Vendetta

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VENDETTA

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translated by
Katharine Prescott Wormeley




DEDICATION

To Puttinati, Milanese Sculptor.




VENDETTA



CHAPTER I

PROLOGUE

In the year 1800, toward the close of October, a foreigner,
accompanied by a woman and a little girl, was standing for a long time
in front of the palace of the Tuileries, near the ruins of a house
recently pulled down, at the point where in our day the wing begins
which was intended to unite the chateau of Catherine de Medici with
the Louvre of the Valois.

The man stood there with folded arms and a bowed head, which he
sometimes raised to look alternately at the consular palace and at his
wife, who was sitting near him on a stone. Though the woman seemed
wholly occupied with the little girl of nine or ten years of age,
whose long black hair she amused herself by handling, she lost not a
single glance of those her companion cast on her. Some sentiment other
than love united these two beings, and inspired with mutual anxiety
their movements and their thoughts. Misery is, perhaps, the most
powerful of all ties.

The stranger had one of those broad, serious heads, covered with thick
hair, which we see so frequently in the pictures of the Caracci. The
jet black of the hair was streaked with white. Though noble and proud,
his features had a hardness which spoiled them. In spite of his
evident strength, and his straight, erect figure, he looked to be over
sixty years of age. His dilapidated clothes were those of a foreign
country. Though the faded and once beautiful face of the wife betrayed
the deepest sadness, she forced herself to smile, assuming a calm
countenance whenever her husband looked at her.

The little girl was standing, though signs of weariness were on the
youthful face, which was tanned by the sun. She had an Italian cast of
countenance and bearing, large black eyes beneath their well arched
brows, a native nobleness, and candid grace. More than one of those
who passed them felt strongly moved by the mere aspect of this group,
who made no effort to conceal a despair which seemed as deep as the
expression of it was simple. But the flow of this fugitive sympathy,
characteristic of Parisians, was dried immediately; for as soon as the
stranger saw himself the object of attention, he looked at his
observer with so savage an air that the boldest lounger hurried his
step as though he had trod upon a serpent.

After standing for some time undecided, the tall stranger suddenly
passed his hand across his face to brush away, as it were, the
thoughts that were ploughing furrows in it. He must have taken some
desperate resolution. Casting a glance upon his wife and daughter, he
drew a dagger from his breast and gave it to his companion, saying in
Italian:--

"I will see if the Bonapartes remember us."

Then he walked with a slow, determined step toward the entrance of the
palace, where he was, naturally, stopped by a soldier of the consular
guard, with whom he was not permitted a long discussion. Seeing this
man's obstinate determination, the sentinel presented his bayonet in
the form of an ultimatum. Chance willed that the guard was changed at
that moment, and the corporal very obligingly pointed out to the
stranger the spot where the commander of the post was standing.

"Let Bonaparte know that Bartolomeo di Piombo wishes to speak with
him," said the Italian to the captain on duty.

In vain the officer represented to Bartolomeo that he could not see
the First Consul without having previously requested an audience in
writing; the Italian insisted that the soldier should go to Bonaparte.
The officer stated the rules of the post, and refused to comply with
the order of this singular visitor. Bartolomeo frowned heavily,
casting a terrible look at the captain, as if he made him responsible
for the misfortunes that this refusal might occasion. Then he kept
silence, folded his arms tightly across his breast, and took up his
station under the portico which serves as an avenue of communication
between the garden and the court-yard of the Tuileries. Persons who
will things intensely are very apt to be helped by chance. At the
moment when Bartolomeo di Piombo seated himself on one of the stone
posts which was near the entrance, a carriage drew up, from which
Lucien Bonaparte, minister of the interior, issued.

"Ah, Loucian, it is lucky for me I have met you!" cried the stranger.

These words, said in the Corsican patois, stopped Lucien at the moment
when he was springing under the portico. He looked at his compatriot,
and recognized him. At the first word that Bartolomeo said in his ear,
he took the Corsican away with him.

