PART III. MONSIEUR DE SALLENAUVE

I. THE SORROWS OF MONSIEUR DE TRAILLES

During the evening which followed the election in which he had played a

part so humiliating to his vanity, Maxime de Trailles returned to Paris.

It might be supposed that in making, on his arrival, a rapid toilet and

ordering his carriage to be instantly brought round, he was hastening to

pay a visit to the Comte de Rastignac, minister of Public Works, to whom

he must have desired to render an account of his mission, and explain as

best he could the reasons of its ill-success.

But another and more pressing interest seemed to claim him.

“To Colonel Franchessini’s,” he said to his coachman.

Arriving at the gate of one of the prettiest hotels in the _quartier_

Breda, and nodding to the concierge, he received an affirmative sign,

which meant, “Monsieur is at home”; and at the same time a valet

appeared on the portico to receive him.

“Is the colonel visible?” he asked.

“He has just gone into madame’s room. Does monsieur wish me to call

him?”

“No, I’ll wait for him in the study.”

Then, like one familiar with the house, and without waiting for the

servant to usher him, he entered a large room on the ground-floor, which

looked into a garden, and was filled with a miscellaneous collection of

articles testifying to the colonel’s habits and tastes. Books, charts,

and maps certainly justified the word “study”; but, as a frantic

sportsman and member of the Jockey Club, the colonel had allowed

this sanctum of mental labor and knowledge to become, by degrees, his

smoking, fencing, and harness room. Pipes and weapons of all shapes and

all lands, saddles, hunting-whips, spurs, bits of many patterns, foils

and boxing-gloves formed a queer and heterogenous collection. However,

by thus surrounding his daily life with the objects of his favorite

_studies_, the colonel proved himself a man who possessed the courage

of his opinions. In fact, he openly said that, beyond a passing notice,

there was no reading worth a man’s attention except the “Stud Journal.”

It is to be supposed, however, that politics had managed in some way

to slip into this existence devoted to muscular exercise and the hippic

science, for, from a heap of the morning journals disdainfully flung

upon the floor by the worthy colonel, Monsieur de Trailles picked up

a copy of the legitimist organ, in which he read, under the heading of

ELECTIONS, the following article:

The staff of the National Guard and the Jockey Club, which had

various representatives in the last Chamber, have just sent one of

their shining notabilities to the one about to open. Colonel

Franchessini, so well known for his ardor in punishing the

refractories of the National Guard, has been elected almost

unanimously in one of the rotten boroughs of the civil list. It is

supposed that he will take his seat beside the phalanx of other

henchmen, and show himself in the Chamber, as he has elsewhere,

one of the firmest supporters of the policy of the _present order

of things_.

As Maxime finished reading the article, the colonel entered.

After serving the Empire for a very short time, Colonel Franchessini

had become one of the most brilliant colonels of the Restoration; but

in consequence of certain mists which had risen about the perfect

honorableness of his character he had found himself obliged to send in

his resignation, so that in 1830 he was fully prepared to devote himself

in the most ardent manner to the dynasty of July. He did not re-enter

military service, because, shortly after his misadventure he had met

with an Englishwoman, enormously rich, who being taken with his beauty,

worthy at that time of the Antinous, had made him her husband, and the

colonel henceforth contented himself with the epaulets of the staff

of the National Guard. He became, in that position, one of the most

exacting and turbulent of blusterers, and through the influence of that

quality combined with the fortune his wife had given him, he had

just been elected, as the paper stated, to the Chamber of deputies.

Approaching the fifties, like his friend de Trailles, Colonel

Franchessini had still some pretensions to the after-glow of youth,

which his slim figure and agile military bearing seemed likely to

preserve to him for some time longer. Although he had conquered the

difficulty of his gray hair, reducing its silvery reflections by

keeping it cut very close, he was less resigned to the scantiness of his

moustache, which he wore in youthful style, twirled to a sharp point by

means of a Hungarian cosmetic, which also preserved to a certain degree

its primitive color. But whoso wants to prove too much proves nothing,

and in the black which the colonel used there was noticeably a raw tone,

and an equality of shade too perfect for truth of nature. Hence his

countenance, swarthy and strongly marked with the Italian origin

indicated by his name, had an expression of singular rigidity, to which

his features, now become angular, his piercing glance, and his nose like

the beak of a bird of prey, did not afford the requisite corrective.

“Hey, Maxime!” he cried, shaking hands with his visitor, “where the

devil do you come from? It is more than a fortnight since I have seen

you at the club.”

“Where do I come from?” replied Monsieur de Trailles. “I’ll tell you

presently; but first let me congratulate you on your election.”

“Yes,” said the colonel, with apparent indifference, “_they_ would put

me up; but I assure you, upon my honor, I was very innocent of it all,

and if no one had done more than I--”

“But, my dear fellow, you are a blessed choice for that arrondissement;

I only wish that the electors I have had to do with were equally

intelligent.”

“What! have you been standing for election? I didn’t suppose, taking

into consideration the--rather troubled state of your finances, that you

could manage it.”

“True, and I was not electioneering on my own account. Rastignac was

uneasy about the arrondissement of Arcis-sur-Aube, and he asked me to go

down there for a few days.”

“Arcis-sur-Aube? Seems to me I read an article about that this morning

in one of those cabbage-leaves. Horrid choice, isn’t it?--some plasterer

or image-maker they propose to send us?”

“Precisely; and it is about that very thing I have come to see you

before I see the others. I have just arrived, and I don’t want to go to

Rastignac until after I have talked with you.”

“How is he getting on, that little minister?” said the colonel, taking

no notice of the clever steps by which Maxime was gravitating toward the

object of his visit. “They seem to be satisfied with him at the palace.

Do you know that little Nucingen whom he married?”

“Yes, I often see Rastignac; he is a very old acquaintance of mine.”

“She is pretty, that little thing,” continued the colonel, “very pretty;

and I think, the first year of marriage well buried, one might risk

one’s self in that direction with some success.”

“Come, come,” said Maxime, “you are a serious man now, a legislator! As

for me, the mere meddling in electoral matters in the interests of other

people has sobered me.”

“Did you say you went to Arcis-sur-Aube to hinder the election of that

stone-cutter?”

“Not at all; I went there to throw myself in the way of the election of

a Left-centre candidate.”

“Pah! the Left, pure and simple, is hardly worse. But take a cigar;

these are excellent. The princes smoke them.”

The colonel rose and rang the bell, saying to the servant when he came,

“A light!”

The cigars lighted, Monsieur de Trailles endeavored to prevent another

interruption by declaring before he was questioned that he had never

smoked anything more exquisite. Comfortably ensconced in his arm-chair,

the colonel seemed to offer the hope of a less fugacious attention, and

Monsieur de Trailles resumed:--

“All went well at first. To crush the candidate the ministry wanted

to be rid of,--a lawyer, and the worst sort of cad,--I unearthed a

stocking-maker, a fearful fool, whom I persuaded to offer himself as

candidate. The worthy man was convinced that he belonged to the dynastic

opposition. That is the opinion which, for the time being, prevails in

that region. The election, thanks to me, was as good as made; and, our

man once in Paris, the great Seducer in the Tuileries had only to say

five words to him, and this dynastic opposer could have been turned

inside out like one of this own stockings, and made to do whatever was

wanted of him.”

“Pretty well played that!” said the colonel. “I recognize my Maxime.”

“You will recognize him still farther when he tells you that he was

able, without recourse to perquisites, to make his own little profit out

of the affair. In order to graft a little parliamentary ambition upon

my vegetable, I addressed myself to his wife,--a rather appetizing

provincial, though past her prime.”

“Yes, yes, I see; very good!” said Franchessini; “husband made

deputy--satisfied--shut his mouth.”

“You are all wrong, my dear fellow; the pair have an only daughter, a

spoilt child, nineteen years old, very agreeable face, and something

like a million in her pocket.”

“But, my dear Maxime, I passed your tailor’s house last night, and it

was not illuminated.”

“No; that would have been premature. However, here was the situation:

two women frantic to get to Paris; gratitude to the skies for the man

who would get them an introduction to the Palais-Bourbon; the little

one crazy for the title of countess; the mother transported at the idea,

carefully insinuated by me, of holding a political salon,--you must see

all that such a situation offers, and you know me too well, I fancy, to

suppose that I should fall below any of its opportunities.”

“Quite easy in mind as to that,” said the colonel, getting up to open a

window and let out the smoke of their two cigars.

“I was on the point,” continued Maxime, “of pocketing both daughter and

_dot_, when there fell from the skies, or rather there rose from the

nether regions, a Left candidate, the stone-cutter, as you call him, a

man with two names,--in short, a natural son--”

“Ha!” said the colonel, “those fellows do have lucky stars, to be sure.

I am not surprised if one of them mowed the grass from under your feet.”

“My dear friend,” said Maxime, “if we were in the middle ages, I should

explain by magic and sorcery the utter discomfiture of my candidate,

and the election of the stone-man, whom you are fated to have for your

colleague. How is it possible to believe, what is however the fact, that

an old _tricoteuse_, a former friend of Danton, and now the abbess of

a convent of Ursulines, should actually, by the help of her nephew, an

obscure organist in Paris, have so bewitched the whole electoral college

that this upstart has been elected by a large majority?”

“But I suppose he had some friends and acquaintances in the town?”

“Not the ghost of one,--unless it might be that nun. Fortune, relations,

father, even a name, he never had until the day of his arrival at Arcis

two weeks ago; and now, if you please, the Comte Charles de Sallenauve,

seigneur of the chateau of Arcis, is elected to the Chamber of deputies!

