Cousin Betty Part 56

He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field.

Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:--

"Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room.

"Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous prompt.i.tude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815.

"One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage.

Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office."

"ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default.

"Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared."

And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared:

"Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director."

"The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition.

The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Ma.s.sol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals."

Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circ.u.mvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire:

"The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe."

Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crus.h.i.+ng weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy."

Lisbeth, peeping through the c.h.i.n.k of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother.

The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years.

"Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.)

"You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute.

Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander.

By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold.

The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols.

"What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her.

"He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make rest.i.tution!

"I have been abased before the Conde of the Republic, the man I esteem above all others, and to whom I unjustifiably gave the lie--the Prince of Wissembourg!--Is that nothing? That is the score his country has against him!"

He wiped away a tear.

"Now, as to his family," he went on. "He is robbing you of the bread I had saved for you, the fruit of thirty years' economy, of the privations of an old soldier! Here is what was intended for you," and he held up the bank-notes. "He has killed his Uncle Fischer, a n.o.ble and worthy son of Alsace who could not--as he can--endure the thought of a stain on his peasant's honor.

"To crown all, G.o.d, in His adorable clemency, had allowed him to choose an angel among women; he has had the unspeakable happiness of having an Adeline for his wife! And he has deceived her, he has soaked her in sorrows, he has neglected her for prost.i.tutes, for street-hussies, for ballet-girls, actresses--Cadine, Josepha, Marneffe!--And that is the brother I treated as a son and made my pride!

"Go, wretched man; if you can accept the life of degradation you have made for yourself, leave my house! I have not the heart to curse a brother I have loved so well--I am as foolish about him as you are, Adeline--but never let me see him again. I forbid his attending my funeral or following me to the grave. Let him show the decency of a criminal if he can feel no remorse."

The Marshal, as pale as death, fell back on the settee, exhausted by his solemn speech. And, for the first time in his life perhaps, tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

"My poor uncle!" cried Lisbeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes.

"Brother!" said Adeline, kneeling down by the Marshal, "live for my sake. Help me in the task of reconciling Hector to the world and making him redeem the past."

"He!" cried the Marshal. "If he lives, he is not at the end of his crimes. A man who has misprized an Adeline, who has smothered in his own soul the feelings of a true Republican which I tried to instill into him, the love of his country, of his family, and of the poor--that man is a monster, a swine!--Take him away if you still care for him, for a voice within me cries to me to load my pistols and blow his brains out.

By killing him I should save you all, and I should save him too from himself."

The old man started to his feet with such a terrifying gesture that poor Adeline exclaimed:

"Hector--come!"

She seized her husband's arm, dragged him away, and out of the house; but the Baron was so broken down, that she was obliged to call a coach to take him to the Rue Plumet, where he went to bed. The man remained there for several days in a sort of half-dissolution, refusing all nourishment without a word. By floods of tears, Adeline persuaded him to swallow a little broth; she nursed him, sitting by his bed, and feeling only, of all the emotions that once had filled her heart, the deepest pity for him.

At half-past twelve, Lisbeth showed into her dear Marshal's room--for she would not leave him, so much was she alarmed at the evident change in him--Count Steinbock and the notary.

"Monsieur le Comte," said the Marshal, "I would beg you to be so good as to put your signature to a doc.u.ment authorizing my niece, your wife, to sell a bond for certain funds of which she at present holds only the reversion.--You, Mademoiselle Fischer, will agree to this sale, thus losing your life interest in the securities."

"Yes, dear Count," said Lisbeth without hesitation.

"Good, my dear," said the old soldier. "I hope I may live to reward you.

But I did not doubt you; you are a true Republican, a daughter of the people." He took the old maid's hand and kissed it.

"Monsieur Hannequin," he went on, speaking to the notary, "draw up the necessary doc.u.ment in the form of a power of attorney, and let me have it within two hours, so that I may sell the stock on the Bourse to-day.

My niece, the Countess, holds the security; she will be here to sign the power of attorney when you bring it, and so will mademoiselle. Monsieur le Comte will be good enough to go with you and sign it at your office."

The artist, at a nod from Lisbeth, bowed respectfully to the Marshal and went away.

Next morning, at ten o'clock, the Comte de Forzheim sent in to announce himself to the Prince, and was at once admitted.

"Well, my dear Hulot," said the Prince, holding out the newspapers to his old friend, "we have saved appearances, you see.--Read."

Marshal Hulot laid the papers on his comrade's table, and held out to him the two hundred thousand francs.

"Here is the money of which my brother robbed the State," said he.

"What madness!" cried the Minister. "It is impossible," he said into the speaking-trumpet handed to him by the Marshal, "to manage this rest.i.tution. We should be obliged to declare your brother's dishonest dealings, and we have done everything to hide them."

"Do what you like with the money; but the family shall not owe one sou of its fortune to a robbery on the funds of the State," said the Count.