The Deputy of Arcis

Sallenauve could not help smiling, but he answered very seriously, —

“You are totally mistaken as to your rival. Madame de l’Estorade was never anything to me but a model, without other value than the fact that she resembled another woman. That one I knew in Rome before I knew you. She had beauty, youth, and a glorious inclination for art. To-day she is confined in a convent; like you, she has paid her tribute to sorrow; therefore, you see – ”

“What, three hearts devoted to you,” cried Luigia, “and not one accepted? A strange star is yours! No doubt I suffer from its fatal influence, and therefore I must pardon you.”

“You are good to be merciful; will you now let me ask you a question? Just now you spoke of your future, and I see it with my own eyes. Who are the friends who have suddenly advanced you so far and so splendidly in your career? Have you made any compact with the devil?”

“Perhaps,” said Luigia, laughing.

“Don’t laugh,” said Sallenauve; “you chose to rush alone and unprotected into that hell called Paris, and I dread lest you have made some fatal acquaintance. I know the immense difficulties and the immense dangers that a woman placed as you are now must meet. Who is this lady that you spoke of? and how did you ever meet her while living under my roof?”

“She is a pious and charitable woman, who came to see me during your absence at Arcis. She had noticed my voice at Saint-Sulpice, during the services of the Month of Mary, and she tried to entice me away to her own parish church of Notre-Dame de Lorette, – it was for that she came to see me.”

“Tell me her name.”

“Madame de Saint-Esteve.”

Though far from penetrating the many mysteries that surrounded Jacqueline Collin, Sallenauve knew Madame de Saint-Esteve to be a woman of doubtful character and a matrimonial agent, having at times heard Bixiou tell tales of her.

“But that woman,” he said, “has a shocking notoriety in Paris. She is an adventuress of the worst kind.”

“I suspected it,” said Luigia. “But what of that?”

“And the man to whom she introduced you?”

“He an adventurer? No, I think not. At any rate, he did me a great service.”

“But he may have designs upon you.”

“Yes, people may have designs upon me,” replied Luigia, with dignity, “but they cannot execute them: between those designs and me, there is myself.”

“But your reputation?”

“That was lost before I left your house. I was said to be your mistress; you had yourself to contradict that charge before the electoral college; you contradicted it, but you could not stop it.”

“And my esteem, for which you profess to care?”

“I no longer want it. You did not love me when I wished for it; you shall not love me now that I no longer wish it.”

“Who knows?” exclaimed Sallenauve.

“There are two reasons why it cannot be,” said the singer. “In the first place, it is too late; and in the second, we are no longer on the same path.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I am an artist and you have ceased to be one. I rise; you fall.”

“Do you call it falling to rise, perhaps, to the highest dignities of the State?”

“To whatever height you rise,” said Luigia, passionately, “you will ever be below your past and the noble future that was once before you – Ah! stay; I think that I have lied to you; had you remained a sculptor, I believe I should have borne still longer your coldness and your disdain; I should have waited until I entered my vocation, until the halo round a singer’s head might have shown you, at last, that I was there beside you. But on the day that you apostatized I would no longer continue my humiliating sacrifice. There is no future possible between us.”

“Do you mean,” said Sallenauve, holding out his hand, which she did not take, “that we cannot even be friends?”

“No,” she replied; “all is over – past and gone. We shall hear of each other; and from afar, as we pass in life, we can wave our hands in recognition, but nothing further.”

“So,” said Sallenauve, sadly, “this is how it all ends!”

La Luigia looked at him a moment, her eyes shining with tears.

“Listen,” she said in a resolute and sincere tone: “this is possible. I have loved you, and after you, no one can enter the heart you have despised. You will hear that I have lovers; believe it not; you will not believe it, remembering the woman that I am. But who knows? Later your life may be swept clean of the other sentiments that have stood in my way; the freedom, the strangeness of the avowal I have just made to you will remain in your memory, and then it is not impossible that after this long rejection you may end by desiring me. If that should happen, – if at the end of many sad deceptions you should return, in sheer remorse, to the religion of art, – then, then, supposing that long years have not made love ridiculous between us, remember this evening. Now, let us part; it is already too late for a tete-a-tete.”

