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I hesitated to take them; but in the English accent with which he
pronounced the last words there was an intonation which so cruelly
reminded me of the German accent of Bamps that I decided.
"I am much obliged to you, monsieur," I said.
"On the contrary, it is I who ought to thank you," the Englishman
replied, trying to raise himself afresh—an attempt which was as
abortive as the first.
I made him a sign with my hand, as I bowed; he sank back into his
arm-chair, and I went out.
"Well, now, how did it come about that Pyramus fell into the hands
of such a master?" I asked old Cartier.
"That scamp of a dog was born with a lucky spoon in his mouth!"
"It was the simplest thing in the world. Valtat brought me a piece of
lamb; Pyramus scented the fresh meat; he followed Valtat. Valtat
came here; Pyramus came here. The Englishman got out of the
carriage; he saw your dog. He had been recommended to take
shooting exercise: he asked me if the dog was a good one; I told
him it was. He asked me who owned the dog; I told him it belonged
to you. He asked me if you would consent to sell it; I told him I
would send and fetch you, and then he could ask you himself. I sent
for you ... you came ... there's the whole story.... Pyramus is sold
and you are not ill pleased?"
"Why, certainly not! The rascal is such a thief that I should have
been obliged to give him away or to break his neck.... He was
ruining us!"
Cartier shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, "That would not
be a difficult task!" Then, passing to another train of ideas, he said—
"So you have returned home?"
"That is so."
"You were sick of Crespy?"
"I am sick of every place."
"What do you want to do now?"
"Why, I want to go to Paris."
"And when do you start?"
"May be sooner than you think."
"Do not go without giving me an opportunity to pay you out."
"Never fear!"
Before I went to Crespy, I had thoroughly beaten Cartier at billiards.
"Besides," I went on, "if I go, as I shall not leave in any carriage but
one of yours, you can stop me on the step."
"Done!... But this time it must be a struggle to death." "To death!"
"Your five napoleons must be staked."
"You know I never play for money, and as for my five napoleons,
they already have their vocation."
"Well, well, well, adieu."
"Au revoir."
And I left Cartier, with this engagement booked. We shall see where
it led me.
When I re-entered the house, I found Bamps, who was beginning to
grow impatient. The first coach for Paris passed through Villers-
Cotterets at eight o'clock in the evening: it was now seven.
"Ah! goot!" he said, "there you are!... I did not regon I should zee
you again."
"What!" I said, imitating his jargon, "you did not regon you should
zee me again?"
Wondrous power of money! I was mocking Bamps, who, an hour
before, had made me tremble with fear. Bamps knit his eyebrows.
"We zay, den?" he said.
"We say that I owe you twenty francs per month—that two months
have gone by without payment—and that, consequently, I owe you
forty francs."
"You owe me vorty vrancs."
"All right, my dear Bamps—here you are!"
And I threw two napoleons on the table, taking care to let the three
others in the palm of my hand be visible. My poor mother looked at
me with the most profound amazement. I reassured her with a sign.
The sign allayed her fears, but not her surprise. Bamps examined
the two napoleons, rubbed them to make sure they were not false,
and rolled them, one after the other, into his pocket.
"You do not vant any more dings?" he asked.
"No, thank you, my dear Monsieur. Besides, I am expecting to leave
here for Paris in a short time."
"You will bear in mind that I have the first claim on your custom?"
"All right, my dear Bamps, for good and all! But if you mean to start
at eight o'clock ...?"
"If I mean to stard—! I should just tink so!"
"Well, then, there is no time to lose."
"The Tevil!"
"You know where the coach stops?"
"Yess."
"Very well, bon voyage."
"Atieu! Monsir Toumas! Atieu, Matame Toumas!... Atieu! atieu!"
And Bamps, delighted, not only at having secured forty francs, but
still further at being somewhat reassured about the rest of his
account, set off, wafting us his parting benedictions, with all the
speed his little legs could make.
My mother just waited till she had closed both doors, then she said
—
"But where did you get that money, you young rogue?"
"I sold Pyramus, mother."
"For how much?"
"A hundred francs."
"So that there are sixty francs left?"
"At your service, dear mother."
"I am afraid I must take them. I have two hundred francs to pay to-
morrow to the warehouseman, and I only have a hundred and fifty
towards it."
"Here they are ... but on one condition."
"What is it?"
"That you let me have them back again as soon as I set off for
Paris."
"With whom are you going?"
"That must be my business."
"Well, so be it.... I really begin to feel as though God were with
you."
At this, we both went to bed, with that settled faith that has never
deserted me. And I doubt even whether my mother's faith, at any
rate at that moment, was as strong as mine.

CHAPTER III

My mother is obliged to sell her land and her house—The

residue—The Piranèses—An architect at twelve hundred francs
 salary—I discount my first bill—Gondon—How I was nearly killed
at his house—The fifty francs—Cartier—The game of billiards—
How six hundred small glasses of absinthe equalled twelve
journeys to Paris

The time had now come when my poor mother was obliged to take
a definite step. She had borrowed so much and so often upon our
thirty or forty acres let to M. Gilbert of Soucy, and upon the house
which M. Harlay had at last left for us, that the value of both acres
and house was nearly absorbed by mortgages. So it was decided to
sell everything. The land was sold by auction, and fetched thirty-
three thousand francs. The house was sold, by private contract, for
twelve thousand francs to the M. Picot who had given me my first
lessons in fencing. We realised forty-five thousand francs. When our
debts were settled and all expenses paid, my mother had two
hundred and fifty-three francs left. Lest some optimistic readers
should think that this was our annual income, I hasten to say that it
was capital. Need anyone ask if my poor mother was distressed at
such a result? We had never really been so close to destitution. My
mother fell into the depths of discouragement. Since my father's
death we had been unceasingly drawing nearer and nearer to the
end of all our resources. It had been a long struggle—from 1806 to
1823! It had lasted for seventeen years; but we were beaten at last.
