CHAPTER X. AN ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLICAN
If the worthy reader would wish to fancy the happiest of all youthfulbeings, let him imagine what I must have been, as, mounted upon Aleppo,a present from my godfather, with a purse of six shining louis inmy pocket, and a letter to my colonel, I set forth for Metz. I hadbreakfasted with Colonel Mahon, who, amid much good advice for my futureguidance, gave me, half slyly, to understand that the days of Jacobinismhad almost run their course, and that a reactionary movement had alreadyset in. The Republic, he added, was as strong, perhaps stronger, thanever, but that men had grown weary of mob tyranny, and were, day byday, reverting to the old loyalty, in respect for whatever pretended toculture, good-breeding, and superior intelligence. 'As, in a shipwreck,the crew instinctively turn for counsel and direction to the officers,you will see that France will, notwithstanding all the libertinism ofour age, place her confidence in the men who have been the tried andworthy servants of former governments. So far, then, from suffering onaccount of your gentle blood, Maurice, the time is not distant when itwill do you good service, and when every association that links you withfamily and fortune will be deemed an additional guarantee of your goodconduct. I mention these things,' continued he, 'because your colonelis what they call a "Grosbleu "--that is, a coarse-minded, inveteraterepublican, detesting aristocracy and all that belongs to it. Take care,therefore, to give him no just cause for discontent, but be just assteady in maintaining your position as the descendant of a noble house,who has not forgotten what were once the privileges of his rank. Writeto me frequently and freely, and I'll take care that you want fornothing, so far as my small means go, to sustain whatever grade youoccupy. Your own conduct shall decide whether I ever desire to have anyother inheritor than the son of my oldest friend in the world.'
Such were his last words to me as I set forth, in company with a largeparty, consisting for the most part of under-officers and employesattached to the medical staff of the army. It was a very joyous andmerry fraternity, and, consisting of ingredients drawn from differentpursuits and arms of the service, infinitely amusing from contrastof character and habits. My chief associate amongst them was a youngsous-lieutenant of dragoons, whose age, scarcely much above my own,joined to a joyous, reckless temperament, soon pointed him out as thecharacter to suit me; his name was Eugene Santron. In appearance he wasslightly formed, and somewhat undersized, but with handsome features,their animation rendered sparkling by two of the wickedest black eyesthat ever glistened and glittered in a human head. I soon saw that,under the mask of affected fraternity and equality, he nourished themost profound contempt for the greater number of associates, who, intruth, were, however _braves gens_, the very roughest and least-polishedspecimens of the polite nation. In all his intercourse with them, Eugeneaffected the easiest tone of camaraderie and equality, never assumingin the slightest, nor making any pretensions to the least superiorityon the score of position or acquirements, but on the whole consolinghimself, as it were, by 'playing them off' in their severaleccentricities, and rendering every trait of their vulgarity andignorance tributary to his own amusement. Partly from seeing that hemade me an exception to this practice, and partly from his perceivingthe amusement it afforded me, we drew closer towards each other, andbefore many days elapsed, had become sworn friends.
There is probably no feature of character so very attractive to ayoung man as frankness. The most artful of all flatteries is that whichaddresses itself by candour, and seems at once to select, as it were byintuition, the object most suited for a confidence. Santron carried meby a _coup de main_ of this kind, as, taking my arm one evening as I wasstrolling along the banks of the Moselle, he said--
'My dear Maurice, it's very easy to see that the society of ourexcellent friends yonder is just as distasteful to you as to me. Onecannot always be satisfied laughing at their solecisms in breedingand propriety. One grows weary at last of ridiculing their thousandabsurdities; and then there comes the terrible retribution in thereflection of what the devil brought me into such company? a questionthat, however easily answered, grows more and more intolerable theoftener it is asked. To be sure, in my case there was little choice inthe matter, for I was not in any way the arbiter of my own fortune. Isaw myself converted from a royal page to a printer's devil by a kindold fellow, who saved my life by smearing my face with ink, and coveringmy scarlet uniform with a filthy blouse; and since that day I have takenthe hint, and often found the lesson a good one--the dirtier the safer!
'We were of the old nobility of France, but as the name of our familywas the cause of its extinction, I took care to change it. I see youdon't clearly comprehend me, and so I'll explain myself better. Myfather lived unmolested during the earlier days of the Revolution,and might so have continued to the end, if a detachment of the GardeRepublicaine had not been despatched to our neighbourhood of Saarlouis,where it was supposed some lurking regard for royalty yet lingered.These fellows neither knew nor cared for the ancient noblesse of thecountry, and one evening a patrol of them stopped my father as he wastaking his evening walk along the ramparts. He would scarcely deign tonotice the insolent '_Qui va la?_ of the sentry, a summons he at leastthought superfluous in a town which had known his ancestry for eight ornine generations. At the repetition of the cry, accompanied by somethingthat sounded ominous, in the sharp click of a gun-lock, he repliedhaughtily, "Je suis le Marquis de Saint-Trone."
'"There are no more marquises in France!" was the savage answer.
'My father smiled contemptuously, and briefly said "Saint-Trone."
'"We have no saints either," cried another.
'"Be it so, my friend," said he, with mingled pity and disgust. "Isuppose some designation may at least be left to me, and that I may callmyself Trone."
'"We are done with thrones long ago," shouted they in chorus, "and we'll finish you also."
