In their efforts to escape the sudden shower that had overtaken them
outside the ramparts of the castle, Madame Jules de Bonmont and Madame
Hortha ran along the sentry path up to the gate house, upon the debased
vault of which could be seen the peacock, emblem of the extinct house
of Paves. M. de Terremondre and Baron Wallstein soon caught them up,
and the four of them stood still, trying to regain their breath.
“Where is the Abbé?” asked Madame de Bonmont. “Arthur, did you leave
the Abbé sheltering by the hedge?”
Baron Wallstein told his sister that the Abbé was coming along behind
them.
And soon they saw the Abbé Guitrel walking up the stone steps, damp
but cheerful. He alone had managed to display a perfect dignity at the
sudden alarm, and had preserved the calm suitable to his years and his
corpulence; he had, in fact, maintained a truly episcopal solemnity.
The race had deepened the roses in Madame de Bonmont’s cheeks; her
full bosom rose and fell under her light blouse, as she stood drawing
her skirts tightly around her plump hips. In her rich maturity, with
her disordered hair, lustrous eyes, and ripe lips--a sort of Viennese
Erigone--she reminded one of a golden cluster of juicy grapes.
“Are you wet, M. l’Abbé?” she inquired, in that rather coarse voice of
hers, so much less sweet than her lips.
The Abbé removed his wide-brimmed hat, the dusty pile of which was
spotted with rain, looked with his little grey eyes at each member of
the breathless group scared by a few drops of rain, and replied, not
without a certain gentle slyness:
“I am wet, but not out of breath,” adding, “It’s nothing but a harmless
shower, the rain has not even penetrated my coat.”
“Let us go in,” said Madame de Bonmont.
This was her home, this château of Montil, built in 1508 by Bernard
de Paves, Grand-Master of Artillery, for Nicolette de Vaucelles, his
fourth wife.
“The house of Paves flourished for nine hundred years,” writes Perrin
du Verdier, in the first volume of his _Trésor des généalogies_.
“And the Royal Families of Europe were all connected by marriage at
some time or other with the said house, more especially the kings
of Spain, England, Sicily and Jerusalem, the dukes of Brittany,
Alençon, Vendôme, and others, as well as the Orsini, the Colonnas and
the Cornaros.” And Perrin du Verdier discourses both lengthily and
complacently on the celebrity of this “tant inclite maison” which gave
to the Church eighteen cardinals and two popes, and to the throne of
France three constables, six marshals and a king’s mistress.
From the reign of Louis XII down to the Revolution the heads of the
elder branch of Paves had resided at the château of Montil. Philippe
VIII, prince of Paves, lord of Montil, Toche, Les Ponts, Rougeain, La
Victoire, Berlogue, and other places, first Lord in Waiting to the
King, was the last of that branch of the family. He died in 1795,
in London, whither he had emigrated, to set up as a perruquier in a
little shop in Whitecross Street. His estates, which had been totally
neglected during his lifetime, were, at the time of the Directoire,
sold as national property, and divided among a number of peasants
who lived there, and founded a line of bourgeois. The rogues who had
acquired the château in exchange for a mere handful of paper money,
decided in 1813 to demolish it. However, soon after the destruction of
the Galerie des Faunes, their work of demolition was interrupted and
never completed. For two years the country people helped themselves,
when so inclined, to the lead roofing of the château. In 1815 M. de
Reu, an old officer of the King’s navy and a secret agent of the Comte
de Provence in Holland--it is said that he was also an accomplice of
George in the affair of the Rue Saint-Nicaise--desirous of ending his
days in his native country, managed to extort a few hundred crowns from
the ungrateful Prince, and purchased the château of Montil.
There, poor and unsociable, he with his eleven children, both
legitimate and illegitimate, lived within the walls which threatened
to fall in and bury them all beneath the ruins. After his death, one
of his daughters, who never married, lived there, and filled those
halls of beauty and glory with plums picked in the castle gardens,
which she placed there to dry. In the year 1875 Mademoiselle Reu, aged
ninety-nine years and three months, was found one winter’s morning
lying dead upon a torn and rotting mattress, in the room adorned with
monograms, devices, and emblems in the honour of Nicolette de Vaucelles.
At this time Baron Jules de Bonmont, son of Nathan, son of Seligmann,
son of Simon, came over from Austria, where he had negotiated the loans
during the dark days of the Empire. He now made France the headquarters
of his financial operations, bringing to the Republic the benefit of
his financial genius. M. Laprat-Teulet, a member of Parliament, who
at that time represented the district of Montil, became one of the
first and surest of his friends and allies. He discovered that, the
era of ideas and strife having gone by, the time had come for big
business deals. He bestowed upon the Baron his warmest sympathy and his
extremely useful devotion, and the Baron, on his side, was always ready
to commend Laprat-Teulet as a clever fellow.
