The Deputy of Arcis

XIII

DORLANGE TO MARIE-GASTON

Arcis-sur-Aube, May 3, 1839.

Dear friend,—­Last evening, before Maitre Achille Pigoult, notary of this place, the burial of Charles Dorlange took place,—­that individual issuing to the world, like a butterfly from a grub, under the name and estate of Charles de Sallenauve, son of Francois-Henri-Pantaleon Dumirail, Marquis de Sallenauve.  Here follows the tale of certain facts which preceded this brilliant transformation.

Leaving Paris on the evening of May 1st, I arrived at Arcis, according to my father’s directions, on the following day.  You can believe my surprise when I saw in the street where the diligence stopped the elusive Jacques Bricheteau, whom I had not seen since our singular meeting on the Ile Saint-Louis.  This time I beheld him, instead of behaving like the dog of Jean de Nivelle, come towards me with a smile upon his lips, holding out his hand and saying:—­

“At last, my dear monsieur, we are almost at the end of all our mysteries, and soon, I hope, you will see that you have no cause to complain of me.  Have you brought the money?”

“Yes,” I replied, “neither lost nor stolen.”  And I drew from my pocket a wallet containing the two hundred and fifty thousand francs in bank notes.

“Very good!” said Jacques Bricheteau.  “Now let us go to the Hotel de la Poste; no doubt you know who awaits you there.”

“No, indeed I do not,” I replied.

“You must have remarked the name and title under which that money was paid to you?”

“Certainly; that strange circumstance struck me forcibly, and has, I must own, stirred my imagination.”

“Well, we shall now completely lift the veil, one corner of which we were careful to raise at first, so that you might not come too abruptly to the great and fortunate event that is now before you.”

“Am I to see my father?”

“Yes,” replied Jacques Bricheteau; “your father is awaiting you; but I must warn you against a probable cloud on his manner of receiving you.  The marquis has suffered much; the court life which he has always led has trained him to show no outward emotions; besides, he has a horror of everything bourgeois.  You must not be surprised, therefore, at the cold and dignified reception he will probably give you; at heart, he is good and kind, and you will appreciate him better when you know him.”

“Here,” thought I, “are very comforting assurances, and as I myself am not very ardently disposed, I foresee that this interview will be at some degrees below zero.”

On going into the room where the Marquis awaited me, I saw a very tall, very thin, very bald man, seated at a table on which he was arranging papers.  On hearing the door open, he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead, rested his hands on the arms of his chair, and looking round at us he waited.

“Monsieur le Comte de Sallenauve,” said Jacques Bricheteau, announcing me with the solemnity of an usher of ambassadors or a groom of the Chambers.

But in the presence of the man to whom I owed my life the ice in me was instantly melted; I stepped forward with an eager impulse, feeling the tears rise to my eyes.  He did not move.  There was not the faintest trace of agitation in his face, which had that peculiar look of high dignity that used to be called “the grand air”; he merely held out his hand, limply grasped mine, and then said: 

“Be seated, monsieur—­for I have not yet the right to call you my son.”

When Jacques Bricheteau and I had taken chairs—­

“Then you have no objection,” said this strange kind of father, “to assuming the political position we are trying to secure for you?”

“None at all,” said I.  “The notion startled me at first, but I soon grew accustomed to it; and to ensure success, I have punctually carried out all the instructions that were conveyed to me.”

“Excellent,” said the Marquis, taking up from the table a gold snuff-box which he twirled in his fingers.

Then, after a short silence, he added: 

“Now I owe you certain explanations.  Our good friend Jacques Bricheteau, if he will have the kindness, will lay them before you.”

This was equivalent to the royal formula of the old regime:  “My chamberlain will tell you the rest.”

“To go back to the origin of everything,” said Jacques Bricheteau, accepting the duty thus put upon him, “I must first tell you that you are not a legitimate Sallenauve.  When Monsieur le marquis, here present, returned after the emigration, in the year 1808, he made the acquaintance of your mother, and in 1809 you were born as the fruit of their intercourse.  Your birth, as you already know, cost your mother her life, and as misfortunes never come singly, Monsieur de Sallenauve was compromised in a conspiracy against the imperial power and compelled to fly the country.  Brought up in Arcis with me, the marquis, wishing to give me a proof of his friendship, confided to me, on his departure to this new expatriation, the care of your childhood.  I accepted that charge, I will not say with alacrity, but certainly with gratitude.”

