What wonder if at this juncture the crying need of Monseigneur for money opened a Gargantuan mouth for the bottle. Without money at this juncture, the contemplated masterstroke of policy must fall as harmlessly as a blow from Harlequin’s lathen sword.
Money, money, money!...
And there were twenty-five millions of francs, belonging to the Orleans Princes, lying in the Bank of France, which by a Presidential Decree, countersigned by the Home Secretary Count de Morny, might be profitably sequestrated. And, contained in a series of great painted and emblazoned deed-boxes, occupying a row of shelves in the strong-room at the Ministry of the Interior, were the title-deeds to estates of the value of three hundred thousand millions more, vested in the hands of mere Trustees; who might argue and protest, but could, if it proved necessary, be gagged. And de Morny had just threatened to resign the Home Secretaryship if Monseigneur persisted in his intention of laying violent hands on these unconsidered trifles—an exhibition of obstinacy both ill-timed and in bad taste.
“Who the devil, my dear fellow,” he asked, “will bid for cities, forests, palaces and villages, even if you put these up to auction at reasonable prices, when the titles to these properties must remain—to put it delicately—uncertain? A new Government may arise which suffers from the excess of scruples. In that case the estates will be returned to those whose property they are.”
De Morny, with his insufferable air of superiority, and the grand manner which indubitably belonged to him, lounged against the mantelshelf and looked down on Monseigneur. St. Arnaud, his long, lank form arrayed in the uniform of a Marshal, encrusted with bullion and blazing with decorations, lay on a sofa, sucking at the jeweled mouthpiece of a chibuk. De Fleury puffed out his cheeks as he blew cigarette-smoke into the fluffy, puzzled face of a gray Persian kitten that had climbed upon the shelf of an ivory cabinet loaded with costly china, and spat as he teased it with the plumes of his cocked hat.
“Who will buy? The answer is cut and dried. No one! And this appropriation—as a first flight of the Imperial eagle—will make you infernally unpopular; not to warn you of this would be,” said de Moray, “a laches upon my part. Every petty shopkeeper who has two thousand francs in the savings-bank—every peasant who has a little plot of land, will say to himself: ‘This fellow sticks at nothing. Poor devil though I am, I may be the next to be plundered.’ If you carry out this project of yours, it will not be with my assistance. I will help you take an Empire very willingly, but not to plunder a strong-box.”
He looked at his watch, bowed with his easy grace, and went out. The man who was his brother, and envied him, following the tall departing figure with eyes of sickly hate.
“M. de Morny follows the cynical advice that is given in the Gospel of St. Luke,” he said with a bitter sneer. “He would keep on bowing-terms with the Princes of the House of Orleans, so that, should I fail, they may receive him into their favor. His is the principle of hedge and trim. Well, we know his breaking-point! In the event of his kicking over the traces,” he spoke the words in English, a familiar language to Persigny and de Fleury, “there is another upon whom I can depend.”
And he exchanged a look of intelligence with Persigny, his shadow. For the ex-sergeant-quartermaster of dragoons would not fail him, he knew, upon a point of honor or at a pinch of conscience. Persigny was without these inconvenient things.
Meanwhile the door flew open again to re-admit de Morny, who insisted that the night grew old; that the reception-rooms were crowded to suffocation; that the long-delayed appearance of the President had provoked unfavorable comparisons, and created a bad impression; that he must come without delay.