Complete Works of Emile Zola (449 page)

‘One of my best friends, sire.’

As the Emperor now rose from his seat, Rougon also got up. The former went to a window, and then came back again, puffing out a little cloudlet of smoke.

‘You have a good many friends, Monsieur Rougon,’ he said, with a meaning look.

‘Yes, sire; a great many,’ the minister frankly replied.

Evidently enough, the Emperor had hitherto merely repeated the gossip of the château, the accusations made by those who surrounded him. He was doubtless acquainted, however, with other stories, matters which were unknown to the Court, but of which he had learnt from his private agents, and in which he took a yet livelier interest, for he revelled in the spy system, in the secret manoeuvring of the police. He looked at Rougon for a moment, while a vague smile played about his face. Then, in a confidential tone, and with a somewhat playful air, he said: ‘Oh, I know a good many things; more, perhaps, than I care to know. Here is another little matter, now; you have taken in your offices a young man, a colonel’s son, who has not obtained a bachelor’s dip­loma. It is not a matter of any importance, I am aware of that; but if you only knew all the fuss that is made about such things! Little things like these put everybody’s back up. It is really very bad policy on your part.’

Rougon made no reply. His Majesty had not finished. He opened his lips as though he were going to say something, but it was apparently something that he found rather difficult to express, for he hesitated for a moment or two. At last he stammered: ‘I won’t say anything to you about that usher, one of your protégé’s named Merle, I think. But he gets drunk and behaves insolently; and both the public and the clerks complain of him. All this is very annoying, very annoying indeed.’ Then he raised his voice, and concluded somewhat bluntly: ‘You have too many friends, Monsieur Rougon. All these people do you harm. It would be render­ing you a service to make you quarrel with them. Well, at any rate let me have the resignation of Monsieur du Poizat, and promise me that you will abandon all the others.’

Rougon had remained quite impassive. He now bowed, and replied in a deep, meaning voice: ‘On the contrary, sire, I ask your Majesty for the ribbon of officer of the Legion of Honour for the prefect of Deux Sèvres. And I have several other favours to solicit.’ Then he took a memorandum-book from his pocket, and continued: ‘Monsieur Béjuin begs that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to visit his cut-glass works at Saint-Florent, when you go to Bourges. Colonel Jobelin desires an appointment in the Imperial Palaces. The usher Merle calls your Majesty’s attention to the fact that he has gained the military medal, and desires a tobacco-agency for one of his sisters.’

‘Is that all?’ asked the Emperor, who had begun to smile again. ‘You are a magnificent patron. Your friends ought to worship you.’

‘No, they do not worship me, sire, they support me,’ Rougon replied with his blunt frankness.

This retort seemed to make a deep impression upon the Emperor. Rougon had just revealed to him the whole secret of his fidelity. On the day when he might allow his credit to stagnate, on that day his credit would be killed; and in spite of scandal, in spite of the discontent and treason of his hand, it was his only possession and support, and he was obliged to keep it sound and healthful, if he himself wished to remain unshattered. The more he got for his friends — the greater and the less deserved the favours that he lavished on them — the stronger he became himself.

He added very respectfully, and in a very meaning tone: ‘For the glory of your Majesty’s reign, I hope from the bottom of my heart that your Majesty may long preserve about you the devoted servants who helped you to restore the empire.’

The Emperor no longer smiled. He took a few steps about the room, with downcast eyes and pensive air. He seemed also to have turned pale and to be trembling slightly. Presentiments occasionally affected his mystical nature with great force. And to obviate the necessity of any immediate determination, he decided to drop the subject. He again assumed a kindly demeanour; and, referring to the discussion which had taken place at the council, seemed even inclined to think that Rougon was right, now that he could speak freely without any danger of irrevocably committing himself. The country, said he, was certainly not yet ripe for liberty. For a long time to come an energetic hand would be necessary to guide matters with resolution and firmness. Then he concluded by once more assuring the minister of his entire confidence. He gave him full liberty of action, and confirmed all his previous instructions. Rougon, however, thought it necessary to add another word on the subject.

