THE NEWS FROM ALGERIA.
Beauchamp, the journalist, sat at his desk in his editorial sanctum
early one bright morning in the autumn of 1841. He had gone to work long
before his usual hour, for important movements were on foot, the
political atmosphere was agitated and Paris was in a state of feverish
excitement; besides, Beauchamp had that day printed in his journal a
dispatch from Algeria that would be certain to cause a great sensation,
and, with the proper spirit of pride, the journalist desired to be at
his post that he might receive the numerous congratulations his friends
could not fail to offer, as the dispatch had appeared in his paper
alone.
The sanctum had not an attractive look; in fact, it was rather
dilapidated, while, in addition, the disorder occasioned by the previous
night's work had not been repaired, and all was chaos and confusion.
Beauchamp was busily engaged in glancing over the rival morning papers
when Lucien Debray entered and seated himself at another desk. The
Ministerial Secretary smiled upon the journalist in a knowing way, and
the latter, nodding to him with an air of triumph, silently pointed to
the pile of journals he had finished examining. Lucien took them up,
and without a word began scanning their contents.
"Glorious news that from the army in Algeria!" cried Chateau-Renaud,
rushing into the sanctum.
"Glorious, indeed!" replied the editor, looking up from the paper over
which he was hurriedly skimming. On the huge table at his side, as well
as beneath it, and under his feet and his capacious arm-chair, nothing
was to be seen but newspapers.
"Take a chair, Renaud, if you can find one, and help yourself to the
news. You see I have Lucien similarly engaged yonder."
The Ministerial Secretary glanced up from his papers, returned his
friend's salutation and resumed his reading. He was dressed with his
customary elegance and richness, but his form and face were fuller than
when last before the reader, and his brown hair was besprinkled with
gray.
"I congratulate you, Beauchamp, on being the first to give the news,"
continued Chateau-Renaud. "Not a paper in Paris but your own has a line
from the army this morning."
"Rather congratulate me and my paper on having a friend at court."
"Ha! and that explains the fact, otherwise inexplicable, that an
opposition journal has intelligence, which only the Bureau of War could
have anticipated! Treason--treason!"
The editor and the Secretary exchanged significant smiles.
"Oh! I don't doubt that your favors are reciprocal," continued the
young aristocrat, laughing. "I've half a mind to be something useful
myself--Minister--editor--anything but an idler and a law-giver--just to
experience the exquisite sensation of a new pleasure--the pleasure of
revealing and publishing to the world something it knew not before. Why,
you two fellows, in this dark and dirty little room, are the two
greatest men in Paris this morning--or were, rather, before your paper,
Beauchamp, laid before the world what only you and Lucien knew
previously. Oh! the delight, the rapture of knowing something that
nobody else knows, and then of making the revelation!"
"And this news from Algeria is really important," remarked the editor.
"Important! So important that it will be before the Chambers this
morning," replied the Secretary.
"So I supposed," said the Deputy, "and called to learn additional
particulars, if you had any, on my way to the Chambers."
"We gave all we had, my dear Lycurgus, and for that were indebted to an
official dispatch, telegraphed to the War Office, and faithfully
re-telegraphed to us by our well-beloved Lucien."
"It's true, then, as I have sometimes suspected, that the wires radiate
from the Minister's sanctum to the editor's?" was the laughing
rejoinder.
"It must be so, or there's witchcraft in it. There's witchcraft, at any
rate, in this new invention. Speed, secrecy, security and surety--no
eastern genius of Arabian fiction can be compared to the electric
telegraph; and how Ministers or editors continued to keep the world in
vassalage, as they always have done, without this ready slave, seems now
scarce less wonderful than the invention itself. Instead of detracting
from the power of the press, the telegraph renders it more powerful than
ever."
"But affairs in Algeria--is not the news splendid!" cried the editor.
"Why did we not all become Spahis and win immortality, as some of our
generals have?"
"As to immortality," said the Secretary, "we should have been far more
likely to win the phantom as dead men than as living heroes."
"Debray was at the raising of the siege of Constantine," said Beauchamp
laughing, "and knows all about the honors of war."
"Yes, indeed, and all about the raptures of starvation, of cold and
hunger, after victory, and the ecstatic felicity of being pursued by six
Bedouins, and after having slain five having my own neck encircled by
the yataghan of the sixth!"
"And how chanced it that you saved your head, Lucien?" asked the Count.
"Save it--I didn't save it; but a most excellent friend of mine--a
friend in need--galloped up and saved it for me."
"Yes," replied Beauchamp, "our gallant friend, Maximilian Morrel, the
Captain of Spahis--now colonel of a regiment, and in the direct line of
promotion to the first vacant baton--eh, Lucien? A lucky thing to save
the head of one of the War Office from a Bedouin's yataghan. Up--up--up,
like a balloon, has this young Spahi risen ever since."
