For want of better, it was agreed upon that we should make the ‘Restaurant à Quatre Sous’ our rendezvous each day, to exchange our confidences and report progress. It will scarcely be believed how even this much of a pursuit diverted my mind from its own dark dreamings, and how eagerly my thoughts pursued the new track that was opened to them. It was the utter listlessness, the nothingness of my life, that was weighing me down; and already I saw an escape from this in the pursuit of a good object. I could wager that the pastor of La Marche never thought so intensely, so uninterruptedly, of Lisette as did I for the four-and-twenty hours that followed! It was not only that I had created her image to suit my fancy, but I had invented a whole narrative of her life and adventures since her arrival in Paris.
My firm conviction being that it was lost time to seek for her in obscure and out-of-the-way quarters of the city, I thought it best to pursue the search in the thronged and fashionable resorts of the gay world, the assemblies and theatres. Strong in this conviction, I changed one of my three gold pieces to purchase a ticket for the opera. The reader may smile at the sacrifice; but when he who thinks four sous enough for a dinner, pays twelve francs for the liberty to be crushed in the crowded parterre of a playhouse, he is indeed buying pleasure at a costly price. It was something more than a fifth of all I possessed in the world, but, after all, my chief regret arose from thinking that it left me so few remaining ‘throws of the dice’ for ‘Fortune.’
I have often reflected since that day by what a mere accident I was present, and yet the spectacle was one that I have never forgotten. It was the last time the First Consul appeared in public, before his assumption of the Imperial title; and at no period through all his great career was the enthusiasm more impassioned regarding him. He sat in the box adjoining the stage—Cambacérès and Lebrun, with a crowd of others, standing and not sitting, around and behind his chair. When he appeared, the whole theatre rose to greet him, and three several times was he obliged to rise and acknowledge the salutations. And with what a stately condescension did he make these slight acknowledgments!—what haughtiness was there in the glance he threw around him! I have often heard it said, and I have seen it also written, that previous to his assumption of the crown, Bonaparte’s manner exhibited the mean arts and subtle devices of a candidate on the hustings, dispensing all the flatteries and scattering all the promises that such occasions are so prolific of. I cannot, of course, pretend to contradict this statement positively; but I can record the impression which that scene made upon me, as decidedly the opposite of this assumption. I have repeatedly seen him since that event, but never do I remember his calm, cold features more impassively stern, more proudly collected, than on that night.
Every allusion of the piece that could apply to him was eagerly caught up. Not a phrase nor a chance word that could compliment, was passed over in silence; and if greatness and glory were accorded, as if by an instinctive reverence, the vast assemblage turned towards him, to lay their homage at his feet. I watched him narrowly, and could see that he received them all as his rightful tribute, the earnest of the debt the nation owed him. Among the incidents of that night, I remember one which actually for the moment convulsed the house with its enthusiasm. One of the officers of his suite had somehow stumbled against Bonaparte’s hat, which, on entering, he had thrown carelessly beside his chair. Stooping down and lifting it up, he perceived to whom it belonged, and then, remarking the mark of a bullet on the edge, he showed it significantly to a general near him. Slight and trivial as was the incident, it was instantly caught up by the parterre. A low murmur ran quickly around; and then a sudden cheer burst forth, for some one remembered it was the anniversary of Marengo! And now the excitement became madness, and reiterated shouts proclaimed that the glory of that day was among the proudest memories of France. For once, and once only, did any trait of feeling show itself on that impassive face. I thought I could mark even a faint tinge of colour in that sallow cheek, as in recognition he bowed a dignified salute to the waving and agitated assembly.
I saw that proud face, at moments when human ambition might have seemed to have reached its limit, and yet never with a haughtier look than on that night I speak of. His foot was already on the first step of the throne, and his spirit seemed to swell with the conscious force of coming greatness.
And Lisette, all this time? Alas, I had totally forgotten her! As the enthusiasm around me began to subside, I had time to recover myself, and look about me. There was much beauty and splendour to admire. Madame Junot was there, and Mademoiselle de Bessières, with a crowd of others less known, but scarcely less lovely. Not one, however, could I see that corresponded with my mind-drawn portrait of the peasant beauty; and I scanned each face closely and critically. There was female loveliness of every type, from the dark-eyed beauty of Spanish race, to the almost divine regularity of a Raphaelite picture. There was the brilliant aspect of fashion, too; but nowhere could I see what I sought for; nowhere detect that image which imagination had stamped as that of the beauty of ‘La Marche.’ If disappointed in my great object, I left the theatre with my mind full of all I had witnessed. The dreadful event of Ettenheim had terribly shaken Bonaparte in my esteem; yet how resist the contagious devotion of a whole nation—how remain cold in the midst of the burning zeal of all France? These thoughts brought me to the consideration of myself. Was I, or was I not, any longer a soldier of his army? or was I disqualified for joining in that burst of national enthusiasm which proclaimed that all France was ready to march under his banner? To-morrow I ‘ll wait upon the Minister of War, thought I, or I’ll seek out the commanding officer of some regiment that I know, or at least a comrade; and so I went on, endeavouring to frame a plan for my guidance, as I strolled along the streets, which were now almost deserted. The shops were all closed; of the hotels, such as were yet open were far too costly for means like mine; and so, as the night was calm and balmy with the fresh air of spring, I resolved to pass it out of doors. I loitered then along the Champs-Elysées; and at length stretching myself on the grass beneath the trees, lay down to sleep. ‘An odd bedroom enough,’ thought I, ‘for one who has passed the evening at the opera, and who has feasted his ears at the expense of his stomach.’ I remembered, too, another night when the sky had been my canopy in Paris, when I slept beneath the shadow of the guillotine and the Place de Grève. ‘Well,’ thought I, ‘times are at least changed for the better since that day; and my own fortunes are certainly not lower.’
This comforting reflection closed my waking memories, and I slept soundly till morning.
CHAPTER XLII. THE ‘COUNT DE MAUREPAS,’ ALIAS————
There is a wide gulf between him who opens his waking eyes in a splendid chamber, and with half-drowsy thoughts speculates on the pleasures of the coming day, and him, who, rising from the dew-moistened earth, stretches his aching limbs for a second or so, and then hurries away to make his toilet at the nearest fountain.