Chapter IV: Part I: The Election (4)

After they had made a few turns, Simon Giguet came up and joined them saying to the sub-prefect with a mysterious air:--

“You ought to be faithful to an old comrade who wishes to get you the rosette of an officer and a prefecture.”

“You are beginning your political career betimes,” said Antonin, laughing. “You are trying to corrupt me, rapid puritan!”

“Will you support me?”

“My dear fellow, you know very well that Bar-sur-Aube votes here. Who can guarantee a majority under such circumstances? My colleague of Bar-sur-Aube would complain of me if I did not unite my efforts with his in support of the government. Your promise is conditional; whereas my dismissal would be certain.”

“But I have no competitors.”

“You think so,” said Antonin, “but some one is sure to turn up; you may rely on that.”

“Why doesn’t my aunt come, when she knows I am on a gridiron!” exclaimed Giguet, suddenly. “These three hours are like three years!”

His secret had escaped him and he now admitted to his friend that Madame Marion had gone on his behalf to old Grevin with a formal proposal for Cecile’s hand.

The pair had now reached the Brienne road opposite to the Mulet hostelry. While the lawyer looked down the street towards the bridge his aunt would have to cross, the sub-prefect examined the gullies made by the rain in the open square. Arcis is not paved. The plains of Champagne furnish no material fit for building, nor even pebbles large enough for cobble-stone pavements. One or two streets and a few detached places are imperfectly macadamized and that is saying enough to describe their condition after a rain. The sub-prefect gave himself an appearance of occupation by apparently exercising his thoughts on this important object; but he lost not a single expression of suffering on the anxious face of his companion.

At this moment, the stranger was returning from the Chateau de Cinq-Cygne, where he had apparently passed the night. Goulard resolved to clear up, himself, the mystery wrapped about the Unknown, who was physically enveloped in an overcoat of thick cloth called a _paletot_, then the fashion. A mantle, thrown across his knees for a covering, hid the lower half of his body, while an enormous muffler of red cashmere covered his neck and head to the eyes. His hat, jauntily tipped to one side, was, nevertheless, not ridiculous. Never was a mystery more mysteriously bundled up and swathed.

“Look out!” cried the tiger, who preceded the tilbury on horseback. “Open, papa Poupart, open!” he screamed in his shrill little voice.

The three servants of the inn ran out, and the tilbury drove in without any one being able to see a single feature of the stranger’s face. The sub-prefect followed the tilbury into the courtyard, and went to the door of the inn.

“Madame Poupart,” said Antonin, “will you ask Monsieur--Monsieur--”

“I don’t know his name,” said Gothard’s sister.

“You do wrong! The rules of the police are strict, and Monsieur Groslier doesn’t trifle, like some commissaries of police.”

“Innkeepers are never to blame about election-time,” remarked the little tiger, getting off his horse.

“I’ll repeat that to Vinet,” thought the sub-prefect. “Go and ask your master if he can receive the sub-prefect of Arcis.”

Presently Paradise returned.

“Monsieur begs Monsieur the sub-prefect to come up; he will be delighted to see him.”

“My lad,” said Olivier Vinet, who with the two other functionaries had joined the sub-prefect before the inn, “how much does your master give a year for a boy of your cut and wits?”

“Give, monsieur! What do you take me for? Monsieur le comte lets himself be milked, and I’m content.”

“That boy was raised in a good school!” said Frederic Marest.

“The highest school, monsieur,” said the urchin, amazing the four friends with his perfect self-possession.

“What a Figaro!” cried Vinet.

“Mustn’t lower one’s price,” said the infant. “My master calls me a little Robert-Macaire, and since we have learned how to invest our money we are Figaro, plus a savings bank.”

“How much do you earn?”

“Oh! some races I make two or three thousand francs--and without selling my master, monsieur.”

“Sublime infant!” said Vinet; “he knows the turf.”

“Yes, and all gentlemen riders,” said the child, sticking out his tongue at Vinet.

Antonin Goulard, ushered by the landlord into a room which had been turned into a salon, felt himself instantly under the focus of an eyeglass held in the most impertinent manner by the stranger.

“Monsieur,” said the sub-prefect with a certain official hauteur, “I have just learned from the wife of the innkeeper that you refuse to conform to the ordinances of the police, and as I do not doubt that you are a person of distinction, I have come myself--”

“Is your name Goulard?” demanded the stranger in a high voice.

“I am the sub-prefect, monsieur,” replied Antonin Goulard.

“Your father belonged to the Simeuse family?”

“And I, monsieur, belong to the government; that is how times differ.”

“You have a servant named Julien, who has tried to entice the Princesse de Cadignan’s maid away from her?”

“Monsieur, I do not allow any one to speak to me in this manner,” said Goulard; “you misunderstand my character.”

“And you want to know about mine!” returned the Unknown. “Well, I will now make myself known. You can write in the landlord’s book: ‘Impertinent fellow. Direct from Paris. Age doubtful. Travelling for pleasure.’ It would be rather a novelty in France to imitate England and let people come and go as they please, without tormenting them at every turn for ‘papers.’ I have no passport; now, what will you do to me?”

