“Certainly,” said M. Bergeret, “Madame Houssieu didn’t die so edifyingly.”
At these words M. Tabarit rolled his great eyes from east to west. He always sought for the solution of metaphysical problems, not within himself, but without, and whenever he fell into a day dream at table his old servant, misunderstanding his look, would inquire: “Are you looking for the cork of the bottle, sir? It’s in your hand.”
But M. Tabarit’s roving glance had fallen on a great bearded man in cyclist’s dress who was passing along the Mall. This was Eusèbe Boulet, editor in chief of the radical paper le Phare. Instantly M. Tabarit bade a hasty good-bye to the professor and the head of the seminary, and hurrying up to the journalist with great strides, wished him good-day. Then, with a face reddened by excitement, he drew some crumpled papers out of his pocket and handed them to him with a hand that trembled. These were rectifications and supplementary communications as to the last moments of young Lecœur. For at the end of his secluded life and humble ministry, a passion for print, a thirst for interviews and articles, had come upon this holy man.
It was with something approaching a smile that M. Lantaigne watched the poor old fellow, with his quick, birdlike movements, handing up his scrawls to the radical editor.
“Look!” said he to M. Bergeret, “the miasma of this age has even infected a man who was marching deathwards by a path long paved with goodness and virtue. This old fellow, though he is humble and modest about everything else, is craving for notoriety. He yearns to appear in print at any cost, even though it be in the pages of an anti-clerical paper.”
Then, vexed at having betrayed one of his own people to the enemy, M. Lantaigne added with a brisk air of indifference:
“Not much harm done. It’s absurd, that’s all.”
Thereupon, relapsing into silence, he was his own gloomy self once more.
M. Lantaigne was a masterful man, and his will forced M. Bergeret towards their usual seat. Entirely indifferent to the vulgar phenomena by which the world outside themselves is manifested to the generality of men, he scorned to notice the lewd inscription of Narcissus and Ernestine, written in chalk in large running characters on the back of the seat. Sinking down on the bench with a placid air of mental detachment, he covered a third of this inscribed memorial with his broad back. M. Bergeret sat down by M. Lantaigne’s side, first, however, spreading out his newspaper over the back, so as to conceal that part of the text which seemed to him the most outspoken. In his estimation this was the verb—a word which, according to the grammarians, denotes the existence of an attribute to the subject. But inadvertently, he had merely substituted one inscription for another. The paper, in fact, announced in a side-note one of those episodes that have become so common in parliamentary life since the memorable triumph of democratic institutions. This spring the scandal period had come round once more with astronomical exactitude, following the change of the Seasons and the Dance of the Hours, and during the month several deputies had been prosecuted, according to custom. The sheet unfolded by M. Bergeret bore in huge letters this notice: “A Senator at Mazas. Arrest of M. Laprat-Teulet.” Although there was nothing unusual about the fact itself, which merely indicated the regular working of the parliamentary machine, it struck M. Bergeret that there was perhaps an uncalled-for display of indifference in posting up this notice on a bench on the Mall, in the very shadow of those elms under which the honourable M. Laprat-Teulet had so often been the recipient of the honours which democracy loves to bestow on her greatest citizens. Here on the Mall, M. Laprat-Teulet, sitting at the right hand of the President of the Republic, on a rostrum draped in ruby velvet beneath a trophy of flags, had, on different ceremonial occasions in honour of great local or national rejoicings, uttered those words which are so well calculated to exalt the blessings of government, while at the same time they recommend patience to the toiling and devoted masses. Laprat-Teulet, who had started as a republican, had now been for five-and-twenty years the powerful and highly respected leader of the opportunist party in the department. Now that his hair had grown white with age and parliamentary toil, he stood out in his native town like an oak adorned with tricoloured garlands. His enemies had been ruined and his friends enriched through his exertions and he was loaded with public honours. He was, moreover, not only august, but also affable, and every year at prize distributions, he spoke of his poverty to the little children: he could call himself poor without injuring himself in any way, for no one believed him, and everyone felt certain that he was very rich. The sources of his wealth, in fact, were well known, the thousand channels by means of which his labour and his astuteness had drained off the money into his own pockets. They could calculate perfectly what funds had poured into his coffers from the undertakings that were based on his political credit and from all the concessions granted on account of his parliamentary interest. For he was a deputy with famous business capacities, a capital financial orator, and his friends knew, as well as, and even better, than his enemies, what he had pocketed through the Panama affair and similar enterprises. Very far-seeing, moderate in his desires and, above all, anxious not to tempt fortune too far, this great guardian of our industrious and intelligent democracy had given up high finance for the last ten years, thus bowing before the first breath of the storm. He had even left the Palais-Bourbon and retired to the Luxembourg, to that great Council of the Commons of France where his wisdom and devotion to the Republic were duly appreciated. There he was able to pull the strings without being seen by the public. He only spoke on secret commissions. But there he still showed those brilliant qualities which for many years the princes of cosmopolitan finance had justly learnt to appraise at a high value. He remained the outspoken defender of the fiscal system introduced at the Revolution and founded, as we are all aware, on the principles of liberty and justice. He upheld the rights of capital with that emotion which is always so touching in an old hand at the game. Even the turn-coats themselves revered in the person of Laprat-Teulet a pacific and truly conservative mind, regarding him as the guardian angel of personal property.
“His notions are honourable enough,” said M. de Terremondre. “But the worst aspect of it is that to-day he is burdened with the weight of a difficult past.” But Laprat-Teulet had enemies who were implacable in their hatred of him. “I have earned this hatred,” said he magnanimously, “by defending the interests which were entrusted to me.”