“And what do they say.”
“Oh, that I don’t know yet, but since you want me to have myself admitted to their company, it’ll be easy for me to tell you.”
“Thank you! I don’t want you to play the role of spy; I want to hear their conversation myself. For that, when you’re initiated, it’s necessary for you to find a means of getting me into a meeting unknown to them. Isn’t there a bull’s-eye at the back of the Leopard Tavern, in which a clock-face has been inserted?”
“Yes, that clock is on the first floor.”
“Someone goes up to the first floor to wind it, then?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s necessary that on the night when I come, it’s under repair and replaced by a partition of boards, made by you in accordance with my instructions.”
“That can be done.”
“Now leave me. You’re going to find Remplume and complain to him about Ratatinus, who has denounced you as the leader of the conspiracy. You’ll feign great anger and tell him that, since you’re suspected now, you won’t hesitate any longer to join them. They’ll welcome you all the more because it’s on you that all the weight of the conspiracy will fall henceforth, and, as he’s a coward, he’ll hasten to seize that opportunity to wriggle out of it in case of failure. Go, worthy fellow, I’m counting on you.
XIV. In which we witness a secret meeting
of conspirators.
A week after that conversation with Rabotin, the joiner ran to the Palace at nightfall. It was only with difficulty that he was able to see the prince, for the latter was not expecting him and had not given orders to receive him. He was with the queen at that moment, who was lamenting with him the indifference of their subjects.
When Rabotin was introduced to Vatenlair’s presence, the queen wanted to withdraw, but Vatenlair retained her. “Stay,” he said. “This man will bring us up to date with what’s happening in the city. Well, Rabotin, what do you have to say to me?”
“Prince, I’ve done everything you asked of me, but I fear that we’ll arrive too late, for Remplume is in haste to overturn you; it’s you above all at whom he’s aiming.”
“Aha! Tell me about it.”
“As you ordered me, I enlisted in the league of malcontents. Remplume seemed very satisfied to know that all suspicions had been directed upon me. ‘He’s a clever man, Ratatinus,’ he said, ‘but that denunciation will oblige us to hasten the denouement.’ This very evening, I attended a meeting at which it was decreed that you’d be sent a list of demands. It was discussed and drafted there and then, and, doubtless to test my devotion, it’s me who was charged with delivering it to you. Here it is.”
The prince scanned the letter.
“What are they demanding?” asked the queen.
“They speak in the name of the people and say that they don’t recognize me as king, that only Princess Betinette has a right to the throne, and that, above all, she must repudiate her husband, who is only a foreigner and an adventurer.”
Princess Betinette was indignant at that audacity, and wanted to punish the rebels immediately, but Vatenlair opposed any act of rigor.
“Since I’m the obstacle,” he told her, “it’s up to me to withdraw, but before then I want to show them that I’m worthy to govern them. This insulting petition they’re sent us we ought to consider as not having arrived. It might even be appropriate to disdain it and not respond to it, but that fashion of acting would doubtless augment the number of malcontents. I want to see them and speak to them, and if they persist in their revolt, I’ll employ further means to calm them.”
“Do as you wish,” said the princess, “but nothing can separate us.”
As she said that, the princess rose to her feet and left Vatenlair alone with the workman.
Rabotin had sat down, and Vatenlair paced back and forth in his cabinet. He reflected on the advice of the princess, which he thought dangerous, because, not knowing exactly the magnitude of the conspiracy, he feared that threats or repressions might exasperate the conspirators. On the other hand, he thought that not responding to the petition might produce the same result. He was very perplexed. Finally, he told himself that the science that had served him so many times might come to his aid again, and, having made his decision, he stopped and sat down at his work table. The response was quickly drafted. It said that the following day he would receive the malcontents in a solemn audience, that he invited them to appoint delegates in order to explain their demands, and assured them that, if they were well-founded, the queen’s desire was to rectify them.