So saying, she took a light and passed into an inner room, leaving Sallenauve in a state of mind we can readily imagine after the various shocks and surprises of this interview.

On returning to his hotel he found Jacques Bricheteau awaiting him.

“Where the devil have you been?” cried the organist, impatiently. “It is too late now to take the steamboat.”

“Well,” said Sallenauve, carelessly, “then I shall have a few hours longer to play truant.”

“But during that time your enemies are tunnelling their mine.”

“I don’t care. In that cave called political life one has to be ready for anything.”

“I thought as much!” exclaimed Bricheteau. “You have been to see Luigia; her success has turned your head, and the deputy is thinking of his statues.”

“How often have I heard you say yourself that Art alone is great?”

“But an orator,” replied Bricheteau, “is also an artist, and the greatest of all. Others speak to the heart and the mind, but he to the conscience and the will of others. At any rate, this is no time to look back; you are engaged in a duel with your adversaries. Are you an honest man, or a scoundrel who has stolen a name? There is the question which may, in consequence of your absence, be answered against you in the Chamber.”

“I begin to feel that you have led me into a mistaken path; I had in my hands a treasure, and I have flung it away!”

“Happily,” said the organist, “that’s only an evening mist which the night will dissipate. To-morrow you will remember the engagement you are under to your father, and the great future which is before you.”

IX. IN THE CHAMBER

The king had opened the Chamber, but Sallenauve was not present, and his absence was causing a certain sensation in the democratic ranks. The “National” was particularly disturbed. As a stockholder of the paper, coming frequently to its office before the election, and even consenting to write articles for it, how strange that on the eve of the opening of the session the newly elected deputy should not come near it!

“Now that he is elected,” said some of the editorial staff, remarking on the total disappearance of the man whom they considered they had done their part to elect, “does monsieur think he can treat us scurvily? It is getting too much the habit of these lordly deputies to be very obsequious as long as they are candidates, and throw us away, after they have climbed the tree, like an old coat.”

Less excitable, the editor-in-chief calmed this first ebullition, but Sallenauve’s absence from the royal session seemed to him very strange.

The next day, when the bureaus are constituted, presidents and secretaries appointed, and committees named, Sallenauve’s absence was still more marked. In the bureau for which his name was drawn, it happened that the election of its president depended on one vote; through the absence of the deputy of Arcis, the ministry gained that advantage and the Opposition lost it. Much discontent was expressed by the newspapers of the latter party; they did not, as yet, openly attack the conduct of the defaulter, but they declared that they could not account for it.

Maxime de Trailles, on the other hand, fully prepared and on the watch, was waiting only until the routine business of the bureaus and the appointment of the committees was disposed of to send in the petition of the Romilly peasant-woman, which had been carefully drawn up by Massol, under whose clever pen the facts he was employed to make the most of assumed that degree of probability which barristers contrive to communicate to their sayings and affirmations. But when Maxime had the joy of seeing that Sallenauve’s absence in itself was creating a prejudice against him, he went again to Rastignac and asked him if he did not think it better to hasten the moment of attack, since everything seemed so favorable.

This time Rastignac was much more explicit: Sallenauve’s absence abroad seemed to him the conduct of a man who feared exposure and had lost his head. He therefore advised de Trailles to have the petition sent in at once, and he made no difficulty about promising his assistance to a conspiracy which appeared to be taking color, the result of which must be, in any case, a very pretty scandal. The next day the first trace of his subterranean influence was visible. The order of the day in the Chamber was the verification of powers, – that is, the admission of newly elected members. The deputy appointed to report on the elections in the department of the Aube was a strong partisan of the ministry, and, in consequence of a confidential communication made to him that morning, the following paragraph appeared in his report: —

The action of the electoral college of Arcis was regular. Monsieur de Sallenauve produced in proper time all the necessary papers proving his eligibility; his admission therefore would seem to present no difficulty. But rumors of a singular nature have been current since the election as to the name and identity of the new deputy; and, in support of these rumors, a petition to authorize a criminal prosecution has been laid before the president of the Chamber. This petition states an extremely serious fact, namely: that Monsieur de Sallenauve has usurped the name he bears; and this usurpation, being made by means of an official document, assumes the character of forgery committed by substitution of person. A most regrettable circumstance, continued the report, is the absence of Monsieur de Sallenauve, who instead of instantly contradicting the accusation made against him, has not appeared since the opening of the Chamber at any of its sessions, and it is not even known where he is. Under these circumstances, his admission, the committee think, cannot be granted; and they feel it therefore their duty to refer the matter to the Chamber.

