During a calm, cutting through the ovation given to General Croppeton, who returned to the Government bench, a voice rose up: “I request the floor!” It was Louis Méripal.
Vociferations, howls and threats departed from all points of the Chambre, converging in the direction of the podium, toward which, walking backwards in order to confront the clamor, the socialist député slowly headed. He was pale. His eyes were shiny with a sharp gleam. He launched a “Citizens!” in a tremulous voice that emerged like a sob. His hands extended, he seemed to be pushing back the boos that were rising up in a frightful tumult.
After a quarter of an hour of superhuman efforts, he succeeded in making the following sentence heard: “I demand that formal charges be brought against Monsieur Coffre and his accomplice, Captain Sylph!”
In a stormy sea, the waves often decline, suddenly calmed, before the frail vessel that resists all their assaults. Thus the fury of the Chambre collapsed into a mute stupor before that man, insensitive to its violence.
Méripal repeated, slowly: “I demand that formal charges be brought against Monsieur Coffre and his accomplice, Captain Sylph!”
“What is this new infamy?” Abbé Mortol launched, like a harpoon.
Louis Méripal shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of arrogant pity. “Monsieur Coffre bought Captain Sylphe. He paid him.”
“I would protest, if these words were not absurdity itself!” intervened General Croppeton. “I interrogated Captain Sylphe myself after his arrest. He swore to me on his honor that he was only obedient to his conscience...”
“Who is Madame Coffre!” concluded Méripal, with the gesture of an instrument of justice.
“Enough! Enough!” howled six hundred throats, taut with rage. “Throw out the blasphemer of the fatherland, who is now insulting women!”
“Masks off, hypocrites! Who among you is unaware the Captain Sylphe is Madame Coffre’s lover? Well, Monsieur l’Abbé Mortol, who is their confessor—answer, then!”
“You do not have the right to talk about morality, you who do not believe in God!” replied Abbé Mortol, in a scornful tone.
“Which makes me moral! What importance would Madame Coffre’s relationships with all the man on Earth have, if they did not result in a pile of ruins, a colossal litter of cadavers?”
“Only Petitpaon warfare will be practiced,” declared General Croppeton, solemnly. “There will be no real death to deplore.”
“And you don’t count, of course, the countless victims of disease? Isn’t it the case, Monsieur l’Abbé Mortol, that your God has prepared all his scourges, and that they will fall upon the troops that you call armies on campaign? The fatigue, the privations are holy things, are they not, since people die of them?”
Cries of “Enough! Enough!” punctuated the tumult, in the midst of which Méripal continued.
“The peoples, whom their oppressors carefully keep isolated from others, and whom they excite to reciprocal execrations by representing their neighbors as infidels that the true God commands them to exterminate like bloodthirsty barbarians, have looked at one another! And having looked at one another, they have recognized a similar face. Dazzled, they will hesitate momentarily before extending their hands and abolishing what their masters call frontiers and which are nothing, in reality, but a succession of fence-posts painted in different colors. A fatal moment! The masters who are on the lookout will see that gleam lighting up in the eyes of their slaves. They will tremble lest that radiation ignite the glorious conflagration in which all their thrones and scepters will perish. They will all unite to stifle it, and reanimate the fading hatred...”
“We don’t hate anyone!” shouted General Croppeton, in a convinced tone.
“You don’t hate anyone? But you maintain the simulacra of hatred against everyone! You no longer fight, but you keep your weapons, because you know full well that appearances are as powerful as realities…because you know full well that cannons and rifles often fire of their own accord!”
“I can offer my guarantee of respect for discipline!” declared Croppeton, authoritatively.
“We’re not responsible for what’s happening!” shouted Abbé Mortol, coming to the rescue.
“What? You’re not responsible? But this war, again, is your work and that of your allies, Messieurs the priests. Oh, at first, Monsieur l’Abbé, you didn’t understand what horrors were concealed by war practiced without blood, and you did everything you could to disrupt the comedy whose sinister end escaped you. Then you reflected, and you said to one another that since the billions would continue to emerge from the mouths of cannons, there was, in sum, no change in the formers state of affairs. You still had your implacable and faithful accomplice, hunger, which curbs life under the ignominy of its Caudine Forks.12 Petitpaon warfare is still warfare, and the evils it engenders will perhaps surpass in horror everything of which your imagination could ever dream!”
“Explain yourself!” shouted a shrill voice.
“Explain myself? Is there any point, since you don’t want to hear, since you don’t want to see? Well then, listen carefully, the voluntary deaf and blind: I’m saying that the exact measure of all power is its oppressive and destructive force. To cause suffering—which is to say, to annihilate what there is of individual strength and beauty, to stifle under lies and hypocrisy the spontaneity that is the very spark of life—that is the goal that you have set out to attain. That objective you have surpassed, for effort, even the most cleverly measured, is the plaything of the milieu that transports it. For you, the people were passive matter, the flesh that one kneads to one’s whim in the blood that flows through ever-open veins. But that source you have dried up! That flesh has become a block of marble on which your raptors’ claws break! Life is the eternal diamond still darkened by the infamous matrix that you are, all of you whose breasts are like those sepulchers into which no ray of sunlight ever penetrates! Is it an apotheosis that you have sought in deploying the veils of mourning one last time over the world? Tomorrow, millions of men will be at odds!”
