Complete Works of Emile Zola (427 page)

‘Well, the long and the short of it is that we are being defrauded,’ cried Du Poizat. ‘But he shall not go away; I answer for that! Is there any sense in a man setting off and struggling with stones when there are such serious interests to keep him in Paris? Are you willing that I should speak to him?’

Clorinde now awoke from her reverie. She waved her hand to obtain silence; and after opening the door to see that there was no one outside, she repeated: ‘I tell you that he must go to Compiègne!’

Then, as every face turned towards her, she checked all questions with another wave of her hand: ‘Hush! not here!’

She told them, however, that she and her husband had also been invited to Compiègne, and she made some mention of M. de Marsy and Madame de Llorentz without consenting to enter into further details. However, they would push the great man into power in spite of himself, she said; they would compromise him, if he drove them to it. M. Beulin-d’Orchère and the whole judicial bench secretly supported him; and M. La Rouquette had confessed that the Emperor, amidst all the hatred expressed against Rougon by those who surrounded him, had kept absolute silence on the matter. Whenever the great man’s name was mentioned in his presence, he became serious and lowered his eyes.

‘It is not we alone who are concerned,’ M. Kahn now declared. ‘If we succeed, the whole country will owe us thanks.’

Then, raising their voices, they all began to sing the praises of the master of the house. A buzz of conversation in an adjoining room had just become audible. Du Poizat was so carried away by curiosity, that he pushed the door open as though he were going out, and then closed it again with sufficient deliberation to take a look at the man who was speaking with Rougon. It was Gilquin, wearing a heavy overcoat in good condition, and holding in his hand a stout cane with a knob of yellow metal. He was saying in his full voice, with exaggerated familiarity: ‘Don’t send any more, you understand, to the Rue Virginie at Grenelle. I’m at Batignolles now, Passage Guttin. Well, you can reckon upon me. Good-bye for the present.’

Then he shook hands with Rougon.

When the latter returned to the drawing-room he apolo­gised for his absence, but gave Du Poizat a keen glance: ‘A good fellow, whom you know, Du Poizat, don’t you?’ said he. ‘He is going to enlist some colonists for my new world in the Landes. By the way, I mean to take you all with me; so you had better get your things together. Kahn shall be my Prime Minister. Delestang and his wife shall have the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. Béjuin shall be Postmaster. And I won’t forget the ladies. Madame Bouchard shall be Queen of Beauty, and I’ll give the keys of our store-rooms to Madame Charbonnel.’

In this wise he playfully rattled on, while his friends, very ill at ease, were wondering if he had perchance heard them through some chink or other. When he proceeded to say that he would decorate the colonel with all the orders in his gift, the latter almost lost his temper. Clorinde, however, was looking at the invitation to Compiègne which she had taken from off the mantel-piece.

‘Do you mean to go?’ she asked, with an appearance of unconcern.

‘Oh, no doubt,’ replied Rougon, surprised at the question. ‘I mean to take advantage of the opportunity to get the Emperor to give me my department.’

Just then ten o’clock struck, and Madame Rougon returned to the room and served tea.

CHAPTER VII

AT COURT

Towards seven o’clock on the evening of her arrival at Compiègne, Clorinde was engaged in conversation with M. de Plouguern near one of the windows in the Gallery of the Maps. They were waiting for the Emperor and Empress before entering the dining-room. The second batch of the season’s guests had scarcely been more than three hours at the château, and all of them had not yet come down from their rooms. Clorinde occupied herself by briefly criticising them as they entered the gallery, one by one. The ladies, in low dresses, and wearing flowers in their hair, put on smiles as soon as they reached the threshold; while the gentlemen, wearing white cravats, black knee-breeches, and silk stockings’ preserved a solemn air.

‘Ah; here comes the Chevalier!’ muttered Clorinde. ‘He looks very nice, doesn’t he? But just look at M. Beulin-d’Orchère, godfather! Doesn’t he look as though he were going to bark? And, good heavens, what legs!’

M. de Plouguern began to grin, much amused by this backbiting. Chevalier Rusconi came up and bowed to Clorinde, with the languid gallantry of a handsome Italian; then he made the round of the ladies, swaying to and fro with a series of gentle rhythmical reverences. A few yards away, Delestang, looking very serious, was examining the huge maps of the Forest of Compiègne, which covered the walls of the gallery.

