her bell now. Some one will come to call me. Do you want me to tell her
that you are here?"
"No, no, I prefer to go to the Chamber at once."
"But you have no card of admission, have you?"
"Bah! I'll say that I am Jansoulet's mother and that I have come to hear
my son tried."
Poor mother! she did not know how truly she described his position.
"Wait a moment, Madame Francoise. Let me, at least, send some one to
show you the way."
"Oh! do you know, I've never been able to get used to these servant
people. I've a tongue in my head. There are people in the streets; I
shall find my way well enough."
He made one last attempt, without disclosing the whole of his thought:
"Be careful. His enemies will speak against him in the Chamber. You will
hear things that will hurt you."
Oh! the lovely smile of maternal faith and pride with which she
answered:
"Don't I know better than all those people what my son is worth? Is
there anything that could make me unjust to him? If so, I must be a
mighty ungrateful woman. Nonsense!"
And, with a threatening shake of her cap, she departed.
Straight as a statue, with head erect, the old woman strode along under
the arches she had been told to follow, somewhat disturbed by the
incessant rumbling of carriages and by her slow progress, unaccompanied
by the movement of her faithful distaff, which had not quitted her for
fifty years. All these suggestions of enmity, of persecution, the
priest's mysterious words, Cabassu's dark hints, excited and terrified
her. She found therein an explanation of the presentiments which had
taken possession of her so firmly as to tear her away from her habits
and her duties, the superintendence of the Chateau and the care of her
invalid. Strangely enough, by the way, since fortune had cast upon her
son and her that cloak of gold with its heavy folds, Mere Jansoulet had
never become accustomed to it, and was always expecting the sudden
disappearance of their splendor. Who could say that the final crash was
not really beginning now? And suddenly, amid these gloomy thoughts, the
remembrance of the childish scene of a moment before, of the little one
rubbing against her drugget skirt, caused her wrinkled lips to swell in
a loving smile, and, in her joy, she murmured in her _patois_:
"Oh! that little fellow!"
A vast, magnificent, dazzling square, two sheaves of water flying upward
in silver dust, then a great stone bridge, and at the further end a
square building with statues in front of it, and an iron gateway where
carriages were standing, people passing through and a knot of police
officers. That was the place. She made her way bravely through the crowd
as far as a high glass door.
"Your card, my good woman?"
The good woman had no card, but she said simply to one of the ushers
with red lapels who were acting as doorkeepers:
"I am Bernard Jansoulet's mother; I have come to attend my boy's
sitting."
It was in very truth her boy's sitting; for in that crowd besieging the
doors, in the crowd that filled the corridors, the hall, the galleries,
the whole palace, the same name was whispered everywhere, accompanied by
smiles and muttered comments. A great scandal was expected, shocking
revelations by the spokesman of the committee which would doubtless lead
to some violent outburst on the part of the savage thus brought to bay;
and people crowded thither as to a first performance or the argument of
a famous cause. The old mother certainly could not have made herself
heard in the midst of that throng, if the train of gold left by the
Nabob wherever he passed, and marking his royal progress, had not made
everything smooth for her. She followed an usher through that labyrinth
of corridors, folding doors, empty, echoing rooms, filled with a buzzing
noise which circulated through the air in the building and passed out
through its walls, as if the very stones were impregnated with that
verbosity and added the echoes of bygone days to those of all the voices
of to-day. Passing through a corridor, she spied a little dark man
shouting and gesticulating to the attendants:
"Tell Moussiou Jansoulet zat I am ze deputy-mayor of Sarlazaccio, zat I
have been sentenced to five month in prison for him. Zat deserves a card
for ze sitting, _Corps de Dieu_!"
