The Lerouge Case Part 23

"The necessity for the examination of those letters. Noel will discover my interference. He will despise me: he will fly from me, when he knows that Tabaret and Tirauclair sleep in the same nightcap. Before eight days are past, my oldest friends will refuse to shake hands with me, as if it were not an honour to serve justice. I shall be obliged to change my residence, and a.s.sume a false name."

He almost wept, so great was his annoyance. M. Daburon was touched.

"Rea.s.sure yourself, my dear M. Tabaret," said he. "I will manage that your adopted son, your Benjamin, shall know nothing. I will lead him to believe I have reached him by means of the widow's papers."

The old fellow seized the magistrate's hand in a transport of grat.i.tude, and carried it to his lips. Oh! thanks, sir, a thousand thanks! I should like to be permitted to witness the arrest; and I shall be glad to a.s.sist at the perquisitions."

"I intended to ask you to do so, M. Tabaret," answered the magistrate.

The lamps paled in the gray dawn of the morning; already the rumbling of vehicles was heard; Paris was awaking.

"I have no time to lose," continued M. Daburon, "if I would have all my measures well taken. I must at once see the public prosecutor, whether he is up or not. I shall go direct from his house to the Palais de Justice, and be there before eight o'clock; and I desire, M. Tabaret, that you will there await my orders."

The old fellow bowed his thanks and was about to leave, when the magistrate's servant appeared.

"Here is a note, sir," said he, "which a gendarme has just brought from Bougival. He waits an answer."

"Very well," replied M. Daburon. "Ask the man to have some refreshment; at least offer him a gla.s.s of wine."

He opened the envelope. "Ah!" he cried, "a letter from Gevrol;" and he read:

"'To the investigating magistrate. Sir, I have the honour to inform you, that I am on the track of the man with the earrings. I heard of him at a wine shop, which he entered on Sunday morning, before going to Widow Lerouge's cottage. He bought, and paid for two litres of wine; then, suddenly striking his forehead, he cried, "Old fool! to forget that to-morrow is the boat's fete day!" and immediately called for three more litres. According to the almanac the boat must be called the Saint-Martin. I have also learned that she was laden with grain. I write to the Prefecture at the same time as I write to you, that inquiries may be made at Paris and Rouen. He will be found at one of those places. I am in waiting, sir, etc.'"

"Poor Gevrol!" cried old Tabaret, bursting with laughter. "He sharpens his sabre, and the battle is over. Are you not going to put a stop to his inquiries, sir?"

"No; certainly not," answered M. Daburon; "to neglect the slightest clue often leads one into error. Who can tell what light we may receive from this mariner?"

CHAPTER VIII.

On the same day that the crime of La Jonchere was discovered, and precisely at the hour that M. Tabaret made his memorable examination in the victim's chamber, the Viscount Albert de Commarin entered his carriage, and proceeded to the Northern railway station, to meet his father.

The young man was very pale: his pinched features, his dull eyes, his blanched lips, in fact his whole appearance denoted either overwhelming fatigue or unusual sorrow. All the servants had observed, that, during the past five days, their young master had not been in his ordinary condition: he spoke but little, ate almost nothing, and refused to see any visitors. His valet noticed that this singular change dated from the visit, on Sunday morning, of a certain M. Noel Gerdy, who had been closeted with him for three hours in the library.

The Viscount, gay as a lark until the arrival of this person, had, from the moment of his departure, the appearance of a man at the point of death. When setting forth to meet his father, the viscount appeared to suffer so acutely that M. Lubin, his valet, entreated him not to go out; suggesting that it would be more prudent to retire to his room, and call in the doctor.

But the Count de Commarin was exacting on the score of filial duty, and would overlook the worst of youthful indiscretions sooner than what he termed a want of reverence. He had announced his intended arrival by telegraph, twenty-four hours in advance; therefore the house was expected to be in perfect readiness to receive him, and the absence of Albert at the railway station would have been resented as a flagrant omission of duty.

The viscount had been but five minutes in the waiting-room, when the bell announced the arrival of the train. Soon the doors leading on to the platform were opened, and the travelers crowded in. The throng beginning to thin a little, the count appeared, followed by a servant, who carried a travelling pelisse lined with rare and valuable fur.

