Meantime Camors directed his steps toward the residence of M. des Rameures, of which he at last obtained correct information. He took the same road as the preceding evening, passed the monastic-looking building that held Madame de Tecle, glanced at the old oak that had served him for an observatory, and about a mile farther on he discovered the small house with towers that he sought.
It could only be compared to those imaginary edifices of which we have all read in childhood’s happy days in taking text, under an attractive picture: “The castle of M. de Valmont was agreeably situated at the summit of a pretty hill.” It had a really picturesque surrounding of fields sloping away, green as emerald, dotted here and there with great bouquets of trees, or cut by walks adorned with huge roses or white bridges thrown over rivulets. Cattle and sheep were resting here and there, which might have figured at the Opera Comique, so shining were the skins of the cows and so white the wool of the sheep. Camors swung open the gate, took the first road he saw, and reached the top of the hill amid trees and flowers. An old servant slept on a bench before the door, smiling in his dreams.
Camors waked him, inquired for the master of the house, and was ushered into a vestibule. Thence he entered a charming apartment, where a young lady in a short skirt and round hat was arranging bouquets in Chinese vases.
She turned at the noise of the opening door, and Camors saw—Madame de Tecle!
As he saluted her with an air of astonishment and doubt, she looked fixedly at him with her large eyes. He spoke first, with more of hesitation than usual.
“Pardon me, Madame, but I inquired for Monsieur des Rameures.”
“He is at the farm, but will soon return. Be kind enough to wait.”
She pointed to a chair, and seated herself, pushing away with her foot the branches that strewed the floor.
“But, Madame, in the absence of Monsieur des Rameures may I have the honor of speaking with his niece?”
The shadow of a smile flitted over Madame de Tecle’s brown but charming face. “His niece?” she said: “I am his niece.”
“You I Pardon me, Madame, but I thought—they said—I expected to find an elderly—a—person—that is, a respectable” he hesitated, then added simply—“and I find I am in error.”
Madame de Tecle seemed completely unmoved by this compliment.
“Will you be kind enough, Monsieur,” she said, “to let me know whom I have the honor of receiving?”
“I am Monsieur de Camors.”
“Ah! Then I have excuses also to make. It was probably you whom we saw this morning. We have been very rude—my daughter and I—but we were ignorant of your arrival; and Reuilly has been so long deserted.”
“I sincerely hope, Madame, that your daughter and yourself will make no change in your rides.”
Madame de Tecle replied by a movement of the hand that implied certainly she appreciated the offer, and certainly she should not accept it. Then there was a pause long enough to embarrass Camors, during which his eye fell upon the piano, and his lips almost formed the original remark—“You are a musician, Madame.” Suddenly recollecting his tree, however, he feared to betray himself by the allusion, and was silent.
“You come from Paris, Monsieur de Camors?” Madame de Tecle at length asked.
“No, Madame, I have been passing several weeks with my kinsman, General de Campvallon, who has also the honor, I believe, to be a friend of yours; and who has requested me to call upon you.”
“We are delighted that you have done so; and what an excellent man the General is!”
“Excellent indeed, Madame.” There was another pause.
“If you do not object to a short walk in the sun,” said Madame de Tecle at length, “let us walk to meet my uncle. We are almost sure to meet him.” Camors bowed. Madame de Tecle rose and rang the bell: “Ask Mademoiselle Marie,” she said to the servant, “to be kind enough to put on her hat and join us.”
A moment after, Mademoiselle Marie entered, cast on the stranger the steady, frank look of an inquisitive child, bowed slightly to him, and they all left the room by a door opening on the lawn.
Madame de Tecle, while responding courteously to the graceful speeches of Camors, walked on with a light and rapid step, her fairy-like little shoes leaving their impression on the smooth fine sand of the path.
She walked with indescribable, unconscious grace; with that supple, elastic undulation which would have been coquettish had it not been undeniably natural. Reaching the wall that enclosed the right side of the park, she opened a wicket that led into a narrow path through a large field of ripe corn. She passed into this path, followed in single file by Mademoiselle Marie and by Camors. Until now the child had been very quiet, but the rich golden corn-tassels, entangled with bright daisies, red poppies, and hollyhocks, and the humming concert of myriads of flies-blue, yellow, and reddish-brown, which sported amid the sweets, excited her beyond self-control. Stopping here and there to pluck a flower, she would turn and cry, “Pardon, Monsieur;” until, at length, on an apple-tree growing near the path she descried on a low branch a green apple, no larger than her finger. This temptation proved irresistible, and with one spring into the midst of the corn, she essayed to reach the prize, if Providence would permit. Madame de Tecle, however, would not permit. She seemed much displeased, and said, sharply:
“Marie, my child! In the midst of the corn! Are you crazy!”
