No sooner had the judge set foot in the door of the château than the marquise and her sister asked him for news of their adventure.
“It was nothing at all,” said the marquis, respecting his brother-in-law’s request, “merely a gang of scoundrels that we’ll get the better of sooner or later. It’s simply a matter of ascertaining what the judge’s wishes are in the matter; we’ll be only too happy to abide by them.”
And as d’Olincourt had hastened to forewarn them in a whisper of the success of their mission and of the judge’s desire that it not be discussed, they changed the subject and did not say another word about the ghosts of Téroze.
The judge told his wife how very concerned he was about her state, and said that what worried and upset him even more was the fact that her accursed ailment forced a further postponement of their moment of nuptial bliss. And as it was late, they dined and went to bed that day without further incident.
Monsieur de Fontanis, who as a worthy gentleman of the robe had in addition to his many other excellent qualities an excessive attraction for the fair sex, did not let the presence of young Lucille in the circle of the Marquise d’Olincourt go unnoticed. He began by asking his confidant, La Brie, who the young lady was; and La Brie, having replied in such a way as to encourage the seeds of love that he saw being planted in the judge’s heart, persuaded him not to be backward.
“She’s a girl from a fine family,” the false-hearted confidant replied. “But that does not mean she is immune to a proposal of love from a man such as you. Your Honor,” the young mischief-maker went on, “you are the scourge of fathers and the terror of husbands, and no matter what vows of fidelity a member of the fair sex may have made, it is extremely difficult to resist you. Forgetting for a moment the figure you cut, think of the position you hold: what woman can resist the allurements of a man of justice—that long black robe, that square judge’s bonnet—do you think for a minute that all that is not utterly seductive?”
“There is no question but that we are difficult to resist … why, I can remember one of our judges who was the living terror of every virtue … but tell me, La Brie, do you really think that if I were to say a word …”
“It would be no sooner said than done, of that you may be sure.”
“But you would have to keep a tight lip, La Brie. It is important for me not to start off my relationship with my wife by an act of infidelity.”
“Oh, Monsieur, you would drive her to despair if she were to suspect; she loves you so dearly.”
“Really, do you think she loves me, at least a little?”
“She adores you, Monsieur, and to be unfaithful to her would be tantamount to murder.”
“And yet you think, looking at things from the opposite angle?…”
“That the affair will pursue its course to its inevitable conclusion, if you so desire. It all depends upon you.”
“Oh, my dear La Brie, you overwhelm me. What a pleasure to be involved in two affairs, to be unfaithful to two women at the same time! To be unfaithful, my friend, unfaithful: what a delight for a man of law!”
As a result of these blandishments, Fontanis decked himself out in his finest clothing, prettified himself, forgot the lashes wherewith his bottom was lacerated, and, while keeping his wife simmering on the back burner, directed his heavy guns at the crafty Lucille who, listening to him at first with great modesty, little by little began to play his game.
This little game had been going on for about four days without anyone’s seeming to notice when news sheets and gazettes were received at the château urging all astronomers to observe, on the following night, “the passage of Venus beneath the sign of Capricorn.”
“Why of course!” said the judge the minute he heard the news, acting as though he were an authority. “‘Tis a most singular event. I must confess I did not expect this phenomenon to occur. I have, as you may know, Mesdames, more than a nodding acquaintance with this science. I have in fact written a six-volume work on the satellites of Mars.”
“On the satellites of Mars,” said the marquise with a smile. “I’m surprised you chose that subject, Judge, since Mars has not been especially propitious for you.”
“Always the joker, my dear Marquise. I can see that my little secret has not been kept. Be that as it may, I’m most curious to see the event of which we have just learned … Is there any place here, Marquis, to which we may repair to observe the trajectory of this planet?”
“Of course,” the marquis replied. “Over my dovecote I have a well-equipped observatory. You will find there some excellent telescopes, quadrants, compasses, in short everything an astronomer’s observation tower calls for.”
“I see that you too have some knowledge of the science.”
“Not in the least. But one has eyes like everyone else, and one has occasion to encounter people who are knowledgeable in astronomy and is delighted to learn from them.”
“Well then, I shall be only too happy to give you a few lessons, and in six weeks I guarantee that you will have a better knowledge of the heavens than Descartes or Copernicus.”
However, it was time to repair to the observatory. The judge was distressed that his wife’s illness was going to deprive him of the pleasure of playing the scholar in front of her, without for one minute suspecting, poor devil, that none other than she was destined to play the principal role in this strange comedy.
