HIS EXCELLENCY (continued 8)

'Liberty without restraint is impossible in a country where there exists a faction which is obstinately bent upon denying the fundamental basis of the government. Many long years must elapse before your Majesty's absolute power is accepted by all, before it effaces from men's memories the recollection of old struggles, and passes so far beyond the pale of discussion that it may be discussed without danger. And outside the principle of despotic power, vigorously exercised, there is no safety for France. On the day when your Majesty may consider it your duty to restore to the nation the most harmless of its liberties, on that day your Majesty will be committed to everything. One liberty cannot be granted without a second; and then comes a third one, and everything is swept away, both institutions and dynasties! It is like an implacable, devouring piece of machinery. First, the tip of the finger is caught, then the hand is drawn in, then the arm, and finally the whole body is ground to pieces.

'And, sire, since I have ventured to express myself so freely on this matter, I will make this further remark. Parliamentary rule once destroyed a French monarchy; do not let us allow it to destroy an empire. The Corps Législatif ventures to interfere too much as it is. Do not allow it any share in directing the sovereign's policy. To do so would only give rise to the most vehement and deplorable discussions. The last general elections have once again testified to the country's gratitude, but none the less, no fewer than five candidates were elected whose disgraceful success ought to serve as a warning. To-day the all-important question is to prevent the formation of an opposition minority; and, what is still more important, is to take care not to provide it—if by chance it should come into existence—with weapons which might enable it to contend against the constituted authority with yet greater impudence than now. A parliament which holds its tongue is a parliament which does some work.

'As for the press, sire, it is turning liberty into license. Since I entered the ministry I have read the reports carefully, and every morning I am filled with fresh disgust. The press is the receptacle of nauseous leaven of every kind. It foments revolutions, it is an ever-burning fire which serves to kindle great conflagrations. It will only become useful when we have brought it under our authority and can use its influence as an instrument of government. At present I say nothing of other forms of liberty, such as the liberty of combination, of public meeting, or of doing anything a man likes. These, however, are all respectfully asked for in "Friend Jacques's Evening Chats." Later on they will be demanded. That is what I am afraid of. I hope that your Majesty will fully understand me. It is necessary that France should for a long time yet feel the weight of a hand of iron.'

He went on in this strain for a long time, defending, with increasing energy, the way in which he had used his authority, sheltering himself beneath the principle of plenary power, wrapping himself round with it, covering himself with it, as it were, like a man who would avail himself of his armour to the fullest extent possible. And in spite of his apparent excitement, he retained sufficient coolness to keep a watch on his colleagues and to note the effect of his words on their pale, fixed faces. Then all at once he abruptly ceased speaking.

There was a rather long interval of silence. The Emperor had again begun to play with his paper-knife.

'His Excellency the Minister of the Interior takes too black a view of the situation,' at length said the Minister of State. 'In my opinion nothing threatens our institutions. Order is perfectly maintained. We can trust with confidence to his Majesty's great wisdom. Indeed, it is a lack of such confidence to show fear——'

'Certainly, certainly,' murmured several voices.

'I will add,' said the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 'that France has never been more respected by Europe than she is now. Everywhere abroad his Majesty's firm and dignified policy is regarded with admiration. The opinion of the chancelleries is that our country has entered for good upon an era of peace and greatness.'

However, none of the ministers cared to attack the political programme defended by Rougon. They all looked at Delestang, who understood what was expected of him. He began to speak, and compared the empire to an edifice.

'The principle of authority ought certainly not to be shaken,' said he, 'but there is no necessity for systematically shutting the door upon every public liberty. The empire is like some great place of refuge, some vast and magnificent edifice whose indestructible foundations have been laid by his Majesty with his own hands. He is still engaged in raising its walls; but the day will come when his task will be finished, and he will have to think of how he can crown his edifice, and it is then——'

'Never!' interrupted Rougon violently. 'The whole thing will topple down!'

The Emperor stretched out his hand to stop the discussion. He was smiling, and seemed to be awaking from a reverie. 'Well, well,' he said; 'we are getting away from current affairs. We will see about all this later on.' Then, having risen from his seat, he added: 'It is late, gentlemen; you must have déjeuner at the château.'

The council was now at an end. The ministers pushed back their chairs and stood up and bowed to the Emperor, who was slowly retiring. All at once, however, his Majesty turned and muttered: 'A word with you, Monsieur Rougon, I beg.'

Then as the Emperor took Rougon into the embrasure of one of the windows, the other ministers thronged round Delestang at the farther end of the room. They congratulated him in subdued tones, with nods and becks and wreathed smiles, quite a buzzing of murmured praise. The Minister of State, a man of very shrewd mind and great experience, was particularly flattering. He had an idea that it was lucky to have a shallow-pated fellow for a friend. Meantime, Delestang bowed with grave modesty to all the compliments lavished upon him.

'After all,' said the Emperor to Rougon, 'I won't speak to you here, come along with me,' and he thereupon took him into his own study, a rather small room, where the furniture was littered with books and newspapers. Then, having lighted a cigarette, he showed Rougon a small model of a new cannon lately invented by an officer. The little weapon looked like a child's toy. His Majesty affected a very kindly tone, and tried to convince the minister that he still possessed his favour. Rougon, however, divined that an explanation of some sort was coming, and he wanted to have the first word.

'Sire,' he began, 'I am well aware of the violence with which I am attacked by those who surround your Majesty.'

The Emperor smiled without saying anything. It was true, however, that the Court had again put itself in opposition to Rougon. He was now accused of abusing his power, and of compromising the empire by his harshness. The most extraordinary tales were circulated about him, and the corridors of the palace were full of complaints and stories, which echoed every morning in the Emperor's study.

'Be seated, Monsieur Rougon, be seated,' his Majesty at last said, in a good-natured way. And then, taking a seat himself, he continued: 'People are always dinning things into my ears. So it is, perhaps, best that I should quietly talk them over with you. What is this affair of a notary at Niort, who died after being arrested? A Monsieur Martineau, I think?'

Rougon quietly entered into particulars. This Martineau, he said, was a man who had very gravely compromised himself; a Republican whose influence in the department might have led to great danger. He had been arrested, and he had since died.

'Yes, that's just it,' replied the Emperor; 'that's the tiresome part of the matter. The opposition papers have got hold of the story, and relate it in a very mysterious fashion, and with a reticence which is calculated to have a most deplorable effect. I am much distressed about it, Monsieur Rougon.'

However, he said no more on that subject, but sat for a few moments puffing at his cigarette.

'You have been down to Deux-Sèvres lately, and you were present at some ceremony there, were you not?' he presently continued. 'Are you quite sure of Monsieur Kahn's financial stability?'

'Oh, quite so!' exclaimed Rougon. And he launched into a series of explanatory details. M. Kahn, said he, was supported by a very rich English company. The shares of the railway from Niort to Angers were at a premium at the Bourse. The undertaking had very fine prospects before it.

The Emperor, however, seemed incredulous. 'I have heard a certain amount of fear expressed,' he said. 'You can understand that it would be very unfortunate for your name to be mixed up with a catastrophe. However, since you tell me that there is no reason for fear——' Then he again broke off and passed to a third subject. 'Now, about the prefect of Deux-Sèvres. He is very unpopular, people tell me. He appears to have thrown everything into confusion down there. I hear, too, that he is the son of a retired process-server, whose strange vagaries are the talk of the whole department. This Monsieur du Poizat is a friend of yours, I believe?'

'One of my best friends, sire.'

As the Emperor now rose from his seat, Rougon also got up. The former went to a window, and then came back again, puffing out a little cloudlet of smoke.

'You have a good many friends, Monsieur Rougon,' he said, with a meaning look.

'Yes, sire; a great many,' the minister frankly replied.

Evidently enough, the Emperor had hitherto merely repeated the gossip of the château, the accusations made by those who surrounded him. He was doubtless acquainted, however, with other stories, matters which were unknown to the Court, but of which he had learnt from his private agents, and in which he took a yet livelier interest, for he revelled in the spy system, in the secret manœuvring of the police. He looked at Rougon for a moment, while a vague smile played about his face. Then, in a confidential tone, and with a somewhat playful air, he said: 'Oh, I know a good many things; more, perhaps, than I care to know. Here is another little matter, now; you have taken in your offices a young man, a colonel's son, who has not obtained a bachelor's diploma. It is not a matter of any importance, I am aware of that; but if you only knew all the fuss that is made about such things! Little things like these put everybody's back up. It is really very bad policy on your part.'

Rougon made no reply. His Majesty had not finished. He opened his lips as though he were going to say something, but it was apparently something that he found rather difficult to express, for he hesitated for a moment or two. At last he stammered: 'I won't say anything to you about that usher, one of your protégés named Merle, I think. But he gets drunk and behaves insolently; and both the public and the clerks complain of him. All this is very annoying, very annoying indeed.' Then he raised his voice, and concluded somewhat bluntly: 'You have too many friends, Monsieur Rougon. All these people do you harm. It would be rendering you a service to make you quarrel with them. Well, at any rate let me have the resignation of Monsieur du Poizat, and promise me that you will abandon all the others.'

