Mme. Granson felt instinctively that the Chevalier was talking of Athanase. In her eagerness to know what he had been saying, she followed Mlle. Cormon, who walked up to the young man in question, putting out six feet of dignity in front; but at that very moment Jacquelin announced that “Mademoiselle was served,” and the mistress of the house shot an appealing glance at the Chevalier. But the gallant registrar of mortgages was beginning to see a something in M. de Valois’ manner, a glimpse of the barrier which the noblesse were about to raise between themselves and the bourgeoisie; so, delighted with a chance to cut out the Chevalier, he crooked his arm, and Mlle. Cormon was obliged to take it. M. de Valois, from motives of policy, fastened upon Mme. Granson.
“Mlle. Cormon takes the liveliest interest in your dear Athanase, my dear lady,” he said, as they slowly followed in the wake of the other guests, “but that interest is falling off through your son’s fault. He is lax and Liberal in his opinions; he is agitating for this theatre; he is mixed up with the Bonapartists; he takes the part of the Constitutionnel curé. This line of conduct may cost him his situation. You know how carefully his Majesty’s government is weeding the service. If your dear Athanase is once cashiered, where will he find employment? He must not get into bad odor with the authorities.”
“Oh, M. le Chevalier,” cried the poor startled mother, “what do I not owe you for telling me this! You are right; my boy is a tool in the hands of a bad set; I will open his eyes to his position.”
It was long since the Chevalier had sounded Athanase’s character at a glance. He saw in the depths of the young man’s nature the scarcely malleable material of Republican convictions; a lad at that age will sacrifice everything for such ideas if he is smitten with the word Liberty, that so vague, so little comprehended word which is like a standard of revolt for those at the bottom of the wheel for whom revolt means revenge. Athanase was sure to stick to his opinions, for he had woven them, with his artist’s sorrows and his embittered views of the social framework, into his political creed. He was ready to sacrifice his future at the outset for these opinions, not knowing that he, like all men of real ability, would have seen reason to modify them by the time he reached the age of six-and-thirty, when a man has formed his own conclusions of life, with its intricate relations and interdependences. If Athanase was faithful to the opposition in Alençon, he would fall into disgrace with Mlle. Cormon. Thus far the Chevalier saw clearly.
And so this little town, so peaceful in appearance, was to the full as much agitated internally as any congress of diplomats, when craft and guile and passion and self-interest are met to discuss the weightiest questions between empire and empire.
Meanwhile the guests gathered about the table were eating their way through the first course as people eat in the provinces, without a blush for an honest appetite; whereas, in Paris, it would appear that our jaws are controlled by sumptuary edicts which deliberately set the laws of anatomy at defiance. We eat with the tips of our teeth in Paris, we filch the pleasures of the table, but in the provinces things are taken more naturally; possibly existence centres a little too much about the great and universal method of maintenance to which God condemns all his creatures. It was at the end of the first course that Mlle. Cormon brought out the most celebrated of all her conversational cues; it was talked of for two years afterwards; it is quoted even now, indeed, in the sub-bourgeois strata of Alençon whenever her marriage is under discussion. Over the last entrée but one, the conversation waxed lively and wordy, turning, as might have been expected, upon the affair of the theatre and the curé. In the first enthusiasm of Royalism in 1816, those extremists, who were afterwards called les Jesuites du pays, were for expelling the Abbé François from his cure. M. de Valois suspected du Bousquier of supporting the priest and instigating the intrigues; at any rate, the noble Chevalier piled the burdens on du Bousquier’s back with his wonted skill; and du Bousquier, being unrepresented by counsel, was condemned and put in the pillory. Among those present, Athanase was the only person sufficiently frank to stand up for the absent, and he felt that he was not in a position to bring out his ideas before these Alençon magnates, of whose intellects he had the meanest opinion. Only in the provinces nowadays will you find young men keeping a respectful countenance before people of a certain age without daring to have a fling at their elders or to contradict them too flatly. To resume. On the advent of some delicious canards aux olives, the conversation first decidedly flagged, and then suddenly dropped dead. Mlle. Cormon, emulous of her own poultry, invented another canard in her anxiety to defend du Bousquier, who had been represented as an arch-concocter of intrigue, and a man to set mountains fighting.
“For my own part,” said she, “I thought that M. du Bousquier gave his whole attention to childish matters.”
Under the circumstances, the epigram produced a tremendous effect. Mlle. Cormon had a great success; she brought the Princess Goritza face downwards on the table. The Chevalier, by no means expecting his Dulcinea to say anything so much to the purpose, could find no words to express his admiration; he applauded after the Italian fashion, noiselessly, with the tips of his fingers.
“She is adorably witty,” he said, turning to Mme. Granson. “I have always said that she would unmask her batteries some day.”
“But when you know her very
