IN THE YEAR 1817.
[CHAPTER I.]
THE YEAR 1817.
1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal coolness which was not deficient in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguière de Sorsum was celebrated. All the wig-makers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, were covered with azure and fleurs de lys. It was the candid time when Count Lynch sat every Sunday as churchwarden at St. Germain-des-Près in the coat of a peer of France, with his red ribbon, his long nose, and that majestic profile peculiar to a man who has done a brilliant deed. The brilliant deed done by M. Lynch was having, when Mayor of Bordeaux, surrendered the town rather prematurely on March 12, 1814, to the Duc d'Angoulême; hence his peerage. In 1817 fashion buried little boys of the age of six and seven beneath vast morocco leather caps with earflaps, much resembling Esquimaux fur-bonnets. The French army was dressed in white, like the Austrian; the regiments were called Legions, and bore the names of the departments instead of numbers. Napoleon was at St Helena, and as England refused him green cloth he had his old coats turned. In 1817 Pellegrini sang, and Mlle. Bigottini danced, Potier reigned, and Odry was not as yet. Madame Saqui succeeded Forioso. There were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy had just strengthened itself by cutting off the hand and then the head of Pleignier, Carbonneau, and Tolleron. Prince de Talleyrand, Lord High Chamberlain, and the Abbé Louis, Minister Designate of Finance, looked at each other with the laugh of two augurs. Both had celebrated on July 14, 1790, the Mass of the confederation in the Champ de Mars. Talleyrand had read it as bishop, Louis had served it as deacon. In 1817, in the side walks of the same Champ de Mars, could be seen large wooden cylinders, lying in the wet and rotting in the grass, painted blue, with traces of eagles and bees which had lost their gilding. These were the columns which two years previously supported the Emperor's balcony at the Champ de Mai. They were partly blackened by the bivouac fires of the Austrians encamped near Gros Caillou, and two or three of the columns had disappeared in the bivouac fires, and warmed the coarse hands of the Kaiserlichs. The Champ de Mai had this remarkable thing about it, that it was held in the month of June, and on the Champ de Mars. In this year, 1817, two things were popular,—the Voltaire Touquet and the snuff-box à la charte. The latest Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who threw his brother's head into the basin on the Flower Market. People were beginning to grow anxious at the Admiralty that no news arrived about that fatal frigate la Méduse, which was destined to cover Chaumareix with shame and Géricault with glory. Colonel Selves proceeded to Egypt to become Soliman Pacha there. The palace of the Thermes, in the Rue de la Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On the platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, could still be seen the little wooden house, which had served as an observatory for Messier, astronomer to the Admiralty under Louis XVI. The Duchesse de Duras was reading to three or four friends in her boudoir furnished with sky-blue satin X's, her unpublished romance of Ourika. The N's were scratched off the Louvre. The Austerlitz bridge was forsworn, and called the Kings' Gardens' bridge,—a double enigma which at once disguised the Austerlitz bridge and the Jardin des Plantes. Louis XVIII., while annotating Horace with his nail, was troubled by heroes who make themselves emperors and cobblers who make themselves dauphins; he had two objects of anxiety,—Napoleon and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy offered as subject for the prize essay the happiness produced by study. M. Billart was officially eloquent; and in his shadow could be seen growing up that future Advocate-General de Broë, promised to the sarcasms of Paul Louis Courier. There was a false Châteaubriand called Marchangy, while waiting till there should be a false Marchangy, called d'Arlincourt. "Claire d'Albe" and "Malek-Adel" were master-pieces; and Madame Cottin was declared the first writer of the age. The Institute erased from its lists the Academician Napoleon Bonaparte. A royal decree constituted Angoulême a naval school, for, as the Duc d'Angoulême was Lord High Admiral, it was evident that the city from which he derived his title possessed de jure all the qualifications of a seaport; if not, the monarchical principle would be encroached on. In the cabinet-council the question was discussed whether the wood-cuts representing tumblers, which seasoned Franconi's bills and caused the street scamps to congregate, should be tolerated. M. Paër, author of l'Agnese, a square-faced man with a carbuncle on his chin, directed the private concerts of the Marchioness de Sassenaye in the Rue de la Ville'd'Evêque. All the young ladies were singing, "L'ermite de Saint Avelle," words by Edmond Géraud. The Yellow Dwarf was transformed into the Mirror. The Café Lemblin stood up for the Emperor against the Café Valois, which supported the Bourbons. The Duc de Berry, whom Louvel was already gazing at from the darkness, had just been married to a princess of Sicily. It was a year since Madame de Staël had died. The Life Guards hissed Mademoiselle Mars. The large papers were all small; their size was limited, but the liberty was great. The Constitutionnel was constitutional, and the Minerva called Châteaubriand, Châteaubriant; this t made the city laugh heartily, at the expense of the great writer. Prostituted journalists insulted in sold journals the proscripts of 1815. David had no longer talent, Arnault wit, Carnot probity. Soult never had won a battle. It is true that Napoleon no longer had genius. Everybody knows that it is rare for letters sent by post to reach an exile, for the police make it a religious duty to intercept them. The fact is not new, for Descartes when banished complained of it. David having displayed some temper in a Belgian paper at not receiving letters written to him, this appeared very amusing to the Royalist journals, which ridiculed the proscribed man. The use of the words regicides or voters, enemies or allies, Napoleon or Buonaparte, separated two men more than an abyss. All persons of common sense were agreed that the era of revolutions was eternally closed by Louis XVIII., surnamed "the immortal author of the Charter." On the platform of the Pont Neuf the word "Redivivus" was carved on the pedestal which was awaiting the statue of Henri IV. M. Piet was excogitating at No. 4 Rue Thérèse his council to consolidate the monarchy. The leaders of the Right said in grave complications, "Bacot must be written to." Messieurs Canuel, O'Mahony, and de Chappedelaine, were sketching under the covert approval of Monsieur what was destined to be at a later date "the conspiracy du Bord de l'eau." The "Black Pin" was plotting on its side. Delaverderie was coming to an understanding with Trogoff. M. Decazes, a rather liberally-minded man, was in the ascendant. Châteaubriand, standing each morning at his No. 27 Rue Saint Dominique, in trousers and slippers, with his gray hair fastened by a handkerchief, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, and a case of dentist's instruments open before him,—was cleaning his teeth, which were splendid, while dictating "the Monarchy according to the Charter" to M. Pilorge, his secretary. Authoritative critics preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Feletz signed A; M. Hoffman signed Z. Charles Nodier was writing "Thérèse Aubert." Divorce was abolished. The lyceums were called colleges. The collegians, with a gold fleur de lys on their collar, were fighting about the King of Rome. The counter-police of the Château denounced to her Royal Highness Madame, the universally exposed portrait of the Duc d'Orléans, who looked much handsomer in his uniform of Colonel General of Hussars than the Duc de Berry did in his uniform as Colonel General of Dragoons, which was a serious annoyance. The city of Paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilt at its own cost. Serious-minded men asked themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do in such and such a case. M. Clausel de Montais diverged on certain points from M. Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. Picard the comedian, who belonged to the Academy of which Molière was not a member, was playing the two Philiberts at the Odéon, on the façade of which could still be distinctly read: THÉÂTRE DE L'IMPÉRATRICE, although the letters had been torn down. People were taking sides for or against Cugnet de Montarlot. Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary; Pelicier the publisher brought out an edition of Voltaire with the title "The Works of Voltaire, of the Académie Française." "That catches purchasers," the simple publisher said. It was the general opinion that M. Charles Loyson would be the genius of the age; envy was beginning to snap at him, which is a sign of glory, and the following line was written about him.