The child returned promptly to the path, but unable to conquer her wish for the apple, turned an imploring eye to Camors and said, softly: “Pardon, Monsieur, but that apple would make my bouquet complete.”
Camors had only to reach up, stretch out his hand, and detach the branch from the tree.
“A thousand thanks!” cried the child, and adding this crowning glory to her bouquet, she placed the whole inside the ribbon around her hat and walked on with an air of proud satisfaction.
As they approached the fence running across the end of the field, Madame de Tecle suddenly said: “My uncle, Monsieur;” and Camors, raising his head, saw a very tall man looking at them over the fence and shading his eyes with his hand. His robust limbs were clad in gaiters of yellow leather with steel buttons, and he wore a loose coat of maroon velvet and a soft felt hat. Camors immediately recognized the white hair and heavy black eyebrows as the same he had seen bending over the violin the night before.
“Uncle,” said Madame de Tecle, introducing the young Count by a wave of the hand: “This is Monsieur de Camors.”
“Monsieur de Camors,” repeated the old man, in a deep and sonorous voice, “you are most welcome;” and opening the gate he gave his guest a soft, brown hand, as he continued: “I knew your mother intimately, and am charmed to have her son under my roof. Your mother was a most amiable person, Monsieur, and certainly merited—” The old man hesitated, and finished his sentence by a sonorous “Hem!” that resounded and rumbled in his chest as if in the vault of a church.
Then he took the letter Camors handed to him, held it a long distance from his eyes, and began reading it. The General had told the Count it would be impolite to break suddenly to M. des Rameures the plan they had concocted. The latter, therefore, found the note only a very warm introduction of Camors. The postscript gave him the announcement of the marriage.
“The devil!” he cried. “Did you know this, Elise? Campvallon is to be married!”
All women, widows, matrons, or maids, are deeply interested in matters pertaining to marriage.
“What, uncle! The General! Can it be? Are you sure?”
“Um—rather. He writes the news himself. Do you know the lady, Monsieur le Comte?”
“Mademoiselle de Luc d’Estrelles is my cousin,” Camors replied.
“Ah! That is right; and she is of a certain age?”
“She is about twenty-five.”
M. des Rameures received this intelligence with one of the resonant coughs peculiar to him.
“May I ask, without indiscretion, whether she is endowed with a pleasing person?”
“She is exceedingly beautiful,” was the reply.
“Hem! So much the better. It seems to me the General is a little old for her: but every one is the best judge of his own affairs: Hem! the best judge of his own affairs. Elise, my dear, whenever you are ready we will follow you. Pardon me, Monsieur le Comte, for receiving you in this rustic attire, but I am a laborer. Agricola—a mere herdsman—‘custos gregis’, as the poet says. Walk before me, Monsieur le Comte, I beg you. Marie, child, respect my corn!
“And can we hope, Monsieur de Camors, that you have the happy idea of quitting the great Babylon to install yourself among your rural possessions? It will be a good example, Monsieur—an excellent example! For unhappily today more than ever we can say with the poet:
‘Non ullus aratro
Dignus honos; squalent abductis arva colonis,
Et—et—’
“And, by gracious! I’ve forgotten the rest—poor memory! Ah, young sir, never grow old-never grow old!”
“‘Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem,”’
said Camors, continuing the broken quotation.
“Ah! you quote Virgil. You read the classics. I am charmed, really charmed. That is not the characteristic of our rising generation, for modern youth has an idea it is bad taste to quote the ancients. But that is not my idea, young sir—not in the least. Our fathers quoted freely because they were familiar with them. And Virgil is my poet. Not that I approve of all his theories of cultivation. With all the respect I accord him, there is a great deal to be said on that point; and his plan of breeding in particular will never do—never do! Still, he is delicious, eh? Very well, Monsieur Camors, now you see my little domain—‘mea paupera regna’—the retreat of the sage. Here I live, and live happily, like an old shepherd in the golden age—loved by my neighbors, which is not easy; and venerating the gods, which is perhaps easier. Ah, young sir, as you read Virgil, you will excuse me once more. It was for me he wrote:
‘Fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota,
Et fontes sacros frigus captabis opacum.’
