The Home Secretary poured over the discussion, according to his wont, certain massive phrases calculated to close and suppress it by their weight. He held, said he, his préfets in the palm of his hand; he would be able to lead M. Pélisson easily to a just appreciation of things, without taking any drastic measure against an intelligent and zealous official, who had succeeded in his department, and who was valuable “from the point of view of the electoral position.” No one could say that he was more interested than the Home Secretary in maintaining a good understanding between the officials of the departments and the judicial authority.
Still the Emperor kept that dreamy look in which he was usually wrapped when silent. He was evidently thinking of past events, for he suddenly said:— “Poor M. Pélisson! I knew His father. He was called Anacharsis Pélisson. He was the son of a republican of 1792; himself a republican, he used to write in the opposition papers during the July administration. At the time of my captivity in the fortress of Ham, he addressed a friendly letter to me. You cannot imagine the joy which the slightest token of sympathy gives a prisoner. After that we went on our separate paths. We never saw one another again. He is dead.”
The Emperor lit a cigarette and remained wrapped in his dream for a moment. Then rising: “Gentlemen, I will not detain you.”
With the awkward gait of a great winged bird when it walks, he returned to his private apartments; and the ministers went out, one after the other, through the long suite of rooms, beneath the solemn gaze of the ushers. The marshal who was the Minister of War held out his cigar-case to the Keeper of the Seals.
“Monsieur Delarbre, shall we take a little walk outside? I want to stretch my legs.”
Whilst they were both walking down the Rue de Rivoli, by the railing that borders the Terrasse des Feuillants:
“Speaking of cigars,” said the marshal, “I only like very dry one-sou cigars. The others seem like sweetmeats to me. Don’t you know...”
He cut short his thought, then:
“This Pélisson that you were talking about just now in the Council, isn’t he a little dried up, swarthy man, who was sous-préfet at Saint-Dié five years ago?”
Delarbre replied that Pélisson had indeed been sous-préfet in the Vosges.
“So I said to myself: I knew Pélisson. And I remember Madame Pélisson very well. I sat next to her at dinner at Saint-Dié, when I went there for the unveiling of a monument. Don’t you know...”
“What kind of woman is she?” asked Delarbre.
“Tiny, swarthy, thin. A deceptive thinness. In the morning, in a high-necked dress, she looked a mere wisp. At table in the evening, in a lownecked dress with flowers in her bosom, very charming.”
“But morally, marshal?”
“Morally.... I am not an imbecile, am I, now? Well! I have never understood anything about a woman’s morals. All that I can tell you is that Madame Pélisson passed for a sentimentalist. They said she had a warm heart for handsome men.”
“She gave you a hint to that effect, my dear marshal?”
“Not the least in the world. She said to me at dessert, ‘I dote on eloquence. A noble speech carries me away.’ I could not apply that remark to myself. It is true that I had that morning delivered an address. But I had got my aide-decamp, a short-sighted artillery officer, to write it out for me. He had written so small that I could not read it.... Don’t you know?...”
They had reached the Place Vendôme. Delarbre held out his little withered hand to the marshal, and stole under the archway of the Ministry.
* * * * *
The following week, at the breaking up of the Council, when the ministers were already withdrawing, the Emperor laid his hand on the shoulder of the Keeper of the Seals.
“My dear Monsieur Delarbre,” said he to him, “I have heard by chance — in my position, one never learns anything save by chance — that there is a deputy magistrate’s post vacant at the Nantes bar. I beg that you will consider for that post a very deserving young doctor of law, who has written a remarkable treatise on Trade Unions. His name is Chanot, and he is the nephew of Madame Ramel. He is to beg an audience of you this very day. Should you propose him to me for it, I shall sign his nomination with pleasure.”
The Emperor had pronounced the name of his foster-sister tenderly, for he had never lost his affection for her, although, a republican of republicans, she repelled his advances, refused, poor widow as she was, the master’s offers, and raged openly in her garret against the coup d’état. But yielding at last, after fifteen years, to the persistent kindness of Napoleon III., she had come to beg, as earnest of reconciliation, a favour from the prince — not for herself, but for her nephew young Chanot, a doctor of law, and, according to his professors, an honour to the Schools. Even now it was an austere favour that Madame Ramel demanded of her foster-brother; admission to the open court for young Chanot could scarcely be considered an act of partiality. But Madame Ramel was keenly anxious that her nephew should be sent to Loire-Inférieure, where his relatives lived. This fact recurred to Napoleon’s mind, and he impressed it on the Minister of Justice.
“It is very important,” said he, “that my candidate should be nominated at Nantes, for that is his native place and where his parents live. That is an important consideration for a young man whose means are small and who likes family life.”
“Chanot... hard-working, meritorious, and with small means...” answered the minister.
He added that he would use his best endeavours to act in accordance with the desire expressed by His Majesty. His only fear was lest the procureur-général should have already submitted to him a list of proposed nominees, among whom naturally, the name Chanot would not occur.