Although balloons were not yet a matter of public knowledge, they were already known in 1779, and the clever physicist who was to launch the one with which we will shortly be concerned, more skillful than any of those physicists who came after him, had the good sense to show his admiration like the others and not to say a word when intruders arrived to steal his discovery away from him. In the middle of a perfectly constructed aerostat, Mademoiselle de Téroze was, according to the plan, supposed to ascend at the appointed hour clasped in the arms of Count d’Elbène, and this scene, viewed from afar and lighted only by a faint artificial light, was cleverly enough devised to fool a dolt like the judge, who had never in his life even read a single work on the science in which he prided himself.
The entire company reached the top of the tower, armed itself with telescopes, and the balloon began its ascent.
“Do you see anything?” they all asked one another.
“Not yet.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I beg your pardon. Look over there, to the left. Train your telescope to the east.”
“Ah! I have it, my friends,” shouted the judge, going into raptures. “I have it! Follow where my telescope is pointing… A trifle closer to Mercury but not as far as Mars; far below the orbit of Saturn. There. Ah, Good Heavens! what a beautiful sight!”
“I have it now too,” said the marquis, “and ‘tis truly a marvelous sight to see. Do you see the conjunction?”
“I have it clearly in my telescope …”
And just as he said these words the balloon passed over the tower.
“I say,” said the marquis, “is it possible that the notices we received were wrong? For didn’t we just see ‘Venus over Capricorn?”
“You are quite right,” said the judge. “That is the most beautiful spectacle I have ever seen in my life.”
“Who knows,” said the marquis, “whether you will always be obliged to ascend so high to see it comfortably.”
“Ah! Marquis, your banter is out of place at such a beautiful moment…”
And as the balloon was by that time disappearing into darkness, they all went downstairs, highly pleased with the allegorical phenomenon that art had just lent to Nature.
“I must say I deeply regret that you did not come with us to share our pleasure at witnessing that phenomenon,” said Monsieur de Fontanis to his wife, whom he found back in bed when he returned to the château. “I cannot conceive of anything more beautiful.”
“I believe you,” said the young woman, “but someone told me that t
here were all sorts of immodest things involved with this curious event, in which case I am just as happy to have missed it.”
“Immodest!” said the judge with a derisive laugh that only accentuated his usual charm. “Not in the least. It was a conjunction: is there anything else in Nature? ‘Tis what I should like to have happen at long last between us, and what will happen the moment you say the word. But tell me, in all good conscience, sovereign mistress of all my thought, haven’t you made your slave pine long enough, and won’t you soon grant him the reward for all his troubles?”
“Alas! my angel,” said his young wife, her words dripping with love, “I trust you know that I am as eager as you. But you can see my condition … and you see it without feeling sorry for me, you cruel fellow, although ’tis completely your doing: if I didn’t have to worry so much about things that concern you, I would feel much better.”
The judge was in seventh heaven at hearing himself cajoled in this way; he strutted like a peacock, he straightened up like a ramrod: never had any man of law, not even those who had just finished a hanging, ever had a neck so stiff.
But since, in spite of all these blandishments on the part of his wife, the obstacles standing in the way of their effecting a conjunction grew greater every day, and as quite the opposite was true insofar as Lucille was concerned, Fontanis did not hesitate to choose the bird of love in the hand rather than wait for those of Hymen in the bush.
“One cannot escape me,” he said to himself. “I’ll always have her whenever I want her. But the other may be here for only a fleeting moment; I should lose no time taking advantage of the opportunity.”
And, basing his actions on these principles, Fontanis lost no opportunity to pursue his plans.
“Alas, Monsieur,” this young lady said to him one day with feigned ingenuousness, “won’t I become the most unhappy of creatures if I yield and grant you what you are asking? … Given the ties that bind you, will you ever be able to repair the wrong that you will do my reputation?”
“What do you mean by ‘repair’? One does not repair in such cases. Neither of us will have anything more to ‘repair’ than the other, this is what is called a wasted effort. There is never anything to fear from a married man, because his basic concern is to keep things secret, all of which will in no wise stop you from finding a husband.”
“And what about religion, Monsieur? and honor?”
“Mere nothings, my pet. I can see that you are an artless young girl—they should have named you Agnes17— and that you should enroll for a few lessons in my school. Ah! I would make these childish prejudices disappear in a trice.”
“But I was under the impression that your profession pledged you to respect them.”
