operatic stage. But +he heard much of Isaura; of the kindness which Madame de Grantmesnil +had shown to her, when left by Selby’s death alone in the world; of the +interest which the friendship and the warm eulogies of one so eminent as +the great French writer had created for Isaura in the artistic circles; +of the intense sensation her appearance, her voice, her universal +genius, had made in that society, and the brilliant hopes of her +subsequent career on the stage the cognoscenti had formed. No one knew +anything of her mother; no one entertained a doubt that Isaura was +by birth a Cicogna. Graham could not learn the present whereabouts of +Madame de Grantmesnil. She had long left Naples, and had been last heard +of at Genoa; was supposed to have returned to France a little before the +war. In France she had no fixed residence. + +The simplest mode of obtaining authentic information whether Isaura +was the daughter of Ludovico Cicogna by his first wife--namely, by +registration of her birth--failed him; because, as von Rudesheim had +said, his first wife was a Frenchwoman. The children had been born +somewhere in France, no one could even guess where. No one had ever seen +the first wife, who had never appeared in Italy, nor had even heard what +was her maiden name. + +Graham, meanwhile, was not aware that Isaura was still in the besieged +city, whether or not already married to Gustave Rameau; so large a +number of the women had quitted Paris before the siege began, that he +had reason to hope she was among them. He heard through an American that +the Morleys had gone to England before the Prussian investment; perhaps +Isaura had gone with them. He wrote to Mrs. Morley, inclosing his letter +to the Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James’s, and +while still at Naples received her answer. It was short, and malignantly +bitter. “Both myself and Madame Savarin, backed by Signora Venosta, +earnestly entreated Mademoiselle Cicogna to quit Paris, to accompany us +to England. Her devotion to her affianced husband would not permit +her to listen to us. It is only an Englishman who could suppose Isaura +Cicogna to be one of those women who do not insist on sharing the perils +of those they love. You ask whether she was the daughter of Ludovico +Cicogna by his former marriage, or of his second wife by him. I cannot +answer. I don’t even know whether Signor Cicogna ever had a former wife. +Isaura Cicogna never spoke to me of her parents. Permit me to ask--what +business is it of yours now? Is it the English pride that makes you +wish to learn whether on both sides she is of noble family? How can that +discovery alter your relations towards the affianced bride of another?” + +On receipt of this letter, Graham quitted Naples, and shortly afterwards +found himself at Versailles. He obtained permission to establish himself +there, though the English were by no means popular. Thus near to Isaura, +thus sternly separated from her, Graham awaited the close of the siege. +Few among those at Versailles believed that the Parisians would endure +it much longer. Surely they would capitulate before the bombardment, +which the Germans themselves disliked to contemplate as a last resource, +could commence. + +In his own mind Graham was convinced that Isaura was the child of +Richard King. It seemed to him probable that Louise Duval, unable +to assign any real name to the daughter of the marriage she +disowned,--neither the name borne by the repudiated husband, nor her +own maiden name,--would, on taking her daughter to her new home, have +induced Cicogna to give the child his name, or that after Cicogna’s +death she herself had so designated the girl. A dispassionate confidant, +could Graham have admitted any confidant whatever, might have suggested +the more than equal probability that Isaura was Cicogna’s daughter by +his former espousal. But then what could have become of Richard King’s +child? To part with the fortune in his hands, to relinquish all the +ambitious dreams which belonged to it, cost Graham Vane no pang: but he +writhed with indignant grief when he thought that the wealth of Richard +King’s heiress was to pass to the hands of Gustave Rameau,--that this +was to be the end of his researches--this the result of the sacrifice +his sense of honour imposed on him. And now that there was the +probability that he must convey to Isaura this large inheritance, the +practical difficulty of inventing some reason for such a donation, which +he had, while at a distance made light of, became seriously apparent. +How could he say to Isaura that he had L200,000. in trust for her, +without naming any one so devising it? Still more, how constitute +himself her guardian, so as to secure it to herself, independently +of her husband? Perhaps Isaura was too infatuated with Rameau, or too +romantically unselfish, to permit the fortune so mysteriously conveyed +being exclusively appropriated to herself. And if she were already +married to Rameau, and if he were armed with the right to inquire into +the source of this fortune, how exposed to the risks of disclosure would +become the secret Graham sought to conceal. Such a secret affecting +the memory of the sacred dead, affixing a shame on the scutcheon of +the living, in the irreverent hands of a Gustave Rameau,--it was too +dreadful to contemplate such a hazard. And yet, if Isaura were +the missing heiress, could Graham Vane admit any excuse for basely +withholding from her, for coolly retaining to himself the wealth for +which he was responsible? Yet, torturing as were these communings with +himself, they were mild in their torture compared to the ever-growing +anguish of the thought that in any case the only woman he had ever +loved--ever could love,--who might but for his own scruples and +prejudices have been the partner of his life, was perhaps now actually +the wife of another, and, as such, in what terrible danger! Famine +within the walls of the doomed city: without, the engines of death +waiting for a signal. So near to her, and yet so far! So willing to die +for her, if for her he could not live: and with all his devotion, all +his intellect, all his wealth, so powerless! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +It is now the middle of November-a Sunday. The day has been mild, and +is drawing towards its close. The Parisians have been enjoying the +sunshine. Under the leafless trees in the public gardens and the Champs +Elysees children have been at play. On the Boulevards the old elegance +of gaiety is succeeded by a livelier animation. Itinerant musicians +gather round them ragged groups. Fortune-tellers are in great request, +especially among the once brilliant Laises and Thaises, now looking +more shabby, to whom they predict the speedy restoration of Nabobs and +Russians, and golden joys. Yonder Punch is achieving a victory over the +Evil One, who wears the Prussian spiked helmet, and whose face has been +recently beautified into a resemblance to Bismarck. Punch draws to his +show a laughing audience of Moblots and recruits to the new companies +of the National Guard. Members of the once formidable police, now +threadbare and hunger-pinched, stand side by side with unfortunate +beggars and sinister-looking patriots who have served their time in the +jails or galleys. + +Uniforms of all variety are conspicuous--the only evidence visible of +an enemy at the walls. But the aspects of the wearers of warlike +accoutrements are debonnaire and smiling, as of revellers on a holiday +of peace. Among these defenders of their country, at the door of +a crowded cafe, stands Frederic Lemercier, superb in the costume, +bran-new, of a National Guard,--his dog Fox tranquilly reposing on its +haunches, with eyes fixed upon its fellow-dog philosophically musing on +the edge of Punch’s show, whose master is engaged in the conquest of the +Bismarck fiend. + +“Lemercier,” cried the Vicomte de Breze, approaching the cafe, “I +scarcely recognise you in that martial guise. You look magnifique--the +galons become you. Peste! an officer already?” + +“The National Guards and Mobiles are permitted to choose their own +officers, as you are aware. I have been elected, but to subaltern grade, +by the warlike patriots of my department. Enguerrand de Vandemar is +elected a captain of the Mobiles in his, and Victor de Mauleon is +appointed to the command of a battalion of the National Guards. But I +soar above jealousy at such a moment,-- + + “‘Rome a choisi mon bras; je n’examine rien.’” + +“You have no right to be jealous. De Mauldon has had experience and won +distinction in actual service, and from all I hear is doing wonders with +his men--has got them not only to keep but to love drill. I heard no +less an authority than General V---- say that if all the officers of the +National Guard were like De Mauleon, that body would give an example of +discipline to the line.” + +“I say nothing as to the promotion of a real soldier like the +Vicomte--but a Parisian dandy like Euguerrand de Vande--” + +“You forget that Enguerrand received a military education--an advantage +denied to you.” + +“What does that matter? Who cares for education nowadays? Besides, have +I not been training ever since the 4th of September, to say nothing of +the hard work on the ramparts?” + +“Parlez moi de cela it is indeed hard work on the ramparts. Infandum +dolorem quorum pars magna fui. Take the day duty. What with rising at +seven o’clock, and being drilled between a middle-aged and corpulent +grocer on one side and a meagre beardless barber’s apprentice on the +other; what with going to the bastions at eleven, and seeing half one’s +companions drunk before twelve; what with trying to keep their fists +off one’s face when one politely asks them not to call one’s general a +traitor or a poltroon,--the work of the ramparts would be insupportable, +if I did not take a pack of cards with me, and enjoy a quiet rubber +with three other heroes in some sequestered corner. As for night work, +nothing short of the indomitable fortitude of a Parisian could sustain +it; the tents made expressly not to be waterproof, like the groves of +the Muses, + + “’ per + Quos et aquea subeant et aurae.’ + +A fellow-companion of mine tucks himself up on my rug, and pillows his +head on my knapsack. I remonstrate--he swears--the other heroes wake +up and threaten to thrash us both; and just when peace is made, and one +hopes for a wink of sleep, a detachment of spectators, chiefly gamins, +coming to see that all is safe in the camp, strike up the Marseillaise. +Ah, the world will ring to the end of time with the sublime attitude of +Paris in the face of the Vandal invaders, especially when it learns that +the very shoes we stand in are made of cardboard. In vain we complain. +The contractor for shoes is a staunch Republican, and jobs by right +divine. May I ask if you have dined yet?” + +“Heavens! no, it is too early. But I am excessively hungry. I had only +a quarter of jugged cat for breakfast, and the brute was tough. In reply +to your question, may I put another--Did you lay in plenty of stores?” + +“Stores? no; I am a bachelor, and rely on the stores of my married +friends.” + +“Poor De Breze! I sympathise with you, for I am in the same boat, and +dinner invitations have become monstrous rare.” + +“Oh, but you are so confoundedly rich! What to you are forty francs for +a rabbit, or eighty francs for a turkey?” + +“Well, I suppose I am rich, but I have no money, and the ungrateful +restaurants will not give me credit. They don’t believe in better days.” + +“How can you want money?” + +“Very naturally. I had invested my capital famously-the best +speculations--partly in house rents, partly in company shares; and +houses pay no rents, and nobody will buy company shares. I had 1,000 +napoleons on hand, it is true, when Duplessis left Paris--much more, I +thought, than I could possibly need, for I never believed in the siege. +But during the first few weeks I played at whist with bad luck, and +since then so many old friends have borrowed of me that I doubt if I +have 200 francs left. I have despatched four letters to Duplessis by +pigeon and balloon, entreating him to send me 25,000 francs by some +trusty fellow who will pierce the Prussian lines. I have had two +answers: 1st, that he will find a man; 2nd, that the man is found and +on his way. Trust to that man, my dear friend, and meanwhile lend me 200 +francs.” + +“Mon cher, desole to refuse; but I was about to ask you to share your +200 francs with me who live chiefly by my pen; and that resource is cut +off. Still, il faut vivre--one must dine.” + +“That is a fact, and we will dine together to-day at my expense; limited +liability, though--eight francs a head.” + +“Generous Monsieur, I accept. Meanwhile let us take a turn towards the +Madeleine.” + +The two Parisians quit the cafe, and proceed up the Boulevard. On their +way they encounter Savarin. “Why,” said De Breze, “I thought you had +left Paris with Madame.” + +“So I did, and deposited her safely with the Morleys at Boulogne. These +kind Americans were going to England, and they took her with them. But +I quit Paris! No: I am old; I am growing obese. I have always been +short-sighted. I can neither wield a sword nor handle a musket. But +Paris needs defenders; and every moment I was away from her I sighed to +myself, ‘il faut etre la!’ I returned before the Vandals had possessed +themselves of our railways, the convoi overcrowded with men like myself, +who had removed wives and families; and when we asked each other why we +went back, every answer was the same, ‘il faut etre la.’ No, poor child, +no--I have nothing to give you.” + +These last words were addressed to a woman young and handsome, with +a dress that a few weeks ago might have been admired for taste and +elegance by the lady leaders of the ton, but was now darned, and dirty, +and draggled. + +“Monsieur, I did not stop you to ask for alms. You do not seem to +remember me, M. Savarin.” + +“But I do,” said Lemercier, “surely I address Mademoiselle Julie +Caumartin.” + +“Ah, excuse me, le petit Frederic,” said Julie with a sickly attempt at +coquettish sprightliness; “I had no eyes except for M. Savarin.” + +“And why only for me, my poor child?” asked the kindhearted author. + +“Hush!” She drew him aside. “Because you can give me news of that +monster Gustave. It is not true, it cannot be true, that he is going to +be married?” + +“Nay, surely, Mademoiselle, all connection between you and young Rameau +has ceased for months--ceased from the date of that illness in July +which nearly carried him off.” + +“I resigned him to the care of his mother,” said the girl; “but when he +no longer needs a mother, he belongs to me. Oh, consider, M. Savarin, +for his sake I refused the most splendid offers! When he sought me, I +had my coupe, my opera-box, my cachemires, my jewels. The Russians--the +English--vied for my smiles. But I loved the man. I never loved before: +I shall never love again; and after the sacrifices I have made for him, +nothing shall induce me to give him up. Tell me, I entreat, my dear M. +Savarin, where he is hiding. He has left the parental roof, and they +refused there to give me his address.” + +“My poor girl, don’t be mechante. It is quite true that Gustave Rameau +is engaged to be married; and any attempt of yours to create scandal--” + +“Monsieur,” interrupted Julie, vehemently, “don’t talk to me about +scandal! The man is mine, and no one else shall have him. His address?” + +“Mademoiselle,” cried Savarin, angrily, “find it out for yourself.” + Then--repentant of rudeness to one so young and so desolate--he +added, in mild expostulatory accents: “Come, come, ma belle enfant, be +reasonable: Gustave is no loss. He is reduced to poverty.” + +“So much the better. When he was well off I never cost him more than a +supper at the Maison Doree; and if he is poor he shall marry me, and I +will support him!” + +“You!--and how?” + +“By my profession when peace comes; and meanwhile I have offers from a +cafe to recite warlike songs. Ah! you shake your head incredulously. The +ballet-dancer recite verses? Yes! he taught me to recite his own Soyez +bon pour moi. M. Savarin! do say where I can find mon homme.” + +“No.” + +“That is your last word?” + +“It is.” + +The girl drew her thin shawl round her and hurried off. Savarin rejoined +his friends. “Is that the way you console yourself for the absence of +Madame?” asked De Breze, drily. + +“Fie!” cried Savarin, indignantly; “such bad jokes are ill-timed. What +strange mixtures of good and bad, of noble and base, every stratum of +Paris life contains! There is that poor girl, in one way contemptible, +no doubt, and yet in another way she has an element of grandeur. On the +whole, at Paris, the women, with all their faults, are of finer mould +than the men.” + +“French gallantry has always admitted that truth,” said Lemercier. “Fox, +Fox, Fox.” Uttering this cry, he darted forward after the dog, who had +strayed a few yards to salute another dog led by a string, and caught +the animal in his arms. “Pardon me,” he exclaimed, returning to his +friends, “but there are so many snares for dogs at present. They are +just coming into fashion for roasts, and Fox is so plump.” + +“I thought,” said Savarin, “that it was resolved at all the sporting +clubs that, be the pinch of famine ever so keen, the friend of man +should not be eaten.” + +“That was while the beef lasted; but since we have come to cats, who +shall predict immunity to dogs? Quid intactum nefasti linquimus? Nothing +is sacred from the hand of rapine.” + +The church of the Madeleine now stood before them. Moblots were playing +pitch-and-toss on its steps. + +“I don’t wish you to accompany me, Messieurs,” said Lemercier, +apologetically, “but I am going to enter the church.” + +“To pray?” asked De Breze, in profound astonishment. “Not exactly; but +I want to speak to my friend Rochebriant, and I know I shall find him +there.” + +“Praying?” again asked De Breze. + +“Yes.” + +“That is curious--a young Parisian exquisite at prayer--that is worth +seeing. Let us enter, too, Savarin.” + +They enter the church. It is filled, and even the sceptical De Breze +is impressed and awed by the sight. An intense fervour pervades the +congregation. The majority, it is true, are women, many of them in +deep mourning, and many of their faces mourning deeper than the dress. +Everywhere may be seen gushing tears, and everywhere faintly heard the +sound of stifled sighs. Besides the women are men of all ages--young, +middle-aged, old, with heads bowed and hands clasped, pale, grave, +and earnest. Most of them were evidently of the superior grade of +life--nobles, and the higher bourgeoisie: few of the ouvrier class, very +few, and these were of an earlier generation. I except soldiers, of whom +there were many, from the provincial Mobiles, chiefly Bretons; you know +the Breton soldiers by the little cross worn on their kepis. + +Among them Lemercier at once distinguished the noble countenance of +Alain de Rochebriant. De Breze and Savarin looked at each other with +solemn eyes. I know not when either had last been within a church; +perhaps both were startled to find that religion still existed in +Paris--and largely exist it does, though little seen on the surface +of society, little to be estimated by the articles of journals and the +reports of foreigners. Unhappily, those among whom it exists are not the +ruling class--are of the classes that are dominated over and obscured in +every country the moment the populace becomes master. And at that moment +the journals chiefly read were warring more against the Deity than +the Prussians--were denouncing soldiers who attended mass. “The Gospel +certainly makes a bad soldier,” writes the patriot Pyat. + +Lemercier knelt down quietly. The other two men crept noiselessly out, +and stood waiting for him on the steps, watching the Moblots (Parisian +Moblots) at play. + +“I should not wait for the roturier if he had not promised me a roti,” + said the Vicomte de Breze, with a pitiful attempt at the patrician wit +of the ancien regime. + +Savarin shrugged his shoulders. “I am not included in the invitation,” + said he, “and therefore free to depart. I must go and look up a former +confrere who was an enthusiastic Red Republican, and I fear does not get +so much to eat since he has no longer an Emperor to abuse.” + +So Savarin went away. A few minutes afterwards Lemercier emerged from +the church with Alain. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +“I knew I should find you in the Madeleine,” said Lemercier, “and I +wished much to know when you had news from Duplessis. He and your fair +fiancee are with your aunt still staying at Rochebriant?” + +“Certainly. A pigeon arrived this morning with a few lines. All well +there.” + +“And Duplessis thinks, despite the war, that he shall be able, when the +time comes, to pay Louvier the mortgage-sum?” + +“He never doubts that. His credit in London is so good. But of course +all works of improvement are stopped.” + +“Pray did he mention me?--anything about the messenger who was to pierce +the Prussian lines?” + +“What! has the man not arrived? It is two weeks since he left.” + +“The Uhlans have no doubt shot him--the assassins, and drunk up my +25,000 francs--the thieves.” + +“I hope not. But in case of delay, Duplessis tells me I am to remit to +you 2,000 francs for your present wants. I will send them to you this +evening.” + +“How the deuce do you possess such a sum?” + +“I came from Brittany with a purse well filled. Of course I could have +no scruples in accepting money from my destined father-in-law.” + +“And you can spare this sum?” + +“Certainly--the State now provides for me; I am in command of a Breton +company.” + +“True. Come and dine with me and De Breze.” + +“Alas! I cannot. I have to see both the Vandemars before I return to +the camp for the night. And now-hush--come this way (drawing Frederic +further from De Breze), I have famous news for you. A sortie on a grand +scale is imminent; in a few days we may hope for it.” + +“I have heard that so often that I am incredulous.” + +“Take it as a fact now.” + +“What! Trochu has at last matured his plan?” + +“He has changed its original design, which was to cut through the +Prussian lines to Rouen, occupying there the richest country for +supplies, guarding the left bank of the Seine and a watercourse to +convoy them to Paris. The incidents of war prevented that: he has a +better plan now. The victory of the army of the Loire at Orleans opens +a new enterprise. We shall cut our way through the Prussians, join that +army, and with united forces fall on the enemy at the rear. Keep this a +secret as yet, but rejoice with me that we shall prove to the invaders +what men who fight for their native soil can do under the protection of +Heaven.” + +“Fox, Fox, mon cheri,” said Lemercier, as he walked towards the cafe +Riche with De Breze; “thou shalt have a festin de Balthazar under the +protection of Heaven.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +On leaving Lemercier and De Breze, Savarin regained the Boulevard, +and pausing every now and then to exchange a few words with +acquaintances--the acquaintances of the genial author were +numerous--turned into the quartier Chaussee d’Antin, and gaining a +small neat house, with a richly-ornamented facade, mounted very +clean, well-kept stairs to a third story. On one of the doors on the +landing-place was nailed a card, inscribed, “Gustave Rameau, homme de +lettres.” Certainly it is not usual in Paris thus to afficher one’s self +as a “man of letters”? But Genius scorns what is usual. Had not Victor +Hugo left in the hotel-books on the Rhine his designation “homme de +lettres”? Did not the heir to one of the loftiest houses in the peerage +of England, and who was also a first-rate amateur in painting, inscribe +on his studio when in Italy, “--artiste”? Such examples, no doubt, were +familiar to Gustave Rameau, and “homme de lettres” was on the scrap of +pasteboard nailed to his door. + +Savarin rang; the door opened, and Gustave appeared. The poet was, of +course, picturesquely attired. In his day of fashion he had worn within +doors a very pretty fanciful costume, designed after portraits of the +young Raffaelle; that costume he had preserved--he wore it now. It +looked very threadbare, and the pourpoint very soiled. But the beauty of +the poet’s face had survived the lustre of the garments. True, thanks +to absinthe, the cheeks had become somewhat puffy and bloated. Grey was +distinctly visible in the long ebon tresses. But still the beauty of +the face was of that rare type which a Thorwaldsen or a Gibson seeking a +model for a Narcissus would have longed to fix into marble. + +Gustave received his former chief with a certain air of reserved +dignity; led him into his chamber, only divided by a curtain from his +accommodation for washing and slumber, and placed him in an arm-chair +beside a drowsy fire--fuel had already become very dear. + +“Gustave,” said Savarin, “are you in a mood favourable to a little +serious talk?” + +“Serious talk from M. Savarin is a novelty too great not to command my +profoundest interest.” + +“Thank you,--and to begin: I who know the world and mankind advise you, +who do not, never to meet a man who wishes to do you a kindness with +an ungracious sarcasm. Irony is a weapon I ought to be skilled in, but +weapons are used against enemies, and it is only a tyro who flourishes +his rapier in the face of his friends.” + +“I was not aware that M. Savarin still permitted me to regard him as a +friend.” + +“Because I discharged the duties of friend--remonstrated, advised, and +warned. However, let bygones be bygones. I entreated you not to quit the +safe shelter of the paternal roof. You insisted on doing so. I entreated +you not to send to one of the most ferocious of the Red, or rather, +the Communistic, journals, articles, very eloquent, no doubt, but which +would most seriously injure you in the eyes of quiet, orderly people, +and compromise your future literary career for the sake of a temporary +flash in the pan during a very evanescent period of revolutionary +excitement. You scorned my adjurations, but at all events you had the +grace not to append your true name to those truculent effusions. In +literature, if literature revive in France, we two are henceforth +separated. But I do not forego the friendly interest I took in you in +the days when you were so continually in my house. My wife, who liked +you so cordially, implored me to look after you during her absence from +Paris, and, enfin, mon pauvre garcon, it would grieve me very much if, +when she comes back, I had to say to her, ‘Gustave Rameau has thrown +away the chance of redemption and of happiness which you deemed was +secure to him.’ A l’oeil malade, la lumiere nuit.” + +So saying, he held out his hand kindly. + +Gustave, who was far from deficient in affectionate or tender impulses, +took the hand respectfully, and pressed it warmly. + +“Forgive me if I have been ungracious, M. Savarin, and vouchsafe to hear +my explanation.” + +“Willingly, mon garcon.” + +“When I became convalescent, well enough to leave my father’s house, +there were circumstances which compelled me to do so. A young man +accustomed to the life of a garcon can’t be always tied to his mother’s +apron-strings.” + +“Especially if the apron-pocket does not contain a bottle of absinthe,” + said Savarin, drily. “You may well colour and try to look angry; but I +know that the doctor strictly forbade the use of that deadly liqueur, +and enjoined your mother to keep strict watch on your liability to its +temptations. And hence one cause of your ennui under the paternal roof. +But if there you could not imbibe absinthe, you were privileged to +enjoy a much diviner intoxication. There you could have the foretaste of +domestic bliss,--the society of the girl you loved, and who was pledged +to become your wife. Speak frankly. Did not that society itself begin to +be wearisome?” + +“No,” cried Gustave, eagerly, “it was not wearisome--” + +“Yes, but--” + +“But it could not be all-sufficing to a soul of fire like mine.” + +“Hem,” murmured Savarin--“a soul of fire! This is very interesting; pray +go on.” + +“The calm, cold, sister-like affection of a childish undeveloped +nature, which knew no passion except for art, and was really so little +emancipated from the nursery as to take for serious truth all the old +myths of religion--such companionship may be very soothing and pleasant +when one is lying on one’s sofa, and must live by rule, but when one +regains the vigour of youth and health--” + +“Do not pause,” said Savarin, gazing with more compassion than envy on +that melancholy impersonation of youth and health. “When one regains +that vigour of which I myself have no recollection, what happens?” + +“The thirst for excitement, the goads of ambition, the irresistible +claims which the world urges upon genius, return.” + +“And that genius, finding itself at the North Pole amid Cimmerian +darkness in the atmosphere of a childish intellect--in other words, +the society of a pure-minded virgin, who, though a good romance-writer, +writes nothing but what a virgin may read, and, though a bel esprit, +says her prayers and goes to church--then genius--well, pardon my +ignorance, what does genius do?” + +“Oh, M. Savarin, M. Savarin! don’t let us talk any more. There is no +sympathy between us. I cannot bear that bloodless, mocking, cynical mode +of dealing with grand emotions, which belongs to the generation of the +Doctrinaires. I am not a Thiers or a Guizot.” + +“Good heavens! who ever accused you of being either? I did not mean +to be cynical. Mademoiselle Cicogna has often said I am, but I did +not think you would. Pardon me. I quite agree with the philosopher who +asserted that the wisdom of the past was an imposture, that the meanest +intellect now living is wiser than the greatest intellect which is +buried in Pere la Chaise; because the dwarf who follows the giant, when +perched on the shoulders of the giant, sees farther than the giant ever +could. Allez. I go in for your generation. I abandon Guizot and Thiers. +Do condescend and explain to my dull understanding, as the inferior +mortal of a former age, what are the grand emotions which impel a +soul of fire in your wiser generation. The thirst of excitement--what +excitement? The goads of ambition--what ambition?” + +“A new social system is struggling from the dissolving elements of the +old one, as, in the fables of priestcraft, the soul frees itself from +the body which has become ripe for the grave. Of that new system I +aspire to be a champion--a leader. Behold the excitement that allures +me, the ambition that goads.” + +“Thank you,” said Savarin, meekly; “I am answered. I recognise the dwarf +perched on the back of the giant. Quitting these lofty themes, I venture +to address to you now one simple matter-of-fact question: How about +Mademoiselle Cicogna? Do you think you can induce her to transplant +herself to the new social system, which I presume will abolish, among +other obsolete myths, the institution of marriage?” + +“M. Savarin, your question offends me. Theoretically I am opposed to the +existing superstitions that encumber the very simple principle by +which may be united two persons so long as they desire the union, and +separated so soon as the union becomes distasteful to either. But I +am perfectly aware that such theories would revolt a young lady like +Mademoiselle Cicogna. I have never even named them to her, and our +engagement holds good.” + +“Engagement of marriage? No period for the ceremony fixed?” + +“That is not my fault. I urged it on Isaura with all earnestness before +I left my father’s house.” + +“That was long after the siege had begun. Listen to me, Gustave. No +persuasion of mine or my wife’s, nor Mrs. Morley’s, could induce Isaura +to quit Paris while it was yet time. She said very simply that, having +pledged her truth and hand to you, it would be treason to honour and +duty if she should allow any considerations for herself to be even +discussed so long as you needed her presence. You were then still +suffering, and, though convalescent, not without danger of a relapse. +And your mother said to her--I heard the words: ‘‘Tis not for his bodily +health I could dare to ask you to stay, when every man who can afford +it is sending away his wife, sisters, daughters. As for that, I should +suffice to tend him; but if you go, I resign all hope for the health of +his mind and his soul.’ I think at Paris there may be female poets and +artists whom that sort of argument would not have much influenced. But +it so happens that Isaura is not a Parisienne. She believes in those old +myths which you think fatal to sympathies with yourself; and those old +myths also lead her to believe that where a woman has promised she will +devote her life to a man, she cannot forsake him when told by his mother +that she is necessary to the health of his mind and his soul. Stay. +Before you interrupt me, let me finish what I have to say. It appears +that, so soon as your bodily health was improved, you felt that your +mind and your soul could take care of themselves; and certainly it seems +to me that Isaura Cicogna is no longer of the smallest use to either.” + +Rameau was evidently much disconcerted by this speech. He saw what +Savarin was driving at--the renunciation of all bond between Isaura and +himself. He was not prepared for such renunciation. He still felt for +the Italian as much of love as he could feel for any woman who did not +kneel at his feet, as at those of Apollo condescending to the homage of +Arcadian maids. But on the one hand, he felt that many circumstances had +occurred since the disaster at Sedan to render Isaura a very much less +desirable partie than she had been when he had first wrung from her +the pledge of betrothal. In the palmy times of a Government in which +literature and art commanded station and insured fortune, Isaura, +whether as authoress or singer, was a brilliant marriage for Gustave +Rameau. She had also then an assured and competent, if modest, income. +But when times change, people change with them. As the income for +the moment (and Heaven only can say how long that moment might last), +Isaura’s income had disappeared. It will be recollected that Louvier +had invested her whole fortune in the houses to be built in the street +called after his name. No houses, even when built, paid any rent now. +Louvier had quitted Paris; and Isaura could only be subsisting upon such +small sum as she might have had in hand before the siege commenced. All +career in such literature and art as Isaura adorned was at a dead stop. +Now, to do Rameau justice, he was by no means an avaricious or mercenary +man. But he yearned for modes of life to which money was essential. He +liked his “comforts;” and his comforts included the luxuries of elegance +and show-comforts not to be attained by marriage with Isaura under +existing circumstances. + +Nevertheless it is quite true that he had urged her to marry him at +once, before he had quitted his father’s house; and her modest shrinking +from such proposal, however excellent the reasons for delay in the +national calamities of the time, as well as the poverty which the +calamity threatened, had greatly wounded his amour propre. He had +always felt that her affection for him was not love; and though he could +reconcile himself to that conviction when many solid advantages were +attached to the prize of her love, and when he was ill, and penitent, +and maudlin, and the calm affection of a saint seemed to him infinitely +preferable to the vehement passion of a sinner,--yet when Isaura +was only Isaura by herself--Isaura minus all the et cetera which had +previously been taken into account--the want of adoration for himself +very much lessened her value. + +Still, though he acquiesced in the delayed fulfilment of the engagement +with Isaura, he had no thought of withdrawing from the engagement +itself, and after a slight pause he replied: “You do me great injustice +if you suppose that the occupations to which I devote myself render me +less sensible to the merits of Mademoiselle Cicogna, or less eager +for our union. On the contrary, I will confide to you--as a man of the +world--one main reason why I quitted my father’s house, and why I desire +to keep my present address a secret. Mademoiselle Caumartin conceived +for me a passion--a caprice--which was very flattering for a time, but +which latterly became very troublesome. Figure to yourself--she +daily came to our house while I was lying ill, and with the greatest +difficulty my mother got her out of it. That was not all. She pestered +me with letters containing all sorts of threats--nay, actually kept +watch at the house; and one day when I entered the carriage with my +mother and Signora Venosta for a drive in the Bois (meaning to call for +Isaura by the way), she darted to the carriage-door, caught my hand, and +would have made a scene if the coachman had given her leave to do so. +Luckily he had the tact to whip on his horses, and we escaped. I had +some little difficulty in convincing the Signora Venosta that the girl +was crazed. But I felt the danger I incurred of her coming upon me some +moment when in company with Isaura, and so I left my father’s house; and +naturally wishing to steer clear of this vehement little demon till I +am safely married, I keep my address a secret from all who are likely to +tell her of it.” + +“You do wisely if you are really afraid of her, and cannot trust your +nerves to say to her plainly, ‘I am engaged to be married; all is at an +end between us. Do not force me to employ the police to protect myself +from unwelcome importunities.’” + +“Honestly speaking, I doubt if I have the nerve to do that, and I doubt +still more if it would be of any avail. It is very ennuayant to be so +passionately loved; but, que voulez vous? It is my fate.” + +“Poor martyr! I condole with you: and, to say truth, it was chiefly +to warn you of Mademoiselle Caumartin’s pertinacity that I call this +evening.” + +Here Savarin related the particulars of his rencontre with Julie, and +concluded by saying: “I suppose I may take your word of honour that you +will firmly resist all temptation to renew a connection which would be +so incompatible with the respect due to your fiancee? Fatherless and +protectorless as Isaura is, I feel bound to act as a virtual guardian +to one in whom my wife takes so deep an interest, and to whom, as she +thinks, she had some hand in bringing about your engagement: she is +committed to no small responsibilities. Do not allow poor Julie, whom +I sincerely pity, to force on me the unpleasant duty of warning your +fiancee of the dangers to which she might be subjected by marriage with +an Adonis whose fate it is to be so profoundly beloved by the sex in +general, and ballet nymphs in particular.” + +“There is no chance of so disagreeable a duty being incumbent on you, +M. Savarin. Of course, what I myself have told you in confidence is +sacred.” + +“Certainly. There are things in the life of a garcon before marriage +which would be an affront to the modesty of his fiancee to communicate +and discuss. But then those things must belong exclusively to the past +and cast no shadow over the future. I will not interrupt you further. No +doubt you have work for the night before you. Do the Red journalists for +whom you write pay enough to support you in these terribly dear times?” + +“Scarcely. But I look forward to wealth and fame in the future. And +you?” + +“I just escape starvation. If the siege last much longer, it is not of +the gout I shall die. Good-night to you.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +Isaura had, as we have seen, been hitherto saved by the siege and its +consequences from the fulfilment of her engagement to Gustave Rameau; +and since he had quitted his father’s house she had not only seen less +of him, but a certain chill crept into his converse in the visits +he paid to her. The compassionate feeling his illness had excited, +confirmed by the unwonted gentleness of his mood, and the short-lived +remorse with which he spoke of his past faults and follies, necessarily +faded away in proportion as he regained that kind of febrile strength +which was his normal state of health, and with it the arrogant +self-assertion which was ingrained in his character. But it was now +more than ever that she became aware of the antagonism between all that +constituted his inner life and her own. It was not that he volunteered +in her presence the express utterance of those opinions, social or +religious, which he addressed to the public in the truculent journal to +which, under a nom de plume, he was the most inflammatory contributor. +Whether it was that he shrank from insulting the ears of the pure virgin +whom he had wooed as wife with avowals of his disdain of marriage bonds, +or perhaps from shocking yet more her womanly humanity and her religious +faith by cries for the blood of anti-republican traitors and the +downfall of Christian altars; or whether he yet clung, though with +relapsing affection, to the hold which her promise had imposed on him, +and felt that that hold would be for ever gone, and that she would +recoil from his side in terror and dismay, if she once learned that the +man who had implored her to be his saving angel from the comparatively +mild errors of youth, had so belied his assurance, so mocked her +credulity, as deliberately to enter into active warfare against all that +he knew her sentiments regarded as noble and her conscience received +as divine: despite the suppression of avowed doctrine on his part, the +total want of sympathy between these antagonistic natures made itself +felt by both--more promptly felt by Isaura. If Gustave did not frankly +announce to her in that terrible time (when all that a little later +broke out on the side of the Communists was more or less forcing ominous +way to the lips of those who talked with confidence to each other, +whether to approve or to condemn) the associates with whom he was +leagued, the path to which he had committed his career--still for her +instincts for genuine Art--which for its development needs the +serenity of peace, which for its ideal needs dreams that soar into the +Infinite--Gustave had only the scornful sneer of the man who identifies +with his ambition the violent upset of all that civilisation has +established in this world, and the blank negation of all that patient +hope and heroic aspiration which humanity carries on into the next. + +On his side, Gustave Rameau, who was not without certain fine and +delicate attributes in a complicated nature over which the personal +vanity and the mobile temperament of the Parisian reigned supreme, +chafed at the restraints imposed on him. No matter what a man’s +doctrines may be--however abominable you and I may deem them--man +desires to find, in the dearest fellowship he can establish, that +sympathy in the woman his choice singles out from her sex-deference +to his opinions, sympathy with his objects, as man. So, too, Gustave’s +sense of honour and according to his own Parisian code that sense was +keen--became exquisitely stung by the thought that he was compelled to +play the part of a mean dissimulator to the girl for whose opinions he +had the profoundest contempt. How could these two, betrothed to each +other, not feel, though without coming to open dissension, that between +them had flowed the inlet of water by which they had been riven asunder? +What man, if he can imagine himself a Gustave Rameau, can blame the +revolutionist absorbed in ambitious projects for turning the pyramid of +society topsy-turvy, if he shrank more and more from the companionship +of a betrothed with whom he could not venture to exchange three words +without caution and reserve? And what woman can blame an Isaura if she +felt a sensation of relief at the very neglect of the affianced whom she +had compassionated and could never love? + +Possibly the reader may best judge of the state of Isaura’s mind at this +time by a few brief extracts from an imperfect fragmentary journal, in +which, amid saddened and lonely hours, she held converse with herself. + +“One day at Enghien I listened silently to a conversation between M. +Savarin and the Englishman, who sought to explain the conception of duty +in which the German poet has given such noble utterance to the thoughts +of the German philosopher--viz., that moral aspiration has the same goal +as the artistic,--the attainment to the calm delight wherein the pain +of effort disappears in the content of achievement. Thus in life, as in +art, it is through discipline that we arrive at freedom, and duty only +completes itself when all motives, all actions, are attuned into one +harmonious whole, and it is not striven for as duty, but enjoyed as +happiness. M. Savarin treated this theory with the mockery with which +the French wit is ever apt to treat what it terms German mysticism. +According to him, duty must always be a hard and difficult struggle; and +he said laughingly, ‘Whenever a man says, “I have done my duty,” it is +with a long face and a mournful sigh.’ + +“Ah, how devoutly I listened to the Englishman! how harshly the +Frenchman’s irony jarred upon my ears! And yet now, in the duty that +life imposes on me, to fulfil which I strain every power vouchsafed to +my nature, and seek to crush down every impulse that rebels, where is +the promised calm, where any approach to the content of achievement? +Contemplating the way before me, the Beautiful even of Art has vanished. +I see but cloud and desert. Can this which I assume to be duty really be +so? Ah, is it not sin even to ask my heart that question? + +“Madame Rameau is very angry with her son for his neglect both of his +parents and of me. I have had to take his part against her. I would not +have him lose their love. Poor Gustave! But when Madame Rameau suddenly +said to-day: ‘I erred in seeking the union between thee and Gustave. +Retract thy promise; in doing so thou wilt be justified,’--oh, the +strange joy that flashed upon me as she spoke. Am I justified? Am I? Oh, +if that Englishman had never crossed my path! Oh, if I had never +loved! or if in the last time we met he had not asked for my love, +and confessed his own! Then, I think, I could honestly reconcile my +conscience with my longings, and say to Gustave, ‘We do not suit each +other; be we both released!’ But now-is it that Gustave is really +changed from what he was, when in despondence at my own lot, and in +pitying belief that I might brighten and exalt his, I plighted my troth +to him? or is it not rather that the choice I thus voluntarily made +became so intolerable a thought the moment I knew I was beloved and +sought by another; and from that moment I lost the strength I had +before,--strength to silence the voice at my own heart? What! is it +the image of that other one which is persuading me to be false?--to +exaggerate the failings, to be blind to the merits of him who has a +right to say, ‘I am what I was when thou didst pledge thyself to take me +for better or for worse’? + +“Gustave has been here after an absence of several days. He was not +alone. The good Abbe Vertpre and Madame de Vandemar, with her son, +M. Raoul, were present. They had come on matters connected with our +ambulance. They do not know of my engagement to Gustave; and seeing him +in the uniform of a National Guard, the Abbe courteously addressed +to him some questions as to the possibility of checking the terrible +increase of the vice of intoxication, so alien till of late to the +habits of the Parisians, and becoming fatal to discipline and bodily +endurance,--could the number of the cantines on the ramparts be more +limited? Gustave answered with rudeness and bitter sarcasm, ‘Before +priests could be critics in military matters they must undertake +military service themselves.’ + +“The Abbe replied with unalterable good-humour, ‘But, in order to +criticise the effects of drunkenness, must one get drunk one’s self?’ +Gustave was put out, and retired into a corner of the room, keeping +sullen silence till my other visitors left. + +“Then before I could myself express the pain his words and manner +had given me, he said abruptly, ‘I wonder how you can tolerate the +tartuferie which may amuse on the comic stage, but in the tragedy +of these times is revolting.’ This speech roused my anger, and the +conversation that ensued was the gravest that had ever passed between +us. + +“If Gustave were of stronger nature and more concentrated will, I +believe that the only feelings I should have for him would be antipathy +and dread. But it is his very weaknesses and inconsistencies that secure +to him a certain tenderness of interest. I think he could never be +judged without great indulgence by women; there is in him so much of +the child,--wayward, irritating one moment, and the next penitent, +affectionate. One feels as if persistence in evil were impossible to +one so delicate both in mind and form. That peculiar order of genius +to which he belongs seems as if it ought to be so estranged from all +directions, violent or coarse. When in poetry he seeks to utter some +audacious and defying sentiment, the substance melts away in daintiness +of expression, in soft, lute-like strains of slender music. And when +he has stung, angered, revolted my heart the most, suddenly he subsides +into such pathetic gentleness, such tearful remorse, that I feel as if +resentment to one so helpless, desertion of one who must fall without +the support of a friendly hand, were a selfish cruelty. It seems to me +as if I were dragged towards a precipice by a sickly child clinging to +my robe. + +“But in this last conversation with him, his language in regard to +subjects I hold most sacred drew forth from me words which startled +him, and which may avail to save him from that worst insanity of human +minds,--the mimicry of the Titans who would have dethroned a God to +restore a Chaos. I told him frankly that I had only promised to +share his fate on my faith in his assurance of my power to guide +it heavenward; and that if the opinions he announced were seriously +entertained, and put forth in defiance of heaven itself, we were +separated for ever. I told him how earnestly, in the calamities of the +time, my own soul had sought to take refuge in thoughts and hopes beyond +the earth; and how deeply many a sentiment that in former days passed +by me with a smile in the light talk of the salons, now shocked me as +an outrage on the reverence which the mortal child owes to the Divine +Father. I owned to him how much of comfort, of sustainment, of thought +and aspiration, elevated beyond the sphere of Art in which I had +hitherto sought the purest air, the loftiest goal, I owed to intercourse +with minds like those of the Abbe de Vertpre; and how painfully I felt +as if I were guilty of ingratitude when he compelled me to listen to +insults on those whom I recognised as benefactors. + +“I wished to speak sternly; but it is my great misfortune, my prevalent +weakness, that I cannot be stern when I ought to be. It is with me in +life as in art. I never could on the stage have taken the part of a +Norma or a Medea. If I attempt in fiction a character which deserves +condemnation, I am untrue to poetic justice. I cannot condemn and +execute; I can but compassionate and pardon the creature I myself have +created. I was never in the real world stern but to one; and then, alas! +it was because I loved where I could no longer love with honour; and I, +knowing my weakness, had terror lest I should yield. + +“So Gustave did not comprehend from my voice, my manner, how gravely I +was in earnest. But, himself softened, affected to tears, he confessed +his own faults--ceased to argue in order to praise; and--and--uttering +protestations seemingly the most sincere, he left me bound to him +still--bound to him still--woe is me!” + +It is true that Isaura had come more directly under the influence of +religion than she had been in the earlier dates of this narrative. There +is a time in the lives of most of us, and especially in the lives of +women, when, despondent of all joy in an earthly future, and tortured by +conflicts between inclination and duty, we transfer all the passion and +fervour of our troubled souls to enthusiastic yearnings for the Divine +Love; seeking to rebaptise ourselves in the fountain of its mercy, +taking thence the only hopes that can cheer, the only strength that can +sustain us. Such a time had come to Isaura. Formerly she had escaped +from the griefs of the work-a-day world into the garden-land of Art. +Now, Art had grown unwelcome to her, almost hateful. Gone was the spell +from the garden-land; its flowers were faded, its paths were stony, its +sunshine had vanished in mist and rain. There are two voices of Nature +in the soul of the genuine artist,--that is, of him who, because he can +create, comprehends the necessity of the great Creator. Those voices +are never both silent. When one is hushed, the other becomes distinctly +audible. The one speaks to him of Art, the other of Religion. + +At that period several societies for the relief and tendance of the +wounded had been formed by the women of Paris,--the earliest, if I +mistake not, by ladies of the highest rank--amongst whom were the +Comtesse de Vandemar and the Contessa di Rimini--though it necessarily +included others of stations less elevated. To this society, at the +request of Alain de Rochebriant and of Enguerrand, Isaura had eagerly +attached herself. It occupied much of her time; and in connection with +it she was brought much into sympathetic acquaintance with Raoul de +Vandemar--the most zealous and active member of that Society of +St. Francois de Sales, to which belonged other young nobles of the +Legitimist creed. The passion of Raoul’s life was the relief of human +suffering. In him was personified the ideal of Christian charity. +I think all, or most of us, have known what it is to pass under the +influence of a nature that is so far akin to ours that it desires +to become something better and higher than it is--that desire being +paramount in ourselves--but seeks to be that something in ways not akin +to, but remote from, the ways in which we seek it. When this contact +happens, either one nature, by the mere force of will, subjugates and +absorbs the other, or both, while preserving their own individuality, +apart and independent, enrich themselves by mutual interchange, and +the asperities which differences of taste and sentiment in detail might +otherwise provoke melt in the sympathy which unites spirits striving +with equal earnestness to rise nearer to the unseen and unattainable +Source, which they equally recognise as Divine. + +Perhaps, had these two persons met a year ago in the ordinary +intercourse of the world, neither would have detected the sympathy of +which I speak. Raoul was not without the prejudice against artists and +writers of romance, that is shared by many who cherish the persuasion +that all is vanity which does not concentrate imagination and intellect +in the destinies of the soul hereafter; and Isaura might have excited +his compassion, certainly not his reverence. While to her, his views +on all that seeks to render the actual life attractive and embellished, +through the accomplishments of Muse and Grace, would have seemed +the narrow-minded asceticism of a bigot. But now, amid the direful +calamities of the time, the beauty of both natures became visible +to each. To the eyes of Isaura tenderness became predominant in the +monastic self-denial of Raoul. To the eyes of Raoul, devotion became +predominant in the gentle thoughtfulness of Isaura. Their intercourse +was in ambulance and hospital-in care for the wounded, in prayer for the +dying. Ah! it is easy to declaim against the frivolities and vices of +Parisian society as they appear on the surface; and, in revolutionary +times, it is the very worst of Paris that ascends in scum to the top. +But descend below the surface, even in that demoralising suspense of +order, and nowhere on earth might the angel have beheld the image of +humanity more amply vindicating its claim to the heritage of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +The warning announcement of some great effort on the part of the +besieged, which Alain had given to Lemercier, was soon to be fulfilled. + +For some days the principal thoroughfares were ominously lined with +military convois. The loungers on the Boulevards stopped to gaze on +the long defiles of troops and cannons, commissariat conveyances, and, +saddening accompaniments! the vehicles of various ambulances for the +removal of the wounded. With what glee the loungers said to each other +“Enfin!” Among all the troops that Paris sent forth, none were so +popular as those which Paris had not nurtured--the sailors. From the +moment they arrived, the sailors had been the pets of the capital. They +soon proved themselves the most notable contrast to that force which +Paris herself had produced--the National Guard. Their frames were hardy, +their habits active, their discipline perfect, their manners mild +and polite. “Oh, if all our troops were like these!” was the common +exclamation of the Parisians. + +At last burst forth upon Paris the proclamations of General Trochu and +General Ducrot; the first brief, calm, and Breton-like, ending with +“Putting our trust in God. March on for our country:” the second more +detailed, more candidly stating obstacles and difficulties, but fiery +with eloquent enthusiasm, not unsupported by military statistics, in +the 400 cannon, two-thirds of which were of the largest calibre, that +no material object could resist; more than 150,000 soldiers, all well +armed, well equipped, abundantly provided with munitions, and all (j’en +a l’espoir) animated by an irresistible ardour. “For me,” concludes the +General, “I am resolved. I swear before you, before the whole nation, +that I will not re-enter Paris except as dead or victorious.” + +At these proclamations, who then at Paris does not recall the burst of +enthusiasm that stirred the surface? Trochu became once more popular; +even the Communistic or atheistic journals refrained from complaining +that he attended mass, and invited his countrymen to trust in God. +Ducrot was more than popular--he was adored. + +The several companies in which De Mauleon and Enguerrand served departed +towards their post early on the same morning, that of the 28th. All the +previous night, while Enguerrand was buried in profound slumber, Raoul +remained in his brother’s room; sometimes on his knees before the +ivory crucifix which had been their mother’s last birthday gift to her +youngest son--sometimes seated beside the bed in profound and devout +meditation. At daybreak, Madame de Vandemar stole into the chamber. +Unconscious of his brother’s watch, he had asked her to wake him in good +time, for the young man was a sound sleeper. Shading the candle she bore +with one hand, with the other she drew aside the curtain, and looked at +Enguerrand’s calm fair face, its lips parted in the happy smile which +seemed to carry joy with it wherever its sunshine played. Her tears fell +noiselessly on her darling’s cheek; she then knelt down and prayed for +strength. As she rose she felt Raoul’s arm around her; they looked at +each other in silence; then she bowed her head and wakened Enguerrand +with her lips. “Pas de querelle, mes amis,” he murmured, opening his +sweet blue eyes drowsily. “Ah, it was a dream! I thought Jules and Emile +[two young friends of his] were worrying each other; and you know, dear +Raoul, that I am the most officious of peacemakers. Time to rise, is it? +No peacemaking to-day. Kiss me again, mother, and say ‘Bless thee.’” + +“Bless thee, bless thee, my child,” cried the mother, wrapping her arms +passionately round him, and in tones choked with sobs. + +“Now leave me, maman,” said Enguerrand, resorting to the infantine +ordinary name, which he had not used for years. “Raoul, stay and help +me to dress. I must be tres beau to-day. I shall join thee at breakfast, +maman. Early for such repast, but l’appetit vient en mangeant. Mind the +coffee is hot.” + +Enguerrand, always careful of each detail of dress, was especially so +that morning, and especially gay, humming the old air, “Partant pour la +Syrie.” But his gaiety was checked when Raoul, taking from his breast a +holy talisman, which he habitually wore there, suspended it with loving +hands round his brother’s neck. It was a small crystal set in Byzantine +filigree; imbedded in it was a small splinter of wood, said by pious +tradition to be a relic of the Divine Cross. It had been for centuries +in the family of the Contessa di Rimini, and was given by her to Raoul, +the only gift she had ever made him, as an emblem of the sinless +purity of the affection that united those two souls in the bonds of the +beautiful belief. + +“She bade me transfer it to thee to-day, my brother,” said Raoul, +simply; “and now without a pang I can gird on thee thy soldier’s sword.” + +Enguerrand clasped his brother in his arms, and kissed him with +passionate fervour. “Oh, Raoul, how I love thee! how good thou hast ever +been to me! how many sins thou hast saved me from! how indulgent thou +hast been to those from which thou couldst not save! Think on that, my +brother, in case we do not meet again on earth.” + +“Hush, hush, Enguerrand! No gloomy forebodings now! Come, come hither, +my half of life, my sunny half of life!” and uttering these words, +he led Enguerrand towards the crucifix, and there, in deeper and more +solemn voice, said, “Let us pray.” So the brothers knelt side by side, +and Raoul prayed aloud as only such souls can pray. + +When they descended into the salon where breakfast was set out, they +found assembled several of their relations, and some of Enguerrand’s +young friends not engaged in the sortie. One or two of the latter, +indeed, were disabled from fighting by wounds in former fields; they +left their sick-beds to bid him good-bye. Unspeakable was the affection +this genial nature inspired in all who came into the circle of its +winning magic; and when, tearing himself from them, he descended the +stair, and passed with light step through the Porte cochere, there was +a crowd around the house--so widely had his popularity spread among even +the lower classes, from which the Mobiles in his regiment were chiefly +composed. He departed to the place of rendezvous amid a chorus of +exhilarating cheers. + +Not thus lovingly tended on, not thus cordially greeted, was that equal +idol of a former generation, Victor de Mauleon. No pious friend prayed +beside his couch, no loving kiss waked him from his slumbers. At the +grey of the November dawn he rose from a sleep which had no smiling +dreams, with that mysterious instinct of punctual will which cannot even +go to sleep without fixing beforehand the exact moment in which sleep +shall end. He, too, like Enguerrand, dressed himself with care--unlike +Enguerrand, with care strictly soldier-like. Then, seeing he had some +little time yet before him, he rapidly revisited the pigeonholes and +drawers in which might be found by prying eyes anything he would deny +to them curiosity. All that he found of this sort were some letters in +female handwriting, tied together with faded ribbon, relics of earlier +days, and treasured throughout later vicissitudes; letters from the +English girl to whom he had briefly referred in his confession to +Louvier,--the only girl he had ever wooed as his wife. She was the only +daughter of highborn Roman Catholics, residing at the time of his youth +in Paris. Reluctantly they had assented to his proposals; joyfully they +had retracted their assent when his affairs had become so involved; +yet possibly the motive that led him to his most ruinous excesses--the +gambling of the turf--had been caused by the wild hope of a nature, then +fatally sanguine, to retrieve the fortune that might suffice to +satisfy the parents. But during his permitted courtship the lovers +had corresponded. Her letters were full of warm, if innocent, +tenderness--till came the last cold farewell. The family had long ago +returned to England; he concluded, of course, that she had married +another. + +Near to these letters lay the papers which had served to vindicate his +honour in that old affair, in which the unsought love of another had +brought on him shame and affliction. As his eye fell on the last, he +muttered to him self, “I kept these, to clear my repute. Can I keep +those, when, if found, they might compromise the repute of her who +might have been my wife had I been worthy of her? She is doubtless now +another’s; or, if dead,--honour never dies.” He pressed his lips to the +letters with a passionate, lingering, mournful kiss; then, raking up the +ashes of yesterday’s fire, and rekindling them, he placed thereon those +leaves of a melancholy romance in his past, and watched them slowly, +reluctantly smoulder away into tinder. Then he opened a drawer in which +lay the only paper of a political character which he had preserved. All +that related to plots or conspiracies in which his agency had committed +others, it was his habit to destroy as soon as received. For the sole +document thus treasured he alone was responsible; it was an outline +of his ideal for the future constitution of France, accompanied with +elaborate arguments, the heads of which his conversation with the +Incognito made known to the reader. Of the soundness of this political +programme, whatever its merits or faults (a question on which I presume +no judgment), he had an intense conviction. He glanced rapidly over its +contents, did not alter a word, sealed it up in an envelope, inscribed, +“My Legacy to my Countrymen.” The papers refuting a calumny relating +solely to himself he carried into the battle-field, placed next to his +heart,--significant of a Frenchman’s love of honour in this world--as +the relic placed round the neck of Enguerrand by his pious brother was +emblematic of the Christian hope of mercy in the next. