Complete Works of Emile Zola (437 page)

Ten days later, he became Minister of the Interior, in the place of M. de Marsy, who was called to the Presidency of the Corps Législatif.

CHAPTER IX

IN OFFICE

One morning in March, Rougon sat in his room at the Ministry of the Interior, drawing up a confidential circular which was to be received by the prefects on the following day.

He kept stopping, and puffing, and dashing his pen into the paper. ‘Jules, give me a synonym for authority,’ he said. ‘This language of ours is horrid. I keep putting authority in every line.’

‘Well, there’s power, government, empire,’ the young man answered with a smile.

M. Jules d’Escorailles, whom Rougon had appointed his secretary, was opening the ministerial correspondence at a corner of the writing-table. He carefully cut the envelopes with a penknife, glanced over the letters and then classified them. Meantime, the colonel, M. Kahn and M. Béjuin sat in front of the grate where a large fire was burning. They were all three reclining in their chairs and toasting their feet in silence. M. Kahn read a newspaper, but the two others placidly twiddled their thumbs and looked at the flames.

All at once Rougon rose from his chair, poured out a glassful of water at a side table, and gulped it down at a draught. ‘I don’t know what I can have eaten yesterday,’ he said, ‘but I feel as though I could drink the Seine dry this morning.’

He did not immediately resume his seat, but began to pace the room and stretch his burly frame. His heavy step shook the parqueterie underneath the thick carpet. He drew back the green velvet window curtains to let in more light, and then, coming back to the middle of the room, which displayed the gloomy, faded magnificence of some palace turned into a lodging-house, he remained there with his hands clasped behind his neck, revelling, as it were, in the official perfume, the odour of power which he inhaled there. He even broke into an involuntary laugh, which grew louder and louder as it pealed forth his sense of triumph. The colonel and the others turned upon hearing this outburst of gaiety, and questioned him with their eyes.

‘Ah! it’s very nice, all the same,’ were the only words he would say.

However, as he sat down again at the huge rosewood writing-table, Merle came into the room. The usher was irreproachably dressed in black, with a white tie. Not a hair remained upon his dignified face. He was again clean­shaven.

‘I beg your excellency’s pardon,’ he said, ‘but the prefect of the Somme — ‘

‘Tell him to go to the deuce! I’m busy,’ Rougon answered roughly. ‘It’s quite preposterous that I am never to be allowed a moment to myself.’

Merle seemed in no way disconcerted, however. ‘The prefect,’ he resumed, ‘says that your excellency is expecting him. There are also the prefects of the Nièvre, the Cher, and the Jura.’

‘Well, let them wait! That’s what they’re made for,’ rejoined Rougon loudly.

The usher left the room. M. d’Escorailles had broken into a smile; while the others who were warming themselves at the fire lolled back more freely than ever in their chairs, and seemed amused by the minister’s reply. He was flattered by his success.

‘It is true,’ he said,’ that I have been going through the prefects for the last month. It was necessary that I should have them all here. A nice lot they are, too; some rare stupids amongst them. However, they are very obedient. But I feel that I have had enough of them. And, besides, it’s for their benefit that I’m working this morning.’

Then he turned to his circular again. The warm silence of the room was only broken by the scratching of his quill-pen and the slight rustling of the envelopes which M. d’Escorailles opened. M. Kahn had taken up another newspaper, and the colonel and M. Béjuin were half asleep.

Outside, France was hushed in fear. The Emperor, in summoning Rougon to power, had been desirous of making examples. He knew the great man’s iron hand, and had said to him on the morning after the attempt on his life, with all the anger of one who has just escaped assassination, ‘No moderation, mind! They must be made to fear you.’ He had just armed him, too, with that terrible Law of General Safety, which authorised the confinement in Algeria or the expulsion from the empire of anyone who might be convicted of a poli­tical offence. Although no single Frenchman had taken part in the crime of the Rue Le Peletier, the Republicans were about to be hunted down and transported; there was to be a general sweeping away of the ten thousand ‘suspects’ who had been passed over at the time of the
coup d’état.
There were rumours of contemplated action by the revolutionary party. The authorities were said to have made a seizure of weapons and treasonable documents. Already in the middle of March, three hundred and eighty persons had been shipped at Toulon for Algeria, and now every week a fresh contingent was sent off. The whole country trembled in the terror which like a black storm cloud rolled forth from the room with the green velvet curtains where Rougon laughed aloud while stretching his arms.