At these words the marquis held out his hand to Jacques Bricheteau, who was seated near him, and after a silent pressure, which did not seem to me remarkably warm, Jacques Bricheteau continued:—­

“The mysterious precautions I was forced to take in carrying out my trust are explained by Monsieur le marquis’s position towards the various governments which have succeeded each other in France since the period of your birth.  Under the Empire, I feared that a government little indulgent to attacks upon itself might send you to share your father’s exile; it was then that the idea of giving you a sort of anonymous existence first occurred to me.  Under the Restoration I feared for you another class of enemies; the Sallenauve family, which has no other representatives at the present day than Monsieur le marquis, was then powerful.  In some way it got wind of your existence, and also of the fact that the marquis had taken the precaution not to recognize you, in order to retain the right to leave you his whole fortune, which, as a natural child, the law would in part have deprived you.  The obscurity in which I kept you seemed to me the best security, against the schemes of greedy relations, and certain mysterious steps taken by them from time to time proved the wisdom of these precautions.  Under the government of July, on the other hand, it was I myself who I feared might endanger you.  I had seen the establishment of the new order of things with the deepest regret, and not believing in its duration, I took part in certain active hostilities against it, which brought me under the ban of the police.”

Here the recollection that Jacques Bricheteau had been pointed out by the waiter of the Cafe des Arts as a member of the police made me smile, whereupon the speaker stopped and said with a very serious air:—­

“Do these explanations which I have the honor to give you seem improbable?”

I explained the meaning of my smile.

“That waiter,” said Jacques Bricheteau, “was not altogether mistaken; for I have long been employed at the prefecture of police in the health department; but I have nothing to do with police espial; on the contrary, I have more than once come near being the victim of it.”

Here a rather ridiculous noise struck our ears, nothing less than a loud snore from my father, who thus gave us to know that he did not take a very keen interest in the explanations furnished in his name with a certain prolixity.  I don’t know whether Jacques Bricheteau’s vanity being touched put him slightly out of temper, but he rose impatiently and shook the arm of the sleeper, crying out:—­

“Hey! marquis, if you sleep like this at the Council of state, upon my soul, your country must be well governed!”

Monsieur de Sallenauve opened his eyes, shook himself, and then said, turning to me:—­

“Pardon me, Monsieur le comte, but for the last ten nights I have travelled, without stopping, to meet you here; and though I spent the last night in a bed, I am still much fatigued.”

So saying he rose, took a large pinch of snuff, and began to walk up and down the room, while Jacques Bricheteau continued:—­

“It is a little more than a year since I received a letter from your father explaining his long silence, the plans he had made for you, and the necessity he was under of keeping his incognito for a few years longer.  It was at that very time that you made your attempt to penetrate a secret the existence of which had become apparent to you.”

“You made haste to escape me,” I said laughing.  “It was then you went to Stockholm.”

“No, I went to your father’s residence; I put the letter that he gave me for you into the post at Stockholm.”

“I do not seize your—­”

“Nothing is easier to understand,” interrupted the marquis.  “I do not reside in Sweden, and we wished to throw you off the track.”

“Will you continue the explanation yourself?” asked Jacques Bricheteau, who spoke, as you may have observed, my dear friend, with elegance and fluency.

“No, no, go on,” said the marquis; “you are giving it admirably.”

“Feeling certain that your equivocal position as to family would injure the political career your father desired you to enter, I made that remark to him in one of my letters.  He agreed with me, and resolved to hasten the period of your legal recognition, which, indeed, the extinction of the family in its other branch rendered desirable.  But the recognition of a natural son is a serious act which the law surrounds with many precautions.  Deeds must be signed before a notary, and to do this by power of attorney would involve both in a publicity which he is anxious for the present to avoid, he being married, and, as it were, naturalized in the country of his adoption.  Hence, he decided to come here himself, obtaining leave of absence for a few weeks, in order to sign in person all papers necessary to secure to you his name and property in this country.  Now let me put to you a final question.  Do you consent to take the name of de Sallenauve and be recognized as his son?”

