symbol of his destiny in the aspect of that garden. He, too, like those
trees, bore witness to the effects of discipline. No more than they
could he develop freely. He should never marry Valentine,--M. de
Claviers reasoned too justly. She would never enter a noble family
without the consent of its head. The allusion made by the far-sighted
and implacable marquis to the possibilities of his military career,
finished freezing his heart. What should he do, in either case? The tree
in the hedge which pushes its branches beyond the line fixed by the
gardener destroys the fine ensemble, and it will never bloom. It retains
the marks of the hatchet that pruned it. In the hedge they added to its
beauty. They are a mutilation when it stands by itself. Such is the fate
of the member of a caste who cuts loose from it and essays to live for
himself. But nobility, great houses, caste, mésalliances,--were not all
these ideas a mere phantasmagoria, a superstition, the imaginary
residuum of an abolished reality, an absurd anachronism in the France of
to-day?--Away from his father the son would have answered yes. He could
not do it at that moment, in that carriage where he could hear the
slightest movement and the very breathing of that man, so intensely
alive, who imparted to his beliefs that ardent flame of his individual
life which gave them their inspiration. The prestige of his father's
presence acted anew upon Landri, with such force that he could not even
blame the paternal determination, against which he would rebel
to-morrow, but at a distance,--and he fell into a fit of melancholy
which M. de Claviers finally observed. With his temperament the
"Émigré" was most worthy to utter the words of Don Diego, savage and
sublime in his dauntless manliness:--
Il n'est qu'un seul honneur, il est tant de maîtresses.[3]
He had almost quoted it in characterizing his son's passion as a mere
passing crisis, and once more there was a world of compassion, a world
of affection in the tone in which he renewed the conversation, in order
to divert his mind from his thoughts:--
"Can you imagine the existence of that woman here, under the Terror? You
know that a denunciation against her was the cause of the proposal of
that villain Roland, in a committee of the Legislative Assembly, in
November, '92, that the decree of the 20th of September should be
suspended so far as the wives of 'émigrés' were concerned. If it had
not been for the procureur-syndic de Thury, a former gardener of ours,
her being legally divorced would have availed her nothing, they would
have taken everything from her, and her life with the rest. She never
ceased to correspond with her husband. She went twice to see him, and
she received him here three times. One shudders to think of those
interviews! But what courage! What heroism, to repeat my former word! It
was of us that she was thinking, she was determined to defend the
inheritance, the House. With her jewels she might have passed all those
years happily in Germany or in England, and she died, worn out with
grief, in 1804. From veneration for her memory, my grandfather would
never allow anything to be changed inside the château, nor my father,
nor I. Nothing, nothing, nothing. When I am no longer here, I authorize
you to have the telephone put in, as you are more _up-to-date_ than your
old father," he concluded, laughingly, "but that's all!--Ah! there's the
worthy Bressieux conspiring with Chaffin again. They are far greater
changes that he has in his head than the installation of a telephone. It
seems that certain details are not in style, and thereupon Monsieur
Chaffin comes and bores me with dissertations on door-knobs and tiles at
the back of the fireplace, and shutter-fastenings, which Bressieux has
taught him. Nothing, nothing, nothing! I will change nothing. I don't
know where I have read that line of an English poet, 'The Siren loves
the sea, and I the past.'--Come, come, Bressieux!" he cried in his
strong, resonant voice through the window of the automobile, "don't
spoil Chaffin for me altogether. He will end by refusing to live at
Grandchamp any longer, because it's not pure enough."
Louis de Bressieux was in fact standing at an angle of the château,
intently considering--so it seemed, at all events--the detail of the
decoration of a window on the ground floor. He had not yet changed his
hunting costume, and the visor of his velvet cap concealed his eyes.
