But Roumestan was engaged in signing another kind of paper and had many things to think of more important than the taborist. He was settling down in his new office with the generous ardor and enthusiasm, with the fever of a man who comes to his own. Everything was a novelty to him—the enormous rooms of the Ministry as well as the large ideas necessitated by his position. To arrive at the top, to “reconquer Gaul,” as he had said, that was not so difficult; but to sustain himself satisfactorily, to justify his elevation by intelligent reforms and attempts at progress! Full of zeal, he studied, questioned, consulted, literally surrounded himself with shining lights. With Béchut, that great professor, he studied the evils of the college system and the means to extirpate the spirit of free-thinking in the schools. He employed the experience of his chief in the fine arts, M. de la Calmette, who had behind him twenty-nine years of office, and of Cadaillac, the manager of the grand opera, who was still erect after three failures, in order to remodel the Conservatory, the Salon and the Academy of Music in accordance with brand-new plans.
The trouble was that he never listened to these counsellors, but talked himself for hours at a time and then, suddenly glancing at his watch, would rise and hastily dismiss them: “Bad luck to it—I had forgotten the council meeting! What a life, not a moment to oneself! I understand—just send me your memorial right off!”
Memorials were piling up on Méjean’s desk, who, notwithstanding his good intentions and intelligence, had none too much time for current work and so permitted these grand reforms to slumber in their dust. Like all Ministers when they arrive at a portfolio, Roumestan had brought with him all his clerks from the Rue Scribe—Baron de Lappara and Viscount de Rochemaure, who gave a flavor of aristocracy to the new Ministry, but who were otherwise perfectly incompetent and ignorant of their duties.
The first time that Valmajour came there he was received by Lappara, who occupied himself by preference with the fine arts and whose duties consisted principally in sending invitations in large official envelopes at all hours by staff officers, dragoons or cuirassiers to the young ladies of the minor theatres, asking them to supper. Sometimes the envelope was empty, being merely a pretext to display in front of the lady’s door that reassuring orderly from the Ministry the day before some debt came due.
Lappara received him with a kindly, easy air, a bit top-loftical, like that of a feudal lord receiving one of his vassals. His legs outstretched, so as not to crease his gray-blue trousers, he talked mincingly without stopping a moment the polishing of his nails.
“Not easy just now—the Minister is busy—perhaps in a few days. We’ll let you know, my good fellow!”
And when in his simplicity the musician ventured to say that his matter was somewhat urgent, that they only had enough for a short time left, the baron, carefully placing his file upon the edge of the desk with his most serious air, suggested to him to have a crank attached to his tabor.
“A crank attached to my tabor?—for what purpose?”
“Why, my dear fellow, so as to use it as a box for plaisirs (cakes) while you are out of work.”
The next time Valmajour came to see Roumestan he was received by Rochemaure. The viscount raised his head of hair frizzed with hot irons from the dusty ledger over which he was bending and in his conscientious manner asked to have the mechanism of the fife explained to him, took notes, tried to understand and said finally that he was not there for art matters, but more especially for religious questions.