^^--*^ AAA
 
 IBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 ERNST GELLHORN 
 
 Design by Aubrey Beardsley
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET 
 IN PARIS
 
 rue 
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET 
 IN PARIS 
 
 BY <ANATOLC 
 
 ji 
 
 DODD-MEAD 6? COMPANY
 
 Published in the U. S. A., 1922 
 BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, INC. 
 
 FRINTBU IN U. S. A.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET 
 IN PARIS
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ONSIEUR BERGERET was seated 
 at table taking his frugal evening 
 meal. Riquet lay at his feet on 
 a tapestry cushion. Riquet had a 
 religious soul; he rendered divine 
 honours to mankind. He regarded his master 
 as very good and very great. But it was chiefly 
 when he saw him at table that he realized the 
 sovereign greatness and goodness of Monsieur 
 Bergeret. 
 
 If, to Riquet, all things pertaining to food were 
 precious and impressive, those pertaining to the 
 food of man were sacred. He venerated the dining- 
 room as a temple, the table as an altar. During 
 meals he kept his place at his master's feet, in silence 
 and immobility. 
 
 "It's a spring chicken," said old Angelique as 
 she placed the dish upon the table. 
 
 "Good. Be kind enough to carve it, then," said 
 
 3
 
 4 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret, who was a poor hand with 
 weapons and quite hopeless as a carver. 
 
 "Willingly," said Angelique, "but carving isn't 
 woman's work, it's the gentlemen who ought to 
 carve poultry." 
 
 "I don't know how to carve." 
 
 "Monsieur ought to know." 
 
 This dialogue was by no means new. Angelique 
 and her master exchanged similar remarks every 
 time that game or poultry came to the table. It 
 was not flippantly, it was certainly not to 
 save herself trouble, that the old servant persisted 
 in offering her master the carving-knife as 
 a token of the respect which was due to him. In 
 the peasant class from which she had sprung 
 and also in the little middle-class households where 
 she had been in service, it was a tradition 
 that it was the master's duty to carve. The 
 faithful old soul's respect for tradition was pro- 
 found. She did not think it right that Monsieur 
 Bergeret should fall short of it, that he should 
 delegate to her the performance of so authorita- 
 tive a function, that he should fail to carve at his 
 own table, since he was not grand enough to em- 
 ploy a butler to do it for him, like the Breces, 
 the Bonmonts and other such folk in town 
 or country. She knew the obligations which 
 honour imposes on a citizen who dines at home,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 5 
 
 and she never failed to impress them upon Monsieur 
 Bergeret. 
 
 "The knife has just been sharpened; Monsieur 
 can easily cut off a wing. It's not difficult to find 
 the joint when the chicken is tender." 
 
 "Angelique, be so good as to carve this 
 chicken." 
 
 Reluctantly she obeyed, and, slightly crestfallen, 
 she carved the chicken on a corner of the sideboard. 
 With regard to human food she had ideas which 
 were more accurate but no less respectful than those 
 of Riquet. 
 
 Meanwhile Monsieur Bergeret revolved within 
 himself the reasons of the prejudice which had in- 
 duced the worthy woman to believe that the 
 right of wielding the carving-knife belonged to the 
 master of the house alone. He did not look 
 to find them in any gracious and kindly feeling 
 on the man's part that he should reserve to 
 himself a tedious and unattractive task. It is, as 
 a matter of fact, to be observed that throughout 
 the ages the more laborious and distasteful house- 
 hold tasks have, by the common consent of all 
 nations, been assigned to women. On the contrary, 
 he attributed the tradition cherished by old 
 Angelique to the ancient idea that the flesh of ani- 
 mals, prepared for the sustenance of man, is a 
 thing so precious that the master alone may and
 
 6 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 should apportion and distribute it. And he called 
 to mind the godlike swine-herd Eumaeus receiv- 
 ing Ulysses in his pig-sty. He did not recognize 
 him, but honoured him as a guest sent by 
 Zeus: 
 
 "Eumaeus rose to divide the portions among his 
 guests, for he had an equitable mind. He made 
 seven portions, whereof he dedicated one to the 
 Nymphs and to Hermes, son of Maia, and 
 of the rest he gave one portion to each of his 
 table companions; but to honour his guest Ulysses 
 he offered him the whole chine of the pig. 
 And the subtle Ulysses rejoiced thereat and said 
 to Eurnaeus: 'Eumaeus, mayst thou remain for ever 
 dear to our father Zeus for that thou hast 
 honoured me, such as I am, by giving me the best 
 portion P ' 
 
 Thus Monsieur Bergeret, when in the company of 
 his old servant, daughter of Mother Earth, felt him- 
 self carried back to the days of antiquity. 
 
 "Will Monsieur help himself to a little 
 more?" 
 
 But he had not, like the divine Ulysses and the 
 kings of Homer, an heroic appetite; and, as he ate, 
 he read his paper, which lay open upon the 
 table. This was another habit of which the servant 
 did not approve.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 7 
 
 "Would you like a bit of chicken, Riquet?" asked 
 Monsieur Bergeret. "It is very good." 
 
 Riquet made no reply. He never asked for 
 food as long as he lay under the table. How- 
 ever good the dishes might smell he did not 
 claim his share of them, and, what is more, 
 he dared not touch anything that was offered him. 
 He refused to eat in a human dining-room. 
 Monsieur Bergeret, an affectionate and kindly 
 man, would have liked to share his meals with 
 his comrade. At first he had tried to smuggle 
 down to him a few little scraps. He had spoken 
 to him gently, but not without that arrogance 
 which so often accompanies beneficence. He had 
 said: 
 
 "Lazarus, receive the crumbs of the good rich 
 man, since for you, at all events, I am the good rich 
 man." 
 
 But Riquet had always refused. The majesty of 
 the place over-awed him ; and perhaps in his former 
 condition he had received a lesson that taught him 
 to respect the master's food. 
 
 One day Monsieur Bergeret had been more press- 
 ing than usual. For a long while he had held 
 a delicious piece of meat under his friend 1 s nose. 
 Riquet had averted his head, and, emerging from 
 beneath the table-cloth, had gazed at his master with 
 his beautiful, humble eyes, full of gentleness and
 
 8 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 reproach; eyes that said: "Master, wherefore dost 
 thou tempt me?" 
 
 And with drooping tail and crouching legs he 
 had dragged himself upon his belly as a sign of 
 humility, and had gone dejectedly to the door, where 
 he sat upon his haunches. He had remained there 
 throughout the meal. And Monsieur Bergeret had 
 marvelled at the saintly patience of his little black 
 friend. 
 
 He knew, then, what Riquet's feelings were, 
 and that is why he did not insist on this occasion. 
 Moreover, he knew that Riquet, after the din- 
 ner at which he was a reverential spectator, would 
 presently go to the kitchen and greedily devour his 
 own mess under the kitchen sink, snuffling and 
 blowing, entirely at his ease. His mind at rest 
 on this point, he resumed the thread of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "The heroes," he reflected, "used to make a 
 great business of eating and drinking. Homer does 
 not forget to tell us that in the palace of the fair- 
 haired Menelaus, Eteonteus, the son of Boe- 
 thus, was wont to carve the meats and distribute 
 the portions. A king was worthy of praise when, 
 at his table, every man received his due portion of 
 the roasted ox. Menelaus knew the customs of 
 his times. With the aid of her servants the white- 
 armed Helen saw to the cooking ami the,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 9 
 
 Eteonteus carved the meats. The pride of so noble 
 a function still shines upon the smooth faces 
 of our butlers and maitres d'hotel. We are deep- 
 rooted in the past. But I am not a hungry man: 
 I am only a small eater, and Angelique Borniche, 
 primitive woman that she is, makes that too a griev- 
 ance against me. She would think far more of me 
 had I the appetite of a son of Atreus or a 
 Bourbon." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret had just reached this stage in 
 his reflections when Riquet got up from his cushion 
 and ran barking to the door. 
 
 This action was remarkable because it was un- 
 usual. Riquet never left his cushion until his 
 master rose from table. He had been barking 
 for some moments when old Angelique, putting 
 a bewildered face in at the door, announced that 
 "those young ladies" had arrived. 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret understood her to allude 
 to his sister Zoe and his daughter Pauline, whom 
 he had not expected so soon. He knew that his 
 sister Zoe was brusque and sudden in her actions. 
 He rose from the table; but Riquet, at the sound 
 of footsteps, which were now heard in the passage 
 outside, uttered terrible cries of warning; his 
 aboriginal caution, unconquered by a liberal educa- 
 tion, leading him to believe that every stranger 
 must of necessity be an enemy. He scented a
 
 io MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 great danger, a hideous invasion of the dining- 
 room, with the menace of ruin and desolation. 
 
