“What strange constructions,” said the King, pointing to some distant factory-chimneys. “What are those slender towers that I’ve never noticed before? They’re like the minarets of mosques—I don’t much like that architectural style. And what are those bizarre black things?”
This time, Louis was pointing to some gas-holders in a production factory. When Célestin Marjolet replied, the King did not immediately grasp the meaning of the word “gas” and exclaimed: “You mean they’re making light fabrics in those ugly buildings?” 7
Célestin Marjolet did not have time to explain the misconception. The strident blast of a whistle caused every head to be raised. It was the railway; a train was advancing noisily alongside the road. The jets of steam, the formidable gasping of the machine and the long line of carriages, which made an infernal racket as they rolled along, abruptly plunged the royal cortège into complete disarray. Louis XIV had gone pale; Monsieur Colbert went green; Turenne launched himself forward, tore the horses’ reins from the coachman’s hands in order to bring the omnibus to a halt, and Jean Bart leapt down to the ground. As for the ladies, they all fainted—and a few gentlemen with them.
“What’s that?” cried Louis, when the train had disappeared like a thunderbolt. “What is that demonic apparition? Are there people in those infernal carriages?”
“Might it not be a certain invention of which Monsieur Blaise Pascal spoke a while ago?” stammered a courtier. “A vehicle named, I believe, a wheelbarrow? I’ve heard it talked about in the most eulogistic terms…”
Célestin replied gravely that what they had just seen was not a wheelbarrow but a railway train. Louis XIV had him repeat the words. In order to be better understood, Célestin pointed out the rails of the road’s tramways.
Colbert slapped his forehead. “How simple that is! Why didn’t we think of it sooner?” He turned abruptly to a Secretary of State, who happened to be behind him, carrying his portfolio, and rapidly scribbled a few words on a piece of paper:
Make a report to the King on the advantages there would be for His Majesty’s service and for his subjects in establishing iron rails in all the roads of the Kingdom.
“Rails aren’t enough,” Célestin went on. “There’s another thing—the vapor…”
“What’s that? Smoke? Morning mist?”
“No, Sire, the vapor produced by boiling…” Célestin Marjolet was about to launch into an explanation, which would have been rather difficult for unprepared minds to grasp, when, the carriages having reached the heights of Sèvres, Paris suddenly appeared: an immense and formidable agglomeration of houses, traversed by the shining silky ribbon of its river, with its monuments, its bell-towers, and, at one point, an accumulation of domes, spires and pinnacles at the foot of the transparent Eiffel Tower. That sight drew an exclamation from the entire court. Louis sat up straight on his bench, his eyes making a rapid tour of the horizon before fixing on the area of which the Tower formed the center. His eyebrows furrowed.
“It’s Paris and it isn’t! It’s scarcely two months since I last saw my capital. What is the significance of all these changes that have overtaken it is such a short space of time… and without my orders?” He turned to Colbert, who was too surprised to find a reply. “Is this, Monsieur Colbert, where all the money from my treasury goes? When I ask for a few miserable millions, I’m told that the taxes haven’t been gathered, that the excise duties produce nothing; people tell me that money is lacking, and construct buildings without my order, including pure monuments, like that Tower…”
“The Eiffel Tower!” said Célestin.
“Like that Eiffel Tower whose immense scaffolding we can see. Have the plans for that construction been submitted to me? Or the plans of all these new monuments for which a host of other edifices have been demolished! Who ordered these changes? Who has permitted himself to touch my capital without orders?”
During the entire journey through the Bois de Boulogne the King did not calm down; he enumerated the well-known monuments whose disappearance he was able to observe. He did not address a word to Colbert, whom he instructed to send orders to the Governor of the Bastille, as soon as they arrived in Paris, to prepare cells for a large number of criminals.
The viaduct of the Pont-du-Jour, glimpsed as they passed by with two trains crossing in different directions, renewed the emotion experienced at Sèvres. Louis softened slightly. “There’s something good—but why has no one spoken to me about it, and how have they dared to transform my Kingdom thus without submitting the projects to me in advance?”