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +The streets swarmed with the populace troops as they passed to their +destination. Among those of the Mobiles who especially caught the eye +were two companies in which Enguerrand de Vandemar and Victor de Mauleon +commanded. In the first were many young men of good family, or in the +higher ranks of the bourgeoisie, known to numerous lookers-on; there was +something inspiriting in their gay aspects, and in the easy carelessness +of their march. Mixed with this company, however, and forming of course +the bulk of it, were those who belonged to the lower classes of the +population; and though they too might seem gay to an ordinary observer, +the gaiety was forced. Many of them were evidently not quite sober; and +there was a disorderly want of soldiership in their mien and armament +which inspired distrust among such vieux moustaches as, too old for +other service than that of the ramparts, mixed here and there among the +crowd. + +But when De Mauleon’s company passed, the vieux moustaches impulsively +touched each other. They recognised the march of well-drilled men; the +countenances grave and severe, the eyes not looking on this side and +that for admiration, the step regularly timed; and conspicuous among +these men the tall stature and calm front of the leader. + +“These fellows will fight well,” growled a vieux moustache, “where did +they fish out their leader?” + +“Don’t you know?” said a bourgeois. “Victor de Mauleon. He won the cross +in Algeria for bravery. I recollect him when I was very young; the very +devil for women and fighting.” + +“I wish there were more such devils for fighting and fewer for women,” + growled again le vieux moustache. + +One incessant roar of cannon all the night of the 29th. The populace +had learned the names of the French cannons, and fancied they +could distinguish the several sounds of their thunder. “There +spits ‘Josephine’!” shouts an invalid sailor. “There howls our own +‘Populace’!” cries a Red Republican from Belleville. + + [The “Populace” had been contributed to the artillery, + sou a sou, by the working class.] + +“There sings ‘Le Chatiment’!” laughed Gustave Rameau, who was now become +an enthusiastic admirer of the Victor Hugo he had before affected to +despise. And all the while, mingled with the roar of the cannon, +came, far and near from the streets, from the ramparts, the gusts of +song--song sometimes heroic, sometimes obscene, more often carelessly +joyous. The news of General Vinoy’s success during the early part of the +day had been damped by the evening report of Ducrot’s delay in crossing +the swollen Marne. But the spirits of the Parisians rallied from a +momentary depression on the excitement at night of that concert of +martial music. + +During that night, close under the guns of the double redoubt of +Gravelle and La Faisanderie, eight pontoon-bridges were thrown over +the Marne; and at daybreak the first column of the third army under +Blanchard and Renoult crossed with all their artillery, and, covered +by the fire of the double redoubts, of the forts of Vincennes, Nogent, +Rossuey, and the batteries of Mont Avron, had an hour before noon +carried the village of Champingy, and the first echelon of the +important plateau of Villiers, and were already commencing the work +of intrenchment, when, rallying from the amaze of a defeat, the German +forces burst upon them, sustained by fresh batteries. The Prussian +pieces of artillery established at Chennevieres and at Neuilly opened +fire with deadly execution; while a numerous infantry, descending from +the intrenchments of Villiers, charged upon the troops under Renoult. +Among the French in that strife were Enguerrand and the Mobiles of which +he was in command. Dismayed by the unexpected fire, these Mobiles gave +way, as indeed did many of the line. Enguerrand rushed forward to the +front: “On, mes enfans, on! What will our mothers and wives say of us +if we fly? Vive la France!--On!” Among those of the better class in that +company there rose a shout of applause, but it found no sympathy among +the rest. They wavered, they turned. “Will you suffer me to go on +alone, countrymen?” cried Enguerrand; and alone he rushed on towards +the Prussian line--rushed, and fell, mortally wounded, by a musket-ball. +“Revenge, revenge!” shouted some of the foremost; “Revenge!” shouted +those in the rear; and, so shouting, turned on their heels and fled. +But ere they could disperse they encountered the march, steadfast though +rapid, of the troop led by Victor de Mauleon. “Poltroons!” he thundered, +with the sonorous depth of his strong voice, “halt and turn, or my men +shall fire on you as deserters.” + +“Va, citoyen,” said one fugitive, an officer-popularly elected, because +he was the loudest brawler in the club of the Salle Favre,--we have seen +him before--Charles, the brother of Armand Monnier;--“men can’t fight +when they despise their generals. It is our generals who are poltroons +and fools both.” + +“Carry my answer to the ghosts of cowards,” cried De Mauldon, and shot +the man dead. + +His followers, startled and cowed by the deed, and the voice and the +look of the death-giver, halted. The officers, who had at first yielded +to the panic of their men, took fresh courage, and finally led the bulk +of the troop back to their post “enlevis a la baionette,” to use the +phrase of a candid historian of that day. + +Day, on the whole, not inglorious to France. It was the first, if it +was the last, really important success of the besieged. They remained +masters of the ground, the Prussians leaving to them the wounded and the +dead. + +That night what crowds thronged from Paris to the top of the Montmartre +heights, from the observatory on which the celebrated inventor Bazin +had lighted up, with some magical electric machine, all the plain of +Gennevilliers from Mont Valerien to the Fort de la Briche! The splendour +of the blaze wrapped the great city;--distinctly above the roofs of +the houses soared the Dome des Invalides, the spires of Notre Dame, the +giant turrets of the Tuileries;--and died away on resting on the infames +scapulos Acroceraunia, the “thunder crags” of the heights occupied by +the invading army. + +Lemercier, De Breze, and the elder Rameau--who, despite his peaceful +habits and grey hairs, insisted on joining in the aid of la patrie--were +among the National Guards attached to the Fort de la Briche and the +neighbouring eminence, and they met in conversation. + +“What a victory we have had!” said the old Rameau. + +“Rather mortifying to your son, M. Rameau,” said LeMercier. + +“Mortifying to my son, sir!--the victory of his countrymen. What do you +mean?” + +“I had the honour to hear M. Gustave the other night at the club de la +Vengeance.” + +“Bon Dieu! do you frequent those tragic reunions?” asked De Breze. + +“They are not at all tragic: they are the only comedies left us, as one +must amuse one’s self somewhere, and the club de la Vengeance is the +prettiest thing of the sort going. I quite understand why it should +fascinate a poet like your son, M. Rameau. It is held in a salle de +cafe chantant--style Louis Quinze--decorated with a pastoral scene from +Watteau. I and my dog Fox drop in. We hear your son haranguing. In what +poetical sentences he despaired of the Republic! The Government (he +called them les charlatans de l’Hotel de Ville) were imbeciles. They +pretended to inaugurate a revolution, and did not employ the most +obvious of revolutionary means. There Fox and I pricked up our ears: +what were those means? Your son proceeded to explain: ‘All mankind were +to be appealed to against individual interests. The commerce of luxury +was to be abolished. Clearly luxury was not at the command of all +mankind. Cafes and theatres were to be closed for ever--all mankind +could not go to cafes and theatres. It was idle to expect the masses to +combine for anything in which the masses had not an interest in common. +The masses had no interest in any property that did not belong to +the masses. Programmes of the society to be founded, called the Ligue +Cosmopolite Democratique, should be sent at once into all the States of +the civilised world--how? by balloons. Money corrupts the world as now +composed: but the money at the command of the masses could buy all the +monarchs and courtiers and priests of the universe.’ At that sentiment, +vehemently delivered, the applauses were frantic, and Fox in his +excitement began to bark. At the sound of his bark one man cried out, +‘That’s a Prussian!’ another, ‘Down with the spy!’ another, ‘There’s an +aristo present--he keeps alive a dog which would be a week’s meal for +a family!’ I snatch up Fox at the last cry, and clasp him to a bosom +protected by the uniform of the National Guard. + +“When the hubbub had subsided, your son, M. Rameau, proceeded, quitting +mankind in general, and arriving at the question in particular most +interesting to his audience--the mobilisation of the National Guard; +that is, the call upon men who like talking and hate fighting to talk +less and fight more. ‘It was the sheerest tyranny to select a certain +number of free citizens to be butchered. If the fight was for the mass, +there ought to be la levee en masse. If one did not compel everybody +to fight, why should anybody fight?’ Here the applause again became +vehement, and Fox again became indiscreet. I subdued Fox’s bark into a +squeak by pulling his ears. ‘What!’ cries your poet-son, ‘la levee en +masse gives us fifteen millions of soldiers, with which we could crush, +not Prussia alone, but the whole of Europe. (Immense sensation.) Let us, +then, resolve that the charlatans of the Hotel de Ville are incapable of +delivering us from the Prussians; that they are deposed; that the Ligue +of the Democratie Cosmopolite is installed; that meanwhile the Commune +shall be voted the Provisional Government, and shall order the Prussians +to retire within three days from the soil of Paris.’ + +“Pardon me this long description, my dear M. Rameau, but I trust I +have satisfactorily explained why victory obtained in the teeth of +his eloquent opinions, if gratifying to him as a Frenchman, must be +mortifying to him as a politician.” + +The old Rameau sighed, hung his head, and crept away. While, amid this +holiday illumination, the Parisians enjoyed the panorama before them, +the Freres Chretiens and the attendants of the various ambulances were +moving along the battle-plains; the first in their large-brimmed hats +and sable garbs, the last in strange motley costume, many of them in +glittering uniform--all alike in their serene indifference to danger; +often pausing to pick up among the dead their own brethren who had +been slaughtered in the midst of their task. Now and then they came +on sinister forms apparently engaged in the same duty of tending the +wounded and dead, but in truth murderous plunderers, to whom the dead +and the dying were equal harvests. Did the wounded man attempt to resist +the foul hands searching for their spoil, they added another wound more +immediately mortal, grinning as they completed on the dead the robbery +they had commenced on the dying. + +Raoul de Vandemar had been all the earlier part of the day with the +assistants of the ambulance over which he presided, attached to the +battalions of the National Guard in a quarter remote from that in which +his brother had fought and fallen. When those troops, later in the day, +were driven from the Montmedy plateau, which they had at first carried, +Raoul repassed towards the plateau at Villiers, on which the dead lay +thickest. On the way he heard a vague report of the panic which +had dispersed the Mobiles of whom Enguerrand was in command, and of +Enguerrand’s vain attempt to inspirit them. But his fate was not known. +There, at midnight, Raoul is still searching among the ghastly heaps and +pools of blood, lighted from afar by the blaze from the observatory of +Montmartre, and more near at hand by the bivouac fires extended along +the banks to the left of the Marne, while everywhere about the field +flitted the lanterns of the Frere Chretiens. Suddenly, in the dimness of +a spot cast into shadow by an incompleted earthwork, he observed a small +sinister figure perched on the breast of some wounded soldier, evidently +not to succour. He sprang forward and seized a hideous-looking urchin, +scarcely twelve years old, who held in one hand a small crystal locket, +set in filigree gold, torn from the soldier’s breast, and lifted high in +the other a long case-knife. At a glance Raoul recognised the holy relic +he had given to Enguerrand, and, flinging the precocious murderer to be +seized by his assistants, he cast himself beside his brother. Enguerrand +still breathed, and his languid eyes brightened as he knew the dear +familiar face. He tried to speak, but his voice failed, and he shook his +head sadly, but still with a faint smile on his lips. They lifted him +tenderly, and placed him on a litter. The movement, gentle as it was, +brought back pain, and with the pain strength to mutter, “My mother---I +would see her once more.” + +As at daybreak the loungers on Montmartre and the ramparts descended +into the streets--most windows in which were open, as they had been +all night, with anxious female faces peering palely down-they saw the +conveyances of the ambulances coming dismally along, and many an +eye turned wistfully towards the litter on which lay the idol of the +pleasure-loving Paris, with the dark, bareheaded figure walking beside +it,--onwards, onwards, till it reached the Hotel de Vandemar, and a +woman’s cry was heard at the entrance--the mother’s cry, “My son! my +son!” + + + + + +BOOK XII. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +The last book closed with the success of the Parisian sortie on the +30th of November, to be followed by the terrible engagements no less +honourable to French valour, on the 2nd of December. There was the +sanguine belief that deliverance was at hand; that Trochu would break +through the circle of iron, and effect that junction with the army +of Aurelles de Paladine which would compel the Germans to raise the +investment;--belief rudely shaken by Ducrot’s proclamation of the 4th, +to explain the recrossing of the Marne, and the abandonment of the +positions conquered, but not altogether dispelled till von Moltke’s +letter to Trochu on the 5th announcing the defeat of the army of the +Loire and the recapture of Orleans. Even then the Parisians did not +lose hope of succour; and even after the desperate and fruitless sortie +against Le Bourget on the 21st, it was not without witticisms on defeat +and predictions of triumph, that Winter and Famine settled sullenly on +the city. + +Our narrative reopens with the last period of the siege. + +It was during these dreadful days, that if the vilest and the most +hideous aspects of the Parisian population showed themselves at +the worst, so all its loveliest, its noblest, its holiest +characteristics--unnoticed by ordinary observers in the prosperous days +of the capital--became conspicuously prominent. The higher classes, +including the remnant of the old noblesse, had, during the whole siege, +exhibited qualities in notable contrast to those assigned them by +the enemies of aristocracy. Their sons had been foremost among those +soldiers who never calumniated a leader, never fled before a foe; their +women had been among the most zealous and the most tender nurses of the +ambulances they had founded and served; their houses had been freely +opened, whether to the families exiled from the suburbs, or in +supplement to the hospitals. The amount of relief they afforded +unostentatiously, out of means that shared the general failure of +accustomed resource, when the famine commenced, would be scarcely +credible if stated. Admirable, too, were the fortitude and resignation +of the genuine Parisian bourgeoisie,--the thrifty tradesfolk and small +rentiers,--that class in which, to judge of its timidity when opposed +to a mob, courage is not the most conspicuous virtue. Courage became so +now--courage to bear hourly increasing privation, and to suppress every +murmur of suffering that would discredit their patriotism, and invoke +“peace at any price.” It was on this class that the calamities of the +siege now pressed the most heavily. The stagnation of trade, and the +stoppage of the rents, in which they had invested their savings, reduced +many of them to actual want. Those only of their number who obtained the +pay of one-and-a-half franc a day as National Guards, could be sure to +escape from starvation. But this pay had already begun to demoralise the +receivers. Scanty for supply of food, it was ample for supply of drink. +And drunkenness, hitherto rare in that rank of the Parisians, became +a prevalent vice, aggravated in the case of a National Guard, when +it wholly unfitted him for the duties he undertook, especially such +National Guards as were raised from the most turbulent democracy of the +working class. + +But of all that population; there were two sections in which the +most beautiful elements of our human nature were most touchingly +manifest--the women and the priesthood, including in the latter +denomination all the various brotherhoods and societies which religion +formed and inspired. + +It was on the 27th of December that Frederic Lemercier stood gazing +wistfully on a military report affixed to a blank wall, which stated +that “the enemy, worn out by a resistance of over one hundred days,” + had commenced the bombardment. Poor Frederic was sadly altered; he had +escaped the Prussian’s guns, but not the Parisian winter--the severest +known for twenty years. He was one of the many frozen at their +posts--brought back to the ambulance with Fox in his bosom trying +to keep him warm. He had only lately been sent forth as +convalescent,--ambulances were too crowded to retain a patient longer +than absolutely needful,--and had been hunger-pinched and frost-pinched +ever since. The luxurious Frederic had still, somewhere or other, a +capital yielding above three thousand a year, and of which he could not +now realise a franc, the title-deeds to various investments being in the +hands of Duplessis, the most trustworthy of friends, the most upright of +men, but who was in Bretagne, and could not be got at. And the time had +come at Paris when you could not get trust for a pound of horse-flesh, +or a daily supply of fuel. And Frederic Lemercier, who had long since +spent the 2000 francs borrowed from Alain (not ignobly, but somewhat +ostentatiously, in feasting any acquaintance who wanted a feast), and +who had sold to any one who could afford to speculate on such dainty +luxuries,--clocks, bronzes, amber-mounted pipes,--all that had made the +envied garniture of his bachelor’s apartment--Frederic Lemercier was, +so far as the task of keeping body and soul together, worse off than +any English pauper who can apply to the Union. Of course he might have +claimed his half-pay of thirty sous as a National Guard. But he little +knows the true Parisian who imagines a seigneur of the Chaussee d’Antin, +the oracle of those with whom he lived, and one who knew life so well +that he had preached prudence to a seigneur of the Faubourg like Alain +de Rochebriant, stooping to apply for the wages of thirty sons. Rations +were only obtained by the wonderful patience of women, who had children +to whom they were both saints and martyrs. The hours, the weary hours, +one had to wait before one could get one’s place on the line for the +distribution of that atrocious black bread, defeated men,--defeated most +wives if only for husbands, were defied only by mothers and daughters. +Literally speaking, Lemercier was starving. Alain had been badly wounded +in the sortie of the 21st, and was laid up in an ambulance. Even if +he could have been got at, he had probably nothing left to bestow upon +Lemercier. + +Lemercier gazed on the announcement of the bombardment, and the +Parisian gaiety, which some French historian of the siege calls douce +philosophie, lingering on him still, he said, audibly, turning round +to any stranger who heard: “Happiest of mortals that we are! Under the +present Government we are never warned of anything disagreeable that can +happen; we are only told of it when it has happened, and then as rather +pleasant than otherwise. I get up. I meet a civil gendarme. ‘What is +that firing? which of our provincial armies is taking Prussia in the +rear? ‘Monsieur,’ says the gendarme, ‘it is the Prussian Krupp guns.’ I +look at the proclamation, and my fears varnish,--my heart is relieved. I +read that the bombardment is a sure sign that the enemy is worn out.” + +Some of the men grouped round Frederic ducked their heads in terror; +others, who knew that the thunderbolt launched from the plateau of Avron +would not fall on the pavements of Paris, laughed and joked. But in +front, with no sign of terror, no sound of laughter, stretched, moving +inch by inch, the female procession towards the bakery in which the +morsel of bread for their infants was doled out. + +“Hist, mon ami,” said a deep voice beside Lemercier. “Look at those +women, and do not wound their ears by a jest.” + +Lemercier, offended by that rebuke, though too susceptible to good +emotions not to recognise its justice, tried with feeble fingers to turn +up his moustache, and to turn a defiant crest upon the rebuker. He +was rather startled to see the tall martial form at his side, and to +recognise Victor de Mauleon. “Don’t you think, M. Lemercier,” resumed +the Vicomte, half sadly, “that these women are worthy of better husbands +and sons than are commonly found among the soldiers whose uniform we +wear?” + +“The National Guard! You ought not to sneer at them, Vicomte,--you +whose troop covered itself with glory on the great days of Villiers +and Champigny,--you in whose praise even the grumblers of Paris became +eloquent, and in whom a future Marshal of France is foretold.” + +“But, alas! more than half of my poor troop was left on the +battle-field, or is now wrestling for mangled remains of life in the +ambulances. And the new recruits with which I took the field on the +21st are not likely to cover themselves with glory, or to insure their +commander the baton of a marshal.” + +“Ay, I heard when I was in the hospital that you had publicly shamed +some of these recruits, and declared that you would rather resign than +lead them again to battle.” + +“True; and at this moment, for so doing, I am the man most hated by the +rabble who supplied those recruits.” The men, while thus conversing, +had moved slowly on, and were now in front of a large cafe, from the +interior of which came the sound of loud bravos and clappings of hands. +Lemercier’s curiosity was excited. “For what can be that applause?” he +said; “let us look in and see.” The room was thronged. In the distance, +on a small raised platform, stood a girl dressed in faded theatrical +finery, making her obeisance to the crowd. + +“Heavens!” exclaimed Frederic--“can I trust my eyes? Surely that is the +once superb Julie: has she been dancing here?” + +One of the loungers, evidently belonging to the same world as Lemercier, +overheard the question and answered politely: “No, Monsieur: she has +been reciting verses, and really declaims very well, considering it +is not her vocation. She has given us extracts from Victor Hugo and De +Musset: and crowned all with a patriotic hymn by Gustave Rameau,--her +old lover, if gossip be true.” Meanwhile De Mauleon, who at first had +glanced over the scene with his usual air of calm and cold indifference, +became suddenly struck by the girl’s beautiful face, and gazed on it +with a look of startled surprise. + +“Who and what did you say that poor fair creature is, M. Lemercier?” + +“She is a Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, and was a very popular coryphee. +She has hereditary right to be a good dancer, as the daughter of a once +more famous ornament of the ballet, la belle Leonie--whom you must have +seen in your young days.” + +“Of course. Leonie--she married a M. Surville, a silly bourgeois +gentilhomme, who earned the hatred of Paris by taking her off the stage. +So that is her daughter I see no likeness to her mother--much handsomer. +Why does she call herself Caumartin?” + +“Oh,” said Frederic, “a melancholy but trite story.” + +“Leonie was left a widow, and died in want. What could the poor young +daughter do? She found a rich protector, who had influence to get her +an appointment in the ballet: and there she did as most girls so +circumstanced do--appeared under an assumed name, which she has since +kept.” + +“I understand,” said Victor, compassionately. “Poor thing! she has +quitted the platform, and is coming this way, evidently to speak to you. +I saw her eyes brighten as she caught sight of your face.” + +Lemercier attempted a languid air of modest self-complacency as the girl +now approached him. “Bonjour, M. Frederic! Ah, mon Dieu! how thin you +have grown! You have been ill?” + +“The hardships of a military life, Mademoiselle. Ah, for the beaux +fours and the peace we insisted on destroying under the Empire which we +destroyed for listening to us! But you thrive well, I trust. I have seen +you better dressed, but never in greater beauty.” + +The girl blushed as she replied, “Do you really think as you speak?” + +“I could not speak more sincerely if I lived in the legendary House of +Glass.” + +The girl clutched his arm, and said in suppressed tones, “Where is +Gustave?” + +“Gustave Rameau? I have no idea. Do you never see him now?” + +“Never,--perhaps I never shall see him again; but when you do meet +him, say that Julie owes to him her livelihood. An honest livelihood, +Monsieur. He taught her to love verses--told her how to recite them. I +am engaged at this cafe--you will find me here the same hour every day, +in case--in case--You are good and kind, and will come and tell me that +Gustave is well and happy even if he forgets me. Au revoir! Stop, you do +look, my poor Frederic, as if--as if--pardon me, Monsieur Lemercier, is +there anything I can do? Will you condescend to borrow from me? I am in +funds.” + +Lemercier at that offer was nearly moved to tears. Famished though he +was, he could not, however, have touched that girl’s earnings. + +“You are an angel of goodness, Mademoiselle! Ah, how I envy Gustave +Rameau! No, I don’t want aid. I am always a--rentier.” + +“Bien! and if you see Gustave, you will not forget.” + +“Rely on me. Come away,” he said to De Mauleon; “I don’t want to hear +that girl repeat the sort of bombast the poets indite nowadays. It is +fustian; and that girl may have a brain of feather, but she has a heart +of gold.” + +“True,” said Victor, as they regained the street. “I overheard what +she said to you. What an incomprehensible thing is a woman! how more +incomprehensible still is a woman’s love! Ah, pardon me; I must leave +you. I see in the procession a poor woman known to me in better days.” + +De Mauleon walked towards the woman he spoke of--one of the long +procession to the bakery--a child clinging to her robe. A pale +grief-worn woman, still young, but with the weariness of age on her +face, and the shadow of death on her child’s. + +“I think I see Madame Monnier,” said De Mauleon, softly. + +She turned and looked at him drearily. A year ago, she would have +blushed if addressed by a stranger in a name not lawfully hers. + +“Well,” she said, in hollow accents broken by cough; “I don’t know you, +Monsieur.” + +“Poor woman!” he resumed, walking beside her as she moved slowly on, +while the eyes of other women in the procession stared at him hungrily. +“And your child looks ill too. It is your youngest?” + +“My only one! The others are in Pere la Chaise. There are but few +children alive in my street now. God has been very merciful, and taken +them to Himself.” + +De Mauleon recalled the scene of a neat comfortable apartment, and the +healthful happy children at play on the floor. The mortality among the +little ones, especially in the quartier occupied by the working classes, +had of late been terrible. The want of food, of fuel, the intense +severity of the weather, had swept them off as by a pestilence. + +“And Monnier--what of him? No doubt he is a National Guard, and has his +pay?” + +The woman made no answer, but hung down her head. She was stifling a +sob. Till then her eyes seemed to have exhausted the last source of +tears. + +“He lives still?” continued Victor, pityingly: “he is not wounded?” + +“No: he is well--in health; thank you kindly, Monsieur.” + +“But his pay is not enough to help you, and of course he can get no +work. Excuse me if I stopped you. It is because I owed Armand Monnier a +little debt for work, and I am ashamed to say that it quite escaped my +memory in these terrible events. Allow me, Madame, to pay it to you,” + and he thrust his purse into her hand. “I think this contains about the +sum I owed; if more or less, we will settle the difference later. Take +care of yourself.” + +He was turning away when the woman caught hold of him. + +“Stay, Monsieur. May Heaven bless you!--but--but tell me what name I am +to give to Armand. I can’t think of any one who owed him money. It must +have been before that dreadful strike, the beginning of all our woes. +Ah, if it were allowed to curse any one, I fear my last breath would not +be a prayer.” + +“You would curse the strike, or the master who did not forgive Armand’s +share in it?” + +“No, no,--the cruel man who talked him into it--into all that has +changed the best workman, the kindest heart--the--the--” again her voice +died in sobs. + +“And who was that man?” asked De Mauleon, falteringly. + +“His name was Lebeau. If you were a poor man, I should say ‘Shun him.’” + +“I have heard of the name you mention; but if we mean the same person, +Monnier cannot have met him lately. He has not been in Paris since the +siege.” + +“I suppose not, the coward! He ruined us--us who were so happy before; +and then, as Armand says, cast us away as instruments he had done with. +But--but if you do know him, and do see him again, tell him--tell him +not to complete his wrong--not to bring murder on Armand’s soul. For +Armand isn’t what he was--and has become, oh, so violent! I dare not +take this money without saying who gave it. He would not take money as +alms from an aristocrat. Hush! he beat me for taking money from the good +Monsieur Raoul de Vandemar--my poor Armand beat me!” + +De Mauleon shuddered. “Say that it is from a customer whose rooms +he decorated in his spare hours on his own account before the +strike,--Monsieur --------;” here he uttered indistinctly some +unpronounceable name and hurried off, soon lost as the streets grew +darker. Amid groups of a higher order of men-military men, nobles, +ci-devant deputies--among such ones his name stood very high. Not only +his bravery in the recent sorties had been signal, but a strong belief +in his military talents had become prevalent; and conjoined with +the name he had before established as a political writer, and the +remembrance of the vigour and sagacity with which he had opposed the +war, he seemed certain, when peace and order became established, of +a brilliant position and career in a future administration: not less +because he had steadfastly kept aloof from the existing Government, +which it was rumoured, rightly or erroneously, that he had been +solicited to join; and from every combination of the various democratic +or discontented factions. + +Quitting these more distinguished associates, he took his way alone +towards the ramparts. The day was closing; the thunders of the cannon +were dying down. + +He passed by a wine-shop round which were gathered many of the worse +specimens of the Moblots and National Guards, mostly drunk, and loudly +talking in vehement abuse of generals and officers and commissariat. By +one of the men, as he came under the glare of a petroleum lamp (there +was gas no longer in the dismal city), he was recognised as the +commander who had dared to insist on discipline, and disgrace honest +patriots who claimed to themselves the sole option between fight and +flight. The man was one of those patriots--one of the new recruits whom +Victor had shamed and dismissed for mutiny and cowardice. He made a +drunken plunge at his former chief, shouting, “A bas Pai-isto! Comrades, +this is the coquin De Mauleon who is paid by the Prussians for getting +us killed: a la lanterne!” “A la lanterne!” stammered and hiccupped +others of the group; but they did not stir to execute their threat. +Dimly seen as the stern face and sinewy form of the threatened man was +by their drowsied eyes, the name of De Mauleon, the man without fear +of a foe, and without ruth for a mutineer, sufficed to protect him from +outrage; and with a slight movement of his arm that sent his denouncer +reeling against the lamp-post, De Mauleon passed on:--when another man, +in the uniform of a National Guard, bounded from the door of the tavern, +crying with a loud voice, “Who said De Mauleon?