The Count de Commarin looked a good ten years less than his age. His beard and hair, yet abundant, were scarcely gray. He was tall and muscular, held himself upright, and carried his head high. His appearance was n.o.ble, his movements easy. His regular features presented a study to the physiognomist, all expressing easy, careless good nature, even to the handsome, smiling mouth; but in his eyes flashed the fiercest and the most arrogant pride. This contrast revealed the secret of his character. Imbued quite as deeply with aristocratic prejudice as the Marchioness d'Arlange, he had progressed with his century or at least appeared to have done so. As fully as the marchioness, he held in contempt all who were not n.o.ble; but his disdain expressed itself in a different fas.h.i.+on. The marchioness proclaimed her contempt loudly and coa.r.s.ely; the count had kept eyes and ears open and had seen and heard a good deal. She was stupid, and without a shade of common sense. He was witty and sensible, and possessed enlarged views of life and politics.

She dreamed of the return of the absurd traditions of a former age; he hoped for things within the power of events to bring forth. He was sincerely persuaded that the n.o.bles of France would yet recover slowly and silently, but surely, all their lost power, with its prestige and influence.

In a word, the count was the flattered portrait of his cla.s.s; the marchioness its caricature. It should be added, that M. de Commarin knew how to divest himself of his crus.h.i.+ng urbanity in the company of his equals. There he recovered his true character, haughty, self-sufficient, and intractable, enduring contradiction pretty much as a wild horse the application of the spur. In his own house, he was a despot.

Perceiving his father, Albert advanced towards him. They shook hands and embraced with an air as n.o.ble as ceremonious, and, in less than a minute, had exchanged all the news that had transpired during the count's absence. Then only did M. de Commarin perceive the alteration in his son's face.

"You are unwell, viscount," said he.

"Oh, no, sir," answered Albert, laconically.

The count uttered "Ah!" accompanied by a certain movement of the head, which, with him, expressed perfect incredulity; then, turning to his servant, he gave him some orders briefly.

"Now," resumed he, "let us go quickly to the house. I am in haste to feel at home; and I am hungry, having had nothing to-day, but some detestable broth, at I know not what way station."

M. de Commarin had returned to Paris in a very bad temper, his journey to Austria had not brought the results he had hoped for. To crown his dissatisfaction, he had rested, on his homeward way, at the chateau of an old friend, with whom he had had so violent a discussion that they had parted without shaking hands. The count was hardly seated in his carriage before he entered upon the subject of this disagreement.

"I have quarrelled with the Duke de Sairmeuse," said he to his son.

"That seems to me to happen whenever you meet," answered Albert, without intending any raillery.

"True," said the count: "but this is serious. I pa.s.sed four days at his country-seat, in a state of inconceivable exasperation. He has entirely forfeited my esteem. Sairmeuse has sold his estate of Gondresy, one of the finest in the north of France. He has cut down the timber, and put up to auction the old chateau, a princely dwelling, which is to be converted into a sugar refinery; all this for the purpose, as he says, of raising money to increase his income!"

"And was that the cause of your rupture?" inquired Albert, without much surprise.

"Certainly it was! Do you not think it a sufficient one?"

"But, sir, you know the duke has a large family, and is far from rich."

"What of that? A French n.o.ble who sells his land commits an unworthy act. He is guilty of treason against his order!"

"Oh, sir," said Albert, deprecatingly.

