The Parisians — Complete

CHAPTER VI

The Contessa di Rimini received her visitors in a boudoir furnished with much apparent simplicity, but a simplicity by no means inexpensive. The draperies were but of chintz, and the walls covered with the same material,—a lively pattern, in which the prevalents were rose-colour and white; but the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the china stored in the cabinets or arranged on the shelves, the small knickknacks scattered on the tables, were costly rarities of art.

The Contessa herself was a woman who had somewhat passed her thirtieth year,—not strikingly handsome, but exquisitely pretty. “There is,” said a great French writer, “only one way in which a woman can be handsome, but a hundred thousand ways in which she can be pretty;” and it would be impossible to reckon up the number of ways in which Adeline di Rimini carried off the prize in prettiness.

Yet it would be unjust to the personal attractions of the Contessa to class them all under the word “prettiness.” When regarded more attentively, there was an expression in her countenance that might almost be called divine, it spoke so unmistakably of a sweet nature and an untroubled soul. An English poet once described her by repeating the old lines,

“Her face is like the milky way I’ the sky,
—A meeting of gentle lights without a name.”

She was not alone; an elderly lady sat on an armchair by the fire, engaged in knitting; and a man, also elderly, and whose dress proclaimed him an ecclesiastic, sat at the opposite corner, with a large Angora cat on his lap.

“I present to you, Madame,” said Raoul, “my new-found cousin, the seventeenth Marquis de Rochebriant, whom I am proud to consider on the male side the head of our house, representing its eldest branch. Welcome him for my sake,—in future he will be welcome for his own.”

The Contessa replied very graciously to this introduction, and made room for Alain on the divan from which she had risen.

The old lady looked up from her knitting; the ecclesiastic removed the cat from his lap. Said the old lady, “I announce myself to M. le Marquis. I knew his mother well enough to be invited to his christening; otherwise I have no pretension to the acquaintance of a cavalier si beau, being old, rather deaf, very stupid, exceedingly poor—”

“And,” interrupted Raoul, “the woman in all Paris the most adored for bonte, and consulted for savoir vivre by the young cavaliers whom she deigns to receive. Alain, I present you to Madame de Maury, the widow of a distinguished author and academician, and the daughter of the brave Henri de Gerval, who fought for the good cause in La Vendee. I present you also to the Abbe Vertpre, who has passed his life in the vain endeavour to make other men as good as himself.”

“Base flatterer!” said the Abbe, pinching Raoul’s ear with one hand, while he extended the other to Alain. “Do not let your cousin frighten you from knowing me, Monsieur le Marquis; when he was my pupil, he so convinced me of the incorrigibility of perverse human nature, that I now chiefly address myself to the moral improvement of the brute creation. Ask the Contessa if I have not achieved a beau succes with her Angora cat. Three months ago that creature had the two worst propensities of man,—he was at once savage and mean; he bit, he stole. Does he ever bite now? No. Does he ever steal? No. Why? I have awakened in that cat the dormant conscience, and that done, the conscience regulates his actions; once made aware of the difference between wrong and right, the cat maintains it unswervingly, as if it were a law of nature. But if, with prodigious labour, one does awaken conscience in a human sinner, it has no steady effect on his conduct,—he continues to sin all the same. Mankind at Paris, Monsieur le Marquis, is divided between two classes,-one bites and the other steals. Shun both; devote yourself to cats.”

The Abbe delivered this oration with a gravity of mien and tone which made it difficult to guess whether he spoke in sport or in earnest, in simple playfulness or with latent sarcasm.

But on the brow and in the eye of the priest there was a general expression of quiet benevolence, which made Alain incline to the belief that he was only speaking as a pleasant humourist; and the Marquis replied gayly,—

“Monsieur L’Abbe, admitting the superior virtue of cats when taught by so intelligent a preceptor, still the business of human life is not transacted by cats; and since men must deal with men, permit me, as a preliminary caution, to inquire in which class I must rank yourself. Do you bite or do you steal?”

This sally, which showed that the Marquis was already shaking off his provincial reserve, met with great success. Raoul and the Contessa laughed merrily; Madame de Maury clapped her hands, and cried “Bien!”

The Abbe replied, with unmoved gravity, “Both. I am a priest; it is my duty to bite the bad and steal from the good, as you will see, Monsieur le Marquis, if you will glance at this paper.”

Here he handed to Alain a memorial on behalf of an afflicted family who had been burnt out of their home, and reduced from comparative ease to absolute want. There was a list appended of some twenty subscribers, the last being the Contessa, fifty francs, and Madame de Maury, five.

