“Yes, but until then—” sighed Chassons des Aigues, whose pensive eyes gazed anxiously into the vague future.
“Until then,” replied Lacrisse, “we shall canvass the provinces. We have begun already.”
“It would be better to bring things to a head at once,” declared Chassons des Aigues in accents of deep conviction. “We cannot allow this treacherous Government time to disorganize the Army and paralyse the national defence.”
“That is obvious,” said Jacques de Cadde. “Now, follow my reasoning carefully. Our cry is ‘Long live the Army!’”
“Rather!” said young Dellion.
“Let me speak. Our cry is ‘Long live the Army!’ It is our rallying cry. If the Government begins to replace the Nationalist generals by Republicans, we shall no longer be able to shout ‘Long live the Army!’”
“Why?” asked young Dellion.
“Because then we should be shouting ‘Vive la Republique!’ That’s plain enough.”
“There is no fear of that,” said Joseph Lacrisse. “The spirit among the officers is excellent. If the Ministry of Treason succeeds in placing one Republican out of ten in the high command, it will be the end of all things.”
“That will be unpleasant,” said Jacques de Cadde, “for then we shall be forced to cry ‘Hurrah for nine-tenths of the Army!’ And that’s too long for a slogan.”
“Be easy!” said Lacrisse. “When we shout ‘Hurrah for the Army!’ everybody knows that we mean ‘Hurrah for Mercier!’”
Jambe-d’Argent, at the piano, sang:
“Vive le Roi! Vive le Roi!
De nos vieux marins c’est l’usage,
Aucun d’eux ne pensait à soi,
Tout en succombant au naufrage,
Chacun criait avec courage:
Vive le Roi!”
“All the same,” said Chassons des Aigues, “the fourteenth of July is a good day to begin the row. There will be a crowd in the streets, an electrified crowd, returning from the review, and cheering the regiments as they pass! With method, one could do a great deal on that day, we could stir the inarticulate masses.”
“You are wrong,” said Henri Léon. “You don’t understand the psychology of crowds. The good Nationalist returning from the review has a baby in his arms, and is dragging another brat by the hand. His wife is with him, carrying wine, bread and ham in a basket. You try to stir up a man with his two kids and his wife carrying the family lunch! And then, don’t you see, the masses are inspired by very simple associations of ideas. You won’t get them to riot on a holiday. To crowds, the strings of lamps and the Bengal lights suggest cheerful and pacific ideas. They see a square of Chinese lanterns in front of the cafés, and a gallery decked with bunting for the musicians, and all they think about is dancing. If you want to see riots in the streets you must choose the psychological moment.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jacques de Cadde. “Well, you must try to understand,” said Henri Léon.
“Do you think I’m a blockhead?”
“What an idea!”
“You can say it if you think so; you won’t annoy me. I don’t pretend to be an intellectual. Besides, I’ve noticed that the clever men fight against our ideas and beliefs, that they want to destroy all that we cherish. So I should be exceedingly sorry to be what is called a clever man. I’d rather be a fool and think what I think and believe what I believe.”
“And you are quite right,” said Léon. “We have only to remain what we are. And if we are not fools we must behave as if we are. It is folly that succeeds best in this world. The clever men are the fools. They don’t get anywhere.”
“What you say is very true,” cried Jacques de Cadde.
Jambe-d’Argent sang:
“Vive le Roi! ce cri de ralliement
Des vrais Français est le seul qui soit digne.
Vive le Roi! de chaque régiment
Que ces trois mots soient la seule consigne.”
“All the same,” said Chassons des Aigues, “you are wrong, Lacrisse, to reject revolutionary measures; they are the best.”
“Children!” said Henri Léon. “We have only one means of action, one only, but it is certain, powerful and efficacious. It is the Affair. The Affair gave us birth; we Nationalists must not forget that. We have grown and prospered through the Affair. It alone has fed us and feeds us still. Thence comes our food and our drink; thence we derive the staff of our being. If, uprooted from the soil, it withers and dies, we shall languish and fade out of existence.
