Complete Works of Emile Zola (430 page)

‘I have bred some magnificent calves this year, by a fresh crossing of strains,’ said Delestang. ‘Unfortunately, when your Majesty visited me, the stalls and folds were under repair.’

Thereupon the Emperor began to speak slowly and spas­modically of agriculture, cattle-breeding, and manures. He had entertained great esteem for Delestang ever since his visit to La Chamade; and was particularly pleased with the system which the latter had introduced whereby his farm­hands lived in common, shared certain profits, and became entitled to old-age pensions. Napoléon and Clorinde’s husband had ideas in common, certain humanitarian principles which enabled them to grasp each other’s thoughts at a word.

‘Has Monsieur Rougon spoken to you about his plan?’ the Emperor asked.

‘Oh, yes!’ answered Delestang. ‘It is a magnificent scheme, and affords a chance of experimenting on a very grand scale.’

He evinced genuine enthusiasm. He was greatly in­terested in pig-breeding, he said. The best breeds were dying out in France. Then he remarked that he was perfecting a new plan for the improvement of meadow-lands; but to make it fully successful, large tracts of country would be necessary. However, if Rougon should succeed, he would join him and put his system to trial. Then, all at once he stopped short, for he had just noticed that his wife’s eyes were earnestly fixed upon him. Ever since he had begun to express his approval of Rougon’s scheme, she had been biting her lips, looking pale and wrathful. ‘Come, my dear,’ she said to him, motioning towards the piano-organ.

M. de Combelot’s fingers had now grown cramped, and he was opening and shutting his hands to remove the stiffness. Nevertheless, with the smile of a martyr he got ready to begin a polka when Delestang hastened forward and offered to take his place; an offer which he accepted politely, as though giving up a post of honour. Then Delestang turned the handle, and the polka began. But somehow the music now sounded differently; he lacked the chamberlain’s flexible, supple wrist.

Rougon, however, was anxious to get some definite expres­sion of opinion from the Emperor. His Majesty, who really seemed impressed, asked him if he contemplated establishing some large industrial colonies over yonder, and added that he should be glad to grant a strip of land, water supply, and tools to each family. Moreover, he promised to show Rougon some plans of his own, which he had noted down on paper, for the establishment of a place of the kind, where the houses would be of uniform construction, and every want would be provided for.

‘Certainly, I quite enter into your Majesty’s ideas,’ said Rougon, though, truth to tell, Napoléon’s vague socialism made him impatient. ‘We can do nothing without your Majesty’s assistance and authority. It will doubtless be necessary to expropriate certain villages, and it will have to be stated that this is done for the public good. I shall also have to launch a company to provide the requisite funds. A word from your Majesty will be necessary — ‘

The Emperor’s eyes grew dim; but he went on nodding.

Finally, in an indistinct voice, he said: ‘We will see — we will talk about it.’

Then he walked away, passing with heavy steps through the quadrille party. Rougon put on a cheerful countenance, as though he felt sure of obtaining a favourable answer. Clorinde, however, was radiant. By degrees a report spread among the grave, staid men who did not dance that Rougon was going to leave Paris, and place himself at the head of a great undertaking in the south of France. Then they all came to congratulate him, and he was smiled upon from one end of the gallery to the other. Not a trace remained of the hostility which had been shown him when he first arrived. Now that he was voluntarily going into exile, they all felt that they could shake hands with him without risk of compromising themselves. This was genuine relief for many of the guests. M. La Rouquette, quitting the dancing party, discussed the matter with Chevalier Rusconi, with the delight of a man completely set at his ease. ‘It’s the right thing he’s doing! He will make a great success down there!’ said the young deputy. ‘Rougon is an extremely able man, but in politics he is deficient in tact.’

Then he waxed quite emotional over the Emperor’s kindness. His Majesty, he said, showed as much regard for his old servants as if they were old mistresses. He felt affection for them even after the most violent ruptures. It was some secret softening of the heart, no doubt, that had prompted him to invite Rougon to Compiègne. And La Rouquette cited other incidents which did honour to his Majesty’s kindness of nature. He had given four hundred thousand francs to pay the debts of a general who had been ruined by a ballet girl; he had bestowed eight hundred thousand upon one of his old accomplices at Strasburg and Boulogne as a wedding present, and had laid out nearly a million for the benefit of the widow of a high functionary.

