Chapter 96
"As you please, my worthy friend; I always submit to your wiser counsels. So farewell for the present."
He looked after the old man as he slowly descended the stairs, and then closing the door and locking it, he exclaimed,--
"_Parbleu!_I found it very hard to listen to his prosing with even a show of patience, and was half tempted to tell him that the Bourbons could wait, though the soup could not."
"Then Monsieur Jacotot is a Royalist, I presume?"
"Ay, that he is; and so are all they who frequent this house. Don't start; the police know it well, and no one is more amused at their absurd plottings and conspirings than Fouche himself. Now and then, to be sure, some fool, more rash and brainless than the others, will come up from La Vendee and try to knock his head against the walls of the Temple,--like De Courcelles there, who has no other business in Paris except to be guillotined, if it were worth the trouble. Then the minister affects to stir himself and be on the alert, just to terrify them; but he well knows that danger lurks not in this quarter. Believe me, Burke, the present rulers of France have no greater security than in the contemptible character of all their opponents. There is no course for a man of energy and courage to adopt. But I ask your pardon, my dear friend, for this treasonable talk. What think you of the dinner? The Royalists would never have fallen if they had understood government as well as cuisine. Taste that _supreme_, and say if you don't regret the Capets,--a feeling you can indulge the more freely because you never knew them."
"I cannot comprehend, d.u.c.h.esne, what are the grievances you charge against the present Government of France. Had you been an old courtier of the last reign,--a hanger-on of Versailles or the Tuileries,--the thing were intelligible; but you, a soldier, a man of daring and enterprise--"
"Let me interrupt you. I am so only because it is the taste of the day; but I despise the parade of military glory we have got into the habit of. I prefer the period when a _mot_ did as much and more than a discharge of _mitraille_, and men's _esprit_ and talent succeeded better than a strong sword-arm or a seat on horseback. There were gentlemen in France once, my dear Burke. Ay, _parbleu!_ and ladies too,--not marchionesses of the drum-head nor countesses of the bivouac, but women in whom birth heightened beauty, whose loveliness had the added charm of high descent beaming from their bright eyes and sitting throned on their lofty brows; before whom our mustached marshals had stood trembling and ashamed,--these men who lounge so much at ease in the _salons_ of the Tuileries! Let me help you to this _salmi_; it is _a la Louis Quinze_, and worthy of the Regency itself. Well, then, a gla.s.s of Burgundy."
"Your friend Monsieur Jacotot seems somewhat of an original," said I, half desirous to change a topic which I always felt an unpleasant one.
"You are not wrong; he is so. Jacotot is a thorough Frenchman; at least, he has had the fortune to mix up in his destiny those extremes of elevated sentiment and absurdity which go very far to compose the life of my good countrymen. I must tell you a short anecdote--But shall we adjourn to the terrace? for, to prevent the interruption of servants, I have ordered our dessert there."
This was a most agreeable proposal; and so, having seated ourselves in a little arbor of orange-shrubs, with a view of the river and the Palace gardens beneath us, d.u.c.h.esne thus began:--
"I am going somewhat far back in history; but have no fears on that head, Burke,--my story is a very brief one. There was, once upon a time, in France, a monarch of some repute, called Louis the Fourteenth; a man, if fame be not unjust, who possessed the most kingly qualities of which we have any record in books. He was brave, munificent, high-minded, ardent, selfish, cruel, and ungrateful, beyond any other man in his own dominions; and, like people with such gifts, he had the good fortune to attach men to him just as firmly and devotedly as though he was not in his heart devoid of every principle of friends.h.i.+p and affection. I need not tell you what the ladies of his reign thought of him; my present business is with the ruder s.e.x.
"Among the courtiers of the day was a certain Vicomte Arnoud de Gency, a young man who, at the age of eighteen, won his grade of colonel at the siege of Besancon by an act of coolness and courage worthy recording. He deliberately advanced into one of the breaches, and made a sketch of the interior works of the fortification while the enemy's shot was tearing up the ground around him. When the deed was reported to the king, he interrupted the relation, saying, 'Don't tell me who did this, for I have made De Gency a colonel for it;' so rapidly did Louis guess the author of so daring a feat.