Beside him stood a man of small stature, thick-set, with hair once red,
now turning gray,--one of those men whose crabbed countenance leads one
at a glance to judge them to be very frank and downright. His gleaming
eyes, shifting and impenetrable, indicated that he concealed many
complexities behind the rough bonhomie of his manners. He was Landri's
former tutor, promoted twelve years before to the rank of general
factotum, which was not likely to be a sinecure with the very large
income of the Marquis de Claviers, and his expenditures, which, alas!
were much larger. He called him, it will be remembered, "my good
Chaffin," as he said "my good Jaubourg," and "the worthy Bressieux." A
learned connoisseur of human nature has said: "He who does not make up
his mind to be a dupe will never be magnanimous"; and the admirable
Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp was truly magnanimous. How surprised he
would have been if, at the moment when he called to Bressieux, one of
those modern machines--the objects of his half-sincere, half-simulated
aversion--had been at hand to record and transmit to him the
conversation which his sudden arrival had interrupted!
"The affair must be settled within ten days, at the latest," Bressieux
was saying. "The two American dealers are to sail December eighth. I
know them. They won't postpone their sailing. They want to carry the
tapestries with them. If the thing drags, they'll back out. The other
dealers haven't the means to make up the whole amount. In that case it's
a public sale, with all its risks. Everybody will know that the marquis
is embarrassed. You won't find the four millions. It's in his interest
that I speak to you."
"And it's his interest that I have in mind, no less," replied Chaffin.
"Four millions? The debts would be paid,--the largest ones,--and perhaps
he would consent to cut down his establishment. But he won't allow me to
mention the subject. I didn't dare even to show him the summonses last
week. He refuses to acknowledge, what he is well aware of, however, that
he is ruined. The idea that I, who know how attached he is to this whole
château,--he wouldn't let so much as a cup be sold,--should suggest to
him to sell everything at one stroke, tapestries, furniture, portraits!"
"But is he absolutely driven to such a sale, or is he not?"
"He is."
"Has he any way whatever of escaping it?"
"He has not, unless millions should fall from the sky."
"Or a friend, Jaubourg, for example, should leave him his fortune?"
insinuated Bressieux.
"He would leave it to Monsieur le Comte Landri," said Chaffin hastily,
"who would not accept it." He continued, after a pause during which the
two men avoided looking at each other, like people who know a thing,
know that they know it, and do not choose to admit it: "Oh, well! it's
through Monsieur le Comte Landri that I will act. I owe it to him, to
him as well, that his fortune shall not be swallowed up in the pit. I
will tell him the truth, and that this offer to purchase all the
treasures of the château in a lump is an unhoped-for piece of luck, the
only way of gaining time. It will be enough for him to revoke the
general power of attorney that he gave his father, and to demand his
principal. Monsieur le Marquis cannot give it to him. To avoid
undergoing that humiliation before his son, he will give way.--But I
hear his voice. This very evening I will speak to Landri. You shall have
his answer at once."
And they went forward together to meet the motor from which M. de
Claviers and Landri were alighting. The two confederates had not uttered
a word which placed them at each other's mercy, and yet the real basis
of this interview was one of those villainous piratical "deals" of which
the international traffic in antiquities has made more than one of late
years in France and elsewhere, involving the relics of historic
fortunes. The "good Chaffin" was simply an unfaithful steward who had
wallowed at his ease for ten or twelve years in the careless prodigality
of his lord, and he was preparing to retire, pocketing a handsome
percentage of a sum offered by a syndicate of dealers in curios for the
treasures preserved intact at Grandchamp by the heroism of the
grandmother. Louis de Bressieux, for his part, had got wind of the
dealings of the wicked servitor with the second-hand trade, and had
succeeded in assuring himself a broker's commission by interesting in
the affair the two most famous American dealers in antiquities. It was
quite true that such a sale, effected at that moment, might save the
rest of the property, and that pretext was the ostensible cloak of a
transaction which the two managers of the unclean intrigue were craftily
carrying forward, unknown to the alleged beneficiary thereof. This
silence convicted them. Such is the commanding prestige of a certain
quality in man, that the felonious manager and the profit-sharing friend
felt a vague remorse that embarrassed them with respect to each other
when the marquis said to them with a cordial, loyal laugh:--
"It's of no use for you to try to debauch me, Chaffin and Bressieux.
