CHAPTER XIII.
THE HONEYMOON TRIP.
It is a mistake to begin married life by gormandizing, by an outlaywhich one cannot afford, by affectation of a social position to whichluxuries are common, or by servility to the despotism of fashion. Ourfriends in the Rue la de Vieille Estrapade knew and dreaded all this.They owned that the ostentatious enjoyment which brings remorse at itsheels is not worth the cost. Therefore, though they 'did the thing,' asthe bridegroom put it, properly--that is, not shabbily--they did not puton airs and ape the grand. They did not gormandize, for gluttony leadsto a fit of indigestion, and that leads to bad temper. They did notwaste economies that might be needed after; but they had a jovial partyconducted on the principles of prescient generosity. To be paradoxical,the wedding-breakfast and surroundings were a sample of thriftyextravagance. No more was spent on dresses and favours, bouquets andgloves, than could well be avoided without the semblance of meanness. Nobig man of the quarter was invited to the feast simply because he was abig man--wore massive gold trinkets, had a balance at his banker's, aprominent pew in church, a seat at the council of Paris magnates, or avilla in the suburbs with a large garden. These people condescend; cursepeople who condescend, but compassionate not the people who standcondescension! They are treated as they deserve.
The custom in Paris is that those who cannot go for the honeymoon toBaden, or to a friend's country-house, pass it apart in some secludedsuburb. O'H. and Madame O'H. were not such fools; they resolved to passit under the captain's roof--their future home; they had no particularwish or necessity to confine themselves to each other's society tillthey lost novelty and palled on each other, seeing that they were linkedwhile they breathed, and would have ample leisure to improveacquaintance, and spy out small imperfections. For, look you, this is noromance; our heroes and heroines are real, which is saying they arehuman and weak. The way to celebrate the marriage-day is just as onecelebrates any ordinary holiday; the way to enjoy the honeymoon is inactivity in the midst of bustling life, not in mooning indolence. Theplace for both is at home, amongst those whom we know and who areattached to us.
This is what our friends did. They drove to the Mairie and the churchas we have described; they had a hearty breakfast, at which none werepresent but the five of the wedding party. Caroline did not fling ashower of rice at the retreating figure of the O'Hoolohan as he left forhis ch?teau in Spain, but sensibly put the rice in a pot to boil for asupper pudding. Nor did the captain throw an old slipper at the poll ofhis departing Berthe, for old slippers are useful when one is gouty,and, besides, they sometimes disarrange a head-dress and hurt a littlehead.
Rice and old slippers! What superstitious folly! And yet some veryeminent men, wise and no way credulous, have been burdened with the logof superstition. Tyco Brah? was afraid to lay the first stone of hisobservatory till the stars were in a 'happy conjunction.' The astronomerwho discovered the spots on the sun wiped his spectrum fifty timesbefore he could persuade himself to believe his own sight. Sainte-Beuve,sceptic though he was, grew pale if the salt were spilt.
O'Hoolohan and O'Hara were not superstitious. They were of the schoolwhich believes that it is unlucky to walk under a ladder--only when anawkward workman is handling bricks overhead; unlucky to sit downthirteen at table--only when there is not food enough for more thantwelve.
But Captain Chauvin was superstitious, after a kind. Like his idol, heheld by destiny, and had faith in his planet. On all high days and holydays it was his wont to make pilgrimage to the shrine of his patronsaint. Call this whim if you like, superstition if you will. On thishappy day his secretly-cherished idea was to carry out his habit, andthe moment he spoke of it his friends agreed to humour him. And in thiswise it came to pass that there was a honeymoon trip, but a brief one inlimit of time and travelling.
Now, where should the honeymoon trip be taken? In London, that is aquestion easier to answer than in Paris.
'Anywhere, anywhere _out_ of London,' would be the answer.
