The weight of the name

by Paul Bourget

"And the other man, too, perhaps," retorted Baudoin with a leer. "But this one didn't put a gag in my mouth, that's true enough."

"I have not wasted my morning," Landri reflected, as he left the riding-school. Awaiting the hour for the foot-drill, he entered the small room used by the officers as a library and gathering-place. It was very simply furnished, with a divan, a few easy-chairs, and a large table, all covered with coarse blue stuff with a red border. On two sides were book-shelves. On the other walls were engravings, some of which represented the early days of the 32nd Dragoons. First, there was a Cavalier de Lévis, with the date 1703, in three-cornered hat and white tunic, with red lapels and trimmings. Another Cavalier de Lévis, in a very similar uniform, bore this inscription: 1724. Then came two troopers of the Royal-Normandie, dated 1768 and 1784. They wore blue tunics with amaranth-colored lapels, and white cockades in their hats. A trooper of the 19th Cavalry, in a blue coat à la française, with a tri-colored plume in his shako, marked the beginning of modern times.

It needed no more than a glance at those engravings for Landri's comparative tranquillity of the last hour to come to an abrupt end. The sight of those uniforms of the old régime recalled the scene of two days before, M. de Claviers pointing to the portrait of the lieutenant-general, and his exclamation about the uniforms and the dandyfied heroism of bygone days. The thought of the marquis recalled the old gentleman's other outbreak, only the night before, concerning the inventories, just as the memory of the Parrocel portrait revived the sensations born of the hideous falsehood of his birth. The associations of these various ideas resulted in a new idea which, when it had once entered his mind, could no more be expelled from it than could the hateful fact with which it was connected. It was only the continuation, the smoothing-off as it were in the lucid portions of the love-child's consciousness, of a course of reasoning that he had been working out, unknowingly, for twelve hours past.

"But have I the right, from this time on, bearing a name that is not my own, and knowing it, to act with that name as if it were my own?"

On the table lay a newspaper rolled about its stick. The young man took it up mechanically, and, from more habit, looked for the rubric, "Military Affairs." Another wave of ideas swept over him. If the inventories at Hugueville-en-Plaine and Montmartin should be taken, and if he should have to direct one of them to the point of breaking into the church, the account would certainly appear under that heading, printed in that same type. His name would be there, at the top of a paragraph describing his act. His name? A name is an inheritance, it is a piece of property, personal and collective at once. It belongs to him who bears it and to those who have borne and will bear it. All of their interests are united in him. Against this mutual responsibility Landri had contended throughout his youth, and no longer ago than the day before yesterday, when he proclaimed before Madame Olier, and again to the marquis's face, the right of the heirs of a great name to lead their individual lives.

It seemed—he himself had thought so at first—that the grievous discovery of the secret of his birth had finally snapped the chain, already so worn, of a hateful solidarity between the Claviers-Grandchamps and himself. True, if he had laid aside their name, if, realizing that he was not of their family, he had ceased to call himself by their name. But such an open rupture was impossible. Even if Landri had not loved the marquis too dearly ever to deal him such a blow, there was his mother's memory, which forbade him to dishonor her. But in that case, if he kept the name of Claviers, he was in their debt. He was no longer a free agent. When people should read, in that newspaper and in many others, that a Claviers-Grandchamp had dared to do something so absolutely opposed to all the traditions of the family, what would his conscience say to him? That he had done his duty? Nay, since it was not from any thought of duty that he had resolved, if occasion should require, to execute a task which he himself had called revolting. His companions had discussed too often in his presence that question of the limits of discipline, which functionaries no less insane than criminal have gratuitously raised of late years. He had reflected upon it too seriously himself not to understand that passive obedience is a phrase devised by enemies of that great school of praiseworthy energy that the army really is. He had meditated upon the wise and judicious terms of the officer's oath, which excludes every degrading order: "You will obey him in everything that he shall command you to do, for the good of the service and to carry out the military regulations." He knew that this problem of obedience to requisitions from the civil authorities, as it had presented itself in the recent religious disputes, is of the sort that become tragic in the most upright consciences. Excellent soldiers have solved it in one way. Excellent soldiers have solved it in another way. It is a crime, we repeat, on the part of a government, to place men of spirit in such dilemmas,—a crime against those who did not enter the army to perform certain tasks,—a crime against the fatherland, which is by this means robbed of some of its best leaders.

Landri, as we have seen, had solved the problem in a manner entirely personal to himself. He had said: "To obey is to remain in the service. To refuse to obey is to resign. I want to remain in the service. I shall obey." But now a new element had intervened: the evidence of a felony committed against the lineage of the Claviers, in which his mere existence made him an accomplice. His mother's sin had given him a place in that lineage. What became of his personal convenience when put in the scale with such usurpation? Did it not bind him on his honor—for he still had such a thing whatever he may have said in the first shock of the revelation—never to do any act for which that lineage, now incarnate in the marquis, could reproach him from its standpoint? The conclusion was inescapable. At an incident of his military life so public, so certain to make a noise in the world, as obedience to an order to proceed against a church, it was not his own opinion that he should follow, but that of the head of that house in which he himself occupied a stolen place. This indisputable obligation suddenly imposed itself on Landri with irresistible force, and for the first time he recoiled in spirit from the prospect of an occurrence which would place before him the alternative of making up his mind against the will, so clearly expressed, of the Marquis de Claviers, or of sacrificing the profession to which he was at that moment more attached than ever. His whole thought was bent upon rejecting the probability of that test. He could not bear to face it now.

"I am crazy. If they employ the dragoons for one of these inventories, they'll send more than one platoon. A lieutenant won't be in command, but a captain. I shall be second in command. If there's a door to be broken in, and the civil authorities don't furnish any men to do it, the captain will have to give the order, not I."

He harangued himself thus, pacing to and fro in the main courtyard while the instructors drilled the new recruits, under his superintendence. But upon whom would that responsibility fall, if Landri's supposition should be realized? In the absence of the captain commanding the squadron, to the captain next in seniority, who happened to be that very Despois with whom he had exchanged so hearty a greeting that morning. Landri at once remembered the letter written by that officer's wife, which Madame Olier had given to him. He had read the letter at the time—without reading it. He remembered nothing about it except Valentine's remark: "She says so well what I should say so badly." But then Captain Despois, if such an order should be given to him, would refuse to comply with it? As had happened before, the command would then devolve upon the officer next below him, in this case upon Landri! Such was now the young man's apprehension in respect to an emergency which was still only possible, and which he had hitherto faced with such firm determination.

He cut the drill short in order to return to his quarters the sooner and really read Madame Despois' letter. His hands trembled a little as they unfolded the sheet, which was badly crumpled from its sojourn in his pocket while he was rolling about in despair on the cushions of the railway carriage. He found there, near the end, after the narrative of a really touching interview between the captain and his wife, these lines, which, although they lessened one element of his anxiety, only intensified another, alas!