XLIII

For the honest citizen Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had been

duly returned in June for the Department of the Seine and two other

Departments. The end of the month saw the streets up again: barricades

rising one after the other; saw the military called out, saw cannon and

howitzer battering down the crazy strongholds of insurrection; saw men

in top-hats and frock-coats, armed with revolvers, and men in blouses

armed with muskets, defending these works with desperation, as long as

cartridges held out.

It was borne in upon Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris, that

he should go forth and speak to the insurgents of St. Antoine. He

hesitated but an instant. No doubt of the Voice that urged. So he went,

preceded by the Crucifix, accompanied by his Vicars-General; and a man

in a blouse walked before the Cross-bearer carrying a green branch in

his hand. No one knew who the man was, or ever saw him afterwards.

Catholics have whispered that the bearer of the green branch was no

other than St. Antoine himself.

They shot the Archbishop from an upper window as he exhorted his flock

to lay down their muskets, in the Name of Him Who bled upon the Tree.

He sank down, mortally wounded, raised himself with a great effort,

made the sign of absolution over a dying insurgent who was being

carried past him, and fell back upon the bloody stones.... There was a

great cry of horror from those who saw: the Archbishop was carried back

to his palace, and passed to God upon the day following. But the green

branch had triumphed: the servant of Christ had not died for nothing.

The insurrection was virtually at an end.

Paris was sick of the reek of gunpowder and bloodshed. She longed for

peace, and quiet, and a stable form of government--just the thing that

seemed hardest to attain.

In the caricatures of Gavarni you may see the bemused and worried

citizen torn by doubts as to which form of Republic, of all the

countless varieties pressed upon the French nation by political quacks

and nostrum-mongers, might be the most agreeable to take, and the most

efficacious in its method of working. M. Prud’homme of the National

Guard, no less than Jerome Paturôt of the Gardes Mobiles, and Jacques

Bonhomme, his country cousin, were propitiated and soothed by the

mildness of Representative Bonaparte’s drugs, and the good sense and

moderation of his views; while the feasibility and simplicity of the

measures he advocated enchanted everyone who heard.

Candidate for the Presidency, with what modesty and good sense he

expressed himself. What noble enthusiasm glowed in him, for instance,

when he said:

“The Democratic Republic shall be my religion, and I will be its High

Priest.”

Meaning:

“The Empire shall be the religion of the French people, the Tuileries

its Temple, and I will be the god, enthroned and worshiped there!”

Words like these won him the Presidential elbow-chair on the platform

behind the tribune, placed in his neat white hand the coveted little

bell with the horizontal handle; procured for him, who had been reduced

to pawning-straits to pay the rent of his London lodging, palatial

quarters in the Palace of the Élysée at the end of the Faubourg Saint

Honoré.

* * * * *

The taking of the Presidential Oath exorcised that haunting specter,

arrayed in the rags of the Imperial mantle,--adorned with the

_fleurons_ from the caparison of Childeric’s steed of war. Banished,

the grisly phantom sank down into its gorgeous sepulchre. Calumny

was silenced, suspicion was changed into confidence, France reposed

her ringleted head in chaste abandonment upon the irreproachable

waistcoat of her First Citizen, who waited for nothing but the

laying of the submarine cable between Calais and Dover, the passing

of the Bill restoring to the President of the National Assembly the

right of absolute command over the military and naval forces of the

country, to toss the trustful fair one over his saddle-bow, leap up

behind her, and gallop--with his swashbuckling, roystering band of

freebooters thundering upon his heels, with the shouts and pistol-shots

of indignant pursuers dying upon the distance--away into the frosty

December night.

* * * * *

France was to lose her Cap of Liberty as the result of that furious

ride of the night of the _coup d’État_, and something more besides....

But in the meanwhile she was content, suspecting no designs against

her honor, and the Prince-President, established at the Palace of the

Élysée, made himself very much at home.

Not that he cared about the place--he infinitely preferred

the Tuileries. But by day the audience-rooms were packed with

gold-encrusted uniforms and irreproachable dress-coats: and by night

the whole place blazed with gaslight. _Soirées_, concerts, dinners,

balls, and hunting-parties at St. Cloud or Fontainebleau, succeeded

balls, dinners, concerts and _soirées_; and after the crush had

departed there were suppers, modeled on the Regency pattern, lavish,

luxurious, meretricious, at which the intimate male friends of the

host were privileged to be dazzled by a galaxy of beauties dressed to

slay; scintillating with jewels; lovely women who recalled the vanished

splendors, as they reproduced the frailties, of the Duchesse de Berry

and Madame de Phalaris.