--let me look on him:” + and Victor, who had strode on with slow lion-like steps, cleaving the +crowd, turned, and saw before him in the gleaming light a face, in which +the bold frank, intelligent aspect of former days was lost in a wild, +reckless, savage expression--the face of Armand Monnier. + +“Ha! are you really Victor de Mauleon?” asked Monnier, not fiercely, but +under his breath,--in that sort of stage whisper which is the natural +utterance of excited men under the mingled influence of potent drink and +hoarded rage. + +“Certainly; I am Victor de Mauleon.” + +“And you were in command of the--company of the National Guard on the +30th of November at Champigny and Villiers?” + +“I was.” + +“And you shot with your own hand an officer belonging to another company +who refused to join yours?” + +“I shot a cowardly soldier who ran away from the enemy, and seemed a +ringleader of other runaways; and in so doing, I saved from dishonour +the best part of his comrades.” + +“The man was no coward. He was an enlightened Frenchman, and worth fifty +of such aristos as you; and he knew better than his officers that he was +to be led to an idle slaughter. Idle--I say idle. What was France the +better, how was Paris the safer, for the senseless butchery of that day? +You mutinied against a wiser general than Saint Trochu when you murdered +that mutineer.” + +“Armand Monnier, you are not quite sober to-night, or I would argue with +you that question. But you no doubt are brave: how and why do you take +the part of a runaway?” + +“How and why? He was my brother, and you own you murdered him: my +brother--the sagest head in Paris. If I had listened to him, I should +not be,--bah!--no matter now what I am.” + +“I could not know he was your brother; but if he had been mine I would +have done the same.” + +Here Victor’s lip quivered, for Monnier griped him by the arm, and +looked him in the face with wild stony eyes. “I recollect that voice! +Yet--yet--you say you are a noble, a Vicomte--Victor de Mauleon, and you +shot my brother!” + +Here he passed his left hand rapidly over his forehead. The fumes of +wine still clouded his mind, but rays of intelligence broke through the +cloud. Suddenly he said in a loud, and calm, and natural voice: + +“Mons. le Vicomte, you accost me as Armand Monnier--pray how do you know +my name?” + +“How should I not know it? I have looked into the meetings of the ‘Clubs +rouges.’ I have heard you speak, and naturally asked your name. Bon soir +M. Monnier! When you reflect in cooler moments, you will see that if +patriots excuse Brutus for first dishonouring and then executing his own +son, an officer charged to defend his country may be surely pardoned for +slaying a runaway to whom he was no relation, when in slaying he saved +the man’s name and kindred from dishonour--unless, indeed, you insist on +telling the world why he was slain.” + +“I know your voice--I know it. Every sound becomes clearer to my ear. +And if--” + +But while Monnier thus spoke, De Mauleon had hastened on. Monnier looked +round, saw him gone, but did not pursue. He was just intoxicated enough +to know that his footsteps were not steady, and he turned back to the +wine-shop and asked surlily for more wine. Could you have seen him then +as he leant swinging himself to and fro against the wall,--had you known +the man two years ago, you would have been a brute if you felt disgust. +You could only have felt that profound compassion with which we gaze on +a great royalty fallen. For the grandest of all royalties is that which +takes its crown from Nature, needing no accident of birth. And Nature +made the mind of Armand Monnier king-like; endowed it with lofty scorn +of meanness and falsehood and dishonour, with warmth and tenderness of +heart which had glow enough to spare from ties of kindred and hearth and +home, to extend to those distant circles of humanity over which royal +natures would fain extend the shadow of their sceptre. + +How had the royalty of the man’s nature fallen thus? Royalty rarely +falls from its own constitutional faults. It falls when, ceasing to be +royal, it becomes subservient to bad advisers. And what bad advisers, +always appealing to his better qualities and so enlisting his worser, +had discrowned this mechanic? + +“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” says the old-fashioned poet. + +“Not so,” says the modern philosopher; “a little knowledge; is safer +than no knowledge.” Possibly, as all individuals and all communities +must go through the stage of a little knowledge before they can arrive +at that of much knowledge, the philosopher’s assertion may be right +in the long-run, and applied to humankind in general. But there is +a period, as there is a class, in which a little knowledge tends to +terrible demoralisation. And Armand Monnier lived in that period and +was one of that class. The little knowledge that his mind, impulsive +and ardent, had picked up out of books that warred with the great +foundations of existing society, had originated in ill advices. A man +stored with much knowledge would never have let Madame de Grantmesnil’s +denunciations of marriage rites, or Louis Blane’s vindication of +Robespierre as the representative of the working against the middle +class, influence his practical life. He would have assessed such +opinions at their real worth; and whatever that worth might seem to +him, would not to such opinions have committed the conduct of his +life. Opinion is not fateful: conduct is. A little knowledge crazes +an earnest, warm-blooded, powerful creature like Armand Monnier into a +fanatic. He takes an opinion which pleases him as a revelation from the +gods; that opinion shapes his conduct; that conduct is his fate. Woe to +the philosopher who serenely flings before the little knowledge of +the artisan dogmas as harmless as the Atlantis of Plato if only to be +discussed by philosophers, and deadly as the torches of Ate if seized as +articles of a creed by fanatics! But thrice woe to the artisan who makes +himself the zealot of the Dogma! + +Poor Armand acts on the opinions he adopts; proves his contempt for the +marriage state by living with the wife of another; resents, as natures +so inherently manly must do, the Society that visits on her his defiance +of its laws; throws himself, head foremost, against that society +altogether; necessarily joins all who have other reasons for +hostility to Society; he himself having every inducement not to join +indiscriminate strikes--high wages, a liberal employer, ample savings, +the certainty of soon becoming employer himself. No; that is not enough +to the fanatic: he persists on being dupe and victim. He, this great +king of labour, crowned by Nature, and cursed with that degree of little +knowledge which does not comprehend how much more is required before +a schoolboy would admit it to be knowledge at all,--he rushes into the +maddest of all speculations--that of the artisan with little knowledge +and enormous faith--that which intrusts the safety and repose and +dignity of life to some ambitious adventurer, who uses his warm heart +for the adventurer’s frigid purpose, much as the lawyer-government of +September used the Communists,--much as, in every revolution of France, +a Bertrand has used a Raton--much as, till the sound of the last +trumpet, men very much worse than Victor de Mauleon will use men very +much better than Armand Monnier, if the Armand Monniers disdain the +modesty of an Isaac Newton on hearing that a theorem to which he had +given all the strength of his patient intellect was disputed: “It may be +so;” meaning, I suppose, that it requires a large amount of experience +ascertained before a man of much knowledge becomes that which a man of +little knowledge is at a jump-the fanatic of an experiment untried. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Scarcely had De Mauleon quitted Lemercier before the latter was joined +by two loungers scarcely less famished than himself--Savarin and De +Breze. Like himself, too, both had been sufferers from illness, though +not of a nature to be consigned to an hospital. All manner of diseases +then had combined to form the pestilence which filled the streets with +unregarded hearses--bronchitis, pneumonia, smallpox, a strange sort of +spurious dysentery much more speedily fatal than the genuine. The three +men, a year before so sleek, looked like ghosts under the withering sky; +yet all three retained embers of the native Parisian humour, which their +very breath on meeting sufficed to kindle up into jubilant sparks or +rapid flashes. + +“There are two consolations,” said Savarin, as the friends strolled or +rather crawled towards the Boulevards--“two consolations for the gourmet +and for the proprietor in these days of trial for the gourmand, because +the price of truffles is come down.” + +“Truffles!” gasped De Breze, with watering mouth; “impossible! They are +gone with the age of gold.” + +“Not so. I speak on the best authority--my laundress; for she attends +the succursale in the Rue de Chateaudun; and if the poor woman, being, +luckily for me, a childless widow, gets a morsel she can spare, she +sells it to me.” + +“Sells it!” feebly exclaimed Lemercier. “Croesus! you have money then, +and can buy?” + +“Sells it--on credit! I am to pension her for life if I live to have +money again. Don’t interrupt me. This honest woman goes this morning to +the succursale. I promise myself a delicious bifteck of horse. She gains +the succursale, and the employee informs her that there is nothing left +in his store except--truffles. A glut of those in the market allows him +to offer her a bargain-seven francs la boite. Send me seven francs, De +Breze, and you shall share the banquet.” + +De Breze shook his head expressively. + +“But,” resumed Savarin, “though credit exists no more except with my +laundress, upon terms of which the usury is necessarily proportioned to +the risk, yet, as I had the honour before to observe, there is comfort +for the proprietor. The instinct of property is imperishable.” + +“Not in the house where I lodge,” said Lemercier. “Two soldiers were +billeted there; and during my stay in the ambulance they enter my rooms, +and cart away all of the little furniture left there, except a bed and a +table. Brought before a court-martial, they defend themselves by saying, +‘The rooms were abandoned.’ The excuse was held valid. They were let off +with a reprimand and a promise to restore what was not already disposed +of. They have restored me another table and four chairs.” + +“Nevertheless, they had the instinct of property, though erroneously +developed, otherwise they would not have deemed any excuse for their +act necessary. Now for my instance of the inherent tenacity of that +instinct. A worthy citizen in want of fuel sees a door in a garden wall, +and naturally carries off the door. He is apprehended by a gendarme who +sees the act. ‘Voleur,’ he cries to the gendarme, ‘do you want to rob me +of my property?’ ‘That door your property? I saw you take it away.’ ‘You +confess,’ cries the citizen, triumphantly--‘you confess that it is my +property; for you saw me appropriate it.’ Thus you see how imperishable +is the instinct of property. No sooner does it disappear as yours than +it reappears as mine.” + +“I would laugh if I could,” said Lemercier, “but such a convulsion would +be fatal. Dieu des dieux, how empty I am!” He reeled as he spoke, and +clung to De Breze for support. De Breze had the reputation of being the +most selfish of men. But at that moment, when a generous man might be +excused for being selfish enough to desire to keep the little that he +had for his own reprieve from starvation, this egotist became superb. +“Friends,” he cried, with enthusiasm, “I have something yet in my +pocket; we will dine, all three of us.” + +“Dine!” faltered Lemercier. “Dine! I have not dined since I left the +hospital. I breakfasted yesterday--on two mice upon toast. Dainty, but +not nutritious. And I shared them with Fox.” + +“Fox! Fox lives still, then?” cried De Breze, startled. + +“In a sort of way he does. But one mouse since yesterday morning is not +much; and he can’t expect that every day.” + +“Why don’t you take him out?” asked Savarin. “Give him a chance of +picking up a bone somewhere.” + +“I dare not; he would be picked up himself. Dogs are getting very +valuable: they sell for 50 francs apiece. Come, De Breze, where are we +to dine?” + +“I and Savarin can dine at the London Tavern upon rat pate or jugged +cat. But it would be impertinence to invite a satrap like yourself who +has a whole dog in his larder--a dish of 50 francs--a dish for a king. +Adieu, my dear Frederic. Allons, Savarin.” + +“I feasted you on better meats than dog when I could afford it,” said +Frederic, plaintively; “and the first time you invite me you retract the +invitation. Be it so. Bon appetit.” + +“Bah!” said De Breze, catching Frederic’s arm as he turned to depart. +“Of course I was but jesting. Only another day, when my pockets will be +empty, do think what an excellent thing a roasted dog is, and make up +your mind while Fox has still some little flesh on his bones.” + +“Flesh!” said Savarin, detaining them. “Look! See how right Voltaire was +in saying, ‘Amusement is the first necessity of civilised man.’ Paris +can do without bread Paris still retains Polichinello.” + +He pointed to the puppet-show, round which a crowd, not of children +alone, but of men-middle-aged and old-were collected; while sous were +dropped into the tin handed round by a squalid boy. + +“And, mon ami,” whispered De Breze to Lemercier, with the voice of a +tempting fiend, “observe how Punch is without his dog.” + +It was true. The dog was gone,--its place supplied by a melancholy +emaciated cat. + +Frederic crawled towards the squalid boy. “What has become of Punch’s +dog?” + +“We ate him last Sunday. Next Sunday we shall have the cat in a pie,” + said the urchin, with a sensual smack of the lips. + +“O Fox! Fox!” murmured Frederic, as the three men went slowly down +through the darkening streets--the roar of the Prussian guns heard afar, +while distinct and near rang the laugh of the idlers round the Punch +without a dog. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +While De Breze and his friends were feasting at the cafe Anglais, and +faring better than the host had promised--for the bill of fare comprised +such luxuries as ass, mule, peas, fried potatoes, and champagne +(champagne in some mysterious way was inexhaustible during the time of +famine)--a very different group had assembled in the rooms of +Isaura Cicogna. She and the Venosta had hitherto escaped the extreme +destitution to which many richer persons had been reduced. It is true +that Isaura’s fortune placed in the hands of the absent Louvier, and +invested in the new street that was to have been, brought no return. It +was true that in that street the Venosta, dreaming of cent. per cent., +had invested all her savings. But the Venosta, at the first announcement +of war, had insisted on retaining in hand a small sum from the amount +Isaura had received from her “roman,” that might suffice for current +expenses, and with yet more acute foresight had laid in stores of +provisions and fuel immediately after the probability of a siege became +apparent. But even the provident mind of the Venosta had never foreseen +that the siege would endure so long, or that the prices of all articles +of necessity would rise so high. And meanwhile all resources--money, +fuel, provisions--had been largely drawn upon by the charity and +benevolence of Isaura, without much remonstrance on the part of the +Venosta, whose nature was very accessible to pity. Unfortunately, too, +of late money and provisions had failed to Monsieur and Madame Rameau, +their income consisting partly of rents no longer paid, and the profits +of a sleeping partnership in the old shop, from which custom had +departed; so that they came to share the fireside and meals at the rooms +of their son’s fiancee with little scruple, because utterly unaware that +the money retained and the provisions stored by the Venosta were now +nearly exhausted. + +The patriotic ardour which had first induced the elder Rameau to +volunteer his services as a National Guard had been ere this cooled +if not suppressed, first by the hardships of the duty, and then by the +disorderly conduct of his associates, and their ribald talk and obscene +songs. He was much beyond the age at which he could be registered. His +son was, however, compelled to become his substitute, though from +his sickly health and delicate frame attached to that portion of +the National Guard which took no part in actual engagements, and was +supposed to do work on the ramparts and maintain order in the city. + +In that duty, so opposed to his tastes and habits, Gustave signalised +himself as one of the loudest declaimers against the imbecility of the +Government, and in the demand for immediate and energetic action, no +matter at what loss of life, on the part of all--except the heroic force +to which he himself was attached. Still, despite his military +labours, Gustave found leisure to contribute to Red journals, and his +contributions paid him tolerably well. To do him justice, his parents +concealed from him the extent of their destitution; they, on their part, +not aware that he was so able to assist them, rather fearing that he +himself had nothing else for support but his scanty pay as a National +Guard. In fact, of late the parents and son had seen little of each +other. M. Rameau, though a Liberal politician, was Liberal as a +tradesman, not as a Red Republican or a Socialist. And, though little +heeding his son’s theories while the Empire secured him from the +practical effect of them, he was now as sincerely frightened at the +chance of the Communists becoming rampant as most of the Parisian +tradesmen were. Madame Rameau, on her side, though she had the dislike +to aristocrats which was prevalent with her class, was a stanch Roman +Catholic; and seeing in the disasters that had befallen her country the +punishment justly incurred by its sins, could not but be shocked by the +opinions of Gustave, though she little knew that he was the author +of certain articles in certain journals, in which these opinions were +proclaimed with a vehemence far exceeding that which they assumed in +his conversation. She had spoken to him with warm anger, mixed with +passionate tears, on his irreligious principles; and from that moment +Gustave shunned to give her another opportunity of insulting his pride +and depreciating his wisdom. + +Partly to avoid meeting his parents, partly because he recoiled +almost as much from the ennui of meeting the other visitors at her +apartments--the Paris ladies associated with her in the ambulance, Raoul +de Vandeniar, whom he especially hated, and the Abbe Vertpre, who had +recently come into intimate friendship with both the Italian ladies--his +visits to Isaura had become exceedingly rare. He made his incessant +military duties the pretext for absenting himself; and now, on this +evening, there were gathered round Isaura’s hearth--on which burned +almost the last of the hoarded fuel--the Venosta, the two Rameaus, the +Abbe Vertpre, who was attached as confessor to the society of which +Isaura was so zealous a member. The old priest and the young poetess had +become dear friends. There is in the nature of a woman (and especially +of a woman at once so gifted and so childlike as Isaura, combining +an innate tendency towards faith with a restless inquisitiveness of +intellect, which is always suggesting query or doubt) a craving for +something afar from the sphere of her sorrow, which can only be obtained +through that “bridal of the earth and sky” which we call religion. And +hence, to natures like Isaura’s, that link between the woman and the +priest, which the philosophy of France has never been able to dissever. + +“It is growing late,” said Madame Rameau; “I am beginning to feel +uneasy. Our dear Isaura is not yet returned.” + +“You need be under no apprehension,” said the Abby. “The ladies attached +to the ambulance of which she is so tender and zealous a sister incur no +risk. There are always brave men related to the sick and wounded who +see to the safe return of the women. My poor Raoul visits that ambulance +daily. His kinsman, M. de Rochebriant, is there among the wounded.” + +“Not seriously hurt, I hope,” said the Venosta; “not disfigured? He +was so handsome; it is only the ugly warrior whom a scar on the face +improves.” + +“Don’t be alarmed, Signora; the Prussian guns spared his face. His +wounds in themselves were not dangerous, but he lost a good deal of +blood. Raoul and the Christian brothers found him insensible among a +heap of the slain.” + +“M. de Vandemar seems to have very soon recovered the shock of his poor +brother’s death,” said Madame Rameau. “There is very little heart in an +aristocrat.” + +The Abbe’s mild brow contracted. “Have more charity, my daughter. It is +because Raoul’s sorrow for his lost brother is so deep and so holy that +he devotes himself more than ever to the service of the Father which +is in heaven. He said, a day or two after the burial, when plans for +a monument to Enguerrand were submitted to him: ‘May my prayer be +vouchsafed, and my life be a memorial of him more acceptable to his +gentle spirit than monuments of bronze or marble. May I be divinely +guided and sustained in my desire to do such good acts as he would have +done had he been spared longer to earth. And whenever tempted to weary, +may my conscience whisper, Betray not the trust left to thee by thy +brother, lest thou be not reunited to him at last.”’ + +“Pardon me, pardon!” murmured Madame Rameau humbly, while the Venosta +burst into tears. + +The Abbe, though a most sincere and earnest ecclesiastic, was a cheery +and genial man of the world; and, in order to relieve Madame Rameau +from the painful self-reproach he had before excited, he turned the +conversation. “I must beware, however,” he said, with his pleasant +laugh, “as to the company in which I interfere in family questions; +and especially in which I defend my poor Raoul from any charge brought +against him. For some good friend this day sent me a terrible organ +of communistic philosophy, in which we humble priests are very roughly +handled, and I myself am especially singled out by name as a pestilent +intermeddler in the affairs of private households. I am said to set +the women against the brave men who are friends of the people, and +am cautioned by very truculent threats to cease from such villainous +practices.” And here, with a dry humour that turned into ridicule +what would otherwise have excited disgust and indignation among his +listeners, he read aloud passages replete with the sort of false +eloquence which was then the vogue among the Red journals. In these +passages, not only the Abbe was pointed out for popular execration, but +Raoul de Vandemar, though not expressly named, was clearly indicated as +a pupil of the Abbe’s, the type of a lay Jesuit. + +The Venosta alone did not share in the contemptuous laughter with which +the inflated style of these diatribes inspired the Rameaus. Her simple +Italian mind was horror-stricken by language which the Abbe treated with +ridicule. + +“Ah!” said M. Rameau, “I guess the author--that firebrand Felix Pyat.” + +“No,” answered the Abbe; “the writer signs himself by the name of a +more learned atheist--Diderot le jeune.” Here the door opened, and Raoul +entered, accompanying Isaura. A change had come over the face of the +young Vandemar since his brother’s death. The lines about the mouth had +deepened, the cheeks had lost their rounded contour and grown somewhat +hollow. But the expression was as serene as ever, perhaps even less +pensively melancholy. His whole aspect was that of a man who +has sorrowed, but been supported in sorrow; perhaps it was more +sweet-certainly it was more lofty. + +And, as if there were in the atmosphere of his presence something that +communicated the likeness of his own soul to others, since Isaura had +been brought into his companionship, her own lovely face had caught +the expression that prevailed in his--that, too, had become more +sweet--that, too, had become more lofty. + +The friendship that had grown up between these two young mourners was of +a very rare nature. It had in it no sentiment that could ever warm into +the passion of human love. Indeed, had Isaura’s heart been free to give +away, love for Raoul de Vandemar would have seemed to her a profanation. +He was never more priestly than when he was most tender. And the +tenderness of Raoul towards her was that of some saint-like nature +towards the acolyte whom it attracted upwards. He had once, just before +Enguerrand’s death, spoken to Isaura with a touching candour as to his +own predilection for a monastic life. “The worldly avocations that open +useful and honourable careers for others have no charm for me. I care +not for riches nor power, nor honours nor fame. The austerities of the +conventual life have no terror for me; on the contrary, they have +a charm, for with them are abstraction from earth and meditation on +heaven. In earlier years I might, like other men, have cherished +dreams of human love, and felicity in married life, but for the sort +of veneration with which I regarded one to whom I owe--humanly +speaking--whatever of good there may be in me. Just when first taking +my place among the society of young men who banish from their life all +thought of another, I came under the influence of a woman who taught me +to see that holiness was beauty. She gradually associated me with her +acts of benevolence, and from her I learned to love God too well not to +be indulgent to his creatures. I know not whether the attachment I +felt to her could have been inspired in one who had not from childhood +conceived a romance, not perhaps justified by history, for the ideal +images of chivalry. My feeling for her at first was that of the pure +and poetic homage which a young knight was permitted, sans reproche, to +render to some fair queen or chatelaine, whose colours he wore in the +lists, whose spotless repute he would have perilled his life to defend. +But soon even that sentiment, pure as it was, became chastened from all +breath of earthly love, in proportion as the admiration refined itself +into reverence. She has often urged me to marry, but I have no bride on +this earth. I do but want to see Enguerrand happily married, and then I +quit the world for the cloister.” + +But after Enguerrand’s death, Raoul resigned all idea of the convent. +That evening, as he attended to their homes Isaura and the other ladies +at to the ambulance, he said, in answer to inquiries about his mother, +“She is resigned and calm. I have promised her I will not, while she +lives, bury her other son: I renounce my dreams of the monastery.” + +Raoul did not remain many minutes at Isaura’s. The Abbe accompanied him +on his way home. “I have a request to make to you,” said the former; +“you know, of course, your distant cousin the Vicomte de Mauleon?” + +“Yes. Not so well as I ought, for Enguerrand liked him.” + +“Well enough, at all events, to call on him with a request which I am +commissioned to make, but it might come better from you as a kinsman. +I am a stranger to him, and I know not whether a man of that sort would +not regard as an officious intermeddling any communication made to him +by a priest. The matter, however, is a very simple one. At the convent +of ------- there is a poor nun who is, I fear, dying. She has an intense +desire to see M. de Mauleon, whom she declares to be her uncle, and her +only surviving relative. The laws of the convent are not too austere to +prevent the interview she seeks in such a case. I should add that I am +not acquainted with her previous history. I am not the confessor of the +sisterhood; he, poor man, was badly wounded by a chance ball a few +days ago when attached to an ambulance on the ramparts. As soon as the +surgeon would allow him to see any one, he sent for me, and bade me go +to the nun I speak of--Sister Ursula. It seems that he had informed +her that M. de Mauleon was at Paris, and had promised to ascertain his +address. His wound had prevented his doing so, but he trusted to me to +procure the information. I am well acquainted with the Superieure of +the convent, and I flatter myself that she holds me in esteem. I had +therefore no difficulty to obtain her permission to see this poor nun, +which I did this evening. She implored me for the peace of her soul to +lose no time in finding out M. de Mauleon’s address, and entreating him +to visit her. Lest he should demur, I was to give him the name by which +he had known her in the world--Louise Duval. Of course I obeyed. The +address of a man who has so distinguished himself in this unhappy +siege I very easily obtained, and repaired at once to M. de Mauleon’s +apartment. I there learned that he was from home, and it was uncertain +whether he would not spend the night on the ramparts.” + +“I will not fail to see him early in the morning,” said Raoul, “and +execute your commission.