“We can pretend to uproot it, but in reality we shall cherish it carefully, nourish it and water it. The public is an ass; moreover, it is disposed in our favour. When it sees us digging and scraping and hoeing round the plant it will think we are doing our best to uproot it completely, and it will love and bless us for our zeal. It will never dream that we may be lovingly cultivating it. It has flowered anew in the very middle of the Exhibition, and this simple-minded people does not see that it is our care that has achieved this result.”
Jambe-d’Argent sang:
“Puisqu’ici notre général
Du plaisir nous donn’ le signal,
Mes amis, poussons à la vente;
Si nous voulons bien le r’mercier,
Chantons, soldat, comme officier:
Moi,
Jamigoi!
Je suis soldat du Roi.
J’m’en pique, j’m’en flatte et j’m’en vante.”
“That’s a very pretty song,” murmured the Baronne, with half-closed eyes.
“Yes,” said Jambe-d’Argent, shaking back his rough mane, “it’s called Cadet-Buteux enrégimenté, ou le Soldat du Roi. It’s a little masterpiece. It was a bright idea of mine to unearth some of these old Royalist songs of the Restoration.
“Moi, Jarnigoi!
Je suis soldat du Roi.”
Then, suddenly bringing down his huge hand on the tail-piece of the piano, where he had laid his chaplet and his medals, he exclaimed:
“Nom de Dieu! Lacrisse, don’t touch my rosary. It has been blessed by our Holy Father the Pope!”
“All the same,” said Chassons des Aigues, “we ought to have a manifestation in the streets. The streets are ours, and the people ought to know it. Let’s go to Longchamps on the 14th.”
“I’m on,” said Jacques de Cadde.
“So am I,” cried Dellion.
“Your manifestations are idiotic,” said the little Baron, who until then had been silent. He was rich enough to refrain from belonging to any political party. “Nationalism is beginning to bore me,” he added.
“Ernest!” said the Baronne with the gentle severity of a mother.
“It’s true,” went on Ernest, “your manifestations bore me to death.”
Young Dellion, who owed him money, and Chassons des Aigues, who wanted to borrow some, carefully avoided any direct reply. Chassons tried to smile, as though charmed by his wife, and Dellion half assented.
“I don’t deny it, but what doesn’t bore one to death?”
This inspired Ernest with profound reflections, and after a moment’s silence he said, with a genuine accent of sincerity:
“You are right, everything bores one.” And he continued, thoughtfully:— “Take motor-cars, for instance. They break down iust when you don’t want them to. Not that one minds being late, for all the fun one gets where one is going; but I was hung up five hours the other day between Marville and Boulay. Do you know that part of the country? It is just before you get to Dreux. Not a house, not a tree, not a dip in the ground to be seen; nothing but flat, yellow, open country all round, with a silly-looking sky stuck on top of it all like a bell-glass. One grows old in such localities. Never mind, I’m going to try a different make, seventy kilometres an hour, and runs as smoothly.... Will you come with me, Dellion? I’m starting to-night.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE Trublions,” said Monsieur Bergeret, “fill me with the keenest interest, so it was not without pleasure that I
discovered in the valuable book of Nicole Langelier of Paris a second chapter dealing with these little creatures. Do you remember the first, Monsieur Goubin?”
Monsieur Goubin replied that he knew it by heart.
“I congratulate you,” replied Monsieur Bergeret, “for it is a perfect breviary. I will now read you the second chapter, which you will like as well as the first.”
And the master read as follows:
“Of the hurly-burly and the great din raised by the Trublions and of a beauteous speech which Robin Honeyman made to them.
“In those days the Trublions made a great din in the town, city and university, each one of them smiting with an iron spoon upon a ‘trublio,’ that is to say, an iron pot or saucepan, and making a right tuneful noise. And went about shrieking, ‘Death to traitors and godmothers!’ They likewise hanged upon the walls and in secret places and privy chambers beauteous little scutcheons bearing such devices as ‘Death to the baptized Jews! Buy neither of Jews nor of Lombards! Long life to Tintinnabule P and armed themselves with firearms and swords, for they were of noble lineage. Nevertheless did they receive Martin Baton into their company, and were such excellent good princes withal that they smote with their fists and disdained not the sports of bondsmen.
