The Deputy of Arcis by Honoré de Balzac (free ebook reader for pc .txt) 📕

I."

"That is not a judicious way of urging it, for I warn you I pay little or no attention to my own business."

"I had a visit from Maxime this morning, on his return from Arcis-sur-Aube," said the colonel, coming to the point. "He gave me all the particulars of that election. He thinks a spoke might be put in the wheel of it. Now, if you have time to let me make a few explanations--"

The minister, who was sitting before his desk with his back to the fireplace, turned round to look at the clock.

"Look here, my dear fellow," he said, "I'm afraid you will be long, and I have a hungry pack outside there waiting for me. I shouldn't listen to you comfortably. Do me the favor to go and take a walk and come back at twelve o'clock to breakfast. I'll present you to Madame de Rastignac, whom you don't know, I think, and after breakfast we will take a few turns in the garden; then I can listen to you in peace."

"Very good, I accept that arrangement," said the colonel, rising.

As he crossed the waiting-room, he said,--

"Messieurs, I have not delayed you long, I hope."

Then, after distributing a few grasps of the hand, he departed.

Three hours later, when the colonel entered the salon where he was presented to Madame de Rastignac, he found there the Baron de Nucingen, who came nearly every day to breakfast with his son-in-law before the Bourse hour, Emile Blondet of the "Debats," Messieurs Moreau (de l'Oise), Dionis, and Camusot, three deputies madly loquacious, and two newly elected deputies whose names it is doubtful if Rastignac knew himself. Franchessini also recognized Martial de la Roche-Hugon, the minister's brother-in-law, and the inevitable des Lupeaulx, peer of France. As for another figure, who stood talking with the minister for some time in the recess of a window, the colonel learned, after inquiring of Emile Blondet, that it was that of a former functionary of the upper police, who continued, as an amateur, to do part of his former business, going daily to each minister under all administrations with as much zeal and regularity as if he were still charged with his official duties.

Madame de Rastignac seen at close quarters seemed to the colonel a handsome blonde, not at all languishing. She was strikingly like her mother, but with that shade of greater distinction which in the descendants of parvenus increases from generation to generation as they advance from their source. The last drop of the primitive Goriot blood had evaporated in this charming young woman, who was particularly remarkable for the high-bred delicacy of all her extremities, the absence of which in Madame de Nucingen had shown the daughter of Pere Goriot.

As the colonel wished to retain a footing in the house he now entered for the first time, he talked about his wife.

"She lived," he said, "in the old English fashion, in her _home_; but he should be most glad to bring her out of her retreat in order to present her to Madame de Rastignac if the latter would graciously consent."

"Now," said the minister, dropping the arm of Emile Blondet, with whom he had been conversing, "let us go into the garden,"--adding, as soon as they were alone, "We want no ears about us in this matter."

"Maxime came to see me, as I told you," said the colonel, "on his return from Arcis-sur-Aube, and he is full of an idea of discovering something about the pretended parentage of this sculptor by which to oust him--"

"I know," interrupted Rastignac; "he spoke to me about that idea, and there's neither rhyme nor reason in it. Either this Sallenauve has some value, or he is a mere cipher. If the latter, it is useless to employ such a dangerous instrument as the man Maxime proposes to neutralize a power that does not exist. If, on the other hand, this new deputy proves really an orator, we can deal with him in the tribune and in the newspapers without the help of such underground measures. General rule: in a land of unbridled publicity like ours, wherever the hand of the police appears, if even to lay bare the most shameful villany, there's always a hue and cry against the government. Public opinion behaves like the man to whom another man sang an air of Mozart to prove that Mozart was a great musician. Was he vanquished by evidence? 'Mozart,' he replied to the singer, 'may have been a great musician, but you, my dear fellow, have a cold in your head.'"

"There's a great deal of truth in what you say," replied Franchessini; "but the man whom Maxime wants to unmask may be one of those honest mediocrities who make themselves a thorn in the side of all administrations; your most dangerous adversaries are not the giants of oratory."

"I expect to find out the real weight of the man before long," replied Rastignac, "from a source I have more confidence in than I have in Monsieur de Trailles. On this very occasion he has allowed himself to be tripped up, and now wants to compensate by heroic measures for his own lack of ability. As for your other man, I shall not employ him for the purpose Maxime suggests, but you may tell him from me--"

"Yes!" said Franchessini, with redoubled attention.

"--that if he meddles in politics, as he shows an inclination to do, there are certain deplorable memories in his life--"

"But they are only memories now; he has made himself a new skin."

