Frémont, who had already been refused on several occasions, persisted:
“You, madame, who possess such beautiful things and are so worthy of possessing them, show yourself to be what you are, liberal, generous and patriotic, for patriotism also is involved in this matter. Send to the Petit Palais your Riesener cabinet decorated with Sèvres in pâte tendre. With such a treasure you need fear no rival, for its equal is only to be found in England. We will put upon it your porcelain vases, which belonged to the Grand Dauphin, those two marvellous sea-green vases mounted in bronze by Caffieri. It will be dazzling!”
The Comte Davant interrupted him:
“The mounts,” he said in a tone of melancholy wisdom, “are not by Philippe Caffieri. They are marked with a ‘C’ surmounted by a lily. That is Cressent’s mark. You may not know it, but you cannot deny it.”
“Madame, display your magnificence! Add to this your tapestry by Leprince, La Fiancée moscovite, and you will deserve the gratitude of the whole nation.”
She was ready to give way. But before consenting she questioned Lacrisse with a look. He said:
“Lend them your eighteenth-century stuff, as they have none.”
Then, out of deference to the Comte Davant, she asked him what she should do. He replied:
“Do as you like. I have no advice to give you. It will be all the same whether you send or do not send your things to the Exhibition. Rien ne fait rien, as my old friend Théophile Gautier used to say.”
“That’s done!” thought Frémont. “I’ll go presently and tell the Ministry that I’ve managed to secure the Bonmont collection. It’s well worth the rosette.”
And he smiled to himself. He was no fool, but he did not despise social distinctions, and it struck him as piquant that a man who had been imprisoned as a Communard should be made an officer of the Legion of Honour.
“I must go,” said Lacrisse. “I’ve got to prepare the speech for the banquet of the Grandes-Écuries next Sunday.”
“Oh,” sighed the Baronne, “I shouldn’t trouble to do that. It’s not necessary, you extemporize so wonderfully.”
“Besides, my dear fellow,” said Jacques de Cadde, “it’s not a difficult matter to address electors.”
“Not difficult exactly,” said the chosen candidate, “but delicate. Our enemies complain that we have no programme. That is not true, we have a programme, but—”
“Pheasant shooting, that’s the programme, messieurs,” said Jambe-d’Argent.
“But the elector,” continued Joseph Lacrisse, “is of a more complex nature than one would at first suppose. For instance, I’ve been elected to the Grandes-Écuries by the Monarchists, of course, and by the Bonapartists, and also by the — what shall I call them? — by the Republicans who are sick of the Republic but who still remain Republicans. That is a state of mind not infrequently met with in Paris among the small tradespeople. Thus the pork-butcher who presides over my Committee shouts in my face: ‘I’ve done with the Republic of the Republicans. If I could, I’d blow it up, even if I had to blow up with it; but for your Republic, Monsieur Lacrisse, I would lay down my life for it.’ Doubtless there are points on which we all agree. For instance: ‘Rally round the flag.’
‘No attacks on the Army!’
‘Down with the traitors in the pay of the foreigner who work to the undoing of our national defence!’ There we are on common ground.”
“Then there is also anti-Semitism,” said Henri Léon.
“Anti-Semitism,” replied Joseph Lacrisse, “is very popular in the Grandes-Écuries because there are so many rich Jews in the ward who are on our side.”
“And the anti-masonic campaign!” cried Jacques de Cadde, who was religious.
“All of us in the Grandes-Écuries are agreed to fight the Freemasons,” replied Joseph Lacrisse. “The church-goers reproach them for not being Catholics. The Nationalist Socialists reproach them for not being anti-Semites, and all our meetings adjourn to the cry of ‘Down with the Freemasons!’ to which Citizen Bissolo yells: ‘Down with the Cassocks!’ Immediately he is knocked on the head, thrown down, trampled upon by our friends and dragged off to the police-station by the police. The spirit of the Grandes-Écuries is excellent, but there are false ideas which we shall have to eliminate. The small shopkeeper does not yet understand that the Monarchy alone will bring him any happiness. He does not yet feel that in bowing to the will of the Church he increases his own stature. The shopkeeper’s mind has been poisoned by bad books and bad newspapers. He is against the abuses of the clergy and the intrusion of priests into politics. Many of my electors call themselves anti-clerical.”