God only knows how it was done! The pretended head of a former great

family, representing himself as absent in foreign lands for many years,

suddenly appears with this schemer before a notary in Arcis, recognizes

him at a gallop as his son, buys the chateau of Arcis and presents it

to him, and is off during the night before any one could even know what

road he took. The trick thus played, the abbess and her aide-de-camp,

the organist, launched the candidate, and at once republicans,

legitimists, conservatives, clergy, nobility, bourgeoisie, in fact

everybody, as if by some spell cast upon that region, all did the

bidding of that old witch of a nun, and without the stalwart battalion

of the functionaries (who under my eye stood firm and did not flinch),

his election would have been, like yours, unanimous.”

“Then, my poor friend, good-bye to the _dot_.”

“Not precisely; though it must certainly be adjourned. The father

grumbles because the blessed tranquillity of his life was disturbed and

he himself covered with ridicule, though the poor dear man had already

enough of that! The daughter still wants to be a countess, but the

mother takes it hard that her political salon should be floating away

from her, and God knows how far I shall be led in order to comfort her.

Besides all this, I myself am goaded by the necessity of having to find

the solution of my own problem pretty soon. I _had_ found it there: I

intended to marry, and take a year to settle my affairs; at the next

session I should have made my father-in-law resign and stepped into his

seat in the Chamber; then, you understand, what an horizon before me!”

“But, my dear fellow, political horizon apart, don’t let that million

slip through your fingers.”

“Oh, heavens! as for that, except for the delay, I feel safe enough. My

future family is about to remove to Paris. After this mortifying defeat,

life in Arcis will not be endurable. Beauvisage (forgive the name, it is

that of my adopted family)--Beauvisage is like Coriolanus, ready if he

can to bring fire and slaughter on his ungrateful birthplace. Besides,

in transplanting themselves hither, these unfortunate exiles know where

to lay their heads, being the owners of the hotel Beauseant.”

“Owners of the hotel Beauseant!” cried the colonel, in amazement.

“Yes; Beauseant--Beauvisage; only a termination to change. Ah! my dear

fellow, you don’t know what these provincial fortunes are, accumulated

penny by penny, especially when to the passion for saving is added the

incessant aspiration of that leech called commerce. We must make up our

minds to some course; the bourgeoisie are rising round us like a flood;

it is almost affable in them to buy our chateaus and estates when they

might guillotine us as in 1793, and get them for nothing.”

“Happily for you, my dear Maxime, you have reduced the number of your

chateaus and estates.”

“You see yourself that is not so,” replied Maxime, “inasmuch as I am

now engaged in providing myself with one. The Beauseant house is to be

repaired and refurnished immediately, and I am charged with the ordering

of the work. But I have made my future mother-in-law another promise,

and I want your help, my dear fellow, in fulfilling it.”

“It isn’t a tobacco license, or a stamped-paper office, is it?”

“No, something less difficult. These damned women, when hatred or a

desire for vengeance takes possession of them, are marvels of instinct;

and Madame Beauvisage, who roars like a lioness at the very name of

Sallenauve, has taken it into her head that beneath his incomprehensible

success there is some foul intrigue or mystery. It is certain that the

appearance and disappearance of this mysterious father have given rise

to very singular conjectures; and probably if the thumb-screws were put

upon the organist, who was, they say, entrusted with the education

of the interesting bastard, we might get the secret of his birth and

possibly other unexpected revelations. Now I have thought of a man on

whom you have, I believe, great influence, who might in this hunt for

facts assist us immensely. Don’t you remember the robbery of those

jewels from Jenny Cardine, about which she was so unhappy one night at

Very’s? You asked the waiter for pens and paper, and on a simple

note which you sent at three o’clock in the morning to a Monsieur

Saint-Esteve the police went to work, and before the evening of the next

day the thieves were captured and the jewels restored.”

“Yes,” said the colonel, “I remember all that; my interference was

lucky. But I must tell you that had I paused to reflect I should not

have treated Monsieur de Saint-Esteve so cavalierly. He is a man to be

approached with greater ceremony.”

“_Ah ca_! but isn’t he a former galley-slave, whose pardon you helped to

obtain, and who feels for you the veneration they say Fieschi felt for

one of his protectors?”

“Yes, that is true. Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, like his predecessor,

Bibi-Lupin, has had _misfortunes_; but he is to-day the head of the

detective police, the important functions of which office he fulfils

with rare capacity. If the matter concerned anything that comes within

his department, I should not hesitate to give you a letter to him; but

the affair you speak of is delicate; and in any case I must first sound

him and see if he is willing to talk with you.”

“I thought you managed him despotically. Let us say no more about it, if

you think it so very difficult.”

“The greatest difficulty is that I never see him; and I naturally cannot

write to him for such an object. I should have to watch for an occasion,

a chance meeting. But why don’t you speak of this to Rastignac? He could

give him an order to act at once.”

“Don’t you understand that Rastignac will receive me very ill indeed? I

had assured him, by letter, of success, and now I am forced to report

in person our defeat. Besides, on every account, I would rather owe this

service to your friendship.”

“Well, it sha’n’t fail you,” said the colonel, rising. “I’ll do my best

to satisfy you; only, there must be a delay.”

The visit had lasted long, and Maxime felt that a hint was given him to

abridge it. He therefore took leave, putting into his manner a certain

coldness which the colonel appeared not to notice.

No sooner had Monsieur de Trailles departed than Franchessini opened

a pack of cards and took out the knave of spades. This he cut up in a

curious manner, leaving the figure untouched. Placing this species

of hieroglyphic between two sheets of paper, he consigned it to an

envelope. On this envelope and disguising his hand the colonel wrote as

follows:--

Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, rue Saint-Anne, near the Quai des

Orfevres.

That done, he rang the bell and gave orders to put up his carriage,

which he had ordered before Maxime’s arrival; after which he went out

alone on foot, and threw his singular missive into the first street

letter-box that he passed. He had taken care, before he left the house,

to see if it were properly sealed.

II. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ELEVEN O’CLOCK AND MIDNIGHT

As a result of the elections which had just taken place, the ministry,

contrary to expectation, maintained a majority in the Chamber,--a

doubtful and provisional majority which would give it an uncertain and

struggling existence. But, at any rate, it had obtained that merely

numerical success which parties seek at any price to prolong their

power. The Te Deum was sung in all its camps,--a paean which serves as

well to celebrate victorious defeats as honest victories.

On the evening of the day when Colonel Franchessini received the visit

from Maxime de Trailles, the general result of the elections was made

known. The ministers of the left bank, whose wives received on that day,

found their salons crowded, particularly the Comte de Rastignac, the

minister of Public Works.

Madame de l’Estorade, too much absorbed in her children to be very exact

in the fulfilment of her social duties, had owed a visit to Madame

de Rastignac ever since the evening when the minister’s wife had

interrupted her conversation with the sculptor apropos of the famous

statue. Monsieur de l’Estorade, zealous conservative as we know already,

had insisted that politics and politeness now combined to oblige them

both to pay this social debt. Arriving early, in order to be rid the

sooner of such a bore, Madame de l’Estorade found herself seated at

the upper end of a circle of women, while the men stood about them

conversing. Her chair was side by side with that of Madame de Rastignac.

In hoping to make her visit short, Madame de l’Estorade had not counted

on the allurements of conversation which, under the circumstances of

this so-called political victory, laid hold of her husband. A man of

more influence by his judgment than by his oratory in the Chamber of

Peers, Monsieur de l’Estorade, as he circulated through the salons, was

stopped at every turn by the various notabilities of politics, finance,

and diplomacy, and requested to give his opinion on the future of the

session now about to begin. To all such questions he replied with more

or less extended observations, and sometimes he had the pleasure of

finding himself the centre of a group respectfully receptive of his

opinions. This success rendered him very inattentive to the telegraphy

of his wife, who, watching his various evolutions, made him signs

whenever she could catch his eye that she wished to go away.

The years that had elapsed since Monsieur de l’Estorade had obtained the

hand of the beautiful Renee de Maucombe, while they had scarcely dimmed

the splendor of her beauty, had considerably aged her husband. The

twenty years’ difference in their ages--he being now fifty-two, she

thirty-two--was growing all the more apparent because even at the time

of the marriage he was turning gray and his health was failing. An

affection of the liver, latent for several years, was now developing,

and at the same time the wilful disposition which is noticeable in

statesmen and men of ambition made his mouth less sensitive to the

conjugal bit. Monsieur de l’Estorade talked so long and so well that

after a time the salons thinned, leaving a group of the intimates of

the house around his wife and their hostess. At this moment the minister

himself slipped an arm through his, and, leading him up to the group

surrounding their two wives, Rastignac said to Madame de l’Estorade,--

“I bring you back your husband; I have just found him in criminal

conversation with a member of the Zollverin, who would probably have

clung to him all night if it had not been for me.”

“I was myself on the point of asking Madame de Rastignac for a bed, that

I might release her from the burden of my company, which Monsieur de

l’Estorade’s interminable conversations have put upon her.”

Madame de Rastignac protested that, on the contrary, she desired

to enjoy as long as possible Madame de l’Estorade’s company, only

regretting that she had been so often obliged to interrupt their

conversation to receive those strange objects, the newly fledged

deputies, who had come in relays to make their bow to her.

“Oh! my dear,” cried Rastignac, “here’s the session about to open, and

we really must not take these disdainful airs toward the elect of the

nation. Besides which, you will get into difficulties with madame, who,

I am told, is the protectress of one of these sovereigns of late date.”

“I?” said Madame de l’Estorade, rather surprised, and blushing a little.

She had one of those complexions, still fresh and dazzling, which are

predisposed to these flushes of color.

“Ah! true,” said Madame de Rastignac; “I had forgotten that artist who

cut out the pretty figures for your children the last time I had the

pleasure of paying you a visit. I own I was far from thinking then that

he would be one of our masters.”

“And yet, ever since then,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, “his election

has been talked about; though it must be owned that until now no one

thought seriously of it.”

“I did,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, rather eagerly, seizing the

occasion to put another star to his reputation for prophecy; “from the

first political conversation that I had with him I said--and Monsieur de

Ronquerolles is here to bear me out--that I was surprised at the ability

and the breadth of aim he manifested.”