When he had read his missive to Rabotin, to whom he handed it, after having sealed it, he added: “I know that this negotiation with the conspirators is absolutely lacking in dignity, but we’re in exceptional circumstances, and in politics, besides, all means are good as long as they arrive at the goal. So you’re going to deliver this letter to the conspirators this evening. Are they meting this evening?”
They now spend every night at the Leopard Tavern.”
“Good. Tonight I’ll be there too. Is the clock under repair?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Have you replaced it with the panel for which I gave you the model?”
“Yes, Prince. I assume that’s the place where you want to listen to the meeting. The staircase will be free; I’ll let you onto the place myself.”
“Good. But before then, take care to place behind the panel a box that I’m going to give you.”
“It will be done. At midnight I’ll be at the little door to the garden that’s behind the tavern. No one goes past on that side at that hour.”
“Go, then, my friend. I’ll be very grateful for your devotion.”
A few moments later, Rabotin, the bearer of the princely letter, carrying a maple-wood box on his back, emerged from the royal palace and disappeared into the darkness.
The twelfth stroke of midnight had just chimed in the belfry of Betaville, the streets were deserted, only illuminated by moonlight. The Leopard Tavern had been shut for an hour already, and one might have supposed that the inhabitants were already plunged in slumber if one had not seen, hiding in the shadows of houses, individuals in dark clothing with their hats pulled down over their faces, heading toward the meeting-place of the malcontents and crossing the threshold after having exchanged a password with an invisible person.
Remplume, who was a poor astronomer, had, on the other hand, a certain knowledge of humankind. As he had no money with which to purchase partisans, he had attached them to him initially by promises, which cost him nothing, and then by oaths, bonds that were more fragile, but which he surrounded by mystery that seemed to augment their value. All of them had sworn on the sword and the dagger to obey the orders voted by the assembly without being able to debate them; the nocturnal meetings had been held in almost complete darkness; the conspirators, only known to Remplume, were not known to one another; they had to arrive alone and leave in the same fashion; he had commanded them to denounce any weakness, to keep watch on those who seemed to them to be false brothers, and Remplume had carried out several fake executions in order to terrorize the affiliates.
The good bourgeois of Betaville were not cut out to be redoubtable conspirators; more than once they had asked themselves how they had got mixed up in that adventure and would have liked nothing better than to extract themselves from it, but Remplume did not lose sight of them; he kept them breathless, excited them incessantly and threatened them with the vengeance of their brothers, who, privately, were beginning to weary of these mysterious meetings that did not lead to any solution.
The room was long and rather narrow. A hundred people could gather therein easily. At the back was a table covered with a cloth, on which a shadowed lantern had been set. It was there that Remplume was installed. Opposite, behind the conspirators, was the bull’s-eye that we have mentioned, blocked by the panel prepared by Rabotin.
There was no need to call for silence; the conspirators we
re mute.
Remplume spoke thus:
“Brothers, we have arrived at the end of our meetings; tonight is probably the last in which we will assemble. Yesterday, we sent the prince our conditions in the form in which we voted them. We demanded his divorce and his expulsion. He has replied to us immediately.”
A frisson passed through the auditorium.
“The response is not what we wished; we expected that, but it gives us a certain satisfaction. He consents to discuss with us; the prince asks us to nominate delegates, whom he will receive today in solemn audience; he will listen to their demands and will answer them if they seem to him to be just. That tells us nothing, it’s true; it is not a promise, but the interview will nevertheless have the advantage for us of being considered as a party and not as rebels; we will therefore have more authority to discuss our demands. Now, Brothers, we are going to choose our delegates.
At that moment, a member of the audience stood up and said: “In order to nominate delegates it is first necessary to know one another. We don’t know one another, since we always deliberate in darkness.”
“But I know you and me, and I can choose myself.”
“No, no!” cried the conspirators, “light!”
