Marius, on his side, left the house indignant, and a circumstance aggravated his exasperation. There are always small fatalities of this nature to complicate domestic dramas: the anger is augmented although the wrongs are not in reality increased. In hurriedly conveying, by the grandfather's order, Marius's rubbish to his bed-room, Nicolette, without noticing the fact, let fall, probably on the attic stairs, which were dark, the black shagreen case in which was the paper written by the Colonel. As neither could be found, Marius felt convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"—he never called him otherwise from that date—had thrown "his father's will" into the fire. He knew by heart the few lines written by the Colonel, and consequently nothing was lost: but the paper, the writing, this sacred relic,—all this was his heart. What had been done with it?
Marius went away without saying where he was going and without knowing, with thirty francs, his watch, and some clothes in a carpet-bag. He jumped into a cabriolet, engaged it by the hour, and proceeded at random towards the Pays Latin. What would become of Marius?
[BOOK IV.]
THE FRIENDS OF THE A. B. C.
[CHAPTER I.]
A GROUP THAT NEARLY BECAME HISTORICAL.
At this epoch, which was apparently careless, a certain revolutionary quivering was vaguely felt. There were breezes in the air which returned from the depths of '89 and '92; and the young men, if we may be forgiven the expression, were in the moulting stage. Men became transformed, almost without suspecting it, by the mere movement of time, for the hand which moves round the clock-face also moves in the mind. Each took the forward step he had to take; the Royalists became liberals, and the Liberals democrats. It was like a rising tide complicated by a thousand ebbs, and it is the peculiarity of ebbs to cause things to mingle. Hence came very singular combinations of ideas, and men adored liberty and Napoleon at the same time. We are writing history here, and such were the mirages of that period. Opinions pass through phases, and Voltairian royalism, a strange variety, had a no less strange pendant in Bonapartist liberalism.
Other groups of minds were more serious; at one spot principles were sounded, and at another men clung to their rights. They became impassioned for the absolute, and obtained glimpses of infinite realizations; for the absolute, through its very rigidity, causes minds to float in the illimitable ether. There is nothing like the dogma to originate a dream, and nothing like a dream to engender the future; the Utopia of to-day is flesh and bone to-morrow. Advanced opinions had a false bottom, and a commencement of mystery threatened "established order," which was suspicious and cunning. This is a most revolutionary sign. The after-thought of the authorities meets in the sap the after-thought of the people, and the incubation of revolutions is the reply to the premeditation of Coups d'État. There were not as yet in France any of those vast subjacent organizations, like the Tugenbund of Germany or the Carbonari of Italy; but here and there were dark subterranean passages with extensive ramifications. The Cougourde was started at Aix; and there was at Paris, among other affiliations of this nature, the society of the Friends of the A. B. C.