The Collection of Antiquities

And these were the only difficulties which the Marquis saw at the outset of his son’s career.

“My son, the Comte d’Esgrignon, cannot make his appearance at court like a tatterdemalion,” he continued after a pause, marked by a sigh; “he must be equipped. Alas! for these two hundred years we have had no retainers. Ah! Chevalier, this demolition from top to bottom always brings me back to the first hammer stroke delivered by M. de Mirabeau. The one thing needful nowadays is money; that is all that the Revolution has done that I can see. The King does not ask you whether you are a descendant of the Valois or a conquerer of Gaul; he asks whether you pay a thousand francs in tailles which nobles never used to pay. So I cannot well send the Count to court without a matter of twenty thousand crowns – ”

“Yes,” assented the Chevalier, “with that trifling sum he could cut a brave figure.”

“Well,” said Mlle. Armande, “I have asked Chesnel to come to-night. Would you believe it, Chevalier, ever since the day when Chesnel proposed that I should marry that miserable du Croisier – ”

“Ah! that was truly unworthy, mademoiselle!” cried the Chevalier.

“Unpardonable!” said the Marquis.

“Well, since then my brother has never brought himself to ask anything whatsoever of Chesnel,” continued Mlle. Armande.

“Of your old household servant? Why, Marquis, you would do Chesnel honor – an honor which he would gratefully remember till his latest breath.”

“No,” said the Marquis, “the thing is beneath one’s dignity, it seems to me.”

“There is not much question of dignity; it is a matter of necessity,” said the Chevalier, with the trace of a shrug.

“Never,” said the Marquis, riposting with a gesture which decided the Chevalier to risk a great stroke to open his old friend’s eyes.

“Very well,” he said, “since you do not know it, I will tell you myself that Chesnel has let your son have something already, something like – ”

“My son is incapable of accepting anything whatever from Chesnel,” the Marquis broke in, drawing himself up as he spoke. “He might have come to you to ask you for twenty-five louis – ”

“Something like a hundred thousand livres,” said the Chevalier, finishing his sentence.

“The Comte d’Esgrignon owes a hundred thousand livres to a Chesnel!” 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.