The Parisians Part 62

Graham pressed his hand to his heart with the sudden movement of one who feels there an agonising spasm--his cheek, his very lips were bloodless.

"I told you," he said bitterly, "that your fears of my influence over the happiness of one so gifted, and so strong in such gifts, were groundless; you allow that I should be very soon forgotten?"

"I allow no such thing--I wish I could. But do you know so little of a woman's heart (and in matters of heart, I never yet heard that genius had a talisman against emotion),--do you know so little of a woman's heart as not to know that the very moment in which she may accept a marriage the least fitted to render her happy, is that in which she has lost all hope of happiness in another?"

"Is it indeed so?" murmured Graham--"Ay, I can conceive it."

"And have you so little comprehension of the necessities which that fame, that career to which you allow she is impelled by the instincts of genius, impose on this girl, young, beautiful, fatherless, motherless?

No matter how pure her life, can she guard it from the slander of envious tongues? Will not all her truest friends--would not you, if you were her brother--press upon her by all the arguments that have most weight with the woman who a.s.serts independence in her modes of life, and yet is wise enough to know that the world can only judge of virtue by its shadow--reputation, not to dispense with the protection which a husband can alone secure? And that is why I warn you, if it be yet time, that in resigning your own happiness you may destroy Isaura's. She will wed another, but she will not be happy. What a chimera or dread your egotism as man conjures up! Oh! forsooth, the qualities that charm and delight a world are to unfit a woman to be helpmate to a man. Fie on you!--fie!"

Whatever answer Graham might have made to these impa.s.sioned reproaches was here checked.

Two men on horseback stopped the carriage. One was Enguerrand de Vandemar, the other was the Algerine Colonel whom we met at the supper given at the Maison Doree by Frederic Lemercier.

"Pardon, Madame Morley," said Enguerrand; "but there are symptoms of a mob-epidemic a little further up the fever began at Belleville, and is threatening the health of the Champs Elysees. Don't be alarmed--it may be nothing, though it may be much. In Paris, one can never calculate an hour beforehand the exact progress of a politico-epidemic fever. At present I say, 'Bah! a pack of ragged boys, gamins de Paris;' but my friend the Colonel, twisting his moustache en souriant amerement, says, 'It is the indignation of Paris at the apathy of the Government under insult to the honour of France;' and Heaven only knows how rapidly French gamins grow into giants when Colonels talk about the indignation of Paris and the honour of France!"

"But what has happened?" asked Mrs. Morley, turning to the Colonel.

"Madame," replied the warrior, "it is rumoured that the King of Prussia has turned his back upon the amba.s.sador of France; and that the pekin who is for peace at any price--M. Ollivier--will say tomorrow in the Chamber, that France submits to a slap in the face."

"Please, Monsieur de Vandemar, to tell my coachman to drive home," said Mrs. Morley.

The carriage turned and went homeward. The Colonel lifted his hat, and rode back to see what the gamins were about. Enguerrand, who had no interest in the gamins, and who looked on the Colonel as a bore, rode by the side of the carriage.

"Is there anything serious in this?" asked Mrs. Morley.

"At this moment, nothing. What it may be this hour to-morrow I cannot say. Ah! Monsieur Vane, bon jour I did not recognise you at first. Once, in a visit at the chateau of one of your distinguished countrymen, I saw two game-c.o.c.ks turned out facing each other: they needed no pretext for quarrelling--neither do France and Prussia--no matter which game-c.o.c.k gave the last offence, the two game-c.o.c.ks must have it out. All that Ollivier can do, if he be wise, is to see that the French c.o.c.k has his steel spurs as long as the Prussians. But this I do say, that if Ollivier attempts to put the French c.o.c.k back into its bag, the Empire is gone in forty-eight hours. That to me is a trifle--I care nothing for the Empire; but that which is not a trifle is anarchy and chaos. Better war and the Empire than peace and Jules Favre. But let us seize the present hour, Mr. Vane; whatever happens to-morrow, shall we dine together to-day? Name your restaurant."

"I am so grieved," answered Graham, rousing himself, "I am here only on business, and engaged all the evening."

"What a wonderful thing is this life of ours!" said Enguerrand. "The destiny of France at this moment hangs on a thread--I, a Frenchman, say to an English friend, 'Let us dine--a cutlet to-day and a fig for to-morrow;' and my English friend, distinguished native of a country with which we have the closest alliance, tells me that in this crisis of France he has business to attend to! My father is quite right; he accepts the Voltairean philosophy, and cries, Vivent les indifferents!"

"My dear M. de Vandemar," said Graham, "in every country you will find the same thing. All individuals ma.s.sed together const.i.tute public life.

Each individual has a life of his own, the claims and the habits and the needs of which do not suppress his sympathies with public life, but imperiously overrule them. Mrs. Morley, permit me to pull the check-string--I get out here."

"I like that man," said Enguerrand, as he continued to ride by the fair American, "in language and esprit he is so French."