"Même quand Loyson vole, on sent qu'il a des pattes."
As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasia, was administering the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel about the Dappes valley began between Switzerland and France, through a memorial of Captain Dufour, who has since become a general. Saint Simon, utterly ignored, was building up his sublime dream. There were in the Academy of Sciences a celebrated Fourier whom posterity has forgotten, and in some obscure garret a Fourier whom the future will remember. Lord Byron was beginning to culminate; a note to a poem of Millevoye's announced him to France in these terms, "un certain Lord Baron." David d'Angers was trying to mould marble. The Abbé Caron spoke in terms of praise to a select audience in the Alley of the Feuillantines of an unknown priest called Félicité Robert, who was at a later date Lamennais. A thing that smoked and plashed on the Seine with the noise of a swimming dog, went under the Tuileries windows from the Pont Royal to the Pont Louis XV.; it was a mechanism not worth much, a sort of plaything, a reverie of a dreamy inventor, an Utopia: a steamboat. The Parisians looked at this useless thing with indifference. M. de Vaublanc, reformer of the Institute by coup d'état, and distinguished author of several academicians, after making them, could not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg St Germain and the Pavilion Marson desired to have M. Delvau as Prefect of police on account of his devotion. Dupuytren and Récamier quarrelled in the theatre of the School of Medicine, and were going to fight about the divinity of the Saviour. Cuvier, with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, was striving to please the bigoted reaction by placing forms in harmony with texts, and letting Moses be flattered by the Mastodons. M. François de Neufchâteau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory of Parmentier, was making a thousand efforts to have "pommes de terre" pronounced "parmentière," but did not succeed. The Abbé Grégoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionalist, and ex-senator, had reached in the royal polemics the state of the "infamous Grégoire," which was denounced as a neologism by M. Royer-Collard. In the third arch of the Pont de Jéna, the new stone could still be distinguished through its whiteness, with which two years previously the mine formed by Blucher to blow up the bridge was stopped up. Justice summoned to her bar a man who, on seeing the Comte d'Artois enter Notre Dame, said aloud: "Sapristi! I regret the days when I saw Napoleon and Talma enter the Bal Sauvage arm in arm," seditious remarks punished with six months' imprisonment.
Traitors displayed themselves unblushingly; some, who had passed over to the enemy on the eve of a battle, did not conceal their reward, but walked immodestly in the sunshine with the cynicism of wealth and dignities; the deserters at Ligny and Quatre Bras, well rewarded for their turpitude, openly displayed their monarchical devotion.
Such are a few recollections of the year 1817, which is now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these details, and cannot do otherwise, as the infinity would crush it. Still these details, wrongly called little,—there are no little facts in humanity or little leaves in vegetation,—are useful, for the face of ages is composed of the physiognomy of years.
In this year 1817 four young Parisians played a capital joke.
[CHAPTER II.]
A DOUBLE QUARTETTE.
These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, the second from Limoges, the third from Cahors, the fourth from Montauban, but they were students, and thus Parisians; for studying in Paris is being born in Paris. These young men were insignificant, four every-day specimens, neither good nor bad, wise nor ignorant, geniuses nor idiots, and handsome with that charming Aprilia which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars, for at that period Arthurs did not yet exist. "Burn for him the perfumes of Arabia," the romance said; "Oscar is advancing, I am about to see him." People had just emerged from Ossian: the elegant world was Scandinavian and Caledonian, the English style was not destined to prevail till a later date, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had only just won the battle of Waterloo.
The names of these Oscars were Félix Tholomyès, of Toulouse; Listolier, of Cahors; Fameuil, of Limoges; and Blachevelle, of Montauban. Of course each had a mistress; Blachevelle loved Favourite, so called because she had been to England; Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken the name of a flower for her nom de guerre; Fameuil idolized Zéphine, an abridgment of Josephine; while Tholomyès had Fantine, called the Blonde, owing to her magnificent suncolored hair. Favourite, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Fantine were four exquisitely pretty girls, still to some extent workwomen. They had not entirely laid down the needle, and though unsettled by their amourettes, they still had in their faces a remnant of the serenity of toil, and in their souls that flower of honesty, which in a woman survives the first fall. One of the four was called the young one, because she was the youngest, and one called the old one, who was only three-and-twenty. To conceal nothing, the three first were more experienced, more reckless, and had flown further into the noise of life than Fantine the Blonde, who was still occupied with her first illusion.