His “flying squadron” he was wont to term them. They were of infinite

use to him in the seduction and entanglement of young and gifted, or

wealthy and influential men. With what enchanting grace and stateliness

they rode the ocean, broke upon the breeze their sable flag of piracy,

unmasked their deadly bow-chasers, and brought their broadside

batteries to bear. How prettily they sacked and plundered their

grappled, helpless prizes. With what magnificent indifference they saw

their livid prisoners walk the plank that ended in the salt green wave

and the gray shark’s maw.

The Henriette, that clipping war-frigate, had brought much grist to the

mills of Monseigneur.

Therefore could he deny her this simple favor, the speedy removal of

an inconvenient husband? When the soft caressing voice murmured the

plaintive entreaty, Monseigneur stroked the chin-tuft that had not yet

become an imperial, and thought the thing might be arranged.

De Roux was not an indispensable digit in connection with the brain

that worked in the Élysée. He was of the old school of military

commander, deeply imbued, in spite of all his Bonapartist professions,

with the traditions of the Monarchy defunct. His removal from the

command of the 999th of the Line had been contemplated for some time.

And the General in charge of the Military Garrison at Algiers was

desirous to resign his responsibilities in favor of a Home command,

if one could be found presenting equal advantages in point of pay.

Government, just at this juncture, could not afford to increase

the emoluments of the only post that appeared suitable. But if a

certain sum of money were placed, unquestioningly, at the disposal of

Government, the difficulty might be smoothed away.

For money was badly needed at the Palace of the Élysée. Money, if

one would make supple, servile agents of legal, civil and military

officials and functionaries--judges, prefects, mayors, magistrates,

commissaries of police, senators, counselors, brigadiers, generals,

colonels, quarter-masters, sergeants, gendarmes, agents, printers,

spies.

Money must be had if the plot that was to make an Imperial throne out

of a Presidential armchair was not to collapse and fall through.

So the Élysée had become a shop on a vast scale, where anything desired

of men or women with cash in hand could be bought for ready money. A

dismissal or an appointment; a night of pleasure for yourself, or a day

of reckoning for another; the advancement of a lover or the removal of

a rival,--you ordered and paid, and got it on the nail. And the gold

you paid was passed on into the innumerable pockets that gaped for it.

Everyone who had a soul to sell found a buyer at the Élysée.

What Dunoisse wanted cost a heap of money. The cashier at Rothschild’s

had long ceased to be reverential,--every month’s audit showed such

terrific inroads on the diminishing golden store. His eyebrows were

almost insulting as he cashed the check that purchased exile for

Henriette’s inconvenient husband. Dunoisse began from that moment to

realize that he had wasted his patrimony, and would very soon be poor.

Yet what a satisfaction it was to read in the official Gazette of the

Army, that in recognition of the eminent services of Colonel Count de

Roux, the War Minister had appointed that distinguished officer to the

vacant post of Commandant of the Garrison at Algiers.

“You see, the Prince keeps his promises,” Henriette said gleefully

to her lover. “Believe me, dearest, the Empire is an excellent

investment!--a ship that is bound to come home!”

They were together in the Rue du Bac, where every room of the luxurious

suite bore evidences of her taste, tokens of her presence. And she was

leaning over Hector’s shoulder as he read the paragraph, her fragrant

breath playing on his eyes and forehead, her small white fingers toying

with his hair.

“It will suit Eugène to a marvel,” she went on, as no immediate answer

came from Dunoisse. “He will have his cards and his billiards, his

cigars and his horses, and his mistresses, and everything that he has

here.”

She added, with a little mocking peal of laughter:

“Except me. Imagine it!--he actually believes that I am going with him

to Algiers--that horrible piratical Moorish seaport, full of negroes

and Arabs and monkeys and smells. We shall have a scene when he learns

that I remain behind in Paris--he has already been quite tragic over

the idea of parting from ’Riette and Loulu and Bébé. He cried--imagine

him in tears!--and said that he should never see them again--he was

quite certain of it! And he has gone to Bagneres to-day with a cartload

of toys and bonbons. Oh yes!--he is absurdly fond of the children. It

is not because he did not wish them to live with us that you have not

seen them at home.”

