Chapter VIII: Return of Napoleon

It was ten o'clock in the morning of the 20th day of March, of the year 1815. Monsieur Desmarais and his brother-in-law, Monsieur Hubert, were awaiting in a chamber of the Tuileries an audience which they had requested with the Duke of Blacas, minister to Louis XVIII, and his most intimate favorite. They had anticipated the hour of the interview, in order to arrive among the first; for great was the throng of solicitants which sought Monsieur Blacas, whose recommendation was all-powerful with the King. Desmarais and Hubert were dressed in the costume of peers of the realm of France. The former, first senator under the Consulate, then under the Empire, had been besides created a Count by Napoleon. Thus, turned royalist, just as he had been Bonapartist (and, to retrace his political career, Thermidorean, Terrorist, Jacobin, and first of all Constitutional), Count Desmarais owed to his recent royalist devotion the fact that he had been included in the list of senators who were made peers of France since the Bourbon return. He was now in his sixty-ninth year; his careworn, bitter features began to show the weakening hand of age. Hubert, on the contrary, seemed lively and brisk as ever. He had become the possessor of an enormous fortune, thanks to his purveyorship under the Directorate, while he was a member of the Council of Ancients. He had curried no favors at the hand of the Empire, whose absolutism conflicted with his political principles; his ideal government had always been a constitutional King, subordinated to an oligarchy of bourgeois. Hubert had been one of a batch of large proprietors whom Louis XVIII had in one day admitted to the Chamber of Peers; but he had not been long in alienating himself from the government of the Restoration, which was piling fault upon fault; he accordingly attached himself to the Orleanist faction.

While awaiting their audience with Minister Blacas, the two were engaged in a political discussion. Soon there entered Fouche, in tow of an usher. "You will inform his Excellency that the Duke of Otranto begs an audience with him," said Fouche to the usher. The usher bowed and disappeared into the ante-room, while the new Duke exclaimed:

"What, is this you, Citizen Brutus Desmarais? And pray, what are you soliciting here? An order for the debut at the Opera of that dancing girl you are protecting?"

"That devil of a Fouche knows everything! You would think he was still Minister of Police," interjected Hubert.

"The cask will always smell of the herring, my dear. I saw this morning two of my old agents, who continue to make me their little confidences."

"Prefect of police, chief of spies! A pretty function, and highly honorable!" sneered Hubert.

"Take care, take care, Citizen Hubert," cautioned Fouche. "I have my eye on the Orleanist conspiracy, in which you have taken it upon yourself to play a role!"

"Your spies are robbing you. You are very ill informed," retorted the banker.

"Why try to trifle with me? Everybody conspires under the open heavens these days. These Bourbons are imbeciles, and their Prefect of Police, Monsieur Andre, is a ninny! We play all around their legs."

"How can you dare to hold such language in the very palace of our beloved sovereigns?" protested Count Desmarais.

"Come, now! You and your fellows in the Chamber of Peers are yourselves conspirators and enemies of the Bourbons."

"Your conspiracies are pure will-o'-the-wisps," again retorted Hubert.

"Well, I tell you that you, Hubert, are conspiring for the Duke of Orleans. Several officers and generals are conspiring in favor of Bonaparte. A number of colonels in command of regiments are connected with this second plot; while, finally, the old Jacobins, and notably your son-in-law John Lebrenn, Citizen Brutus, as well as the painter Martin and their friends, are conspiring for the Republic; that's a third conspiracy."

"All these plots and complots are of your own invention," grumbled Desmarais, feeling very uneasy.

"True!" acquiesced Fouche with a smile. "But if I never follow the conspiracies I invent, I at least always let myself into those which the imbeciles are nursing. I've a foot everywhere: with the republicans, as an ex-Terrorist; among the Bonapartists, as ex-minister of the Emperor; with the Orleanists as an old friend of Philip Equality's; in short, the best proof I can give you of the existence of these complots is, that I have just come to denounce them. Yes," he continued, his smile broadening, while Desmarais and Hubert stared at him in stupefaction, "I have come to denounce them to that blockhead of a Blacas."

"His Excellency will have the honor to receive Monsieur the Duke of Otranto," announced the usher, making a low bow to Fouche.

"Messieurs," beamed Fouche as he moved towards the open door, "a royalist like me comes before everybody."

As the door closed after Fouche, a new group of solicitors entered the waiting room. These newcomers were the Count of Plouernel, now in spite of his missing eye lieutenant-general and second in command of the company of Black Musketeers of the military household of Louis XVIII; the Count's son, Viscount Gonthram, a boy of thirteen, in the costume of King's page; and, lastly, Cardinal Plouernel, the Count's younger brother. The prelate was garbed in a red cloak and cap. For a moment these new personages stood apart, then the Count of Plouernel advanced towards Monsieur Hubert, whom he did not at first recognize, and engaged him in the following conversation:

"Will you have the goodness, sir, to inform me whether the audiences have commenced?"