“The _procureur-du-roi_ is walking up and down there under the lindens,” said the sub-prefect.

“Monsieur Marest! Wish him good-morning from me.”

“But who are you?”

“Whatever you wish me to be, my dear Monsieur Goulard,” said the stranger. “You alone shall decide _what_ I am to be in this department. Give me some advice on that head. Here, read that.”

And the stranger handed the sub-prefect the following letter:--

(Confidential.) Prefecture of the Aube.

Monsieur the Sub-prefect,--You will consult with the bearer of
this letter as to the election at Arcis, and you will conform to
all the suggestions and requests he may make to you. I request you
to conduct this matter with the utmost discretion, and to treat
the bearer with all the respect that is due to his station.

The letter was written and signed by the prefect of the Aube.

“You have been talking prose without knowing it,” said the Unknown, taking back the letter.

Antonin Goulard, already struck with the aristocratic tone and manners of this personage, became respectful.

“How was that, monsieur?” he asked.

“By endeavoring to entice Anicette. She told us of the attempts of your man Julien to corrupt her. But my little tiger, Paradise, got the better of him, and he ended by admitting that you wanted to put Anicette into the service of one of the richest families in Arcis. Now, as the richest family in Arcis is the Beauvisage family I make no doubt it is Mademoiselle Cecile who covets this treasure.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Very good; then Anicette shall enter the Beauvisage household at once.”

He whistled. Paradise presented himself so rapidly that his master said: “You were listening!”

“In spite of myself, Monsieur le comte; these partitions are nothing but paper. But if Monsieur le comte prefers, I will move upstairs.”

“No, you can listen; it is your perquisite. It is for me to speak low when I don’t want you to know my affairs. Go back to Cinq-Cygne, and give this gold piece to that little Anicette from me. Julien shall have the credit of enticing her away,” he continued, addressing Goulard. “That bit of gold will inform her that she is to follow him. Anicette may be useful to the success of our candidate.”

“Anicette?”

“Monsieur, it is now thirty-two years since lady’s-maids have served my purposes. I had my first adventure at the age of thirteen, like the regent, the great-great-grandfather of our present King. Do you know the fortune of this Mademoiselle Beauvisage?”

“I can’t help knowing it, monsieur, for yesterday at Madame Marion’s, Madame Beauvisage said openly that Monsieur Grevin, Cecile’s grandfather, would give his granddaughter the hotel de Beauseant in Paris and two hundred thousand francs for a wedding present.”

The stranger’s eyes expressed no surprise. He seemed to consider the fortune rather paltry.

“Do you know Arcis well?” he asked of Goulard.

“I am the sub-prefect and I was born here.”

“What is the best way to balk curiosity?”

“By satisfying it. For instance, Monsieur le Comte has a baptismal name; let him register that with the title of count.”

“Very good; Comte Maxime.”

“And if monsieur will assume the position of a railway official, Arcis will be content; it will amuse itself by floating that stick at least for a fortnight.”

“No, I prefer to be concerned in irrigation; it is less common. I have come down to survey the wastelands of Champagne in order to reclaim them. That will be, my good Monsieur Goulard, a reason for inviting me to dine with you to-morrow to meet the mayor and his family; I wish to see them, and study them.”

“I shall be only to happy to receive you,” said the sub-prefect; “but I must ask your indulgence for the deficiencies of my little household.”

“If I succeed in managing the election of Arcis according to the wishes of those who have sent me here, you, my dear friend, will be made a prefect. Here, read these”; and he held out two letters to his visitor.

“Very good, Monsieur le comte,” said Antonin, returning them.

“Make a list of all the votes on which the ministry may count. Above all, let no one suspect that you and I understand each other. I am a speculator in land, and I don’t care a fig for elections.”

“I will send the commissary of police to force you to inscribe your name on Poupart’s register.”

“So do. Adieu, monsieur. Heavens! what a region this is,” said the count, in a loud voice; “one can’t take a step without having the community, sub-prefect and all, on one’s back.”

“You will have to answer to the commissary of police, monsieur,” said Antonin, in an equally loud tone.

And for the next twenty minutes Madame Mollot talked of the altercation that took place between the sub-prefect and the stranger.

“Well, what wood is the beam that has plumped into our bog made of?” said Olivier Vinet when Antonin Goulard rejoined them on leaving the Mulet.

“He is a Comte Maxime who is here to study the geological system of Champagne, with a view to finding mineral waters,” replied the sub-prefect, with an easy manner.

“Say a speculator,” said Oliver.

“Does he expect to get the natives to lay out capital?” asked Monsieur Martener.

“I doubt if our royalists will go into that kind of mining,” remarked Vinet, laughing.

“What should you think from the air and gestures of Madame Marion?” said the sub-prefect turning off the subject by pointing to Madame Marion and Simon, who were deep in conversation.

Simon had gone toward the bridge to meet his aunt, and was now walking with her up the square.