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +M. Mauleon was somewhat surprised by Raoul’s visit the next morning. He +had no great liking for a kinsman whose politely distant reserve towards +him, in contrast to poor Euguerrand’s genial heartiness, had much +wounded his sensitive self-respect; nor could he comprehend the +religious scruples which forbade Raoul to take a soldier’s share in the +battle-field, though in seeking there to save the lives of others so +fearlessly hazarding his own life. + +“Pardon,” said Raoul, with his sweet mournful smile, “the unseasonable +hour at which I disturb you. But your duties on the ramparts and mine +in the hospital begin early, and I have promised the Abbe Vertpre to +communicate a message of a nature which perhaps you may deem pressing.” + He proceeded at once to repeat what the Abbe had communicated to him the +night before relative to the illness and the request of the nun. + +“Louise Duval!” exclaimed the Vicomte, “discovered at last, and a +religieuse! Ah! I now understand why she never sought me out when I +reappeared at Paris. Tidings of that sort do not penetrate the walls of +a convent. I am greatly obliged to you, M. de Vandemar, for the trouble +you have so kindly taken. This poor nun is related to me, and I will at +once obey the summons. But this convent des ------- I am ashamed to say +I know not where it is. A long way off, I suppose?” + +“Allow me to be your guide,” said Raoul; “I should take it as a favour +to be allowed to see a little more of a man whom my lost brother held in +such esteem.” + +Victor was touched by this conciliatory speech, and in a few minutes +more the two men were on their way to the convent on the other side of +the Seine. + +Victor commenced the conversation by a warm and heartfelt tribute to +Euguerrand’s character and memory. “I never,” he said, “knew a nature +more rich in the most endearing qualities of youth; so gentle, so +high-spirited, rendering every virtue more attractive, and redeeming +such few faults or foibles as youth so situated and so tempted cannot +wholly escape, with an urbanity not conventional, not artificial, but +reflected from the frankness of a genial temper and the tenderness of a +generous heart. Be comforted for his loss, my kinsman. A brave death was +the proper crown of that beautiful life.” + +Raoul made no answer, but pressed gratefully the arm now linked within +his own. The companions walked on in silence; Victor’s mind settling on +the visit he was about to make to the niece so long mysteriously lost, +and now so unexpectedly found. Louise had inspired him with a certain +interest from her beauty and force of character, but never with any warm +affection. He felt relieved to find that her life had found its close in +the sanctuary of the convent. He had never divested himself of a certain +fear, inspired by Louvier’s statement that she might live to bring +scandal and disgrace on the name he had with so much difficulty, and +after so lengthened an anguish, partially cleared in his own person. + +Raoul left De Mauleon at the gate of the convent, and took his way +towards the hospitals where he visited, and the poor whom he relieved. + +Victor was conducted silently into the convent parloir; and, after +waiting there several minutes, the door opened, and the Superieure +entered. As she advanced towards him, with stately step and solemn +visage, De Mauleon recoiled, and uttered a half-suppressed exclamation +that partook both of amaze and awe. Could it be possible? Was this +majestic woman, with the grave impassible aspect, once the ardent girl +whose tender letters he had cherished through stormy years, and only +burned on the night before the most perilous of his battle-fields? This +the one, the sole one, whom in his younger dreams he had seen as his +destined wife? It was so--it was. Doubt vanished when he heard her +voice; and yet how different every tone, every accent, from those of the +low, soft, thrilling music that had breathed in the voice of old! + +“M. de Mauleon,” said the Superieure, calmly, “I grieve to sadden you by +very mournful intelligence. Yesterday evening, when the Abbe undertook +to convey to you the request of our Sister Ursula, although she was +beyond mortal hope of recovery--as otherwise you will conceive that I +could not have relaxed the rules of this house so as to sanction your +visit--there was no apprehension of immediate danger. It was believed +that her sufferings would be prolonged for some days. I saw her late +last night before retiring to my cell, and she seemed even stronger than +she had been for the last week. A sister remained at watch in her cell. +Towards morning she fell into apparently quiet sleep, and in that sleep +she passed away.” The Superieure here crossed herself, and murmured +pious words in Latin. “Dead! my poor niece!” said Victor, feelingly, +roused from his stun at the first sight of the Superieure by her +measured tones, and the melancholy information she so composedly +conveyed to him. “I cannot, then, even learn why she so wished to see me +once more,--or what she might have requested at my hands!” + +“Pardon, M. le Vicomte. Such sorrowful consolation I have resolved to +afford you, not without scruples of conscience, but not without sanction +of the excellent Abbe Vertpre, whom I summoned early this morning to +decide my duties in the sacred office I hold. As soon as Sister Ursula +heard of your return to Paris, she obtained my permission to address to +you a letter, subjected, when finished, to my perusal and sanction. She +felt that she had much on her mind which her feeble state might forbid +her to make known to you in conversation with ‘sufficient fulness; and +as she could only have seen you in presence of one of the sisters +she imagined that there would also be less restraint in a written +communication. In fine, her request was that, when you called, I might +first place this letter in your hands, and allow you time to read it, +before being admitted to her presence; when a few words conveying your +promise to attend to the wishes with which you would then be acquainted, +would suffice for an interview in her exhausted condition. Do I make +myself understood?” + +“Certainly, Madame,--and the letter?” + +“She had concluded last evening; and when I took leave of her later in +the night, she placed it in my hands for approval. M. le Vicomte, it +pains me to say that there is much in the tone of that letter which I +grieve for and condemn. And it was my intention to point this out to our +sister at morning, and tell her that passages must be altered before +I could give to you the letter. Her sudden decease deprived me of this +opportunity. I could not, of course, alter or erase a line--a word. +My only option was to suppress the letter altogether, or give it you +intact. The Abbe thinks that, on the whole, my duty does not forbid the +dictate of my own impulse--my own feelings; and I now place this letter +in your hands.” + +De Mauleon took a packet, unsealed, from the thin white fingers of +the Superieure; and as he bent to receive it, lifted towards her eyes +eloquent with sorrowful, humble pathos, in which it was impossible for +the heart of a woman who had loved not to see a reference to the past +which the lips did not dare to utter. + +A faint, scarce-perceptible blush stole over the marble cheek of the +nun. But, with an exquisite delicacy, in which survived the woman while +reigned the nun, she replied to the appeal. + +“M. Victor de Mauleon, before, having thus met, we part for ever, permit +a poor religieuse to say with what joy--a joy rendered happier because +it was tearful--I have learned through the Abbe Vertpre that the honour +which, as between man and man, no one who had once known you could ever +doubt, you have lived to vindicate from calumny.” + +“Ah; you have heard that--at last, at last!” + +“I repeat--of the honour thus deferred, I never doubted.” The Superieure +hurried on. “Greater joy it has been to me to hear from the same +venerable source that, while found bravest among the defenders of your +country, you are clear from all alliance with the assailants of your +God. Continue so, continue so, Victor de Mauleon.” + +She retreated to the door, and then turned towards him with a look in +which all the marble had melted away, adding, with words more formally +nunlike, yet unmistakably womanlike, than those which had gone before, +“That to the last you may be true to God, is a prayer never by me +omitted.” + +She spoke, and vanished. + +In a kind of dim and dreamlike bewilderment, Victor de Mauleon found +himself without the walls of the convent. Mechanically, as a man +does when the routine of his life is presented to him, from the first +Minister of State to the poor clown at a suburban theatre, doomed +to appear at their posts, to prose on a Beer Bill, or grin through a +horse-collar, though their hearts are bleeding at every pore with some +household or secret affliction,--mechanically De Mauldon went his way +towards the ramparts, at a section of which he daily drilled his raw +recruits. Proverbial for his severity towards those who offended, +for the cordiality of his praise of those who pleased his soldierly +judgment, no change of his demeanour was visible that morning, save +that he might be somewhat milder to the one, somewhat less hearty to the +other. This routine duty done, he passed slowly towards a more deserted +because a more exposed part of the defences, and seated himself on +the frozen sward alone. The cannon thundered around him. He heard +unconsciously: from time to time an obus hissed and splintered close at +his feet;--he saw with abstracted eye. His soul was with the past; and, +brooding over all that in the past lay buried there, came over him a +conviction of the vanity of the human earth-bounded objects for which +we burn or freeze, far more absolute than had grown out of the worldly +cynicism connected with his worldly ambition. The sight of that face, +associated with the one pure romance of his reckless youth, the face +of one so estranged, so serenely aloft from all memories of youth, of +romance, of passion, smote him in the midst of the new hopes of the new +career, as the look on the skull of the woman he had so loved and so +mourned, when disburied from her grave, smote the brilliant noble +who became the stern reformer of La Trappe. And while thus gloomily +meditating, the letter of the poor Louise Duval was forgotten. She whose +existence had so troubled, and crossed, and partly marred the lives of +others,--she, scarcely dead, and already forgotten by her nearest kin. +Well--had she not forgotten, put wholly out of her mind, all that was +due to those much nearer to her than is an uncle to a niece? + +The short, bitter, sunless day was advancing towards its decline before +Victor roused himself with a quick impatient start from his reverie, and +took forth the letter from the dead nun. + +It began with expressions of gratitude, of joy at the thought that she +should see him again before she died, thank him for his past kindness, +and receive, she trusted, his assurance that he would attend to her +last remorseful injunctions. I pass over much that followed in the +explanation of events in her life sufficiently known to the reader. She +stated, as the strongest reason why she had refused the hand of Louvier, +her knowledge that she should in due time become a mother--a fact +concealed from Victor, secure that he would then urge her not to annul +her informal marriage, but rather insist on the ceremonies that would +render it valid. She touched briefly on her confidential intimacy with +Madame Marigny, the exchange of name and papers, her confinement in +the neighbourhood of Aix, the child left to the care of the nurse, +the journey to Munich to find the false Louise Duval was no more. The +documents obtained through the agency of her easy-tempered kinsman, the +late Marquis de Rochebriant, and her subsequent domestication in the +house of the von Rudesheims,--all this it is needless to do more here +than briefly recapitulate. The letter then went on: “While thus kindly +treated by the family with whom nominally a governess, I was on the +terms of a friend with Signor Ludovico Cicogna, an Italian of noble +birth. He was the only man I ever cared for. I loved him with frail +human passion. I could not tell him, my true history. I could not tell +him that I had a child; such intelligence would have made him renounce +me at once. He had a daughter, still but an infant, by a former +marriage, then brought up in France. He wished to take her to his house, +and his second wife to supply the place of her mother. What was I to +do with the child I had left near Aix? While doubtful and distracted, I +read an advertisement in the journals to the effect that a French lady, +then staying in Coblentz, wished to adopt a female child not exceeding +the age of six: the child to be wholly resigned to her by the parents, +she undertaking to rear and provide for it as her own. I resolved to go +to Coblentz at once. I did so. I saw this lady. She seemed in affluent +circumstances, yet young, but a confirmed invalid, confined the greater +part of the day to her sofa by some malady of the spine. She told me +very frankly her story. She had been a professional dancer on the stage, +had married respectably, quitted the stage, become a widow, and shortly +afterwards been seized with the complaint that would probably for life +keep her a secluded prisoner in her room. Thus afflicted, and without +tie, interest, or object in the world, she conceived the idea of +adopting a child that she might bring up to tend and cherish her as a +daughter. In this, the imperative condition was that the child should +never be sought by the parents. She was pleased by my manner and +appearance: she did not wish her adopted daughter to be the child of +peasants. She asked me for no references,--made no inquiries. She +said cordially that she wished for no knowledge that, through any +indiscretion of her own, communicated to the child might lead her to +seek the discovery of her real parents. In fine, I left Coblentz on the +understanding that I was to bring the infant, and if it pleased Madame +Surville, the agreement was concluded. + +“I then repaired to Aix. I saw the child. Alas! unnatural mother that I +was, the sight only more vividly brought before me the sense of my own +perilous position. Yet the child was lovely! a likeness of myself, but +lovelier far, for it was a pure, innocent, gentle loveliness. And they +told her to call me ‘Maman.’ Oh, did I not relent when I heard that +name? No; it jarred on my ear as a word of reproach and shame. In +walking with the infant towards the railway station, imagine my dismay +when suddenly I met the man who had been taught to believe me dead. I +soon discovered that his dismay was equal to my own,--that I had nothing +to fear from his desire to claim me. It did occur to me for a moment +to resign his child to him. But when he shrank reluctantly from a half +suggestion to that effect, my pride was wounded, my conscience absolved. +And, after all, it might be unsafe to my future to leave with him any +motive for tracing me. I left him hastily. I have never seen nor heard +of him more. I took the child to Coblentz. Madame Surville was charmed +with its prettiness and prattle,--charmed still more when I rebuked the +poor infant for calling me ‘Maman,’ and said, ‘Thy real mother is here.’ +Freed from my trouble, I returned to the kind German roof I had quitted, +and shortly after became the wife of Ludovico Cicogna. + +“My punishment soon began. His was a light, fickle, pleasure-hunting +nature. He soon grew weary of me. My very love made me unamiable to him. +I became irritable, jealous, exacting. His daughter, who now came to +live with us, was another subject of discord. I knew that he loved her +better than me. I became a harsh step-mother; and Ludovico’s reproaches, +vehemently made, nursed all my angriest passions. But a son of this new +marriage was born to myself. My pretty Luigi! how my heart became wrapt +up in him! Nursing him, I forgot resentment against his father. Well, +poor Cicogna fell ill and died. I mourned him sincerely; but my boy was +left. Poverty then fell on me,--poverty extreme. Cicogna’s sole income +was derived from a post in the Austrian dominion in Italy, and ceased +with it. He received a small pension in compensation; that died with +him. + +“At this time, an Englishman, with whom Ludovico had made acquaintance +in Venice, and who visited often at our house in Verona, offered me his +hand. He had taken an extraordinary liking to Isaura, Cicogna’s daughter +by his first marriage. But I think his proposal was dictated partly by +compassion for me, and more by affection for her. For the sake of my boy +Luigi I married him. He was a good man, of retired learned habits with +which I had no sympathy. His companionship overwhelmed me with ennui. +But I bore it patiently for Luigi’s sake. God saw that my heart was as +much as ever estranged from Him, and He took away my all on earth--my +boy. Then in my desolation I turned to our Holy Church for comfort. I +found a friend in the priest, my confessor. I was startled to learn +from him how guilty I had been--was still. Pushing to an extreme the +doctrines of the Church, he would not allow that my first marriage, +though null by law, was void in the eyes of Heaven. Was not the death of +the child I so cherished a penalty due to my sin towards the child I had +abandoned? + +“These thoughts pressed on me night and day. With the consent and +approval of the good priest, I determined to quit the roof of M. Selby, +and to devote myself to the discovery of my forsaken Julie. + +“I had a painful interview with M. Selby. I announced my intention to +separate from him. I alleged as a reason my conscientious repugnance +to live with a professed heretic--an enemy to our Holy Church. When M. +Selby found that he could not shake my resolution, he lent himself to +it with the forbearance and generosity which he had always exhibited. On +our marriage he had settled on me five thousand pounds, to be absolutely +mine in the event of his death. He now proposed to concede to me the +interest on that capital during his life, and he undertook the charge +of my step-daughter Isaura, and secured to her all the rest he had to +leave; such landed property as he possessed in England passing to a +distant relative. + +“So we parted, not with hostility--tears were shed on both sides. I +set out for Coblentz. Madame Surville had long since quitted that town, +devoting some years to the round of various mineral spas in vain hope of +cure. Not without some difficulty I traced her to her last residence +in the neighbourhood of Paris, but she was then no more--her death +accelerated by the shock occasioned by the loss of her whole fortune, +which she had been induced to place in one of the numerous fraudulent +companies by which so many have been ruined. Julie, who was with her at +the time of her death, had disappeared shortly after it--none could tell +me whither; but from such hints as I could gather, the poor child, thus +left destitute, had been betrayed into sinful courses. + +“Probably I might yet by searching inquiry have found her out; you will +say it was my duty at least to institute such inquiry. No doubt; I +now remorsefully feel that it was. I did not think so at the time. The +Italian priest had given me a few letters of introduction to French +ladies with whom, when they had sojourned at Florence, he had made +acquaintance. These ladies were very strict devotees, formal observers +of those decorums by which devotion proclaims itself to the world. They +had received me not only with kindness but with marked respect. They +chose to exalt into the noblest self-sacrifice the act of my leaving +M. Selby’s house. Exaggerating the simple cause assigned to it in the +priest’s letter, they represented me as quitting a luxurious home and +an idolising husband rather than continue intimate intercourse with the +enemy of my religion. This new sort of flattery intoxicated me with its +fumes. I recoiled from the thought of shattering the pedestal to which I +had found myself elevated. What if I should discover my daughter in one +from the touch of whose robe these holy women would recoil as from +the rags of a leper! No; it would be impossible for me to own +her--impossible for me to give her the shelter of my roof. Nay, if +discovered to hold any commune with such an outcast, no explanation, no +excuse short of the actual truth, would avail with these austere judges +of human error. And the actual truth would be yet deeper disgrace. I +reasoned away my conscience. If I looked for example in the circles +in which I had obtained reverential place, I could find no instance +in which a girl who had fallen from virtue was not repudiated by her +nearest relatives. Nay, when I thought of my own mother, had not her +father refused to see her, to acknowledge her child, from no other +offence than that of a misalliance which wounded the family pride? That +pride, alas! was in my blood--my sole inheritance from the family I +sprang from. + +“Thus it went on, till I had grave symptoms of a disease which rendered +the duration of my life uncertain. My conscience awoke and tortured me. +I resolved to take the veil. Vanity and pride again! My resolution was +applauded by those whose opinion had so swayed my mind and my conduct. +Before I retired into the convent from which I write, I made legal +provision as to the bulk of the fortune which, by the death of M. Selby, +has become absolutely at my disposal. One thousand pounds amply sufficed +for dotation to the convent: the other four thousand pounds are given in +trust to the eminent notary, M. Nadaud, Rue -------. On applying to him, +you will find that the sum, with the accumulated interest, is bequeathed +to you,--a tribute of gratitude for the assistance you afforded me in +the time of your own need, and the kindness with which you acknowledged +our relationship and commiserated my misfortunes. + +“But oh, my uncle, find out--a man can do so with a facility not +accorded to a woman--what has become of this poor Julie, and devote +what you may deem right and just of the sum thus bequeathed to place her +above want and temptation. In doing so, I know you will respect my name: +I would not have it dishonour you, indeed. + +“I have been employed in writing this long letter since the day I heard +you were in Paris. It has exhausted the feeble remnants of my strength. +It will be given to you before the interview I at once dread and long +for, and in that interview you will not rebuke me. Will you, my kind +uncle? No, you will only soothe and pity! + +“Would that I were worthy to pray for others, that I might add, ‘May +the Saints have you in their keeping and lead you to faith in the Holy +Church, which has power to absolve from sins those who repent as I do.’” + +The letter dropped from Victor’s hand. He took it up, smoothed it +mechanically, and with a dim, abstracted, be wildered, pitiful wonder. +Well might the Superieure have hesitated to allow confessions, betraying +a mind so little regulated by genuine religious faith, to pass into +other hands. Evidently it was the paramount duty of rescuing from want +or from sin the writer’s forsaken child, that had overborne all other +considerations in the mind of the Woman and the Priest she consulted. + +Throughout that letter, what a strange perversion of understanding! what +a half-unconscious confusion of wrong and right!--the duty marked out so +obvious and so neglected; even the religious sentiment awakened by the +conscience so dividing itself from the moral instinct! the dread of +being thought less religious by obscure comparative strangers stronger +than the moral obligation to discover and reclaim the child for whose +errors, if she had erred, the mother who so selfishly forsook her was +alone responsible! even at the last, at the approach of death, the love +for a name she had never made a self-sacrifice to preserve unstained; +and that concluding exhortation,--that reliance on a repentance in which +there was so qualified a reparation! + +More would Victor de Mauldon have wondered had he known those points +of similarity in character, and in the nature of their final bequests, +between Louise Duval and the husband she had deserted. By one of those +singular coincidences which, if this work be judged by the ordinary +rules presented to the ordinary novel-reader, a critic would not +unjustly impute to defective invention in the author, the provision for +this child, deprived of its natural parents during their lives, is left +to the discretion and honour of trustees, accompanied on the part of +the consecrated Louise and “the blameless King,” with the injunction +of respect to their worldly reputations--two parents so opposite in +condition, in creed, in disposition, yet assimilating in that point of +individual character in which it touches the wide vague circle of human +opinion. For this, indeed, the excuses of Richard King are strong, +inasmuch as the secrecy he sought was for the sake, not of his own +memory, but that of her whom the world knew only as his honoured wife. +The conduct of Louise admits no such excuse; she dies as she had lived; +an Egotist. But, whatever the motives of the parents, what is the fate +of the deserted child? What revenge does the worldly opinion, which the +parents would escape for themselves, inflict on the innocent infant +to whom the bulk of their worldly possessions is to be clandestinely +conveyed? Would all the gold of Ophir be compensation enough for her? + +Slowly De Mauleon roused himself, and turned from the solitary place +where he had been seated to a more crowded part of the ramparts. He +passed a group of young Moblots, with flowers wreathed round their +gun-barrels. “If,” said one of them gaily, “Paris wants bread, it never +wants flowers.” His companions laughed merrily, and burst out into a +scurrile song in ridicule of St. Trochu. Just then an obus fell a few +yards before the group. The sound only for a moment drowned the song, +but the splinters struck a man in a coarse, ragged dress, who had +stopped to listen to the singers. At his sharp cry, two men hastened +to his side: one was Victor de Mauleon; the other was a surgeon, who +quitted another group of idlers--National Guards--attracted by the +shriek that summoned his professional aid. The poor man was terribly +wounded. The surgeon, glancing at De Mauleon, shrugged his shoulders, +and muttered, “Past help!” The sufferer turned his haggard eyes on the +Vicomte, and gasped out, “M. de Mauleon?” + +“That is my name,” answered Victor, surprised, and not immediately +recognising the sufferer. + +“Hist, Jean Lebeau!--look at me: you recollect me now,--Mart le Roux, +concierge to the Secret Council. Ay, I found out who you were long +ago--followed you home from the last meeting you broke up. But I did not +betray you, or you would have been murdered long since. Beware of +the old set--beware of--of--” Here his voice broke off into shrill +exclamations of pain. Curbing his last agonies with a powerful effort, +he faltered forth, “You owe me a service--see to the little one at +home--she is starving.” The death-rale came on; in a few moments he was +no more. + +Victor gave orders for the removal of the corpse, and hurried away. The +surgeon, who had changed countenance when he overheard the name in +which the dying man had addressed De Mauleon, gazed silently after De +Mauleon’s retreating form, and then, also quitting the dead, rejoined +the group he had quitted. Some of those who composed it acquired evil +renown later in the war of the Communists, and came to disastrous ends: +among that number the Pole Loubinsky and other members of the Secret +Council. The Italian Raselli was there too, but, subtler than his +French confreres, he divined the fate of the Communists, and glided +from it--safe now in his native land, destined there, no doubt, to the +funereal honours and lasting renown which Italy bestows on the dust +of her sons who have advocated assassination out of love for the human +race. + +Amid this group, too, was a National Guard, strayed from his proper +post, and stretched on the frozen ground; and, early though the hour, in +the profound sleep of intoxication. + +“So,” said Loubinsky, “you have found your errand in vain, Citizen le +Noy; another victim to the imbecility of our generals.” + +“And partly one of us,” replied the Medecin des Pauvres. “You remember +poor le Roux, who kept the old baraque where the Council of Ten used to +meet? Yonder he lies.” + +“Don’t talk of the Council of Ten. What fools and dupes we were made by +that vieux gredin, Jean Lebeau! How I wish I could meet him again!” + +Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. “So much the worse for you, if you +did. A muscular and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!” Therewith he +turned to the drunken sleeper and woke him up with a shake and a kick. +“Armand--Armand Monnier, I say, rise, rub your eyes. What if you are +called to your post? What if you are shamed as a deserter and a coward?” + +Armand turned, rose with an effort from the recumbent to the sitting +posture, and stared dizzily in the face of the Medecin des Pauvres. + +“I was dreaming that I had caught by the throat,” said Armand, wildly, +“the aristo who shot my brother; and lo, there were two men, Victor de +Mauleon and Jean Lebeau.” + +“Ah! there is something in dreams,” said the surgeon. “Once in a +thousand times a dream comes true.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the +modest household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the +Venosta to feed and warm--there were the servants whom they had brought +from Italy, and had not the heart now to dismiss to the ‘certainty of +famine. True, one of the three, the man, had returned to his native land +before the commencement of the siege; but the two women had remained. +They supported themselves now as they could on the meagre rations +accorded by the Government. Still Isaura attended the ambulance to which +she was attached. From the ladies associated with her she could readily +have obtained ample supplies: but they had no conception of her real +state of destitution; and there was a false pride generally prevalent +among the respectable classes, which Isaura shared, that concealed +distress lest alms should be proffered. + +The destitution of the household had been carefully concealed from the +parents of Gustave Rameau, until, one day, Madame Rameau, entering at +the hour at which she generally, and her husband sometimes, came for +a place by the fireside and a seat at the board, found on the one only +ashes, on the other a ration of the black nauseous compound which had +become the substitute for bread. + +Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambulance hospital,--purposely +absent, for she shrank from the bitter task of making clear to the +friends of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing the aid to +their support which their son had neglected to contribute; and still +more from the comment which she knew they would make on his conduct, in +absenting himself so wholly of late, and in the time of such trial and +pressure, both from them and from herself. Truly, she rejoiced at +that absence so far as it affected herself. Every hour of the day she +silently asked her conscience whether she were not now absolved from +a promise won from her only by an assurance that she had power to +influence for good the life that now voluntarily separated itself from +her own. As she had never loved Gustave, so she felt no resentment at +the indifference his conduct manifested. On the contrary, she hailed it +as a sign that the annulment of their betrothal would be as welcome +to him as to herself. And if so, she could restore to him the sort of +compassionate friendship she had learned to cherish in the hour of his +illness and repentance. She had resolved to seize the first opportunity +he afforded to her of speaking to him with frank and truthful plainness. +But, meanwhile, her gentle nature recoiled from the confession of +her resolve to appeal to Gustave himself for the rupture of their +engagement. + +Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Rameau; and while that lady was +still gazing round her with an emotion too deep for immediate utterance, +her husband entered with an expression of face new to him--the look of +a man who has been stung to anger, and who has braced his mind to some +stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered +bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta +did not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said, +“Pardon, dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it +is not our hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we +could. Now it speaks for itself; ‘la fame e una bretta festin.’” + +“Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!” cried Madame Rameau, bursting into +tears. “So we have been all this time a burden on you,--aided to bring +such want on you! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son--to leave us +thus,--not even to tell us where to find him!” + +“Do not degrade us, my wife,” said M. Rameau, with unexpected dignity, +“by a word to imply that we would stoop to sue for support to our +ungrateful child. No, we will not starve! I am strong enough still to +find food for you. I will apply for restoration to the National Guard. +They have augmented the pay to married men; it is now nearly two francs +and a half a-day to a pere de famille, and on that pay we all can at +least live. Courage, my wife! I will go at once for employment. Many +men older than I am are at watch on the ramparts, and will march to the +battle on the next sortie.” + +“It shall not be so,” exclaimed Madame Rameau, vehemently, and winding +her arm round her husband’s neck. “I loved my son better than thee +once--more shame to me. Now, I would rather lose twenty such sons than +peril thy life, my Jacques! Madame,” she continued, turning to the +Venosta, “thou wert wiser than I. Thou wert ever opposed to the union +between thy young friend and my son. I felt sore with thee for it--a +mother is so selfish when she puts herself in the place of her child. I +thought that only through marriage with one so pure, so noble, so +holy, Gustave could be saved from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man so +heartless to his parents, so neglectful of his affianced, is not to be +redeemed. I brought about this betrothal: tell Isaura that I release her +from it. I have watched her closely since she was entrapped into it. +I know how miserable the thought of it has made her, though, in her +sublime devotion to her plighted word, she sought to conceal from me the +real state of her heart. If the betrothal bring such sorrow, what would +the union do! Tell her this from me. Come, Jacques, come away!” + +“Stay, Madame!” exclaimed the Venosta, her excitable nature much +affected by this honest outburst of feeling. “It is true that I did +oppose, so far as I could, my poor Piccola’s engagement with M. Gustave. +But I dare not do your bidding. Isaura would not listen to me. And let +us be just! M. Gustave may be able satisfactorily to explain his seeming +indifference and neglect. His health is always very delicate; perhaps +he may be again dangerously ill. He serves in the National Guard; +perhaps--” she paused, but the mother conjectured the word left unsaid, +and, clasping her hands, cried out in anguish, “Perhaps dead!