“And this as well:
‘Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes,
Panaque, Silvanumque senem!’”
“Nymphasque sorores!” finished Camors, smiling and moving his head slightly in the direction of Madame de Tecle and her daughter, who preceded them.
“Quite to the point. That is pure truth!” cried M. des Rameures, gayly. “Did you hear that, niece?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“And did you understand it, niece?”
“No, uncle.”
“I do not believe you, my dear! I do not believe you!” The old man laughed heartily. “Do not believe her, Monsieur de Camors; women have the faculty of understanding compliments in every language.”
This conversation brought them to the chateau, where they sat down on a bench before the drawing-room windows to enjoy the view.
Camors praised judiciously the well-kept park, accepted an invitation to dinner the next week, and then discreetly retired, flattering himself that his introduction had made a favorable impression upon M. des Rameures, but regretting his apparent want of progress with the fairy-footed niece.
He was in error.
“This youth,” said M. des Rameures, when he was left alone with Madame de Tecle, “has some touch of the ancients, which is something; but he still resembles his father, who was vicious as sin itself. His eyes and his smile recall some traits of his admirable mother; but positively, my dear Elise, he is the portrait of his father, whose manners and whose principles they say he has inherited.”
“Who says so, uncle?”
“Current rumor, niece.”
“Current rumor, my dear uncle, is often mistaken, and always exaggerates. For my part, I like the young man, who seems thoroughly refined and at his ease.”
“Bah! I suppose because he compared you to a nymph in the fable.”
“If he compared me to a nymph in the fable he was wrong; but he never addressed to me a word in French that was not in good taste. Before we condemn him, uncle, let us see for ourselves. It is a habit you have always recommended to me, you know.”
“You can not deny, niece,” said the old man with irritation, “that he exhales the most decided and disagreeable odor of Paris! He is too polite—too studied! Not a shadow of enthusiasm—no fire of youth! He never laughs as I should wish to see a man of his age laugh; a young man should roar to split his waistband!”
“What! you would see him merry so soon after losing his father in such a tragic manner, and he himself nearly ruined! Why, uncle, what can you mean?”
“Well, well, perhaps you are right. I retract all I have said against him. If he be half ruined I will offer him my advice—and my purse if he need it—for the sake of the memory of his mother, whom you resemble. Ah, ‘tis thus we end all our disputes, naughty child! I grumble; I am passionate; I act like a Tartar. Then you speak with your good sense and sweetness, my darling, and the tiger becomes a lamb. All unhappy beings whom you approach in the same way submit to your subtle charm. And that is the reason why my old friend, La Fontaine, said of you:
‘Sur differentes fleurs l’abeille se repose,
Et fait du miel de toute chose!’”
Elise de Tecle was thirty years of age, but appeared much younger. At seventeen she had married, under peculiar conditions, her cousin Roland de Tecle. She had been left an orphan at an early age and educated by her mother’s brother, M. des Rameures. Roland lived very near her Everything brought them together—the wishes of the family, compatibility of fortune, their relations as neighbors, and a personal sympathy. They were both charming; they were destined for each other from infancy, and the time fixed for their marriage was the nineteenth birthday of Elise. In anticipation of this happy event the Comte de Tecle rebuilt almost entirely one wing of his castle for the exclusive use of the young pair. Roland was continually present, superintending and urging on the work with all the ardor of a lover.
One morning loud and alarming cries from the new wing roused all the inhabitants of the castle; the Count burned to the spot, and found his son stunned and bleeding in the arms of one of the workmen. He had fallen from a high scaffolding to the pavement. For several months the unfortunate young man hovered between life and death; but in the paroxysms of fever he never ceased calling for his cousin—his betrothed; and they were obliged to admit the young girl to his bedside. Slowly he recovered, but was ever after disfigured and lame; and the first time they allowed him to look in a glass he had a fainting-fit that proved almost fatal.
But he was a youth of high principle and true courage. On recovering from his swoon he wept a flood of bitter tears, which would not, however, wash the scars from his disfigured face. He prayed long and earnestly; then shut himself up with his father. Each wrote a letter, the one to M. des Rameures, the other to Elise. M. des Rameures and his niece were then in Germany. The excitement and fatigue consequent upon nursing her cousin had so broken her health that the physicians urged a trial of the baths of Ems. There she received these letters; they released her from her engagement and gave her absolute liberty.
