“‘To what?’ I inquired indifferently. A gesture of impatience escaped Darvel.
“‘You certainly are dull to-day—slow of comprehension, as I may say. Recollect what some play-writing man has said about the world being an oyster for clever fellows to open. Now these D——s are just the sort of natives it is pleasant to pick at, because their shells are lined with pearls. Well, since you won’t take a hint, I must speak plainly. Dine to-day at the table-d’hôte of the Hôtel W——. The D——s are staying there, and you are safe to fall in with them. Renew your acquaintance, or strike up a fresh one, whichever you please. You are a fellow of good address, and will have no difficulty in making friends with two such Johnny Newcomes. Ply them with Burgundy, bring them here or to my rooms, we will get Lowther and Ringwood, and it shall be a hundred pounds in your pocket.’
“I must have been a fool indeed, had I doubted for another instant the meaning and intentions of my respectable ally. As by touch of enchanter’s wand, the scales fell from my eyes; illusions vanished, and I saw myself and my associates in the right colours, myself as a miserable dupe, them as vile sharpers. So confounded was I by the suddenness of the illumination, that for a moment I stood speechless and motionless, gazing vacantly into the tempter’s face. He took my silence for acquiescence, and opened his lips to continue his base hints and instructions. Roused into vehement action by the sound of his odious voice, I grasped his collar, and seizing a horsewhip that lay opportunely near, I lashed the miscreant round the room till my arm could strike no longer, and till the inmates of the house, alarmed by his outcries, assembled at the door of my apartment. Too infuriated to notice them, I kicked the fellow out and remained alone, to meditate at leisure upon my past folly and present embarrassments. The former was irreparable, the latter were speedily augmented. I know not what Darvel told the master of the house (I subsequently found he had had an interview with him after his ejection from my room), but two days later, the month being at an end, I received a heavy bill, with an intimation that my apartments were let to another tenant, and a request for my speedy departure. I was too proud to take notice of this insolence, and too poor, under any circumstances, to continue in so costly a lodging. Money I had none, and it took the sacrifice of my personal effects, including even much of my wardrobe, to satisfy my landlord’s demand. I settled it, however, and removed, with a heavy heart, a light portmanteau, and a hundred francs in my pocket, to a wretched garret in a cheap faubourg.
“You will think, perhaps, that I acted rashly, and should have sought temporary assistance from friends before proceeding to such extremities. But the very few persons who might have been disposed to help me, I had long since neglected for the society of the well-dressed thieves by whom I had been so pitilessly fleeced. And had it been otherwise, I knew not how to beg or borrow. My practice had been in giving and lending. The first thing I did, when installed in my sixième at twenty francs a-month, was to write to my uncle in England, informing him, without entering into details, of the knavery of which I had been victim, expressing my penitence for past follies, and my desire to atone them by a life of industry. I craved his advice as to the course I should adopt, declared a preference for the military profession, and entreated, as the greatest of favours, and the only one I should ever ask of him, that he would procure me a commission, either in the British service or Indian army. I got an answer by return of post, and, before opening it, augured well from such promptitude. Its contents bitterly disappointed me. My uncle’s agent informed me, by his employer’s command, that Mr Oakley, of Oakley Manor, was not disposed to take any notice of a nephew who had disgraced him by extravagance and evil courses, and that any future letters from me would be totally disregarded. I felt that I deserved this; but yet I had hoped kinder words from my dead father’s elder brother. The trifling assistance I asked would hardly have been missed out of his unencumbered income of ten thousand a-year. This was my first advertisement of the wide difference that sometimes exists between relatives and friends. Gradually I gathered experience, paid for, in advance, at a heavy rate.
“Of course, I did not dream of renewing an application thus cruelly repulsed, but resolved to rely on myself alone, and to find some occupation, however humble, sufficient for my subsistence. I had no idea, until I tried, of the immense difficulty of procuring such occupation. Master of no trade or handicraft, I knew not which way to turn, or what species of employment to seek. I was a good swordsman, and once I had a vague notion of teaching fencing; but even had I had the means to establish myself, the profession was already over-stocked; and not a regiment of the Paris garrison but could turn out a score of prévôts to button me six times for my once. I could ride, which qualified me for a postilion, and had sufficient knowledge of billiards to aspire to the honourable post of a marker; but even to such offices—could I have stooped to compete for them—I should have been held ineligible without certificates of character. And to whom was I to apply for these? To my gay acquaintances of the Café de Paris? To the obsequious banker to whom I had come handsomely accredited, and who had given me a sumptuous dinner in his hotel of the Rue Bergère? To the noble and fashionable families to whom I had brought letters of recommendation, and whom I had neglected after a single visit? To which of these should I apply for a character as groom? And how was I to exist without condescending to some such menial office? To aught better, gentleman though I was, I had no qualifications entitling me to aspire. It was a sharp but wholesome lesson to my vanity and pride, to find myself, so soon as deprived of my factitious advantage of inherited wealth, less able to provide for my commonest wants than the fustian-coated mechanic and hob-nailed labourer, whom I had been wont to splash with my carriage-wheel and despise as an inferior race of beings. Bitter were my reflections, great was my perplexity, during the month succeeding my sudden change of fortune. I passed whole days lying upon the bed in my melancholy lodging, or leaning out of the window, which looked over a dreary range of roofs, ruminating my forlorn position, and endeavouring, but in vain, to find a remedy. This was urgent; but no cudgelling of my brain suggested one, and at last I saw myself on the brink of destitution. A score of five-franc pieces had constituted my whole fortune after satisfying my former extortionate landlord. These were nearly gone, and I knew not how to obtain another shilling; for my kit was reduced to linen and the most indispensable necessaries. I now learned upon how little a man may live, and even thrive and be healthy. During that month, I contrived to keep my expenses of food and lodging within two francs a-day, making the whole month’s expenditure considerably less than I had commonly thrown away on an epicurean breakfast or dinner. And I was all the better for the coarse regimen to which I thus suddenly found myself reduced. Harassed in mind though I was, my body felt the benefit of unusual abstinence from deep potations, late hours, and sustained dissipation. The large amount of foot-exercise I took during these few weeks, doubtless contributed also to restore tone and vigour to a constitution which my dissolute career, however mad and reckless, had not been long enough seriously to impair. When weary of my lonesome attic, I would start through the nearest barrier, avoiding the streets and districts where I might encounter former acquaintances, and take long walks in the environs of Paris, returning with an appetite that gave a relish even to the tough and unsavoury viands of a cheap traiteur.