"I said treason!" continued the count. "I maintain the word. Remember well, viscount, power has been, and always will be, on the side of wealth, especially on the side of those who hold the soil. The men of '93 well understood this principle, and acted upon it. By impoveris.h.i.+ng the n.o.bles, they destroyed their prestige more effectually than by abolis.h.i.+ng their t.i.tles. A prince dismounted, and without footmen, is no more than any one else. The Minister of July, who said to the people, 'Make yourselves rich,' was not a fool. He gave them the magic formula for power. But they have not the sense to understand it. They want to go too fast. They launch into speculations, and become rich, it is true; but in what? Stocks, bonds, paper,--rags, in short. It is smoke they are locking in their coffers. They prefer to invest in merchandise, which pays eight or ten per cent, to investing in vines or corn which will return but three. The peasant is not so foolish. From the moment he owns a piece of ground the size of a handkerchief, he wants to make it as large as a tablecloth. He is slow as the oxen he ploughs with, but as patient, as tenacious, and as obstinate. He goes directly to his object, pressing firmly against the yoke; and nothing can stop or turn him aside. He knows that stocks may rise or fall, fortunes be won or lost on 'change; but the land always remains,--the real standard of wealth. To become landholders, the peasant starves himself, wears sabots in winter; and the imbeciles who laugh at him will be astonished by and by when he makes his '93, and the peasant becomes a baron in power if not in name."

"I do not understand the application," said the viscount.

"You do not understand? Why, what the peasant is doing is what the n.o.bles ought to have done! Ruined, their duty was to reconstruct their fortunes. Commerce is interdicted to us; be it so: agriculture remains.

Instead of grumbling uselessly during the half-century, instead of running themselves into debt, in the ridiculous attempt to support an appearance of grandeur, they ought to have retreated to their provinces, shut themselves up in their chateaux; there worked, economised, denied themselves, as the peasant is doing, purchased the land piece by piece.

Had they taken this course, they would to-day possess France. Their wealth would be enormous; for the value of land rises year after year.

I have, without effort, doubled my fortune in thirty years. Blauville, which cost my father a hundred crowns in 1817, is worth to-day more than a million: so that, when I hear the n.o.bles complain, I shrug the shoulder. Who but they are to blame? They impoverish themselves from year to year. They sell their land to the peasants. Soon they will be reduced to beggary, and their escutcheons. What consoles me is, that the peasant, having become the proprietor of our domains will then be all-powerful, and will yoke to his chariot wheels these traders in scrip and stocks, whom he hates as much as I execrate them myself."

The carriage at this moment stopped in the court-yard of the de Commarin mansion, after having described that perfect half-circle, the glory of coachmen who preserve the old tradition.

The count alighted first, and leaning upon his son's arm, ascended the steps of the grand entrance. In the immense vestibule, nearly all the servants, dressed in rich liveries, stood in a line. The count gave them a glance, in pa.s.sing, as an officer might his soldiers on parade, and proceeded to his apartment on the first floor, above the reception rooms.

Never was there a better regulated household than that of the Count de Commarin. He possessed in a high degree the art, more rare than is generally supposed, of commanding an army of servants. The number of his domestics caused him neither inconvenience nor embarra.s.sment. They were necessary to him. So perfect was the organisation of this household, that its functions were performed like those of a machine,--without noise, variation, or effort.

Thus when the count returned from his journey, the sleeping hotel was awakened as if by the spell of an enchanter. Each servant was at his post; and the occupations, interrupted during the past six weeks, resumed without confusion. As the count was known to have pa.s.sed the day on the road, the dinner was served in advance of the usual hour. All the establishment, even to the lowest scullion, represented the spirit of the first article of the rules of the house, "Servants are not to execute orders, but antic.i.p.ate them."

M. de Commarin had hardly removed the traces of his journey, and changed his dress, when his butler announced that the dinner was served.

He went down at once; and father and son met upon the threshold of the dining-room. This was a large apartment, with a very high ceiling, as were all the rooms of the ground floor, and was most magnificently furnished. The count was not only a great eater, but was vain of his enormous appet.i.te. He was fond of recalling the names of great men, noted for their capacity of stomach. Charles V. devoured mountains of viands. Louis XIV. swallowed at each repast as much as six ordinary men would eat at a meal. He pretended that one can almost judge of men's qualities by their digestive capacities; he compared them to lamps, whose power of giving light is in proportion to the oil they consume.

During the first half hour, the count and his son both remained silent.

M. de Commarin ate conscientiously, not perceiving or not caring to notice that Albert ate nothing, but merely sat at the table as if to countenance him. The old n.o.bleman's ill-humour and volubility returned with the dessert, apparently increased by a Burgundy of which he was particularly fond, and of which he drank freely.