The great man had never before tasted such complete contentment. He felt well and strong, and was putting on flesh. Health had come back to him with his return to power. When he walked about the room he dug his heels into the carpet, as though he wanted his heavy tread to resound throughout France. He would have liked to shake the country by merely putting his empty glass down on the side-table or casting aside his pen. It delighted him to be a source of fear, to forge thunderbolts amidst the smiling grati­fication of his friends, and to crush a whole nation with his swollen parvenu fists. In one of his circulars he had written: ‘It is for the good to feel confidence, and for the wicked only to tremble.’ He revelled in playing this part of a divinity, damning some, and saving others. He was filled with mighty pride; his idolatry of his own strength and intelligence was becoming a real religion with him.

Among the new men who had sprung up with the Second Empire, Rougon had long been known as a partisan of strong government. His name was a synonym for stern repression, the refusal of all liberties; despotic rule, in fact. All knew therefore what they had to expect when they saw him called to office. To his intimate friends, however, Rougon un­bosomed himself. He did not, he said, so much hold opinions as feel a craving for power. Power had too much attraction for him, and was too essential to his appetite for him to refuse it, whatever the conditions on which it might be offered to him.

To rule, to set his foot on the neck of the crowd, was his first and immediate ambition; the rest was merely secondary matter to which he could easily accommodate himself. The one thing which he really wanted was to be chief. It so hap­pened, however, that the circumstances under which he was now returning to power made his success very pleasant. The Emperor had given him complete liberty of action, and he was at last in a position to realise his old dream of driving the multitude with a whip like a herd of cattle. Nothing filled him with greater satisfaction than to know that he was feared and disliked. And sometimes when his friends told him that he was a tyrant, he smiled, and said with deep meaning: ‘If I should become a liberal some day, people will say that I have changed.’

Rougon’s very greatest joy was to stand triumphant amidst those friends of his. He forgot France and the obsequious functionaries and the crowd of petitioners who besieged his doors, to regale himself with the perpetual admiration of his ten or twelve intimate associates. His office was open to them at any hour, he allowed them to make it a home, to take possession of his chairs, and even of his desk itself; he told them that it was a pleasure to have them always about him like a pack of faithful dogs. It was not he alone, but the whole coterie, that was the minister. The bonds between them seemed to be drawn closer now that success had come, and Rougon began to love his followers with a jealous love, keeping them in constant communion with him, feeling as if his greatness were increased by their several ambitions. He forgot his secret contempt for them, and began to consider them very intelligent and able, similar to himself. He parti­cularly desired, moreover, that he himself should be respected in their persons, and defended them passionately as he might have defended the fingers of his hands. He made their quarrels his own, and, smiling at the recollection of their long endeavours on his behalf, he even ended by believing that he was greatly indebted to them. Desiring nothing for him­self, he lavished upon them all the fruits of office, indulging to repletion in the pleasure of enhancing the brilliancy of his fortune by thus scattering the gifts at his disposal.

However, the big warm room remained silent for some time. Then M. d’Escorailles, after glancing at the address on one of the envelopes before him, handed it to Rougon without opening it. ‘Here is a letter from my father,’ he said.

Writing in a strain of excessive humility, the Marquis thanked the minister for having appointed Jules to be his secretary. There were two pages of fine writing which Rougon carefully read. Then he folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket. And before turning to his work again he asked: ‘Hasn’t Du Poizat written?’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered the secretary, picking a letter out from among the others. ‘He is beginning to find his way about in his prefecture. He says that Deux-Sèvres, and the town of Niort in particular, want guiding with a firm hand.’

Rougon glanced over the letter, and remarked: ‘Certainly; he shall have all the authority he requires. There is no occasion to send him any reply. My circular will be sufficient.’