It was by the advice of Laprat-Teulet that Baron Jules bought the
château of Montil. It was then a dignified and beautiful ruin, well
worth restoring and preserving. The task of its restoration was
confided to a pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, M. Quatrebarbe, the diocesan
architect. He removed all the old stone and replaced it with new. In
the new building the Baron, who astonished his political friends by his
taste in art, promptly installed his collection of pictures, furniture,
and armoury, all of which were of enormous value.
“And thus the château of Montil,” to use the words of M. de
Terremondre, “was preserved to the lovers of our national art, and
transformed into a marvellous museum by the care and generosity of a
great seignior, who, at the same time, was a great connoisseur.”
The Baron was not long permitted to enjoy the proud possession of
Montil, with its towers ornamented with medallions, its tracery
staircase, and the delicately carved woodwork of its interior. After
reaching the zenith of his financial prosperity, he died suddenly of an
attack of apoplexy, just on the eve of all the ruin and scandal that
followed. He died in possession of all his wealth, leaving behind him a
gay young widow, and a boy, who, with his short, squat figure, lowering
brows, and already pitiless heart, closely resembled his father. Madame
de Bonmont had kept Montil, of which she was very fond.
She led Madame Hortha to the spiral staircase, the interlacing
stonework of which repeated interminably in its intertwinings the
emblematic peacock of Bernard de Paves tied by the foot to the lute
of Nicolette de Vaucelles. Then, picking up her skirts with a sudden,
abrupt gesture, not without a charm of its own, she followed her. M.
de Terremondre, President of the Archæological Society, and formerly
a great lady-killer, came closely behind her with an eye upon the
rhythmic movement of her engaging figure.
At the age of forty she had retained the wish and the capacity to
please, and M. de Terremondre thoroughly appreciated this, for he
was a susceptible man; yet he did not attempt to make love to her,
knowing that she herself was greatly infatuated with Raoul Marcien, a
handsome, choleric man who had fallen into disrepute.
“Let us go into the armoury,” said Madame de Bonmont, pushing open the
door. “It is warmed with hot-air pipes.”
It was true that the armoury was so heated. Amidst the grotesque
encaustic tiles of M. Quatrebarbe, designed after the manner of the old
paving he had torn up, the hot-air gratings opened their bright brazen
mouths.
Madame de Bonmont was careful to invite the Abbé Guitrel to a seat near
one of the radiators, and to ask him if his feet were damp, and whether
he would not have a glass of something hot.
Under the ribbed vault of its roof, the huge room glittered with a
display of iron and steel such as not even the Armeria in Madrid
could boast. One or two of the financier’s brilliant business coups
had resulted in a collection of armour not to be equalled by that of
Spitzer himself.
Examples of the three centuries of plate armour were there in every
form known to Europe. On the gigantic chimney-piece, guarded by two
Brabançons in magnificent cuisses, a condottiere’s suit of mail
bestrode that of a horse, with open chamfron, horse muzzle, mane-guard,
tail-guard, and poitrel. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling
with dazzling suits of armour, casques, basinets, helmets, salades,
morions, skull caps, iron hats, hauberks, coats of armour, brigantines,
greaves, solerets, and spurs.
From the shields, bucklers, and targes, of all descriptions, radiated
flambergs, Konigsmark swords, partizans, gisarmes, war-scythes,
two-edged swords, Toledo rapiers, poniards, stylets, and daggers.
All around the room stood phantom figures clothed in polished and
unpolished steel; in steel, engraved, inlaid, chased, and damascened.
Maximiliennes with fluted and bowed cuirasses, puffed and bell-shaped
suits of armour, the “polichinelle” of Henri III, and the “écrevisse”
of Louis XIII. Panoplies of war that had adorned French, Spanish,
Italian, German, and English princes; coats of mail worn by knights,
captains, sergeants, crossbowmen, reiters, veterans, by soldiers of
fortune from every country in Europe, by mercenaries and Switzers.
Here was steel armour that had figured at the Field of the Cloth of
Gold; at the jousts and tourneys of England, France, and Germany;
armour from Poitiers, Verneuil, Granson, Fornovo, Ceresole, Pavia,
Ravenna, Pultava, and Culloden; worn by nobles or mercenaries, by
knights or caitiffs, by victor or vanquished, by friend or foe--all
collected by the Baron and displayed in this room.
After dinner, while pouring out the coffee, Madame de Bonmont offered
no sugar to the Abbé, who always took it, and gave it to Baron
Wallstein, who suffered from diabetes and had to be very careful in
his diet. She did not do this with any malice aforethought, but her
mind was full of other matters that engaged her undivided attention.