“Really?” cried Madame de Bonmont, saddened and surprised.
“Madame,” said Jacques de Cadde, “it is the same in the provinces. And I call that being against religion. Anti-clericalism spells anti-religion.”
“We must not attempt to disguise the fact,”
Lacrisse continued. “We have still a great deal to do. And how? This is what we have to find out.”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Jacques de Cadde, “I am in favour of violent measures.”
“What measures?” asked Henri Léon.
There was a moment’s silence, and Henri Léon continued:
“We have had prodigious successes — but so had Boulanger, and he wore himself out.”
“He was worn out,” said Lacrisse. “But we need not fear that we shall be worn out in the same way. The Republicans, who put up a very good defence against him, are defending themselves very badly against us.”
“Besides,” said Léon, “it is not our enemies that I fear; it’s our friends. We have friends in the Chamber. And what are they doing? They haven’t even provided us with a nice little ministerial crisis complicated by a nice little presidential crisis.”
“That would have been desirable,” said Lacrisse, “but it wasn’t possible. If it had been possible Méline would have done it. We must be just. Méline does what he can.”
“Then,” said Léon, “we must wait patiently until the Republicans of the Senate and the Chamber make way for us. Is that your opinion, Lacrisse?”
“Ah,” sighed Jacques de Cadde, “I regret the days when we cracked one another’s heads. Those were the good old days.”
“They may return,” said Henri Léon.
“Do you think they will?”
“Yes, by Jove, if we bring them back!”
“True!”
“We have numbers on our side, as General Mercier said. Let us act.”
“Hurrah for Mercier!” cried Jambe-d’Argent. “Let us act,” repeated Henri Léon. “And let us lose no time about it. And, above all, let us be careful not to allow ourselves to get cold feet. Nationalism must be swallowed hot. As long as it is boiling it’s a cordial. Cold, it’s a drug.”
“What do you mean — a drug?” demanded Lacrisse severely.
“A salutary drug, an efficacious remedy, a good medicine, but one that the patient will not swallow willingly nor with pleasure. We must not let the mixture settle. Shake the bottle before pouring out the dose, according to the precept of the wise chemist. At the present moment our Nationalist mixture, which has been well shaken, is of a beautiful pink colour, pleasant to look upon and of a slightly acid flavour which pleases the palate. If we let the bottle rest, the mixture will lose much of its colour and flavour. A sediment will form. The best will go to the bottom. The monarchical and clerical ingredients which enter into its composition will stick to the bottom, and the wily patient will leave three-quarters of it in the bottle. Shake it up, gentlemen, shake it up.”
“What did I tell you?” cried young Cadde.
“It is easy to say ‘shake it up,’ but it must be done at the right time, otherwise you run the risk of upsetting the electors,” objected Lacrisse.
“Oh,” said Léon, “of course, if you are thinking of your re-election!”
“Who said I was thinking of it? I’m not!”
“You
are right, one mustn’t meet trouble so much more than half-way.”
“What? Trouble? You think my electors will change their minds?”
“On the contrary, I fear they will not. They were discontented and they have elected you. They will be discontented again in four years’ time, and then it will be with you. Would you like a word of advice, Lacrisse?”
“Go on.”
“You were elected by two thousand votes.”
“Two thousand three hundred and nine.”
“Two thousand three hundred and nine. You cannot please two thousand three hundred and nine people. But you mustn’t think only of the quantity, you must think of the quality too. You have among your electors a fair number of anti-clerical Republicans, small shopkeepers and clerks. They are not the most intelligent.”