Rougon had remained quite impassive. He now bowed, and replied in a deep, meaning voice: 'On the contrary, sire, I ask your Majesty for the ribbon of officer of the Legion of Honour for the prefect of Deux-Sèvres. And I have several other favours to solicit.' Then he took a memorandum-book from his pocket, and continued: 'Monsieur Béjuin begs that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to visit his cut-glass works at Saint-Florent, when you go to Bourges. Colonel Jobelin desires an appointment in the Imperial Palaces. The usher Merle calls your Majesty's attention to the fact that he has gained the military medal, and desires a tobacco-agency for one of his sisters.'

'Is that all?' asked the Emperor, who had begun to smile again. 'You are a magnificent patron. Your friends ought to worship you.'

'No, they do not worship me, sire, they support me,' Rougon replied with his blunt frankness.

This retort seemed to make a deep impression upon the Emperor. Rougon had just revealed to him the whole secret of his fidelity. On the day when he might allow his credit to stagnate, on that day his credit would be killed; and in spite of scandal, in spite of the discontent and treason of his hand, it was his only possession and support, and he was obliged to keep it sound and healthful, if he himself wished to remain unshattered. The more he got for his friends—the greater and the less deserved the favours that he lavished on them—the stronger he became himself.

He added very respectfully, and in a very meaning tone: 'For the glory of your Majesty's reign, I hope from the bottom of my heart that your Majesty may long preserve about you the devoted servants who helped you to restore the empire.'

The Emperor no longer smiled. He took a few steps about the room, with downcast eyes and pensive air. He seemed also to have turned pale and to be trembling slightly. Presentiments occasionally affected his mystical nature with great force. And to obviate the necessity of any immediate determination, he decided to drop the subject. He again assumed a kindly demeanour; and, referring to the discussion which had taken place at the council, seemed even inclined to think that Rougon was right, now that he could speak freely without any danger of irrevocably committing himself. The country, said he, was certainly not yet ripe for liberty. For a long time to come an energetic hand would be necessary to guide matters with resolution and firmness. Then he concluded by once more assuring the minister of his entire confidence. He gave him full liberty of action, and confirmed all his previous instructions. Rougon, however, thought it necessary to add another word on the subject.

'Sire,' he said, 'I could never allow myself to be at the mercy of malevolent gossip. I stand in need of stability if I am to accomplish the great task for which I am now responsible.'

'Monsieur Rougon,' replied the Emperor, 'go on fearlessly; I am with you.'

Then, bringing the conversation to a close, he stepped towards the door, followed by the minister. They both went out and crossed several apartments on their way to the dining-room. Just as they were reaching it, the Emperor turned round and again took Rougon aside. 'You don't approve, then,' he asked, in an undertone, 'of that scheme for a new nobility? I should have been very glad to see you support it. Study the matter.' Then, without waiting for a reply, he added with that quiet stubbornness which formed part of his character:[20] 'There's no hurry, however. I will wait; for ten years, if it be necessary.'

After déjeuner, which lasted scarcely half an hour, the ministers went into a small adjoining drawing-room where coffee was served. They remained there chatting for a little time, standing round the Emperor. However, Clorinde, whom the Empress had kept with her all this time, came to look for her husband, with the easy manner of a woman who mixed freely with politicians. She shook hands with several of the ministers. They all clustered round her, and the subject of conversation was changed. However, his Majesty began to pay the young woman such marked attention, and kept so close to her, that their excellencies thought it discreet to take themselves off by degrees. Opening one of the glass doors which led on to the terrace of the château, four of them went outside, and these were speedily followed by three others. Only two remained in the room to keep up an appearance of propriety. The Minister of State, with a pleasant, cheery expression upon his aristocratic face, had taken Delestang in tow, and was pointing out Paris from the terrace. Rougon, likewise standing in the sunshine, also became absorbed in the spectacle of the great city looming like a mass of bluish cloud on the horizon beyond the great green carpet of the Bois de Boulogne.

That morning, Clorinde was looking very beautiful. Clumsily dressed, as usual, with her gown of pale cherry-coloured silk dragging over the floor, she appeared to have slipped into her things in all haste, as if goaded on by some strong desire. She laughed with the Emperor, and her whole demeanour was very free and unreserved. She had made a conquest of his Majesty at a ball given by the Naval Minister which she had attended in the character of the Queen of Hearts, wearing diamond hearts about her neck and her wrists and her knees; and ever since that evening she had remained on very friendly terms with Napoleon, jesting playfully whenever he condescended to compliment her upon her beauty.

'Look, Monsieur Delestang,' the Minister of State was saying to his colleague on the terrace, 'see yonder on the left, what a wonderfully soft blue hue there is about the dome of the Panthéon.'

Then, while Delestang gazed admiringly at the prospect, the Minister of State cast furtive glances into the little drawing-room through the open window. The Emperor was bending forward, and was speaking with his lips close to the young woman's face, while she threw herself back with tightly strained breast as though to escape him. Nothing could be seen of his Majesty from outside save an indistinct profile, the tip of an ear, a long red nose, and a heavy mouth half-buried beneath a quivering moustache. His cheek and eyes were glowing, whilst Clorinde, who looked irritatingly fascinating, gently swayed her head like a coy young shepherdess.

In spite of all the unpleasantness at the council, Rougon returned to Paris with Delestang and Clorinde. On the journey home the young woman appeared anxious to make her peace with him. She no longer manifested that nervous restlessness which in the morning had impelled her to choose disagreeable subjects of conversation, but even occasionally looked at Rougon with an air of smiling compassion. When the landau, passing through the Bois de Boulogne, now steeped in sunshine, rolled gently alongside the lakes, she murmured with a sigh of enjoyment: 'What a lovely day it is!' Then, after a moment's reverie, she said to her husband: 'Tell me, is your sister, Madame de Combelot, still in love with the Emperor?'

'Henriette is mad!' replied Delestang, shrugging his shoulders.

But Rougon intervened: 'Yes, indeed, she's still in love,' said he: 'people assert that she actually threw herself at his Majesty's feet one day. He raised her and advised her to be patient.'

'Ah, yes, indeed,' cried Clorinde gaily, 'She'll have a long time to wait!'

XII

DEFECTION

Clorinde was now revelling in a florescence of fantasy and power. In character she was still the big eccentric girl who had scoured Paris on a livery-stable hack in search of a husband; but the big girl had developed into a woman, who calmly performed the most extraordinary actions, having at length realised her long-cherished dream of becoming a power. Her everlasting prowlings in out-of-the-way neighbourhoods, her correspondence which inundated the four corners of France and Italy with letters, her continued contact with politicians, into whose intimacy she managed to insinuate herself, and all her erratic schemings, full of gaps and illogical as they were, had ended in the acquirement of real and indisputable influence. She still indulged in strange eccentricities, and propounded wild schemes and extravagant hopes, even when she was talking seriously. And when she went out, she still took her tattered portfolio with her, carrying it in her arms like a baby, and with such an air of earnestness that people in the streets smiled as she passed them in her dirty, draggling skirts. However, she was consulted now, and even feared. No one could have exactly told the origin of her power, which seemed to come from numerous distant and invisible sources, now difficult to trace. Folks knew nothing but a few scraps of gossip, anecdotes that were whispered from ear to ear. There was something to mystify one in the young woman's strangely compound character, in which wild imagination was linked to common sense which commanded attention and obedience, while apart from all mental attributes there was her magnificent person, in which, perhaps, lay the true secret of her power. It mattered little, however, upon what foundations Clorinde's throne was reared. It was sufficient that she did reign, though it were in a whimsical, erratic fashion, and that people bowed down before her.

This was a real period of power for the young woman. In her dressing-room, amidst a litter of dirty basins, she contrived to centralise the policy of all the courts of Europe. She received information, even detailed reports, in which the slightest pulsations of governmental life were carefully noted, before the embassies did, and without anyone knowing whence her news was derived. As a natural consequence she was surrounded by a court of bankers, and diplomatists, and friends, who came to her in the hope of obtaining information. The bankers showed her particular attention. She had enabled one of them to gain a hundred million francs in a single haul by merely telling him of an approaching change of ministry in a neighbouring state. Truth to tell, however, she disdained to employ her knowledge for purposes of gain, and she readily told all that she knew—the gossip of diplomatists, and the talk of the different capitals—for the mere pleasure of hearing herself speak, and of showing that she had her eyes upon Turin, Vienna, Madrid, and London, as well as on Berlin and St. Petersburg. She could supply endless information concerning the health of the different sovereigns, their amours and habits, the politicians of the various states, and all the scandals of even the smallest German duchies. She judged statesmen in a single phrase; jumped from north to south without the slightest transition; spoke as carelessly of the different countries of Europe as if they had been her own, as if, indeed, the whole wide world, with its cities and nations, had formed part of a box of playthings, whose little cardboard houses and wooden men she could set up, and move about as she pleased. And, when at last her tongue ceased wagging, and she was tired of chattering, she would snap her fingers, as though to say that this was quite as much as all these things were worth.

