cried the Marquis, with every sign of deep pain. “Oh! if he were not
an only son, he should set out to-night for Mexico with a captain’s
commission. A man may be in debt to money-lenders, they charge a heavy
interest, and you are quits; that is right enough; but _Chesnel_! a man
to whom one is attached!----”
“Yes, our adorable Victurnien has run through a hundred thousand livres,
dear Marquis,” resumed the Chevalier, flicking a trace of snuff from his
waistcoat; “it is not much, I know. I myself at his age---- But, after
all, let us let old memories be, Marquis. The Count is living in the
provinces; all things taken into consideration, it is not so much amiss.
He will not go far; these irregularities are common in men who do great
things afterwards----”
“And he is sleeping upstairs, without a word of this to his father,”
exclaimed the Marquis.
“Sleeping innocently as a child who has merely got five or six little
bourgeoises into trouble, and now must have duchesses,” returned the
Chevalier.
“Why, he deserves a lettre de cachet!”
“‘They’ have done away with lettres de cachet,” said the Chevalier.
“You know what a hubbub there was when they tried to institute a law
for special cases. We could not keep the provost’s courts, which M. _de_
Bonaparte used to call commissions militaires.”
“Well, well; what are we to do if our boys are wild, or turn out
scapegraces? Is there no locking them up in these days?” asked the
Marquis.
The Chevalier looked at the heartbroken father and lacked courage to
answer, “We shall be obliged to bring them up properly.”
“And you have never said a word of this to me, Mlle. d’Esgrignon,”
added the Marquis, turning suddenly round upon Mlle. Armande. He never
addressed her as Mlle. d’Esgrignon except when he was vexed; usually she
was called “my sister.”
“Why, monsieur, when a young man is full of life and spirits, and leads
an idle life in a town like this, what else can you expect?” asked Mlle.
d’Esgrignon. She could not understand her brother’s anger.
“Debts! eh! why, hang it all!” added the Chevalier. “He plays cards,
he has little adventures, he shoots,--all these things are horribly
expensive nowadays.”
“Come,” said the Marquis, “it is time to send him to the King. I will
spend to-morrow morning in writing to our kinsmen.”
“I have some acquaintance with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Lenoncourt, de
Maufrigneuse, and de Chaulieu,” said the Chevalier, though he knew, as
he spoke, that he was pretty thoroughly forgotten.
“My dear Chevalier, there is no need of such formalities to present
a d’Esgrignon at court,” the Marquis broke in.--“A hundred thousand
livres,” he muttered; “this Chesnel makes very free. This is what comes
of these accursed troubles. M. Chesnel protects my son. And now I must
ask him.... No, sister, you must undertake this business. Chesnel shall
secure himself for the whole amount by a mortgage on our lands. And
just give this harebrained boy a good scolding; he will end by ruining
himself if he goes on like this.”
The Chevalier and Mlle. d’Esgrignon thought these words perfectly simple
and natural, absurd as they would have sounded to any other listener. So
far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they were both very
much touched by a look of something like anguish in the old noble’s
face. Some dark premonition seemed to weigh upon M. d’Esgrignon at that
moment, some glimmering of an insight into the changed times. He went to
the settee by the fireside and sat down, forgetting that Chesnel would
be there before long; that Chesnel, of whom he could not bring himself
to ask anything.
Just then the Marquis d’Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination
with a touch of romance could wish. He was almost bald, but a fringe of
silken, white locks, curled at the tips, covered the back of his head.
All the pride of race might be seen in a noble forehead, such as you may
admire in a Louis XV., a Beaumarchais, a Marechal de Richelieu, it was
not the square, broad brow of the portraits of the Marechal de Saxe; nor
yet the small hard circle of Voltaire, compact to overfulness; it was
graciously rounded and finely moulded, the temples were ivory tinted
and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the
brilliant eyes. The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon
mouth, from which, as they used to say of the Comte d’Artois, only witty
and urbane words proceed. His cheeks, sloping rather than foolishly
rounded to the chin, were in keeping with his spare frame, thin legs,
and plump hands. The strangulation cravat at his throat was of the kind
which every marquis wears in all the portraits which adorn eighteenth
century literature; it is common alike to Saint-Preux and to Lovelace,
to the elegant Montesquieu’s heroes and to Diderot’s homespun characters
(see the first editions of those writers’ works).