Nevertheless, I never felt gayer or more confident. I do not know
why I deserve it, whether for deeds done in this world, or in other
worlds where I may have had previous existences, but God seems to
have me under His special care, and however grave my situation He
comes openly to my succour. So, my God! I proudly and yet very
humbly confess Thy name before believers and before infidels, and
not even from the merit of faith do I say this, but simply because it
is the truth. For, hadst Thou appeared to me when I invoked Thee, O
my God! and hadst Thou asked me, "Child, say boldly what it is you
want," I should never have dared to ask for half the favours Thou
hast granted me out of Thy infinite bounty.
Well, my mother told me that, when all our debts were paid, we only
had two hundred and fifty-three francs left.
"Very well," I said to my mother; "you must give me the fifty-three
francs: I will set out for Paris, and, this time, I promise to return only
with good news."
"Are you aware, my dear boy," said my mother, "that you are asking
me for a fifth of our capital?"
"You remember that you owe me sixty francs?"
"Yes, but recollect that when I said,'For what purpose shall I return
you the sixty francs?' you replied, 'That is my business.'"
"Very well, so indeed it is my business.... Will you give me the
Piranèses which are upstairs in the big portfolio?"
"What do you call the Piranèses?"
"Those large black engravings that my father brought back from
Italy."
"What will you do with them?"
"I will find a home for them."
My mother shrugged her shoulders dubiously.
"Do as you like about them," she said.
There was an architect, named Oudet, amongst the staff at the
workhouse, who very much wanted our Piranèses. I had always
refused him them, telling him that one day I would bring him them
myself. The day had come. But it was an unlucky day: Oudet had no
money. This was quite conceivable. Oudet, as architect to the Castle,
received only a hundred francs per month. True, I was not very
exorbitant in the matter of my Piranèses, which were well worth five
or six hundred francs; I only asked fifty francs. Oudet offered to pay
me these fifty francs in three months' time.
In three months!... How could I wait for three months?
I left Oudet in despair. I ought to say, in justice to Oudet, that he
was probably in even lower straits than I was. In leaving Oudet, I
ran up against another of my friends, whose name was Gondon. He
was a shooting comrade. He had a property three leagues from
Villers-Cotterets,—at Cœuvre, the country of the beautiful Gabrielle,
—and we had very often spent whole weeks together there,
shooting by day and poaching by night. It was at his place that I
nearly lost my life one evening, in the most ridiculous fashion
imaginable. It was the evening before the opening of the shooting
season. Five or six of us shooters had come from Villers-Cotterets,
and we were putting up at Gondon's, in order to be up early for a
start at daybreak. Now, as we had neither rooms nor beds enough
for everybody, the sitting-room had been transformed into a
dormitory, in the four corners of which four beds were set up—that
is to say, four mattresses were laid down. When the candles were
extinguished, my three companions took it into their heads to start a
bolster fight. As, for some reason or another, I did not feel inclined
for the sport, I announced my intention of remaining neutral. The
result of this compact was that after a quarter of an hour's fight
between Austrians, Russians and Prussians, the Austrians, Russians
and Prussians became allies and united to fall upon me, who
represented France. So they hurled themselves on my bed, and
began to belabour me with the afore-mentioned bolsters, as
threshers beat out corn with their flails in a barn. I drew up my
sheet over my head, and waited patiently till the storm should have
passed over, which could not be long first, at the rate they were
beating. And as I anticipated, the storm calmed down. One thrasher
retired, then another. But the third, who was my cousin, Félix
Deviolaine, upheld no doubt by the tie of kinship, continued striking
in spite of the retreat of the others. Suddenly he stopped, and I
heard him get silently into his bed. One might have thought some
accident had overtaken him, which he was anxious to conceal from
his comrades. In fact, the opposite end of the bolster to that which
he had held in his hands, had burst by the violence of the blows,
and all the feathers had escaped. This down made a mountain, just
where the sheet which protected my head joined the bolster. I was
totally unaware of the fact. As I did not feel any more blows, and
having heard my last enemy retire to his bed, I gently put out my
head and, as for the past ten minutes I had become more or less
stifled, according as I tightened or loosened the sheet, I drew a full
breath. I swallowed a big armful of feathers. Suffocation was
instantaneous, almost complete. I uttered an inarticulate cry, and
feeling myself literally being strangled, I began to roll about the
room. My companions at first thought I had now taken it into my
head to pirouette like a ballet dancer, just as they had fancied a
fight; but they realised at last that the strangled sounds I gave forth
expressed acute agony. Gondon was the first to realise that
something very serious had happened to me, from some unknown
cause, and that I was in extremis. Félix, who alone could have
explained my gyrations and my wheezings, lay still, and pretended
to be asleep. Gondon rushed into the kitchen, returned with a
candle, and threw light on the scene. I must have been a very funny
spectacle, and I confess, there was a general burst of laughter. But
though I had been pretty gluttonous, I had not swallowed all the
feathers and all the down: some stuck to my curly head, giving me a
false air of resemblance to Polichinelle. This false air soon began to
look like reality from the flush of redness that strangulation had sent
into my face. They thought water was the best thing to give me.
