THE MYSTERY THICKENS.
M. Dantes' wonderful speech was the principal topic of conversation in
every quarter of Paris, exciting comment of the most animated
description. Of course, the workmen and their friends were delighted
with it, and could not find words strong enough to adequately express
their enthusiastic admiration for the gifted orator. Those belonging to
the Government party, on the other hand, denounced the speaker as a
demagogue and the speech as in the highest degree incendiary and
dangerous. Strange to relate, whoever spoke of the oration always
mentioned the new play, "The Laborer of Lyons," attributing its
authorship to the mysterious Deputy from Marseilles, and the drama
received cordial endorsement or scathing censure, according to the
political opinions of those who alluded to it.
For these reasons curiosity in regard to M. Dantes ran higher than ever,
but instead of decreasing as he became more prominent, the mystery
surrounding him seemed only to thicken. Nevertheless, the Deputy was the
lion of the hour, or rather would have been, had he permitted himself to
be lionized, but this he persistently declined to do, holding aloof from
society and mingling with none save his political associates, though
even to them he was a problem they could not solve; they, however,
recognized in him a powerful coadjutor, and with that were forced to be
content.
"THE HALL OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES was last evening thronged to
overflowing. It had been understood that M. Dantes was to advocate
the People's Bill, and, as usual, it had but to be known that this
distinguished orator was to occupy the tribune to draw out all
classes of citizens. Nor was the vast multitude disappointed. A
more powerful speech has never been heard within those walls. More
than four hours was the audience enchained by the matchless
eloquence of this remarkable man, which was received with thunders
of applause. A report of this speech will be found under the
appropriate head."
"THE NEW PLAY entitled, 'The Laborer of Lyons,' recently produced
at the Theatre Francais with triumphant success, and which has
caused such a deep and universal sensation, is repeated to-night.
There is reason to anticipate that the author, who is supposed to
be a celebrated orator of the opposition, may be induced to comply
with the call, which will be again renewed, to avow himself."
Such were two paragraphs which the following morning appeared in
Beauchamp's journal, and similar notices of both speech and drama were
published in every other opposition sheet in Paris. In the Ministerial
organ, on the contrary, and in all the papers of like political bias,
appeared the following and similar paragraphs:
"THE SPEECH OF M. DANTES, last evening, in the Chamber of Deputies,
was one of the most dangerous diatribes to which we ever
listened--dangerous for the insidious and sophistical principles it
advanced, and the almost fiend-like eloquence with which they were
urged. Where are these things to stop? At what terrible catastrophe
do these men aim? What crisis do they contemplate?"
"THE NEW DRAMA at the Theatre Francais, called 'The Laborer of
Lyons,' which is to-night to be repeated, is calculated and seems
to have been designed by its reckless author to produce the very
worst effects among the laboring classes. We deeply regret that it
has been suffered by the censors to be brought out."
The multitude called forth by paragraphs like these to witness the new
play was, of course, immense. Long before the time for the curtain to
rise, the vast edifice was crowded to its utmost capacity with an eager
and enthusiastic assemblage. Not only were the galleries, parquette and
lobbies filled with blouses, but the boxes were glittering with a
perfect galaxy of fashion, loveliness and rank. Conspicuous in the
orchestra stalls were the three friends--the Secretary, the journalist
and the Deputy. In a small and private loge in the second tier,
concealed from all eyes by its light curtain of green silk, and its
position, but himself viewing everything upon the stage or in the house,
sat the author of the play, calmly awaiting the rising of the curtain.
The performance at length began, and the piece proceeded to its
termination amid thunders of applause, which, as the curtain finally
descended on the last scene of the last act, became perfectly deafening,
accompanied by cries for the author. But no author appeared behind the
footlights or in the proscenium box; and, at last, the uproar becoming
redoubled, the manager came forward, and, in the author's behalf,
tendered grateful acknowledgments for the unprecedented favor, even by a
Parisian audience, with which the production had been received, but, at
the same time, entreated the additional favor that they would grant the
author's request, and permit his name, for the present, to remain
unknown. He would, however, venture to reveal this much, that the author
was a distinguished friend of the people. The earthquake of applause
which succeeded this announcement was almost frightful, and while the
scene was at its height, the three friends with great difficulty managed
to extricate themselves from the multitude which wedged up the lobbies,
and to make their escape.
"A friend of the people!" cried Debray, bitterly, as his coupe,
containing himself and companions, drove off to Very's. "From such
friends let the people be saved, and they may save themselves from their
foes."
"And the play, what think you of that?" cried Beauchamp.
"That it is a most able and abominable production, eminently calculated
to cause exactly the evils which we have this night perceived--to excite
and rouse the worst passions of the mob, and render the masses
dissatisfied with their inevitable and irredeemable lot, and as
dangerous as wild beasts to all whose lot is more favored."
"Man has rights as man, and men in masses have rights, and one of those
rights is to know actually what those rights are," said Beauchamp. "The
most melancholy feature in the oppression of man is his ignorance that
he is oppressed. Enlighten him as to those rights, elevate his mind to
appreciate and value them, and then counsel him firmly and resolutely to
demand those rights, and quietly and wisely to obtain them."
