The Whites and the Blues (41 page)

The little courts appeared as independent of each other as though they had been held in separate houses; but the principal one, through which the others were reached, was ruled by the mistress of the dwelling. This lady, as we have said, was Madame de Stae'l, already known in politics through the interests she had brought to bear in order to obtain the appointment of M. de Narbonne as minister of war, and in literature through her enthusiastic letters con cerning Jean-Jacques Eousseau.

She was not beautiful, and yet it would have been im possible to pass her unnoticed, or to come in contact with her without realizing that hers was one of those natures which sow words upon the field of thought as a laborer sows his grain in the furrows. This evening she wore a dress of red velvet, opening at the sides over a petticoat of straw-colored satin; she had on a turban of straw-colored satin with a bird of paradise, and she was nibbling a sprig of flowering heather between her thick lips, which neverthe less disclosed beautiful teeth. Her nose was somewhat too strong, and her cheeks too tanned, but her eyes, eyebrows and forehead were wonderfully beautiful. Matter or divin ity, there was power there.

Standing with her back to the mantel, with one hand leaning upon it, while she gesticulated with the other like a man, and still holding the heather from which she now and then bit off a piece with her teeth, she was talking to a young man, her ardent adorer, whose fair, curly hair shaded his face and fell almost to his shoulders.

"No, you are mistaken, my dear Constant. No, I am

not against the Kepublic. Quite on the contrary, those who know me know with what ardor I adopted the prin ciples of '89. But I have a horror of sans-culottism, and vulgar loves. As soon as it became apparent that Liberty, instead of being the most chaste and beautiful of women, was a mere vulgar courtesan who passed from Marat's arms to those of Dan ton, and thence to Kobespierre's, my respect for her ceased. Let there be no more princes, no more, dukes, no more counts, no more marquises; I am perfectly) willing. Citizen is a fine title when it is addressed to Cato; citizeness is even more noble when Cornelia is its object But to be on intimate terms with my lauD dress, and to talk familiarly with my coachman, is more than I can agree to. Equality is a fine thing, but the word equality needs to be defined. If it signifies that education must be equal for all at the expense of the government, then it is most excellent; that all men shall be equal before the law, still more excel lent. But if it means that all French citizens shall be of the same height, cut, and physical appearance, then it be comes the law of Procrustes, and not a proclamation of the rights of man. If I had to choose between the law of Ly-curgus and that of Solon, between Sparta and Athens, I should choose Athens, and, furthermore, the Athens of Pericles, and not that of Pisistratus."

"Well!" replied the handsome young man to whom this social sally was addressed, with his witty smile, and who was none other than Benjamin Constant, "you would be wrong, for you would choose Athens in her decline, and not at her rise."

"Her decline? With Pericles ? It seems to me that on the contrary I choose her in all her splendor.''

"Yes; but, madame, nothing begins with splendor. Splendor is the fruit which is preceded by the buds, the flowers, and the leaves. You will have none of Pisistratus, and you are wrong. It was he who, in placing himself at the head of the poorer classes, prepared the future great ness of Athens. As for his two sons, Hipparchus and

Hippias, I abandon them to you. But Aclysthenes, who increased the number of senators to five hundred, as our Convention has just done, began the period of the great Persian wars. Miltiades defeated the Persians at Marathon; Pichegru has just conquered the Prussians and the Aus-trians. Themistocles destroyed the Persian fleet at Salamis; Moreau has just captured the Dutch fleet by a cavalry charge. It is even more original. The liberty of Greece sprang from the very wars which seemed to threaten her with inevitable destruction, as ours has from our war with foreign powers. Then it was that the privileges were ex tended; then it was that the archons and magistrates were chosen from all classes irrespective of degree. Moreover, you forget that jEschylus was born during this fertile period. Illuminated by the unconscious divination of power, he created the character of Prometheus; or, in other words, the revolt of man against tyranny—JEschy-lus, the younger brother of Homer, who seems neverthe less the elder."

"Bravo! bravo!" said a voice. "You are strong in literature, upon my word. But in the meantime they are cutting one another's throats in the Section Le Peletier and the Quartier Feydeau. There, just hear the bells! They have returned from Kome."