For the time being, amidst her many tangled schemes, there was one very serious matter which excited her warmest enthusiasm, and on which she tried her best to keep silent, though, occasionally, she could not deny herself the pleasure of alluding to it. She wanted Venice. Whenever she spoke of the great Italian minister, she referred to him familiarly as 'Cavour.' 'Cavour,' said she, 'did not want it, but I want it, and he has understood.' Morning and night she shut herself up at the embassy with Chevalier Rusconi. And tranquilly lounging, throwing back her narrow, but goddess-like brow, as if in a sort of somnambulism, she would utter scraps of disconnected sentences, shreds of revelations; a hint of a secret interview between the Emperor and some foreign statesman; a projected treaty of alliance, some clauses of which were still under discussion; a war which would take place in the coming spring. On other days she became excited and angry, kicked the chairs about her room and knocked the basins over at the risk of breaking them. On these occasions she looked like some angry queen who has been betrayed by imbecile ministers, and sees her kingdom going from bad to worse; and, with a tragic air, she would stretch her bare majestic arm in the direction of Italy and clench her fist, exclaiming: 'Ah! if I were over yonder there would be none of this folly!'

However, the worries of high politics did not prevent Clorinde from engaging in all sorts of other businesses, in which she seemed to get quite lost. She was often to be found sitting on her bed with the contents of her large portfolio spread over the counterpane, while she plunged her arms into the papers, distracted and crying with irritation. She would be unable to find anything amidst such a chaos of documents; or else, after long hunting for some lost batch of papers, she would at length discover it behind some piece of furniture or amongst her old boots or dirty linen. When she went out to conclude any particular piece of business, she generally contrived to involve herself in two or three fresh affairs on her way. She was for ever rushing about to all sorts of places, lived in a perfect whirl of ideas, a state of perpetual excitement; while beneath her lay the mazy depths of mysterious, unfathomable intrigues. When she came home again in the evening, after a day's scouring of Paris, tired out by climbing so many flights of stairs, and carrying in the folds of her skirts an odour of all the strange haunts which she had visited, no one would have guessed one half of the errands that she had been engaged upon. And if anyone happened to question her, she only laughed; she herself did not always remember what she had been doing.

It was about this time that she had the extraordinary whim of engaging a private room at one of the great restaurants on the boulevard. The house in the Rue du Colisée was so far away from everything, she said; she wanted a place in some central position; so she turned the private room at the restaurant into an office. For two months she received there all who wanted to see her, simply attended by the waiters, who had to usher in persons of the highest position. Great functionaries, ambassadors, and ministers presented themselves at the restaurant. Clorinde, entirely at her ease there, made them sit down on the couch, damaged by the supper parties of the Carnival, while she herself remained in front of the table, the cloth of which was always laid, strewn with bread-crumbs and littered with papers. She camped there like a general officer. One day, however, when she did not feel very well, she calmly went upstairs to the top of the house and lay down on the bed of the maître d'hôtel who usually waited upon her, and she could not be induced to go home till it was nearly midnight.

Delestang, in spite of everything, was a happy man. He appeared to be quite ignorant of his wife's eccentricities. She was now completely master of him, and treated him as she liked, while he never made the least complaint. His natural temperament predisposed him to this kind of servitude. He found far too much happiness in the secret surrender of his authority to attempt any revolt. In the privacy of their domestic life, it was he who rendered Clorinde all kinds of little services. He hunted about for her lost boots, or went through all the linen in the wardrobe to find a chemise that was not in holes. He was quite satisfied with preserving a serene appearance of superiority when he was at other people's houses. The unruffled air of loving protection with which he then spoke of his wife almost won him public respect.

Clorinde, having now become all-powerful at home, had decided to bring her mother back from Turin. She intended, she said, that Countess Balbi should henceforth spend six months of each year with her. She seemed to be suddenly overwhelmed by an outburst of filial affection. She threw a whole floor of the house into confusion so as so instal the old lady as near as possible to her own apartments. She even provided a door of communication between her dressing-room and her mother's bedchamber. In Rougon's presence especially she made an excessive parade of her affection, indulging in the most exaggerated Italian expressions of endearment. How had she ever been able, she wondered, to resign herself to such a long separation from her mother, she who, before her marriage, had never left her for an hour? She accused herself of want of heart. But it was not her fault, she protested; she had been forced to yield to other people's advice, to give way before pretended necessities, in which even now she could see no force. Rougon remained quite unmoved by this rebellion. He had altogether ceased to lecture her, and no longer attempted to make her one of the most distinguished women in Paris. In former times she had filled up a gap in his life, but now that he was in the forefront of the battle with fourteen hours' work to get through every day, he gave little thought to love and passion. Nevertheless, he continued to treat her with an air of affection, mingled with that kind of contempt which he usually manifested for women. He came to see her from time to time, and then his eyes would occasionally gleam as in the days of old. She was still his one weakness; the one woman who perturbed him.

Since Rougon had gone to live at the official residence of the Minister of the Interior where his friends complained that they could no longer see him in intimate fashion, Clorinde had thought of receiving the band at her own house, and it had gradually become a custom for the others to go there. To mark more plainly the fact that these receptions took the place of those in the Rue Marbeuf, she fixed the same evenings as Rougon had chosen, namely Sundays and Thursdays. There was this difference, however, that in the Rue du Colisée the guests remained till one o'clock in the morning. Clorinde received them in her boudoir, as Delestang still kept the keys of the big drawing-room for fear of it being damaged by grease-spots. And as the boudoir was a very small apartment, Clorinde left the doors of her dressing-room and bedroom open; so that, very frequently, the friends were to be found crowding together in the sleeping-chamber amid a litter of feminine finery.

On Thursdays and Sundays, Clorinde usually made a point of hastening home early so as to get through her dinner in time to receive her guests. But, in spite of all her efforts to remember these evening receptions, she twice forgot all about them, and was taken quite aback on finding a crowd of people in her bedroom when she returned home after midnight. One Thursday, towards the end of May, she got home at the unusually early hour of five. She had been out on foot and had preferred to walk all the way from the Place de la Concorde in a heavy fall of rain rather than pay thirty sous for a cab. She was quite soaked when she reached the house, and she went straight to her dressing-room where her maid, Antonia, whose mouth was smeared with jam, undressed her, laughing merrily the while at the stream of water which poured from her mistress's clothes on to the floor.

'There is a gentleman come to see you,' said the servant, presently, as she sat down on the floor to take off Clorinde's boots. 'He has been waiting for an hour.'

Clorinde asked her what he was like. The maid, with her greasy dress and unkempt hair, and her white teeth gleaming in her dusky face, remained sitting on the floor. The gentleman, she said, was fat and pale, and stern-looking.

'Oh, it must be Monsieur de Reuthlinguer the banker,' cried Clorinde. 'I remember now, he was to come at four o'clock. Well, let him wait. You have the bath ready for me, haven't you?'

Then she quietly got into the bath which was concealed behind a curtain in a corner of the room, and while in it, she read the letters which had arrived during her absence. Half an hour went by when Antonia, after leaving the room for a few minutes, came back again and said to her mistress: 'The gentleman saw you come in and would very much like to speak to you, madame.'

'Oh, dear, I'd forgotten all about him!' cried Clorinde. 'Come and dress me, quickly.'

However, the young woman showed much capriciousness over her toilette that evening. In spite of the neglect with which she usually treated her person, she was occasionally seized with a sudden idolatry for it. At these times she would indulge in the most elaborate toilette; even having her limbs rubbed with ointments and balms and aromatic oils, of a nature known only to herself, which had been bought at Constantinople, so she said, from the perfumer to the Seraglio, by an Italian diplomatist, a friend of hers. While Antonia was rubbing her, she threw herself into statuesque attitudes. This anointing made her skin white and soft, and beautiful as marble. One of the oils, of which she herself carefully counted the drops as she let them fall on to a small piece of flannel, had the miraculous quality of at once effacing every wrinkle. And when this business was over, she would commence a minute examination of her hands and feet. She could have spent a whole day in adoring herself.

At the end of three quarters of an hour, however, when Antonia had slipped some wraps over her, she suddenly seemed to recollect her visitor. 'Oh, dear, the Baron!' she cried. 'Well, never mind, show him in here!'

M. de Reuthlinguer had been patiently sitting in Clorinde's boudoir, with his hands clasped over his knees for more than two hours. He was a pale frigid man of austere morals, the possessor of one of the largest fortunes in Europe, and for some time past he had been in the habit of thus dancing attendance upon Clorinde twice or thrice a week. He even invited her to his own house, that abode of rigid decorum and glacial strictness, where the young woman's startling eccentricities quite shocked the footmen.

'Good day, baron!' Clorinde exclaimed as he came in. 'I'm having my hair dressed, so don't look.'

An indulgent smile played round the baron's pale lips. After bowing with the most respectful courtesy, he remained standing quite close to her, without a quiver of his eyelids.

'You've come for news, haven't you?' she asked. 'Well, I've just heard something.'

Then she got up and dismissed Antonia, who went away leaving the comb stuck in her mistress's hair. Clorinde was doubtless afraid of being overheard, for laying her hand on the banker's shoulder and, standing on tip-toe, she whispered something in his ear. As he listened to her, he nodded his head briskly.

'There!' concluded the young woman, raising her voice. 'You can go now.'

But the banker took hold of her bare arm and brought her back towards him to ask for certain explanations. He could not have been more at his ease if he had been talking to one of his clerks, instead of to this beautiful woman in deshabille. When he left her, he invited her to dine at his house on the following day. His wife was very anxious to see her again, he said. She accompanied him to the door, but all at once crossed her arms over her bosom and turned very red as she exclaimed: 'Good gracious! I was actually about to go out with you like this!'