“If he was accepted one word would suffice,” said the shrewd Olivier.

“Well?” said all the officials when Simon came to them under the lindens.

“My aunt thinks the matter very hopeful,” replied Simon. “Madame Beauvisage and old Grevin, who has just gone to Gondreville, were not at all surprised at my proposals; they talked of our respective fortunes, and said they wished to leave Cecile perfectly free to make her choice. Besides which, Madame Beauvisage said that, as for herself, she saw no objection to an alliance by which she should feel herself honored; although she postponed all answer until after my election, and possibly my first appearance in the Chamber. Old Grevin said he should consult the Comte de Gondreville, without whose advice he never took any important step.”

“All of which means,” said Goulard, point-blank, “that you will never marry Cecile, my old fellow.”

“Why not?” said Giguet, ironically.

“My dear friend, Madame Beauvisage and her daughter spend four evenings every week in the salon of your aunt; your aunt is the most distinguished woman in Arcis; and she is, though twenty years the elder, an object of envy to Madame Beauvisage; don’t you see, therefore, that they wished to wrap up their refusal in certain civilities?”

“Not to say entire yes or no in such cases,” said Vinet, “is to say _no_, with due regard to the intimacy of the two families. Though Madame Beauvisage has the largest fortune in Arcis, Madame Marion is the most esteemed woman in the place; for, with the exception of our chief-justice’s wife, who sees no one now, she is the only woman who knows how to hold a salon; she is the queen of Arcis. Madame Beauvisage has tried to make her refusal polite, that’s all.”

“I think that old Grevin was fooling your mother,” said Frederic Marest.

“Yesterday you attacked the Comte de Gondreville, you insulted and grievously affronted him, and he is to be consulted about your marriage to Cecile!”

“Pere Grevin is a sly old dog,” said Vinet.

“Madame Beauvisage is very ambitious,” pursued Antonin Goulard. “She knows very well her daughter is to have two millions; she means to be mother-in-law of a minister, or an ambassador, in order to play the great lady in Paris.”

“Well, why not?” said Simon Giguet.

“I wish you may get it!” replied the sub-prefect looking at Vinet, with whom he went off into a hearty laugh as soon as they were out of hearing. “He won’t even be deputy,” added Antonin, addressing Vinet; “the ministry have other views. You will find a letter from your father when you get home, enjoining you to make sure of the votes of all the persons in your department, and see that they go for the ministerial candidate. Your own promotion depends on this; and he requests you to be very discreet.”

“But who is the candidate for whom our ushers and sheriffs and clerks, and solicitors and notaries are to vote?” asked Vinet.

“The one I shall name to you.”

“How do you know my father has written to me, and what he wrote?”

“The stranger told me--”

“The man after water?”

“My dear Vinet, you and I are not to know; we must treat him as a stranger. He saw your father at Provins as he came through. Just now this same man gave me a note from the prefect instructing me to follow in every particular the instructions of Comte Maxime about this election. I knew very well I should have a battle to fight! Come and dine somewhere and we will get out our batteries. You are to be _procureur-du-roi_ at Mantes, and I am to be prefect; but we must _seem_ to have nothing to do with the election, for don’t you see, we are between the hammer and the anvil. Simon is the candidate of a party which wants to overturn the present ministry and may succeed; but for men as intelligent as you and I there is but one course to take.”

“What is that?”

“To serve those who make and unmake ministers. A letter was shown to me from one of those personages who represent the stable and immovable thought of the State.”

Before going farther, it is necessary to explain who this Unknown person was, and what his purpose was in coming to Champagne.

XII. THE SALON OF MADAME D’ESPARD

About two months before the nomination of Simon Giguet, at eleven o’clock one evening, in a mansion of the faubourg Saint-Honore belonging to the Marquise d’Espard, while tea was being served the Chevalier d’Espard, brother-in-law to the marquise, put down his tea-cup, and, looking round the circle, remarked:--

“Maxime was very melancholy to-night,--didn’t you think so?”

“Yes,” replied Rastignac, “but his sadness is easily accounted for. He is forty-eight years old; at that age a man makes no new friends, and now that we have buried de Marsay, Maxime has lost the only man capable of understanding him, of being useful to him, and of using him.”

“He probably has pressing debts. Couldn’t you put him in the way of paying them?” said the marquise to Rastignac.

At this period Rastignac was, for the second time, in the ministry; he had just been made count almost against his will. His father-in-law, the Baron de Nucingen, was peer of France, his younger brother a bishop, the Comte de Roche-Hugon, his brother-in-law, was an ambassador, and he himself was thought to be indispensable in all future combinations of the ministry.

“You always forget, my dear marquise,” replied Rastignac, “that our government exchanges its silver for gold only; it pays no heed to men.”

“Is Maxime a man who would blow out his brains?” inquired the banker du Tillet.

“Ha! you wish I were; we should be quits then,” said Comte Maxime de Trailles, whom everybody supposed to have left the house.

The count rose suddenly, like an apparition, from the depths of an arm-chair placed exactly behind that of the Chevalier d’Espard.