But in Paris the air you breathe is pure and brisk; the flowers in thecity grass-plots are fresh and fragrant; the waters of the Seine courseswiftly on with sparkling movement; the tall trees on the boulevardsmake friendly rustle; there are wide shady shrubs, clad in thick mantleof emerald, varied with citron and flecked with brown, in the publicgardens; silvery fountains seem to dance to inaudible music; the shaftsof sunshine play through clustering branches in the Elysian Fields andthe Luxembourg, and make fretwork of black and gold on the smooth sward.This happens when Nature is in gracious mood and scatters broadcast hercharms from her bounteous lap. In Paris her mood is usually gracious,for Paris is the favoured city, the queen-city, the one haunt of themultitude where you can meet the Rus in Urbe, where you can salute thepets of art in the bosom of the Benign Mother.
In two open victorias the party started on the trip. Captain Chauvin andCaroline were on the seat of the first, and O'Hara on the strapontin infront of them, dangerously near to the tempting hands of the tall girland in full range of her witching eyes. The bridegroom and bride were inthe second victoria. The captain went foremost, for he was _cicerone_.To the Champ de Mars they drove first and entered the Military School,the Chelsea Hospital of France.
'Go up, my children,' said Captain Chauvin; 'I am too feeble toaccompany you. Mount one hundred and seventy-three steps and you willfind the cell my saint occupied when he was a boy. There he lay in hiscamp-bed; there he dreamed dreams, and there he made his first sketch.Till your return, I shall fight an old fight with--a comrade.'
When they descended, the captain escorted them to the adjoining church.
'Here,' he said, 'he rests, the mortal part of him; here he was carriedto his tomb by the heirs of the dynasty he helped to overthrow. You see,my children, he sleeps in the midst of the ancient braves at whose headhe once marched to victory; there, on the bronze tripod, is the swordhe wore at Austerlitz; look above, where those dusty trophies droop, ah!sixty of them--this poor arm helped to win some few--they are flagstaken from the enemy in fair fight. They are--torn, bullet-pierced, andtime-mouldered as they are--the emblems of a glory that will live whilelives the world!'
The O'Hoolohan was getting excited. His brow flushed and his eyesflashed. He tapped one foot on the marble floor like a restive chargerawaiting the trumpet-call to advance. He scanned the aisles and nichesof the sacred building as if he were searching for some lurking foe; heclenched his right hand on an imaginary sword-hilt as if on the point ofrushing into some shock of battle. With all his calmness in actualcombat, such as we saw him at Clamart, this man was capable of beingroused to a flood-tide of passion, when his heart and imagination weretouched.
'Glory, grandfather,' urged Berthe; 'is it not very dearly bought,sometimes? Suppose we kneel and pray that France may have a crop ofglory that is not so dreadful in the offering or so sad in the fruit forthe future.'
'You are right, my child,' acceded the captain, for this time it was notthe old soldier, but the old man who spoke, and they all knelt andprayed, though it would be unsafe to pretend that they prayed withequal fervour, or that the object of their petitions was the same.
The next stage in the pilgrimage was the Quai Conti, opposite the statueof Henry IV., on the Pont Neuf. Here, on the fifth story of the house,No. 5, a young officer of artillery, lately commissioned from the schoolof Brienne, lived in 1785. A struggling painter poked the fire in thegarret, haunted by the shadow of the ambitious Bonaparte, the awkwardlybuilt, dwarfish stripling, with high cheek-bones, sallow complexion anddeep-sunken orbs, who came to the window at nights and gazedpalace-wards and sky-wards so long and earnestly, his hands claspedbehind his back, and then broke into a hurried, jerking, sentry-walk toand fro in his circumscribed chamber.
To the H?tel de Metz in the Rue du Mail next, where Bonaparte lodged, atNo. 14 on the third story, in 1792. At that period he dined at arestaurant in the Rue des Petits-P?res. The dishes there were cheap.They cost but six sous each. Cheap as they were, he had once to make afo
rced march with his watch upon the nearest pawn-office before he couldraise means to stay the calls of appetite.
At the corner of the Rue du Mail and the Rue Montmartre is, or was, theHotel of the Rights of Man. By the time Bonaparte had got thus far, hehad made comparatively good progress on the ladder of fortune. He hadfour windows in a row now in his apartment, and three chambers, two ofwhich were shared with his brothers Louis and Junot.
