‘You have let the stage-coach pass by, Monsieur. You will lose your seat unless you care to get into my carriage to catch up with it, for the stage-coach goes quicker than the local omnibus.’ The traveller pronounced these words with a markedly Spanish accent and his offer was made with exquisite courtesy. Without waiting for a reply, the Spaniard took a cigar-case from his pocket, opened it and offered Lucien a cigar.
‘I am not travelling,’ Lucien replied, ‘and I am too near the end of my term of life to allow myself the pleasure of smoking.’
‘You are hard on yourself,’ the Spaniard rejoindered. ‘Although I am an honorary canon of Toledo cathedral, I treat myself now and then to a little cigar. God gave us tobacco to quiet our passions and soothe our grief… You seem to have some sorrow, or at least you are carrying an emblem of sorrow, like that sad deity, Hymen. Come… all your woes will fly away with the smoke…’
‘Forgive me, father,’ Lucien dryly replied. ‘No cigar-smoke can blow away my sorrows.’ As he spoke, his eyes became wet with tears.
‘Young man! Can it be divine providence which prompted me to take a little exercise to dispel the drowsiness that overtakes those who travel in the mornings, so that by offering you consolation I can fulfil my mission here below?… But what sorrows can you have at your age?’
‘Your consolations, father, would be in vain. You are Spanish, I am French. You believe in the precepts of Holy Church. I am an atheist…’
‘Santa Virgen del Pilar!… You are an atheist!’ the priest exclaimed, passing his arm through Lucien’s with maternal eagerness. ‘Why, that’s one of the curious phenomena I promised I would study in Paris! In Spain we do not believe in atheists… It’s only in France, and only when one is nineteen, that one can have such opinions.’
‘Oh! I’m an out-and-out atheist. I don’t believe in God, or in society, or in the possibility of happiness. Take a good look at me, father, for in a few hours’ time I shall no longer exist. I shall never see the sun again!’ said Lucien, somewhat bombastically, pointing to the heavens.
‘Come now, what have you done that you should die? Who has sentenced you to death?’
‘A sovereign court: myself!’
‘Child that you are!’ cried the priest. ‘Have you committed murder? Does the scaffold await you? Let’s reason things out. If, as you say, you want to return to nothingness, everything on earth is a matter of indifference to you.’
Lucien gave a nod of assent.
‘Well then, why can’t you tell me your troubles?… No doubt some love affair which has gone wrong?…’
Lucien gave a very significant shrug.
‘You want to kill yourself to avoid dishonour or because life has lost its meaning? Very well, you can kill yourself as easily at Poitiers as at Angoulême, or at Tours as easily as at Poitiers. The quicksands of the Loire do not give back their prey…’
‘No, father,’ Lucien replied. ‘I have found what I want. About three weeks ago I came upon a most attractive harbour where a man disgusted with this world can come ashore in the next one.’
‘The next world?… I thought you were an atheist.’
‘Oh, what I mean by the next world is my future metamorphosis into an animal or a plant.’
‘Have you an incurable illness?’
‘Yes, father.’
‘Ah, we’re coming to it,’ said the priest. ‘And what is it?’
‘Poverty.’
The priest looked at Lucien with a smile and said to him, with infinite grace and an almost ironical smile: ‘A diamond has no idea of its value.’
‘Only a priest,’ cried Lucien, ‘could flatter a man who is destitute and intends to die!’
‘You will not die,’ the Spaniard firmly declared.
‘I’ve often heard,’ Lucien retorted, ‘of people being robbed on the highway, but never of their being enriched.’
‘You are going to hear of it,’ said the priest after ascertaining that his carriage was far enough away for them to go on walking along together.