“And all their converse was of hewing and splitting in twain, and they said in their language and idiom, which was most meet and congruous and corresponsive to their manner of thinking, that it was their purpose to brain the folk, which is properly to draw forth the brain from the brain-pan wherein it doth lie by the order and disposition of nature. And they did always as they had said, always and whenever there was occasion. And being but simple souls they thought themselves to be virtuous men, and that apart from them there were none righteous, but all evil, which was a marvellously clear ordinance, a perfect distinction and a fair order of battle.
“And they had among them many beauteous and most gracious ladies in sumptuous apparel, the which very graciously and without blandishments and wantonness did incite the aforesaid gallant Trublions to belabour, break asunder, overthrow, transpierce and discomfort all who did not trublion.
“Be not amazed but recognize herein the natural inclination of fair ladies to cruelty and violence and the admiration of high courage and warlike valour as was seen aforetime in the ancient histories, in which it is related that the god Mars was beloved of Venus and of goddesses and mortals in great store, and that, contrariwise, Apollo, although a blithesome player upon the viol, received naught but the disdain of nymphs and chamber-maids.
“And there was not held in the city any conventicle nor procession of the Trublions, nor feast nor burying, but that a poor man or twain or more was belaboured by them, and left half or three parts dead, yea, wholly dead upon the road, which is a most marvellous thing. For it was the custom that whenever the Trublions passed by they belaboured that man which did refuse to ‘trublion,’ and afterwards did pitifully bear him upon a bier unto the apothecary, and for this reason or for another were the apothecaries of the city upon the side of the Trublions.
“In these days there was a great fair held at Paris in France, more spacious and greater than were ever the fairs of Aix-la-Chapelle, or Frankfort, or the Lendit, or the great fair of Beaucaire. The said fair of Paris was so copious and abundant in merchandise and works of art and gentle inventions that a worthy man named Comely, who had seen much and was no homestayer, was wont to say that at the sight, practice and contemplation of the same he did lose the care for his eternal salvation and even the desire for meat and drink. The stranger peoples crowded into the city of the Parisians for to take their pleasure withal and to spend their gold. Kings and princes came at will, causing both men and women to wag their heads and say, ‘This is a great honour.’
“As for the merchants, from the greatest to the least, from All-profit to Earn-little, and the men of trades and industries, they understood right well how to sell much merchandise to the strangers which had come to their city for the fair. Journeymen and beggars unfolded their packs, the keepers of eating-houses and ale-houses set out their tables, and the whole city from end to end was in truth an abundant market-place and a joyous refectory.
“It must also be said that the aforesaid merchants, not all, but the greater number, loved the Trublions, whom they admired for their great power of voice and their many antics; yea, there were none, even unto the Jewish merchants and usurers, who did not look upon them with respect and an exceeding humble desire not to be ill-treated of them.
“Thus did the common people and the merchants love the Trublions, but thereto they naturally loved their merchandise and means of livelihood, and were thereby cast into great fear lest by lusty sallies, sudden breaking forth, kicks, blows, noise and trublionage, they should overturn their stalls and booths throughout all the four quarters, gardens and ramparts of the city, and lest the said Trublions, by furious and speedy slaughter, might affright the stranger peoples and cause them to flee the city with their pouches yet full. Truth to tell this danger was not great. The Trublions did utter the most horrible and terrible threats, also they slew the folk in small numbers, one, two, or three at one time, as has been said, and people of the city: never did they attack Englishmen, nor Germans, nor other peoples, but always their own countrymen. They killed in one place, and the city was great, and there they hardly appeared. And it seemed that their love for these crimes did but increase, and likewise their desire to overthrow yet more. It seemed not meet or seemly that, in this great fair of the world and great brotherhood, the Trublions should appear gnashing their teeth, rolling their fiery eyes, clenching their fists, throwing their legs abroad, yelping like mad dogs with horrible howlings, so that the Parisians were in great fear lest the Trublions should perform at an unseasonable time that which they might perform without let or hindrance after the festival and the trading, to wit, the slaughter here and there of a poor devil or so.
