Honore de Balzac (5 page)

"Since when?" asked Grevin, after a pause.

"Since the Consulate for life."

"I hope there's no proof of it?"

"Not that!" said Malin, clicking his thumb-nail against his teeth.

In few words the Councillor of State gave a clear and succinct account
of the critical position in which Bonaparte was about to hold England,
by threatening her with invasion from the camp at Boulogne; he explained
to Grevin the bearings of that project, which was unobserved by France
and Europe but suspected by Pitt; also the critical position in which
England was about to put Bonaparte. A powerful coalition, Prussia,
Austria, and Russia, paid by English gold, was pledged to furnish
seven hundred thousand men under arms. At the same time a formidable
conspiracy was throwing a network over the whole of France, including
among its members montagnards, chouans, royalists, and their princes.

"Louis XVIII. held that as long as there were three Consuls anarchy was
certain, and that he could at some opportune moment take his revenge
for the 13th Vendemiaire and the 18th Fructidor," said Malin, "but the
Consulate for life has unmasked Bonaparte's intentions—he will soon be
emperor. The late sub-lieutenant means to create a dynasty! This time
his life is in actual danger; and the plot is far better laid than that
of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. Pichegru, Georges, Moreau, the Duc d'Enghien,
Polignac and Riviere, the two friends of the Comte d'Artois are in it."

"What an amalgamation!" cried Grevin.

"France is being silently invaded; no stone is left unturned; the thing
will be carried with a rush. A hundred picked men, commanded by Georges,
are to attack the Consular guard and the Consul hand to hand."

"Well then, denounce them."

"For the last two months the Consul, his minister of police, the prefect
and Fouche, hold some of the clues of this vast conspiracy; but they
don't know its full extent, and at this particular moment they are
leaving nearly all the conspirators free, so as to discover more about
it."

"As to rights," said the notary, "the Bourbons have much more right to
conceive, plan, and execute a scheme against Bonaparte, than Bonaparte
had on the 18th Brumaire against the Republic, whose product he was. He
murdered his mother on that occasion, but these royalists only seek to
recover what was theirs. I can understand that the princes and
their adherents, seeing the lists of the
emigres
closed, mortgages
suppressed, the Catholic faith restored, anti-revolutionary decrees
accumulating, should begin to see that their return is becoming
difficult, not to say impossible. Bonaparte being the sole obstacle now
in their way, they want to get rid of him—nothing simpler. Conspirators
if defeated are brigands, if successful, heroes; and your perplexity
seems to me very natural."

"The matter now is," said Malin, "to make Bonaparte fling the head of
the Duc d'Enghien at the Bourbons, just as the Convention flung the head
of Louis XVI. at the kings, so as to commit him as fully as we are to
the Revolution;
or else
, we must upset the idol of the French people
and their future emperor, and seat the true throne upon his ruins. I am
at the mercy of some event, some fortunate pistol-shot, some infernal
machine which does its work. Even I don't know the whole conspiracy;
they don't tell me all; but they have asked me to call the Council
of State at the critical moment and direct its action towards the
restoration of the Bourbons."

"Wait," said the notary.

"Impossible! I am compelled to make my decision at once."

"Why?"

"Well, the Simeuse brothers are in the conspiracy; they are here in
the neighborhood; I must either have them watched, let them compromise
themselves, and so be rid of them, or else I must privately protect
them. I asked the prefect for underlings and he has sent me lynxes, who
came through Troyes and have got the gendarmerie to support them."

"Gondreville is your real object," said Grevin, "and this conspiracy
your best chance of keeping it. Fouche, Talleyrand, and those two
fellows have nothing to do with that. Therefore play fair with
them. What nonsense! those who cut Louis XVI.'s head off are in the
government; France is full of men who have bought national property,
and yet you talk of bringing back those who would require you to give up
Gondreville! If the Bourbons were not imbeciles they would pass a sponge
over all we have done. Warn Bonaparte, that's my advice."

"A man of my rank can't denounce," said Malin, quickly.