Murat, Lannes, and Rapp were at that moment in the cabinet of the
First Consul. As Lucien entered, followed by a man so singular in
appearance as Piombo, the conversation ceased. Lucien took Napoleon by
the arm and led him into the recess of a window. After exchanging a
few words with his brother, the First Consul made a sign with his
hand, which Murat and Lannes obeyed by retiring. Rapp pretended not to
have seen it, in order to remain where he was. Bonaparte then spoke to
him sharply, and the aide-de-camp, with evident unwillingness, left
the room. The First Consul, who listened for Rapp's step in the
adjoining salon, opened the door suddenly, and found his aide-de-camp
close to the wall of the cabinet.

"Do you choose not to understand me?" said the First Consul. "I wish
to be alone with my compatriot."

"A Corsican!" replied the aide-de-camp. "I distrust those fellows too
much to--"

The First Consul could not restrain a smile as he pushed his faithful
officer by the shoulders.

"Well, what has brought you here, my poor Bartolomeo?" said Napoleon.

"To ask asylum and protection from you, if you are a true Corsican,"
replied Bartolomeo, roughly.

"What ill fortune drove you from the island? You were the richest, the
most--"

"I have killed all the Portas," replied the Corsican, in a deep voice,
frowning heavily.

The First Consul took two steps backward in surprise.

"Do you mean to betray me?" cried Bartolomeo, with a darkling look at
Bonaparte. "Do you know that there are still four Piombos in Corsica?"

Lucien took an arm of his compatriot and shook it.

"Did you come here to threaten the savior of France?" he said.

Bonaparte made a sign to Lucien, who kept silence. Then he looked at
Piombo and said:--

"Why did you kill the Portas?"

"We had made friends," replied the man; "the Barbantis reconciled us.
The day after we had drunk together to drown our quarrels, I left home
because I had business at Bastia. The Portas remained in my house, and
set fire to my vineyard at Longone. They killed my son Gregorio. My
daughter Ginevra and my wife, having taken the sacrament that morning,
escaped; the Virgin protected them. When I returned I found no house;
my feet were in its ashes as I searched for it. Suddenly they struck
against the body of Gregorio; I recognized him in the moonlight. 'The
Portas have dealt me this blow,' I said; and, forthwith, I went to the
woods, and there I called together all the men whom I had ever served,
--do you hear me, Bonaparte?--and we marched to the vineyard of the
Portas. We got there at five in the morning; at seven they were all
before God. Giacomo declares that Eliza Vanni saved a child, Luigi.
But I myself bound him to his bed before setting fire to the house. I
have left the island with my wife and child without being able to
discover whether, indeed, Luigi Porta is alive."

Bonaparte looked with curiosity at Bartolomeo, but without surprise.

"How many were there?" asked Lucien.

"Seven," replied Piombo. "All of them were your persecutors in the
olden times."

These words roused no expression of hatred on the part of the two
brothers.

"Ha! you are no longer Corsicans!" cried Piombo, with a sort of
despair. "Farewell. In other days I protected you," he added, in a
reproachful tone. "Without me, your mother would never have reached
Marseille," he said, addressing himself to Bonaparte, who was silent
and thoughtful, his elbow resting on a mantel-shelf.

"As a matter of duty, Piombo," said Napoleon at last, "I cannot take
you under my wing. I have become the leader of a great nation; I
command the Republic; I am bound to execute the laws."

"Ha! ha!" said Bartolomeo, scornfully.

"But I can shut my eyes," continued Bonaparte. "The tradition of the
Vendetta will long prevent the reign of law in Corsica," he added, as
if speaking to himself. "But it _must_ be destroyed, at any cost."

Bonaparte was silent for a few moments, and Lucien made a sign to
Piombo not to speak. The Corsican was swaying his head from right to
left in deep disapproval.

"Live here, in Paris," resumed the First Consul, addressing
Bartolomeo; "we will know nothing of this affair. I will cause your
property in Corsica to be bought, to give you enough to live on for
the present. Later, before long, we will think of you. But, remember,
no more vendetta! There are no woods here to fly to. If you play with
daggers, you must expect no mercy. Here, the law protects all
citizens; and no one is allowed to do justice for himself."

"He has made himself the head of a singular nation," said Bartolomeo,
taking Lucien's hand and pressing it. "But you have both recognized me
in misfortune, and I am yours, henceforth, for life or death. You may
dispose as you will of the Piombos."

With these words his Corsican brow unbent, and he looked about him in
satisfaction.

"You are not badly off here," he said, smiling, as if he meant to
lodge there himself. "You are all in red, like a cardinal."