“Well, yes,” said Remplume. “In any case, the moment has come when we have no more need to hide; I’ll have lamps brought.”
At the same moment, a vibrant voice was heard at the back of the room, and these words were heard: “There is no need.”
Immediately, the room was invaded by a dazzling light; everyone could see there as clearly as in broad daylight. The conspirators stood up and recognized one another with amazement. They called one another by their names, and, thinking that the spontaneous illumination was the work of Remplume, they jostled one another in order to get closer to him.
Remplume, however, standing at the table, was trying to take account of the phenomenon. Where was the light coming from? Was it another maneuver on the part of Vatenlair? To know who they were, doubtless. There were, therefore, false brothers in the assembly. Above all, it was necessary to reestablish silence. Climbing on to a chair, he shouted: “Shut up! You’re making an infernal noise!”
At that word, the white light suddenly became red. The conspirators gave the impression of damned souls struggling in furnace, but the strangeness of that light had filled them with terror. They screamed as if they were really being roasted.
“Shut up, wretches!” cried Remplume. “Your cries will be heard outside. Let me speak! Let me say...”
But no one was listening. Suddenly, the silence that he could not obtain by persuasion fell abruptly. The red light had become green, and the members of the audience had the aspect of cadavers. Fear extinguished their howls; now they were trembling with fear.
Immediately, the green light disappeared and the room was plunged into darkness again.
Aided by Rabotin, Vatenlair hastened to replace the projection apparatus in the box, which the joiner immediately took away; they left the Leopard Tavern with it by the same route that they had come. Now he knew his enemies and would be better able to reckon with them because, save for Remplume and a few ambitious individuals, the rest had neither influence nor firmness; they were not very redoubtable devotees, simpletons ready to turn at the slightest wind.
With the obscurity, Remplume recovered his aplomb and his influence. Although he could not explain the electrical phenomena that had just been produced, he wanted to attribute them to himself, which gave him one strength more.
“Brothers,” he said to them, “you see that I have no need of the aid of science in order to show you how far my power extends, and that is very little by comparison with what I can do. I have other surprises in reserve for you at more opportune moments. This evening I only wanted to prove to you that you can have confidence in me. In the meantime, let us not forget the object of our meeting. It’s a matter of nominating delegates. You want to nominate them yourselves; you know one another now. Speak!”
The decision that it was necessary to make threw a certain disturbance into the minds of the conspirators; they were not habituated to struggle against royal power; it required all of Remplume’s eloquence to convince a dozen malcontents to go to the palace, and then they would only consent to take that step on condition that the astrologer would accompany them and serve as spokesman.
Although Remplume was not enthusiastic to find himself in the presence of his former protectors, he consented to be part of the delegation, for he knew that no one else would dare to expose themselves to the anger of the king and queen by demanding their separation.
When they had returned to the palace, Vatenlair said to Rabotin: “That’s not all, my lad; I still have need of your services. Go and get a little sleep, and come back early tomorrow with three or four companions. My intention is to prove to the delegates that I really am an enchanter capable of overturning my enemies and that, in marrying a princess, I am raising her to my level instead of being elevated by her.”
At first light, Rabotin arrived with his workmen, and Vatenlair had them prepare his audience table in a special manner. Instead of armchairs, two long benches were disposed covered with shiny cloths that were linked to the throne by means of electric wires. Various other fitments were made, and then the Prince dismissed Rabotin and his fellows.
Toward the middle of the day, the delegation was introduced into the audience hall, where Vatenlair and Princess Betinette were already seated. In order to conceal his embarrassment, Remplume had assumed a rather impertinent attitude, which made Vatenlair smile. As for the other demonstrators, they lowered their heads and seemed ashamed of the step that they were taking.
As soon as they were seated, Vatenlair, who feared that Remplume, in accordance with appearances, might be impertinent, which would oblige him to end the session immediately without explanations, spoke first.