Then he took up his pen again, and cudgelled his brains for some suitable concluding sentences. Du Poizat had par­ticularly wished to be prefect at Niort, in his own native district, and the minister, when taking any important decision, invariably thought of the department of Deux-Sèvres, and governed France in accordance with the opinions and neces­sities of his old comrade in poverty. Just as he was at last finishing his circular to the prefects, something seemed to irritate M. Kahn.

‘It is abominable!’ the latter exclaimed; and, rapping the newspaper he was reading, he turned to Rougon, and cried: ‘Have you read this? There is a leading article here appealing to the basest passions. Just listen to this: “The hand that punishes should be impeccable, for, if justice mis­carries, the very bonds which unite society loosen of their own accord.” You understand the insinuation, eh? And, here again, among the miscellaneous paragraphs, there’s a story about a Countess eloping with the son of a corn-factor. The papers ought not to be allowed to publish such things. It tends to destroy the people’s respect for the upper classes.’

‘But the serial story is still more odious,’ interposed M. d’Escorailles. ‘It’s all about a wife, a woman of good breeding, who betrays her husband. And the author does not even make her feel any remorse.’

Rougon made an angry gesture. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘my attention has already been called to that number. You will see that I have marked certain passages with a red pencil. And it is one of our own papers, too! Every day I am obliged to go over it line by line. Ah! the best of them are bad; we ought to suppress them all!’ Then, compressing his lips, he added, in a lower tone: ‘I have sent for the editor, and am expecting him here presently.’

The colonel had taken the paper from M. Kahn. He also soon vented expressions of indignation, and then handed the print to M. Béjuin, who likewise showed his disgust. Rougon, in the meanwhile, was resting his elbows on his table and reflecting, with eyes half-closed.

‘By the way,’ he said, turning to his secretary, ‘that poor Huguenin died yesterday. That leaves an inspectorship vacant. We shall have to appoint somebody to it.’ Then, as the three friends sitting before the fire briskly raised their heads, he continued: ‘Oh, it’s a post of no importance. Six thousand francs a year. But it’s true that there’s absolutely nothing to do — ‘

However, he was interrupted by a person opening the door of an adjoining room.

‘Oh, come in, Monsieur Bouchard, come in!’ he cried, ‘I was just going to call for you.’

Bouchard, who had been appointed head of department a week previously, had brought with him a memorandum about the mayors and prefects who had asked for the crosses of chevalier and officer in the Legion of Honour. Rougon had twenty-five crosses to dispose of among the most meritorious of the appli­cants. He took the memorandum, read over the names and consulted various papers, while M. Bouchard went up to the fire and shook hands with the three others. Then, with his back against the mantelpiece, and his coat-tails raised in order that he might warm his legs, the chief of department said: ‘A miserably wet day, isn’t it? We shall have a late spring.’

‘It’s awful,’ replied the colonel, ‘I feel one of my attacks coming on. I had shooting pains in my left foot all night.’

‘And how is your wife?’ asked M. Kahn after a short pause.

‘Thank you, she is very well,’ replied M. Bouchard. ‘I am expecting to see her here this morning.’

Then there was another pause. Rougon was still examin­ing the papers. As he came to a certain name, he stopped. ‘Isidore Gaudibert — that isn’t the man who writes verses, is it?’

‘Yes, that is the man,’ M. Bouchard answered. ‘He has been Mayor of Barbeville since 1852. On every happy event, the Emperor’s marriage, the Empress’s confinement, and the Prince Impérial’s baptism, he has sent charming verses to their Majesties.’

The minister pouted scornfully. The colonel, however, asserted that he had read the odes and thought them very fine. He referred to one in particular, in which the Emperor was compared to a piece of fireworks. Then without any transition the friends began to eulogise the Emperor. They were all enthusiastic Bonapartists now. The two cousins, the colonel and M. Bouchard, were completely reconciled, and, instead of throwing the Orléans Princes and the Count de Chambord at each other’s head, rivalled in singing their sovereign’s praise.

‘Oh, no! not this one!’ Rougon suddenly exclaimed. ‘This Jusselin is a creature of Marsy’s. There is no call for me to reward the friends of my predecessor.’ Then with a stroke of his pen, that cut through the paper, he effaced the name. ‘But we must find some one,’ he resumed. ‘It is an officer’s cross.’