I spoke half slightingly of their talents, but professed implicit trust in their integrity. He turned the conversation then towards politics, and discussed with me the questions on which I had been writing so earnestly, both for and against, in the two opposing journals. The tone of virulent abuse of both was great; and I half hinted that a personal amende was perhaps the point to which my opponent and as well myself were tending. He smiled slightly, but meaningly.
“That opinion is not yours, then, sir?” asked I.
“Certainly not,” said he, blandly. “Monsieur Bertin of the 'Presse' will not seek satisfaction from Monsieur Bertin of the Drapeau,' still less of Monsieur Bertin of the 'Gazette,' whom he holds in such slight esteem.”
“How, sir! Do you mean to imply that I am the writer in all these journals?”
“You have just told me so, sir,” said he, still smiling; “and I respect the word of a gentleman. The tone of identity assumed on paper is exactly that you have yourself put on when advocating any of these lines of policy. I suspected this from the first; now I know it. Ah, Monsieur Bertin, you are in the mere nursery of craftiness,—not but I must admit you are a very promising child of your years.”
Far from presuming on his discovery, he spoke more kindly and more confidentially than ever to me; asked my reasons for this opinion and for that, and seemed to think that I must have studied the questions I wrote on deeply and maturely. There was nothing like disparagement in his tone towards me, but, on the contrary, an almost flattering appreciation of my ingenuity as a writer.
“Still, Monsieur Bertin,” said he, with affected gravity, “the 'Drapeau' went too far,—that you must allow; and, for your sake as for ours, it is better it should be suppressed. The fine shall be paid, but it must appear to have come from the royalists. Can I trust you for this?”
He looked at me calmly, but steadily as he spoke; and certainly I felt as if any deceit, should I desire it, were perfectly impossible before him. He did not wait for my reply, but, with a seriousness that savored of sincerity, said,—
“The press in France at this moment is the expression of this man or that, but it is no more. We live in a period of too much change to have anything like a public opinion; so that what is written to-day is forgotten to-morrow. Yet with all that, the people must be taught to have one religion of the State as they have one of the Church, and heresies of either kind must be suppressed. Now, Monsieur Bertin, my advice to you is, be of the good fold,—not alone because it is good, but because it is likely to be permanent. Continue to write for the 'Gazette.' When you want information, Sanson will procure it for you; but you must not come here again. Temper your royalist zeal with a seeming regard for your personal safety. Remember that a gentleman gives larger recognizances than a sans-culottes; and, above all, keep in mind that you serve us better in those columns than in our own. C'est de la haute politique, de faire combattre ses ennemis pour soi.”
He repeated this sentiment twice over, and then with a courteous gesture dismissed me. I was now in the secret pay of the Government,—no regular allowance made me, but permitted to draw freely; and when any occasion of real information offered, to pay largely for it.