On quitting the dining-room, the Duchesse de Tarascon said to her host,
on whose arm she was leaning, “Of course you and I must go with the
stream. But is not all the fine talk that has passed to-day at your
table, and in which we too have joined, a sort of hypocrisy? I may say
this to you; I would say it to no other.”
“And I say to you, Madame la Duchesse, that which I would say to no
other. Thinking over it as I sit alone, I find myself making a ‘terrible
hazard;’ but when I go abroad and become infected by the general
enthusiasm, I pluck up gaiety of spirit, and whisper to myself, ‘True,
but it may be an enormous gain.’ To get the left bank of the Rhine is
a trifle; but to check in our next neighbour a growth which a few years
hence would overtop us,--that is no trifle. And, be the gain worth the
hazard or not, could the Emperor, could any Government likely to hold
its own for a week, have declined to take the chance of the die?”
The Duchesse mused a moment, and meanwhile the two seated themselves on
a divan in the corner of the salon. Then she said very slowly--
“No Government that held its tenure on popular suffrage could have done
so. But if the Emperor had retained the personal authority which once
allowed the intellect of one man to control and direct the passions of
many, I think the war would have been averted. I have reason to know
that the Emperor gave his emphatic support to the least bellicose
members of the Council, and that Gramont’s speech did not contain the
passage that precipitates hostilities when the Council in which it
was framed broke up. These fatal Ministers found the Chamber, and the
reports of the popular excitement which could not be resisted without
imminent danger of revolution. It is Paris that has forced the war on
the Emperor. But enough of this subject. What must be, must, and, as you
say, the gain may be greater than the hazard. I come to something else
you whispered to me before we went in to dinner,--a sort of complaint
which wounds me sensibly. You say I had assisted to a choice of danger
and possibly of death a very distant connection of mine, who might have
been a very near connection of yours. You mean Alain de Rochebriant?”
“Yes; I accept him as a suitor for the hand of my only daughter.”
“I am so glad, not for your sake so much as for his. No one can know
him well without appreciating in him the finest qualities of the finest
order of the French noble; but having known your pretty Valerie so long,
my congratulations are for the man who can win her. Meanwhile, hear my
explanation: when I promised Alain any interest I can command for
the grade of officer in a regiment of Mobiles, I knew not that he had
formed, or was likely to form, ties or duties to keep him at home. I
withdraw my promise.”
“No, Duchesse, fulfil it. I should be disloyal indeed if I robbed a
sovereign under whose tranquil and prosperous reign I have acquired,
with no dishonour, the fortune which Order proffers to Commerce, of one
gallant defender in the hour of need. And, speaking frankly, if Alain
were really my son, I think I am Frenchman enough to remember that
France is my mother.”
“Say no more, my friend--say no more,” cried the Duchesse, with the
warm blood of the heart rushing through all the delicate coatings of
pearl-powder. “If every Frenchman felt as you do; if in this Paris of
ours all hostilities of class may merge in the one thought of the common
country; if in French hearts there yet thrills the same sentiment as
that which, in the terrible days when all other ties were rent asunder,
revered France as mother, and rallied her sons to her aid against the
confederacy of Europe,--why, then, we need not grow pale with dismay
at the sight of a Prussian needle-gun. Hist! look yonder: is not that a
tableau of Youth in Arcady? Worlds rage around, and Love, unconcerned,
whispers to Love!” The Duchesse here pointed to a corner of the
adjoining room in which Alain and Valerie sat apart, he whispering into
her ear; her cheek downcast, and, even seen at that distance, brightened
by the delicate tenderness of its blushes.