Every one present laughed.

“Will you have a cup of tea?” said the young Comtesse de Rastignac, whom the marquise had asked to do the honors in her place.

“Gladly,” replied the count, standing before the fireplace.

This man, the prince of fashionable scoundrels, had managed to maintain himself until now in the high and mighty position of a dandy in Paris, then called _Gants Jaunes_ (lemon-kid-glovers), and since, “lions.” It is useless to relate the history of his youth, full of questionable adventures, with now and then some horrible drama, in which he had always known how to save appearances. To this man women were never anything else than a means; he believed no more in their griefs than he did in their joys; he regarded them, like the late de Marsay, as naughty children. After squandering his own fortune, he had spent that of a famous courtesan, La Belle Hollandaise, the mother of Esther Gobseck. He had caused the misery of Madame Restaud, sister of Madame Delphine de Nucingen, the mother of the young Comtesse de Rastignac.

The world of Paris offers many unimaginable situations. The Baronne de Nucingen was at this moment in Madame d’Espard’s salon in presence of the author of all her sister’s misery, in presence of a murderer who killed only the happiness of women. That, perhaps, was the reason why he was there. Madame de Nucingen had dined at Madame d’Espard’s with her daughter, married a few months earlier to the Comte de Rastignac, who had begun his political career by occupying the post of under-secretary of state in the famous ministry of the late de Marsay, the only real statesman produced by the Revolution of July.

Comte Maxime de Trailles alone knew how many disasters he had caused; but he had always taken care to shelter himself from blame by scrupulously obeying the laws of the Man-Code. Though he had squandered in the course of his life more money than the four galleys of France could have stolen in the same time, he had kept clear of justice. Never had he lacked in honor; his gambling debts were paid scrupulously. An admirable player, his partners were chiefly the great seigneurs, ministers, and ambassadors. He dined habitually with all the members of the diplomatic body. He fought duels, and had killed two or three men in his life; in fact, he had half murdered them, for his coolness and self-possession were unparalleled. No young man could compare with him in dress, in the distinction of his manners, the elegance of his witty speech, the grace of his easy carriage,--in short, what was called in those days “the grand air.” In his capacity of page to the Emperor, trained from the age of twelve in the art of riding, he was held to be the skilfulest of horsemen. Having always fine horses in his stable, he raised some, and ruled the fashion in equestrianism. No man could stand a supper of young bloods better than he; he drank more than the best-trained toper, but he came out fresh and cool, and ready to begin again as if orgy were his element. Maxime, one of those despised men who know how to repress the contempt they inspire by the insolence of their attitude and the fear they cause, never deceived himself as to his actual position. Hence his real strength. Strong men are always their own critics.

Under the Restoration he had made the most of his former condition of page to the Emperor. He attributed to his pretended Bonapartist opinions the rebuffs he met with from the different ministers when he asked for an office under the Bourbons; for, in spite of his connections, his birth, and his dangerous aptitudes, he never obtained anything. After the failure of these attempts he entered the secret cabal which led in time to the fall of the Elder branch.

When the Younger branch, preceded by the Parisian populace, had trodden down the Elder branch and was seated on the throne, Maxime reproduced his attachment to Napoleon, for whom he cared as much as for his first love. He then did great services to the newcomers, who soon found the payment for them onerous; for Maxime too often demanded payment of men who knew how to reckon those services. At the first refusal, Maxime assumed at once an attitude of hostility, threatening to reveal unpleasant details; for budding dynasties, like infants, have much soiled linen. De Marsay, during his ministry, repaired the mistake of his predecessors, who had ignored the utility of this man. He gave him those secret missions which require a conscience made malleable by the hammer of necessity, an adroitness which recoils before no methods, impudence, and, above all, the self-possession, the coolness, the embracing glance which constitute the hired _bravi_ of thought and statesmanship. Such instruments are both rare and necessary.

As a matter of calculation, de Marsay maintained Comte Maxime de Trailles in the highest society; he described him as a man ripened by passions, taught by experience, who knew men and things, to whom travel and a certain faculty for observation had imparted an understanding of European interests, of foreign cabinets, and of all the ramifications of the great continental families. De Marsay convinced Maxime of the necessity of doing himself credit; he taught him discretion, less as a virtue than a speculation; he proved to him that the governing powers would never abandon a solid, safe, elegant, and polished instrument.

“In politics,” he said, blaming Maxime for having uttered a threat, “we should never _blackmail_ but once.”

Maxime was a man who could sound the depths of that saying.

De Marsay dead, Comte Maxime de Trailles had fallen back into his former state of existence. He went to the baths every year and gambled; he returned to Paris for the winter; but, though he received some large sums from the depths of certain niggardly coffers, that sort of half-pay to a daring man kept for use at any moment and possessing many secrets of the art of diplomacy, was insufficient for the dissipations of a life as splendid as that of the king of dandies, the tyrant of several Parisian clubs. Consequently Comte Maxime was often uneasy about matters financial. Possessing no property, he had never been able to consolidate his position by being made a deputy; also, having no ostensible functions, it was impossible for him to hold a knife at the throat of any minister to compel his nomination as peer of France. At the present moment he saw that Time was getting the better of him; for his lavish dissipations were beginning to wear upon his person, as they had already worn out his divers fortunes. In spite of his splendid exterior, he knew himself, and could not be deceived about that self. He intended to “make an end”--to marry.

