Complete Works of Emile Zola (459 page)

‘
Ligeris
is the Loire,’ M. de la Villardière explained.

The Dijon notary briskly nodded his head to signify that he understood. Meanwhile his wife was examining the throne, an arm-chair slightly higher than the others, placed on a broad platform. She stood some little distance away from it, contemplating it with reverent emotion. Presently she sum­moned up sufficient courage to go nearer, and then, furtively raising its covering, she touched the gilded wood, and felt the crimson velvet.

However, M. La Rouquette was now scouring the right wing of the palace, with its interminable corridors and offices and committee-rooms. He returned by way of the Hall of the Four Columns, where young deputies dream of fame while gazing at the statues of Brutus, Solon, and Lycurgus. Then he cut across the large waiting hall, and hastily skirted a semi-circular gallery, like a sort of low crypt, as dim and as bare as a church, and lighted, day and night, by gas. Finally, quite breathless, and dragging after him the little troop of deputies whom he had gathered together, La Rouquette threw open one of the mahogany doors decorated with gold stars. M. de Combelot, his hands quite white, and his beard neatly combed, followed him, M. de la Villardière, having made his escape from his constituents, came on close behind, and they all rushed together into the assembly hall where the other deputies stood erect in their places, furiously shouting and waving their arms at a member in the tribune who seemed altogether unmoved by their cries.
1

‘Order! order! order!’ they shouted.

‘Order! order!’ cried M. La Rouquette and his friends, still louder than the others, though they knew absolutely nothing of what was going on.

The uproar was frightful. Some deputies were ragefully stamping their feet, while others kept up a noise like that of a fusillade by violently rattling the lids of their desks. Screaming and yelping voices rose, fifelike, amidst others which were gruff and full, and rumbled on like an organ accompaniment. Every now and then there was a slight lull in the din, and then jeers could be distinguished in the subsiding clamour, and some words even were plainly heard.

‘It is detestable! intolerable!’

‘He must withdraw it!’

‘Yes, yes! withdraw it!’

However, the cry that was stubbornly repeated, which ever and ever went on to the rhythmical stamping of heels was that of ‘Order! order! order!’ coming hoarsely, huskily, from a hundred dry throats.

The deputy in the tribune had crossed his arms, and was gazing calmly at his furious colleagues with barking faces and brandished arms. Twice, when the tumult seemed to subside, he attempted to continue his speech, but each time that he opened his mouth there came a renewal of the tempest, a fresh outburst of frantic rage. The din in the Chamber was fairly ear-splitting.

M. de Marsy, erect in his place, with his hand upon the button of his bell, was ringing a continuous summons to silence amidst the hurricane. His long pale face remained perfectly calm. For a moment even he ceased to ring; quietly drew down his wristbands, and then applied himself to his bell again. A faint, sceptical smile, which was almost habitual to him, played round his thin lips, and whenever the shouters grew weary he contented himself with repeating ‘Gentlemen, allow me, allow me!’

At last he obtained comparative silence; and then he re­sumed: ‘I call upon the member in the tribune to explain the words he just made use of.’

Thereupon the deputy in question, bending forward, with his hands resting on the edges of the tribune, repeated his words, emphasising them by a determined movement of the chin. ‘I said that what took place on the second of Decem­ber
1
was a crime — ‘

He was not allowed to proceed further. The storm broke out afresh. A deputy with flashed cheeks called him a murderer. Another applied such a filthy term to him that the shorthand writers smiled and refrained from reporting it. There was a cross-fire of exclamations which mingled together. However, M. La Rouquette could be heard repeating in his shrill voice: ‘He is insulting the Emperor! He is insulting France!’

M. de Marsy made a dignified gesture and then sat down. ‘I call the speaker to order,’ he said.

A long interval of agitation followed. This was no longer the drowsy Corps Législatif which five years previously had voted a credit of 400,000 francs for the Prince Impérial’s baptism. On a bench to the left were four deputies who applauded the language which had been used by their colleague in the tribune. There were now five of them who attacked the Empire.
2
They were already shaking it by their con­tinued efforts, refusing to recognise it or to vote for it, with an obstinate persistency which was destined to gradually rouse the whole country against it. These five deputies kept erect, tiny group though they were, amidst an overwhelming majority; and they replied to the threats and fists and clamorous browbeating of their colleagues without the least sign of discouragement, steadfast and fervent as they were in their desire for revenge.