31. The story of a favourite
‘LISTEN,’ said the priest, chewing away at his cigar. ‘Your poverty could scarcely be a reason for dying. I need a secretary, since mine has recently died in Barcelona. I find myself in the same situation as Baron Gœrtz, the famous minister of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, who arrived without a secretary in a small town when he was making for Sweden as I am making for Paris. He met a goldsmith’s son, remarkably handsome, though certainly not so handsome as you. Baron Gœrtz found this young man intelligent – just as I find you with the hallmark of poetry on your brow. He took him into his carriage, just as I am going to take you into mine; and this youngster, whose lot was to burnish plate and make jewellery in a small provincial town like Angoulême, became his favourite – just as you will be mine. Once at Stockholm, he installed him as secretary and put a great burden of work upon him. This young secretary spent his nights writing, and like all hard workers he contracted a habit: his was to chew paper. That of the late Monsieur de Malesherbes was to blow smoke in people’s faces, and incidentally he did this one day to some important person or other who had a law-suit depending on his report. Our handsome young man began with blank paper, but he grew tired of that and took to masticating manuscripts, which he found more tasty – people didn’t smoke so much then as they do today. Finally the little secretary, passing from one flavour to another, acquired the habit of munching parchment. At that time Russia and Sweden were negotiating a treaty which the Swedish States-General was forcing on Charles the Twelfth, just as in 1814 Europe was trying to impose a peace treaty on Napoleon. The basis of these negotiations was a treaty the two powers were drawing up on the subject of Finland. Gœrtz entrusted the original document to his secretary, but a slight difficulty arose: the treaty was nowhere to be found. The States-General imagined that the Minister had hit on the idea of suppressing the document in order to serve the King’s passion for war. Baron Gœrtz was accused of this: his secretary then owned up to having eaten it. He was brought to trial, found guilty and condemned to death.… However, since you’ve not come to that pass, have a cigar and smoke it while we wait for our barouche.’
Lucien took a cigar and lit it at the priest’s cigar in Spanish fashion, thinking as he did so: ‘He’s right. I’ve plenty of time to kill myself.’ The Spaniard continued:
‘It’s often just when young people are most in despair about their future that their luck turns. That is what I wanted to tell you, but I preferred to prove it by an example. The handsome secretary, condemned to death, was in so much more desperate a plight because the King of Sweden was powerless to reprieve him since he had been sentenced by the Swedish States-General. But he was ready to wink at an escape. The good-looking little secretary got away in a barge with a few crowns in his pocket and came to the court of Kurland armed with a letter of recommendation from Gœrtz to the Duke, to whom the Minister explained the misadventure and his protégé’s mania. The Duke appointed the young man secretary to his major-domo. The Duke had spendthrift habits, a pretty wife and a major-domo: three causes of ruin. If now you were to imagine that this personable young man, after being sentenced to death for having eaten the Finnish Treaty, shook off this depraved taste, you know nothing of the hold a vice has on men: even the threat of execution won’t stop them indulging in a pleasure of their own invention.
‘How does a vice get such a strangle-hold? From its inherent strength or from human weakness? Are there certain cravings which border on insanity? I can’t help laughing at the reformers of morals who try to combat such disorders with eloquent exhortations. There came a time when the Duke, alarmed at his major-domo’s refusal to satisfy his requests for money, asked to see the account-books. A foolish notion! There’s nothing easier than to produce an account: that’s not where the difficulty lies. The major-domo handed all the documents to his secretary so that he could draw up the balance-sheet of the Kurland Civil List. He settled down to this task and sat up al
l night to finish it. Half-way through, the little paper-eater discovered that he was masticating a receipt for a considerable sum of money, signed by the Duke himself. Panic-stricken, he stopped before he had eaten his way through the signature, ran and flung himself at the feet of the Duchess, explained his mania to her and implored his sovereign lady to shield him – what’s more, this took place in the middle of the night I The young clerk’s beauty made such an impression on Her Grace that, when she became a widow, she married him.
‘Thus, right back in the eighteenth century, in a country where armorial bearings were all that mattered, a goldsmith’s son became a sovereign prince!… He did even better for himself: he became Regent at the death of Catherine the First, ruled over the Empress Anne and set out to be the Richelieu of Russia. Well, young man, learn this fact: you may be better-looking even than Biron, but I’m worth more than Baron Gœrtz although I’m only a canon. Come along, get in! We’ll find you a Duchy of Kurland in Paris; or, if we can’t find a duchy, at any rate we’ll find a duchess.’