A man of acute mind, he was under no illusion as to the apparent consideration in which he was held; he well knew it was false. No women were truly on his side, either in the great world of Paris or among the bourgeoisie. Much secret malignity, much apparent good-humor, and many services rendered were necessary to maintain him in his present position; for every one desired his fall, and a run of ill-luck might at any time ruin him. Once sent to Clichy or forced to leave the country by notes no longer renewable, he would sink into the gulf where so many political carcasses may be seen,--carcasses of men who find no consolation in one another’s company. Even this very evening he was in dread of a collapse of that threatening arch which debt erects over the head of many a Parisian. He had allowed his anxieties to appear upon his face; he had refused to play cards at Madame d’Espard’s; he had talked with the women in an absent-minded manner, and finally he had sunk down silent and absorbed in the arm-chair from which he had just risen like Banquo’s ghost.

Comte Maxime de Trailles now found himself the object of all glances, direct and indirect, standing as he did before the fireplace and illumined by the cross-lights of two candelabra. The few words said about him compelled him, in a way, to bear himself proudly; and he did so, like a man of sense, without arrogance, and yet with the intention of showing himself to be above suspicion. A painter could scarcely have found a better moment in which to seize the portrait of a man who, in his way, was truly extraordinary. Does it not require rare faculties to play such a part,--to enable one through thirty years to seduce women; to constrain one to employ great gifts in an underhand sphere only,--inciting a people to rebel, tracking the secrets of austere politicians, and triumphing nowhere but in boudoirs and on the back-stairs of cabinets?

Is there not something, difficult to say what, of greatness in being able to rise to the highest calculations of statesmen and then to fall coldly back into the void of a frivolous life? Where is the man of iron who can withstand the alternating luck of gambling, the rapid missions of diplomacy, the warfare of fashion and society, the dissipations of gallantry,--the man who makes his memory a library of lies and craft, who envelops such diverse thoughts, such conflicting manoeuvres, in one impenetrable cloak of perfect manners? If the wind of favor had blown steadily upon those sails forever set, if the luck of circumstances had attended Maxime, he could have been Mazarin, the Marechal de Richelieu, Potemkin, or--perhaps more truly--Lauzun, without Pignerol.

The count, though rather tall and constitutionally slender, had of late acquired some protuberance of stomach, but he “restrained it to the majestic,” as Brillat-Savarin once said. His clothes were always so well made, that he kept about his whole person an air of youth, something active and agile, due no doubt to his habits of exercise,--fencing, riding, and hunting. Maxime possessed all the physical graces and elegances of aristocracy, still further increased by his personally superior bearing. His long, Bourbonine face was framed by whiskers and a beard, carefully kept, elegantly cut, and black as jet. This color, the same as that of his abundant hair, he now obtained by an Indian cosmetic, very costly and used in Persia, the secret of which he kept to himself. He deceived the most practised eye as to the white threads which for some time past had invaded his hair. The remarkable property of this dye, used by Persians for their beards only, is that it does not render the features hard; it can be shaded by indigo to harmonize well with the individual character of the skin. It was this operation that Madame Mollot may have seen,--though people in Arcis, by way of a jest, still ask themselves what it was that Madame Mollot saw.

Maxime had a very handsome forehead, blue eyes, a Greek nose, a pleasant mouth, and a well-cut chin; but the circle of his eyes was now marked with numberless lines, so fine that they might have been traced by a razor and not visible at a little distance. His temples had similar lines. The face was also slightly wrinkled. His eyes, like those of gamblers who have sat up innumerable nights, were covered with a glaze, but the glance, though it was thus weakened, was none the less terrible,--in fact, it terrified; a hidden heat was felt beneath it, a lava of passions not yet extinct. The mouth, once so fresh and rosy, now had colder tints; it was straight no longer, but inclined to the right,--a sinuosity that seemed to indicate falsehood. Vice had twisted the lips, but the teeth were white and handsome.

These blemishes disappeared on a general view of his face and person. His figure was so attractive that no young man could compete with Maxime when on horseback in the Bois, where he seemed younger and more graceful than the youngest and most graceful among them. The privilege of eternal youth has been possessed by several men in our day.

The count was all the more dangerous because he seemed to be easy and indolent, never showing the iron determination which he had about all things. This apparent indifference, which enabled him to abet a popular sedition for the purpose of strengthening the authority of a prince with as much ability as he would have bestowed upon a court intrigue, had a certain grace. People never distrust calmness and uniformity of manner, especially in France, where we are accustomed to a great deal of movement and stir about the smallest things.