One of my companions, named Labarre, ran in his shirt to the pump
and filled a pot with water, which he laughingly brought me. Such
hilarity, when my torture had reached its height, drove me wild. I
seized the pot by the handle, and chucked the contents down
Labarre's back. The water was icy cold. Its temperature was little in
harmony with the natural warmth of his blood, and it produced such
gambols and such contortions on the part of the anointed, that, in
spite of my various woes, the desire to laugh was now on my side. I
made a different effort from any I had tried hitherto, and I
expectorated some of the feathers and down which had blocked my
throat. From that moment I was safe. Nevertheless, I continued to
spit feathers for a week, and I coughed for a month.
I beg my reader's pardon for this digression; but, as I had neglected
to put down this important episode in my life in its chronological
order, it will not be deemed extraordinary if I seize the first
opportunity that presents itself to repair this omission.
Well, I met Gondon coming out of Oudet's house. He had a hundred
francs in his hand.
"Oh, my dear fellow," I said, "if you are so wealthy, you can surely
lend Oudet fifty francs."
"What to do?"
"To buy my Piranèses from me."
"Your Piranèses?"
"Yes, I want to go to Paris. Oudet offered to buy my Piranèses for
fifty francs, and now...."
"And now he does not wish to have them?"
"On the contrary, he is dying to possess them; but he hasn't a son,
and cannot pay me for three months."
"And you want fifty francs?"
"Indeed I do."
"You would like to have them?"
"Rather."
"Wait: perhaps we can arrange matters."
"Oh, do try, my good fellow."
"There is a very simple way: I cannot give you the fifty francs,
because I have promised my tailor a hundred francs to-day; but
Oudet can make a cheque out to me for fifty francs at three months,
I will endorse the cheque, and I will give it to the tailor as ready
money."
We went to Oudet's. Oudet made out the cheque, and I carried off
the money, thanking Gondon, and above all God, who out of His
infinite loving kindness had provided me the means to advance a
step farther on my way. I accompanied Gondon as far as his tailor's.
At the tailor's door I ran up against old Cartier.
"Well, my boy," he said, "isn't there a bit left of your dog's money to
pay for a small glass of wine for your old friend?"
"Certainly, if he wins it of me at billiards;" and I jingled my fifty
francs.
I turned to Gondon.
"Come and see what happens," I said to him.
"You go on; I will rejoin you.... At Camberlin's, is it not?"
"At Camberlin's."
Camberlin was the traditional coffee-house; since the discovery of
coffee and the invention of billiards, the Camberlins had sold coffee
and kept a billiard-table, from father to son.
It was to Camberlin's my grandfather used to go every evening to
take a hand at dominoes or piquet, until his little bitch Charmante
came scratching at the door, with two lanterns held in her jaws. It
was at Camberlin's my father and M. Deviolaine came to challenge
each other's skill at play, as, on another green carpet, they
challenged each other's skill at the chase. It was at Camberlin's,
finally, that, thanks to my antecedents, I had been able, almost
gratis, when I lost, to begin my education as an elder Philibert under
three different masters, who had ended by seeing me a better player
than they were. These three masters were—Cartier, against whom I
was going to wipe out an old score; Camusat, Hiraux's nephew, who
reclothed his uncle at la Râpée, when they turned him out of Villers-
Cotterets in drawers and shirt; and a delightful youth, called Gaillard,
who was a first-class player in all sorts of games, and who had, to
my great satisfaction, replaced M. Miaud, my old rival, at the work-
house. So I had become a much better player than Cartier; but, as
he would never admit it, he invariably declined the six points I as
invariably offered him before we began the match. Just as we were
trying our cues on the billiard-table, Gondon entered.
"What will you take, Gondon?" Cartier asked. "Dumas is paying."
"I will take absinthe; I want to enjoy my dinner well to-day."
"Well, so will I," said Cartier. "And you?"
"I? You know I have made a vow never to take either liqueur or
coffee."
To what saint and on what occasion I made this vow I cannot at all
say; but I know I kept it religiously.
"Then we will say two small absinthes?" replied Cartier, continuing to
joke. "That will be six sous, waiter, in exchange for your receipt." In
the provinces, at any rate at Villers-Cotterets, a small glass of
absinthe costs three sous.
"My dear Gondon," I said, "I cannot offer you a better prayer than
my uncle's, the curé at Béthisy: 'My God, side neither with one nor
with the other, and you will see a rascal receive a jolly good
whacking!' Will you have your six points, father Cartier?"
"Go along with you!" Cartier exclaimed disdainfully, putting my ball
on the yellow.
We played Russian fashion, a game with five balls, and thirty-six
points. I made the yellow six times—three times into the right
pocket and three times into the left.
"Six times six; thirty-six; first round. Your two small glasses are not
worth more than their three sous, father Cartier." "Four sous, you
mean to say."
"Not unless I let you win the second round."
"Come on, then!"
"Will you have the six points?"
"I will give them to you, if you like."
"Done! Mark my six points, Gondon; I have my designs on father
Cartier. I mean him to contribute to my visit to Paris: the diligences
start from his hotel."
At the second round, Cartier got up to twelve.
At thirty points, I had a run and made sixteen more; that made
forty-six points, instead of thirty-six. Deducting the six points
restored to Cartier, there still remained four I could offer him in
return. He refused them with his usual dignity. But Cartier was
beside himself when he had lost the first game, and the wilder he
was the more obstinate he became: once set going, he would have
played away his land, his hotel, his saucepans, to the very chickens
that were turning on his spit.
Worthy old Cartier! He is alive yet; although he is eighty-six or
eighty-seven, he is still remarkably hale, and lives with his two
children. I never go to Villers-Cotterets without calling on him. Last
time I saw him, about a year ago, I paid him a compliment on his
health.