Dahlia, Zéphine, and especially Favourite, could not have said the same. There was already more than one episode in their scarce-begun romance, and the lover who was called Adolphe in the first chapter, became Alphonse in the second, and Gustave in the third. Poverty and coquettishness are two fatal counsellors: one scolds, the other flatters, and the poor girls of the lower classes have them whispering in both ears. Badly-guarded souls listen, and hence come the falls they make, and the stones hurled at them. They are crushed with the splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jungfrau had hunger? Favourite, who had been to England, was admired by Zéphine and Dahlia. She had a home of her own from an early age. Her father was an old brutal and boasting professor of mathematics, unmarried, and still giving lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when a young man, had one day seen a lady's maid's gown caught in a fender; he fell in love with this accident, and Favourite was the result. She met her father from time to time, and he bowed to her. One morning, an old woman with a hypocritical look came into her room and said, "Do you not know me, Miss?" "No." "I am your mother." Then the old woman opened the cupboard, ate and drank, sent for a mattress she had, and installed herself. This mother, who was grumbling and proud, never spoke to Favourite, sat for hours without saying a word, breakfasted, dined, and supped for half a dozen, and spent her evenings in the porter's lodge, where she abused her daughter. What drew Dahlia toward Listolier, towards others perhaps, towards idleness, was having too pretty pink nails. How could she employ such nails in working? A girl who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her hands. As for Zéphine, she had conquered Fameuil by her little saucy and coaxing way of saying "Yes, Sir." The young men were comrades, the girls friends. Such amours are always doubled by such friendships.
A sage and a philosopher are two persons; and what proves it is that, after making all reservations for these little irregular households, Favourite, Zéphine, and Dahlia were philosophic girls, and Fantine a prudent girl. Prudent, it will be said, and Tholomyès? Solomon would reply, that love forms part of wisdom. We confine ourselves to saying that Fantine's love was a first love, a single love, a faithful love. She was the only one of the four who was addressed familiarly by one man alone.
Fantine was one of those beings who spring up from the dregs of the people; issuing from the lowest depths of the social darkness, she had on her forehead the stamp of the anonymous and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M.; of what parents, who could say? She had never known either father or mother. She called herself Fantine, and why Fantine? She was never known by any other name. At the period of her birth, the Directory was still in existence. She had no family name, as she had no family; and no Christian name, as the Church was abolished. She accepted the name given her by the first passer-by, who saw her running barefooted about the streets. She was called little Fantine, and no one knew any more. This human creature came into the world in that way. At the age of ten, Fantine left the town, and went into service with farmers in the neighborhood. At the age of fifteen she went to Paris, "to seek her fortune." Fantine was pretty and remained pure as long as she could. She was a charming blonde, with handsome teeth; she had gold and pearls for her dower, but the gold was on her head, and the pearls in her mouth.
She worked for a livelihood; and then she loved, still for the sake of living, for the heart is hungry too. She loved Tholomyès; it was a pastime for him, but a passion with her. The streets of the Quartier Latin, which are thronged with students and grisettes, saw the beginning of this dream. Fantine, in the labyrinth of the Pantheon Hill, where so many adventures are fastened and unfastened, long shunned Tholomyès, but in such a way as to meet him constantly. There is a manner of avoiding which resembles seeking,—in a word, the eclogue was played.
Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group, of which Tholomyès was the head, for it was he who had the wit. Tholomyès was the antique old student; he was rich, for he had an income of 4000 francs a year, a splendid scandal on the Montagne St. Geneviève. Tholomyès was a man of the world, thirty years of age, and in a bad state of preservation. He was wrinkled and had lost teeth, and he had an incipient baldness, of which he himself said without sorrow: "The skull at thirty, the knee at forty." He had but a poor digestion, and one of his eyes was permanently watery. But in proportion as his youth was extinguished, his gayety became brighter; he substituted jests for his teeth, joy for his hair, irony for his health, and his weeping eye laughed incessantly. He was battered, but still flowering. His youth had beaten an orderly retreat, and only the fire was visible. He had had a piece refused at the Vaudeville Theatre, and wrote occasional verses now and then. In addition, he doubted everything in a superior way, which is a great strength in the eyes of the weak. Hence, being ironical and bald, he was the leader. We wonder whether irony, is derived from the English word "iron"? One day Tholomyès took the other three aside, made an oracular gesture, and said,—
"It is nearly a year that Fantine, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Favorite have been asking us to give them a surprise, and we promised solemnly to do so. They are always talking about it, especially to me. In the same way as the old women of Naples cry to Saint Januarius, "Yellow face, perform your miracle!" our beauties incessantly say to me, "Tholomyès, when will you be delivered of your surprise?" At the same time our parents are writing to us, so let us kill two birds with one stone. The moment appears to me to have arrived, so let us talk it over."
Upon this, Tholomyès lowered his voice, and mysteriously uttered something so amusing that a mighty and enthusiastic laugh burst from four mouths simultaneously, and Blacheville exclaimed "That is an idea!" An estaminet full of smoke presenting itself, they went in, and the remainder of their conference was lost in the tobacco clouds. The result of the gloom was a brilliant pleasure excursion, that took place on the following Sunday, to which the four young men invited the girls.
[CHAPTER III.]
FOUR TO FOUR.
It is difficult to form an idea at the present day of what a pleasure party of students and grisettes was four-and-forty years ago. Paris has no longer the same environs; the face of what may be termed circum-Parisian life has completely changed during half a century; where there was the old-fashioned coach, there is a railway-carriage; where there was the fly-boat, there is now the steamer; people talk of Fécamp as people did in those days of St. Cloud. Paris of 1862 is a city which has France for its suburbs.
The four couples conscientiously accomplished all the rustic follies possible at that day. It was a bright warm summer day; they rose at five o'clock; then they went to St. Cloud in the stage-coach, looked at the dry cascade, and exclaimed, "That must be grand when there is water;" breakfasted at the Tête Noire, where Castaing had not yet put up, ran at the ring in the Quincunx of the great basin, ascended into the Diogenes lantern, gambled for macaroons at the roulette board by the Sêvres bridge, culled posies at Puteaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and were perfectly happy. The girls prattled and chattered like escaped linnets; they were quite wild, and every now and then gave the young men little taps. Oh, youthful intoxication of life! adorable years! the wing of the dragon-fly rustles. Oh, whoever you may be, do you remember? have you ever walked in the woods, removing the branches for the sake of the pretty head that comes behind you? have you laughingly stepped on a damp slope, with a beloved woman who holds your hand, and cries, "Oh, my boots, what a state they are in!" Let us say at once, that the merry annoyance of a shower was spared the happy party, although Favourite had said on starting, with a magisterial and maternal air, "The slugs are walking about the paths; that is a sign of rain, children."
All four were pretty madcaps. A good old classic poet, then renowned, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, a worthy man who had an Eléanore, wandering that day under the chestnut-trees of St. Cloud, saw them pass at about ten in the morning, and exclaimed, "There is one too many," thinking of the Graces. Favourite, the girl who was three-and-twenty and the old one, ran in front under the large green branches, leaped over ditches, strode madly across bushes, and presided over the gayety with the spirit of a young fawn. Zéphine and Dahlia, whom accident had created as a couple necessary to enhance each other's beauty by contrast, did not separate, though more through a coquettish instinct than through friendship, and leaning on one another, assumed English attitudes; the first "Keepsakes" had just come out, melancholy was culminating for women, as Byronism did at a later date for men, and the hair of the tender sex was beginning to become dishevelled. Zéphine and Dahlia had their hair in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, who were engaged in a discussion about their professors, were explaining to Fantine the difference there was between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau. Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite's faded shabby shawl on Sundays.
Tholomyès came last; he was very gay, but there was something commanding in his joviality; his principal ornament was nankeen trousers, cut in the shape of elephant's legs, with leathern straps; he had a mighty rattan worth 200 francs in his hand, and, as he was quite reckless, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth; nothing being sacred to him, he smoked. "That Tholomyès is astounding," the others were wont to say with veneration. "What trousers! what energy!"
As for Fantine she was the personification of joy. Her splendid teeth had evidently been made for laughter by nature. She carried in her hand, more willingly than on her head, her little straw bonnet, with its long streamers. Her thick, light hair, inclined to float, and which had to be done up continually, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the willows. Her rosy lips prattled enchantingly; the corners of her mouth voluptuously raised, as in the antique masks of Erigone, seemed to encourage boldness; but her long eyelashes, full of shade, were discreetly lowered upon the seductiveness of the lower part of the face, as if to command respect. Her whole toilet had something of song and sunshine about it; she had on a dress of mauve barége, little buskin slippers, whose strings formed an X on her fine, open-worked stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseillais invention, whose name of canezou, a corrupted pronunciation of quinze Août at the Cannebière, signifies fine weather and heat. The three others, who were less timid, as we said, bravely wore low-necked dresses, which in summer are very graceful and attractive, under bonnets covered with flowers; but by the side of this bold dress, Fantine's canezou, with its transparency, indiscretion, and reticences, at once concealing and displaying, seemed a provocative invention of decency; and the famous Court of Love, presided over by the Vicomtesse de Cette with the sea-green eyes, would have probably bestowed the prize for coquettishness on this canezou, which competed for that of chastity. The simplest things are frequently the cleverest.
Dazzling from a front view, delicate from a side view, with dark blue eyes, heavy eye-lids, arched and small feet, wrists and ankles admirably set on, the white skin displaying here and there the azure arborescences of the veins, with a childish fresh cheek, the robust neck of the Æginetan Juno shoulders, apparently modelled by Couston, and having in their centre a voluptuous dimple, visible through the muslin; a gayety tempered by reverie; a sculptural and exquisite being,—such was Fantine; you could trace beneath the ribbons and finery a statue, and inside the statue a soul. Fantine was beautiful, without being exactly conscious of it. Those rare dreamers, the mysterious priests of the beautiful, who silently confront everything with perfection, would have seen in this little work-girl the ancient sacred euphony, through the transparency of Parisian grace! This girl had blood in her, and had those two descriptions of beauty which are the style and the rhythm. The style is the form of the ideal; the rhythm is its movement.
We have said that Fantine was joy itself; she was also modesty. Any one who watched her closely would have seen through all this intoxication of youth, the season, and love, an invincible expression of restraint and modesty. She remained slightly astonished, and this chaste astonishment distinguishes Psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long white delicate fingers of the Vestal, who stirs up the sacred fire with a golden bodkin. Though she had refused nothing, as we shall soon see, to Tholomyès, her face, when in repose, was supremely virginal; a species of stern and almost austere dignity suddenly invaded it at certain hours, and nothing was so singular and affecting as to see gayety so rapidly extinguished on it, and contemplation succeed cheerfulness without any transition. This sudden gravity, which was at times sternly marked, resembled the disdain of a goddess. Her forehead, nose, and chin offered that equilibrium of outline which is very distinct from the equilibrium of proportion, and produces the harmony of the face; in the characteristic space between the base of the nose and the upper lip, she had that imperceptible and charming curve, that mysterious sign of chastity, which made Barbarossa fall in love with a Diana found in the ruins of Iconium. Love is a fault; be it so; but Fantine was innocence floating on the surface of the fault.
[CHAPTER IV.]
THOLOMYÈS SINGS A SPANISH SONG.
The whole of this day seemed to be composed of dawn; all nature seemed to be having a holiday, and laughing. The pastures of St. Cloud exhaled perfumes; the breeze from the Seine vaguely stirred the leaves; the branches gesticulated in the wind; the bees were plundering the jessamine; a madcap swarm of butterflies settled down on the ragwort, the clover, and the wild oats; there was in the august park of the King of France a pack of vagabonds, the birds. The four happy couples enjoyed the sun, the fields, the flowers, and the trees. And in this community of Paradise, the girls, singing, talking, dancing, chasing butterflies, picking bind-weed, wetting their stockings in the tall grass, fresh, madcap, not bad, all received kisses from all the men, every now and then, save Fantine, enveloped in her vague resistance, dreamy and shy, and who was in love. "You always look strange," Favourite said to her.