"Your success depends upon yourself; you can have a palace, also,"
said Bonaparte, watching his compatriot with a keen eye. "It will
often happen that I shall need some faithful friend in whom I can
confide."

A sigh of joy heaved the vast chest of the Corsican, who held out his
hand to the First Consul, saying:--

"The Corsican is in you still."

Bonaparte smiled. He looked in silence at the man who brought, as it
were, a waft of air from his own land,--from that isle where he had
been so miraculously saved from the hatred of the "English party"; the
land he was never to see again. He made a sign to his brother, who
then took Piombo away. Lucien inquired with interest as to the
financial condition of the former protector of their family. Piombo
took him to a window and showed him his wife and Ginevra, seated on a
heap of stones.

"We came from Fontainebleau on foot; we have not a single penny," he
said.

Lucien gave his purse to his compatriot, telling him to come to him
the next day, that arrangements might be made to secure the comfort of
the family. The value of Piombo's property in Corsica, if sold, would
scarcely maintain him honorably in Paris.

Fifteen years elapsed between the time of Piombo's arrival with his
family in Paris and the following event, which would be scarcely
intelligible to the reader without this narrative of the foregoing
circumstances.



CHAPTER II

THE STUDIO

Servin, one of our most distinguished artists, was the first to
conceive of the idea of opening a studio for young girls who wished to
take lessons in painting.

About forty years of age, a man of the purest morals, entirely given
up to his art, he had married from inclination the dowerless daughter
of a general. At first the mothers of his pupils bought their
daughters themselves to the studio; then they were satisfied to send
them alone, after knowing the master's principles and the pains he
took to deserve their confidence.

It was the artist's intention to take no pupils but young ladies
belonging to rich families of good position, in order to meet with no
complaints as to the composition of his classes. He even refused to
take girls who wished to become artists; for to them he would have
been obliged to give certain instructions without which no talent
could advance in the profession. Little by little his prudence and the
ability with which he initiated his pupils into his art, the certainty
each mother felt that her daughter was in company with none but
well-bred young girls, and the fact of the artist's marriage, gave him
an excellent reputation as a teacher in society. When a young girl
wished to learn to draw, and her mother asked advice of her friends,
the answer was, invariably: "Send her to Servin's."

Servin became, therefore, for feminine art, a specialty; like Herbault
for bonnets, Leroy for gowns, and Chevet for eatables. It was
recognized that a young woman who had taken lessons from Servin was
capable of judging the paintings of the Musee conclusively, of making
a striking portrait, copying an ancient master, or painting a genre
picture. The artist thus sufficed for the educational needs of the
aristocracy. But in spite of these relations with the best families in
Paris, he was independent and patriotic, and he maintained among them
that easy, brilliant, half-ironical tone, and that freedom of judgment
which characterize painters.

He had carried his scrupulous precaution into the arrangements of the
locality where his pupils studied. The entrance to the attic above his
apartments was walled up. To reach this retreat, as sacred as a harem,
it was necessary to go up a small spiral staircase made within his own
rooms. The studio, occupying nearly the whole attic floor under the
roof, presented to the eye those vast proportions which surprise
inquirers when, after attaining sixty feet above the ground-floor,
they expect to find an artist squeezed into a gutter.

This gallery, so to speak, was profusely lighted from above, through
enormous panes of glass furnished with those green linen shades by
means of which all artists arrange the light. A quantity of
caricatures, heads drawn at a stroke, either in color or with the
point of a knife, on walls painted in a dark gray, proved that,
barring a difference in expression, the most distinguished young girls
have as much fun and folly in their minds as men. A small stove with a
large pipe, which described a fearful zigzag before it reached the
upper regions of the roof, was the necessary and infallible ornament
of the room. A shelf ran round the walls, on which were models in
plaster, heterogeneously placed, most of them covered with gray dust.
Here and there, above this shelf, a head of Niobe, hanging to a nail,
presented her pose of woe; a Venus smiled; a hand thrust itself
forward like that of a pauper asking alms; a few "ecorches," yellowed
by smoke, looked like limbs snatched over-night from a graveyard;
besides these objects, pictures, drawings, lay figures, frames without
paintings, and paintings without frames gave to this irregular
apartment that studio physiognomy which is distinguished for its
singular jumble of ornament and bareness, poverty and riches, care and
neglect. The vast receptacle of an "atelier," where all seems small,
even man, has something of the air of an Opera "coulisse"; here lie
ancient garments, gilded armor, fragments of stuffs, machinery. And
yet there is something mysteriously grand, like thought, in it; genius
and death are there; Diana and Apollo beside a skull or skeleton,
beauty and destruction, poesy and reality, colors glowing in the
shadows, often a whole drama, motionless and silent. Strange symbol of
an artist's head!

