Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (61 page)

To be free of all responsibility, they took Frédéric to the town hall of the eleventh arrondissement, which he was not permitted to leave till nine o’clock in the morning.

He started at a running pace from the Quai Voltaire. At an open window an old man in his shirtsleeves was crying, with his eyes raised. The Seine glided peacefully along. The sky was of a clear blue; and in the trees round the Tuileries birds were singing.

Frédéric was just crossing the Place du Carrousel when a stretcher happened to be passing by. The soldiers at the guard-house immediately presented arms; and the officer, putting his hand to his shako, said: “Honour to unfortunate bravery!” This phrase seemed to have almost become a matter of duty. He who pronounced it appeared to be, on each occasion, filled with profound emotion. A group of people in a state of fierce excitement followed the stretcher, exclaiming:

“We will avenge you! we will avenge you!”

The vehicles kept moving about on the boulevard, and women in front of their doors were shredding linen. Meanwhile, the outbreak had been quelled, or very nearly so. A proclamation from Cavaignac,
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just posted up, announced the fact. At the top of the Rue Vivienne, a company of the Garde Mobile appeared. Then the prosperous citizens shouted enthusiastically. They raised their hats, applauded, danced, wanted to kiss them, and to offer them a drink; and flowers, flung by ladies, fell from the balconies.

At last, at ten o’clock, at the moment when the cannon was booming as an attack was being made on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Frédéric reached the abode of Dussardier. He found the bookkeeper in his garret, lying asleep on his back. From the adjoining apartment a woman tiptoed—Mademoiselle Vatnaz.

She took Frédéric aside and explained to him how Dussardier had gotten wounded.

On Saturday, on the top of a barricade in the Rue Lafayette, a boy wrapped in a tricoloured flag cried out to the National Guards: “Are you going to shoot your brothers?” As they advanced, Dussardier threw down his gun, pushed away the others, sprang over the barricade, and, with a kick, knocked down the young insurgent, from whom he tore the flag. He had afterwards been found under a heap of debris with a slug of copper in his thigh. It was necessary to make an incision in order to extract the bullet. Mademoiselle Vatnaz arrived the same evening, and since then had not left his side.

She intelligently prepared everything that was needed for the dressings, assisted him in taking his medicine or other liquids, attended to his slightest wishes, left and returned again with footsteps more light than those of a fly, and gazed at him with eyes full of tenderness.

Frédéric, during the two following weeks, did not fail to come back every morning. One day, while he was speaking about the devotion of Vatnaz, Dussardier shrugged his shoulders:

“Oh! no! she does this out of self-interest.”

“Do you think so?”

He replied: “I am sure of it!” without seeming disposed to give any further explanation.

She smothered him with kindnesses, carrying her attentions so far as to bring him the newspapers in which his gallant action was extolled. He even confessed to Frédéric that his conscience bothered him.

Perhaps he ought to have put himself on the other side with the smocks; for, indeed, a heap of promises had been made to them which had not been carried out. Their conquerors hated the Republic; and, then, they had treated them very harshly. No doubt they were in the wrong—not entirely, however; and the honest fellow was tormented by the thought that he might have fought against the righteous cause. Sénécal, who was imprisoned in the Tuileries, under the terrace at the water’s edge,
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had none of this mental anguish.

There were nine hundred men in the place, huddled together in the midst of filth, without the slightest order, their faces blackened with powder and coagulated blood, shivering with fever and breaking out into cries of rage, and those who were brought there to die were not separated from the rest. Sometimes, on hearing the sound of an explosion, they believed that they were all going to be shot. Then they threw themselves against the walls, and after that fell back again into their places, so much numbed by suffering that it seemed to them that they were living in a nightmare, a mournful hallucination. The lamp, which hung from the arched roof, looked like a stain of blood, and little green and yellow flames fluttered about, caused by the vapors from the cellar. Through fear of epidemics, a commission was established. When he had advanced a few steps, the president recoiled, frightened by the stench from the excrement and the corpses.