Such passings-by of happy couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and bring caresses and light out of everything. Once upon a time there was a fairy, who made fields and trees expressly for lovers; hence the eternal hedge-school of lovers, which incessantly recommences, and will last so long as there are bushes and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers; the patrician and the knifegrinder, the duke and the limb of the law, people of the court and people of the city, as they were called formerly, are all subjects of this fairy. People laugh and seek each other; there is the brilliancy of an apotheosis in the air, for what a transfiguration is loving! Notary's clerks are gods. And then the little shrieks, pursuits in the grass, waists caught hold of, that chattering which is so melodious, that adoration which breaks out in the way of uttering a word, cherries torn from lips,—all this is glorious! People believe that it will never end; philosophers, poets, artists, regard these ecstasies, and know not what to do, as they are so dazzled by them. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter of the middle classes, regards his cits flying away in the blue sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these amourettes, and d'Urfé mixes up Druids with them.
After breakfast the four couples went to see, in what was then called the King's Square, a plant newly arrived from the Indies, whose name we have forgotten, but which at that time attracted all Paris to St. Cloud; it was a strange and pretty shrub, whose numerous branches, fine as threads and leafless, were covered with a million of small white flowers giving it the appearance of a head of hair swarming with flowers; there was always a crowd round it, admiring it. After inspecting the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, "I will pay for donkeys;" and after making a bargain with the donkey-man, they returned by Vauvres and Issy. At the latter place an incident occurred; the park, a national estate held at this time by Bourguin the contractor, was accidentally open. They passed through the gates, visited the wax hermit in his grotto, and tried the mysterious effect of the famous cabinet of mirrors, a lascivious trap, worthy of a satyr who had become a millionnaire. They bravely pulled the large swing, fastened to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis. While swinging the ladies in turn, which produced, amid general laughter, a flying of skirts by which Greuze would have profited, the Toulousian Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, as Toulouse is the cousin of Tolosa, sang to a melancholy tune the old gallega, which was probably inspired by the sight of a pretty girl swinging between two trees,—
"Soy tie Badajoz
Amor me llama
Toda mi alma
Es en mis ojos
Porque enseflas
A tus piernas."
Fantine alone declined to swing.
"I do not like people to be so affected," Favourite muttered rather sharply.
On giving up the donkeys there was fresh pleasure; the Seine was crossed in a boat, and from Passy they walked to the Barrière de l'Étoile. They had been afoot since five in the morning; but no matter! "There is no such thing as weariness on Sunday," said Favourite; "on Sundays fatigue does not work." At about three o'clock, the four couples, wild with delight, turned into the Montagnes Busses, a singular building, which at that time occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose winding line could be seen over the trees of the Champs Élysées. From time to time Favourite exclaimed,—
"Where's the surprise? I insist on the surprise."
"Have patience," Tholomyès answered.
[CHAPTER V.]
AT BOMBARDA'S.
The Russian mountain exhausted, they thought about dinner, and the radiant eight, at length somewhat weary, put into the Cabaret Bombarda, an offshoot established in the Champs Élysées by that famous restaurateur Bombarda, whose sign could be seen at that time at the Rue de Rivoli by the side of the Delorme passage.
A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (owing to the crowded state of the houses on Sundays they were compelled to put up with it); two windows from which the quay and river could be contemplated through the elm-trees; a magnificent autumn sun illumining the windows; two tables, on one of them a triumphal mountain of bottles, mixed up with hats and bonnets, at the other four couples joyously seated round a mass of dishes, plates, bottles, and glasses, pitchers of beer, mingled with wine-bottles; but little order on the table, and some amount of disorder under it.
"Ils faisaient sous la table
Un bruit, un trique-trac de pieds épouvantable,"
as Molière says. Such was the state of the pastoral which began at 5 A.M.; at half-past 4 P.M. the sun was declining and appetite was satisfied.
The Champs Élysées, full of sunshine and crowd, were nought but light and dust, two things of which glory is composed. The horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, reared amid a golden cloud. Carriages continually passed along; a squadron of splendid guards, with the trumpeter at their head, rode down the Neuilly avenue; the white flag, tinged with pink by the setting sun, floated above the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde, which had again become the Place Louis XV., was crowded with merry promenaders. Many wore a silver fleur de lys hanging from a black moiré ribbon, which, in 1817, had not entirely disappeared from the buttonholes. Here and there, in the midst of applauding crowds, little girls were singing a royalist bourrée, very celebrated at that time, intended to crush the hundred days, and which had a chorus of,—
"Rendez nous notre père de Gand,
Rendez vous notre père."
Heaps of suburbans, dressed in their Sunday clothes, and some wearing fleur de lys like the cits, were scattered over the squares, playing at quintain or riding in roundabouts; others were drinking; some who were printers' apprentices wore paper caps, and their laughter was the loudest. All was radiant; it was a time of undeniable peace, and of profound royalist security; it was a period when a private and special report of Anglès, prefect of police to the King, terminated with these lines: "All things duly considered, Sire, there is nothing to fear from these people. They are as careless and indolent as cats, and though the lower classes in the provinces are stirring, those in Paris are not so. They are all little men, Sire, and it would take two of them to make one of your grenadiers. There is nothing to fear from the populace of the capital. It is remarkable that their height has decreased during the last fifty years, and the people of the suburbs of Paris are shorter than they were before the Revolution. They are not dangerous, and, in a word, are good-tempered canaille."
Prefects of police do not believe it possible that a cat can be changed into a lion; it is so, however, and that is the miracle of the people of Paris. The cat, so despised by Count Anglès, possessed the esteem of the old Republics; it was the incarnation of liberty in their eyes, and as if to serve as a pendant to the Minerva Apteros of the Piræus, there was on the public square of Corinth a colossal bronze statue of a cat. The simple police of the restoration had too favorable an opinion of the people of Paris, and they were not such good-tempered canaille as they were supposed to be. The Parisian is to the French-man what the Athenian is to the Greek; no one sleeps sounder than he; no one is more frankly frivolous and idle than he; no one can pretend to forget so well as he,—but he must not be trusted; he is suited for every species of nonchalance, but when there is a glory as the result, he is admirable for every sort of fury. Give him a pike and he will make August 10; give him a musket, and you will have Austerlitz. He is the support of Napoleon, and the resource of Danton. If the country is in danger, he enlists; if liberty is imperilled, he tears up the pavement. His hair, full of wrath, is epical, his blouse assumes the folds of a chlamys. Take care; for of the first Rue Grenétat he comes to be will make Caudine forks. If the hour strikes, this suburban grows, the little man looks in a terrible manner, his breath becomes a tempest, and from his weak chest issues a blast strong enough to uproot the Alps. It was through the Parisian suburban that the Revolution, joined with armies, conquered Europe. He sings, and that forms his delight; proportion his song to his nature, and you shall see! So long as he has no burden but the Carmagnole, he will merely overthrow Louis XVI.; but make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will deliver the world.
