At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a state
of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event which was
about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every day, and
there is no insurance office where the chances of life and death are
calculated with more sagacity than in a government bureau. Self-interest
stifles all compassion, as it does in children, but the government
service adds hypocrisy to boot.
The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o’clock in the
morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till
nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter
office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former.
Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this particular
morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study
where Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers
for Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave the
premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain, therefore,
of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had seen, together
with its copy, in some corner of the study, he searched through the
boxes one after another until he finally came upon the fatal list.
He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing house, where he
obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing, of course,
Rabourdin’s own writing. Anxious not to arouse suspicion, he had
gone very early to the office and replaced both the memorandum and
Sebastien’s copy in the box from which he had taken them. Sebastien,
who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin’s party, was, in
spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by the spirit
of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore, whereas
love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais.
This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin’s whole career.
Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own
unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as
Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards
the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten
o’clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure
of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine
o’clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects
of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then
considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do
the work of copying clerks.
“Did any one get to the office before you?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Sebastien,--“Monsieur Dutocq.”
“Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me.”
Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a
misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came.
Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four
o’clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had
worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last
to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread of
his reflections.
“Twice I have prevented his dismissal,” he said to himself, “and this is
my reward.”
This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great
commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the
spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it would
never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army pardon,
what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of informing
against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the ministers
in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was left to an
official so placed but to send in his resignation and leave Paris; his
honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no avail; no one will
either ask for them or listen to them. A minister may well do the same
thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the right instruments;
but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter what may
be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of such judgment,
Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew, too, that he was
crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now sought for the best
course to follow under the circumstances; and with such thoughts in his
mind he was necessarily aloof from the excitement caused in the division
by the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere; in fact he did not hear of
it until young La Briere, who was able to appreciate his sterling value,
came to tell him. About ten o’clock, in the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou
was relating the last moments of the life of the director to Minard,
Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had called from his private office,
and Dutocq, who had rushed in with private motives of his own.
Colleville and Chazelle were absent.
Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole
of each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. “This morning, at
half-past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable
director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes,
gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day he
is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of his
nurse. She told me that this morning at five o’clock he became uneasy
about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the clerks who had
called to inquire after him; and then he said: ‘Fill my snuff-box,
give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my ribbon of the
Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.’ I suppose you know he always wore
his orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his senses and all
his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the water rose, rose,
rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for he felt the cysts
break. At that fatal moment he gave evident proof of his powerful mind
and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated him! We used to
laugh at him and call him a booby--didn’t you, Monsieur Godard?”
Godard. “I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere’s talents higher
than the rest of you.”
Bixiou. “You and he could understand each other!”
Godard. “He wasn’t a bad man; he never harmed any one.”
Bixiou. “To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything. If
it wasn’t you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard.”
Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. “I!”
Bixiou. “Well, then it was you, Dutocq!” [Dutocq made a vehement gesture
of denial.] “Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in this office
knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He ended, as I
have said, like the great man that he was.”
Desroys [impatiently]. “Pray what did he do that was so great? he had
the weakness to confess himself.”
Bixiou. “Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you
know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as
gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had
himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh
ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would have
his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There are eight
of us here, and I don’t believe one among us is capable of such an act.
But that’s not all; he said,--for you know all celebrated men make a
dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say? Ah! he said, ‘I must
attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who have so often dressed
in my best for audience with the kings of earth.’ That’s how Monsieur de
la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon himself to justify the
saying of Pythagoras, ‘No man is known until he dies.’”
Colleville [rushing in]. “Gentlemen, great news!”
All. “We know it.”
Colleville. “I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever
since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and of
Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame Colleville
asked me what was the matter.”
Dutocq. “Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your
intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has just
expired?”
Colleville. “That’s Bixiou’s nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur
de la Billardiere’s; he is still living, though they expect him to die
soon.” [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.] “Gentlemen!
you would never guess what extraordinary events are revealed by the
anagram of this sacramental sentence” [he pulls out a piece of paper
and reads], “Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France et de
Navarre.”