As soon as the prisoners drew near a vent-hole, the National Guards who were on sentry, in order to prevent them from shaking the bars of the grating, prodded them indiscriminately with their bayonets.

As a rule they showed no pity. Those who had not taken part in the fighting wished to distinguish themselves. There was an outbreak of fear. They avenged themselves at the same time for the newspapers, the clubs, the mobs, the doctrines for everything that had exasperated them during the last three months, and in spite of the victory that had been achieved, equality (as if punishing its defenders and ridiculing its enemies) manifested itself triumphantly—an equality of brute beasts, a same level of bloody turpitude; for the fanaticism of self-interest balanced the frenzy of the poor, aristocracy had the same fits of fury as the mob, and the cotton cap did not prove less hideous than the red cap. The public psyche was disturbed just as it would be after great natural disasters. Sensible men lost their sanity for the rest of their lives on account of it.

Père Roque had become very courageous, almost foolhardy. Having arrived on the 26th at Paris with some of the inhabitants of Nogent, instead of going back with them, he had gone to give his assistance to the National Guard encamped at the Tuileries; and he was quite satisfied to be placed on sentry duty in front of the terrace at the water’s side. There, at least, he had these brigands under his thumb! He was delighted at their defeat and degradation, and he could not refrain from hurling abuse at them.

One of them, a young lad with long fair hair, put his face to the bars, and asked for bread. M. Roque ordered him to hold his tongue. But the young man repeated in a mournful tone:

“Bread!”

“Have I any to give you?”

Other prisoners presented themselves at the vent-hole, with their bristling beards, their burning eyeballs, all pushing forward, and yelling:

“Bread!”

Père Roque was indignant at seeing his authority slighted. In order to frighten them he took aim at them; and, borne upwards towards the ceiling by the crush that nearly smothered him, the young man, with his head thrown backward, once more exclaimed:

“Bread!”

“Hold on! here it is!” said Père Roque, firing a shot from his gun. There was a fearful howl—then, silence. At the side of the trough something white was left lying on the ground.

After this, M. Roque returned horne, for he had a house in the Rue Saint-Martin, which he used as a temporary residence; and the damage done to the front of the building during the riots had in no small degree contributed to his rage. It seemed to him, seeing it again, that he had exaggerated how bad it was. His recent act had a soothing effect on him, as if it compensated him for his loss.

It was his daughter who opened the door for him. She immediately said that she had been worried because of his excessively prolonged absence. She was afraid that he had met with some misfortune—that he had been wounded.

This manifestation of filial love softened Père Roque. He was astonished that she should have set out on a journey without Catherine.

“I sent her out on an errand,” was Louise’s reply.

And she made enquiries about his health, about one thing or another; then, with an air of indifference, she asked him whether he had happened to come across Frédéric:

“No; I didn’t see him!”

It was on his account alone that she had come up from the country.

Some one was walking at that moment in the corridor.

“Oh! excuse me—”

And she disappeared.

Catherine had not found Frédéric. He had been away several days, and his intimate friend, M. Deslauriers, was now living in the provinces.

Louise reappeared, shaking all over, without being able to utter a word. She leaned against the furniture.

“What’s the matter with you? Tell me—what’s the matter with you?” exclaimed her father.

She indicated by a wave of her hand that it was nothing, and with a great effort of will she regained her composure.

The caterer on the opposite side of the street brought them soup. But Père Roque had experienced too much violent emotion. “It wouldn’t go down,” and at dessert he had a sort of fainting fit. A doctor was sent for at once, and he prescribed a potion. Then, when M. Roque was in bed, he asked to be covered with as many blankets as possible in order to make him sweat. He sighed; he moaned.

“Thanks, my good Catherine! Kiss your poor father, my pet! Ah! these revolutions!”

And, when his daughter scolded him for having made himself ill by worrying on her account, he replied:

“Yes! you are right! But I couldn’t help it! I am too sensitive!”

M
adame Dambreuse, in her boudoir, between her niece and Miss John, was listening to M. Roque as he described the hardships of his military life.