Lacrisse, who had become an earnest person, replied slowly and thoughtfully:
“I will explain. They are Republicans, but, above all, they are patriots. They voted for a patriot whose ideas did not coincide with theirs, who did not think as they did on matters which they thought of secondary importance. Their conduct is perfectly honourable and I suppose you do not hesitate to approve of it.”
“Certainly I approve of it, but, between ourselves, we may confess that they are not particularly bright.”
“Not very bright!” replied Lacrisse bitterly. “Not very bright! I will not say that they are as bright as—” He searched his brain for the name of a brilliant man, but either he could not find one among his friends or his ungrateful memory refused the name he sought, or perhaps a natural malevolence caused him to reject each name that came into his mind. He did not finish his sentence, remarking rather crossly, “Anyway, I can’t see what’s the good of railing at them.”
“I’m not railing at them. I only say they are less intelligent than your Monarchist and Catholic electors who worked for you with the good Fathers. Well, your interest as well as your duty is to work for them, first of all because they think as you do, and also because you don’t hoodwink the good Fathers, while one does hoodwink fools.”
“That’s a mistake, a profound mistake!” cried Joseph Lacrisse. “Anyone can see, my dear fellow, that you don’t know the electors. But I know them! Fools are not more easily hoodwinked than others. They delude themselves, it’s true, and they delude themselves at every moment; but one doesn’t hoodwink them.”
“Yes, yes, one does, only one must know how to set about it.”
“Don’t you believe it!” replied Lacrisse, with sincerity. Then, on second thoughts, “Anyhow, I don’t want to hoodwink them.”
“Who’s asking you to? You must satisfy them. And you can do that easily enough. You don’t see enough of Father Adéodat. He’s a good adviser, and so moderate! He will tell you, with his shrewd smile, his hands tucked into his sleeves, ‘Keep your majority. Content them. We shall not take offence at an occasional vote on the indefeasibility of the rights of man and the citizen, or even against the clergy thrusting themselves into the Government. At public meetings think of your Republican electors, and think of us in the Committees. It is there, in peace and silence, that good work is done. That the greater part of the Council occasionally shows itself to be anti-clerical is an evil that we can bear with patience. But it is important that the large Committees should be profoundly religious. They will be more powerful than the Council itself; because an active compact minority is always worth more than a lifeless, confused majority.”
“That, my dear Lacrisse, is what Father Adéodat will tell you. He is admirably patient and serene. When our friends come and tell him with a shudder: ‘Oh, Father, what fresh abominations the Freemasons are preparing! Compulsory University training for office; Article 7; the law relating to associations! Horrible!’ — the good Father smiles and says nothing. He says nothing, but this is what he thinks: ‘We’ve been through worse than this. We went through’89 and’93, the suppression of religious communities and the sale of Church property. And does anyone imagine that in former days, under the most Christian Monarchy, we kept or increased our property without effort or struggle? If so, they know very little of French history. Our rich abbeys, our towns and villages, our serfs, our meadows and mills, our woods and our ponds, our justice and our jurisdiction — powerful enemies, lords, bishops and kings were incessantly striving to dispossess us of them. We had to defend by force or before the courts a field or a road one day, the next a castle or a gibbet. To preserve our riches from the cupidity of secular power we had continually to produce those ancient charters of Clotaire and Dagobert, which the impious knowledge taught in the Government schools to-day calls forgeries. We pleaded for ten centuries against the king’s servants. We have only been pleading thirty years against the justice of the Republic. And the people think we are growing weary! No, we are neither frightened nor discouraged. We have money and property. It is the inheritance of the poor. To keep and multiply it we count on two aids that will not fail us: the protection of God and the impotence of Parliament.”
“Such are the thoughts which take shape beneath the shining pate of Father Adéodat. Lacrisse, you were Father Adéodat’s candidate; you are his chosen one. Go and see him. He is a great politician and will give you good advice. He will teach you how to satisfy the pork-butcher who is a Republican and how to charm the umbrella-maker who is a Freethinker. Go and see Father Adéodat, see him again and again.”