‘Sire,’ he said, ‘I could never allow myself to be at the mercy of malevolent gossip. I stand in need of stability if I am to accomplish the great task for which I am now responsible.’

‘Monsieur Rougon,’ replied the Emperor, ‘go on fearlessly; I am with you.’

Then, bringing the conversation to a close, he stepped towards the door, followed by the minister. They both went out and crossed several apartments on their way to the dining-room. Just as they were reaching it, the Emperor turned round and again took Rougon aside. ‘You don’t approve, then,’ he asked, in an under-tone, ‘of that scheme for a new nobility? I should have been very glad to see you support it. Study the matter.’ Then, without waiting for a reply, he added with that quiet stubbornness which formed part of his character:
1
‘There’s no hurry, however. I will wait; for ten years, if it be necessary.’

After
déjeuner,
which lasted scarcely half an hour, the ministers went into a small adjoining drawing-room where coffee was served. They remained there chatting for a little time, standing round the Emperor. However, Clorinde, whom the Empress had kept with her all this time, came to look for her husband, with the easy manner of a woman who mixed freely with politicians. She shook hands with several of the ministers. They all clustered round her, and the subject of conversation was changed. However, his Majesty began to pay the young woman such marked attention, and kept so close to her, that their excellencies thought it discreet to take themselves off by degrees. Opening one of the glass doors which led on to the terrace of the château, four of them went outside, and these were speedily followed by three others. Only two remained in the room to keep up an appearance of propriety. The Minister of State, with a pleasant, cheery expression upon his aristocratic face, had taken Delestang in tow, and was pointing out Paris from the terrace. Rougon, likewise standing in the sunshine, also became absorbed in the spectacle of the great city looming like a mass of bluish cloud on the horizon beyond the great green carpet of the Bois de Boulogne.

That morning Clorinde was looking very beautiful. Clumsily dressed, as usual, with her gown of pale cherry-coloured silk dragging over the floor, she appeared to have slipped into her things in all haste, as if goaded on by some strong desire. She laughed with the Emperor, and her whole demeanour was very free and unreserved. She had made a conquest of his Majesty at a ball given by the Naval Minister which she had attended in the character of the Queen of Hearts, wearing diamond hearts about her neck and her wrists and her knees; and ever since that evening she had remained on very friendly terms with Napoléon, jesting playfully whenever he condescended to compliment her upon her beauty.

‘Look, Monsieur Delestang,’ the Minister of State was saying to his colleague on the terrace, ‘see yonder on the left, what a wonderfully soft blue hue there is about the dome of the Pantheon.’

Then, while Delestang gazed admiringly at the prospect, the Minister of State cast furtive glances into the little drawing-room through the open window. The Emperor was bending forward, and was speaking with his lips close to the young woman’s face, while she threw herself back with tightly strained breast as though to escape him. Nothing could be seen of his Majesty from outside save an indistinct profile, the tip of an ear, a long red nose, and a heavy mouth half-buried beneath a quivering moustache. His cheek and eyes were glowing, whilst Clorinde, who looked irritatingly fascinating, gently swayed her head like a coy young shepherdess.

In spite of all the unpleasantness at the council, Rougon returned to Paris with Delestang and Clorinde. On the journey home the young woman appeared anxious to make her peace with him. She no longer manifested that nervous restlessness which in the morning had impelled her to choose disagreeable subjects of conversation, but even occasionally looked at Rougon with an air of smiling compassion. When the landau, passing through the Bois de Boulogne, now steeped in sunshine, rolled gently alongside the lakes, she murmured with a sigh of enjoyment: ‘What a lovely day it is!’ Then, after a moment’s reverie, she said to her husband: ‘Tell me, is your sister, Madame de Combelot, still in love with the Emperor?’

‘Henriette is mad!’ replied Delestang, shrugging his shoulders.

But Rougon intervened: ‘Yes, indeed, she’s still in love,’ said he: ‘people assert that she actually threw herself at his Majesty’s feet one day. He raised her and advised her to be patient.’

‘Ah, yes, indeed,’ cried Clorinde gaily,
‘She’ll
have a long time to wait!’