'Ay, and they kept their word, too. They shot him that same evening, onvery little other charge than his own name! If I have retained the oldsound of my name, I have given it a more plebeian spelling, which is,perhaps, just as much of an alteration as any man need submit to for aperiod that will pass away so soon.'
'How so, Eugene? you fancy the Republic will not endure in France. What,then, can replace it?'
'Anything, everything; for the future all is possible. We haveannihilated legitimacy, it is true, just as the Indians destroy aforest, by burning the trees; but the roots remain; and if the soil isincapable of sending up the giant stems as before, it is equally unableto furnish a new and different culture. Monarchy is just as firmlyrooted in a Frenchman's heart, but he will have neither patience for itstedious growth, nor can he submit to restore what has cost him so dearlyto destroy. The consequences will, therefore, be a long and continuedstruggle between parties, each imposing upon the nation the form, ofgovernment that pleases it in turn. Meanwhile you and I, and others likeus, must serve whatever is uppermost--the cleverest fellow he who seesthe coming change, and prepares to take advantage of it.'
'Then you are a Royalist?' asked I.
'A Royalist! What! stand by a monarch who deserted his aristocracy,and forgot his own order; defend a throne that he had reduced to thecondition of a _fauteuil de Bourgeois?_'
'You are then for the Republic?'
'For what robbed me of my inheritance--what degraded me from my rank,and reduced me to a state below that of my own vassals! Is this a causeto uphold?'
'You are satisfied with military glory, perhaps,' said I, scarcelyknowing what form of faith to attribute to him.
'In an army where my superiors are the very dregs of the people; wherethe canaille have the command, and the chivalry of France is representedby a sans-culotte!'
'The cause of the Church----'
A hurst of ribald laughter cut me short, and laying his hand on myshoulder he looked me full in the face; while with a struggle to recoverhis gravity, he said--
'I hope, my dear Maurice, you are not serious, and that you do not meanthis for earnest. Why,
my dear boy, don't you talk of the EleusinianMysteries, the Delphic Oracle of Alchemy, Astrology--of anything, inshort, of which the world, having amused itself, has at length grownweary? Can't you see that the Church has passed away, and these goodpriests have gone the same road as their predecessors? Is any acutenesswanting to show that there is an end of this superstition that hasenthralled men's minds for a couple of thousand years? No, no, theirgame is up, and for ever. These pious men, who despised this world, andyet had no other hold upon the minds of others than by the very craftand subtlety that world taught them--these heavenly souls, whose wholemachinations revolved about earthy objects and the successes of thisgrovelling planet! Fight for them! No, _parbleu!_ we owe them but littlelove or affection. Their whole aim in life has been to disgust onewith whatever is enjoyable, and the best boon they have conferred uponhumanity, that bright thought of locking up the softest eyes and fairestcheeks of France in cloisters and nunneries! I can forgive our gloriousRevolution much of its wrong when I think of the Pretre; not but thatthey could have knocked down the church without suffering the ruins tocrush the chateau!'
Such, in brief, were the opinions my companion held, and of which I wasaccustomed to hear specimens every day; at first, with displeasure andrepugnance; later on, with more of toleration; and at last, with a senseof amusement at the singularity of the notions, or the dexteritywith which he defended them. The poison of his doctrines was the moreinsidious, because it was mingled with a certain dash of good-nature,and a reckless, careless easiness of disposition always attractive tovery young men. His reputation for courage, of which he had given signalproofs, elevated him in my esteem; and, ere long, all my misgivingsabout him, in regard of certain blemishes, gave way before my admirationof his heroic bearing and a readiness to confront peril, wherever to befound.
I had made him the confidant of my own history, of which I told himeverything, save the passages which related to the Pere Michel. TheseI either entirely glossed over, or touched so lightly as to renderunimportant--a dread of ridicule restraining me from any mention ofthose earlier scenes of my life, which were alone of all those I shouldhave avowed with pride. Perhaps it was from mere accident--perhaps somesecret shame to conceal my forlorn and destitute condition may have hadits share in the motive; but, for some cause or other, I gave him tounderstand that my acquaintance with Colonel Mahon had dated back toa much earlier period than a few days before, and, the impression oncemade, a sense of false shame led me to support it.
'Mahon can be a good friend to you,' said Eugene; 'he stands well withall parties. The Convention trust him, the sans-culottes are afraid ofhim, and the few men of family whom the guillotine has left look up tohim as one of their stanchest adherents. Depend upon it, therefore, yourpromotion is safe enough, even if there were not a field open for everyman who seeks the path to eminence. The great point, however, is to getservice with the army of Italy. These campaigns here are as barren andprofitless as the soil they are fought over; but, in the south, Maurice,in the land of dark eyes and tresses, under the blue skies, or beneaththe trellised vines, there are rewards of victory more glorious than agrateful country, as they call it, ever bestowed. Never forget, my boy,that you or I have no cause! It is to us a matter of indifferencewhat party triumphs, or who is uppermost. The Government may changeto-morrow, and the day after, and so on for a month long, and yet weremain just as we were. Monarchy, Commonwealth, Democracy--what youwill--may rule the hour, but the sous-lieutenant is but the servantwho changes his master. Now, in revenge for all this, we have onecompensation, which is, to "live for the day"--to make the most of thatbrief hour of sunshine granted us, and to taste of every pleasure, tomingle in every dissipation, and enjoy every excitement that we can.This is my philosophy, Maurice, and just try it.'
Such was the companion with whom chance threw me in contact, and Igrieve to think how rapidly his influence gained the mastery over me.