 Pauline flung her arms around her father's neck. 
 Napkin in hand, he kissed her, and then stood back 
 to gaze at this young girl, a mysterious being, like 
 all young girls, whom, after a year's absence, he 
 hardly recognized. She was at once very near and 
 almost a stranger to him. She was his by virtue of 
 the obscure sources of life, but she eluded him in the 
 dazzling energy of youth. 
 
 "How do you do, papa?" 
 
 Her very voice had changed; it was lower and 
 less uneven. 
 
 "How you have grown, my child!" 
 
 He thought her pretty, with her dainty nose, in- 
 telligent eyes and quizzical mouth. But this feeling 
 was at once marred by the reflection that there is 
 little peace in this world of ours, and that young 
 people, seeking for happiness, are entering upon a 
 difficult and uncertain enterprise. 
 
 He gave Zoe a hasty kiss upon either cheek. 
 
 "You have not altered, Zoe, my dear. I did not 
 expect you to-day, but I am very glad to see you 
 both again." 
 
 Riquet could not understand why his master 
 gave so warm a welcome to strange folk. Had he 
 violently driven them forth, he could have under- 
 stood. However, he was used to not understand-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 11 
 
 ing all the ways of men. Suffering Monsieur Ber- 
 geret to do as he would, he continued to perform 
 his duty, barking furiously to scare the evil- 
 doers. Then, from the depths of his throat, he 
 drew growls of hatred and anger; and a frightful 
 contraction of his lips uncovered his white teeth. 
 Backing away from his enemies, he hurled threats 
 at them. 
 
 "Is that your dog, papa?" 
 
 "You were to have come on Saturday," remarked 
 Monsieur Bergeret. 
 
 "Didn't you get my letter?" inquired Zoe. 
 
 "Yes," replied Monsieur Bergeret. 
 
 "No, I mean the other one." 
 
 "I received only one." 
 
 "One cannot hear oneself speak here!" 
 
 It is true that Riquet was barking at the top of 
 his voice. 
 
 "Your sideboard is dusty," remarked Zoe, put- 
 ting her muff on it. "Doesn't your servant ever do 
 any dusting?" 
 
 Riquet could not bear any one to lay hold of the 
 sideboard like that. Either he had conceived a spe- 
 cial aversion for Mademoiselle Zoe or he judged 
 her the more important of the two, for it was to 
 her that he addressed his loudest barks and growls. 
 When he saw her place a hand upon the receptacle 
 in which the human nutriment was stored he barked
 
 12 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 so shrilly that the glasses upon the table rang again. 
 Mademoiselle Zoe, turning upon him suddenly, in- 
 quired ironically: 
 
 "Are you going to eat me up?" 
 
 Riquet fled in terror. 
 
 "Is your dog vicious, papa?" 
 
 "No, he is intelligent; he isn't vicious." 
 
 "I don't think he's particularly intelligent," said 
 Zoe. 
 
 "Yes, he is," said Monsieur Bergeret. "He does 
 not understand all our ideas; but we don't un- 
 derstand all his. No one can enter into the mind 
 of another." 
 
 "You, Lucien, are no judge of persons," said 
 Zoe. 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret turned to Pauline. 
 
 "Come, let me have a look at you. I can hardly 
 recognise you." 
 
 A bright idea struck Riquet. He made up his 
 mind to go to the kitchen, to the kindly Angelique, 
 and to warn her, if possible, of the disturbance tak- 
 ing place in the dining-room. She was his last hope 
 for the restoration of order and the expulsion of 
 the intruders. 
 
 "What have you done with Father's portrait?" 
 inquired Mademoiselle Zoe. 
 
 "Sit down and have something to eat," said
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 13 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret. "There is some chicken and 
 
 various other things." 
 
 "Papa, is it really true that we are going to live 
 
 in Paris?" 
 
 "Next month, my child. Are you glad?" 
 "Yes, but I should be just as happy in the country 
 
 if I could have a garden." 
 
 She stopped eating her chicken and said: 
 
 "I do admire you, papa. I'm proud of you. 
 
 You are a great man." 
 
 "That is what my little dog Riquet thinks too," 
 
 replied Monsieur Bergeret.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 NDER the supervision of Made- 
 moiselle Zoe, the professor's furni- 
 ture was packed and taken to the 
 railway station. 
 
 During the days of the removal 
 Riquet roamed sadly through the devastated rooms. 
 He regarded Zoe and Pauline with suspicion, as 
 their arrival had been closely followed by the com- 
 plete upheaval of his formerly peaceful home. 
 The tears of old Angelique, who wept all day long 
 in her kitchen, increased his depression. His most 
 cherished habits were set at naught; the strange, 
 ill-clad, fierce and insulting men troubled his repose ; 
 they even went so far as to enter the kitchen and 
 kick away his plate of food and bowl of fresh 
 water. Chairs were taken from him as soon as 
 he lay upon them, and carpets were abruptly dragged 
 from beneath his persecuted body, so that in 
 his own home he no longer knew where to lay his 
 head. 
 
 To his honour be it said that at first he had 
 sought to resist. When the water-tank was re- 
 
 14
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 15 
 
 moved he had barked furiously at the enemy, but 
 no one heeded the alarm. No one gave him any 
 encouragement; nay, he was, indeed, actually op- 
 posed. "Be quiet," rapped out Mademoiselle Zoe, 
 and Pauline had added, "Riquet, you are perfectly 
 absurd I" 
 
 Thenceforth he decided not to waste his time in 
 giving warnings that fell on deaf ears or to labour 
 unaided for the common good, and he grieved 
 silently over the ruined house, and wandered from 
 room to room vainly seeking a little peace. When 
 the pantechnicon men entered the room in which 
 he had taken refuge he would prudently hide be- 
 neath some table or sideboard which had not yet 
 been taken away. But this precaution was more 
 harmful than helpful to him, for presently the piece 
 of furniture tottered above him, rose, and fell again, 
 creaking ominously and threatening to crush him. 
 With bristling coat and haggard features he took 
 to his heels only to seek another place of refuge as 
 precarious as the last. 
 
 But these material inconveniences, nay, these 
 perils, were trifling matters in comparison with the 
 pain that filled his heart. It was his moral, so to 
 speak, that was most affected. 
 
 To him the articles of furniture were not 
 inanimate objects but living and kindly beings, 
 favourable genii whose departure was a presage of
 
 16 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 dire misfortune. Dishes and frying-pans, saucepans 
 and sugar-basins, all the divinities of the kitchen; 
 arm-chairs, carpets, cushions, all the fetishes of the 
 fireside, his Lares and his household gods, had. 
 disappeared. He did not believe that so great a 
 disaster could ever be made good, and his little 
 soul grieved over it to the very limit of its ca- 
 pacity. Happily, like the human soul, it was easily 
 distracted and quick to forget its woes. During 
 the lengthy absences of the thirsty removers, when 
 old Angelique's broom stirred up the ancient dust 
 upon the floor, Riquet scented the smell of mice, 
 or watched a scurrying spider, and his fickle fancy 
 was diverted awhile; but he soon relapsed into 
 melancholy. 
 
 On the day of departure, seeing that matters 
 were growing worse from hour to hour, he was 
 utterly miserable. It seemed to him a peculiarly 
 ominous thing that they should thrust the linen into 
 dismal-looking chests. Pauline was packing her 
 own boxes with joyful eagerness. He turned from 
 her as though she were doing an evil thing, and 
 huddled against the wall. "The worst has come," 
 he thought. "This is the end of all things !" 
 
 Whether he believed that things ceased to exist 
 when he saw them no longer, or whether he was 
 only anxious to avoid a painful spectacle, he was 
 careful not to look in Pauline's direction. As she
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 17 
 
 went to and fro she chanced to notice Riquet's 
 attitude, and its melancholy struck her as comical. 
 Laughing, she called him: "Here, Riquet, here!" 
 But he would neither stir from his corner nor turn 
 his head. He hadn't at that moment the heart to 
 caress his young mistress, and a secret instinct, a 
 kind of foreboding, warned him not to go too near 
 to the gaping trunk. Pauline called him several 
 times, and as he did not respond she went over to 
 him and picked him up in her arms. 
 
 "How miserable we are !" she said. "How much 
 to be pitied!" 
 
 Her tone was ironical; Riquet did not under- 
 stand irony. He lay motionless and dejected 
 in her arms, feigning to see nothing, to hear 
 nothing. 
 
 "Look at me, Riquet!" she demanded. Three 
 times she bade him look at her, but in vain. Then, 
 simulating violent anger, she threw him into the 
 trunk, crying, "In you go, stupid!" and banged the 
 lid on him. At that moment her aunt called her, 
 and she went out of the room, leaving Riquet in 
 the trunk. 
 
