CHAPTER X.
an aristocratic republican.
If the worthy reader would wish to fancy the happiest of all youthful beings, let him imagine what I must have been, as, mounted upon Aleppo, a present from my godfather, with a purse of six shining Louis in my pocket, and a letter to my colonel, I set forth for Metz. I had breakfasted with Colonel Mahon, who, amid much good advice for my future guidance, gave me, half slyly, to understand that the days of Jacobinism had almost run their course, and that a reactionary movement had already set in. The republic, he added, was as strong, perhaps stronger than ever, but that men had grown weary of mob tyranny, and were, day by day, reverting to the old loyalty, in respect for whatever pretended to culture, good breeding, and superior intelligence. “As in a shipwreck, the crew instinctively turn for counsel and direction to the officers, you will see that France will, notwithstanding all the libertinism of our age, place her confidence in the men who have been the tried and worthy servants of former governments. So far, then, from suffering on account of your gentle blood, Maurice, the time is not distant when it will do you good service, and when every association that links you with family and fortune will be deemed an additional guarantee of your good conduct. I mention these things,” continued he, “because your colonel is what they call a ‘Grosbleu,’ that is, a coarse-minded, inveterate republican, detesting aristocracy and all that belongs to it. Take care, therefore, to give him no just cause for discontent, but be just as steady in maintaining your position as the descendant of a noble house, who has not forgotten what were once the privileges of his rank. Write to me frequently and freely, and I’ll take care that you want for nothing, so far as my small means go, to sustain whatever grade you occupy. Your own conduct shall decide whether I ever desire to have any other inheritor than the son of my oldest friend in the world.”
Such were his last words to me, as I set forth, in company with a large party, consisting, for the most part, of under officers and employées attached to the medical staff of the army. It was a very joyous and merry fraternity, and, consisting of ingredients drawn from different pursuits and arms of the service, infinitely amusing from contrast of character and habits. My chief associate among them was a young sous-lieutenant of dragoons, whose age, scarcely much above my own, joined to a joyous, reckless temperament, soon pointed him out as the character to suit me: his name was Eugene Santron. In appearance he was slightly formed, and somewhat under-sized, but with handsome features, their animation rendered sparkling by two of the wickedest black eyes that ever glistened and glittered in a human head. I soon saw that, under the mask of affected fraternity and equality, he nourished the most profound contempt for the greater number of associates, who, in truth, were, however “braves gens,” the very roughest and least-polished specimens of the polite nation. In all his intercourse with them, Eugene affected the easiest tone of camaraderé and equality, never assuming in the slightest, nor making any pretensions to the least superiority on the score of position or acquirements, but on the whole consoling himself, as it were, by “playing them off,” in their several eccentricities, and rendering every trait of their vulgarity and ignorance tributary to his own amusement. Partly from seeing that he made me an exception to this practice, and partly from his perceiving the amusement it afforded me, we drew closer toward each other, and before many days elapsed, had become sworn friends.
There is probably no feature of character so very attractive to a young man as frankness. The most artful of all flatteries is that which addresses itself by candor, and seems at once to select, as it were, by intuition, the object most suited fur a confidence. Santron carried me by a coup de main of this kind, as taking my arm one evening, as I was strolling along the banks of the Moselle, he said,
“My dear Maurice, it’s very easy to see that the society of our excellent friends yonder is just as distasteful to you as to me. One can not always be satisfied laughing at their solecisms in breeding and propriety. One grows weary at last of ridiculing their thousand absurdities; and then there comes the terrible retribution in the reflection of what the devil brought me into such company? a question that, however easily answered, grows more and more intolerable the oftener it is asked. To be sure, in my case there was little choice in the matter, for I was not in any way the arbiter of my own fortune. I saw myself converted from a royal page to a printer’s devil by a kind old fellow, who saved my life by smearing my face with ink, and covering my scarlet uniform with a filthy blouse; and since that day I have taken the hint, and often found the lesson a good one—the dirtier the safer!
“We were of the old nobility of France, but as the name of our family was the cause of its extinction, I took care to change it. I see you don’t clearly comprehend me, and so I’ll explain myself better. My father lived unmolested during the earlier days of the revolution, and might so have continued to the end, if a detachment of the Garde Republicaine had not been dispatched to our neighborhood of Sarre Louis, where it was supposed some lurking regard for royalty yet lingered. These fellows neither knew nor cared for the ancient noblesse of the country, and one evening a patrol of them stopped my father as he was taking his evening walk along the ramparts. He would scarcely deign to notice the insolent ‘Qui va la!’ of the sentry, a summons he at least thought superfluous in a town which had known his ancestry for eight or nine generations. At the repetition of the cry, accompanied by something that sounded ominous, in the sharp click of a gun-lock, he replied, haughtily, ‘Je suis le Marquis de Saint-Trone.’
“‘There are no more marquises in France!’ was the savage answer.
“My father smiled contemptuously, and briefly said, ‘Saint-Trone.’
“‘We have no saints either,’ cried another.
“‘Be it so, my friend,’ said he, with mingled pity and disgust. ‘I suppose some designation may at least be left to me, and that I may call myself Trone.’