He was the oldest, Bernard's brother, the cherished darling of the Jansoulets, father and mother, the hope and the glory of the family of the junk-dealer, who, faithful like so many more in the South to the superstition concerning the right of primogeniture, had made every conceivable sacrifice to send that handsome, ambitious youth to Paris; and he had started with four or five marshals' batons in his trunk, the admiration of all the girls in the village; but Paris—after it had beaten and twisted and squeezed that brilliant Southern rag in its great vat for ten years, burned him in all its acids, rolled him in all its mire—relegated him at last to the state of battered flotsam and jetsam, embruted, paralyzed, which had killed his father with grief and compelled his mother to sell everything in her house and to live by domestic service in the well-to-do families of the neighborhood. Luckily, just about the time that that relic of Parisian hospitals, sent back to his home by public charity, appeared in Bourg-Saint-Andéol, Bernard,—who was called Cadet, as in all the half-Arab Southern families, where the eldest son always takes the family name and the last comer the name of Cadet,—Bernard was already in Tunis, in process of making his fortune, and sending money home regularly. But what remorse it caused the poor mother to owe everything, even life itself, and the comfort of the wretched invalid, to the brave, energetic lad, of whom his father and she had always been fond, but without genuine tenderness, and whom, from the time he was five years old, they had been accustomed to treat as a day-laborer, because he was very strong and hairy and ugly, and was already shrewder than any one else in the house in the matter of dealing in old iron. Ah! how she would have liked to have her Cadet with her, to repay him a little of all he was doing for her, to pay in one sum all the arrears of affection, of motherly cosseting that she owed him.
But, you see, these kingly fortunes have the burdens, the vexations of kingly existences. Poor Mother Jansoulet, in her dazzling surroundings, was much like a genuine queen, having undergone the long banishments, the cruel separations and trials which atone for earthly grandeur; one of her sons in a state of stupid lethargy for all time, the other far away, writing little, engrossed by his great interests, always saying, "I will come," and never coming. In twelve years she had seen him but once, in the confusion of the bey's visit at Saint-Romans: a bewildering succession of horses, carriages, fireworks, and festivities. Then he had whirled away again behind his sovereign, having had hardly time to embrace his old mother, who had retained naught of that great joy, so impatiently awaited, save a few newspaper pictures, in which Bernard Jansoulet was exhibited arriving at the château with Ahmed and presenting his aged mother to him,—is not that the way in which kings and queens have their family reunions illustrated in the journals?—plus a cedar of Lebanon, brought from the end of the world,—a great caramantran of a tree, which was as costly to move and as much in the way as the obelisk—being hoisted and planted by force of men and money and horses; a tree which had wrought confusion among the shrubbery as the price of setting up a souvenir commemorative of the royal visit. On his present trip to France, at least, knowing that he had come for several months, perhaps forever, she hoped to have her Bernard all to herself. And lo! he swooped down upon her one fine evening, enveloped in the same triumphant splendor, in the same official pomp, surrounded by a multitude of counts, marquises, fine gentlemen from Paris, who with their servants filled the two great breaks she had sent to meet them at the little station of Giffas, on the other side of the Rhone.
"Come, come, embrace me, my dear mamma. There's no shame in hugging your boy, whom you haven't seen for years, close to your heart. Besides, all these gentlemen are friends of ours. This is Monsieur le Marquis de Monpavon, and Monsieur le Marquis de Bois-l'Héry. Ah! the time has gone by when I used to bring you to eat bean soup with us, little Cabassu and Bompain Jean-Baptiste. You know Monsieur de Géry—he, with my old friend Cardailhac, whom I introduce to you, make up the first batch. But others are coming. Prepare for a terrible how-d'ye-do. We receive the bey in four days."
"The bey again!" said the good woman in dismay. "I thought he was dead."
Jansoulet and his guests could but laugh at her comical alarm, heightened by her Southern accent.
"But there's another, mamma. There are always beys—luckily for me, sapristi! But don't you be afraid. You won't have so much trouble on your hands. Friend Cardailhac has undertaken to look after things. We're going to have some superb fêtes. Meanwhile give us some dinner quick, and show us our rooms. Our Parisian friends are tired out."
"Everything is ready, my son," said the old woman simply, standing stiffly erect in her cap of Cambrai linen, with points yellowed by age, which she never laid aside even on great occasions. Wealth had not changed her. She was the typical peasant of the Rhone valley, independent and proud, with none of the cunning humility of the rustics described by Balzac, too simple, too, to be puffed up by wealth. Her only pride was to show her son with what painstaking zeal she had acquitted herself of her duties as care-taker. Not an atom of dust, not a trace of dampness on the walls. The whole magnificent ground-floor, the salons with the silk draperies and upholstery of changing hue, taken at the last moment from their coverings; the long summer galleries, with cool, resonant inlaid floors, which the Louis XV. couches, with cane seats and backs upholstered with flowered stuffs, furnished with summer-like coquetry; the enormous dining-hall, decorated with flowers and branches; even the billiard-room, with its rows of gleaming balls, its chandeliers and cue-racks,—the whole vast extent of the château, seen through the long door-windows, wide open upon the broad seignorial porch, displayed its splendor to the admiration of the visitors, and reflected the beauty of that marvellous landscape, lying serene and peaceful in the setting sun, in the mirrors, the waxed or varnished wainscoting, with the same fidelity with which the poplars bowing gracefully to each other, and the swans, placidly swimming, were reproduced on the mirror-like surface of the ponds. The frame was so beautiful, the general outlook so superb, that the obtrusive, tasteless luxury melted away, disappeared even to the most sensitive eye.
"There's something to work with," said Cardailhac the manager, with his monocle at his eye, his hat on one side, already planning his stage-setting.
And the haughty mien of Monpavon, who had been somewhat offended at first by the old lady's head-dress when she received them on the porch, gave place to a condescending smile. Certainly there was something to work with, and their friend Jansoulet, under the guidance of men of taste, could give his Maugrabin Highness a very handsome reception. They talked about nothing else all the evening. Sitting in the sumptuous dining-room, with their elbows on the table, warmed by wine and with full stomachs, they planned and discussed. Cardailhac, whose views were broad, had his plan all formed.
"Carte blanche, of course, eh, Nabob?"