In the other carriages, people less constrained by etiquette were releasing cries of amazement at every moment. So many new things! A few people seemed to be prey to sharp anxieties.
Monsieur Boileau considered his village of Auteuil with astonishment—a village no loner, but a town; no more market-gardens, no more vineyards, no more little cottages…
“Where’s my hermitage?” he said to Molière, “and my cottage, and the garden where we played skittles so happily?”
V. How Marjolet introduced Louis XIV
to the Eiffel Tower.
The director of the Exposition, forewarned by Marjolet of Louis XIV’s visit, had thought that it was a joke on the part of the fantasist scientist. The functionary posted at the entrance at the Pont d’Iéna, however, was utterly stupefied by the sight of the strange visitors.
The carriages came to an abrupt halt in front of the entrance, interrupting the lamentations of the anxious courtiers. The Court got down; the tricycles were also arriving, one by one, having suffered a few accidents. Two tricycles had overturned in the roadside ditches, another had crashed into an English velocipedist, who had challenged him to a boxing match. One of the lords was missing; following an altercation at the barrier with the employees in the toll-booth, the town sergeants, threatened by the officer of the watch and the lieutenant of police, had put him under arrest.
Louis XIV passed majestically over the Seine without saying a word. He would have had too much to say. He contented himself with staring and promising himself that he would see everything before demanding a serious explanation from his ministers and accounts for the enormous expenses disbursed without his authorization.
Arriving beneath the Eiffel Tower, the Sun King stopped, and his entire Court arranged itself in a semicircle behind him. The ladies were playing with their fans; the great aristocrats had their plumed hats under their arms, each with one hand on his sword and the other stroking his lace. They waited respectfully for the monarch to speak.
“But after all,” cried the King, pointing at the Tower with his cane, “it’s still no more than scaffolding. What building are they going to erect for me with that immense framework?”
“It’s not scaffolding, Sire,” said Célestin, bowing deeply, “it’s a monument, quite finished…”
“Finished!” cried Louis XIV. “As a tower or palace, this monument, with its construction open to the sky, is uninhabitable. It’s not a palace, it’s not a tower…”
While expressing his discontentment, Louis XIV headed towards the entrance of Pillar No. 1, and the entire Court followed. As the news of the Sun King’s arrival spread, the crowd of ordinary visitors to the Exposition ran to the tower in dense masses, which the town sergeants had difficulty in containing.
There was a king at the Exposition! But what king? No one knew, exactly. He called himself Louis XIV, but Louis XIV of where? From what distant country did he come? Was it in Europe, Asia or Africa?
“Mama,” a child suddenly cried, at the sight of the Sun King, “it’s our Louis XIV. I recognize him; I’ve seen him in my History of France book!”
At that moment, the news-hawkers arrived, quite out of breath, with bundles of papers under their arms.
“Get the Liberté, the evening paper!”
“The Intransigeant, third edition!”
“Get the Cocarde! Latest news!”
“Return of Louis XIV to Versailles! Read all abou
t it!”
“This populace is very bold,” said Turenne. “We’ll have to get a company or two of guardsmen to keep them at bay!”
The King passed through the Tower’s turnstile and stopped in front of the elevator.
“Sire, that’s the way up,” said Célestin Marjolet, pointing to the elevator. He attempted to explain the mechanism and describe the apparatus in every detail; when he thought that everyone must have understood, he opened the door and stood aside respectfully.
“Go on!” said the King, instructing two people to get in: the Marquis de Balantin and the Seigneur de Cabiol, a fully-fledged duke. The two courtiers hurried forward. At a sign from the King, the elevator suddenly moved off and carried them up into the air.
The two courtiers emitted several improvised curses and begged for it to stop—but cries and protests were futile. The King calmly watched them rise up and vanish into the framework of the tower. When Célestin spoke to him about taking the same route in order to go up to the upper platforms, Louis shook his head and declared that he refused to compromise the royal dignity in all these machines.