The count, who was dressed in the fashion of 1839, wore a black coat, a cashmere waistcoat of dark blue embroidered with tiny flowers of a lighter blue, black trousers, gray silk stockings, and varnished leather shoes. His watch, placed in one of his waistcoat pockets, was fastened by an elegant chain to a button-hole.

“Rastignac,” he said, accepting the cup of tea which the pretty Madame de Rastignac offered him, “will you come with me to the Austrian ambassador’s?”

“My dear fellow, I am too recently married not to go home with my wife.”

“That means that _later_--” said the young countess, turning round and looking at her husband.

“Later is the end of the world,” replied Maxime. “But I shall certainly win my cause if I take Madame for a judge.”

With a charming gesture, the count invited the pretty countess to come nearer to him. After listening a few moments and looking at her mother, she said to Rastignac:--

“If you want to go to the embassy with Monsieur de Trailles, mamma will take me home.”

A few moments later the Baronne de Nucingen and the Comtesse de Rastignac went away together. Maxime and Rastignac followed a little later, and when they were both seated in the count’s carriage, the latter said:--

“What do you want of me, Maxime? Why do you take me by the throat in this way? What did you say to my wife?”

“I told her I had something to say to you. You are a lucky fellow, you are! You have ended by marrying the only heiress of the Nucingen millions--after twenty years at hard labor.”

“Maxime!”

“But I! here am I, exposed to the doubts of everybody. A miserable coward like du Tillet dares to ask if I have the courage to kill myself! It is high time for me to settle down. Does the ministry want to get rid of me, or does it not? You ought to know. At any rate, you must find out,” continued Maxime, making a gesture with his hand to silence Rastignac. “Here is my plan: listen to it. You ought to serve me, for I have served you, and can serve you again. The life I live now is intolerable; I want an escape from it. Help me to a marriage which shall bring me half a million. Once married, appoint me minister to some wretched little republic in America. I’ll stay there long enough to make my promotion to the same post in Germany legitimate. If I am worth anything, they will soon take me out of it; if I am not worth anything, they can dismiss me. Perhaps I may have a child. If so, I shall be stern with him; his mother will be rich; I’ll make him a minister, perhaps an ambassador.”

“Here is my answer,” said Rastignac. “An incessant battle is going on--greater than common people who are not in it have any idea of--between power in its swaddling-clothes and power in its childhood. Power in swaddling-clothes is the Chamber of Deputies which, not being restrained by an hereditary chamber--”

“Ha! ha!” said Maxime, “you are now a peer of France.”

“I should say the same if I were not,” said the new peer. “But don’t interrupt me; you are concerned in all this. The Chamber of Deputies is fated to become the whole government, as de Marsay used to tell us (the only man by whom France could have been saved), for peoples don’t die; they are slaves or free men, and that’s all. Child-power is the royalty that was crowned in August, 1830. The present ministry is beaten; it dissolves the Chamber and brings on a general election in order to prevent the coming ministry from calling one; but it does not expect a victory. If it were victorious in these elections, the dynasty would be in danger; whereas, if the ministry is beaten, the dynastic party can fight to advantage for a long time. The mistakes of the Chamber will turn to the profit of a will which wants, unfortunately, to be the whole political power. When a ruler is that whole, as Napoleon was, there comes a moment when he must supplement himself; and having by that time alienated superior men, he, the great single will, can find no assistant. That assistant ought to be what is called a cabinet; but there is no cabinet in France, there is only a Will with a life lease. In France it is the government that is blamed, the opposition never; it may lose as many battles as it fights, but, like the allies in 1814, one victory suffices. With ‘three glorious days’ it overturned and destroyed everything. Therefore, if we are heirs of power, we must cease to govern, and wait. I belong by my personal opinions to the aristocracy, and by my public opinions to the royalty of July. The house of Orleans served me to raise the fortunes of my family, and I shall ever remain attached to it.”

“The ‘ever’ of Monsieur de Talleyrand, be it understood,” put in Maxime.

“At this moment I can’t do anything for you,” continued Rastignac. “We shall not be in power more than six months longer. Yes, those six months will be our last dying agony, I know that; but we know what we were when we formed ourselves, a stop-gap ministry and that was all. But you can distinguish yourself in the electoral battle that is soon to be fought. If you can bring one vote to the Chamber, a deputy faithful to the dynastic cause, you will find your wishes gratified. I will speak of your good services, and I will keep my eye on the reports of our confidential agents; I may find you some difficult task in which you can distinguish yourself. If you succeed, I can insist upon your talents, your devotion, and claim your reward. Your marriage, my dear fellow, can be made only in some ambitious provincial family of tradespeople or manufacturers. In Paris you are too well known. We must therefore look out for a millionaire parvenu, endowed with a daughter, and possessed with a desire to parade himself and his family at the Chateau des Tuileries.”

“Make your father-in-law lend me twenty-five thousand francs to enable me to wait as long as that; he will then have an interest in seeing that I am not paid in holy-water if I succeed; he will further a rich marriage for his own sake.”