‘Whereabouts in the train were you?’ Clorinde continued. ‘I looked out for you at the station, so that we might travel together. Just fancy, I was squeezed up with a whole crowd of men.’ Then she stopped, and stifled a laugh with her fingers. ‘How demure Monsieur La Rouquette looks!’ said she.

‘Yes, indeed; he’s like a simpering schoolgirl,’ rejoined the senator sarcastically.

Just at that moment a loud rustling was heard by the door, which was thrown wide open to admit a lady wearing a dress which was so lavishly adorned with bows and flowers and lace, that she had to press it down with both hands in order to get through. It was Madame de Combelot, Clorinde’s sister-in-law. The latter stared at her, and murmured: ‘Good gracious!’

Then, as M. de Plouguern glanced at her own dress of simple tarlatan, worn over an ill-cut under-skirt of rose-silk, she continued, with an air of complete unconcern: ‘Ah! I don’t care about dress, godfather! People must take me, you know, as I am.’

Delestang, however, had quitted the maps, and after join­ing his sister, led her to his wife. The two women were not particularly fond of each other, and exchanged rather stiff greetings. Then Madame de Combelot walked off, dragging her satin train, which looked like a strip of flower garden, through the clusters of silent men, who stepped back out of the way of this flood of lace flounces. Clorinde, as soon as she was alone again with M. de Plouguern, referred playfully to the lady’s great passion for the Emperor. And when the old senator had told her that there was no reciprocal feeling on the Emperor’s part, she continued: ‘Well, there’s no great merit in that; she’s so dreadfully lean. I have been told that some men consider her good-looking, but I don’t know why. She has absolutely no figure at all.’

While talking in this strain, Clorinde none the less kept her eyes upon the door. ‘Ah! this time it must surely be Monsieur Rougon,’ she said as it opened again. But, almost immediately, she resumed with a flash in her eyes: ‘Ah, no! it is Monsieur de Marsy.’

The minister, looking quite irreproachable in his black dress-coat and knee-breeches, stepped up to Madame de Combelot with a smile, and while he was paying compliments to her, he glanced round at the assembled guests, blinking his eyes as though he recognised no one. But, as they began to bow to him, he inclined his head with an expression of great amiability. Several men approached him, and he soon became the centre of a group. His pale face, with its subtle cunning air, towered over the shoulders clustering round him.

‘By the way,’ said Clorinde, pushing M. de Plouguern into a window-recess, ‘I have been relying upon you for some information. What do you know about Madame de Llorentz’s famous letters?’

‘Only what all the world knows,’ replied the old senator.

Then he began to speak of the famous three letters which had been written, it was said, by Count de Marsy to Madame de Llorentz nearly five years previously, a short time before the Emperor’s marriage. Madame de Llorentz, who had just lost her husband, a general of Spanish origin, was then at Madrid, looking after her deceased husband’s affairs. It was the heyday of her connection with Marsy, who, to amuse her, and yielding to his own sportive proclivities, had sent her some very piquant details concerning certain august person­ages with whom he was living on intimate terms. And it was asserted that Madame de Llorentz, who was an extremely jealous beauty, had carefully preserved these letters, and kept them hanging over M. de Marsy’s head as an ever-ready means of vengeance, should he presume to wander in his affections.

‘She allowed herself to be talked over,’ continued M. de Plouguern, ‘when Marsy had to marry the Wallachian princess; but, after consenting to their spending a month’s honeymoon together, she gave him to understand that if he did not return to her feet, she would some day lay the three terrible letters on the Emperor’s desk. So he has taken up his fetters again, and lavishes the most loving attention upon her in the hope that he may get her to give these letters up.’

Clorinde laughed heartily; the story amused her, and she began to ask all sorts of questions. If the Count should deceive Madame de Llorentz, would she really carry her threat into execution? Where did she keep those letters? Was it really in the bosom of her dress, stitched between two pieces of satin ribbon, as some people said? M. de Plouguern, however, could give no further information. No one but Madame de Llorentz herself had ever read the letters; but he knew a young man who had vainly made himself her humble slave for nearly six months in the hope of being able to get a copy of them.