 He felt exceedingly uneasy, for it never entered 
 his head that Pauline had put him there for fun, 
 and merely to tease him. Judging that his position 
 was quite bad enough already, he endeavoured not 
 to aggravate it by thoughtless behaviour. For
 
 i8 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 some moments, therefore, he remained motionless 
 without even drawing a breath. Then, feeling that 
 no fresh disaster threatened him, he thought he had 
 better explore his gloomy prison. He pawed the 
 petticoats and chemises upon which he had been so 
 cruelly precipitated, seeking some outlet by which 
 he might escape. He had been busy for two or three 
 minutes when Monsieur Bergeret, who was getting 
 ready to go out, called him : 
 
 "Riquet! Riquet! Here! we're going to the 
 bookshop to say good-bye to Paillot! Here! 
 Where are you?" 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret's voice comforted Riquet 
 greatly. He replied to it by a desperate scratching 
 at the wicker sides of the trunk. 
 
 "Where is the dog?" inquired Monsieur Ber- 
 geret of Pauline, who at that moment returned, 
 carrying a pile of linen. 
 
 "In my trunk, papa." 
 
 Why in the trunk?" 
 
 "Because I put him there." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret went up to the trunk, and 
 remarked : 
 
 "It was thus that the child Comatas, who played 
 upon the flute as he kept his master's goats, was 
 imprisoned in a chest, where he was fed on honey 
 by the bees of the Muses. But not so with 
 you, Riquet; you would have died of hunger in
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 19 
 
 this trunk, for you are not dear to the immortal 
 Muses." 
 
 Having spoken, Monsieur Bergeret freed his 
 little friend, who with wagging tail followed him 
 as far as the hall. Then a thought appeared to 
 strike him. He returned to Pauline's room, ran 
 to her and jumped up against her skirt, and only 
 when he had riotously embraced her as a sign of 
 his adoration did he rejoin his master on the stairs. 
 He would have felt that he was lacking in wisdom 
 and piety had he failed to bestow these tokens of 
 affection on a being whose power had plunged him 
 into the depths of a trunk. 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret thought Paillot's shop a dis- 
 mal, ugly place. Paillot and his assistant were busy 
 "calling over" the list of goods supplied to the Com- 
 munal School. This task prevented him from pro- 
 longing his farewell to the professor. He had never 
 had very much to say for himself and as he grew 
 older he was gradually losing the habit of speech. 
 He was weary of selling books; he saw that it was 
 all over with the trade and was longing for the time 
 to come when he could give up his business and re- 
 tire to his place in the country, where he always 
 spent his Sundays. 
 
 As was his wont, Monsieur Bergeret made 
 for the corner where the old books were kept and 
 took down volume XXXVIII of The World's Ex-
 
 20 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 plorers. The book opened as usual at pages 212 
 and 213, and once more he perused these uninspir- 
 ing lines: 
 
 ". . . towards a northerly passage. 'It was 
 owing to this check,' said he, 'that we were able to 
 revisit the Sandwich Islands and enrich our voyage 
 by a discovery which, although the last, seems in 
 many respects to be the most important which has 
 yet been made by Europeans in the whole extent of 
 the Pacific Ocean.' The happy anticipations which 
 these words appeared to announce were, unhappily, 
 not realized. . . ." 
 
 These lines, which he was reading for the hun- 
 dredth time, and which reminded him of so many 
 hours of his commonplace and laborious existence 
 which was embellished, nevertheless, by the fruit- 
 ful labours of the mind; these lines, for whose mean- 
 ing he had never sought, filled him, on this occa- 
 sion, with melancholy and discouragement, as 
 though they contained a symbol of the emptiness 
 of all human hopes, an expression of the universal 
 void. He closed the book, which he had opened so 
 often and was never to open again, and dejectedly 
 left the shop. 
 
 In the Place Saint-Exupere he cast a last glance 
 at the house of Queen Marguerite. The rays of 
 the setting sun gleamed upon its historic beams, 
 and in the violent contrast of light and shade the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 21 
 
 escutcheon of Philippe Tricouillard proudly dis- 
 played the outlines of its gorgeous coat of arms, 
 placed there as an eloquent example and a reproach 
 to the barren city. 
 
 Having re-entered the empty house, Riquet 
 pawed his master's legs, looking up at him with his 
 beautiful sorrowing eyes, that said: "You, formerly 
 so rich and powerful, have you, O master, become 
 poor? Have you grown powerless? You suffer 
 men clad in filthy rags to invade your study, your 
 bedroom and your dining-room, to fall upon your 
 furniture and drag it out of doors. They drag your 
 deep arm-chair down the stairs, your chair and 
 mine, in which we sat to rest every evening, 
 and often in the morning, side by side. In 
 the clutch of these ragged men I heard it groan, 
 that chair which is so great a fetish and so benevo- 
 lent a spirit. And you never resisted these 
 invaders. If you have lost all the genii that used 
 to fill your house, even to the little divinities, that 
 you used to put on your feet every morning 
 when you got out of bed, those slippers which I 
 used to worry in my play, if you are poor and 
 miserable, O my master, what will become of 
 me?" 
 
 "Lucien, we have no time to lose," said Zoe. 
 "The train goes at eight and we have had no dinner. 
 Let us go and dine at the station."
 
 22 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "To-morrow you will be in Paris," said Monsieur 
 Bergeret to Riquet. "Paris is a famous and 
 a generous city. To be honest, however, I must 
 point out that this generosity is not vouchsafed 
 alike to all its inhabitants. On the contrary, 
 it is confined to a very small number of its 
 citizens. But a whole city, a whole nation resides 
 in the few who think more forcefully and 
 more justly than the rest. The others do not 
 count. What we call the spirit of a race 
 attains consciousness only in imperceptible mi- 
 norities. Minds which are sufficiently free to 
 rid themselves of vulgar terrors and discover 
 for themselves the veiled truths are rare in any 
 place 1"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PON Monsieur Bergeret's arrival in 
 Paris, with his daughter Pauline and 
 his sister Zoe, he had lodged in a 
 house which was soon to be pulled 
 down, and which he began to like 
 as soon as he knew that he could not remain in it. 
 He was unaware of the fact that in any case he 
 would have left it at the same time. Mademoiselle 
 Bergeret had made up her mind as to that. She 
 had taken these rooms only to give herself time to 
 find better, and was opposed to the spending of any 
 money upon the place. 
 
 It was a house in the Rue de Seine, a hundred 
 years old at least. Never beautiful, it had grown 
 uglier with age. The porte cochere opened humbly 
 on a damp courtyard between a shoemaker's 
 shop and a carrier's office. Monsieur Bergeret's 
 rooms were on the second floor, and on the same 
 floor lived a picture-restorer through whose open 
 door glimpses could be caught of little unframed 
 canvases set about an earthenware stove, landscapes, 
 old portraits, and an amber-skinned woman asleep 
 
 23
 
 24 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 in a dark wood under a green sky. The staircase 
 was fairly well lighted. Cobwebs hung in the cor- 
 ners, and at the turns the wooden stairs were em- 
 bellished with tiles. Stray lettuce-leaves, dropped 
 from some housewife's string bag, were to be found 
 there of a morning. 
 
 Such things had no charm for Monsieur Bergeret, 
 but he could not help feeling sad at the thought 
 that he would become oblivious of these things as 
 he had of so many others which, though they were 
 not of any value, had made up the course of his 
 life. 
 
 Every day, when his work was done, he went 
 house-hunting. He thought of living for preference 
 on the left bank of the Seine, where his father had 
 dwelt before him, where it seemed to him one 
 breathed an atmosphere of quiet life and peaceful 
 study. What made his search more difficult was 
 the state of the roads, broken with deep trenches 
 and covered with mounds of earth. There were also 
 the impassable and eternally disfigured quays. 
 
 It will, of course, be remembered that, in the 
 year 1899, the surface of Paris underwent a complete 
 upheaval, either because the new conditions of life 
 necessitated the execution of a great number of 
 municipal undertakings, or because the approach of 
 a huge international exhibition gave rise on every 
 side to an exaggerated activity and a sudden ardour
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 25 
 
 of enterprise. Monsieur Bergeret was grieved to 
 see the town upset, for he did not sufficiently 
 understand the necessity of such a proceeding, but, 
 as he was a wise man, he endeavoured to console 
 himself, to reassure himself by meditation. When 
 he passed along his beautiful Quai Malaquais, so 
 cruelly ravaged by merciless engineers, he pitied the 
 uprooted trees and the banished keepers of book- 
 stalls, and he reflected, not without a certain depth 
 of feeling: 
 
 "I have lost my friends, and now all that gave 
 me delight in this city, her peace, her grace and 
 her beauty, her old-time elegance and her noble 
 historical vistas, is being violently swept away. It 
 is always right and fitting, however, that reason 
 should prevail over sentiment. We must not dally 
 with vain regrets for the past, nor commiserate 
 with ourselves over the changes that thrust them- 
 selves upon us, since change is the very condition 
 of life. Perhaps these upheavals are necessary; it 
 is needful that this city should lose some of her 
 traditional beauty, so that the lives of the greater 
 number of her inhabitants may become less painful 
 and less hard." 
 
