“The story will tell better at table,” said I, gayly, and not sorry to relieve the awkwardness of the moment by any new incident; and with this I ordered dinner at once. As course succeeded course of the magnificent repast, I could not help feeling what a singular preface was all this splendor to the confession that was to follow it, and how oddly would it tell that the host of such a feast was without a sou in the world. Our spirits rose as dinner went on. We talked together like old friends who had met yesterday; we discussed passing topics—all the news of the day—lightly and amusingly; we jested and laughed, with all the light-hearted gayety of unburdened spirits; nor can I remember anything more brilliant than the flow of wit and pleasantry that went on amongst us.
What strange mysterious link unites our lowest moment of despair with a wild and almost headlong joyousness, making of the darkness of our souls a fitting atmosphere for the lightning play of fancy and the bright coruscations of wit! But an hour back, and never was depression deeper than my own; and now my brain abounded with bright-hued thoughts and pleasant imaginings.
It was late when the carriage arrived, and we returned to Paris to finish the evening at Mademoiselle Mars' lodgings in the Rue de Choiseul. The little salons, furnished with a consummate taste and elegance, were crowded with visitors, as we reached them,—artists, authors, musicians, theatrical people of every kind and sort, with a sprinkling of the higher world, admitted as a rare favor to these “Saturdays.”
It was in the fascination of this very class of society that Margot had originally conceived her passion for the stage. It was in their enthusiasm for her genius and their admiration of her beauty she had first tasted the ambitious longing for fame and applause; and it was still here that she revelled, as in a charmed existence,—here sought the inspirations that quickened her spirit to its proudest darings, and nerved her heart for efforts almost beyond human strength.
I had but to see her for a moment in the midst of this adulation to comprehend the whole history of her life. The poet brought his verses, the musician his strains, the sculptor laid his own image of herself at her feet; the most rapturous verses, the most polished flatteries, met her as she entered. Mademoiselle Mars herself swelled the chorus of these praises, and seemed prouder in the triumphs of her protégée than she had ever been in her own. Margot accepted all this homage as a queen might have done. She received it as a tribute that was due, and of which none dared to defraud her. Shall I own that if at first a modest humility and a girlish diffidence had been more gratifying to me to witness, yet, as the hours wore on, not only had I accustomed myself to bear with, but I actually felt myself joining in that same spirit of adulation which seemed so meetly offered at this shrine?
What sad repinings, what terrible self-reproaches come over me as I write these lines! My thoughts all turn to the very darkest, and yet the most brilliant, moment of my life: the brightest in all its actual splendor and delight,—the gloomiest in its dreary memory! Lest these fancies should master me, I will pursue my story rapidly, coldly, apathetically, if I may. I will not suffer a word, if I can help it, to escape me that may unman me for my task, now all but completed. I suppose that no man can write of himself without becoming more or less his own apologist. Even in his self-accusings there will be mingled a degree of commiseration, and his judgments will be found tempered with merciful considerations. I would that I were capable of something better, bolder, and more manly than this. I would that others might learn of my “short-comings,” and be taught by my “over-reachings”! But though I cannot point the moral, I will tell the tale.
Margot—it was the caprice of the moment—presented me to the society as her cousin. I was the Chevalier de Bertin, of good family and ample fortune. “Passionné pour les arts,” as she said, “and the devoted slave of genius.” The introduction was well calculated to insure me a favorable reception; and so it proved. I was at once admitted into all the masonry of the craft. The “coulisses” of every theatre were open to me; the private box of the prima donna, the editorial sanctum, the dressing-room where the great actress received her chosen few, and the little supper-table, at which a place would have been a boon to royalty,—all were mine. To support myself, and maintain a condition proportionate to my pretended rank, I labored immensely. I wrote for no less than four of the great journals of Paris. I was the leading political writer in the Bonapartist “Presse,” the royalist in the “Gazette de la Vendée,” and the infuriated defender of the Girondins in the terrible columns of “Le Drapeau de Pays,” theatrical and literary criticism being my walk in the pages of the “Avant Scène.”
Two persons only were in my secret,—Sanson, the subeditor of the “Presse,” and Jostard, who was a royalist agent, and who paid with a liberal hand all the advocates of the Bourbons. My intimate knowledge of the secret history of party, my acquaintance with political characters personally, and, above all, my information on England and English topics, gave me enormous advantages, and many of my contributions were attributed to persons high in political station, and speaking the sentiments of authority. I was well versed in the slashing insolence of the military style in which the Bonapartists wrote, and knew all the cant of the Jesuit, as well as the chosen phraseology of the wildest republican. In this way I attacked and replied to myself vindictively, and even savagely. Assault and counter-attack, insulting demands and still more insulting replies, issued forth each morning to amaze the capital, and make men ask how long could such a polemic be sustained without personal vengeance?
In my Bonapartist capacity I assailed Pitt unceasingly. It was the theme of which that party never wearied, and in which all their hatred to England could be carried without openly wounding the susceptibilities of the nation. If I assailed the covert treachery of the English minister by the increased activity in the dockyards during a state of peace, I hailed that very sign in a Bourbonist article as an evidence that the cause of the exiled family had not been abandoned in Great Britain; while in the “Drapeau” I turned attention to the glorious struggle for freedom then sustained by the blacks of St. Domingo under the chivalrous guidance of Toussaint, openly declaring that with the negro lay at that moment the whole destiny of all Europe.
One of these articles—I wrote it half wild with the excitement of a supper at the Rue Choiseul; I came home nearly distracted by a quarrel with a Martogard—I cannot continue—was headed “Noir au Blanc,” and was an insulting comparison between “Negro Chivalry and the White Man's Subserviency.” An outrageously insolent contrast of Bonaparte with Toussaint closed the paper, and occasioned a police visit to the office of the journal, demanding the name and address of the writer. Of these the editor knew nothing; and though he succeeded in establishing his innocence, the journal was declared to be suppressed, and a heavy fine imposed upon its conductors. I was resolved, at whatever sacrifice, to pay this, and consulted with Sanson how best to set about it. My receipts at that time were as follows: from the “Presse” sixty francs daily; fifty from the “Vendée;” the theatrical journal paid me one hundred weekly; and the “Drapeau,” up to the time of its suppression, forty francs for every article, irrespective of its length. In a word, each day's revenue averaged above a hundred and fifty francs, which it was my custom to spend to the last sou-piece.