“You know very well that they won’t do any harm!” proclaimed Pierre Phosphène.
“Yes, I know that you have consented to convert the most terrible weapons into puerile playthings! But to assure the campaigns a litter of cadavers worthy of the greatest battles you still have the burden of equipment, the fatigue of long marches, the complicity of bad weather, the scarcity of food and all the causes of physical decline from which you would rather protect horses than men. And if there are men who fall exhausted into ditches and whose trembling lips unconsciously repeat the name of God—imposed by the priest who is always there to pillage the agony of human wrecks—those men will once again be those weary of life, who go to death as toward the ideal bride, the only one capable of giving them the happiness that always flees them! But no, what you need are hearts that still beat, souls that still bleed, the youth in which faith in life is so pure and so strong that it cannot imagine the possibility of oblivion! Into those hearths where women weep for the departure of their husbands and sons, the priest will slither under the pretext of words of consolation! And the men who come back...”
“They will all come back, living or dead!” interrupted General Croppeton. “After each engagement, the arbiters will fix the losses. Lots will be drawn in each camp. The dead and the wounded emerging from the urns will immediately reenter into civilian life...”
“Where war awaits them in the same way!” snapped Louis Méripal. “Do you think that all those men will resign themselves to the role of dead men that you intend to impose on them?”
“Their existence will be assured by the generous recompenses that the Government will accord to their families,” Thunasol explained. “We shall create as many new functions as are required. Everyone will have satisfaction.”
“How? The hundreds of thousands of men that you have removed from all productive labor under the pretext of military service are not enough for you? You’re now dreaming of a
triple permanent army: that of soldiers, and that of functionaries, doubly paid since they will have to maintain the third army, composed of the fake dead and the fake wounded? It’s famine that you’re preparing with cheerful hearts! The day is imminent when people will be killing one another for a loaf of bread!”
“Our neighbors will be in the same condition,” Henri Verbuis observed.
“They evil will only be more terrible! May my prediction never be realized! They are millions of victims whose death warrants you are signing by going to war with Germany!”
“We can’t back down!” objected Croppeton.
“It’s not a matter of backing down! According to what you call international conventions, Captain Sylphe has committed a crime; hand him over.”
“Hand a Frenchman over to Foreigners—never!” protested Verbuis, vigorously.
“Hand him over!” repeated Méripal, emphasizing his words. “And hand over Monsieur Coffre too, who is the instigator of this act, accomplished in order to unleash world war.”
“I declare my solidarity with Monsieur Coffre!” proffered Abbé Mortol.
“Your declaration is superfluous!” Méripal riposted. “We all know that you’re part of the family! I demand that the Chambre order your immediate arrest! I accuse you, Monsieur Coffre and Captain Sylphe of the crime of lèse-humanity! I demand that all three of you be handed over to Germany.”
A frightful tumult was unleashed; half the députés rushed forward to attack the podium, threatening Méripal with their violently clenched fists.
The President, impotent to reestablish order, covered his head and quit the armchair. The session was ended.
Louis Méripal came down the steps of the podium slowly. The howling mob parted to let him pass and immediately reformed behind him. Whenever an insult reached his ears distinctly he turned round as if to catch sight of his insulter, and then resumed walking, coldly.
Still followed by the mob, he reached the exit. There, a severely dressed man approached him. “Are you député Louis Méripal?”
No sooner had Louis Méripal nodded his head affirmatively than his interlocutor struck him in the face with his glove. “I am General Marquis de Foiraubilles. You have just gravely insulted my future son-in-law, who is unable to reply to you. Here is my card.”
“Very well, Monsieur,” replied Méripal.
A formidable jostling broke out, which separated the two adversaries.
XIII
After being assured of the collaboration of the customary two friends and having given them instructions, General Foiraubilles went home to await Louis Méripal’s seconds.
He did not reveal anything of what had just happened to the Marquise, who, in any case, was too distressed by what had happened to Captain Sylphe to notice her husband’s nervousness.
It was not that the prospect of a duel troubled the General in the least. He was naturally brave and the possibility of losing his life had never appeared to him as a clear reality. However, as he was designated to take command of an army and the declaration of war was imminent, without admitting it to himself, he was hoping to see his adversary duck out.
He was weighing up the reasons capable of causing Méripal to decline any encounter when the doorbell rang, interrupting his reflections. A soldier from the logistics corps, who served France by performing the not-very-military functions of valet with regard to the general, handed his master two visiting cards.
They announced Méripal’s witnesses. The Marquis experienced a vague disappointment and gave the order to send the Messieurs in.
One of them coldly explained the mission with which they had been charged. The general gave them the names of his friends and the address at which they would be able to contact them immediately. After a correct exchange of bows, the bell was rung, which caused the orderly to reappear and show the two Messieurs out.