She now began to scold Antonia for being so slow. She would never get finished! she cried; and then she scarcely gave the girl time to dress her hair, saying that she hated being so long over her toilette. In spite of the time of the year, she insisted upon wearing a long robe of black velvet, a sort of loose blouse, drawn in at the waist with a red silk girdle. Twice already, a servant had come to tell her that dinner was served. However, as she passed through her bedroom, she found three gentlemen there, of whose presence no one had had the slightest idea. They were the three political refugees, Signori Brambilla, Staderino, and Viscardi. Clorinde, however, showed no surprise at meeting them.

'Have you been waiting for me long?' she asked.

'Yes, yes,' they replied, gently nodding their heads.

They had arrived before the banker, but had remained extremely quiet, for political misfortunes had made them taciturn and reflective. They were seated side by side on the same couch, all three lolling in much the same position, with big extinguished cigars between their lips. But they now rose and clustered round Clorinde, and a rapid muttering in Italian ensued. The young woman seemed to be giving them instructions. One of the refugees took notes in cipher in a pocket-book, while the others, appearing much excited by what they heard, stifled slight cries with their gloved hands. Then they all three went off in single file, with quite impenetrable faces.

That Thursday evening it had been arranged that several of the ministers should confer together on a very important financial matter. When Delestang went off after dinner, he told Clorinde that he would bring Rougon back with him, at which his wife made a little grimace which seemed to imply that she was not very anxious to see her whilom master. There was as yet no positive break in their friendship, but the young woman showed an increasing coldness towards Rougon.

Towards nine o'clock, M. Kahn and M. Béjuin arrived together. They were the first of the band to put in an appearance, but were soon followed by Madame Correur. Clorinde was found in her bedroom, stretched upon a couch there. She complained of one of those extraordinary and unheard-of troubles which suddenly came upon her every now and then. She must have swallowed a fly, she said, while drinking, for she could feel it flying about inside her stomach. Draped in her long black velvet robe, her shoulders supported by three pillows, she none the less looked superbly beautiful with her pale face and bare arms, recalling indeed one of those reclining, dreaming figures, which sculptors portray on monuments. At her feet was Luigi Pozzo, gently twanging the strings of a guitar. He had deserted painting for music.

'Sit down, won't you?' she said to the others. 'Please excuse me. A wretched little insect has got inside me somehow.'

Pozzo went on twanging his guitar, and singing in a low voice, with an ecstatic expression on his face, as if lost in a reverie. Madame Correur wheeled a chair up to Clorinde's side, and M. Kahn and M. Béjuin, after a little searching, also succeeded in finding seats. It was not an easy matter to do so, for the five or six chairs were hidden beneath a litter of dresses and petticoats, so that when Colonel Jobelin and his son Auguste arrived five minutes later, they had to remain standing.

'Little one,' said Clorinde to Auguste, whom she still treated quite familiarly in spite of his seventeen years, 'go and bring two chairs out of my dressing-room.'

These were cane-seated chairs, with all the varnish worn away by the damp linen which was constantly hung over their backs. The bedroom was lighted by a single lamp with a shade of pink paper. There was another in the dressing-room and a third in the boudoir, which, seen through the doorways, seemed to be full of dusky shadow, as though merely illuminated by a night-light. The bedroom itself, with hangings of a tender mauve that had now turned to a pale grey, was full of a floating haze, in which one could scarcely distinguish the rents in the coverings of the easy-chairs, the dust-marks on the furniture and the big ink-stain in the middle of the carpet where some inkstand had fallen with such force that even the wainscotting was splashed. The bed-curtains had been drawn, probably in order to conceal the untidiness of the bed. And amidst this hazy gloom, there rose a powerful scent as though all the bottles and flasks in the dressing-room had remained uncorked. Clorinde obstinately refused to have any of the windows open, even in warm weather.

'What a nice scent you've got here,' said Madame Correur, complimentarily.

'Oh, it's I who smell so nice,' the young woman naïvely replied.

Then she began to talk of the essences which she obtained direct from the perfumer to the Sultanas, and even held her arm under Madame Correur's nose. Her black velvet blouse had got a little disarranged, and her feet, in their little red slippers, showed below it. Pozzo, languid and intoxicated by the strong perfumes which she exhaled, was tapping his instrument gently with his thumb.

However, after a few minutes, the conversation turned of necessity on Rougon, as was invariably the case every Thursday and Sunday. The band seemed to come together for the sole purpose of discussing this one everlasting subject. Its members felt an ever-growing rancour against the great man, a craving to relieve themselves by ceaseless recrimination. Clorinde no longer had any trouble to set them going. They always arrived with a fresh burden of grievances, ever discontented and jealous, actually embittered by what Rougon had done for them, and burning with a violent fever of ingratitude.

'Have you seen the fat man to-day?' the colonel asked.

Rougon was no longer 'the great man.'

'No,' said Clorinde; 'but we may see him here this evening. My husband persists in bringing him to see me.'

'I was in a café this afternoon, where they were criticising him very severely,' the colonel continued, after a pause. 'They say that his position is very shaky, and that he won't last another two months.'

M. Kahn made a gesture of contempt. 'Well, for my part,' he said, 'I don't give him three weeks. Rougon, you see, is not cut out for governing He is too fond of power, and gets intoxicated with it; and then he strikes out right and left and treats people with revolting harshness. During these last five months he has been guilty of some most monstrous acts.'

'Yes, yes, indeed,' the colonel interrupted; 'all kinds of injustices and unfairnesses and absurdities. He abuses his power, most certainly he does.'

Madame Correur said nothing, but expressed, by a gesture, her opinion that Rougon's head was not particularly well balanced.

'Ah, yes, indeed,' said M. Kahn, noticing the gesture. 'He hasn't got a well-fixed head, has he?'

Then M. Béjuin observed that the others were looking at him, and felt called upon to say something. 'No! Rougon's not at all an able man,' he remarked; 'not at all.'

Clorinde lay back on her pillows, gazing at the luminous circle which the lamp cast on the ceiling, and letting the others talk on. When they paused, she said, with the intention of starting them again: 'There is no doubt that he has abused his power, but he asserts that the things with which people reproach him were done for the sole purpose of obliging his friends. I was talking to him on the subject the other day. The services which he has rendered you——'

'Rendered us! rendered us!' they all cried furiously. And they went on talking all together, eager to protest against any such insinuation. However, M. Kahn shouted the others down.

'The services which he has rendered me! That's a fine joke! I had to wait two years for my railway grant, with the result that the prospects of the scheme, once very brilliant, have suffered considerably. If he is such a friend of mine, why doesn't he come to my assistance now? I asked him to obtain the Emperor's sanction to a bill authorising the amalgamation of my company with the Western Company, and he told me that I must wait. Rougon's services to me, indeed! Well, I should like to know what they are! He has never done anything for me, and he can't do anything now!'

'And I, and I, do you imagine that I am indebted to him for anything?' cried the colonel, breaking in before Madame Correur could speak. 'He surely doesn't take any credit to himself for that commander's cross, which had been promised to me for five years and more? He has taken Auguste into his office, it is true; but I bitterly regret now that I ever let the boy go there. If I had put him into business he would have been earning twice as much. That wretched Rougon told me only yesterday that he would not be able to increase Auguste's pay for another eighteen months. That is the way he ruins his credit for the sake of his friends!'

At last Madame Correur also was able to relieve her feelings. 'Did he mention my name?' she said, bending towards Clorinde. 'I never asked that much from him; and have yet to learn the nature of his services to me. He can't say as much with regard to my services to him; and if I liked to talk——But no matter. I certainly asked him for a few favours on behalf of my friends. I don't deny that. I delight in being of use to anyone. But I must say that everything he has a hand in turns out badly, and that his favours seem to bring ill-luck. There's that poor Herminie Billecoq, an old pupil of Saint Denis, who was wronged by an officer, and for whom Rougon procured a dowry. Well, the poor girl came to me with a dreadful story this morning. There's no chance of her getting married after all, for the officer has absconded, taking the dowry with him. And you understand me. Anything that Rougon has done at my request has been done for others, and not for myself. When I came back from Coulonges, after the settlement of my brother's affairs, I went to tell him of the tricks that Madame Martineau had been playing with respect to the division of the property. I wanted the house in which I was born as part of my share, but the wretched woman contrived to keep it herself. Well, do you know what was the only answer I could get from Rougon? He told me three times over that he couldn't trouble himself any further about the miserable business!'

While Madame Correur was speaking, M. Béjuin, in his turn, had begun to show signs of excitement, and he now stammered: 'I am exactly in the same position as Madame. I have never asked Rougon for anything—never, never! Anything that he may have done has been done in spite of me, and without my knowing anything about it. He avails himself of one's silence to take every advantage of one, yes, every advantage.'

His words died away in a mutter; and then all four remained for a moment silently wagging their heads.

Presently M. Kahn resumed, in a solemn voice: 'The truth of the matter is this. Rougon is an ungrateful fellow. You all remember how we used to scour Paris, working to get him back into office. We devoted ourselves to his cause to such a point as to take our meals anywhere and anyhow. And he then contracted a debt towards us which in his whole lifetime he could not fairly discharge. Now, however, he finds gratitude too heavy a burden for him, and so he casts us adrift. Well, we might have expected as much!'

'Yes, yes, indeed,' cried the others. 'He owes everything to us, and he's repaying us in a pretty fashion.'

