“Dear mamma,” said Cecile in her mother’s ear, “he bores me; but there

is no one else for me in Arcis.”

“You judge him rightly; but wait till your grandfather has given an

opinion,” said Madame Beauvisage, kissing her daughter, whose reply

proved her good-sense, though it also revealed the breach made in her

innocence by the idea of marriage.

Severine was devoted to her father; she and her daughter allowed no one

but themselves to take charge of his linen; they knitted his socks for

him, and gave the most minute care to his comfort. Grevin knew that no

thought of self-interest had entered their affection; the million they

would probably inherit could not dry their tears at his death; old men

are very sensible to disinterested tenderness. Every morning before

going to see him, Madame Beauvisage and Cecile attended to his dinner

for the next day, sending him the best that the market afforded.

Madame Beauvisage had always desired that her father would present

her at the Chateau de Gondreville and connect her with the count’s

daughters; but the wise old man explained, again and again, how

difficult it would be to have permanent relations with the Duchesse de

Carigliano, who lived in Paris and seldom came to Gondreville, or with

the brilliant Madame Keller, after doing a business in hosiery.

“Your life is lived,” he said to his daughter; “find all your enjoyments

henceforth in Cecile, who will certainly be rich enough to give you an

existence as broad and high as you deserve. Choose a son-in-law with

ambition and means, and you can follow her to Paris and leave that

jackass Beauvisage behind you. If I live long enough to see Cecile’s

husband I’ll pilot you all on the sea of political interests, as I

once piloted others, and you will reach a position equal to that of the

Kellers.”

These few words were said before the revolution of July, 1830. Grevin

desired to live that he might get under way the future grandeur of his

daughter, his grand-daughter, and his great-grandchildren. His ambition

extended to the third generation.

When he talked thus, the old man’s idea was to marry Cecile to Charles

Keller; he was now grieving over that lost hope, uncertain where to look

in the future. Having no relations with Parisian society, and seeing in

the department of the Aube no other husband for Cecile than the youthful

Marquis de Cinq-Cygne, he was asking himself whether by the power of

gold he could surmount the animosities which the revolution of July had

roused between the royalists who were faithful to their principles, and

their conquerors. The happiness of his grand-daughter seemed to him so

doubtful if he delivered her into the hands of the proud and haughty

Marquise de Cinq-Cygne that he decided in his own mind to trust to the

friend of old age, Time. He hoped that his bitter enemy the marquise

might die, and, in that case, he thought he could win the son through

his grandfather, old d’Hauteserre, who was then living at Cinq-Cygne and

whom he knew to be accessible to the persuasions of money.

If this plan failed, and Cecile Beauvisage remained unmarried, he

resolved as a last resort to consult his friend Gondreville, who

would, he believed, find his Cecile a husband, after his heart and his

ambition, among the dukes of the Empire.

IX. A STRANGER

Severine found her father seated on a wooden bench at the end of his

terrace, under a bower of lilacs then in bloom, and taking his coffee;

for it was half-past five in the afternoon. She saw, by the pain on

her father’s face, that he had already heard the news. In fact, the old

count had sent a valet to his friend, begging him to come to him.

Up to the present time, old Grevin had endeavored not to encourage his

daughter’s ambition too far; but now, in the midst of the contradictory

reflections which the melancholy death of Charles Keller caused him, his

secret escaped his lips.

“My dear child,” he said to her, “I had formed the finest plans for your

future. Cecile was to have been Vicomtesse Keller, for Charles, by my

influence, would now have been selected deputy. Neither Gondreville nor

his daughter Madame Keller would have refused Cecile’s _dot_ of sixty

thousand francs a year, especially with the prospect of a hundred

thousand more which she will some day have from you. You would have

lived in Paris with your daughter, and played your part of mother-in-law

in the upper regions of power.”

Madame Beauvisage made a sign of satisfaction.

“But we are knocked down by the death of this charming young man, to

whom the prince royal had already given his friendship. Now this Simon

Giguet, who has thrust himself upon the scene, is a fool, and the worst

of all fools, for he thinks himself an eagle. You are, however, too

intimate with the Giguets and the Marion household not to put the utmost

politeness into your refusal--but you must refuse him.”

“As usual, you and I are of the same opinion, father.”

“You can say that I have otherwise disposed of Cecile’s hand, and

that will cut short all preposterous pretensions like that of Antonin

Goulard. Little Vinet may offer himself, and he is preferable to the

others who are smelling after the _dot_; he has talent, and shrewdness,

and he belongs to the Chargeboeufs by his mother; but he has too much

character not to rule his wife, and he is young enough to make himself

loved. You would perish between two sentiments--for I know you by heart,

my child.”

“I shall be much embarrassed this evening at the Marions’ to know what

to say,” remarked Severine.

“Well, then, my dear,” said her father, “send Madame Marion to me; I’ll

talk to her.”

“I knew, father, that you were thinking of our future, but I had no idea

you expected it to be so brilliant,” said Madame Beauvisage, taking the

hands of the old man and kissing them.

“I have pondered the matter so deeply,” said Grevin, “that in 1831 I

bought the Beauseant mansion in Paris, which you have probably seen.”

Madame de Beauvisage made a movement of surprise on hearing this secret,

until then so carefully kept, but she did not interrupt her father.

“It will be my wedding present,” he went on. “In 1832 I let it for seven

years to an Englishman for twenty-four thousand francs a year,--a pretty

stroke of business; for it only cost me three hundred and twenty-five

thousand francs, of which I thus recover nearly two hundred thousand.

The lease ends in July of this year.”

Severine kissed her father on the forehead and on both cheeks. This last

revelation so magnified her future that she was well-nigh dazzled.

“I shall advise my father,” she said to herself, as she recrossed

the bridge, “to give only the reversion of that property to his

grandchildren, and let me have the life-interest in it. I have no idea

of letting my daughter and son-in-law turn me out of doors; they must

live with me.”

At dessert, when the two women-servants were safely at their own

dinner in the kitchen, and Madame Beauvisage was certain of not being

overheard, she thought it advisable to give Cecile a little lecture.

“My daughter,” she said, “behave this evening with propriety, like a

well-bred girl; and from this day forth be more sedate. Do not chatter

heedlessly, and never walk alone with Monsieur Giguet, or Monsieur

Olivier Vinet, or the sub-prefect, or Monsieur Martener,--in fact, with

any one, not even Achille Pigoult. You will not marry any of the young

men of Arcis, or of the department. Your fate is to shine in Paris.

Therefore I shall now give you charming dresses, to accustom you to

elegance. We can easily find out where the Princesse de Cadignan and the

Marquise de Cinq-Cygne get their things. I mean that you shall cease to

look provincial. You must practise the piano for three hours every day.

I shall send for Monsieur Moise from Troyes until I know what master

I ought to get from Paris. Your talents must all be developed, for you

have only one year more of girlhood before you. Now I have warned you,

and I shall see how you behave this evening. You must manage to keep

Simon at a distance, but without coquetting with him.”

“Don’t be uneasy, mamma; I intend to adore the _stranger_.”

These words, which made Madame Beauvisage laugh, need some explanation.

“Ha! I haven’t seen him yet,” said Phileas, “but everybody is talking

about him. When I want to know who he is, I shall send the corporal or

Monsieur Groslier to ask him for his passport.”

There is no little town in France where, at a given time, the drama or

the comedy of the _stranger_ is not played. Often the stranger is an

adventurer who makes dupes and departs, carrying with him the reputation

of a woman, or the money of a family. Oftener the stranger is a real

stranger, whose life remains mysterious long enough for the town to busy

itself curiously about his words and deeds.

Now the probable accession to power of Simon Giguet was not the only

serious event that was happening in Arcis. For the last two days the

attention of the little town had been focussed on a personage just

arrived, who proved to be the first Unknown of the present generation.

The _stranger_ was at this moment the subject of conversation in every

household in the place. He was the beam fallen from heaven into the city

of the frogs.

The situation of Arcis-sur-Aube explains the effect which the arrival of

a stranger was certain to produce. About eighteen miles from Troyes, on

the high-road to Paris, opposite to a farm called “La Belle Etoile,”

a county road branches off from the main road, and leads to Arcis,

crossing the vast plains where the Seine cuts a narrow green valley

bordered with poplars, which stand out upon the whiteness of the chalk

soil of Champagne. The main road from Arcis to Troyes is eighteen miles

in length, and makes the arch of a bow, the extremities of which are

Troyes and Arcis, so that the shortest route from Paris to Arcis is by

the county road which turns off, as we have said, near the Belle Etoile.

The Aube is navigable only from Arcis to its mouth. Therefore this town,

standing eighteen miles from a high-road, and separated from Troyes by

monotonous plains, is isolated more or less, and has but little commerce

or transportation either by land or water. Arcis is, in fact, a town

completely isolated, where no travellers pass, and is attached to Troyes

and La Belle Etoile by stage-coaches only. All the inhabitants know each

other; they even know the commercial travellers who come, now and then,

on business from the large Parisian houses. Thus, as in all provincial

towns in a like position, a stranger, if he stayed two days, would wag

the tongues and excite the imaginations of the whole community without

his name or his business being known.

Now, Arcis being still in a state of tranquillity three days before

the morning when, by the will of the creator of so many histories,

the present tale begins, there was seen to arrive by the county road

a stranger, driving a handsome tilbury drawn by a valuable horse,

and accompanied by a tiny groom, no bigger than my fist, mounted on a

saddle-horse. The coach, connecting with the diligences to Troyes, had

brought from La Belle Etoile three trunks coming from Paris, marked with

no name, but belonging to this stranger, who took up his quarters at the

Mulet inn. Every one in Arcis supposed, on the first evening, that this

personage had come with the intention of buying the estate of Arcis; and

much was said in all households about the future owner of the chateau.

The tilbury, the traveller, his horses, his servant, one and all

appeared to belong to a man who had dropped upon Arcis from the highest

social sphere.

The stranger, no doubt fatigued, did not show himself for a time;

perhaps he spent part of the day in arranging himself in the rooms

he had chosen, announcing his intention of staying a certain time. He

requested to see the stable where his horses were to be kept, showed

himself very exacting, and insisted that they should be placed in stalls

apart from those of the innkeeper’s horses, and from those of guests who

might come later. In consequence of such singular demands, the landlord

of the hotel du Mulet considered his guest to be an Englishman.

On the evening of the first day several attempts were made at the Mulet

by inquisitive persons to satisfy their curiosity; but no light whatever

could be obtained from the little groom, who evaded all inquiries, not

by refusals or by silence, but by sarcasms which seemed to be beyond his

years and to prove him a corrupt little mortal.