Godard [re-entering]. “Tell what it is at once, and don’t keep people
waiting.”
Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. “Listen!
“A H. V. il cedera;
De S. C. l. d. partira;
Eh nauf errera,
Decide a Gorix.
“Every letter is there!” [He repeats it.] “A Henry cinq cedera (his
crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that’s an old French
word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like) errera--”
Dutocq. “What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown
to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson,
when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the Dauphin’s
death?”
Bixiou. “What’s Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?”
Colleville [provoked]. “It is the archaeological and lapidarial
abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in
Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary, or
it may be Austria--”
Bixiou. “Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don’t you
set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?”
Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. “What utter nonsense!”
Colleville. “Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don’t take the
trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon.”
Godard [irritated at Colleville’s tone]. “Monsieur Colleville, let me
tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians,
but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a government
office.”
Bixiou [laughing]. “Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow.”
Colleville [angrily]. “Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had
studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might
perhaps be Emperor still.”
Bixiou. “How do you make that out?”
Colleville [solemnly]. “Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!”
Dutocq. “You’ll lose your place for talking such nonsense.”
Colleville. “If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it
hot for your minister.” [Dead silence.] “I’d have you to know, Master
Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass. Look
here,--you, yourself,--don’t you marry, for there’s ‘coqu’ in your
name.”
Bixiou [interrupting]. “And d, t, for de-testable.”
Dutocq [without seeming angry]. “I don’t care, as long as it is only in
my name. Why don’t you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, ‘Xavier
Rabourdin, chef du bureau’?”
Colleville. “Bless you, so I have!”
Bixiou [mending his pen]. “And what did you make of it?”
Colleville. “It comes out as follows: D’abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you
catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies that
after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got rich
elsewhere.” [Repeats.] “D’abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche.”
Dutocq. “That IS queer!”
Bixiou. “Try Isidore Baudoyer.”
Colleville [mysteriously]. “I sha’n’t tell the other anagrams to any one
but Thuillier.”
Bixiou. “I’ll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself.”
Colleville. “And I’ll pay if you find it out.”
Bixiou. “Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won’t be angry,
will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict. ‘Isidore
Baudoyer’ anagrams into ‘Ris d’aboyeur d’oie.’”
Colleville [petrified with amazement]. “You stole it from me!”
Bixiou [with dignity]. “Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe
that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor’s nonsense.”
Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. “Gentlemen, I
request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such
high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur
Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he
heard the noise you are making” [passes into Monsieur Godard’s room].
Bixiou [in a low voice]. “The watch-dog is very tame this morning;
there’ll be a change of weather before night.”
Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. “I have something I want to say to you.”
Bixiou [fingering Dutocq’s waistcoat]. “You’ve a pretty waistcoat, that
cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?”
Dutocq. “Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my life.
That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la
Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning.”
Bixiou. “You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but
you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man can be
a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning.
Don’t you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur
Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg
Saint-Germain. There’s no one here but Minard who doesn’t wear woollen;
he’s afraid of being taken for a sheep. That’s the reason why he didn’t
put on mourning for Louis XVIII.”
[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard’s
room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]
Baudoyer. “Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both with
him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want to do
me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame Baudoyer
know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can’t leave his desk, nor
I my office. Put yourself at my wife’s orders; do whatever she wishes.
She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to take certain
steps simultaneously.” [The two functionaries go out together.]
Godard. “Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the rest
of the day. You will take my place.”
Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. “Consult me, if there is any necessity.”
Bixiou. “This time, La Billardiere is really dead.”
Dutocq [in Bixiou’s ear]. “Come outside a minute.” [The two go into the
corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]
Dutocq [whispering]. “Listen. Now is the time for us to understand each
other and push our way. What would you say to your being made head of
the bureau, and I under you?”
Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. “Come, come, don’t talk nonsense!”
Dutocq. “If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere’s place Rabourdin won’t stay
on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du
Bruel and you don’t help him he will certainly be dismissed in a couple
of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty places for us
to fill--”
Bixiou. “Three places right under our noses, which will certainly
be given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to
Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end--in
piety.”
