“It’s perhaps a good thing for you,” said Henri Léon.
“I say that in a way it is rather to your advantage, Lacrisse, that the King is in exile. You ought to be delighted, allowing, of course, for your patriotic feelings.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple. If you were a financier like myself, the return of the Monarchy might have been profitable to you, if it were only for the Coronation loan. The King would have raised a loan shortly after his accession, for the dear man would have needed money to reign with. There would have been a good deal to be made out of the business for me; but what would you, an advocate, have gained by the Restoration? A prefecture? A lot of good that would be! You can do better than that as a Royalist under the Republic. You speak exceedingly well—don’t deny it—you speak with facility, gracefully. You are one of the twenty-five or thirty members of the junior bar whom Nationalism has brought into prominence. You can believe me. I’m not saying it to flatter you. A good speaker has everything to gain by keeping the King out of the country. With Philippe at the Élysée you would be given some post in the Government or Administration, and that sort of thing quickly does for a man. If you take up the people’s interests you displease the King, and out you go. If you devote yourself to the King’s interests the people complain, and the King dismisses you. He makes mistakes, and you make them, but you are punished for both; popular or unpopular, you are done for inevitably. But as long as the King is in exile you can do no wrong. You can do nothing; you have no responsibility! It is an excellent state of affairs. You need fear neither popularity nor unpopularity, you are above the one and the other. You cannot blunder; no blunder is possible to the defender of a lost cause. The advocate of misfortune is always eloquent. When hope has become impossible, you can be a Royalist with impunity in a Republic. You offer a calm opposition to those in power; you are liberal; you have the sympathy of all enemies of the existing system, and the respect of the Government which you harmlessly oppose. As a servant of the fallen Monarchy the veneration with which you kneel at the feet of your King will emphasize the nobility of your character, and without loss of dignity you can lavish upon him every sort of flattery. In the same way you can, without any inconvenience, read the Prince a lesson, speak to him with brusque frankness, reproach him for his abdications, his alliances, his private counsellors; you can say to him, for example: ‘Monseigneur, I must warn you, with due respect, that you are keeping low company.’ The papers will seize upon these noble words; the fame of your devotion will increase, and you will dominate your own party from the lofty altitudes in which your soul is able to breathe. Advocate or Deputy, at the Palais or from the tribune, you will strike the noblest of attitudes; you are incorruptible, and the good Fathers will protect you. Come, realize your good fortune, Lacrisse.”
“What you say may be funny, Léon,” replied Lacrisse coldly, “but I don’t find it so. And I doubt whether your jokes are at all relevant.”
“I am not joking.”
“Yes, you are. You are a sceptic, and I loathe scepticism. It is the negation of action. I am all for action, always, and in spite of all.”
Henri Léon protested:
“I assure you I am very much in earnest.”