He had no love of personal magnificence, no ambition even, but exerted great influence in public affairs. No important political step was ever taken without his being consulted, but he never went to Court, and was seldom seen in his own drawing-room. His noble life, devoted to work from the first, ended by being perpetual work and nothing else. The Count rose at four in the morning in all seasons, worked till midday, then took up his duties as a Peer, or as Vice-President of the Council, and went to bed at nine.
Monsieur de Sérizy had long worn the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor; he also had the orders of the Golden Fleece, of Saint Andrew of Russia, of the Prussian Eagle; in short, almost every order of the European Courts. No one was less conspicuous or more valuable than he in the world of politics. As may be supposed, to a man of his temper the flourish of Court favor and worldly success were a matter of indifference.
But no man, unless he is a priest, can live such a life without some strong motive; and his mysterious conduct had its key—a cruel one. The Count had loved his wife before he married her, and in him this passion had withstood all the domestic discomforts of matrimony with a widow who remained mistress of herself, after as well as before her second marriage, and who took all the more advantage of her liberty because Monsieur de Sérizy indulged her as a mother indulges a spoilt child. Incessant work served him as a shield against his heartfelt woes, buried with the care that a man engaged in politics takes to hide such secrets. And he fully understood how ridiculous jealousy would be in the eyes of the world, which would certainly never have admitted the possibility of conjugal passion in a timeworn official.
How was it that his wife had thus bewitched him from the first days of marriage? Why had he suffered in those early days without taking his revenge? Why did he no longer dare to be revenged? And why, deluded by hope, had he allowed time to slip away? By what means had his young, pretty, clever wife reduced him to subjection? The answer to these questions would require a long story, out of place in this “Scene,” and women, if not men, may be able to guess it. At the same time, it may be observed that the Count’s incessant work and many sorrows had unfortunately done much to deprive him of the advantages indispensable to a man who has to compete with unfavorable comparisons. The saddest perhaps of all the Count’s secrets was the fact that his wife’s repulsion was partly justified by ailments which he owed entirely to overwork. Kind, nay, more than kind, to his wife, he made her mistress in her own house; she received all Paris, she went into the country, or she came back again, precisely as though she were still a widow; he took care of her money, and supplied her luxuries as if he had been her agent.
The Countess held her husband in the highest esteem, indeed, she liked his turn of wit. Her approbation could give him pleasure, and thus she could do what she liked with the poor man by sitting and chatting with him for an hour. Like the great nobles of former days, the Count so effectually protected his wife that he wouid have regarded any slur cast on her reputation as an unpardonable insult to himself. The world greatly admired his character, and Madame de Sérizy owed much to her husband. Any other woman, even though she belonged to so distinguished a family as that of Ronquerolles, might have found herself disgraced forever. The Countess was very ungrateful—but charming in her ingratitude. And from time to time she would pour balm on the Count’s wounds.
We must now explain the cause of the Minister’s hurried journey and wish to remain unknown.
A rich farmer of Beaumont-sur-Oise, named Léger, held a farm of which the various portions were all fractions of the estate owned by the Count, thus impairing the splendid property of Presles. The farmlands belonged to a townsman of Beaumont-sur-Oise, one Margueron. The lease he had granted to Léger in 1799, at a time when the advance since made in agriculture could not be foreseen, was nearly run out, and the owner had refused Léger’s terms for renewing it. Long since, Monsieur de Sérizy, wanting to be quit of the worry and squabbling that come of such enclosed plots, had hoped to be able to buy the farm, having heard that Monsieur Margueron’s sole ambition was to see his only son, a modest official, promoted to be collector of the revenue at Senlis.
Moreau had hinted to his master that he had a dangerous rival in the person of old Léger. The farmer, knowing that he could run up the land to a high price by selling it piecemeal to the Count, was capable of paying a sum so high as to outbid the profit derivable from the collectorship to be bestowed on the younger Margueron. Two days since, the Count, who wanted to have done with the matter, had sent for his notary Alexandre Crottat, and Derville his solicitor, to inquire into the state of the affair. Though Crottat and Derville cast doubts on the Steward’s zeal—and, indeed, it was a puzzling letter from him that gave rise to this consultation—the Count defended Moreau, who