The conversation between the seconds was brief. Méripal’s declared that their client had no desire to fight, upon which the Marquis de Foiraubilles’ stated that the matter would be closed on receipt of a letter of apology signed by the député. In the face of such an inappropriate claim, Méripal’s friends limited themselves to replying that he, in the incontestable capacity of the offended party, chose pistols, and that it only remained to fix the time and place of the encounter.
Sensing that a decent retreat was impossible, the general’s witnesses accepted that the encounter would take place the following day at eight a.m., at the foot of the stands on the racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne.
For the Marquis de Foiraubilles the night was a double sentry duty. With a view to his duel he brought out his testament and added the final clauses to it. As he had already been in mortal danger hundreds of times, and had thought it necessary every time to affirm the expression of his last will, it formed a veritable volume. Then, as he counted on neither being killed nor wounded, and France had confided an army to him, he went over the secret mobilization papers heaped up on his desk, one by one.
At six o’clock in the morning, General Marquis de Foiraubilles washed his hands and face in cold water; he went to kiss his wife and daughter; he put so much expression into his conjugal kiss and his paternal kiss that the two poor women realized in an eruption of tenderness that he was bound for the dueling-field. They wept, while he remained tragic and stiff in his black frock-coat, militarily buttoned up.
Seven o’clock chimed. He drank a cup of chocolate in the company of his seconds, who had come to fetch him. His last word, which he pronounced on the landing, was for France, at whose disposition he would be once again, if it pleased God, before midday sounded.
At eight o’clock precisely, the General’s landau reached the winning-post that saluted the annual arrival of the winner of the Grand Prix de Paris.13
A few paces away, Louis Méripal was calmly smoking a cigar in the company of his seconds. He asked one of them to go and ask the Marquis de Foiraubilles’ seconds whether they judged it necessary to take the ceremony to its conclusion. As he had spoken quite loudly, the General had heard what he said, so he immediately replied that “nothing could stop the fight once he had scented powder.”
“Let him also sniff the bullet—that would be more complete!” said Méripal to his witnesses, with a smile.
The adversaries were set twenty-five paces apart, the places and weapons having been allocated by lot.
“Ready!” said the director of the combat. “One!... Two!... Three!”
A double detonation resounded.
Genera Marquis de Foiraubilles collapsed on the grass.
His seconds and the physician ran to him and lifted him up. He had received the bullet full in the forehead.
Louis Méripal tried to approach, but one of the General’s witnesses said, brutally: “Go away, Monsieur! Your presence is unnecessary.”
The General was placed in the ambulance that had been prudently brought to the terrain. On examining him more attentively, the physician observed that the bullet had not penetrated the skull, and had only made a small circular wound that was quite superficial.
The doctor was so astonished that such a wound should have occasioned death that he interrogated the patient’s pulse. It was weak but regular; the heart was beating slowly; the breast was rising with an imperceptible rhythmic movement.
“The General isn’t dead!” declared the physician, as the carriage went through the gate in the fortifications.
He therefore set about administering injections of ether, while one of the seconds introduced the contents of a bottle of smelling salts to the Marquis’ nostrils and the other but his fingertips.
Nothing had any effect. Tractions of the tongue produced no result either.
“But the General isn’t dead!” pronounced the physician, again. “He’s breathing! As long as a man is breathing, he isn’t dead! This coma can’t be prolonged, though!”
Further attempts were made, without the slightest change.
As the carriage approac
hed the Avenue de l’Observatoire, the physician concluded that the shock had produced a commotion resulting in a total and progressive paralysis, whose termination could only be resolved by death, within a few hours at the most.
It was necessary to prepare the Marquise de Foiraubilles for the fatal news. One of the seconds took responsibility for the painful task; it was agreed that the carriage would wait for ten minutes on the Boulevard Montparnasse in order to give him time to accomplish his mission.
The first shock was terrible. The dolor of the General’s wife and Hermine was heart-rending. Puling herself together, however, the Marquise asked to see her husband’s body, which the physician, assisted by nurses and the concierge, had just installed in a bed.
The pallor of the forehead made the wound seem redder.
The General’s wife uttered a scream and fell backwards, her arms outstretched. The physician ran to her. He lifted her up momentarily and made a pious sign of the cross; there was one cadaver more in the room.
“Ruptured aneurism!” he declared.
Abbé Mortol, who had just arrived, recited the prayer for the dead and employed all the consolations of religion to soften Hermine’s despair; at twenty years of age, in a single day, she had been orphaned of her father and mother.
XIV
The morning of the third of November was not only marked by the death of Madame a Marquise de Foiraubilles and that of her husband the General—who, although he was still holding back his last sigh, was considered nonetheless as a cadaver by the great men of the art who came running to lend reinforcements to their illustrious colleague. His orderly officers had, in consequence, taken off the General’s civilian garments in order to deck him out in his finest dress uniform.
With his moustache well waxed and his eyes carefully closed, therefore, he was waiting in his bed, his ostrich-plumed bicorn between his hands, folded over his breast, for his soul to abandon his body definitively to fly to the ethereal spaces of Valhalla—for General Marquis Narcisse de Foiraubilles was a brave warrior, and a good master in the belief of his valet, who deposited the pearls of his tears on the marble of the night-table.
The Petitpaon Era Page 15