After making a careful toilet and dining at six o’clock, the stranger

mounted a horse, and, followed by his groom, rode off along the road to

Brienne, not returning till a very late hour to the Mulet. The landlord,

his wife, and her maids had meantime gained no information from a

careful examination of his trunks, and the articles about his rooms, as

to the projects or the condition of their mysterious inmate.

On the stranger’s return the mistress of the house carried up to him

the book in which, according to police regulations, he was required to

inscribe his name, rank, the object of his journey, and the place from

which he came.

“I shall write nothing,” he said to the mistress of the inn. “If any one

questions you, you can say I refused; and you may send the sub-prefect

to see me, for I have no passport. I dare say that many persons will

make inquiries about me, madame, and you can tell them just what you

like. I wish you to know nothing about me. If you worry me on this

point, I shall go to the Hotel de la Poste on the Place du Pont and

remain there for the fortnight I propose to spend here. I should be

sorry for that, because I know that you are the sister of Gothard, one

of the heroes of the Simeuse affair.”

“Enough, monsieur,” said the sister of the steward of Cinq-Cygne.

After such a beginning, the stranger kept the mistress of the house a

whole hour and made her tell him all she knew of Arcis, of its fortunes,

its interests, and its functionaries. The next day he disappeared on

horseback, followed by his tiger, returning at midnight.

We can now understand Mademoiselle Cecile’s little joke, which Madame

Beauvisage thought to be without foundation. Beauvisage and Cecile,

surprised by the order of the day promulgated by Severine, were

enchanted. While his wife went to dress for Madame Marion’s reception,

the father listened to the many conjectures it was natural a girl should

make in such a case. Then, fatigued with his day, he went to bed as soon

as his wife and daughter had departed.

As may readily be supposed by those who know anything of country towns,

a crowd of persons flocked to Madame Marion’s that evening. The triumph

of Giguet junior was thought to be a victory won against the Comte de

Gondreville, and to insure forever the independence of Arcis in the

matter of elections. The news of the death of poor Charles Keller was

regarded as a judgment from heaven, intended to silence all rivalries.

Antonin Goulard, Frederic Marest, Olivier Vinet, and Monsieur Martener,

the authorities who, until then, had frequented this salon (the

prevailing opinions of which did not seem to them contrary to the

government created by the popular will in July, 1830), came as usual,

possessed by curiosity to see what attitude the Beauvisage family would

take under the circumstances.

The salon, restored to its usual condition, showed no signs of the

meeting which appeared to have settled the destiny of Simon Giguet. By

eight o’clock four card-tables, each with four players, were under way.

The smaller salon and the dining-room were full of people. Never, except

on grand occasions, such as balls and fete-days, had Madame Marion seen

such an influx at the door of her salon, forming as it were the tail of

a comet.

“It is the dawn of power,” said Olivier Vinet to the mistress of the

house, showing her this spectacle, so gratifying to the heart of a

person who delighted in receiving company.

“No one knows what there is in Simon,” replied the mother. “We live in

times when young men who persevere and are moral and upright can aspire

to everything.”

This answer was made, not so much to Vinet as to Madame Beauvisage, who

had entered the room with her daughter and was now beginning to offer

her congratulations on the event. In order to escape indirect appeals

and pointed interpretations of careless words, Madame Beauvisage took a

vacant place at a whist-table and devoted her mind to the winning of one

hundred fishes. One hundred fishes, or counters, made fifty sous! When a

player had lost that sum it was talked of in Arcis for a couple of days.

Cecile went to talk with Mademoiselle Mollot, one of her good friends,

appearing to be seized with redoubled affection for her. Mademoiselle

Mollot was the beauty of Arcis, just as Cecile was the heiress. Monsieur

Mollot, clerk of the court, lived on the Grande-Place in a house

constructed in the same manner as that of Beauvisage on the Place du

Pont. Madame Mollot, forever seated at the window of her salon on the

ground-floor, was attacked (as the result of that situation) by intense,

acute, insatiable curiosity, now become a chronic and inveterate

disease. The moment a peasant entered the square from the road to

Brienne she saw him, and watched to see what business could have brought

him to Arcis; she had no peace of mind until that peasant was explained.

She spent her life in judging the events, men, things, and households of

Arcis.

The ambition of the house of Mollot, father, mother, and daughter, was

to marry Ernestine (an only daughter) to Antonin Goulard. Consequently

the refusal of the Beauvisage parents to entertain the proposals of

the sub-prefect had tightened the bonds of friendship between the two

families.

“There’s an impatient man!” said Ernestine to Cecile, indicating Simon

Giguet. “He wants to come and talk with us; but every one who comes in

feels bound to congratulate him. I’ve heard him say fifty times already:

‘It is, I think, less to me than to my father that this compliment of

my fellow-citizens has been paid; but, in any case, pray believe that

I shall be devoted not only to our general interests but to yours

individually.’ I can guess those words by the motion of his lips, and

all the while he is looking at you with an air of martyrdom.”

“Ernestine,” replied Cecile, “don’t leave me the whole evening; I

don’t want to listen to his proposals made under cover of ‘alases!’ and

mingled with sighs.”

“Don’t you want to be the wife of a Keeper of the Seals?”

“Ah! that’s all nonsense,” said Cecile, laughing.

“But I assure you,” persisted Ernestine, “that just before you came

in Monsieur Godivet, the registrar, was declaring with enthusiasm that

Simon would be Keeper of the Seals in three years.”

“Do they count on the influence of the Comte de Gondreville?” asked

the sub-prefect, coming up to the two girls and guessing that they were

making fun of his friend Giguet.

“Ah! Monsieur Antonin,” said the handsome Ernestine, “you who promised

my mother to find out all about the _stranger_, what have you heard

about him?”

“The events of to-day, Mademoiselle, are so much more important,” said

Antonin, taking a seat beside Cecile, like a diplomat delighted to

escape general attention by conversing with two girls. “All my career as

sub-prefect or prefect is at stake.”

“What! I thought you allowed your friend Simon to be nominated

unanimously.”

“Simon is my friend, but the government is my master, and I expect to

do my best to prevent Simon from being elected. And here comes Madame

Mollot, who owes me her concurrence as the wife of a man whose functions

attach him to the government.”

“I am sure we ask nothing better than to be on your side,” replied the

sheriff’s wife. “Mollot has told me,” she continued in a low voice,

“what took place here to-day--it is pitiable! Only one man showed

talent, and that was Achille Pigoult. Everybody agrees that he would

make a fine orator in the Chamber; and therefore, though he has nothing,

and my daughter has a _dot_ of sixty thousand francs, not to speak of

what, as an only child, she will inherit from us and also from her uncle

at Mollot and from my aunt Lambert at Troyes,--well, I declare to you

that if Monsieur Achille Pigoult did us the honor to ask her to wife,

I should give her to him; yes, I should--provided always she liked

him. But the silly little goose wants to marry as she pleases; it is

Mademoiselle Beauvisage who puts such notions into her head.”

The sub-prefect received this double broadside like a man who knows he

has thirty thousand francs a year, and expects a prefecture.

“Mademoiselle is right,” he said, looking at Cecile; “she is rich enough

to make a marriage of love.”

“Don’t let us talk about marriage,” said Ernestine; “it saddens my

poor dear Cecile, who was owning to me just now that in order not to be

married for her money, but for herself, she should like an affair with

some stranger who knew nothing of Arcis and her future expectations as

Lady Croesus, and would spin her a romance to end in true love and a

marriage.”

“That’s a very pretty idea!” cried Olivier Vinet, joining the group of

young ladies in order to get away from the partisans of Simon, the

idol of the day. “I always knew that Mademoiselle had as much sense as

money.”

“And,” continued Ernestine, “she has selected for the hero of her

romance--”

“Oh!” interrupted Madame Mollot, “an old man of fifty!--fie!”

“How do you know he is fifty?” asked Olivier Vinet, laughing.

“How?” replied Madame Mollot. “Why, this morning I was so puzzled that I

got out my opera-glass--”

“Bravo!” cried the superintendent of _ponts et chaussees_, who was

paying court to the mother to obtain the daughter.

“And so,” continued Madame Mollot, “I was able to see him shaving; with

such elegant razors!--mounted in gold, or silver-gilt!”

“Gold! gold, of course!” said Vinet. “When things are unknown they

should always be imagined of the finest quality. Consequently I, not

having seen this gentleman, am perfectly sure that he is at least a

count.”

This speech created a laugh; and the laughing group excited the jealousy

of a group of dowagers and the attention of a troop of men in black who

surrounded Simon Giguet. As for the latter, he was chafing in despair at

not being able to lay his fortune and his future at the feet of the rich

Cecile.

“Yes,” continued Vinet, “a man distinguished for his birth, for

his manners, his fortune, his equipages,--a lion, a dandy, a

yellow-kid-glover!”

“Monsieur Olivier,” said Ernestine, “he drives the prettiest tilbury you

ever saw.”

“What? Antonin, you never told me he had a tilbury when we were

talking about that conspirator this morning. A tilbury! Why, that’s an

extenuating circumstance; he can’t be a republican.”

“Mesdemoiselles, there is nothing that I will not do in the interests

of your amusement,” said Antonin Goulard. “I will instantly proceed

to ascertain if this individual is a count, and if he is, what kind of

count.”

“You can make a report upon him,” said the superintendent of bridges.

“For the use of all future sub-prefects,” added Olivier Vinet.

“How can you do it?” asked Madame Mollot.

“Oh!” replied the sub-prefect, “ask Mademoiselle Beauvisage whom she

would accept as her husband among all of us here present; she will not

answer. Allow me the same discretion. Mesdemoiselles, restrain your

anxiety; in ten minutes you shall know whether the Unknown is a count or

a commercial traveller.”

X. THE REVELATIONS OF AN OPERA-GLASS

Antonin Goulard left the little group of young ladies, in which,

besides Cecile and Ernestine, were Mademoiselle Berton, daughter of the

tax-collector,--an insignificant young person who played the part of

satellite to Cecile,--and Mademoiselle Herbelot, sister of the second

notary of Arcis, an old maid of thirty, soured, affected, and dressed

like all old maids; for she wore, over a bombazine gown, an embroidered

fichu, the corners of which, gathered to the front of the bodice, were

knotted together after the well-known fashion under the Terror.

“Julien,” said the sub-prefect to his valet, who was waiting in the

antechamber, “you who served six years at Gondreville ought to know how

a count’s coronet is made.”

“Yes, monsieur; it has pearls on its nine points.”