Dutocq. “No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in
your life, use your wits logically.” [He stopped as if to study the
effect of his adverb in Bixiou’s face.] “Come, let us play fair.”
Bixiou [stolidly]. “Let me see your game.”
Dutocq. “I don’t wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I know
myself perfectly well, and I know I haven’t the ability, like you, to
be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the head of this
bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has made his pile;
and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably, under your
protection, till I can retire on a pension.”
Bixiou. “Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which
means forcing the minister’s hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between
ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the
division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk
of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of
idiocy, Baudoyer?”
Dutocq [consequentially]. “My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse
the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is to
him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him.”
Bixiou. “Despised by Fleury!”
Dutocq. “Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a
body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our division, but
in all the divisions--”
Bixiou. “Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of
the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in
the business?”
Dutocq. “You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough to kill a
man.”
Bixiou. “How much will you pay for it?”
Dutocq. “A hundred francs.”
Bixiou [to himself]. “Then there is something in it.”
Dutocq [continuing]. “You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a butcher
(make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen and a
bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the principal clerks
and stick their heads on fowls, put them in a monstrous coop labelled
‘Civil Service executions’; make him cutting the throat of one, and
supposed to take the others in turn. You can have geese and ducks with
heads like ours,--you understand! Baudoyer, for instance, he’ll make an
excellent turkey-buzzard.”
Bixiou. “Ris d’aboyeur d’oie!” [He has watched Dutocq carefully for some
time.] “Did you think of that yourself?”
Dutocq. “Yes, I myself.”
Bixiou [to himself]. “Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as
talents?” [Aloud] “Well, I’ll do it” [Dutocq makes a motion of delight]
“--when” [full stop] “--I know where I am and what I can rely on. If you
don’t succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a living. You are a
curious kind of innocent still, my dear colleague.”
Dutocq. “Well, you needn’t make the lithograph till success is proved.”
Bixiou. “Why don’t you come out and tell me the whole truth?”
Dutocq. “I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will talk
about it later” [goes off].
Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. “That fish, for he’s more a fish than
a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I’m sure I don’t know
where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would
be fun, more than fun--profit!” [Returns to the office.] “Gentlemen, I
announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,--no
nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our excellent
chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased.” [Minard,
Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they all lay
down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] “Every one of us is
to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very least.
Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is quite as dull as
I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred francs a-year
your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you could buy yourself
a pair of boots now and then.”
Colleville. “But you don’t get twenty-five hundred francs.”
Bixiou. “Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin’s office; why shouldn’t
I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it.”
Colleville. “Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other
chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions.”
Paulmier. “Bah! Hasn’t Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded
Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four
thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first returned;
then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But Monsieur
Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the salary put
back to three thousand.”
Colleville. “Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named
Emile-Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal.
Now observe, he’s a partner in a druggist’s business in the rue des
Lombards, the Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical
colonial product.”
Baudoyer [entering]. “Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will be
good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen.”
Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle’s chair when he heard
Baudoyer’s step]. “Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the
Rabourdins’ to make an inquiry.”
Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer].
“La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the
division and Master of petitions; he hasn’t stolen /his/ promotion,
that’s very certain.”
Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. “You found that appointment in your second hat,
I presume” [points to the hat on the chair]. “This is the third time
within a month that you have come after nine o’clock. If you continue
the practice you will get on--elsewhere.” [To Bixiou, who is reading the
newspaper.] “My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the newspapers to
these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come into my office for
your orders for the day. I don’t know what Monsieur Rabourdin wants with
Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands, I believe. I’ve rung
three times and can’t get him.” [Baudoyer and Bixiou retire into the
private office.]
Chazelle. “Damned unlucky!”
Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. “Why didn’t you look about when
you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the hat
too; they are big enough to be visible.”
Chazelle [dismally]. “Disgusting business! I don’t see why we should
be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
sixty-five centimes a day.”
Fleury [entering]. “Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!--that’s
the cry in the division.”
Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. “Baudoyer can turn off me if
he likes, I sha’n’t care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of earning
five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de Justice,
copying briefs for the lawyers.”
Paulmier [still prodding him]. “It is very easy to say that; but a
government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville, who
works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could earn,
if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to keep his
place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his expectations?”
Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. “You may not be, but I am! We have
no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging than a
civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there were not
enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and the sick
ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their chance of
a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented what they
called special training, and the rules and regulations for civil-service
examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The poorest places
are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we are now ruled by a
thousand sovereigns.”
Bixiou [returning]. “Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find a
thousand sovereigns?--not in your pocket, are they?”
Chazelle. “Count them up. There are four hundred over there at the end
of the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the scene
of perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber); three
hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which ought to
count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts less power
to get a man appointed to a place under government than the Emperor
Napoleon had.”
Fleury. “All of which signifies that in a country where there are three
powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government clerk who has no
influence but his own merits to advance him will remain in obscurity.”
Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. “My sons, you have
yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is the state of
belonging to the State.”
Fleury. “Because it has a constitutional government.”
Colleville. “Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!”
Bixiou. “Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is no longer
serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State now is
/everybody/. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve everybody, and
you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government clerk
lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor respect,
neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service of
yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an
administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of
circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic
despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with
all administrative genius,--I mean the law of promotion by average. This
average is based on the statistics of promotion and the statistics
of mortality combined. It is very certain that on entering whichever
section of the Civil Service you please at the age of eighteen, you
can’t get eighteen hundred francs a year till you reach the age of
thirty. Now there’s no free and independent career in which, in
the course of twelve years, a young man who has gone through the
grammar-school, been vaccinated, is exempt from military service, and
possesses all his faculties (I don’t mean transcendent ones) can’t amass
a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which represents
a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after all,
precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him ten
thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be
decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A
literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist
at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes ‘feuilletons,’ or
he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends the
Jesuits,--which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes him a
politician at once. Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make debts,
has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to become a
bishop ‘in partibus.’ A sober, intelligent young fellow, who begins
with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in a broker’s
business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes a notary, a
rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a year, and the poorest
workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in the rotatory movement
of this present civilization, which mistakes perpetual division and
redivision for progress, an unhappy civil service clerk, like Chazelle
for instance, is forced to dine for twenty-two sous a meal, struggles
with his tailor and bootmaker, gets into debt, and is an absolute
nothing; worse than that, he becomes an idiot! Come, gentlemen, now’s
the time to make a stand! Let us all give in our resignations! Fleury,
Chazelle, fling yourselves into other employments and become the great
men you really are.”
Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou’s allocution]. “No, I thank you”
[general laughter].
Bixiou. “You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of
the general-secretary.”
Chazelle [uneasily]. “What has he to do with me?”
Bixiou. “You’ll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what
happened just now?”
Fleury. “Another piece of Bixiou’s spite! You’ve a queer fellow to deal
with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,--there’s a man for you! He put
work on my table to-day that you couldn’t get through within this office
in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four o’clock
to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from talking to my
friends.”
Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. “Gentlemen, you will admit that if
you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the
administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office.”
[To Fleury.] “What are you doing here, monsieur?”
Fleury [insolently]. “I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to
be a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and Dutocq
also. Everybody is asking who will be appointed.”
Baudoyer [retiring]. “It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own
office, and do not disturb mine.”
Fleury [in the doorway]. “It would be a shameful injustice if Rabourdin
lost the place; I swear I’d leave the service. Did you find that
anagram, papa Colleville?”
Colleville. “Yes, here it is.”
Fleury [leaning over Colleville’s desk]. “Capital! famous! This is just
what will happen if the administration continues to play the hypocrite.”
[He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is listening.] “If the
government would frankly state its intentions without concealments
of any kind, the liberals would know what they had to deal with. An
administration which sets its best friends against itself, such men as
those of the ‘Debats,’ Chateaubriand, and Royer-Collard, is only to be
pitied!”
Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. “Come, Fleury, you’re a
good fellow, but don’t talk politics here; you don’t know what harm you
may do us.”
