Clochemerle

by Gabriel Chevallier

  The Baroness suggested a still further difficulty. “But surely, Monseigneur,” she said, “when it comes to deciding between this ambition of his and his own party, do you really think that Alexis Luvelat could hesitate?”

  “He will certainly not hesitate,” Monseigneur de Giaccone replied gently, “between vague doctrines and extremely definite personal ambitions. He knows that he can satisfy his party by his speeches, whilst we insist on proofs. He will make the speeches and give us the proofs.”

  “Why, then,” the Baroness exclaimed, “you believe him capable of treachery!”

  With a graceful gesture, Monseigneur de Giaccone waved aside this incautious comment.

  “That is strong language to use,” he declared, with truly ecclesiastical moderation. “You must not forget that Alexis Luvelat is a politician. He has an unrivaled instinct for seizing opportunities, that is all. We can rely on him. He will always be against us, and now more violently than ever, but he will act on our behalf. And as for myself, I can assure you that your pretty little town will soon be restored to its former peace and quiet.”

  “Then there is nothing further for me to do but to thank you, Monseigneur,” said the Baroness, rising.

  “What does this old blockhead want of me now?” the Minister thought as he seized the card held out to him. He drummed his finger irritably on his writing table. “What about the old dodge of a meeting, or an appointment with the President of the Council?” A somewhat risky proceeding; for if the visitor should discover that he had been shown the door for no sufficient reason, the Minister would make a confirmed enemy of him. This jealous individual was indeed already an enemy (when one is in high office, everyone is an enemy, especially in one’s own party), but not an active one. Prudence required that he should be humored. The Minister made this an inflexible rule of conduct: not much tenderness for your friends—you have nothing to fear from them; and great deference, accompanied by many tokens of esteem, to your enemies. In political life, it is of supreme importance to concentrate on disarming your adversary and getting him on your side. Now the man who was asking to see him was one of those adversaries who, while displaying the utmost friendliness, were working for his overthrow; which made it decidedly worth while taking a little trouble to win him over. An old blockhead he was, to be sure, but his very stupidity constituted a danger, for it secured him, both in the lobbies of the Chamber of Deputies and the backstairs of the party, an audience of malcontents and imbeciles. To alienate the imbeciles—that would be altogether too great a risk. . . . He questioned the usher.

  “Does he know I am alone?”

  “He says he is sure of it, Monsieur le Ministre.”

  “Very well, then, bring him along,” Luvelat bade him, with a little grimace which brought wrinkles to his cheeks.

  As soon as the door opened he rose to meet his visitor, with an air of delighted surprise.

  “My excellent friend, this is perfectly charming of you. . . .”

  “I am not disturbing you, my dear Minister?”

  “You’re joking, my dear Bourdillat! You, one of our old Republicans, one of the pillars of the party—disturbing me! Any advice you can give me can only be a service to me. We young men owe you much. Much—and I am bent on telling you so now that you give me the opportunity. Your feeling for the great Republican tradition, your democratic moderation, your experience—those are things that I envy every day. And you were in office in the great days. Sit down, my dear friend. What can I do for you? You know you have only to ask—It’s nothing very serious, I hope?”

  “Clochemerle,” Bourdillat said, expecting to astonish the Minister.

  “Ah!” replied Luvelat, quite calmly.

  “You don’t know anything about it, perhaps?”

  “Clochemerle? . . . Of course I do, my dear Bourdillat. How could I not? Were you not born there yourself? A charming little town in Beaujolais, with somewhere about two thousand five .hundred inhabitants.”

  “Two thousand eight hundred,” said Bourdillat, with patriotic pride.

  “Eight hundred? Well, I hope I may never make a worse shot. . . .”

  “Yes,” Bourdillat went on, endeavoring to put him in the wrong, “but you probably don’t know what is going on at Clochemerle? It’s simply a disgrace, right in the twentieth century! Beaujolais is falling into the hands of the priests, neither more nor less. Just think, my dear Minister. . . .”