"Yes, monsieur; just now the Duke of Otranto was called in by Monsieur the Duke of Blacas. But, pardon me," he added, as little by little he recalled the other's features, "is it not Monsieur the Count of Plouernel whom I have the honor to address?"

"Yes, monsieur," replied the latter.

"Monsieur, do you not recognize me?" continued Hubert. "I will assist you. We met in 1792, during the trial of our unhappy King. We were conspiring then against the Republic--"

"St. Roche Street, at the house of the former beadle of the parish? Now I recall it!"

"Who would have told us then, Monsieur Count, that more than twenty years after that meeting we would encounter each other again in the palace of the brother of that royal martyr?"

"I fear lest that terrible lesson be lost upon royalty."

"Between ourselves, and without reproach, you have been somewhat the cause of these unhappinesses, you gentlemen of the nobility."

"In conspiring against the republican Constitution we but defended our property and our honor. The Republic despoiled us of our seigniorial rights, sacred and consecrated rights which we held of God and of our sword."

"Ah, the eternal strife between the Franks and the Gauls! Why is not my nephew Lebrenn here to reply to you!"

"What say you, sir?" asked Plouernel, shuddering at the name. "That Lebrenn, that ironsmith, has he become your nephew? What strange news!"

"He married my niece, the daughter of advocate Desmarais, to-day Count and peer of France."

Under the weight of the memories evoked by the name of Lebrenn, the Count fell silent. The Cardinal drew close to the speakers, holding by the hand his nephew Gonthram. His Eminence, better served by his memory than his brother the Count, recognized Hubert at once, and addressed him in the most courteous tones:

"It has indeed been many years since we met, monsieur; for, if you recollect, I accompanied my brother to the cabal in St. Roche Street. What a time! What sad days!"

"Indeed; and your Eminence must recall how lacking in respect to you the reverend Father Morlet was, who arrogated to himself the chairmanship of our meeting. The reverend was accompanied by his god-son, who seemed to be about the age of this pretty page" (indicating Gonthram); "but he was far from resembling him, for I never saw a face more sly and hypocritical than that child of the Church wore."

"Father Morlet is dead, and his god-son, taking orders in Rome under the name of Abbot Rodin, is affiliated with the Society of Jesus," the Cardinal informed the group. "This Father Rodin, as private secretary of the present General of the Order, enjoys great influence. Ah! by my faith! I did not know that our master hypocrite was in Paris!"

While the Cardinal was uttering these last words, the door opened and in stepped himself, the reverend Father Rodin. He was accompanied by an usher, into whose ear he dropped a couple of words. Rodin was now past his thirtieth year. His meager face, smooth shaven and wan, his half-closed and restless reptile eyes, his slightly bowed back, his already bald forehead, his bent neck, his sidling gait, his attitude of mock-humility, through which shone his contempt for others--everything about the man stamped him as hypocrisy incarnate. His black gown was threadbare and whitened at the seams; the mud was caked on his clumsy shoes. In one hand he held a squalid-looking cap, in the other an old cotton umbrella with red-and-white checks.

The usher to whom he spoke stepped for a moment into the next room and returned almost immediately. He made a deep obeisance of respect to the Jesuit, and said to him in a voice marked with great deference, "Reverend Father, I have the honor to conduct you at once to the private cabinet of monseigneur, who is at present engaged with the Duke of Otranto."

Rodin made a sign of assent, and with eyes fixed on his shoes, so that he did not see the Cardinal, he was about to walk by the group in which the latter stood.

"Usher!" called the Cardinal, haughtily, "a word with you. We, Monsieur the Count of Plouernel and I, were here before this reverend, which he does not seem to know. The reverend gentleman should wait his time of audience, and not usurp ours," he added, while Rodin bowed himself almost to the ground before him.

"I have the honor to inform your Eminence that I have orders from Monseigneur the Duke of Blacas on the subject of this holy Father. He is to be introduced whenever he presents himself, and before all other persons. I obey the orders given me," returned the usher.

"I shall not allow a simple priest to precede by a single step a Prince of the Church!" stamped the Cardinal. Rodin only bowed before him several times, lower than before, without raising his eyes to his face.

"My orders are imperative," said the usher.

Indignant the Cardinal turned to his brother. "Well, brother," he said, "there we are! By the navel of the Pope, I'd like to knock the interloper down!"

For all answer Rodin again mutely and humbly inclined towards the Cardinal. Then he made a sign to the usher to precede him, and vanished through a door on the opposite side of the room from where he had entered.

The latter entrance again swung open, and admitted Lieutenant General Count Oliver, in the garish uniform of his rank and decorated with the Legion of Honor and several foreign orders. He wore the great red ribbon on his scarf, the order of the Iron Crown over his shoulder, and the Cross of St. Louis in one of the buttonholes of his coat, which glittered with braid. John Lebrenn's old apprentice was now thirty-eight; his moustache still held its blackness, but his hair was streaked with grey; his face still was handsome and martial. A total stranger to the other personages in the audience chamber, he seated himself a little distance off from the group formed by the Cardinal, the Count of Plouernel, and Monsieur Hubert. Count Desmarais had withdrawn into the alcove of a window.