Dunoisse knew a sudden sickness at the heart. She had given this very

explanation unasked. So, then, those lovely lips could lie.... The

warm, soft arm about his neck suddenly seemed heavy as an iron collar,

the fragrant breath upon his eyes scorched. He freed himself from

Henriette with a sudden movement; rose up, dropping the newspaper; and

went to the open window and stepped out upon the balcony, seeking a

purer air.

Thence he said, without looking round:

“He loves ’Riette and Loulou and Bébé, I suppose, as a man usually

loves his children. Is there anything absurd in that? Perhaps you know?”

She leaped at him and caught him by the arm, and said, from behind him,

in a voice jarred and shaken with strange passion:

“What--what do you mean? You shall tell me! Look round! Do not hide

your face!”

He had meant nothing. His utterance had been prompted by a sudden stab

of compunction, a feeling of pity for the man whom he had betrayed and

supplanted, and was now about to exile. But when he turned and met the

sharp suspicion in the eyes of Henriette, he knew what she believed

he had meant. And with that new and strange expression in them, those

lovely eyes seemed to look at him through the holes of an exquisite

mask, hiding another face, that, once revealed, would chill the soul

with dread, and stamp its Medusa-image on the memory--never to be

forgotten, however long one lived.

His own face looked strangely at him from the frames of mirrors that

gave back its hardened outlines and less brilliant coloring. Treachery

had always been loathsome in Dunoisse’s eyes. Yet of what else had he

been guilty but the blackest treachery in his dealings with the husband

of Henriette?

Deny it! What? Had he not taken his hand in friendship and betrayed

him? Procured his removal by bribery, parted him from the woman whose

truth he believed in, and from the children whom he loved?

Quite true, the man was vile. A lover of gross pleasures, a debauchee,

a gambler. An unfaithful husband to a wife who played him false. False!

Ah! to use that word in connection with Henriette opened out incredible

vistas. Dunoisse dared not look. Long afterwards he understood that

he had feared lest he should see the day of his own exile growing into

vision--drawing nearer and more near.

* * * * *

So exit de Roux with the _brevet_-rank of General, after a farewell

banquet from the Regiment and a series of parting dinners; amidst

speeches, embraces, vivas, and votive pieces of plate. Madame did not

accompany the new Garrison Commandant to the conquered stronghold of

the Algerine pirates. The General’s villa at Mustapha was to receive a

grass-widower. Henriette’s delicate health could not support the winds

from the Sahara,--the Prince-President’s own physician, much to the

chagrin of his fair patient, advised against her taking the risk.

And Dunoisse breathed more freely once his whilom Chief had departed.

De Roux had been the kill-joy--the fly in the honey. Life was more

pleasant now, and infinitely easier; there were so many things that had

had to be done under the rose.

As for de Roux, his exile was not without the alleviations and

consolations Henriette had mentioned. He wrote home regularly,

voluminous letters of many pages, and sent mysterious bales containing

astonishing gifts;--Moorish caps, embroidered gazelle-skins, ornaments

of sequins, coffee-cups in stands of golden filagree, for Madame: with

ebony elephants and ivory dolls, dates preserved in honey, fig cakes

stuck full of walnuts, and cinnamon-sugar walking-sticks, for ’Riette

and Loulou and Bébé.

Handsome remittances always accompanied the letters. Dunoisse

stipulated that the mony should be exclusively expended on, or laid

aside for the benefit of, the three little pigtailed girls. It was

a nice point, a question of delicacy, from which he was not to be

turned aside by any subtle pleading. For you may build your nest of

the wreckage of another man’s home, and still retain your claim to be

considered a person of scrupulous honor. But to dip your hand in his

purse--that is a different thing!

So our hero, presently finding himself at the end of his resources,

fulfilled a certain paternal prophecy, uttered when he was yet a

student at the Military School of Technical Instruction, and called one

day at the hotel in the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, prepared to consume

a certain amount of humble-pie, provided that at the bottom of the

unsavory dish the golden plums should be scattered thick enough.