This whole little speech was accompanied by gesticulations of the right hand, an oratorical trick Rougon was wont to overdo when speaking in the Chamber. Everything he had said was, of course, for public consumption. Knowing Rougon as they did, Monsieur Kahn and Du Poizat did their best to learn the real truth. The great man (this was their private name for him) must be playing some great trick. They turned the conversation towards politics in general. Rougon began to scoff at the parliamentary system, which he called ‘a dungheap of mediocrities’. In his view, France’s legislative body still enjoyed an absurd degree of freedom. There was far too much talk in it. France needed to be administered by an efficient bureaucracy, with the Emperor at the top and all the big public offices and the functionaries under him no more than cogs. He outlined his system, laughing and puffing out his chest, full of contempt for the idiots who ask for strong governments.
‘But if the Emperor is at the top and everybody else down below,’ interrupted Monsieur Kahn, ‘that’s no fun for anybody except the Emperor, surely?’
‘Anybody who gets fed up can withdraw,’ Rougon replied calmly.
Then he added, with a smile: ‘It’s possible to wait until it becomes interesting again, and then come back.’
There was a long silence. Monsieur Kahn rubbed his beard. Now he knew what he had wanted to know, and was satisfied. He had guessed right, the day before, in the Chamber, when he suggested that Rougon had realized that his stock at the Tuileries had dropped, and, to make a fresh start later on, had met his fall from favour halfway. The Rodriguez affair had given him a wonderful opportunity to resign with his reputation intact.
‘So, what are people saying?’ said Rougon at last, to break the silence.
‘I’ve only just arrived in town,’ replied Du Poizat. ‘All the same, just now, in a café, I heard some military type strongly approving of your resignation.’
‘Béjuin got very worked up yesterday,’ chimed in Monsieur Kahn. ‘He’s very attached to you, of course. I know he’s rather dim, but he’s very reliable… Even little La Rouquette was very good, I thought. He talked about you most warmly.’
The conversation ran on like this for a while, about one person or another. Without the least embarrassment, Rougon continued to ask questions, forcing the deputy to provide him with a detailed report. Kahn obligingly gave him a precise account of his standing in the eyes of the legislative body.
‘This afternoon,’ interrupted Du Poizat, somewhat distressed at having no information to give, ‘I’ll take a stroll in town, and tomorrow morning, as soon as I’m up, I’ll give you a full report.’
‘By the way,’ cried Monsieur Kahn with a laugh, ‘I nearly forgot to tell you about Combelot!… I’ve never seen anyone so put out!’
But, seeing Rougon make an eye movement to draw attention to Delestang, Monsieur Kahn stopped short. Delestang had just climbed on to a chair to clear the top of a bookcase piled high with newspapers. Monsieur de Combelot had married one of Delestang’s sisters, and since Rougon’s fall Delestang had been finding it rather embarrassing to be connected with a Court chamberlain. This made him anxious to show how indifferent he was, so, turning round with a grin, he cried:
‘Don’t stop for my sake!… Combelot’s a fool. There, I’ve said it!’
This unflinching dismissal of a brother-in-law delighted the others. Seeing that his remark had gone down so well, he followed it up immediately by making a mocking comment about Combelot’s beard, that famous black beard so admired by the ladies. Then, for no apparent reason, he tossed a bundle of newspapers on to the floor and solemnly declared that one man’s misfortune was another man’s delight.