“The Sun King laments his grandeur, which he left on the bank,” murmured Boileau in Molière’s ear.8
Everyone headed for the pillar reserved for petty staircases; when we arrived there, there was a movement in the crowd. A dozen photographers ran forward, aiming their objective lenses at Louis XIV, who was moving forward with majestic slowness. At the sight of the battery of these unknown instruments arrayed before him, the King stopped; several lords threw themselves forward, striking the poor photographers—who had a great deal of difficulty getting their hands out of the way—with their canes.
“An outrage!” cried Colbert. “Someone take these criminals to the great Châtelet and put them on trial!”
Célestin attempted to explain to the minister that the photographers were not criminals, an that their cameras were not at all dangerous; they were loaded, to be sure, but merely with sensitive plates for making the King’s portrait.”
Make the King’s portrait! Was not the painter Lebrun there? The latter waxed indignant regarding the pretensions of photographers, and talked of having them hanged. To pacify the minister and the painter, the town sergeants advised the delinquents to disappear forthwith.
The King, slightly unsettled by the occurrence, climbed the stairs to the first platform, where a light snack awaited. After so many surprises, the court needed to get its strength back. A few slices of pâté, accompanied by plentiful wines, restored the equilibrium of their unquiet minds.
After another snack and further refreshments on the second platform, the King and the entire Court eventually had a proper meal at the tower’s summit. Everyone was rested and restored. They now set about discussing everything they had seen—but they were not done with surprises.
The Duc de Cabiol and the Marquis de Balantin got up from the table, chatting to one another, and went to another table, on which, among other things, there was a little box that appeared to contain nothing but reels of metal thread; they both seized these threads disdainfully. What tremors and what grimaces! The Duc and the Marquis hopped from one leg to the other, dancing and letting out inarticulate cries. The locks of their wigs, standing up on their heads, appeared to be giving off sparks. The box imprudently touched by the two courtiers was an electrical junction-box.
Their neighbors, who had hurried to their aid, were also dancing; the neighbors’ neighbors, then Colbert, then the King himself, were subjected to electrical shocks. When they were separated from the dangerous box, they looked at one another in bewilderment, while readjusting their wigs. A few courtiers were talking about throwing Célestin Marjolet off the top of the tower.
VI. The Great King and his Ministers use the telephone to send a few belated orders.
“That’s not all, Sire,” said Célestin, when the emotional moment had passed, “We have many other silly little things—as Monsieur de Balandin puts it—to show you. Among other interesting devices, here are the telephone and the phonograph.”
At this, everyone drew away.
“Don’t be afraid, gentlemen—there’s no danger!”
Célestin began to demonstrate the two instruments; he was as precise and as clear as possible, but he soon perceived that no one understood him and that everyone remained incredulous. People were smiling. The King was showing signs of impatience.
“The invention of an American scientist?” said one of the lords. “There are no scientists that I know, there are only savages…”
“If he’s American,” added another, “your Mr. Edison is a savage dressed in a feather skirt, with more feathers in a diadem around his head… He couldn’t have studied anything in the wilderness but hunting beaver and buffalo!”
Monsieur Colbert made a gesture to put a stop to this mockery. “Don’t waste His Majesty’s time,” he said to Célestin. “One cannot, except by sorcery—and sorcery is dangerous—imagine any correspondence in words between Paris and Marseilles or Lille…”
By way of reply, Célestin activated the telephone bell and spoke into the receiver. “Hello? Hello? Put me through to Brussels!”
The reply bell soon rang.
“Would you care to listen, Monsieur le Ministre?” he said to Colbert, inviting him to approach the apparatus.
Colbert listened briefly, and swiftly handed back the receiver. “What is that?” he asked, anxiously.
“That little whistling voice is the voice of an employee of the Belgian Telephone Administration; I’ll ask him to put me in communication with a person I know in Brussels. I’ll talk to that person, that person will answer me and you’ll hear his replies. Listen! Hello? Hello? Put me through to Monsieur Van Klack, 66 Place Sainte-Gudule. Hello? Hello? Are you there, Monsieur Van Klack?”