"You are wrong, Beauchamp. Not like a balloon. Rather like a planet.
Maximilian Morrel is one of the most gallant young men in the French
army, and step by step, from rank to rank, has he hewn his own path with
his good sabre, in a strong hand, nerved by a brave heart and proud
ambition, to the position he now holds."
"His name I see among the immortals in the dispatch of this morning.
Well, well, Morrel is a splendid fellow, no doubt, but it's a splendid
thing to have friends in the War Office, nevertheless, who will give
that splendor a chance to shine--will plant the lighted candle in a
candlestick, and not smother its beams under a bushel."
"Morrel has now been in Africa five whole years," said the Secretary--"a
few months only excepted after his marriage with Villefort's fair
daughter, Valentine, (as was said) when he was indulged with a furlough
for his honeymoon."
"She is not in Paris?" asked Beauchamp.
"No; she leads the life of a perfect recluse with her child, during her
husband's absence, at his villa somewhere in the south--near Marseilles,
where the department forwards her letters."
"Yet she is said to be a magnificent woman," remarked the Count.
"Wonderful!" cried Beauchamp. "A magnificent woman and a recluse!"
"Oh! but it was a love-match of the most devoted species, you must
remember."
"True; she was to have married our friend, Franz d'Epinay."
"And died to save herself from that fate, I suppose--and afterwards was
resurrected and blessed Morrel with her hand and heart, and the most
exquisite person that even a jaded voluptuary could covet.
Happy--happy--happy man!"
"Apropos of dying," said the Secretary, "do you remember how fast people
died at M. de Villefort's house about that time?"
"Horrible! A whole family of two or three generations, one after the
other! First M. and Madame de Saint-Meran--then Barrois, the old servant
of M. Noirtier--then Valentine, and, last of all, Madame de Villefort
and Edward, her idol. No wonder that M. le Procureur du Roi himself went
mad under such an accumulation of horrors! By the by, Debray, is M. de
Villefort still an inmate of the Maison Royale de Charenton?"
"I know nothing to the contrary," replied the Secretary, who had resumed
his paper, and to whom the subject seemed not altogether agreeable. "He
is an incurable." Then, as if to turn the subject, he continued:
"Apropos of the immortals of Algeria, here is a name that seems destined
even to a more rapid apotheosis than that of the favored Morrel."
"You mean Joliette?" said the editor. "Who, in the name of all that is
mysterious and heroic, is this same Joliette? I have found it impossible
to discover, with all the means at the command of the press."
"And I, with all the means at the command of the Government. All we can
discover is this--that he is a man of about twenty-five; that he
enlisted at Marseilles, and in less than three years has risen from the
ranks to the command of a battalion. His career has been most
brilliant."
"And to whose favor does he owe his wonderful advancement, Beauchamp?"
asked the Deputy, laughing.
"To that of Marshal Bugeaud, Governor-General of Algeria."
"Ah!"
"Who has indulged him with an appointment in every forlorn hope!"
"Excellent!" cried the Count. "What more could a man resolved to be a
military immortal desire? Immortality the goal--two paths conduct to
it--each sure--death--life!--the former the shorter, and, perhaps, the
surer! But there is one name I never see in the war dispatches. Do you
ever meet with it, Messrs. editor and Secretary--I mean the name of our
brilliant friend, Albert de Morcerf? The rumor ran that, after the
disgrace and suicide of the Count, his father, he and his mother went
south, and he later to Africa."
"I have hardly seen the name of Morcerf in print since the paragraph
headed 'Yanina' in my paper, about which poor Albert was so anxious to
fight me."
"Nor I," said Debray. "But where now is Madame de Morcerf? Without
exception, she was the most splendid specimen of a woman I ever saw!"
"High praise, that!" cried the Count, laughing. "Who would suppose our
cold, calculating, ambitious, haughty, talented and opulent diplomat and
aristocrat had so much blood in his veins? When before was he known to
admire anything, male or female--but himself--or, at all events, to be
guilty of the bad taste of expressing that admiration?"
"Debray is right," replied the journalist, somewhat gravely. "Madame de
Morcerf was, indeed, a noble and dignified woman--accomplished, lovely,
dignified, amiable--"
"Stop!--stop!--in the name of all that's forbearing, be considerate of
my weak nerves! You, too, Beauchamp. Well, she must have been a paragon
to make the conquest of two of the most inveterate bachelors in all
Paris! But where is this marvel of excellence--pardon me, Beauchamp,"
perceiving that the journalist looked yet more grave, and seemed in no
mood for bantering or being bantered--"where is Madame de Morcerf at the
present time?"
"At Marseilles, I have heard."
"And is married again?"
"No. She is yet a widow."
"And is a recluse, like Morrel's beautiful wife?"
"So says report. They dwell together."
