“Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”
“Show him in!”
“You,” said the Minister as Marneffe came in, “you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d’Ervy whom you see.”
“Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron.”
“What a villain he looks!” said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot. — ”No more of Sganarelle speeches,” he went on; “you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers.”
“But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening. — Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house.”
“Leave the room!” said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. “You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!”
“I prefer to send in my resignation,” said Marneffe insolently. “For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all.”
And he left the room.
“What an impudent scoundrel!” said the Prince.
Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating:
“In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor! — Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!” he said in his ear.
“What the devil brought you here this morning?” said the Prince, much moved.
“I came to see what can be done for his wife,” replied the Count, pointing to his brother. “She is wanting bread — especially now!”
“He has his pension.”
“It is pledged!”
“The Devil must possess such a man,” said the Prince, with a shrug. “What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?” he went on to Hulot d’Ervy. “How could you — you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes — you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb — how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal! — those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us? — You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end — I will not say where — — ”
“Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her,” said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law.
“Depend on me!” said the Minister.
“Thank you, and good-bye then! — Come, monsieur,” he said to his brother.
The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character — the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator — and he said to himself:
“That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!”
He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field.
Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs: —
“Monsieur le Baron Hulot d’Ervy has applied for his retiring
pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which
has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two
employes, has had some share in this distinguished official’s
decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he
had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic
stroke in the War Minister’s private room.
“Monsieur Hulot d’Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim,
has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has
been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know
Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his
administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted
conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw,
or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for
the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon
in 1815.
“One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage.
Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of
the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office.”
“ALGIERS. — The case known as the forage supply case, to which some
of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been
closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has
committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded,
will be sentenced in default.
“Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly
respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe
of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared.”
And in the Paris News the following paragraph appeared:
“Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the
recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a
regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War
Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed
to the post of director.”
“The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition.
The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte
Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le
Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill
his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon
becomes Master of Appeals.”
Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire:
“The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe.”
Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. “Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot,” out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, “There is your remedy.”
Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door,
flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal’s threat to his brother.
The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years.
“Beau-Pied,” said he, “fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs — and go faster than that!” he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See Les Chouans.)
“You shall be obeyed, Marechal,” said Beau-Pied, with a military salute.
Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander.
By Napoleon’s orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold.
The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector’s arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols.
“What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?” said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her.
“He has disgraced us all!” replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. “He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead — he has killed me! — I have only strength enough left to make restitution!
“I have been abased before the Conde of the Republic, the man I esteem above all others, and to whom I unjustifiably gave the lie — the Prince of Wissembourg! — Is that nothing? That is the score his country has against him!”
He wiped away a tear.
“Now, as to his family,” he went on. “He is robbing you of the bread I had saved for you, the fruit of thirty years’ economy, of the privations of an old soldier! Here is what was intended for you,” and he held up the bank-notes. “He has killed his Uncle Fischer, a noble and worthy son of Alsace who could not — as he can — endure the thought of a stain on his peasant’s honor.
“To crown all, God, in His adorable clemency, had allowed him to choose an angel among women; he has had the unspeakable happiness of having an Adeline for his wife! And he has deceived her, he has soaked her in sorrows, he has neglected her for prostitutes, for street-hussies, for ballet-girls, actresses — Cadine, Josepha, Marneffe! — And that is the brother I treated as a son and made my pride!
“Go, wretched man; if you can accept the life of degradation you have made for yourself, leave my house! I have not the heart to curse a brother I have loved so well — I am as foolish about him as you are, Adeline — but never let me see him again. I forbid his attending my funeral or following me to the grave. Let him show the decency of a criminal if he can feel no remorse.”
The Marshal, as pale as death, fell back on the settee, exhausted by his solemn speech. And, for the first time in his life perhaps, tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
“My poor uncle!” cried Lisbeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes.
“Brother!” said Adeline, kneeling down by the Marshal, “live for my sake. Help me in the task of reconciling Hector to the world and making him redeem the past.”
“He!” cried the Marshal. “If he lives, he is not at the end of his crimes. A man who has misprized an Adeline, who has smothered in his own soul the feelings of a true Republican which I tried to instill into him, the love of his country, of his family, and of the poor — that man is a monster, a swine! — Take him away if you still care for him, for a voice within me cries to me to load my pistols and blow his brains out. By killing him I should save you all, and I should save him too from himself.”
The old man started to his feet with such a terrifying gesture that poor Adeline exclaimed:
“Hector — come!”