Her depression, which, simple soul that she was, she was incapable of
hiding, was caused by a telegram from Paris, worded with a twofold
meaning; one literal and commonplace, obvious to all, referring to a
delay in forwarding some plants; the other, the real and ingenious one,
understood, to her unhappiness, by herself alone, indicated that her
lover could not come to Montil but was in dire straits and forced to
remain in Paris.
It was nothing new for Raoul Marcien to be in need of money. Since he
attained his majority, fifteen years previously, he had just managed
to keep himself going by a series of bold and clever _coups_. But this
year, his difficulties, which had continued to increase and multiply,
were positively appalling.
Madame de Bonmont was nearly always worried and depressed about him and
his affairs, for she loved him truly and tenderly with all her soul and
with all her body.
“Two lumps for you, M. de Terremondre?”
Yes, she adored her Raoul, her Rara, with all the strength of her
placid soul. She would have liked him to be loving and faithful,
pure-minded and studious. He was not what she wished him to be, and in
her grief and fear of losing him, she regularly burned candles for his
benefit in the church of Saint-Antoine.
M. de Terremondre, who was by way of being a connoisseur, examined the
pictures. They were all modern works of art, paintings by Daubigny,
Theodore Rousseau, Jules Dupré, Chintreuil, Diaz, and Corot, and
consisted of mournful-looking pools bordered by deep woods, dew-brushed
meadows, village streets, forest glades bathed in the golden light of
the setting sun, and willows emerging from the silver mists of morning.
The prevailing tones were white, fawn, green, blue, and grey. In
massive gilt frames they stood out against the crimson damask hangings
that accorded ill with the gigantic Renaissance chimney-piece, with the
loves of the nymphs and the metamorphoses of the gods sculptured in
the stone. The pictures undoubtedly marred the effect of the wonderful
old ceiling, the painted compartments of which reproduced in infinite
variety the peacock of Bernard de Paves tied by the foot to the lute of
Nicolette de Vaucelles.
“That’s a fine Millet,” said M. de Terremondre, coming to a standstill
before a goosegirl, whose figure stood out, terrible in its rustic
solemnity, against a background of pale gold.
“It’s a pretty picture,” answered Baron Wallstein. “I have the same
thing at my house in Vienna, but mine is a shepherd, not a goosegirl.
I don’t know what my brother gave for this one.” Cup in hand, he began
to stroll round the gallery. “This Jules Dupré cost my brother-in-law
50,000 francs; this Theodore Rousseau 60,000, and this Corot 100,000.”
“I am acquainted with the views of the late Baron in regard to
pictures,” replied M. de Terremondre, following the Baron round the
room. “One day he met me going down the staircase of the Hôtel des
Ventes, with a little picture under my arm. He caught hold of my
sleeve, as he was fond of doing, and said, ‘What are you carrying off
there?’ With the satisfied pride of the complacent dabbler in art I
replied, ‘A Ruisdael, M. de Bonmont, a genuine Ruisdael. It has been
engraved and I happen to have a print in my portfolio.’ ‘What did you
give for your Ruisdael?’ ‘The sale was in a dark room on the ground
floor and the dealer did not know what he was selling. Thirty francs!’”
“‘What a pity! What a pity!’ he ejaculated, and, seeing my surprise,
gave another tug at my sleeve. ‘My dear M. de Terremondre, you ought
to have given 10,000 francs for it; if you had paid as much as that
it would have been worth 30,000 francs to you. The little picture
only cost you thirty francs and will never fetch a high price, say
twenty-five louis at the most. The value of a thing cannot rise at a
jump from thirty francs to 30,000!’ Ah!” concluded M. de Terremondre,
“the Baron was a clever man!”
“He was indeed,” replied Wallstein, “and he also liked taking a rise
out of people.”
The two cronies looked up, and saw, right before their eyes, the very
Baron they had been discussing, the man who had been so clever all
his life. There he was, painted by Delaunay, amongst a lot of costly
pictures, his cunning animal-like face leering out of a glittering
frame.
Madame de Bonmont and the Abbé, seated together in the huge chimney
corner before the fire, were chatting about the weather and
day-dreaming. Madame de Bonmont was thinking how sweet life might be,
if only Rara willed it so. She loved him so simply and so ingenuously.
All the ancient and modern moralists, all the fathers of the Church,
the doctors and theologians, the Abbé Guitrel and Monseigneur Charlot,
the Pope and the whole of the Church Council, the archangel Michael
with his great trumpet, and Christ come again in His glory to judge
both the quick and the dead--all of them put together would never
have succeeded in making her believe that it was a sin for her to love
Rara. She was thinking that she would not see him at Montil, and that
perhaps, at that very moment, he was unfaithful to her. She knew he
was almost as familiar with women as he was with the bailiffs; she had
seen him at the races with ladies of easy virtue and uncertain age, at
whom he had cast leering glances as he handed them the field-glasses
or helped them on with their cloaks. The poor dear could not get rid
of a whole host of tiresome people, to whom he was bound for reasons
she found it impossible to understand, even when he explained them at
length. She felt very unhappy and heaved a deep sigh.