‘His purse is at every one’s disposal,’ he said in conclusion. ‘He only allowed himself to be chosen Emperor in order that he might be able to benefit his friends. It makes me shrug my shoulders when I hear Republicans reproaching him for his big civil list.
1
He would exhaust ten civil lists in doing good. All the money he gets comes back to France again.’

While chatting in an undertone after this fashion, La Rouquette and Chevalier Rusconi continued to watch the Emperor. He was just completing his round of the gallery. He adroitly threaded his way through the dancers, silently crossing the clear spaces which their respect opened out for him. Whenever he passed behind a lady who was sitting down, he slightly inclined his neck and cast an oblique glance at her bare shoulders.

‘And he has such a mind, too!’ said Chevalier Rusconi in a whisper. ‘He is an extraordinary man!’

The Emperor was now quite close to them. For a moment he lingered where he stood, hesitating and gloomy. Then he seemed inclined to approach Clorinde, who was looking very merry and beautiful, but she suddenly fixed her eyes on him so boldly that he seemed frightened, for he went on again, holding his left arm behind his back, and twisting the ends of his waxed moustache with his right hand. At last, seeing M. Beulin-d’Orchère in front of him, he approached him sideways and said: ‘You are not dancing.’

The judge confessed that he could not dance, that he had never danced in his life. Then the Emperor replied encouragingly: ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter! That needn’t keep you from dancing now.’

Those were his last words for the evening. He quietly made his way to the door, and disappeared.

‘Yes, indeed, he is an extraordinary man,’ said M. La Rouquette, repeating Chevalier Rusconi’s phrase. ‘They think a great deal of him abroad, don’t they?’

The Chevalier, with diplomatic reserve, nodded vaguely. He admitted, however, that the eyes of Europe were fixed upon the Emperor. A word spoken at the Tuileries made neighbouring thrones tremble.

‘He is a prince who knows how to hold his tongue,’ he added with a smile, the subtle irony of which escaped the young deputy.

Then they returned to the ladies and invited partners for the next quadrille. For the last quarter of an hour an aide-de-camp had been turning the handle of the piano-organ. Both Delestang and M. de Combelot now sprang forward and offered to take his place. The ladies, however, cried out: ‘Monsieur de Combelot! Monsieur de Combelot! He does it much the best!’

The chamberlain thanked them for the compliment with a bow, and began to turn the handle with professional vigour. It was the last quadrille. Tea had just been served in the private drawing-room. Nero, having made his appearance from behind a couch, was glutted with sandwiches. The guests gathered in little groups and chatted familiarly. M. de Plouguern, who had carried a little cake to a side table, ate it and sipped his tea, while explaining to Delestang how it was that he, so well known to hold Legitimist opinions, had come to accept invitations to Compiègne. The reason was very simple, he said. He could not refuse his support to a govern­ment which rescued France from anarchy. Then he broke off to say: ‘This cake is very nice. I didn’t make a very good dinner this evening.’

His caustic tongue was always ready to wag when he found himself at Compiègne. He spoke of most of the ladies present with a bluntness which called blushes to Delestang’s face. The only one for whom he showed respect was the Empress. She was a saint, he said, a woman of exemplary devotion. He asserted, too, that she was a Legitimist, and would have recalled Henry V. to the throne had she been free to do so. Then, for a moment, he dwelt upon the delights of religion. Just as he was sliding off into an indelicate story, the Empress retired to her own rooms, followed by Madame de Llorentz. On reaching the threshold of the salon, she made a low courtesy to the company, who bowed to her in silence.

The rooms now began to get empty. The remaining guests talked in louder tones, and exchanged parting shakes of the hand. When Delestang looked for his wife to go upstairs with her he could not find her. At last, Rougon, who helped him in his search, discovered Clorinde sitting with M. de Marsy in the little room where Madame de Llorentz had so violently upbraided the Count after dinner. The young woman was laughing loudly. When she saw her husband she rose up. ‘Good-evening, Monsieur le Comte’, she gaily said to Marsy; ‘you will see to-morrow, at the hunt, if I don’t win my bet.’