“Allow me, Marquis,” said the Abbe, “to steal from you. Bless you two-fold, mon fils!” (taking the napoleon Alain extended to him) “first for your charity; secondly, for the effect of its example upon the heart of your cousin. Raoul de Vandemar, stand and deliver. Bah! what! only ten francs.”

Raoul made a sign to the Abbe, unperceived by the rest, as he answered, “Abbe, I should excel your expectations of my career if I always continue worth half as much as my cousin.”

Alain felt to the bottom of his heart the delicate tact of his richer kinsman in giving less than himself, and the Abbe replied, “Niggard, you are pardoned. Humility is a more difficult virtue to produce than charity, and in your case an instance of it is so rare that it merits encouragement.”

The “tea equipage” was now served in what at Paris is called the English fashion; the Contessa presided over it, the guests gathered round the table, and the evening passed away in the innocent gayety of a domestic circle. The talk, if not especially intellectual, was at least not fashionable. Books were not discussed, neither were scandals; yet somehow or other it was cheery and animated, like that of a happy family in a country-house. Alain thought still the better of Raoul that, Parisian though he was, he could appreciate the charm of an evening so innocently spent.

On taking leave, the Contessa gave Alain a general invitation to drop in whenever he was not better engaged.

“I except only the opera nights,” said she. “My husband has gone to Milan on his affairs, and during his absence I do not go to parties; the opera I cannot resist.”

Raoul set Alain down at his lodgings. “Au revoir; tomorrow at one o’clock expect Enguerrand and myself.”

CHAPTER VII

Raul and Enguerrand called on Alain at the hour fixed. “In the first place,” said Raoul, “I must beg you to accept my mother’s regrets that she cannot receive you to-day. She and the Contessa belong to a society of ladies formed for visiting the poor, and this is their day; but to-morrow you must dine with us en famille. Now to business. Allow me to light my cigar while you confide the whole state of affairs to Enguerrand. Whatever he counsels, I am sure to approve.”

Alain, as briefly as he could, stated his circumstances, his mortgages, and the hopes which his avow had encouraged him to place in the friendly disposition of M. Louvier. When he had concluded, Enguerrand mused for a few moments before replying. At last he said, “Will you trust me to call on Louvier on your behalf? I shall but inquire if he is inclined to take on himself the other mortgages; and if so, on what terms. Our relationship gives me the excuse for my interference; and to say truth, I have had much familiar intercourse with the man. I too am a speculator, and have often profited by Louvier’s advice. You may ask what can be his object in serving me; he can gain nothing by it. To this I answer, the key to his good offices is in his character. Audacious though he be as a speculator, he is wonderfully prudent as a politician. This belle France of ours is like a stage tumbler; one can never be sure whether it will stand on its head or its feet. Louvier very wisely wishes to feel himself safe whatever party comes uppermost. He has no faith in the duration of the Empire; and as, at all events, the Empire will not confiscate his millions, he takes no trouble in conciliating Imperialists. But on the principle which induces certain savages to worship the devil and neglect the bon Dieu, because the devil is spiteful and the bon Dieu is too beneficent to injure them, Louvier, at heart detesting as well as dreading a republic, lays himself out to secure friends with the Republicans of all classes, and pretends to espouse their cause; next to them, he is very conciliatory to the Orleanists; lastly, though he thinks the Legitimists have no chance, he desires to keep well with the nobles of that party, because they exercise a considerable influence over that sphere of opinion which belongs to fashion,—for fashion is never powerless in Paris. Raoul and myself are no mean authorities in salons and clubs, and a good word from us is worth having.

“Besides, Louvier himself in his youth set up for a dandy; and that deposed ruler of dandies, our unfortunate kinsman, Victor de Mauleon, shed some of his own radiance on the money-lender’s son. But when Victor’s star was eclipsed, Louvier ceased to gleam. The dandies cut him. In his heart he exults that the dandies now throng to his soirees.

“Bref, the millionaire is especially civil to me,—the more so as I know intimately two or three eminent journalists; and Louvier takes pains to plant garrisons in the press. I trust I have explained the grounds on which I may be a better diplomatist to employ than your avoue; and with your leave I will go to Louvier at once.”

“Let him go,” said Raoul. “Enguerrand never fails in anything he undertakes; especially,” he added, with a smile half sad, half tender, “when one wishes to replenish one’s purse.”