Then for a while they completely overwhelmed Rougon with an enumeration of all the things they had done for him; whenever one of them became silent another brought forward some still more crushing detail. The colonel, however, suddenly felt uneasy about Auguste, who had disappeared from the bedchamber. Just then a peculiar noise was heard in the dressing-room—a sort of gentle, continuous dabbling sound—and the colonel hurried off to see what it could be. He then found Auguste apparently much interested in the bath, which Antonia had forgotten to empty. Some slices of lemon, which Clorinde had used for her nails, were floating on the water, and these Auguste was inquisitively examining.

'The boy is quite a nuisance,' murmured Clorinde. 'He goes poking about everywhere.'

'Really, now,' said Madame Correur, who seemed to have been waiting for the colonel's absence, 'the thing in which Rougon is most deficient is tact. Between ourselves, I may say, now that the gallant colonel can't hear us, that it was a great mistake on Rougon's part to take that young man into his office in defiance of the regulations. That is not the kind of service a man ought to render to his friends. It only brings him into discredit.'

However, Clorinde interrupted her. 'Do go, my dear madam,' said she, 'and see what they're doing in the bathroom.'

M. Kahn had begun to smile, and, when Madame Correur left the room, he also lowered his voice and put in a word. 'How fine it is to hear her talk,' he said. 'The colonel has, no doubt, been well looked after by Rougon, but she herself has no reason to complain. Rougon absolutely compromised himself on her account in that troublesome Martineau business. He showed himself very deficient in morality in that matter. Nobody ought to kill a man for the mere sake of pleasing an old friend, ought he?'

Then M. Kahn got up and began to stroll about the room, and ultimately he went back to the ante-room to get his cigar-case, which he had left in his overcoat. At that moment the colonel and Madame Correur came back.

'Hallo! has Kahn gone?' exclaimed the colonel; and, without any transition, he went on: 'Well, we others may have a right to run down Rougon, but Kahn, in my opinion, ought to remain dumb. I don't like heartless people. Just now I kept from saying anything, but in a café where I was this afternoon it was openly said that Rougon was falling through having lent his name to that swindling railway line from Niort to Angers. A man ought not to make such a blunder as that! To think of that big fat imbecile firing mines and delivering speeches a mile long, and even trying to make the Emperor responsible for the success of the line! Ah! it's Kahn, my good friends, who's made a mess of it for all of us! Don't you agree with me, Béjuin?'

M. Béjuin briskly nodded his head. He had already agreed with Madame Correur and M. Kahn. Meanwhile, Clorinde, still reclining on the couch, was amusing herself with biting the tassel of her girdle, which she kept drawing over her face, as though she wanted to tickle herself. Her eyes were wide open and smiling at the ceiling.

'Hush!' she said, all at once.

M. Kahn was just coming back, biting off the end of a cigar between his teeth. He lighted it and blew out two or three big puffs of smoke, for smoking was allowed in Clorinde's bedroom. Then, resuming the previous conversation, he said: 'Well, if Rougon asserts that he has weakened his power by serving us, I can truthfully declare that we have been dreadfully compromised by his patronage. He has such a rough, brutal way of pushing one forward that it's no wonder if one breaks one's nose against a wall. However, as a result of all these violent ways of his, he's now tumbling down again. For my part, I feel no desire to help to pick him up any more. If a man can't preserve his own credit, there must be something wrong with him. I tell you that he is seriously compromising us. I have got heavy enough responsibilities as it is, and I give him up.'

While saying this, however, M. Kahn spoke hesitatingly, and his voice grew faint. Madame Correur and the colonel bent their heads to escape the necessity of declaring themselves in the same peremptory fashion. In spite of everything, Rougon was still in office, and before abandoning him they wanted to secure some other powerful patron.

'The fat man isn't everybody,' said Clorinde carelessly.

At this they all looked at her, hoping that she was going to give them some formal promise. But she made a little gesture, as though to bid them have patience. This tacit hint of some new patronage which would shower benefits upon them was really the mainspring of their assiduous attendance at the young woman's Sundays and Thursdays. Among the strong odours of her room they scented a coming triumph; and, believing that they had exhausted Rougon in obtaining the satisfaction of their early desires, they looked forward to the advent of some new power that should realise their more recent dreams, which were far greater and more numerous than the others had been.

However, Clorinde at last raised herself up from her pillows, and, bending towards Pozzo, she blew into his neck, laughing loudly as she did so, as though thrilled with some wild impulse of merriment. When she felt pleased she often gave way to some such outburst of childish gaiety. Pozzo, whose hand seemed to have gone to sleep on his guitar, threw back his picturesque Italian head and showed his white teeth when he was thus roused, but Clorinde went on laughing and blowing with such force that at last he begged for mercy. Then, when she had scolded him in Italian, she turned towards Madame Correur. 'He must sing to us, mustn't he?' she said. 'If he will sing I won't blow any more. He has composed a very pretty song. You will like it.'

They all asked to hear the song, and Pozzo began to finger his guitar again. Then he sang, keeping his eyes fixed upon Clorinde all the time. The song was like a passionate murmur accompanied by short soft notes. The tremulous Italian words could not be distinguished; however, at the last couplet, which seemed to be expressive of the pains of love, Pozzo, while assuming a very mournful tone, began to smile with an expression of mingled joy and despair. When he finished, his audience enthusiastically applauded him. Why didn't he publish those charming songs of his? they asked. Surely his position in the diplomatic service could be no impediment.

'I once knew a captain who brought out a comic opera,' said Colonel Jobelin; 'and nobody in the regiment thought any the worse of him for it.'

'Ah, but in the diplomatic service——' murmured Madame Correur, shaking her head.

'Oh, I think you are wrong there,' remarked M. Kahn. 'Diplomatists are like other men, and many of them cultivate the social arts.'

However, Clorinde touched Pozzo lightly with her foot and whispered something to him, and thereupon the young man rose, laid his guitar on a heap of clothes, and left the room. When he returned, some five minutes afterwards, he was followed by Antonia, carrying a tray on which were a water-bottle and some glasses. Pozzo himself held a sugar-basin for which there was no room on the tray. Nothing stronger than sugared water was ever drunk at Clorinde's receptions, and her friends knew that she was well pleased if they simply took the water by itself.

'Hallo! what's that?' she suddenly exclaimed, turning towards the dressing-room, where a door could be heard creaking. Then, as though remembering, she added: 'Oh, it's my mother! She's been in bed.'

It was, indeed, Countess Balbi; who made her appearance in a black woollen dressing-gown, with a piece of lace tied round her head. Flaminio, the big footman with the long beard and brigand's face, was supporting her from behind, almost carrying her, in fact, in his arms. However, she did not appear to have aged, her pale face still smiled with the smile of one who had been a queen of beauty.

'Wait a moment, mother!' exclaimed Clorinde, 'I'll give you this couch. I'll lie down on the bed. I'm not feeling very well. I've got an insect inside me; and it's begun to bite me again.'

There was a general movement. Pozzo and Madame Correur assisted the young woman to her bed. They had to turn down the coverings, and flatten the pillows. Countess Balbi, meantime, lay down on the couch while Flaminio remained standing behind her, black and silent, though glaring ferociously at the visitors.

'You don't mind my lying down, do you?' said Clorinde to the others. 'I feel so much better when I'm lying down. I'm not going to send you away. You must stay where you are.'

She was stretched out at full length, her elbow resting on a pillow, while her spreading black blouse looked like a stream of ink upon the white counterpane. Nobody had had any idea of going away. Madame Correur was talking in a whisper to Pozzo about Clorinde's superb figure, while M. Kahn, M. Béjuin and the colonel paid their respects to the Countess, who nodded her head and smiled. Every now and then, without turning round, she would call in a soft voice: 'Flaminio!'

The tall footman knew what she meant, and at once raised a cushion or brought a stool, or took a scent bottle from his pocket, retaining, however, in all he did the ferocious air of a brigand in evening dress.

All at once Auguste happened to have an accident. After prowling through the three rooms, stopping to examine all the garments that were lying about, he had felt a little bored, and to amuse himself had begun to drink glassful after glassful of sugared-water. Clorinde kept her eye upon him, watching the sugar-basin gradually empty, when suddenly the youth broke his glass, against the side of which he had been pressing his spoon too violently.

'It's all because he puts too much sugar in!' cried Clorinde.

'Dunderhead!' exclaimed the colonel. 'You can't even drink water rationally! One big glassful every morning and every evening, that's the way. There is nothing better. It keeps away all diseases.'

Fortunately there was a diversion, for M. Bouchard now made his appearance. It was past ten o'clock. He had dined in town, which had caused him to be a little late. He seemed surprised at not finding his wife there. 'Monsieur d'Escorailles said he would bring her,' he remarked, 'and I promised to call for her and take her home.' Half an hour later Madame Bouchard at length arrived, accompanied by M. d'Escorailles and M. La Rouquette. After a coolness which had lasted a year, the young Marquis had returned to his allegiance to the pretty blonde. He and she, it appeared, had met M. La Rouquette as they were driving in an open cab to the Delestangs', and thereupon they had all three gone on to the Bois together, laughing loudly and indulging in somewhat broad pleasantries; indeed, M. d'Escorailles had even fancied for a moment that the deputy's arm was behind Madame Bouchard's waist. The trio brought a whiff of gaiety into Clorinde's room, something of the fresh air of the dark avenues of the Bois along which they had just passed so merrily.