This proverb brought the conversation to Count de Marsy. Rougon was now engrossed in a document wallet, rummaging in every compartment of it. He let his friends have their say, and they proceeded to speak of de Marsy with all the venom politicians show when attacking an adversary. They unleashed a deluge of outrageous charges, couched in the crudest terms, with true stories exaggerated to the point of falsehood. Du Poizat, who had known de Marsy in the old days, before the Empire, asserted that the man was then living off his mistress, a baroness whose jewellery he gobbled up in three months. According to Monsieur Kahn, there was not one piece of shady public business in all Paris in which de Marsy had not had a hand. And they tried to outdo each other, producing ever more extravagant examples: there was a certain mining venture regarding which de Marsy had pocketed a bribe of a million and a half francs; the previous month, he had offered an actress at Les Bouffes a mansion worth a mere six hundred thousand—his part in a Moroccan railways share deal; and only the previous week, there had been the great Egyptian canals venture, initiated by some cronies of his, which had collapsed in the midst of utter scandal, the shareholders having learned that not a spadeful of earth had been turned, though they had been pouring their money into the scheme for two years. Then they fell to attacking de Marsy personally, striving to portray the great adventurer as a very grubby individual, despite all his fine airs; they spoke of past illnesses caused by diseases that would one day lay him low, and they even attacked the collection of paintings he was assembling. Finally, to sum up, Du Poizat declared that de Marsy was ‘a crook turned out like a vaudeville artist’.*
Slowly, Rougon raised his head and gazed at them.
‘You’ve got a bit carried away,’ he said. ‘De Marsy looks after number one, just like you… We see things rather differently, you and me, I think. If I could wring the man’s neck, I would gladly do so. But in spite of everything you say, de Marsy is a force to be reckoned with. If the fancy took him, he’d eat you two in one go, trust me!’
With this, he rose from his chair. He was tired of sitting and wanted to stretch his legs. With a big yawn, he added:
‘And he would do it all the more easily because now I wouldn’t be able to stand in front of you.’
‘But if you wanted to,’ murmured Du Poizat, with a sly grin, ‘you could deal with de Marsy all right. There are some documents here he would pay an excellent price for… There, on the floor, you’ve got the Lardenois file, that business in which he played a very dubious role. I can see from here a very interesting letter of his, which I brought you myself, at the time.’
Rougon had walked over to the fireplace to tip out the papers with which he had gradually filled the waste-paper basket. The bronze bowl was no longer sufficient.
‘That sort of letter can destroy you too,’ he said, with a scornful shrug. ‘We have all written stupid letters that are now in the hands of other people.’
He took the letter in question, lit it with the candle, then used it to set light to the pile of papers in the hearth. For a moment he squatted there, a massive figure, watching the documents as they burned, some of them spilling out onto the carpet. Thick sheets of official notepaper twisted like roofing lead as they blackened, and notes and letters scrawled illegibly on flimsier scraps burned with little tongues of blue flame, while in the middle of the glowing brazier, amid the mass of sparks, some charred fragments remained intact and legible.
At this moment the door was thrown open and a voice was heard saying, with a laugh:
‘That’s all right, Merle, I’ll forgive you… I’m one of the family here. If you had stopped me from coming in this way, I would simply have gone round through the Council Chamber!’
It was Monsieur d’Escorailles, whom six months previously Rougon had got into the Council of State offices as a probationer. On his arm was pretty Madame Bouchard, who was now wearing a colourful spring outfit.
‘Oh dear!’ muttered Rougon. ‘Women are turning up now!’
He did not stand up, but squatted in front of the fireplace a moment longer, trying to smother the blaze with the shovel, to save the carpet. He looked up with a scowl. Monsieur d’Escorailles was not in the least put out. As they had entered the room, he and Madame Bouchard had straightened their faces, to appear suitably serious.
‘Cher maître,’ he beg
an, ‘I’ve brought a friend of yours who insisted on offering you her condolences… We read the news in today’s Moniteur…’
‘So you saw the news in the Moniteur, did you?’ growled Rougon, deciding at last to stand up.
Only then did he become aware of a third party in the room. Blinking with surprise, he exclaimed:
‘I say, if it isn’t Monsieur Bouchard!’
It was indeed the lady’s husband. Silent and dignified, he had followed her in. He was sixty, white-haired, dull-eyed, and with a face that seemed somehow worn away by his quarter of a century in the government bureaucracy. He did not utter a word in response to Rougon, but, dramatically grabbing his hand, pumped it up and down three times.