"My goodness, my dear Cartier," I said to him, "you are like our oak
trees, which, if they do not grow very tall, go deep into the soil and
gain in roots what they miss in the way of leaves. You will live to the
Last Judgment."
"Oh, my boy," he said, "I have been very ill,—did you not know it?"
"No—when?"
"Three and a half years ago."
"What was the matter with you?"
"I had toothache."
"That was your own fault. What business have you with' teeth at
your age?"
Well, on that day, poor old Cartier! (I am referring to the day of our
game),—on that day, to use a gaming term, I took a fine tooth out
of his head. We played for five hours on end, always doubling; I won
six hundred small glasses of absinthe from him. We should have
played longer, and you may judge what an ocean of absinthe Cartier
would have owed me, if Auguste had not come to look for him.
Auguste was one of Cartier's sons: his father stood in great awe of
him; he put his finger to his lips to ask me to keep mum. I was as
generous as was Alexander in the matter of the family of Porus.
I let Cartier go, without demanding my winnings from him. And
Gondon and I reckoned up the account. Reduced to money, the six
hundred small glasses of absinthe would have produced a total of
eighteen hundred sous—that is to say, ninety francs. I could have
paid the journey to Paris a dozen times over. My mother had good
cause to say, "My boy, God is on your side."
My mother was very uneasy when I returned home; she knew what
folly I was capable of, when I had got an idea into my head, and it
was therefore with some anxiety that she asked me where I had
been. Generally, when I had been to Camberlin's, I took a
roundabout way in telling her of it. My poor mother, foreseeing what
passions would one day surge in me, was afraid that gaming might
be one of them. In several of her surmises she was correct; but at
any rate she was completely mistaken in this one. So I told her what
had just happened. How the Piranèses had brought us in fifty francs,
and how M. Cartier was going to pay my fare to Paris. But these
blessings from heaven brought sadness with them, for they meant
our separation. I did my best to comfort her by telling her that the
separation would be only for a little while, and that as soon as I had
obtained a berth at fifteen hundred francs, she should leave Villers-
Cotterets also and come and join me; but my mother knew that a
berth at fifteen hundred francs was an Eldorado, difficult to discover.

CHAPTER IV
 How I obtain a recommendation to General Foy—M. Danré of
Vouty advises my mother to let me go to Paris—My good-byes—
Laffitte and Perregaux—The three things which Maître
Mennesson asks me not to forget—The Abbé Grégoire's advice
and the discussion with him—I leave Villers-Cotterets

One morning, I said to my mother—

"Have you anything to say to M. Danré? I am going to Vouty."
"What do you want of M. Danré?"
"To ask him for a letter to General Foy."
My mother raised her eyes to heaven; she questioned whence came
all these ideas to me, that converged all to one end.
M. Danré was my father's old friend, who, having had his left hand
mutilated when out shooting, had been brought into our house.
There, the reader will remember, Doctor Lécosse had skilfully
amputated his thumb, and as my mother had nursed him with the
greatest care through the whole of the illness the accident brought
on, he had a warm feeling in his heart towards my mother, my sister
and myself. It always, therefore, gave him great pleasure to see me,
whether I arrived with a message from Me. Mennesson, his lawyer,
when I was with Me. Mennesson, or whether on my own account.
This time it was on my own affairs. I told him the object of my visit.
When General Foy was put on the lists for election, the electors
would not appoint him; but M. Danré had supported his candidature,
and, thanks to M. Danré's influence in the department, General Foy
had been elected. We know what a foremost place the illustrious
patriot took in the Chamber. General Foy was not an eloquent orator;
he was far better than that: he possessed a warm heart, ready to
act at the inspiration of every noble passion. Not a single great
question came under his notice during all the time he was in the
Chamber, that was not supported by him if it was a worthy object, or
that was not opposed by him if it was unworthy; his words fell from
the tribune, terrible as the return thrusts in a duel—piercing thrusts,
nearly always deadly to his adversaries. But, like all men of feeling,
he wore himself out in the struggle, the most constant and most
maddening struggle of all: it killed him while rendering his name
immortal.
In 1823, General Foy was at the height of his popularity, and from
the pinnacle to which he had attained, he reminded M. Danré from
time to time of his existence, which proved to the humble farmer,
who, like Philoctètes, had made sovereigns, but had no desire to be
one, that he was still his affectionate and grateful friend. Therefore
M. Danré did not feel in any way averse to give me the letter I asked
of him, and it was couched in the most favourable terms. Then,
when M. Danré had written, signed and sealed the letter, he asked
me about my pecuniary resources. I told him everything, even to the
ingenious methods by the aid of which I had obtained what I had.
"Upon my word," he exclaimed, "I had half a mind to offer you my
purse; but, really, it would smirch your record. People do not do that
sort of thing to end in failure: you should succeed with that fifty
francs of yours, and I do not wish to take away the credit of owing it
entirely to yourself. Take courage, then, and go in peace! If you are
absolutely in need of my services, write to me from Paris."
"So you feel hopeful?" I said to M. Danré.
"Very."
"Are you coming to Villers-Cotterets on Thursday?"
Thursday was market day.
"Yes; why do you ask?"
"Because if you are, I would beg you to call and tell my mother you
are hopeful: she has great confidence in you, and as everybody
seems bent on telling her I shall never do anything...."
"The fact is you have not done very much up to now!"
"Because they were determined to push me into a vocation I was
not fitted for, dear Monsieur Danré; but you will see, directly they
leave me alone to do what I am cut out for, I shall become a hard
worker."
"Mind you do! I will reassure your mother, relying on your word."