“Very good. Go to the Mulet, and try to clap your eye on the tilbury of

the gentleman who is stopping there, and then come and tell me what is

painted on it. Do your business thoroughly, and bring me all the gossip

of the inn. If you see the little groom, ask him at what hour to-morrow

his master can receive the sub-prefect--in case you find the nine

pearls. Don’t drink, don’t gossip yourself, and come back quickly; and

as soon as you get back let me know it by coming to the door of the

salon.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

The Mulet inn, as we have already said, stands on the square, at the

opposite corner to the garden wall of the Marion estate on the other

side of the road leading to Brienne. Therefore the solution of the

problem could be rapid. Antonin Goulard returned to his place by Cecile

to await results.

“We talked so much about the stranger yesterday that I dreamed of him

all night,” said Madame Mollot.

“Ha! ha! do you still dream of unknown heroes, fair lady?” said Vinet.

“You are very impertinent; if I chose I could make you dream of me,” she

retorted. “So this morning when I rose--”

It may not be useless to say that Madame Mollot was considered a clever

woman in Arcis; that is, she expressed herself fluently and abused that

advantage. A Parisian, wandering by chance into these regions, like the

Unknown, would have thought her excessively garrulous.

“--I was, naturally, making my toilet, and as I looked mechanically

about me--”

“Through the window?” asked Antonin.

“Certainly; my dressing-room opens on the street. Now you know, of

course, that Poupart has put the stranger into one of the rooms exactly

opposite to mine--”

“One room, mamma!” interrupted Ernestine. “The count occupies three

rooms! The little groom, dressed all in black, is in the first. They

have made a salon of the next, and the Unknown sleeps in the third.”

“Then he has half the rooms in the inn,” remarked Mademoiselle Herbelot.

“Well, young ladies, and what has that to do with his person?” said

Madame Mollot, sharply, not pleased at the interruption. “I am talking

of the man himself--”

“Don’t interrupt the orator,” put in Vinet.

“As I was stooping--”

“Seated?” asked Antonin.

“Madame was of course as she naturally would be,--making her toilet and

looking at the Mulet,” said Vinet.

In the provinces such jokes are prized, for people have so long said

everything to each other that they have recourse at last to the sort

of nonsense our fathers indulged in before the introduction of English

hypocrisy,--one of those products against which custom-houses are

powerless.

“Don’t interrupt the orator,” repeated Cecile Beauvisage to Vinet, with

whom she exchanged a smile.

“My eyes involuntarily fell on the window of the room in which the

stranger had slept the night before. I don’t know what time he went to

bed, although I was awake till past midnight; but I have the misfortune

to be married to a man who snores fit to crack the planks and the

rafters. If I fall asleep first, oh! I sleep so sound nothing can wake

me; but if Mollot drops off first my night is ruined--”

“Don’t you ever go off together?” said Achille Pigoult, joining the

group. “I see you are talking of sleep.”

“Hush, naughty boy!” replied Madame Mollot, graciously.

“Do you know what they mean?” whispered Cecile to Ernestine.

“At any rate, he was not in at one o’clock in the morning,” continued

Madame Mollot.

“Then he defrauded you!--came home without your knowing it!” said

Achille Pigoult. “Ha! that man is sly indeed; he’ll put us all in his

pouch and sell us in the market-place.”

“To whom?” asked Vinet.

“Oh! to a project! to an idea! to a system!” replied the notary, to whom

Olivier smiled with a knowing air.

“Imagine my surprise,” continued Madame Mollot, “when I saw a stuff, a

material, of splendid magnificence, most beautiful! dazzling! I said to

myself, ‘That must be a dressing-gown of the spun-glass material I have

sometimes seen in exhibitions of industrial products.’ So I fetched my

opera-glass to examine it. But, good gracious! what do you think I saw?

Above the dressing-gown, where the head ought to have been, I saw an

enormous mass, something like a knee--I can’t tell you how my curiosity

was excited.”

“I can conceive it,” said Antonin.

“No, you can _not_ conceive it,” said Madame Mollot; “for this knee--”

“Ah! I understand,” cried Olivier Vinet, laughing; “the Unknown was also

making his toilet, and you saw his two knees.”

“No, no!” cried Madame Mollot; “you are putting incongruities into my

mouth. The stranger was standing up; he held a sponge in his hand above

an immense basin, and--none of your jokes, Monsieur Olivier!--it wasn’t

his knee, it was his head! He was washing his bald head; he hasn’t a

spear of hair upon it.”

“Impudent man!” said Antonin. “He certainly can’t have come with ideas

of marriage in that head. Here we must have hair in order to be married.

That’s essential.”

“I am therefore right in saying that our Unknown visitor must be fifty

years old. Nobody ever takes to a wig before that time of life. After a

time, when his toilet was finished, he opened his window and looked out;

and _then_ he wore a splendid head of black hair. He turned his eyeglass

full on me,--for by that time, I was in my balcony. Therefore, my dear

Cecile, you see for yourself that you can’t take that man for the hero

of your romance.”

“Why not? Men of fifty are not to be despised, if they are counts,” said

Ernestine.

“Heavens! what has age to do with it?” said Mademoiselle Herbelot.

“Provided one gets a husband,” added Vinet, whose cold maliciousness

made him feared.

“Yes,” replied the old maid, feeling the cut, “I should prefer a man of

fifty, indulgent, kind, and considerate, to a young man without a heart,

whose wit would bite every one, even his wife.”

“This is all very well for conversation,” retorted Vinet, “but in order

to love the man of fifty and reject the other, it is necessary to have

the opportunity to choose.”

“Oh!” said Madame Mollot, in order to stop this passage at arms between

the old maid and Vinet, who always went to far, “when a woman has

had experience of life she knows that a husband of fifty or one of

twenty-five is absolutely the same thing if she merely respects him. The

important things in marriage are the benefits to be derived from it. If

Mademoiselle Beauvisage wants to go to Paris and shine there--and in

her place I should certainly feel so--she ought not to take a husband

in Arcis. If I had the fortune she will have, I should give my hand to

a count, to a man who would put me in a high social position, and I

shouldn’t ask to see the certificate of his birth.”

“It would satisfy you to see his toilet,” whispered Vinet in her ear.

“But the king makes counts,” said Madame Marion, who had now joined the

group and was surveying the bevy of young ladies.

“Ah! madame,” remarked Vinet, “but some young girls prefer their counts

already made.”

“Well, Monsieur Antonin,” said Cecile, laughing at Vinet’s sarcasm.

“Your ten minutes have expired, and you haven’t told us whether the

Unknown is a count or not.”

“I shall keep my promise,” replied the sub-prefect, perceiving at that

moment the head of his valet in the doorway; and again he left his place

beside Cecile.

“You are talking of the stranger,” said Madame Marion. “Is anything

really known about him?”

“No, madame,” replied Achille Pigoult; “but he is, without knowing it,

like the clown of a circus, the centre of the eyes of the two thousand

inhabitants of this town. I know one thing about him,” added the little

notary.

“Oh, tell us, Monsieur Achille!” cried Ernestine, eagerly.

“His tiger’s name is Paradise!”

“Paradise!” echoed every one included in the little circle.

“Can a man be called Paradise?” asked Madame Herbelot, who had joined

her sister-in-law.

“It tends to prove,” continued the notary, “that the master is an angel;

for when his tiger follows him--you understand.”

“It is the road of Paradise! very good, that,” said Madame Marion,

anxious to flatter Achille Pigoult in the interests of her nephew.

“Monsieur,” said Antonin’s valet in the dining-room, “the tilbury has a

coat of arms--”

“Coat of arms!”

“Yes, and droll enough they are! There’s a coronet with nine points and

pearls--”

“Then he’s a count!”

“And a monster with wings, flying like a postilion who has dropped

something. And here is what is written on the belt,” added the man,

taking a paper from his pocket. “Mademoiselle Anicette, the Princesse de

Cadignan’s lady’s maid, who came in a carriage” (the Cinq-Cygne carriage

before the door of the Mulet!) “to bring a letter to the gentleman,

wrote it down for me.”

“Give it to me.”

The sub-prefect read the words: _Quo me trahit fortuna_.

Though he was not strong enough in French blazon to know the house that

bore that device, Antonin felt sure that the Cinq-Cygnes would not

send their chariot, nor the Princess de Cadignan a missive by her maid,

except to a person of the highest nobility.

“Ha! so you know the maid of the Princess de Cadignan! happy man!” said

Antonin.

Julien, a young countryman, after serving six months in the household

of the Comte de Gondreville, had entered the service of the sub-prefect,

who wanted a servant of the _right style_.

“But, monsieur, Anicette is my father’s god-daughter. Papa, who wanted

to do well by the girl, whose father was dead, sent her to a dressmaker

in Paris because my mother could not endure her.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Rather; the proof is that she got into trouble in Paris; but finally,

as she has talent and can make gowns and dress hair, she got a place

with the princess.”

“What did she tell you about Cinq-Cygne? Is there much company?”

“A great deal, monsieur. There’s the princess and Monsieur d’Arthez, the

Duc de Maufrigneuse and the duchess and the young marquis. In fact the

chateau is full. They expect Monseigneur the Bishop of Troyes to-night.”

“Monsieur Troubert! I should like to know how long he is going to stay.”

“Anicette thinks for some time; and she believes he is coming to meet

the gentleman who is now at the Mulet. They expect more company. The

coachman told me they were talking a great deal about the election.

Monsieur le president Michu is expected in a few days.”

“Try to bring that lady’s maid into town on pretence of shopping. Have

you any designs upon her?”

“If she has any savings I don’t know but what I might. She is a sly one,

though.”

“Tell her to come and see you at the sub-prefecture.”

“Yes, monsieur. I’ll go and tell her now.”

“Don’t say anything about me, or she might not come.”

“Ah! monsieur; haven’t I served at Gondreville?”

“You don’t know why they sent that message from Cinq-Cygne at this hour,

do you? It is half-past nine o’clock.”

“It must have been something pressing. The gentleman had only just

returned from Gondreville.”

“Gondreville!--has he been to Gondreville?”

“He dined there, monsieur. If you went to the Mulet you’d laugh! The

little tiger is, saving your presence, as drunk as a fiddler. He drank

such a lot of champagne in the servants’ hall that he can’t stand on his

legs; they have been filling him for fun.”

“And the count?”

“The count had gone to bed; but as soon as he received the letter he got

up. He is now dressing himself; and they are putting the horse in the

tilbury. The count is to spend the night at Cinq-Cygne.”

“He must be some great personage.”

“Oh, yes, monsieur; for Gothard, the steward of Cinq-Cygne, came this

morning to see his brother-in-law Poupart, and warned him to be very

discreet about the gentleman and to serve him like a king.”

