While this was going on, Delestang was terribly embarrassed. When he saw Rougon, he did not know whether to offer him his hand or not. He glanced perplexedly at his wife, but her job as waitress seemed to be taking up all her attention, and with complete indifference she carried on distributing her sandwiches, babas, and brioches. Then, when she did glance at him, he thought he understood, and at last, blushing a little and apologizing, he went up to Rougon.
‘My dear friend, you’re not angry, I hope?… I didn’t want it, but they insisted… One has to give in sometimes…’
Rougon cut him short. The Emperor, he said, always knew best. The country would be in excellent hands. This emboldened Delestang.
‘Don’t think I didn’t stick up for you,’ he said. ‘We all did. But, to be honest, you really did go a bit far… People certainly didn’t appreciate your last effort on behalf of the Charbonnels. You know, those poor Sisters…’
Count de Marsy repressed a smile. With all the bonhomie of his days as minister, Rougon replied:
‘Of course, I know what you mean — that domiciliary search of the convent… Goodness me, of all the silly things my friends made me do, that may have been the only reasonable and just one I was responsible for in my five months in office.’
He was just leaving when he saw Du Poizat enter and make a beeline for Delestang. The Prefect pretended not to see Rougon. He had been in Paris for three days, lying low, waiting. He must have got his transfer to another prefecture, for he now fell over himself with thanks, making ample display of his toothy, vulpine grin. Then, as Delestang turned round, he nearly had to embrace Merle, who had been pushed forward by Madame Correur. The commissioner stood there, like a shy schoolgirl, while Madame Correur sang his praises.
‘He’s not well liked at the Ministry,’ she murmured, ‘because he’s expressed his disapproval of certain abuses. He saw some funny goings-on, I can tell you, during Rougon’s time.’
‘Oh yes, very funny!’ said Merle. ‘I could tell you a thing or two… I don’t think Monsieur Rougon will be missed. I certainly paid for being his supporter, at first. It nearly got me thrown out.’
In the main hall, which Rougon walked through very slowly, the stalls were now bare. To please the Empress, as patron, the visitors had sacked the place. The ladies were so pleased that they were talking of reopening in the evening with new stock. They were counting their takings. Figures were announced, amid triumphant laughter. One had made three thousand francs, another four thousand five hundred, a third seven thousand, yet another ten thousand. The last was beaming with pride. A woman who had made ten thousand francs!
Nevertheless, Madame de Combelot was very unhappy. She had just got rid of her last rose, and still there were customers clamouring round her kiosk. She emerged, to ask Madame Bouchard if she had anything left, anything at all. But no, her tombola too was bare. A lady was just carrying off the last prize, a toy doll’s basin. But they had a good look and finally discovered a packet of toothpicks, which had fallen on the ground. Madame de Combelot bore it off triumphantly, followed by Madame Bouchard. They climbed into the kiosk together.
‘Messieurs! Messieurs!’ cried Madame de Combelot, waving her bare arms wildly to attract the men. ‘This is all we’ve got left, a packet of toothpicks… Twenty-five toothpicks… I’m going to put them up for auction…’
The men jostled each other, laughing, holding out their gloved hands. Madame Combelot’s idea was clearly a great success.
‘A toothpick,’ she cried. ‘Who will offer five francs?…’
‘Ten francs,’ came a voice.
‘Twelve.’
‘Fifteen.’
Monsieur d’Escorailles suddenly jumped up to twenty-five francs, and Madame Bouchard lost no time in letting the hammer fall:
‘Sold for twenty-five francs!’
The other toothpicks went much higher. Monsieur La Rouquette paid forty-three francs for his. Rusconi, who had just arrived, soared up to seventy-two. Finally, the last toothpick, a very thin one, which, not wanting to deceive anyone, Madame de Combelot said was split, was sold for a hundred and seventeen francs to an elderly gentleman who had become very excited by the young woman’s vigorous performance, her bodice gaping open with each of her extravagant auctioneer’s gestures.