The Abbé was thinking of the bishopric of Tourcoing. His rival, the
Abbé Lantaigne, was done for. He was going under in the ruin of his
seminary, smothered beneath bills of the butcher Lafolie. But there
were many rivals in the field. A senior curate from Paris and a curé
from Lyons seemed to be the Government favourites; the Nunciature as
usual lay low. The Abbé Guitrel heaved a sigh.
Hearing the sigh, Madame de Bonmont, who was very kind-hearted,
reproached herself for selfishly thinking of her own affairs. She made
an effort to appear interested in the Abbé Guitrel’s concerns, and
affectionately inquired whether he would not soon be made a bishop.
“You are a candidate for Tourcoing,” she said. “Would you not dislike
living in so small a town?”
The Abbé declared that the care of his flock would be sufficient to
occupy him, and that, moreover, the diocese of Tourcoing was one of
the oldest and most important in Northern France. “It is the see,” he
added, “of the blessed St. Loup, the apostle of Flanders.”
“Indeed?” remarked Madame de Bonmont.
“We must be careful,” went on the Abbé, “not to confound St. Loup, the
apostle of Flanders, with St. Loup, Bishop of Lyons, St. Leu or Loup,
Bishop of Sens, and St. Loup, Bishop of Troyes. The latter had been
married seven years to Pimentola, a sister of the Bishop of Arles,
when he left her, to retire in solitude to Lerins and devote himself
entirely to works of ascetic piety.”
And Madame de Bonmont was thinking:
“He’s been losing heavily again. In one way it is good for him, because
he has been winning too frequently at the club lately, and people were
getting suspicious. On the other hand it’s a great nuisance. I shall
have to pay up.”
And Madame de Bonmont was much annoyed at having to pay Rara’s debts.
In the first place she never liked paying and, in the second, she
disliked lending money to Rara as much as a matter of principle as
from fear of not being loved for herself alone. At the same time she
knew that when she saw her Rara, gloomy and terrible, tying a wet
towel round his fevered cranium--which was beginning to be discernible
through the fast-thinning hair--and when she heard the poor darling
crying amidst a torrent of blasphemies that the only thing for him to
do was to blow out his brains, she knew she would have to pay. You see
Rara was a man of honour; in fact, he lived on honour; since he had
left the Army his profession had been that of witness or umpire, and,
in the smartest circles, no duel ever took place without his presence.
And to think that she would have to part with more money. If only he
belonged entirely to her and was loving and attentive. As it was, he
was in a perpetual state of agitation, desperation, and fury, and
always seemed like a man laying about him in the thick of a fight.
“The saint of whom I am speaking, Madame la Baronne,” went on the Abbé,
“the blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, preached the gospel in Flanders, and
his apostolic labours were often fraught with many trials. In his
biography we find an instance which will touch you by its naïve beauty.
One frosty day in winter he was traversing the frozen countryside, and
stopped at the house of a senator to warm himself. The latter, who was
entertaining some of his boon companions, continued to hold unseemly
conversation with them in the presence of the apostle. St. Loup made
an attempt to stop the conversation. ‘My sons,’ said he to the senator
and his guests, ‘are you not aware that on the day of judgment you will
have to answer for every vain speech you have uttered?’ Treating the
exhortations of the holy man with contempt, however, they returned with
redoubled zest to their indecent and impious talk. Shaking the dust
from off his feet, the blessed saint said to them, ‘I desired to warm
my tired body against the bitter cold, but your sinful talk forces me,
though still numb with cold, to quit your company.’”
Madame de Bonmont was sadly reflecting that lately, with teeth set and
eyes flashing, Rara had been threatening the destruction of the Jews.
He had always been against the Jews, and so had she for that matter.
However, she preferred not to discuss the subject, and in her opinion
Rara, being the lover of a Catholic lady of Jewish origin, was wanting
in tact when he swore, as he invariably did, that he would like to
rip open every “sheeny” in Christendom. She would have preferred more
gentleness and sympathy, calmer views and more amiable desires. As for
herself, her thoughts of love were mingled with innocent dreams of
sweetmeats and poetry.
“The mission of the blessed St. Loup,” continued the Abbé Guitrel,
“bore fruit. The inhabitants of Tourcoing were baptized by him, and
chose him by acclamation for their bishop. His end was accompanied by
circumstances which I feel sure will impress you, Madame. One December
day, in the year of our Lord 397, St. Loup, then full of years and
good deeds, made his way to a tree surrounded by briars, where it was
his habit to pray. Fixing two stakes into the ground, he marked out a
space as long as his body, and said to the disciples he had asked to
accompany him, ‘When, by God’s will, I end my exile in this world, it
is there I desire to be laid.’