--and +we have wronged him! Oh, Jacques, Jacques! how shall we find out-how +discover our boy? Who can tell us where to search? at the hospital--or +in the cemeteries?” At the last word she dropped into a seat, and her +whole frame shook with her sobs. + +Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneeling by her side, said: + +“No, m’amie, comfort thyself, if it be indeed comfort to learn that thy +son is alive and well. For my part, I know not if I would not rather he +had died in his innocent childhood. I have seen him--spoken to him. I +know where he is to be found.” + +“You do, and concealed it from me? Oh, Jacques!” + +“Listen to me, wife, and you, too, Madame; for what I have to say should +be made known to Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on the night +of the famous sortie, when at my post on the ramparts, I was told that +Gustave had joined himself to the most violent of the Red Republicans, +and had uttered at the Club de la Vengeance sentiments, of which I will +only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame +when they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself. +I did. I heard him speak--heard him denounce Christianity as the +instrument of tyrants.” + +“Ah!” cried the two women, with a simultaneous shudder. + +“When the assembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him +seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous +opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it +my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union +on which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved +by what I said; implored me to keep silence towards his mother and his +betrothed; and promised, on that condition, to relinquish at once +what he called ‘his career as an orator,’ and appear no more at such +execrable clubs. On this understanding I held my tongue. Why, with such +other causes of grief and suffering, should I tell thee, poor wife, of a +sin that I hoped thy son had repented and would not repeat? And Gustave +kept his word. He has never, so far as I know, attended, at least +spoken, at the Red clubs since that evening.” + +“Thank heaven so far,” murmured Madame Rameau. + +“So far, yes; but hear more. A little time after I thus met him he +changed his lodging, and did not confide to us his new address, giving +as a reason to us that he wished to avoid a clue to his discovery by +that pertinacious Mademoiselle Julie.” + +Rameau had here sunk his voice into a whisper, intended only for his +wife, but the ear of the Venosta was fine enough to catch the sound, and +she repeated, “Mademoiselle Julie! Santa Maria! who is she?” + +“Oh!” said M. Rameau, with a shrug of his shoulders, and with true +Parisian sangfroid as to such matters of morality, “a trifle not worth +considering. Of course, a good-looking garcon like Gustave must have +his little affairs of the heart before he settles for life. Unluckily, +amongst those of Gustave was one with a violent-tempered girl who +persecuted him when he left her, and he naturally wished to avoid all +chance of a silly scandal, if only out of respect to the dignity of his +fiancee. But I found that was not the true motive, or at least the only +one, for concealment. Prepare yourself, my poor wife. Thou hast heard of +these terrible journals which the decheance has let loose upon us. Our +unhappy boy is the principal writer of one of the worst of them, under +the name of ‘Diderot le Jeune.”’ + +“What!” cried the Venosta. “That monster! The good Abbe Vertpre was +telling us of the writings with that name attached to them. The Abbe +himself is denounced by name as one of those meddling priests who are to +be constrained to serve as soldiers or pointed out to the vengeance of +the canaille. Isaura’s fiancee a blasphemer!” + +“Hush, hush!” said Madame Rameau, rising, very pale but self-collected. +“How do you know this, Jacques?” + +“From the lips of Gustave himself. I heard first of it yesterday from +one of the young reprobates with whom he used to be familiar, and who +even complimented me on the rising fame of my son, and praised the +eloquence of his article that day. But I would not believe him. I bought +the journal--here it is; saw the name and address of the printer--went +this morning to the office--was there told that ‘Diderot le Jeune’ was +within revising the press--stationed myself by the street door, and when +Gustave came out I seized his arm, and asked him to say Yes or No if he +was the author of this infamous article,--this, which I now hold in my +hand. He owned the authorship with pride; talked wildly of the great +man he was--of the great things he was to do; said that, in hitherto +concealing his true name, he had done all he could to defer to the +bigoted prejudices of his parents and his fiancee; and that if genius, +like fire, would find its way out, he could not help it; that a time was +rapidly coming when his opinions would be uppermost; that since October +the Communists were gaining ascendancy, and only waited the end of the +siege to put down the present Government, and with it all hypocrisies +and shams, religious or social. My wife, he was rude to me, insulting! +but he had been drinking--that made him incautious: and he continued to +walk by my side towards his own lodging, on reaching which he ironically +invited me to enter, saying, ‘I should meet there men who would soon +argue me out of my obsolete notions.’ You may go to him, wife, now, if +you please. I will not, nor will I take from him a crust of bread. I +came hither, determined to tell the young lady all this, if I found her +at home. I should be a dishonoured man if I suffered her to be cheated +into misery. + +“There, Madame Venosta, there! Take that journal, show it to +Mademoiselle; and report to her all I have said.” + +M. Rameau, habitually the mildest of men, had, in talking, worked +himself up into positive fury. + +His wife, calmer but more deeply affected, made a piteous sign to the +Venosta not to say more; and without other salutation or adieu took her +husband’s arm, and led him from the house. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Obtaining from her husband Gustave’s address, Madame Rameau hastened +to her son’s apartment alone through the darkling streets. The house in +which he lodged was in a different quarter from that in which Isaura had +visited him. Then, the street selected was still in the centre of the +beau monde--now, it was within the precincts of that section of the +many-faced capital in which the beau monde was held in detestation or +scorn; still the house had certain pretensions, boasting a courtyard and +a porter’s lodge. Madame Rameau, instructed to mount au second, found +the door ajar, and, entering, perceived on the table of the little salon +the remains of a feast which, however untempting it might have been +in happier times, contrasted strongly with the meagre fare of which +Gustave’s parents had deemed themselves fortunate to partake at the +board of his betrothed; remnants of those viands which offered to +the inquisitive epicure an experiment in food much too costly for the +popular stomach--dainty morsels of elephant, hippopotamus, and wolf, +interspersed with half-emptied bottles of varied and high-priced +wines. Passing these evidences of unseasonable extravagance with a mute +sentiment of anger and disgust, Madame Rameau penetrated into a small +cabinet, the door of which was also ajar, and saw her son stretched +on his bed half dressed, breathing heavily in the sleep which follows +intoxication. She did not attempt to disturb him. She placed herself +quietly by his side, gazing mournfully on the face which she had once so +proudly contemplated, now haggard and faded,--still strangely beautiful, +though it was the beauty of ruin. + +From time to time he stirred uneasily, and muttered broken words, in +which fragments of his own delicately-worded verse were incoherently +mixed up with ribald slang, addressed to imaginary companions. In +his dreams he was evidently living over again his late revel, with +episodical diversions into the poet-world, of which he was rather a +vagrant nomad than a settled cultivator. Then she would silently +bathe his feverish temples with the perfumed water she found on his +dressing-table. And so she watched till, in the middle of the night, +he woke up, and recovered the possession of his reason with a quickness +that surprised Madame Rameau. He was, indeed, one of those men in whom +excess of drink, when slept off, is succeeded by extreme mildness, the +effect of nervous exhaustion, and by a dejected repentance, which, to +his mother, seemed a propitious lucidity of the moral sense. + +Certainly on seeing her he threw himself on her breast, and began to +shed tears. Madame Rameau had not the heart to reproach him sternly. But +by gentle degrees she made him comprehend the pain he had given to his +father, and the destitution in which he had deserted his parents and +his affianced. In his present mood Gustave was deeply affected by these +representations. He excused himself feebly by dwelling on the excitement +of the times, the preoccupation of his mind, the example of his +companions; but with his excuses he mingled passionate expressions of +remorse, and before daybreak mother and son were completely reconciled. +Then he fell into a tranquil sleep; and Madame Rameau, quite worn out, +slept also in the chair beside him, her arm around his neck. He awoke +before she did at a late hour in the morning; and stealing from her arm, +went to his escritoire, and took forth what money he found there, half +of which he poured into her lap, kissing her till she awoke. + +“Mother,” he said, “henceforth I will work for thee and my father. Take +this trifle now; the rest I reserve for Isaura.” + +“Joy! I have found my boy again. But Isaura, I fear that she will not +take thy money, and all thought of her must also be abandoned.” + +Gustave had already turned to his looking-glass, and was arranging with +care his dark ringlets: his personal vanity--his remorse appeased by +this pecuniary oblation--had revived. + +“No,” he said gaily, “I don’t think I shall abandon her; and it is not +likely, when she sees and hears me, that she can wish to abandon me! Now +let us breakfast, and then I will go at once to her.” + +In the mean while, Isaura, on her return to her apartment at the wintry +nightfall, found a cart stationed at the door, and the Venosta on +the threshold, superintending the removal of various articles of +furniture--indeed, all such articles as were not absolutely required. + +“Oh, Piccola!” she said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “I did not +expect thee back so soon. Hush! I have made a famous bargain. I have +found a broker to buy these things which we don’t want just at present, +and can replace by new and prettier things when the siege is over and we +get our money. The broker pays down on the nail and thou wilt not go +to bed without supper. There are no ills which are not more supportable +after food.” + +Isaura smiled faintly, kissed the Venosta’s cheek, and ascended with +weary steps to the sitting-room. There she seated herself quietly, +looking with abstracted eyes round the bare dismantled space by the +light of the single candle. + +When the Venosta re-entered, she was followed by the servants, bringing +in a daintier meal than they had known for days--a genuine rabbit, +potatoes, marrons glaces, a bottle of wine, and a pannier of wood. The +fire was soon lighted, the Venosta plying the bellows. It was not till +this banquet, of which Isaura, faint as she was, scarcely partook, had +been remitted to the two Italian women-servants, and another log been +thrown on the hearth, that the Venosta opened the subject which was +pressing on her heart. She did this with a joyous smile, taking both +Isaura’s hands in her own, and stroking them fondly. + +“My child, I have such good news for thee! Thou hast escaped--thou art +free!” and then she related all that M. Rameau had said, and finished by +producing the copy of Gustave’s unhallowed journal. + +When she had read the latter, which she did with compressed lips and +varying colour, the girl fell on her knees--not to thank Heaven that she +would now escape a union from which her soul so recoiled--not that she +was indeed free, but to pray, with tears rolling down her cheeks, that +God would yet save to Himself, and to good ends, the soul that she had +failed to bring to Him. All previous irritation against Gustave was +gone: all had melted into an ineffable compassion. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +When, a little before noon, Gustave was admitted by the servant into +Isaura’s salon, its desolate condition, stripped of all its pretty +feminine elegancies, struck him with a sense of discomfort to himself +which superseded any more remorseful sentiment. The day was intensely +cold: the single log on the hearth did not burn; there were only two +or three chairs in the room; even the carpet, which had been of gaily +coloured Aubusson, was gone. His teeth chattered; and he only replied +by a dreary nod to the servant who informed him that Madame Venosta was +gone out, and Mademoiselle had not yet quitted her own room. + +If there be a thing which a true Parisian of Rameau’s stamp associates +with love of woman, it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings, a +pretty boudoir, a cheery hearth, an easy fauteuil. In the absence of +such attributes, “fuyit retro Venus.” If the Englishman invented the +word comfort, it is the Parisian who most thoroughly comprehends the +thing. And he resents the loss of it in any house where he has been +accustomed to look for it, as a personal wrong to his feelings. + +Left for some minutes alone, Gustave occupied himself with kindling the +log, and muttering, “Par tous les diables, quel chien de rhume je vais +attraper?” He turned as he heard the rustle of a robe and a light slow +step. Isaura stood before him. Her aspect startled him. He had come +prepared to expect grave displeasure and a frigid reception. But the +expression of Isaura’s face was more kindly, more gentle, more tender, +than he had seen it since the day she had accepted his suit. + +Knowing from his mother what his father had said to his prejudice, he +thought within himself, “After all, the poor girl loves me better than I +thought. She is sensible and enlightened; she cannot pretend to dictate +an opinion to a man like me.” + +He approached with a complacent self-assured mien, and took her +hand, which she yielded to him quietly, leading her to one of the few +remaining chairs, and seating himself beside her. + +“Dear Isaura,” he said, talking rapidly all the while he performed this +ceremony, “I need not assure you of my utter ignorance of the state to +which the imbecility of our Government, and the cowardice, or rather +the treachery, of our generals, has reduced you. I only heard of it late +last night from my mother. I hasten to claim my right to share with you +the humble resources which I have saved by the intellectual labours that +have absorbed all such moments as my military drudgeries left to the +talents which, even at such a moment, paralysing minds less energetic, +have sustained me:”--and therewith he poured several pieces of gold and +silver on the table beside her chair. + +“Gustave,” then said Isaura, “I am well pleased that you thus prove +that I was not mistaken when I thought and said that, despite all +appearances, all errors, your heart was good. Oh, do but follow its true +impulses, and--” + +“Its impulses lead me ever to thy feet,” interrupted Gustave, with a +fervour which sounded somewhat theatrical and hollow. + +The girl smiled, not bitterly, not mockingly; but Gustave did not like +the smile. + +“Poor Gustave,” she said, with a melancholy pathos in her soft voice, +“do you not understand that the time has come when such commonplace +compliments ill suit our altered positions to each other? Nay, listen +to me patiently; and let not my words in this last interview pain you +to recall. If either of us be to blame in the engagement hastily +contracted, it is I. Gustave, when you, exaggerating in your imagination +the nature of your sentiments for me, said with such earnestness that +on my consent to our union depended your health, your life, your career; +that if I withheld that consent you were lost, and in despair would seek +distraction from thought in all from which your friends, your mother, +the duties imposed upon Genius for the good of Man to the ends of God, +should withhold and save you--when you said all this, and I believed it, +I felt as if Heaven commanded me not to desert the soul which appealed +to me in the crisis of its struggle and peril. Gustave, I repent; I was +to blame.” + +“How to blame?” + +“I overrated my power over your heart: I overrated still more, perhaps, +my power over my own.” + +“Ah, your own! I understand now. You did not love me?” + +“I never said that I loved you in the sense in which you use the word. +I told you that the love which you have described in your verse, and +which,” she added, falteringly, with heightened colour and with hands +tightly clasped, “I have conceived possible in my dreams, it was not +mine to give. You declared you were satisfied with such affection as +I could bestow. Hush! let me go on. You said that affection would +increase, would become love, in proportion as I knew you more. It has +not done so. Nay, it passed away; even before this time of trial and of +grief, I became aware how different from the love you professed was the +neglect which needs no excuse, for it did not pain me.” + +“You are cruel indeed, Mademoiselle.” + +“No, indeed, I am kind. I wish you to feel no pang at our parting. Truly +I had resolved, when the siege terminated, and the time to speak frankly +of our engagement came, to tell you that I shrank from the thought of +a union between us; and that it was for the happiness of both that our +promises should be mutually cancelled. The moment has come sooner than +I thought. Even had I loved you, Gustave, as deeply as--as well as +the beings of Romance love, I would not dare to wed one who calls upon +mortals to deny God, demolish His altars, treat His worship as a crime. +No; I would sooner die of a broken heart, that I might the sooner be one +of those souls privileged to pray the Divine Intercessor for merciful +light on those beloved and left dark on earth.” + +“Isaura!” exclaimed Gustave, his mobile temperament impressed, not by +the words of Isaura, but by the passionate earnestness with which they +were uttered, and by the exquisite spiritual beauty which her face +took from the combined sweetness and fervour of its devout +expression,--“Isaura, I merit your censure, your sentence of +condemnation; but do not ask me to give back your plighted troth. I have +not the strength to do so. More than ever, more than when first pledged +to me, I need the aid, the companionship, of my guardian angel. You +were that to me once; abandon me not now. In these terrible times of +revolution, excitable natures catch madness from each other. A writer in +the heat of his passion says much that he does not mean to be literally +taken, which in cooler moments he repents and retracts. Consider, too, +the pressure of want, of hunger. It is the opinions that you so condemn +which alone at this moment supply bread to the writer. But say you will +yet pardon me,--yet give me trial if I offend no more--if I withdraw +my aid to any attacks on your views, your religion--if I say, ‘Thy God +shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people.’” + +“Alas!” said Isaura, softly, “ask thyself if those be words which I can +believe again. Hush!” she continued, checking his answer with a more +kindling countenance and more impassioned voice. “Are they, after all, +the words that man should address to woman? Is it on the strength of +Woman that Man should rely? Is it to her that he should say, ‘Dictate +my opinions on all that belongs to the Mind of man; change the doctrines +that I have thoughtfully formed and honestly advocate; teach me how +to act on earth, clear all my doubts as to my hopes of heaven’? No, +Gustave; in this task man never should repose on woman. Thou are honest +at this moment, my poor friend; but could I believe thee to-day, thou +wouldst laugh tomorrow at what woman can be made to believe.” + +Stung to the quick by the truth of Isaura’s accusation, Gustave +exclaimed with vehemence: “All that thou sayest is false, and thou +knowest it. The influence of woman on man for good or for evil defies +reasoning. It does mould his deeds on earth; it does either make or mar +all that future which lies between his life and his gravestone, and +of whatsoever may lie beyond the grave. Give me up now, and thou art +responsible for me, for all I do, it may be against all that thou +deemest holy. Keep thy troth yet awhile, and test me. If I come to +thee showing how I could have injured, and how for thy dear sake I have +spared, nay, aided, all that thou dost believe and reverence, then wilt +thou dare to say, ‘Go thy ways alone--I forsake thee!’” + +Isaura turned aside her face, but she held out her hand--it was as cold +as death. He knew that she had so far yielded, and his vanity exulted: +he smiled in secret triumph as he pressed his kiss on that icy hand and +was gone. + +“This is duty--it must be duty,” said Isaura to herself. “But where is +the buoyant delight that belongs to a duty achieved?--where? oh where?” + And then she stole with drooping head and heavy step into her own room, +fell on her knees, and prayed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a complacent +self-satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that +success may conduce to--nay, however much it may militate against--the +objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires. +A vain woman may be very anxious to win A------, the magnificent, as a +partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her +eye has made an evening’s conquest of the pitiful B-------, although +by that achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing A------ +altogether. So, when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first feeling +was that of triumph. His eloquence had subdued her will; she had not +finally discarded him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the biting +air, his self-complacency was succeeded by mortification and discontent. +He felt that he had committed himself to promises which he was by no +means prepared to keep. True, the promises were vague in words; but in +substance they were perfectly clear--“to spare, nay, to aid all that +Isaura esteemed and reverenced.” How was this possible to him? How could +he suddenly change the whole character of his writings?--how become the +defender of marriage and property, of church and religion?--how proclaim +himself so utter an apostate? If he did, how become a leader of +the fresh revolution? how escape being its victim? Cease to write +altogether? + +But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day +as a National Guard--30 sous a day to him, who, in order to be Sybarite +in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment +than Spartan doctrine, “Live on black broth and fight the enemy.” And +the journalists in vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that +they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to +fight the enemy. + +“Those women are such idiots when they meddle in politics,” grumbled +between his teeth the enthusiastic advocate of Woman’s Rights on all +matters of love. “And,” he continued, soliloquising, “it is not as if +the girl had any large or decent dot; it is not as if she said, ‘In +return for the sacrifice of your popularity, your prospects, your +opinions, I give you not only a devoted heart, but an excellent table +and a capital fire and plenty of pocket-money.’ Sacre bleu! when I think +of that frozen salon, and possibly the leg of a mouse for dinner, and a +virtuous homily by way of grace, the prospect is not alluring; and the +girl herself is not so pretty as she was--grown very thin. Sur mon ame, +I think she asks too much--far more than she is worth. No, No; I had +better have accepted her dismissal. Elle n’est pas digne de moi.” + +Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of +a light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his aria. He turned, and +beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had +sought to shun--the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin +had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when +met in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre. Julie +never looked more beautiful, more radiant, than she did now; and there +was a wonderful heartfelt fondness in her voice when she cried, “Mon +homme! mon homme! seul homme au monde a mon coeur, Gustave, cheri adore! +I have found thee-at last--at last!” Gustave gazed upon her, stupefied. +Involuntarily his eye glanced from the freshness of bloom in her face +which the intense cold of the atmosphere only seemed to heighten into +purer health, to her dress, which was new and handsome--black--he did +not know that it was mourning--the cloak trimmed with costly sables. +Certainly it was no mendicant for alms who thus reminded the shivering +Adonis of the claims of a pristine Venus. He stammered out her naive, +“Julie!”--and then he stopped. + +“Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat! how I have sought for thee! how I have +hungered for the sight of thee! That monster Savarin! he would not give +me any news of thee. That is ages ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier, +whom I saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived still. He did not +do so, or I should have seen thee--n’est ce, pas?” + +“Certainly, certainly--only--chere amie--you know that--that--as I +before announced to thee, I--I--was engaged in marriage--and--and--” + +“But are you married?” + +“No, no. Hark! Take care--is not that the hiss of an obus?” + +“What then? Let it come! Would it might slay us both while my hand is in +thine!” + +“Ah!” muttered Gustave, inwardly, “what a difference! This is love! No +preaching here! Elle est plus digne de moi que d’autre.” + +“No,” he said, aloud, “I am not married. Marriage is at best a pitiful +ceremony. But if you wished for news of me, surely you must have heard +of my effect as an orator not despised in the Salle Favre. Since, I have +withdrawn from that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself that I +have had a beau succes.” + +“Doubtless, doubtless, my Gustave, my Poet! Wherever thou art, thou must +be first among men. But, alas it is my fault--my misfortune. I have not +been in the midst of a world that perhaps rings of thy name.” + +“Not my name. Prudence compelled me to conceal that. Still, Genius +pierces under any name. You might have discovered me under my nom de +plume.” + +“Pardon me--I was always bete. But, oh! for so many weeks I was so +poor--so destitute. I could go nowhere, except--don’t be ashamed of +me--except--” + +“Yes? Go on.” + +“Except where I could get some money. At first to dance--you remember +my bolero. Then I got a better engagement. Do you not remember that you +taught me to recite verses? Had it been for myself alone, I might have +been contented to starve. Without thee, what was life? But thou wilt +recollect Madeleine, the old bonne who lived with me. Well, she had +attended and cherished me since I was so high-lived with my mother. +Mother! no; it seems that Madame Surville was not my mother after all. +But, of course, I could not let my old Madeleine starve; and therefore, +with a heart as heavy as lead, I danced and declaimed. My heart was not +so heavy when I recited thy songs.” + +“My songs! Pauvre ange!” exclaimed the Poet. + +“And then, too, I thought, ‘Ah, this dreadful siege! He, too, may +be poor--he may know want and hunger;’ and so all I could save from +Madeleine I put into a box for thee, in case thou shouldst come back to +me some day. Mon homme, how could I go to the Salle Favre? How could +I read journals, Gustave? But thou art not married, Gustave? Parole +d’honneur?” + +“Parole d’honneur! What does that matter?” + +“Everything! Ah! I am not so mechante, so mauvaise tete as I was some +months ago. If thou went married, I should say, ‘Blessed and sacred be +thy wife! Forget me.’ But as it is, one word more. Dost thou love the +young lady, whoever she be? or does she love thee so well that it would +be sin in thee to talk trifles to Julie? Speak as honestly as if thou +wert not a poet.” + +“Honestly, she never said she loved me. I never thought she did. But, +you see, I was very ill, and my parents and friends and my physician +said that it was right for me to arrange my life, and marry, and so +forth. And the girl had money, and was a good match. In short, the thing +was settled. But oh, Julie, she never learned my songs by heart! She did +not love as thou mayst, and still dost. And--ah! well--now that we meet +again--now that I look in thy face--now that I hear thy voice--No, I do +not love her as I loved, and might yet love thee. But--but--” + +“Well, but? oh, I guess. Thou seest me well dressed, no longer dancing +and declaiming at cafes: and thou thinkest that Julie has disgraced +herself? she is unfaithful?” + +Gustave had not anticipated that frankness, nor was the idea which it +expressed uppermost in his mind when he said, “but, but--” There were +many buts all very confused, struggling through his mind as he spoke. +However, he answered as a Parisian sceptic, not ill-bred, naturally +would answer: + +“My dear friend, my dear child” (the Parisian is very fond of the word +child or enfant in addressing a woman), “I have never seen thee so +beautiful as thou art now; and when thou tellest me that thou are no +longer poor, and the proof of what thou sayest is visible in the furs, +which, alas’. I cannot give thee, what am I to think?” + +“Oh, mon homme, mon homme! thou art very spirituel, and that is why I +loved thee. I am very bete, and that is excuse enough for thee if thou +couldst not love me. But canst thou look me in the face and not know +that my eyes could not meet thine as they do, if I had been faithless to +thee even in a thought, when I so boldly touched thine arm? Viens chez +moi, come and let me explain all. Only--only let me repeat, if another +has rights over thee which forbid thee to come, say so kindly, and I +will never trouble thee again.” + +Gustave had been hitherto walking slowly by the side of Julie, amidst +the distant boom of the besiegers’ cannon, while the short day began to +close; and along the dreary boulevards sauntered idlers turning to look +at the young, beautiful, well-dressed woman who seemed in such contrast +to the capital whose former luxuries the “Ondine” of imperial Paris +represented. He now offered his arm to Julie; and, quickening his pace, +said, “There is no reason why I should refuse to attend thee home, +and listen to the explanations thou dost generously condescend to +volunteer.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +“Ah, indeed! what a difference! what a difference!” said Gustave to +himself when he entered Julie’s apartment. In her palmier days, when +he had first made her acquaintance, the apartment no doubt had been +infinitely more splendid, more abundant in silks and fringes and flowers +and nicknacks; but never had it seemed so cheery and comfortable and +home-like as now. What a contrast to Isaura’s dismantled chilly salon! +She drew him towards the hearth, on which, blazing though it was, she +piled fresh billets, seated him in the easiest of easy-chairs, knelt +beside him, and chafed his numbed hands in hers; and as her bright eyes +fixed tenderly on his, she looked so young and so innocent! You would +not then have called her the “Ondine of Paris.” + +But when, a little while after, revived by the genial warmth and moved +by the charm of her beauty, Gustave passed his arm round her neck and +sought to draw her on his lap, she slid from his embrace, shaking +her head gently, and seated herself, with a pretty air of ceremonious +decorum, at a little distance. + +Gustave looked at her amazed. + +“Causons,” said she, gravely, “thou wouldst know why I am so well +dressed, so comfortably lodged, and I am longing to explain to thee all. +Some days ago I had just finished my performance at the cafe--, and was +putting on my shawl, when a tall Monsieur, fort bel homme, with the +air of a grand seigneur, entered the cafe, and approaching me politely, +said, ‘I think I have the honour to address Mademoiselle Julie +Caumartin?’ ‘That is my name,’ I said, surprised; and, looking at him +more intently, I recognised his face. He had come into the cafe a few +days before with thine old acquaintance Frederic Lemercier, and stood +by when I asked Frederic to give me news of thee. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he +continued, with a serious melancholy smile, ‘I shall startle you when I +say that I am appointed to act as your guardian by the last request of +your mother.’ ‘Of Madame Surville?’ ‘Madame Surville adopted you, but +was not your mother. We cannot talk at ease here. Allow me to request +that you will accompany me to Monsieur -----, the avoue. It is not +very far from this--and by the way--I will tell you some news that may +sadden, and some news that may rejoice.’ + +“There was an earnestness in the voice and look of this Monsieur that +impressed me. He did not offer me his arm; but I walked by his side in +the direction he chose. As we walked he told me in very few words that +my mother had been separated from her husband, and for certain family +reasons had found it so difficult to rear and provide for me herself, +that she had accepted the offer of Madame Surville to adopt me as her +own child. While he spoke, there came dimly back to me the remembrance +of a lady who had taken me from my first home, when I had been, as +I understood, at nurse, and left me with poor dear Madame Surville, +saying, ‘This is henceforth your mamma.’ + +“I never again saw that lady. It seems that many years afterwards my +true mother desired to regain me. Madame Surville was then dead. She +failed to trace me out, owing, alas! to my own faults and change of +name. She then entered a nunnery, but, before doing so, assigned a sum +of 100,000 francs to this gentleman, who was distantly connected with +her, with full power to him to take it to himself, or give it to my use +should he discover me, at his discretion. ‘I ask you,’ continued the +Monsieur, ‘to go with me to Mons. N------‘s, because the sum is still in +his hands. He will confirm my statement. All that I have now to say is +this, If you accept my guardianship, if you obey implicitly my advice, +I shall consider the interest of this sum which has accumulated since +deposited with M. ----- due to you; and the capital will be your dot on +marriage, if the marriage be with my consent.’” + +Gustave had listened very attentively, and without interruption, until +now; when he looked up, and said with his customary sneer, “Did your +Monsieur, fort bel homme, you say, inform you of the value of the +advice, rather of the commands, you were implicitly to obey?” + +“Yes,” answered Julie, “not then, but later. Let me go on. We arrived at +M. N-----‘s, an elderly grave man. He said that all he knew was that he +held the money in trust for the Monsieur with me, to be given to him, +with the accumulations of interest, on the death of the lady who had +deposited it. If that Monsieur had instructions how to dispose of the +money, they were not known to him. All he had to do was to transfer it +absolutely to him on the proper certificate of the lady’s death. So you +see, Gustave, that the Monsieur could have kept all from me if he had +liked.” + +“Your Monsieur is very generous. Perhaps you will now tell me his name.” + +“No; he forbids me to do it yet.” + +“And he took this apartment for you, and gave you money to buy that +smart dress and these furs. Bah! mon enfant, why try to deceive me? Do I +not know my Paris? A fort bel homme does not make himself guardian to +a fort belle fine so young and fair as Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin +without certain considerations which shall be nameless, like himself.” + +Julie’s eyes flashed. “Ah, Gustave! ah, Monsieur!” she said, half +angrily, half plaintively, “I see that my guardian knew you better than +I did. Never mind; I will not reproach. Thou halt the right to despise +me.” + +“Pardon! I did not mean to offend thee,” said Gustave, somewhat +disconcerted. “But own that thy story is strange; and this guardian, who +knows me better than thou--does he know me at all? Didst thou speak to +him of me?” + +“How could I help it? He says that this terrible war, in which he takes +an active part, makes his life uncertain from day to day. He wished to +complete the trust bequeathed to him by seeing me safe in the love of +some worthy man who”--she paused for a moment with an expression of +compressed anguish, and then hurried on--“who would recognise what was +good in me,--would never reproach me for--for--the past. I then said +that my heart was thine: I could never marry any one but thee.” + +“Marry me,” faltered Gustave--“marry!” + +“And,” continued the girl, not heeding his interruption, “he said thou +wert not the husband he would choose for me: that thou wert not--no, I +cannot wound thee by repeating what he said unkindly, unjustly. He bade +me think of thee no more. I said again, that is impossible.” + +“But,” resumed Rameau, with an affected laugh, “why think of anything +so formidable as marriage? Thou lovest me, and--” He approached again, +seeking to embrace her. She recoiled. “No, Gustave, no. I have sworn +solemnly by the memory of my lost mother--O--that I will never sin +again. I will never be to thee other than thy friend--or thy wife.” + +Before Gustave could reply to these words, which took him wholly by +surprise, there was a ring at the outer door, and the old bonne +ushered in Victor de Mauleon. He halted at the threshold, and his brow +contracted. + +“So you have already broken faith with me, Mademoiselle?” + +“No, Monsieur, I have not broken faith,” cried Julie; passionately. “I +told you that I would not seek to find out Monsieur Rameau. I did +not seek, but I met him unexpectedly. I owed to him an explanation. I +invited him here to give that explanation. Without it, what would he +have thought of me? Now he may go, and I will never admit him again +without your sanction.” + +The Vicomte turned his stern look upon Gustave, who though, as we know, +not wanting in personal courage, felt cowed by his false position; and +his eye fell, quailed before De Mauleon’s gaze. + +“Leave us for a few minutes alone, Mademoiselle,” said the Vicomte. +“Nay, Julie,” he added, in softened tones, “fear nothing. I, too, owe +explanation--friendly explanation--to M. Rameau.” + +With his habitual courtesy towards women, he extended his hand to Julie, +and led her from the room. Then, closing the door, he seated himself, +and made a sign to Gustave to do the same. + +“Monsieur,” said De Mauleon, “excuse me if I detain you. A very few +words will suffice for our present interview. I take it for granted that +Mademoiselle has told you that she is no child of Madame Surville’s: +that her own mother bequeathed her to my protection and guardianship +with a modest fortune which is at my disposal to give or withhold. The +little I have seen already of Mademoiselle impresses me with sincere +interest in her fate. I look with compassion on what she may have been +in the past; I anticipate with hope what she may be in the future. I do +not ask you to see her in either with my eyes. I say frankly that it is +my intention, and I may add, my resolve, that the ward thus left to my +charge shall be henceforth safe from the temptations that have seduced +her poverty, her inexperience, her vanity, if you will, but have not yet +corrupted her heart. Bref, I must request you to give me your word of +honour that you will hold no further communication with her. I can allow +no sinister influence to stand between her fate and honour.” + +“You speak well and nobly, M. le Vicomte,” said Rameau, “and I give the +promise you exact.” He added, feelingly: “It is true her heart has never +been corrupted that is good, affectionate, unselfish as a child’s. J’ai +l’honneur de vous saluer, M. le Vicomte.” + +He bowed with a dignity unusual to him, and tears were in his eyes as he +passed by De Mauleon and gained the anteroom. There a side-door suddenly +opened, and Julie’s face, anxious, eager, looked forth. + +Gustave paused: “Adieu, Mademoiselle! Adieu, though we may never meet +again,--though our fates divide us,--believe me that I shall ever +cherish your memory--and--” + +The girl interrupted him, impulsively seizing his arm, and looking him +in the face with a wild fixed stare. “Hush! dost thou mean to say that +we are parted,--parted forever?” + +“Alas!” said Gustave, “what option is before us? Your guardian rightly +forbids my visits; and even were I free to offer you my hand, you +yourself say that I am not a suitor he would approve.” + +Julie turned her eyes towards De Mauleon, who, following Gustave into +the ante-room, stood silent and impassive, leaning against the wall. + +He now understood and replied to the pathetic appeal in the girl’s eyes. + +“My young ward,” he said, “M. Rameau expresses himself with propriety +and truth. Suffer him to depart. He belongs to the former life; +reconcile yourself to the new.” + +He advanced to take her hand, making a sign to Gustave to depart. But +as he approached Julie, she uttered a weak piteous wail, and fell at his +feet senseless. De Mauleon raised and carried her into her room, where +he left her to the care of the old bonne. On re-entering the anteroom, +he found Gustave still lingering by the outer door. “You will pardon +me, Monsieur,” he said to the Vicomte, “but in fact I feel so uneasy, so +unhappy. Has she--? You see, you see that there is danger to her health, +perhaps to her reason, in so abrupt a separation, so cruel a rupture +between us. Let me call again, or I may not have strength to keep my +promise.” + +De Mauleon remained a few minutes musing. Then he said in a whisper, +“Come back into the salon. Let us talk frankly.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +“M. Rameau,” said De Mauleon, when the two men had reseated themselves +in the salon, “I will honestly say that my desire is to rid myself as +soon as I can of the trust of guardian to this young lady. Playing as I +do with fortune, my only stake against her favours is my life. I feel +as if it were my duty to see that Mademoiselle is not left alone and +friendless in the world at my decease. I have in my mind for her a +husband that I think in every way suitable: a handsome and brave +young fellow in my battalion, of respectable birth, without any living +relations to consult as to his choice. I have reason to believe that if +Julie married him, she need never fear as a reproach to her antecedents. +Her dot would suffice to enable him to realise his own wish of a country +town in Normandy. And in that station, Paris and its temptations would +soon pass from the poor child’s thoughts, as an evil dream. But I +cannot dispose of her hand without her own consent; and if she is to be +reasoned out of her fancy for you, I have no time to devote to the task. +I come to the point, You are not the man I would choose for her husband. +But, evidently, you are the man she would choose. Are you disposed to +marry her? You hesitate, very naturally; I have no right to demand an +immediate answer to a question so serious. Perhaps you will think over +it, and let me know in a day or two? I take it for granted that if you +were, as I heard, engaged before the siege to marry the Signora Cicogna, +that engagement is annulled?” + +“Why take it for granted?” asked Gustave, perplexed. “Simply because I +find you here. Nay, spare explanations and excuses. I quite understand +that you were invited to come. But a man solemnly betrothed to a +mademoiselle like the Signora Cicogna, in a time of such dire calamity +and peril, could scarcely allow himself to be tempted to accept the +invitation of one so beautiful, and so warmly attached to him, as is +Mademoiselle Julie; and on witnessing the passionate strength of that +attachment, say that he cannot keep a promise not to repeat his visits. +But if I mistake, and you are still betrothed to the Signorina, of +course all discussion is at an end.” + +Gustave hung his head in some shame, and in much bewildered doubt. + +The practised observer of men’s characters, and of shifting phases of +mind, glanced at the poor poet’s perturbed countenance with a half-smile +of disdain. + +“It is for you to judge how far the very love to you so ingenuously +evinced by my ward--how far the reasons against marriage with one +whose antecedents expose her to reproach--should influence one of your +advanced opinions upon social ties. Such reasons do not appear to have +with artists the same weight they have with the bourgeoisie. I have but +to add that the husband of Julie will receive with her hand a dot of +nearly 120,000 francs; and I have reason to believe that that fortune +will be increased--how much, I cannot guess-when the cessation of the +siege will allow communication with England. One word more. I should +wish to rank the husband of my ward in the number of my friends. If +he did not oppose the political opinions with which I identify my own +career, I should be pleased to make any rise in the world achieved by me +assist to the raising of himself. But my opinions, as during the time we +were brought together you were made aware, are those of a practical man +of the world, and have nothing in common with Communists, Socialists, +Internationalists, or whatever sect would place the aged societies +of Europe in Medea’s caldron of youth. At a moment like the present, +fanatics and dreamers so abound that the number of such sinners will +necessitate a general amnesty when order is restored. What a poet so +young as you may have written or said at such a time will be readily +forgotten and forgiven a year or two hence, provided he does not put his +notions into violent action. But if you choose to persevere in the +views you now advocate, so be it. They will not make poor Julie less a +believer in your wisdom and genius. Only they will separate you from me, +and a day may come when I should have the painful duty of ordering you +to be shot--Die meliora. Think over all I have thus frankly said. +Give me your answer within forty-eight hours; and meanwhile hold no +communication with my ward. I have the honour to wish you good-day.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +The short grim day was closing when Gustave, quitting Julie’s apartment, +again found himself in the streets. His thoughts were troubled and +confused. He was the more affected by Julie’s impassioned love for +him, by the contrast with Isaura’s words and manner in their recent +interview. His own ancient fancy for the “Ondine of Paris” became +revived by the difficulties between their ancient intercourse which her +unexpected scruples and De Mauleon’s guardianship interposed. A +witty writer thus defines une passion, “une caprice inflamme par des +obstacles.” In the ordinary times of peace, Gustave, handsome, aspiring +to reputable position in the beau monde, would not have admitted any +considerations to compromise his station by marriage with a fagurante. +But now the wild political doctrines he had embraced separated his +ambition from that beau monde, and combined it with ascendancy over the +revolutionists of the populace--a direction which he must abandon if +he continued his suit to Isaura. Then, too, the immediate possession of +Julie’s dot was not without temptation to a man who was so fond of his +personal comforts, and who did not see where to turn for a dinner, if, +obedient to Isaura’s “prejudices,” he abandoned his profits as a writer +in the revolutionary press. The inducements for withdrawal from the +cause he had espoused, held out to him with so haughty a coldness by +De Mauleon, were not wholly without force, though they irritated his +self-esteem. He was dimly aware of the Vicomte’s masculine talents +for public life; and the high reputation he had already acquired +among military authorities, and even among experienced and thoughtful +civilians, had weight upon Gustave’s impressionable temperament. But +though De Mauleon’s implied advice here coincided in much with the +tacit compact he had made with Isaura, it alienated him more from Isaura +herself, for Isaura did not bring to him the fortune which would enable +him to suspend his lucubrations, watch the turn of events, and live at +ease in the meanwhile; and the dot to be received with De Mauleon’s ward +had those advantages. + +While thus meditating Gustave turned into one of the cantines still +open, to brighten his intellect with a petit verre, and there he found +the two colleagues in the extinct Council of Ten, Paul Grimm and Edgar +Ferrier. With the last of these revolutionists Gustave had become +intimately lie. They wrote in the same journal, and he willingly +accepted a distraction from his self-conflict which Edgar offered him in +a dinner at the cafe Riche, which still offered its hospitalities at no +exorbitant price. At this repast, as the drink circulated, Gustave waxed +confidential. He longed, poor youth, for an adviser. Could he marry a +girl who had been a ballet-dancer, and who had come into an unexpected +heritage? “Es-tu fou d’en douter?” cried Edgar. “What a sublime occasion +to manifest thy scorn of the miserable banalities of the bourgeoisie! It +will but increase thy moral power over the people. And then think of the +money. What an aid to the cause! What a capital for the launch!--journal +all thine own! Besides, when our principles triumph--as triumph they +must--what would be marriage but a brief and futile ceremony, to be +broken the moment thou hast cause to complain of thy wife or chafe at +the bond? Only get the dot into thine own hands. L’amour passe--reste la +cassette.” + +Though there was enough of good in the son of Madame Rameau to revolt at +the precise words in which the counsel was given, still, as the fumes of +the punch yet more addled his brains, the counsel itself was acceptable; +and in that sort of maddened fury which intoxication produces in some +excitable temperaments, as Gustave reeled home that night leaning on +the arm of stouter Edgar Ferrier, he insisted on going out of his way +to pass the house in which Isaura lived, and, pausing under her window, +gasped out some verses of a wild song, then much in vogue among the +votaries of Felix Pyat, in which everything that existent society deems +sacred was reviled in the grossest ribaldry. Happily Isaura’s ear heard +it not. The girl was kneeling by her bedside absorbed in prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Three days after the evening thus spent by Gustave Rameau, Isaura was +startled by a visit from M. de Mauleon. She had not seen him since the +commencement of the siege, and she did not recognise him at first glance +in his military uniform. + +“I trust you will pardon my intrusion, Mademoiselle,” he said, in the +low sweet voice habitual to him in his gentler moods, “but I thought +it became me to announce to you the decease of one who, I fear, did not +discharge with much kindness the duties her connection with you imposed. +Your father’s second wife, afterwards Madame Selby, is no more. She died +some days since in a convent to which she had retired.” + +Isaura had no cause to mourn the dead, but she felt a shock in the +suddenness of this information; and in that sweet spirit of womanly +compassion which entered so largely into her character, and made a part +of her genius itself, she murmured tearfully, “The poor Signora! Why +could I not have been with her in illness? She might then have learned +to love me. And she died in a convent, you say? Ah, her religion was +then sincere! Her end was peaceful?” + +“Let us not doubt that, Mademoiselle. Certainly she lived to regret any +former errors, and her last thought was directed towards such atonement +as might be in her power. And it is that desire of atonement which now +strangely mixes me up, Mademoiselle, in your destinies. In that desire +for atonement, she left to my charge, as a kinsman distant indeed, but +still, perhaps, the nearest with whom she was personally acquainted--a +young ward. In accepting that trust, I find myself strangely compelled +to hazard the risk of offending you.” + +“Offending me? How? Pray speak openly.” + +“In so doing, I must utter the name of Gustave Rameau.” + +Isaura turned pale and recoiled, but she did not speak. “Did he inform +me rightly that, in the last interview with him three days ago, you +expressed a strong desire that the engagement between him and yourself +should cease; and that you only, and with reluctance, suspended your +rejection of the suit he had pressed on you, in consequence of his +entreaties, and of certain assurances as to the changed direction of the +talents of which we will assume that he is possessed?” + +“Well, well, Monsieur,” exclaimed Isaura, her whole face brightening; +“and you come on the part of Gustave Rameau to say that on reflection he +does not hold me to our engagement--that in honour and in conscience I +am free?” + +“I see,” answered De Mauleon, smiling, “that I am pardoned already. +It would not pain you if such were my instructions in the embassy I +undertake?” + +“Pain me? No. But--” + +“But what?” + +“Must he persist in a course which will break his mother’s heart, and +make his father deplore the hour that he was born? Have you influence +over him, M. de Mauleon? If so, will you not exert it for his good?” + +“You interest yourself still in his fate, Mademoiselle?” + +“How can I do otherwise? Did I not consent to share it when my heart +shrank from the thought of our union? And now when, if I understand you +rightly, I am free, I cannot but think of what was best in him.” + +“Alas! Mademoiselle, he is but one of many--a spoilt child of that +Circe, imperial Paris. Everywhere I look around, I see but corruption. +It was hidden by the halo which corruption itself engenders. The halo +is gone, the corruption is visible. Where is the old French manhood? +Banished from the heart, it comes out only at the tongue. Were our +deeds like our words, Prussia would beg on her knee to be a province of +France. Gustave is the fit poet for this generation. Vanity--desire to +be known for something, no matter what, no matter by whom--that is the +Parisian’s leading motive power;--orator, soldier, poet, all alike. +Utterers of fine phrases; despising knowledge, and toil, and discipline; +railing against the Germans as barbarians, against their generals as +traitors; against God for not taking their part. What can be done to +weld this mass of hollow bubbles into the solid form of a nation--the +nation it affects to be? What generation can be born out of the unmanly +race, inebriate with brag and absinthe? Forgive me this tirade; I have +been reviewing the battalion I command. As for Gustave Rameau,--if +we survive the siege, and see once more a Government that can enforce +order, and a public that will refuse renown for balderdash,--I should +not be surprised if Gustave Rameau were among the prettiest imitators +of Lamartine’s early Meditations. Had he been born under Louis XIV. how +loyal he would have been! What sacred tragedies in the style of Athalie +he would have written, in the hope of an audience at Versailles! But I +detain you from the letter I was charged to deliver you. I have done so +purposely, that I might convince myself that you welcome that release +which your too delicate sense of honour shrank too long from demanding.” + +Here he took forth and placed a letter in Isaura’s hand; and, as if to +allow her to read it unobserved, retired to the window recess. + +Isaura glanced over the letter. It ran thus: + +“I feel that it was only to your compassion that I owed your consent to +my suit. Could I have doubted that before, your words when we last met +sufficed to convince me. In my selfish pain at the moment, I committed +a great wrong. I would have held you bound to a promise from which you +desired to be free. Grant me pardon for that; and for all the faults +by which I have offended you. In cancelling our engagement, let me hope +that I may rejoice in your friendship, your remembrance of me, some +gentle and kindly thought. My life may henceforth pass out of contact +with yours; but you will ever dwell in my heart, an image pure and +holy as the saints in whom you may well believe-they are of your own +kindred.” + +“May I convey to Gustave Rameau any verbal reply to his letter?” asked +De Mauleon, turning as she replaced the letter on the table. + +“Only my wishes for his welfare. It might wound him if I added, my +gratitude for the generous manner in which he has interpreted my heart, +and acceded to its desires.” + +“Mademoiselle, accept my congratulations. My condolences are for the +poor girl left to my guardianship. Unhappily she loves this man; and +there are reasons why I cannot withhold my consent to her union with +him, should he demand it, now that, in the letter remitted to you, he +has accepted your dismissal. If I can keep him out of all the follies +and all the evils into which he suffers his vanity to mislead his +reason, I will do so;--would I might say, only in compliance with your +compassionate injunctions. But henceforth the infatuation of my ward +compels me to take some interest in his career. Adieu, Mademoiselle! I +have no fear for your happiness now.” + +Left alone, Isaura stood as one transfigured. All the bloom of her +youth seemed suddenly restored. Round her red lips the dimples opened, +countless mirrors of one happy smile. “I am free, I am free,” she +murmured--“joy, joy!” and she passed from the room to seek the Venosta, +singing clear, singing loud, as a bird that escapes from the cage and +warbles to the heaven it regains the blissful tale of its release. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +In proportion to the nearer roar of the besiegers’ cannon, and the +sharper gripe of famine within the walls, the Parisians seemed to +increase their scorn for the skill of the enemy, and their faith in +the sanctity of the capital. All false news was believed as truth; all +truthful news abhorred as falsehood. Listen to the groups round the +cafes. “The Prussian funds have fallen three per cent. at Berlin,” says +a threadbare ghost of the Bourse (he had been a clerk of Louvier’s). +“Ay,” cries a National Guard, “read extracts from La Liberte. The +barbarians are in despair. Nancy is threatened, Belfort is freed. +Bourbaki is invading Baden. Our fleets are pointing their cannon upon +Hamburg. Their country endangered, their retreat cut off, the sole hope +of Bismarck and his trembling legions is to find a refuge in Paris. The +increasing fury of the bombardment is a proof of their despair.” + +“In that case,” whispered Savarin to De Breze, “suppose we send a flag +of truce to Versailles with a message from Trochu that, on disgorging +their conquests, ceding the left bank of the Rhine, and paying the +expenses of the war, Paris, ever magnanimous to the vanquished; will +allow the Prussians to retire.” + +“The Prussians! Retire!” cried Edgar Ferrier, catching the last word and +glancing fiercely at Savarin. “What Prussian spy have we among us? Not +one of the barbarians shall escape. We have but to dismiss the traitors +who have usurped the government, proclaim the Commune and the rights +of labour, and we give birth to a Hercules that even in its cradle can +strangle the vipers.” + +Edgar Ferrier was the sole member of his political party among the group +which he thus addressed; but such was the terror which the Communists +already began to inspire among the bourgeoisie that no one volunteered a +reply. + +Savarin linked his arm in De Breze’s, and prudently drew him off. + +“I suspect,” said the former, “that we shall soon have worse calamities +to endure than the Prussian obus and the black loaf. The Communists will +have their day.” + +“I shall be in my grave before then,” said De Breze, in hollow accents. +“It is twenty-four hours since I spent my last fifty sous on the +purchase of a rat, and I burnt the legs of my bedstead for the fuel by +which that quadruped was roasted.” + +“Entre nous, my poor friend, I am much in the same condition,” said +Savarin, with a ghastly attempt at his old pleasant laugh. “See how I +am shrunken! My wife would be unfaithful to the Savarin of her dreams +if she accepted a kiss from the slender gallant you behold in me. But I +thought you were in the National Guard, and therefore had not to vanish +into air.” + +“I was a National Guard, but I could not stand the hardships, and being +above the age, I obtained my exemption. As to pay, I was then too proud +to claim my wage of 1 franc 25 centimes. I should not be too proud now. +Ah, blessed be Heaven! here comes Lemercier; he owes me a dinner--he +shall pay it.” + +“Bon jour, my dear Frederic! How handsome you look in your kepi! Your +uniform is brilliantly fresh from the soil of powder. What a contrast to +the tatterdemalions of the Line!” + +“I fear,” said Lemercier, ruefully, “that my costume will not look so +well a day or two hence. I have just had news that will no doubt seem +very glorious--in the news papers. But then newspapers are not subjected +to cannonballs.” + +“What do you mean?” answered De Breze. + +“I met, as I emerged from my apartment a few minutes ago, that +fire-eater, Victor de Mauleon, who always contrives to know what passes +at headquarters. He told me that preparations are being made for a great +sortie. Most probably the announcement will appear in a proclamation +tomorrow, and our troops march forth to-morrow night. The National Guard +(fools and asses who have been yelling out for decisive action) are to +have their wish, and to be placed in the van of battle,--amongst the +foremost, the battalion in which I am enrolled. Should this be our last +meeting on earth, say that Frederic Lemercier has finished his part in +life with eclat.” + +“Gallant friend,” said De Breze, feebly seizing him by the arm, “if it +be true that thy mortal career is menaced, die as thou hast lived. An +honest man leaves no debt unpaid. Thou owest me a dinner.” + +“Alas! ask of me what is possible. I will give thee three, however, if I +survive and regain my rentes. But today I have not even a mouse to share +with Fox.” + +“Fox lives then?” cried De Breze, with sparkling hungry eyes. + +“Yes. At present he is making the experiment how long an animal can live +without food.” + +“Have mercy upon him, poor beast! Terminate his pangs by a noble death. +Let him save thy friends and thyself from starving. For myself alone I +do not plead; I am but an amateur in polite literature. But Savarin, the +illustrious Savarin,--in criticism the French Longinus--in poetry +the Parisian Horace--in social life the genius of gaiety in +pantaloons,--contemplate his attenuated frame! Shall he perish for want +of food while thou hast such superfluity in thy larder? I appeal to thy +heart, thy conscience, thy patriotism. What, in the eyes of France, are +a thousand Foxes compared to a single Savarin?” + +“At this moment,” sighed Savarin, “I could swallow anything, however +nauseous, even thy flattery, De Breze. But, my friend Frederic, thou +goest into battle--what will become of Fox if thou fall? Will he not be +devoured by strangers? Surely it were a sweeter thought to his faithful +heart to furnish a repast to thy friends?