'Yes, we've been to the lake,' said M. La Rouquette. 'They insisted upon taking me off. I was quietly going home to work.'

Then he suddenly became serious. During the previous session he had made a speech upon a financial question after a whole month's special study of his subject, and since then he had affected a very steady-going air, as though he had buried all his youthful frivolities.

'By the way,' began Kahn, taking him to the end of the room, 'you who are on such good terms with Marsy——'

Then he continued in such a low tone that nothing further could be heard. Pretty Madame Bouchard, who had bowed to the Countess, was now sitting beside the bed, holding Clorinde's hand, and sympathising with her in a fluty voice. Meantime, M. Bouchard, who remained standing in a prim and dignified attitude, suddenly began to speak aloud amidst all the surrounding buzz of conversation, 'I have something to tell you,' he said, 'our fat man is a nice sort of fellow.'

Before explaining himself, however, he began to rail at Rougon as the others had done. It was now impossible, he said, to ask him for anything, for he could not even return a polite answer; and he, M. Bouchard, considered that politeness came before everything. Then as they continued to ask him what Rougon had done, he at last told them.

'I can't bear injustice,' said he. 'I spoke to him about one of the clerks in my division. Georges Duchesne; you know him, don't you? You've met him at my house. Well, he's a young fellow of sterling merit, and we treat him as though he were our own son. My wife is very fond of him, as he comes from the same part of the country as herself. Well, we had lately been scheming to get Duchesne appointed assistant head clerk. It was my idea, but you approved of it, didn't you, Adèle?'

Madame Bouchard looked embarrassed, and bent yet more closely to Clorinde to escape the eyes of M. d'Escorailles, which she felt were fixed on her.

'Well,' continued the head of department, 'how do you think the fat man received my request? He glared at me in his offensive way for a full minute, and then he bluntly refused to make the appointment. When I pressed the matter, he said to me with a smile: "Monsieur Bouchard, don't press your request; you distress me. There are very grave reasons why I cannot accede to it." I couldn't get him to say another word. He saw, however, that I was very much put out, and so he begged me to remember him kindly to my wife.'

That very evening, as it happened, Madame Bouchard had had a rather lively passage of arms with M. d'Escorailles on the subject of this same Georges Duchesne. 'Oh well!' she now deemed it advisable to say in a rather petulant voice, 'Monsieur Duchesne will have to wait. I don't know that we need trouble ourselves about him.'

But her husband seemed quite determined. 'No, no,' he returned; 'he deserves to be assistant head clerk, and he shall be! My credit is involved. Oh, I really can't stand injustice!'

He grew so excited that some of the others had to soothe him. Clorinde, who appeared somewhat absent-minded, was in reality trying to hear the conversation between M. Kahn and M. La Rouquette, who had ensconced themselves at the foot of her bed. The former was explaining the state of his affairs. His great undertaking of a railway line between Niort and Angers was in a very critical position. The shares had at first been sold on the Bourse at a premium of eighty francs, before a single stroke of work had been done. Relying upon his much-talked-of English company, M. Kahn had indulged in the most reckless speculation, and now the whole business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and must collapse unless he could at once obtain some powerful support.

'Some time ago,' he said, 'Marsy offered to bring about a sale of the concern to the Western Company. For myself I'm quite ready to enter into negotiations. We should only want to get an Act passed.'

Clorinde heard this, and thereupon quietly beckoned to the two men, who drew near and began a long conversation with her. Marsy, said the young woman, bore no spite. She would speak to him on the subject, and would offer him the million francs for which he had asked, the previous year, as his price for supporting the grant. His position as President of the Corps Législatif would make it an easy matter for him to get the necessary Act passed.

'Marsy's the only man who's of any good in matters of this kind,' she added with a smile. 'If you try to manage without him, you always have to call him in later on to patch up the broken pieces.'

However, all the other visitors were now speaking at once, and the room was full of noise. Madame Correur was telling Madame Bouchard of her latest desire, which was to go to Coulonges and die there in the family home. She grew quite pathetic as she spoke of the neighbourhood where she had been born, and she declared that she would compel Madame Martineau to give up the house which was full of the associations of her childhood. Meantime, as was fatal, the men were again harping on the subject of Rougon. M. d'Escorailles was describing the anger of his father and mother, who had written to him upon learning how Rougon was abusing his power, bidding him break with the minister and return to the Council of State. The colonel, on his side, related how the fat man had flatly refused to ask the Emperor for a post for him in the imperial palaces. Even M. Béjuin complained that his Majesty had never visited the cut-glass works at Saint Florent upon the occasion of his journey to Bourges, although Rougon had solemnly promised to obtain that favour. And amidst all this babel, Countess Balbi reclined smiling, on her couch, looking the while at her still plump hands.

'Flaminio!' she said, softly. Then the tall footman took a little tortoise-shell box full of mint lozenges out of his waistcoat pocket, and the Countess crunched these lozenges with an air of quiet enjoyment.

It was nearly midnight when Delestang returned home. When they saw him raise the hangings of the doorway leading to the boudoir, they all became silent and turned anxiously towards him. But he let the curtain fall again; there was no one with him. Then, after a further pause, the visitors broke into various exclamations:

'Are you by yourself?'

'You haven't brought him with you then?'

'Have you lost the fat man on the way?'

Truth to tell, there was a general feeling of relief. Delestang explained that Rougon had felt very tired and had left him at the corner of the Rue Marbeuf.

'And a good thing, too!' exclaimed Clorinde, stretching herself out on the bed; 'he's by no means entertaining.'

This was the signal for a fresh outburst of complaint and accusation. Delestang protested and tried to get a word in; for he usually made a pretence of defending Rougon. 'There is no doubt that he might have acted better than he has done towards certain of his friends,' he slowly said as soon as he was allowed to speak. 'But, in spite of everything, he's a wonderfully clever fellow. I myself shall be eternally grateful to him.'

'Grateful for what?' cried M. Kahn, snappishly.

'For all that he has done——'

But the others angrily interrupted him. Rougon had never done anything for him, they cried. What was it that he supposed Rougon had done for him?

'You quite surprise me!' said the colonel. 'It is ridiculous to carry modesty to that extent. You don't stand in need of anyone's help, my dear friend. You have succeeded through your own merits.'

Then they all began to sound Delestang's praises. His model farm at La Chamade was something unparalleled, they asserted; it had long ago proved that he possessed all the qualifications of an able administrator and statesman. He had a quick eye, a clear mind, and a hand that was energetic without being rough. And besides, had not the Emperor himself manifested the greatest appreciation of him all along? His Majesty and himself were in accord upon almost every point.

'Pooh!' M. Kahn ended by saying; 'it is you who keep Rougon up. If you weren't his friend and didn't support him in the council, he would have come to grief a fortnight ago!'

Delestang, however, went on with his protestations. He himself might indeed be of some service, but it was only right to give everyone his due. That very evening, at the Ministry of Justice, in discussing a very complicated financial question, Rougon had given proof of extraordinary lucidity of mind.

'Oh yes, I daresay,' said M. La Rouquette scornfully; 'the cunning of a smart attorney.'

Clorinde had not yet opened her lips. The visitors kept glancing at her as though they expected her to say something. But for some time she rolled her head on her pillow, as though she were trying to rub the nape of her neck.

'That's right; scold him,' she said at last, speaking of her husband, though not mentioning him by name. 'He will have to be beaten into taking his real place.'

'The position of Minister for Agriculture and Commerce is quite a secondary one,' remarked M. Kahn in order to precipitate matters.

This was touching a sore spot. Clorinde was annoyed at her husband being shelved to what she considered a minor post. And she now sharply sprang into a sitting posture, and let fall the words that everyone had been waiting for: 'He can go to the office of the Interior as soon as ever we wish it,' said she.

Delestang tried to speak, but all the company rushed towards him amid an outburst of delight. Then at last he seemed to give in, a rosy flush suffused his cheeks, his handsome face fairly beamed with pleasure. Madame Correur and Madame Bouchard whispered to each other that he was remarkably good looking, and the latter, with that perverted taste which makes some women admire baldness, cast loving glances at his bare skull. Then M. Kahn, the colonel and the others, expressed by winks, gestures and hasty words the high estimate which they set upon his ability. They prostrated themselves before the feeblest mind of the whole coterie, and admired one another in his person. He, at any rate, would be an easy and docile master, and would never compromise them. They could set him up as a god with impunity, free from all fear of his thunderbolts.

'You are quite fatiguing him,' at last exclaimed pretty Madame Bouchard in her tender voice.

Fatiguing him, were they? At this there was a general outburst of sympathy. In point of fact Delestang was looking rather pale again, and his eyes had a sleepy expression. But nothing tries a man like brain-work, the visitors remarked to each other with an air of commiseration, and the poor fellow had been working since five o'clock that morning! Then they gently insisted that he should go to bed. And he obeyed them with quiet docility, kissing his wife on the forehead and then quitting the room.

