GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON.
[CHAPTER I.]
AN OLD DRAWING-ROOM.
When M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he frequented several very good and highly noble salons. Although a bourgeois, M. Gillenormand was welcome in them, and as he had a two-fold stock of wit, namely, that which he had, and that attributed to him, he was sought after and made much of. There are some people who desire influence and to be talked about, no matter what price they pay; and when they cannot be oracles, they make themselves buffoons. M. Gillenormand was not of that nature; and his domination in the Royalist drawing-rooms which he frequented did not cost him any of his self-respect. He was an oracle everywhere; and at times he held his own against M. de Bonald, and even M. Bengy-Puy-Vallée.
About 1817, he invariably spent two afternoons a week at the house of the Baronne de T——, a worthy and respectable person whose husband had been, under Louis XVI., Ambassador to Berlin. The Baron de T——, who, when alive, was passionately devoted to magnetic ecstasies and visions, died abroad a ruined man, leaving as his sole fortune ten MS. volumes bound in red Morocco and gilt-edged, which contained very curious memoirs about Mesmer and his trough. Madame de T—— did not publish these memoirs through dignity, and lived on a small annuity, which survived no one knew how. Madame de T—— lived away from Court, "which was a very mixed society," as she said, in noble, proud, and poor isolation. Some friends collected twice a week round her widow's fire, and this constituted a pure Royalist salon. Tea was drunk, and people uttered there, according as the wind blew to elegiacs or dithyrambics, groans or cries of horror about the age, the charter, the Buonapartists, the prostitution of the Cordon Bleu to untitled persons, and the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII.; and they also whispered about the hopes which Monsieur, afterwards Charles X., produced.
Low songs, in which Napoleon was called Nicholas, were greeted here with transports of delight. Duchesses, the most charming and delicate of ladies, went into ecstasies there about couplets like the following, which were addressed to the "Federals":
"Renfoncez dans vos culottes
Le bout d'chemise qui vous pend.
Qu'on n'dis pas qu'les patriotes
Ont arboré l'drapeau blanc!"
They amused themselves with puns which they fancied tremendous, with innocent jokes which they supposed venomous, with quatrains and even distichs; here is one on the Dessolles Ministry, the moderate cabinet of which Mons. Decazes and Deserre formed part:—
"Pour raffermir le trône ébranlé sur sa base,
Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case;"
or else they played upon the list of the House of Peers, "an abominably Jacobin chamber," and combined names on this list so as to form, for instance, phrases like the following: "Damas, Sabran, Gouvion de St. Cyr." In this society the Revolution was parodied, and they had some desire to sharpen the same passions in the contrary sense, and sang their ça, ira.
"Ah! ça ira! ça ira! ça ira!
Les buonapartist' à la lanterne!"
Songs are like the guillotine,—they cut off indiscriminately to-day this head, and to-morrow that. It is only a variation. In the Fualdès affair, which belongs to this period (1816), they sided with Bastide and Jansion, because Fualdès was "buonapartiste," They called the Liberals friends and brothers, and that was the last degree of insult. Like some church-steeples, the salon of the Baronne de T—— had two cocks: one was M. Gillenormand, the other the Comte de Lamothe Valois, of whom they whispered with a species of respect,—"You know? the Lamothe of the necklace business,"—parties have these singular amnesties.
Let us add this; in the bourgeoisie, honored situations are lessened by too facile relations, and care must be taken as to who is admitted. In the same way as there is a loss of caloric in the vicinity of cold persons, there is a diminution of respect on the approach of despised persons. The old high society held itself above this law, as above all others; Marigny, brother of the Pompadour, visited the Prince de Soubise, not although, but because, he was her brother. Du Barry, godfather of the Vaubernier, is most welcome at the house of the Maréchal de Richelieu. That world is Olympus, and Mercury and the Prince de Guemenée are at home in it. A robber is admitted to it, provided he be a god.
The Comte de Lamothe, who, in 1815, was seventy-five years of age, had nothing remarkable about him beyond his silent and sententious air, his angular and cold face, his perfectly polite manners, his coat buttoned up to the chin, and his constantly crossed legs, covered with trousers of the color of burnt Sienna. His face was the same color as his trousers. This M. de Lamothe was esteemed in this salon on account of his "celebrity," and, strange to say, but true, on account of his name of Valois.
As for M. Gillenormand, the respect felt for him was of perfectly good alloy. He was an authority; in spite of his levity, he had a certain imposing, worthy, honest, and haughty manner, which did not at all injure his gayety, and his great age added to it. A man is not a century with impunity, and years eventually form a venerable fence around a head. He made remarks, too, which had all the sparkle of the old régime. Thus, when the King of Prussia, after restoring Louis XVIII., paid him a visit under the name of the Comte de Ruppin, he was received by the descendant of Louis XIV. somewhat as if he were Marquis de Brandebourg, and with the most delicate impertinence. M. Gillenormand approved of it. "All kings who are not King of France," he said, "are provincial kings." One day the following question was asked, and answer given in his presence,—"What has been done about the editor of the Courrier Français?" "He is to be changed." "There's a c too much," M. Gillenormand dryly observed. At an anniversary Te Deum for the return of the Bourbons, on seeing M. de Talleyrand pass, he said,—"There's his Excellency the Devil."
M. Gillenormand was generally accompanied by his daughter, a tall young lady, who at that time was forty and looked fifty; and by a pretty boy of nine years of age, red and white, fresh, with happy, confident eyes, who never appeared in this drawing-room without hearing all the voices buzz around him,—"How pretty he is! What a pity, poor boy!" This lad was the one to whom we referred just now, and he was called "poor boy" because he had for father "a brigand of the Loire." This brigand was that son-in-law of M. Gillenormand, who has already been mentioned, and whom the old gentleman called the "disgrace of his family."
[CHAPTER II.]
A RED SPECTRE OF THAT DAY.
Any one who had passed at that period through the little town of Vernon, and walked on the handsome stone bridge, which, let us hope, will soon be succeeded by some hideous wire bridge, would have noticed, on looking over the parapet, a man of about fifty, wearing a leathern cap, and trousers and jacket of coarse gray cloth, to which something yellow, which had been a red ribbon, was sewn, with a face tanned by the sun, and almost black, and hair almost white, with a large scar on his forehead and running down his cheek, bowed and prematurely aged, walking almost every day, spade and pick in hand, in one of the walled enclosures near the bridge, which border, like a belt of terraces, the left bank of the Seine. There are delicious enclosures full of flowers, of which you might say, were they much larger, "They are gardens," and if they were a little smaller, "They are bouquets." All these enclosures join the river at one end and a house at the other. The man in the jacket and wooden shoes, to whom we have alluded, occupied in 1817 the narrowest of these enclosures and the smallest of these houses. He lived there alone and solitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young nor old, neither pretty nor ugly, neither peasant nor bourgeoise, who waited on him. The square of land which he called his garden was celebrated in the town for the beauty of the flowers he cultivated, and they were his occupation.
Through his toil, perseverance, attention, and watering-pot, he had succeeded in creating after the Creator; and he had invented sundry tulips and dahlias which seemed to have been forgotten by nature. He was ingenious, and preceded Soulange Bodin in the formation of small patches of peat-soil for the growth of the rare and precious shrubs of America and China. From daybreak in summer he was in his walks, pricking out, clipping, hoeing, watering, or moving among his flowers, with an air of kindness, sorrow, and gentleness. At times he would stand thoughtful and motionless for hours, listening to the song of a bird in a tree, the prattle of a child in a house, or else gazing at a drop of dew on a blade of grass, which the sun converted into a carbuncle. He lived very poorly, and drank more milk than wine: a child made him give way, and his servant scolded him. He was timid to such an extent that he seemed stern, went out rarely, and saw no one but the poor, who tapped at his window, and his curé, Abbé Mabœuf, a good old man. Still, if the inhabitants of the town or strangers, curious to see his roses or tulips, came and tapped at his little door, he opened it with a smile. He was the brigand of the Loire.