‘It’s split, Messieurs, but still usable… Going at a hundred and eight!… A hundred and ten, over there!… Eleven!… Twelve!… A hundred and twelve! A hundred and fourteen! It’s worth more than that… A hundred and seventeen! No more offers? Sold for a hundred and seventeen!’
With these figures ringing in his ears, Rougon left the bazaar. Out on the terrace, by the water’s edge, he slackened his pace. On the skyline, a storm was brewing. Below him was the Seine, an oily, dirty green colour, flowing sluggishly between the hazy embankments with their clouds of dust. In the gardens, gusts of hot wind shook the trees, whose branches then drooped again, their lifeless leaves hanging limp. He followed the path between the huge chestnuts. It was almost pitch dark. A damp heat was rising as from a cellar. He had reached the main avenue when he suddenly saw the Charbonnels, comfortably installed on a bench. They looked splendid, quite transformed. Monsieur Charbonnel was dressed in light grey trousers and a tailored frock coat, and his wife was wearing a hat with red flowers and a light mantle over a mauve silk gown. Beside them, straddling the bench at one end, was a shabby-looking individual in a frightful old hunting jacket. He was gesticulating as he inched along the bench towards them. It was Gilquin. He kept tapping his cloth cap, which seemed always about to slip from his head.
‘What a bunch of crooks!’ he cried. ‘Did Théodore ever try to cheat anybody out of a single sou? They made up some story about military service, just to make things difficult for me. But I showed ’em! They can all go to hell! They’re afraid of me, they are. They know what my politics are, I was never one of Badinguet’s mob!…’
Leaning forward, and rolling his eyes, he went on:
‘There’s only one person down there I miss… She was adorable, believe me. Quite posh too. Yes, a very nice little person, she was… Blonde. I’ve got a lock of her hair…’
Then, moving even closer to Madame Charbonnel, and tapping her on the stomach, he almost shouted:
‘So, Maman, when are you going to take me down to Plassans, to have all those preserves and apples and cherries, eh? You’re in the money now, aren’t you!’
But the Charbonnels seemed very annoyed by Gilquin’s familiarity. Madame Charbonnel pulled her silk gown away and said between clenched teeth:
‘We’re going to stay in Paris for a while. We may spend six months here every year.’
‘Ah, Paris!’ said Monsieur Charbonnel, with a sigh. ‘There’s nowhere like Paris!’
And as the wind was getting up even more, and a gaggle of children’s nannies were scurrying past, he turned to his wife and said:
‘My dear, we should go in if we don’t want to get wet. Fortunately, we don’t have far to go.’
They had put up at the Hôtel du Palais-Royal, in the Rue de Rivoli. As they walked off, Gilquin gazed after them, then shrugged his shoulders and said scornfully:
‘Rats! Rats, like the rest!’
Suddenly, he noticed Rougon. He stood swaying, waiting for him to come up. He tapped his cap, and said:
‘I haven’t been round to see you. You’re not offended, I hope… That bugger Du Poizat must have talked about me. Lies, old boy, I can prove it any time… Anyway, I don’t bear you any grudges… And here’s the proof: I’ll give you my address: it’s 25 Rue du Bon-Puits, La Chapelle, just five minutes from the city walls. There you are! If you need me, just get in touch.’
He shuffled off. He stopped for a moment, as if to get his bearings. Then, shaking his fist at the Tuileries, at the far end of the avenue, leaden grey in the lurid light of the approaching storm, he shouted:
‘Vive la République!’
Rougon left the gardens and walked up the Champs-Élysées. He fe
lt a sudden desire to have a look at his house in the Rue Marbeuf. The following morning he would move out of his quarters at the Ministry and resume his life there. He felt weary in spirit, but also very calm, though with a dull pain deep down. He thought vaguely that some day, to show how strong he was, he would do great things. Every now and then he peered up at the sky. The storm was refusing to break. Reddish clouds filled the horizon. Huge thunderclaps resounded down the Champs-Élysées. The avenue was deserted. The thunder was like a series of cannons going off. A shiver ran through the treetops. The first drops of rain fell just as he was turning into the Rue Marbeuf.