Daniel d’Arthez, a deputy of the legitimist opposition, who had been favorable to the election of Sallenauve, hastened, after the reading of this report, to ask for the floor, and entreated the Chamber to remark that its adoption would be wholly unjustifiable.

“The point for the committee to decide,” he said, “was the regularity of the election. The report distinctly states that this is not called in question. The Chamber can, therefore, do only one thing; namely, admit by an immediate vote the validity of an election about which no irregularity is alleged. To bring in the question of authorizing a criminal investigation would be an abuse of power; because by not allowing discussion or defence, and by dispensing with the usual forms of procedure which guarantee certain rights to a party implicated, the Chamber would be virtually rejecting the action of the electors in the exercise of their sovereign functions. Every one can see, moreover,” added the orator, “that to grant the right of criminal investigation in this connection is to prejudge the merits of the case; the presumption of innocence, which is the right of every man, is ignored – whereas in this case the person concerned is a man whose integrity has never been doubted, and who has just been openly honored by the suffrages of his fellow citizens.”

The discussion was prolonged for some time, the ministerial orators, of course, taking the other side, until an unfortunate event occurred. The senior deputy, acting as president (for the Chamber was not yet constituted), was a worn-out old man, very absent-minded, and wholly unaccustomed to the functions which his age devolved upon him. He had duly received Monsieur de Sallenauve’s letter requesting leave of absence; and had he recollected to communicate it, as in duty bound, to the Chamber at the proper time, the discussion would probably have been nipped in the bud. But parliamentary matters are apt to go haphazard; when, reminded of the letter by the discussion, he produced it, and when the Chamber learned that the request for leave of absence was made for an indefinite period and for the vague purpose of “urgent affairs,” the effect was lamentable.

“It is plain,” said all the ministerial party, “that he has gone to England to escape an investigation; he feared the result; he feels himself unmasked.”

This view, setting aside political prejudices, was shared by the sterner minds of all parties, who refused to conceive of a man not hastening to defend himself from such a blasting accusation. In short, after a very keen and able argument from the attorney-general, Vinet, who had taken heart on finding that the accused was likely to be condemned by default, the question of adjournment was put to the vote and passed, but by a very small majority; eight days being granted to the said deputy to appear and defend himself.

The day after the vote was passed Maxime de Trailles wrote to Madame Beauvisage as follows: —

Madame, – The enemy received a severe check yesterday. In the opinion of my friend Rastignac, a very intelligent and experienced judge in parliamentary matters, Dorlange can never recover from the blow, no matter what may happen later. If we cannot succeed in producing positive proof to support the statement of our good peasant-woman, it is possible that this rascal, supposing always that he ventures to return to France, may be admitted to the Chamber. But if he is, he can only drag on a despised and miserable existence; he will be driven to resign, and then the election of Monsieur Beauvisage is beyond all doubt; for the electors, ashamed to have forsaken him for such a rascal, will be only too glad to reinstate themselves in public opinion by the choice of an honorable man – who was, in fact, their first choice.

It is to your rare sagacity, madame, that this result is due; for without that species of second sight which showed you the chances hidden in the revelation of that woman, we should have missed our best weapon. I must tell you though you may think this vanity, that neither Rastignac nor the attorney-general, in spite of their great political acumen, perceived the true value of your discovery; and I myself, if I had not had the good fortune of your acquaintance, and thus been enabled to judge of the great value of all ideas emanating from you, even I might have shared the indifference of the two statesmen to the admirable weapon which you have placed in our hands. I have now succeeded in proving to Rastignac the shrewdness and perspicacity you have shown in this matter, and he sincerely admires you for them. Therefore, madame, when I have the happiness of belonging to you by the tie we proposed, I shall not have to initiate you into politics, for you have already found your way there.