Five months in prison on her son's account. How could that be? Anxious
beyond words, she arrived at last, with a ringing in her ears, at a
landing where there were divers little doors like those of furnished
lodgings or theatre boxes, surmounted by different inscriptions:
"Senators' Gallery," "Gallery of the Diplomatic Corps," "Members'
Gallery." She entered, seeing nothing at first but four or five rows of
benches crowded with people; then, on the opposite side of the hall, far
away, other galleries equally crowded, separated from her by a vast open
space; she leaned, still standing, against the wall, amazed to be there,
bewildered, confused. A puff of hot air striking her in the face, the
hum of voices ascending from below drew her down the sloping floor of
the gallery, toward the edge of a yawning pit, so to speak, in the
centre of the great vessel, where her son must be. Oh, how she would
have liked to see him! Thereupon, making herself as small as possible,
playing about her with her elbows, sharp and hard as her distaff, she
glided, wormed herself along between the wall and the benches, heedless
of the outbursts of wrath she aroused, of the contemptuous glances of
the women in gorgeous array, whose laces and spring dresses she crushed.
For it was a distinctly fashionable society gathering.
Indeed, Mere Jansoulet recognized by his inflexible shirtfront and
aristocratic nose the dandified marquis who had visited at Saint-Romans,
and who bore so felicitously the name of a gorgeous bird; but he did not
look at her. Having thus advanced a few rows, she was checked by the
back of a man sitting, an enormous back which completely blocked her
path, prevented her from going farther. Luckily, however, by leaning
forward a little, she could see almost the whole hall; and those
semi-circular rows of desks where the deputies stood in groups, the
green hangings on the walls, that pulpit at the rear occupied by a man
with a bald head and stern features, all in the quiet gray light falling
from above, made her think of a recitation about to commence, preceded
by the moving about and chattering of restless pupils.
One thing attracted her attention, the persistence with which all eyes
seemed to be turned in the same direction, to be fixed upon the same
point of attraction; and as she followed that current of curiosity
which magnetized the whole assemblage, the floor as well as the
galleries, she saw what everybody was staring at so earnestly; it was
her son.
In the Jansoulets' province there still exists in some old churches, at
the back of the choir, half-way up from the crypt, a little stone box,
to which lepers were admitted to listen to the services, exhibiting to
the curious and fearful throng their pitiable brute-like figures
cowering against the holes cut in the wall. Francoise well remembered
having seen, in the village in which she was brought up, the leper, the
terror of her childhood, listening to the mass in his stone cage, lost
in the shadow and in reprobation. When she saw her son sitting alone,
far back, with his face in his hands, that picture came to her mind.
"One would say he was a leper," muttered the peasant woman. And in very
truth the poor Nabob was a moral leper, upon whom his millions brought
from the Orient were at that moment imposing the torments of a terrible
and mysterious exotic disease. As it happened, the bench upon which he
had chosen his seat showed several gaps due to leaves of absence or
recent deaths; and while the other deputies talked and laughed together,
making signs to one another, he sat silent, apart, the object of the
earnest scrutiny of the whole Chamber,--a scrutiny which Mere Jansoulet
felt to be ironical, ill-disposed, and which burned her as it passed.
How could she let him know that she was there, close at hand, that one
faithful heart was beating not far from his? for he avoided turning
toward that gallery. One would have said that he felt that it was
hostile, that he was afraid of seeing discouraging things there.
Suddenly, at the ringing of a bell on the president's desk, a thrill ran
through the assemblage, every head was bent forward in the attentive
attitude that immobilizes the features, and a thin man with spectacles,
suddenly rising to his feet amid that multitude of seated men--a
position which gave him at once the authority of attitude--said, as he
opened the pile of papers which he held in his hand:
"Messieurs, I rise in the name of your third committee, to recommend to
you that the election in the second district of the department of
Corsica be declared void."
In the profound silence following that sentence, which Mere Jansoulet
did not understand, the stout creature sitting in front of her began to
wheeze violently, and suddenly a lovely woman's face, in the front row
of the gallery, turned to make him a rapid sign of intelligence and
satisfaction. Her pale brow, thin lips and eyebrows that seemed too
black in the white frame of the hat, produced in the good old woman's
eyes, although she could not tell why, the painful impression of the
first lightning flash when the storm is beginning and the apprehension
of the thunderbolt follows the rapid meeting of the fluids.