"That Jesuit, that scamp, that priestlet, introduced to Monsieur Blacas before me!" stormed the Cardinal to the Count, his brother. "Me, a Prince of the Church! I declare, as things are going, helped along by that execrable charter of 1814, we are marching towards another '93! France is lost!"

"The Restoration has done a great deal for the clergy, Monsieur Cardinal," declared Hubert. "You are very wrong to cast reproaches at the King and the government."

"I am of my brother's opinion as to what concerns the nobility," said the Count of Plouernel. "I blame the King strongly for giving the command of two regiments of his guards to ex-Marshals of the Empire, clodhoppers, men of no account, like all these plebeians, hardly scraped clean by the nobility Napoleon covered them with." General Oliver, so far unnoticed by the Count of Plouernel, here moved indignantly, but the Count proceeded: "The King should never have entrusted commands to these barrack-heroes, smelling of the pipe and the bottle, bumpkins whom we must elbow out of our way at the Tuileries, we, old Emigrants, who fought them under the Republic. We sacrificed all for our masters, and they do us the outrage to treat these upstarts as our equals! These specimens, during their Emperor's time, expressed themselves most insultingly toward the house of Bourbon; and to-day they accept services, favors, and commands from the King. It is only to betray him some day; at least that would not be the last word in the renegades' baseness, and they would not even be conscious of their apostasy!"

At this General Oliver rose, pale with anger, and striding roughly up to Plouernel said in a voice of concentrated rage:

"Sir, you will regret, I am convinced, your last words, when you learn that I, Lieutenant General, Count Oliver, have served the Emperor, to whom I owe my rank and title. For I have the honor to be a soldier of fortune, sir. I shall know how to chastise any insolence that may be addressed to me!"

Disdainfully looking General Oliver over from head to foot, the Count of Plouernel made answer: "Well, sir! I, Gaston, Count of Plouernel, second in command in his Majesty's Black Musketeers, have the honor never to have served any but my masters. I followed them into exile, and I returned to France in 1814. You have my opinion of traitors and turn-coats."

"The King has conferred on me the command of a military division, and it pleased him to award me the Cross of St. Louis. Tell me, sir, am I in your eyes because of that command and that decoration a traitor or a renegade? Answer, sir," demanded Oliver.

"Since you ask me, sir, I shall reply in all sincerity----"

At the moment when Plouernel would have finished the sentence, he was interrupted by the hilarious roar of a new personage who had burst into the room laughing fit to split his sides. It was his old friend the Marquis of St. Esteve, that intolerable would-be conspirator, whom the most serious moment could not check in his buffoonery. Powdered white, the Marquis's hair was dressed in 'pigeon-wings'; his little queue bobbed up and down on the collar of his bourgeois' coat with gold epaulets. He wore a court sword, knee breeches, and top boots; he was the epitome of that type of Emigrant dubbed 'Louis XV's tumblers.' On seeing Plouernel he at once ran toward him, clasped him in his arms, and all the while laughing fit to kill, exclaimed:

"Ah, Count! Hold me! I die! Oh, the idea! Ha, ha, ha! This time I shall split of it, surely! Oh, oh, oh! If you knew the funny sto--ry! Ah, the idea! I shall surely choke--let me laugh!"

Plouernel pushed him off, muttering "Devil take the nuisance!"

"Hang the Emigrant!" growled Oliver, on his part. "Interrupting just as I was about to slap that insolent fellow's face!"

"You don't know of it!" ran on the Marquis, continuing to shriek with laughter. "Ha, ha, ha! Bonaparte--has--has--oh! the idea!--has returned--has landed at the gulf--oh! oh!--at the gulf of Juan, near the town of Antibes! If that wouldn't make one split his sides laughing! Hi, hi, hi!"

"Gentlemen," cried an usher rushing in in a fright, and beside himself, "his Excellency has just been summoned to the King in haste by an important unforeseen matter. There is no need waiting--the audiences are off for another day!"

Following him hurriedly out of Blacas's cabinet, came Fouche, rubbing his hands. Glimpsing Desmarais, pale and distracted at the news of Napoleon's landing, he called to him: "If the tyrant does not have you shot on his return, Citizen Count Brutus, my faith, you will have fortune with you this time. Make your will!"

"Such a catastrophe! The designs of God are indeed impenetrable!" exclaimed the Cardinal to Fouche.

"On the contrary, this is the happiest event that could happen under the canopy. You don't see that Bonaparte falls into the little trap I set for him. His return is folly. He will reach Paris without striking a blow, for the Bourbons are execrated. But before a month, all Europe will march against France."

Without waiting for Fouche to finish his speech, the various persons in the hall fled to the door, each a prey to a different fear.