The Deputy of Arcis

VII

THE BEAUVISAGE FAMILY

During the reaction of 1815, a Vicomte de Chargeboeuf (of the poorer branch of the family) was sent to Arcis as sub-prefect through the influence of the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne, to whose family he was allied.  This young man remained sub-prefect for five years.  The beautiful Madame Beauvisage was not, it was said, a stranger to the reasons that kept him in this office for a period far too prolonged for his own advancement.  We ought to say, however, that these remarks were not justified by any of the scandals which in the provinces betray those passions that are difficult to conceal from the Argus-eyes of a little town.  If Severine loved the Vicomte de Chargeboeuf and was beloved by him, it was in all honor and propriety, said the friends of the Grevins and the Marions; and that double coterie imposed its opinion on the whole arrondissement; but the Marions and the Grevins had no influence on the royalists, and the royalists regarded the sub-prefect as fortunate in love.

As soon as the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne heard what was said in the chateaux about her relation, she sent for him; and such was her horror for all who were connected, near or far, with the actors in the judicial drama so fatal to her family, that she strictly enjoined him to change his residence.  Not only that, but she obtained his appointment as sub-prefect of Sancerre with the promise of advancement to the prefecture.

Some shrewd observers declared that the viscount pretended this passion for the purpose of being made prefect; for he well knew the hatred felt by the marquise for the name of Grevin.  Others remarked on the coincidence of the viscount’s apparitions in Paris with the visits made by Madame Beauvisage to the capital on frivolous pretexts.  An impartial historian would be puzzled to form a just opinion on the facts of this matter, which are buried in the mysteries of private life.  One circumstance alone seems to give color to the reports.

Cecile-Renee Beauvisage was born in 1820, just as Monsieur de Chargeboeuf left Arcis, and among his various names was that of Rene.  This name was given by the Comte de Gondreville as godfather of the child.  Had the mother objected to the name, she would in some degree have given color to the rumor.  As gossip always endeavors to justify itself, the giving of this name was said to be a bit of maliciousness on the part of the old count.  Madame Keller, the count’s daughter, who was named Cecile, was the godmother.  As for the resemblance shown in the person of Cecile-Renee Beauvisage, it was striking.  This young girl was like neither father nor mother; in course of time she had become the living image of the Vicomte de Chargeboeuf, whose aristocratic manners she had also acquired.  This double resemblance, both moral and physical, was not observed by the inhabitants of Arcis, for the viscount never returned to that town.

Severine made her husband happy in his own way.  He liked good living and everything easy about him; she supplied him with the choicest wines, a table worthy of a bishop, served by the best cook in the department but without the pretensions of luxury; for she kept her household strictly to the conditions of the burgher life of Arcis.  It was a proverb in Arcis that you must dine with Madame Beauvisage and spend your evening with Madame Marion.

The renewed influence in the arrondissement of Arcis which the Restoration gave to the house of Cinq-Cygne had naturally drawn closer the ties that bound together the various families affected by the criminal trial relating to the abduction of Gondreville. [See “An Historical Mystery.”] The Marions, Grevins, and Giguets were all the more united because the triumph of their political opinions, called “constitutional,” now required the utmost harmony.

As a matter of policy Severine encouraged her husband to continue his trade in hosiery, which any other man but himself would have long renounced; and she sent him to Paris, and about the country, on business connected with it.  Up to the year 1830 Phileas, who was thus enabled to exercise his bump of “acquisitiveness,” earned every year a sum equivalent to his expenses.  The interest on the property of Monsieur and Madame Beauvisage, being capitalized for the last fifteen years by Grevin’s intelligent care, became, by 1830, a round sum of half a million francs.  That sum was, in fact, Cecile’s dot, which the old notary then invested in the Three-per-cents at fifty, producing a safe income of thirty thousand a year.

After 1830 Beauvisage sold his business in hosiery to Jean Violette, one of his agents (grandson of one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution in the Simeuse trial), the proceeds of which amounted to three hundred thousand francs.  Monsieur and Madame Beauvisage had also in prospect their double inheritance from old Grevin on one side, and the old farmer’s wife Beauvisage on the other.  Great provincial fortunes are usually the product of time multiplied by economy.  Thirty years of old age make capital.

In giving to Cecile-Renee a dot of fifty thousand francs a year, her parents still reserved for themselves the two inheritances, thirty thousand a year on the Grand Livre, and their house in Arcis.

If the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne were only dead, Cecile might assuredly marry the young marquis; but the health of that great lady, who was still vigorous and almost beautiful at sixty years of age, precluded all hope of such a marriage if it even entered the minds of Grevin and his daughter, as some persons, surprised at their rejection of eligible suitors like the sub-prefect and the procureur-du-roi, declared that it did.

The Beauvisage residence, one of the best in Arcis, stands on the Place du Pont on a line with the rue Vide-Bourse, at the corner of the rue du Pont, which leads to the Place de l’Eglise.  Though, like many provincial houses, without either court or garden, it produces a certain effect, in spite of its ornamentation in bad taste.  The front door opens on the Place; the windows of the ground-floor look out on the street-side towards the post-house and inn, and command beyond the Place a rather picturesque view of the Aube, the navigation of which begins at the bridge.  Beyond the bridge is another little Place or square, on which lives Monsieur Grevin, and from which the high-road to Sezanne starts.

On the street and on the square, the Beauvisage house, painted a spotless white, looks as though built of stone.  The height of the windows and their external mouldings contribute to give a certain style to the house which contrasts strongly with the generally forlorn appearance of the houses of Arcis, constructed, as we have already said, of wood, and covered with plaster, imitating the solidity of stone.  Still, these houses are not without a certain originality, through the fact that each architect, or each burgher, has endeavored to solve for himself the problem of styles of building.

The bridge at Arcis is of wood.  About four hundred feet above the bridge the river is crossed by another bridge, on which rise the tall wooden sides of a mill with several sluices.  The space between the public bridge and this private bridge forms a basin, on the banks of which are several large houses.  By an opening between the roofs can be seen the height on which stands the chateau of Arcis with its park and gardens, its outer walls and trees which overhand the river above the bridges, and the rather scanty pastures of the left bank.

The sound of the water as it runs through the courses above the dam, the music of the wheels, from which the churned water falls back into the basin in sparkling cascades, animate the rue du Pont, contrasting in this respect with the tranquillity of the river flowing downward between the garden of Monsieur Grevin, whose house is at one angle of the bridge on the left bank, and the port where the boats and barges discharge their merchandise before a line of poor but picturesque houses.

Nothing can better express provincial life than the deep silence that envelops the little town and reigns in its busiest region.  It is easy to imagine, therefore, how disquieting the presence of a stranger, if he only spends half a day there, may be to the inhabitants; with what attention faces protrude from the windows to observe him, and also the condition of espial in which all the residents of the little place stand to each other.  Life has there become so conventional that, except on Sundays and fete-days, a stranger meets no one either on the boulevards or the Avenue of Sighs, not even, in fact, upon the streets.

It will now be readily understood why the ground-floor of the Beauvisage house is on a level with the street and square.  The square serves as its courtyard.  Sitting at his window the eyes of the late hosier could take in the whole of the Place de l’Eglise, the two squares of the bridge, and the road to Sezanne.  He could see the coaches arriving and the travellers descending at the post-inn; and on court days he could watch the proceedings around the offices of the mayor and the justice of peace.  For these reasons, Beauvisage would not have exchanged his house for the chateau, in spite of its lordly air, its stone walls, and its splendid situation.