The Man with the broken Ear by Edmond About (phonics books .TXT) 📕

to the 17th of August, 1859, seemed to him even a little shorter than any of the others; for it was the only time that he had had a full sleep, without any dreaming.

A less active spirit, and a heart less warm, would, perhaps, have lapsed into a sort of melancholy. For, in fact, one who has been asleep for forty-six years would naturally become somewhat alien to mankind in general, even in his own country. Not a relation, not a friend, not a familiar face, on the whole face of the earth! Add to this a multitude of new words, ideas, customs, and inventions, which make him feel the need of a cicerone, and prove to him that he is a stranger. But Fougas, on reopening his eyes, following the precept of Horace, was thrown into the very midst of action. He had improvised for him friends, enemies, a sweetheart, and a rival. Fontainebleau, his second native place, was, provisionally, the central point of his existence. There he felt himself loved, hated, feared, admired--in a word, well known. He knew that in that sub-prefecture his name could not be spoken without awakening an echo. But what attached him more than all to modern times, was his well-established relationship with the great family of the army. Wherever a French flag floats, the soldier, young or old, is at home. Around that church-spire of the fatherland, though dear and sacred in a way different from the village spire, language, ideas, and institutions change but little. The death of individuals has little effect; they are replaced by others who look like them, and think, talk, and act in the same way; who do not stop on assuming the uniform of their predecessors, but inherit their souvenirs also--the glory they have acquired, their traditions, their jests, and even certain intonations of their voices. This accounts for Fougas' sudden friendship, after a first feeling of jealousy, for the new colonel of the 23d; and the sudden sympathy which he evinced for M. du Marnet as soon as he saw the blood running from his wound. Quarrels between soldiers are family quarrels, which never blot out the relationship.

Calmly satisfied that he was not alone in the world, M. Fougas derived pleasure from all the new objects which civilization placed before his eyes. The speed of the rail-cars fairly intoxicated him. He was inspired with a positive enthusiasm for this force of steam, whose theory was a closed book to him, but on whose results he meditated much.

"With a thousand machines like this, two thousand rifled cannon, and two hundred thousand such chaps as I am, Napoleon would have conquered the world in six weeks. Why doesn't this young fellow on the throne make some use of the resources he has under his control? Perhaps he hasn't thought of it. Very well, I'll go to see him. If he looks like a man of capacity, I'll give him my idea; he'll make me minister of war, and then--Forward, march!"

He had explained to him the use of the great iron wires running on poles all along the road.

"The very thing!" said he. "Here are aides-de-camp both fleet and judicious. Get them all into the hands of a chief-of-staff like Berthier, and the universe would be held in a thread by the mere will of a man!"

His meditations were interrupted, a couple of miles from Melun, by the sounds of a foreign language. He pricked up his ears, and then bounded from his corner as if he had sat on a pile of thorns. Horror! it was English! One of those monsters who had assassinated Napoleon at St. Helena for the sake of insuring to themselves the cotton monopoly, had entered the compartment with a very pretty woman and two lovely children.

"Conductor, stop!" cried Fougas, thrusting his body halfway out of the window.

"Monsieur," said the Englishman in good French, "I advise you to have patience until we get to the next station. The conductor doesn't hear you, and you're in danger of falling out on the track. If I can be of any service to you, I have a flask of brandy with me, and a medicine chest."

"No, sir," replied Fougas in a most supercilious tone, "I'm in want of nothing, and I'd rather die than accept anything from an Englishman! If I'm calling the conductor, it's only because I want to get into a different car, and cleanse my eyes from the sight of an enemy of the Emperor."

"I assure you, monsieur," responded the Englishman, "that I am not an enemy of the Emperor. I had the honor of being received by him while he was in London. He even deigned to pass a few days at my little country-seat in Lancashire."

"So much the better for you, if this young man is good enough to forget what you have done against his family; but Fougas will never forgive your crimes against his country."

As soon as they arrived at the station at Melun, he opened the door and rushed into another saloon. There he found himself alone in the presence of two young gentlemen, whose physiognomies were far from English, and who spoke French with the purest accent of Touraine. Both had coats of arms on their seal-rings, so that no one might be ignorant of their rank as nobles. Fougas was too plebeian to fancy the nobility much; but as he had left a compartment full of Britons, he was happy to meet a couple of Frenchmen.

"Friends," said he, inclining toward them with a cordial smile, "we are children of the same mother. Long life to you! Your appearance revives me."

The two young gentlemen opened their eyes very wide, half bowed, and resumed their conversation, without making any other response to Fougas' advance.

"Well, then, my dear Astophe," said one, "you saw the king at Froshdorf?"