“You have informed, Messieurs, that you do not recognize me as your king; it is therefore to the queen that you are going to address your request. I see at your head a former intimate of the Palace in the times of the late King Beta; he knows the customs of the court because he was the chief of protocol; I can therefore hope that the discussion will be courteous, and that he will not forget the respect that he owes to Her Royal Majesty.”
That appeal to the courtesy of a man totally devoid of it could not fail to embarrass Remplume, who had promised himself to be very violent, but he soon pulled himself together, stood up and, addressing the queen, he spoke thus:
“We have come to express to the queen our desire to see her reign alone. Until now, no foreigner has been established in our land, and we consider that it would be dangerous to its propriety to see it governed by a stranger who came among us without being invited and who, before the favors and titles with whim the late king heaped him, was of the most infimal condition.”
Princess Betinette, who could scarcely contain herself, replied swiftly: “You’re forgetting that my husband had no need of those titles. He is more than you and me, for he is an illustrious enchanter, and had proven it sufficiently.”
“We have seen no magic, Madame; what you call thus are natural things that have not caused us any astonishment. They have been obtained by mechanical means, undoubtedly ingenious, but which do not emerge from magic. He has always required special apparatus to produce them, apparatus that any of us could construct. The engineer Vatenlair, whom you have made your husband, is therefore neither a magician nor an enchanter; perhaps he is a simple scholar, of whom there are many others, but he is certainly an ambitious upstart whose authority we do not want to recognize.”
The princess had become pale with anger; she was about to give the order to arrest the delegates when Vatenlair intervened
“Since this concerns me,” he said, “I can defend myself. You deny my power because, until today, it has only been employed to your benefit, but if I had exercised it against you, it would be a very different matter. When I have shown you that you
can do nothing against me, you will doubtless change your opinion.”
“Well,” said Remplume, “since you claim to be an enchanter, prove it, here and now, without apparatus of any sort; if not, we, who are the delegates of the country, will use force in order oblige you to withdraw.”
“A revolution?”
“It will be the first, but it will be to our advantage.”
As he spoke, Remplume sat down; placed his hands on his knees and, raising his head insolently, looked at Vatenlair with a defiant expression.
“Very well,” said Vatenlair, very calmly, “since it is me who inconveniences you, come and get me. I’ve given orders to my guards to go away; no one can defend me; there are ten of you and I’m alone. Act!”
As he spoke, the engineer sat down on his throne and folded his arms.
“With me, friends!” Remplume cried, immediately, trying to hurl himself on Vatenlair, but it was in vain that he tried to get up; an invisible force retained him on the bench, as well as the other delegates. In vain they tried to overcome that supernatural attraction; they remained in place, paralyzed, making the most comical efforts to free themselves.
“Well,” said Vatenlair, “do you believe in my power now? Do I need apparatus to immobilize you?”
“No, no!” cried the delegates. “We can see that you’re an enchanter. Let us go!”
“Get up, then,” said Vatenlair. “And remember that it is necessary not to touch magic.”
The delegates got up and prostrated themselves before the engineer, protesting their fidelity. They even accused Remplume of having deceived them, and went away, entirely convinced that Vatenlair was a magician.
XV. In which this story concludes to the satisfaction of everyone.
When they remained alone, Princess Betinette said to her husband:
“You’ve summoned science to your aid once again, but a time will come when it will be impotent. Remplume won’t lay down his arms; it’s him alone that it’s necessary to attain, why prevent me from punishing him? His hostility will reveal itself in another form; we’ll be living in continual anxiety. I’m not cut out to lead a wayward people who will be incessantly discontented. Under my father’s reign there was never the slightest revolt; now that our subjects have commenced, they won’t stop. Sovereign power scarcely tempts me; I’d rather live with you far from society, happy and tranquil. Nothing retains me in this country any longer; my mother and father are dead, you alone are everything to me. Believe me, let’s leave these idiots to fight among themselves, with their leaders, and go away.”
Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions Page 13