The Marquis always wore a white, gold-embroidered, high waistcoat, with
the red ribbon of a commander of the Order of St. Louis blazing upon his
breast; and a blue coat with wide skirts, and fleur-de-lys on the flaps,
which were turned back--an odd costume which the King had adopted.
But the Marquis could not bring himself to give up the Frenchman’s
knee-breeches nor yet the white silk stockings or the buckles at the
knees. After six o’clock in the evening he appeared in full dress.
He read no newspapers but the Quotidienne and the Gazette de France, two
journals accused by the Constitutional press of obscurantist views and
uncounted “monarchical and religious” enormities; while the Marquis
d’Esgrignon, on the other hand, found heresies and revolutionary
doctrines in every issue. No matter to what extremes the organs of this
or that opinion may go, they will never go quite far enough to please
the purists on their own side; even as the portrayer of this magnificent
personage is pretty certain to be accused of exaggeration, whereas he
has done his best to soften down some of the cruder tones and dim the
more startling tints of the original.
The Marquis d’Esgrignon rested his elbows on his knees and leant
his head on his hands. During his meditations Mlle. Armande and the
Chevalier looked at one another without uttering the thoughts in their
minds. Was he pained by the discovery that his son’s future must
depend upon his sometime land steward? Was he doubtful of the reception
awaiting the young Count? Did he regret that he had made no preparation
for launching his heir into that brilliant world of court? Poverty had
kept him in the depths of his province; how should he have appeared at
court? He sighed heavily as he raised his head.
That sigh, in those days, came from the real aristocracy all over
France; from the loyal provincial noblesse, consigned to neglect with
most of those who had drawn sword and braved the storm for the cause.
“What have the Princes done for the du Guenics, or the Fontaines, or
the Bauvans, who never submitted?” he muttered to himself. “They fling
miserable pensions to the men who fought most bravely, and give them
a royal lieutenancy in a fortress somewhere on the outskirts of the
kingdom.”
Evidently the Marquis doubted the reigning dynasty. Mlle. d’Esgrignon
was trying to reassure her brother as to the prospects of the journey,
when a step outside on the dry narrow footway gave them notice of
Chesnel’s coming. In another moment Chesnel appeared; Josephin, the
Count’s gray-aired valet, admitted the notary without announcing him.
“Chesnel, my boy----” (Chesnel was a white-haired man of sixty-nine,
with a square-jawed, venerable countenance; he wore knee-breeches, ample
enough to fill several chapters of dissertation in the manner of Sterne,
ribbed stockings, shoes with silver clasps, an ecclesiastical-looking
coat and a high waistcoat of scholastic cut.)
“Chesnel, my boy, it was very presumptuous of you to lend money to the
Comte d’Esgrignon! If I repaid you at once and we never saw each other
again, it would be no more than you deserve for giving wings to his
vices.”
There was a pause, a silence such as there falls at court when the
King publicly reprimands a courtier. The old notary looked humble and
contrite.
“I am anxious about that boy, Chesnel,” continued the Marquis in a
kindly tone; “I should like to send him to Paris to serve His Majesty.
Make arrangements with my sister for his suitable appearance at
court.--And we will settle accounts----”
The Marquis looked grave as he left the room with a friendly gesture of
farewell to Chesnel.
“I thank M. le Marquis for all his goodness,” returned the old man, who
still remained standing.
Mlle. Armande rose to go to the door with her brother; she had rung the
bell, old Josephin was in readiness to light his master to his room.
“Take a seat, Chesnel,” said the lady, as she returned, and with womanly
tact she explained away and softened the Marquis’ harshness. And yet
beneath that harshness Chesnel saw a great affection. The Marquis’
attachment for his old servant was something of the same order as a
man’s affection for his dog; he will fight any one who kicks the animal,
the dog is like a part of his existence, a something which, if
not exactly himself, represents him in that which is nearest and
dearest--his sensibilities.
“It is quite time that M. le Comte should be sent away from the town,
mademoiselle,” he said sententiously.
“Yes,” returned she. “Has he been indulging in some new escapade?”
“No, mademoiselle.”