The Spaniard slipped his arm through Lucien’s, literally forced him up into the carriage, and the postilion closed the door on them.
‘Now talk, I’m listening,’ said the Canon of Toledo to the stupefied Lucien. ‘I’m an old priest to whom you can tell everything without risk. So far no doubt you’ve only devoured your patrimony or Mamma’s money. You’ve done your little moonlight flit and, bless us! you’re all sense of honour right down to the tip of your pretty, dainty little boots!… Come, make a clean confession; it will be absolutely as if you were talking to yourself.’
Lucien felt he was in the situation of the fisherman in an Arabian tale who, trying to drown himself in mid-ocean, is borne down into a country under the sea where he is made king. The Spanish priest seemed so genuinely affectionate that the poet did not hesitate to open his heart to him. And so, as they travelled from Angoulême to Ruffec, he recounted his whole life, leaving out none of his misdeeds and finishing up with the latest disaster for which he was responsible. At the moment when he was ending his story, the more poetically delivered because Lucien was repeating it for the third time in a fortnight, they arrived at a point on the road near Ruffec, where the Rastignac family had their domain. The first time he mentioned this name, the Spaniard gave a start.1
‘It’s from there,’ said Lucien, ‘that young Rastignac set out. He’s certainly not up to my standard, but he’s had better luck than I have.’
‘Ah!’
‘Yes, that quaint little country seat is his father’s manor. As I told you, he became the lover of Madame de Nucingen, the wife of the famous banker. As for me, I gave myself over to poetry. He was more clever and went in for more solid things.’
The priest halted his barouche, wishing out of curiosity to walk along the little avenue from the main road to the manor-house. He looked at it all with more interest than Lucien would have expected from a Spanish priest.
‘So you know the Rastignacs?’ Lucien asked him.
‘I know everyone in Paris,’ said the Spaniard, getting back into the carriage.
32. A history lecture for the ambitious – by a disciple of Machiavelli
‘AND so, for lack of ten or twelve thousand francs, you were going to drown yourself. You’re a child, you know nothing of men or things. A man’s destiny is worth whatever price he puts on it, and you value your future at only twelve thousand francs. Well, I shall presently pay a higher price for you. As for your brother-in-law’s imprisonment, that’s a trifle. If the good Monsieur Séchard has made a discovery, he’ll be a rich man. Rich people have never been put in prison for debt. You don’t seem to me to be well up in history. There are two kinds of history: official history, all lies, the history which is taught in schools, history ad usum delphini. Then there’s secret history, which explains how things really happened: a scandalous kind of history.
‘Let me tell you briefly another little story you’ve never heard. An ambitious young man, a priest, wanted to get into public affairs and became the sycophant of a favourite – a queen’s favourite. The favourite took an interest in the priest and promoted him to the rank of minister by getting him a seat on the Council. One evening, one of those men who think they’re doing a service (never do a man a service without his asking), wrote to tell the ambitious young man that his benefactor was in danger of his life. The King was angry at having a master, and the next day the favourite was to be murdered if he showed himself at the palace. Well now, young man! What would you have done on receiving such a letter?’
‘I should have gone straight away to warn my benefactor,’ Lucien promptly replied.
‘You’re certainly still the child your life-story has shown you to be,’ said the priest. ‘The man in question said to himself: “If the King is ready to commit a crime, my benefactor is done for. I must pretend I received this letter too late.” And he slept until it was time for the favourite to be murdered.’
‘But he was a monster!’ said Lucien, suspecting that the priest’s intention was to test his moral rectitude.