  Head bent forward, Luvelat let Bourdillat have his say. Armed with a pencil, he was tracing on his writing block little geometrical designs by which he appeared to be entirely absorbed. Occasionally he would lean back a little to judge the effect.

  “But it is a serious matter, my dear Minister, a very serious matter indeed!” Bourdillat, taking this for indifference, suddenly thundered out.

  Luvelat looked up. With an expression of much concern on his face, but triumphing inwardly, he gave himself a pleasure to which he had been looking forward ever since the moment of Bourdillat’s mention of Clochemere.

  “Yes, yes, I know. . . . Focart was telling me exactly the same thing, less than two hours ago.”

  The look of dismay which appeared on his visitor’s countenance showed the completeness of his triumph. Bourdillat had none of the inscrutability of the diplomat. His puckered face and apoplectic appearance at such moments were an immediate betrayal of his feelings. He heaved a deep sigh which gave no evidence of fondness for the Member of Parliament whose name had just been mentioned.

  “Has Focart been here already?” he asked.

  “Less than two hours ago, as I told you just now. He was sitting in the armchair which you are now occupying, my good friend.”

  “He’s got a nerve, that young Focart!” Bourdillat exclaimed. “And what’s he poking his nose in for?”

  “But Clochemerle is in his constituency, I believe?” Luvelat put in gently. His jubilation was increasing each moment.

  “Well, what if it is? Clochemerle is my own native town, God bless my soul, the town I was born in! Is it my business more than anybody else’s, or is not? Here am I, an ex-Minister, and he goes plotting behind my back!”

  “I agree that Focart, before he came to see me, should perhaps have . . .” Luvelat very cautiously remarked.

  “What do you mean, perhaps?” Bourdillat cried out again in a voice of thunder.

  “I mean ought, yes, certainly ought to have spoken to you. Doubtless it was a case of zeal on his part, and not wanting to lose time. . . .”

  Bourdillat merely sneered at the Minister’s suggestion. He did not believe a word of what Luvelat was saying to him. The latter was, as a matter of fact, by no means sincere. His succession of empty phrases was made with the sole purpose of poisoning the relations between Bourdillat and Focart. In so doing, he was applying another of his great political principles: “Two men who are busy hating each other are not tempted to join hands in plotting against a third.” A new version of the old maxim devised for the rulers of this world: divide et impera.

  Bourdillat replied:

  “If Focart came straight to you, it was simply to cut the ground from under my feet and make me look a fool. I know the blackguard, I’ve seen him in action. He’s a dirty little timeserver.”

  Luvelat thereupon gave an example of the well-balanced judgment which should be a distinguishing feature of a statesman, and especially of a Minister of the Interior. It would, however, be rash to affirm that the magnanimity he displayed was entirely unconnected with a desire to ferret out some further information.

  “I cannot help feeling, my dear Bourdillat, that you are exaggerating somewhat. Please realize that I quite understand your resentment over this matter, and that I therefore make every excuse for your violent attitude. All this is entirely between ourselves. But one is in duty bound to recognize that Focart is one of the most brilliant men of the younger generation, and it is they who show the greatest devotion to the party. He is, in fact, a coming man.”

  Bourdillat blazed
out:

  “‘Coming’—rushing, I should say—and helter-skelter too, with the firm intention of trampling over us both—you as well as me.”

  “Oh, but I always feel that I am on excellent terms with Focart. Whenever we have had any dealings with each other his behavior has been unexceptionable. Just now, too, he was charming, and very complimentary. ‘We don’t always see eye to eye with each other,’ he said to me, ‘but that is a trifle when you consider that our little disagreements are atoned for by our mutual esteem.’ That was a very nice thing to say, don’t you think so?”

  Bourdillat was choking with anger.

  “So the swine said that to you? After the stories he tells about you behind your back? That’s what you ought to hear! And he dares to talk of esteem! But he despises you, my dear Minister, he despises you. . . . Perhaps I’m wrong in telling you this?”

  “No, no Bourdillat, no. It’s entirely between ourselves.”