"You may, and I will fulfil it."
The day but one after my visit, M. Danré came to Villers-Cotterets,
as he had promised, and saw my mother. I was watching for his
coming; I let him start the conversation and then I came in. My
mother was crying, but seemed to have made up her mind. When
she saw me, she held out her hand.
"You are bent on leaving me, then?" she said.
"I must, mother. But do not be uneasy; if we separate, this time it
will not be for long."
"Yes, because you will fail, and return to Villers-Cotterets once
more."
"No, no, mother; on the contrary, because I shall succeed, and bring
you to Paris."
"And when do you mean to go?"
"Listen, mother dear: when a great resolution is taken, the sooner it
is put into execution the better.... Ask M. Danré."
"Yes, ask Lazarille. I do not know what you did to M. Danré, but the
fact is...."
"M. Danré is fair-minded, mother; he knows that everything must
move in its own appointed surroundings if it is to become of any
worth. I should make a bad lawyer, a bad solicitor, a bad sheriffs
officer; I should make a shocking bad teacher I You know quite well
that it took three schoolmasters to get me through the multiplication
table and it was not a brilliant success. Very well! I believe I can do
something better."
"What, you scamp?"
"Mother, I swear I know nothing about what I shall do, but you
remember what the fortune-teller whom you questioned on my
behalf predicted?"
My mother sighed.
"What did she predict?" asked M. Danré.
"She said," I replied, "'I cannot tell you what your son will become,
madame; I can only see him, through clouds and flashes of
lightning, like a traveller who is crossing high mountains, reaching a
height to which few men attain. I do not say he will command
people, but I foresee he will speak to them; although I cannot
indicate the precise lines of his destiny, your son belongs to that
class of men whom we style RULERS.' 'My son is to become a king,
then?' my mother laughingly retorted. 'No, no, but something similar,
something perhaps more desirable: every king has not a crown on
his head and a sceptre in his hand.' 'So much the better,' said my
mother; 'I never envied the lot of Madame Bonaparte.' I was five
years old, Monsieur Danré, I was present when my horoscope was
made; well—I will prove the gipsy to be in the right. You know that
prophecies are not always fulfilled because they must be fulfilled,
but because they put a fixed idea into the minds of those about
whom they are made which influences events, which modifies
circumstances, which finally brings them to the end aimed at;
because this end was revealed to them in advance, whilst, had it not
been for the revelation, they would have passed by the end without
noticing it."
"I should like to know where he got all these notions from!" my
mother exclaimed.
"Oh, why, from his own thoughts," said M. Danré.
"Then is it your judgment, too, that he ought to go?"
"I advise it."
"But you know the poor lad's resources!"
"Fifty francs and his carriage fare paid."
"Well?"
"That will be enough, if he is to succeed, or if his destiny urges him
on as he says. If he had a million, he would not obtain what he
wishes to obtain so long as he had no vocation for it."
"Well, well, he had better go, if he is so set on it."
"When shall I go, mother?"
"When you like. Only, you must let us have a day together first."
"Listen, mother mine. I will stay all to-day, to-morrow and Saturday
with you. On Saturday night I will leave by the ten o'clock coach: I
shall reach Paris by five.... I shall have time to get to Adolphe's
house before he goes out."
"Ah!" said my mother, as she heaved a sigh, "he is the one who has
led you astray!"
I did not much heed the sigh, because I felt sure the engagement
made would be fulfilled. I began to make my round of farewells.
I had not seen Adèle since her marriage. I would not write to her:
the letter might be opened by her husband, and compromise her. I
applied to Louise Brézette, our friend in common. Alas! I found the
poor child in tears. Chollet, whose education in forestry was finished,
had been obliged to return to his parents, and he had carried off
with him all the young girl's first dreams of love: she was forlorn and
inconsolable; she mourned the whole of her life for her lover, and
bore the marks of her love-sickness. I quoted the example of
Ariadne to her, advising her to follow it, and I believe ... I believe
she followed it, and that I contributed, in some measure, towards
inducing her to follow it....
Poor beloved children! true and affectionate friends of my youth! my
life is now so much taken up, the hours that belong to me are so
few, I am common property to such an extent, that when, by
chance, I go home, or you come here, I cannot give you all the time
that the claims of love and of memory demand. But when I shall
have won a few of those hours of repose in search of which
Théaulon spent his life, and which he never found, oh! I promise you
those hours shall be given to you unquestionably, unshared by
others. You have ample claims to demand the leisure of my old age,
and you will make my latter days to flourish as in my springtime. For
there are closed tombs there which draw me as much, more even,
than open houses; dead friends who talk to me more clearly than do
the living.
When I left Louise, I went to Maître Mennesson; I had always kept
on pretty good terms with him. But, since our separation, he had
married. I think his marriage made him more sceptical than ever.
"Ah!" he said, when he caught sight of me, "so there you are!"
"Yes; I have come to bid you good-bye."
"You have decided to go, then?"
"On Saturday night."
"And how much do you take with you?"
"Fifty francs."
"My dear lad, there are people who started on less than that—M.
Laffitte, for example."
"Yes, exactly so. I mean to pay him a call, and to ask him for a post
in his office."
"Well, then, if you find a pin on his carpet, do not fail to pick it up
and to put it on his mantelpiece."
"Why?"
"Because when M. Laffitte arrived in Paris, much poorer even than
you, he went to see M. Perregaux, just as you are going to call on M.
Laffitte; he went to ask for a place in his office, as you are going to
ask for one in his. M. Perregaux had no vacancy; he dismissed M.