She seized her husband’s arm, dragged him away, and out of the house; but the Baron was so broken down, that she was obliged to call a coach to take him to the Rue Plumet, where he went to bed. The man remained there for several days in a sort of half-dissolution, refusing all nourishment without a word. By floods of tears, Adeline persuaded him to swallow a little broth; she nursed him, sitting by his bed, and feeling only, of all the emotions that once had filled her heart, the deepest pity for him.
At half-past twelve, Lisbeth showed into her dear Marshal’s room — for she would not leave him, so much was she alarmed at the evident change in him — Count Steinbock and the notary.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said the Marshal, “I would beg you to be so good as to put your signature to a document authorizing my niece, your wife, to sell a bond for certain funds of which she at present holds only the reversion. — You, Mademoiselle Fischer, will agree to this sale, thus losing your life interest in the securities.”
“Yes, dear Count,” said Lisbeth without hesitation.
“Good, my dear,” said the old soldier. “I hope I may live to reward you. But I did not doubt you; you are a true Republican, a daughter of the people.” He took the old maid’s hand and kissed it.
“Monsieur Hannequin,” he went on, speaking to the notary, “draw up the necessary document in the form of a power of attorney, and let me have it within two hours, so that I may sell the stock on the Bourse to-day. My niece, the Countess, holds the security; she will be here to sign the power of attorney when you bring it, and so will mademoiselle. Monsieur le Comte will be good enough to go with you and sign it at your office.”
The artist, at a nod from Lisbeth, bowed respectfully to the Marshal and went away.
Next morning, at ten o’clock, the Comte de Forzheim sent in to announce himself to the Prince, and was at once admitted.
“Well, my dear Hulot,” said the Prince, holding out the newspapers to his old friend, “we have saved appearances, you see. — Read.”
Marshal Hulot laid the papers on his comrade’s table, and held out to him the two hundred thousand francs.
“Here is the money of which my brother robbed the State,” said he.
“What madness!” cried the Minister. “It is impossible,” he said into the speaking-trumpet handed to him by the Marshal, “to manage this restitution. We should be obliged to declare your brother’s dishonest dealings, and we have done everything to hide them.”
“Do what you like with the money; but the family shall not owe one sou of its fortune to a robbery on the funds of the State,” said the Count.
“I will take the King’s commands in the matter. We will discuss it no further,” replied the Prince, perceiving that it would be impossible to conquer the old man’s sublime obstinacy on the point.
“Good-bye, Cottin,” said the old soldier, taking the Prince’s hand. “I feel as if my soul were frozen — ”
Then, after going a step towards the door, he turned round, looked at the Prince, and seeing that he was deeply moved, he opened his arms to clasp him in them; the two old soldiers embraced each other.
“I feel as if I were taking leave of the whole of the old army in you,” said the Count.
“Good-bye, my good old comrade!” said the Minister.
“Yes, it is good-bye; for I am going where all our brave men are for whom we have mo
urned — ”
Just then Claude Vignon was shown in. The two relics of the Napoleonic phalanx bowed gravely to each other, effacing every trace of emotion.
“You have, I hope, been satisfied by the papers,” said the Master of Appeals-elect. “I contrived to let the Opposition papers believe that they were letting out our secrets.”
“Unfortunately, it is all in vain,” replied the Minister, watching Hulot as he left the room. “I have just gone through a leave-taking that has been a great grief to me. For, indeed, Marshal Hulot has not three days to live; I saw that plainly enough yesterday. That man, one of those honest souls that are above proof, a soldier respected by the bullets in spite of his valor, received his death-blow — there, in that armchair — and dealt by my hand, in a letter! — Ring and order my carriage. I must go to Neuilly,” said he, putting the two hundred thousand francs into his official portfolio.
Notwithstanding Lisbeth’s nursing, Marshal Hulot three days later was a dead man. Such men are the glory of the party they support. To Republicans, the Marshal was the ideal of patriotism; and they all attended his funeral, which was followed by an immense crowd. The army, the State officials, the Court, and the populace all came to do homage to this lofty virtue, this spotless honesty, this immaculate glory. Such a last tribute of the people is not a thing to be had for the asking.
This funeral was distinguished by one of those tributes of delicate feeling, of good taste, and sincere respect which from time to time remind us of the virtues and dignity of the old French nobility. Following the Marshal’s bier came the old Marquis de Montauran, the brother of him who, in the great rising of the Chouans in 1799, had been the foe, the luckless foe, of Hulot. That Marquis, killed by the balls of the “Blues,” had confided the interests of his young brother to the Republican soldier. (See Les Chouans.) Hulot had so faithfully acted on the noble Royalist’s verbal will, that he succeeded in saving the young man’s estates, though he himself was at the time an emigre. And so the homage of the old French nobility was not wanting to the leader who, nine years since, had conquered MADAME.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 713
