Finding himself implicated in the proceedings instituted against the
authors of the plot against the Republic, Joseph Lacrisse put his
person and his papers in a safe place. The police commissary whose
duty it was to seize the correspondence of the Royalist Committee was
too much of a gentleman not to give the members of the Committee due
notice of his visit. He gave them twenty-four hours’ warning, thus
bringing his natural courtesy into line with his legitimate anxiety
to do his duty properly, for in common with the majority he believed
that the Republican Ministry would soon be overthrown, and that a
Ribot or Méline Cabinet would take its place. When he appeared at the
headquarters of the Committee all the drawers and pigeon-holes were
empty. They were sealed by the magistrate. He also sealed a Bottin for
1897, an automobile catalogue, a packet of cigarettes and a fencing
glove which were found on the mantelpiece. In this manner he obeyed
the legal formalities, on which we must congratulate him; one should
always observe the legal formalities. His name was Jonquille. He was a
distinguished magistrate and a clever man; in his youth he had composed
songs for cafés-concerts. One of his works, _Les Cancrelats dans le
pain_, achieved a great success at the Champs-Élysées in 1885.
After the surprise caused by these unexpected proceedings, Joseph
Lacrisse reassured himself. He soon saw that conspirators under the
present Government run less risk than under the First Empire or the
Monarchy, and that the Third Republic is by no means bloodthirsty.
Madame de Bonmont alone looked upon him as a victim, loving him the
more for it, for she was generous. She showed her love by tears and
sobs and fits of nerves, so that he spent a never-to-be-forgotten
fortnight with her in Brussels. This was the extent of his exile. He
benefited by one of the first verdicts pronounced by the Supreme Court.
I do not complain of this, and if it had listened to me the Supreme
Court would have condemned no one. Since they dared not prosecute all
the offenders, it was not in very good taste to condemn only those of
whom they were least afraid; to condemn them, moreover, for actions
that were not, or at any rate did not seem, sufficiently distinguished
from the actions for which they had already been prosecuted. Again,
that the only persons implicated in an Army plot should have been
civilians might well appear strange. To all of which some excellent
people have replied: “People must do the best they can for themselves.”
Joseph Lacrisse had lost none of his energy. He was ready to mend
the broken threads of the plot, but that was soon recognized to be
impossible, although the majority of the police commissaries who had
received search warrants would have treated the Royalists with the same
delicacy as Monsieur Jonquille. The irony of chance or the imprudence
of the conspirators placed in their hands, in spite of themselves,
enough documentary evidence to reveal the secret organization of the
Committees to the Attorney-General of the Republic. They could no
longer plot in safety, and had lost all hope of seeing the King return
with the swallows.
Madame de Bonmont sold the six white horses she had bought with the
intention or offering them to the Prince for his entry into Paris
by the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. At the instigation of her brother
Wallstein she sold them to Monsieur Gilbert, the director of the
National Circus at the Trocadero. Nor had she the anguish of selling
them at a loss; she even made a little profit on them. But the tears
fell from her beautiful eyes when the six lily-white chargers left her
stables, never to return. She felt as though they were harnessed to the
funeral car of that Royalty whom they were to have drawn in triumph.
However, the Supreme Court, which had investigated the affair with
languid curiosity, was still sitting.
One day at Madame de Bonmont’s house young Lacrisse permitted himself
the natural satisfaction of cursing the jury that had acquitted him
while still retaining some of the accused men in custody.
“What bandits they are!” he cried.
“Ah,” sighed Madame de Bonmont, “the Senate is in the pay of the
Ministry. It is a frightful Government. Monsieur Méline would never
have undertaken this abominable prosecution. He was a Republican, but
he was an honest man. Had he remained in power, the King would be in
France to-day.”
“Alas, the King is far away from France to-day,” said Henri Léon, who
had never had many illusions.
Joseph Lacrisse shook his head, and a long silence ensued.