Le Merquier read his report. The slow, lifeless, monotonous voice, the
Lyonnais accent, soft and drawling, with which the advocate kept time
by a movement of the head and shoulders almost like an animal, presented
a striking contrast to the savage conciseness of the conclusions. First,
a rapid sketch of the electoral irregularities. Never had universal
suffrage been treated with such primitive, uncivilized disrespect. At
Sarlazaccio, where Jansoulet's opponent seemed likely to carry the day,
the ballot-box was destroyed during the night preceding the counting.
The same thing, or almost the same, happened at Levie, at Saint-Andre,
at Avabessa. And these offences were committed by the mayors themselves,
who carried the boxes to their houses, broke the seals and tore up the
ballots, under cover of their municipal authority. On all sides fraud,
intrigue, even violence. At Calcatoggio an armed man, blunderbuss in
hand, stood at the window of an inn just opposite the mayor's office
throughout the election; and whenever a supporter of Sebastiani,
Jansoulet's opponent, appeared on the square, the man pointed his weapon
at him: "If you go in, I'll blow out your brains!" Moreover, when we see
police commissioners, justices of the peace, sealers of weights and
measures daring to transform themselves into electoral agents,
intimidating and seducing a people notorious for their subjection to all
these tyrannical little local influences, have we not proof positive of
unbridled license? Why, even the priests, consecrated pastors, led
astray by their zealous interest in the poor-box and the maintenance of
their impoverished churches, preached a veritable crusade in favor of
Jansoulet's election. But an even more powerful, although less
respectable, influence was set at work for the good cause,--the
influence of bandits. "Yes, bandits, Messieurs, I am not jesting."--And
thereupon followed a sketch in bold colors of Corsican banditti in
general and the Piedigriggio family in particular.
The Chamber listened with close attention and with considerable
uneasiness. The fact was that it was an official candidate whose actions
were being thus described, and those strange electoral morals were
indigenous in that privileged island, the cradle of the imperial family,
and so intimately connected with the destiny of the dynasty that an
attack on Corsica seemed to react upon the sovereign. But when it was
observed that the new minister of State, Mora's successor and bitter
enemy, sitting on the government benches, seemed overjoyed at the rebuke
administered to a creature of the defunct statesman, and smiled
complacently at Le Merquier's stinging persiflage, all embarrassment
instantly disappeared and the ministerial smile, repeated on three
hundred mouths, soon increased to scarce-restrained laughter, the
laughter of crowds dominated by any rod, by whomsoever held, which the
slightest sign of approbation from the master causes to burst forth. In
the galleries, which were as a general rule but little indulged with
picturesque incidents, and were entertained by these stories of bandits
as by a genuine novel, there was general gayety, a radiant animation
enlivened the faces of all the women, overjoyed to be able to appear
pretty without jarring upon the solemnity of the place. Little light
hats quivered in all their bright-hued plumes, round arms encircled with
gold leaned on the rail in order to listen more at their ease. The
solemn Le Merquier had imparted to the sitting the entertainment of a
play, had introduced the little comical note permitted at charitable
concerts as a lure to the profane.
Impassive and cold as ice, despite his triumph, he continued to read in
a voice as dismal and penetrating as a Lyonnais shower.
"Now, Messieurs, we ask ourselves how it was that a stranger, a
Provencal recently returned from the Orient, entirely ignorant of the
interests and needs of that island where he had never been seen before
the elections, the true type of what the Corsicans contemptuously call
'a continental'--how did this man succeed in arousing such enthusiasm,
devotion so great as to lead to crime, to profanation? His wealth will
answer the question, his vile gold thrown into the faces of the
electors, stuffed by force into their pockets with a shameless cynicism
of which we have innumerable proofs."--Then came the endless series of
affidavits: "I, the undersigned, Croce (Antoine), do testify, in the
interest of truth, that Nardi, commissioner of police, came to our house
one evening and said to me, 'Hark ye, Croce (Antoine), I swear to you by
the flame of yonder lamp that, if you vote for Jansoulet, you shall have
fifty francs to-morrow morning,'"--And this: "I, the undersigned,
Lavezzi (Jacques-Alphonse), declare that I refused with scorn seventeen
francs offered me by the mayor of Pozzo-Negro to vote against my cousin
Sebastiani."--It is probable that for three francs more Lavezzi
(Jacques-Alphonse) would have devoured his scorn in silence. But the
Chamber did not go so deep as that.