“I have spoken with him several times,” said Lacrisse. “He is certainly very clever. These good Fathers have grown rich with surprising rapidity. They do a great deal of good in the ward.”
“A great deal of good,” repeated Henri Léon. “The whole of the enormous quadrilateral between the Rue des Grandes-Écuries, the riding-school Baron Golsberg’s hôtel and the outer boulevard belongs to them. They are working patiently at a gigantic scheme. They have undertaken to erect, in the heart of Paris, in your ward, my dear fellow, another Lourdes, an immense basilica which will draw millions of pilgrims yearly. In the meanwhile they are covering their huge holdings with house-property.”
“I know that,” said Lacrisse.
“I know it too,” put in Frémont. “I know their architect, a man called Florimond, an extraordinary fellow. You know the good Fathers are organizing pilgrimages in France and abroad. Florimond, with his long hair and flowing beard, accompanies the pilgrims on their visits to the cathedrals. He’s got the head of a master-mason of the thirteenth century. He gazes at the spires and belfries with ecstatic eyes. He explains arches in tierce-point and Christian symbolism to the ladies. He shows them Mary, the flower of the tree of Jesse, at the heart of the great rose windows. Tearfully, with sighs and prayers, he calculates the resistance of the walls. At the table d’hôte, where monks and pilgrims sit together, his face and hands, still grey with the dust of the old stones which he has embraced, bear witness to the faith of the Catholic artisan. He tells them his dream: ‘That I, a humble workman, may bring my stone to the building of the new sanctuary that will last as long as the world.’ Then he goes back to Paris and builds mean houses, tenement houses, with bad mortar and hollow bricks laid on edge, miserable buildings that won’t last twenty years.”
“But,” said Léon, “they are not required to last twenty years. They are the houses of the Grandes-Écuries of which I was speaking just now, and will one day give place to the great basilica of St. Anthony and its dependencies, a whole religious city that will spring up in the next fifteen years. Before fifteen years have elapsed the good Fathers will own the whole quarter of Paris that has elected our friend Lacrisse.”
Madame de Bonmont rose, taking the Comte Davant’s arm.
“You understand, I don’t like parting with my things. Articles loaned run risks. It makes one so anxious. But if it is in the national interest — the country before all. You and Monsieur Frémont will choose what should be exhibited.”
“All the same,” said Jacques de Cadde, as they left the table, “you are wrong, Dellion, not to try Fath
er François’ expedient.”
Coffee was served in the small drawing-room.
Jambe-d’Argent, the Chouan singer, sat down at the piano. He had just added to his repertoire a few Royalist songs dating from the Restoration, which he thought would make a hit in fashionable drawing-rooms.
He sang to the tune of La Sentinelle:
“Au champ d’honneur frappé d’un coup mortel,
Le preux Bayard, dans l’ardeur qui l’enflamme,
Fier de périr pour le sol paternel,
Avec ivresse exhalait sa grande âme:
Ah! sans regret je puis mourir,
Mon sort, dit-il, sera digne d’envie,
Puisque jusqu’au dernier soupir,
Sans reproche j’ai pu servir
Mon roi, ma belle et ma patrie.”
Chassons des Aigues, the President of the Nationalist Committee of Action, went up to Joseph Lacrisse.
“Come now, my dear Councillor, are we really doing anything on the fourteenth of July?”
“The Council,” replied Lacrisse gravely, “cannot organize any demonstration of opinion. That is not within its province, but if spontaneous demonstrations occur—”
“Time passes and the danger increases,” replied Chassons des Aigues, who was expecting to be expelled from his Club, and against whom a charge of swindling had been lodged with a magistrate. “We must act.”
“Don’t get excited,” said Lacrisse. “We have the men and we have the money.”
“We have the money,” repeated Chassons des Aigues thoughtfully. —
“With men and money one wins elections,” continued Lacrisse. “In twenty months we come into power, and we shall remain in power for twenty years.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 180