At the moment when this history begins, a brilliant July sun was
illuminating the studio, and two rays striking athwart it lengthwise,
traced diaphanous gold lines in which the dust was shimmering. A dozen
easels raised their sharp points like masts in a port. Several young
girls were animating the scene by the variety of their expressions,
their attitudes, and the differences in their toilets. The strong
shadows cast by the green serge curtains, arranged according to the
needs of each easel, produced a multitude of contrasts, and the
piquant effects of light and shade. This group was the prettiest of
all the pictures in the studio.

A fair young girl, very simply dressed, sat at some distance from her
companions, working bravely and seeming to be in dread of some mishap.
No one looked at her, or spoke to her; she was much the prettiest, the
most modest, and, apparently, the least rich among them. Two principal
groups, distinctly separated from each other, showed the presence of
two sets or cliques, two minds even here, in this studio, where one
might suppose that rank and fortune would be forgotten.

But, however that might be, these young girls, sitting or standing, in
the midst of their color-boxes, playing with their brushes or
preparing them, handling their dazzling palettes, painting, laughing,
talking, singing, absolutely natural, and exhibiting their real
selves, composed a spectacle unknown to man. One of them, proud,
haughty, capricious, with black hair and beautiful hands, was casting
the flame of her glance here and there at random; another,
light-hearted and gay, a smile upon her lips, with chestnut hair and
delicate white hands, was a typical French virgin, thoughtless, and
without hidden thoughts, living her natural real life; a third was
dreamy, melancholy, pale, bending her head like a drooping flower; her
neighbor, on the contrary, tall, indolent, with Asiatic habits, long
eyes, moist and black, said but little, and reflected, glancing
covertly at the head of Antinous.

Among them, like the "jocoso" of a Spanish play, full of wit and
epigrammatic sallies, another girl was watching the rest with a
comprehensive glance, making them laugh, and tossing up her head, too
lively and arch not to be pretty. She appeared to rule the first group
of girls, who were the daughters of bankers, notaries, and merchants,
--all rich, but aware of the imperceptible though cutting slights
which another group belonging to the aristocracy put upon them. The
latter were led by the daughter of one of the King's ushers, a little
creature, as silly as she was vain, proud of being the daughter of a
man with "an office at court." She was a girl who always pretended to
understand the remarks of the master at the first word, and seemed to
do her work as a favor to him. She used an eyeglass, came very much
dressed, and always late, and entreated her companions to speak low.

In this second group were several girls with exquisite figures and
distinguished features, but there was little in their glance or
expression that was simple and candid. Though their attitudes were
elegant and their movements graceful, their faces lacked frankness; it
was easy to see that they belonged to a world where polite manners
form the character from early youth, and the abuse of social pleasures
destroys sentiment and develops egotism.

But when the whole class was here assembled, childlike heads were seen
among this bevy of young girls, ravishingly pure and virgin, faces
with lips half-opened, through which shone spotless teeth, and on
which a virgin smile was flickering. The studio then resembled not a
studio, but a group of angels seated on a cloud in ether.

By mid-day, on this occasion, Servin had not appeared. For some days
past he had spent most of his time in a studio which he kept
elsewhere, where he was giving the last touches to a picture for the
Exposition. All of a sudden Mademoiselle Amelie Thirion, the leader of
the aristocrats, began to speak in a low voice, and very earnestly, to
her neighbor. A great silence fell on the group of patricians, and the
commercial party, surprised, were equally silent, trying to discover
the subject of this earnest conference. The secret of the young _ultras_
was soon revealed.