Roland and his father implored her not to return in haste; explained that their intention was to leave the country in a few weeks’ time and establish themselves at Paris; and added that they expected no answer, and that their resolution—impelled by simple justice to her—was irrevocable.
Their wishes were complied with. No answer came.
Roland, his sacrifice once made, seemed calm and resigned; but he fell into a sort of languor, which made fearful progress and hinted at a speedy and fatal termination, for which in fact he seemed to long. One evening they had taken him to the lime-tree terrace at the foot of the garden. He gazed with absent eye on the tints with which the setting sun purpled the glades of the wood, while his father paced the terrace with long strides-smiling as he passed him and hastily brushing away a tear as he turned his back.
Suddenly Elise de Tecle appeared before them, like an angel dropped from heaven. She knelt before the crippled youth, kissed his hand, and, brightening him with the rays of her beautiful eyes, told him she never had loved him half so well before. He felt she spoke truly; he accepted her devotion, and they were married soon after.
Madame de Tecle was happy—but she alone was so. Her husband, notwithstanding the tenderness with which she treated him—notwithstanding the happiness which he could not fail to read in her tranquil glance—notwithstanding the birth of a daughter—seemed never to console himself. Even with her he was always possessed by a cold constraint; some secret sorrow consumed him, of which they found the key only on the day of his death.
“My darling,” he then said to his young wife—“my darling, may God reward you for your infinite goodness! Pardon me, if I never have told you how entirely I love you. With a face like mine, how could I speak of love to one like you! But my poor heart has been brimming over with it all the while. Oh, Elise! how I have suffered when I thought of what I was before—how much more worthy of you! But we shall be reunited, dearest—shall we not?—where I shall be as perfect as you, and where I may tell you how much I adore you! Do not weep for me, my own Elise! I am happy now, for the first time, for I have dared to open my heart to you. Dying men do not fear ridicule. Farewell, Elise—darling-wife! I love you!” These tender words were his last.
After her husband’s death, Madame de Tecle lived with her father-in-law, but passed much of her time with her uncle. She busied herself with the greatest solicitude in the education of her daughter, and kept house for both the old men, by both of whom she was equally idolized.
From the lips of the priest at Reuilly, whom he called on next day, Camors learned some of these details, while the old man practiced the violoncello with his heavy spectacles on his nose. Despite his fixed resolution of preserving universal scorn, Camors could not resist a vague feeling of respect for Madame de Tecle; but it did not entirely eradicate the impure sentiment he was disposed to dedicate to her. Fully determined to make her, if not his victim, at least his ally, he felt that this enterprise was one of unusual difficulty. But he was energetic, and did not object to difficulties—especially when they took such charming shape as in the present instance.
His meditations on this theme occupied him agreeably the rest of that week, during which time he overlooked his workmen and conferred with his architect. Besides, his horses, his books, his domestics, and his journals arrived successively to dispel ennui. Therefore he looked remarkably well when he jumped out of his dog-cart the ensuing Monday in front of M. des Rameures’s door under the eyes of Madame de Tecle. As the latter gently stroked with her white hand the black and smoking shoulder of the thoroughbred Fitz-Aymon, Camors was for the first time presented to the Comte de Tecle, a quiet, sad, and taciturn old gentleman. The cure, the subprefect of the district and his wife, the tax-collector, the family physician, and the tutor completed, as the journals say, the list of the guests.
During dinner Camors, secretly excited by the immediate vicinity of Madame de Tecle, essayed to triumph over that hostility that the presence of a stranger invariably excites in the midst of intimacies which it disturbs. His calm superiority asserted itself so mildly it was pardoned for its grace. Without a gayety unbecoming his mourning, he nevertheless made such lively sallies and such amusing jokes about his first mishaps at Reuilly as to break up the stiffness of the party. He conversed pleasantly with each one in turn, and, seeming to take the deepest interest in his affairs, put him at once at his ease.
He skilfully gave M. des Rameures the opportunity for several happy quotations; spoke naturally to him of artificial pastures, and artificially of natural pastures; of breeding and of non-breeding cows; of Dishley sheep—and of a hundred other matters he had that morning crammed from an old encyclopaedia and a county almanac.