 And, in the company of idle errand-boys and 
 indolent police-sergeants, Monsieur Bergeret would 
 watch the navvies digging deep into the soil of the 
 famous quay, and once again he would tell himself:
 
 26 
 
 "Here I see a vision of the city of the future, 
 whose noblest buildings are as yet indicated only by 
 deep excavations, which would suggest, to a shallow 
 mind, that the labourers who are toiling to rear 
 the city which we shall never behold are merely 
 excavating abysmal pits, when in reality they may 
 be laying the foundations of a prosperous home, 
 the abode of joy and peace." 
 
 Thus did Monsieur Bergeret, who was a man 
 of goodwill, look with a favouring eye upon the 
 building of the ideal city; but he was much less at 
 home amid the building operations of the real city, 
 seeing that at every step he risked falling, through 
 absence of mind, into a pit. 
 
 Nevertheless he continued to go house-hunting, 
 but he did so in a whimsical fashion. Old houses 
 pleased him, in that their stones had for him a 
 tongue. The Rue Git-le-Cceur had a particular at- 
 traction for him, and whenever he saw beside the 
 keystone of a gateway or on a door which had once 
 been flanked by a wrought-iron railing a notice to 
 the effect that there was a flat to let, he would 
 mount the stairs, accompanied by a sordid concierge, 
 in an atmosphere that reeked of countless genera- 
 tions of rats, which was aggravated from floor to 
 floor by the smell of cooking from poverty-stricken 
 kitchens. The workshops of bookbinders or box- 
 makers enriched it at times with the horrible odour
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 27 
 
 of sour glue, and Monsieur Bergeret would depart 
 filled with sadness and discouragement. 
 
 Home again, he would tell his sister and daughter, 
 at the dinner-table, of the unfavourable results of 
 his inquiries; Mademoiselle Zoe would listen calmly 
 to his story. She had made up her mind to seek 
 and to find a house herself. She regarded her 
 brother as a superior person, but as one quite inca- 
 pable of reasonable ideas concerning the practical 
 affairs of life. 
 
 "I went over a flat to-day on the Quai Conti. I 
 don't know what you would think of it. It 
 looks out on a courtyard with a well, some ivy, and 
 a statue of Flora, moss-grown, mutilated, and head- 
 less, perpetually weaving a garland of flowers. I 
 also saw a small flat in the Rue de la Chaise. That 
 looks out on a garden with a great lime-tree, one 
 branch of which, when the leaves have grown, would 
 enter my study. There is a big room that Pauline 
 could have ; she would make it charming with a few 
 yards of coloured cretonne." 
 
 "What about my room?" demanded Made- 
 moiselle Zoe. "You never think of my room. Be- 
 sides " 
 
 She did not finish her sentence, as she took no 
 particular notice of her brother's reports. 
 
 "We may be obliged to move into a new house," 
 said Monsieur Bergeret, for he was a sensible
 
 28 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 man accustomed to subject his desires to 
 reason. 
 
 "I'm afraid so, papa," said Pauline. "But never 
 mind, we will find you a tree reaching up to your 
 window, I promise you." 
 
 She followed her father's investigations with per- 
 fect good nature, but without much personal in- 
 terest, as a young girl undismayed by change, who 
 vaguely feels that her fate is not yet determined, 
 and lives the while in a species of anticipation. 
 
 "The new houses are better fitted up than 
 the old ones," continued Monsieur Bergeret, "but 
 I do not like them, perhaps because I am more con- 
 scious, in the midst of a luxury that one can measure, 
 of the vulgarity of a straitened life. Not that the 
 mediocrity of my fortune distresses me, even on 
 your account. It is the banal and commonplace that 
 I detest. . . . But you will think me absurd." 
 
 "Oh, no, papa." 
 
 "What I dislike in new houses is the precise 
 sameness of their arrangement. The structure of 
 the apartment is only too visible from the outside. 
 For a long while dwellers in cities have been accus- 
 tomed to live one above another, and as your aunt 
 won't hear of a small house in the suburbs I am 
 quite willing to put up with a third or fourth-story 
 flat, and that is precisely why I cannot but regret 
 giving up the idea of an old house. The irregu-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 29 
 
 larity of old houses makes the piling of flat 
 upon flat more endurable. When I walk down a 
 new street I find myself thinking that this su- 
 perposition of households in modern buildings is, 
 in its uniformity, ridiculous. The small dining- 
 rooms perched one above the other with the same 
 little windows and the self-same copper gaselier 
 lighted every evening at exactly the same time; the 
 same tiny kitchens with larders looking on the 
 yard, the same extremely dirty maidservants; the 
 same drawing-rooms, with their pianos one over the 
 other. To my mind, the precision of modern 
 houses reveals the daily functions of the creatures 
 enclosed in them as plainly as though the floors 
 and ceilings were of glass. And all these people 
 who dine one above another, play the piano one 
 above another, and go to bed one above another, 
 in a perfectly symmetrical fashion when one 
 thinks of it, they offer a spectacle both comical and 
 humiliating." 
 
 "The tenants themselves would hardly think so," 
 said Mademoiselle Zoe, who had quite decided to 
 settle in a new house. 
 
 "It is true," said Pauline thoughtfully, "it is 
 true, it is comical." 
 
 "Of course, here and there, I see rooms that I 
 like," continued Monsieur Bergeret. "But the rent 
 is always too high. And that makes me doubt the
 
 30 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 truth of a principle laid down by the admirable 
 Fourier, which assures us that our tastes are so 
 diverse that if only we lived in harmony with one 
 another hovels would be as much in demand as 
 palaces. It is quite true that we do not live in 
 harmony; or we should all possess prehensile tails, 
 so that we could hang suspended from the trees. 
 Fourier has expressly said so. Another man of 
 equal merit, the gentle Prince Kropotkin, has as- 
 sured us more recently that some day we shall live 
 rent-free in the mansions on the great avenues, for 
 their owners will abandon them when they can 
 no longer procure servants to keep them up. In 
 those days, says the benevolent prince, they will 
 be delighted to hand them over to the worthy women 
 of the working-classes who will not object to 
 a kitchen in the basement. In the meanwhile, the 
 question of a house is both arduous and difficult. 
 Zoe, please come with me to see that suite of rooms 
 on the Quai Conti of which I told you. It 
 is rather dilapidated, having served for thirty years 
 as a chemical warehouse. The landlord won't 
 do any repairs as he expects to let the place as a 
 warehouse. The windows are oval dormer-win- 
 dows, but from them you see an ivy-covered wall, 
 a moss-grown well and a headless statue of Flora 
 which still seems to smile. Such things are not 
 easily found in Paris."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 T is to let," said Mademoiselle 
 Zoe, as they stopped before the 
 gate. "It is to let, but we will 
 not take it. It is too big. Be- 
 sides " 
 
 "No, we will not take it, but will you look over 
 it? I should be interested to see it again," said 
 Monsieur Bergeret timidly. 
 
 They hesitated a moment. It seemed to them 
 that in entering the deep dark vaulted way they 
 were entering the region of the shades. 
 
 Scouring the streets in search of a flat, they had 
 chanced to cross the narrow Rue des Grands- 
 Augustins, which has preserved its old-world as- 
 pect, and whose greasy pavements are never dry. 
 They remembered that they had passed six years 
 of their childhood in one of the houses in this 
 street. Their father, a professor at the University, 
 had settled there in 1856, after having led for 
 four years a wandering and precarious existence, 
 ceaselessly hunted from town to town by an inimical 
 Minister of Instruction. And, as witnessed the 
 
 31
 
 32 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 battered notice-board, the very flat in which Lucien 
 and Zoe had first seen the light of day, and tasted 
 the savour of life, was now to let. 
 
 As they passed down the path which led under 
 the massive forefront of the building, they experi- 
 enced an inexplicable feeling of melancholy and 
 reverence. The damp courtyard was hemmed in 
 by walls which since the minority of Louis XIV 
 had slowly been crumbling in the rains and the fogs 
 rising from the Seine. On the right as they entered 
 was a small building, which served as a porter's 
 lodge. There, on the window-sill, a magpie hopped 
 about in a cage, and in the lodge, behind a flowering 
 plant, a woman sat sewing. 
 
 "Is the second floor on the courtyard to let?" 
 
 "Yes, do you wish to see it?" 
 
 "Yes, we should like to see it." 
 
 Key in hand, the concierge led the way. They 
 followed her in silence. The gloomy antiquity of 
 the house caused the memories which the blackened 
 stones evoked for the brother and sister to recede 
 into an unfathomable past. They climbed the 
 stone stairs in a state of sorrowful eagerness, and 
 when the concierge opened the door of the flat they 
 remained motionless upon the landing, afraid to 
 enter the rooms that seemed to be haunted by the 
 host of their childish memories, like so many little 
 ghosts.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 33 
 
 "You can go in; the flat is empty." 
 