CHAPTER XII

DEFECTION

Clorinde was now revelling in a florescence of fantasy and power. In character she was still the big eccentric girl who had scoured Paris on a livery-stable hack in search of a husband; but the big girl had developed into a woman, who calmly performed the most extraordinary actions, having at length realised her long-cherished dream of becoming a power. Her everlasting prowlings in out-of-the-way neigh­bourhoods, her correspondence which inundated the four corners of France and Italy with letters, her continued con­tact with politicians, into whose intimacy she managed to in­sinuate herself, and all her erratic schemings, full of gaps and illogical as they were, had ended in the acquirement of real and indisputable influence. She still indulged in strange eccentricities, and propounded wild schemes and extravagant hopes, even when she was talking seriously. And when she went out, she still took her tattered portfolio with her, carry­ing it in her arms like a baby, and with such an air of earnest­ness that people in the streets smiled as she passed them in her dirty, draggling skirts. However, she was consulted now, and even feared. No one could have exactly told the origin of her power, which seemed to come from numerous distant and invisible sources, now difficult to trace. Folks knew nothing but a few scraps of gossip, anecdotes that were whispered from ear to ear. There was something to mystify one in the young woman’s strangely compound character, in which wild imagination was linked to common sense which commanded attention and obedience, while apart from all mental attributes there was her magnificent person, in which, perhaps, lay the true secret of her power. It mattered little, however, upon what foundations Clorinde’s throne was reared. It was sufficient that she did reign, though it were in a whimsical, erratic fashion, and that people bowed down before her.

This was a real period of power for the young woman. In her dressing-room, amidst a litter of dirty basins, she con­trived to centralise the policy of all the courts of Europe. She received information, even detailed reports, in which the slightest pulsations of governmental life were carefully noted, before the embassies did, and without anyone knowing whence her news was derived. As a natural consequence she was surrounded by a court of bankers, and diplomatists, and friends, who came to her in the hope of obtaining information. The bankers showed her particular attention. She had enabled one of them to gain a hundred million francs in a single haul by merely telling him of an approaching change of ministry in a neighbouring state. Truth to tell, however, she disdained to employ her knowledge for purposes of gain, and she readily told all that she knew — the gossip of diplo­matists, and the talk of the different capitals — for the mere pleasure of hearing herself speak, and of showing that she had her eyes upon Turin, Vienna, Madrid, and London, as well as on Berlin and St. Petersburg. She could supply endless information concerning the health of the different sovereigns, their amours and habits, the politicians of the various states, and all the scandals of even the smallest Ger­man duchies. She judged statesmen in a single phrase; jumped from north to south without the slightest transition; spoke as carelessly of the different countries of Europe as if they had been her own, as if, indeed, the whole wide world, with its cities and nations, had formed part of a box of play­things, whose little cardboard houses and wooden men she could set up, and move about as she pleased. And, when at last her tongue ceased wagging, and she was tired of chatter­ing, she would snap her fingers, as though to say that this was quite as much as all these things were worth.

For the time being, amidst her many tangled schemes, there was one very serious matter which excited her warmest enthusiasm, and on which she tried her best to keep silent, though, occasionally, she could not deny herself the pleasure of alluding to it. She wanted Venice. Whenever she spoke of the great Italian minister, she referred to him familiarly as ‘Cavour.’ ‘Cavour,’ said she, ‘did not want it, but I want it, and he has understood.’ Morning and night she shut her­self up at the embassy with Chevalier Rusconi. And tran­quilly lounging, throwing back her narrow, but goddess-like brow, as if in a sort of somnambulism, she would utter scraps of disconnected sentences, shreds of revelations; a hint of a secret interview between the Emperor and some foreign statesman; a projected treaty of alliance, some clauses of which were still under discussion; a war which would take place in the coming spring. On other days she became excited and angry, kicked the chairs about her room and knocked the basins over at the risk of breaking them. On these occasions she looked like some angry queen who has been betrayed by imbecile ministers, and sees her kingdom going from bad to worse; and, with a tragic air, she would stretch her bare majestic arm in the direction of Italy and clench her fist, exclaiming: ‘Ah! if I were over yonder there would be none of this folly!’