She was biting her lips, and appeared to be in pain.

“Oh! ’tis nothing! it will pass!”

And, with a gracious air:

“We are going to have an acquaintance of yours at dinner with us,—Monsieur Moreau.”

Louise gave a start.

“And then just a few intimate friends—amongst others, Alfred de Cisy.”

And she praised his manners, his personal appearance, and especially his moral character.

Madame Dambreuse was being less untruthful than she thought; the Vicomte was contemplating marriage. He said so to Martinon, adding that Mademoiselle Cécile was certain to like him, and that her parents would accept him.

To dare to confide such a thing, he must have had satisfactory information with regard to her dowry. Now Martinon had a suspicion that Cécile was M. Dambreuse’s natural daughter; and it is probable that it would have been a very bold move on his part to ask for her hand. Such audacity, of course, was not unaccompanied by danger; and for this reason Martinon had, up to the present, acted in a way that would not compromise him. Besides, he did not see how he could get rid of the aunt. Cisy’s confidence induced him to make up his mind; and he had formally made his proposal to the banker, who, seeing no obstacle to it, had just informed Madame Dambreuse about the matter.

Cisy presently made his appearance. She arose and said:

“We thought you had forgotten us. Cécile, shake hands!”

At the same moment Frédéric entered the room.

“Ah! at last we have found you!” exclaimed Père Roque. “I have been to your house three times this week with Louise.”

Frédéric had carefully avoided them. He explained that he spent all his days beside a wounded comrade.

Apart from that he had been tied up with lots of things for a long time, and he tried to invent stories to explain his conduct. Luckily the guests arrived in the midst of his explanation. First of all M. Paul de Grémonville, the diplomat whom he met at the ball; then Fumichon, that manufacturer whose conservative zeal had scandalised him one evening. After them came the old Duchesse de Montreuil Nantua.

But then two loud voices could be heard in the entrance-hall. “I am certain of it,” said one. “Dear lady! Dear lady!” the other responded, “Please calm yourself.” It was M. de Nonancourt, an old buck with the air of a mummy preserved in cold cream, and that of Madame de Larsillois, the wife of a prefect of Louis Philippe. She was terribly frightened, for she had just heard an organ playing a polka which was a signal amongst the insurgents. Many of the wealthy class of citizens had similar apprehensions; they thought that men in the catacombs were going to blow up the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Strange noises escaped from cellars, and suspicious things were happening behind windows.

Everyone in the meantime made an effort to calm Madame de Larsillois. Order was re-established. There was no longer anything to fear.

“Cavaignac has saved us!”

As if the horrors of the insurrection had not been sufficiently numerous, they exaggerated them. There had been twenty-three thousand convicts on the side of the Socialists—no less!

They had no doubt whatever that food had been poisoned, that Gardes Mobiles had been sawn in half between two planks, and that there had been inscriptions on flags inciting pillage and arson.

“And something more!” added the ex-prefect.

“Oh, dear!” said Madame Dambreuse, whose modesty was shocked, while she gave a warning glance towards the three young girls in the room.

M. Dambreuse came forth from his study accompanied by Martinon. She turned her head round and responded to a bow from Pellerin, who was advancing towards her. The artist gazed in a restless fashion towards the walls. The banker took him aside, and conveyed to him that it was desirable for the moment to conceal his revolutionary painting.

“No doubt,” said Pellerin, the rebuff which he received at the Club of Intellect having modified his opinions.

M. Dambreuse let it slip out very politely that he would give him orders for other works.

“But excuse me. Ah! my dear friend, what a pleasure!”

Arnoux and Madame Arnoux stood before Frédéric.

He felt dizzy. Rosanette had been irritating him all afternoon with her display of admiration for soldiers, and his old passion was reawakened.

The steward came to announce that dinner was on the table. With a look she directed the Vicomte to take Cécile’s arm, while she said in a low voice to Martinon, “You scoundrel!” And then they proceeded into the dining-room.