‘Hmm,’ said Rougon, ‘it’s really very kind of you all to come and see me, but I’m afraid you’re going to hold me up, you know… Make yourselves comfortable over there… Du Poizat, let Madame have your chair, will you?’
Turning round, he now found himself confronted by Colonel Jobelin.
‘You too, Colonel!’ he cried.
The door had been left wide open and Merle had been unable to prevent the Colonel from coming in, for he had followed the Bouchards up the stairs. By the hand he led his son, a tall, loutish-looking boy of fifteen, now a fifth-former at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.
‘I wanted to bring Auguste to see you,’ he said. ‘It’s when you’re in trouble that you know who your real friends are… Come here, Auguste, shake Monsieur Rougon’s hand.’
But Rougon had rushed out into the anteroom, shouting:
‘For heaven’s sake shut that door, Merle! What are you thinking of? I’ll soon have the whole of Paris in here.’
Merle, unruffled, replied phlegmatically:
‘They insisted on seeing you, Monsieur le Président.’
And as he spoke, he was forced to step aside to let the Charbonnels pass. They arrived one after the other, out of breath, distressed, confused, and both talking at the same time.
‘We’ve just seen the Moniteur… What terrible news! Your poor mother will be so upset! And so are we! It leaves us in a dreadful position!’
With a lack of guile which the others hardly shared, the Charbonnels would have rehearsed all their personal concerns if Rougon had not shut them up. He proceeded to slip a hidden catch under the door lock, muttering something about preventing people from breaking in. Then, seeing that none of his friends showed any sign of getting ready to go, he decided to resign himself to the situation and try to complete his task despite the nine people now filling the room. The work of clearing out personal papers had already turned the whole place upside down. Box files were strewn all over the floor, so that when they wanted to get to one of the bay windows, the Colonel and Madame Bouchard had to take great care not to tread on important documents as they threaded their way across the room. There were now bundles of papers on every armchair. Madame Bouchard was the only one who succeeded in finding an empty chair. She thanked Du Poizat and Monsieur Kahn with a smile for their courtesy, while Monsieur d’Escorailles, trying to find her a footstool, resorted to a thick blue folder which was still stuffed with papers. Some desk drawers thrown into a corner allowed the Charbonnels to squat down for a moment to get their breath back, while young Auguste found it all great fun and began to ferret about in the huge stacks of files, behind which Delestang seemed to have taken refuge. He was raising clouds of dust by tossing down more newspapers from the top of the bookcase. Madame Bouchard began to cough.
‘You shouldn’t stay here, in all this dust,’ Rougon said, busily emptying the files he had asked Delestang not to touch.
But, red in the face because of her little coughing fit, the young woman assured him she was quite all right, the dust would not spoil her hat. The whole gang now unleashed their condolences on him. It was clear that the Emperor, by allowing himself to be influenced by people unworthy of his confidence, was not acting in the country’s interests. France was suffering a great loss. But it was always thus: great minds always provoked the antagonism of mediocrities.
‘The work of governments is thankless!’ opined Monsieur Kahn.
‘So much the worse for the people who criticize them!’ declared the Colonel. ‘Every blow struck against those who serve them well falls on their own heads.’
But Monsieur Kahn was determined to have the last word. He turned to Rougon and said:
‘When a man like you falls, the country goes into mourning.’
They all found this phrase wonderfully apt.
‘Yes, yes,’ they agreed, ‘deep mourning!’
This barrage of flattery made Rougon look up. His grey cheeks began to glow, his whole face was lit up by a restrained smile of satisfaction. He was as susceptible to flattery about his strength as a woman is about her looks; he loved the blatancy of it, and puffed out his huge chest. At the same time, it became clear that his friends were all rather embarrassed by each other. They kept eyeing one another, each wanting to outdo the other, but trying to keep their voices down. Now that the great man really did seem defeated, no time was to be lost getting him to help them with their various causes. It was the Colonel who made the first move. He led Rougon to a window recess, the latter following obligingly, a file under his arm.
‘Have you thought of me?’ the Colonel asked, keeping his voice down and wearing an ingratiating smile.