Fleury [dryly]. “Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four
o’clock.”
While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in
his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them. Des
Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere’s death, and wishing
to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to appear in
the evening papers.
“Good morning, my dear du Bruel,” said the semi-minister to the
head-clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. “You have
heard the news? La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both
present when he received the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly
recommended Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could
know that his successor were the man who had so constantly done his
work. Death is a torture which makes a man confess everything. The
minister agreed the more readily because his intention and that of the
Council was to reward Monsieur Rabourdin’s numerous services. In fact,
the Council of State needs his experience. They say that young La
Billardiere is to leave the division of his father and go to the
Commission of Seals; that’s just the same as if the King had made him a
present of a hundred thousand francs,--the place can always be sold. But
I know the news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of
him. Du Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late
director into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,--he
reads the papers. Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere’s
life?”
Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.
“No?” continued des Lupeaulx. “Well then; he was mixed up in the affairs
of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late King. Like
Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold communication
with the First Consul. He was a bit of a ‘chouan’; born in Brittany of a
parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII. How old was he? never
mind about that; just say his loyalty was untarnished, his religion
enlightened,--the poor old fellow hated churches and never set foot
in one, but you had better make him out a ‘pious vassal.’ Bring in,
gracefully, that he sang the song of Simeon at the accession of Charles
X. The Comte d’Artois thought very highly of La Billardiere, for he
co-operated in the unfortunate affair of Quiberon and took the
whole responsibility on himself. You know about that, don’t you? La
Billardiere defended the King in a printed pamphlet in reply to an
impudent history of the Revolution written by a journalist; you can
allude to his loyalty and devotion. But be very careful what you say;
weigh your words, so that the other newspapers can’t laugh at us; and
bring me the article when you’ve written it. Were you at Rabourdin’s
yesterday?”
“Yes, monseigneur,” said du Bruel, “Ah! beg pardon.”
“No harm done,” answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.
“Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome,” added du Bruel. “There
are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she, but
there’s not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be handsomer,
but it would be hard to find one with such variety of beauty. Madame
Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville,” said the vaudevillist,
remembering des Lupeaulx’s former affair. “Flavie owes what she is to
the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all things in herself. It
is wonderful too what she knows; you can’t tell secrets in Latin before
/her/. If I had such a wife, I know I should succeed in everything.”
“You have more mind than an author ought to have,” returned des
Lupeaulx, with a conceited air. Then he turned round and perceived
Dutocq. “Ah, good-morning, Dutocq,” he said. “I sent for you to lend me
your Charlet--if you have the whole complete. Madame la comtesse knows
nothing of Charlet.”
Du Bruel retired.
“Why do you come in without being summoned?” said des Lupeaulx, harshly,
when he and Dutocq were left alone. “Is the State in danger that you
must come here at ten o’clock in the morning, just as I am going to
breakfast with his Excellency?”
“Perhaps it is, monsieur,” said Dutocq, dryly. “If I had had the honor
to see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing to
support Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of you.”
Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand breast-pocket
and laid it on des Lupeaulx’s desk, pointing to a marked passage. Then
he went to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption. While
he was thus employed, the secretary-general read the opening sentence of
the article, which was as follows:
“Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by openly
employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police diplomacy.
He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other
cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on our
internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he is
able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark
piece of work and cover his retreat safely.”
Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such
paragraphs,--the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which
we gave at the beginning of this history. As he read the words the
secretary felt that a man stronger than himself sat in judgment on
him; and he at once resolved to examine the memorandum, which evidently
reached far and high, without allowing Dutocq to know his secret
thoughts. He therefore showed a calm, grave face when the spy returned
to him. Des Lupeaulx, like lawyers, magistrates, diplomatists, and all
whose work obliges them to pry into the human heart, was past being
surprised at anything. Hardened in treachery and in all the tricks and
wiles of hatred, he could take a stab in the back and not let his face
tell of it.
“How did you get hold of this paper?”
Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx’s face as he listened
expressed no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account which
began triumphantly.
“Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the tree,” said
the secretary, coldly. “If you don’t want to make powerful enemies I
advise you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of the
utmost importance and already well known to me.”
So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those glances that
are more expressive than words.
“Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in this!” thought
Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; “he has reached the ear
of the administration, while I am left out in the cold. I shouldn’t have
thought it!”
To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added the
jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,--a most powerful
ingredient in hatred.
When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a strange meditation.
What power was it of which Rabourdin was the instrument? Should he, des
Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy him, or should he keep
it as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The mystery that lay behind
this paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who read with something
akin to terror page after page, in which the men of his acquaintance
were judged with unerring wisdom. He admired Rabourdin, though stabbed
to his vitals by what he said of him. The breakfast-hour suddenly cut
short his meditation.
“His Excellency is waiting for you to come down,” announced the
minister’s footman.
The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and des
Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal affords the
only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from the current of
overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the precautions they take to keep
this hour for private intimacies and affections, a good many great and
little people manage to infringe upon it. Business itself will, as at
this moment, thrust itself in the way of their scanty comfort.
“I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,”
began the minister; “and yet here, not ten minutes after La
Billardiere’s death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is like a
stage missive. Look,” said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper
which he was twirling in his fingers.
Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning
La Billardiere’s death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not
withdrawn it from La Briere’s hands after the news reached him. Des
Lupeaulx read as follows:--
“Monseigneur,--If twenty-three years of irreproachable services
may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an
audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter of
which I desire to speak.”
“Poor man!” said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which confirmed
the minister in his error. “We are alone; I advise you to see him now.
You have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises; moreover, your
Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is really the
only hour when you can receive him.”
Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and returned to
his seat. “I have told them to bring him in at dessert,” he said.
Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this particular minister
was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis XVIII. had the
defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling them to deliver the
destinies of the nation into the control of the middle-aged men of the
Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage; it robbed them of the
right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike talent wherever they
could find him, no matter how young he was or how poverty-stricken his
condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to employ young men as
he chose, without being restrained by any consideration. After the
overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted power. Now the period
when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a contrast that is far
more dangerous in France than in other countries. As a general thing,
ministers who were old before they entered office have proved second
or third rate, while those who were taken young have been an honor
to European monarchies and to the republics whose affairs they have
directed. The world still rings with the struggle between Pitt and
Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their respective
countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert,
Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises, Machiavelli, in short, all
the best known of our great men, coming from the ranks or born to
a throne, began to rule the State. The Convention--that model of
energy--was made up in a great measure of young heads; no sovereign
can ever forget that it was able to put fourteen armies into the field
against Europe. Its policy, fatal in the eyes of those who cling to
what is called absolute power, was nevertheless dictated by strictly
monarchical principles, and it behaved itself like any of the great
kings.
After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having studied
the science of politics until he was worn down by it, this particular
minister had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered him in
the light of their business man. Happily for him he was now nearer sixty
than fifty years of age; had he retained even a vestige of juvenile
vigor he would quickly have quenched it. But, accustomed to back and
fill, retreat and return to the charge, he was able to endure being
struck at, turn and turn about, by his own party, by the opposition,
by the court, by the clergy, because to all such attacks he opposed the
inert force of a substance which was equally soft and consistent; thus
he reaped the benefits of what was really his misfortune. Harassed by a
thousand questions of government, his mind, like that of an old lawyer
who has tried every species of case, no longer possessed the spring
which solitary minds are able to retain, nor that power of prompt
decision which distinguishes men who are early accustomed to action, and
young soldiers. How could it be otherwise? He had practised sophistries
and quibbled instead of judging; he had criticised effects and done
nothing for causes; his head was full of plans such as a political
party lays upon the shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest
brought to an orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and
impractical requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied
out with marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached
the much desired height of his present position, he found himself in
a thicket of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to
conciliate. If the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to
follow out their own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been
criticised; but though their wills were often forced, their age saved
them from attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues,
both high and low,--intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which,
in a lower sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.