Any one who, at the same time, read military memoirs and biographies, the Moniteur and the bulletins of the great army, might have been struck by a name which pretty often turns up, that of George Pontmercy. When quite a lad this Pontmercy was a private in the Saintonge regiment, and when the Revolution broke out, this regiment formed part of the army of the Rhine, for the regiments of the Monarchy kept their provincial names even after the fall of the Monarchy, and were not brigaded till 1794. Pontmercy fought at Spires, Worms, Neustadt, Turkheim, Alzey, and at Mayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed Houchard's rear-guard. He, with eleven others, held out against the corps of the Prince of Hesse behind the old rampart of Andernach, and did not fall back on the main body until the enemy's guns had opened a breach from the parapet to the talus. He was under Kléber at Marchiennes, and at the fight of Mont Palissel, where his arm was broken by a rifle-ball; then he went to the frontier of Italy, and was one of the thirty who defended the Col de Tenda with Joubert. Joubert was appointed adjutant-general, and Pontmercy sub-lieutenant; he was by Berthier's side amid the grape-shot on that day of Lodi which made Bonaparte say, "Berthier was gunner, trooper, and grenadier." He saw his old general Joubert fall at Novi at the moment when he was shouting, with uplifted sabre, "Forward!" Having embarked with his company on board a cutter which sailed from Genoa to some little port of the coast, he fell into a wasps' nest of seven or eight English sail. The Genoese commandant wished to throw his guns into the sea, hide the soldiers in the hold, and pass like a merchant vessel; but Pontmercy had the tricolor flag hoisted at the peak, and proudly passed under the guns of the British frigates. Twenty leagues farther on, his audacity increasing, he attacked and captured a large English transport conveying troops to Sicily, and so laden with men and horses that the vessel's deck was almost flush with the sea. In 1805 he belonged to Malher's division, which took Gunzbourg from the Archduke Ferdinand, and at Wettingen he caught in his arms, amid a shower of bullets, Colonel Maupilet, who was mortally wounded at the head of the 9th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirable march in columns of companies performed under the enemy's fire; and when the Russian Imperial Horse Guards destroyed one of the battalions of the 4th line Infantry, Pontmercy was among those who took their revenge, and drove back these Guards. For this the Emperor gave him the Cross. Pontmercy saw in turn Wurmser made prisoner at Mantua, Mélas at Alessandria, and Mack at Ulm, and he belonged to the 8th corps of the grand army which Mortier commanded, and which took Hamburg. Then he joined the 55th regiment of the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders; at Eylau, he was in the cemetery where the heroic Captain Louis Hugo, uncle of the author of this book, withstood, with his company of eighty-three men, for two hours, the whole effort of the enemy's army. Pontmercy was one of the three who left this cemetery alive. He was at Friedland; then he saw Moscow, the Beresina, Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wacha, Leipsic, and the defiles of Gelnhausen; then at Montmereil, Château-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the Marne, the banks of the Aisne, and the formidable position of Laon. At Arnay le Duc, as captain, he sabred ten Cossacks, and saved not his general, but his corporal; he was cut to pieces on this occasion, and seven-and-twenty splinters were taken out of his left arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris he exchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry; for he had what was called under the old régime a "double hand;" that is to say, an equal aptitude in handling, as private, a sabre or musket, as officer, a squadron or a company. From this aptitude, improved by military education, special arms sprang, for instance, the dragoons, who are at once cavalry and infantry. He accompanied Napoleon to Elba, and at Waterloo was a Major of cuirassiers in Dubois' brigade. It was he who took the colors of the Limburg battalion, and himself threw them at the Emperor's feet. He was covered with blood; for, on seizing the colors, he received a sabre-cut across the face. The Emperor, who was pleased, cried out to him, "You are a Colonel, a Baron, and officer of the Legion of Honor!" Pontmercy answered,—"Sire, I thank you on behalf of my widow." An hour later he fell into the ravine of Ohain. And now who was this George Pontmercy? He was the same brigand of the Loire.
We have already seen some portion of his history. After Waterloo, Pontmercy, drawn as we remember out of the sunken road of Ohain, succeeded in rejoining the army, and dragged himself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the Loire. The Restoration put him on half-pay, and then sent him to Vernon, under honorable surveillance. King Louis XVIII., regarding all that was done in the Hundred Days as if it had not happened, recognized neither his quality as officer of the Legion of Honor, nor his commission as Colonel, nor his title as Baron. He for his part neglected no opportunity to sign himself, "Colonel Baron de Pontmercy." He had only one old blue coat, and never went out without attaching to it the rosette of the Legion of Honor. The King's attorney advised him that he would be tried for illegally wearing this decoration; and when this hint was given him by an officious intermediator, Pontmercy replied, with a bitter smile, "I do not know whether it is I that no longer understand French, or whether you are not speaking it, but the fact remains the same: I do not understand you." Then he went out for eight days in succession with his rosette, and the authorities did not venture to interfere with him. Twice or thrice the Minister of War or the General commanding the department wrote to him with the following superscription: "M. le Commandant Pontmercy," and he sent back the letters unopened. At the same moment Napoleon at St. Helena was treating in the same fashion the missives of Sir Hudson Lowe, addressed to "General Bonaparte." If we may be forgiven the remark, Pontmercy finished by having the same saliva in his mouth as the Emperor. There were also at Rome, Carthaginian prisoners who refused to salute Flaminius, and had a little of Hannibal's soul in them.
One morning he met the King's attorney in a street of Vernon, went up to him, and said, "Monsieur le Procureur du Roi, am I allowed to wear my scar?"
He had nothing but his scanty half-pay as Major, and he had taken the smallest house in Vernon, where he lived alone, in what way we have just seen. Under the Empire and between two wars he found time to marry Mlle. Gillenormand. The old bourgeois, who was indignant in his heart, concluded with a sigh and saying, "The greatest families are forced into it." In 1815, Madame Pontmercy, a most admirable woman in every respect, and worthy of her husband, died, leaving a child. This child would have been the Colonel's delight in his solitude; but the grandfather imperiously claimed him, declaring that if he were not given up to him he would disinherit him. The father yielded for the sake of the little one, and, unable to love his son, he took to loving flowers.
He had, however, given up everything, and did not join the opposition or conspire. He shared his thoughts between the innocent things he did and the great things he had done, and he spent his time in hoping for a carnation or calling to mind Austerlitz. M. Gillenormand kept up no relations with his son-in-law; the Colonel was to him a "bandit," and he was for the Colonel an "ass." M. Gillenormand never spoke about the Colonel, except at times to make mocking allusions to "his barony." It was expressly stipulated that Pontmercy should never attempt to see his son or speak to him, under penalty of having him thrown on his hands disinherited. To the Gillenormands, Pontmercy was a plague patient, and they intended to bring up the child after their fashion. The Colonel perhaps did wrong in accepting these terms, but he endured them, in the belief that he was acting rightly, and only sacrificing himself.
The inheritance of the grandfather was a small matter, but that of Mlle. Gillenormand the elder was considerable, for this aunt was very rich on her mother's side, and her sister's son was her natural heir. The boy, who was called Marius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more, and no one opened his lips to him on the subject. Still, in the society to which his grandfather took him, the whisperings and winks eventually produced light in the boy's mind; he understood something at last, and, as he naturally accepted, by a species of infiltration and slow penetration, the ideas and opinions which were, so to speak, his breathing medium, he gradually came to think of his father only with shame.
While he was thus growing up in this way, the Colonel every two or three months came furtively to Paris, like a convict who is breaking his ban, and posted himself at St. Sulpice, at the hour when Aunt Gillenormand took Marius to Mass. Trembling lest the aunt should turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, and scarce daring to breathe, he looked at this boy; the scarred warrior was frightened at this old maid.
Prom this very circumstance emanated his friendship with the Abbé Mabœuf, Curé of Vernon. This worthy priest had a brother, churchwarden of St. Sulpice, who had several times noticed this man contemplating his child, and the scar on his cheek, and the heavy tear in his eye. This man, who looked so thoroughly a man, and who wept like a child, struck the churchwarden, and this face adhered to his memory. One day when he went to Vernon to see his brother he met on the bridge Colonel Pontmercy, and recognized his man of St. Sulpice. The churchwarden told the affair to the Curé, and both made some excuse to pay a visit to the Colonel. This visit led to others; and the Colonel, though at first very close, eventually opened his heart, and the Curé and the churchwarden learned the whole story, and how Pontmercy sacrificed his own happiness to the future of his child. The result was that the Curé felt a veneration and tenderness for him, and the Colonel, on his side, took the Curé into his affection. By the way, when both are equally sincere and good, no men amalgamate more easily than an old priest and an old soldier, for they are the same men at the bottom. One devotes himself to his country down here, the other to his country up there; that is the sole difference.