“Certainly,” said the personage thus interpellated, “he is not an

ordinary fellow; but I do not believe in his future. He is a man who

goes by the first impulsion, and, as Monsieur de Talleyrand has wisely

remarked, the first impulse is the good impulse.”

“Well, monsieur?” inquired Madame de l’Estorade, ingenuously.

“Well, madame,” replied Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who was vain of his

scepticism, “heroism is not of our day; it is heavy baggage, horribly

embarrassing, which gets us into mud-holes continually.”

“Nevertheless, I believe that great qualities of heart and mind have

some share in the composition of a distinguished man.”

“Qualities of mind? Yes, you are right there, provided always they work

in a certain direction. But as for qualities of the heart in political

life, what good are they?--to hoist you on stilts with which you can’t

walk as well as you can on the ground, and from which you are liable to

fall and break your neck at the first push.”

“At that rate,” said Madame de Rastignac, laughing, while Madame de

l’Estorade was silent, disdaining to reply, “the political world must be

peopled by none but scoundrels.”

“That is so, madame,--ask Lazarille”; and as he made this allusion to a

famous stage joke, he laid his hand on the minister’s shoulder.

“My dear fellow,” said Rastignac, “I think your generalities are a

little too particular.”

“No, no; but come,” returned Monsieur de Ronquerolles, “let us talk

seriously. To my knowledge, this Monsieur de Sallenauve--that is the

name I think he has taken in exchange for Dorlange, which he himself

called theatrical--has done, within a short time, two fine actions. I,

being present and assisting, saw him stand up to be killed by the Duc de

Rhetore, on account of certain ill-sounding words said about a friend.

Those words, in the first place, he could not help hearing; and having

heard them it was, I will not say his duty, but his _right_ to resent

them.”

“Ah!” said Madame de Rastignac, “then it was he who fought that duel

people said so much about?”

“Yes, madame, and I ought to say--for I understand such matters--that at

the meeting he behaved with consummate bravery.”

To avoid the recital of the second fine action, Madame de l’Estorade, at

the risk of impolitely cutting short a topic thus begun, rose, and made

an almost imperceptible sign to her husband that she wished to go. But

Monsieur de l’Estorade took advantage of its faintness to stay where he

was.

Monsieur de Ronquerolles continued:--

“His other fine action was to throw himself in front of some runaway

horses to save madame’s daughter from imminent death.”

All eyes turned on Madame de l’Estorade, who, this time, blushed deeply;

but recovering speech, if only in order to seem composed, she said with

feeling,--

“According to your theory of heroism you must think Monsieur de

Sallenauve very foolish to have thus risked his life and his future; but

I assure you that there is one woman who will never agree with you, and

that is--the mother of my child.”

As she said the words, tears were in Madame de l’Estorade’s voice; she

pressed Madame de Rastignac’s hand affectionately, and made so decided a

movement to leave the room that she finally put in motion her immovable

husband.

“Thank you,” said Madame de Rastignac, as she accompanied her to

the door, “for having broken a lance with that cynic; Monsieur de

Rastignac’s past life has left him with odious acquaintances.”

As she resumed her place, Monsieur de Ronquerolles was saying,--

“Ha! saved her child’s life indeed! The fact is that poor l’Estorade is

turning as yellow as a lemon.”

“Ah, monsieur, but that is shocking,” cried Madame de Rastignac. “A

woman whom no breath of slander has ever touched; who lives only for her

husband and children; whose eyes were full of tears at the mere thought

of the danger the child had run!--”

“Heavens! madame,” retorted Monsieur de Ronquerolles, paying no heed to

the rebuke, “all I can say is that newfoundlands are always dangerous.

If Madame de l’Estorade becomes too much compromised, she has one

resource,--she can marry him to the girl he saved.”

Monsieur de Ronquerolles had no sooner said the words than he perceived

the horrible blunder he had committed in making such a speech before

Mademoiselle de Nucingen. He colored high,--a most unusual sign in

him,--and the solemn silence which seemed to wrap all present completed

his discomfiture.

“This clock must be slow,” said the minister, catching at any words

that would make a sound and break up an evening that was ending

unfortunately.

“True,” said de Ronquerolles, looking at his watch; “it is a quarter to

twelve.”

He bowed to Madame de Rastignac ceremoniously, and went away, followed

by the rest of the company.

“You saw his embarrassment,” said Rastignac to his wife; “he had no

malicious intention in what he said.”

“It is of no consequence. I was saying just now to Madame de

l’Estorade’s that your past life had given you a number of detestable

acquaintances.”

“But, my dear, the King himself is compelled to smile graciously on men

he would fain put in the Bastille,--if we still had a Bastille and the

Charter permitted him.”

Madame de Rastignac made no reply, and without bidding her husband

good-night, she went up to her room. A few moments later the minister

went to the private door which led into it, and not finding the key in

the lock, he said, “Augusta!” in the tone of voice a simple bourgeois

might have used in such a case.

For all answer, he heard a bolt run hastily on the other side of the

door.

“Ah!” he thought to himself with a gesture of vexation, “there are some

pasts very different from that door,--they are always wide open to the

present.”

Then, after a moment’s silence, he added, to cover his retreat,

“Augusta, I wanted to ask you what hour Madame de l’Estorade receives. I

ought to call upon her to-morrow, after what happened here to-night.”

“At four o’clock,” said the young wife through the door,--“on her return

from the Tuileries, where she takes the children to walk every day.”

One of the questions that were frequently put by Parisian society after

the marriage of Madame de Rastignac was: “Does she love her husband?”

The doubt was permissible. The marriage of Mademoiselle de Nucingen was

the unpleasant and scarcely moral product of one of those immoral

unions which find their issue in the life of a daughter, after years and

satiety have brought them to a condition of dry-rot and paralysis. In

such marriages of _convenience_ the husband is satisfied, for he

escapes a happiness which has turned rancid to him, and he profits by

a speculation like that of the magician in the “Arabian Nights” who

exchanges old lamps for new. But the wife, on the contrary, must ever

feel a living memory between herself and her husband; a memory which may

revive, and while wholly outside of the empire of the senses, has the

force of an old authority antagonistic to her young influence. In such a

position the wife is a victim.

During the short time we have taken to give this brief analysis of a

situation too frequently existing, Rastignac lingered at the door.

“Well,” he said at last, deciding to retire, “good-night, Augusta.”

As he said the words, rather piteously, the door opened suddenly,

and his wife, throwing herself into his arms, laid her head upon his

shoulder sobbing.

The question was answered: Madame de Rastignac loved her husband; but

for all that, the distant muttering of a subterranean fire might be

heard beneath the flowers of their garden.

III. A MINISTER’S MORNING

The next day, when Rastignac entered his office, the adjoining

waiting-room was already occupied by eleven persons waiting with letters

of introduction to solicit favors, also two peers of France and several

deputies.

Presently a bell rang. The usher, with an eagerness which communicated

itself to all present, entered the sanctum; an instant later he came

out, bearing this stereotyped message:--

“The minister is obliged to attend a Council. He will, however, have the

honor to receive the gentlemen of the two Chambers. As for the others,

they can call again at another time.”

“What other time?” asked one of the postponed; “this is the third time

in three days that I have come here uselessly.”

The usher made a gesture which meant, “It is not my affair; I follow my

orders.” But hearing certain murmurs as to the _privilege_ granted to

honorable members, he said, with a certain solemnity,--

“The honorable gentlemen came to discuss affairs of public interest with

his Excellency.”

The office-seekers, being compelled to accept this fib, departed. After

which the bell rang again. The usher then assumed his most gracious

expression of face. By natural affinity, the lucky ones had gathered in

a group at one end of the room. Though they had never seen one another

before, most of them being the offspring of the late national lying-in,

they seemed to recognize a certain representative air which is very

difficult to define, though it can never be mistaken. The usher, not

venturing to choose among so many eminent personages, turned a mute,

caressing glance on all, as if to say,--

“Whom shall I have the honor of first announcing?”

“Gentlemen,” said Colonel Franchessini, “I believe I have seen you all

arrive.”

And he walked to the closed door, which the usher threw open, announcing

in a loud, clear voice,--

“Monsieur le Colonel Franchessini!”

“Ha! so you are the first this morning,” said the minister, making a few

steps towards the colonel, and giving him his hand. “What have you come

for, my dear fellow?--a railroad, a canal, a suspension bridge?”

“I have come, my good-natured minister, on private business in which you

are more interested than I.”

“That is not a judicious way of urging it, for I warn you I pay little

or no attention to my own business.”

“I had a visit from Maxime this morning, on his return from

Arcis-sur-Aube,” said the colonel, coming to the point. “He gave me all

the particulars of that election. He thinks a spoke might be put in the

wheel of it. Now, if you have time to let me make a few explanations--”

The minister, who was sitting before his desk with his back to the

fireplace, turned round to look at the clock.

“Look here, my dear fellow,” he said, “I’m afraid you will be long, and

I have a hungry pack outside there waiting for me. I shouldn’t listen to

you comfortably. Do me the favor to go and take a walk and come back at

twelve o’clock to breakfast. I’ll present you to Madame de Rastignac,

whom you don’t know, I think, and after breakfast we will take a few

turns in the garden; then I can listen to you in peace.”

“Very good, I accept that arrangement,” said the colonel, rising.

As he crossed the waiting-room, he said,--

“Messieurs, I have not delayed you long, I hope.”

Then, after distributing a few grasps of the hand, he departed.

Three hours later, when the colonel entered the salon where he was

presented to Madame de Rastignac, he found there the Baron de Nucingen,

who came nearly every day to breakfast with his son-in-law before

the Bourse hour, Emile Blondet of the “Debats,” Messieurs Moreau (de

l’Oise), Dionis, and Camusot, three deputies madly loquacious, and two

newly elected deputies whose names it is doubtful if Rastignac knew

himself. Franchessini also recognized Martial de la Roche-Hugon, the

minister’s brother-in-law, and the inevitable des Lupeaulx, peer of

France. As for another figure, who stood talking with the minister

for some time in the recess of a window, the colonel learned, after

inquiring of Emile Blondet, that it was that of a former functionary of

the upper police, who continued, as an amateur, to do part of his former

business, going daily to each minister under all administrations with as

much zeal and regularity as if he were still charged with his official

duties.