“Well, why do you blame him?”
“I am not blaming him, mademoiselle. No, I am not blaming him. I am
very far from blaming him. I will even say that I shall never blame him,
whatever he may do.”
There was a pause. The Chevalier, nothing if not quick to take in a
situation, began to yawn like a sleep-ridden mortal. Gracefully he made
his excuses and went, with as little mind to sleep as to go and drown
himself. The imp Curiosity kept the Chevalier wide awake, and with airy
fingers plucked away the cotton wool from his ears.
“Well, Chesnel, is it something new?” Mlle. Armande began anxiously.
“Yes, things that cannot be told to M. le Marquis; he would drop down in
an apoplectic fit.”
“Speak out,” she said. With her beautiful head leant on the back of her
low chair, and her arms extended listlessly by her side, she looked as
if she were waiting passively for her deathblow.
“Mademoiselle, M. le Comte, with all his cleverness, is a plaything in
the hands of mean creatures, petty natures on the lookout for a crushing
revenge. They want to ruin us and bring us low! There is the President
of the Tribunal, M. de Ronceret; he has, as you know, a very great
notion of his descent----”
“His grandfather was an attorney,” interposed Mlle. Armande.
“I know he was. And for that reason you have not received him; nor does
he go to M. de Troisville’s, nor to M. le Duc de Verneuil’s, nor to the
Marquis de Casteran’s; but he is one of the pillars of du Croisier’s
salon. Your nephew may rub shoulders with young M. Fabien du Ronceret
without condescending too far, for he must have companions of his own
age. Well and good. That young fellow is at the bottom of all M. le
Comte’s follies; he and two or three of the rest of them belong to the
other side, the side of M. le Chevalier’s enemy, who does nothing but
breathe threats of vengeance against you and all the nobles together.
They all hope to ruin you through your nephew. The ringleader of the
conspiracy is this sycophant of a du Croisier, the pretended Royalist.
Du Croisier’s wife, poor thing, knows nothing about it; you know her,
I should have heard of it before this if she had ears to hear evil.
For some time these wild young fellows were not in the secret, nor was
anybody else; but the ringleaders let something drop in jest, and then
the fools got to know about it, and after the Count’s recent escapades
they let fall some words while they were drunk. And those words were
carried to me by others who are sorry to see such a fine, handsome,
noble, charming lad ruining himself with pleasure. So far people feel
sorry for him; before many days are over they will--I am afraid to say
what----”
“They will despise him; say it out, Chesnel!” Mlle. Armande cried
piteously.
“Ah! How can you keep the best people in the town from finding out
faults in their neighbors? They do not know what to do with themselves
from morning to night. And so M. le Comte’s losses at play are all
reckoned up. Thirty thousand francs have taken flight during these two
months, and everybody wonders where he gets the money. If they mention
it when I am present, I just call them to order. Ah! but--‘Do you
suppose’ (I told them this morning), ‘do you suppose that if the
d’Esgrignon family have lost their manorial rights, that therefore they
have been robbed of their hoard of treasure? The young Count has a right
to do as he pleases; and so long as he does not owe you a half-penny,
you have no right to say a word.’”
Mlle, Armande held out her hand, and the notary kissed it respectfully.
“Good Chesnel!... But, my friend, how shall we find the money for this
journey? Victurnien must appear as befits his rank at court.”
“Oh! I have borrowed money on Le Jard, mademoiselle.”
“What? You have nothing left! Ah, heaven! what can we do to reward you?”
“You can take the hundred thousand francs which I hold at your disposal.
You can understand that the loan was negotiated in confidence, so that
it might not reflect on you; for it is known in the town that I am
closely connected with the d’Esgrignon family.”
Tears came into Mlle. Armande’s eyes. Chesnel saw them, took a fold of
the noble woman’s dress in his hands, and kissed it.
“Never mind,” he said, “a lad must sow his wild oats. In great salons in
Paris his boyish ideas will take a new turn. And, really, though our old
friends here are the worthiest folk in the world, and no one could have
nobler hearts than they, they are not amusing. If M. le Comte wants
amusement, he is obliged to look below his rank, and he will end by
getting into low company.”