Twice a year, on January 1st, and Saint George's day, Marius wrote his father letters dictated by his aunt, and which looked as if copied from a handbook, for that was all M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father sent very affectionate replies, which the grandfather thrust into his pocket without reading.
[CHAPTER III.]
REQUIESCANT!
The salon of Madame de T—— was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world, and it was the sole opening by which he could look out into life. This opening was gloomy, and more cold than heat, more night than day, reached him through this trap. This boy, who was all joy and light on entering the strange world, became thus, in a short time, sad, and what is more contrary still to his age, serious. Surrounded by all these imposing and singular persons, he looked about him with serious astonishment, and all contributed to augment his stupor. There were in Madame de T——'s drawing-room old, noble, and very venerable ladies, who called themselves Mathau, Noé, Levis (pronounced Levi), and Cambis, (pronounced Cambyse). These ancient faces and these Biblical names were mingled in the boy's mind with his Old Testament, which he learned by heart, and when they were all present, seated in a circle round an expiring fire, scarce illumined by a green-shaded lamp, with their severe faces, their gray or white hair, their long dresses of another age, in which only mournful colors could be seen, and uttering at lengthened intervals words at once majestic and stern, little Marius regarded them with wandering eyes and fancied that he saw not women, but patriarchs, and Magi,—not real beings, but ghosts.
With these ghosts were mingled several priests, habitués of this old salon, and a few gentlemen: the Marquis de Sass——, secretary to Madame de Berry; the Vicomte de Val——, who published odes under the pseudonym of Charles Antoine; the Prince de Beauff——, who, though still young, had a gray head and a pretty, clever wife, whose dress of scarlet velvet, with gold embroidery, cut very low in the neck, startled this gloom; the Marquis de C——, d'E——, the Frenchman, who was most acquainted with "graduated politeness;" the Comte d'Am——, a gentleman with a benevolent chin; and the Chevalier de Port de Guy, the pillar of the library of the Louvre, called the King's Cabinet. M. de Port de Guy, bald and rather aging than old, used to tell how in 1793, when he was sixteen years of age, he was placed in the hulks as refractory, and chained to an octogenarian, the Bishop of Mirepoix, also a refractory, but as priest, while he was so as soldier. It was at Toulon, and their duty was to go at night to collect on the scaffold the heads and bodies of persons guillotined during the day. They carried these dripping trunks on their backs, and their red jackets had behind the nape of the neck a crust of blood, which was dry in the morning and moist at night. These tragical narratives abounded in the salon of Madame de T——, and through cursing Marat they came to applaud Trestaillon. A few deputies of the "introuvable" sort played their rubber of whist there; for instance, M. Thibord du Chalard, M. Lemarchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated jester of the right division, M. Cornet Dincourt. The Bailiff of Ferrette, with his knee-breeches and thin legs, at times passed through this room, when proceeding to M. de Talleyrand's; he had been a companion of the Comte d'Artois, and acting in the opposite way to Aristotle reclining on Campaspe, he had made the Guimard crawl on all fours, and thus displayed to ages a philosopher avenged by a bailiff.
As for the priests, there was the Abbé Halma, the same to whom M. Larose, his fellow-contributor on la Foudre, said, "Stuff, who is not fifty years of age? a few hobble-de-hoys, perhaps." Then came the Abbé Letourneur, preacher to the King; the Abbé Frayssinous, who at that time was neither Bishop, Count, Minister, nor Peer, and who wore a soutane, from which buttons were absent; and the Abbé Keravenant, Curé of St. Germain des Prés. To them must be added the Papal Nuncio, at that date Monsignore Macchi, Archbishop of Nisibi, afterwards Cardinal, and remarkable for his long pensive nose; and another Monsignore, whose titles ran as follow: Abbate Palmieri, domestic Prelate, one of the seven Prothonotaries sharing in the Holy See, Canon of the glorious Liberian Basilica, and advocate of the Saints, postulatore Dei Santi, an office relating to matters of canonization, and meaning very nearly, Referendary to the department of Paradise. Finally, two Cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl—— T——. The Cardinal de Luzerne was an author, and was destined to have the honor a few years later of signing articles in the Conservateur side by side with Chateaubriand; M. de Cl—— T——, was Archbishop of Toulouse, and frequently spent the summer in Paris with his nephew the Marquis de T——, who had been Minister of the Navy and of War. The Cardinal de Cl—— T—— was a merry little old gentleman, who displayed his red stockings under his tucked-up cassock. His specialty was hating the Encyclopædia and playing madly at billiards; and persons who on summer evenings passed along the Rue M——, where M. de Cl—— T—— then resided, stopped to listen to the sound of the balls and the sharp voice of the Cardinal crying to his Conclavist Monseigneur Cottret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste, "Mark me a carom, Abbé." The Cardinal de Cl—— T—— had been introduced to Madame de T—— by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, ex-Bishop of Senlis and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was remarkable for his great height and his assiduity at the Academy. Through the glass door of the room adjoining the library, in which the French Academy at that time met, curious persons could contemplate every Thursday the ex-Bishop of Senlis, usually standing with hair freshly powdered, in violet stockings, and turning his back to the door, apparently to display his little collar the better. All these ecclesiastics, although mostly courtiers as much as churchmen, added to the gravity of the salon, to which five Peers of France, the Marquis de Vib——, the Marquis de Tal——, the Marquis d'Herb——, the Vicomte Damb——, and the Duc de Val——, imparted the lordly tone. This Duc de Val——, though Prince de Mon——, that is to say, a foreign sovereign prince, had so lofty an idea of France and the Peerage, that he looked at everything through them. It was he who said, "The Cardinals are the French Peers of Rome, and the Lords are the French Peers of England." Still, as in the present age the Revolution must be everywhere, this feudal salon was ruled, as we have seen, by M. Gillenormand, a bourgeois.
It was the essence and quintessence of white Parisian society, and reputations, even Royalist ones, were kept in quarantine there, for there is always anarchy in reputation. Had Chateaubriand come in he would have produced the effect of Père Duchêne. Some converts, however, entered this orthodox society through a spirit of toleration. Thus the Comte Beug—— was admitted for the purpose of correction. The "noble" salons of the present day in no way resemble the one which I am describing, for the Royalists of to-day, let us say it in their praise, are demagogues. At Madame de T——'s the society was superior, and the taste exquisite and haughty beneath a grand bloom of politeness. The habits there displayed all sorts of involuntary refinement, which was the ancient régime itself, which lived though interred. Some of these habits, especially in conversation, seemed whimsical, and superficial persons would have taken for provincialism what was merely antiquated. They called a lady "Madame la Générale," and "Madame la Colonelle" had not entirely been laid aside. The charming Madame de Léon, doubtless remembering the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred that appellation to her title of Princess, and the Marquise de Créquy was also called "Madame la Colonelle."
It was this small high society which invented at the Tuileries the refinement of always speaking of the King in the third person, and never saying, "Your Majesty," as that qualification had been "sullied by the usurper." Facts and men were judged there, and the age was ridiculed—which saved the trouble of comprehending it. They assisted one another in amazement, and communicated mutually the amount of enlightenment they possessed. Methusalem instructed Epimenides,—the deaf put the blind straight. The time which had elapsed since Coblenz was declared not to have passed, and in the same way as Louis XVIII. was Dei gratia in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, the émigrés were de jure in the twenty-fifth year of their adolescence.