  “It’s in your own interest that I am doing it, you quite understand that?”

  “Of course!”

  “He says shocking things about you—it’s the only word for them. He goes for everything, your private life as well as your public career. Stories about women, and drink too. He declares—”

  Listening attentively to him, with a smile which placed him beyond the reach of all these slanderous insinuations, Luvelat gazed thoughtfully at Bourdillat. “To think that this old idiot is a police spy into the bargain. It’s true he looks just like an informer. . . . And this saloonkeeper was made a Minister!”

  “In plain words, my dear Minister, Focart puts us both into the same sack, and he’s only waiting to chuck us into the water.”

  “Into the same sack? You mean, he makes no distinction between us?”

  “None whatever. The same sack, I tell you!”

  This last shaft struck home, and inflicted a deep wound on Luvelat’s pride. That imbecile had just said the thing which could hurt him most, that there were people who could see no difference between himself, Luvelat, a brilliant university man, and this former café proprietor whom he despised. Far from bringing him a revulsion of feeling in Bourdillat’s favor, such a statement only made him seem more odious than before. He had now but one wish, namely, to cut short the interview. He pressed the button of an electric bell concealed beneath the board of his writing table. This was a signal for a fictitious telephone message to reach him through the instrument on his desk. He then let it be supposed that he was replying to some eminent. Republican personage who had an urgent communication to make to him. By this means he was enabled to get rid of troublesome visitors. Bourdillat, moreover, had little further to say to him, the scandals of Clochemerle having lost much of their interest since his discovery that Focart had forestalled him. He urged the Minister for the last time to issue stringent orders with a view to drastic measures being taken in Beaujolais by the central authority; his original keenness had now diminished.

  “You can rely on me, my dear friend,” said Luvelat as he shook hands with him. “I am an old Republican myself, faithful to the great principles of the party, and my highest ideal is that freedom of thought which you have so gallantly defended.”

  Neither was under the least illusion as to the worthlessness of such promises, which each had already showered upon the other on every possible occasion. But they could think of nothing else to say. They disliked each other and were unable to conceal the fact.

  Luvelat had spoken the truth when he referred to Focart’s visit, and this visit from a young man of ambition and determination gave him some anxiety. It was in the nature of a warning. But a third visit—which he kept secret—implied still graver threats: it was from the reverend Canon Trude, the usual emissary from the Archbishopric of Paris. This clever ecclesiastic, who proceeded entirely by hints and murmurs, had a very close acquaintance with the hidden currents of politics. He had come especially to intimate to Luvelat that the Church, disquieted at the Clochemerle affair, placed herself under the protection of the Minister, to whom, should the occasion arise, she would grant her own protection in another and higher sphere. “The voice of the Church—if not the voices of her individual ministers—is always obeyed in the end, Monsieur le Ministre. . . .”

  Left alone with his thoughts, Alexis Luvelat pondered over these three visits. He made a calculation of the dangers they foreshadowed. Constrained to choose between two enmities, as constantly happens in a career such as his, he was fully determined to side with the stronger party, while giving the other pledges more apparent than real. There was no doubt that the most useful support at the moment, in view of his ambition to become a member of the Academy, would be that of the Church. . . . He sent a message asking his chief secretary to come to him without delay.

  On leaving the Minister’s room, the chief secretary went straightway to see the head of the private secretariat.

  “I can’t imagine,” he said, “what that old fool Bourdillat has just been saying to the chief. Whatever it was, he went away in a temper.”

  “Has he gone?”

  “Yes. He’s opening something or other, and dining with a financier. I’ve got an appointment myself with the editor of a very important paper. Look here, old chap, here’s a file. Just have a dig into this Clochemerle business and do the necessary. It’s some fuss between the curé and the town council, in some hole-and-corner place in the Rhône. It looks a silly affair to me, but Luvelat attaches some importance to it. There are two or three reports and some newspaper cuttings. You’ll easily see how matters stand. Express orders from the chief: on complications with the Archbishopric of Lyons. That’s got to be avoided at all costs. That quite clear?”