Next day the old traveling coach saw the light, and was sent to be put
in repair. In a solemn interview after breakfast, the hope of the house
was duly informed of his father’s intentions regarding him--he was to
go to court and ask to serve His Majesty. He would have time during the
journey to make up his mind about his career. The navy or the army, the
privy council, an embassy, or the Royal Household,--all were open to a
d’Esgrignon, a d’Esgrignon had only to choose. The King would certainly
look favorably upon the d’Esgrignons, because they had asked nothing of
him, and had sent the youngest representative of their house to receive
the recognition of Majesty.
But young d’Esgrignon, with all his wild pranks, had guessed
instinctively what society in Paris meant, and formed his own opinions
of life. So when they talked of his leaving the country and the paternal
roof, he listened with a grave countenance to his revered parent’s
lecture, and refrained from giving him a good deal of information in
reply. As, for instance, that young men no longer went into the army
or the navy as they used to do; that if a man had a mind to be a second
lieutenant in a cavalry regiment without passing through a special
training in the Ecoles, he must first serve in the Pages; that sons of
the greatest houses went exactly like commoners to Saint-Cyr and the
Ecole polytechnique, and took their chances of being beaten by base
blood. If he had enlightened his relatives on these points, funds might
not have been forthcoming for a stay in Paris; so he allowed his father
and Aunt Armande to believe that he would be permitted a seat in the
King’s carriages, that he must support his dignity at court as the
d’Esgrignon of the time, and rub shoulders with great lords of the
realm.
It grieved the Marquis that he could send but one servant with his son;
but he gave him his own valet Josephin, a man who can be trusted to take
care of his young master, and to watch faithfully over his interests.
The poor father must do without Josephin, and hope to replace him with a
young lad.
“Remember that you are a Carol, my boy,” he said; “remember that you
come of an unalloyed descent, and that your scutcheon bears the motto
Cil est nostre; with such arms you may hold your head high everywhere,
and aspire to queens. Render grace to your father, as I to mine. We owe
it to the honor of our ancestors, kept stainless until now, that we
can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a
mistress, the King, and God. This is the greatest of your privileges.”
Chesnel, good man, was breakfasting with the family. He took no part in
counsels based on heraldry, nor in the inditing of letters addressed
to divers mighty personages of the day; but he had spent the night in
writing to an old friend of his, one of the oldest established notaries
of Paris. Without this letter it is not possible to understand Chesnel’s
real and assumed fatherhood. It almost recalls Daedalus’ address to
Icarus; for where, save in old mythology, can you look for comparisons
worthy of this man of antique mould?
“MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE SORBIER,--I remember with no little
pleasure that I made my first campaign in our honorable profession
under your father, and that you had a liking for me, poor little
clerk that I was. And now I appeal to old memories of the days
when we worked in the same office, old pleasant memories for our
hearts, to ask you to do me the one service that I have ever asked
of you in the course of our long lives, crossed as they have been
by political catastrophes, to which, perhaps, I owe it that I have
the honor to be your colleague. And now I ask this service of you,
my friend, and my white hairs will be brought with sorrow to the
grave if you should refuse my entreaty. It is no question of
myself or of mine, Sorbier, for I lost poor Mme. Chesnel, and I
have no child of my own. Something more to me than my own family
(if I had one) is involved--it is the Marquis d’Esgrignon’s only
son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis’ land steward ever
since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own
expense, with the idea of providing for me. The house which
nurtured me has passed through all the troubles of the Revolution.
I have managed to save some of their property; but what is it,
after all, in comparison with the wealth that they have lost? I
cannot tell you, Sorbier, how deeply I am attached to the great
house, which has been all but swallowed up under my eyes by the
abyss of time. M. le Marquis was proscribed, and his lands
confiscated, he was getting on in years, he had no child.
Misfortunes upon misfortunes! Then M. le Marquis married, and his
wife died when the young Count was born, and to-day this noble,
dear, and precious child is all the life of the d’Esgrignon
family; the fate of the house hangs upon him. He has got into debt
here with amusing himself. What else should he do in the provinces
with an allowance of a miserable hundred louis? Yes, my friend, a
hundred louis, the great house has come to this.