"How romantic! The young wife, whose hero-husband is winning glory amid
the perils of war and pestilence, pours her griefs, joys and
anticipations into the bosom of the young mother, who appreciates and
reciprocates all, because she has a son exposed to the same perils--and
both beautiful as the morning! A charming picture! Two immortals in
epaulets and sashes in the background are only wanted instead of one.
But I must to the Chambers. M. Dantes is expected to speak in the
tribune this morning upon his measure for the workmen."
"Do you know, Count, who this M. Dantes really is?" asked Debray.
"There's a question for a Ministerial Secretary to ask a member while a
journalist sits by! I only know of M. Dantes that he is the most
eloquent man I ever listened to. I don't mean that he's the greatest
man, or the profoundest statesman, or the wisest politician, or the
sagest political economist; but I do mean that, for natural powers of
persuasion and denunciation--for natural oratory--I have never known his
rival. If Plato's maxim, 'that oratory must be estimated by its
effects,' is at all correct, then is M. Dantes the greatest orator in
France, for the effect of his oratory is miraculous. There is a sort of
magic in his clear, sonorous, powerful, yet most exquisitely modulated
voice, and the wave of his arm is like that of a necromancer's wand."
"You are enthusiastic, Count," observed Beauchamp, "but very just. M.
Dantes is, indeed, a remarkable man, and possessed of remarkable
endowments, both of mind and body. His personal advantages are
wonderful. Such a figure and grace as his are alone worth more than all
the powers of other distinguished speakers for popular effect. 'The eyes
of the multitude are more eloquent than their ears,' as the English
Shakespeare says."
"I never saw such eyes and such a face," remarked Debray, "but once in
my life. Do you remember the Count of Monte-Cristo, Messieurs?"
"We shall not soon forget him," was the reply. "But this man differs
greatly from the Count in most respects, though certainly not unlike him
in others."
"True," replied the Secretary; "in manners, habits, costume and a
thousand other things there is a marked difference. Besides, the Count
was said to be incalculably rich, while the Deputy has every appearance
of being in very moderate circumstances. But he leads a life so retired
that he is known only in the Chambers and in his public character. I
allude to the Deputy's person, when I speak of resemblance to that
wonderful Count, who set all Paris in a fever, and, more wonderful
still, kept it so for a whole season. There is I know not what in his
air and manners that often recalls to me that extraordinary man. There
are the same large and powerful eyes, the same brilliant teeth for which
the women envied the Count so much, the same graceful and dignified
figure, the same peculiar voice, the same good taste in dress, and,
above all, the same colorless, pallid face, as if, to borrow the idea of
the Countess of G----, he had risen from the dead, or was a visitant
from another world, or a vampire of this. Her celebrated friend, Lord
B----, she used to say, was the only man she ever knew with such a
complexion."
"But, if I recollect rightly," said Beauchamp, "the Count of
Monte-Cristo was somewhat noted for his profusion of black hair and
beard. The Deputy Dantes is so utterly out of the mode, and out of good
taste, too, as to wear no beard, and his hair is short. His face is as
smooth as a woman's, and he always wears a white cravat like a cure."
"But he is, nevertheless, one of the handsomest men in Paris," added the
Count--"at least the women say so. You might add, the Deputy has many
gray hairs among his black ones, and many furrows on his white brow,
while Monte-Cristo had neither. Besides, M. Dantes has a handsome
daughter and a son who resembles him greatly, both well grown, while the
Count was childless."
"Well, well, be his person and family what they may," said the
Secretary, rising, "I wish to God the Ministry could secure his talents.
I tell you, Messieurs, that man's influence over the destinies of France
is to be almost omnipotent. His powerful mind has grasped the great
problem of the age--remuneration for labor. The next revolution in
France will hinge upon that--mark the prediction--and this man and his
coadjutors, among whom Beauchamp here is one, are doing all they can to
hasten the crisis. The whole soul of this remarkable man seems devoted
to the elevation of the masses--the laboring classes--the people--and to
the amelioration of their condition. His efforts and those of all like
him cannot ultimately succeed. But they will have a temporary triumph,
and the streets of Paris will run with blood! These men are rousing
terrible agencies. They are evoking the fiends of hunger and misery,
which will neither obey them nor lie down at their bidding."
"And the magicians who have summoned these foul fiends will prove their
earliest victims!" said Chateau-Renaud, in some excitement.
"Messieurs, listen a moment!" cried Beauchamp, rising. "Pardon me, but
this discussion must cease, at least here. It can lead to no good
result. As the conductor of a reform journal, I entirely differ with you
both. But let not political differences interfere with our personal
friendship. Come, come, old friends, let us forsake this place, redolent
with politics, having a very atmosphere of discussion, and repair to the
Chambers, taking Very's on our way."
"Agreed!" cried the Deputy and the Secretary, and the three left the
journalist's sanctum arm in arm.