“I am not a lawyer,” I answered; “but it seems to me that, supposing I do not feel honored by this recognition, it does not wholly depend on me to decline it.”

“Pardon me,” replied Jacques Bricheteau; “under the circumstances you could, if you chose, legally contest the paternity.  I will also add, —­and in doing so I am sure that I express the intentions of your father,—­if you think that a man who has already spent half a million on furthering your career is not a desirable father, we leave you free to follow your own course, and shall not insist in any way.”

“Precisely, precisely,” said Monsieur de Sallenauve, uttering that affirmation with the curt intonation and shrill voice peculiar to the relics of the old aristocracy.

Politeness, to say the least, forced me to accept the paternity thus offered to me.  To the few words I uttered to that effect, Jacques Bricheteau replied gaily:—­

“We certainly do not intend to make you buy a father in a poke.  Monsieur le marquis is desirous of laying before you all title-deeds and documents of every kind of which he is the present holder.  Moreover, as he has been so long absent from this country, he intends to prove his identity by several of his contemporaries who are still living.  For instance, among the honorable personages who have already recognized him I may mention the worthy superior of the Ursuline convent, Mother Marie-des-Anges, for whom, by the bye, you have done a masterpiece.”

“Faith, yes,” said the marquis, “a pretty thing, and if you turn out as well in politics—­”

“Well, marquis,” interrupted Jacques Bricheteau, who seemed to me inclined to manage the affair, “are you ready to proceed with our young friend to the verification of the documents?”

“That is unnecessary,” I remarked, and did not think that by this refusal I pledged my faith too much; for, after all, what signify papers in the hands of a man who might have forged them or stolen them?  But my father would not consent; and for more than two hours they spread before me parchments, genealogical trees, contracts, patents, documents of all kinds, from which it appeared that the family of Sallenauve is, after that of Cinq-Cygne, the most ancient family in the department of the Aube.  I ought to add that the exhibition of these archives was accompanied by an infinite number of spoken details which seemed to make the identity of the Marquis de Sallenauve indisputable.  On all other subjects my father is laconic; his mental capacity does not seem to me remarkable, and he willingly allowed his mouthpiece to talk for him.  But here, in the matter of his parchments, he was loquaciously full of anecdotes, recollections, heraldic knowledge; in short, he was exactly the old noble, ignorant and superficial in all things, but possessed of Benedictine erudition where the genealogy of his family was concerned.

The session would, I believe, be still going on, if Jacques Bricheteau had not intervened.  As the marquis was preparing to read a voluminous memorandum refuting a chapter in Tallemant des Reaux’ “Historiettes” which did not redound to the credit of the great house of Sallenauve, the wise organist remarked that it was time we dined, if we intended to keep an appointment already made for seven o’clock at the office of Maitre Achille Pigoult the notary.

We dined, not at the table-d’hote, but in private, and the dinner seemed very long on account of the silent preoccupation of the marquis, and the slowness with which, owing to his loss of teeth, he swallowed his food.

At seven o’clock we went to the notary’s office; but as it is now two o’clock in the morning, and I am heavy with sleep, I shall put off till to-morrow an account of what happened there.

May 4, 5 A.M.

I reckoned on peaceful slumbers, embellished by dreams.  On the contrary, I did not sleep an hour, and I have waked up stung to the heart by an odious thought.  But before I transmit that thought to you, I must tell you what happened at the notary’s.

Maitre Achille Pigoult, a puny little man, horribly pitted with the small-pox, and afflicted with green spectacles, above which he darts glances of vivacious intelligence, asked us if we felt warm enough, the room having no fire.  Politeness required us to say yes, although he had already given signs of incendiarism by striking a match, when, from a distant and dark corner of the room, a broken, feeble voice, the owner of which we had not as yet perceived, interposed to prevent the prodigality.

“No, Achille, no, don’t make a fire,” said an old man.  “There are five in the room, and the lamp gives out a good heat; before long the room would be too hot to bear.”

