had never thought that Sagnier would carry his passion for uproar and
scandal so far as to publish this list--a page which was said to have
been torn from a memorandum book belonging to Duvillard's agent, Hunter,
and which was covered with incomprehensible hieroglyphics that ought to
have been discussed and explained, if, indeed, the real truth was to be
arrived at. Personally, Monferrand felt quite at ease, for he had written
nothing, signed nothing, and knew that one could always extricate oneself
from a mess by showing some audacity, and never confessing. Nevertheless,
what a commotion it would all cause in the parliamentary duck-pond. He at
once realised the inevitable consequences, the ministry overthrown and
swept away by this fresh whirlwind of denunciation and tittle-tattle.
Mege would renew his interpellation on the morrow, and Vignon and his
friends would at once lay siege to the posts they coveted. And he,
Monferrand, could picture himself driven out of that ministerial sanctum
where, for eight months past, he had been taking his ease, not with any
foolish vainglory, but with the pleasure of feeling that he was in his
proper place as a born ruler, who believed he could tame and lead the
multitude.
Having thrown the newspapers aside with a disdainful gesture, he rose and
stretched himself, growling the while like a plagued lion. And then he
began to walk up and down the spacious room, which showed all the faded
official luxury of mahogany furniture and green damask hangings. Stepping
to and fro, with his hands behind his back, he no longer wore his usual
fatherly, good-natured air. He appeared as he really was, a born
wrestler, short, but broad shouldered, with sensual mouth, fleshy nose
and stern eyes, that all proclaimed him to be unscrupulous, of iron will
and fit for the greatest tasks. Still, in this case, in what direction
lay his best course? Must he let himself be dragged down with Barroux?
Perhaps his personal position was not absolutely compromised? And yet how
could he part company from the others, swim ashore, and save himself
while they were being drowned? It was a grave problem, and with his
frantic desire to retain power, he made desperate endeavours to devise
some suitable manoeuvre.
But he could think of nothing, and began to swear at the virtuous fits of
that silly Republic, which, in his opinion, rendered all government
impossible. To think of such foolish fiddle-faddle stopping a man of his
acumen and strength! How on earth can one govern men if one is denied the
use of money, that sovereign means of sway? And he laughed bitterly; for
the idea of an idyllic country where all great enterprises would be
carried out in an absolutely honest manner seemed to him the height of
absurdity.
At last, however, unable as he was to come to a determination, it
occurred to him to confer with Baron Duvillard, whom he had long known,
and whom he regretted not having seen sooner so as to urge him to
purchase Sagnier's silence. At first he thought of sending the Baron a
brief note by a messenger; but he disliked committing anything to paper,
for the veriest scrap of writing may prove dangerous; so he preferred to
employ the telephone which had been installed for his private use near
his writing-table.
"It is Baron Duvillard who is speaking to me? . . . Quite so. It's I, the
Minister, Monsieur Monferrand. I shall be much obliged if you will come
to see me at once. . . . Quite so, quite so, I will wait for you."
Then again he walked to and fro and meditated. That fellow Duvillard was
as clever a man as himself, and might be able to give him an idea. And he
was still laboriously trying to devise some scheme, when the usher
entered saying that Monsieur Gascogne, the Chief of the Detective Police,
particularly wished to speak to him. Monferrand's first thought was that
the Prefecture of Police desired to know his views respecting the steps
which ought to be taken to ensure public order that day; for two mid-Lent
processions--one of the Washerwomen and the other of the Students--were
to march through Paris, whose streets would certainly be crowded.
"Show Monsieur Gascogne in," he said.
A tall, slim, dark man, looking like an artisan in his Sunday best, then
stepped into the ministerial sanctum. Fully acquainted with the
under-currents of Paris life, this Chief of the Detective Force had a
cold dispassionate nature and a clear and methodical mind.
Professionalism slightly spoilt him, however: he would have possessed
more intelligence if he had not credited himself with so much.
He began by apologising for his superior the Prefect, who would certainly
have called in person had he not been suffering from indisposition.