‘But look at Marsy,’ he continued, ‘he never takes his eyes off you. Ah! I had forgotten; you have made a conquest of him. Is it true that, at the last soiree at the ministry, he remained talking to you for nearly an hour?’

The young woman made no reply. Indeed she was not listening, but stood majestic and motionless under M. de Marsy’s steady gaze. Then slowly raising her head and looking at him in her turn, she waited for him to bow to her. He thereupon stepped up, and she smiled upon him very sweetly. They did not, however, exchange a word. The Count went back to the group he had left, in which M. La Rouquette now was talking very loudly, perpetually speaking of him as ‘His Excellency.’

The gallery had gradually filled. There were nearly a hundred persons present: high functionaries, generals, foreign diplomatists, five deputies, three prefects, two painters, a novelist, and a couple of academicians, to say nothing of the court officials, the chamberlains, and the aides-de-camp and equerries. A subdued murmur of voices arose amid the glare of the chandeliers. Those who were familiar with the château paced slowly up and down, while those who had been asked there for the first time remained where they stood, too timid to venture among the ladies. The want of ease which for the first hour or so prevailed among these guests, many of whom were unacquainted with one another, but who found themselves suddenly assembled in the ante-chamber of the Imperial dining-room, gave to their faces an expression of sullen reserve. Every now and then there were sudden intervals of silence, and heads turned anxiously round. The very furniture of the spacious apartment, the pier tables with straight legs, and the square chairs, all in the stiff First Empire style, seemed to impart additional solemnity to this spell of waiting.

‘Here he comes at last!’ murmured Clorinde.

Rougon had just entered and stood still for a moment, blinking. He had donned his expression of good-natured simplicity; his back was slightly bent, and his face had a sleepy look. He noticed at a glance the faint tremor of hostility which thrilled some of the guests at his appearance. However, in quiet fashion, shaking hands here and there, he steered his way so as to come face to face with M. de Marsy. They bowed to one another, and seemed delighted to meet; and they began to talk in very friendly fashion, though they kept their eyes on each other like foes who respected each other’s strength. An empty space had been cleared around them. The ladies watched their slightest gestures with interest; while the men, affecting great discretion, pretended to look in another direction, though every now and then they cast furtive glances at them. Much whispering went on in different corners of the room. What secret plan had the Emperor got in his head? Why had he brought those two men together? M. La Rouquette felt sorely perplexed, but fancied he could scent some very grave business. So he went up to M. de Plouguern, and began to question him. But the old senator gave rein to his jocosity. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘perhaps Rougon is going to upset Marsy, so it is as well to treat him deferentially. On the other hand, perhaps the Emperor merely wanted to see them together, in the hope that some­thing amusing might happen.’

However, the whispering ceased, and there was a general stir. Two officers of the household went from group to group saying something in low tones. Then the guests, who had suddenly become serious again, made their way towards the door on the left, where they formed themselves into a double line, the men on one side and the ladies on the other. M. de Marsy posted himself near the door, keeping Rougon by his side; and the rest of the company ranged themselves in the order of their rank. Then, keeping perfect silence, they con­tinued waiting for another three minutes.

At last the folding-doors were thrown wide open. The Emperor, in full dress, and wearing the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his chest, came into the room first, followed by the chamberlain on duty, M. de Combelot. He smiled slightly as he stopped before M. de Marsy and Rougon, swaying slightly, and slowly twisting his long moustache, as, in an embarrassed tone, he said: ‘You must tell Madame Rougon how extremely sorry we were to hear that she was ill. We should have much liked to see her here with you. We must hope that she will very soon be well again. There are a great many colds about just now.’

Then he passed on. After taking a few steps, however, he stopped to shake hands with a general, asking him after his son, whom he called ‘my little friend Gaston.’ Gaston was of the same age as the Prince Impérial, but was already much more vigorous. The guests bowed as the Emperor passed them. When he had got to the end of the line, M. de Combelot presented to him one of the two academicians, who had come to Court for the first time. The Emperor spoke of a recent work which this writer had issued, and declared that certain passages of it had afforded him the greatest pleasure.