"From that hour, the young colonel's fortune was made. He was appointed one of the gentlemen of the chamber to
"Such were his social qualities; and so thoroughly did he understand the king's humor, that even La Valliere herself saw the necessity of retaining him at the Court, and, in fact, made a confidant of him on several occasions of difficulty. Still, with all these favors of fortune, when the object of envy to almost all the rest of the household, Arnoud de Gency was suffering in his heart one of the most trying afflictions that can befall a proud man so placed; he was in actual poverty,--in want so pressing that all the efforts he could make, all the contrivances he could practise, were barely sufficient to prevent his misery being public. The taste for splendor in dress and equipage which characterized the period had greatly injured his private fortune, while the habit of high play, which Louis encouraged and liked to see about him, completed his ruin. The salary of his appointments was merely enough to maintain his daily expenditure; and thus was he, with a breaking heart, obliged not only to mix in all the reckless gayety and frivolity of that voluptuous Court, but, still more, tax his talents and his energies for new themes of pleasure, fresh sources of amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Worn out at length by the long struggle between his secret sorrow and his pride, he resolved to appeal to the king, and in a few words tell his Majesty the straits to which he was reduced, and implore his protection. To this he was impelled not solely on his own account, but on that also of his only child, a boy of eight or nine years old, whose mother died in giving him birth.
"An occasion soon presented itself. The king had given orders for a hunting-party at St. Cloud; and at an early hour of the morning De Gency in his hunting-dress took up his position in one of the ante-chambers through which the king must pa.s.s: not alone, however; at his side there stood a lovely boy, also dressed in the costume of the chase. He wore a velvet doublet of green, slashed with gold, and ornamented by a broad belt, from which hung his _couteau de cha.s.se_; even to the falcon feather in his cap, nothing was forgotten.
"He had not waited long when the folding-doors were thrown wide, and a moment after Louis appeared, accompanied by a single attendant, the Marquis de Verneuil, unhappily one of the very few enemies Arnoud possessed in the world.
"'Ah, De Gency! you here?' said the king, gayly. 'They told me "brelan"
had been unfavorable lately, and that we should not see you.'
"'It is true, Sire,' said he, with a sad effort at a smile; 'it is only on your Majesty fortune always smiles.'
"'_Pardieu!_ you must not say so; I lost a rouleau last night. But whom have we here?'
"'My son; so please you, Sire, my only son, who desires, at an earlier age than even his father did, to serve your Majesty.'
[Ill.u.s.tration: 230]
"'How like his mother!' said the king, pus.h.i.+ng back the fair ringlets from the boy's forehead, and gazing almost fondly on his handsome features,--'how like her! She was a Courcelles?'
"'She was, Sire,' said Arnoud, as the tears fell on his cheek and coursed slowly along his face.
"'And you want something for him?' said the king, resuming his wonted tone, while he busied himself with his sword-knot; 'is it not so?'
"'If I might dare to ask--'
"'a.s.suredly you may. The thing is, what can we do? Eh, Verneuil, what say you? He is but an infant.'
"'True, Sire,' replied the marquis, with a look of respect, in which the most subtle could not discover a trait of his sarcastic nature; 'but there is a place vacant.'
"'Ah, indeed,' said the king, quickly. 'What is it? He shall have it.'
"'Monsieur Jacotot, your Majesty's head cook, stands in need of a turnspit,' said he, in a low whisper, only audible to the king.
"'A turnspit!' said the king. And scarcely was the word uttered when, as if the irony was his own, he burst into a most immoderate fit of laughter,--an emotion that seemed to increase as he endeavored to repress it; when at the instant the _cor de cha.s.se_, then heard without, gave a new turn to his thoughts, and he hurried forward with De Yerneuil, leaving De Gency and his son rooted to the spot,--indignant pa.s.sion in that heart which despair and sorrow had almost rendered callous.