"I know all about him," replied Rastignac; "do you suppose there are no other detectives in Paris? I know that since 1830, when he took Bibi-Lupin's place as chief of the detective police, he has given his life a most respectable bourgeois character; the only fault I find is that he overdoes it."

"And yet--" said the colonel.

"He is rich," continued Rastignac, not heeding the interruption. "His salary is twelve thousand francs, and he has the three hundred thousand Lucien de Rubempre left him,--also the proceeds of a manufactory of varnished leather which he started at Gentilly; it pays him a large profit. His aunt, Jacqueline Collin, who lives with him, still does a shady business secretly, which of course brings in large fees, and I have the best of reasons for believing that they both gamble at the Bourse. He is so anxious to keep out of the mud that he has gone to the other extreme. Every evening he plays dominoes, like any bourgeois, in a cafe near the Prefecture, and Sundays he goes out to a little box of a place he has bought near the forest of Romainville, in the Saint-Gervais meadows; there he cultivates blue dahlias, and talked, last year, of crowning a Rosiere. All that, my dear colonel, is too bucolic to allow of my employing him on any political police-work."

"I think myself," said Franchessini, "that in order not to attract attention, he rolls himself too much into a ball."

"Make him unwind, and then, if he wants to return to active life and take a hand in politics, he may find some honest way of doing so. He'll never make a Saint Vincent de Paul,--though the saint was at the galleys once upon a time; but there are plenty of ways in which he could get a third or fourth class reputation. If Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, as he now calls himself, takes that course, and I am still in power, tell him to come and see me; I might employ him then."

"That is something, certainly," said Franchessini, aloud; but he thought to himself that since the days of the pension Vauquer the minister had taken long strides and that roles had changed between himself and Vautrin.

"You can tell him what I say," continued Rastignac, going up the steps of the portico, "but be cautious how you word it."

"Don't be uneasy," replied the colonel. "I will speak to him judiciously, for he's a man who must not be pushed too far; there are some old scores in life one can't wipe out."

The minister, by making no reply to this remark, seemed to admit the truth of it.

"You must be in the Chamber when the king opens it; we shall want all the enthusiasm we can muster," said Rastignac to the colonel, as they parted.

The latter, when he took leave of Madame de Rastignac, asked on what day he might have the honor of presenting his wife.

"Why, any day," replied the countess, "but particularly on Fridays."


IV. A CATECHISM

Rastignac called on Madame de l'Estorade the next day at the hour named to him by his wife. Like all those present at the scene produced by Monsieur de Ronquerolles, the minister had been struck by the emotion shown by the countess, and, without stopping to analyze the nature of the sentiment she might feel for the man who had saved her child, he was convinced of her serious interest in him.

By the suddenness and the masterly stroke of his election, Sallenauve had become an object of strong interest to the minister,--all the more because up to the last moment his candidacy was not seriously considered. It was now known that in the preparatory meeting he had given proofs of talent. To his active and dangerous party, which had but few representatives in the Chamber, he might become an organ that would echo far. By his peculiar position of birth and fortune, whatever might be the truth of it, he was one who could do without the favors of government; and all information obtained about him went to show that he was a man of grave character and opinions, who could not be turned from his chosen way.

On the other hand, the cloud upon his life might at a given moment serve to neutralize his honor; and Rastignac, while rejecting the proposal of de Trailles and Franchessini to put the mystery into the hands of the police, did not himself renounce a means which, dangerous as it seemed to him, he might use if occasion warranted.

In this situation Madame de l'Estorade could be useful to him in two ways. Through her he could meet the new deputy accidentally, without appearing to seek him, and thus study him at his ease, in order to know if he had a vulnerable point accessible to persuasion. And, secondly, if he found him unpersuadable, he could let Madame de l'Estorade know in confidence of the secret inquiry about to be carried on into Sallenauve's antecedents, which, conveyed by her to the deputy, would have the effect of making him cautious and, consequently, less aggressive.

However, his immediate plan suffered some modification; for Madame de l'Estorade was not at home, and he was just leaving the house when Monsieur de l'Estorade returned on foot.

"My wife will be here soon," he said; "she has gone to Ville d'Avray with her daughter, and Monsieur and Madame Octave de Camps. Monsieur Marie-Gaston, one of our good friends,--you know, the charming poet who married Louise de Chaulieu,--has a country-house in that neighborhood, where his wife died. He returned there to-day for the first time since his misfortune; and these ladies have had the charity to meet him there, and so lessen the first shock of his recollections."

"I can therefore hardly hope to see her to-day; and it was to her, and not to you, my dear count, that I came to offer my excuses for the scene of last night which seemed to annoy her