"Ah! is it you, Barbe-Marbois," said Madame de Stael, addressing a man in the forties, very handsome, but with the pomposity and vapidity which is so often met with in palaces and among diplomats—a very honest man for all that, and the son-in-law of William Moore, the president and governor of Pennsylvania. '' Where do you come from ?''

"Straight from the Convention."

'' And what are they doing there ?''

"Arguing. They have outlawed the Sectionists and are arming the patriots. As for the Sectionists, they have al ready found the bells, which proves that they are monarch ists in disguise. To-morrow they will find their guns, and then there will be a fine rumpus."

"What can you expect?" asked a man with straight hair, hollow temples, livid skin, and a crooked mouth; a man who was ugly with the twofold ugliness of man and beast. "I kept telling them at the Convention, 'As long as you do not have an organized police and a minister of police—one who is not only appointed to the office but fitted for it—things will go to the devil.' Well, I who have a dozen fellows under me for the pleasure of it—I who am an amateur policeman because I like the business —I am better informed than they."

"And what do you know, Monsieur Fouche' ?" asked Madame de Stael.

"Faith, madame, I know that the Chouans have been convoked from all parts of the kingdom, and that the day before yesterday, at Lemaistre's house—you know Lemaistre, baroness?"

"Is he not the agent of the princes?"

"That's the man. Well, the Jura and the Morbihan shook hands there."

"Which means—?" asked Barbe'-Marbois.

"Which means that Cadoudal renewed his vow of fidelity, and the Count de Sainte-Hermine his oath of vengeance."

The other salons had diverged toward the first one, and were gathering around the new-comers who brought the news which we have already heard.

"We know who Cadoudal is," replied Madame de Stael. "He is a Chouan, who, after fighting in the Tended, has crossed the Loire; but who is this Comte de Sainte-Hermine?"

"The Comte de Sainte-Hermine is a young noble who belongs to one of the best families of the Jura. He is the second of three sons. His father was guillotined, his mother died of grief, his brother was shot at Auenheim, and he has sworn to avenge his father and his brother. The mysterious president of the Section Le Peletier, the famous Morgan who insulted the Convention in its own hall of assembly, do you know who he is?"

"No."

"Well, he is the man."

"Beally, Monsieur FoucheV' said Benjamin Constant, "you have missed your vocation. You ought to be neither priest, sailor, deputy, nor representative; you should be minister of police."

'' And if I were,'' replied Fouch^, '' Paris would be quieter than it is now. I ask you, is it not perfectly absurd to quail before the Sections? Menou ought to be shot."

"Citizen," said Madame Kriidener, who affected repub lican forms of speech, "here is citizen Garat; he has just come in, and perhaps he can give us some news. Garat, what do you know? 1 ' And she drew into the circle a man of thirty-three or four, elegantly dressed.

"He knows that one minim is worth two crotchets," said Benjamin Constant, mockingly.

Garat rose on the tips of his toes to discover the author of this joke at his expense. He was strong on minims, a matchless singer, and, furthermore, one of the most perfect incroyables that the witty pencil of Horace Vernet has be queathed to us. He was a nephew of the Conventional Garat, who wept as he read Louis XYI.'s sentence of death. Son of a distinguished lawyer, his father wished to make a lawyer of him, but nature and education pro duced a singer; for the former had endowed him with one of the most beautiful voices the world has ever heard.

An Italian named Lamberti, together with Frangois Beck, the director of the theatre at Bordeaux, gave him music lessons; which inspired him with such a passion for music that when he was sent to Paris to take a course in law he took a course in singing instead. When his father heard of this he stopped his allowance. The Comte d'Ar-tois then appointed him his private secretary, and had him sing before Marie-Antoinette, who immediately admitted him to her private concerts.

Garat thus became completely estranged from his father, for nothing will estrange father and son quicker than the

withdrawal of the latter's allowance. The Comte d'Artois intending to visit Bordeaux, he suggested that Garat accom pany him. The latter hesitated at first, but the desire to let his father see him in his new position induced him to go. At Bordeaux he found his old master Beck in penury, and he arranged a concert for his benefit. Curiosity to hear a man from their own department, who had already attained fame as a singer, prevailed, and the people of Bordeaux flocked to hear him. The receipts were enormous, and Grarat's success was so great that his father, who was present, left his place and threw himself in his son's arms. In con sequence of this amend, coram populo, Garat forgave him.