After writing this note on the margin of Count Anglès' report, we will return to our four couples. The dinner, as we said, was drawing to a close.
[CHAPTER VI.]
IN WHICH PEOPLE ADORE EACH OTHER.
Love talk and table talk are equally indescribable, for the first is a cloud, the second smoke. Fantine and Dahlia were humming a tune, Tholomyès was drinking, Zéphine laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier was blowing a penny trumpet bought at St. Cloud, Favourite was looking tenderly at Blachevelle and saying,—
"Blachevelle, I adore you."
This led to Blachevelle asking,—
"What would you do, Favourite, if I ceased to love you?"
"I?" Favourite exclaimed, "oh, do not say that, even in fun! If you ceased to love me I would run after you, claw you, throw water over you, and have you arrested."
Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous fatuity of a man whose self-esteem is tickled. Dahlia, while still eating, whispered to Favourite through the noise,—
"You seem to be very fond of your Blachevelle?"
"I detest him," Favourite answered in the same key, as she seized her fork again. "He is miserly, and I prefer the little fellow who lives opposite to me. He is a very good-looking young man; do you know him? It is easy to see that he wants to be an actor, and I am fond of actors. So soon as he comes in, his mother says,—'Oh, good heavens! my tranquillity is destroyed: he is going to begin to shout; my dear boy, you give me a headache;' because he goes about the house, into the garrets as high as he can get, and sings and declaims, so that he can be heard from the streets! He already earns 20 sous a day in a lawyer's office. He is the son of an ex-chorister at St. Jacques du Haut Pas. Ah! he adores me to such a pitch that one day when he saw me making batter for pancakes, he said to me, 'Mamselle, make fritters of your gloves, and I will eat them.' Only artists are able to say things like that. Ah! he is very good-looking, and I feel as if I am about to fall madly in love with the little fellow. No matter, I tell Blachevelle that I adore him: what a falsehood, eh, what a falsehood!"
After a pause, Favourite continued,—
"Dahlia, look you, I am sad. It has done nothing but rain all the summer: the wind annoys me, Blachevelle is excessively mean, there are hardly any green peas in the market, one does not know what to eat; I have the spleen, as the English say, for butter is so dear; and then it is horrifying that we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life."
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS.
At length, when all were singing noisily, or talking all together, Tholomyès interfered.
"Let us not talk hap-hazard or too quickly," he exclaimed; "we must meditate if we desire to be striking; too much improvisation stupidly empties the mind. Gentlemen, no haste; let us mingle majesty with our gayety, eat contemplatively, and let festina lente be our rule. We must not hurry. Look at the Spring; if it goes ahead too fast it is floored, that is to say, nipped by frost. Excessive zeal ruins the peach and apricot trees; excessive zeal kills the grace and joy of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen; Grimaud de la Reynière is of the same opinion as Talleyrand."
A dull rebellion broke out in the party.
"Tholomyès, leave us at peace," said Blachevelle.
"Down with the tyrant!" said Fameuil.
"Sunday exists," Listolier added.
"We are sober," Fameuil remarked again.
"Tholomyès," said Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness" (mon calme.)
"You are the Marquis of that ilk," Tholomyès replied. This poor pun produced the effect of a stone thrown into a pond. The Marquis de Montcalm was a celebrated Royalist at that day. All the frogs were silent.
"My friends," Tholomyès shouted with the accent of a man who is recapturing his empire, "recover yourselves: too great stupor should not greet this pun which has fallen from the clouds, for everything that falls in such a manner is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. Far be from me to insult puns: I honor them according to their deserts, and no more. All the most august, sublime, and charming in humanity and perhaps beyond humanity have played upon words. Christ made a pun on Saint Peter, Moses on Isaac, Æschylus on Polynices, and Cleopatra on Octavius. And note the fact that Cleopatra's pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that, were it not for that pun, no one would know the town of Toryne, a Greek word signifying a potladle. This granted, I return to my exhortation. Brethren, I repeat, no zeal, no row, no excess, even in witticisms, gayeties, merriments, and playing upon words. Listen to me, for I possess the prudence of Amphiaralis and the baldness of Cæsar; there should be a limit even to the rebus. Est modus in rebus. There should be a limit even to dinners; you are fond of apple-puffs, ladies, but no abuse; even in the matter of apple-puffs, good sense and art are needed. Gluttony chastises the glutton. Gula punit gulax. Indigestion was sent into the world to read a lecture to our stomachs; and, bear this in mind, each of our passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In all things, we must write betimes the word finis, we must restrain ourselves when it becomes urgent, put a bolt on our appetites, lock up our fancy, and place ourselves under arrest. The wise man is he who knows how, at a given moment, to arrest himself. Place some confidence in me: it does not follow because I know a little law, as my examinations prove; because I have supported a thesis in Latin as to the mode in which torture was applied at Rome at the time when Munatius Demens was quæstor parricidæ; and because I am going to be a Doctor at Law, as it seems,—it does not necessarily follow, I say, that I am an ass. I recommend to you moderation in your desires. As truly as my name is Félix Tholomyès, I am speaking the truth. Happy the man who, when the hour has struck, forms an heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origen."
Favourite was listening with profound attention. "Félix!" she said, "what a pretty name; I like it. It is Latin, and means happy."
Tholomyès continued,—
"Gentlemen, be suspicious of women; woe to the man who surrenders himself to a woman's fickle heart; woman is perfidious and tortuous, and detests the serpent from professional jealousy. It is the shop opposite."
"Tholomyès," Blachevelle shouted, "you are drunk."
"I hope so!"
"Then be jolly."
"I am agreeable," Tholomyès answered. And filling his glass, he rose.