Hearing these words, the marquis exclaimed:—­

“Ah! this is the good Monsieur Pigoult, formerly justice of the peace.”

Thus recognized, the old man rose and went up to my father, into whose face he peered.

“Parbleu!” he cried, “I recognize you for a Champagnard of the vieille roche.  Achille did not deceive me in declaring that I should see two of my former acquaintances.  You,” he said, addressing the organist, “you are little Bricheteau, the nephew of our good abbess, Mother Marie-des-Anges; but as for that tall skeleton, looking like a duke and peer, I can’t recall his name.  However, I don’t blame my memory; after eighty-six years’ service it may well be rusty.”

“Come, grandfather,” said Achille Pigoult, “brush up your memory; and you, gentlemen, not a word, not a gesture.  I want to be clear in my own mind.  I have not the honor to know the client for whom I am asked to draw certain deeds, and I must, as a matter of legal regularity, have him identified.”

While his son spoke, the old man was evidently straining his memory.  My father, fortunately, has a nervous twitching of the face, which increased under the fixed gaze his certifier fastened upon him.

“Hey! parbleu!  I have it!” he cried.  “Monsieur is the Marquise de Sallenauve, whom we used to call the ‘Grimacer,’ and who would now be the owner of the Chateau d’Arcis if, instead of wandering off, like the other fools, into emigration, he had stayed at home and married his pretty cousin.”

“You are still sans-culotte, it seems,” said the marquis, laughing.

“Messieurs,” said the notary, gravely, “the proof I had arranged for myself is conclusive.  This proof, together with the title-deeds and documents Monsieur le marquis has shown to me, and which he deposits in my hands, together with the certificate of identity sent to me by Mother Marie-des-Anges, who cannot, under the rules of her Order, come to my office, are sufficient for the execution of the deeds which I have here—­already prepared.  The presence of two witnesses is required for one of them.  Monsieur Bricheteau will, of course, be the witness on your side and on the other my father, if agreeable to you; it is an honor that, as I think, belongs to him of right, for, as one may say, this matter has revived his memory.”

“Very good, messieurs, let us proceed,” said Jacques Bricheteau, heartily.

The notary sat down at his desk; the rest of us sat in a circle around him, and the reading of the first document began.  Its purport was to establish, authentically, the recognition made by Francois-Henri-Pantaleon Dumirail, Marquis de Sallenauve, of me, his son.  But in the course of the reading a difficulty came up.  Notarial deeds must, under pain of being null and void, state the domicile of all contracting parties.  Now, where was my father’s domicile?  This part had been left in blank by the notary, who now insisted on filling it before proceeding farther.

“As for this domicile,” said Achille Pigoult, “Monsieur le marquis appears to have none in France, as he does not reside in this country, and has owned no property here for a long time.”

“It is true,” said the marquis, seeming to put more meaning into his words than they naturally carried, “I am a mere vagabond in France.”

“Ah!” said Jacques Bricheteau, “vagabonds like you, who can present their sons with the necessary sums to buy estates, are not to be pitied.  Still, the remark is a just one, not only as to France, but as to your residence in foreign countries.  With your eternal mania for roving, it is really very difficult to assign you a domicile.”

“Well,” said Achille Pigoult, “it does not seem worth while to let so small a matter stop us.  Monsieur,” he continued, motioning to me, “is now the owner of the Chateau d’Arcis, for an engagement to sell is as good as the sale itself.  What more natural, therefore, than that the father’s domicile should be stated as being on his son’s estate, especially as this is really the family property now returned into the hands of the family, being purchased by the father for the son, particularly as that father is known and recognized by some of the oldest and most important inhabitants of the place?”

“Yes, that is true,” said old Pigoult, adopting his son’s opinion without hesitation.

“In short,” said Jacques Bricheteau, “you think the matter can go on.”

“You see that my father, a man of great experience, did not hesitate to agree with me.  We say, therefore,” continued the notary, taking up his pen, “Francois-Henri-Pantaleon Dumirail, Marquis de Sallenauve, domiciled with Monsieur Charles de Sallenauve, his natural son, by him legally recognized, in the house known as the Chateau d’Arcis, arrondissement of Arcis-sur-Aube, department of the Aube.”