Nothing further can take place for a week, which is the period of delay granted by the Chamber. If the defaulter does not then appear, I am confident his election will be annulled. You can easily believe that between now and then all my efforts will be given to increase the feeling in the Chamber against him, both by arguments in the press and by private conversations. Rastignac has also given orders among the ministerial adherents to that effect. We may feel confident, therefore, that by the end of another week our enemy will find public opinion solidly against him.

Will you permit me, madame, to recall myself to the memory of Mademoiselle Cecile, and accept yourself, together with Monsieur Beauvisage, the assurance of my most respectful sentiments.

A hint from certain quarters given to the ministerial journals now began to surround Sallenauve’s name with an atmosphere of disrespect and ridicule; insulting insinuations colored his absence with an appearance of escaping the charges. The effect of these attacks was all the greater because Sallenauve was very weakly defended by his political co-religionists, which was scarcely surprising. Not knowing how to explain his conduct, the Opposition papers were afraid to commit themselves in favor of a man whose future was daily becoming more nebulous.

On the evening before the day on which the time granted for an explanation would expire, Sallenauve being still absent, a ministerial paper published, under the heading of “A Lost Deputy,” a very witty and insolent article, which was read by every one and created a great sensation. During that evening Madame de l’Estorade went to see Madame de Camps, whom she found alone with her husband. She was greatly agitated, and said, as soon as she entered the room, —

“Have you read that infamous article?”

“No,” replied Madame Octave, “but Monsieur de Camps was just telling me about it. It is really shameful that the ministry should not only countenance, but instigate such villanies.”

“I am half crazy,” said Madame de l’Estorade; “the whole blame rests on us.”

“That is saying too much,” said Madame Octave.

“No,” said her husband, “I agree with madame; all the venom of this affair could have been destroyed by one action of de l’Estorade’s, and in refusing to make it he is, if not the author, at least the accomplice of this slander.”

“Your wife has told you – ” began Madame de l’Estorade in a reproachful tone.

“Yes,” said Madame de Camps; “it was necessary to explain to my husband the sort of madness that seemed to have taken possession of M. de l’Estorade; but what I said to him was not unfaithful to any secret that concerned you personally.”

“Ah! you are such a united pair,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a heavy sigh. “I don’t regret that you have told all that to your husband; in fact, two heads are better than one to advise me in the cruel position in which I am placed.”

“What has happened?” asked Madame de Camps.

“My husband is losing his head,” replied the countess. “I don’t see a trace of his old moral sense left in him. Far from understanding that he is, as Monsieur de Camps said just now, the accomplice of the shameful attack which is going on, and that he has not, like those who started it, the excuse of ignorance, he actually seems to take delight in this wickedness. Just now he brought me that vile paper triumphantly, and I could scarcely prevent his being very angry with me for not agreeing with his opinion that it was infinitely witty and amusing.”

“That letter of Monsieur Gaston’s was a terrible shock to him,” said Madame de Camps, – “a shock not only to his heart but to his body.”

“I admit that,” said her husband; “but, hang it! a man is a man, and he ought to take the words of a maniac for what they are worth.”

“It is certainly very singular that Monsieur de Sallenauve does not return,” said Madame Octave; “for that Joseph Bricheteau, to whom you gave his address, must have written to him.”

“Oh!” cried the countess, “there’s fatality in the whole thing. To-morrow the question of confirming the election or not comes up in the Chamber; and if Monsieur de Sallenauve is not here by that time, the ministry expects to annul it.”

“It is infamous,” said Monsieur de Camps, “and I have a great mind to go to the president of the Chamber, and tell him how matters are.”

“I would have asked you to do so at the risk of my husband suspecting my interference, but one thing restrained me. Monsieur de Sallenauve particularly desires that Monsieur Gaston’s mental condition be not made public.”

“It is evident,” said Madame de Camps, “that do defend him in any way would go against his wishes. After all, the decision against him in the Chamber is very doubtful, whereas Monsieur Gaston’s madness, if mentioned publicly, would never be forgotten.”