It was moved to indignation, was that incorruptible Chamber. It
muttered, it moved about restlessly on its soft benches of red velvet,
it uttered noisy exclamations. There were "Ohs!" of stupefaction, eyes
like circumflex accents, sudden backward movements, or appalled,
discouraged gestures, such as the spectacle of human degradation
sometimes calls forth. And observe that the majority of those deputies
had used the identical electoral methods, that there were on those
benches heroes of the famous "rastels," of those open-air banquets at
which begarlanded and beribboned calves were borne aloft in triumph as
at Gargantua's kermesses. They naturally cried out louder than the
others, turned in righteous wrath toward the high, solitary bench where
the poor leper sat motionless, listening, his head in his hands. But
amid the general hue and cry, a single voice arose in his favor, a low,
unpractised voice, rather a sympathetic buzzing than speech, in which
could be vaguely distinguished the words: "Great services rendered to
Corsica. Extensive enterprises. _Caisse Territoriale._"
The man who spoke thus falteringly was a little fellow in white
gaiters, with an albino's face and scanty hair that stood erect in
bunches. But that tactless friend's interruption simply furnished Le
Merquier with a pretext for an immediate and natural transition. A
hideous smile parted his flabby lips. "The honorable Monsieur Sarigue
refers to the _Caisse Territoriale_; we proceed to answer him." The
Paganetti den of thieves seemed to be, in truth, very familiar to him.
In a few concise, keen words he threw light into the inmost depths of
that dark lair, pointed out all the snares, all the pitfalls, the
windings, the trap-doors, like a guide waving his torch above the
underground dungeons of some hideous _in pace_. He spoke of the
pretended quarries, the railroads on paper, the imaginary steamboats,
vanished in their own smoke. The ghastly desert of Taverna was not
forgotten, nor the old Genoese tower that served as an office for the
Maritime Agency. But the detail that rejoiced the heart of the Chamber
above all else was the description of a burlesque ceremonial organized
by the Governor for driving a tunnel through Monte-Rotondo,--a gigantic
undertaking still in the air, postponed from year to year, requiring
millions of money and thousands of arms, which had been inaugurated with
great pomp a week before the election. The report described the affair
comically, the blow of the pick delivered by the candidate on the flank
of the great mountain covered with primeval forests, the prefect's
speech, the blessing of the standards amid shouts of "Vive Bernard
Jansoulet!" and two hundred workmen going to work at once, working day
and night for a week, and then--as soon as the election was
over--abandoning the piles of broken rock heaped around an absurd
excavation, an additional place of refuge for the redoubtable prowlers
in the thickets. The trick was played. After extorting money so long
from the shareholders, the _Caisse Territoriale_ had been made to serve
as a means of capturing the votes of the electors,--"And now, Messieurs,
here is one last detail with which I might well have begun, in order to
spare you the distressing story of this electoral burlesque. I learn
that a judicial inquiry into the Corsican concern has been opened this
very day, and that a searching expert examination of its books will very
probably lead to one of those financial scandals, too frequent, alas! in
our day, in which you will not, for the honor of this Chamber, permit
one of your members to be involved."
Upon that unexpected disclosure the reporter paused a moment to draw
breath, like an actor emphasizing the effect of his words; and in the
dramatic silence which suddenly settled down upon the whole assemblage,
the sound of a closing door was heard. It was Paganetti, the governor,
who had hastily left his seat in one of the galleries, with pale face,
round eyes, and mouth puckered for a whistle, like Mr. Punch when he has
detected in the air the near approach of a violent blow. Monpavon,
unmoved, puffed out his breastplate. The stout man wheezed violently
into the flowers on his wife's little white hat.
Mere Jansoulet gazed at her son.
"I spoke of the honor of the Chamber, Messieurs,--I have something more
to say on that subject."