“You are wily, Maxime, and you distrust me. But I like able men, and I will attend to your affair.”

They reached the Austrian embassy. The Comte de Rastignac saw the minister of the interior in one of the salons and went to talk with him in a corner. Comte Maxime de Trailles, meantime, was apparently engrossed by the old Comtesse de Listomere, but he was, in reality, following the course of the conversation between the two peers of France; he watched their gestures, interpreted their looks, and ended by catching a favorable glance cast upon him by the minister.

Maxime and Rastignac left the embassy together about one in the morning, and before getting into their respective carriages, Rastignac said to Maxime on the steps of the portico: “Come and see me just before the elections. Between now and then I shall know in what locality the chances of the ministry are worst, and what resources two heads like yours and mine can find there.”

“But my twenty-five thousand francs are needed,” replied de Trailles.

“Well, you must hide yourself, that’s all.”

Fifty days later, one morning before dawn, the Comte de Trailles went to the rue de Varennes, mysteriously in a hired cab. At the gate of the ministry of Public Works, he sent the cab away, looked about him to see that he was not watched, and then waited in a little salon on the first floor until Rastignac should awake. A few moments later the valet who had taken in his card ushered Maxime into the minister’s bed-chamber, where that statesman was making his morning toilet.

“My dear Maxime,” said the latter, “I can tell you a secret which will be in the newspapers two days hence, and which, meantime, you can turn to your own profit. That poor Charles Keller, who danced the mazurka so well, as been killed in Africa. His death leaves a vacancy; he was our candidate in the arrondissement of Arcis. Here is a copy of two reports, one from the sub-prefect, the other from the commissary of police, informing the ministry that the election of the poor fellow would meet with opposition. In that of the commissary of police you will find some information about the state of the town which ought to be useful to a man of your shrewdness; it seems that the ambition of the rival candidate comes chiefly from his desire to marry a certain heiress. To one of your calibre that word is enough. The Cinq-Cygnes, the Princesse de Cadignan, and Georges de Maufrigneuse are living at Cinq-Cygne, close to Arcis; you can certainly obtain through them all the Legitimist votes, therefore--”

“Don’t waste your breath,” said Maxime. “Is the commissary still there?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a letter to him.”

“My dear fellow,” replied Rastignac, giving Maxime quite a bundle of papers, “you will find there two letters written to Gondreville for you. You have been a page and he has been a senator; you can’t fail therefore to understand each other. Madame Francois Keller is pious; here is a letter introducing you to her from the Marechale de Carigliano. The marechale has become dynastic; she recommends you warmly, and may go down herself. I will only add one word: Distrust the sub-prefect, whom I think capable of working this candidate, this Simon Giguet, into a support for himself with the president of the council. If you want letters, powers, credentials, write to me.”

“And those twenty-five thousand francs?” said Maxime.

“Sign this note to the order of du Tillet, and here’s the money.”

“I shall succeed,” said the count, “and you may tell the king that the deputy of Arcis shall belong to him body and soul. If I fail, I give you leave to abandon me.”

An hour later Maxime de Trailles was in his tilbury on the road to Arcis.

XIII. PREFACE BEFORE LETTERING

Once in possession of the information furnished by the landlady of the Mulet and by the sub-prefect Antonin Goulard, Monsieur de Trailles had soon arranged his plan of electoral operations, and this plan evinces itself so readily that the reader must already have perceived it.

To the candidacy of Simon Giguet, the wily agent of the government policy suddenly and abruptly opposed that of Phileas Beauvisage; and in spite of the nullity and unfitness of that individual this new combination, we must admit, had several incontestable chances of success. In the light of his municipal halo Beauvisage had one enormous advantage with the mass of indifferent voters; as mayor of the town his name was known to them. Logic has much more to do with the conducting of matters and things here below than it seems to have; it is like a woman to whom, after many infidelities, we still return. What common-sense prescribes is that voters called upon to choose their representative in public matters should be thoroughly informed as to his capacity, his honesty, and his general character. Too often, in practice, unfortunate twists are given to this principle; but whenever the electoral sheep, left to their own instincts, can persuade themselves that they are voting from their own intelligence and their own lights, we may be certain to see them following that line eagerly and with a sentiment of self-love. Now to know a man’s name, electorally speaking, is a good beginning toward a knowledge of the man himself.

Passing from indifferent to interested electors, we may be sure that Phileas was certain of rallying to himself the Gondreville party, now deprived by death of their own candidate. The question for them was to punish the presumption of Simon Giguet, and any candidate would be acceptable to the viceroy of Arcis. The mere nomination of a man against his grandson was a flagrant act of hostility and ingratitude, and a check to the count’s provincial importance which must be removed and punished at any cost.

Still, when the first news of his electoral ambition reached his father-in-law, Beauvisage was met by an astonishment little flattering to his feelings and not encouraging. The old notary had gauged his son-in-law once for all, and to his just and upright mind the idea of Phileas as a public man produced in its way the disagreeable effect that discordant instruments produce upon the ear. If it be true that no man is a prophet in his own country, he is often even less so in his own family. Still, the first impression once passed, Grevin would doubtless acclimatize himself to the idea of an expedient which would chime in with the plans he had already made for Severine’s future. Besides, for the safety of Gondreville’s interests, so seriously threatened, what sacrifice of his own opinion would the old notary not have made?