"Glory to wine! nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon, ladies, that is Spanish, and the proof, Señoras, is this: as the country is, so is the measure. The arroba of Castille contains sixteen quarts, the cantaro of Alicante twelve, the almuda of the Canary Isles twenty-five, the cuartino of the Balearic Isles twenty-six, and Czar Peter's boot thirty. Long live the Czar who was great, and his boot which was greater still! Ladies, take a friend's advice; deceive your neighbor, if you think proper. The peculiarity of love is to wander, and it is not made to crouch like an English servant girl who has stiff knees from scrubbing. It is said that error is human; but I say, error is amorous. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zéphine, you with your seductive face, you would be charming were you not all askew; your face looks for all the world as if it had been sat upon by mistake. As for Favourite, O ye Nymphs and Muses! one day when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau, he saw a pretty girl with white, well-drawn-up stockings, who displayed her legs. The prologue was pleasing, and Blachevelle fell in love; the girl he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, you have Ionian lips; there was a Greek painter of the name of Euphorion, who was christened the painter of lips, and this Greek alone would be worthy to paint your mouth. Listen to me: before you there was not a creature deserving of the name; you are made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve. Beauty begins with you, and you deserve a patent for inventing a pretty woman. You alluded to my name just now; it affected me deeply, but we must be distrustful of names, for they may be deceptive. My name is Félix, and yet I am not happy. Let us not blindly accept the indications they give us; it would be a mistake to write to Liège for corks, or to Pau for gloves.[1] Miss Dahlia, in your place I would call myself Rose, for a flower ought to smell agreeably, and a woman have spirit. I say nothing of Fantine, for she is a dreamer, pensive and sensitive; she is a phantom, having the form of a nymph, and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but takes shelter in illusions, and who sings, prays, and looks at the blue sky, without exactly knowing what she sees or what she does, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders about a garden in which there are more birds than ever existed. O Fantine, be aware of this fact: I, Tholomyès, am an illusion—why, the fair girl of chimeræ is not even listening to me! All about her is freshness, suavity, youth, and sweet morning brightness. O Fantine, girl worthy to be called Margaret or Pearl, you are a woman of the fairest East. Ladies, here is a second piece of advice; do not marry, for marriage is a risk, and you had better shun it. But nonsense! I am wasting my words! girls are incurable about wedlock; and all that we sages may say will not prevent waistcoat-makers and shoebinders from dreaming of husbands loaded with diamonds. Well, beauties, be it so: but bear this in mind, you eat too much sugar. You have only one fault, O women, and that is nibbling sugar. O rodent sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, listen to this: sugar is a salt, and salts are of a drying nature, and sugar is the most drying of all salts. It pumps out the fluidity of the blood through the veins; this produces first coagulation and then solidifying of the blood; from this come tubercles in the lungs, and thence death. Hence do not nibble sugar, and you will live. I now turn to my male hearers: Gentlemen, make conquests. Rob one another of your well-beloved ones remorselessly; change partners, for, in love there are no friends. Whenever there is a pretty woman, hostilities are opened; there is no quarter, but war to the knife! a pretty woman is a casus belli and a flagrant offence. All the invasions of history were produced by petticoats; for woman is the lawful prey of man. Romulus carried off the Sabine women, William the Saxon women, and Cæsar the Roman women. A man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men: and for my part, I offer all these unfortunate widowers, Bonaparte's sublime proclamation to the army of Italy: 'Soldiers, you want for everything; the enemy possesses it.'"
Here Tholomyès broke off.
"Take a breather, my boy," said Blachevelle.
At the same time the other three gentlemen struck up to a doleful air one of those studio-songs, as destitute of sense as the motion of a tree or the sound of the wind, which are composed extemporaneously, either in rhyme or prose, which spring up from the smoke of pipes, and fly away with it. The song was not adapted to calm Tholomyès' inspiration; hence he emptied his glass, filled it again, and began once more.
"Down with wisdom! forget all I have said to you. Be neither prudish, nor prudent, nor prud'hommes. I drink the health of jollity: so let us be jolly. Let us complete our legal studies by folly and good food, for indigestion should run in a curricle with digests. Let Justinian be the male and merriment the female! Live, O creation; the world is one large diamond; I am happy, and the birds are astounding. What a festival all around us; the nightingale is a gratis Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee. O Luxembourg! O ye Georgics of the Rue Madame and the Allée de l'Observatoire! O ye dreaming soldiers! O ye delicious nurses, who, while taking care of children, fancy what your own will be like! the Pampas of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odéon. My soul is flying away to the Virgin forests and the savannas. All is glorious: the flies are buzzing in the light; the sun has sneezed forth the humming-bird. Kiss me, Fantine!"
He made a mistake and kissed Favourite.
[1] An untranslatable pun based on chêne-liège and peau.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE DEATH OF A HORSE.
"It is a better dinner at Édon's than at Bombarda's," Zéphine exclaimed.
"I prefer Bombarda," Blachevelle declared; "there is more luxury: it is more Asiatic. Just look at the dining-room with its mirrors: look at the knives, they are silver-handled here and bone at Édon's; now, silver is more precious than bone."
"Excepting for those persons who have a silver chin," Tholomyès observed.
He was looking at this moment at the dome of the Invalides which was visible from Bombardas window. There was a pause.
"Tholomyès," cried Fameuil, "just now, Listolier and I had a discussion."
"A discussion is good," replied Tholomyès; "a quarrel is better."
"We discussed philosophy; which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?"
"Désangiers," said Tholomyès.
This judgment rendered, he continued,—
"I consent to live: all is not finished in the world. Since men can still be unreasonable, I return thanks to the immortal gods. Men lie, but they laugh: they affirm, but they doubt: and something unexpected issues from the syllogism. This is grand: there are still in the world human beings who can joyously open and shut the puzzle-box of paradox. This wine, ladies, which you are drinking so calmly, is Madeira, you must know, grown at Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen toises above the sea level. Attention while drinking! three hundred and seventeen toises, and M. Bombarda, the magnificent restaurateur, lets you have these three hundred and seventeen toises for four francs, fifty centimes."
