The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best novels ever txt) 📕

battle-field, or is now wrestling for mangled remains of life in the ambulances. And the new recruits with which I took the field on the 21st are not likely to cover themselves with glory, or to insure their commander the baton of a marshal.”

“Ay, I heard when I was in the hospital that you had publicly shamed some of these recruits, and declared that you would rather resign than lead them again to battle.”

“True; and at this moment, for so doing, I am the man most hated by the rabble who supplied those recruits.” The men, while thus conversing, had moved slowly on, and were now in front of a large cafe, from the interior of which came the sound of loud bravos and clappings of hands. Lemercier’s curiosity was excited. “For what can be that applause?” he said; “let us look in and see.” The room was thronged. In the distance, on a small raised platform, stood a girl dressed in faded theatrical finery, making her obeisance to the crowd.

“Heavens!” exclaimed Frederic—“can I trust my eyes? Surely that is the once superb Julie: has she been dancing here?”

One of the loungers, evidently belonging to the same world as Lemercier, overheard the question and answered politely: “No, Monsieur: she has been reciting verses, and really declaims very well, considering it is not her vocation. She has given us extracts from Victor Hugo and De Musset: and crowned all with a patriotic hymn by Gustave Rameau,—her old lover, if gossip be true.” Meanwhile De Mauleon, who at first had glanced over the scene with his usual air of calm and cold indifference, became suddenly struck by the girl’s beautiful face, and gazed on it with a look of startled surprise.

“Who and what did you say that poor fair creature is, M. Lemercier?”

“She is a Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, and was a very popular coryphee. She has hereditary right to be a good dancer, as the daughter of a once more famous ornament of the ballet, la belle Leonie—whom you must have seen in your young days.”

“Of course. Leonie—she married a M. Surville, a silly bourgeois gentilhomme, who earned the hatred of Paris by taking her off the stage. So that is her daughter I see no likeness to her mother—much handsomer. Why does she call herself Caumartin?”

“Oh,” said Frederic, “a melancholy but trite story.”

“Leonie was left a widow, and died in want. What could the poor young daughter do? She found a rich protector, who had influence to get her an appointment in the ballet: and there she did as most girls so circumstanced do—appeared under an assumed name, which she has since kept.”

“I understand,” said Victor, compassionately. “Poor thing! she has quitted the platform, and is coming this way, evidently to speak to you. I saw her eyes brighten as she caught sight of your face.”

Lemercier attempted a languid air of modest self-complacency as the girl now approached him. “Bonjour, M. Frederic! Ah, mon Dieu! how thin you have grown! You have been ill?”

“The hardships of a military life, Mademoiselle. Ah, for the beaux fours and the peace we insisted on destroying under the Empire which we destroyed for listening to us! But you thrive well, I trust. I have seen you better dressed, but never in greater beauty.”

The girl blushed as she replied, “Do you really think as you speak?”

“I could not speak more sincerely if I lived in the legendary House of Glass.”

The girl clutched his arm, and said in suppressed tones, “Where is Gustave?”

“Gustave Rameau? I have no idea. Do you never see him now?”

“Never,—perhaps I never shall see him again; but when you do meet him, say that Julie owes to him her livelihood. An honest livelihood, Monsieur. He taught her to love verses—told her how to recite them. I am engaged at this cafe—you will find me here the same hour every day, in case—in case—You are good and kind, and will come and tell me that Gustave is well and happy even if he forgets me. Au revoir! Stop, you do look, my poor Frederic, as if—as if—pardon me, Monsieur Lemercier, is there anything I can do? Will you condescend to borrow from me? I am in funds.”

Lemercier at that offer was nearly moved to tears. Famished though he was, he could not, however, have touched that girl’s earnings.

“You are an angel of goodness, Mademoiselle! Ah, how I envy Gustave Rameau! No, I don’t want aid. I am always a—rentier.”

“Bien! and if you see Gustave, you will not forget.”

“Rely on me. Come away,” he said to De Mauleon; “I don’t want to hear that girl repeat the sort of bombast the poets indite nowadays. It is fustian; and that girl may have a brain of feather, but she has a heart of gold.”

“True,” said Victor, as they regained the street. “I overheard what she said to you. What an incomprehensible thing is a woman! how more incomprehensible still is a woman’s love! Ah, pardon me; I must leave you. I see in the procession a poor woman known to me in better days.”

De Mauleon walked towards the woman he spoke of—one of the long procession to the bakery—a child clinging to her robe. A pale grief-worn woman, still young, but with the weariness of age on her face, and the shadow of death on her child’s.

“I think I see Madame Monnier,” said De Mauleon, softly.

She turned and looked at him drearily. A year ago, she would have blushed if addressed by a stranger in a name not lawfully hers.

“Well,” she said, in hollow accents broken by cough; “I don’t know you, Monsieur.”

“Poor woman!” he resumed, walking beside her as she moved slowly on, while the eyes of other women in the procession stared at him hungrily. “And your child looks ill too. It is your youngest?”

“My only one! The others are in Pere la Chaise. There are but few children alive in my street now. God has been very merciful, and taken them to Himself.”

De Mauleon recalled the scene of a neat comfortable apartment, and the healthful happy children at play on the floor. The mortality among the little ones, especially in the quartier occupied by the working classes, had of late been terrible. The want of food, of fuel, the intense severity of the weather, had swept them off as by a pestilence.

“And Monnier—what of him? No doubt he is a National Guard, and has his pay?”

The woman made no answer, but hung down her head. She was stifling a sob. Till then her eyes seemed to have exhausted the last source of tears.

“He lives still?” continued Victor, pityingly: “he is not wounded?”

“No: he is well—in health; thank you kindly, Monsieur.”

“But his pay is not enough to help you, and of course he can get no work. Excuse me if I stopped