“Well, you see, if the army reached a high peak looking into a deep valley, only to be reached over an inaccessible precipice, all the army would have to do would be to spread out your superb invention and use it as a parachute. The sight of the army of France gradually floating down into the valley would be so terrifying to the nations of Europe, that I imagine no enemy would wait for a gun to be fired. De Plonville, your invention will immortalize you, and immortalize the French army.”
Young De Plonville waited to hear no more, but turned on his heel and strode away.
This conversation caused young De Plonville to make two resolutions; first, to mention his scheme to no one; second, to persevere and perfect his invention, thus causing confusion to the scoffer. There were several sub-resolutions dependent on these two. He would not enter a club, he would abjure society, he would not speak to a woman—he would, in short, be a hermit until his invention stood revealed before an astonished world.
All of which goes to show that young De Plonville was not the conceited, meddlesome fop his acquaintances thought him. But in the large and small resolutions he did not deduct the ten per cent. for the unknown quantity.
Where? That was the question. De Plonville walked up and down his room, and thought it out. A large map of France was spread on the table. Paris and the environs thereof were manifestly impossible. He needed a place of seclusion. He needed a stretch of water. Where then should be the spot to which coming generations would point and say, “Here, at this place, was perfected De Plonville’s celebrated parachute-tent- bateau invention.”
No, not parachute. Hang the parachute! That was the scoffing lieutenant’s word. De Plonville paused for a moment to revile his folly in making a confidant of any army man.
There was a sufficiency of water around the French coast, but it was too cold at that season of the year to experiment in the north and east. There was left the Mediterranean. He thought rapidly of the different delightful spots along the Riviera—Cannes, St. Raphael, Nice, Monte Carlo,—but all of these were too public and too much thronged with visitors. The name of the place came to him suddenly, and, as he stopped his march to and fro, De Plonville wondered why it had not suggested itself to him at the very first. Hyères! It seemed to have been planned in the Middle Ages for the perfecting of just such an invention. It was situated two or three miles back from the sea, the climate was perfect, there was no marine parade, the sea coast was lonely, and the bay sheltered by the islands. It was an ideal spot.
De Plonville easily secured leave of absence. Sons of fathers high up in the service of a grateful country seldom have any difficulty about a little thing like that. He purchased a ticket for that leisurely train which the French with their delicious sense of humor call the “Rapide,” and in due time found himself with his various belongings standing on the station platform at Hyères.
Few of us are as brave as we think ourselves. De Plonville flinched when the supreme moment came, and perhaps that is why the Gods punished him. He had resolved to go to one of the country inns at Carqueyranne on the coast, but this was in a heroic mood when the lieutenant had laughed at his project. Now in a cooler moment he thought of the cuisine of Carqueyranne and shuddered. There are sacrifices which no man should be called upon to endure, so the naval officer hesitated, and at last directed the porter to put his luggage on the top of the Costebelle Hotel “bus.” There would be society at the hotel it is true, but he could avoid it, while if he went to the rural tavern he could not avoid the cooking. Thus he smothered his conscience. Lunch at Costebelle seemed to justify his choice of an abiding-place. The surroundings of the hotel were dangerously charming to a man whose natural inclination was towards indolent enjoyment. It was a place to “Loaf and invite your soul,” as Walt Whitman phrases it. Plonville, who was there incognito, for he had temporarily dropped the “De,” strolled towards the sea in the afternoon, with the air of one who has nothing on his mind. No one to see him would have suspected he was the future Edison of France. When he reached the coast at the ruins of the ancient Roman naval station called Pomponiana, he smote his thigh with joy. He had forgotten that at this spot there had been erected a number of little wooden houses, each larger than a bathing-machine and smaller than a cottage, which were used in summer by the good people of Hyères, and in winter were silently vacant. The largest of these would be exactly the place for him, and he knew he would have no difficulty in renting it for a month or two. Here, he could bring down his half- finished invention; here, work at it all day unmolested; and here test its sailing qualities with no onlookers.
He walked up the road, and hailed the ancient bus which jogs along between Toulon and Hyères by way of the coast; mounted beside the driver, and speedily got information about the owner of the cottages at Pomponiana.