“Yes, that is true, but only for show; all we have going for us is show, we must at least make use of it to inspire respect. But once stripped of this vain decorum which compels us to show a certain respect, we resemble in every way the rest of humanity. Come now, how could you expect us to be immune to their vices? Our passions, far more heated by the recital or perpetual portrayal of theirs, make no distinction between theirs and ours save by the excesses which they fail to recognize and which constitute our daily delight. Almost always immune to the laws wherewith we make the rest of humanity tremble, we are all the more excited by this impunity, and as a consequence become even greater villains …”
Lucille listened to all this nonsense, and however much she may have found both the external appearance and the morality of this abominable person repulsive, she continued to offer little or no resistance to his amorous advances, for such were the terms she had agreed to as a basis for her reward. The more persistent the judge’s suit became, the more his fatuousness made him unbearable. There is nothing more amusing on the face of the earth than a lawyer in love: ‘tis a perfect picture of awkwardness, impertinence, and clumsiness. If the reader has ever had occasion to see a turkey in a position to multiply its species, he has an excellent idea of the picture we would like to draw from him.
Despite whatever precautions he may have taken to conceal his game, one day when his insolence made what he was up to all too obvious, the marquis could not refrain from taking him in hand and humiliating him in the presence of his goddess.
“Judge,” he said to him, “I have just this minute received some most distressing news for you.”
“What news?”
“We have it on good authority that the High Court of Aix is going to be eliminated. The public complains that it serve no useful purpose. Aix has far less need of a high court than does Lyon, and this last-named city, much too far removed from Paris to be dependent upon it from a judicial point of view, will be responsible for all of Provence. Lyon dominates Provence, it is positively situated as it must be to harbor within its bosom the judges of so important a province.”
“Such an arrangement makes no sense whatsoever.”
“It is a wise move. Aix is at the end of the world. No matter in what region a citizen of Provence may live, every last one of them would prefer to come to Lyon for his business rather than to your old mud-pit of Aix. Incredibly bad roads, no bridge over that Durance River which, like your brains, is inoperative nine months out of the year; and, what is more, shortcomings of a very special nature, I cannot pretend otherwise: first of all, they find fault with the makeup of the court; there is not, they say, a single member of the Aix court who is capable of so much as writing his own name … fishmongers, sailors, smugglers—in short, a whole gang of contemptible scoundrels that the nobility wants nothing to do with, an unsavory bunch that plagues and harasses the people in order to compensate for the discredit into which it has fallen … numbskulls, idiots … I beg your pardon, Judge, but I’m only passing on what people have written to me—I’ll show you the letter after dinner—in a word, cads of the lowest sort, who carry their fanaticism and scandal to such lengths that they keep standing, as a proof of their integrity, an ever-ready gallows, which is nothing more than a monument to their ridiculous inflexibility. ‘Tis a monument whose very foundation the people ought to destroy, in order to stone to death the notorious tormentors who, by their insolence, dare to keep this constant reminder of prison before the people’s eyes. It is surprising they have not already done so, and it seems that the day may not be far off when they will18… A whole host of unjust decrees, an affectation of sternness the whole purpose of which is to cover up the legislative crimes it may please the members of the court to commit; even more serious charges; in short, and to resume all the above: unequivocal enemies of the State, not only now but from time immemorial, people are daring to say openly. The feeling of revulsion caused by your desecrations of Mérindol is still present in the people’s hearts.19 Don’t you offer the most frightful spectacle it is possible in this day and age to depict? Can one imagine without shuddering the guardians of law and order, of peace and impartiality, running wild through the province like so many madmen, a torch in one hand and a knife in the other, burning, killing, raping, and massacring anything that happens their way, like a pack of maddened tigers that had escaped from the jungle? Is this any way for judges to act? One also recalls several instances when you stubbornly refused to come to the aid of the king when he needed it; you were, on more than one occasion, ready to incite the province to revolt rather than agree to the taxes assessed upon you. Do you think that this unhappy period has been forgotten when, without being threatened with any danger, you came leading the citizens of your town to bring the keys of the city to the High Constable of Bourbon who was betraying his king? Or that dark time when, trembling at the very approach of Charles V, you hastened to pay homage and to open up your gates to him? Is it not common knowledge that it was in the inner sanctum of the High Court of Aix that the first seeds of the Catholic League were sown? In short, in whatever age, that your ranks were filled with seditionists or rebels, murderers or traitors?
“You know better than anyone, ye judges of Provence, that when you are of a mind to
bring about the ruination of someone, you make it your business to dig into his past, you carefully bring to light again all his former wrongdoings in order to cast an even more serious light on his present: therefore be not surprised to find others employing the same tactics with respect to you that you have used with your poor innocent victims when it pleased you to sacrifice them to your pedantry. Remember this, my dear Judge, that no individual or body of men can any longer scurrilously attack a peaceful and honest citizen, and if anybody takes it upon himself to act with such irrelevance, then one should not be surprised to see a chorus of voices raised, clamoring for the rights of the weak and for virtue as opposed to despotism and inequity.”
The Mystified Magistrate Page 8