To Madame de Tecle directly he spoke little, but he did not speak one word during the dinner that was not meant for her; and his manner to women was so caressing, yet so chivalric, as to persuade them, even while pouring out their wine, that he was ready to die for them. The dear charmers thought him a good, simple fellow, while he was the exact reverse.
On leaving the table they went out of doors to enjoy the starlight evening, and M. des Rameures—whose natural hospitality was somewhat heightened by a goblet of his own excellent wine—said to Camors:
“My dear Count, you eat honestly, you talk admirably, you drink like a man. On my word, I am disposed to regard you as perfection—as a paragon of neighbors—if in addition to all the rest you add the crowning one. Do you love music?”
“Passionately!” answered Camors, with effusion.
“Passionately? Bravo! That is the way one should love everything that is worth loving. I am delighted, for we make here a troupe of fanatical melomaniacs, as you will presently perceive. As for myself, I scrape wildly on the violin, as a simple country amateur—‘Orpheus in silvis’. Do not imagine, however, Monsieur le Comte, that we let the worship of this sweet art absorb all our faculties—all our time-certainly not. When you take part in our little reunions, which of course you will do, you will find we disdain no pursuit worthy of thinking beings. We pass from music to literature—to science—even to philosophy; but we do this—I pray you to believe—without pedantry and without leaving the tone of familiar converse. Sometimes we read verses, but we never make them; we love the ancients and do not fear the moderns: we only fear those who would lower the mind and debase the heart. We love the past while we render justice to the present; and flatter ourselves at not seeing many things that to you appear beautiful, useful, and true.
“Such are we, my young friend. We call ourselves the ‘Colony of Enthusiasts,’ but our malicious neighbors call us the ‘Hotel de Rambouillet.’ Envy, you know, is a plant that does not flourish in the country; but here, by way of exception, we have a few jealous people—rather bad for them, but of no consequence to us.
“We are an odd set, with the most opposite opinions. For me, I am a Legitimist; then there is Durocher, my physician and friend, who is a rabid Republican; Hedouin, the tutor, is a parliamentarian; while Monsieur our sub-prefect is a devotee to the government, as it is his duty to be. Our cure is a little Roman—I am Gallican—‘et sic ceteris’. Very well—we all agree wonderfully for two reasons: first, because we are sincere, which is a very rare thing; and then because all opinions contain at bottom some truth, and because, with some slight mutual concessions, all really honest people come very near having the same opinions.
“Such, my dear Count, are the views that hold in my drawing-room, or rather in the drawing-room of my niece; for if you would see the divinity who makes all our happiness—look at her! It is in deference to her good taste, her good sense, and her moderation, that each of us avoids that violence and that passion which warps the best intentions. In one word, to speak truly, it is love that makes our common tie and our mutual protection. We are all in love with my niece—myself first, of course; next Durocher, for thirty years; then the subprefect and all the rest of them.
“You, too, Cure! you know that you are in love with Elise, in all honor and all good faith, as we all are, and as Monsieur de Camors shall soon be, if he is not so already—eh, Monsieur le Comte?”
Camors protested, with a sinister smile, that he felt very much inclined to fulfil the prophecy of his host; and they reentered the dining-room to find the circle increased by the arrival of several visitors. Some of these rode, others came on foot from the country-seats around.
M. des Rameures soon seized his violin; while he tuned it, little Marie seated herself at the piano, and her mother, coming behind her, rested her hand lightly on her shoulder, as if to beat the measure.
“The music will be nothing new to you,” Camors’s host said to him. “It is simply Schubert’s Serenade, which we have arranged, or deranged, after our own fancy; of which you shall judge. My niece sings, and the curate and I—‘Arcades ambo’—respond successively—he on the bass-viol and I on my Stradivarius. Come, my dear Cure, let us begin—‘incipe, Mopse, prior.”
In spite of the masterly execution of the old gentleman and of the delicate science of the cure, it was Madame de Tecle who appeared to Camors the most remarkable of the three virtuosi. The calm repose of her features, and the gentle dignity of her attitude, contrasting with the passionate swell of her voice, he found most attractive.