“St. Loup died on the Sunday following the day on which he had marked
out his last resting-place, and it was done as he had commanded.
Blandus came to inter the body of the blessed saint, whom he was
afterwards to succeed as Bishop of Tourcoing.”
She felt sad and full of compassion. She understood the reason for
Rara’s anti-Jewish frenzies, and excused them. The fact was that
latterly, to re-establish his reputation among his fellows as a man of
honour, Rara had warmly espoused the cause of the Army, in which he had
formerly served as a cavalry officer. He had greatly tightened the
bonds that united him with one great family--the Army, and had even
struck a Jew whom he had overheard in a café asking for the Army List.
Madame de Bonmont loved and admired him, but she was far from happy.
Raising her head and opening her flower-like eyes she said:
“The see of the blessed St. Loup, apostle to---- Please go on, M.
l’Abbé. I am very interested.”
* * * * *
It was Madame de Bonmont’s fate to seek, in hearts little fitted to
give it her, the sweetness of peaceful love. The sentimental Elizabeth
had always bestowed her heart upon arrant adventurers. During her
husband’s lifetime she had fondly loved the son of an obscure senator,
young X----, famous for having appropriated to his own use a whole
year’s secret funds of a certain government department. Close upon
this she had given her confidence to an extremely fascinating man
who was one of the bright particular stars of the government press,
and who suddenly disappeared from view in a tremendous financial
catastrophe. These two, at any rate, had been introduced to her by the
Baron himself. You cannot blame a woman if she has lovers belonging to
her own set. But her newest, dearest, her one and only love, Raoul
Marcien, had not been one of the Baron’s friends. He did not belong to
the world of sale and barter. She had met him in a most select circle
of Catholic Royalist society somewhere in the provinces. He was himself
as good as a nobleman. This time she had firmly believed she was going
to satisfy her desire for love, and delicate, refined intimacy, that
at last she had found the chivalrous lover with noble and beautiful
feelings of whom she had so long dreamed.
And now she found that he was like all the others, alternately frozen
with fear and burning with rage, torn with anguish of mind and
agitated by the extraordinary adventures of a life devoted to fraud
and blackmail. But he was so much more picturesque and amusing than
anyone else! He would, for instance, be summoned as witness in some
serious and delicate affair, and at the same time be served with a
judgment-summons at his club; or again, he might one day be made
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and the same morning be haled before
the court on a charge of embezzlement. Moreover, with erect carriage,
and well-waxed moustache, he defended his honour at the point of
his sword. But for some months past he had seemed to be losing his
sang-froid; he spoke too loudly, and gesticulated too much, in fact he
compromised his case by his desire for vengeance, for he was always
complaining of betrayal.
It was with real anxiety that Elizabeth saw Rara’s temper grow daily
more unmanageable. When she went to see him of a morning she would find
him in his shirt-sleeves, bending over his old military trunk crammed
full of writs, swearing and blaspheming with crimson face. “Rogues!
scoundrels! scum! wretches!” he would shout, vociferating that they
should hear from him to their cost. She would snatch a kiss in the
middle of the curses, and be sent away with the usual remark that he
would blow out his brains.
No, it was not the love of which Elizabeth had dreamed.
“You were saying, M. l’Abbé, that the blessed St. Loup----?”
But the Abbé, with his head inclined at a gentle angle and hands
clasped upon his portly frame, was fast asleep in his chair.
So Madame de Bonmont, who was as kind to herself as she was to others,
also fell asleep in her easy chair; fell asleep, thinking that perhaps
after all Rara would come to an end of his worries soon, that she might
only have to give him quite a little money, and that after all she was
beloved by the handsomest of men.
“My dear, my dear,” cried the much-travelled Madame Hortha, in her
trumpet-like voice, calculated to strike terror into the heart of a
Turk, “are we not to see M. Ernest to-night?”
Standing there, with her big limbs and heavy features, she looked
like a warrior virgin left behind and forgotten for twenty years in
the wings of the theatre at Bayreuth; she was terrible to look upon,
clothed and girdled with jet and steel that flashed, gleamed, and
clanked as she moved, but, in spite of it all, quite a good sort of
woman, and the mother of numerous children.
Awakened with a start by the magic blast that blared from the bosom
of the excellent Madame Hortha, the Baronne replied that her son, who
had obtained sick leave, was to arrive that evening at Montil, and the
carriage had gone to the station to meet him.
The Abbé Guitrel, whose slumbers, too, had been pierced by this
nocturnal flourish of trumpets, adjusted his spectacles, and,
moistening his lips, that they might have the necessary unction,
murmured with heavenly sweetness:
“Yes, Loup--Loup.”
“And so,” said Madame de Bonmont, “you will wear the mitre, you will
hold the crosier, and have a big ring on your finger.”