After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in political life
these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and
tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as
they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary
when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom
Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men
of undoubted superiority as they explained ingenious theories of
government, applicable or inapplicable to the affairs of France. Such
men, by whom the difficulties of national policy were never apprehended,
were in the habit of attacking this minister personally whenever a
parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret follies of the court
took place,--on the eve of a struggle with the popular mind, or on the
morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided the Council into three
separate parties. Caught in such a predicament, a statesman naturally
keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed to show him how the
public service could be better managed. At such periods not a dinner
took place among bold schemers or financial and political lobbyists
where the opinions of the Bourse and the Bank, the secrets of diplomacy,
and the policy necessitated by the state of affairs in Europe were not
canvassed and discussed. The minister has his own private councillors in
des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who collected and pondered all opinions
and discussions for the purpose of analyzing and controlling the various
interests proclaimed and supported by so many clever men. In fact, his
misfortune was that of most other ministers who have passed the prime
of life; he trimmed and shuffled under all his difficulties,--with
journalism, which at this period it was thought advisable to repress
in an underhand way rather than fight openly; with financial as well as
labor questions; with the clergy as well as with that other question
of the public lands; with liberalism as with the Chamber. After
manoeuvering his way to power in the course of seven years, the minister
believed that he could manage all questions of administration in the
same way. It is so natural to think we can maintain a position by the
same methods which served us to reach it that no one ventured to blame
a system invented by mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The
Restoration, like the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes
the true value of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is
wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the
Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries
employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies,
and let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.
Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind
to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last
stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like
des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in
matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far
indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he little
thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to the
minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held the
position of a statesman would confound his reform with the schemes of
political and self-interested talkers.
As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister’s
preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone of
voice:--
“His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your mind;
you have nothing to fear”; then, raising his voice, he added, “neither
from Dutocq nor from any one else.”
“Don’t feel uneasy, Rabourdin,” said his Excellency, kindly, but making
a movement to get away.
Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could not evade
him.
“Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in private?” he
said, with a mysterious glance.
The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window, whither
the poor man followed him.
“When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I spoke to
your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of administration to
which the paper that was taken belongs--”
“Plan of administration!” exclaimed the minister, frowning, and
hurriedly interrupting him. “If you have anything of that kind to
communicate you must wait for the regular day when we do business
together. I ought to be at the Council now; and I have an answer to
make to the Chamber on that point which the opposition raised before the
session ended yesterday. Your day is Wednesday next; I could not work
yesterday, for I had other things to attend to; political matters are
apt to interfere with purely administrative ones.”
“I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency’s hands,” said
Rabourdin gravely, “and I entreat you to remember that you have not
allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the stolen
paper--”
“Don’t be uneasy,” said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister
and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; “in another week you will
probably be appointed--”
The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx’s enthusiasm for
Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife. Rabourdin saw
the look, and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was diverted
for a moment, and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to make his
escape.
“We will talk of all this, you and I,” said des Lupeaulx, with whom
Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. “Don’t be
angry with Dutocq; I’ll answer for his discretion.”
“Madame Rabourdin is charming,” said the minister’s wife, wishing to say
the civil thing to the head of a bureau.
The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor man had
come there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he was like
a great fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he struggled with
himself.
“Madame la comtesse is very good,” he said.
“Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?”
said the countess. “Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure.”
“Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays,” interrupted des
Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
Wednesdays; “but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will soon
give one of your private parties, and--”
The countess rose with some irritation.
“You are the master of my ceremonies,” she said to des
Lupeaulx,--ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she
felt with the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private
parties, to which she admitted only a select few. She left the room
without bowing to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx;
the latter was twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to
the minister which Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin
recognized it.
“You have never really known me,” said des Lupeaulx. “Friday evening
we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive
callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other
matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don’t worry yourself; you
have nothing to fear.”
Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded by
this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce him,
and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly seen the
document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx was fawning
on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright minds are
often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and Rabourdin was
lost in a maze of conjecture without being able to discover the object
of the game which the secretary was playing.
“Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife.”
Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between
des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of
lightning.