It was now one o'clock, and the guests began to speak of retiring, whereupon Clorinde assured them that she was by no means sleepy, and that they might stay on. However, no one sat down again. The lamp in the boudoir had just gone out, and there was a strong smell of oil in the room. It was with difficulty that they could find sundry small articles, such as Madame Correur's fan, the colonel's stick, and Madame Bouchard's bonnet. Clorinde, calmly stretched on her bed, stopped Madame Correur just as the latter was going to ring for Antonia. The maid, it appeared, always went to bed at eleven o'clock. Then just as they were all going away, the colonel suddenly bethought himself of Auguste, whom he had forgotten. He found him asleep on a sofa in the boudoir, with his head resting on a dress which he had rolled up to form a pillow; and the others scolded him for not having attended to the lamp. In the gloom of the staircase, where the gas was turned very low, Madame Bouchard gave a little scream. She had twisted her foot, she said. Finally, as the visitors carefully felt their way with the aid of the balusters, loud peals of laughter were heard upstairs; Pozzo having lingered after the others had gone.

Every Thursday and Sunday the friends met at Clorinde's in this way; and it was generally rumoured that Madame Delestang now held political receptions. It was said that extremely liberal proclivities were aired at them, and that Rougon's despotic administration was vigorously attacked. The whole band indeed had now begun to dream of a sort of democratic empire in which every public liberty would gradually expand. The colonel, in his leisure moments, drew up codes of rules for trades-unions. M. Béjuin spoke of building cheap workmen's houses round his cut-glass works at Saint Florent, and M. Kahn talked to Delestang for hours at a time, of the democratic part that the Bonapartes were destined to play in modern society. And every fresh act of Rougon's was hailed with indignant protests, with expressions of patriotic alarm lest France should be ruined by such a man. One day Delestang started the theory that the Emperor was the only genuine Republican of his time. The coterie put on the airs of a religious sect to which the only means of salvation had been exclusively entrusted, and its members soon openly plotted the fat man's overthrow for the good of the country.

Clorinde, however, showed no inclination for haste. They would find her lying at full length on one or other of the couches in her rooms, gazing into the air as if examining patches of the ceiling. And while the others prated and walked impatiently about the room, she remained silent and impenetrable, merely glancing at them every now and then as though to advise them to be more guarded in their language. She now went out less than she had done previously, and with Antonia's assistance often amused herself by dressing as a man, seemingly to while away her time. She manifested, too, a sudden affection for her husband, kissing him before company, talking caressingly to him, and showing a lively anxiety about his health, which was excellent. It might be that she adopted these tactics to conceal the absolute sway and ceaseless surveillance which she maintained over him. She directed his slightest actions, taught him his lesson every morning like a school-boy who could not be trusted. Delestang on his side evinced the most docile obedience. He bowed, smiled, or frowned, said black was white or white was black, just as she pulled the string. And whenever he felt that he wanted winding up again, he voluntarily came back to her and placed himself in her hands to be manipulated. But all the while he seemed to outsiders to be the head of the household.

Clorinde still waited. M. Beulin-d'Orchère, although he avoided coming to her evening receptions, frequently saw her during the day. He complained bitterly of his brother-in-law, whom he accused of making the fortunes of a crowd of strangers, while he seemed to think nothing of his own relatives. It was entirely Rougon's doing, he asserted, if the Emperor had not entrusted the seals to himself. Rougon was afraid of having anyone in the council with whom he might have to share his influence. Clorinde did all she could to whet the judge's anger, and she also dropped hints of her husband's approaching triumph, and held out a vague hope that the rejected one might be included in the new ministry. She was, however, really making use of Beulin-d'Orchère to find out what went on at Rougon's house. With feminine vindictiveness she would have liked to see the great man unhappy in his domestic relations, and accordingly she spurred the judge on to persuade his sister to take his side against her husband. He tried to do so, no doubt, and may even have voiced his regrets respecting a marriage from which he had derived no benefit. But probably his words had no effect upon Madame Rougon's quiet, placid nature. To Clorinde he would say that his brother-in-law had seemed very nervous for some time past, and he would even hint that the fitting time for his overthrow had come. Then with his eyes fixed on the young woman, but with the amiable way of one who in all innocence retails the gossip of society, he would recount a whole series of Rougon's characteristic actions. Why did she not act, if she were really mistress of the situation? he seemed to urge. But Clorinde only stretched herself out the more, and put on the air of one who is kept indoors by wet weather, and must patiently await a ray of sunshine.

However, at the Tuileries the young woman's influence was certainly increasing; and courtiers spoke in whispers of his Majesty's strong admiration for her. At the balls and official receptions, indeed, everywhere that the Emperor met her, he was always hanging about her, casting side-long glances at her and whispering to her with a quiet smile. She on her side was playing her old part, the part she had played when she was looking for a husband, putting on the most enticing airs, behaving with a semblance of easy freedom, but always keeping on her guard and making her escape at the critical moment. She seemed, indeed, to be biding her time, waiting for the hour when the Emperor would be unable to refuse her any request that she might make of him. Doubtless she wished to secure the triumph of some long-planned scheme.

It was about this time that she suddenly began to manifest great affection for M. de Plouguern. For several months there had been a coolness between them. The old senator, who had been most constant in his attendance upon her, coming to see her almost every morning while she was dressing, was much annoyed one day at being refused admittance while she was engaged with her toilette. He thought this a great shame, for wasn't he her godfather, he asked, and hadn't he dandled her upon his knees when she was quite a little child? However, M. de Plouguern urged all this in vain. Matters ended in a rupture, and whenever M. Kahn or Colonel Jobelin happened to ask the young woman about the old senator, she would somewhat stiffly reply: 'I'm told that he is growing young again. But I never see him now.'

This lasted for a time. Then, all at once M. de Plouguern was to be constantly found at her house. He wandered about it at all hours of the day, doing Clorinde's bidding like a maid of all work: 'Godfather, go and get me my nail-file!' she would say, 'It is in the drawer, you know—Godfather, get me the sponge.'

She called him godfather in a caressing, affectionate manner. On his side he now frequently spoke of Count Balbi, and gave details of Clorinde's birth. He asserted that he had been introduced to her mother but a short time before that birth; which was distinctly false. However, the relative positions of the two were never clearly ascertained. Nor did people learn what business it was that had again brought Clorinde and the old senator together. In all probability he was just then necessary to her; she had some part for him to play in a drama of which she was constantly dreaming. She would indeed talk to him in obscure terms of some vague indefinite event which was very slowly approaching consummation. And on his side he seemed to be calculating combinations like a chess-player, though he generally ended by shaking his head as though he could come to no satisfactory conclusion.

On the few occasions when Rougon came to see Clorinde, she affected great weariness and spoke of going to Italy for three months. But then with lowered eyelids she would examine him with a sharp gleaming glance, while a smile of refined cruelty hardened her lips. She would have liked to strangle him then and there with her tapering fingers, but she was anxious that her attack should prove quite effective when it did come; and this long wait for the time when her nails would be fully grown was not without a spice of pleasure to her. Rougon, who was always very absent-minded, shook hands with her mechanically, never noticing the nervous fever of her flesh. He even fancied that she had given up her eccentricities, and complimented her upon rendering obedience to her husband. 'You are now nearly all that I wished you to be,' he said to her. 'You have taken the right course. Women ought to remain quietly at home.'

'Good heavens! what an idiot he is!' she exclaimed with a shrill laugh when he had gone away. 'And he thinks that it is the women who are the idiots!'

At last, one Sunday evening towards ten o'clock, when the whole band had assembled in Clorinde's bedroom, M. de Plouguern came in with a triumphant air: 'Well,' he exclaimed, trying to appear extremely indignant, 'have you heard of Rougon's last exploit? This time, surely, the measure is full!'

They all eagerly clustered round him. No one had heard of anything.

'Ah! It is abominable!' he added, excitedly waving his arm in the air. 'It is inconceivable that a minister could sink to such depths!'

Then he entered into particulars. When the Charbonnels had gone to Faverolles to take possession of their cousin Chevassu's property, they had made a great out-cry about the alleged disappearance of a large quantity of silver plate. They accused the woman who had been left in charge of the house, a very pious person, of having stolen it. They asserted that this miserable creature, upon learning the decision of the Council of State, had conspired with the Sisters of the Holy Family and carried to their convent all such valuables as could easily be concealed. Three days later the Charbonnels dropped the accusations against the housekeeper and charged the Sisters themselves with having ransacked the house. This caused a terrible scandal in the town. However, the commissary of police still refused to search the convent, when Rougon, after receiving a letter from the Charbonnels, telegraphed to the prefect directing him to order a strict perquisition at once.

'Yes, a strict perquisition, those were the words in the message,' M. de Plouguern said in conclusion, 'And then the commissary and two gendarmes were seen ransacking the convent. They were there for five hours. The gendarmes insisted upon poking into every corner. They even examined the Sisters' beds to see if the missing plate were under the mattresses.'

'Oh! how abominable!' cried Madame Bouchard, in disgust.

'He must be entirely destitute of the slightest idea of religion!' declared the colonel.

'Well, what can you expect?' asked Madame Correur. 'Rougon has never conformed with the requirements of faith. I often tried to reconcile him with God, but always failed in my efforts.'

M. Bouchard and M. Béjuin shook their heads in a hopeless sort of way, as though they had just heard of some frightful social catastrophe which made them despair of humanity; while M. Kahn, energetically rubbing his fringe of beard, inquired: 'Of course they discovered nothing in the convent?'