The very hall itself, echoing with all the feverish excite­ment, seemed to have been changed. The tribune beneath the President’s desk had been set up again. The cold marbles and pompous columns round the amphitheatre appeared to gather warmth from all the ardent oratory; while the light that streamed from the ceiling window set the long tiers of crimson velvet seats ablaze amid the tempests of momentous debates. The massive presidential desk, with its severe panels, acquired life from the irony and impertinence of M. de Marsy, who with the slim figure of a worn-out man of pleasure showed like a thin line against the
bas relief
behind him. And only the symbolical statues of Public Order and Liberty, in their niches between the pairs of columns, preserved in­animate countenances and pupil-less stony eyes. However, that which more than anything else imparted increased life to the hall was the much larger number of spectators, all excitedly leaning forward and eagerly following the discus­sions. The upper tier of seats had now been revived, and the newspaper reporters had a special gallery to themselves. High aloft, near the heavily gilded cornice, numbers of heads were craned forward, a swarming, invading throng, which occasionally made the uneasy deputies glance aloft, as though they fancied they could hear the rushing tramp of the popu­lace on some day of insurrection.

However, the member in the tribune was still waiting for an opportunity to continue. ‘Gentlemen, to resume my argument,’ he said, amidst the noise which still rolled on. Then he paused, and in a louder voice, which made itself heard above the tumult, he exclaimed: ‘If the Chamber refuses to hear me, I shall leave the tribune with a pro­test.’

‘Go on! Go on!’ cried several deputies; and a thick husky voice growled out the words: ‘Go on; we shall know how to answer you.’ Then, all at once, there was complete silence. From all the seats and galleries, deputies and spectators craned their heads forward to look at Rougon, who had just made this observation. He sat in the front row with his elbows resting on the marble tablet before him. His broad bent back remained motionless save when now and then he slightly swayed his shoulders. His face was buried in his hands and could not be seen; however, he was listening. His
début
was awaited with great curiosity, for he had not yet spoken since he had been appointed a minister without portfolio. He probably divined that many eyes were fixed on him, for at last he turned his head and glanced round the Chamber. Opposite to him, in the ministers’ gallery, sat Clorinde, in a violet dress, with her elbows resting on the red velvet balustrade. She gazed at him with her wonted tranquil boldness. For a moment their eyes met, but they exchanged no smile of recognition. It was as though they had been perfect strangers. Then Rougon reverted to his previous position, burying his face in his hands, and again listening to the opposition deputy.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the latter, ‘I resume my argument. The liberties conceded by the decree of the twenty-fourth of November are perfectly illusory. We are still far away from the principles of ‘89 which are so ostentatiously inscribed at the head of the Imperial Constitution. If the government persists in arming itself with exceptional laws, if it continues to force its own candidates upon the country, if it refuses to free the press from arbitrary control, if, in a word, it still keeps France at its mercy, all the seeming concessions which it may make will be lying ones — ‘

At this the President intervened. ‘I cannot permit the speaker to use such a term,’ he said.

‘Hear, hear!’ cried the deputies on the right. The deputy in the tribune took up his phrase again and softened it. He now strove to be more temperate in his language, speaking in carefully rounded periods of great purity of style, which fell from his lips with a solemn rhythm. But M. de Marsy angrily objected to almost every expression he used. And then the deputy launched out into abstract oratory, vague sentences overladen with long words, which so veiled his real thoughts that the President was obliged to leave him alone. However, all at once the orator returned to his old manner.

‘To resume what I was saying. My friends and myself refuse to vote the first paragraph of the address in answer to the speech from the throne — ‘

‘We can get on very well without you!’ cried a voice; at which loud laughter sped along the benches.

‘We shall not vote in favour of the first paragraph of the address,’ quietly continued the representative of the opposition, ‘unless our amendment is adopted. We cannot join in returning exaggerated thanks to the Chief of the State when so many restrictions are imposed. Liberty is indivisible. It cannot be cut up into fragments and distributed in rations like alms.’

At this fresh shouts arose from every part of the Chamber. ‘Your liberty is license!’

‘Don’t talk about alms! You yourself are begging an unwholesome popularity!’