“Then began the citizens to say that they must have peace among themselves, and the public order was given forth that there should be peace throughout the city, to which the Trublions hearkened with but one ear and made reply: ‘Yea, but to live without discomforting an enemy or even only a stranger, is that content? If we leave the Jews unbaited we shall not win to Paradise. Are we to fold our arms? God hath said that we must labour that we may live.’ And pondering in their minds the universal feeling and common purpose they were greatly perplexed.
“Then did an ancient Trublion, hight Robin Honeyman, gather together the chiefs of the Trublions, being esteemed, venerated and well-accepted of them, for they knew him to be expert in deception and profuse in cunning ruses and guileful devices. Opening his mouth, which was fashioned like that of some ancient pike-fish the which hath lost some teeth but hath yet teeth enough to bite the little fishes, he said very sweetly:
“‘Hearken, friends! Give ear, all! We be honest folk and good fellows, we be not mad. We ask for peace, we desire peace. Peace is sweet, peace is a precious ointment; peace is an electuary of Hippocrates, an Apollonian dittany. It is a fair medicinal infusion, it is flower of the lime, mallow and marshmallow. It is sugar and honey. Honey say I? Am I not Robin Honeyman? I do feed on honey. Let the golden age return and I will e’en lick the honey from the trunks of the ancient oak-trees. I speak sooth. I desire peace; ye desire peace.’ “Hearing such words from Robin Honeyman, then did the Trublions begin to make churlish grimaces and whispered among themselves: ‘Is this Robin Honeyman our friend that speaketh in this wise? He loves us no longer, he would deal treacherously with us. He seeketh to do us a hurt; or maybe his wits have gone wool-gathering.’ And the most trublioniacal among them said:— ‘What saith this old wheezer? Doth he think we shall put away our staves, cudgels, hammers, and mallets and the beauteous little fire-sticks in our pockets? What are we in time of peace? Naught. We are worth nothing but by reason of the blows we deal. Would he have us smite no more? Would he have us trublion no more?’ And a great clamour and murmuring arose i
n the assembly, and the council chamber of the Trublions was an angry sea.
“Then did the good Robin Honeyman spread forth his little yellow hands above the wagging heads, like unto a Neptune calming the tempest, and when he had restored the Trublion ocean to its serene and tranquil estate, or well-nigh so, he spoke most courteously:
“‘I am your friend, my sweetings, and your good counsellor. Hearken what I would say before ye wax angry. When I say we wish for peace it is plain that I speak of the pacification of our enemies, adversaries, and all contentious persons who think, speak and act contrariwise unto us. It is visible and apparent that I mean the pacification of all save ourselves; of the police and magistrates opposed to us. Pacification of the civil officers of the peace invested with the power and office to impeach, restrain, repress and contain Trublionage. Pacification of that justice and law by which we be menaced. We desire that these be plunged into a profound and deadly peace. We desire for all that are not Trublions the gulf and abyss of pacification and deadly repose. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine. This is our desire. We do not demand our own pacification. We are not pacified. When we sing Requiescat, is it for ourselves? We do not desire to sleep. When we are dead it is for a long time. Nos qui vivimus, we bestow peace on others, not in this world but in the next; this is the more certain. I desire peace. Am I then a simple fellow? Know yc not Robin Honeyman? My sweetings, I carry more than one trick in my juggler’s pocket. My lambkins, are you then less wary than the urchins and schoolboys that sport together, who, playing together, when the one desireth to gain the advantage over the other, straightway he crieth “Pax!” which is truce and suspension of hostilities, and having thus deprived him of all defiance and defence he doth easily defeat him and leave him abashed.
“Thus do! Robin Honeyman, King’s Attorney. When as doth often hap I have quiet and cunning enemies in the council chamber, I speak to them in this wise:— “Peace, peace, peace, gentlemen! Pax vobiscum!” and very softly slip a pot of gunpowder and old nails beneath the bench whereon they sit, with a fair wick of which I hold the end. Then, while I feign a peaceful sleep, I light the wick at a seasonable moment, and if they do not all leap into the air the fault is none of my making. Doubtless the powder was discovered, and I await the next good occasion.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 181