 At first they could find nothing of the past in 
 the wide empty rooms, freshly papered. They were 
 amazed to find that they had become strangers to 
 things which had formerly been so familiar. 
 
 "Here is the kitchen," said the concierge, "and 
 here are the dining-room and the drawing-room." 
 
 A voice cried from the courtyard: 
 
 "M'ame Falempin!" 
 
 The concierge looked out of the window, apolo- 
 gized, and grumbling to herself went down the 
 stairs with feeble steps, groaning. Then the brother 
 and sister began to remember. Memories of in- 
 imitable hours, of the long days of childhood, began 
 to return to them. 
 
 "Here is the dining-room," said Zoe. "The side- 
 board used to be there, against the wall." 
 
 "The mahogany sideboard, 'battered by its long 
 wanderings,' as our father used to say, when he and 
 his family and his furniture were ceaselessly 
 hunted from north to south and from east to west 
 by the Minister of the 2nd of December. It 
 remained here a few years, however, maimed and 
 crippled." 
 
 "There is the porcelain stove in its old corner." 
 
 "The flue is different." 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 "Yes, Zoe. Ours had a head of Jupiter Tro-
 
 34 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 phonius upon it. In those far-off days it was the 
 custom of the stove-makers in the Cour du Dragon 
 to decorate porcelain flues with a head of Jupiter 
 Trophonius." 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "Sure. Don't you remember a crowned head 
 with a pointed beard?". 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Oh, well that is not surprising; you were always 
 indifferent to the shapes of things. You don't look 
 at anything." 
 
 "I am more observant than you, my poor Lucien; 
 it is you who never notice things. The other day, 
 when Pauline had waved her hair, you didn't notice 
 it. If it were not for me " 
 
 She did not finish her sentence, but peered about 
 the empty room with her green eyes and sharp 
 nose. 
 
 "Over there in that corner near the window, 
 Mademoiselle Verpie used to sit with her feet on 
 her foot-warmer. Saturday was the sewing-woman's 
 day, and Mademoiselle Verpie never missed a 
 Saturday." 
 
 "Mademoiselle Verpie," said Lucien with a sigh: 
 "how old would she be to-day? She was getting 
 on in life when we were children. She used to tell 
 a story about a box of matches. I have always 
 remembered that story and can repeat it now word
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 35 
 
 for word just as she used to tell it. 'It was when 
 they were placing the statues on the Pont des Saints- 
 Peres. It was so cold that my fingers were quite 
 numb. Coming back from doing my marketing, 
 I was watching the workmen. There was a whole 
 crowd of people waiting to see how they would lift 
 such heavy statues. I had my basket on my arm. 
 A well-dressed gentleman said to me, "Made- 
 moiselle, you are on fire." Then I smelt a smell 
 of sulphur and saw smoke pouring out of my basket. 
 My threepenny box of matches had caught fire.' 
 That was how Mademoiselle Verpie related the ad- 
 venture," added Monsieur Bergeret. "She often 
 used to tell us of it. Probably it was the greatest 
 adventure of her life." 
 
 "You've forgotten an important part of the story, 
 Lucien. These were Mademoiselle Verpie's 
 exact words: 'A well-dressed gentleman said to 
 me, "Mademoiselle, you are on fire." I answered 
 "Go away and leave me alone." "Just as you 
 like, Mademoiselle." Then I smelt a smell of 
 sulphur.' " 
 
 "You are quite right, Zoe. I was mutilating the 
 text and omitted an important passage. By her 
 reply, Mademoiselle Verpie, who was hump-backed, 
 showed that she was a virtuous woman. It is a 
 point that one should bear in mind. I seem to 
 recollect, too, that she was very easily shocked."
 
 36 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Our poor mother," said Zoe, "had a mania for 
 mending. What an amount of darning used to be 
 done!" 
 
 "Yes, she was fond of her needle. But what I 
 thought so charming was that before she sat down 
 to her sewing she always placed a pot of wallflowers 
 or daisies or a dish of fruit and green leaves on the 
 table before her just where the light caught it. She 
 used to say that rosy apples were as pretty as roses. 
 I never met any one who appreciated as she did the 
 beauty of a peach or a bunch of grapes. When she 
 went to see the Chardins at the Louvre, she knew 
 by instinct that they were good pictures, but she 
 could not help feeling that she preferred her own 
 groups. With what conviction she would say to 
 me: 'Look, Lucien, have you ever seen anything 
 so beautiful as this feather from a pigeon's wing?' 
 I think no one ever loved nature more simply and 
 frankly than she." 
 
 "Poor Mother," sighed Zoe, "and in spite of 
 that her taste in dress was dreadful. One day 
 she chose a blue dress for me at the Petit-Saint- 
 Thomas. It was called electric blue, and it was 
 terrible. That frock was the burden of my childish 
 days." 
 
 "You were never fond of dress, you." 
 
 "You think so, do you? Well, you are mistaken. 
 I should have loved to have pretty dresses, but the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 37 
 
 elder sister had to go short because little Lucien 
 needed tunics. It couldn't be helped." 
 
 They passed into a narrow room, more like a 
 passage. 
 
 "This was Father's study," said Zoe. 
 
 "Hasn't it been cut in two by a partition? I 
 thought it was much larger than this." 
 
 "No, it was always the same as it is now. His 
 writing-desk was there, and above it hung the por- 
 trait of Monsieur Victor Leclerc. Why haven't 
 you kept that engraving, Lucien?" 
 
 "What! do you mean to say that this narrow 
 room held his motley crowds of books and con- 
 tained whole nations of poets, orators and his- 
 torians? When I was a child I used to listen to the 
 silent eloquence that filled my ears with a buzz of 
 glory. No doubt the presence of such an assembly 
 pressed back the walls. I certainly remember it as 
 a spacious room." 
 
 "It was very overcrowded. He would never let 
 us tidy anything in his study." 
 
 "So it was here that our father used to work, 
 seated in his old red arm-chair with his cat Zobeide 
 on a cushion at his feet. Here it was that he used 
 to look at us with the same slow smile that he never 
 lost all through his illness, even up to the very last. 
 I saw him smile gently at death itself, as he had 
 smiled at life."
 
 38 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "You are mistaken in that, Lucien. Father did 
 not know he was going to die." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret did not speak for a moment, 
 then he said: 
 
 "It is strange. I can see him now, in memory, 
 not worn out and white with age, but still young as 
 he was when I was quite a little child. I can see his 
 slight, supple figure and his long black wind-tossed 
 hair. Such mops of hair, that seemed as though 
 whipped up by a gust of wind, crowned many of 
 the enthusiastic heads of the men of 1830 and '48. 
 I know it was only a trick of the brush that 
 arranged their hair like that, but it made them look 
 as though they lived upon the heights and in the 
 storm. Their thoughts were loftier and more gen- 
 erous than ours. Our father believed in the advent 
 of social justice and universal peace. He announced 
 the triumph of the Republic and the harmonious 
 formation of the United States of Europe. He 
 would be cruelly disappointed were he to come back 
 among us." 
 
 He was still speaking although Mademoiselle 
 Bergeret was no longer in the study. He followed 
 her into the empty drawing-room. There they both 
 recalled the arm-chairs and sofa of green velvet, 
 which as children, in their games, they used to turn 
 into walls and citadels. 
 
 "Oh, the taking of Damiettal" cried Monsieur
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 39 
 
 Bergeret. "Do you remember it, Zoe? Mother, 
 who allowed nothing to be wasted, used to collect 
 all the silver paper round the bars of chocolate, and 
 one day she gave me a pile which pleased me as 
 much as if it had been a magnificent present. I 
 gummed it to the leaves of an old atlas and made 
 it into helmets and cuirasses. One day when Cousin 
 Paul came to dinner I gave him one of these sets of 
 armour, a Saracen's, and put the other on myself: it 
 was the armour of St. Louis. If one goes into the 
 matter, neither Saracens nor Christian knights wore 
 such armour in the thirteenth century, but such 
 a consideration did not trouble us, and I took 
 Damietta. 
 
 "That recollection reminds me of the cruellest 
 humiliation of my life. As soon as I had made 
 myself master of Damietta, I took Cousin Paul 
 prisoner and tied him up with skipping-ropes; then 
 I pushed him with such enthusiasm that he fell on 
 his nose, uttering piercing shrieks in spite of his 
 courage. Mother came running in when she heard 
 the noise, and when she saw Cousin Paul bound 
 and prostrate on the floor she picked him up, kissed 
 him and said: 'You ought to be ashamed of your- 
 self, Lucien, to hit a child so much smaller than 
 yourself.' And as a matter of fact Cousin Paul, 
 who never grew very big, was then very small. I 
 did not say that it had happened in the wars. I
 
 40 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 said nothing at all, and remained covered with con- 
 fusion. My shame was increased by the magna- 
 nimity of Cousin Paul who said, between his sobs, 
 'I haven't hurt myself.' 
 