However, it was perhaps best that he, Gascogne, should acquaint Monsieur
le Ministre with the grave affair which brought him, for he knew every
detail of it. Then he revealed what the grave affair was.
"I believe, Monsieur le Ministre, that we at last hold the perpetrator of
the crime in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy."
At this, Monferrand, who had been listening impatiently, became quite
impassioned. The fruitless searches of the police, the attacks and the
jeers of the newspapers, were a source of daily worry to him. "Ah!--Well,
so much the better for you Monsieur Gascogne," he replied with brutal
frankness. "You would have ended by losing your post. The man is
arrested?"
"Not yet, Monsieur le Ministre; but he cannot escape, and it is merely an
affair of a few hours."
Then the Chief of the Detective Force told the whole story: how Detective
Mondesir, on being warned by a secret agent that the Anarchist Salvat was
in a tavern at Montmartre, had reached it just as the bird had flown;
then how chance had again set him in presence of Salvat at a hundred
paces or so from the tavern, the rascal having foolishly loitered there
to watch the establishment; and afterwards how Salvat had been stealthily
shadowed in the hope that they might catch him in his hiding-place with
his accomplices. And, in this wise, he had been tracked to the
Porte-Maillot, where, realising, no doubt, that he was pursued, he had
suddenly bolted into the Bois de Boulogne. It was there that he had been
hiding since two o'clock in the morning in the drizzle which had not
ceased to fall. They had waited for daylight in order to organise a
_battue_ and hunt him down like some animal, whose weariness must
necessarily ensure capture. And so, from one moment to another, he would
be caught.
"I know the great interest you take in the arrest, Monsieur le Ministre,"
added Gascogne, "and it occurred to me to ask your orders. Detective
Mondesir is over there, directing the hunt. He regrets that he did not
apprehend the man on the Boulevard de Rochechouart; but, all the same,
the idea of following him was a capital one, and one can only reproach
Mondesir with having forgotten the Bois de Boulogne in his calculations."
Salvat arrested! That fellow Salvat whose name had filled the newspapers
for three weeks past. This was a most fortunate stroke which would be
talked of far and wide! In the depths of Monferrand's fixed eyes one
could divine a world of thoughts and a sudden determination to turn this
incident which chance had brought him to his own personal advantage. In
his own mind a link was already forming between this arrest and that
African Railways interpellation which was likely to overthrow the
ministry on the morrow. The first outlines of a scheme already rose
before him. Was it not his good star that had sent him what he had been
seeking--a means of fishing himself out of the troubled waters of the
approaching crisis?
"But tell me, Monsieur Gascogne," said he, "are you quite sure that this
man Salvat committed the crime?"
"Oh! perfectly sure, Monsieur le Ministre. He'll confess everything in
the cab before he reaches the Prefecture."
Monferrand again walked to and fro with a pensive air, and ideas came to
him as he spoke on in a slow, meditative fashion. "My orders! well, my
orders, they are, first, that you must act with the very greatest
prudence. Yes, don't gather a mob of promenaders together. Try to arrange
things so that the arrest may pass unperceived--and if you secure a
confession keep it to yourself, don't communicate it to the newspapers.
Yes, I particularly recommend that point to you, don't take the
newspapers into your confidence at all--and finally, come and tell me
everything, and observe secrecy, absolute secrecy, with everybody else."
Gascogne bowed and would have withdrawn, but Monferrand detained him to
say that not a day passed without his friend Monsieur Lehmann, the Public
Prosecutor, receiving letters from Anarchists who threatened to blow him
up with his family; in such wise that, although he was by no means a
coward, he wished his house to be guarded by plain-clothes officers. A
similar watch was already kept upon the house where investigating
magistrate Amadieu resided. And if the latter's life was precious, that
of Public Prosecutor Lehmann was equally so, for he was one of those
political magistrates, one of those shrewd talented Israelites, who make
their way in very honest fashion by invariably taking the part of the
Government in office.