“Yes.”
“Good. How are things with you, Monsieur Van Klack?”
Célestin passed the receiver to Colbert. “Would you care to listen, Monsieur le Ministre?”
Colbert put his ear to the receiver. Surprise was immediately painted on his face. He heard a little voice, which said: “Good day, Monsieur Marjolet. We are in good health, except that Madame Van Klack is still suffering from rheumatism—and I would like to recover the 10,000 francs that I lent you 18 months ago, you know. When will you send me the 10,000 francs, Monsieur Marjolet?”
“You’re a sorcerer, or a ventriloquist!” cried Colbert.
“Neither one nor the other.”
“If your invention is real, then—whether it is yours or another’s—His Majesty will reward you by paying the 10,000 francs that you owe Monsieur Van Klack. His Majesty will have the telephone examined by a few savants from his Academy…”
Célestin had to begin his explanations again.
“In that case,” said Turenne, “His Majesty can correspond by this means with his provincial governors, the generals of his armies… even give orders to the governors of besieged cities. I’ll send an order to an officer in one of my detachments, which is at Birkenstein on the Rhine, to advance a few leagues in order to establish a stronger position. I’ll give him my instructions myself…”
“There’s no point, Monsieur le Maréchal. Your detachment has left Birkenstein.”
“Infantry and cavalry.”
“Yes, Monsieur le Maréchal... Two hundred years ago,” Célestin added in a whisper.
“Permit me,” said Colbert. “Following His Majesty’s instructions, the governor of Tournai ought to have sent a company of 500 horse yesterday night to mount a surprise attack on one of the Prince of Orange’s positions eight leagues from there, making subsequent operations awkward. Ask the governor if the expedition succeeded. Another thing—order the governor of Hardenberg to hold out in spite of the famine… The King will send him help by sea. While awaiting help, the garrison should eat its horses—and its straw and boots, if necessary.”
Célestin was about to respond when, Colbert having been summoned by Louis, other lord
s approached the telephone.
“A marvelous invention, Monsieur,” said one of them, with exquisite politeness. “What progress! Will it permit correspondence with Bordeaux?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” answered Célestin.
“Ah!” said another courtier. “This is the governor of Guyenne and Gascony, who has a pressing matter to settle with his government…”
“Yes,” said the other. “A very minor matter. I sent an order yesterday, by means of a courier who will not arrive for a week, to release certain individuals retained in the dungeons. I’ve reconsidered, having slept on it—they’re to be hanged!”
“Too late, monsieur,” Célestin replied. “They’re free.”
“Has my secretary sent my orders by telephone? That’s annoying—very annoying! I’ll give him a severe reprimand this evening. I’m extremely vexed. I’ll dock his pay, damn it!”
Célestin, bowing deeply to the King, asked for permission to demonstrate the second invention made by the American savage Edison. He had several of the recently-perfected phonographs there; he asked Monsieur Lulli to sing an aria into one of the machines, Monsieur Molière to improvise a tirade and Monsieur Boileau to recite a few verses…
The phonograph, to everyone’s profound amazement, repeated Lulli’s aria, Molière’s tirade and Boileau’s verses, in the voice and accent of each man, including interruptions and fragments of conversation unwittingly recorded by the apparatus. The court was greatly interested. The phonograph had an even greater success than the telephone. It was impossible to show incredulity; it had to be admitted that there was no question of fraud and that no ventriloquist would be capable of imitating voices thus. Célestin put several phonograms into the machine, allowing several songs to be heard, and eventually went so far as to let his audacious phonograph sing a couplet of the Marseillaise!
Célestin had not finished; to everyone’s great astonishment, the phonograph suddenly emitted the voices of the Duc de Cabiol and the Marquis de Balantin, the two lords made to try out the Tower’s elevator by the King. The two courtiers, with no suspicion of their imprudence, had spoken too close to the phonograph while waiting for His Majesty at the top of the Tower, and this was the conversation the instrument reproduced:
The Clock of the Centuries Page 4