“It’s perhaps a good thing for you,” said Henri Léon.
“How so?”
“I say that in a way it is rather to your advantage, Lacrisse, that the
King is in exile. You ought to be delighted, allowing, of course, for
your patriotic feelings.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple. If you were a financier like myself, the return of
the Monarchy might have been profitable to you, if it were only for
the Coronation loan. The King would have raised a loan shortly after
his accession, for the dear man would have needed money to reign with.
There would have been a good deal to be made out of the business for
me; but what would you, an advocate, have gained by the Restoration? A
prefecture? A lot of good that would be! You can do better than that as
a Royalist under the Republic. You speak exceedingly well—don’t deny
it—you speak with facility, gracefully. You are one of the twenty-five
or thirty members of the junior bar whom Nationalism has brought into
prominence. You can believe me. I’m not saying it to flatter you. A
good speaker has everything to gain by keeping the King out of the
country. With Philippe at the Élysée you would be given some post in
the Government or Administration, and that sort of thing quickly does
for a man. If you take up the people’s interests you displease the
King, and out you go. If you devote yourself to the King’s interests
the people complain, and the King dismisses you. He makes mistakes, and
you make them, but you are punished for both; popular or unpopular,
you are done for inevitably. But as long as the King is in exile you
can do no wrong. You can do nothing; you have no responsibility! It
is an excellent state of affairs. You need fear neither popularity
nor unpopularity, you are above the one and the other. You cannot
blunder; no blunder is possible to the defender of a lost cause.
The advocate of misfortune is always eloquent. When hope has become
impossible, you can be a Royalist with impunity in a Republic. You
offer a calm opposition to those in power; you are liberal; you have
the sympathy of all enemies of the existing system, and the respect of
the Government which you harmlessly oppose. As a servant of the fallen
Monarchy the veneration with which you kneel at the feet of your King
will emphasize the nobility of your character, and without loss of
dignity you can lavish upon him every sort of flattery. In the same way
you can, without any inconvenience, read the Prince a lesson, speak
to him with brusque frankness, reproach him for his abdications, his
alliances, his private counsellors; you can say to him, for example:
‘Monseigneur, I must warn you, with due respect, that you are keeping
low company.’ The papers will seize upon these noble words; the fame of
your devotion will increase, and you will dominate your own party from
the lofty altitudes in which your soul is able to breathe. Advocate or
Deputy, at the Palais or from the tribune, you will strike the noblest
of attitudes; you are incorruptible, and the good Fathers will protect
you. Come, realize your good fortune, Lacrisse.”
“What you say may be funny, Léon,” replied Lacrisse coldly, “but I
don’t find it so. And I doubt whether your jokes are at all relevant.”
“I am not joking.”
“Yes, you are. You are a sceptic, and I loathe scepticism. It is the
negation of action. I am all for action, always, and in spite of all.”
Henri Léon protested:
“I assure you I am very much in earnest.”
“Well then, my friend, I am sorry to tell you that you don’t in the
least understand the spirit of your age. You have described a worthy
of the type of Berryer. He would seem like a man stepped out of a
family portrait. Your Royalist might have passed muster under the
Second Empire, but I can assure you that to-day he would appear _vieux
jeu_ and devilishly out of date. The faithful courtier would be simply
absurd in the twentieth century. One has no business to be beaten, and
the weak are always in the wrong. That is the way we look at things,
my dear fellow. Are we for Poland, or Greece, or Finland? No, no; we
don’t dance to that tune. We are not simpletons. We shouted ‘Vive les
Boers,’ it’s true. But we knew what we were about. We wanted to worry
the Government by stirring up trouble with England, and also we hoped
that the Boers would win. However, I’m not discouraged. I have reason
to hope that we shall overthrow the Republic with the help of the
Republicans.
“What we can’t do alone we shall do with Nationalists of every shade of
opinion. With them we’ll make an end of the Republic. And to begin with
we must bring off the municipal elections.”