The rest of the deed was read and executed without comment.

Then followed a rather ridiculous scene.

“Now, Monsieur le comte,” said Jacques Bricheteau, “embrace your father.”

The marquis opened his arms rather indifferently, and I coldly fell into them, vexed with myself for not being deeply moved and for not hearing in my heart the voice of kindred.  Was this barrenness of emotion the result of my sudden accession to wealth?  A moment later a second deed made me possessor, on payment of one hundred and eighty thousand francs in ready money, of the Chateau d’Arcis,—­a grand edifice which had caught my eye, on my first arrival in the town, by its lordly and feudal air.

“You may congratulate yourselves,” said Achille Pigoult, “that you have got that estate for a song.”

“Come, come!” said Jacques Bricheteau, “how long have you had it on your hands to sell?  Your client would have let it go for one hundred and fifty thousand to others, but, as family property, you thought you could get more from us.  We shall have to spend twenty thousand to make the house habitable; the land doesn’t return a rental of more than four thousand; so that our money, all expenses deducted, won’t return us more than two and a half per cent.”

“What are you complaining about?” returned Achille Pigoult.  “You have employment to give and money to pay in the neighborhood, and what can be better for a candidate?”

“Ah! that electoral business,” said Jacques Bricheteau; “we will talk about that to-morrow when we bring you the purchase-money and your fees.”

Thereupon we took leave, and returned to the Hotel de la Poste, where I bade good-night to my father and came to my room to write to you.

Now I must tell you the terrible idea that drove sleep from my brain and put the pen once more in my hand,—­although I am somewhat distracted from it by writing the foregoing two pages, and I do not see quite as much evidence for my notion as I did before I renewed this letter.

One thing is certain:  during the last year many romantic incidents have happened to me.  You may say that adventure seems to be the logical way of life for one in my position; that my birth, the chances that brought you (whose fate is so like mine) and me together, my relations with Marianina and my handsome housekeeper, and perhaps I might say with Madame de l’Estorade, all point to the possession of a fickle star, and that my present affair is only one of its caprices.

True; but what if, at the present moment under the influence of that star, I were implicated without my knowledge in some infernal plot of which I was made the passive instrument?

To put some order into my ideas, I begin by this half-million spent for an interest which you must agree is very nebulous,—­that of fitting me to succeed my father in the ministry of some imaginary country, the name of which is carefully concealed from me.

Next:  who is spending these fabulous sums on me?  Is it a father tenderly attached to a child of love?  No, it is a father who shows me the utmost coldness, who goes to sleep when deeds which concern our mutual existence are being drawn, and for whom I, on my side, am conscious of no feeling; in fact, not to mince my words, I should think him a great booby of an emigre if it were not for the filial respect and duty I force myself to feel for him.

But—­suppose this man were not my father, not even the Marquis de Sallenauve, as he asserts himself to be; suppose, like that unfortunate Lucien de Rubempre, whose history has made so much noise, I were caught in the toils of a serpent like that false abbe Don Carlos Herrera, and had made myself liable to the same awful awakening.  You may say to me that you see no such likelihood; that Carlos Herrera had an object in fascinating Lucien and making him his double; but that I, an older man with solid principles and no love of luxury, who have lived a life of thought and toil, should fear such influence, is nonsense.

So be it.  But why should the man who recognizes me as his son conceal the very country in which he lives, and the name by which he is known in that equally nameless Northern land which it is intimated that he governs?  Why make such sacrifices for my benefit and show so little confidence?  And see the mystery with which Jacques Bricheteau has surrounded my life!  Do you think that that long-winded explanation of his explained it?

All this, my dear friend, rolling in my head and clashing with that half-million already paid to me, has given substance to a strange idea, at which you may perhaps laugh, but which, nevertheless, is not without precedent in criminal annals.

I told you just now that this thought invaded me as it were suddenly; it came like an instinct upon me.  Assuredly, if I had had the faintest inkling of it last evening, I would have cut off my right hand sooner than sign that deed by which I have henceforth bound my fate to that of an unknown man whose past and future may be as gloomy as a canto of Dante’s Hell, and who may drag me down with him into utter darkness.