“In this extremity his father thinks it necessary to send the
Count to Paris to ask for the King’s favor at court. Paris is a
very dangerous place for a lad; if he is to keep steady there, he
must have the grain of sense which makes notaries of us. Besides,
I should be heartbroken to think of the poor boy living amid such
hardships as we have known.--Do you remember the pleasure with
which we spent a day and a night there waiting to see The Marriage
of Figaro? Oh, blind that we were!--We were happy and poor, but a
noble cannot be happy in poverty. A noble in want--it is a thing
against nature! Ah! Sorbier, when one has known the satisfaction
of propping one of the grandest genealogical trees in the kingdom
in its fall, it is so natural to interest oneself in it and to
grow fond of it, and love it and water it and look to see it
blossom. So you will not be surprised at so many precautions on my
part; you will not wonder when I beg the help of your lights, so
that all may go well with our young man.
“Keep yourself informed of his movements and doings, of the
company which he keeps, and watch over his connections with women.
M. le Chevalier says that an opera dancer often costs less than a
court lady. Obtain information on that point and let me know. If
you are too busy, perhaps Mme. Sorbier might know what becomes of
the young man, and where he goes. The idea of playing the part of
guardian angel to such a noble and charming boy might have
attractions for her. God will remember her for accepting the
sacred trust. Perhaps when you see M. le Comte Victurnien, her
heart may tremble at the thought of all the dangers awaiting him
in Paris; he is very young, and handsome; clever, and at the same
time disposed to trust others. If he forms a connection with some
designing woman, Mme. Sorbier could counsel him better than you
yourself could do. The old man-servant who is with him can tell
you many things; sound Josephin, I have told him to go to you in
delicate matters.
“But why should I say more? We once were clerks together, and a
pair of scamps; remember our escapades, and be a little bit young
again, my old friend, in your dealings with him. The sixty
thousand francs will be remitted to you in the shape of a bill on
the Treasury by a gentlemen who is going to Paris,” and so forth.
If the old couple to whom this epistle was addressed had followed out
Chesnel’s instructions, they would have been compelled to take three
private detectives into their pay. And yet there was ample wisdom shown
in Chesnel’s choice of a depositary. A banker pays money to any one
accredited to him so long as the money lasts; whereas, Victurnien was
obliged, every time that he was in want of money, to make a
personal visit to the notary, who was quite sure to use the right of
remonstrance.
Victurnien heard that he was to be allowed two thousand francs every
month, and thought that he betrayed his joy. He knew nothing of Paris.
He fancied that he could keep up princely state on such a sum.
Next day he started on his journey. All the benedictions of the
Collection of Antiquities went with him; he was kissed by the dowagers;
good wishes were heaped on his head; his old father, his aunt, and
Chesnel went with him out of the town, tears filling the eyes of all
three. The sudden departure supplied material for conversation for
several evenings; and what was more, it stirred the rancorous minds
of the salon du Croisier to the depths. The forage-contractor, the
president, and others who had vowed to ruin the d’Esgrignons, saw
their prey escaping out of their hands. They had based their schemes of
revenge on a young man’s follies, and now he was beyond their reach.
The tendency in human nature, which often gives a bigot a rake for a
daughter, and makes a frivolous woman the mother of a narrow pietist;
that rule of contraries, which, in all probability, is the “resultant”
of the law of similarities, drew Victurnien to Paris by a desire to
which he must sooner or later have yielded. Brought up as he had been in
the old-fashioned provincial house, among the quiet, gentle faces
that smiled upon him, among sober servants attached to the family, and
surroundings tinged with a general color of age, the boy had only seen
friends worthy of respect. All of those about him, with the exception of
the Chevalier, had example of venerable age, were elderly men and women,
sedate of manner, decorous and sententious of speech. He had been
petted by those women in gray gowns and embroidered mittens described by
Blondet. The antiquated splendors of his father’s house were as little
calculated as possible to suggest frivolous thoughts; and lastly, he had
been educated by a sincerely religious abbe, possessed of all the charm
of old age, which has dwelt in two centuries, and brings to the Present
its gifts of the dried roses of experience, the faded flowers of the
old customs of its youth. Everything should have combined to fashion
Victurnien to serious habits; his whole surroundings from childhood
bade him continue the glory of a historic name, by taking his life as
something noble and great; and yet Victurnien listened to dangerous
promptings.