‘You’d be cutting off heads if you had your way!’

‘Our amendment,’ continued the deputy in the tribune, as though he had heard nothing of these cries, ‘asks for the repeal of the Public Safety Act, the liberty of the press, freedom of elections — ‘

Here there was another outbreak of laughter. One mem­ber exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by his neighbours: ‘Ah, my fine fellow, you’ll get nothing of all that!’ and another made mocking comments on every sentence that dropped from the speaker’s lips. The greater number, however, by way of amusing themselves, punctuated their colleague’s sentences by stealthily rapping their paper-knives on their desks, thus producing a rattling sound something like a roll of kettledrums, which quite drowned the speaker’s voice. Nevertheless, he struggled on to the end. Drawing himself up, he thundered forth his concluding words in such wise as to be heard above all the uproar. ‘Yes, we are revolutionists, if by revolutionists you mean men of progress, resolved upon winning liberty. Refuse the people liberty, and one day the people will seize it!’

Then he descended from the tribune, amidst a fresh out­burst. The deputies were no longer laughing like a lot of school-boys. They had risen to their feet, turning towards the left, and again shouting: ‘Order! order!’ The member of the opposition, who had regained his place, remained stand­ing among his friends. There was a deal of surging, and the majority seemed inclined to throw themselves on those five men who stood there so defiantly with pale faces. M. de Marsy, however, angrily rang his bell, glancing as he did so at the gallery, where several ladies were drawing back with an appearance of alarm.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it is scandalous.’ And then, silence being restored, he continued in a loud and keenly authoritative voice: ‘I do not wish to call the hon. member a second time to order. I will content myself with saying that it is disgraceful in the extreme to proffer from this tribune menaces which dishonour it.’
1

A triple burst of applause greeted these words from the President. The members of the majority cried ‘bravo!’ and again rattled their paper-knives, but this time in approbation. The opposition deputy wanted to say something in reply, but his friends restrained him. Then the tumult gradually sub­sided till there only remained a buzz of private conversa­tion.

‘I now call upon His Excellency Monsieur Rougon,’ re­sumed M. de Marsy in a quiet tone.

A thrill, a sigh of satisfaction as it were, ran through the Chamber, followed by earnest attention. With slouching gait Rougon had ponderously made his way into the tribune. He did not at first turn his eyes upon his audience, but laid a bundle of notes in front of him, pushed the glass of sugared water out of his way, and stretched his hands over the narrow mahogany table as though he were taking possession of it. Then at last, leaning against the President’s desk behind him, he raised his face. He did not seem to grow any older. His square brow, his large well shaped nose and his long cheeks, on which not a wrinkle showed, still had a pale rosy tint, the fresh complexion of some country notary. It was only his thick hair that had undergone any change. It had begun to grizzle and grow thinner about his temples, exposing his big ears. With eyes half-closed he glanced round the Chamber as if looking for some one; then his glance encountered the attentive face of Clorinde, who was leaning forward, and he began to speak in a heavy laborious way.

‘We too are revolutionists, if by that term is meant men of progress who are resolved to restore to the country, piece by piece, every reasonable liberty — ‘

‘Hear! hear!’

‘What government, gentlemen, has ever surpassed the Empire in according a generous measure of liberal reform, such as the alluring programme you have heard sketched out? It is not necessary that I should refute the speech of the honourable member who has just spoken. It will be sufficient to prove to you that the Emperor with his genius and noble heart has forestalled the demands of the most bitter opponents of his rule. Yes, gentlemen, of his own accord, our sovereign has re­stored to the nation the power with which it entrusted him during a period of public danger. A magnificent spectacle of which there are few parallels in history! Oh! we can easily understand the discomfiture experienced by certain lawless in­dividuals. They are reduced to attack our intentions, to carp at the measure of liberty which has been restored. But you have fully understood and appreciated, gentlemen, the great act of the twenty-fourth of November. In the first paragraph of the address it has been your desire to express to the Emperor your deep gratitude for his magnanimity and his confidence in the discretion of the Corps Législatif. To adopt the amendment which has been proposed to you would be a gratuitous insult. I will even say, an act of baseness. Consult your own consciences, gentlemen, and ask yourselves whether you do not feel that you are free. Liberty has been granted whole and entire — that I formally guarantee.’