“Vinet must be right,” thought the sub-prefect. “Can there be some cabal

on foot?”

“It was Duc Georges de Maufrigneuse who sent Gothard to the Mulet.

Poupart came to the meeting here this morning only because the gentleman

wished him to do so; if he had sent him to Paris, he’d go. Gothard told

Poupart to keep silent about the gentleman, and to fool all inquisitive

people.”

“If you can get Anicette here, don’t fail to let me know,” said Antonin.

“But I could see her at Cinq-Cygne if monsieur would send me to his

house at Val-Preux.”

“That’s an idea. You might profit by the chariot to get there. But what

reason could you give to the little groom?”

“He’s a madcap, that boy, monsieur. Would you believe it, drunk as he

is, he has just mounted his master’s thoroughbred, a horse that can do

twenty miles an hour, and started for Troyes with a letter in order that

it may reach Paris to-morrow! And only nine years and a half old! What

will he be at twenty?”

The sub-prefect listened mechanically to these remarks. Julien gossiped

on, his master listening, absorbed in thought about the stranger.

“Wait here,” he said to the man as he turned with slow steps to re-enter

the salon. “What a mess!” he thought to himself,--“a man who dines at

Gondreville and spends the night at Cinq-Cygnes! Mysteries indeed!”

“Well?” cried the circle around Mademoiselle Beauvisage as soon as he

reappeared.

“He is a count, and _vieille roche_, I answer for it.”

“Oh! how I should like to see him!” cried Cecile.

“Mademoiselle,” said Antonin, smiling and looking maliciously at Madame

Mollot, “he is tall and well-made and does not wear a wig. His little

groom was as drunk as the twenty-four cantons; they filled him with

champagne at Gondreville and that little scamp, only nine years old,

answered my man Julien, who asked him about his master’s wig, with all

the assumption of an old valet: ‘My master! wear a wig!--if he did I’d

leave him. He dyes his hair and that’s bad enough.’”

“Your opera-glass magnifies,” said Achille Pigoult to Madame Mollot, who

laughed.

“Well, the tiger of the handsome count, drunk as he is, is now riding

to Troyes to post a letter, and he’ll get there, as they say, in

five-quarters of an hour.”

“I’d like to have that tiger,” said Vinet.

“If the count dined at Gondreville we shall soon know all about him,”

remarked Cecile; “for my grandpapa is going there to-morrow morning.”

“What will strike you as very strange,” said Antonin Goulard, “is that

the party at Cinq-Cygne have just sent Mademoiselle Anicette, the maid

of the Princesse de Cadignan, in the Cinq-Cygne carriage, with a note to

the stranger, and he is going now to pass the night there.”

“_Ah ca_!” said Olivier Vinet, “then he is not a man; he’s a devil, a

phoenix, he will poculate--”

“Ah, fie! monsieur,” said Madame Mollot, “you use words that are

really--”

“‘Poculate’ is a word of the highest latinity, madame,” replied Vinet,

gravely. “So, as I said, he will poculate with Louis Philippe in the

morning, and banquet at the Holy-Rood with Charles the Tenth at

night. There is but one reason that allows a decent man to go to both

camps--from Montague to Capulet! Ha, ha! I know who that stranger is.

He’s--”

“The president of a railway from Paris to Lyons, or Paris to Dijon, or

from Montereau to Troyes.”

“That’s true,” said Antonin. “You have it. There’s nothing but

speculation that is welcomed everywhere.”

“Yes, just see how great names, great families, the old and the new

peerage are rushing hot-foot into enterprises and partnerships,” said

Achille Pigoult.

“Francs attract the Franks,” remarked Olivier Vinet, without a smile.

“You are not an _olive_-branch of peace,” said Madame Mollot, laughing.

“But is it not demoralizing to see such names as Verneuil, Maufrigneuse,

and Herouville side by side with those of du Tillet and Nucingen in the

Bourse speculations?”

“Our great Unknown is undoubtedly an embryo railway,” said Olivier

Vinet.

“Well, to-morrow all Arcis will be upside-down about it,” said Achille

Pigoult. “I shall call upon the Unknown and ask him to make me notary of

the affair. There’ll be two thousand deeds to draw, at the least.”

“Our romance is turning into a locomotive,” said Ernestine to Cecile.

“A count with a railway is all the more marriageable,” remarked Achille

Pigoult. “But who knows whether he is a bachelor?”

“Oh! I shall know that to-morrow from grandpapa,” cried Cecile, with

pretended enthusiasm.

“What a jest!” said Madame Mollot. “You can’t really mean, my little

Cecile, that you are thinking of that stranger?”

“But the husband is always the stranger,” interposed Olivier Vinet,

making a sign to Mademoiselle Beauvisage which she fully understood.

“Why shouldn’t I think of him?” asked Cecile; “that isn’t compromising.

Besides, he is, so these gentlemen say, either some great speculator, or

some great seigneur, and either would suit me. I love Paris; and I want

a house, a carriage, an opera-box, etc., in Paris.”

“That’s right,” said Vinet. “When people dream, they needn’t refuse

themselves anything. If I had the pleasure of being your brother I

should marry you to the young Marquis de Cinq-Cygne, who seems to me a

lively young scamp who will make the money dance, and will laugh at his

mother’s prejudices against the actors in the famous Simeuse melodrama.”

“It would be easier for you to make yourself prime-minister,”

said Madame Marion. “There will never be any alliance between the

granddaughter of Grevin and the Cinq-Cygnes.”

“Romeo came within an ace of marrying Juliet,” remarked Achille Pigoult,

“and Mademoiselle is more beautiful than--”

“Oh! if you are going to quote operas and opera beauties!” said Herbelot

the notary, naively, having finished his game of whist.

“My legal brother,” said Achille Pigoult, “is not very strong on the

history of the middle ages.”

“Come, Malvina!” said the stout notary to his wife, making no reply to

his young associate.

“Tell me, Monsieur Antonin,” said Cecile to the sub-prefect, “you spoke

of Anicette, the maid of the Princesse de Cadignan; do you know her?”

“No, but Julien does; she is the goddaughter of his father, and they are

good friends together.”

“Then try, through Julien, to get her to live with us. Mamma wouldn’t

consider wages.”

“Mademoiselle, to hear is to obey, as they say to despots in Asia,”

replied the sub-prefect. “Just see to what lengths I will go in order to

serve you.”

And he left the room to give Julien orders to go with Anicette in the

chariot and coax her away from the princess at any price.

XI. IN WHICH THE CANDIDATE BEGINS TO LOSE VOTES

At this moment Simon Giguet, who had got through his bowing and scraping

to all the influential men of Arcis, and who regarded himself as sure of

his election, joined the circle around Cecile and Mademoiselle Mollot.

The evening was far advanced. Ten o’clock had struck. After an enormous

consumption of cakes, orgeat, punch, lemonade, and various syrups, those

who had come that evening solely for political reasons and who were

not accustomed to Madame Marion’s floors, to them aristocratic,

departed,--all the more willingly, because they were unaccustomed to

sitting up so late. The evening then began to take on its usual air of

intimacy. Simon Giguet hoped that he could now exchange a few words with

Cecile, and he looked at her like a conqueror. The look displeased her.

“My dear fellow,” said Antonin to Simon, observing on his friend’s face

the glory of success, “you come at a moment when the noses of all the

young men in Arcis are put out of joint.”

“Very much so,” said Ernestine, whom Cecile had nudged with her elbow.

“We are distracted, Cecile and I, about the great Unknown, and we are

quarrelling for him.”

“But,” said Cecile, “he is no longer unknown; he is a count.”

“Some adventurer!” replied Simon Giguet, with an air of contempt.

“Will you say that, Monsieur Simon,” answered Cecile, feeling piqued,

“of a man to whom the Princesse de Cadignan has just sent her servants,

who dined at Gondreville to-day, and is to spend this evening with the

Marquise de Cinq-Cygne?”

This was said sharply, and in so hard a tone that Simon was

disconcerted.

“Ah, mademoiselle,” said Olivier Vinet, “if we said to each other’s

faces what we all say behind our backs, social life wouldn’t be

possible. The pleasures of society, especially in the provinces, are to

slander and backbite our neighbors.”

“Monsieur Simon is jealous of your enthusiasm for the mysterious count,”

said Ernestine.

“It seems to me,” said Cecile, “that Monsieur Simon has no right to be

jealous of my affections.”

After which remark, uttered in a way to dumfound Simon, Cecile rose;

the others made way for her and she went to her mother, who was just

finishing her rubber of whist.

“My dearest!” cried Madame Marion, hurrying after the heiress, “I think

you are rather hard on my poor Simon.”

“What has she done, my dear little kitten?” asked Madame Beauvisage.

“Mamma, Monsieur Simon called my great Unknown an adventurer!”

Simon had followed his aunt and was now beside the card-table. The four

persons whose interests were concerned were thus in the middle of the

salon,--Cecile and her mother on one side of the table, Madame Marion

and her nephew on the other.

“Really, madame,” said Simon Giguet, “there must be a strong desire to

find fault and to quarrel with me simply because I happened to say

that a gentleman whom all Arcis is talking about and who stops at the

Mulet--”

“Do you think he has come here to put himself in competition with you?”

said Madame Beauvisage jestingly.

“I should be very indignant with him certainly if he were to cause the

slightest misunderstanding between Mademoiselle Cecile and myself,” said

the candidate, with a supplicating look at the young girl.

“You gave your opinion, monsieur, in a decisive manner which proves that

you are very despotic,” she replied; “but you are right; if you wish to

be minister you ought to be decisive.”

Here Madame Marion took Madame Beauvisage by the arm and led her to

a sofa. Cecile, finding herself alone, returned to her former seat to

avoid hearing Simon’s answer to her speech, and the candidate was left

standing rather foolishly before the table, where he mechanically played

with the counters.

“My dear friend,” said Madame Marion in a low voice to Madame

Beauvisage, “you see that nothing can now hinder my nephew’s election.”

“I am delighted both for your sake and for the Chamber of Deputies,”

said Severine.

“My nephew is certain to go far, my dear; and I’ll tell you why: his

own fortune, that which his father will leave him and mine, will amount

altogether to some thirty thousand francs a year. When a man is a deputy

and has a fortune like that, he can aspire to anything.”

“Madame, he has our utmost admiration and our most earnest wishes for

the success of his political career; but--”

“I am not asking for an answer,” said Madame Marion, hastily

interrupting her friend. “I only beg you to reflect on the following

suggestions: Do our children suit each other? Can we marry them? We

should then live in Paris during the sessions; and who knows if the

deputy of Arcis may not be settled there permanently in some fine place

in the magistracy? Look at Monsieur Vinet of Provins, how he has made

his way. People blamed Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf for marrying him; yet

she will soon be wife of the Keeper of the Seals; Monsieur Vinet can be

peer of France whenever he pleases.”