In his turn he seated himself at the piano, and played a difficult accompaniment with real taste; and having a good tenor voice, and a thorough knowledge of its powers, he exerted them so effectually as to produce a profound sensation. During the rest of the evening he kept much in the background in order to observe the company, and was much astonished thereby. The tone of this little society, as much removed from vulgar gossip as from affected pedantry, was truly elevated. There was nothing to remind him of a porter’s lodge, as in most provincial salons; or of the greenroom of a theatre, as in many salons of Paris; nor yet, as he had feared, of a lecture-room.
There were five or six women—some pretty, all well bred—who, in adopting the habit of thinking, had not lost the habit of laughing, nor the desire to please. But they all seemed subject to the same charm; and that charm was sovereign. Madame de Tecle, half hidden on her sofa, and seemingly busied with her embroidery, animated all by a glance, softened all by a word. The glance was inspiring; the word always appropriate. Her decision on all points they regarded as final—as that of a judge who sentences, or of a woman who is beloved.
No verses were read that evening, and Camors was not bored. In the intervals of the music, the conversation touched on the new comedy by Augier; the last work of Madame Sand; the latest poem of Tennyson; or the news from America.
“My dear Mopsus,” M. des Rameures said to the cure, “you were about to read us your sermon on superstition last Thursday, when you were interrupted by that joker who climbed the tree in order to hear you better. Now is the time to recompense us. Take this seat and we will all listen to you.”
The worthy cure took the seat, unfolded his manuscript, and began his discourse, which we shall not here report: profiting by the example of our friend Sterne, not to mingle the sacred with the profane.
The sermon met with general approval, though some persons, M. des Rameures among them, thought it above the comprehension of the humble class for whom it was intended. M. de Tecle, however, backed by republican Durocher, insisted that the intelligence of the people was underrated; that they were frequently debased by those who pretended to speak only up to their level—and the passages in dispute were retained.
How they passed from the sermon on superstition to the approaching marriage of the General, I can not say; but it was only natural after all, for the whole country, for twenty miles around, was ringing with it. This theme excited Camors’s attention at once, especially when the sub-prefect intimated with much reserve that the General, busied with his new surroundings, would probably resign his office as deputy.
“But that would be embarrassing,” exclaimed Des Rameures. “Who the deuce would replace him? I give you warning, Monsieur Prefect, if you intend imposing on us some Parisian with a flower in his buttonhole, I shall pack him back to his club—him, his flower, and his buttonhole! You may set that down for a sure thing—”
“Dear uncle!” said Madame de Tecle, indicating Camors with a glance.
“I understand you, Elise,” laughingly rejoined M. des Rameures, “but I must beg Monsieur de Camors to believe that I do not in any case intend to offend him. I shall also beg him to tolerate the monomania of an old man, and some freedom of language with regard to the only subject which makes him lose his sang froid.”
“And what is that subject, Monsieur?” said Camors, with his habitual captivating grace of manner.
“That subject, Monsieur, is the arrogant supremacy assumed by Paris over all the rest of France. I have not put my foot in the place since 1825, in order to testify the abhorrence with which it inspires me. You are an educated, sensible young man, and, I trust, a good Frenchman. Very well! Is it right, I ask, that Paris shall every morning send out to us our ideas ready-made, and that all France shall become a mere humble, servile faubourg to the capital? Do me the favor, I pray you, Monsieur, to answer that?”
“There is doubtless, my dear sir,” replied Camors, “some excess in this extreme centralization of France; but all civilized countries must have their capitals, and a head is just as necessary to a nation as to an individual.”
“Taking your own image, Monsieur, I shall turn it against you. Yes, doubtless a head is as necessary to a nation as to an individual; if, however, the head becomes monstrous and deformed, the seat of intelligence will be turned into that of idiocy, and in place of a man of intellect, you have a hydrocephalus. Pray give heed to what Monsieur the Sub-prefect, may say in answer to what I shall ask him. Now, my dear Sub-prefect, be frank. If tomorrow, the deputation of this district should become vacant, can you find within its broad limits, or indeed within the district, a man likely to fill all functions, good and bad?”
“Upon my word,” answered the official, “if you continue to refuse the office, I really know of no one else fit for it.”
“I shall persist all my life, Monsieur, for at my age assuredly I shall not expose myself to the buffoonery of your Parisian jesters.”
“Very well! In that event you will be obliged to take some stranger—perhaps, even one of those Parisian jesters.”
