The weight of the name

by Paul Bourget

In this question which Landri asked himself, or rather, which asked itself in his mind, in his own despite, another supposition was comprised. If it were true that Madame Olier had heard of Jaubourg's attentions to Madame de Claviers,—and of that he had no doubt,—others must have heard of them, too, others would be talking of them. In the first shock of the revelation that had been the son's first thought. The reader will remember that, after he had started for his club on Rue Scribe, after the scene on Rue de Solferino, he had fled wildly, like a madman, with the terror of a culprit flying from a witness of his shame, simply because he saw a member of the club cross the threshold. Charles Jaubourg's will must have revived all the gossip, aroused anew the slumbering malevolence. Who could say that the marquis had not received anonymous letters, that his suspicions had not been awakened?

One fact had surprised Landri more than all the other incidents of those four weeks. As he dwelt upon the hidden meaning of the despatch, his mind reverted to that fact which suddenly assumed very great importance. How was it that M. de Claviers had done nothing in respect to one of the matters discussed in their interview—the choice of an advocate? The motives that made him irreconcilable on the subject of the marriage to Valentine were respect, worship, idolatry of his name. Would not those same motives naturally have led him to persevere in his original purpose? The heir to that name was summoned before a court-martial. That was a public fact which had no connection with their private disagreement. How was it that the "Émigré" had not insisted that the accused should be defended—that was his own word—on the ground of the principle to which he devoted his life: the honor of the noble? It was not necessary to communicate with his son for that. It would have been enough to send the young man a defender duly "instructed," according to another expression of his. He had not done so. Why? Landri had had to apply to Métivier the notary, who had sent down a kinsman of his, a distinguished practitioner, but purely professional. The marquis and the counsel had never met. Why? Did it mean that some new event had intervened? What was it? The awakening of suspicion? Or was the wrath of outraged paternal authority sufficient to explain his abstention?

Landri was so desirous to believe the latter that he went to the trunk in which his books were already packed, and took out the work wherein the marquis's ideas were collected and marshalled: "The History and Genealogy of the House of Claviers-Grandchamp." The mere title made Landri tremble, but he remembered having read a note, which he must find at any price. When he had found it, he spelled out all the syllables, word by word, in a low voice. He longed to read therein an explanation of the attitude of the Feudalist, thwarted in one of his most firmly rooted convictions. It was a fragment of a discourse delivered by the eloquent Duveyrier before the Parliament of Paris, in 1783. M. de Claviers had cited the passage apropos of the severity of one of his ancestors toward a younger son, with enthusiastic approval and emphasizing the last lines as if to make them his own.

In this argument Duveyrier was supporting a father's denunciation of his own daughter to the authorities.

"Can we," he said, "can we, without distress, reflect upon the immense interval that separates us from those who handed our laws down to us? By what steps of progressive enfeeblement we have substituted for that mental energy, for the power of genuine virtue, a factitious sensibility which takes fright at the slightest effort; not the healthy sensibility, inseparable from kindness of heart, which has compassion for the criminal while punishing the crime, but that flexibility of character, that flabbiness of heart which leads us to purchase the indulgence of others by our own indulgence, and which we call sensibility in order to legitimize our weakness, to ennoble it, indeed, if that were possible! In the last days of the Republic, when discord was ushering in depravity, Aulus Fulvius deserted Rome to follow Catiline. His father called him back. That citizen, a rebel against his country, was still a dutiful son. He obeyed. He submitted to the sentence of death pronounced by his father. Our ancestors admired this example of sublime virtue. We deem it harsh. Our grandsons will call it barbarous. We are beginning to be surprised that a father should exercise the right that the law gives him, to avenge his betrayed honor, his contemned authority. We shall end by depriving him of that right. From the impossibility of punishing the children will result contempt for the father, insubordination rebellion, and universal anarchy."

"That's his way of thinking, and he's profoundly in earnest about it," thought Landri, as he closed the bulky volume. "That's enough to make my opposition exasperate him, so that he won't have anything more to do with me until I have given way.—Where were my wits? He wants to see me to-morrow about those same matters that he had Métivier write me about. Must I imagine, too, that he has mysterious reasons for dividing our property? He told me in this very room of his purpose to do that. That alone proves how much weight he attaches to my offence against him. In his eyes it's a crime. I ought to congratulate myself that he is so rigid in his convictions."

This explanation was very plausible. But it did not allay the vague anxiety that the telegram had caused Landri. For this reason: Maître Métivier had sent him numerous papers to sign, about a fortnight before, accompanying them with a long letter, of a more personal sort. He said in it that he strongly approved of this segregation of the property of the father and son, and that he saw therein good augury for the future. He added that M. de Claviers had, upon his advice, entrusted the liquidation of his indebtedness to a former clerk of his, Métivier's, one M. Cauvet, an advocate who made a specialty of notarial practice. This Cauvet had discovered a serious irregularity almost immediately. Chaffin had been dismissed. "Perhaps Monsieur le Marquis was a little severe," observed the cautious Métivier. "Although the fraud was highly probable, it was not absolutely certain."

"So I was right," was Landri's instant thought, "Chaffin too was a traitor." And he had gone no farther. In his present reflections matters assumed a different aspect. Such violence under excitement was certainly a pronounced feature of M. de Claviers' temperament. No other reason was necessary to explain it than the discovery of a breach of trust. But the consequences? Landri remembered that the son of the steward thus summarily dismissed was Pierre Chaffin, the physician who had watched at the bedside of the dying Jaubourg. Suppose that that fellow had repeated to his father what he had unquestionably overheard? And suppose that the father, to revenge himself, had in his turn repeated that secret? Suppose that he had written to the person most interested?

"No," Landri answered his own questions, "Chaffin may have been tempted by the money that passed through his hands, and have become a thief. But he is not a monster. And Pierre is a physician. There are still some of them, yes, a great many, who keep professional secrets. No; nothing can have happened in that direction, nor in any other. Our conversation of the other day is quite enough."

Despite these arguments, the return to Paris, under such conditions and in obedience to that telegram, inspired the young man with an apprehension that he could not overcome.