“Madame, I have not the power to marry my daughter according to my own

tastes. In the first place, her father and I leave her absolutely free

to choose for herself. If she wanted to marry the ‘great Unknown’ and we

found that the match was suitable, we should give our consent. Besides

this, Cecile is wholly dependent on her grandfather, who intends to give

her on her marriage the Hotel de Beauseant in Paris, which he purchased

for us six years ago; the value of which is now rated at eight hundred

thousand francs. It is one of the finest houses in the faubourg

Saint-Germain. Moreover, he intends to add two hundred thousand francs

for the cost of fitting it up. A grandfather who behaves in this way,

and who can influence my mother-in-law to make a few sacrifices for

her granddaughter in expectation of a suitable marriage, has a right to

advise--”

“Certainly,” said Madame Marion, stupefied by this confidence, which

made the marriage of her nephew and Cecile extremely difficult.

“Even if Cecile had nothing to expect from her grandfather Grevin,”

continued Madame Beauvisage, “she would not marry without first

consulting him. If you have any proposals to make, go and see my

father.”

“Very good; I will go,” said Madame Marion.

Madame Beauvisage made a sign to Cecile, and together they left the

salon.

The next day Antonin and Frederic Marest found themselves, according

to their usual custom, with Monsieur Martener and Olivier, beneath the

lindens of the Avenue of Sighs, smoking their cigars and walking up and

down. This daily promenade is one of the petty pleasures of government

officials in the provinces when they happen to be on good terms with one

another.

After they had made a few turns, Simon Giguet came up and joined them

saying to the sub-prefect with a mysterious air:--

“You ought to be faithful to an old comrade who wishes to get you the

rosette of an officer and a prefecture.”

“You are beginning your political career betimes,” said Antonin,

laughing. “You are trying to corrupt me, rapid puritan!”

“Will you support me?”

“My dear fellow, you know very well that Bar-sur-Aube votes here. Who

can guarantee a majority under such circumstances? My colleague of

Bar-sur-Aube would complain of me if I did not unite my efforts with his

in support of the government. Your promise is conditional; whereas my

dismissal would be certain.”

“But I have no competitors.”

“You think so,” said Antonin, “but some one is sure to turn up; you may

rely on that.”

“Why doesn’t my aunt come, when she knows I am on a gridiron!” exclaimed

Giguet, suddenly. “These three hours are like three years!”

His secret had escaped him and he now admitted to his friend that Madame

Marion had gone on his behalf to old Grevin with a formal proposal for

Cecile’s hand.

The pair had now reached the Brienne road opposite to the Mulet

hostelry. While the lawyer looked down the street towards the bridge his

aunt would have to cross, the sub-prefect examined the gullies made by

the rain in the open square. Arcis is not paved. The plains of Champagne

furnish no material fit for building, nor even pebbles large enough for

cobble-stone pavements. One or two streets and a few detached places

are imperfectly macadamized and that is saying enough to describe their

condition after a rain. The sub-prefect gave himself an appearance

of occupation by apparently exercising his thoughts on this important

object; but he lost not a single expression of suffering on the anxious

face of his companion.

At this moment, the stranger was returning from the Chateau de

Cinq-Cygne, where he had apparently passed the night. Goulard resolved

to clear up, himself, the mystery wrapped about the Unknown, who was

physically enveloped in an overcoat of thick cloth called a _paletot_,

then the fashion. A mantle, thrown across his knees for a covering, hid

the lower half of his body, while an enormous muffler of red cashmere

covered his neck and head to the eyes. His hat, jauntily tipped to

one side, was, nevertheless, not ridiculous. Never was a mystery more

mysteriously bundled up and swathed.

“Look out!” cried the tiger, who preceded the tilbury on horseback.

“Open, papa Poupart, open!” he screamed in his shrill little voice.

The three servants of the inn ran out, and the tilbury drove in without

any one being able to see a single feature of the stranger’s face. The

sub-prefect followed the tilbury into the courtyard, and went to the

door of the inn.

“Madame Poupart,” said Antonin, “will you ask Monsieur--Monsieur--”

“I don’t know his name,” said Gothard’s sister.

“You do wrong! The rules of the police are strict, and Monsieur Groslier

doesn’t trifle, like some commissaries of police.”

“Innkeepers are never to blame about election-time,” remarked the little

tiger, getting off his horse.

“I’ll repeat that to Vinet,” thought the sub-prefect. “Go and ask your

master if he can receive the sub-prefect of Arcis.”

Presently Paradise returned.

“Monsieur begs Monsieur the sub-prefect to come up; he will be delighted

to see him.”

“My lad,” said Olivier Vinet, who with the two other functionaries had

joined the sub-prefect before the inn, “how much does your master give a

year for a boy of your cut and wits?”

“Give, monsieur! What do you take me for? Monsieur le comte lets himself

be milked, and I’m content.”

“That boy was raised in a good school!” said Frederic Marest.

“The highest school, monsieur,” said the urchin, amazing the four

friends with his perfect self-possession.

“What a Figaro!” cried Vinet.

“Mustn’t lower one’s price,” said the infant. “My master calls me a

little Robert-Macaire, and since we have learned how to invest our money

we are Figaro, plus a savings bank.”

“How much do you earn?”

“Oh! some races I make two or three thousand francs--and without selling

my master, monsieur.”

“Sublime infant!” said Vinet; “he knows the turf.”

“Yes, and all gentlemen riders,” said the child, sticking out his tongue

at Vinet.

Antonin Goulard, ushered by the landlord into a room which had been

turned into a salon, felt himself instantly under the focus of an

eyeglass held in the most impertinent manner by the stranger.

“Monsieur,” said the sub-prefect with a certain official hauteur, “I

have just learned from the wife of the innkeeper that you refuse to

conform to the ordinances of the police, and as I do not doubt that you

are a person of distinction, I have come myself--”

“Is your name Goulard?” demanded the stranger in a high voice.

“I am the sub-prefect, monsieur,” replied Antonin Goulard.

“Your father belonged to the Simeuse family?”

“And I, monsieur, belong to the government; that is how times differ.”

“You have a servant named Julien, who has tried to entice the Princesse

de Cadignan’s maid away from her?”

“Monsieur, I do not allow any one to speak to me in this manner,” said

Goulard; “you misunderstand my character.”

“And you want to know about mine!” returned the Unknown. “Well, I

will now make myself known. You can write in the landlord’s book:

‘Impertinent fellow. Direct from Paris. Age doubtful. Travelling for

pleasure.’ It would be rather a novelty in France to imitate England and

let people come and go as they please, without tormenting them at every

turn for ‘papers.’ I have no passport; now, what will you do to me?”

“The _procureur-du-roi_ is walking up and down there under the lindens,”

said the sub-prefect.

“Monsieur Marest! Wish him good-morning from me.”

“But who are you?”

“Whatever you wish me to be, my dear Monsieur Goulard,” said the

stranger. “You alone shall decide _what_ I am to be in this department.

Give me some advice on that head. Here, read that.”

And the stranger handed the sub-prefect the following letter:--

(Confidential.) Prefecture of the Aube.

Monsieur the Sub-prefect,--You will consult with the bearer of

this letter as to the election at Arcis, and you will conform to

all the suggestions and requests he may make to you. I request you

to conduct this matter with the utmost discretion, and to treat

the bearer with all the respect that is due to his station.

The letter was written and signed by the prefect of the Aube.

“You have been talking prose without knowing it,” said the Unknown,

taking back the letter.

Antonin Goulard, already struck with the aristocratic tone and manners

of this personage, became respectful.

“How was that, monsieur?” he asked.

“By endeavoring to entice Anicette. She told us of the attempts of your

man Julien to corrupt her. But my little tiger, Paradise, got the better

of him, and he ended by admitting that you wanted to put Anicette into

the service of one of the richest families in Arcis. Now, as the

richest family in Arcis is the Beauvisage family I make no doubt it is

Mademoiselle Cecile who covets this treasure.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Very good; then Anicette shall enter the Beauvisage household at once.”

He whistled. Paradise presented himself so rapidly that his master said:

“You were listening!”

“In spite of myself, Monsieur le comte; these partitions are nothing but

paper. But if Monsieur le comte prefers, I will move upstairs.”

“No, you can listen; it is your perquisite. It is for me to speak low

when I don’t want you to know my affairs. Go back to Cinq-Cygne, and

give this gold piece to that little Anicette from me. Julien shall have

the credit of enticing her away,” he continued, addressing Goulard.

“That bit of gold will inform her that she is to follow him. Anicette

may be useful to the success of our candidate.”

“Anicette?”

“Monsieur, it is now thirty-two years since lady’s-maids have served

my purposes. I had my first adventure at the age of thirteen, like the

regent, the great-great-grandfather of our present King. Do you know the

fortune of this Mademoiselle Beauvisage?”

“I can’t help knowing it, monsieur, for yesterday at Madame Marion’s,

Madame Beauvisage said openly that Monsieur Grevin, Cecile’s

grandfather, would give his granddaughter the hotel de Beauseant in

Paris and two hundred thousand francs for a wedding present.”

The stranger’s eyes expressed no surprise. He seemed to consider the

fortune rather paltry.

“Do you know Arcis well?” he asked of Goulard.

“I am the sub-prefect and I was born here.”

“What is the best way to balk curiosity?”

“By satisfying it. For instance, Monsieur le Comte has a baptismal name;

let him register that with the title of count.”

“Very good; Comte Maxime.”

“And if monsieur will assume the position of a railway official, Arcis

will be content; it will amuse itself by floating that stick at least

for a fortnight.”

“No, I prefer to be concerned in irrigation; it is less common. I have

come down to survey the wastelands of Champagne in order to reclaim

them. That will be, my good Monsieur Goulard, a reason for inviting me

to dine with you to-morrow to meet the mayor and his family; I wish to

see them, and study them.”

“I shall be only to happy to receive you,” said the sub-prefect; “but I

must ask your indulgence for the deficiencies of my little household.”

“If I succeed in managing the election of Arcis according to the wishes

of those who have sent me here, you, my dear friend, will be made a

prefect. Here, read these”; and he held out two letters to his visitor.

“Very good, Monsieur le comte,” said Antonin, returning them.

“Make a list of all the votes on which the ministry may count. Above

all, let no one suspect that you and I understand each other. I am a

speculator in land, and I don’t care a fig for elections.”

“I will send the commissary of police to force you to inscribe your name

on Poupart’s register.”