With the legitimist and the republican parties who could have no weight in the election, except that of increasing a majority, the candidacy of Beauvisage had a singular recommendation,--namely, his utter incapacity. Conscious of not possessing sufficient strength to elect a deputy of their own, the two extremes of the antidynastic opposition seized, almost with ardor, the opportunity to stick a thorn in the side in what they called “the present order of things,” and it might confidently be expected that in this frame of mind they would joyfully and with all their hearts support a candidate so supremely ridiculous that a large slice of the ridicule must fall upon the government which supported him.

Moreover, in the opinions of the Left-Centre which had provisionally adopted Simon Giguet as its candidate, this move of Beauvisage was likely to produce a serious split; for he too had declared himself a man of the dynastic opposition, and, until further orders, Monsieur de Trailles (though all the while assuring him of the support of the ministry) encouraged his retaining that political tint, which was clearly the most popular in that region. But whatever baggage of political convictions the incorruptible deputy of Arcis might bring with him to Paris, his horoscope was drawn: it was very certain that after his first appearance in the salons of the Tuileries an august seduction would make a henchman of him, if ministerial blandishments had not already produced that result.

The public side of this matter being thus well-planned and provided for, the ministerial agent could turn his attention to the personal aspect of the question, namely, that of turning the stuff he was making into a deputy to the still further use of being made into a father-in-law.

First point, the _dot_; second point, the daughter; and both appeared to suit him. The first did not dazzle him; but as to the second, he did not conceal from himself the imperfections of a provincial education which he should have to unmake, but this was no serious objection to his sapient conjugal pedagogy.

Madame Beauvisage, when the matter was laid before her, swept her husband into it at a single bound. Maxime recognized her for an ambitious woman who, in spite of her forty-four years, still had the air of being conscious of a heart. Hence he saw that the game had better begin with a false attack on her to fall back later on the daughter. How far these advanced works could be pushed, circumstances would show. In either case, Maxime was well aware that his title, his reputation as a man of the world, and his masterly power of initiating them into the difficult and elegant mysteries of Parisian society were powerful reasons to bind the two women to him, not to speak of their gratitude for the political success of Monsieur Beauvisage of which he was the author.

But however all this might be, his matrimonial campaign offered one very serious difficulty. The consent of old Grevin would have to be obtained, and he was not a man to allow Cecile to be married without investigating to its depths the whole past of a suitor. This inquiry made, was it not to be feared that the thirty years’ stormy biography of a roue would seem to the cautious old man a poor security for the future?

However, the species of governmental mission with which Monsieur de Trailles appeared in Arcis might seem to be an offset and even a condonation that would neutralize the effect of such disclosures. By getting the Comte de Gondreville to confide the news of that mission to old Grevin before it was publicly made known, he had flattered the old man’s vanity and obtained a certain foothold in his mind. Moreover, he determined, when the time came, to forestall the old notary’s distrust by seeming to distrust himself, and to propose, as a precaution against his old habits of extravagance, to introduce a clause into the marriage-contract providing for the separation of property and settling the wife’s fortune upon herself. In this way he gave security against any return to his old habits of prodigality. As for himself, it was his affair to obtain such empire over his wife by the power of sentiment that he could recover practically the marital power of which the contract dispossessed him.

At first nothing occurred to contradict the wisdom and clearsightedness of all these intentions. The Beauvisage candidacy being made public took fire like a train of gunpowder, and Monsieur de Trailles was able to feel such assurance of the success of his efforts that he wrote to Rastignac informing him of the fortunate and highly successful progress of his mission.

But, all of a sudden, in face of the triumphant Beauvisage rose another candidate; and, be it said in passing for the sake of our history, this rivalry presented itself under such exceptional and unforeseen circumstances that it changed what might have been a trivial electoral struggle into a drama possessing wider and more varied interests.

The man who now appears in this narrative will play so considerable a part in it that it seems necessary to install him, as it were, by means of retrospective and somewhat lengthy explanations. But to suspend the course of the narrative for this purpose would be to fly in the face of every rule of art and expose the present pious guardian of literary orthodoxy to the wrath of critics. In presence of this difficulty, the author would find himself greatly embarrassed, if his lucky star had not placed in his hands a correspondence in which, with a vim and animation that he himself could never have imparted to them, all the details that are essential to a full explanation will be found related.

These letters must be read with attention. They bring upon the scene many persons already well-known in the Comedy of Human Life, and they reveal a vast number of facts necessary to the understanding and development of the present drama. Their statements made, and brought to the point where we now seem to abandon our narrative, the course of that narrative will, without concussion and quite naturally, resume its course; and we like to persuade ourselves that, by thus introducing this series of letters, the unity of our tale, which seemed for a moment in danger, will be maintained.