Everything harmonized there: no one was too lively, the speech was like a breath, and the newspapers, in accordance with the salon, seemed a papyrus. The liveries in the ante-room were old, and these personages who had completely passed away were served by footmen of the same character. All this had the air of having lived a long time and obstinately struggling against the tomb. To Conserve, Conservation, Conservative, represented nearly their entire dictionary, and "to be in good odor" was the point. There were really aromatics in the opinions of these venerable groups, and their ideas smelt of vervain. It was a mummy world, in which the masters were embalmed and the servants stuffed. A worthy old Marchioness, ruined by the emigration, who had only one woman-servant left, continued to say, "My people."
What did they do in Madame de T——'s salon? They were ultra. This remark, though what it represent has possibly not disappeared, has no meaning at the present day, so let us explain it To be ultra is going beyond; it is attacking the sceptre in the name of the throne and the mitre in the name of the altar; it is mismanaging the affair you have in hand; it is kicking over the traces; it is disputing with the executioner about the degree of roasting which heretics should undergo; it is reproaching the idol for its want of idolatry; it is insulting through excess of respect; it is finding in the Pope insufficient Papism, in the King too little royalty, and too much light in the night; it is being dissatisfied with alabaster, snow, the swan, and the lily, on behalf of whiteness; it is being a partisan of things to such a pitch that you become their enemy; it is being so strong for, that you become against.
The ultra spirit specially characterizes the first phase of the Restoration. Nothing in history ever resembled that quarter of an hour which begins in 1814 and terminates in 1820, with the accession of M. de Villèle, the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary moment, at once noisy and silent, silent and gloomy, enlightened, as it were, by a beam of dawn, and covered, at the same time, by the darkness of the great catastrophe which still filled the horizon, and was slowly sinking into the past. There was in this light and this shadow an old society and a new society, buffoon and melancholy, juvenile and senile, and rubbing its eyes, for nothing is so like a re-awaking as a return. There were groups that regarded France angrily and which France regarded ironically; the streets full of honest old Marquis-owls, returned and returning, "ci-devants," stupefied by everything; brave and noble gentlemen smiling at being in France and also weeping at it, ravished at seeing their country again, and in despair at not finding their monarchy; the nobility of the Crusades spitting on the nobility of the Empire, that is to say, of the sword; historic races that had lost all feeling of history; the sons of the companions of Charlemagne disdaining the companions of Napoleon. The swords, as we have said, hurled insults at one another; the sword of Fontenoy was ridiculous, and only a bar of rusty iron; the sword of Marengo was odious, and only a sabre. The olden times misunderstood yesterday, and no one had a feeling of what is great or what is ridiculous. Some one was found to call Bonaparte Scapin. This world no longer exists, and nothing connected with it, let us repeat, remains at the present day. When we draw out of it some figure hap-hazard, and try to bring it to bear again mentally, it seems to us as strange as the antediluvian world; and, in fact, it was also swallowed up by a deluge and disappeared under two revolutions. What waves ideas are! How quickly do they cover whatever they have a mission to destroy and bury, and how promptly do they produce unknown depths!
Such was the physiognomy of the salon in those distant and candid days when M. Martainville had more wit than Voltaire. These salons had a literature and politics of their own: people in them believed in Fiévée, and M. Agier laid down the law there. M. Colnet, the publisher and bookseller of the Quai Malaquais, was commented on, and Napoleon was fully the ogre of Corsica there. At a later date the introduction into history of M. le Marquis de Buonaparté, Lieutenant-General of the armies of the King, was a concession to the spirit of the age. These salons did not long remain pure, and in 1818 a few doctrinaires, a very alarming tinge, began to culminate in them. In matters of which the ultras were very proud, the doctrinaires were somewhat ashamed; they had wit, they had silence, their political dogma was properly starched with hauteur, and they must succeed. They carried white neck-cloths and buttoned coats to an excessive length, though it was useful. The fault or misfortune of the doctrinaire party was in creating old youth: they assumed the posture of sages, and dreamed of grafting a temperate power upon the absolute and excessive principle. They opposed, and at times with rare sense, demolishing liberalism by conservative liberalism; and they might be heard saying: "Have mercy on Royalism, for it has rendered more than one service. It brought back traditions, worship, religion, and respect. It is faithful, true, chivalrous, loving, and devoted, and has blended, though reluctantly, the secular grandeurs of the Monarchy with the new grandeurs of the nation. It is wrong in not understanding the Revolution, the Empire, glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, and the age; but do we not sometimes act quite as wrongly against it? The Revolution of which we are the heirs ought to be on good terms with everything. Attacking the Royalists is the contrary of liberalism; what a fault and what blindness! Revolutionary France fails in its respect to historic France; that is to say, to its mother, to itself. After September 5th, the nobility of the Monarchy were treated like the nobility of the Empire after July 8th; they were unjust to the eagle and we are unjust to the fleur-de-lys. There must be, then, always something to proscribe! Is it very useful to ungild the crown of Louis XIV., and scratch off the escutcheon of Henri IV.? We sneer at M. de Vaublanc, who effaced the N's from the bridge of Jena; but he only did what we are doing. Bouvines belongs to us as much as Marengo, and the fleur-de-lys are ours, like the N's. They constitute our patrimony; then why should we diminish it? The country must be no more denied in the past than in the present; why should we not have a grudge with the whole of history? Why should we not love the whole of France?" It was thus that the doctrinaires criticised and protected the Royalists, who were dissatisfied at being criticised, and furious at being protected.
The ultras marked the first epoch of the Revolution, and the Congregation characterized the second; skill succeeded impetuosity. Let us close our sketch at this point.
In the course of his narrative, the author of this book found on his road this curious moment of contemporary history, and thought himself bound to take a passing glance at it, and retrace some of the singular features of this society, which is unknown at the present day. But he has done so rapidly, and without any bitter or derisive idea, for affectionate and respectful reminiscences, connected with his mother, attach him to this past. Moreover, let him add, this little world had a grandeur of its own, and though we may smile at it, we cannot despise or hate it. It was the France of other days.
Marius Pontmercy, like most children, received some sort of education. When he left the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather intrusted him to a worthy professor of the finest classical innocence. This young mind, just expanding, passed from a prude to a pedant. Marius spent some years at college, and then entered the law-school; he was royalist, fanatic, and austere. He loved but little his grandfather, whose gayety and cynicism ruffled him, and he was gloomy as regarded his father. In other respects, he was an ardent yet cold, noble, generous, proud, religious, and exalted youth; worthy almost to harshness, and fierce almost to savageness.
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE END OF THE BRIGAND.
The conclusion of Marius's classical studies coincided with M. Gillenormand's retirement from society; the old gentleman bade farewell to the Faubourg St. Germain and Madame de T——'s drawing-room, and proceeded to establish himself in the Marais at his house in the Rue des Filles du Calvaire. His servants were, in addition to the porter, that Nicolette who succeeded Magnon, and that wheezing, short-winded Basque, to whom we have already alluded. In 1827 Marius attained his seventeenth year; on coming home one evening he saw his grandfather holding a letter in his hand.
"Marius," said M. Gillenormand, "you will start to-morrow for Vernon."
"What for?" Marius asked.
"To see your father."
Marius trembled, for he had thought of everything excepting this,—that he might one day be obliged to see his father. Nothing could be more unexpected, more surprising, and, let us add, more disagreeable for him. It was estrangement forced into approximation, and it was not an annoyance so much as a drudgery. Marius, in addition to his motives of political antipathy, was convinced that his father, the trooper, as M. Gillenormand called him in his good-tempered days, did not love him; that was evident, as he had abandoned him thus and left him to others. Not feeling himself beloved, he did not love; and he said to himself that nothing could be more simple. He was so stupefied that he did not question his grandfather, but M. Gillenormand continued,—
"It seems that he is ill, and asks for you."
And after a silence he added,—
"Start to-morrow morning. I believe there is a coach which leaves at six o'clock and gets to Vernon at nightfall. Go by it, for he says that the matter presses."
Then he crumpled up the letter and put it in his pocket. Marius could have started the same night, and have been with his father the next morning; a diligence at that time used to run at night to Rouen, passing through Vernon. But neither M. Gillenormand nor Marius dreamed of inquiring. On the evening of the following day Marius arrived at Vernon, and asked the first passer-by for the house of "Monsieur Pontmercy;" for in his mind he was of the same opinion as the Restoration, and did not recognize either his father's Barony or Colonelcy. The house was shown him; he rang, and a woman holding a small hand-lamp opened the door for him.