Rougon glanced after her as her husband led her away on his arm. He would have liked to accompany them to their door to ascertain what bet it was that she had spoken of, but M. de Marsy, evincing the greatest politeness, detained him, and he could not get away. When he was at last free, instead of going up to his room, he took advantage of an open door to slip into the park. It was a very dark October night, without a star or a puff of wind, a black, dead night. Lofty plantations arose far away like promontories of dark­ness. He could scarcely distinguish the paths in front of him. Holding his hat in his hand, he let the cool night air play on his brow for a moment. This freshened him like a bath. Then he lingered there looking at a brightly-lighted window on the left front of the château. The other windows gradu­ally became black, and this was soon the only gleaming spot in the sleeping pile. The Emperor was sitting up. And Rougon fancied he could distinguish his shadow passing across the blind, a huge head beyond which projected the ends of a long moustache. It was followed by two other shadows; one very slight, and the other so big that it shut off all the light. In the latter Rougon clearly recognised the gigantic silhouette of an agent of the secret police, with whom his Majesty frequently closeted himself for hours. Then, as the slimmer shadow again passed before the window, Rougon thought it seemed like a woman’s. However, nothing more appeared, the window glowed in all quietude, like some large bright eye gazing into the mysterious depths of the park. Perhaps, thought Rougon, the Emperor was now considering his scheme for clearing the Landes and founding an industrial centre, where the extinction of pauperism might be attempted on a large scale. He knew that Napoléon frequently came to important determinations at night-time. It was at night that he signed decrees, wrote manifestoes and dismissed his ministers. But presently Rougon began to smile. He had recalled a story of the Emperor wearing a blue apron, and hanging wall-paper at three francs a piece in a room at Trianon, where he intended to lodge a mistress; and he pictured him now, in the silence of his study, cutting out woodcuts and sticking them neatly in a scrap-book.

But all at once Rougon found himself raising his arms and involuntarily exclaiming aloud: ‘Ah!
his
friends made him!’

Then he hurried back into the château. He was beginning to feel very cold, especially about the legs, which his knee-breeches left uncomfortably exposed.

A little before nine o’clock on the following morning Clorinde sent Antonia, whom she had brought with her, to ask Rougon if she and her husband might breakfast with him. He had already ordered a cup of chocolate, but did not touch it till they came. Antonia preceded them, carrying a large silver salver on which their coffee had been brought to their bedroom.

‘Ah! this will be more cheerful!’ exclaimed Clorinde as she entered. ‘You have got the sun on your side. You are much better off than we are.’

Then she began to inspect the suite of rooms. It con­sisted of an ante-chamber, on the right of which there was a little room for a valet. Then there was the guest’s bed­room, a spacious apartment hung with cream-coloured chintz having a pattern of big red flowers. There was a large square mahogany bedstead and an immense grate in which some huge logs were blazing.

‘Of course! You ought to have complained!’ said Rougon. ‘I would not have put up with a room looking on to the courtyard. Ah! if people don’t assert themselves — I was talking to Delestang about it only last night.’

The young woman shrugged her shoulders and replied: ‘Oh! he would raise no objection if they wanted to lodge me in a garret!’

However, she now wished to examine the dressing-room, all the fittings of which were of Sèvres porcelain, white and gold, with the Imperial monogram. Then she went to look out of the window, and a faint cry of surprise and admiration came from her lips. For leagues in front of her, the lofty trees of the forest of Compiègne spread out like a rolling sea, their huge crests rising and falling in gentle billows, till they faded from sight in the distance. And in the pale sunlight of that October morning, the forest glowed alternately with gold and purple, with the splendour of a gorgeously em­broidered mantle spread out from horizon to horizon.

‘Come, let us have breakfast!’ said Clorinde.

They cleared a table on which were an inkstand and a blotting-pad, finding it rather amusing to wait upon them­selves. The young woman, who was in a very merry mood, declared that on awaking that morning it had seemed to her as if she were in an inn, an inn kept by a prince, at which she had alighted after a long journey through dreamland. This haphazard kind of breakfast, served upon silver salvers, delighted her like some adventure in an unknown country.

Meantime, Delestang gazed in wonder at the quantity of wood which was burning in the grate. And at last, with his eyes still fixed upon the flames, he muttered thoughtfully: ‘I have been told that they burn fifteen hundred francs’ worth of wood every day at the château. Fifteen hundred francs’ worth! Don’t you think it’s rather a high figure, Rougon?’