The hapless Abbé, quite bewildered, exclaimed:
“Ah! then Chapeloud was right when he said that if Troubert could drag him out of his grave by the heels, he would do it!—He sleeps in Chapeloud’s bed!”
“It is no time for lamentations,” said Madame de Listomère. “We have no time to spare. Come—”
Birotteau was too kindhearted not to submit in any great crisis to the impulsive self-sacrifice of the first moment. But, in any case, his life already was but one long martyrdom. He answered with a heartbroken look at his protectress, which wrung her soul:
“I am in your hands. I am no more than a straw in the street!”
The local word he used, bourrier, is peculiar to Touraine, and its only liberal rendering is a straw. But there are pretty little straws, yellow, shiny, and smart, the delight of children; while a bourrier is a dirty, colorless, miry straw, left in the gutter, driven by the wind, crushed by the foot of every passerby.
“But, madame,” he went on, “I should not wish to leave the portrait of Chapeloud for the Abbé Troubert. It was done for me, and belongs to me; get that back for me, and I will give up everything else.”
“Well,” said Madame de Listomère, “I will go to Mademoiselle Gamard.” She spoke in a tone which showed what an extraordinary effort the Baronne de Listomère was making in stooping to flatter the old maid’s conceit. “And I will try to settle everything,” she went on. “I hardly dare hope it.—Go and see Monsieur de Bourbonne. Get him to draw up your act of renunciation in due form, and bring it to me signed and witnessed. With the help of the Archbishop, I may perhaps get the thing settled.”
Birotteau went away overpowered. Troubert had assumed in his eyes the proportions of an Egyptian pyramid. The man’s hands were in Paris, and his elbows in the Close of Saint-Gatien.
“He,” said he to himself, “to hinder Monsieur le Marquis de Listomère being made a peer of France!—And then, ‘With the help of the Archbishop, perhaps get the thing settled!’ ”
In comparison with such high interests, Birotteau felt himself a grasshopper; he was honest to himself.
The news of Birotteau’s removal was all the more astounding because the reason was undiscoverable. Madame de Listomère gave out that as her nephew wished to marry and retire from the service, she needed the Abbé’s room, to add to her own. No one as yet had heard that Birotteau had withdrawn the action. Monsieur de Bourbonne’s instructions were thus judiciously carried out.
These two pieces of news, when they should reach the ears of the Vicar-General, must certainly flatter his vanity, by showing him that, though the Listomère family would not capitulate, it would at least remain neutral, tacitly recognizing the secret power of the Church Council; and was not recognition submission? Still, the action remained sub judice. Was not this to yield and to threaten?
Thus the Listomères had assumed an attitude precisely similar to that of the Abbé Troubert in this contest; they stood aside, and could direct their forces.
But a serious event now occurred, and added to their difficulties, hindering the success of the means by which Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Listomères hoped to mollify the Gamard and Troubert faction. On the previous day Mademoiselle Gamard had taken a chill on coming out of the Cathedral, had gone to bed, and was reported to be seriously ill. The whole town rang with lamentations, excited by spurious commiseration. “Mademoiselle Gamard’s highly-strung sensibilities had succumbed to the scandal of this lawsuit. Though she was undoubtedly in the right, she was dying of grief. Birotteau had killed his benefactress.” This was the sum and substance of the phrases fired off through the capillary ducts of the great feminine synod, and readily repeated by the town of Tours.
Madame de Listomère suffered the humiliation of calling on the old woman without gaining anything by her visit. She very politely requested to be allowed to speak to the Vicar-General. Flattered, perhaps, at receiving a woman who had slighted him, in Chapeloud’s library, by the fireplace over which the two famous pictures in dispute were hanging, Troubert kept the Baroness waiting a minute, then he consented to see her.
No courtier, no diplomat, ever threw into the discussion of private interests or national negotiations greater skill, dissimulation, and depth of purpose than the Baroness and the Abbé displayed when they found themselves face to face.
Old Bourbonne, like the sponsor, in the Middle Ages, who armed the champion, and fortified his courage by good counsel as he entered the lists, had instructed the Baroness:
“Do not forget your part; you are a peacemaker, and not an interested party. Troubert likewise is a mediator. Weigh your words. Study the tones of the Vicar-General’s voice.—If he strokes his chin, you have won him.”
Some caricaturists have amused themselves by representing the contrast that so frequently exists between what we say and what we think. In this place, to represent fully the interesting points of the duel of words that took place between the priest and the fine lady, it is necessary to disclose the thoughts they each kept concealed under apparently trivial speech.
Madame de Listomère began by expressing the regret she felt about this lawsuit of Birotteau’s, and she went on to speak of her desire of seeing the affair settled to the satisfaction of both parties.
“The mischief is done, madame,” said the Abbé. “The admirable Mademoiselle Gamard is dying.” (“I care no more for that stupid creature than for Prester John
,” thought he, “but I should like to lay her death at your door, and burden your conscience, if you are silly enough to care.
”)
“On hearing of her illness,” said the Baroness, “I desired the Abbé to sign a withdrawal, which I have brought to that saintly person.” (“I see through you
,” thought she, “you old