“You have heard him, Monsieur de Camors,” said M. des Rameures, with exultation. “This district numbers six hundred thousand souls, and yet does not contain within it the material for one deputy. There is no other civilized country, I submit, in which we can find a similar instance so scandalous. For the people of France this shame is reserved exclusively, and it is your Paris that has brought it upon us. Paris, absorbing all the blood, life, thought, and action of the country, has left a mere geographical skeleton in place of a nation! These are the benefits of your centralization, since you have pronounced that word, which is quite as barbarous as the thing itself.”
“But pardon me, uncle,” said Madame de Tecle, quietly plying her needle, “I know nothing of these matters, but it seems to me that I have heard you say this centralization was the work of the Revolution and of the First Consul. Why, therefore, do you call Monsieur de Camors to account for it? That certainly does not seem to me just.”
“Nor does it seem so to me,” said Camors, bowing to Madame de Tecle.
“Nor to me either,” rejoined M. des Rameures, smiling.
“However, Madame,” resumed Camors, “I may to some extent be held responsible in this matter, for though, as you justly suggest, I have not brought about this centralization, yet I confess I strongly approve the course of those who did.”
“Bravo! So much the better, Monsieur. I like that. One should have his own positive opinions, and defend them.”
“Monsieur,” said Camors, “I shall make an exception in your honor, for when I dine out, and especially when I dine well, I always have the same opinion with my host; but I respect you too highly not to dare to differ with you. Well, then, I think the revolutionary Assembly, and subsequently the First Consul, were happily inspired in imposing a vigorous centralized political administration upon France. I believe, indeed, that it was indispensable at the time, in order to mold and harden our social body in its new form, to adjust it in its position, and fix it firmly under the new laws—that is, to establish and maintain this powerful French unity which has become our national peculiarity, our genius and our strength.”
“You speak rightly, sir,” exclaimed Durocher.
“Parbleu I unquestionably you are right,” warmly rejoined M. des Rameures. “Yes, that is quite true. The excessive centralization of which I complain has had its hour of utility, nay, even of necessity, I will admit; but, Monsieur, in what human institution do you pretend to implant the absolute, the eternal? Feudalism, also, my dear sir, was a benefit and a progress in its day, but that which was a benefit yesterday may it not become an evil to-morrow—a danger? That which is progress to-day, may it not one hundred years hence have become mere routine, and a downright trammel? Is not that the history of the world? And if you wish to know, Monsieur, by what sign we may recognize the fact that a social or political system has attained its end, I will tell you: it is when it is manifest only in its inconveniences and abuses. Then the machine has finished its work, and should be replaced. Indeed, I declare that French centralization has reached its critical term, that fatal point at which, after protecting, it oppresses; at which, after vivifying, it paralyzes; at which, having saved France, it crushes her.”
“Dear uncle, you are carried away by your subject,” said Madame de Tecle.
“Yes, Elise, I am carried away, I admit, but I am right. Everything justifies me—the past and the present, I am sure; and so will the future, I fear. Did I say the past? Be assured, Monsieur de Camors, I am not a narrow-minded admirer of the past. Though a Legitimist from personal affections, I am a downright Liberal in principles. You know that, Durocher? Well, then, in short, formerly between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrenees, was a great country which lived, thought, and acted, not exclusively through its capital, but for itself. It had a head, assuredly; but it had also a heart, muscles, nerves, and veins with blood in them, and yet the head lost nothing by that. There was then a France, Monsieur. The province had an existence, subordinate doubtless, but real, active, and independent. Each government, each office, each parliamentary centre was a living intellectual focus. The great provincial institutions and local liberties exercised the intellect on all sides, tempered the character, and developed men. And now note well, Durocher! If France had been centralized formerly as to-day, your dear Revolution never would have occurred—do you understand? Never! because there would have been no men to make it. For may I not ask, whence came that prodigious concourse of intelligences all fully armed, and with heroic hearts, which the great social movement of ‘78 suddenly brought upon the scene? Please recall to mind the most illustrious men of that era—lawyers, orators, soldiers. How many were from Paris? All came from the provinces, the fruitful womb of France! But to-day we have simply need of a deputy, peaceful times; and yet, out of six hundred thousand souls, as we have seen, we can not find one suitable man. Why is this the case, gentlemen? Because upon the soil of uncentralized France men grew, while only functionaries germinate in the soil of centralized France.”
“God bless you, Monsieur!” said the Sub-prefect, with a smile.