While I live, nothing in the château shall be touched; when I am dead,
I hope that it will be the same," he added, laying his hand on his son's
shoulder.
[Footnote 1: "Being bound simply to observe here that it is folly to
think that any of our kings ever bore frogs. On the contrary, what has
been written to that effect came from the enemies of French honor, and
in derision of the fact that they are descended from the Paluds
meotides."]
[Footnote 2:
Within these shady woods and forests
Are wild boars and shy, timid hinds,
And shoats, and young of hinds and does,
And antlered stags, to woodsmen known;
In brief, all pleasure, solace and delight
That huntsman may in woodland fair enjoy.]
[Footnote 3: There is but one honor, there are many mistresses.]
III
THE TRAGIC UNDERSIDE OF A GRAND EXISTENCE
"Nothing in the château shall be touched!" repeated Chaffin half an
hour later. He was climbing the grand staircase on his way to the
apartment that Landri occupied when he came to Grandchamp,--the
apartment of the eldest son. It was twelve years already since the
last-born, become the only son, had been installed therein.--"Everything
shall be touched, monsieur le marquis!" And the disloyal steward's face
expressed the hatred that wicked servants feel for their betrayed
masters while he looked at the Beauvais panels on the walls, one of the
glories of the château, the complete set of tapestries representing
Chinese scenes after Fontenay, Vernensaal and Dumont. Princes, in rich
Asiatic costumes, were seated on Persian carpets. Princesses, arrayed in
white stuffs embellished with precious stones, rode in palanquins.
Servants carried parasols. Negro boys offered fruits under canopies
enwreathed with foliage.
It was long, long ago that Chaffin had first climbed those stairs and
marvelled, with the stupefaction of a petty bourgeois suddenly
transported into a scene of fashionable life, at all that magnificence
befitting the "Thousand and One Nights!" He was then a poor professor,
unattached, married, with a family of children. He had just been
introduced into the château by the chaplain, as tutor to the youngest
son. The priest, who had educated the older sons, was too old to
undertake another task of the sort. He dreaded the presence of another
ecclesiastic. Being instructed by the marquis to find some one, he
remembered an instructor whom he had met in a religious boarding-school
in Paris. He, on being appealed to, suggested his colleague Chaffin.
In consenting, as he had done, to entrust Landri's education to a chance
tutor, M. de Claviers had conformed once more to the classic type of the
_Grand Seigneur_. One is amazed at the extraordinary facility with
which, in all times, people who bear the greatest names abandon their
children to uncertain influences. Even princes are no more painstaking
in this respect. A youth upon whom the future of an empire depends will
sometimes have been educated by a withered fruit of the University,
comparable for refinement to the Regent's Dubois! Luckily for Landri,
Chaffin still had, at that time, the habits of a father of a family, if
not genuine virtues. Married and having children of his own, his
guaranties of honorable conduct were real. But, as he had passed his
fortieth year without succeeding in anything, he was already embittered
and very near looking upon humble toilers of his own sort as social
dupes. The atmosphere of great luxury, which he had entered thus without
preparation, spoiled him. It was agreed that he should live with his
pupil. This arrangement, separating him from his home and his former
life, had made him helpless against his new environment. Thereupon
Chaffin had undergone the secret, gradual process of corruption
inevitably forced upon the poor plebeian, when he is essentially vulgar,
by the discovery of the hidden immoralities of the nobly born and the
wealthy. It is a genuine apprenticeship in depravity, is this official
pessimism, compounded of secret envy and mean espionage.
When the marquis--his son's education being completed--had offered him
the post of secretary-manager, Chaffin was ripe for the rôle of
intendant "after the old manner." M. de Claviers' expression is only too
appropriate here. This appointment was for the châtelain of Grandchamp
an heroic resolution: tired of the constant waste, he had determined to
administer his fortune himself. That is generally the moment at which,
with persons of his rank, the final ruin begins. After three months the
so-called secretary settled the accounts alone, and before the end of
the first year the peculations had begun. They had multiplied from
settling-day to settling-day, to reach their climax in the detestable
conspiracy already mentioned, which a group of usurious dealers in
curios was about to execute upon the treasures of Grandchamp, with his
assistance.