 "Ah our beautiful drawing-room," sighed 
 Monsieur Bergeret. "I hardly know it with this 
 new paper. How I loved the ugly old paper with 
 its green boughs! What a gentle shade, what 
 a delicious warmth dwelt in the folds of the hideous 
 claret-coloured rep curtains ! Spartacus with folded 
 arms used to look at us indignantly from the top 
 of the clock on the mantelpiece. His chains, which 
 I used idly to play with, came off one day in my 
 hand. Our beautiful drawing-room! Mother 
 would sometimes call us in there when she was 
 entertaining old friends. We used to come here to 
 kiss Mademoiselle Lalouette. She was over eighty 
 years of age ; her cheeks were covered with a mossy 
 growth and her chin was bearded. One long yellow 
 tooth protruded from her lips. They were spotted 
 with black. What magic makes the memory of 
 that horrible little old woman full of an attractive 
 charm for me now? What force compels me to 
 recall details of her queer far-away personality? 
 Mademoiselle Lalouette and her four cats lived 
 on an annuity of fifteen hundred francs, one half 
 of which she spent in printing pamphlets on 
 Louis XVII. She always had about a dozen of
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 41 
 
 them in her hand-bag. The good lady's mania 
 was to prove that the Dauphin escaped from the 
 Temple in a wooden horse. Do you remember the 
 day she gave us lunch in her room in the Rue 
 de Verneuil, Zoe? There, under layers of ancient 
 filth, lay mysterious riches, boxes full of gold and 
 embroideries." 
 
 "Yes," said Zoe, "she showed us some lace that 
 had belonged to Marie Antoinette." 
 
 "Mademoiselle Lalouette's manners were ex- 
 cellent," continued Monsieur Bergeret. "She spoke 
 the purest French and adhered to the old pronun- 
 ciation. She used to say 'un segret, un fit, une do' ; 
 she made me feel as though I were living in the 
 reign of Louis XVI. Mother used to send for us 
 also to speak to Monsieur Mathalene who was not 
 so old as Mademoiselle Lalouette; but he had a 
 hideous face. Never did a gentler soul reveal itself 
 in a more frightful shape. He was an inhibited 
 priest whom my father had met in the clubs in 1848 
 and whom he esteemed for his Republican opinions. 
 Poorer than Mademoiselle Lalouette, Monsieur 
 Mathalene would go without food in order, like her, 
 to print his pamphlets; but his went to prove that 
 the sun and the moon move round the earth and 
 are in reality no bigger than cheeses. That, by 
 the way, was the opinion of Pierrot, but Monsieur 
 Mathalene arrived at his conclusion only after thirty
 
 42 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 years of meditation and calculation. One still comes 
 upon one of his pamphlets occasionally on the old 
 bookstalls. Monsieur Mathalene was full of zeal 
 for the happiness of mankind, whom he terrified by 
 his dreadful ugliness. The only exceptions to his 
 universal love were the astronomers, whom he sus- 
 pected of the blackest designs on himself. He 
 imagined that they wanted to poison him, and in- 
 sisted on preparing his own food as much out of 
 prudence as on account of his poverty." 
 
 Thus in the empty rooms, like Ulysses in the 
 land of the Cimmerii, did Monsieur Bergeret evoke 
 the shades. For a moment he remained sunk in 
 thought; then he said: 
 
 "Zoe, it must be one of two things; either in 
 the days of our childhood there were more maniacs 
 about than there are now, or our father befriended 
 more than his fair share. I think he must have 
 liked them. Pity probably drew him to them, or 
 maybe he found them less tedious than other peo- 
 ple ; anyhow, he had a great following of them." 
 
 Mademoiselle Bergeret shook her head. 
 
 "Our parents used to receive very sensible and 
 deserving people. I should say rather that the 
 harmless peculiarities of some old people impressed 
 you, and that you have retained a vivid memory of 
 them." 
 
 "Zoe, make no mistake; we were both brought
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 43 
 
 up among people who did not think in a common 
 or usual fashion. Mademoiselle Lalouette, Abbe 
 Mathalene and Monsieur Grille were wanting 
 in ordinary common sense, that is certain. Do you 
 remember Monsieur Grille? He was tall and stout, 
 with a red face and a close-clipped white beard. 
 He had lost both his sons in an Alpine accident in 
 Switzerland, and ever since, summer and winter 
 alike, he had worn garments made of bed-ticking. 
 Our father considered him an exquisite Hellenist. 
 He had a delicate feeling for the poetry of the 
 Greek lyrics. He touched with a light and sure 
 hand the hackneyed text of Theocritus. It was his 
 happy mania never to believe in the certain death of 
 his two sons, and while with crazy confidence he 
 awaited their return he lived, clad in the raiment of 
 a carnival clown, in loving intimacy with Alcaeus 
 and Sappho." 
 
 "He used to give us caramels," said MademoU 
 selle Bergeret. 
 
 "His remarks were always wise, well-expressed 
 and beautiful," went on Monsieur Bergeret, "and 
 that used to frighten us. Logic is what alarms us 
 most in a madman." 
 
 "On Sunday nights the drawing room was ours," 
 said Mademoiselle Bergeret. 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Bergeret. "It was there 
 we used to play games after dinner. We used to
 
 44 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 write verses and draw pictures, and mother would 
 play forfeits with us. Oh, the candour and sim- 
 plicity of those bygone days ! The simple pleasures, 
 the charm of the old-world manners ! We used to 
 play charades; we ransacked your wardrobes, Zoe, 
 in search of things to dress up in." 
 
 "One day you pulled the white curtains off my 
 bed." 
 
 "That was to make robes for the Druids in the 
 mistletoe scene, Zoe. The word we chose was 
 guimauve. We were very good at charades, and 
 Father was such a splendid audience. He did not 
 listen to a word, but he smiled at us. I think I 
 should have been quite a good actor, but the grown- 
 ups never gave me a chance; they always wanted 
 to do all the talking." 
 
 "Don't labour under any delusions, Lucien; you 
 were incapable of playing your part in a charade. 
 You are too absent-minded. I am the first to 
 recognise your intellect and your talents, but you 
 never had the gift of improvisation. You must not 
 try to go outside your books and manu- 
 scripts." 
 
 "I am just to myself, Zoe, and I know I am 
 not eloquent; but when Jules Guinaut and Uncle 
 Maurice played with us one could not get a word 
 
 in." 
 
 "Jules Guinaut had a real talent for comedy,'
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 45 
 
 said Mademoiselle Bergeret, "and an unquenchable 
 spirit." 
 
 "He was studying medicine," said Monsieur 
 Bergeret. "A good-looking fellow !" 
 
 "So people used to say." 
 
 "I think he was in love with you." 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 "He paid you a great deal of attention." 
 
 "That's quite a different matter." 
 
 "Then, quite suddenly, he disappeared." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Don't you know what became of him?" 
 
 "No. Come, Lucien, let us go." 
 
 "Yes, let us go, Zoe ; here we are the prey of the 
 shades." 
 
 And, without turning their heads, the brother and 
 sister stepped over the threshold of their childhood's 
 old home and went silently down the stone stair- 
 case. When they found themselves again in the 
 Rue des Grands-Augustins, amid the cabs and drays, 
 the housewives and the artisans, the noise and 
 movement of the outer world bewildered them as 
 though they had just emerged from a long period of 
 solitude.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CNSIEUR PANNETON DE LA 
 BARGE had prominent eyes and a 
 shallow mind. But his skin was 
 so shiny that you could not help 
 thinking that his mind must of 
 necessity be of a fatty nature. His whole being 
 was eloquent of arrogance, brusqueness and a pride 
 that apparently had no fear of being importunate. 
 Monsieur Bergeret guessed that the man had come 
 to ask a favour of him. 
 
 They had known one another in the country. The 
 professor, taking a walk beside the sluggish river, 
 had often noted, on a green hillside, the slated 
 roof of the chateau inhabited by Monsieur de La 
 Barge and his family. Monsieur de La Barge 
 himself he saw less frequently, for the latter was on 
 visiting terms with the aristocracy of the country- 
 side, without being sufficiently grand himself to re- 
 ceive the humbler folk. In the country he knew 
 Monsieur Bergeret only on those critical days when 
 one or another of his sons was going in for some 
 
 46
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 47 
 
 examination; but now, in Paris, he wished to be 
 friendly, and he made an effort to be so. 
 
 "Dear Monsieur Bergeret, I must first of all 
 congratulate you." 
 
 "Please do not trouble," replied Monsieur Ber- 
 geret, with a little gesture of refusal that Monsieur 
 de La Barge quite wrongly interpreted as inspired 
 by modesty. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Monsieur Bergeret, a pro- 
 fessorship at the Sorbonne is a much-coveted posi- 
 tion, and one that you well deserve." 
 