“Pardon me, my dear Sub-prefect, but you, too, should understand that I really plead your cause as well as my own, when I claim for the provinces, and for all the functions of provincial life, more independence, dignity, and grandeur. In the state to which these functions are reduced at present, the administration and the judiciary are equally stripped of power, prestige, and patronage. You smile, Monsieur, but no longer, as formerly, are they the centres of life, of emulation, and of light, civic schools and manly gymnasiums; they have become merely simple, passive clockwork; and that is the case with the rest, Monsieur de Camors. Our municipal institutions are a mere farce, our provincial assemblies only a name, our local liberties naught! Consequently, we have not now a man for a deputy. But why should we complain? Does not Paris undertake to live, to think for us? Does she not deign to cast to us, as of yore the Roman Senate cast to the suburban plebeians, our food for the day-bread and vaudevilles—‘panem et circenses’. Yes, Monsieur, let us turn from the past to the present—to France of to-day! A nation of forty millions of people who await each morning from Paris the signal to know whether it is day or night, or whether, indeed, they shall laugh or weep! A great people, once the noblest, the cleverest in the world, repeating the same day, at the same hour, in all the salons, and at all the crossways in the empire, the same imbecile gabble engendered the evening before in the mire of the boulevards. I tell you? Monsieur, it is humiliating that all Europe, once jealous of us, should now shrug her shoulders in our faces.—Besides, it is fatal even for Paris, which, permit me to add, drunk with prosperity in its haughty isolation and self-fetishism, not a little resembles the Chinese Empire-a focus of warmed-over, corrupt, and frivolous civilization! As for the future, my dear sir, may God preserve me from despair, since it concerns my country! This age has already seen great things, great marvels, in fact; for I beg you to remember I am by no means an enemy to my time. I approve the Revolution, liberty, equality, the press, railways, and the telegraph; and as I often say to Monsieur le Cure, every cause that would live must accommodate itself cheerfully to the progress of its epoch, and study how to serve itself by it. Every cause that is in antagonism with its age commits suicide. Indeed, Monsieur, I trust this century will see one more great event, the end of this Parisian tyranny, and the resuscitation of provincial life; for I must repeat, my dear sir, that your centralization, which was once an excellent remedy, is a detestable regimen! It is a horrible instrument of oppression and tyranny, ready-made for all hands, suitable for every despotism, and under it France stifles and wastes away. You must agree with me yourself, Durocher; in this sense the Revolution overshot its mark, and placed in jeopardy even its purposes; for you, who love liberty, and do not wish it merely for yourself alone, as some of your friends do, but for all the world, surely you can not admire centralization, which proscribes liberty as manifestly as night obscures the day. As for my part, gentlemen, there are two things which I love equally—liberty and France. Well, then, as I believe in God, do I believe that both must perish in the throes of some convulsive catastrophe if all the life of the nation shall continue to be concentrated in the brain, and the great reform for which I call is not made: if a vast system of local franchise, if provincial institutions, largely independent and conformable to the modern spirit, are not soon established to yield fresh blood for our exhausted veins, and to fertilize our impoverished soil. Undoubtedly the work will be difficult and complicated; it will demand a firm resolute hand, but the hand that may accomplish it will have achieved the most patriotic work of the century. Tell that to your sovereign, Monsieur Sub-prefect; say to him that if he do that, there is one old French heart that will bless him. Tell him, also, that he will encounter much passion, much derision, much danger, peradventure; but that he will have a commensurate recompense when he shall see France, like Lazarus, delivered from its swathings and its shroud, rise again, sound and whole, to salute him!”
These last words the old gentleman had pronounced with fire, emotion, and extraordinary dignity; and the silence and respect with which he had been listened to were prolonged after he had ceased to speak. This appeared to embarrass him, but taking the arm of Camors he said, with a smile, “‘Semel insanivimus omnes.’ My dear sir, every one has his madness. I trust that mine has not offended you. Well, then, prove it to me by accompanying me on the piano in this song of the sixteenth century.”
Camors complied with his usual good taste; and the song of the sixteenth century terminated the evening’s entertainment; but the young Count, before leaving, found the means of causing Madame de Tecle the most profound astonishment. He asked her, in a low voice, and with peculiar emphasis, whether she would be kind enough, at her leisure, to grant him the honor of a moment’s private conversation.
Madame de Tecle opened still wider those large eyes of hers, blushed slightly, and replied that she would be at home the next afternoon at four o’clock.
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