By what steps had the conscience of the former professor descended to
that degree of dishonesty? The change in his features during the last
years told the story. The arrogant unrest of the thief, always on the
brink of detection, distorted his face, sharpened his eyes, imparted
uncertainty to his movements. But we cease to look at the persons whom
we see every day. The marquis had not observed those tell-tale
indications, nor had Landri. Moreover, the moment that the knave was in
their presence, he kept watch upon himself with a circumspection that
became more rigid as his villainies multiplied. So it was, that, when he
had reached the top of the staircase and stood before the door behind
which he knew that he should find the young man, he did not knock until
he had paused a moment, long enough to compose his features; and when he
entered, upon the response from within to his knock, the harsh and
sneering cynic had disappeared. There was only the humble and faithful
retainer of the family, deeply moved but self-restrained, upon whom his
devotion enjoins the most painful of measures. He hesitates no longer.
His secret chokes him. He must cry out. This rôle was all the easier to
maintain under the circumstances because Chaffin was hardly going to
lie. His plan, formidable in its very simplicity, by which he expected
to ensure himself for all time against any suspicion of complicity,
consisted in setting before the marquis's heir the true situation of the
house of Claviers-Grandchamp in the year of grace 1906. He proposed to
be silent only concerning his own peculations and his understanding with
the leaders of the final assault.
"What is it, my good Chaffin?" inquired the young man. To receive his
visitor, he had risen from the lounging chair in which he had passed
some terrible moments, since he had left his father, in going over again
and again the details, so cruel to him, of their conversation. "What has
happened? You frighten me."
At sight of his former tutor's discomposed countenance the thought of an
accident suddenly flashed through his mind--that the marquis had had a
stroke.
"No, nothing has happened," replied Chaffin, "nothing as yet! But I
cannot bear to be silent any longer. If you had not come to Grandchamp
to-day, I should have gone to Saint-Mihiel. Things cannot go on so. I
should go mad. I should kill myself.--Landri, Monsieur de Claviers won't
let me speak to him. I have the title of secretary, which means that I
am the manager of the property. Well! if things go on as they are going,
Landri, I shall be manager of nothing. There will be no property, do you
hear, no property, nothing, nothing--"
"You say that my father won't let you speak to him," Landri interrupted.
"You surprise me beyond measure. He is giving much thought himself to
the situation of affairs. He complained to me to-day of the heaviness of
his burdens. Come, calm yourself, my dear master;" and he added these
words, so absolute was his confidence in that man who represented to him
his early youth: "Your affection for us makes very trivial difficulties
seem tragic, I am sure. Tell me what they are."
"I will give you the figures," rejoined Chaffin simply, "and you can
judge whether I exaggerate. Do you know how much Monsieur le Marquis
owes on his real estate--Grandchamp, the house on Rue du
Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, your houses in Plaine Monceau, and the villas at
Cabourg--all told? Two million five hundred and fifty thousand francs,
divided as follows: seventeen hundred and fifty thousand francs to the
Credit Foncier, and eight hundred thousand to another creditor. We have
on this account more than a hundred and fifty thousand francs of
interest a year to pay, before any other outlay."
"If it were anybody else but you I should think that I was dreaming,"
said Landri, after a pause. He repeated: "Two million five hundred and
fifty thousand francs? And my father has an income of more than four
hundred thousand! Is it possible? He doesn't gamble. His life is beyond
reproach. He has no racing stable. Where has all that money gone?"
"You shall know in a moment," replied the implacable Chaffin. "First let
us finish with the debts. There are others. Besides the mortgages there
are the unsecured notes. Under this head he owes more than two millions
more,--I mean for sums borrowed on his signature. I say nothing of
overdue accounts with tradespeople, wages in arrears, and all the rest.