“I too gratefully grant such an ambassador all powers to treat,” said Alain. “I am only ashamed to consign to him a post so much beneath his genius,” and “his birth” he was about to add, but wisely checked himself. Enguerrand said, shrugging his shoulders, “You can’t do me a greater kindness than by setting my wits at work. I fall a martyr to ennui when I am not in action;” he said, and was gone.

“It makes me very melancholy at times,” said Raoul, flinging away the end of his cigar, “to think that a man so clever and so energetic as Enguerrand should be as much excluded from the service of his country as if he were an Iroquois Indian. He would have made a great diplomatist.”

“Alas!” replied Alain, with a sigh, “I begin to doubt whether we Legitimists are justified in maintaining a useless loyalty to a sovereign who renders us morally exiles in the land of our birth.”

“I have no doubt on the subject,” said Raoul. “We are not justified on the score of policy, but we have no option at present on the score of honour. We should gain so much for ourselves if we adopted the State livery and took the State wages that no man would esteem us as patriots; we should only be despised as apostates. So long as Henry V. lives, and does not resign his claim, we cannot be active citizens; we must be mournful lookers-on. But what matters it? We nobles of the old race are becoming rapidly extinct. Under any form of government likely to be established in France we are equally doomed. The French people, aiming at an impossible equality, will never again tolerate a race of gentilshommes. They cannot prevent, without destroying commerce and capital altogether, a quick succession of men of the day, who form nominal aristocracies much more opposed to equality than any hereditary class of nobles; but they refuse these fleeting substitutes of born patricians all permanent stake in the country, since whatever estate they buy must be subdivided at their death my poor Alain, you are making it the one ambition of your life to preserve to your posterity the home and lands of your forefathers. How is that possible, even supposing you could redeem the mortgages? You marry some day; you have children, and Rochebriant must then be sold to pay for their separate portions. How this condition of things, while rendering us so ineffective to perform the normal functions of a noblesse in public life, affects us in private life, may be easily conceived.

“Condemned to a career of pleasure and frivolity, we can scarcely escape from the contagion of extravagant luxury which forms the vice of the time. With grand names to keep up, and small fortunes whereon to keep them, we readily incur embarrassment and debt. Then neediness conquers pride. We cannot be great merchants, but we can be small gamblers on the Bourse, or, thanks to the Credit Mobilier, imitate a cabinet minister, and keep a shop under another name. Perhaps you have heard that Enguerrand and I keep a shop. Pray, buy your gloves there. Strange fate for men whose ancestors fought in the first Crusade—mais que voulez-vous?”

“I was told of the shop,” said Alain; “but the moment I knew you I disbelieved the story.”

“Quite true. Shall I confide to you why we resorted to that means of finding ourselves in pocket-money? My father gives us rooms in his hotel; the use of his table, which we do not much profit by; and an allowance, on which we could not live as young men of our class live at Paris. Enguerrand had his means of spending pocket-money, I mine; but it came to the same thing,—the pockets were emptied. We incurred debts. Two years ago my father straitened himself to pay them, saying, ‘The next time you come to me with debts, however small, you must pay them yourselves, or you must marry, and leave it to me to find you wives.’ This threat appalled us both. A month afterwards, Enguerrand made a lucky hit at the Bourse, and proposed to invest the proceeds in a shop. I resisted as long as I could; but Enguerrand triumphed over me, as he always does. He found an excellent deputy in a bonne who had nursed us in childhood, and married a journeyman perfumer who understands the business. It answers well; we are not in debt, and we have preserved our freedom.”

After these confessions Raoul went away, and Alain fell into a mournful revery, from which he was roused by a loud ring at his bell. He opened the door, and beheld M. Louvier. The burly financier was much out of breath after making so steep an ascent. It was in gasps that he muttered, “Bon jour; excuse me if I derange you.” Then entering and seating himself on a chair, he took some minutes to recover speech, rolling his eyes staringly round the meagre, unluxurious room, and then concentrating their gaze upon its occupier.

“Peste, my dear Marquis!” he said at last, “I hope the next time I visit you the ascent may be less arduous. One would think you were in training to ascend the Himalaya.”

The haughty noble writhed under this jest, and the spirit inborn in his order spoke in his answer.