Then Gascogne in his turn remarked: "There is also the Barthes affair,
Monsieur le Ministre--we are still waiting. Are we to arrest Barthes at
that little house at Neuilly?"
One of those chances which sometimes come to the help of detectives and
make people think the latter to be men of genius had revealed to him the
circumstance that Barthes had found a refuge with Abbe Pierre Froment.
Ever since the Anarchist terror had thrown Paris into dismay a warrant
had been out against the old man, not for any precise offence, but simply
because he was a suspicious character and might, therefore, have had some
intercourse with the Revolutionists. However, it had been repugnant to
Gascogne to arrest him at the house of a priest whom the whole district
venerated as a saint; and the Minister, whom he had consulted on the
point, had warmly approved of his reserve, since a member of the clergy
was in question, and had undertaken to settle the affair himself.
"No, Monsieur Gascogne," he now replied, "don't move in the matter. You
know what my feelings are, that we ought to have the priests with us and
not against us--I have had a letter written to Abbe Froment in order that
he may call here this morning, as I shall have no other visitors. I will
speak to him myself, and you may take it that the affair no longer
concerns you."
Then he was about to dismiss him when the usher came back saying that the
President of the Council was in the ante-room.*
* The title of President of the Council is given to the French
prime minister.--Trans.
"Barroux!--Ah! dash it, then, Monsieur Gascogne, you had better go out
this way. It is as well that nobody should meet you, as I wish you to
keep silent respecting Salvat's arrest. It's fully understood, is it not?
I alone am to know everything; and you will communicate with me here
direct, by the telephone, if any serious incident should arise."
The Chief of the Detective Police had scarcely gone off, by way of an
adjoining _salon_, when the usher reopened the door communicating with
the ante-room: "Monsieur le President du Conseil."
With a nicely adjusted show of deference and cordiality, Monferrand
stepped forward, his hands outstretched: "Ah! my dear President, why did
you put yourself out to come here? I would have called on you if I had
known that you wished to see me."
But with an impatient gesture Barroux brushed aside all question of
etiquette. "No, no! I was taking my usual stroll in the Champs Elysees,
and the worries of the situation impressed me so keenly that I preferred
to come here at once. You yourself must realise that we can't put up with
what is taking place. And pending to-morrow morning's council, when we
shall have to arrange a plan of defence, I felt that there was good
reason for us to talk things over."
He took an armchair, and Monferrand on his side rolled another forward so
as to seat himself with his back to the light. Whilst Barroux, the elder
of the pair by ten years, blanched and solemn, with a handsome face,
snowy whiskers, clean-shaven chin and upper-lip, retained all the dignity
of power, the bearing of a Conventionnel of romantic views, who sought to
magnify the simple loyalty of a rather foolish but good-hearted
_bourgeois_ nature into something great; the other, beneath his heavy
common countenance and feigned frankness and simplicity, concealed
unknown depths, the unfathomable soul of a shrewd enjoyer and despot who
was alike pitiless and unscrupulous in attaining his ends.
For a moment Barroux drew breath, for in reality he was greatly moved,
his blood rising to his head, and his heart beating with indignation and
anger at the thought of all the vulgar insults which the "Voix du Peuple"
had poured upon him again that morning. "Come, my dear colleague," said
he, "one must stop that scandalous campaign. Moreover, you can realise
what awaits us at the Chamber to-morrow. Now that the famous list has
been published we shall have every malcontent up in arms. Vignon is
bestirring himself already--"
"Ah! you have news of Vignon?" exclaimed Monferrand, becoming very
attentive.
"Well, as I passed his door just now, I saw a string of cabs waiting
there. All his creatures have been on the move since yesterday, and at
least twenty persons have told me that the band is already dividing the
spoils. For, as you must know, the fierce and ingenuous Mege is again
going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for others. Briefly, we are
dead, and the others claim that they are going to bury us in mud before
they fight over our leavings." With his arm outstretched Barroux made a
theatrical gesture, and his voice resounded as if he were in the tribune.