Garat remained an amateur until the beginning of the Revolution; but the loss of his fortune compelled him to become a professional artist. In 1793 he started for Eng land, but the vessel in which he sailed, driven by contrary winds, landed him at Hamburg instead. Seven or eight concerts, which were attended with great success, enabled him to return to France with a thousand louis, which were each worth seven or eight hundred francs in paper money. Upon his return he met Madame Kriidener, and became in timate with her.

The Thermidorean reaction adopted Garat, and there was not, at the time of which we are speaking, a great concert, a brilliant gathering, or an elegant exhibition, at which he did not figure as the foremost of the artists, singers or invited guests. This good fortune made Garat very susceptible, as we have seen, and there was nothing astonishing in the fact that he looked about him to see who had declared that his musical knowledge was limited to the incontrovertible fact that one minim is worth two crotchets. It must be remembered that it was Benjamin Constant, an other incroyable, not less susceptible than Garat upon the point of honor, who had spoken.

"Look no further, citizen," said he, holding out his hand; " it is I who advanced that daring opinion. If you do know anything else tell it to us."

Garat pressed the hand as frankly as it had been of° fered.

"Faith, no," he said; "I have just come from Clery Hall. My carriage could not pass the Pont-Neuf, which was guarded, so I was obliged to get here by the quays, where the drums are making a devil of a noise. I crossed the Pont figalitd It is raining in torrents. Mesdames Todi and Mara sang, exquisitely, three or four selections from Gluck and Cimarosa."

"What did I tell you?" asked Benjamin Constant.

"Is it indeed drums that we hear?" asked a voice.

"Yes," replied Garat, "but they are relaxed by the rain, and nothing is more lugubrious than the sound of wet drums.''

"Ah! here is Boissy d'Anglas," exclaimed Madame de Stael. "He has probably come from the Convention, unless he has resigned his position as president.''

"Yes, baroness," said Boissy d'Anglas, with his melan choly smile, "I have come from the Convention; and I wish I could bring you better news."

"G-ood!" said Barb6-Marbois, " another Prairial ?"

"If that were all," sighed Boissy d'Anglas.

"What is it, then?"

"Unless I am much mistaken, all Paris will be in flames to-morrow. And this time it is indeed civil war. The Sec tion Le Peletier replied to our last summons that ' The Con vention has five thousand men, and the Sections sixty thousand; we will give the Conventional until daybreak to-morrow to vacate the hall of sessions. If it is not done by that time we will drive you out.' '

"And what do you intend to do, gentlemen?" asked Madame Eecamier, in her soft and charming voice.

"Why, madame," replied Boissy d'Anglas, "we intend to emulate the Eoman senators when the Gauls invaded the Capitol; we shall die at our posts."

"Would it be possible to see that?" asked M. Kecamier with the utmost self-possession. '' I have seen the Conven-

tion massacred by piecemeal, and I should like to see it done in a body."

"Be there to-morrow about one o'clock," replied Boissy d'Anglas, with the same imperturbable calm. "That is probably when the struggle will begin."

"Oh, not at all," cried a new arrival; "you will not se cure the glory of martyrdom for yourselves, you are saved."

"Come, no pleasantries, Saint-Victor," said Madame de Stael to the last speaker.

"Madame, I never jest," said Coster de Saint-Victor, greeting Madame de Stael, Madame de Kriidener, and Ma dame Recamier with a comprehensive bow.

"But what is the news ? What do you mean by this uni versal salvation?" asked Benjamin Constant.

"The news, ladies and gentlemen—I beg pardon, citizens and citizenesses—is that, in accordance with a proposition of the citizen Merlin of Douai, the National Convention has just decreed that Brigadier-General Barras is to be ap pointed commander of the armed forces, in reward for his services in Thermidor. It is true he cannot make long speeches, but he excels in the construction of short, but vehement and energetic phrases. Do you not see that since General Barras is to defend the Convention, the Conven tion is saved ? And now that I have done my duty in re assuring you, baroness, I am going home to make my preparations.''

"For what?" asked Madame de Stael.