“I am accustomed to dwell on heights, Monsieur Louvier; the castle of Rochebriant is not on a level with the town.” An angry gleam shot out from the eyes of the millionaire, but there was no other sign of displeasure in his answer. “Bien dit, mon cher; how you remind me of your father! Now, give me leave to speak on affairs. I have seen your cousin Enguerrand de Vandemar. Homme de moyens, though joli garcon. He proposed that you should call on me. I said ‘no’ to the cher petit Enguerrand,—a visit from me was due to you. To cut matters short, M. Gandrin has allowed me to look into your papers. I was disposed to serve you from the first; I am still more disposed to serve you now. I undertake to pay off all your other mortgages, and become sole mortgagee, and on terms that I have jotted down on this paper, and which I hope will content you.”

He placed a paper in Alain’s hand, and took out a box, from which he extracted a jujube, placed it in his mouth, folded his hands, and reclined back in his chair, with his eyes half closed, as if exhausted alike by his ascent and his generosity.

In effect, the terms were unexpectedly liberal. The reduced interest on the mortgages would leave the Marquis an income of L1,000 a year instead of L400. Louvier proposed to take on himself the legal cost of transfer, and to pay to the Marquis 25,000 francs, on the completion of the deed, as a bonus. The mortgage did not exempt the building-land, as Hebert desired. In all else it was singularly advantageous, and Alain could but feel a thrill of grateful delight at an offer by which his stinted income was raised to comparative affluence.

“Well, Marquis,” said Louvier, “what does the castle say to the town?”

“Monsieur Louvier,” answered Alain, extending his hand with cordial eagerness, “accept my sincere apologies for the indiscretion of my metaphor. Poverty is proverbially sensitive to jests on it. I owe it to you if I cannot hereafter make that excuse for any words of mine that may displease you. The terms you propose are most liberal, and I close with them at once.”

“Bon,” said Louvier, shaking vehemently the hand offered to him; “I will take the paper to Gandrin, and instruct him accordingly. And now, may I attach a condition to the agreement which is not put down on paper? It may have surprised you perhaps that I should propose a gratuity of 25,000 francs on completion of the contract. It is a droll thing to do, and not in the ordinary way of business, therefore I must explain. Marquis, pardon the liberty I take, but you have inspired me with an interest in your future. With your birth, connections, and figure you should push your way in the world far and fast. But you can’t do so in a province. You must find your opening at Paris. I wish you to spend a year in the capital, and live, not extravagantly, like a nouveau riche, but in a way not unsuited to your rank, and permitting you all the social advantages that belong to it. These 25,000 francs, in addition to your improved income, will enable you to gratify my wish in this respect. Spend the money in Paris; you will want every sou of it in the course of the year. It will be money well spent. Take my advice, cher Marquis. Au plaisir.”

The financier bowed himself out. The young Marquis forgot all the mournful reflections with which Raoul’s conversation had inspired him. He gave a new touch to his toilette, and sallied forth with the air of a man on whose morning of life a sun heretofore clouded has burst forth and bathed the landscape in its light.

CHAPTER VIII

Since the evening spent at the Savarins’, Graham had seen no more of Isaura. He had avoided all chance of seeing her; in fact, the jealousy with which he had viewed her manner towards Rameau, and the angry amaze with which he had heard her proclaim her friendship for Madame de Grantmesnil, served to strengthen the grave and secret reasons which made him desire to keep his heart yet free and his hand yet unpledged. But alas! the heart was enslaved already. It was under the most fatal of all spells,—first love conceived at first sight. He was wretched; and in his wretchedness his resolves became involuntarily weakened. He found himself making excuses for the beloved. What cause had he, after all, for that jealousy of the young poet which had so offended him; and if in her youth and inexperience Isaura had made her dearest friend of a great writer by whose genius she might be dazzled, and of whose opinions she might scarcely be aware, was it a crime that necessitated her eternal banishment from the reverence which belongs to all manly love? Certainly he found no satisfactory answers to such self-questionings. And then those grave reasons known only to himself, and never to be confided to another—why he should yet reserve his hand unpledged—were not so imperative as to admit of no compromise. They might entail a sacrifice, and not a small one to a man of Graham’s views and ambition. But what is love if it can think any sacrifice, short of duty and honour, too great to offer up unknown uncomprehended, to the one beloved? Still, while thus softened in his feelings towards Isaura, he became, perhaps in consequence of such softening, more and more restlessly impatient to fulfil the object for which he had come to Paris, the great step towards which was the discovery of the undiscoverable Louise Duval.

He had written more than once to M. Renard since the interview with that functionary already recorded, demanding whether Renard had not made some progress in the research on which he was employed, and had received short unsatisfactory replies preaching patience and implying hope.