 "How is your son Adhemar?" inquired Monsieur 
 Bergeret, remembering the name as that of a can- 
 didate for the bachelor's degree who had in- 
 terested in his incompetence the authorities of civil, 
 military and ecclesiastical society. 
 
 "Adhemar? He is doing well, very well; a little 
 wild perhaps, but what would you have? He has 
 nothing to do. In some ways it might be better 
 for him to have some settled occupation. How- 
 ever, he is very young; there is plenty of time; he 
 takes after me; he will settle down once he has 
 found his vocation." 
 
 "Didn't he do a little demonstrating at Auteuil?" 
 asked Monsieur Bergeret gently. 
 
 "For the army, for the army," answered 
 Monsieur de La Barge, "and I must confess that 
 I could not find it in my heart to blame him. It
 
 48 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 can't be helped. I am connected with the army 
 through my father-in-law, the general, my brothers- 
 in-law, and my cousin, the commandant." 
 
 He was too modest to mention his father, the 
 eldest of the Panneton brothers, who was also con- 
 nected with the army through the supply depart- 
 ment, and who, in 1872, as the result of an annoy- 
 ing charge in the police courts, was given a light 
 sentence, for having supplied to the Army of the 
 East, which was marching through the snow, shoes 
 with cardboard soles. 
 
 He died ten years later, in his chateau of La 
 Barge, rich and honoured. 
 
 "I was brought up to venerate the army," 
 continued Monsieur Panneton de La Barge. 
 "When quite a child I worshipped a uniform. It 
 is a family tradition. I do not attempt to hide the 
 fact that I hold by the old style of things. I can't 
 help it, it is in my blood. I am a Monarchist and 
 authoritarian by temperament. I am a Royalist. 
 Now the army is all that is left us of the Monarchy; 
 all that is left of a glorious past. It consoles us 
 for the present and fills us with hope for the 
 future." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret might have interposed with 
 some observations of historical interest; but he did 
 not do so, and Monsieur de La Barge continued: 
 
 "That is why I regard those who attack the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 49 
 
 army as criminals, and those who would dare to 
 interfere with it as fools." 
 
 "When Napoleon wished to praise one of the 
 plays of Luce de Lancival," replied the professor, 
 "he called it a headquarters tragedy. May I say 
 that your philosophy is that of a General Staff? 
 However, seeing that we live under the rule of 
 liberty, it may perhaps be as well to conform to 
 its customs. When one lives with men who have 
 the habit of speech one must accustom oneself to 
 hear anything. Do not hope that the right to dis- 
 cuss any subject will ever again be denied in France. 
 Consider, too, that the army is by no means im- 
 mutable; nothing in the world is that. Institutions 
 can exist only by ceaseless modifications. The army 
 has undergone such transformations in the course 
 of its existence that it will probably undergo even 
 greater changes in the future, and it is conceivable 
 that in twenty years' time it will be quite another 
 thing than what it is to-day." 
 
 "I prefer to tell you at once," replied Monsieur 
 Panneton de La Barge, "that where the army is 
 concerned I admit of no discussion. I repeat, it 
 must not be interfered with. It represents, as it 
 were, the battle-axe, and as such it must not be 
 touched. During the last session of the Conseil 
 General of which I have the honour to be president, 
 the Radical-Socialist minority put forward a vote in
 
 50 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 favour of two years' service. I protested against 
 so unpatriotic a suggestion. I had no difficulty in 
 proving a two years' service would mean the end of 
 the army. You cannot make an infantryman in two 
 years, much less a cavalryman. Perhaps you will 
 style those who clamour for the two years' service 
 reformers. I call them wreckers. And it is the 
 same with all other reforms. They are machina- 
 tions directed against the army. If only the So- 
 cialists would say that their desire is to replace the 
 army by a vast national guard, they would at least 
 be honest." 
 
 "The Socialists," replied Monsieur Bergeret, 
 "are against all attempts at territorial conquest; they 
 propose to organize militia solely for purposes of 
 home defence. They do not hide their views, they 
 spread them broadcast. And possibly their views 
 are worth some examination. You need not fear 
 that their desires will be too quickly realized. All 
 progress is slow and uncertain, and is followed, 
 more often than not, by retrograde movements. 
 The advance toward a better order of things is 
 vague and indeterminate. The profound and in- 
 numerable forces which chain man to the past cause 
 him to cherish its errors, superstitions, prejudices 
 and cruelties as precious symbols of his security. 
 Salutary innovation terrifies him. Prudence makes 
 him imitative, and he dare not quit the tumble-down
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 51 
 
 shelter that protected his fathers and which is about 
 to fall in upon him. Do you not agree with me, 
 Monsieur Panneton?" inquired Monsieur Bergeret, 
 with a charming smile. 
 
 Monsieur Panneton de La Barge's reply was 
 that he defended the army. He represented it as 
 misunderstood, persecuted and menaced, and in ris- 
 ing tones he continued: 
 
 "This campaign in favour of the Traitor, obsti- 
 nate and enthusiastic as it is, whatever may be the 
 intentions of its leaders, has a certain visible and 
 undeniable effect. It weakens the army and injures 
 its chiefs." 
 
 "I am going to tell you some very simple facts," 
 replied Monsieur Bergeret. "If the army is at- 
 tacked in the person of certain of. its chiefs, that 
 is not the fault of those who have asked for jus- 
 tice; it is the fault of those who have so long re- 
 fused it. It is not the fault of those who demanded 
 an explanation, but of those who have obsti- 
 nately avoided one with extraordinary stupidity 
 and abominable wickedness. After all, if crimes 
 have been committed the evil is not that they have 
 been made known but that they have been com- 
 mitted. They have concealed themselves in 
 all their enormity and in all their deformity. They 
 were not recognisable; they passed over the 
 crowds like dark clouds. Did you imagine they
 
 52 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 would never burst? Did you think the sun would 
 never shine again upon the classic land of Justice, 
 upon the country that taught the Law to Europe 
 and the world?" 
 
 "Don't let us speak of the Affair," replied 
 Monsieur de La Barge. "I know nothing of it. 
 I wish to know nothing. I did not read a 
 word of the Inquiry. Commandant de La Barge, 
 my cousin, assured me that Dreyfus was guilty. 
 That affirmation was enough for me. I came, 
 dear Monsieur Bergeret, to ask your advice about 
 my son Adhemar, whose prospects in life are now 
 engaging my attention. A year of military service 
 is a long time for a young fellow of good family. 
 Three years would be nothing short of dis- 
 aster. It is essential to find a means of exemption. 
 I had thought of letting him take his degree 
 in literature, but I'm afraid it is too dif- 
 ficult. Adhemar is intelligent, but he has no taste 
 for literature." 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Bergeret, "try the School 
 of Higher Commercial Studies; or the Commer- 
 cial Institute, or the School of Commerce. I do 
 not know if the Watchmakers' College at Cluses 
 would still furnish means of exemption. It used 
 not to be difficult, I've been told, to obtain the 
 certificate." 
 
 "But Adhemar cannot very well make watches,"
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 53 
 
 replied Monsieur de La Barge with a certain 
 modesty. 
 
 "Then try the School of Oriental Languages," 
 said Monsieur Bergeret obligingly. "It was an ex- 
 cellent institution to begin with." 
 
 "It has gone down since," sighed Monsieur de 
 La Barge. 
 
 "It still has its good points. What about Tamil, 
 for instance?" 
 
 "Tamil, do you think?" 
 
 "Or Malagasy." 
 
 "Malagasy, perhaps." 
 
 "There is also a certain Polynesian language 
 which was spoken, at the beginning of this cen- 
 tury, by only one old yellow woman. She died, 
 leaving behind her a parrot. A German scholar 
 collected a few words of the language from the 
 parrot, and from these he compiled a dictionary. 
 Perhaps this language is still taught at the School 
 of Oriental Languages. I should advise your son 
 to find out." 
 
 Upon this advice, Monsieur Panneton de La 
 Barge made his adieux and thoughtfully took his 
 departure.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 VENTS followed their due course. 
 Monsieur Bergeret continued to 
 look for a flat; it was his sister who 
 found one. Thus the positive mind 
 has the advantage over the specu- 
 lative mind. It must be admitted that Mademoi- 
 selle Bergeret made an excellent choice. She was 
 lacking neither in experience of life nor in common 
 sense. Having been a governess, she had lived in 
 Russia, and had travelled about Europe. She had 
 observed the manners and customs of the different 
 nations. She knew the world, and that helped her 
 to know Paris. 
 
 "That's it," she said to her brother, stopping 
 before a new house overlooking the Luxembourg 
 garden. 
 
 "The stairs look decent enough," said Monsieur 
 Bergeret, "but it's rather a stiff climb." 
 
 "Nonsense, Lucien. You are quite young enough 
 to go up five short flights of stairs without getting 
 exhausted." 
 
 "Do you really think so?" said Lucien, flattered. 
 