“I do not know yet, Madame,” replied M. Guitrel.
“Yes, yes! You will be appointed!” She leaned forward slightly, and, in
a low voice, asked: “Monsieur l’Abbé, must the Bishop’s ring be of any
particular design?”
“Not exactly, Madame,” replied M. Guitrel. “The Bishop wears the ring
as a symbol of his spiritual union with the Church; it is therefore
fitting that the ring should suggest by its appearance thoughts of
austerity and purity.”
“Ah!” said Madame de Bonmont. “What about the stone?”
“In the Middle Ages,” replied the Abbé, “the bezel was sometimes of
gold like the ring, and sometimes consisted of a precious stone. It
seems that the amethyst is a very suitable stone with which to adorn
the pastoral ring, it gleams with a gentle lustre, and is one of the
twelve stones that formed the breastplate worn by the High Priest of
the Jews. In Christian symbolism it stands for modesty and humility;
Narbode, Bishop of Rennes in the eleventh century, makes it the emblem
of those who give themselves to be crucified on the cross of Jesus
Christ.”
“Indeed!” said Madame de Bonmont.
She had made up her mind that when M. Guitrel became Bishop of
Tourcoing she would make him a present of an episcopal ring set with a
large amethyst.
Madame Hortha’s trumpets again rang out:
“My dear, my dear, are we not to see M. Raoul Marcien to-night? Are we
not to have the pleasure of seeing the dear man?”
The cosmopolitan lady was well worthy of admiration, in that, although
acquainted with every grade of society under the sun, she avoided
making a hopeless muddle of them all. Her brain was a directory of
all the drawing-rooms of all the capitals of Europe, and she was not
wanting in a certain worldly judgment; her kindness of heart, too, was
universal. If she had mentioned Raoul Marcien, it was in all innocence.
She was innocence personified, and knew nothing of evil. She was a good
wife and a good mother, whose home was a sleeping-car or a _wagon-lit_,
yet a domesticated woman for all that. Under the corsage of jet and
steel that glittered as she moved with a sound as of hail, she wore
coarse grey cotton stays. Even her lady’s-maids never questioned her
virtue.
“My dear, my dear, of course you know that M. Raoul Marcien has fought
a duel with M. Isidore Mayer?”
And in a voice that made one think of international bureaux and tourist
inquiry offices, she related the story which Madame de Bonmont knew by
heart.
She told how M. Isidore Mayer, a Jew, both well known and highly
respected in the financial world, went into a café in the Boulevard des
Capucines, sat down at a table and asked for the Army List. Having a
son in the Army, he wished to make sure of the names of the officers
in his regiment. Just as he was about to take the book from a waiter
M. Raoul Marcien strode up, and said: “Monsieur, I forbid you to lay a
hand on that book. It is sacred to the French Army!” “Why?” asked M.
Isidore Mayer. “Because you are of the same religion as the traitor!”
M. Isidore Mayer shrugged his shoulders, upon which M. Raoul Marcien
struck him full in the face. An encounter was arranged, and two shots
fired without effect.
“My dear, my dear, do you understand why he did it? I must say I do
not.”
Madame de Bonmont did not reply, and her silence was prolonged by that
of M. de Terremondre and Baron Wallstein.
“I believe,” said Madame de Bonmont, listening intently to the distant
sounds of horses’ hoofs and the rumble of wheels, “that Ernest is
coming.”
At this point a servant came in with the newspapers. M. de Terremondre
took one of them and glanced casually at it.
“Still the Affair!” he murmured. “More professors protesting! Why will
they insist on meddling with what does not concern them? It is only
right that the Army should settle its own affairs, as it always has
done. Moreover, it seems to me that when seven officers----”
“Of course,” replied the Abbé, “when seven officers have given
judgment, I will even go so far as to say that it is unseemly to
raise any doubts as to their decision. It is highly indecorous and
incongruous!”
“Are you speaking of the Affair?” asked Madame de Bonmont. “Well, I can
assure you that Dreyfus is guilty. I have it from an authentic source.”
She blushed as she spoke, for it was Raoul to whom she had referred.
Ernest entered the drawing-room, sulky and morose.
“Good evening, mother! Good evening, M. l’Abbé!”
He took very little notice of the others, but threw himself upon the
cushions of a couch which stood just beneath the portrait of his
father, whom he much resembled. He was the Baron over again, but
shrunken, diminished, and sickly, the wild boar grown small, pale, and
flabby. The likeness, however, was striking, and M. de Terremondre drew
attention to it:
“It is surprising, M. de Bonmont, how like you are to the portrait of
the late Baron, your father.”
Ernest lifted his head and glanced at the picture by Delaunay.