Madame de Rastignac seen at close quarters seemed to the colonel a

handsome blonde, not at all languishing. She was strikingly like

her mother, but with that shade of greater distinction which in the

descendants of parvenus increases from generation to generation as they

advance from their source. The last drop of the primitive Goriot blood

had evaporated in this charming young woman, who was particularly

remarkable for the high-bred delicacy of all her extremities, the

absence of which in Madame de Nucingen had shown the daughter of Pere

Goriot.

As the colonel wished to retain a footing in the house he now entered

for the first time, he talked about his wife.

“She lived,” he said, “in the old English fashion, in her _home_; but he

should be most glad to bring her out of her retreat in order to present

her to Madame de Rastignac if the latter would graciously consent.”

“Now,” said the minister, dropping the arm of Emile Blondet, with whom

he had been conversing, “let us go into the garden,”--adding, as soon as

they were alone, “We want no ears about us in this matter.”

“Maxime came to see me, as I told you,” said the colonel, “on his return

from Arcis-sur-Aube, and he is full of an idea of discovering something

about the pretended parentage of this sculptor by which to oust him--”

“I know,” interrupted Rastignac; “he spoke to me about that idea, and

there’s neither rhyme nor reason in it. Either this Sallenauve has some

value, or he is a mere cipher. If the latter, it is useless to employ

such a dangerous instrument as the man Maxime proposes to neutralize a

power that does not exist. If, on the other hand, this new deputy

proves really an orator, we can deal with him in the tribune and in the

newspapers without the help of such underground measures. General rule:

in a land of unbridled publicity like ours, wherever the hand of the

police appears, if even to lay bare the most shameful villany, there’s

always a hue and cry against the government. Public opinion behaves like

the man to whom another man sang an air of Mozart to prove that Mozart

was a great musician. Was he vanquished by evidence? ‘Mozart,’ he

replied to the singer, ‘may have been a great musician, but you, my dear

fellow, have a cold in your head.’”

“There’s a great deal of truth in what you say,” replied Franchessini;

“but the man whom Maxime wants to unmask may be one of those

honest mediocrities who make themselves a thorn in the side of all

administrations; your most dangerous adversaries are not the giants of

oratory.”

“I expect to find out the real weight of the man before long,” replied

Rastignac, “from a source I have more confidence in than I have in

Monsieur de Trailles. On this very occasion he has allowed himself to be

tripped up, and now wants to compensate by heroic measures for his own

lack of ability. As for your other man, I shall not employ him for the

purpose Maxime suggests, but you may tell him from me--”

“Yes!” said Franchessini, with redoubled attention.

“--that if he meddles in politics, as he shows an inclination to do,

there are certain deplorable memories in his life--”

“But they are only memories now; he has made himself a new skin.”

“I know all about him,” replied Rastignac; “do you suppose there are

no other detectives in Paris? I know that since 1830, when he took

Bibi-Lupin’s place as chief of the detective police, he has given his

life a most respectable bourgeois character; the only fault I find is

that he overdoes it.”

“And yet--” said the colonel.

“He is rich,” continued Rastignac, not heeding the interruption. “His

salary is twelve thousand francs, and he has the three hundred thousand

Lucien de Rubempre left him,--also the proceeds of a manufactory of

varnished leather which he started at Gentilly; it pays him a large

profit. His aunt, Jacqueline Collin, who lives with him, still does a

shady business secretly, which of course brings in large fees, and I

have the best of reasons for believing that they both gamble at the

Bourse. He is so anxious to keep out of the mud that he has gone to the

other extreme. Every evening he plays dominoes, like any bourgeois, in

a cafe near the Prefecture, and Sundays he goes out to a little box of a

place he has bought near the forest of Romainville, in the Saint-Gervais

meadows; there he cultivates blue dahlias, and talked, last year, of

crowning a Rosiere. All that, my dear colonel, is too bucolic to allow

of my employing him on any political police-work.”

“I think myself,” said Franchessini, “that in order not to attract

attention, he rolls himself too much into a ball.”

“Make him unwind, and then, if he wants to return to active life and

take a hand in politics, he may find some honest way of doing so. He’ll

never make a Saint Vincent de Paul,--though the saint was at the galleys

once upon a time; but there are plenty of ways in which he could get a

third or fourth class reputation. If Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, as he now

calls himself, takes that course, and I am still in power, tell him to

come and see me; I might employ him then.”

“That is something, certainly,” said Franchessini, aloud; but he thought

to himself that since the days of the pension Vauquer the minister

had taken long strides and that roles had changed between himself and

Vautrin.

“You can tell him what I say,” continued Rastignac, going up the steps

of the portico, “but be cautious how you word it.”

“Don’t be uneasy,” replied the colonel. “I will speak to him

judiciously, for he’s a man who must not be pushed too far; there are

some old scores in life one can’t wipe out.”

The minister, by making no reply to this remark, seemed to admit the

truth of it.

“You must be in the Chamber when the king opens it; we shall want all

the enthusiasm we can muster,” said Rastignac to the colonel, as they

parted.

The latter, when he took leave of Madame de Rastignac, asked on what day

he might have the honor of presenting his wife.

“Why, any day,” replied the countess, “but particularly on Fridays.”

IV. A CATECHISM

Rastignac called on Madame de l’Estorade the next day at the hour named

to him by his wife. Like all those present at the scene produced by

Monsieur de Ronquerolles, the minister had been struck by the emotion

shown by the countess, and, without stopping to analyze the nature of

the sentiment she might feel for the man who had saved her child, he was

convinced of her serious interest in him.

By the suddenness and the masterly stroke of his election, Sallenauve

had become an object of strong interest to the minister,--all the

more because up to the last moment his candidacy was not seriously

considered. It was now known that in the preparatory meeting he had

given proofs of talent. To his active and dangerous party, which had but

few representatives in the Chamber, he might become an organ that would

echo far. By his peculiar position of birth and fortune, whatever

might be the truth of it, he was one who could do without the favors of

government; and all information obtained about him went to show that he

was a man of grave character and opinions, who could not be turned from

his chosen way.

On the other hand, the cloud upon his life might at a given moment serve

to neutralize his honor; and Rastignac, while rejecting the proposal of

de Trailles and Franchessini to put the mystery into the hands of the

police, did not himself renounce a means which, dangerous as it seemed

to him, he might use if occasion warranted.

In this situation Madame de l’Estorade could be useful to him in two

ways. Through her he could meet the new deputy accidentally, without

appearing to seek him, and thus study him at his ease, in order to know

if he had a vulnerable point accessible to persuasion. And, secondly,

if he found him unpersuadable, he could let Madame de l’Estorade know

in confidence of the secret inquiry about to be carried on into

Sallenauve’s antecedents, which, conveyed by her to the deputy,

would have the effect of making him cautious and, consequently, less

aggressive.

However, his immediate plan suffered some modification; for Madame

de l’Estorade was not at home, and he was just leaving the house when

Monsieur de l’Estorade returned on foot.

“My wife will be here soon,” he said; “she has gone to Ville d’Avray

with her daughter, and Monsieur and Madame Octave de Camps. Monsieur

Marie-Gaston, one of our good friends,--you know, the charming poet who

married Louise de Chaulieu,--has a country-house in that neighborhood,

where his wife died. He returned there to-day for the first time since

his misfortune; and these ladies have had the charity to meet him there,

and so lessen the first shock of his recollections.”

“I can therefore hardly hope to see her to-day; and it was to her, and

not to you, my dear count, that I came to offer my excuses for the scene

of last night which seemed to annoy her much. Say to her, if you please,

that I will take another opportunity of doing so,--By the bye,” he

added, “the election of your friend Sallenauve is making a devilish

talk; the king spoke to me about it this morning, and I did not please

him by repeating the favorable opinion you expressed of the new deputy

last night.”

“Well, but you know the tribune is a reef on which reputations are often

wrecked. I am sorry you represented Sallenauve to the king as being on

intimate terms with us. I have nothing to do with elections; but I may

say that I did all I could to dissuade this objectionable candidate from

presenting himself.”

“Of course the king cannot blame you for merely knowing an Opposition

deputy.”

“No; but last night, in your salon, you seemed to imply that my wife

was much interested in him. I did not wish to contradict you before

witnesses; besides, really, one can’t repudiate a man to whom we

are under a great obligation. But my wife, ever since the day he was

nominated, feels that our gratitude has become a burden. She was saying

to me the other day that we had better let the acquaintance die out.”

“Not, I hope, until you have done me a service by means of it,” said

Rastignac.

“At your orders, my dear minister, in all things.”

“I want to meet this man and judge him for myself. To send him an

invitation to dinner would be useless; under the eye of his party, he

would not dare accept it, or if he did, he would be on his guard, and

I should not see him as he is. But if I met him accidentally, I should

find him without armor, and I could feel for his vulnerable spots.”

“To invite you both to dine with me might be open to the same objection;

but I could, one of these evenings, make sure of a visit from him, and

let you know--Stop!” cried Monsieur de l’Estorade; “a bright idea has

come to me.”

“If it is really bright,” thought Rastignac, “it is fortunate I did not

meet the wife.”

“We are just about to give a children’s ball,--a fancy of my little

girl, to which Madame de l’Estorade, weary of refusing, has at last

consented; the child wishes it to be given in celebration of her rescue.

Of course, therefore, the rescuer is a necessary and integral part of

the affair. Come to the ball, and I promise you noise enough to cover

all investigations of your man; and certainly premeditation will never

be suspected at such a meeting.”