"Monsieur Pontmercy?" Marius asked.
The woman stood motionless.
"Is this his house?" Marius continued.
The woman shook her head in the affirmative.
"Can I speak to him?"
The woman made a negative sign.
"Why, I am his son," Marius added; "and he expects me."
"He no longer expects you," the woman said.
Then he noticed that she was crying; she pointed to the door of a parlor, and he went in. In this room, which was lighted by a tallow candle placed on the mantel-piece, there were three men, one standing, one on his knees, and one lying full length upon the floor in his shirt. The one on the floor was the Colonel; the other two were a physician and a priest praying. The Colonel had been attacked by a brain fever three days before, and having a foreboding of evil, he wrote to M. Gillenormand, asking for his son. The illness grew worse, and on the evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon the Colonel had an attack of delirium. He leaped out of bed, in spite of the maid-servant, crying, "My son does not arrive, I will go to meet him." Then he left his bed-room, and fell on the floor of the ante-room; he had just expired. The physician and the curé were sent for, but both arrived too late; the son had also arrived too late. By the twilight gleam of the candle, a heavy tear, which had fallen from the Colonel's dead eye, could be noticed on his pallid cheek. The eye was lustreless, but the tear had not dried up. This tear was his son's delay.
Marius gazed upon this man whom he saw for the first time and the last, upon this venerable and manly face, these open eyes which no longer saw, this white hair, and the robust limbs upon which could be distinguished here and there brown lines which were sabre-cuts, and red stars which were bullet-holes. He gazed at the gigantic scar which imprinted heroism on this face, upon which God had imprinted gentleness. He thought that this man was his father, and that this man was dead, and he remained cold. The sorrow he felt was such as he would have felt in the presence of any other man whom he might have seen lying dead before him.
Mourning and lamentation were in this room. The maid-servant was weeping in a corner, the priest was praying, and could be heard sobbing, the physician wiped his eyes, and the corpse itself wept. The physician, priest, and woman looked at Marius through their affliction without saying a word, for he was the stranger. Marius, who was so little affected, felt ashamed and embarrassed at his attitude, and he let the hat which he held in his hand fall on the ground, in order to induce a belief that sorrow deprived him of the strength to hold it. At the same time he felt a species of remorse, and despised himself for acting thus. But was it his fault? he had no cause to love his father.
The Colonel left nothing, and the sale of the furniture scarce covered the funeral expenses. The maid-servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. On it were the following lines, written by the Colonel:—
"For my son. The Emperor made me a Baron on the field of Waterloo, and as the Restoration contests this title, which I purchased with my blood, my son will assume it and wear it. Of course he will be worthy of it." On the back the Colonel had added, "At this same battle of Waterloo a sergeant saved my life; his name is Thénardier, and I believe that he has recently kept a small inn in a village near Paris, either Chelles or Montfermeil. If my son meet this Thénardier he will do all he can for him."
Not through any affection for his father, but owing to that vague respect for death which is ever so imperious in the heart of man, Marius took this paper and put it away. Nothing was left of the Colonel. M. Gillenormand had his sword and uniform sold to the Jews; the neighbors plundered the garden and carried off the rare flowers, while the others became brambles and died. Marius remained only forty-eight hours in Vernon. After the funeral he returned to Paris and his legal studies, thinking no more of his father than if he had never existed. In two days the Colonel was buried, and in three forgotten.
Marius had a crape on his hat, and that was all.
[CHAPTER V.]
MARIUS MEETS A CHURCHWARDEN.
Marius had retained the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, when he went to hear Mass at St. Sulpice, in the Chapel of the Virgin to which his aunt took him when a boy, being on that day more than usually absent and thoughtful, he placed himself behind a pillar, and knelt, without paying attention to the fact, upon a Utrecht velvet chair, on the back of which was written, "Monsieur Mabœuf, Churchwarden." The Mass had scarce begun when an old gentleman presented himself, and said to Marius,—
"This is my place, sir."
Marius at once stepped aside, and the old gentleman took his seat. When Mass was ended Marius stood pensively for a few moments, till the old gentleman came up to him and said,—
"I ask your pardon, sir, for having disturbed you just now, and for troubling you afresh at this moment; but you must have considered me ill-bred, and so I wish to explain the matter to you."
"It is unnecessary, sir," said Marius.
"No, it is not," the old man continued, "for I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of me. I am attached to this seat, and it seems to me that the Mass is better here, and I will tell you my reason. To this spot I saw during ten years, at regular intervals of two or three months, a poor worthy father come, who had no other opportunity or way of seeing his son, because they were separated through family arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be brought to Mass. The boy did not suspect that his father was here—perhaps did not know, the innocent, that he had a father. The latter kept behind a pillar so that he might not be seen, looked at his child and wept; for the poor man adored him, as I could see. This spot has become, so to speak, sanctified for me, and I have fallen into the habit of hearing Mass here. I prefer it to the bench to which I should have a right as churchwarden. I even knew the unfortunate gentleman slightly. He had a father-in-law, a rich aunt, and other relatives, who threatened to disinherit the boy if the father ever saw him, and he sacrificed himself that his son might one day be rich and happy. They were separated through political opinions, and though I certainly approve of such opinions, there are persons who do not know where to stop. Good gracious! because a man was at Waterloo he is not a monster; a father should not be separated from his child on that account. He was one of Bonaparte's colonels, and is dead, I believe. He lived at Vernon, where I have a brother who is curé, and his name was something like Pontmarie or Montpercy. He had, on my word, a great sabre-cut."
"Pontmercy," Marius said, turning pale.
"Precisely, Pontmercy; did you know him?"
"He was my father, sir."
The old churchwarden clasped his hands and exclaimed,—
"Ah! you are the boy! Yes, yes, he would be a man now. Well, poor boy! you may say that you had a father who loved you dearly."
Marius offered his arm to the old gentleman and conducted him to his house. The next day he said to M. Gillenormand,—
"Some friends of mine have arranged a shooting-party; will you allow me to go away for three days?"
"Four," the grandfather answered; "go and amuse yourself." And he whispered to his daughter with a wink, "Some love affair!"
[CHAPTER VI.]
WHAT RESULTED FROM MEETING A CHURCHWARDEN.
Where Marius went we shall learn presently. He was away three days, then returned to Paris, went straight to the library of the Law-school and asked for a file of the Moniteur. He read it; he read all the histories of the Republic and the Empire; the Memorial of St. Helena, all the memoirs, journals, bulletins, and proclamations,—he fairly devoured them. The first time he came across his father's name in a bulletin of the grand army he had a fever for a whole week. He called upon the generals under whom George Pontmercy had served; among others, Count H——. The churchwarden, whom he saw again, told him of the life at Vernon, the Colonel's retirement, his flowers, and his solitude. Marius had at last a perfect knowledge of this rare, sublime, and gentle man, this species of lion-lamb, who had been his father.
While occupied with this study, which filled all his moments as well as all his thoughts, he scarce ever saw the Gillenormands. He appeared at meals, but when sought for after them he could not be found. His aunt sulked, but old Gillenormand smiled. "Stuff, stuff, it is the right age!" At times the old man would add, "Confound it! I thought that it was an affair of gallantry, but it seems that it is a passion." It was a passion in truth, for Marius was beginning to adore his father.
At the same time an extraordinary change took place in his ideas, and the phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the history of many minds in our day, we deem it useful to follow these phases step by step, and indicate them all. The history he had just read startled him, and the first effect was bedazzlement. The Republic, the Empire, had hitherto been to him but monstrous words,— the Republic a guillotine in the twilight; the Empire a sabre in the night. He had looked into it, and where he had only expected to find a chaos of darkness he had seen, with a species of extraordinary surprise, mingled with fear and delight, stars flashing,—Mirabeau, Vergniaud, St. Just, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, and Danton,—and a sun rise, Napoleon. He knew not where he was, and he recoiled, blinded by the brilliancy. Gradually, when the first surprise had worn off, he accustomed himself to this radiance. He regarded the deed without dizziness, and examined persons without terror; the Revolution and the Empire stood out in luminous perspective before his visionary eyeballs; he saw each of these two groups of events and facts contained in two enormous facts: the Revolution in the sovereignty of civic right restored to the masses, the Empire in the sovereignty of the French idea imposed on Europe; he saw the great figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, the great figure of France from the Empire, and he declared to himself on his conscience that all this was good.