Laffitte, who was going away, his eyes looking down sadly on the
floor as father Aubry's were inclined towards the grave, when he
perceived a pin, not on the earth but on the carpet. M. Laffitte was a
tidy man: he picked up the pin and put it on the mantelpiece,
saying, 'Pardon me, monsieur.' But M. Perregaux, be it known, was a
person who noticed every little thing: he reflected that a young man
who would pick up a pin from the ground must be an orderly person,
and, as M. Laffitte was going away, he said to him, 'I have been
thinking, monsieur, stay.' 'But you told me you had no opening in
your office.' 'If there is not one, we will make one for you.' M.
Perregaux did as a matter of fact make room for him—as his
partner."
"That is a very delightful story, dear Monsieur Mennesson, and I
thank you for your great kindness in relating it to me; but I am
afraid it is no good to me; for, unluckily, I am no picker up of pins."
"Ah! that is precisely your great fault."
"Or my strongest point ... we shall see. Therefore, if you have any
good advice to give me...?"
"Beware of priests, hate the Bourbons, and remember that the only
state worthy of a great nation is a Republic."
"My dear Monsieur Mennesson, reversing the order of your advice, I
would say: Yes, I am of your opinion as to the government which is
most suited to a great nation, and on the supposition that if I am
anything I am a Republican like yourself. As for the Bourbons, I
neither love them nor hate them. I have heard it said that their race
produced a holy king, a good one and a great one: Saint Louis,
Henri IV. and Louis XIV. Only, the last reigning sovereign returned to
France riding behind a Cossack; that, I believe, damaged the
Bourbon cause in the eyes of France; so it comes about that if some
day my voice is needed to hasten their going away, and my gun to
assist their departure, those who are driving them out will find one
voice and one gun the more. As to distrusting priests, I have only
known but one, the Abbé Grégoire, and as he seemed to me the
model of all Christian virtues, until I encounter a bad one, let me
believe that all are good."
"Well, well, you will change all that."
"It is possible. Meanwhile, give me your hand: I am going to ask for
his blessing."
"Go, then, and much good may it do you!"
"I believe it will."
I went to the abbé.
"Well, well," he said, "so you are going to leave us?"
It will be seen that the rumour of my departure had already spread
all over the place.
"Yes, M. l'abbé, and I have come to ask you to remember me in your
prayers."
"Oh! my prayers? I thought that was the thing you cared least
about."
"M. l'abbé, do you remember the day I made my first communion?"
"Yes, I know, it produced a profound impression on you, but you let
it stay at that, and you have never been seen at church since."
"Do you suppose the sacrament would have the same effect on me
at the tenth time as on the first?"
"Ah! my God, no, certainly not. Unhappily, one gets accustomed to
everything in this world."
"Very well, M. l'abbé, my other impressions would have effaced that.
One must not get too used to sacred things, M. l'abbé; frequent use
of them not only takes away their grandeur, but still more their
efficacy. Who told you once that I should only need the consolation
of the Church in great trouble, as one only requires bleeding in
serious illness?" "You have a curious way of putting things...."
"Well, M. l'abbé, you said it yourself, more than once: we must treat
men less according to their maladies than according to their
temperaments. I am impressionability personified. I have an
impulsive character, you yourself told me so. I shall commit all kinds
of mistakes, all kinds of follies—never a wicked or disgraceful action.
Not, indeed, because I am better than anyone else; but because bad
and dishonourable actions are the result of reflection and of
calculation, and when I act, it is on the spur of the moment; and this
impulse is so quick, that the action springing from it is done before I
have had time to consider the consequences or to calculate the
results."—
"There is some truth in what you say: but come, what is the use of
giving any advice to a character of your calibre?"
"Well, I did not come to ask for your advice, dear abbé; I came to
beg your prayers."
"Prayers?.... You do not believe in them."
"Ah! pardon, that is another matter.... No, true, I have not always
had faith in them; but do not be troubled: on the day when I shall
have need to believe in them, I shall believe in them. Listen: when I
took my communion, had I not read in Voltaire that it was a curious
sort of God that needed to be digested? and, in Pigault-Lebrun, that
the Host was nothing more than a wafer double the thickness of an
ordinary wafer? Well, did that prevent me feeling a trembling that
shook my whole body, when the Host touched my lips? Did it
prevent the tears springing into my eyes, tears of humility, tears of
thankfulness, above all, tears of love towards God? Do you not
believe that God prefers a generous heart which abandons itself
utterly to Him when it is too full, to a niggardly heart which only
yields itself drop by drop? Should not prayer come from the depths
of the soul, rather than consist of the words of one's lips? Do you
believe God will be angry if I forget Him during ordinary daily life, as
one forgets the beating of one's heart, so long as I return to Him at
every time of trouble or of joy? No M. l'abbé, no; on the contrary, I
believe God loves me, and that is why I forget Him, just as one
forgets a good father whom one is always sure of."
"Well," replied the abbé, "it matters little to me if you forget God;
but I do not want you to doubt His existence."
"Oh! be at rest on that point: it is not the hunter who ever doubts
the existence of God—no man does who has spent whole nights in
the moonlit woods, who has studied Nature, from the elephant down
to the mite, who has watched the setting and the rising of the sun,
who has heard the songs of the birds, their evening laments and
their morning hymns of praise!"
"Then all will be well.... Now, you know, there is a text in the
Gospels which is short and easy to remember; make it the
foundation of your actions and you need not fear failure; this text,
which ought to be engraved in letters of gold over the entry to every
town, over the entry to every house, over the entry to every heart,
is:'Do not do unto others that ye would not have them do to you.'