“So do. Adieu, monsieur. Heavens! what a region this is,” said the

count, in a loud voice; “one can’t take a step without having the

community, sub-prefect and all, on one’s back.”

“You will have to answer to the commissary of police, monsieur,” said

Antonin, in an equally loud tone.

And for the next twenty minutes Madame Mollot talked of the altercation

that took place between the sub-prefect and the stranger.

“Well, what wood is the beam that has plumped into our bog made of?”

said Olivier Vinet when Antonin Goulard rejoined them on leaving the

Mulet.

“He is a Comte Maxime who is here to study the geological system

of Champagne, with a view to finding mineral waters,” replied the

sub-prefect, with an easy manner.

“Say a speculator,” said Oliver.

“Does he expect to get the natives to lay out capital?” asked Monsieur

Martener.

“I doubt if our royalists will go into that kind of mining,” remarked

Vinet, laughing.

“What should you think from the air and gestures of Madame Marion?” said

the sub-prefect turning off the subject by pointing to Madame Marion and

Simon, who were deep in conversation.

Simon had gone toward the bridge to meet his aunt, and was now walking

with her up the square.

“If he was accepted one word would suffice,” said the shrewd Olivier.

“Well?” said all the officials when Simon came to them under the

lindens.

“My aunt thinks the matter very hopeful,” replied Simon. “Madame

Beauvisage and old Grevin, who has just gone to Gondreville, were not at

all surprised at my proposals; they talked of our respective fortunes,

and said they wished to leave Cecile perfectly free to make her choice.

Besides which, Madame Beauvisage said that, as for herself, she saw

no objection to an alliance by which she should feel herself honored;

although she postponed all answer until after my election, and possibly

my first appearance in the Chamber. Old Grevin said he should consult

the Comte de Gondreville, without whose advice he never took any

important step.”

“All of which means,” said Goulard, point-blank, “that you will never

marry Cecile, my old fellow.”

“Why not?” said Giguet, ironically.

“My dear friend, Madame Beauvisage and her daughter spend four

evenings every week in the salon of your aunt; your aunt is the most

distinguished woman in Arcis; and she is, though twenty years the elder,

an object of envy to Madame Beauvisage; don’t you see, therefore, that

they wished to wrap up their refusal in certain civilities?”

“Not to say entire yes or no in such cases,” said Vinet, “is to say

_no_, with due regard to the intimacy of the two families. Though Madame

Beauvisage has the largest fortune in Arcis, Madame Marion is the

most esteemed woman in the place; for, with the exception of our

chief-justice’s wife, who sees no one now, she is the only woman who

knows how to hold a salon; she is the queen of Arcis. Madame Beauvisage

has tried to make her refusal polite, that’s all.”

“I think that old Grevin was fooling your mother,” said Frederic Marest.

“Yesterday you attacked the Comte de Gondreville, you insulted and

grievously affronted him, and he is to be consulted about your marriage

to Cecile!”

“Pere Grevin is a sly old dog,” said Vinet.

“Madame Beauvisage is very ambitious,” pursued Antonin Goulard. “She

knows very well her daughter is to have two millions; she means to be

mother-in-law of a minister, or an ambassador, in order to play the

great lady in Paris.”

“Well, why not?” said Simon Giguet.

“I wish you may get it!” replied the sub-prefect looking at Vinet,

with whom he went off into a hearty laugh as soon as they were out of

hearing. “He won’t even be deputy,” added Antonin, addressing Vinet;

“the ministry have other views. You will find a letter from your father

when you get home, enjoining you to make sure of the votes of all the

persons in your department, and see that they go for the ministerial

candidate. Your own promotion depends on this; and he requests you to be

very discreet.”

“But who is the candidate for whom our ushers and sheriffs and clerks,

and solicitors and notaries are to vote?” asked Vinet.

“The one I shall name to you.”

“How do you know my father has written to me, and what he wrote?”

“The stranger told me--”

“The man after water?”

“My dear Vinet, you and I are not to know; we must treat him as a

stranger. He saw your father at Provins as he came through. Just now

this same man gave me a note from the prefect instructing me to

follow in every particular the instructions of Comte Maxime about this

election. I knew very well I should have a battle to fight! Come

and dine somewhere and we will get out our batteries. You are to be

_procureur-du-roi_ at Mantes, and I am to be prefect; but we must _seem_

to have nothing to do with the election, for don’t you see, we are

between the hammer and the anvil. Simon is the candidate of a party

which wants to overturn the present ministry and may succeed; but for

men as intelligent as you and I there is but one course to take.”

“What is that?”

“To serve those who make and unmake ministers. A letter was shown to

me from one of those personages who represent the stable and immovable

thought of the State.”

Before going farther, it is necessary to explain who this Unknown person

was, and what his purpose was in coming to Champagne.

XII. THE SALON OF MADAME D’ESPARD

About two months before the nomination of Simon Giguet, at eleven

o’clock one evening, in a mansion of the faubourg Saint-Honore belonging

to the Marquise d’Espard, while tea was being served the Chevalier

d’Espard, brother-in-law to the marquise, put down his tea-cup, and,

looking round the circle, remarked:--

“Maxime was very melancholy to-night,--didn’t you think so?”

“Yes,” replied Rastignac, “but his sadness is easily accounted for. He

is forty-eight years old; at that age a man makes no new friends, and

now that we have buried de Marsay, Maxime has lost the only man capable

of understanding him, of being useful to him, and of using him.”

“He probably has pressing debts. Couldn’t you put him in the way of

paying them?” said the marquise to Rastignac.

At this period Rastignac was, for the second time, in the ministry; he

had just been made count almost against his will. His father-in-law, the

Baron de Nucingen, was peer of France, his younger brother a bishop,

the Comte de Roche-Hugon, his brother-in-law, was an ambassador, and he

himself was thought to be indispensable in all future combinations of

the ministry.

“You always forget, my dear marquise,” replied Rastignac, “that our

government exchanges its silver for gold only; it pays no heed to men.”

“Is Maxime a man who would blow out his brains?” inquired the banker du

Tillet.

“Ha! you wish I were; we should be quits then,” said Comte Maxime de

Trailles, whom everybody supposed to have left the house.

The count rose suddenly, like an apparition, from the depths of an

arm-chair placed exactly behind that of the Chevalier d’Espard.

Every one present laughed.

“Will you have a cup of tea?” said the young Comtesse de Rastignac, whom

the marquise had asked to do the honors in her place.

“Gladly,” replied the count, standing before the fireplace.

This man, the prince of fashionable scoundrels, had managed to maintain

himself until now in the high and mighty position of a dandy in Paris,

then called _Gants Jaunes_ (lemon-kid-glovers), and since, “lions.”

It is useless to relate the history of his youth, full of questionable

adventures, with now and then some horrible drama, in which he had

always known how to save appearances. To this man women were never

anything else than a means; he believed no more in their griefs than he

did in their joys; he regarded them, like the late de Marsay, as naughty

children. After squandering his own fortune, he had spent that of a

famous courtesan, La Belle Hollandaise, the mother of Esther Gobseck.

He had caused the misery of Madame Restaud, sister of Madame Delphine de

Nucingen, the mother of the young Comtesse de Rastignac.

The world of Paris offers many unimaginable situations. The Baronne de

Nucingen was at this moment in Madame d’Espard’s salon in presence of

the author of all her sister’s misery, in presence of a murderer who

killed only the happiness of women. That, perhaps, was the reason why

he was there. Madame de Nucingen had dined at Madame d’Espard’s with her

daughter, married a few months earlier to the Comte de Rastignac, who

had begun his political career by occupying the post of under-secretary

of state in the famous ministry of the late de Marsay, the only real

statesman produced by the Revolution of July.

Comte Maxime de Trailles alone knew how many disasters he had

caused; but he had always taken care to shelter himself from blame by

scrupulously obeying the laws of the Man-Code. Though he had squandered

in the course of his life more money than the four galleys of France

could have stolen in the same time, he had kept clear of justice. Never

had he lacked in honor; his gambling debts were paid scrupulously.

An admirable player, his partners were chiefly the great seigneurs,

ministers, and ambassadors. He dined habitually with all the members of

the diplomatic body. He fought duels, and had killed two or three men

in his life; in fact, he had half murdered them, for his coolness and

self-possession were unparalleled. No young man could compare with him

in dress, in the distinction of his manners, the elegance of his witty

speech, the grace of his easy carriage,--in short, what was called in

those days “the grand air.” In his capacity of page to the Emperor,

trained from the age of twelve in the art of riding, he was held to be

the skilfulest of horsemen. Having always fine horses in his stable, he

raised some, and ruled the fashion in equestrianism. No man could

stand a supper of young bloods better than he; he drank more than the

best-trained toper, but he came out fresh and cool, and ready to begin

again as if orgy were his element. Maxime, one of those despised men who

know how to repress the contempt they inspire by the insolence of their

attitude and the fear they cause, never deceived himself as to his

actual position. Hence his real strength. Strong men are always their

own critics.

Under the Restoration he had made the most of his former condition of

page to the Emperor. He attributed to his pretended Bonapartist opinions

the rebuffs he met with from the different ministers when he asked for

an office under the Bourbons; for, in spite of his connections, his

birth, and his dangerous aptitudes, he never obtained anything. After

the failure of these attempts he entered the secret cabal which led in

time to the fall of the Elder branch.

When the Younger branch, preceded by the Parisian populace, had trodden

down the Elder branch and was seated on the throne, Maxime reproduced

his attachment to Napoleon, for whom he cared as much as for his first

love. He then did great services to the newcomers, who soon found the

payment for them onerous; for Maxime too often demanded payment of men

who knew how to reckon those services. At the first refusal, Maxime

assumed at once an attitude of hostility, threatening to reveal

unpleasant details; for budding dynasties, like infants, have much

soiled linen. De Marsay, during his ministry, repaired the mistake of

his predecessors, who had ignored the utility of this man. He gave him

those secret missions which require a conscience made malleable by the

hammer of necessity, an adroitness which recoils before no methods,

impudence, and, above all, the self-possession, the coolness, the

embracing glance which constitute the hired _bravi_ of thought and

statesmanship. Such instruments are both rare and necessary.

As a matter of calculation, de Marsay maintained Comte Maxime de

Trailles in the highest society; he described him as a man ripened by

passions, taught by experience, who knew men and things, to whom travel

and a certain faculty for observation had imparted an understanding of

European interests, of foreign cabinets, and of all the ramifications

of the great continental families. De Marsay convinced Maxime of the

necessity of doing himself credit; he taught him discretion, less as a

virtue than a speculation; he proved to him that the governing powers

would never abandon a solid, safe, elegant, and polished instrument.