Nevertheless, his emotion was real, tears even were coming to his eyes.
"To think that I who have given my whole life to the Republic, I who
founded it, who saved it, should be covered with insults in this fashion,
and obliged to defend myself against abominable charges! To say that I
abused my trust! That I sold myself and took 200,000 francs from that man
Hunter, simply to slip them into my pocket! Well, certainly there _was_ a
question of 200,000 francs between us. But how and under what
circumstances? They were doubtless the same as in your case, with regard
to the 80,000 francs that he is said to have handed you--"
But Monferrand interrupted his colleague in a clear trenchant voice: "He
never handed me a centime."
The other looked at him in astonishment, but could only see his big,
rough head, whose features were steeped in shadow: "Ah! But I thought you
had business relations with him, and knew him particularly well."
"No, I simply knew Hunter as everyone knew him. I was not even aware that
he was Baron Duvillard's agent in the African Railways matter; and there
was never any question of that affair between us."
This was so improbable, so contrary to everything Barroux knew of the
business, that for a moment he felt quite scared. Then he waved his hand
as if to say that others might as well look after their own affairs, and
reverted to himself. "Oh! as for me," he said, "Hunter called on me more
than ten times, and made me quite sick with his talk of the African
Railways. It was at the time when the Chamber was asked to authorise the
issue of lottery stock.* And, by the way, my dear fellow, I was then here
at the Home Department, while you had just taken that of Public Works. I
can remember sitting at that very writing-table, while Hunter was in the
same armchair that I now occupy. That day he wanted to consult me about
the employment of the large sum which Duvillard's house proposed to spend
in advertising; and on seeing what big amounts were set down against the
Royalist journals, I became quite angry, for I realised with perfect
accuracy that this money would simply be used to wage war against the
Republic. And so, yielding to Hunter's entreaties, I also drew up a list
allotting 200,000 francs among the friendly Republican newspapers, which
were paid through me, I admit it. And that's the whole story."**
* This kind of stock is common enough in France. A part of it is
extinguished annually at a public "drawing," when all such
shares or bonds that are drawn become entitled to redemption
at "par," a percentage of them also securing prizes of various
amounts. City of Paris Bonds issued on this system are very
popular among French people with small savings; but, on the
other hand, many ventures, whose lottery stock has been
authorised by the Legislature, have come to grief and ruined
investors.--Trans.
** All who are acquainted with recent French history will be
aware that Barroux' narrative is simply a passage from the
life of the late M. Floquet, slightly modified to suit the
requirements of M. Zola's story.--Trans.
Then he sprang to his feet and struck his chest, whilst his voice again
rose: "Well, I've had more than enough of all that calumny and falsehood!
And I shall simply tell the Chamber my story to-morrow. It will be my
only defence. An honest man does not fear the truth!"
But Monferrand, in his turn, had sprung up with a cry which was a
complete confession of his principles: "It's ridiculous, one never
confesses; you surely won't do such a thing!"
"I shall," retorted Barroux with superb obstinacy. "And we shall see if
the Chamber won't absolve me by acclamation."
"No, you will fall beneath an explosion of hisses, and drag all of us
down with you."
"What does it matter? We shall fall with dignity, like honest men!"
Monferrand made a gesture of furious anger, and then suddenly became
calm. Amidst all the anxious confusion in which he had been struggling
since daybreak, a gleam now dawned upon him. The vague ideas suggested by
Salvat's approaching arrest took shape, and expanded into an audacious
scheme. Why should he prevent the fall of that big ninny Barroux? The
only thing of importance was that he, Monferrand, should not fall with
him, or at any rate that he should rise again. So he protested no
further, but merely mumbled a few words, in which his rebellious feeling
seemingly died out. And at last, putting on his good-natured air once
more, he said: "Well, after all you are perhaps right. One must be brave.
Besides, you are our head, my dear President, and we will follow you."