What his bedazzlement neglected in this first appreciation, which was far too synthetical, we do not think it necessary to indicate here. We are describing the state of a mind advancing, and all progress is not made in one march. This said, once for all, as to what precedes and what is to follow, we will continue.
He then perceived that up to this moment he had no more understood his country than he had his father. He had known neither the one nor the other, and he had spread a species of voluntary night over his eyes. He now saw; and on one side he admired, on the other he adored. He was full of regret and remorse, and he thought with despair that he could only tell to a tomb all that he had in his mind. Oh, if his father were alive, if he had him still, if God in His compassion and His goodness had allowed this father to be still alive, how he would have flown, how he would have cried to his father,—"Father, here I am, it is I! I have the same heart as you! I am your son!" How he would have kissed his white head, bathed his hair with his tears, gazed at his scar, pressed his hand, adored his clothes, and embraced his feet! Oh, why did this father die so soon, before justice had been done him, before he had known his son's love? Marius had a constant sob in his heart, which said at every moment, "Alas!" At the same time he became more truly serious, more truly grave, more sure of his faith and his thoughts. At each instant beams of light arrived to complete his reason, and a species of internal growth went on within him. He felt a natural aggrandizement produced by the two things so new to him,—his father and his country.
As a door can be easily opened when we hold the key, he explained to himself what he had hated, and understood what he had abhorred. Henceforth he saw clearly the providential, divine, and human meaning, the great things which he had been taught to detest, and the great men whom he had been instructed to curse. When he thought of his previous opinions, which were but of yesterday, and which yet seemed to him so old, he felt indignant and smiled. From the rehabilitation of his father he had naturally passed to that of Napoleon; but the latter, we must say, was not effected without labor. From childhood he had been imbued with the judgments of the party of 1814 about Bonaparte; now, all the prejudices of the Restoration, all its interests, and all its instincts, tended to disfigure Napoleon, and it execrated him, even more than Robespierre. It had worked rather cleverly upon the weariness of the nation and the hatred of mothers. Bonaparte had become a species of almost fabulous monster, and in order to depict him to the imagination of the people, which, as we said just now, resembles that of children, the party of 1814 brought forward in turn all the frightful masques, from that which is terrible while remaining grand, down to that which is terrible while becoming grotesque,—from Tiberius down to old Bogy. Hence, in speaking of Bonaparte, people were at liberty to sob or burst with laughter, provided that hatred sung the bass. Marius had never had on the subject of—that man, as he was called—any other ideas but these in his mind, and they were combined with his natural tenacity. He was a headstrong little man, who hated Napoleon.
On reading history, on studying before all documents and materials, the veil which hid Napoleon from Marius's sight was gradually rent asunder; he caught a glimpse of something immense, and suspected that up to this moment he had been mistaken about Bonaparte, as about all the rest; each day he saw more clearly, and he began climbing slowly, step by step, at the beginning almost reluctantly, but then with intoxication, and as if attracted by an irresistible fascination, first the gloomy steps, then the dimly-lighted steps, and at last the luminous and splendid steps of enthusiasm.
One night he was alone in his little garret, his candle was lighted, and he was reading at a table by the open window. All sorts of reveries reached him from the space, and were mingled with his thoughts. What a spectacle is night! We hear dull sounds and know not whence they come; we see Jupiter, which is twelve hundred times larger than the earth glowing like a fire-ball; the blue is black, the stars sparkle, and the whole forms a formidable sight. He was reading the bulletins of the grand army, those Homeric strophes written on the battle-field; he saw in them at intervals the image of his father, and ever that of the Emperor; the whole of the great Empire was before him; he felt, as it were, a tide within him swelling and mounting; it seemed at moments as if his father passed close to him like a breath, and whispered in his ear; little by little he grew strange, he fancied he could hear drums, cannon, and bugles, the measured tread of the battalions, and the hollow distant gallop of the cavalry; from time to time his eyes were raised and surveyed the colossal constellations flashing in the profundities, and then they fell again upon the book, and he saw in that other colossal things stirring confusedly. His heart was contracted, he was transported, trembling, and gasping; and all alone, without knowing what was within him or what he obeyed, he rose, stretched his arms out of the window, looked fixedly at the shadow, the silence, the dark infinitude, the eternal immensity, and shouted, "Long live the Emperor!"
From this moment it was all over. The ogre of Corsica, the usurper, the tyrant, the monster who was the lover of his own sisters, the actor who took lessons of Talma, the prisoner of Jaffa, the tiger, Buonaparte,—all this faded away and made room in his mind for a radiance in which the pale marble phantom of Cæsar stood out serenely at an inaccessible height. The Emperor had never been to his father more than the beloved captain whom a man admires and for whom he devotes himself; but to Marius he was far more. He was the predestined constructor of the French group which succeeded the Roman group in the dominion of the universe; he was the prodigious architect of an earthquake, the successor of Charlemagne, Louis XI., Henri IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., and the Committee of Public Safety. He had doubtless his spots, his faults, and even his crimes, that is to say, he was a man; but he was august in his faults, brilliant in his spots, and powerful in his crime. He was the predestined man who compelled all nations to say,—"The great nation." He was even more; he was the very incarnation of France, conquering Europe by the sword he held, and the world by the lustre which he emitted. Marius saw in Bonaparte the dazzling spectre which will ever stand on the frontier and guard the future. He was a despot, but a dictator,—a despot resulting from a republic and completing a revolution. Napoleon became for him the man-people, as the Saviour is the man-God.
As we see, after the fashion of all new converts to a religion, his conversion intoxicated him and he dashed into faith and went too far. His nature was so; once upon an incline, it was impossible to check himself. Fanaticism for the sword seized upon him, and complicated in his mind the enthusiasm for the idea. He did not perceive that he admired force as well as genius, that is to say, filled up the two shrines of his idolatry,—on one side that which is divine, on the other that which is brutal. He also deceived himself on several other points, though in a different way; he admitted everything. There is a way of encountering error by going to meet the truth, and by a sort of violent good faith, which accepts everything unconditionally. Upon the new path he had entered, while judging the wrongs of the ancient régime and measuring the glory of Napoleon, he neglected attenuating circumstances.
However this might be, a prodigious step was made; where he had once seen the downfall of monarchy he now saw the accession of France. The points of his moral compass were changed, and what had once been sunset was now sunrise; and all these revolutions took place in turns, without his family suspecting it. When, in this mysterious labor, he had entirely lost his old Bourbonic and Ultra skin, when he had pulled off the aristocrat, the Jacobite, and the Royalist, when he was a perfect Revolutionist, profoundly democratic, and almost republican, he went to an engraver's and ordered one hundred cards, with the address, "Baron Marius Pontmercy." This was but the logical consequence of the change which had taken place in him,—a change in which everything gravitated round his father. Still, as he knew nobody and could not show his cards at any porter's lodge, he put them in his pocket.
By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew nearer to his father, his memory, and the things for which the Colonel had fought during five-and-twenty years, he drew away from his grandfather. As we said, M. Gillenormand's humor had not suited him for a long time past, and there already existed between them all the dissonances produced by the contact of a grave young man with a frivolous old man. The gayety of Géronte offends and exasperates the melancholy of Werther. So long as the same political opinions and ideas had been common to them, Marius met his grandfather upon them as on a bridge; but when the bridge fell there was a great gulf between them. And then, before all else, Marius had indescribable attacks of revolt when he reflected that it was M. Gillenormand who, through stupid motives, pitilessly tore him from the Colonel, thus depriving father of son, and son of father. Through his reverence for his father, Marius had almost grown to have an aversion for his grandfather.
Nothing of this, however, was revealed in his demeanor; he merely became colder than before, laconic at meals, and rarely at home. When his aunt scolded him for it he was very gentle, and alleged as excuse his studies, examinations, conferences, etc. The grandfather, however, still adhered to his infallible diagnostic,—"He is in love; I know the symptoms." Marius was absent every now and then.