'Absolutely nothing!' replied M. de Plouguern. Then he continued hastily: 'A silver sauce-pan, I think, two cups, and a cruet-stand, mere trifles, presents which the esteemed deceased, an old man of extreme piety, had given to the Sisters in acknowledgment of their kind attention to him during his long illness.'

'Yes, yes, of course!' said the others.

The old senator dwelt no further on that subject; but in a very deliberate way, accentuating each sentence by bringing one hand down upon the other, he resumed: 'That, however, is not the important point. The question is one of the respect due to a convent, to one of those holy houses where the virtues, driven from our impious society, have sought refuge. How can we expect the masses to be religious when they see attacks made upon religion by men in such high positions? Rougon has been guilty of utter sacrilege in this matter, and he will be called to account for it. All the decent minded folks in Faverolles are bursting with indignation. Monseigneur Rochart, the well-known bishop, who has always manifested a particular affection for the Sisters, has come to Paris to demand justice. In the Senate, too, to-day a great deal of annoyance was shown, and there was some talk of raising a discussion on the strength of a few details which I was able to supply. And finally the Empress herself——'

Every head was now eagerly craned forward.

'Yes, the Empress has learnt this deplorable story from Madame de Llorentz, who heard it from our friend La Rouquette, to whom I myself told it. When she heard it her Majesty exclaimed: 'Monsieur Rougon is no longer worthy of speaking in the name of France!'

'Quite right!' said all the others.

All through that Thursday night and until one o'clock the next morning nothing else was talked of. Clorinde had not opened her mouth. At M. de Plouguern's first words she had lain back on her couch, looking a little pale and compressing her lips. Then, unnoticed, she quickly crossed herself three times, as though thanking heaven for having at last granted her a long-entreated favour. The narrative of the perquisition wrung from her various gestures expressive of outraged piety, and gradually she flushed quite red. Then, gazing up towards the dim ceiling she became absorbed in reverie.

And while the others were discussing the matter, M. de Plouguern glided to the young woman's side, and with his sceptical snigger softly whispered in her ear: 'He has insulted God Almighty! He is done for!'

XIII

CLORINDE'S REVENGE

During the ensuing week, Rougon heard a growing clamour rise around him. Everything else might have been forgiven: his abuse of power, the grasping greed of his band, and the choking grip in which he held the whole country; but to have sent gendarmes to poke about the cells of the Sisters was so monstrous a crime that the ladies of the Court affected to shudder when he passed them. Then, too, Monseigneur Rochart was creating a terrible commotion throughout the official world, and it was said that he had even complained to the Empress herself on the subject. Moreover, the scandal was doubtless kept alive by a few wily individuals, who were bent on making the most of it; for orders and suggestions circulated, and the same complaints were raised at once in every quarter. Amidst all these furious attacks, Rougon at first maintained a perfectly serene and smiling demeanour. He shrugged his broad shoulders and spoke scoffingly of the whole matter. At an evening reception at the Ministry of Justice he even remarked: 'By the way, I never told you that they found a priest hidden in the convent.' However, when this sally circulated there was a fresh outburst of anger, and then he on his side at last became impassioned. People were making him quite sick with all their foolish talk, he said; the Sisters were certainly thieves, for silver cups and saucepans had been discovered in their possession. And he actually showed an inclination to take further steps in the matter, made inquiries, and threatened to overwhelm the whole clergy of Faverolles with confusion in the law-courts.

Early one morning, however, the Charbonnels presented themselves before him; at which he was much astonished, for he did not know that they were even in Paris. As soon as he saw them, he exclaimed that matters were proceeding most satisfactorily, and that he had sent instructions to the prefect to compel the public prosecutor to take active steps. But at this M. Charbonnel assumed an expression of consternation, and Madame Charbonnel replied: 'No, no! we don't want that! You have gone too far, Monsieur Rougon. You have quite misunderstood us.'

Then they both began to sing the praises of the Sisters of the Holy Family, who were extremely good women, they said; though they themselves had for a moment gone to law against them, they had never ventured so far as to accuse them of anything base. Such a charge would have produced the greatest amazement in Faverolles, where everyone in society held the Sisters in such high esteem.

'You will do us the greatest injury, Monsieur Rougon,' Madame Charbonnel said, in conclusion, 'if you continue to show such violence towards religion. We have come to pray you to desist from further action. Down yonder people don't understand the real state of affairs, but think that it is we who are hounding you on; so, if you don't stop, they will end by stoning us.... We have made a handsome present to the convent, an ivory crucifix, which used to hang at the foot of our poor cousin's bed.'

'Well, we've warned you now,' added M. Charbonnel, 'and the responsibility rests with you. We have nothing further to do with the business.'

Rougon let them talk on. They seemed to be very much displeased with him, and gradually raised their voices in indignation. As the minister looked at them he felt a slight chill and sudden lassitude, as though some portion of his strength had again been ravished from him. However, he made no attempt to discuss the subject, but dismissed his visitors, promising that he would take no further steps in the affair; and, indeed, so far as he was concerned, he let the whole matter die out.

During the last few days his name had been indirectly mixed up in another scandal. A frightful tragedy had taken place at Coulonges. Du Poizat, obstinately intent upon getting the better of his father, had again one morning knocked at the old miser's door. Five minutes afterwards the neighbours heard the sound of gun-shots in the house, accompanied by fearful shrieks. When they made their way inside, they found the old man stretched at the foot of the staircase with his head split open. Two discharged guns were lying on the hall floor, and Du Poizat told them, with a livid face, that his father, upon seeing him advance towards the staircase, had suddenly shouted, 'Thieves!' as though he were mad, and had fired upon him twice, almost touching him with the muzzle of his gun. In proof of this, he even showed them a bullet-hole in his hat. However, said he, just as his father was advancing still nearer, he had fallen and broken his skull against the bottom step. This tragical death, this mysterious, unwitnessed drama, had given rise to the most unpleasant rumours throughout the department. The doctors said it was clear that the old man had died of an attack of apoplexy. Nevertheless, the prefect's enemies insinuated that he must have given his father a push, and the number of these enemies increased day by day, owing to the harshness of his rule, which oppressed Niort as with a reign of terror. Stern and pale, with his teeth clenched and his hands twitching, Du Poizat had to check the gossips on their doorsteps with a glance from his fierce grey eyes as he passed along the streets.

However, another misfortune befell him. He was obliged to remove Gilquin, who had compromised himself by taking a bribe to procure a conscript exemption from the service. It was his wont to promise exemption to peasants' sons on being paid a hundred francs a head. All that Du Poizat could do for Gilquin in the matter was to save him from prosecution and then disown him. So far the sub-prefect had relied entirely upon Rougon, and had tried to make him more and more responsible for every matter that went wrong. Now, however, he probably divined something of the minister's critical position, for he came to Paris without giving him any intimation of his intention to do so. He felt his own position to be very much shaken, and, fearing the collapse of the power which he had so largely helped to ruin, he was already on the look-out for the support of some influential hand. He contemplated asking permission to change his prefecture in order to escape certain dismissal. Indeed, since his father's death and Gilquin's knavery, Niort was becoming quite impossible for him.

'I just met Monsieur Du Poizat in the Faubourg Saint Honoré,' Clorinde mischievously said to the minister one day. 'Aren't you good friends now? He seems very bitter against you.'

Rougon avoided making any reply. After being compelled to refuse several favours to the prefect, he had become conscious of increasing coldness between them, and they now simply confined themselves to official intercourse. The desertion was becoming general. Even Madame Correur had abandoned Rougon. On certain evenings he again experienced that feeling of loneliness which he had formerly felt in the Rue Marbeuf when his friends were doubting his star. At the close of his busy days, amidst the crowd of visitors who besieged his drawing-room, he felt alone and lost and heart-broken, because his old familiar friends were not there. And he once more began to feel an overwhelming craving for the continuous praises of the colonel and M. Bouchard, for all the vitalising warmth with which his little court had once encompassed him. He even regretted M. Béjuin's silence. And so he made an attempt to win his old associates back again, by showing himself very pleasant and amiable, writing to them and even venturing to call on them. But the ties were broken, and he could never succeed in getting them all around him. If he contrived to piece up the links at one end of the chain, some mischance kept those at the other end broken; the chain remained imperfect in spite of every endeavour; some of his old friends were invariably absent. At last they all abandoned him. This was the death-agony of his power. He, strong as he was, was bound to those foolish weaklings by the long labour of their common fortune; and, as each deserted him, a piece of his being seemed to be ravished away. His strength and abilities remained as it were useless in this lessening of his importance; his big fists only struck the empty air. On the day when his shadow alone showed in the sunshine and he could no longer add to it by an abuse of power and patronage, it seemed to him as if he held but little room in the world; and he began to dream of a new incarnation, a resurrection in the shape of some Jupiter Tonans, with no band at his feet, but ruling by the sole power of his voice.

However, Rougon did not yet feel that his position was seriously threatened. He treated with disdain the bites that scarcely touched his heels. He went on governing with stern decision, unpopular and solitary. His great reliance was on the Emperor. His only weakness was his credulity. Each time that he saw his Majesty he found him kindly disposed and amiable, ever preserving his impenetrable smile; and the Emperor invariably renewed his expressions of confidence, and repeated the instructions which he had so frequently given before. This seemed quite sufficient to Rougon. His sovereign could have no thought of sacrificing him.