They had now again sat down face to face, and their conversation
continued till they came to a cordial agreement respecting the course
which the Government should adopt in view of the inevitable
interpellation on the morrow.
Meantime, Baron Duvillard was on his way to the ministry. He had scarcely
slept that night. When on the return from Montmartre Gerard had set him
down at his door in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, he had at once gone to bed,
like a man who is determined to compel sleep, so that he may forget his
worries and recover self-control. But slumber would not come; for hours
and hours he vainly sought it. The manner in which he had been insulted
by that creature Silviane was so monstrous! To think that she, whom he
had enriched, whose every desire he had contented, should have cast such
mud at him, the master, who flattered himself that he held Paris and the
Republic in his hands, since he bought up and controlled consciences just
as others might make corners in wool or leather for the purposes of
Bourse speculation. And the dim consciousness that Silviane was the
avenging sore, the cancer preying on him who preyed on others, completed
his exasperation. In vain did he try to drive away his haunting thoughts,
remember his business affairs, his appointments for the morrow, his
millions which were working in every quarter of the world, the financial
omnipotence which placed the fate of nations in his grasp. Ever, and in
spite of all, Silviane rose up before him, splashing him with mud. In
despair he tried to fix his mind on a great enterprise which he had been
planning for months past, a Trans-Saharan railway, a colossal venture
which would set millions of money at work, and revolutionise the trade of
the world. And yet Silviane appeared once more, and smacked him on both
cheeks with her dainty little hand, which she had dipped in the gutter.
It was only towards daybreak that he at last dozed off, while vowing in a
fury that he would never see her again, that he would spurn her, and
order her away, even should she come and drag herself at his feet.
However, when he awoke at seven, still tired and aching, his first
thought was for her, and he almost yielded to a fit of weakness. The idea
came to him to ascertain if she had returned home, and if so make his
peace. But he jumped out of bed, and after his ablutions he recovered all
his bravery. She was a wretch, and he this time thought himself for ever
cured of his passion. To tell the truth, he forgot it as soon as he
opened the morning newspapers. The publication of the list of
bribe-takers in the "Voix du Peuple" quite upset him, for he had hitherto
thought it unlikely that Sagnier held any such list. However, he judged
the document at a glance, at once separating the few truths it contained
from a mass of foolishness and falsehood. And this time also he did not
consider himself personally in danger. There was only one thing that he
really feared: the arrest of his intermediary, Hunter, whose trial might
have drawn him into the affair. As matters stood, and as he did not cease
to repeat with a calm and smiling air, he had merely done what every
banking-house does when it issues stock, that is, pay the press for
advertisements and puffery, employ brokers, and reward services
discreetly rendered to the enterprise. It was all a business matter, and
for him that expression summed up everything. Moreover, he played the
game of life bravely, and spoke with indignant contempt of a banker who,
distracted and driven to extremities by blackmailing, had imagined that
he would bring a recent scandal to an end by killing himself: a pitiful
tragedy, from all the mire and blood of which the scandal had sprouted
afresh with the most luxuriant and indestructible vegetation. No, no!
suicide was not the course to follow: a man ought to remain erect, and
struggle on to his very last copper, and the very end of his energy.
At about nine o'clock a ringing brought Duvillard to the telephone
installed in his private room. And then his folly took possession of him
once more: it must be Silviane who wished to speak to him. She often
amused herself by thus disturbing him amidst his greatest cares. No doubt
she had just returned home, realising that she had carried things too far
on the previous evening and desiring to be forgiven. However, when he
found that the call was from Monferrand, who wished him to go to the
ministry, he shivered slightly, like a man saved from the abyss beside
which he is travelling. And forthwith he called for his hat and stick,
desirous as he was of walking and reflecting in the open air. And again
he became absorbed in the intricacies of the scandalous business which
was about to stir all Paris and the legislature. Kill himself! ah, no,
that would be foolish and cowardly. A gust of terror might be sweeping
past; nevertheless, for his part he felt quite firm, superior to events,
and resolved to defend himself without relinquishing aught of his power.