"Yes, my good Americ; and he received me with the most affecting condescension. 'Vicomte,' said he to me, 'you come of a house well known for its fidelity. We will remember you when God replaces us on the throne of our ancestors. Tell our brave nobility of Touraine that we hope to be remembered in their prayers, and that we never forget them in ours.'"

"Pitt and Coburg!" said Fougas between his teeth. "Here are two little rascals conspiring with the army of Condé! But, patience!"

He clenched his fists and opened his ears.

"Didn't he say anything about politics?"

"A few vague words. Between us, I don't think he bothers with them much; he is waiting upon events."

"He'll not wait much longer."

"Who can tell?"

"What! Who can tell? The empire is not good for six months longer. Monseigneur de Montereau said so again last Monday to my aunt the canoness."

"For my part, I give them a year, for their campaign in Italy has strengthened them with the lower orders. I didn't put myself out to tell the king so, though!"

"Damnation! gentlemen, this is going it a little too strongly!" interrupted Fougas. "Is it here in France that Frenchmen speak thus of French institutions? Go back to your master; tell him that the empire is eternal, because it is founded on the granite of popular support, and cemented by the blood of heroes. And if the king asks you who told you this, tell him it was Colonel Fougas, who was decorated at Wagram by the Emperor's own hand!"

The two young gentlemen looked at each other, exchanged a smile, and the Viscount said to the Marquis:

"What is that?"

"A madman."

"No, dear; a mad dog."

"Nothing else."[6]

"Very well, gentlemen," cried the Colonel. "Speak English; you're fit for it!"

He changed his compartment at the next station, and fell in with a lot of young painters. He called them disciples of Zeuxis, and asked them about Gérard, Gros, and David. These gentlemen found the sport novel, and recommended him to go and see Talma in the new tragedy of Arnault.

The fortifications of Paris dazzled him very much, and scandalized him a little.

"I don't like this," said he to his companions. "The true rampart of a capital is the courage of a great people. This piling bastions around Paris, is saying to the enemy that it is possible to conquer France."

The train at last stopped at the Mazas station. The Colonel, who had no baggage, marched out pompously, with his hands in his pockets, to look for the hôtel de Nantes . As he had spent three months in Paris about the year 1810, he considered himself acquainted with the city, and for that reason he did not fail to lose himself as soon as he got there. But in the various quarters which he traversed at hazard, he admired the great changes which had been wrought during his absence. Fougas' taste was for having streets very long, very wide, and bordered with very large houses all alike; he could not fail to notice that the Parisian style was rapidly approaching his ideal. It was not yet absolute perfection, but progress was manifest.

By a very natural illusion, he paused twenty times to salute people of familiar appearance; but no one recognized him.

After a walk of five hours he reached the Place du Carrousel . The hôtel de Nantes was no longer there; but the Louvre had been erected instead. Fougas employed a quarter of an hour in regarding this monument of architecture, and half an hour in contemplating two Zouaves of the guard who were playing piquet. He inquired if the Emperor was in Paris; whereupon his attention was called to the flag floating over the Tuilleries.

"Good!" said he. "But first I must get some new clothes."

He took a room in a hotel on the Rue Saint Honoré , and asked a waiter which was the most celebrated tailor in Paris. The waiter handed him a Business Directory. Fougas hunted out the Emperor's bootmaker, shirtmaker, hatter, tailor, barber, and glovemaker. He took down their names and addresses in Clementine's pocket-book, after which he took a carriage and set out.

As he had a small and shapely foot, he found boots ready-made without any difficulty. He was promised, too, that all the linen he required should be sent home in the evening. But when he came to explain to the hatter what sort of an apparatus he intended to plant on his head, he encountered great difficulties. His ideal was an enormous hat, large at the crown, small below, broad in the brim, and curved far down behind and before; in a word, the historic heirloom to which the founder of Bolivia gave his name long ago. The shop had to be turned upside down, and all its recesses searched, to find what he wanted.

"At last," cried the hatter, "here's your article. If it's for a stage dress, you ought to be satisfied; the comic effect can be depended upon."

Fougas answered dryly, that the hat was much less ridiculous than all those which were then circulating around the streets of Paris.

At the celebrated tailor's, in the Rue de la Paix , there was almost a battle.

"No, monsieur," said Alfred, "I'll never make you a frogged surtout and a pair of trousers à la Cosaque ! Go to Babin, or Morean, if you want a carnival dress; but it shall never be said that a man of as good figure as yours left our establishment caricatured."

"Thunder and guns!" retorted Fougas. "You're a head taller than I am, Mister Giant, but