‘All great men are monsters,’ the Canon replied. ‘That man was Cardinal Richelieu, and his benefactor was the Maréchal d’Ancre. You see you don’t know your history of France. Was I not right in telling you that the history taught in schools is a collection of dates and facts which in the first place are extremely dubious and which have not the slightest significance? What use is it to you to have heard of Joan of Arc? Have you ever drawn the conclusion that if France had at that time accepted the Angevin dynasty, the Plantagenets, two united peoples would be ruling the whole world today; and that the two islands in which all the political disturbances of Europe are fomented would be two provinces of France?… And have you studied the means whereby the Medicis, once simple merchants, came to be Grand-Dukes of Tuscany?’
‘A poet, in France, doesn’t have to be as learned as a Benedictine.’
‘Well, young man, they came to be Grand-Dukes in the same way as Richelieu came to be a minister. If you had searched history to find out the human causes of events instead of learning “facts” by heart, in tabloid form, you would have deduced your own principles of conduct from it. From what I have just chosen haphazard from the collection of genuine facts, this law emerges: look upon men, and women particularly, as mere tools, but without letting them realize it. Worship as if he were God himself the man who, being higher placed than you, can be of use to you, and don’t leave him until he has paid dear for the servility you have shown him. In short, in your dealings with the world, be as ruthless as a Jew, be as base as he is; if you want to gain power, do what he does to gain money. And mark this too: have no more concern for a man in disgrace than you would if he had never existed. Shall I tell you why you must behave in this way? You want to dominate society, don’t you? You must begin by obeying society and studying it closely. Scholars study books, politicians study men, their interests and the motives for their acts. Now the world, society and the common run of men are fatalists: they bow to the accomplished fact. Do you know why I’m giving you this little lecture on history? It’s because I believe you to be inordinately ambitious.’
‘Yes, father, I am.’
‘I could see that,’ the Canon went on. ‘But at the moment you’re saying to yourself: “This canon from Spain is inventing anecdotes and squeezing the juice out of history in order to prove to me that I’ve been too virtuous.”’
Lucien smiled at seeing his thoughts so well divined.
‘Well, young man! Let’s take a few commonly accepted facts of history. One day France is practically conquered by the English and the King has only one province left. Two persons emerge from the common people: a poor girl, that same Joan of Arc I was talking about, and a burgher named Jacques Cœur. She offers her sword and the prestige of her maidenhood, he offers his gold, and the kingdom is saved. But the girl is captured… The King, who could have ransomed the girl, lets her be burnt alive! As for the heroic burgher, the King allow
s him to be accused of capital crimes by his courtiers, who swoop down on all his property. The spoils torn from this innocent man, pursued, hemmed in and struck down by justice, enrich five noble houses… And this man, the father of the Archbishop of Bourges, leaves the country never to return, without a penny of his French belongings and having no other money of his own except what he had entrusted to Arabs and Saracens in Egypt. You may reply that such examples of ingratitude belong to the distant past, that they are separated from the present by three centuries of public education, that the skeletons of that period belong to the realm of fable. Well, young man, do you believe in France’s latest demi-god, Napoleon? He kept one of his generals in disgrace, was reluctant to make a marshal of him and never willingly made use of his services. His name was Kellermann. Why did Napoleon behave like this? Kellermann saved France and the First Consul on the field of Marengo by a dashing cavalry charge which was applauded amid the blood and fire of battle. This heroic charge was never mentioned in army despatches. The reason for Napoleon’s coldness towards Kellermann is the reason for the disgrace which befell Fouché and Prince Talleyrand: it’s the ingratitude of Charles VII and Richelieu all over again, the ingratitude…’
‘But, father, supposing you save my life and make my fortune, you’re making my burden of gratitude to you a very light one!’
‘Little scamp,’ said the Abbé with a smile, tweaking Lucien’s ear with an almost royal familiarity, ‘if you showed me ingratitude you would then prove yourself a strong man and I should bend the knee before you. However you’re not yet at that stage. You’ve been just like a school-boy, in too much of a hurry to become one of the masters. That’s what’s wrong with Frenchmen in your generation: they’ve all been spoiled by Napoleon’s meteoric success. You’re leaving the service because you couldn’t get the epaulettes you want. But have you concentrated all your desire and actions on a single purpose?’
Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) Page 73