“Ah, yes, the pater! Clever chap, the pater. I’m all there myself,
too, but pretty well played out. How are you, M. l’Abbé? You and I
are good friends, aren’t we? I want to have a little talk with you
presently.” Then, turning to M. de Terremondre, who was still holding
the newspaper: “What do they say there? As far as we fellows are
concerned, we are not allowed an opinion of any description, you bet!
Only a bourgeois is permitted the luxury of an idea, though it may be
an idiotic one. Then, good Lord, the things that interest the big bugs,
how should they interest us?”
He sneered. His life in the regiment afforded him endless amusement.
Although he did not appear so, he was exceedingly shrewd, prudent, and
cunning; he also knew when to hold his tongue, and took the keenest
delight in the great and demoralizing power he possessed. In spite of
himself, he corrupted every one that he approached, and was extremely
pleased when he could swindle them in some way, as, for instance, when
he succeeded in prevailing upon a poor and vain companion to present
him with a meerschaum pipe. His greatest joy was to despise and hate
his superiors, and to see how some of the more covetous among them
would absolutely sell him their very souls, while others, more timorous
and fearful of compromising themselves by showing him any leniency,
would deny him, not a favour even, but the enjoyment of some right
which they would never refuse to the son of a peasant.
* * * * *
Full of craft and cunning, young Ernest de Bonmont came and sat by the
Abbé Guitrel, and began to talk coaxingly to him:
“M. l’Abbé, you often see the Brécés, don’t you? You know them very
well?”
“You must not imagine, my son,” replied the Abbé, “that I am an
intimate friend of the Duc de Brécé. That is not the case. The utmost
I can say is that I often have the privilege of visiting in the
family circle. On certain festival days I say Mass in the chapel of
Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles, which, as you know, is situated in the
woods of Brécé. This, as I was just telling your mother, is a source
of consolation and thankfulness to me. After Mass I lunch, either at
the Presbytery, with M. le curé Traviès, or at the château, where, I
am bound to say, they treat me with the greatest kindness. The Duke’s
manner towards me is always simple and natural, and the ladies are
amiable and pleasant. They do a great deal of good around here, and
would do still more were it not for the unjustified prejudices, blind
hatred, and bitter feelings of the people.”
“Do you happen to know what effect was produced by the utensil Mother
sent to the Duchess for the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles?”
“What utensil do you mean? Do you refer to the golden ciborium? I
can assure you that M. and Madame de Brécé were much touched by your
mother’s simple act of homage to the miraculous Virgin.”
“So it was a good idea, wasn’t it, M. l’Abbé? Well, it was my notion.
Mother isn’t particularly bright in the way of ideas, you know--oh, I’m
not reproaching her. However, let us talk seriously. You are very fond
of me, are you not, M. l’Abbé?”
M. Guitrel took young Bonmont’s hands in both his.
“Never doubt my affection for you, my son; it is the love of a father
for his child; I might even say that it is a maternal love as well,
and thus express more fully all that it contains both of strength and
tenderness. I have watched you grow up, my dear Ernest, since that
day on which you made so excellent a first communion, to this moment,
in which you are accomplishing your noble duty as a soldier in our
great French Army, which, day by day, I am thankful to say, grows more
Christian and more pious. And it is my firm conviction, my dearest boy,
that amid the distractions, the errors even of your age, you have kept
the faith. Your actions speak for themselves. I know you have always
looked upon it as your duty to contribute towards our works of charity.
You are my favourite child.”
“Well, then, M. l’Abbé, do your child a good turn. Tell the Duc de
Brécé to give me permission to wear the Brécé Hunt badge.”
“The Hunt badge? But, my son, what do I know of such matters? I am
not, like M. de Traviès, a great hunter before the Lord. I have
followed St. Thomas far more than St. Hubert. The Hunt badge? Is that
not a figurative expression, a kind of metaphor to express the idea
of membership of the Hunt? Anyway, my son, what you desire is an
invitation to the Brécé meets.”
Young Bonmont gave a jump.
“Don’t, for heaven’s sake, get mixed, M. l’Abbé. That’s not it--oh, not
a bit of it. An invitation--I’m pretty sure to get an invitation to the
de Brécé meets, in exchange for the utensil.”
“Ciborium, ciborium, remember the Latin _ciborium_! I also think, my
dear child, that the Duke and Duchess will make a special point of
sending you an invitation as soon as they realize that it will please
you and your mother to accept it.”
“I believe you! As soon as they stuck to the plate. But you can tell
them from me that I don’t care a flip for an invitation to see a
meet. I don’t want to stay and rot at some crossroads where there is
nothing to be seen, where you are sure to get all the mud kicked up by
the horses full in your face, and then be sworn at by a huntsman for
obstructing the way. No, I am not particularly keen on such amusements.
The Brécés can keep their invitation!”
“In that case, my son, I do not understand your idea.”