Three years later, Bonaparte, now a general of artillery, resided in No.19, Rue de la Michodi?re, in a small furnished room. He was going up,but he was no wastrel. Not till later on did he choose to change hisdwelling to the H?tel Mirabeau, in the Alley of the Dauphin, near theTuileries. An episode of his career is laid in this hotel, which thedramatists should seize and turn to their purposes. It might haveinfluenced the fate of nations. Had it come to its natural issue, themaps might be drawn otherwise to-day. Fanchette, the daughter of P?reThouset, the landlord, took a liking to the young general of theRepublic. She was not ill-favoured; and he might make a steady husband.The general tried his arms in a field other than his, and, with hisusual luck, he made a conquest. Father-in-law, who was rich, consentedto a marriage, on two conditions: the first, that Bonaparte should quitthe army; the second, that he should become an hotel-keeper! But anaccident befell Fanchette which put Cupid's nose out of joint, much tothe benefit of his brother Mars.
The time came when Napoleon mounted to the topmost rung, lived incastles and palaces, was guest and host of kings; but our friends weresatisfied--indeed, were more pleased with visiting his humblehabitations--the cell of the student, the airy garrets of theadventurous soldier. The struggles of greatness to the light awakenemotions more touching than all the magnificence of assured success.
They trended by the Rue St. Honor? to the church of St. Roch. There itwas the tide turned--there the hero had his first chance. It was thetwelfth Vend?miaire of the year IV., that is to say, the 22nd October,1795. Thirty-three sections of the population rose in discontent at adecree reserving to the Convention two-thirds of the places in theCouncil of the Five Hundred. They were thirty thousand strong, andmarched on the Tuileries. The Convention had but twelve thousand men tooppose them, and gave the command to Barras, who called in Bonaparte.The captain, obscure till then, notwithstanding his services at Toulon,put forty-two pieces of cannon round the palace, and mowed down theinsurgents. Their headquarters was the church of St. Roch. Bonaparte,with correct, remorseless aim, pointed two guns with his own hand on thecrowd collected on the steps of the edifice and fired. The sections weredefeated; the corner-stone was laid of the reputation that was to mountso high.
'I vote we wind up by paying a visit to the column in the PlaceVend?me,' said the O'Hoolohan, who was an admirer of Napoleon, but whowas getting hungry and who began to think he had enough of hero-worshipfor his marriage-day.
'No, my son,' said Captain Chauvin, 'I always make it a point of hanginga wreath of immortelles on the rails at the base of the column on the5th of May, the anniversary of his death; but I never like to go therebut that one day of the twelve months. No, we shall first try a visit tothe Louvre--it is not yet closed--and I love to show, to those who canvalue relics of the kind, the statue of the one man I reverenced, whenhe was in the beauty of his manhood.'
They went and saw the statue. It represents Napoleon as he might havebeen at the epoch of Lodi, before he had trained his features to theimpassiveness of stone, before he had waxed dumpish, and wore a stiffcurl on his broad, bald forehead. An idealized Napoleon this, impetuousenergy in his gaze, expression, attitude; mastery in the eagle eyes;vigour in the gaunt limbs; resolution in the big lean jaws; doggedobstinacy in the close-shut lips and close-cut chin. What anirresistible forcefulness in the balance of the eager pose! what acloudy-and-lightning poetry in the long wild hair sweeping like a maneover his shoulders!
Thus should heroes be eternized in brass, or granite, or marble, whilethey are instinct with the glory of action, not when they are aged andfatten and grow bilious and use ear-trumpets. They should be given toposterity in their prime, when they did the great things for whichposterity will remember them. Great is the anointed of Notre Dame; butgreater is the victor of Lodi!
This O'Hara said, first warming with the associations of the Napoleonroom of the Louvre, and then kindled into enthusiasm by the applause ofCaptain Chauvin, whose heart was so young for all his white beard anddeep wrinkles; and Caroline looked at the speaker approvingly, and helooked back, and suddenly it was revealed to him that she was strikinglyhandsome.
That night when he retired to rest in his hotel in the Latin Quarter,the tress of hair he had long kept warm at his breast was missing.
Was this an omen?
Mated from the Morgue: A Tale of the Second Empire Page 13