Le Merquier was no longer reading. After the reporter, the orator came
upon the stage, the judge rather. His face was devoid of expression, his
glance averted, and nothing lived, nothing stirred in his long body, but
the right arm, that long, bony arm in its short sleeve, which moved
mechanically up and down like a sword of justice, and punctuated the end
of each sentence with the cruel and inexorable gesture of beheading. And
it was in truth a veritable execution at which that audience was looking
on. The orator would have been glad to omit from consideration the
scandalous legends, the mystery that hovered over the amassing of that
colossal fortune in distant lands, far from all supervision. But there
were in the candidate's life certain points difficult to explain,
certain details--He hesitated, seemed to be selecting his words with
great care, then, as if recognizing the impossibility of formulating the
direct charge, he continued: "Let us not degrade the discussion,
Messieurs. You have understood me, you know to what infamous
reports,--to what calumnies I would that I might say,--I allude; but
truth compels me to declare that when Monsieur Jansoulet, being summoned
before our third committee, was called upon to controvert the charges
made against him, his explanations were so vague that, while we were
persuaded of his innocence, our scrupulous regard for your honor led us
to reject a candidate tainted with ordure of that sort. No, that man
should not be allowed to sit among you. Indeed, what would he do here?
Having resided so long in the Orient, he has forgotten the laws, the
morals, the customs of his own country. He believes in the hasty
administration of justice, bastinadoes in the public streets; he relies
upon abuses of power, and, what is still worse, upon the venality, the
cowering degradation of all mankind. He is the merchant who thinks that
everything can be bought if he offers enough for it,--even the votes of
electors, even the consciences of his colleagues."
You should have seen the artless admiration with which those estimable
portly deputies, torpid with good living, listened to that ascetic, that
man of another epoch, as if some Saint-Jerome had come forth from the
depths of his thebaid to overwhelm with his burning eloquence, in the
Senate of the Empire of the East, the unblushing profligacy of
prevaricators and extortioners. How fully they understood the noble
sobriquet of "My Conscience," which the Palais de Justice bestowed upon
him, and which suited him so well with his great height and his wooden
gestures! In the galleries the enthusiasm was even greater. Pretty faces
leaned forward to see him, to drink in his words. Murmurs of approval
ran along the benches, waving bouquets of all shades of color, like the
wind blowing through a field of grain in flower. A woman's voice
exclaimed in a slight foreign accent: "Bravo! bravo!"
And the mother?
Standing motionless, absorbed by her eager desire to understand
something of that courtroom phraseology, of those mysterious allusions,
she was like the deaf-mutes who detect what is said in their presence
only by the movement of the lips, by the expression of the face. Now,
one had only to look at her son and Le Merquier to understand what
injury one was inflicting upon the other, what treacherous poisoned
meaning fell from that long harangue upon the poor devil who might have
been thought to be asleep, save for the quivering of his broad shoulders
and the clenching of his hands in his hair, in which they rioted madly,
while concealing his face. Oh! if she could have called to him from
where she stood: "Don't be afraid, my son! If they all despise you, your
mother loves you. Let us go away together. What do we care for them?"
And for a moment she could almost believe that what she said to him thus
in the depths of her heart reached him by virtue of some mysterious
intuition. He had risen, shaken his curly head, with its flushed cheeks,
and its thick lips quivering nervously with a childish longing to burst
into tears. But, instead of leaving his bench, he clung to it, his great
hands crushing the wooden rail. The other had finished; now it was his
turn to reply.
"Messieurs--" he said.
He stopped instantly, dismayed by the hoarse, horribly dull and vulgar
sound of his voice, which he heard for the first time in public. And in
that pause, tormented by twitchings of the face, by fruitless efforts to
find the intonation he sought, he must needs summon strength to make his
defence. And if the poor man's agony was touching to behold, the old
mother up yonder, leaning forward, breathing hard, moving her lips
nervously as if to assist him to find his words, sent back to him a
faithful imitation of his torture. Although he could not see her, having
his face turned away from that gallery which he intentionally avoided,
that maternal breath, the ardent magnetism of those black eyes gave him
life at last, and the fetters suddenly dropped from his speech and his
gestures.