  “Perfectly,” the head of the secretariat replied, placing the file at his side.

  Alone in his room, he cast his eye over the ocean of papers which flooded his table. With his thoughts centered on the Minister and his chief secretary, he muttered to himself: “Those people are the limit! They do their work by going to see financiers and newspaper editors, and I’m left here as a machine for solving delicate questions. And if there’s a mistake, it’s my responsibility of course! However . . .” His shrug of the shoulders expressed resignation to this state of affairs. He rang for the first secretary, and handed him the file with the necessary instructions.

  The first secretary, Marcel Choy, had just written two sketches for the forthcoming revue at the Folies parisiennes. He had that instant been asked to make some small revisions immediately. He had just enough time to jump into a taxi. Gloves and hat in hand, he placed the file furtively within the second secretary’s reach.

  The latter was engaged in trimming his nails with meticulous care. Without interrupting this task, he murmured, to himself: “As far as I’m concerned, Clochemerle can go to hell! I’m busy and I’m not going to worry my head over small country towns! We will pass on this little entertainment.”

  He went into the next office, which was that of the fourth secretary. He held the file out to him, gracefully.

  “My dear friend,” he said, “there is a little matter here—”

  “No!” the fourth secretary broke in, abruptly.

  “It’s only a trifle. You’d polish it off in no time. . . .”

  “No!” the fourth secretary said once more, this time more loudly.

  “Well, it’s an astonishing thing—” the second secretary observed.

  For the third time, he was not allowed to complete his sentence.

  “I’m working!” the fourth secretary cried out. He looked furious.

  And it was true. He was working, and working at the business of the State. There were also a few others like himself in this Department, young men with poor prospects of rising, who shared his strange taste.

  “Oh, sorry, old boy.”

  The second secretary made himself scarce, while commenting privately: “The effect of work on some people is certainly not a pleasant one!”

  In the adjoining room, a young man of smar
t appearance and with an air of determination about him had spread out on his desk some photographs of motorcars which he was comparing with each other.

  “You don’t want to buy a second-hand car?” he asked the second secretary. “At the present moment I’ve got two or three splendid opportunities. Something to jump at, my boy. Don’t lose your chance while you’ve still got it. Look here, there’s a Delage going—six cylinder, only done ten thousand kilometers. Which do you like best, a Ballot, a Voisin, a Chenard?”

  “That’s not what I’ve come for. What would suit me best at the moment would be a man who would make himself responsible for this file.”

  “What is it all about?”

  “A political row in a small town. We have to prepare instructions for the prefect.”

  “Splendid!” said the young man. “I know the very man you want. Go to Room No. 4, next floor above, and give your file to the deputy chief clerk, a fellow called Petitbidois. If it’s some decision to be made, he’ll be only too delighted. Tell him I’ve sent you. I arranged an insurance for him a short time ago and let him off half of the first premium. Since then, there is nothing he won’t do for me.”

  “I’ll go there at once,” said the second secretary, “and I’m awfully grateful to you. You’ve got me out of a hole.”

  So it came about that the responsibility for the decision to be made fell finally and irrevocably upon Séraphin Petitbidois, a man of a peculiarly morose disposition. His dismal outlook on life derived from a distressing physical insignificance which had had deplorable effects on his character, and consequently upon his career.

  A victim of fate, Petitbidois avenged himself for his ill luck by working out schemes for placing strangers dependent on the Department in the most ridiculous situations. He did not forget that their number must certainly include men with the unwarranted privilege of an ability to reduce women to that state of sentimental slavery which he himself despaired of imposing on them. Such physical victory was his unique, his supreme ambition, and it was rarely absent from his thoughts. His leisure was spent in conjuring up visions of ladies of fabulous beauty, surrounding a Herculean Petitbidois and uttering long-drawn-out, overwhelming sighs; their splendid forms, languorous and subdued, reclined in profusion on rugs and divans, while other lovely suppliants quarreled among themselves in their eager haste for love.