He found a cab standing outside the house, and when he went in, he found his wife, inspecting the rooms, measuring windows, giving instructions to an upholsterer. He was surprised, until she explained that she had just seen her brother, Monsieur Beulin-d’Orchère, the judge, who already knew about Rougon’s fall. He had wanted to annoy his sister, telling her that now he would soon be minister of justice. Perhaps he would at last be able to make trouble between husband and wife. But all Madame Rougon had done was send for her carriage, to have a look at their home. She still had the grey, composed expression of the devout person she was, and the indomitable calm of the good housekeeper. Silently, she went from room to room, resuming possession of this house which she had made as quiet and tranquil as a convent. Her only thought was to be the good steward whose task was to manage this new turn in their fortunes. Rougon was quite touched when he saw her thin, desiccated face and all the familiar signs of her passion for order.
By now the storm had broken. It was incredibly violent. The downpour was accompanied by heavy thunder. Rougon was obliged to wait three-quarters of an hour. He wanted to walk back. The Champs-Élysées were now a lake of mud, yellow, liquid mud, stretching from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde as if the bed of a river had suddenly been drained of water. The avenue was deserted, except for one or two brave pedestrians looking for stones on which to step across the puddles. The trees were streaming with water and dripping heavily in the still, fresh night air. In the sky, the storm had left behind a trail of tattered, coppery clouds, a low-hanging, dirty mass covering the remains of the day, a cut-throat, sinister gloom.
Rougon had begun once more to daydream about the future. Stray drops of rain fell on his hands. He was more conscious now of a tension within him, as if he had come up against an obstacle blocking his path. All at once he heard a great clatter of hooves behind him, a rhythmic tattoo which made the ground tremble. He looked round.
In the miserable light of the copper-coloured sky, a procession was approaching through the slush of the roadway, on its way back from the Bois, the bright uniforms glinting in the darkness of the avenue. In the front and at the rear cantered a squad of dragoons. In the middle was a closed landau, drawn by four horses. At the doors were grooms in full gold-embroidered livery, impassive as the mud spattered them with each turn of the wheels. They were already caked in it, from their turndown boots to the tips of their helmets. And in the darkness of the closed landau Rougon could make out a child. It was the Prince Imperial looking out, his pink nose pressed to the plate-glass window, his ten little fingers spread out on the pane.
‘Ha! The little toad!’ cried a road sweeper, grinning as he pushed his wheelbarrow along.
Rougon stood still for a moment, lost in thought, then followed the procession as it rolled on through the mud, the horses’ hooves splashing the leaves of the trees.
Chapter 14
One March day, three years later, there was a very stormy sitting of the legislative body. For the first time, the address from the throne was to be debated.*
In the bar, Monsieur La Rouquette and an elderly deputy, Monsieur de Lamberthon, who had a delightful wife, were sitting opposite each other quietly drinking grogs.
‘Well, should we go back into the Chamber?’ said Monsieur de Lamberthon, who had been keeping his ears open. ‘I think things are hotting up.’
A distant roar could be heard every few moments. A storm of voices would blow up like a sudden squall, followed by total silence. But Monsieur La Rouquette carried on smoking, with an air of complete indifference.
‘No,’ he said, ‘let them carry on. I want to finish my cigar… They’ll tell us if we’re needed. I asked them to let us know.’
They were alone in the bar, a smart little place at the far end of the narrow garden at the corner of the Quai de Bourgogne and the street of the same name. Decorated in a soft shade of green, with bamboo trelliswork and large bay windows looking out on to stretches of garden, it was like a greenhouse transformed into a gala buffet, with glass panelling, separate little tables, a red marble counter, and chairs upholstered in green rep. Through one of the windows, which was open, filtered an exquisite afternoon, tempered by a cool breeze from the river.
‘The Italian war has been his crowning glory,’ said Monsieur La Rouquette, picking up from where he had left off. ‘Today, by giving the country its freedom again, he has shown he is truly a genius…’
He was referring to the Emperor. He dwelt for a moment on the significance of the November decrees and the more direct part played by the great bodies of state in the sovereign’s policy, with the institution of ‘ministers without portfolio’ charged to represent the regime in the two Chambers. It was a return to a constitutional system, and in particular to what was healthy and sensible in such a system. A new era, that of the liberal Empire, was beginning. Carried away in his enthusiasm, he shook off his cigar ash.