And when philosophers, cavillers, libertines, say to you, 'Confucius
has a maxim better than that, as follows: Do unto others what you
would have them do to you,' reply, 'No, it is not better!—for it is
false in its application; one cannot always do what one would like
others to do to oneself, whilst one can always abstain from doing
what one would not like them to do to oneself.' Come, kiss me and
let us leave matters here.... We could not say anything better than
that."
And, with these words, we embraced warmly, and I left him.
The next day but one, after having made my last visit to the
cemetery,—a pious pilgrimage which my mother made almost every
day, and in which, this time, I accompanied her,—we wended our
way towards the Hôtel de la Boule d'or where the passing coach was
to pick me up and take me away to Paris. At half-past nine we heard
the sound of the wheels; my mother and I had still another half-hour
together. We retired into a room where we were alone, and we wept
together; but our tears were from different causes. My mother wept
in doubt, I wept in hope. We could neither of us see the hand of
God; but very certainly God was present and His grace was with us.

CHAPTER V

I find Adolphe again—The pastoral drama—First steps—The Duc

de Bellune—General Sébastiani—His secretaries and his snuff-
boxes—The fourth floor, small door to the left—The general who
painted battles

I got down at No. 9 rue du Bouloy, at five in the morning. This time,
I did not make the same mistake that I did when I left the Théâtre
Français. I took my bearings, and, by certain landmarks, I thought I
recognised the vicinity of the rue des Vieux-Augustins. I questioned
the conductor, who confirmed my convictions, and handed me my
small luggage. I disputed over it victoriously with several porters,
and I reached the Hôtel des Vieux-Augustins towards half-past five.
There I felt at home. The waiter recognised me as the traveller with
the hares and the partridges, and, in the absence of the landlord,
who was still asleep, he took me to the room I had occupied on my
last visit. My first desire was for sleep. Owing to the emotions of
parting, and owing to wakeful dreams I had had in the diligence, I
arrived tired out. I told the boy to wake me at nine, if I had not
given any signs of life before. I knew Adolphe's habits by now, and I
knew I need not hurry over going to his house. But when the
landlord himself came into my room at nine o'clock, he found me up:
sleep would have none of me. It was Sunday morning. Under the
Bourbons Paris was very dreary on Sundays. Strict orders forbade
the opening of shops, and it was considered not only a breach of
religious order, but still worse, a crime of lèse majesty to disobey
these ordinances. I risked being arrested in Paris at nine in the
morning nearly as much as I had risked it by being in the streets
after midnight. I did not feel uneasy. Thanks to my sportsman's
instincts, I found the rue du Mont-Blanc; then the rue Pigale; then,
finally, No. 14 in the rue Pigale.
M. de Leuven was, as usual, walking in his garden. It was early in
May: he was amusing himself by giving a bit of sugar to a rose. He
turned round and said—
"Ah! it is you. Why have you been so long without coming to see
us?"
"Why, because I returned to Villers-Cotterets."
"And you have now come back?"
"As you see. I have come to try my fortune for the last time.... This
time, I must stop in Paris, whatever happens."
"Well, as to that, you will always be welcome here, my dear boy. We
have a kind of Platonic republic here, save in the matter of the
community of women and the presence of poets: one mouth more
or less makes no difference to our republic. There is even an empty
attic to spare upstairs; you can dispute possession of it with the rats;
but I believe you are capable of defending yourself. Go and arrange
it all with Adolphe."
M. de Leuven wrote on foreign politics at that time, for the Courrier
français. Brought up on the knees of the kings and queens of the
North, speaking all the Northern languages, knowing everything it is
permitted man to know, the politics of foreign courts were almost his
mother tongue. He rose at five o'clock every morning, received the
papers by six, and by seven or eight his work for the Courrier
français was finished.
Generally, by the time his father finished his day's work, Adolphe had
not begun his. He was still in bed—which I forgave him after he had
assured me that he had worked at a little drama in two acts, called
the Pauvre Fille, until two in the morning.
The reader will recollect Soumet's charming elegy:—
 "J'ai fui le pénible sommeil,
Qu'aucun songe heureux n'accompagne;
J'ai devancé sur la montagne
Les premiers rayons du soleil.
S'éveillant avec la nature,
Le jeune oiseau chantait sur l'aubépine en fleurs;
Sa mère lui portait la douce nourriture;
Mes yeux se sont mouillés de pleurs.
Oh! pourquoi n'ai-je plus de mère?
Pourquoi ne suis-je pas semblable au jeune oiseau
Dont le nid se balance aux branches de l'ormeau,
Moi, malheureux enfant trouve sur une pierre,
Devant l'église du hameau?"
Short lines were much in vogue at that period. M. Guiraud had just
made with his Petits Savoyards a reputation almost equal to that M.
Dennery has since made with his Grâce de Dieu, the only difference
being that M. Guiraud's Savoyard only asked for a son, while M.
Dennery's Savoyard asked for five. True, M. Dennery is a Jew. The
first of Hugo's Odes had made their appearance; Lamartine's
Méditations were out; but these were too strong and too substantial
meat for the stomachs of 1823, which had been nourished on the
refuse of Parny, of Bertin and of Millevoye.
Adolphe was writing his Pauvre Fille in collaboration with Ferdinand
Langlé, and it was to be ready for a reading in a week's time.
"Ah me! when shall I have reached that stage?" I thought to myself.
While I waited, I questioned Adolphe as to the composition of the
Ministry. You ask why I wanted to know about the composition of
the Ministry, and what I had to do with ministers? Why, I wanted to
know what the Duc de Bellune was. As ministers are but mortals,
and quickly forgotten when they are dead, it gives me pleasure to
draw this minister from his grave, and to acquaint the reader with
the constitution of the Ministry of 1823 at the date of my arrival in
Paris.
Keeper of the Seals, Comte de Peyronnet. Foreign Minister, Vicomte
de Montmorency. Minister for the Interior, Comte de Cubières.
Minister for War, le Maréchal Duc de Bellune. Minister for the Navy,
Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre. Minister for Finance, Comte de
Villèle. King's Chamberlain, M. de Lauriston.
The Duc de Bellune was still War Minister. That was all I wanted to
know.
I have mentioned that I was interested in the Duc de Bellune, no
matter what office he held. I had a letter of his in my possession,
wherein he had thanked my father for a service he had rendered in
Italy; he placed himself at my father's disposition, in case he should
ever be able to do anything for him. The occasion offered on behalf
of the son instead of the father. But as, at that period, the law of
inheritance had not yet been abolished, as there was not even talk
of abolishing it, I did not doubt that as I had succeeded in the direct
line to Napoleon's hatred, I should succeed in direct line also to the
gratitude of the Duc de Bellune. I begged a pen and ink from de
Leuven; I trimmed the quill with the care the case demanded, and,
in my very best handwriting, I drew up a petition asking for an
interview with the Minister of War. I particularised all my claims to
his favour; I emphasised them in the name of my father, which the
marshal could not have forgotten; I recalled the old friendship which
had united them, while leaving unmentioned the service my father
had rendered him, of which the marshal's letter (he was then a
major or a colonel) gave proof. Then, easy about my future, I
returned to literature.
Adolphe sensibly pointed out to me that, sure though I felt of the
protection of Marshal Victor, it might still be as well to throw out my
line in other directions, in the unlikely, but still possible, case of my
being deceived.
I told Adolphe that, if Marshal Victor failed me, there still remained
Marshal Jourdan and Marshal Sébastiani.
It was quite out of the question that these would not move heaven
and earth for me. I had three or four letters from Jourdan to my
father, which gave token of a friendship equal to that of Damon and
Pythias. I had only one letter from Marshal Sébastiani; but this letter
proved that when at loggerheads with Bonaparte during the
Egyptian campaign, it was through the intercession of my father,
who was then on excellent terms with the general-in-chief, that he
had obtained a commission in the expedition. Surely such services as
these would never be forgotten! At that time, as can be seen, I was
very simple, very provincial, very confiding. I am wrong in saying "at
that time"; alas! I am just the same now, perhaps more so.
Nevertheless, Adolphe's suspicions disturbed me. I decided not to
wait for the Duc de Bellune's answer before seeing my other
patrons, and I told Adolphe I meant to buy the Almanach des 25,000
adresses in order to find out where they lived.
"Do not put yourself to that expense," said Adolphe. "I believe my
father has it: I will lend it you."
The tone in which Adolphe said "Do not put yourself to that
expense" annoyed me. It was as clear as day that he believed I
should be making a useless expenditure in buying the Directory in
question. I was angry with Adolphe for having such a low opinion of
men.
To give him the lie, I went next morning to Marshal Jourdan. I
announced myself as Alexandre Dumas. My success was surprising.
The marshal no doubt imagined that the news he had received
fifteen years ago was not true, and that my father was still alive. But
when he saw me, his face changed completely: he remembered
perfectly that a General Alexandre Dumas had existed in times gone
by, with whom he had come in contact, but he had never heard of
the existence of a son. In spite of all I could urge to establish my
identity, he dismissed me, after ten minutes' interview, still a
disbeliever in my existence. This good marshal was stronger than St.
Thomas: he saw and did not believe.
It was a sad beginning. I recalled the way in which, advising me not
to buy an Almanach des 25,000 adresses, Adolphe had said to me,
"Do not put yourself to that expense." Was it possible, perchance,
that Adolphe's scepticism might prove correct? These depressing
cogitations passed through my mind while I was walking from the
faubourg Saint-Germain to the faubourg Saint-Honoré—that is to
say, from Marshal Jourdan's to Marshal Sébastiani's. I announced
myself, as I had at Marshal Jourdan's; at my name the door opened.
I thought, for a moment, that I had inherited Ali Baba's famous
"Open, sesame!" The general was in his study. I italicise general, as
I was in error previously in calling the famous minister of foreign
affairs to Louis-Philippe marshal:—Comte Sébastiani was only a
general when I paid my visit to him. So the general was in his study:
in the four comers of this study, as at the four corners of a map are
the four cardinal points or four winds, were four secretaries. These
four secretaries were writing at his dictation. They were three less in
number than Cæsar's, but two more than Napoleon's. Each of these
secretaries had on his desk, besides his pen, his paper and his
penknife, a gold snuff-box which he opened and offered to the
general, every time the latter had occasion, when walking round the
room, to stop in front of the desk. The general would daintily insert
the first finger and thumb of a hand whose whiteness and delicacy
had been the envy of his grand-cousin Napoleon, take a voluptuous
sniff of the Spanish powder and, like le Malade imaginaire, proceed
to measure the length and the breadth of the room..
My visit was short. Whatever consideration I might have for the
general, I did not feel inclined to become his snuff-box boy. I
returned to my hotel in the rue des Vieux-Augustins, somewhat cast
down. The first two men I had turned to had blown upon my golden
dreams, and tarnished them. Besides, although a whole day had
gone by, although I had given my address as accurately as possible,
I had not yet received any answer from the Duc de Bellune.
I picked up my Almanack des 25,000 adresses, and began to
congratulate myself on not having wasted five francs in its
acquisition. I was quickly disillusioned, as will be seen; my cheerful
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