“You are too good,” replied Rastignac, pressing the peer’s hand

affectionately. “Perhaps we had better say nothing about it to Madame de

l’Estorade; a mere hint given to our man would put him on his guard, and

I want to spring upon him suddenly, like a tiger on his prey.”

“That’s understood--complete surprise to everybody.”

“Adieu, then,” said Rastignac; “I shall make the king laugh to-morrow at

the notion of children plotting politics.”

“Ah!” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade, philosophically, “but isn’t that

how life itself is carried on?--great effects from little causes.”

Rastignac had scarcely departed before Madame de l’Estorade returned

with Nais and Monsieur and Madame de Camps.

“My dear,” said her husband, “you have just missed a charming visitor.”

“Who was it?” asked the countess, indifferently.

“The minister of Public Works, who came to make you his excuses. He

noticed with regret the disagreeable impression made upon you by the

theories of that scamp de Ronquerolles.”

“He has taken a good deal of trouble for a very small matter,” said

Madame de l’Estorade, not sharing her husband’s enthusiasm.

“But all the same,” he replied, “it was very gracious of him to think

of your feelings.” Then, in order to change the conversation, he asked

Madame de Camps about their visit.

“Oh!” she replied, “the place is enchanting; you have no idea of its

elegance and _comfort_.”

“How about Gaston?” asked Monsieur de l’Estorade.

“He was, I won’t say very calm,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, “but

at any rate master of himself. His condition satisfied me all the more

because the day had begun by a serious annoyance to him.”

“What was it?”

“Monsieur de Sallenauve could not come with him,” replied Nais, taking

upon herself to reply.

She was one of those children brought up in a hot-house, who put

themselves forward much oftener than they ought to do.

“Nais,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “go to Mary and tell her to do up

your hair.”

The child understood perfectly well that she was sent away for speaking

improperly, and she made a face as she left the room.

“This morning,” said Madame de l’Estorade as soon as Nais had shut the

door, “Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve were to start together

for Ville d’Avray, and meet us there, as agreed upon. But last night

they had a visit from that organist who took such an active part in the

election. He came to hear the Italian housekeeper sing and judge if she

were ready to go upon the stage.”

“Yes, yes,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “of course Sallenauve wants to

get rid of her now that he has ceased to make statues.”

“Just so,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, with a slight tone of asperity.

“In order to put a stop to all calumny Monsieur de Sallenauve wishes her

to carry out her idea of going on the stage; but he wanted, in the

first place, an opinion he could trust. Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de

Sallenauve accompanied the organist to Saint-Sulpice, where, during the

services of the Month of Mary, the Italian woman sings every evening.

After hearing her, the organist said she had a fine contralto that was

worth, at the lowest, sixty thousand francs a year.”

“Just the revenue of my iron-works,” remarked Monsieur de Camps.

“That evening,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “Monsieur de Sallenauve

told his housekeeper the opinion given of her talent, and with great

kindness and delicacy let her know that she must now carry out her

intention of supporting herself in that way. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I

think the time has come. We will talk of it later’; and she stopped the

conversation. This morning when the breakfast hour came, there was no

sign of her. Thinking she must be ill, Monsieur de Sallenauve sent

an old charwoman who does the rough work of the house to her room. No

answer. Much disturbed, Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve went

themselves to see what it meant. After knocking and calling in vain,

they determined to open the door, the key of which was outside. In the

room no housekeeper! but in place of her a letter addressed to Monsieur

de Sallenauve, in which she said that finding herself an embarrassment

to him, she had retired to the house of one of her friends, thanking him

for all his goodness to her.”

“The bird has found its wings,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “and takes

flight.”

“That is not Monsieur de Sallenauve’s idea,” replied the countess; “he

does not believe in such ingratitude. He is confident that, feeling

herself a burden to him and yielding to the desperation which is natural

to her, she felt obliged to leave his house without giving him a chance

in any manner to provide for her future.”

“A good riddance!” remarked Monsieur de l’Estorade.

“Neither Monsieur de Sallenauve nor Monsieur Gaston takes that stoical

view of it. In view of the headstrong nature of the woman, they fear

some violence to herself, which, as we know, she once attempted. Or else

they dread some evil adviser. The charwoman states that two or three

visits have been lately made at the house by a lady of middle age,

richly dressed, in a carriage, whose manner was singular, and who seemed

to desire secrecy in speaking with Luigia.”

“Some charitable woman, of course,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “the

runaway is given to piety.”

“At any rate the truth must be discovered, and it was that which kept

Monsieur de Sallenauve from accompanying Monsieur Gaston to Ville

d’Avray.”

“Well,” remarked Monsieur de l’Estorade, “in spite of their respective

virtue, it is my opinion he holds by her.”

“In any case,” returned Madame de l’Estorade, emphasizing the word, “she

does not _hold_ by him.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Madame de Camps; “to avoid a man is often

the greatest proof of love.”

Madame de l’Estorade looked at her friend with a vexed air, and a slight

tinge of color came into her cheeks. But no one took notice of it, for

at this moment the servant threw open the door and announced dinner.

After dinner, the theatre was proposed; that is one of the amusements

that Parisians miss the most in the provinces. Monsieur Octave de Camps,

coming from his “villanous iron-works,” as Madame de l’Estorade called

them, had arrived in Paris eager for this pleasure, which his wife, more

serious and sober, did not enjoy to the same extent. Therefore, when

Monsieur de Camps proposed going to the Porte-Saint-Martin to see a

fairy piece then much in vogue, Madame Octave replied:--

“Neither Madame de l’Estorade nor I have the least desire to go out this

evening; we are very tired with our expedition. Take Rene and Nais; they

will enjoy the fairies far more than we.”

The two children awaited in deep anxiety the permission which Madame

de l’Estorade finally granted; and a few moments later the two friends,

left to themselves, prepared for an evening of comfortable talk.

“I am not at home to any one,” said Madame de l’Estorade to Lucas, as

soon as her family had departed.

“Now that we are alone,” said Madame de Camps, “I shall proceed to

blows; I have not travelled two hundred miles to wrap up in cotton-wool

the truth I have come to tell you.”

“Ready to hear it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing.

“Your last letter, my dear, simply frightened me.”

“Why? Because I told you I was trying to keep a man at a distance?”

“Yes. Why keep him at a distance? If Monsieur de Camps or Monsieur

Gaston or Monsieur de Rastignac were to make a practice of coming here

habitually, would you trouble yourself about them?”

“No; but they have not the same claim upon me: it is that I fear.”

“Tell me, do you think Monsieur de Sallenauve loves you?”

“No; I am now quite sure to the contrary; and I also think that on my

side--”

“We’ll talk about that presently; now I want to ask if you desire

Monsieur de Sallenauve to love you?”

“Heaven forbid!”

“Well, then, the best possible way to make him do so is to wound his

self-love, and show yourself unjust and ungrateful to him; you will only

force him to think the more of you.”

“But, my dear friend, isn’t that a very far-fetched observation?”

“Did you never observe that men are more taken by our snubs than by our

caresses? Severity fixes their attention upon us.”

“If that were so, all the men we disdain and never think of would sigh

for us.”

“Oh! my dear, don’t make me talk such nonsense. To take fire, a man must

have some degree of combustibility; and if that _other_ person is lost

to him forever, why shouldn’t he, as you said yourself, ricochet upon

you?”

“That other person is not lost to him; he expects, more than ever, to

find her by the help of a very clever seeker, the mother-superior of a

convent at Arcis.”

“Very good; then why employ the delay in holding him at arm’s-length,--a

proceeding which will only draw him towards you?”

“My dear moralist, I don’t admit your theory in the least. As for

Monsieur de Sallenauve, he will be much too busy with his duties in

the Chamber to think of me. Besides, he is a man who is full of

self-respect; he will be mortified by my manner, which will seem to him

both ungrateful and unjust. If I try to put two feet of distance between

us, he will put four; you may rely on that.”

“And _you_, my dear?” asked Madame de Camps.

“How do you mean?--I?”

“You who are not busy, who have no Chamber to occupy your mind; you who

have, I will agree, a great deal of self-respect, but who know as little

about the things of the heart as the veriest school-girl,--what

will become of you under the dangerous system you are imposing upon

yourself?”

“If I don’t love him when near, I shall certainly love him still less at

a distance.”

“So that when you see him take his ostracism coolly, your self-love as a

woman will not be piqued.”

“Certainly not; that is precisely the result I desire.”

“And if you find, on the contrary, that he complains of you, or if

he does not complain, that he suffers from your treatment, will your

conscience tell you absolutely nothing?”

“It will tell me that I am doing right, and that I could not do

otherwise.”

“And if success attends him and fame with its hundred voices talks of

him, how will you think of him?”

“As I think of Monsieur Thiers and Monsieur Berryer.”

“And Nais, who adores him and will probably say, the first time he dines

with you, ‘Ah! mamma, how well he talks!’--”

“If you are going to argue on the chatter of a child--”

“And Monsieur de l’Estorade, who already irritates you? He is beginning

to-day to sacrifice him to the spirit of party; shall you silence

him every time he makes some malevolent insinuation about Monsieur de

Sallenauve, and denies his honor and his talent?--you know the judgment

people make on those who do not think as we do.”

“In short,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “you are trying to make me admit

that the surest way to think of a person is to put him out of sight.”

“Listen to me, my dear,” said Madame de Camps, with a slight touch of

gravity. “I have read and re-read your letters. You were there your

own self, more natural and less quibbling than you are now, and an

impression has remained upon my mind: it is that Monsieur de Sallenauve

has touched your heart, though he may not have entered it.”

Madame de l’Estorade made a gesture of denial, but the confessor went

on:--

“I know that idea provokes you; you can’t very well admit to me what you

have studiously denied to yourself. But what is, is. We don’t say of

a man, ‘A sort of magnetism issues from him, one feels his eye without

meeting it’; we don’t cry out, ‘I am invulnerable on the side of love,’

without having had some prickings of it.”