"Your rank!" exclaimed Grevin, smiling.

"They have offered to make me Keeper of the Seals."

"Ah! Now I understand your bewilderment, and it is for me to see clear
in this political darkness and find a way out for you. Now, it is quite
impossible to foresee what events may happen to bring back the Bourbons
when a General Bonaparte is in possession of eighty line of battle
ships and four hundred thousand men. The most difficult thing of all in
expectant politics is to know when a power that totters will fall; but,
my old man, Bonaparte's power is not tottering, it is in the ascendant.
Don't you think that Fouche may be sounding you so as to get to the
bottom of your mind, and then get rid of you?"

"No; I am sure of my go-between. Besides, Fouche would never, under
those circumstances, send me such fellows as these; he would know they
would make me suspicious."

"They alarm me," said Grevin. "If Fouche does not distrust you, and is
not seeking to probe you, why does he send them? Fouche doesn't play
such a trick as that without a motive; what is it?"

"What decides me," said Malin, "is that I should never be easy with
those two Simeuse brothers in France. Perhaps Fouche, who knows how I am
placed towards them, wants to make sure they don't escape him, and hopes
through them to reach the Condes."

"That's right, old fellow; it is not under Bonaparte that the present
possessor of Gondreville can be ousted."

Just then Malin, happening to look up, saw the muzzle of a gun through
the foliage of a tall linden.

"I was not mistaken, I thought I heard the click of a trigger," he said
to Grevin, after getting behind the trunk of a large tree, where the
notary, uneasy at his friend's sudden movement, followed him.

"It is Michu," said Grevin; "I see his red beard."

"Don't let us seem afraid," said Malin, who walked slowly away, saying
at intervals: "Why is that man so bitter against the owners of this
property? It was not you he was covering. If he overheard us he had
better ask the prayers of the congregation! Who the devil would have
thought of looking up into the trees!"

"There's always something to learn," said the notary. "But he was a good
distance off, and we spoke low."

"I shall tell Corentin about it," replied Malin.

A few moments later Michu returned home, his face pale, his features
contracted.

"What is the matter?" said his wife, frightened.

"Nothing," he replied, seeing Violette whose presence silenced him.

Michu took a chair and sat down quietly before the fire, into which
he threw a letter which he drew from a tin tube such as are given to
soldiers to hold their papers. This act, which enabled Marthe to draw
a long breath like one relieved of a great burden, greatly puzzled
Violette. The bailiff laid his gun on the mantel-shelf with admirable
composure. Marianne the servant, and Marthe's mother were spinning by
the light of a lamp.

"Come, Francois," said the father, presently, "it is time to go to bed."

He lifted the boy roughly by the middle of his body and carried him off.

"Run down to the cellar," he whispered, when they reached the stairs.
"Empty one third out of two bottles of the Macon wine, and fill them up
with the Cognac brandy which is on the shelf. Then mix a bottle of white
wine with one half brandy. Do it neatly, and put the three bottles on
the empty cask which stands by the cellar door. When you hear me open
the window in the kitchen come out of the cellar, run to the
stable, saddle my horse, mount it, and go and wait for me at
Poteaudes-Gueux—That little scamp hates to go to bed," said Michu,
returning; "he likes to do as grown people do, see all, hear all, and
know all. You spoil my people, pere Violette."

"Goodness!" cried Violette, "what has loosened your tongue? I never
heard you say as much before."

"Do you suppose I let myself be spied upon without taking notice of it?
You are on the wrong side, pere Violette. If, instead of serving those
who hate me, you were on my side I could do better for you than renew
that lease of yours."

"How?" said the peasant, opening wide his avaricious eyes.

"I'll sell you my property cheap."

"Nothing is cheap when we have to pay," said Violette, sententiously.

"I want to leave the neighborhood, and I'll let you have my farm of
Mousseau, the buildings, granary, and cattle for fifty thousand francs."

"Really?"

"Does that suit you?"

"Hang it! I must think—"

"We'll talk about it—I shall want earnest money."

"I have no money."

"Well, a note."