“But I have not told you the worst so far as I am concerned,” said Madame de l’Estorade. “Just before dinner my husband imparted to me an absolutely Satanic desire of his – order, I might call it.”

“What was it?” asked Madame de Camps, anxiously.

“He wishes me to go with him to the Chamber to-morrow, – to the gallery reserved for the peers of France, – and listen to the discussion.”

“He is actually, as you say, losing his head,” cried Monsieur de Camps; “he is like Thomas Diafoirus, proposing to take his fiance to enjoy a dissection – ”

Madame de Camps made her husband a sign which meant, “Don’t pour oil on the fire.” Then she asked the countess whether she had tried to show M. de l’Estorade the impropriety of that step.

“The moment I began to object,” replied the countess, “he was angry, and said I must be very anxious to keep up our intimacy with ‘that man’ when I rejected such a natural opportunity to show publicly that the acquaintance was at an end.”

“Well, my dear, you will have to go,” said Madame de Camps. “The peace of your home before everything else! Besides, considering all things, your presence at the discussion may be taken as a proof of kindly interest.”

“For sixteen years,” remarked Monsieur de Camps, “you have ruled and governed in your home; and here, at last, is a revolution which cruelly overturns your power.”

“Ah, monsieur, I beg you to believe that that sovereignty – which I always sought to conceal – I never used arbitrarily.”

“As if I did not know that!” replied Monsieur de Camps, taking Madame de l’Estorade’s hand and pressing it affectionately. “I am, nevertheless, of my wife’s opinion: you will have to drink this cup.”

“But I shall die of shame in listening to the ministerial infamies; I shall feel that they are cutting the throat of a man whom two words from me could save.”

“True,” said Monsieur de Camps, “and a man, too, who has done you a vast service. But you must choose: do you prefer to bring hell into your home, and exasperate the unhealthy condition of your husband’s mind?”

“Listen to me, dearest,” said Madame de Camps. “Tell Monsieur de l’Estorade that I want to go to this session, and ask him for a permit; don’t yield the point to any objections. I shall then be there to take care of you, and perhaps protect you from yourself.”

“I did not dare ask it of you,” replied Madame de l’Estorade. “We don’t usually invite friends to see us commit bad actions; but since you are so kind as to offer, I can truly say I shall be less wretched if you are with me. Now good-bye; I don’t want my husband to find me out when he comes home. He is dining with Monsieur de Rastignac, where, no doubt, they are plotting for to-morrow.”

“Yes, go; and I will write you a note in the course of an hour, as if I had not seen you, asking you to get me a permit for to-morrow’s session, which I am told will be very interesting.”

“To be reduced to conspiracy!” cried Madame de l’Estorade, kissing her friend.

“My dear love,” said Madame de Camps, “they say the life of a Christian is a struggle, but that of a woman married in a certain way is a pitched battle. Have patience and courage.”

So saying, the two friends separated.

The next day, about two o’clock, Madame de l’Estorade, accompanied by her husband and Madame Octave de Camps, took their places in the gallery reserved for the members of the peerage. She seemed ill, and answered languidly the bows and salutations that were addressed to her from all parts of the Chamber. Madame de Camps, who was present for the first time in the parliamentary precincts, made two observations: first, she objected strongly to the slovenly costume of a great many of the “honorable gentlemen”; and she was also amazed at the number of bald heads she looked down upon from the gallery. Monsieur de l’Estorade took pains to point out to her all the notabilities present: first, the great men whom we need not mention, because their names are in everybody’s memory; next, the poet Canalis, whose air she thought Olympian; d’Arthez, who pleased her by his modesty and absence of assumption; Vinet, of whom she remarked that he was like a viper in spectacles; Victorin Hulot, a noted orator of the Left Centre. It was some time before she could accustom herself to the hum of the various conversations, which seemed to her like the buzzing of bees around their hive; but the thing that most amazed her was the general aspect of this assemblage of legislators, where a singular laisser-aller and a total absence of dignity would never have led her to suppose she was in the hall of the representatives of a great people.