"Aye! but will he obey such counsel?" exclaimed Chateau-Renaud. "Will
not the result of such enlightenment and excitement prove, as it ever
has proved, anarchy, revolution, guilt, blood? Who shall restrain the
monster once lashed into madness?"
"But you can surely perceive no such design in this play, and no such
effect," rejoined Beauchamp.
"In the abstract," replied the Count, "this production is
unexceptionable--most beautiful, yet most powerful. How it could have
been the work of an unpracticed pen, embodying as it does passages of
which the first dramatists of the romantic school might be proud, I
cannot imagine. Besides, there seems familiar acquaintance with stage
effect and the way in which it is produced. But that might have been,
and probably was, the result of some professional player's suggestions."
"And, then, the profound knowledge of the human heart evinced--its
passions, motives and principles of action," added the journalist.
"There seems an individuality, a personality in the production, which
compels the idea that the author is himself the hero, that he has
himself experienced the evils he so vividly portrays, that the drama is
at once the effusion of his own heart and the embodiment of his own
history. Can that man be M. Dantes?"
"If it be he," cried the Secretary, "there is more reason than ever to
call him the most dangerous man in Paris. What with his speeches in the
Chamber and his plays at the theatre, all tending to one most
unrighteous end, and all aiming to inflame such an explosive mass as the
workmen of Paris, he may be regarded as little less than the very agent
of the fiend to accomplish havoc on earth!"
"Yet, strange to say, my dear Secretary," said the journalist,
laughing, "you have not yet estimated the tithe of this man's influence
for good, or, as you think, for evil. Rumor proclaims him to be as
immensely opulent as appearances would indicate him to be impoverished.
That his whole soul, as you say, is devoted to the people, with all his
wonderful powers of mind and person, is undoubted. That he has availed
himself of that grand lever, the press, to accomplish his purposes, be
they good or bad, seems equally certain. 'La Reforme,' the new daily, is
undoubtedly under his control, if not sustained by his pen and his
purse, for it has a wider circulation than all the other Parisian papers
put together. It goes everywhere--it seeks the alleys, not the
boulevards, finds its way to the threshold of all, whether paid for or
not."
"Ah!" cried Debray, in great agitation. "Is it so?"
"And, then, not only is the public press subsidized by this man, if
report is not even falser than usual, but a whole army of pamphleteers,
journalists, litterateurs and students await his bidding, as well as
some of the most distinguished novelists and dramatists of the nation
and age!"
"My God!" exclaimed the Count. "Can this be so?"
"Nay--nay," replied Beauchamp, "I make no assertions, I merely retail
rumors. But what cannot uncounted wealth achieve, directed by genius and
intelligence?"
"But is this man actually so wealthy?" asked Debray, pale with
agitation. "His manners, dress, equipage, residence and mode of life
would indicate just the reverse."
"I know not--no one knows," said Beauchamp. "It is only known to myself
and to a few others that he dwells in the mansion No. 27 Rue du Helder,
formerly the residence of the Count de Morcerf, and that his private
apartment is that pavilion at the corner of the court, where at
half-past ten, on the morning of the 21st of May, 1838, we breakfasted
with our amiable friend Albert, and were met by that remarkable man, the
Count of Monte-Cristo."
"I remember that morning well," said Chateau-Renaud.
"Everything, it is said, remains in that once splendid mansion precisely
as when it was deserted by the Countess and her son, at the time of the
suicide of the Count--everything except that glorious picture of the
Catalan fisherman by Leopold Robert, in Albert's exquisite chamber,
which alone he took with him."
"It is strange that a man so opulent as you represent M. Dantes to be,
should adopt his magnificence at second hand," observed Debray, coolly.
"But I do not represent him as opulent, my dear Lucien; and he certainly
is the last man either to invent magnificence or to adopt it. Why, he is
as plain in manners and mode as St. Simon himself. His dress you have
seen; as to equipage his only conveyance is a public fiacre; as to
diet, household arrangements and everything else of a personal nature,
nothing can be more republican and less epicurean than is witnessed at
his house. His study, Albert de Morcerf's pavilion, is said to be the
only sumptuous apartment in the whole establishment; and that
sumptuousness is of a character entirely literary and practical. His
retinue consists of three servants, called Baptistin, Bertuccio and Ali,
the latter being a Nubian, although fame gives him a perfect army of
servitors prompt to execute his bidding. But I will not indulge your
skeptical and sarcastic nature, Lucien, with a detail of all that rumor
says of this wonderful man. I will only say that all he is, and has or
hopes for seems devoted to one single object--the welfare of his race."
"Has he a wife?" asked Debray.
"He is a widower, with two children, a young girl, called Zuleika, and a
youthful son, called Esperance. But my acquaintance with him is wholly
of a public character. I have never been in his house, and very few
there are who have been. But here we are."
And the coupe stopped at Very's.