In short, this idea—­round which I am making you circle because I cannot bring myself to let you enter it—­here it is, in all its crudity; I am afraid of being, without my knowledge, the agent, the tool of those associations of false coiners who are known in criminal records to concoct schemes as complicated and mysterious as the one I am now involved in, in order to put into circulation the money they coin.  In all such cases you will find great coming and going of accomplices; cheques drawn from a distance on the bankers in great commercial centres like Paris, Stockholm, Rotterdam.  Often one hears of poor dupes compromised.  In short, do you not see in the mysterious ways of this Bricheteau something like an imitation, a reflection of the manoeuvres to which these criminal workers are forced to have recourse, arranging them with a talent and a richness of imagination to which a novelist can scarcely attain?

One thing is certain:  there is about me a thick unwholesome atmosphere, in which I feel that air is lacking and I cannot breathe.  However, assure me, if you can, persuade me, I ask no better, that this is all an empty dream.  But in any case I am determined to have a full explanation with these two men to-morrow, and to obtain, although so late, more light than they have yet doled out to me. . . .

Another and yet stranger fact!  As I wrote those last words, a noise of horses’ hoofs came from the street.  Distrustful now of everything, I opened my window, and in the dawning light I saw a travelling carriage before the door of the inn, the postilion in the saddle, and Jacques Bricheteau talking to some one who was seated in the vehicle.  Deciding quickly on my action, I ran rapidly downstairs; but before I reached the bottom I heard the roll of wheels and the cracking of the postilion’s whip.  At the foot of the staircase I came face to face with Jacques Bricheteau.  Without seeming embarrassed, in fact with the most natural air in the world, he said to me,—­

“What! my dear ward already up?”

“Of course; the least I could do was to say farewell to my excellent father.”

“He did not wish it,” replied that damned musician, with an imperturbability and phlegm that deserved a thrashing; “he feared the emotions of parting.”

“Is he so dreadfully hurried that he could not even give a day to his new and ardent paternity?”

“The truth is, he is an original; what he came to do, he has done; after that, to his mind, there is nothing to stay for.”

“Ah!  I understand; he hastens to those high functions he performs at that Northern court!”

Jacques Bricheteau could no longer mistake the ironical tone in which these words were said.

“Until now,” he said, “you have shown more faith.”

“Yes; but I confess that faith begins to stagger under the weight of the mysteries with which it is loaded down without relief.”

“Seeing you at this decisive moment in your career giving way to doubts which our whole conduct pursued to you through many years ought to refute, I should be almost in despair,” replied Jacques Bricheteau, “if I had none but personal denials and asseverations to offer you.  But, as you will remember, old Pigoult spoke of an aunt of mine, living in this neighborhood, where you will soon, I hope, find her position a most honorable one.  I had arranged that you should see her in the course of the day; but now, if you will grant me the time to shave, I will take you at once, early as it is, to the convent of the Ursulines.  There you shall question Mother Marie-des-Anges, who has the reputation of a saint throughout this whole department, and I think that at the close of your interview with her no doubt can remain upon your mind.”

While that devil of a man was speaking, his countenance had so perfect a look of integrity and benevolence, his speech, always calm, elegant, and self-possessed, so impressed the mind of his hearer, that I felt the tide of my anger going down and my sense of security rising.

In fact, his answer is irresistible.  The convent of the Ursuline sisters—­heavens and earth! that can’t be the rendezvous of makers of false coin; and if the Mother Marie-des-Anges guarantees my father to me, as it appears she has already done to the notary, I should be foolish indeed to persist in my doubts.

“Very good,” I said to Jacques Bricheteau, “I will go up and get my hat and walk up and down the bank of the river until you are ready.”

“That’s right; and be sure you watch the door of the hotel to see that I do not give you the slip as I did once upon a time on the Quai de Bethune.”

Impossible to be more intelligent than that man; he seems to divine one’s thoughts.  I was ashamed of this last doubt of mine, and told him that, on the whole, I would go and finish a letter while awaiting him.  It was this letter, dear friend, which I must now close if I wish it to go by to-day’s post.  I will write you soon of my visit to the convent.