"His Majesty was still laughing as he mounted his barb in the courtyard; and the courtiers, like well-bred gentlemen, laughed as became them, with that low, quiet laugh which is the meet chorus of a sovereign's mirth, when suddenly two loud reports, so rapidly following on each other as almost to seem one, startled the glittering cortege, and even made the Arab courser of the king plunge madly in the air.
"'_Par Saint Denis!_Messieurs,' said Louis, pa.s.sionately, 'this pleasantry of yours is ill thought of. Who has dared to do this?'
"But none spoke. A terrified look around the circle was the only reply to the king's question, when a page rushed forward, his dress spotted and blood-stained, his face pale with horror,--
"'Your Majesty,--ah, Sire!' said he, kneeling. But sobs choked him, and he could not utter more.
"'What is this? Will no one tell?' cried the king, as a frown of dark omen shadowed his angry features.
"'Your Majesty has lost a brave, an honest, and a faithful follower, Sire,' said Monsieur de Coulanges. 'Arnoud de Gency is no more.'
"'Why, I saw him this instant,' said the king. 'He asked me some favor for his boy.'
"'True, Sire,' replied De Coulanges, mournfully. But he checked himself in time, for already the well-known and dreaded expression of pa.s.sion had mounted to the king's face.
"'Dismiss the _cha.s.se_, gentlemen,' said he, in a low thick voice. 'And do you, Monsieur de Verneuil, attend me.'
"The cortege was soon scattered; and the Marquis de Verneuil followed the king with an expression where fear and dread were not to be mistaken.
"Monsieur de Verneuil did indeed seem an altered man when he appeared among his friends that evening. Whatever the king had said to him a.s.suredly had worked its due effect; for all his raillery was gone, and even the veriest trifler of the party might have dared an encounter with wits which then were subdued and broken.
"Next morning, however, the sun shone out brilliantly. The king was in high spirits; the game abounded; and his Majesty with his own hand brought down eight pheasants. The Marquis de Verneuil could hit nothing; for although the best marksman of the day, his hand shook and his sight failed him, and the king won fifty louis from him before they reached Saint-Germain.
"Never was there a happier day nor followed by a pleasanter evening.
The king supped in Madame de la Valliere's apartment; the private band played the most delicious airs during the repast; and when at length the party retired to rest, not one bright dream was clouded by the memory of Arnoud de Gency.
"Here, now, were I merely recounting an anecdote, I should stop,"
said the chevalier; "but must continue a little longer, though all the romance of my story is over. The Marquis de Verneuil was a good hater: even poor De Gency's fate did not move him, and he actually did do what he had only threatened in mockery,--he sent the orphan child to be a turnspit in the royal kitchen. Of course he changed his name,--the t.i.tle of an old and honored family would soon have betrayed the foul deed,--and the boy was called Jacotot, after the _chef_ himself. The king inquired no further on the subject; Arnoud's name recalled too unpleasant a topic for the lips of a courtier ever to mention; and the whole circ.u.mstance was soon entirely forgotten.
"This same Jacotot was the grandfather of my old friend, whom you saw a few minutes since. Fate, that seems to jest with men's destinies, made them as successful at the fire of the kitchen as ever their ancestors were at that of a battery; and Monsieur Jacotot, our present host, has not his equal in Paris. Here for years the younger members of the royal family used to sup; this room was their favorite apartment; and one evening, when at a later sitting than usual the ruler of the feast was carried beyond himself in the praise of an admirable plat, he sent for Jacotot, and told him, whatever favor he should ask, he himself would seek for him at the hands of the king.
"This was the long-wished-for moment of the poor fellow's life. He drew from his bosom the t.i.tle-deeds of his ancient name and fortune, and placed them in the prince's hand without uttering a word.
"'What! and are you a De Gency?' said the prince.