"I use to like him better than you can," answered Mrs. Morley, "but in prejudice and stupidity he is so English. As it seems you are disengaged, come and partake, pot au feu, with Frank and me."

"Charmed to do so," answered the cleverest and best bred of all Parisian beaux garcons, "but forgive me if I quit you soon. This poor France!

Entre nous, I am very uneasy about the Parisian fever. I must run away after dinner to clubs and cafes to learn the last bulletins."

"We have nothing like that French Legitimist in the States," said the fair American to herself, "unless we should ever be so silly as to make Legitimists of the ruined gentlemen of the South."

Meanwhile Graham Vane went slowly back to his apartment. No false excuse had he made to Enguerrand; this evening was devoted to M. Renard, who told him little he had not known before; but his private life overruled his public, and all that night he, professed politician, thought sleeplessly, not over the crisis to France, which might alter the conditions of Europe, but the talk on his private life of that intermeddling American woman.

CHAPTER IV.

The next day, Wednesday, July 6th, commenced one of those eras in the world's history in which private life would vainly boast that it overrules Life Public. How many private lives does such a terrible time influence, absorb, darken with sorrow, crush into graves?

It was the day when the Duc de Gramont uttered the fatal speech which determined the die between peace and war. No one not at Paris on that day can conceive the popular enthusiasm with which that speech was hailed--the greater because the warlike tone of it was not antic.i.p.ated; because there had been a rumour amidst circles the best informed that a speech of pacific moderation was to be the result of the Imperial Council. Rapturous indeed were the applauses with which the sentences that breathed haughty defiance were hailed by the a.s.sembly. The ladies in the tribune rose with one accord, waving their handkerchiefs. Tall, stalwart, dark, with Roman features and lofty presence, the Minister of France seemed to say with Catiline in the fine tragedy: "Lo! where I stand, I am war!"

Paris had been hungering for some hero of the hour--the Duc de Gramont became at once raised to that eminence. All the journals, save the very few which were friendly to peace, because hostile to the Emperor, resounded with praise, not only of the speech, but of the speaker. It is with a melancholy sense of amus.e.m.e.nt that one recalls now to mind those organs of public opinion--with what romantic fondness they dwelt on the personal graces of the man who had at last given voice to the chivalry of France: "The charming gravity of his countenance--the mysterious expression of his eye!"

As the crowd poured from the Chambers, Victor de Mauleon and Savarin, who had been among the listeners, encountered.

"No chance for my friends the Orleanists now," said Savarin. "You who mock at all parties are, I suppose, at heart for the Republican--small chance, too, for that."

"I do not agree with you. Violent impulses have quick reactions."

"But what reaction could shake the Emperor after he returns a conqueror, bringing in his pocket the left bank of the Rhine?"

"None--when he does that. Will he do it? Does he himself think he will do it? I doubt--"

"Doubt the French army against the Prussian?"

"Against the German people united--yes, very much."

"But war will disunite the German people. Bavaria will surely a.s.sist us--Hanover will rise against the spoliator--Austria at our first successes must shake off her present enforced neutrality?"

"You have not been in Germany, and I have. What yesterday was a Prussian army, to-morrow will be a German population; far exceeding our own in numbers, in hardihood of body, in cultivated intellect, in military discipline. But talk of something else. How is my ex-editor--poor Gustave Rameau?"

"Still very weak, but on the mend. You may have him back in his office soon."

"Impossible! even in his sick-bed his vanity was more vigorous than ever. He issued a war-song, which has gone the round of the war journals signed by his own name. He must have known very well that the name of such a Tyrtaeus cannot reappear as the editor of Le Sens Commun; that in launching his little firebrand he burned all vessels that could waft him back to the port he had quitted. But I dare say he has done well for his own interests; I doubt if Le Sens Commun can much longer hold its ground in the midst of the prevalent lunacy."

"What! it has lost subscribers?--gone off in sale already, since it declared for peace?"

"Of course it has; and after the article which, if I live over to-night, will appear to-morrow, I should wonder if it sell enough to cover the cost of the print and paper."

"Martyr to principle! I revere, but I do not envy thee."

"Martyrdom is not my ambition. If Louis Napoleon be defeated, what then?

Perhaps he may be the martyr; and the Favres and Gambettas may roast their own eggs on the gridiron they heat for his majesty."

Here an English gentleman, who was the very able correspondent to a very eminent journal, and in that capacity had made acquaintance with De Mauleon, joined the two Frenchmen; Savarin, however, after an exchange of salutations, went his way.

"May I ask a frank answer to a somewhat rude question, M. le Vicomte?"

said the Englishman. "Suppose that the Imperial Government had to-day given in their adhesion to the peace party, how long would it have been before their orators in the Chamber and their organs in the press would have said that France was governed by poltrons?"

"Probably for most of the twenty-four hours. But there are a few who are honest in their convictions; of that few I am one."

"And would have supported the Emperor and his Government?"

"No, Monsieur--I do not say that."