This procureur-général was, indeed, M. Méreau, concerning whom there had been a discussion in the preceding Council. The Keeper of the Seals was particularly anxious to act very handsomely towards him. But he would strain every nerve to bring this affair to an issue that conformed with the intentions expressed by His Majesty.
He bowed and took his leave. It was his reception day. As soon as he had entered his study, he asked his secretary, Labarthe, whether there were many people in the ante-room. There were two presidents of courts, a councillor of the Appeal Court, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Nicomedia, a crowd of judges, barristers, and priests. The minister asked if there was any one there called Chanot. Labarthe searched in the silver salver, and discovered, among the pile of cards, that of Chanot, doctor of law, prizeman of the Faculty of Law, Paris. — The minister ordered him to be called first, merely requesting that he should be conducted by the back passages, in order not to offend the magistrates and clergy.
The minister seated himself at his table and murmured quite to himself:
“‘A sentimentalist,’ said the marshal, ‘with a warm heart for handsome men who speak well.’..
The usher introduced into the study a huge, tall young man, stooping, spectacled, and with a pointed skull. Every part of his uncouth frame expressed at once the timidity of the recluse and the boldness of the thinker.
The Keeper of the Seals examined him from head to foot and saw that he had the cheeks of a child and no shoulders. He signed to him to sit down. The suitor, having perched himself at the edge of the chair, shut his eyes and began to pour forth a flood of words.
“Monsieur le Ministre, I come to beg from your noble patronage the privilege of admission to the magistracy. Possibly Your Excellence may consider that the reports I have gained in the various examinations which I have undergone, and a prize which has been awarded to me for a work on Trade Unions, are sufficient qualifications, and that the nephew of Madame Ramel, foster-sister of the Emperor, is not altogether unworthy...”
The Keeper of the Seals stopped him with a wave of his little yellow hand.
“Doubtless, Monsieur Chanot, doubtless an august patronage, which would never have been mistakenly bestowed on an unworthy recipient, has been secured for you. I know it, the Emperor takes much interest
in you. You desire a chair as judge-advocate, Monsieur Chanot?”
“Your Excellence,” replied Chanot, “would put the finishing touch to my wishes by nominating me deputy magistrate at Nantes, where my family live.”
Delarbre fixed his leaden eyes on Chanot and said drily:
“There is no vacancy at the bar of Nantes.”
“Excuse me, Your Excellency, I thought...”
The minister rose.
“There is none there.”
And whilst Chanot was making clumsily for the door and looking for an exit in the white panels as he made his bow, the Keeper of the Seals said to him, with a persuasive air and almost in a confidential tone:
“Trust me, Monsieur Chanot, and dissuade your aunt from making any new solicitations which, far from being of any profit to you, will only do you harm. Rest assured that the Emperor takes an interest in you, and rely on me.”
As soon as the door was shut the minister called his secretary.
“Labarthe, bring me your candidate.”
* * * * *
At eight o’clock in the evening Labarthe entered a house in the Rue Jacob, mounted the staircase as far as the attics, and called from the landing:
“Are you ready, Lespardat?”
The door of a little garret opened. Inside on a shelf there were several law-books and tattered novels; on the bed a black velvet mask with a fall of lace, a bunch of withered violets, and some fencing foils. On the wall a bad portrait of Mirabeau, a copper-plate engraving. In the middle of the room a big bronzed fellow was brandishing dumb-bells. He had frizzled hair, a low forehead, hazel eyes full of laughter and sweetness, a nose that quivered like the nostrils of a horse, and in his pleasantly gaping mouth strong white teeth.
“I was waiting for you,” said he.
Labarthe begged him to dress himself. He was hungry. What time would they get their dinner?
Lespardat, having laid his dumb-bells on the floor, pulled off his jersey, and showed the herculean nape that carried his round head on his broad shoulders.
“He looks at least twenty-six,” thought Labarthe.
As soon as Lespardat had put on his coat, the thin cloth of which allowed one to follow the powerful, easy play of the muscles, Labarthe pushed him outside.
“We shall be at Magny’s in three minutes. I have the minister’s brougham.”
As they had matters to discuss, they asked for a private room at the restaurant.
After the sole and the pré-salé, Labarthe attacked his subject bluntly:
“Listen to me carefully, Lespardat. You will see my chief to-morrow, your nomination will be proposed by the procureur-général of Nantes on Thursday, and on Monday submitted for the signature of the Emperor. It is arranged that it shall be given to him unexpectedly, at the moment when he will be busy with Alfred Maury in fixing the site of Alesia. When he is studying the topography of the Gauls in the time of Cæsar, the Emperor signs everything they want him to. But understand clearly what is expected from you. You must win the favour of Madame la préfète. You must win from her the ultimate favour. It is only by this consummation that the magistracy will be avenged.” Lespardat swallowed and listened, pleased and smiling in his ingenious self-conceit.
“But,” said he, “what notion has budded in Delarbre’s head? I thought he was a puritan.” Labarthe, raising his knife, stopped him.