"Where can he go?" the aunt asked.
In one of his trips, which were always very short, he went to Montfermeil in order to obey his father's intimation, and sought for the ex-Sergeant of Waterloo, Thénardier the landlord. Thénardier had failed, the public-house was shut up, and no one knew what had become of him. In making this search Marius remained away for four days.
"He is decidedly getting out of order," said the grandfather.
They also fancied they could notice that he wore under his shirt something fastened round his neck by a black ribbon.
[CHAPTER VII.]
SOME PETTICOAT.
We have alluded to a lancer: he was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand's, on the father's side, who led a garrison life, far away from the domestic hearth. Lieutenant Théodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions required for a man to be a pretty officer: he had a young lady's waist, a victorious way of clanking his sabre, and turned-up moustaches. He came very rarely to Paris, so rarely that Marius had never seen him, and the two cousins only knew each other by name. Théodule was, we think we said, the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she never saw him; for not seeing people allows of every possible perfection being attributed to them.
One morning Mlle. Gillenormand the elder returned to her apartments, as much affected as her general placidity would allow. Marius had again asked his grandfather's permission to make a short trip, adding that he wished to start that same evening. "Go," the grandfather answered; and he added to himself, as he pursed up his eye, "Another relapse of sleeping from home." Mile. Gillenormand went up to her room greatly puzzled, and cast to the stair-case case this exclamation, "It's too much!" and this question, "But where is it that he goes?" She caught a glimpse of some more or less illicit love adventure, of a woman in the shadow, a meeting, a mystery, and would not have felt vexed to have a closer peep at it through her spectacles. Scenting a mystery is like the first bite at a piece of scandal, and holy souls do not detest it. In the secret compartments of bigotry there is some curiosity for scandal.
She was, therefore, suffering from a vague appetite to learn a story. In order to distract this curiosity, which agitated her a little beyond her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and began festooning with cotton upon cotton one of those embroideries of the Empire and the Restoration, in which there are a great many cabriolet wheels. It was a clumsy job, and the workwoman was awkward. She had been sitting over it for some hours when the door opened. Mlle. Gillenormand raised her nose, and saw Lieutenant Théodule before her, making his regulation salute. She uttered a cry of delight; for a woman may be old, a prude, devout, and an aunt, but she is always glad to see a lancer enter her room.
"You here, Théodule!" she exclaimed.
"In passing, my dear aunt."
"Well, kiss me."
"There," said Théodule, as he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand walked to her secretaire and opened it.
"You will stop the week out?"
"My dear aunt, I am off again to-night."
"Impossible!"
"Mathematically."
"Stay, my little Théodule, I beg of you."
"The heart says Yes, but duty says No. The story is very simple; we are changing garrison; we were at Melun, and are sent to Gaillon. In order to go to the new garrison we were obliged to pass through Paris, and I said to myself, 'I will go and see my aunt.'"
"And here's for your trouble."
And she slipped ten louis into his hand.
"You mean to say for my pleasure, dear aunt."
Théodule kissed her a second time, and she had the pleasure of having her neck slightly grazed by his gold-laced collar.
"Are you travelling on horseback, with your regiment?"
"No, my aunt: I have come to see you by special permission. My servant is leading my horse, and I shall travel by the diligence. By the way, there is one thing I want to ask you."
"What is it?"
"It appears that my cousin Marius Pontmercy is going on a journey too?"
"How do you know that?" the aunt said, her curiosity being greatly tickled.
"On reaching Paris I went to the coach-office to take my place in the coupé."
"Well?"
"A traveller had already taken a seat in the Impériale, and I saw his name in the way-bill: it was Marius Pontmercy."
"Oh, the scamp!" the aunt exclaimed. "Ah! your cousin is not a steady lad like you. To think that he is going to pass the night in a diligence!"
"Like myself."
"You do it through duty, but he does it through disorder."
"The deuce!" said Théodule.
Here an event occurred to Mlle. Gillenormand the elder: she had an idea. If she had been a man she would have struck her forehead. She addressed Théodule.
"You are aware that your cousin does not know you?"
"I have seen him, but he never deigned to notice me."
"Where is the diligence going to?"
"To Andelys."
"Is Marius going there?"
"Unless he stops on the road, like myself. I get out at Vernon, to take the Gaillon coach. I know nothing about Marius's route."
"Marius! what an odious name! What an idea it was to call him that! Well, your name, at least, is Théodule."
"I would rather it was Alfred," the officer said.
"Listen, Théodule; Marius absents himself from the house."
"Eh, eh!"
"He goes about the country."
"Ah, ah!"
"He sleeps out."
"Oh, oh!"
"We should like to know the meaning of all this."
Théodule replied, with the calmness of a bronze man, "Some petticoat!"
And with that inward chuckle which evidences a certainty, he added, "a girl!"
"That is evident!" the aunt exclaimed, who believed that she heard M. Gillenormand speaking, and who felt his conviction issue irresistibly from that word "girl," accentuated almost in the same way by grand-uncle and grand-nephew. She continued,—
"Do us a pleasure by following Marius a little. As he does not know you, that will be an easy matter. Since there is a girl in the case, try to get a look at her, and write and tell us all about it, for it will amuse grandfather."
Théodule had no excessive inclination for this sort of watching, but he was greatly affected by the ten louis, and he believed he could see a possible continuation of such gifts. He accepted the commission, and said, "As you please, aunt," and added in an aside, "I am a Duenna now!"
Mlle. Gillenormand kissed him.
"You would not play such tricks as that, Théodule, for you obey discipline, are the slave of duty, and a scrupulous man, and would never leave your family to go and see one of those creatures."
The lancer made the satisfied grimace of Cartouche when praised for his probity.
Marius, on the evening that followed this dialogue, got into the diligence, not suspecting that he was watched. As for the watcher, the first thing he did was to fall asleep, and his sleep was complete and conscientious. Argus snored the whole night. At daybreak the guard shouted, "Vernon; passengers for Vernon, get out here!" and Lieutenant Théodule got out.
"All right," he growled, still half asleep, "I get out here."
Then his memory growing gradually clearer, he thought of his aunt, the ten louis, and the account he had promised to render of Marius's sayings and doings. This made him laugh.
"He is probably no longer in the coach," he thought, while buttoning up his jacket. "He may have stopped at Poissy, he may have stopped at Triel; if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have done so at Mantes, unless he stopped at Rolleboise, or only went as far as Passy, with the choice of turning on his left to Évreux, or on his right to Laroche Guyon. Run after him, my aunt. What the deuce shall I write to the old lady?"
At this moment the leg of a black trouser appeared against the window-pane of the coupé.
"Can it be Marius?" the Lieutenant said.
It was Marius. A little peasant girl was offering flowers to the passengers, and crying, "Bouquets for your ladies." Marius went up to her, and bought the finest flowers in her basket.
"By Jove!" said Théodule, as he leaped out of the coupé, "the affair is growing piquant. Who the deuce is he going to carry those flowers to? She must be a deucedly pretty woman to deserve so handsome a bouquet. I must have a look at her."
And then he began following Marius, no longer by order, but through personal curiosity, like those dogs which hunt on their own account. Marius paid no attention to Théodule. Some elegant women were getting out of the diligence, but he did not look at them; he seemed to see nothing around him.
"He must be preciously in love," Théodule thought. Marius proceeded towards the church.
"That's glorious!" Théodule said to himself; "the church, that's the thing. Rendezvous spiced with a small amount of Mass are the best. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle exchanged in the presence of the Virgin."
On reaching the church, Marius did not go in, but disappeared behind one of the buttresses of the apse.
"The meeting outside," Théodule said; "now for a look at the girl."
And he walked on tiptoe up to the corner which Marius had gone round, and on reaching it stopped in stupefaction. Marius, with his forehead in both his hands, was kneeling in the grass upon a tomb, and had spread his flowers out over it. At the head of the grave was a cross of black wood, with this name in white letters,—"COLONEL BARON PONTMERCY." Marius could be heard sobbing.
The girl was a tomb.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE.