Amelie rose, took an easel which stood near hers, carried it to a
distance from the noble group, and placed it close to a board
partition which separated the studio from the extreme end of the
attic, where all broken casts, defaced canvases and the winter supply
of wood were kept. Amelie's action caused a murmur of surprise, which
did not prevent her from accomplishing the change by rolling hastily
to the side of the easel the stool, the box of colors, and even the
picture by Prudhon, which the absent pupil was copying. After this
coup d'etat the Right began to work in silence, but the Left
discoursed at length.

"What will Mademoiselle Piombo say to that?" asked a young girl of
Mademoiselle Matilde Roguin, the lively oracle of the banking group.

"She's not a girl to say anything," was the reply; "but fifty years
hence she'll remember the insult as if it were done to her the night
before, and revenge it cruelly. She is a person that I, for one, don't
want to be at war with."

"The slight these young ladies mean to put upon her is all the more
unkind," said another young girl, "because yesterday, Mademoiselle
Ginevra was very sad. Her father, they say, has just resigned. They
ought not to add to her trouble, for she was very considerate of them
during the Hundred Days. Never did she say a word to wound them. On
the contrary, she avoided politics. But I think our _ultras_ are acting
more from jealousy than from party spite."

"I have a great mind to go and get Mademoiselle Piombo's easel and
place it next to mine," said Matilde Roguin. She rose, but second
thoughts made her sit down again.

"With a character like hers," she said, "one can't tell how she would
take a civility; better wait events."

"Ecco la," said the young girl with the black eyes, languidly.

The steps of a person coming up the narrow stairway sounded through
the studio. The words: "Here she comes!" passed from mouth to mouth,
and then the most absolute silence reigned.

To understand the importance of the ostracism imposed by the act of
Amelie Thirion, it is necessary to add that this scene took place
toward the end of the month of July, 1815. The second return of the
Bourbons had shaken many friendships which had held firm under the
first Restoration. At this moment families, almost all divided in
opinion, were renewing many of the deplorable scenes which stain the
history of all countries in times of civil or religious wars.
Children, young girls, old men shared the monarchial fever to which
the country was then a victim. Discord glided beneath all roofs;
distrust dyed with its gloomy colors the words and the actions of the
most intimate friends.

Ginevra Piombo loved Napoleon to idolatry; how, then, could she hate
him? The emperor was her compatriot and the benefactor of her father.
The Baron di Piombo was among those of Napoleon's devoted servants who
had co-operated most effectually in the return from Elba. Incapable of
denying his political faith, anxious even to confess it, the old baron
remained in Paris in the midst of his enemies. Ginevra Piombo was all
the more open to condemnation because she made no secret of the grief
which the second Restoration caused to her family. The only tears she
had so far shed in life were drawn from her by the twofold news of
Napoleon's captivity on the "Bellerophon," and Labedoyere's arrest.

The girls of the aristocratic group of pupils belonged to the most
devoted royalist families in Paris. It would be difficult to give an
idea of the exaggerations prevalent at this epoch, and of the horror
inspired by the Bonapartists. However insignificant and petty Amelie's
action may now seem to be, it was at that time a very natural
expression of the prevailing hatred. Ginevra Piombo, one of Servin's
first pupils, had occupied the place that was now taken from her since
the first day of her coming to the studio. The aristocratic circle had
gradually surrounded her. To drive her from a place that in some sense
belonged to her was not only to insult her, but to cause her a species
of artistic pain; for all artists have a spot of predilection where
they work.

Nevertheless, political prejudice was not the chief influence on the
conduct of the Right clique of the studio. Ginevra, much the ablest of
Servin's pupils, was an object of intense jealousy. The master
testified as much admiration for the talents as for the character of
his favorite pupil, who served as a conclusion to all his comparisons.
In fact, without any one being able to explain the ascendancy which
this young girl obtained over all who came in contact with her, she
exercised over the little world around her a prestige not unlike that
of Bonaparte upon his soldiers.

The aristocracy of the studio had for some days past resolved upon the
fall of this queen, but no one had, as yet, ventured to openly avoid
the Bonapartist. Mademoiselle Thirion's act was, therefore, a decisive
stroke, intended by her to force the others into becoming, openly, the
accomplices of her hatred. Though Ginevra was sincerely loved by
several of these royalists, nearly all of whom were indoctrinated at
home with their political ideas, they decided, with the tactics
peculiar to women, that they should do best to keep themselves aloof
from the quarrel.