“And yet my idea is clear enough, M. l’Abbé. I do not intend the Brécés
to laugh up their sleeve at me, that’s what I’m driving at.”
“Pray explain yourself!”
“Well, M. l’Abbé, just imagine being planted down on the Carrefour du
Roi, together with the village doctor, the wife of the Chief of Police,
and M. Irvoy’s head clerk! No, such a situation is not to be thought of
for one moment. But if I wear the Hunt badge, I can follow the hounds,
and, although I may look a bit off colour sometimes, I’ll soon show
them whether I can ride or not. Now _you_ can get me what I want, M.
l’Abbé; the Brécés will not refuse you anything. All you have to do is
to ask it in the name of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.”
“I beg of you, my child, not to bring Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles
into such a matter, which cannot interest her in the very slightest.
The miraculous Virgin of Brécé has enough to do in answering the
prayers of widows and orphans, not to mention those of our brave
soldiers in Madagascar. But, my dear Ernest, is there really so much to
be gained by the possession of this badge? Is it then such a precious
talisman? No doubt strange privileges are attached to its possession.
Tell me all about them. I am far from despising the noble and ancient
art of hunting, for I belong to the clergy of an eminently sporting
diocese, and would be glad of any information on the subject.”
“You do amuse me, M. l’Abbé, and I know you must be joking. You know as
well as I do what is understood by the Hunt badge: it is the right to
wear the colours of any particular hunt. I am going to speak frankly
to you; I am candid, because I can afford to be so. I want to be made
a member of the Brécé Hunt, because it is the correct thing, and I
like to be in the swim. I want it because I am a snob and a vain man.
I also want it because it would amuse me to dine with the Brécés on
St. Hubert’s Day. The Brécé badge would be just about my mark. I
want it very badly, and I’m not going to disguise the fact. I have no
false shame--no shame of any kind, for the matter of that. Listen to
me, M. l’Abbé, I have something of great importance to say to you. You
must understand that in broaching the subject to the Duc de Brécé,
you will only be claiming what is my due; you understand--my due! I
have property round here; I do not shoot the deer; I let people hunt
and kill on my estates, all of which deserves both consideration and
gratitude. M. de Brécé is really under obligations to his kind little
neighbour Ernest.”
The Abbé said nothing. It was evident that he did not like the idea,
and was prepared to refuse to do what was asked of him. Young Bonmont
went on:
“I need hardly say, M. l’Abbé, that, in case the Brécés demand a price
in return for the privilege, I should not stick at such a trifle.”
M. l’Abbé Guitrel made a movement of protest.
“Banish that supposition, my son! It ill accords with the character of
the Duc de Brécé.”
“That may be, M. l’Abbé. Whether it be given or sold, depends upon the
owner’s ideas and the state of his banking account. Some packs cost
the master 80,000 francs a year; others bring him in as much as 30,000
francs a year. In saying this I am not in any way blaming the man who
expects people to pay for their privileges. Personally, I should prefer
to do so, indeed, I consider it only fair. Then there are districts
where hunting costs so much, that the master, even if he is a rich
man, cannot keep things going alone. Just suppose for instance, M.
l’Abbé, that you kept a pack in the neighbourhood of Paris. Can you
see yourself meeting all expenses and finding your purse sufficient to
pay the heavy claims entailed? But I think I have heard that the Brécé
badge is not to be bought with money. The Duke hasn’t the gumption to
make a profit out of his pack. Well, M. l’Abbé, you will get it for me,
gratis and for nothing! It will all be so much to the good.”
Before replying, the Abbé reflected long and deeply, and this display
of prudence worried young Bonmont not a little. At last, however, the
Abbé opened his lips:
“My son, I have said so once, and will say it again. I have a great
affection for you, and should like both to please and to aid you. I
would welcome any opportunity of doing you a service. But I really
have not the necessary qualifications to solicit on your behalf the
worldly distinction to which you refer. Just think for a moment.
Suppose that, after hearing my request, M. de Brécé should refuse or
make some difficulty about granting it? I should be powerless to bring
any pressure to bear upon him. What chance would a humble professor
of elocution at the Grand Séminaire have of overcoming resistance,
removing difficulty, and obtaining consent, so to speak, by main force?
I have nothing with which to convince and hold parley with the great
ones of the earth. I cannot, must not, even in so paltry a matter as
this, undertake anything without being assured of its success.”
Young Bonmont looked at the Abbé with surprise mingled with admiration,
and said:
“I understand, M. l’Abbé. You cannot manage it for the time being. But
when you are made a bishop you will carry off the badge with the same
ease as a man at a fair carries off the ring, when tilting upon the
wooden horses of the roundabouts. Of course you will!”
“It is quite possible,” returned M. Guitrel, with the greatest gravity,
“that if a bishop were to ask for the Hunt badge for you, the Duke
would not refuse him.”