It is hither that Marius had come the first time that he absented himself from Paris; it was to this spot he retired each time that M. Gillenormand said,—"He sleeps out." Lieutenant Théodule was absolutely discountenanced by this unexpected elbowing of a tomb, and felt a disagreeable and singular sensation, which he was incapable of analyzing, and which was composed of respect for a tomb, mingled with respect for a colonel. He fell back, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and there was discipline in this retreat; death appeared to him wearing heavy epaulettes, and he almost gave it the military salute. Not knowing what to write to his aunt, he resolved not to write at all; and there would probably have been no result from Théodule's discovery of Marius's amour had not, by one of those mysterious arrangements so frequent in accident, the scene at Vernon had almost immediately a sort of counterpart in Paris.
Marius returned from Vernon very early on the morning of the third day, and wearied by two nights spent in a diligence, and feeling the necessity of repairing his want of sleep by an hour's swimming exercise, he hurried up to his room, only took the time to take off his travelling coat and the black ribbon which he had round his neck, and went to the bath. M. Gillenormand, who rose at an early hour like all old men who are in good health, heard him come in, and hastened as quick as his old legs would carry him up the stairs leading to Marius's garret, in order to welcome him back, and try and discover his movements. But the young man had taken less time in descending than the octogenarian in ascending, and when Father Gillenormand entered the garret Marius was no longer there. The bed had been unoccupied, and on it lay the coat and black ribbon unsuspectingly.
"I prefer that," said M. Gillenormand, and a moment later he entered the drawing-room, where Mlle. Gillenormand the elder was already seated embroidering her cabriolet wheels. The entrance was triumphant; M. Gillenormand held in one hand the coat, in the other the neck-ribbon, and shouted,—
"Victory! we are going to penetrate the mystery, we are going to know the cream of the joke, we are going to lay our hands on the libertinage of our cunning gentleman. Here is the romance itself, for I have the portrait."
In fact, a box of shagreen leather, much like a miniature, was suspended from the ribbon. The old man took hold of this box, and looked at it for some time without opening, with the air of pleasure, eagerness, and anger of a poor starving fellow who sees a splendid dinner, of which he will have no share, carried past under his nose.
"It is evidently a portrait, and I am up to that sort of thing. It is worn tenderly on the heart,—what asses they are! Some abominable wench, who will probably make me shudder; for young men have such bad tastes now-a-days."
"Let us look, father," the old maid said.
The box opened by pressing a spring, but they only found in it a carefully folded-up paper.
"From the same to the same" said M. Gillenormand, bursting into a laugh. "I know what it is,—a billet-doux!"
"Indeed! let us read it," said the aunt; and she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as follows,—
"For my son. The Emperor made me a Baron on the field of Waterloo, and as the Restoration contests this title which I purchased with my blood, my son will assume it and wear it; of course he will be worthy of it."
What the father and daughter felt, it is not possible to describe; but they were chilled as if by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange a syllable. M. Gillenormand merely said in a low voice, and as if speaking to himself, "It is that trooper's handwriting." The aunt examined the slip of paper, turned it about in all directions, and then placed it again in the box.
At the same instant a small square packet wrapped up in blue paper fell from a pocket of the great-coat. Mlle. Gillenormand picked it up and opened the blue paper. It contained Marius's one hundred cards, and she passed one to M. Gillenormand, who read, "Baron Marius Pontmercy." The old man rang, and Nicolette came in. M. Gillenormand took the ribbon, the box, and the coat, threw them on the ground in the middle of the room, and said,—
"Remove that rubbish."
A long hour passed in the deepest silence; the old man and the old maid were sitting back to back and thinking, probably both of the same things. At the end of this hour, Mlle. Gillenormand said,—"Very pretty!" A few minutes after, Marius came in; even before he crossed the threshold he perceived his grandfather holding one of his cards in his hand. On seeing Marius he exclaimed, with his air of bourgeois and grimacing superiority, which had something crushing about it,—
"Stay! stay! stay! stay! stay! You are a Baron at present; I must congratulate you. What does this mean?"
Marius blushed slightly, and answered,—
"It means that I am my father's son."
M. Gillenormand left off laughing, and said harshly, "I am your father."
"My father," Marius continued with downcast eyes and a stern air, "was an humble and heroic man, who gloriously served the Republic of France, who was great in the greatest history which men have ever made, who lived for a quarter of a century in a bivouac, by day under a shower of grape-shot and bullets, and at night in snow, mud, wind, and rain. He was a man who took two flags, received twenty wounds, died in forgetfulness and abandonment, and who had never committed but one fault, that of loving too dearly two ungrateful beings,—his country and myself."
This was more than M. Gillenormand could bear; at the word Republic he had risen, or, more correctly, sprung up. Each of the words that Marius had just uttered had produced on the old gentleman's face the same effect as the blast of a forge-bellows upon a burning log. From gloomy he became red, from red, purple, and from purple, flaming.
"Marius," he shouted, "you abominable boy! I know not who your father was, and do not wish to know. I know nothing about it, but what I do know is, that there never were any but scoundrels among all those people; they were all rogues, assassins, red-caps, robbers! I say all, I say all! I know nobody! I say all; do you understand me, Marius? You must know that you are as much a Baron as my slipper is! They were all bandits who served Robespierre! they were all brigands who served B-u-o-naparté! all traitors who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed their legitimate king! all cowards who ran away from the Prussians and the English at Waterloo! That is what I know. If Monsieur your father was among them, I am ignorant of the fact, and am sorry for it. I am your humble servant!"
In his turn, Marius became the brand, and M. Gillenormand the bellows. Marius trembled all over, he knew not what to do, and his head was a-glow. He was the priest who sees his consecrated wafers cast to the wind, the Fakir who notices a passer-by spit on his idol. It was impossible that such things could be said with impunity in his presence, but what was he to do? His father had just been trampled under foot, and insulted in his presence; but by whom? By his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the other? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather, and equally impossible for him not to avenge his father. On one side was a sacred tomb, on the other was white hair. He tottered for a few moments like a drunken man, then raised his eyes, looked fixedly at his grandfather, and shouted in a thundering voice,—
"Down with the Bourbons, and that great pig of a Louis XVIII.!"
Louis XVIII. had been dead four years, but that made no difference to him. The old man, who had been scarlet, suddenly became whiter than his hair. He turned to a bust of the Duc de Berry which was on the mantel-piece, and bowed to it profoundly with a sort of singular majesty. Then he walked twice, slowly and silently, from the mantel-piece to the window, and from the window to the mantel-piece, crossing the whole room, and making the boards creak as if he were a walking marble statue. The second time he leaned over his daughter, who was looking at the disturbance with the stupor of an old sheep, and said to her with a smile which was almost calm,—
"A Baron like this gentleman and a bourgeois like myself can no longer remain beneath the same roof."
And suddenly drawing himself up, livid, trembling, and terrible, with his forehead dilated by the fearful radiance of passion, he stretched out his arm toward Marius, and shouted, "Begone!"
Marius left the house, and on the morrow M. Gillenormand said to his daughter,—
"You will send every six months sixty pistoles to that blood-drinker, and never mention his name to me."
Having an immense amount of fury to expend, and not knowing what to do with it, he continued to address his daughter as "you" instead of "thou" for upwards of three months.
Marius, on his side, left the house indignant, and a circumstance aggravated his exasperation. There are always small fatalities of this nature to complicate domestic dramas: the anger is augmented although the wrongs are not in reality increased. In hurriedly conveying, by the grandfather's order, Marius's rubbish to his bed-room, Nicolette, without noticing the fact, let fall, probably on the attic stairs, which were dark, the black shagreen case in which was the paper written by the Colonel. As neither could be found, Marius felt convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"—he never called him otherwise from that date—had thrown "his father's will" into the fire. He knew by heart the few lines written by the Colonel, and consequently nothing was lost: but the paper, the writing, this sacred relic,—all this was his heart. What had been done with it?
Marius went away without saying where he was going and without knowing, with thirty francs, his watch, and some clothes in a carpet-bag. He jumped into a cabriolet, engaged it by the hour, and proceeded at random towards the Pays Latin. What would become of Marius?