"Can't give it."

"Tell me who sent you here to-day."

"I am on my way back from where I spent this afternoon, and I only
stopped in to say good-evening."

"Back without your horse? What a fool you must take me for! You are
lying, and you shall not have my farm."

"Well, to tell you the truth, it was monsieur Grevin who sent me. He
said 'Violette, we want Michu; do you go and get him; if he isn't at
home, wait for him.' I saw I should have to stay here all this evening."

"Are those sharks from Paris still at the chateau?"

"Ah! that I don't know; but there were people in the salon."

"You shall have my farm; we'll settle the terms now. Wife, go and get
some wine to wash down the contract. Take the best Roussillon, the wine
of the ex-marquis,—we are not babes. You'll find a couple of bottles on
the empty cask near the door, and a bottle of white wine."

"Very good," said Violette, who never got drunk. "Let us drink."

"You have fifty thousand francs beneath the floor of your bedroom under
your bed, pere Violette; you will give them to me two weeks after we
sign the deed of sale before Grevin—" Violette stared at Michu and grew
livid. "Ah! you came here to spy upon a Jacobin who had the honor to be
president of the club at Arcis, and you imagine he will let you get the
better of him! I have eyes, I saw where your tiles have been freshly
cemented, and I concluded that you did not pry them up to plant wheat
there. Come, drink."

Violette, much troubled, drank a large glass of wine without noticing
the quality; terror had put a hot iron in his stomach, the brandy was
not hotter than his cupidity. He would have given many things to be
safely home and able to change the hiding-place of his treasure. The
three women smiled.

"Do you like that wine?" said Michu, refilling his glass.

"Yes, I do."

After a good half-hour's decision on the time when the buyer might take
possession, and on the various punctilios which the peasantry bring
forward when concluding a bargain,—in the midst of assertions and
counter-assertions, the filling and emptying of glasses, the giving of
promises and denials, Violette suddenly fell forward with his head on
the table, not tipsy, but dead-drunk. The instant that Michu saw his
eyes blur he opened the window.

"Where's that scamp, Gaucher?" he said to his wife.

"In bed."

"You, Marianne," said the bailiff to his faithful servant, "stand in
front of his door and watch him. You, mother, stay down here, and keep
an eye on this spy; keep your eyes and ears open and don't unfasten the
door to any one but Francois. It is a question of life or death," he
added, in a deep voice. "Every creature beneath my roof must remember
that I have not quitted it this night; all of you must assert that—even
though your heads were on the block. Come," he said to Marthe,
"come, wife, put on your shoes, take your coat, and let us be off! No
questions—I go with you."

For the last three quarters of an hour the man's demeanor and glance
were of despotic authority, all-powerful, irresistible, drawn from the
same mysterious source from which great generals on fields of battle who
inflame an army, great orators inspiring vast audiences, and (it must be
said) great criminals perpetrating bold crimes derive their inspiration.
At such times invincible influence seems to exhale from the head and
issue from the tongue; the gesture even can inject the will of the one
man into others. The three women knew that some dreadful crisis was at
hand; without warning of its nature they felt it in the rapid actions of
the man, whose countenance shone, whose forehead spoke, whose brilliant
eyes glittered like stars; they saw it in the sweat that covered his
brow to the roots of his hair, while more than once his voice vibrated
with impatience and fury. Marthe obeyed passively. Armed to the teeth
and with his gun over his shoulder Michu dashed into the avenue,
followed by his wife. They soon reached the cross-roads where Francois
was in waiting hidden among the bushes.

"The boy is intelligent," said Michu, when he caught sight of him.

These were his first words. His wife had rushed after him, unable to
speak.

"Go back to the house, hide in a thick tree, and watch the country
and the park," he said to his son. "We have all gone to bed, no one is
stirring. Your grandmother will not open the door until you ask her to
let you in. Remember every word I say to you. The life of your father
and mother depends on it. No one must know we did not sleep at home."

After whispering these words to the boy, who instantly disappeared in
the forest like an eel in the mud, Michu turned to his wife.