“It chanced, upon a certain day, when striding along the road to Orleans, that I met a regiment of hussars changing their quarters from that town to Paris. The morning sun shone brightly on their accoutrements; the hoofs of their well-groomed horses rang upon the frosty road; the men, closely wrapped in their warm pelisses, looked cheerful, in good case, and in high spirits at the prospect of a sojourn in the capital. I seated myself upon a gate to see them pass, and could not avoid making a comparison between my position and that of a private dragoon, which resulted considerably to my disadvantage. I was not then so well aware as I have since become, of all the hardships and disagreeables of a soldier’s life; and it appeared to me that these fellows, well clothed, well mounted, and with their daily wants provided for, were perfect kings compared to a useless, homeless, destitute being like myself. Their profession was an honourable one; their regiment was their home; they had comrades and friends; and their duty as soldiers properly done, none could reproach or oppress them. The column marched by, and was succeeded by the rear-guard, half-a-dozen smart, sunburned hussars, with carbine on thigh; one of whom sang, in a mellow tenor voice, and with considerable taste, the well-known soldier’s song out of La Dame Blanche. In their turn they disappeared behind a bend of the road; but the spirited burthen of the ditty still reached my ears after they were lost to my view—
‘Ah, quel plaisir! ah, quel plaisir!
Ah, quel plaisir d’être soldat!’
I repeated to myself, as the last notes died in the distance, and jumping off the gate, I turned my steps towards Paris, my mind strongly inclining to the sabre and worsted lace.
“My half-formed resolution gathered strength from reflection, and on reaching Paris I proceeded straight to the Champ de Mars. The spectacle that there met my eyes was of a nature to encourage my inclination to embrace a military career, even in the humble capacity of a private trooper. It was a cavalry field-day, and a number of squadrons manœuvred in presence of several general officers and of a brilliant staff, whilst soldiers of various corps,—dragoons, lancers, cuirassiers and hussars, stood in groups watching the evolutions of their comrades. Veterans from the neighbouring Hôtel des Invalides—scarred and mutilated old warriors, who had shared the triumphs and reverses of the gallant French armies from Valmy to Waterloo—talked of their past campaigns and criticised the movements of their successors in the ranks. Several of these parties I approached within ear-shot, and overheard, with strong interest, many a stirring reminiscence of those warlike days when the Corsican firebrand set Europe in a flame, and spread his conquering legions from Moscow to Andalusia. At last I came to a group of younger soldiers, who discussed more recent if less glorious deeds of arms. The words Bédouins, razzia, Algérie, recurred frequently in their discourse. I started at the sounds. They reminded me of what I had previously forgotten, that there was still a battle-field in the world where danger might be encountered and distinction won. True, I might have wished more civilised foes than the tawny denizens of the desert, and a more humane system of warfare than that pursued by the French in Africa. But my circumstances forbade over-nicety, and that day I enlisted as volunteer in the light cavalry, merely stipulating that I should be placed in a corps then serving in Africa.
“Should you care to hear, I will give you at a future time some details of my military novitiate and African adventures. The former was by no means easy, the latter had little to distinguish them from those of thousands of my comrades. A foreign service is rarely an agreeable refuge, and that of France is undoubtedly the very worst an Englishman can enter. The old antipathy to England, weakened in the breasts of French civilians, still exists to a great extent amongst the military classes of the population. A traditionary feeling of hatred and humiliation has been handed down from the days of our Peninsular victories, and especially from that of the crowning triumph at Waterloo,—the battle won by treachery, as many Frenchmen affirm, and some positively believe. A French barrack-room, I can assure you, is anything but a bed of roses to a British volunteer. I was better off, however, than most of my countrymen would have been under similar circumstances. Speaking the language like a native—better, indeed, than the majority of those with whom I now found myself associated—I escaped the mockery and annoyances which an English accent would inevitably have perpetuated. My country was known, however; it was moreover discovered that in birth and education I was superior to those about me, and these circumstances were sufficient to draw upon me envy and insult. Of the former I took no heed, the latter I promptly and fiercely resented, feeling that to do so was the only means of avoiding a long course of molestation. Two or three duels, whence my skill with the foils brought me out unscathed and with credit, made me respected in my regiment, and whilst thus establishing my reputation for courage, I did my best to conciliate the good-will of those amongst whom I was henceforward to live. To a great extent I was successful. My quality of an Englishman gradually ceased to give umbrage or invite aggression, and, if not forgotten, was rarely referred to.