“First of all, my friend, I beg that you will not compromise my chief, who must remain ignorant of all that’s going on here. But since you have brought in Delarbre’s name, I will tell you that his Puritanism is a jansenist puritanism. He is a great-nephew of Deacon Paris. His maternal great-uncle was that M. Carré de Montgeron who defended the fanatics of Saint-Médard’s Cloister before the Parliament. (In 1730 miracles were claimed by the jansenists to have been worked in the cemetery of St. Médard, Paris, at the grave of François de Paris, a young jansenist deacon. The spot became a place of pilgrimage, and was visited by thousands of jansenist fanatics.) Now the jansenists love to practise their austerities in nooks and crannies; they have a taste for diplomatic and canonical blackguardism. It is the effect of their perfect purity. And then they read the Bible. The Old Testament is full of stories of the same kind as yours, my dear Lespardat.”
Lespardat was not listening. He was floating in a sea of naïve delight. He was asking himself: “What will father say? What will mother say?” thinking of his parents, grocers of large ambitions and little wealth at Agen. And he vaguely associated his budding fortune with the glory of Mirabeau, his favourite hero. Since his college days he had dreamt of a destiny rich with women and feats of oratory.
Labarthe recalled his young friend’s attention to himself.
“You know, monsieur le substitut, you are not irremovable. If after a reasonable interval you have not made yourself very agreeable to Madame Pélisson — I mean completely agreeable — you fall into disgrace.”
“But,” asked Lespardat frankly, “how much time do you give me to make myself excessively pleasing to Madame Pélisson?”
“Until the vacation,” answered the minister’s secretary gravely. “We give you, in addition, all sorts of facilities, secret missions, furloughs, &c.
Everything except money. Above all, we are an honest administration. People don’t believe it. But later on they will find that we were no jobbers. Take Delarbre: he has clean hands. Besides, the Home Office, which is on the husband’s side, controls the Secret Service Money. Do not count on anything save your two thousand four hundred francs of salary and your handsome face to captivate Madame Pélisson.”
“Is she pretty, this préfète of mine?” demanded Lespardat.
He asked this question carelessly, without exaggerating the importance of it, placidly, as behoves a very young man who finds all women beautiful. By way of reply, Labarthe threw on the table the photograph of a thin lady in a round hat, with a double bandeau falling on her brown neck.
“Here,” said he, “is the portrait of Madame Pélisson. It was ordered by the Cabinet from the Prefecture of Police, and they sent it on after they had stamped it with a warranty stamp, as you see.” Lespardat seized it eagerly with his square fingers.
“She is handsome,” said he.
“Have you a plan?” asked Labarthe. “A methodical scheme of operations.”
“No,” answered Lespardat simply.
Labarthe, who was keen-witted, protested that it was however, necessary to foresee, to arrange, not to allow oneself to be taken unawares by any contingencies.
“You are certain,” added he, “to be invited to the balls at the prefecture, and you will, of course, dance with Madame Pélisson. Do you know how to dance? Show me how you dance.”
Lespardat rose, and, clasping his chair in his arms, took one turn of a waltz with the deportment of a graceful bear.
Labarthe watched him very gravely through his eyeglass.
“You are heavy, awkward, without that irresistible suppleness which...”
“Mirabeau danced badly,” said Lespardat.
“After all,” said Labarthe, “perhaps it is only that the chair does not inspire you.”
When they were both once more on the damp pavement of the narrow Rue Contrescarpe, they met several girls who were coming and going between the Carrefour Buci and the wine-shops of the Rue Dauphine. As one of these, a thick-set, heavy girl, in a dingy black dress, was passing sadly by under a street lamp with slack gait, Lespardat seized her roughly by the waist, lifted her, and made her take with him two turns of a waltz across the greasy pavement and into the gutter, before she had any idea what was happening.
Recovering from her astonishment, she shrieked the foulest insults at her cavalier, who carried her away with irresistible nerve. He himself supplied the orchestra, in a baritone voice, as warm and seductive as military music, and whirled so madly with the girl that, all bespattered with mud and water from the street, they collided with the shafts of prowling cabs and felt on their neck the breath of the horse
s. After a few turns, she murmured in the young man’s ear, her head sunk on his breast and all her anger gone:
“After all, you are a pretty fellow, you are. You ought to make them happy, didn’t you? — those girls at Bullier’s.”
“That’s enough, my friend,” cried Labarthe. “Don’t go and get run in. My word, you will avenge the magistracy!”
* * * * *
In the golden light of a September day four months later, the Minister of Justice and Religion, passing with his secretary under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, recognised M. Lespardat, the deputy magistrate of Nantes, at the very moment when the young man was hurrying into the Hôtel du Louvre.
“Labarthe,” asked the minister, “did you know that your protégé was in Paris? Has he then nothing to keep him in Nantes? It seems to me that it is now some time since you have given me any confidential information about him. His start interested me, but I don’t know yet whether he has quite lived up to the high opinion you formed of him.”
Labarthe took up the cudgels for the substitut; he reminded the minister that Lespardat was on regular leave; that at Nantes he had immediately gained the confidence of his chiefs at the bar, and that he had at the same time won the good graces of the préfet.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 124