“But so many things have happened since I wrote that nonsense.”

“True, he was only a sculptor then, and before long he may be a

minister,--not like Monsieur de Rastignac, but like our great poet,

Canalis.”

“I like sermons with definite deductions,” said Madame de l’Estorade,

with a touch of impatience.

“That is what Vergniaud said to Robespierre on the 31st of May, and I

reply, with Robespierre, Yes, I’ll draw my conclusion; and it is

against your self-confidence as a woman, who, having reached the age

of thirty-two without a suspicion of what love is, cannot admit that at

this late date she may be subjected to the common law.”

“But what I want is a practical conclusion,” said Madame de l’Estorade,

tapping her foot.

“My practical conclusion,--here it is,” replied Madame Octave. “If you

will not persist in the folly of swimming against the current, I see

no danger whatever in your being submerged. You are strong; you have

principles and religion; you adore your children; you love Monsieur

de l’Estorade, their father, in them. With all that ballast you cannot

sink.”

“Well?” said Madame de l’Estorade, interrogatively.

“Well, there is no need to have recourse to violent measures, the

success of which is very problematical. Remain as you are; build no

barricades when no one attacks you. Don’t excite tempests of heart and

conscience merely to pacify your conscience and quiet your heart, now

ruffled only by a tiny breeze. No doubt between a man and a woman the

sentiment of friendship does take something of the character ordinarily

given to love; but such friendship is neither an impossible illusion nor

is it a yawning gulf.”

“Then,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a thoughtful air, “do you wish

me to make a friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve?”

“Yes, dear, in order not to make him a fixed idea, a regret, a

struggle,--three things which poison life.”

“But my husband, who has already had a touch of jealousy?”

“As for your husband, I find him somewhat changed, and not for the

better. I miss that deference he always showed to you personally, to

your ideas and impressions,--a deference which honored him more than he

thought, because there is true greatness in the power to admire. I

may be mistaken, but it seems to me that public life is spoiling him

a little. As you cannot be with him in the Chamber of peers, he is

beginning to suspect that he can have a life without you. If I were you,

I should watch these symptoms of independence, and not let the work of

your lifetime come to nought.”

“Do you know, my dear,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing, “that you

are giving me advice that may end in fire and slaughter?”

“Not at all. I am a woman forty-five years of age, who has always seen

things on their practical side. I did not marry my husband, whom I

loved, until I had convinced myself, by putting him to the test, that

he was worthy of my esteem. I don’t make life; I take it as it

comes,--trying to put order and _possibility_ into all the occurrences

it brings to me. I an neither the frenzied passion of Louise de

Chaulieu, nor the insensible reason of Renee de Maucombe. I am a Jesuit

in petticoats, persuaded that rather wide sleeves are better than

sleeves that are tight to the wrist; and I have never gone in search of

the philosopher’s stone--”

At this instant Lucas opened the door of the salon and announced,--

“Monsieur le Comte de Sallenauve.”

His mistress gave him a look inquiring why he had disobeyed her orders,

to which Lucas replied by a sign implying that he did not suppose the

prohibition applied in this instance.

Madame de Camps, who had never yet seen the new deputy, now gave her

closest attention to a study of him.

Sallenauve explained his visit by his great desire to know how matters

had gone at Ville d’Avray, and whether Marie-Gaston had been deeply

affected by his return there. As for the business which detained him

in Paris, he said he had so far met with no success. He had seen

the prefect of police, who had given him a letter to Monsieur

de Saint-Esteve, the chief of the detective police. Aware of the

antecedents of that man, Monsieur de Sallenauve expressed himself as

much surprised to find a functionary with extremely good manners and

bearing; but he held out faint hope of success. “A woman hiding in

Paris,” he said, “is an eel in its safest hole.” He (Sallenauve) should

continue the search the next day with the help of Jacques Bricheteau;

but if nothing came of it, he should go in the evening to Ville d’Avray,

for he did not, he said, share Madame de l’Estorade’s security as to

Gaston’s state of mind.

As he was taking leave, Madame de l’Estorade said to him,--

“Do not forget Nais’ ball which takes place the day after to-morrow.

You will affront her mortally if you fail to be present. Try to bring

Monsieur Gaston with you. It might divert his mind a little.”

V. CHILDREN

On his return from the theatre Monsieur Octave de Camps declared that it

would be long before they caught him at a _fairy_ piece again. But Nais,

on the contrary, still under the spell of its marvels gave a lively

recital of the scene, which showed how much her imagination was capable

of being stirred.

As Madame de Camps and her husband walked away together, the former

remarked,--

“That child is really very disquieting. Madame de l’Estorade develops

her too much; I should not be surprised if she gave her a great deal of

trouble in future years.”

It would be difficult to mark the precise moment in our contemporary

habits and customs when a new species of religion, which might be called

child-idolatry, appeared. Nor shall we find it easier to discover by

what species of influence this worship has reached its present enormous

development among us. But, although unexplained, the fact exists and

ought to be recorded by every faithful historian of the great and the

little movements of society. In the family of to-day children have taken

the place of the household gods of the ancients, and whoever does not

share this worship is not a morose and sour spirit, nor a captious and

annoying reasoner,--he is simply an atheist.

Try to amuse one of these beloved adored ones, all puffed up, as they

naturally are, by a sense of their importance, with dolls and toys

and Punch-and-Judys, as in the days of our unsophisticated innocence!

Nonsense! Boys must have ponies and cigarettes, and the reading of

novelettes; and girls, the delight of playing hostess, giving afternoon

dances, and evening parties at which the real Guignol of the Champs

Elysees and Robert Houdin appear,--the entertainment being announced

on the invitation cards. Sometimes, as now in the case of Nais de

l’Estorade, these little sovereigns obtain permission to give a ball in

_grown-up_ style,--so much so, that policemen are stationed about the

doors, and Delisle, Nattier, and Prevost provide the toilets and the

decorations.

With the character we have already seen in Nais, it may be said that no

one was better fitted than she for the duties that devolved upon her

by the abdication of her mother. This abdication took place before the

evening of the ball itself, for it was Mademoiselle Nais de l’Estorade

who, in her own name, invited her guests to do her the honor to pass

the evening _chez elle_; and as Madame de l’Estorade would not allow the

parody to go as far as printed cards, Nais spent several days

writing her notes of invitation, taking care to put in the corner, in

conspicuous letters, the sacramental word, “Dancing.”

Nothing could be more curious, or, as Madame de Camps might have said,

more alarming, than the self-possession of this little girl of fourteen,

behaving precisely as she had seen her mother do on like occasions;

stationed, to receive her company, at the door of the salon, and marking

by her manner the proper grades of welcome, from eager cordiality to a

coldness that verged on disdain. To her best friends she gave her hand

in truly English style; for the rest she had smiles, apportioned to the

degrees of intimacy,--simple inclination of the head for unknown

guests or those of less account; with little speeches now and then, and

delicious mamma-like airs for the tiny children whom it is necessary to

ask to these juvenile routs, however dangerous and difficult to manage

that element may be.

With the fathers and mothers of her guests, as the ball was not given

for them, Nais as a general thing reversed the nature of the Gospel

invocation, _Sinite parvulos venire ad me_, and was careful not to

pass the limit of cold though respectful politeness. But when Lucas,

following the instructions he had received, reversed the natural order

of things and announced, “Mesdemoiselles de la Roche-Hugon, Madame la

Baronne de la Roche-Hugon, and Madame la Comtesse de Rastignac,” the

little strategist laid aside her reserve, and, running up to the wife of

the minister, she took her hand and pressed it to her lips with charming

grace.

After the dancing began, Nais was unable to accept all the invitations

which the elegant young lions vied with one another in pressing upon

her; in fact, she grew sadly confused as to the number and order of

her engagements,--a circumstance which very nearly led, in spite of the

_entente cordiale_, to an open rupture between France and perfidious

Albion. A quadrille doubly promised, to a young English peer aged ten

and a pupil in the Naval School of about the same years, came very near

producing unpleasant complications, inasmuch as the young British scion

of nobility had assumed a boxing attitude. That fray pacified, another

annoying episode occurred. A small boy, seeing a servant with a tray of

refreshments and being unable to reach up to the objects of his greed,

had the deplorable idea of putting his hand on the edge of the tray and

bending it down to him. Result: a cascade of mingled orgeat, negus,

and syrups; and happy would it have been had the young author of this

mischief been the only sufferer from the sugary torrent; but, alas!

nearly a dozen innocent victims were splashed and spattered by the

disastrous accident,--among them four or five bacchantes, who were

furious at seeing their toilets injured, and would fain have made an

Orpheus of the clumsy infant. While he was being rescued with great

difficulty from their clutches by the German governess, a voice was

heard amid the hubbub,--that of a pretty little blonde, saying to a

small Scottish youth with whom she had danced the whole evening,--

“How odd of Nais to invite little boys of that age!”

“That’s easily explained,” said the Scottish youth; “he’s a boy of the

Treasury department. Nais had to ask him on account of her parents,--a

matter of policy, you know.”

Then, taking the arm of one of his friends, the same youth continued:--

“Hey, Ernest,” he said, “I’d like a cigar; suppose we find a quiet

corner, out of the way of all this racket?”

“I can’t, my dear fellow,” replied Ernest, in a whisper; “you know

Leontine always makes me a scene when she smells I’ve been smoking, and

she is charming to me to-night. See, look at what she has given me!”

“A horse-hair ring!” exclaimed the Scot, disdainfully, “with two locked

hearts; all the boys at school have them.”

“What have you to show that’s better?” replied Ernest, in a piqued tone.

“Oh!” said the Scot, with a superior air, “something much better.”

And drawing from the pouch which formed an integral part of his costume

a note on violet paper highly perfumed,--

“There,” he said, putting it under Ernest’s nose, “smell that!”