“In politics,” he said, blaming Maxime for having uttered a threat, “we

should never _blackmail_ but once.”

Maxime was a man who could sound the depths of that saying.

De Marsay dead, Comte Maxime de Trailles had fallen back into his former

state of existence. He went to the baths every year and gambled; he

returned to Paris for the winter; but, though he received some large

sums from the depths of certain niggardly coffers, that sort of half-pay

to a daring man kept for use at any moment and possessing many secrets

of the art of diplomacy, was insufficient for the dissipations of a

life as splendid as that of the king of dandies, the tyrant of several

Parisian clubs. Consequently Comte Maxime was often uneasy about matters

financial. Possessing no property, he had never been able to consolidate

his position by being made a deputy; also, having no ostensible

functions, it was impossible for him to hold a knife at the throat of

any minister to compel his nomination as peer of France. At the present

moment he saw that Time was getting the better of him; for his lavish

dissipations were beginning to wear upon his person, as they had already

worn out his divers fortunes. In spite of his splendid exterior, he knew

himself, and could not be deceived about that self. He intended to “make

an end”--to marry.

A man of acute mind, he was under no illusion as to the apparent

consideration in which he was held; he well knew it was false. No women

were truly on his side, either in the great world of Paris or among the

bourgeoisie. Much secret malignity, much apparent good-humor, and

many services rendered were necessary to maintain him in his present

position; for every one desired his fall, and a run of ill-luck might at

any time ruin him. Once sent to Clichy or forced to leave the country

by notes no longer renewable, he would sink into the gulf where so

many political carcasses may be seen,--carcasses of men who find no

consolation in one another’s company. Even this very evening he was in

dread of a collapse of that threatening arch which debt erects over the

head of many a Parisian. He had allowed his anxieties to appear upon his

face; he had refused to play cards at Madame d’Espard’s; he had talked

with the women in an absent-minded manner, and finally he had sunk down

silent and absorbed in the arm-chair from which he had just risen like

Banquo’s ghost.

Comte Maxime de Trailles now found himself the object of all glances,

direct and indirect, standing as he did before the fireplace and

illumined by the cross-lights of two candelabra. The few words said

about him compelled him, in a way, to bear himself proudly; and he did

so, like a man of sense, without arrogance, and yet with the intention

of showing himself to be above suspicion. A painter could scarcely have

found a better moment in which to seize the portrait of a man who, in

his way, was truly extraordinary. Does it not require rare faculties to

play such a part,--to enable one through thirty years to seduce

women; to constrain one to employ great gifts in an underhand sphere

only,--inciting a people to rebel, tracking the secrets of austere

politicians, and triumphing nowhere but in boudoirs and on the

back-stairs of cabinets?

Is there not something, difficult to say what, of greatness in being

able to rise to the highest calculations of statesmen and then to fall

coldly back into the void of a frivolous life? Where is the man of iron

who can withstand the alternating luck of gambling, the rapid missions

of diplomacy, the warfare of fashion and society, the dissipations of

gallantry,--the man who makes his memory a library of lies and craft,

who envelops such diverse thoughts, such conflicting manoeuvres, in one

impenetrable cloak of perfect manners? If the wind of favor had blown

steadily upon those sails forever set, if the luck of circumstances had

attended Maxime, he could have been Mazarin, the Marechal de Richelieu,

Potemkin, or--perhaps more truly--Lauzun, without Pignerol.

The count, though rather tall and constitutionally slender, had of late

acquired some protuberance of stomach, but he “restrained it to the

majestic,” as Brillat-Savarin once said. His clothes were always so well

made, that he kept about his whole person an air of youth, something

active and agile, due no doubt to his habits of exercise,--fencing,

riding, and hunting. Maxime possessed all the physical graces and

elegances of aristocracy, still further increased by his personally

superior bearing. His long, Bourbonine face was framed by whiskers and a

beard, carefully kept, elegantly cut, and black as jet. This color,

the same as that of his abundant hair, he now obtained by an Indian

cosmetic, very costly and used in Persia, the secret of which he kept

to himself. He deceived the most practised eye as to the white threads

which for some time past had invaded his hair. The remarkable property

of this dye, used by Persians for their beards only, is that it does not

render the features hard; it can be shaded by indigo to harmonize well

with the individual character of the skin. It was this operation that

Madame Mollot may have seen,--though people in Arcis, by way of a jest,

still ask themselves what it was that Madame Mollot saw.

Maxime had a very handsome forehead, blue eyes, a Greek nose, a pleasant

mouth, and a well-cut chin; but the circle of his eyes was now marked

with numberless lines, so fine that they might have been traced by a

razor and not visible at a little distance. His temples had similar

lines. The face was also slightly wrinkled. His eyes, like those of

gamblers who have sat up innumerable nights, were covered with a

glaze, but the glance, though it was thus weakened, was none the less

terrible,--in fact, it terrified; a hidden heat was felt beneath it, a

lava of passions not yet extinct. The mouth, once so fresh and rosy,

now had colder tints; it was straight no longer, but inclined to the

right,--a sinuosity that seemed to indicate falsehood. Vice had twisted

the lips, but the teeth were white and handsome.

These blemishes disappeared on a general view of his face and person.

His figure was so attractive that no young man could compete with Maxime

when on horseback in the Bois, where he seemed younger and more graceful

than the youngest and most graceful among them. The privilege of eternal

youth has been possessed by several men in our day.

The count was all the more dangerous because he seemed to be easy and

indolent, never showing the iron determination which he had about all

things. This apparent indifference, which enabled him to abet a popular

sedition for the purpose of strengthening the authority of a prince with

as much ability as he would have bestowed upon a court intrigue, had a

certain grace. People never distrust calmness and uniformity of manner,

especially in France, where we are accustomed to a great deal of

movement and stir about the smallest things.

The count, who was dressed in the fashion of 1839, wore a black coat,

a cashmere waistcoat of dark blue embroidered with tiny flowers of a

lighter blue, black trousers, gray silk stockings, and varnished leather

shoes. His watch, placed in one of his waistcoat pockets, was fastened

by an elegant chain to a button-hole.

“Rastignac,” he said, accepting the cup of tea which the pretty Madame

de Rastignac offered him, “will you come with me to the Austrian

ambassador’s?”

“My dear fellow, I am too recently married not to go home with my wife.”

“That means that _later_--” said the young countess, turning round and

looking at her husband.

“Later is the end of the world,” replied Maxime. “But I shall certainly

win my cause if I take Madame for a judge.”

With a charming gesture, the count invited the pretty countess to come

nearer to him. After listening a few moments and looking at her mother,

she said to Rastignac:--

“If you want to go to the embassy with Monsieur de Trailles, mamma will

take me home.”

A few moments later the Baronne de Nucingen and the Comtesse de

Rastignac went away together. Maxime and Rastignac followed a little

later, and when they were both seated in the count’s carriage, the

latter said:--

“What do you want of me, Maxime? Why do you take me by the throat in

this way? What did you say to my wife?”

“I told her I had something to say to you. You are a lucky fellow,

you are! You have ended by marrying the only heiress of the Nucingen

millions--after twenty years at hard labor.”

“Maxime!”

“But I! here am I, exposed to the doubts of everybody. A miserable

coward like du Tillet dares to ask if I have the courage to kill myself!

It is high time for me to settle down. Does the ministry want to get

rid of me, or does it not? You ought to know. At any rate, you must

find out,” continued Maxime, making a gesture with his hand to silence

Rastignac. “Here is my plan: listen to it. You ought to serve me, for

I have served you, and can serve you again. The life I live now is

intolerable; I want an escape from it. Help me to a marriage which

shall bring me half a million. Once married, appoint me minister to some

wretched little republic in America. I’ll stay there long enough to

make my promotion to the same post in Germany legitimate. If I am worth

anything, they will soon take me out of it; if I am not worth anything,

they can dismiss me. Perhaps I may have a child. If so, I shall be stern

with him; his mother will be rich; I’ll make him a minister, perhaps an

ambassador.”

“Here is my answer,” said Rastignac. “An incessant battle is going

on--greater than common people who are not in it have any idea

of--between power in its swaddling-clothes and power in its childhood.

Power in swaddling-clothes is the Chamber of Deputies which, not being

restrained by an hereditary chamber--”

“Ha! ha!” said Maxime, “you are now a peer of France.”

“I should say the same if I were not,” said the new peer. “But don’t

interrupt me; you are concerned in all this. The Chamber of Deputies is

fated to become the whole government, as de Marsay used to tell us (the

only man by whom France could have been saved), for peoples don’t die;

they are slaves or free men, and that’s all. Child-power is the royalty

that was crowned in August, 1830. The present ministry is beaten; it

dissolves the Chamber and brings on a general election in order to

prevent the coming ministry from calling one; but it does not expect a

victory. If it were victorious in these elections, the dynasty would be

in danger; whereas, if the ministry is beaten, the dynastic party can

fight to advantage for a long time. The mistakes of the Chamber will

turn to the profit of a will which wants, unfortunately, to be the whole

political power. When a ruler is that whole, as Napoleon was, there

comes a moment when he must supplement himself; and having by that

time alienated superior men, he, the great single will, can find no

assistant. That assistant ought to be what is called a cabinet; but

there is no cabinet in France, there is only a Will with a life lease.

In France it is the government that is blamed, the opposition never; it

may lose as many battles as it fights, but, like the allies in 1814, one

victory suffices. With ‘three glorious days’ it overturned and destroyed

everything. Therefore, if we are heirs of power, we must cease to

govern, and wait. I belong by my personal opinions to the aristocracy,

and by my public opinions to the royalty of July. The house of Orleans

served me to raise the fortunes of my family, and I shall ever remain

attached to it.”

“The ‘ever’ of Monsieur de Talleyrand, be it understood,” put in Maxime.

“At this moment I can’t do anything for you,” continued Rastignac. “We

shall not be in power more than six months longer. Yes, those six months

will be our last dying agony, I know that; but we know what we were when

we formed ourselves, a stop-gap ministry and that was all. But you can

distinguish yourself in the electoral battle that is soon to be fought.

If you can bring one vote to the Chamber, a deputy faithful to the

dynastic cause, you will find your wishes gratified. I will speak

of your good services, and I will keep my eye on the reports of our

confidential agents; I may find you some difficult task in which you can

distinguish yourself. If you succeed, I can insist upon your talents,

your devotion, and claim your reward. Your marriage, my dear fellow,

can be made only in some ambitious provincial family of tradespeople or

manufacturers. In Paris you are too well known. We must therefore look

out for a millionaire parvenu, endowed with a daughter, and possessed

with a desire to parade himself and his family at the Chateau des

Tuileries.”