Tholomyès drained his glass and then continued:
"Honor to Bombarda! he would be equal to Memphis of Elephanta if he could ladle me up an Almeh, and to Thygelion of Cheronea if he could procure me an Hetæra! for, ladies, there were Bombardas in Greece and Egypt, as Apuleius teaches us. Alas! ever the same thing and nothing new: nothing is left unpublished in the creation of the Creator. 'Nothing new under the sun,' says Solomon: amor omnibus idem, and Carabine gets into the St. Cloud fly-boat with Carabin, just as Aspasia embarked with Pericles aboard the Samos fleet. One last word: Do you know who Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at a time when women had no soul, she was a soul: a soul of a pink and purple hue, hotter than fire, and fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom the two extremes of woman met. She was a prostituted goddess: Socrates plus Manon Lescaut."
Tholomyès, when started, would hardly have been checked, had not a horse fallen in the street at this very moment. Through the shock, cart and orator stopped short. It was a Beauce mare, old and lean and worthy of the knacker, dragging a very heavy cart. On getting in front of Bombarda's, the beast, exhausted and worn out, refused to go any further, and this incident produced a crowd. The carter, swearing and indignant, had scarce time to utter with the suitable energy the sacramental word, "Rascal!" backed up by a pitiless lash, ere the poor beast fell, never to rise again. Tholomyès' gay hearers turned their heads away on noticing the confusion, while he wound up his speech by the following sad strophe,—
"Elle était de ce monde où coucous et carrosses,
Ont le même destin,
Et, rosse, elle a vécu ce que vivent les rosses,
L'espace d'un: Mâtin!"
"Poor horse!" Fantine said with a sigh; and Dahlia shouted,—
"Why, here is Fantine beginning to feel pity for horses: how can she be such a fool!"
At this moment, Favourite crossed her arms and threw her head back; she then looked boldly at Tholomyès, and said,—
"Well, how about the surprise?"
"That is true, the hour has arrived," Tholomyès answered. "Gentlemen, it is time to surprise the ladies. Pray wait for us a moment."
"It begins with a kiss," said Blacheve.
"On the forehead," Tholomyès added.
Each solemnly kissed the forehead of his mistress: then they proceeded to the door in Indian file, with a finger on their lip. Favourite clapped her hands as they went out.
"It is amusing already," she said.
"Do not be long," Fantine murmured, "we are waiting for you."
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE JOYOUS END OF JOY.
The girls, when left alone, leaned out of the windows, two by two, talking, looking out, and wondering. They watched the young men leave the Bombarda cabaret arm in arm; they turned round, made laughing signs, and disappeared in that dusty Sunday mob which once a week invaded the Champs Élysées.
"Do not be long," Fantine cried.
"What will they bring us?" said Zéphine.
"I am certain it will be pretty," said Dahlia.
"For my part," Favourite added, "I hope it will be set in gold."
They were soon distracted by the movement on the quay, which they could notice through the branches of the lofty trees, and which greatly amused them. It was the hour for the mail-carts and stages to start, and nearly all those bound for the South and West at that time passed through the Champs Élysées. Most of them followed the quay and went out by the Passy barrier. Every moment some heavy vehicle, painted yellow and black, heavily loaded and rendered shapeless by trunks and valises, dashed through the crowd with the sparks of a forge, the dust representing the smoke. This confusion amused the girls.
"What a racket!" exclaimed Favourite; "one might say a pile of chairs was flying about."
One of these vehicles, which could hardly be distinguished through the branches, stopped for a moment, and then started again at a gallop. This surprised Fantine.
"That is strange," she said; "I fancied that the diligence never stopped."
Favourite shrugged her shoulders.
"This Fantine is really amazing, and is surprised at the simplest things. Let us suppose that I am a traveller and say to the guard of the stage-coach, "I will walk on and you can pick me up on the quay as you pass." The coach passes, sees me, stops and takes me in. That is done every day; you are ignorant of life, my dear."
Some time elapsed; all at once Favourite started as if waking from sleep.
"Well," she said, "where is the surprise?"
"Oh yes," Dahlia continued, "the famous surprise."
"They are a long time," said Fantine.
Just as Fantine had ended this sigh, the waiter who had served the dinner came in; he held in his hand something that resembled a letter.
"What is that?" Favourite asked.
The waiter answered,—
"It is a paper which the gentlemen left for you, ladies."
"Why did you not bring it to us at once?"
"Because the gentlemen," the waiter went on, "ordered that it should not be delivered to you for an hour."
Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hands; it was really a letter.
"Stay," she said; "there is no address, but the following words are written on it: THIS IS THE SURPRISE." She quickly opened the letter and read (she could read):—
"WELL-BELOVED,—Know that we have relatives: perhaps you are not perfectly cognizant what they are; it means fathers and mothers in the civil, puerile, and honest code. Well, these relatives are groaning; these old people claim us as their own; these worthy men and women call us prodigal sons. They desire our return home, and offer to kill the fatted calf. We obey them, as we are virtuous; at the hour when you read this, five impetuous steeds will be conveying us back to our papas and mammas. 'We decamp,' as Bossuet said; "we are going, gone." We are flying away in the arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Gaillard. The Toulouse coach is dragging us away from the abyss, and that abyss is yourselves, pretty dears. We are re-entering society, duty, and order, at a sharp trot, and at the rate of nine miles an hour. It is important for our country that we should become, like everybody else, Prefects, fathers of a family, game-keepers, and councillors of state. Revere us, for we are sacrificing ourselves. Dry up your tears for us rapidly, and get a substitute speedily. If this letter lacerates your hearts, treat it in the same fashion. Good-by. For nearly two years we rendered you happy, so do not owe us any grudge.
(Signed)
BLACHEVELLE.
FAMEUIL.
LISTOLIER.
FELIX THOLOMYÈS.
"P.S. The dinner is paid for."
The four girls looked at each other, and Favourite was the first to break the silence.
"I don't care," she said, "it is a capital joke."
"It is very funny," Zéphine remarked.
"It must have been Blachevelle who had that idea," Favourite continued; "it makes me in love with him. So soon as he has left me I am beginning to grow fond of him; the old story."
"No," said Dahlia, "that is an idea of Tholomyès. That can be easily seen."
"In that case," Favourite retorted, "down with Blachevelle and long live Tholomyès!"
And they burst into a laugh, in which Fantine joined.
An hour later though, when she returned to her bed-room, she wept: this was, as we have said, her first love; she had yielded to Tholomyès as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child.