Indelicate friend that he was, Ernest pounced upon the note and took

possession of it. The Scottish youth, furious, flung himself upon the

treacherous French boy; on which Monsieur de l’Estorade, a thousand

leagues from imagining the subject of the quarrel, intervened and parted

the combatants, which enabled the ravisher to escape into a corner of

the salon to enjoy his booty. The note contained no writing. The young

scamp had probably taken the paper out of his mother’s blotting-book.

A moment after, returning to his adversary and giving him the note, he

said in a jeering tone,--

“There’s your note; it is awfully compromising.”

“Keep it, monsieur,” replied the Scot. “I shall ask for it to-morrow

in the Tuileries, under the horse-chestnuts; meantime, you will please

understand that all intercourse is at an end between us.”

Ernest was less knightly; he contented himself with putting the thumb

of his right hand to his nose and spreading the fingers,--an ironical

gesture he had acquired from his mother’s coachman; after which he ran

to find his partner for the next quadrille.

But what details are these on which we are wasting time, when we know

that interests of the highest order are moving, subterraneously, beneath

the surface of the children’s ball.

Arriving from Ville d’Avray late in the afternoon, Sallenauve had

brought Madame de l’Estorade ill news of Marie-Gaston. Under an

appearance of resignation, he was gloomy, and, singular to say, he had

not visited the grave of his wife,--as if he feared an emotion he might

not have the power to master. It seemed to Sallenauve that his friend

had come to the end of his strength, and that a mental prostration of

the worst character was succeeding the over-excitement he had shown at

his election. One thing reassured the new deputy, and enabled him to

come to Paris for, at any rate, a few hours. A friend of Marie-Gaston,

an English nobleman with whom he had been intimate in Florence, came out

to see him, and the sad man greeted the new-comer with apparent joy.

In order to distract Sallenauve’s thoughts from this anxiety, Madame de

l’Estorade introduced him to Monsieur Octave de Camps, the latter having

expressed a great desire to know him. The deputy had not talked

ten minutes with the iron-master before he reached his heart by the

magnitude of the metallurgical knowledge his conversation indicated.

During the year in which he had been preparing for a parliamentary life,

Sallenauve had busied himself by acquiring the practical knowledge which

enables an orator of the Chamber to take part in all discussions and

have reasons to give for his general views. He had turned his attention

more especially to matters connected with the great question of the

revenue and taxation; such, for instance, as the custom-house, laws of

exchange, stamp duties, and taxation, direct and indirect. Approaching

in this manner that problematical science--which is, nevertheless, so

sure of itself!--called political economy, Sallenauve had also studied

the sources which contribute to form the great current of national

prosperity; and in this connection the subject of mines, the topic

at this moment most interesting to Monsieur de Camps, had not been

neglected by him. We can imagine the admiration of the iron-master, who

had studied too exclusively the subject of iron ore to know much about

the other branches of metallurgy, when the young deputy told him,

apropos of the wealth of our soil, a sort of Arabian Nights tale, which,

if science would only take hold of it, might become a reality.

“But, monsieur, do you really believe,” cried Monsieur de Camps, “that,

besides our coal and iron mines, we possess mines of copper, lead, and,

possibly, silver?”

“If you will take the trouble to consult certain specialists,” replied

Sallenauve, “you will find that neither the boasted strata of Bohemia

and Saxony nor even those of Russia and Hungary can be compared to those

hidden in the Pyrenees, in the Alps from Briancon to the Isere, in

the Cevennes on the Lozere side, in the Puy-de-Dome, Bretagne, and the

Vosges. In the Vosges, more especially about the town of Saint-Die, I

can point out to you a single vein of the mineral of silver which

lies to the depth of fifty to eighty metres with a length of thirteen

kilometres.”

“But, monsieur, why has such untold metallurgical wealth never been

worked?”

“It has been, in former days,” replied Sallenauve, “especially during

the Roman occupation of Gaul. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the

work was abandoned; but the lords of the soil and the clergy renewed it

in the middle ages; after that, during the struggle of feudality against

the royal power and the long civil wars which devastated France, the

work was again suspended, and has never since been taken up.”

“Are you sure of what you say?”

“Ancient authors, Strabo and others, all mention these mines, and the

tradition of their existence still lingers in the regions where they are

situated; decrees of emperors and the ordinances of certain of our kings

bear testimony to the value of their products; in certain places more

material proof may be found in excavations of considerable depth and

length, in galleries and halls cut in the solid rock,--in short, in the

many traces still existing of those vast works which have immortalized

Roman industry. To this must be added that the modern study of

geological science has confirmed and developed these irrefutable

indications.”

The imagination of Monsieur Octave de Camps, hitherto limited to the

development of a single iron-mine, took fire, and he was about to

ask his instructor to give him his ideas on the manner of awakening a

practical interest in the matter, when Lucas, throwing wide open the

double doors of the salon, announced in his loudest and most pompous

voice,--

“Monsieur the minister of Public Works.”

The effect produced on the elders of the assembly was electric.

“I want to see what sort of figure that little Rastignac cuts as a

statesman,” said Monsieur de Camps, rising from his seat; but in his

heart he was thinking of the government subsidy he wanted for his

iron-mine. The new deputy, on his side, foresaw an inevitable meeting

with the minister, and wondered what his friends in the Opposition would

say when they read in the “National” that a representative of the Left

was seen to have an interview with a minister celebrated for his art in

converting political opponents. Anxious also to return to Marie-Gaston,

he resolved to profit by the general stir created by the minister’s

arrival to slip away; and by a masterly manoeuvre he made his way slyly

to the door of the salon, expecting to escape without being seen. But

he reckoned without Nais, to whom he was engaged for a quadrille. That

small girl sounded the alarm at the moment when he laid his hand on the

handle of the door; and Monsieur de l’Estorade, mindful of his promise

to Rastignac, hastened to put a stop to the desertion. Finding his quiet

retreat impossible, Sallenauve was afraid that an open departure after

the arrival of the minister might be construed as an act of puritanical

opposition in the worst taste; he therefore accepted the situation

promptly, and decided to remain.

Monsieur de l’Estorade knew that Sallenauve was far too wise to be the

dupe of any artifices he might have used to bring about his introduction

to the minister. He therefore went straight to the point, and soon after

Rastignac’s arrival he slipped his arm through that of the statesman,

and, approaching the deputy, said to him,--

“Monsieur the minister of Public Works, who, on the eve of the battle,

wishes me to introduce him to a general of the enemy’s army.”

“Monsieur le ministre does me too much honor,” replied Sallenauve,

ceremoniously. “Far from being a general, I am a private soldier, and a

very unknown one.”

“Hum!” said the minister; “it seems to me that the battle at

Arcis-sur-Aube was not an insignificant victory; you routed our ranks,

monsieur, in a singular manner.”

“There was nothing wonderful in that; you must have heard that a saint

fought for us.”

“Well, at any rate,” said Rastignac, “I prefer this result to the one

arranged for us by a man I thought cleverer than he proved to be, whom

I sent down there. It seems that Beauvisage is a perfect nonentity;

he’d have rubbed off upon us; and after all, he was really as much Left

centre as the other man, Giguet. Now the Left centre is our real enemy,

because it is aiming to get our portfolios.”

“Oh!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “after what we heard of the man, I

think he would have done exactly what was wanted of him.”

“My dear friend, don’t believe that,” said the minister. “Fools are

often more tenacious of the flag under which they enlisted than we think

for. Besides, to go over to the enemy is to make a choice, and that

supposes an operation of the mind; it is much easier to be obstinate.”

“I agree with the minister,” said Sallenauve; “extreme innocence

and extreme rascality are equally able to defend themselves against

seduction.”

Here Monsieur de l’Estorade, seeing, or pretending to see, a signal made

to him, looked over his shoulder and said,--

“I’m coming.”

And the two adversaries being thus buckled together, he hastened away as

if summoned to some duty as master of the house.

Sallenauve was anxious not to seem disturbed at finding himself alone

with the minister. The meeting having come about, he decided to endure

it with a good grace, and, taking the first word, he asked if the

ministry had prepared, in view of the coming sessions, a large number of

bills.

“No, very few,” replied Rastignac. “To tell the truth, we do not expect

to be in power very long; we brought about an election because in the

general confusion into which the press has thrown public opinion, our

constitutional duty was to force that opinion to reconstitute itself;

but the fact is, we did not expect the result to be favorable to us, and

we are therefore taken somewhat unawares.”

“You are like the peasant,” said Sallenauve, laughing, “who, expecting

the end of the world, did not sow his wheat.”

“Well, we don’t look upon our retirement as the end of the world,” said

Rastignac, modestly; “there are men to come after us, and many of

them well able to govern; only, as we expected to give but few more

representations in that transitory abode called ‘power,’ we have

not unpacked either our costumes or our scenery. Besides, the coming

session, in any case, can only be a business session. The question now

is, of course, between the palace, that is, personal influence, and the

doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. This question will naturally come

up when the vote is taken on the secret-service fund. Whenever, in one

way or the other, that is settled, and the budget is voted, together

with a few bills of secondary interest, Parliament has really completed

its task; it will have put an end to a distressing struggle, and the

country will know to which of the two parties it can look for the

development of its prosperity.”

“And you think,” said Sallenauve, “that in a well-balanced system of

government that question is a useful one to raise?”

“Well,” replied Rastignac, “we have not raised it. It is born perhaps

of circumstances; a great deal, as I think, from the restlessness of

certain ambitions, and also from the tactics of parties.”

“So that, in your opinion, one of the combatants is not guilty and has

absolutely nothing to reproach himself with?”

“You are a republican,” said Rastignac, “and therefore, _a priori_, an

enemy to the dynasty. I think I should lose my time in trying to change

your ideas on the policy you complain of.”