--his virtues acknowledged, his +memory blest!” + +“Thou dost look very lean, my poor Savarin! And how hospitable thou wert +when yet plump!” said Frederic, pathetically. “And certainly, if I live, +Fox will starve; if I am slain, Fox will be eaten. Yet, poor Fox, dear +Fox, who lay on my breast when I was frostbitten. No; I have not the +heart to order him to the spit for you. Urge it not.” + +“I will save thee that pang,” cried De Breze. “We are close by thy +rooms. Excuse me for a moment: I will run in and instruct thy bonne.” + +So saying, he sprang forward with an elasticity of step which no one +could have anticipated from his previous languor. Frederic would have +followed, but Savarin clung to him, whimpering: “Stay; I shall fall like +an empty sack, without the support of thine arm, young hero. Pooh! of +course De Breze is only joking--a pleasant joke. Hist! a secret: he +has moneys, and means to give us once more a dinner at his own cost, +pretending that we dine on thy dog. He was planning this when thou +camest up. Let him have his joke, and we shall have a festin de +Balthazar.” + +“Hein!” said Frederic, doubtfully; “thou art sure he has no designs upon +Fox?” + +“Certainly not, except in regaling us. Donkey is not bad, but it is 14 +francs a pound. A pullet is excellent, but it is 30 francs. Trust to +De Breze; we shall have donkey and pullet, and Fox shall feast upon the +remains.” + +Before Frederic could reply, the two men were jostled and swept on by a +sudden rush of a noisy crowd in their rear. They could but distinguish +the words--Glorious news--victory--Faidherbe--Chanzy. But these words +were sufficient to induce them to join willingly in the rush. They +forgot their hunger; they forget Fox. As they were hurried on, they +learned that there was a report of a complete defeat of the Prussians +by Faidherbe near Amiens, of a still more decided one on the Loire by +Chanzy. These generals, with armies flushed with triumph, were pressing +on towards Paris to accelerate the destruction of the hated Germans. How +the report arose no one exactly knew. + +All believed it, and were making their way to the Hotel de Ville to hear +it formally confirmed. + +Alas! before, they got there they were met by another crowd returning, +dejected but angry. No such news had reached the Government. Chanzy and +Faidherbe were no doubt fighting bravely,--with every probability of +success; but-- + +The Parisian imagination required no more. “We should always be +defeating the enemy,” said Savarin, “if there were not always a but;” + and his audience, who, had he so expressed himself ten minutes before, +would have torn him to pieces, now applauded the epigram; and with +execrations on Trochu, mingled with many a peal of painful sarcastic +laughter, vociferated and dispersed. + +As the two friends sauntered back towards the part of the Boulevards on +which De Breze had parted company with them, Savarin quitted Lemercier +suddenly, and crossed the street to accost a small party of two ladies +and two men who were on their way to the Madeleine. While he was +exchanging a few words with them, a young couple, arm in arm, passed +by Lemercier,--the man in the uniform of the National Guard-uniform as +unsullied as Frederic’s, but with as little of a military air as can +well be conceived. His gait was slouching; his head bent downwards. He +did not seem to listen to his companion, who was talking with quickness +and vivacity, her fair face radiant with smiles. Lemercier looked at +them as they passed by. “Sur mon ame,” muttered Frederic to himself, +“surely that is la belle Julie; and she has got back her truant poet at +last.” + +While Lemercier thus soliloquised, Gustave, still looking down, was +led across the street by his fair companion, and into the midst of +the little group with whom Savarin had paused to speak. Accidentally +brushing against Savarin himself, he raised his eyes with a start, about +to mutter some conventional apology, when Julie felt the arm on which +she leant tremble nervously. Before him stood Isaura, the Countess +de Vandemar by her side; her two other companions, Raoul and the Abbe +Vertpre, a step or two behind. + +Gustave uncovered, bowed low, and stood mute and still for a moment, +paralysed by surprise and the chill of a painful shame. + +Julie’s watchful eyes, following his, fixed themselves on the same face. +On the instant she divined the truth. She beheld her to whom she had +owed months of jealous agony, and over whom, poor child, she thought she +had achieved a triumph. But the girl’s heart was so instinctively good +that the sense of triumph was merged in a sense of compassion. Her rival +had lost Gustave. To Julie the loss of Gustave was the loss of all that +makes life worth having. On her part, Isaura was moved not only by +the beauty of Julie’s countenance, but still more by the childlike +ingenuousness of its expression. + +So, for the first time in their lives, met the child and the stepchild +of Louise Duval. Each so deserted, each so left alone and inexperienced +amid the perils of the world, with fates so different, typifying orders +of womanhood so opposed. Isaura was naturally the first to break the +silence that weighed like a sensible load on all present. + +She advanced towards Rameau, with sincere kindness in her look and tone. + +“Accept my congratulations,” she said, with a grave smile. “Your mother +informed me last evening of your nuptials. Without doubt I see Madame +Gustave Rameau;”--and she extended her hand towards Julie. The poor +Ondine shrank back for a moment, blushing up to her temples. It was the +first hand which a woman of spotless character had extended to her since +she had lost the protection of Madame Surville. She touched it timidly, +humbly, then drew her bridegroom on; and with head more downcast than +Gustave, passed through the group without a word. + +She did not speak to Gustave till they were out of sight and hearing of +those they had left. Then, pressing his arm passionately, she said: “And +that is the demoiselle thou halt resigned for me! Do not deny it. I +am so glad to have seen her; it has done me so much good. How it has +deepened, purified, my love for thee! I have but one return to make; +but that is my whole life. Thou shalt never have cause to blame +me--never--never!” + +Savarin looked very grave and thoughtful when he rejoined Lemercier. + +“Can I believe my eyes?” said Frederic. “Surely that was Julie +Caumartin leaning on Gustave Rameau’s arm! And had he the assurance, so +accompanied, to salute Madame de Vandemar, and Mademoiselle Cicogna, +to whom I understood he was affianced? Nay, did I not see Mademoiselle +shake hands with the Ondine? or am I under one of the illusions which +famine is said to engender in the brain?” + +“I have not strength now to answer all these interrogatives. I have a +story to tell; but I keep it for dinner. Let us hasten to thy apartment. +De Breze is doubtless there waiting us.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +Unprescient of the perils that awaited him, absorbed in the sense of +existing discomfort, cold, and hunger, Fox lifted his mournful visage +from his master’s dressing-gown, in which he had encoiled his shivering +frame, on the entrance of De Breze and the concierge of the house in +which Lemercier had his apartment. Recognising the Vicomte as one of his +master’s acquaintances, he checked the first impulse that prompted him +to essay a feeble bark, and permitted himself, with a petulant whine, +to be extracted from his covering, and held in the arms of the murderous +visitor. + +“Dieu des dieux!” ejaculated De Breze, “how light the poor beast has +become!” Here he pinched the sides and thighs of the victim. “Still,” he +said, “there is some flesh yet on these bones. You may grill the paws, +fricassee the shoulders, and roast the rest. The rognons and the head +accept for yourself as a perquisite.” Here he transferred Fox to the +arms of the concierge, adding, “Vite au besogne, mon ami.” + +“Yes, Monsieur. I must be quick about it while my wife is absent. +She has a faiblesse for the brute. He must be on the spit before she +returns.” + +“Be it so; and on the table in an hour--five o’clock precisely--I am +famished.” + +The concierge disappeared with Fox. De Breze then amused himself by +searching into Frederic’s cupboards and buffets, from which he produced +a cloth and utensils necessary for the repast. These he arranged with +great neatness, and awaited in patience the moment of participation in +the feast. + +The hour of five had struck before Savarin and Frederio entered the +salon; and at their sight De Breze dashed to the staircase and called +out to the concierge to serve the dinner. + +Frederic, though unconscious of the Thyestean nature of the banquet, +still looked round for the dog; and, not perceiving him, began to call +out, “Fox! Fox! where hast thou hidden thyself?” + +“Tranquillise yourself,” said De Breze. “Do not suppose that I have +not....” + +NOTE BY THE AUTHOR’S SON.--[See also Prefatory Note]--The hand that +wrote thus far has left unwritten the last scene of the tragedy of poor +Fox. In the deep where Prospero has dropped his wand are now irrevocably +buried the humour and the pathos of this cynophagous banquet. One +detail of it, however, which the author imparted to his son, may here +be faintly indicated. Let the sympathising reader recognise all that is +dramatic in the conflict between hunger and affection; let him recall +to mind the lachrymose loving-kindness of his own post-prandial emotions +after blissfully breaking some fast, less mercilessly prolonged, we will +hope, than that of these besieged banqueters, and then, though unaided +by the fancy which conceived so quaint a situation, he may perhaps +imagine what tearful tenderness would fill the eyes of the kind-hearted +Frederic, as they contemplate the well-picked bones of his sacrificed +favourite on the plate before him; which he pushes away, sighing, “Ah, +poor Fox! how he would have enjoyed those bones!” + +The chapter immediately following this one also remains unfinished. It +was not intended to close the narrative thus left uncompleted; but of +those many and so various works which have not unworthily associated +with almost every department of literature the name of a single English +writer, it is CHAPTER THE LAST. Had the author lived to finish it, he +would doubtless have added to his Iliad of the Siege of Paris its most +epic episode, by here describing the mighty combat between those two +princes of the Parisian Bourse, the magnanimous Duplessis and the +redoubtable Louvier. Amongst the few other pages of the book which +have been left unwritten, we must also reckon with regret some pages +descriptive of the reconciliation between Graham Vane and Isaura +Cicogna; but, fortunately for the satisfaction of every reader who +may have followed thus far the fortunes of Die Parisians, all that our +curiosity is chiefly interested to learn has been recorded in the Envoi, +which was written before the completion of the novel. + +We know not, indeed, what has become of these two Parisian types of +a Beauty not of Holiness, the poor vain Poet of the Pave, and the +good-hearted Ondine of the Gutter. It is obvious, from the absence of +all allusion to them in Lemercier’s letter to Vane, that they had passed +out of the narrative before that letter was written. We must suppose +the catastrophe of their fates to have been described, in some preceding +chapter, by the author himself; who would assuredly not have left +141. Gustave Rameau in permanent pos session of his ill-merited and +ill-ministered fortune. That French representative of the appropriately +popular poetry of modern ideas, which prefers “the roses and raptures +of vice” to “the lilies and languors of virtue,” cannot have been +irredeemably reconciled by the sweet savours of the domestic pot-au jeu, +even when spiced with pungent whiffs of repudiated disreputability, to +any selfish betrayal of the cause of universal social emancipation from +the personal proprieties. If poor Julie Caumartin has perished in the +siege of Paris, with all the grace of a self-wrought redemption still +upon her, we shall doubtless deem her fate a happier one than any she +could have found in prolonged existence as Madame Rameau; and a certain +modicum of this world’s good things will, in that case, have been +rescued for worthier employment by Graham Vane. To that assurance +nothing but Lemercier’s description of the fate of Victor de Mauleon +(which will be found in the Envoi) need be added for the satisfaction of +our sense of poetic justice and if on the mimic stage, from which they +now disappear, all these puppets have rightly played their parts in the +drama of an empire’s fall, each will have helped to “point a moral” as +well as to “adorn a tale.” Valete et plaudite! + + + + +CHAPTER THE LAST. + +Among the refugees which the convoi from Versailles disgorged on the +Paris station were two men, who, in pushing through the crowd, came +suddenly face to face with each other. + +“Aha! Bon jour, M. Duplessis,” said a burly voice. “Bon jour, M. +Louvier,” replied Duplessis. + +“How long have you left Bretagne?” + +“On the day that the news of the armistice reached it, in order to be +able to enter Paris the first day its gates were open. And you--where +have you been?” + +“In London.” + +“Ah! in London!” said Duplessis, paling. “I knew I had an enemy there.” + +“Enemy! I? Bah! my dear Monsieur. What makes you think me your enemy?” + +“I remember your threats.” + +“A propos of Rochebriant. By the way, when would it be convenient to you +and the dear Marquis to let me into prompt possession of that property? +You can no longer pretend to buy it as a dot for Mademoiselle Valerie.” + +“I know not that yet. It is true that all the financial operations +attempted by my agent in London have failed. But I may recover myself +yet, now that I re-enter Paris. In the mean time, we have still six +months before us; for, as you will find--if you know it not already--the +interest due to you has been lodged with Messrs. ---- of ------, and you +cannot foreclose, even if the law did not take into consideration the +national calamities as between debtor and creditor.” + +“Quite true. But if you cannot buy the property it must pass into my +hands in a very short time. And you and the Marquis had better come to +an amicable arrangement with me. Apropos, I read in the Times newspaper +that Alain was among the wounded in the sortie of December.” + +“Yes; we learnt that through a pigeon-post. We were afraid....” + + + + +L’ENVOI. + +The intelligent reader will perceive that the story I relate is +virtually closed with the preceding chapter; though I rejoice to think +that what may be called its plot does not find its denouement amidst the +crimes and the frenzy of the Guerre des Communeaux. Fit subjects these, +indeed, for the social annalist in times to come. When crimes that +outrage humanity have their motive or their excuse in principles that +demand the demolition of all upon which the civilisation of Europe has +its basis-worship, property, and marriage--in order to reconstruct a new +civilisation adapted to a new humanity, it is scarcely possible for +the serenest contemporary to keep his mind in that state of abstract +reasoning with which Philosophy deduces from some past evil some +existent good. For my part, I believe that throughout the whole known +history of mankind, even in epochs when reason is most misled and +conscience most perverted, there runs visible, though fine and +threadlike, the chain of destiny, which has its roots in the throne +of an All-wise and an All-good; that in the wildest illusions by which +muititudes are frenzied, there may be detected gleams of prophetic +truths; that in the fiercest crimes which, like the disease of an +epidemic, characterise a peculiar epoch under abnormal circumstances, +there might be found instincts or aspirations towards some social +virtues to be realised ages afterwards by happier generations, all +tending to save man from despair of the future, were the whole society +to unite for the joyless hour of his race in the abjuration of soul and +the denial of God, because all irresistibly establishing that yearning +towards an unseen future which is the leading attribute of soul, +evincing the government of a divine Thought which evolves out of the +discords of one age the harmonies of another, and, in the world within +us as in the world without, enforces upon every unclouded reason the +distinction between Providence and chance. + +The account subjoined may suffice to say all that rests to be said of +those individuals in whose fate, apart from the events or personages +that belong to graver history, the reader of this work may have +conceived an interest. It is translated from the letter of Frederic +Lemercier to Graham Vane, dated June ----, a month after the defeat of +the Communists. + +“Dear and distinguished Englishman, whose name I honour but fail to +pronounce, accept my cordial thanks for your interests in such remains +of Frederic Lemercier as yet survive the ravages of Famine, Equality, +Brotherhood, Petroleum, and the Rights of Labour. I did not desert my +Paris when M. Thiers, ‘parmula non bene relicta,’ led his sagacious +friends and his valiant troops to the groves of Versailles, and confided +to us unarmed citizens the preservation of order and property from the +insurgents whom he left in possession of our forts and cannon. I felt +spellbound by the interest of the sinistoe melodrame, with its quick +succession of scenic effects and the metropolis of the world for its +stage. Taught by experience, I did not aspire to be an actor; and even +as a spectator, I took care neither to hiss nor applaud. Imitating your +happy England, I observed a strict neutrality; and, safe myself from +danger, left my best friends to the care of the gods. + +“As to political questions, I dare not commit myself to a conjecture. +At this rouge et noir table, all I can say is, that whichever card turns +up, it is either a red or a black one. One gamester gains for the moment +by the loss of the other; the table eventually ruins both. + +“No one believes that the present form of government can last; every one +differs as to that which can. Raoul de Vandemar is immovably convinced +of the restoration of the Bourbons. Savarin is meditating a new journal +devoted to the cause of the Count of Paris. De Brew and the old Count +de Passy, having in turn espoused and opposed every previous form of +government, naturally go in for a perfectly novel experiment, and are +for constitutional dictatorship under the Duc d’Aumale, which he is to +hold at his own pleasure, and ultimately resign to his nephew the Count, +under the mild title of a constitutional king;--that is, if it ever +suits the pleasure of a dictator to depose himself. To me this seems +the wildest of notions. If the Duc’s administration were successful, the +French would insist on keeping it; and if the uncle were unsuccessful, +the nephew would not have a chance. Duplessis retains his faith in the +Imperial dynasty; and that Imperialist party is much stronger than it +appears on the surface. So many of the bourgeoisie recall with a sigh +eighteen years of prosperous trade; so many of the military officers, so +many of the civil officials, identify their career with the Napoleonic +favour; and so many of the Priesthood, abhorring the Republic, always +liable to pass into the hands of those who assail religion,--unwilling +to admit the claim of the Orleanists, are at heart for the Empire. + +“But I will tell you one secret. I and all the quiet folks like me (we +are more numerous than any one violent faction) are willing to accept +any form of government by which we have the best chance of keeping our +coats on our backs. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternity, are gone quite out +of fashion; and Mademoiselle--has abandoned her great chant of the +Marseillaise, and is drawing tears from enlightened audiences by her +pathetic delivery of ‘O Richard! O mon roi!’” + +“Now about the other friends of whom you ask for news. + +“Wonders will never cease. Louvier and Duplessis are no longer deadly +rivals. They have become sworn friends, and are meditating a great +speculation in common, to commence as soon as the Prussian debt is paid +off. Victor de Mauleon brought about this reconciliation in a single +interview during the brief interregnum between the Peace and the Guerre +des Communeaux. You know how sternly Louvier was bent upon seizing +Alain de Rochebriant’s estates. Can you conceive the true cause? Can you +imagine it possible that a hardened money-maker like Louvier should ever +allow himself to be actuated, one way or the other, by the romance of +a sentimental wrong? Yet so it was. It seems that many years ago he was +desperately in love with a girl who disappeared from his life, and whom +he believed to have been seduced by the late Marquis de Rochebriant. +It was in revenge for this supposed crime that he had made himself the +principal mortgagee of the late Marquis; and, visiting the sins of +the father on the son, had, under the infernal disguise of friendly +interest, made himself sole mortgagee to Alain, upon terms apparently +the most generous. The demon soon showed his griffe, and was about to +foreclose, when Duplessis came to Alain’s relief; and Rochebriant was +to be Valerie’s dot on her marriage with Alain. The Prussian war, of +course, suspended all such plans, pecuniary and matrimonial. Duplessis, +whose resources were terribly crippled by the war, attempted operations +in London with a view of raising the sum necessary to pay off the +mortgage;--found himself strangely frustrated and baffled. Louvier +was in London, and defeated his rival’s agent in every speculation. It +became impossible for Duplessis to redeem the mortgage. The two men came +to Paris with the peace. Louvier determined both to seize the Breton +lands and to complete the ruin of Duplessis, when he learned from De +Mauleon that he had spent half his life in a baseless illusion; that +Alain’s father was innocent of the crime for which his son was to +suffer;--and Victor, with that strange power over men’s minds which was +so peculiar to him, talked Louvier into mercy if not into repentance. In +short, the mortgage is to be paid off by instalments at the convenience +of Duplessis. Alain’s marriage with Valerie is to take place in a few +weeks. The fournisseurs are already gone to fit up the old chateau for +the bride, and Louvier is invited to the wedding. + +“I have all this story from Alain, and from Duplessis himself. I tell +the tale as ‘twas told to me, with all the gloss of sentiment upon its +woof. But between ourselves, I am too Parisian not to be sceptical as +to the unalloyed amiability of sudden conversions. And I suspect that +Louvier was no longer in a condition to indulge in the unprofitable whim +of turning rural seigneur. He had sunk large sums and incurred great +liabilities in the new street to be called after his name; and that +street has been twice ravaged, first by the Prussian siege, and next +by the Guerre des Communeaux; and I can detect many reasons why Louvier +should deem it prudent not only to withdraw from the Rochebriant +seizure, and make sure of peacefully recovering the capital lent on it, +but establishing joint interest and quasi partnership with a financier +so brilliant and successful as Armand Duplessis has hitherto been. + +“Alain himself is not quite recovered from his wound, and is now at +Rochebriant, nursed by his aunt and Valerie. I have promised to visit +him next week. Raoul de Vandemar is still at Paris with his mother, +saying, there is no place where one Christian man can be of such +service. The old Count declines to come back, saying there is no place +where a philosopher can be in such danger. + +“I reserve as my last communication, in reply to your questions, that +which is the gravest. You say that you saw in the public journals brief +notice of the assassination of Victor de Mauleon; and you ask for such +authentic particulars as I can give of that event, and of the motives of +the assassin. + +“I need not, of course, tell you how bravely the poor Vicomte behaved +throughout the siege; but he made many enemies among the worst members +of the National Guard by the severity of his discipline; and had he been +caught by the mob the same day as Clement Thomas, who committed the same +offence, would have certainly shared the fate of that general. Though +elected a depute, he remained at Paris a few days after Thiers & Co. +left it, in the hope of persuading the party of Order, including then +no small portion of the National Guards, to take prompt and vigorous +measures to defend the city against the Communists. Indignant at +their pusillanimity, he then escaped to Versailles. There he more than +confirmed the high reputation he had acquired during the siege, and +impressed the ablest public men with the belief that he was destined +to take a very leading part in the strife of party. When the Versailles +troops entered Paris, he was, of course, among them in command of a +battalion. + +“He escaped safe through that horrible war of barricades, though no man +more courted danger. He inspired his men with his own courage. It was +not till the revolt was quenched on the evening of the 28th May that he +met his death. The Versailles soldiers, naturally exasperated, were very +prompt in seizing and shooting at once every passenger who looked like a +foe. Some men under De Mauleon had seized upon one of these victims, +and were hurrying him into the next street for execution, when, catching +sight of the Vicomte, he screamed out, ‘Lebeau, save me!’ + +“At that cry De Mauleon rushed forward, arrested his soldiers, cried, +‘This man is innocent--a harmless physician. I answer for him.’ As he +thus spoke, a wounded Communist, lying in the gutter amidst a heap of +the slain, dragged himself up, reeled towards De Mauleon, plunged a +knife between his shoulders, and dropped down dead. + +“The Vicomte was carried into a neighbouring house, from all the windows +of which the tricolour was suspended; and the Medecin whom he had just +saved from summary execution examined and dressed his wound. The Vicomte +lingered for more than an hour, but expired in the effort to utter some +words, the sense of which those about him endeavoured in vain to seize. + +“It was from the Medecin that the name of the assassin and the motive +for the crime were ascertained. The miscreant was a Red Republican and +Socialist named Armand Monnier. He had been a very skilful workman, and +earning, as such, high wages. But he thought fit to become an active +revolutionary politician, first led into schemes for upsetting the world +by the existing laws of marriage, which had inflicted on him one woman +who ran away from him, but being still legally his wife, forbade him +to marry another woman with whom he lived, and to whom he seems to have +been passionately attached. + +“These schemes, however, he did not put into any positive practice till +he fell in with a certain Jean Lebeau, who exercised great influence +over him, and by whom he was admitted into one of the secret +revolutionary societies which had for their object the overthrow of the +Empire. After that time his head became turned. The fall of the Empire +put an end to the society he had joined: Lebeau dissolved it. During +the siege Monnier was a sort of leader among the ouvriers; but as it +advanced and famine commenced, he contracted the habit of intoxication. +His children died of cold and hunger. The woman he lived with followed +them to the grave. Then he seems to have become a ferocious madman, +and to have been implicated in the worst crimes of the Communists. He +cherished a wild desire of revenge against this Jean Lebeau, to whom +he attributed all his calamities, and by whom, he said, his brother had +been shot in the sortie of December. + +“Here comes the strange part of the story. This Jean Lebeau is alleged +to have been one and the same person with Victor de Mauleon. The Medecin +I have named, and who is well known in Belleville and Montmartre as the +Medecin des Pauvres, confesses that he belonged to the secret society +organised by Lebeau; that the disguise the Vicomte assumed was so +complete, that he should not have recognised his identity with +the conspirator but for an accident. During the latter time of the +bombardment, he, the _Medecin des Pauvres_, was on the eastern ramparts, +and his attention was suddenly called to a man mortally wounded by +the splinter of a shell. While examining the nature of the wound; De +Mauleon, who was also on the ramparts, came to the spot. The dying man +said, ‘M. le Vicomte, you owe me a service. My name is Marc le Roux. +I was on the police before the war. When M. de. Mauleon reassumed his +station, and was making himself obnoxious to the Emperor, I might have +denounced him as Jean Lebeau the conspirator. I did not. The siege +has reduced me to want. I have a child at home--a pet. Don’t let her +starve.’ ‘I will see to her,’ said the Vicomte. Before we could get the +man into the ambulance cart he expired. + +“The Medecin who told this story I had the curiosity to see myself, and +cross-question. I own I believe his statement. Whether De Mauleon did +or did not conspire against a fallen dynasty, to which he owed no +allegiance, can little, if at all, injure the reputation he has left +behind of a very remarkable man--of great courage and great ability--who +might have had a splendid career if he had survived. But, as Savarin +says truly, the first bodies which the car of revolution crushes down +are those which first harness themselves to it. + +“Among De Mauleon’s papers is the programme of a constitution fitted for +France. How it got into Savarin’s hands I know not. De Mauleon left no +will, and no relations came forward to claim his papers. I asked Savarin +to give me the heads of the plan, which he did. They are as follows: + +“The American republic is the sole one worth studying, for it has +lasted. The causes of its duration are in the checks to democratic +fickleness and disorder. 1st. No law affecting the Constitution can +be altered without the consent of two-thirds of Congress. 2nd. To +counteract the impulses natural to a popular Assembly chosen by +universal suffrage, the greater legislative powers, especially in +foreign affairs, are vested in the Senate, which has even executive +as well as legislative functions. 3rd. The Chief of the State, +having elected his government, can maintain it independent of hostile +majorities in either Assembly. + +“‘These three principles of safety to form the basis of any new +constitution for France. + +“‘For France it is essential that the chief magistrate, under whatever +title he assume, should be as irresponsible as an English sovereign. +Therefore he should not preside at his councils; he should not lead his +armies. The day for personal government is gone, even in Prussia. The +safety for order in a State is that, when things go wrong, the Ministry +changes, the State remains the same. In Europe, Republican institutions +are safer where the chief magistrate is hereditary than where elective.’ + +“Savarin says these axioms are carried out at length, and argued with +great ability. + +“I am very grateful for your proffered hospitalities in England. Some +day I shall accept them-viz., whenever I decide on domestic life, and +the calm of the conjugal foyer. I have a penchant for an English Mees, +and am not exacting as to the dot. Thirty thousand livres sterling would +satisfy me--a trifle, I believe, to you rich islanders. + +“Meanwhile I am naturally compelled to make up for the miseries of that +horrible siege. Certain moralising journals tell us that, sobered by +misfortunes, the Parisians are going to turn over a new leaf, become +studious and reflective, despise pleasure and luxury, and live like +German professors. Don’t believe a word of it. My conviction is that, +whatever may be said as to our frivolity, extravagance, &c., under the +Empire, we shall be just the same under any form of government--the +bravest, the most timid, the most ferocious, the kindest-hearted, the +most irrational, the most intelligent, the most contradictory, the most +consistent people whom Jove, taking counsel of Venus and the Graces, +Mars and the Furies, ever created for the delight and terror of +the world;--in a word, the Parisians.--Votre tout divoue, ‘FREDERIC +LEMERCIER.’” + +It is a lovely noon on the bay of Sorrento, towards the close of the +autumn of 1871. Upon the part of the craggy shore, to the left of the +town, on which her first perusal of the loveliest poem in which the +romance of Christian heroism has ever combined elevation of thought with +silvery delicacies of speech, had charmed her childhood, reclined +the young bride of Graham Vane. They were in the first month of their +marriage. Isaura had not yet recovered from the effects of all that had +preyed upon her life, from the hour in which she had deemed that in her +pursuit of fame she had lost the love that had coloured her genius and +inspired her dreams, to that in which.... + +The physicians consulted agreed in insisting on her passing the winter +in a southern climate; and after their wedding, which took place in +Florence, they thus came to Sorrento. + +As Isaura is seated on the small smoothed rock, Graham reclines at her +feet, his face upturned to hers with an inexpressible wistful anxiety in +his impassioned tenderness. “You are sure you feel better and stronger +since we have been here?” + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Parisians, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARISIANS, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 7749-0.txt or 7749-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/4/7749/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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