‘Indeed I have,’ said Rougon. ‘Your nomination as Commander* was promised me four days ago. But of course you must realize that now I can’t guarantee anything… I must confess I’m afraid my friends may suffer because of my fall out of favour.’
The Colonel’s lips quivered. He stammered something about the need to ‘put up a fight’, and that he certainly would. Then he swung round and called Auguste. The boy was on all fours under the desk, reading the labels on files, which enabled him to feast his eyes on Madame Bouchard’s dainty ankle boots. He jumped up on hearing his father.
‘This is my youngster,’ the Colonel continued, still keeping his voice down. ‘You know, I’ll have to find a place for the little devil one of these days. I’m counting on you. I can’t decide whether it’s to be the law or the public service… Shake Monsieur Rougon’s hand, Auguste, so your good friend will remember you.’
In the meantime, Madame Bouchard, who was dying to speak with Rougon, got up from her chair and went over to the left-hand window, indicating with her eyes that Monsieur d’Escorailles should join her. Her husband was already there, his elbows on the railing, gazing at the scene outside. Directly opposite, the leaves of the huge chestnut trees in the Tuileries gardens were fluttering in the warm sunshine, and between the Pont Royal and the Pont de la Concorde flowed the blue, sparkling waters of the Seine.
Suddenly Madame Bouchard turned:
‘Oh, Monsieur Rougon,’ she cried, ‘look at this!’
When Rougon walked over to her, Du Poizat, who had been following Madame Bouchard, withdrew discreetly and joined Monsieur Kahn at the centre window.
‘That barge-load of bricks nearly sank just now!’ said Madame Bouchard.
To be polite, Rougon remained at her side in the sunshine until Monsieur d’Escorailles, again in response to a glance from her, said:
‘Monsieur Bouchard wants to resign from the service. We brought him along so that you can talk him out of it.’
Monsieur Bouchard now spoke. Injustice, he said, was something he could not bear.
‘Yes, Monsieur Rougon, I began my career as a junior clerk in the Ministry of the Interior and I have risen to the position of office head without anyone’s special support or favour. I have been an office head since 1847. And yet, five times already, there has been an opening for a divisional head, four times under the Republic and once under the Empire, without the Minister’s thinking of me, despite my obvious claim to promotion… Now that you are no longer in office, and no longer able to keep your promise, I would rather resign.’
Rougon had to calm him down. The post he wanted had still not b
een given to anybody else, and even if he failed to get it this time, it was only one lost opportunity and there would certainly be another. Then he took Madame Bouchard’s hands in his and in a fatherly way paid her various compliments. Monsieur Bouchard’s house was the first to which he had been invited when he arrived in Paris. It was there that he had met the Colonel, who was a first cousin of Monsieur Bouchard’s. Later, when, at the age of fifty-four, Bouchard had come into his inheritance and suddenly felt the desire to marry, Rougon had been Madame Bouchard’s witness. She had been born Adèle Desvignes, a well-brought-up young lady from a respectable Rambouillet family. Monsieur Bouchard had wanted as his wife a country girl, because irreproachable virtue was important to him. Now, after four years of marriage, Adèle, a blonde, sweet little thing, with a look of faded innocence in her blue eyes, was already with her third lover.
‘Come along, do stop worrying,’ said Rougon, still squeezing her little hands in his massive fists. ‘You know very well I’m doing everything I can… In a few days Jules will let you know how far we’ve got.’
He then took Monsieur d’Escorailles aside, to tell him that that very morning he had written to his father, to reassure him that the young probationer should have no trouble keeping his position. The d’Escorailles were one of the oldest families in Plassans, and were highly respected. And so Rougon, who in times past had shuffled past the old Marquis’s house—Jules’s father’s—in down-at-heel footwear, now made it a point of pride to pull strings for the young fellow. Though the family had made no attempt to stop Jules from serving Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire, their own allegiance was to the Legitimist pretender, the Comte de Chambord, Henri V.* They saw their son’s work as an abomination.