“You are mistaken,” said the theoretical republican deputy; “I have no

preconceived hatred to the reigning dynasty. I even think that in

its past, _striped_, if I may say so, with royal affinities and

revolutionary memories, it has all that is needed to respond to the

liberal and monarchical instincts of the nation. But you will find it

difficult to persuade me that in the present head of the dynasty we

shall not find extreme ideas of personal influence, which in the long

run will undermine and subvert the finest as well as the strongest

institutions.”

“Yes,” said Rastignac, ironically, “and they are saved by the famous

axiom of the deputy of Sancerre: ‘The king reigns, but does not

govern.’”

Whether he was tired of standing to converse, or whether he wished to

prove his ease in releasing himself from the trap which had evidently

been laid for him, Sallenauve, before replying, drew up a chair for his

interlocutor, and, taking one himself, said,--

“Will you permit me to cite the example of another royal behavior?--that

of a prince who was not considered indifferent to his royal prerogative,

and who was not ignorant of constitutional mechanism--”

“Louis XVIII.,” said Rastignac, “or, as the newspapers used to call him,

‘the illustrious author of the Charter’?”

“Precisely; and will you kindly tell me where he died?”

“_Parbleu_! at the Tuileries.”

“And his successor?”

“In exile--Oh! I see what you are coming to.”

“My conclusion is certainly not difficult to guess. But have you fully

remarked the deduction to be drawn from that royal career?--for which I

myself feel the greatest respect. Louis XVIII. was not a citizen king.

He granted this Charter, but he never consented to it. Born nearer to

the throne than the prince whose regrettable tendencies I mentioned

just now, he might naturally share more deeply still the ideas,

the prejudices, and the infatuations of the court; in person he was

ridiculous (a serious princely defect in France); he bore the brunt of a

new and untried regime; he succeeded a government which had intoxicated

the people with that splendid gilded smoke called glory; and if he was

not actually brought back to France by foreigners, at any rate he came

as the result of the armed invasion of Europe. Now, shall I tell you

why, in spite of all these defects and disadvantages, in spite, too, of

the ceaseless conspiracy kept up against his government, it was given to

him to die tranquilly in his bed at the Tuileries?”

“Because he had made himself a constitutional king,” said Rastignac,

with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “But do you mean to say that we

are not that?”

“In the letter, yes; in the spirit, no. When Louis XVIII. gave his

confidence to a minister, he gave it sincerely and wholly. He did

not cheat him; he played honestly into his hand,--witness the famous

ordinance of September 5, and the dissolution of the Chamber, which was

more Royalist than himself,--a thing he had the wisdom not to desire.

Later, a movement of public opinion shook the minister who had led him

along that path; that minister was his favorite, his son, as he called

him. No matter; yielding to the constitutional necessity, he bravely

sent him to foreign parts, after loading him with crosses and

titles,--in short, with everything that could soften the pain of his

fall; and he did not watch and manoeuvre surreptitiously to bring him

back to power, which that minister never regained.”

“For a man who declares he does not hate us,” said Rastignac, “you

treat us rather roughly. According to you we are almost faithless to the

constitutional compact, and our policy, to your thinking ambiguous and

tortuous, gives us a certain distant likeness to Monsieur Doublemain in

the ‘Mariage de Figaro.’”

“I do not say that the evil is as deep as that,” replied Sallenauve;

“perhaps, after all, _we_ are simply a _faiseur_,--using the word, be it

understood, in the sense of a meddler, one who wants to have his finger

in everything.”

“Ah! monsieur, but suppose we are the ablest politician in the country.”

“If we are, it does not follow that our kingdom ought not to have the

chance of becoming as able as ourselves.”

“_Parbleu_!” cried Rastignac, in the tone of a man who comes to the

climax of a conversation, “I wish I had power to realize a wish--”

“And that is?”

“To see you grappling with that ability which you call meddlesome.”

“Well, you know, Monsieur le ministre, that we all spend three fourths

of life in wishing for the impossible.”

“Why impossible? Would you be the first man of the Opposition to be seen

at the Tuileries? An invitation to dinner given publicly, openly, which

would, by bringing you into contact with one whom you misjudge at a

distance--”

“I should have the honor to refuse.”

And he emphasized the words _have the honor_ in a way to show the

meaning he attached to them.

“You are all alike, you men of the Opposition!” cried the minister;

“you won’t let yourselves be enlightened when the opportunity presents

itself; or, to put it better, you--”

“Do you call the rays of those gigantic red bottles in a chemist’s shop

_light_, when they flash into your eyes as you pass them after dark?

Don’t they, on the contrary, seem to blind you?”

“It is not our rays that frighten you,” said Rastignac; “it is the dark

lantern of your party watchmen on their rounds.”

“There may be some truth in what you say; a party and the man who

undertakes to represent it are in some degree a married couple, who in

order to live peaceably together must be mutually courteous, frank, and

faithful in heart as well as in principle.”

“Well, try to be moderate. Your dream is far more impossible to realize

than mine; the day will come when you will have more to say about the

courtesy of your chaste better half.”

“If there is an evil for which I ought to be prepared, it is that.”

“Do you think so? With the lofty and generous sentiments so apparent in

your nature, shall you remain impassive under political attack,--under

calumny, for instance?”

“You yourself, Monsieur le ministre, have not escaped its venom; but it

did not, I think, deter you from your course.”

“But,” said Rastignac, lowering his voice, “suppose I were to tell you

that I have already sternly refused to listen to a proposal to search

into your private life on a certain side which, being more in the shade

than the rest, seems to offer your enemies a chance to entrap you.”

“I do not thank you for the honor you have done yourself in rejecting

with contempt the proposals of men who can be neither of my party nor of

yours; they belong to the party of base appetites and selfish passions.

But, supposing the impossible, had they found some acceptance from

you, pray believe that my course, which follows the dictates of my

conscience, could not be affected thereby.”

“But your party,--consider for a moment its elements: a jumble of

foiled ambitions, brutal greed, plagiarists of ‘93, despots disguising

themselves as lovers of liberty.”

“My party has nothing, and seeks to gain something. Yours calls itself

conservative, and it is right; its chief concern is how to preserve its

power, offices, and wealth,--in short, all it now monopolizes.”

“But, monsieur, we are not a closed way; we open our way, on the

contrary, to all ambitions. But the higher you are in character and

intellect, the less we can allow you to pass, dragging after you your

train of democrats; for the day when that crew gains the upper hand it

will not be a change of policy, but a revolution.”

“But what makes you think I want an opening of any kind?”

“What! follow a course without an aim?--a course that leads nowhere? A

certain development of a man’s faculties not only gives him the right

but makes it his duty to seek to govern.”

“To watch the governing power is a useful career, and, I may add, a very

busy one.”

“You can fancy, monsieur,” said Rastignac, good-humoredly, “that if

Beauvisage were in your place I should not have taken the trouble to

argue with him; I may say, however, that he would have made my effort

less difficult.”

“This meeting, which _chance_ has brought about between us,” said

Sallenauve, “will have one beneficial result; we understand each

other henceforth, and our future meetings will always therefore be

courteous--which will not lessen the strength of our convictions.”

“Then I must say to the king--for I had his royal commands to--”

Rastignac did not end the sentence in which he was, so to speak, firing

his last gun, for the orchestra began to play a quadrille, and Nais,

running up, made him a coquettish courtesy, saying,--

“Monsieur le ministre, I am very sorry, but you have taken my partner,

and you must give him up. He is down for my eleventh quadrille, and if I

miss it my list gets into terrible confusion.”

“You permit me, monsieur?” said Sallenauve, laughing. “As you see, I am

not a very savage republican.” So saying, he followed Nais, who led him

along by the hand.

Madame de l’Estorade, comprehending that this fancy of Nais was rather

compromising to the dignity of the new deputy, had arranged that several

papas and mammas should figure in the same quadrille; and she herself

with the Scottish lad danced _vis-a-vis_ to her daughter, who beamed

with pride and joy. In the evolutions of the last figure, where Nais had

to take her mother’s hand, she said, pressing it passionately,--

“Poor mamma! if it hadn’t been for _him_, you wouldn’t have me now.”

This sudden reminder so agitated Madame de l’Estorade, coming as it did

unexpectedly, that she was seized with a return of the nervous trembling

her daughter’s danger had originally caused, and was forced to sit down.

Seeing her change color, Sallenauve, Nais, and Madame Octave de Camps

ran to her to know if she were ill.

“It is nothing,” she answered, addressing Sallenauve; “only that my

little girl reminded me suddenly of the utmost obligation we are under

to you, monsieur. ‘Without _him_,’ she said, ‘you would not have me.’

Ah! monsieur, without your generous courage where would my child be

now?”

“Come, come, don’t excite yourself,” interposed Madame Octave de Camps,

observing the convulsive and almost gasping tone of her friend’s voice.

“It is not reasonable to put yourself in such a state for a child’s

speech.”

“She is better than the rest of us,” replied Madame de l’Estorade,

taking Nais in her arms.

“Come, mamma, be reasonable,” said that young lady.

“She puts nothing in the world,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “before

her gratitude to her preserver, whereas her father and I have scarcely

shown him any.”

“But, madame,” said Sallenauve, “you have courteously--”

“Courteously!” interrupted Nais, shaking her pretty head with an air of

disapproval; “if any one had saved my daughter, I should be different to

him from that.”

“Nais,” said Madame de Camps, sternly, “children should be silent when

their opinion is not asked.”

“What is the matter,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, joining the group.

“Nothing,” said Madame de Camps; “only a giddiness Renee had in

dancing.”

“Is it over?”

“Yes, I am quite well again,” said Madame de l’Estorade.

“Then come and say good-night to Madame de Rastignac, who is preparing

to take leave.”

In his eagerness to get to the minister’s wife, he forgot to give

his own wife his arm. Sallenauve was more thoughtful. As they walked

together in the wake of her husband, Madame de l’Estorade said,--

“I saw you talking for a long time with Monsieur de Rastignac; did he

practise his well-known seductions upon you?”

“Do you think he succeeded?” replied Sallenauve.