That's another million perhaps, but it's a floating debt with which I
deal as best I can. It's a daily battle. I fight it and win it! With
these negotiable notes, I can do nothing. Look you, Landri. When I have
told you everything you will share my desperation. The two millions, as
you can imagine, are not a single debt. There are ten, fifteen, twenty
different debts. There were, I should say. For to-day--But let me go
into details. You are going to learn how these debts have reached such
fantastic figures by the brutal piling-up of interest, very simply, and
why I used the past tense. There was, for instance, a Gruet debt. I
select it for it is typical, and because in connection with it the bomb
has burst. In 1903 we were absolutely in need of three hundred thousand
francs. Maître Métivier, our notary, obtained them for us through one
Monsieur Gruet, an honest broker,--for there are such; there is this
one, for instance, as you can judge,--with an office on Rue Lafayette.
The loan fell due July 15, 1905. We were not ready. Gruet himself tells
me of a money-lender, not overgrasping, one Madame Müller, who keeps a
second-hand shop on Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. I go there on the
chance. To my great surprise she consents. She reimburses Gruet and the
notes are assigned to her before a notary. Nothing more correct, as you
see. But on July 15 last the three hundred thousand Gruet francs had
become three hundred and forty-six thousand five hundred Müller francs:
two years' interest to the date of maturity in 1905, thirty thousand,
plus sixteen thousand five hundred for 1905-1906. Let us follow it out.
On this 15th of July the like inability to pay. Appeals to Madame
Müller, entreaties,--it was I who made them. I would submit to much
worse things for Monsieur le Marquis! A little time was given me, and
one fine day this Gruet debt, which had become a Müller debt, has
become an Altona debt. The first notice is served on us. I conceal the
fact from Monsieur le Marquis, understand, and I go at once to this
Altona. I find a man installed in a magnificent mansion on Place
Vendôme, with the air of a _grand seigneur_ I should say, if I did not
know Monsieur le Marquis and you, Landri--and beautiful antiques all
about him. It was a stock in trade arranged as a collection--a museum
for sale at retail. This Altona receives me with the manners of a
prince, and composedly, calmly, he informs me that the Müller claim is
not the only one he has bought. A quantity of our other notes are in his
hands or in those of his men of straw. Not all of them, but almost all.
He has them to the amount of more than fourteen hundred thousand francs.
He has accumulated all that he could. With no less composure he declares
that he is acting for a syndicate of his brethren. There is a large
number of them who have had their eyes for years on the treasures
preserved at Grandchamp. How did they obtain their information
concerning Monsieur le Marquis's embarrassment? How did they succeed in
learning the names of the money-lenders to whom we had to apply? How did
they negotiate with them? I can not tell you. I know nothing about it.
This much is certain, that that first bailiff's notice was the shot that
opened the engagement. In short, they are in a position to proceed
against us and to have us sold up by process of law. Altona did not
conceal from me his purpose to proceed mercilessly unless--"
"Unless what?" demanded Landri, as the other paused. "Finish your
sentence."
"Unless we accept the offer he made me on behalf of his partners--that
is evidently the _coup_ they have prepared. 'We have calculated,' he
said, still with his perfect courtesy, 'the risks of a public sale. We
may gain by it, we may lose. Certain pieces which we can place
advantageously at once may escape us. We prefer to make you a
proposition to buy the whole in one lump. We will give you four millions
cash for the lot, that is, for all the articles enumerated in the
_pièce justificative_ No. 44, in the appendix of the book on the
"History of the House of Grandchamp." Both you and we will do a good
stroke of business. You too avoid the possible loss of an auction. You
have your debts paid and more than two millions in cash to put you on
your feet again. As for us, our profit is assured. We have with us two
Americans who will give fifteen hundred thousand francs for the
tapestries alone. You have a fortnight to decide.'--I repeat what he
said, word for word.--A fortnight! It was six days ago that I had the
interview with this Altona, and I haven't yet found the courage to
inform Monsieur le Marquis! And you expect me not to feel as if my brain
was going."
"I am the one to tell him," cried the young man, "and instantly. You
have lost six days, Chaffin, six days out of fourteen! You have failed
seriously in your duty. Let us go to him."
"And tell him what?" queried the secretary, placing himself before the
door toward which Landri had already taken a step.
"Why, the facts, just as they are."