“Make your father-in-law lend me twenty-five thousand francs to enable

me to wait as long as that; he will then have an interest in seeing

that I am not paid in holy-water if I succeed; he will further a rich

marriage for his own sake.”

“You are wily, Maxime, and you distrust me. But I like able men, and I

will attend to your affair.”

They reached the Austrian embassy. The Comte de Rastignac saw the

minister of the interior in one of the salons and went to talk with

him in a corner. Comte Maxime de Trailles, meantime, was apparently

engrossed by the old Comtesse de Listomere, but he was, in reality,

following the course of the conversation between the two peers of

France; he watched their gestures, interpreted their looks, and ended by

catching a favorable glance cast upon him by the minister.

Maxime and Rastignac left the embassy together about one in the morning,

and before getting into their respective carriages, Rastignac said to

Maxime on the steps of the portico: “Come and see me just before the

elections. Between now and then I shall know in what locality the

chances of the ministry are worst, and what resources two heads like

yours and mine can find there.”

“But my twenty-five thousand francs are needed,” replied de Trailles.

“Well, you must hide yourself, that’s all.”

Fifty days later, one morning before dawn, the Comte de Trailles went

to the rue de Varennes, mysteriously in a hired cab. At the gate of the

ministry of Public Works, he sent the cab away, looked about him to see

that he was not watched, and then waited in a little salon on the first

floor until Rastignac should awake. A few moments later the valet who

had taken in his card ushered Maxime into the minister’s bed-chamber,

where that statesman was making his morning toilet.

“My dear Maxime,” said the latter, “I can tell you a secret which will

be in the newspapers two days hence, and which, meantime, you can turn

to your own profit. That poor Charles Keller, who danced the mazurka so

well, as been killed in Africa. His death leaves a vacancy; he was our

candidate in the arrondissement of Arcis. Here is a copy of two reports,

one from the sub-prefect, the other from the commissary of police,

informing the ministry that the election of the poor fellow would meet

with opposition. In that of the commissary of police you will find some

information about the state of the town which ought to be useful to

a man of your shrewdness; it seems that the ambition of the rival

candidate comes chiefly from his desire to marry a certain heiress. To

one of your calibre that word is enough. The Cinq-Cygnes, the Princesse

de Cadignan, and Georges de Maufrigneuse are living at Cinq-Cygne,

close to Arcis; you can certainly obtain through them all the Legitimist

votes, therefore--”

“Don’t waste your breath,” said Maxime. “Is the commissary still there?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a letter to him.”

“My dear fellow,” replied Rastignac, giving Maxime quite a bundle of

papers, “you will find there two letters written to Gondreville for you.

You have been a page and he has been a senator; you can’t fail therefore

to understand each other. Madame Francois Keller is pious; here is a

letter introducing you to her from the Marechale de Carigliano. The

marechale has become dynastic; she recommends you warmly, and may go

down herself. I will only add one word: Distrust the sub-prefect, whom

I think capable of working this candidate, this Simon Giguet, into

a support for himself with the president of the council. If you want

letters, powers, credentials, write to me.”

“And those twenty-five thousand francs?” said Maxime.

“Sign this note to the order of du Tillet, and here’s the money.”

“I shall succeed,” said the count, “and you may tell the king that the

deputy of Arcis shall belong to him body and soul. If I fail, I give you

leave to abandon me.”

An hour later Maxime de Trailles was in his tilbury on the road to

Arcis.

XIII. PREFACE BEFORE LETTERING

Once in possession of the information furnished by the landlady of the

Mulet and by the sub-prefect Antonin Goulard, Monsieur de Trailles had

soon arranged his plan of electoral operations, and this plan evinces

itself so readily that the reader must already have perceived it.

To the candidacy of Simon Giguet, the wily agent of the government

policy suddenly and abruptly opposed that of Phileas Beauvisage; and

in spite of the nullity and unfitness of that individual this new

combination, we must admit, had several incontestable chances of

success. In the light of his municipal halo Beauvisage had one enormous

advantage with the mass of indifferent voters; as mayor of the town his

name was known to them. Logic has much more to do with the conducting of

matters and things here below than it seems to have; it is like a woman

to whom, after many infidelities, we still return. What common-sense

prescribes is that voters called upon to choose their representative

in public matters should be thoroughly informed as to his capacity, his

honesty, and his general character. Too often, in practice, unfortunate

twists are given to this principle; but whenever the electoral sheep,

left to their own instincts, can persuade themselves that they are

voting from their own intelligence and their own lights, we may be

certain to see them following that line eagerly and with a sentiment

of self-love. Now to know a man’s name, electorally speaking, is a good

beginning toward a knowledge of the man himself.

Passing from indifferent to interested electors, we may be sure that

Phileas was certain of rallying to himself the Gondreville party, now

deprived by death of their own candidate. The question for them was

to punish the presumption of Simon Giguet, and any candidate would be

acceptable to the viceroy of Arcis. The mere nomination of a man against

his grandson was a flagrant act of hostility and ingratitude, and a

check to the count’s provincial importance which must be removed and

punished at any cost.

Still, when the first news of his electoral ambition reached his

father-in-law, Beauvisage was met by an astonishment little flattering

to his feelings and not encouraging. The old notary had gauged his

son-in-law once for all, and to his just and upright mind the idea of

Phileas as a public man produced in its way the disagreeable effect that

discordant instruments produce upon the ear. If it be true that no man

is a prophet in his own country, he is often even less so in his own

family. Still, the first impression once passed, Grevin would doubtless

acclimatize himself to the idea of an expedient which would chime in

with the plans he had already made for Severine’s future. Besides, for

the safety of Gondreville’s interests, so seriously threatened, what

sacrifice of his own opinion would the old notary not have made?

With the legitimist and the republican parties who could have no weight

in the election, except that of increasing a majority, the candidacy of

Beauvisage had a singular recommendation,--namely, his utter incapacity.

Conscious of not possessing sufficient strength to elect a deputy of

their own, the two extremes of the antidynastic opposition seized,

almost with ardor, the opportunity to stick a thorn in the side in what

they called “the present order of things,” and it might confidently be

expected that in this frame of mind they would joyfully and with all

their hearts support a candidate so supremely ridiculous that a large

slice of the ridicule must fall upon the government which supported him.

Moreover, in the opinions of the Left-Centre which had provisionally

adopted Simon Giguet as its candidate, this move of Beauvisage was

likely to produce a serious split; for he too had declared himself a

man of the dynastic opposition, and, until further orders, Monsieur

de Trailles (though all the while assuring him of the support of the

ministry) encouraged his retaining that political tint, which was

clearly the most popular in that region. But whatever baggage of

political convictions the incorruptible deputy of Arcis might bring with

him to Paris, his horoscope was drawn: it was very certain that after

his first appearance in the salons of the Tuileries an august seduction

would make a henchman of him, if ministerial blandishments had not

already produced that result.

The public side of this matter being thus well-planned and provided for,

the ministerial agent could turn his attention to the personal aspect

of the question, namely, that of turning the stuff he was making into a

deputy to the still further use of being made into a father-in-law.

First point, the _dot_; second point, the daughter; and both appeared to

suit him. The first did not dazzle him; but as to the second, he did not

conceal from himself the imperfections of a provincial education which

he should have to unmake, but this was no serious objection to his

sapient conjugal pedagogy.

Madame Beauvisage, when the matter was laid before her, swept her

husband into it at a single bound. Maxime recognized her for an

ambitious woman who, in spite of her forty-four years, still had the

air of being conscious of a heart. Hence he saw that the game had better

begin with a false attack on her to fall back later on the daughter. How

far these advanced works could be pushed, circumstances would show. In

either case, Maxime was well aware that his title, his reputation as

a man of the world, and his masterly power of initiating them into

the difficult and elegant mysteries of Parisian society were powerful

reasons to bind the two women to him, not to speak of their gratitude

for the political success of Monsieur Beauvisage of which he was the

author.

But however all this might be, his matrimonial campaign offered one very

serious difficulty. The consent of old Grevin would have to be obtained,

and he was not a man to allow Cecile to be married without investigating

to its depths the whole past of a suitor. This inquiry made, was it not

to be feared that the thirty years’ stormy biography of a roue would

seem to the cautious old man a poor security for the future?

However, the species of governmental mission with which Monsieur

de Trailles appeared in Arcis might seem to be an offset and even a

condonation that would neutralize the effect of such disclosures. By

getting the Comte de Gondreville to confide the news of that mission to

old Grevin before it was publicly made known, he had flattered the old

man’s vanity and obtained a certain foothold in his mind. Moreover, he

determined, when the time came, to forestall the old notary’s distrust

by seeming to distrust himself, and to propose, as a precaution

against his old habits of extravagance, to introduce a clause into the

marriage-contract providing for the separation of property and settling

the wife’s fortune upon herself. In this way he gave security against

any return to his old habits of prodigality. As for himself, it was his

affair to obtain such empire over his wife by the power of sentiment

that he could recover practically the marital power of which the

contract dispossessed him.

At first nothing occurred to contradict the wisdom and clearsightedness

of all these intentions. The Beauvisage candidacy being made public took

fire like a train of gunpowder, and Monsieur de Trailles was able to

feel such assurance of the success of his efforts that he wrote to

Rastignac informing him of the fortunate and highly successful progress

of his mission.

But, all of a sudden, in face of the triumphant Beauvisage rose another

candidate; and, be it said in passing for the sake of our history,

this rivalry presented itself under such exceptional and unforeseen

circumstances that it changed what might have been a trivial electoral

struggle into a drama possessing wider and more varied interests.

The man who now appears in this narrative will play so considerable a

part in it that it seems necessary to install him, as it were, by means

of retrospective and somewhat lengthy explanations. But to suspend the

course of the narrative for this purpose would be to fly in the face

of every rule of art and expose the present pious guardian of literary

orthodoxy to the wrath of critics. In presence of this difficulty, the

author would find himself greatly embarrassed, if his lucky star had not

placed in his hands a correspondence in which, with a vim and animation

that he himself could never have imparted to them, all the details that

are essential to a full explanation will be found related.

These letters must be read with attention. They bring upon the scene

many persons already well-known in the Comedy of Human Life, and

they reveal a vast number of facts necessary to the understanding and

development of the present drama. Their statements made, and brought to

the point where we now seem to abandon our narrative, the course of

that narrative will, without concussion and quite naturally, resume its

course; and we like to persuade ourselves that, by thus introducing this

series of letters, the unity of our tale, which seemed for a moment in

danger, will be maintained.