When M. Bergeret entered the shop, Paillot, the bookseller, with a
pencil thrust behind his ear, was collecting his “returns.” He was
stacking up the volumes whose yellow covers, after long exposure to
the sunlight, had turned brown and become covered with fly-marks.
These were the unsaleable copies, which he was sending back to the
publishers. M. Bergeret recognised among the “returns” several works
that he liked. He felt no chagrin at this, having too much taste to
hope to see his favourite authors winning the votes of the crowd.
He sank down, as he was accustomed to do, in the old-book corner, and
through mere habit took up the thirty-eighth volume of _l’Histoire
Générale des Voyages_. The book, bound in green leather, opened of its
own accord at p. 212, and M. Bergeret once more read these fatal lines:
“a passage to the North. ‘It is to this check,’ said he, ‘that we owe
the opportunity of being able to visit the Sandwich Isles again …’”
And M. Bergeret sank into melancholy.
M. Mazure, the archivist of the department, and M. de Terremondre,
president of the Society of Agriculture and Archæology, who both had
their rush-bottomed chairs in the old-book corner, came in opportunely
to join the professor. M. Mazure was a paleographer of great merit.
But his manners were not elegant. He had married the servant of the
archivist, his predecessor, and appeared in the town in a straw
hat with battered crown. He was a radical, and published documents
concerning the history of the county town during the Revolution. He
enjoyed inveighing against the royalists of the department; but having
applied for academic honours without having received them, he began
invectives against his political friends, and particularly against M.
Worms-Clavelin, the _préfet_.
Being insulting by nature, his professional practice of discovering
secrets disposed him to slander and calumny. Nevertheless he was good
company, especially at table, where he used to sing drinking songs.
“You know,” said he to M. de Terremondre and M. Bergeret, “that the
_préfet_ uses the house of Rondonneau junior for assignations with
women. He has been caught there. Abbé Guitrel also haunts the place.
And, appropriately enough, the house is called, in a land-survey of
1783, the House of the Two Satyrs.”
“But,” said M. de Terremondre, “there are no women of loose life in the
house of Rondonneau junior.”
“They are taken there,” answered Mazure, the archivist.
“Talking of that,” said M. de Terremondre, “I have heard, my dear
Monsieur Bergeret, that you have been shocking my old friend Lantaigne,
on the Mall, by a cynical confession of your political and social
immorality. They say that you know neither law nor curb …”
“They are mistaken,” replied M. Bergeret.
“... that you are indifferent in the matter of government.”
“Not at all! But, to tell the truth, I do not attach any special
importance to the form of the State. Changes of government make
little change in the condition of individuals. We do not depend on
constitutions or on charters, but on instincts and morals. It serves no
purpose at all to change the name of public necessities. And it is only
the crazy and the ambitious who make revolutions.”
“It is not above ten years ago,” replied M. Mazure, “that I would have
risked a broken head for the Republic. To-day I could see her turn a
somersault, and only laugh and cross my arms. The old republicans are
despised. Favour is only granted to the turncoats. I am not referring
to you, Monsieur de Terremondre. But I am disgusted. I have come to
think with M. Bergeret. All governments are ungrateful.”
“They are all powerless,” said M. Bergeret; “and I have here in my
pocket a little tale which I should very much like to read to you. I
have founded it on an anecdote which my father often related to me. It
proves that absolute power is powerlessness itself. I should like to
have your opinion on this trifle. If you do not disapprove of it, I
shall send it to the _Revue de Paris_.”
M. de Terremondre and M. Mazure drew their chairs up to that of M.
Bergeret, who pulled a note-book from his pocket and began to read in a
weak, but clear voice: