The Deputy of Arcis

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By this time to-morrow, madame, I may have received a checkmate which
will send me back forever to my studio, or I shall have a foot in a
new career. Shall I tell you that the thought of the latter result
distresses me?--doubtless from a fear of the Unknown.

I was almost forgetting to give you another piece of news. I have
consulted Mother Marie-des-Anges (whose history Marie-Gaston tells me
he has related to you) on the subject of my doubts and fears as to the
violence done to Mademoiselle de Lanty, and she has promised that in
course of time she will discover the convent in which Marianina is a
prisoner. The worthy Mother, if she takes this into her head, is
almost certain to succeed in finding the original of her Saint-Ursula.

I am not feeling at all easy in mind about Marie-Gaston. He seems to
me in a state of feverish agitation, partly created by the immense
interest he takes in my success. But I greatly fear that his efforts
will result in a serious reaction. His own grief, which at this moment
he is repressing, has not in reality lost its sting. Have you not been
struck by the rather flighty and mocking tone of his letters, some of
which he has shown to me? That is not in his nature, for in his
happiest days he was never turbulently gay; and I am sadly afraid that
when this fictitious excitement about my election is over he may fall
into utter prostration. He has, however, consented to come and live
with me, and not to go to Ville d'Avray unless I am with him. Even
this act of prudence, which I asked without hoping to obtain it, makes
me uneasy. Evidently he is afraid of the memories that await him
there. Have I the power to lessen the shock? Old Philippe, who was
left in charge of the place when he went to Italy, had orders not to
move or change anything whatever in the house. Our friend is therefore
likely to find himself, in presence of those speaking objects, on the
morrow as it were of his wife's death. Another alarming thing! he has
only spoken of her once, and will not suffer me to approach the
subject. I hope, however, that this may be a crisis; once passed, I
trust we may, by all uniting, succeed in composing his mind.

Victor or vanquished, I trust to meet you soon, madame, and always as
your most respectful and devoted servant,

Charles de Sallenauve.



XIX

MARIE-GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE

Arcis-sur-Aube, May 17, 1839.

That stupid riot in Paris, the incredible particulars of which we
heard this morning by telegraph, came near causing us to lose the
election.

The sub-prefect instantly placarded all over the town the news of this
attempt at insurrection--no doubt instigated by the government to
affect the elections. "What! elect a democrat!" was repeated
everywhere in Arcis, and doubtless elsewhere, "so that his speeches in
the Chamber may be made the ammunition of insurgents!"

That argument threw our phalanx into disorder and hesitation. But the
idea occurred to Jacques Bricheteau to turn the danger itself to good
account, and he hastily printed on a sheet of paper and distributed
all over the town in enormous quantities the following notice:--

A bloody riot took place yesterday in Paris. Questioned as to the
employment of such guilty and desperate means of opposition, one
of our candidates, Monsieur de Sallenauve, answered thus: "Riots
will always be found to serve the interests of the government; for
this reason the police are invariably accused of inciting them.
True resistance, that which I stand for, will always be legal
resistance, pursued by legal means, by the press, by the tribune,
and with Patience--that great force granted to the oppressed and
to the vanquished."

These words, you will remember, madame, were those in which Sallenauve
answered his questioners at the preparatory meeting. Then followed in
large letters:--

THE RIOT HAS BEEN SUPPRESSED. WHO WILL PROFIT BY IT?

That sheet of paper did marvels; it completely foiled the efforts of
Monsieur de Trailles, who, throwing off the mask, had spent his day in
perorating, in white gloves, on the market-place and from the steps of
the electoral college.

This evening the result is known; namely, two hundred and one votes
cast: two for Beauvisage; twenty-nine for Simon Giguet; one hundred
and seventy for Sallenauve.

Consequently, Monsieur Charles de Sallenauve is proclaimed Deputy.




PART III

MONSIEUR DE SALLENAUVE



I

THE SORROWS OF MONSIEUR DE TRAILLES

During the evening which followed the election in which he had played
a part so humiliating to his vanity, Maxime de Trailles returned to
Paris. It might be supposed that in making, on his arrival, a rapid
toilet and ordering his carriage to be instantly brought round, he was
hastening to pay a visit to the Comte de Rastignac, minister of Public
Works, to whom he must have desired to render an account of his
mission, and explain as best he could the reasons of its ill-success.

But another and more pressing interest seemed to claim him.

"To Colonel Franchessini's," he said to his coachman.

Arriving at the gate of one of the prettiest hotels in the _quartier_
Breda, and nodding to the concierge, he received an affirmative sign,
which meant, "Monsieur is at home"; and at the same time a valet
appeared on the portico to receive him.

"Is the colonel visible?" he asked.

"He has just gone into madame's room. Does monsieur wish me to call
him?"

"No, I'll wait for him in the study."

Then, like one familiar with the house, and without waiting for the
servant to usher him, he entered a large room on the ground-floor,
which looked into a garden, and was filled with a miscellaneous
collection of articles testifying to the colonel's habits and tastes.
Books, charts, and maps certainly justified the word "study"; but, as
a frantic sportsman and member of the Jockey Club, the colonel had
allowed this sanctum of mental labor and knowledge to become, by
degrees, his smoking, fencing, and harness room. Pipes and weapons of
all shapes and all lands, saddles, hunting-whips, spurs, bits of many
patterns, foils and boxing-gloves formed a queer and heterogenous
collection. However, by thus surrounding his daily life with the
objects of his favorite _studies_, the colonel proved himself a man
who possessed the courage of his opinions. In fact, he openly said
that, beyond a passing notice, there was no reading worth a man's
attention except the "Stud Journal."

It is to be supposed, however, that politics had managed in some way
to slip into this existence devoted to muscular exercise and the
hippic science, for, from a heap of the morning journals disdainfully
flung upon the floor by the worthy colonel, Monsieur de Trailles
picked up a copy of the legitimist organ, in which he read, under the
heading of ELECTIONS, the following article:

The staff of the National Guard and the Jockey Club, which had
various representatives in the last Chamber, have just sent one of
their shining notabilities to the one about to open. Colonel
Franchessini, so well known for his ardor in punishing the
refractories of the National Guard, has been elected almost
unanimously in one of the rotten boroughs of the civil list. It is
supposed that he will take his seat beside the phalanx of other
henchmen, and show himself in the Chamber, as he has elsewhere,
one of the firmest supporters of the policy of the _present order
of things_.

As Maxime finished reading the article, the colonel entered.

After serving the Empire for a very short time, Colonel Franchessini
had become one of the most brilliant colonels of the Restoration; but
in consequence of certain mists which had risen about the perfect
honorableness of his character he had found himself obliged to send in
his resignation, so that in 1830 he was fully prepared to devote
himself in the most ardent manner to the dynasty of July. He did not
re-enter military service, because, shortly after his misadventure he
had met with an Englishwoman, enormously rich, who being taken with
his beauty, worthy at that time of the Antinous, had made him her
husband, and the colonel henceforth contented himself with the
epaulets of the staff of the National Guard. He became, in that
position, one of the most exacting and turbulent of blusterers, and
through the influence of that quality combined with the fortune his
wife had given him, he had just been elected, as the paper stated, to
the Chamber of deputies. Approaching the fifties, like his friend de
Trailles, Colonel Franchessini had still some pretensions to the
after-glow of youth, which his slim figure and agile military bearing
seemed likely to preserve to him for some time longer. Although he had
conquered the difficulty of his gray hair, reducing its silvery
reflections by keeping it cut very close, he was less resigned to the
scantiness of his moustache, which he wore in youthful style, twirled
to a sharp point by means of a Hungarian cosmetic, which also
preserved to a certain degree its primitive color. But whoso wants to
prove too much proves nothing, and in the black which the colonel used
there was noticeably a raw tone, and an equality of shade too perfect
for truth of nature. Hence his countenance, swarthy and strongly
marked with the Italian origin indicated by his name, had an
expression of singular rigidity, to which his features, now become
angular, his piercing glance, and his nose like the beak of a bird of
prey, did not afford the requisite corrective.

"Hey, Maxime!" he cried, shaking hands with his visitor, "where the
devil do you come from? It is more than a fortnight since I have seen
you at the club."

"Where do I come from?" replied Monsieur de Trailles. "I'll tell you
presently; but first let me congratulate you on your election."

"Yes," said the colonel, with apparent indifference, "_they_ would put
me up; but I assure you, upon my honor, I was very innocent of it all,
and if no one had done more than I--"

"But, my dear fellow, you are a blessed choice for that
arrondissement; I only wish that the electors I have had to do with
were equally intelligent."

"What! have you been standing for election? I didn't suppose, taking
into consideration the--rather troubled state of your finances, that
you could manage it."

"True, and I was not electioneering on my own account. Rastignac was
uneasy about the arrondissement of Arcis-sur-Aube, and he asked me to
go down there for a few days."

"Arcis-sur-Aube? Seems to me I read an article about that this morning
in one of those cabbage-leaves. Horrid choice, isn't it?--some
plasterer or image-maker they propose to send us?"

"Precisely; and it is about that very thing I have come to see you
before I see the others. I have just arrived, and I don't want to go
to Rastignac until after I have talked with you."

"How is he getting on, that little minister?" said the colonel, taking
no notice of the clever steps by which Maxime was gravitating toward
the object of his visit. "They seem to be satisfied with him at the
palace. Do you know that little Nucingen whom he married?"

"Yes, I often see Rastignac; he is a very old acquaintance of mine."

"She is pretty, that little thing," continued the colonel, "very
pretty; and I think, the first year of marriage well buried, one might
risk one's self in that direction with some success."

"Come, come," said Maxime, "you are a serious man now, a legislator!
As for me, the mere meddling in electoral matters in the interests of
other people has sobered me."

"Did you say you went to Arcis-sur-Aube to hinder the election of that
stone-cutter?"

"Not at all; I went there to throw myself in the way of the election
of a Left-centre candidate."

"Pah! the Left, pure and simple, is hardly worse. But take a cigar;
these are excellent. The princes smoke them."

The colonel rose and rang the bell, saying to the servant when he
came, "A light!"

The cigars lighted, Monsieur de Trailles endeavored to prevent another
interruption by declaring before he was questioned that he had never
smoked anything more exquisite. Comfortably ensconced in his
arm-chair, the colonel seemed to offer the hope of a less fugacious
attention, and Monsieur de Trailles resumed:--

"All went well at first. To crush the candidate the ministry wanted to
be rid of,--a lawyer, and the worst sort of cad,--I unearthed a
stocking-maker, a fearful fool, whom I persuaded to offer himself as
candidate. The worthy man was convinced that he belonged to the
dynastic opposition. That is the opinion which, for the time being,
prevails in that region. The election, thanks to me, was as good as
made; and, our man once in Paris, the great Seducer in the Tuileries
had only to say five words to him, and this dynastic opposer could
have been turned inside out like one of this own stockings, and made
to do whatever was wanted of him."

"Pretty well played that!" said the colonel. "I recognize my Maxime."

"You will recognize him still farther when he tells you that he was
able, without recourse to perquisites, to make his own little profit
out of the affair. In order to graft a little parliamentary ambition
upon my vegetable, I addressed myself to his wife,--a rather
appetizing provincial, though past her prime."

"Yes, yes, I see; very good!" said Franchessini; "husband made deputy
--satisfied--shut his mouth."

"You are all wrong, my dear fellow; the pair have an only daughter, a
spoilt child, nineteen years old, very agreeable face, and something
like a million in her pocket."

"But, my dear Maxime, I passed your tailor's house last night, and it
was not illuminated."

"No; that would have been premature. However, here was the situation:
two women frantic to get to Paris; gratitude to the skies for the man
who would get them an introduction to the Palais-Bourbon; the little
one crazy for the title of countess; the mother transported at the
idea, carefully insinuated by me, of holding a political salon,--you
must see all that such a situation offers, and you know me too well, I
fancy, to suppose that I should fall below any of its opportunities."

"Quite easy in mind as to that," said the colonel, getting up to open
a window and let out the smoke of their two cigars.

"I was on the point," continued Maxime, "of pocketing both daughter
and _dot_, when there fell from the skies, or rather there rose from
the nether regions, a Left candidate, the stone-cutter, as you call
him, a man with two names,--in short, a natural son--"

"Ha!" said the colonel, "those fellows do have lucky stars, to be
sure. I am not surprised if one of them mowed the grass from under
your feet."

"My dear friend," said Maxime, "if we were in the middle ages, I
should explain by magic and sorcery the utter discomfiture of my
candidate, and the election of the stone-man, whom you are fated to
have for your colleague. How is it possible to believe, what is
however the fact, that an old _tricoteuse_, a former friend of Danton,
and now the abbess of a convent of Ursulines, should actually, by the
help of her nephew, an obscure organist in Paris, have so bewitched
the whole electoral college that this upstart has been elected by a
large majority?"

"But I suppose he had some friends and acquaintances in the town?"

"Not the ghost of one,--unless it might be that nun. Fortune,
relations, father, even a name, he never had until the day of his
arrival at Arcis two weeks ago; and now, if you please, the Comte
Charles de Sallenauve, seigneur of the chateau of Arcis, is elected to
the Chamber of deputies! God only knows how it was done! The pretended
head of a former great family, representing himself as absent in
foreign lands for many years, suddenly appears with this schemer
before a notary in Arcis, recognizes him at a gallop as his son, buys
the chateau of Arcis and presents it to him, and is off during the
night before any one could even know what road he took. The trick thus
played, the abbess and her aide-de-camp, the organist, launched the
candidate, and at once republicans, legitimists, conservatives,
clergy, nobility, bourgeoisie, in fact everybody, as if by some spell
cast upon that region, all did the bidding of that old witch of a nun,
and without the stalwart battalion of the functionaries (who under my
eye stood firm and did not flinch), his election would have been, like
yours, unanimous."

"Then, my poor friend, good-bye to the _dot_."

"Not precisely; though it must certainly be adjourned. The father
grumbles because the blessed tranquillity of his life was disturbed
and he himself covered with ridicule, though the poor dear man had
already enough of that! The daughter still wants to be a countess, but
the mother takes it hard that her political salon should be floating
away from her, and God knows how far I shall be led in order to
comfort her. Besides all this, I myself am goaded by the necessity of
having to find the solution of my own problem pretty soon. I _had_
found it there: I intended to marry, and take a year to settle my
affairs; at the next session I should have made my father-in-law
resign and stepped into his seat in the Chamber; then, you understand,
what an horizon before me!"

"But, my dear fellow, political horizon apart, don't let that million
slip through your fingers."

"Oh, heavens! as for that, except for the delay, I feel safe enough.
My future family is about to remove to Paris. After this mortifying
defeat, life in Arcis will not be endurable. Beauvisage (forgive the
name, it is that of my adopted family)--Beauvisage is like Coriolanus,
ready if he can to bring fire and slaughter on his ungrateful
birthplace. Besides, in transplanting themselves hither, these
unfortunate exiles know where to lay their heads, being the owners of
the hotel Beauseant."

"Owners of the hotel Beauseant!" cried the colonel, in amazement.

"Yes; Beauseant--Beauvisage; only a termination to change. Ah! my dear
fellow, you don't know what these provincial fortunes are, accumulated
penny by penny, especially when to the passion for saving is added the
incessant aspiration of that leech called commerce. We must make up
our minds to some course; the bourgeoisie are rising round us like a
flood; it is almost affable in them to buy our chateaus and estates
when they might guillotine us as in 1793, and get them for nothing."

"Happily for you, my dear Maxime, you have reduced the number of your
chateaus and estates."

"You see yourself that is not so," replied Maxime, "inasmuch as I am
now engaged in providing myself with one. The Beauseant house is to be
repaired and refurnished immediately, and I am charged with the
ordering of the work. But I have made my future mother-in-law another
promise, and I want your help, my dear fellow, in fulfilling it."

"It isn't a tobacco license, or a stamped-paper office, is it?"

"No, something less difficult. These damned women, when hatred or a
desire for vengeance takes possession of them, are marvels of
instinct; and Madame Beauvisage, who roars like a lioness at the very
name of Sallenauve, has taken it into her head that beneath his
incomprehensible success there is some foul intrigue or mystery. It is
certain that the appearance and disappearance of this mysterious
father have given rise to very singular conjectures; and probably if
the thumb-screws were put upon the organist, who was, they say,
entrusted with the education of the interesting bastard, we might get
the secret of his birth and possibly other unexpected revelations. Now
I have thought of a man on whom you have, I believe, great influence,
who might in this hunt for facts assist us immensely. Don't you
remember the robbery of those jewels from Jenny Cardine, about which
she was so unhappy one night at Very's? You asked the waiter for pens
and paper, and on a simple note which you sent at three o'clock in the
morning to a Monsieur Saint-Esteve the police went to work, and before
the evening of the next day the thieves were captured and the jewels
restored."

"Yes," said the colonel, "I remember all that; my interference was
lucky. But I must tell you that had I paused to reflect I should not
have treated Monsieur de Saint-Esteve so cavalierly. He is a man to be
approached with greater ceremony."

"_Ah ca_! but isn't he a former galley-slave, whose pardon you helped
to obtain, and who feels for you the veneration they say Fieschi felt
for one of his protectors?"

"Yes, that is true. Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, like his predecessor,
Bibi-Lupin, has had _misfortunes_; but he is to-day the head of the
detective police, the important functions of which office he fulfils
with rare capacity. If the matter concerned anything that comes within
his department, I should not hesitate to give you a letter to him; but
the affair you speak of is delicate; and in any case I must first
sound him and see if he is willing to talk with you."

"I thought you managed him despotically. Let us say no more about it,
if you think it so very difficult."

"The greatest difficulty is that I never see him; and I naturally
cannot write to him for such an object. I should have to watch for an
occasion, a chance meeting. But why don't you speak of this to
Rastignac? He could give him an order to act at once."

"Don't you understand that Rastignac will receive me very ill indeed?
I had assured him, by letter, of success, and now I am forced to
report in person our defeat. Besides, on every account, I would rather
owe this service to your friendship."

"Well, it sha'n't fail you," said the colonel, rising. "I'll do my
best to satisfy you; only, there must be a delay."

The visit had lasted long, and Maxime felt that a hint was given him
to abridge it. He therefore took leave, putting into his manner a
certain coldness which the colonel appeared not to notice.

No sooner had Monsieur de Trailles departed than Franchessini opened a
pack of cards and took out the knave of spades. This he cut up in a
curious manner, leaving the figure untouched. Placing this species of
hieroglyphic between two sheets of paper, he consigned it to an
envelope. On this envelope and disguising his hand the colonel wrote
as follows:--

Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, rue Saint-Anne, near the Quai des
Orfevres.

That done, he rang the bell and gave orders to put up his carriage,
which he had ordered before Maxime's arrival; after which he went out
alone on foot, and threw his singular missive into the first street
letter-box that he passed. He had taken care, before he left the
house, to see if it were properly sealed.



II

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ELEVEN O'CLOCK AND MIDNIGHT

As a result of the elections which had just taken place, the ministry,
contrary to expectation, maintained a majority in the Chamber,--a
doubtful and provisional majority which would give it an uncertain and
struggling existence. But, at any rate, it had obtained that merely
numerical success which parties seek at any price to prolong their
power. The Te Deum was sung in all its camps,--a paean which serves as
well to celebrate victorious defeats as honest victories.

On the evening of the day when Colonel Franchessini received the visit
from Maxime de Trailles, the general result of the elections was made
known. The ministers of the left bank, whose wives received on that
day, found their salons crowded, particularly the Comte de Rastignac,
the minister of Public Works.

Madame de l'Estorade, too much absorbed in her children to be very
exact in the fulfilment of her social duties, had owed a visit to
Madame de Rastignac ever since the evening when the minister's wife
had interrupted her conversation with the sculptor apropos of the
famous statue. Monsieur de l'Estorade, zealous conservative as we know
already, had insisted that politics and politeness now combined to
oblige them both to pay this social debt. Arriving early, in order to
be rid the sooner of such a bore, Madame de l'Estorade found herself
seated at the upper end of a circle of women, while the men stood
about them conversing. Her chair was side by side with that of Madame
de Rastignac.

In hoping to make her visit short, Madame de l'Estorade had not
counted on the allurements of conversation which, under the
circumstances of this so-called political victory, laid hold of her
husband. A man of more influence by his judgment than by his oratory
in the Chamber of Peers, Monsieur de l'Estorade, as he circulated
through the salons, was stopped at every turn by the various
notabilities of politics, finance, and diplomacy, and requested to
give his opinion on the future of the session now about to begin. To
all such questions he replied with more or less extended observations,
and sometimes he had the pleasure of finding himself the centre of a
group respectfully receptive of his opinions. This success rendered
him very inattentive to the telegraphy of his wife, who, watching his
various evolutions, made him signs whenever she could catch his eye
that she wished to go away.