“Their smartness,” replied Monsieur Bergeret, “was possibly not of the highest category. But some of them, certainly, were graceful and charming enough. I must confess, however, that it gives me less pleasure to contemplate these fashionable folk since a vile conspiracy has aroused the sickly fanaticism and thoughtless cruelty of their poor little brains. The Affair has revealed the moral sickness with which our fashionable society is afflicted, just as the vaccine of Koch discovers the lesions of tuberculosis in an infected organism. Fortunately the depths of the human ocean lie beneath this gilded scum. But when will my country be delivered from ignorance and hatred?”
CHAPTER X
The Baronne Jules, the widow of the great Baron and the mother of the little Baron, had lost, under circumstances which are familiar to us, her lover Raoul Marcien.[*] She was too tender-hearted to live alone, and it would have been a pity had she done so. It came to pass that one summer night, between the Bois and the Étoile, she took unto herself a new lover. It is fitting to record this fact, as it is not unconnected with public affairs.
[*] See The Amethyst Ring.
The Baronne Jules de Bonmont, who had spent the month of June at Montil, on the banks of the Loire, was passing through Paris on her way to Gmunden. Her house being shut up, she dined at one of the restaurants in the Bois with her brother, Baron Wallstein, Monsieur and Madame de Gromance, Monsieur de Terremondre, and young Lacrisse, who like herself were passing through Paris.
As they all moved in good society they were all Nationalists, Baron Wallstein as much as any of them. An Austrian Jew, expelled from his country by the Viennese anti-Semites, he had settled in France, where he founded a well-known anti-Semite paper and took refuge in the friendship of the Church and the Army. Monsieur de Terremondre, a gentleman of the lesser nobility, and a small landowner, displayed just enough clerical and military enthusiasm to be able to identify himself with the superior territorial aristocracy with which he associated. The Gromances had too much interest in the return of the monarchy not to desire it seriously. Their financial situation was very precarious. Madame de Gromance, who was pretty, well-made, and mistress of her own actions, had so far kept free of the Affair, but her husband, who was no longer young, and was fast approaching the age when a man feels the need of comfort, security and consideration, sighed for better days and impatiently awaited the advent of the King. He was confident that he would be created a peer of France by the restored Philippe. He based his right to a seat in the Luxembourg on his loyalty to the Throne, and entered the ranks of Monsieur Méline’s republicans, whom the King, if he wished to secure them, would have to reward. Young Lacrisse was secretary to the league of the Royalist youth of the department in which the Baronne had estates and the Gromances creditors. Seated at the little table under the trees, lit by candles whose pink shades were surrounded by swooping moths, these five felt that they were united by a single idea, which Joseph Lacrisse happily expressed by saying:
“France must be saved.”
It was the day of vast projects and stupendous hopes. They had, it is true, lost President Faure and the Minister Méline, who—the former strutting in dress-coat and pumps, the latter in a frock-coat made by a village tailor, taking short steps in his heavy hob-nailed shoes—were leading the Republic and Justice to their downfall. Méline had left the Government and Faure had left the world of the living at the very height of the banquet. It must also be recognized that the obsequies of the latter had not produced all that was expected of them, and that the coup they had hoped to bring off at the lying-in-state had proved abortive. It was also true that after smashing President Loubet’s hat the gentry of the cornflower and the white carnation had received their chastisement at the hands of the Socialists. It is true that a Republican Ministry was formed, and obtained a majority. But in the ranks of the reactionary party were the clergy, the magistracy, the army, the landed gentry, industry, commerce, part of the Chamber, and almost the whole of the Press. And as young Lacrisse remarked, if the Keeper of the Seals had taken it into his head to order a search to be made at the headquarters of the Royalist and Anti-Jewish Committees they would not have found one police commissary in the whole of France to seize the compromising documents.