"I have been on the point of speaking to you several times lately about money," said he. "Not about personal expenses, but about the bulk of your fortune. It is invested in French securities. Clement, our lawyer, has the number and names of them. They are all good securities, paying good dividends; they are the securities in which I myself have invested my money. Well, I am selling out——"
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Selling out—realising. I am collecting my money, marshalling my francs, and marching them out of France into England. I propose to do the same with yours."
"But," said I, "is that safe, to have all our money in a foreign country? Suppose that there should be war?"
The Vicomte laughed.
"You have said the words. Suppose there should be war? France would be smashed like a ball of glass—ouf. Do you think I am blind? At the Tuileries, at the Quai d'Orsay, they speak of M. le Vicomte de Chatellan as a very nice man, perhaps, but out of date—out of date; at the War Minister's it is the same—out of date. Meanwhile, I know the machine. I have counted the batteries of artillery and the regiments of the line on paper, and I have counted them in the field, and contrasted the difference. Not that I care a halfpenny for the things in themselves, but they are the protectors of my money; and as such I look after them. I have reviewed the personality of the people at the Tuileries—not that I care a halfpenny for their psychological details, but they are the stewards of my money; and I examine their physiognomies and their lives to see if they are worthy of trust. I look at society—not that I care a halfpenny for the morals of society, but because the health of society is essential to the health of the State. Now, what do I see? I speak not from any moral standpoint, but just as a man speaks who is anxious about the safety of his money. What do I see? Widespread corruption; peculators hiding peculators—from the man who hides the rotten army contract at the Ministry of War to the man who hides the rottenness of the fodder in the barrack-stable. Widespread corruption; Ministers the servants of vice, each duller than Jocrisse; marshals as wooden and as useless as their bâtons; skeleton regiments, batteries without cannon, cannon without horses; no esprit; an army of gamins with cigarette-stained fingers and guns in their hands."
The old gentleman, who for seventeen years or so had been in a state of chronic irritation with the Second Empire and its makers, paused in his peregrinations up and down the room, and snapped his fingers. I sat listening in astonishment, for to me, who only saw the varnish and the glitter, France seemed triumphant amongst the nations as the Athena of the Parthenon amongst statues; and the French Army, from the Cent Gardes at the Tuileries to the drummer-boy of the last line regiment, the ne plus ultra of efficacy, splendour, and strength.
He went on:
"Tell me: when you see a house in disorder, bills unpaid, the servants liars and rogues, inefficient and useless, dust swept under the beds, and nothing clean about the place except perhaps the windows and the door-handle: whom do you accuse but the master and the mistress? A nation is a house, and France is a nation. I say no more. I have been a guest at the Tuileries; and it is not for me, who have partaken of their hospitality, to speak against the rulers of France. But I will not allow them to play ducks and drakes with my money. In short, my friend, in my opinion my money is no longer safe in France, and I am going to move it to a place of safety. I have been uneasy for some time, but of late I am not uneasy—I am frightened. I smell disaster."