Monsieur de Lamberthon, however, shook his head. He was more cautious.
‘He has acted too quickly,’ he murmured. ‘He could have waited. There was no hurry.’
‘Oh yes, there was,’ said the young deputy. ‘Something had to be done right away. He saw that — that’s his genius…’
Lowering his voice, and with meaningful looks, he explained the political situation. The pronouncements of the bishops on the question of temporal power, which the government in Turin was threatening, was worrying the Emperor a great deal. At the same time, the opposition was waking up and the country was entering a period of unrest. This was precisely the moment to try to reconcile the two factions and, by making judicious concessions, to gain the allegiance of those politicians who were disaffected. The Emperor now felt that the authoritarian Empire had great drawbacks, so he was making a liberal Empire the apotheosis which would light the way for the whole of Europe.
‘Well, I think he has acted too quickly,’ Monsieur de Lamberthon repeated, still shaking his head. ‘I understand very well what you’re saying about a liberal Empire. But, my dear fellow, it’s an unknown quantity, totally unknown, quite unknown…’
He waved his hand in the air, and repeated the word ‘unknown’ in three different registers. Monsieur La Rouquette said no more. He was finishing his drink. The two deputies continued to sit there, dreamy-eyed, gazing through the open window at the sky, as if trying to locate the ‘unknown’ somewhere beyond the embankment, over towards the Tuileries, in the banks of drifting mist. Behind them, at the far end of the corridors, the cacophony of voices had begun to grow louder again, like the rumbling of an approaching storm.
Monsieur de Lamberthon looked round. He was feeling uneasy. After a silence, he asked:
‘Rougon is giving the reply, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, I believe so,’ replied Monsieur La Rouquette, tight-lipped.
‘Rougon has a very mixed record,’ continued the elderly deputy. ‘It was an odd choice of the Emperor’s, to appoint him minister without portfolio and make him responsible for defending the new policy.’
For a while Monsieur La Rouquette did not respond. He slowly stroked his blond moustache, and finally said:
‘The Emperor knows Rougon very well.’
Then, changing his tone, he exclaimed:
‘I say, these grogs weren’t up to much… I’m terribly thirsty. I think I’ll have some cordial.’
He ord
ered a glass of cordial. Monsieur de Lamberthon hesitated, and finally decided to have a glass of Madeira. They began to talk about Madame de Lamberthon. The husband reproached his young colleague for calling on them so infrequently. Monsieur La Rouquette, leaning back on the sofa, began to admire himself with sidelong glances in the mirrors. He liked the soft green walls of this bright little bar, which was rather like a Pompadour summer house installed in a convenient spot for princely forest rides, and intended for romantic rendezvous.
An usher, quite out of breath, suddenly appeared.
‘Monsieur La Rouquette, they want you at once!’
When the young deputy made a gesture of indifference, the usher bent down and whispered in his ear that the President of the Chamber, Count de Marsy himself, had sent him, and he added, audibly:
‘In fact, everybody is wanted in the Chamber immediately.’
Monsieur de Lamberthon had already rushed off in the direction of the Chamber. Monsieur La Rouquette followed, then thought better of it. It occurred to him that he should alert the other stray deputies, and get them to their places. First he hurried into the Meeting Room, a beautiful hall illuminated by a glazed ceiling and an enormous green marble fireplace flanked by two recumbent naked women in white marble. Despite the mildness of the afternoon, huge logs were blazing in the hearth. At the great table sat three deputies, half asleep but with their eyes open, staring at the wall paintings and the famous clock that only needed winding once a year. A fourth deputy stood with his back to the fire, warming himself, apparently fascinated by a tiny plaster statue of Henri IV standing out on a display of flags captured at Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. As their colleague ran from one to another, telling them excitedly to hurry to the Chamber, they seemed to jerk suddenly into life, and made off in quick succession.