 54
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 55 
 
 She was careful to point out that the stair-carpet 
 ran right to the top of the house, and he smilingly 
 accused her of being susceptible to trifling vani- 
 ties. 
 
 "But it is possible," he added, "that J myself 
 should feel slightly offended were the carpet to 
 stop short at the floor below ours. We pro- 
 fess to be wise, but we still have our weak points. 
 That reminds me of what I noticed yesterday, 
 after lunch, as I was passing a church. The 
 outer steps were covered with a red carpet which 
 had been trodden, after the ceremony, by the guests 
 at some great wedding. A working-class couple 
 with their party were waiting for the last 
 of the wealthy company to leave so that they might 
 enter the church. They were laughing at 
 the idea of climbing the steps upon this unexpected 
 splendour. The little bride's white feet were 
 already on the edge of the carpet when the beadle 
 waved her away. The men in charge of the trap- 
 pings of the wealthy wedding slowly rolled up the 
 carpet of honour, and only when it formed a huge 
 cylinder did they allow the humble wedding 
 party to mount the bare steps. I stood for a mo- 
 ment and watched the worthy folk, who seemed 
 greatly amused by the incident. Humble folk sur- 
 render with admirable equanimity to social in- 
 equality, and Lamennais was quite right to say
 
 56 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 'that the whole social order rests on the resigna- 
 tion of the poor.' ' 
 
 "Here we are," said Mademoiselle Bergeret. 
 
 "I'm out of breath," remarked Monsieur Ber- 
 geret. 
 
 "Because you would talk," replied Mademoiselle 
 Bergeret. "You shouldn't tell anecdotes while you 
 are going upstairs." 
 
 "After all," said Monsieur Bergeret, "it is the 
 common destiny of men of learning to live close 
 under the roof. Science and meditation are often 
 hidden away in garrets, and when we come to think 
 of it, no marble hall is worth an attic filled with 
 beautiful thoughts." 
 
 "This room," replied Mademoiselle Bergeret, "is 
 not a garret. It is lighted by a big window and is 
 to be your study." 
 
 On hearing this, Monsieur Bergeret looked at 
 the four walls in alarm, like a man on the brink of 
 a precipice. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked his sister uneasily. 
 
 But he did not reply. The little square room, 
 hung with light paper, seemed to him dark with the 
 unknown future. He entered with a slow and 
 fearful step as though he were entering upon, a 
 hidden destiny. Then, measuring on the floor the 
 position of his work-table, he said : 
 
 "I shall sit there. It is a mistake to be too
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 57 
 
 sentimental over the past and the future. They are 
 nothing but abstract ideas, which were not originally 
 possessed by primitive man; he acquired them only 
 after long effort, to his great misfortune. The 
 thought of the past in itself is sufficiently painful. 
 I do not think any one would be willing to begin 
 life again if he had to go over precisely the same 
 ground. That there are delightful hours and ex- 
 quisite moments I do not deny, but they are pearls 
 and precious stones sparsely sprinkled on the harsh 
 and dismal web of life. The course of the years is, 
 for all its brevity, of tedious slowness, and if it be 
 sometimes sweet to remember it is because we are 
 able to make our minds dwell upon certain mo- 
 ments. And even then the sweetness is pale and 
 melancholy. As for the future, we dare not look it 
 in the face, so threatening is its gloomy countenance. 
 And when you told me a moment since, Zoe, that 
 this was to be my study, I saw myself in the future, 
 and I could not bear the sight. I am not without 
 courage, I think, but I am given to reflection, and 
 reflection and fearlessness are not the best of 
 friends." 
 
 "The most difficult thing of all," put in Zoe, 
 "was to find three bedrooms." 
 
 "It is certain," rejoined Monsieur Bergeret, 
 "that humanity, in its youth, did not conceive of 
 the future and the past as we do. Now these ideas
 
 58 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 that devour us have no reality outside ourselves. 
 We know nothing of life, and the theory of its 
 development through time is pure illusion. It is 
 by some infirmity of our senses that we do not see 
 to-morrow realised as we see yesterday. We can 
 very well conceive of beings so organized as to be 
 capable of the simultaneous perception of phe- 
 nomena which to us appear to be separated from 
 one another by an appreciable interval of time. We 
 ourselves do not perceive light and sound in the 
 order of time. We ourselves take in at a single 
 glance, when we raise our eyes to the sky, aspects 
 which are by no means contemporaneous. The 
 beams of light from the stars seem indistinguishable 
 to our eyes, yet they mingle in them, in a fraction of 
 a second, centuries and thousands of centuries. 
 With instruments other than those we now possess 
 we might see ourselves lying dead in the very midst 
 of our own life. For, as time does not in reality 
 exist, and as the succession of facts is only an ap- 
 pearance, all facts are realized simultaneously and 
 there is no such thing as the future. The future has 
 already been; we merely discover it. Now, perhaps, 
 you have some idea, Zoe, why I stopped short at the 
 door of the room where I am to live. Time is a 
 pure idea, and space is no more real than time." 
 
 "That may be," remarked Zoe, "but it is very 
 expensive in Paris at any rate. You must have
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 59 
 
 noticed that while you were house-hunting. I don't 
 expect you care to see my room; come, Pauline's 
 will interest you more." 
 
 "Let us go and see them both," said Monsieur 
 Bergeret, as he obediently promenaded his animal 
 mechanism through the little square rooms hung 
 with flowered paper, pursuing the course of his 
 reflections the while. 
 
 "The savages," he said, "make no distinction 
 between past, present and future. Languages, 
 which are undoubtedly the oldest monuments of 
 the human race, permit us to go back to the days 
 when our ancestors had not yet accomplished this 
 metaphysical operation. Monsieur Michel Breal, 
 who has just published an admirable essay on the 
 subject, shows that the verb, so rich to-day in its 
 resources for marking the priority of an action, had 
 originally no means of expressing the past, and in 
 order to perform this function forms were em- 
 ployed which implied a double affirmation of the 
 present." 
 
 As he spoke, he returned to the room which was 
 to be his study, which had at first sight seemed, 
 in its emptiness, to be filled with the shadows of the 
 ineffable future. 
 
 Mademoiselle Bergeret opened the window. 
 
 "Look, Lucien."
 
 60 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 And, seeing the bare tops of the trees, Monsieur 
 Bergeret smiled. 
 
 "These black boughs," he said, "will assume, in 
 the timid April sunlight, the purple hue of their 
 buds; then they will break forth into soft green 
 foliage. That will be delightful. It will, indeed, 
 be charming. Zoe, you are full of wisdom and 
 kindness, a worthy steward and a most endearing 
 sister. Let me kiss you." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret kissed his sister, repeating: 
 
 "You are a good creature, Zoe." 
 
 And Mademoiselle Bergeret's reply was: 
 
 "Our father and mother were both good." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret would have embraced her a 
 second time, but she protested: 
 
 "You'll make my hair untidy, Lucien, and that 
 I can't bear." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret stretched out his hand as he 
 stood by the open window. 
 
 "Look, Zoe, to the right. On the site of those 
 ugly buildings used to be the Pepiniere. There, our 
 elders have told me, was a maze of paths bordered 
 by green trelliswork windows among the shrubs. 
 Our father used to walk there when he was a young 
 man. He used to read the philosophy of Kant and 
 the novels of George Sand, seated on a bench be- 
 hind the statue of Velleda. A dreaming Velleda, 
 with hands folded over her mystic sickle, and crossed
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 61 
 
 legs, who was the object of much generous and 
 youthful adoration. The students used to sit at 
 her feet discussing love, justice and liberty. They 
 did not enlist in those days in the party of untruth, 
 injustice and tyranny. 
 
 "The Empire destroyed the Pepiniere. It was 
 an evil deed, for there is a soul even in inanimate 
 things. The noble ideas of many young men 
 perished with the gardens. How many beautiful 
 dreams and stupendous hopes have taken shape 
 under the shadow of Maindron's romantic Velleda ! 
 To-day our students have palaces with a bust of the 
 President of the Republic over the mantelpiece in 
 the principal room. Who will restore to them the 
 winding alleys of the Pepiniere, where they were 
 wont to discuss the establishment of peace and 
 happiness and the liberty of the world? Who will 
 give back to them the garden where, amid the 
 joyous songs of the birds, they repeated the 
 generous sayings of their masters, Quinet and 
 Michelet?" 
 
 "No doubt they were enthusiastic enough," said 
 Mademoiselle Bergeret, "but in the end they became 
 doctors and lawyers in their own provinces. One 
 must resign oneself to the mediocrity of life. You 
 know well enough, it is very difficult to live, and one 
 must not expect too much of one's fellow-creatures. 
 Anyhow, do you like the rooms?"
 
 62 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Yes, and I'm sure Pauline will be delighted. 
 She has a charming room." 
 
 "She has, but young girls are never delighted 
 with anything." 
 
 "Pauline is not unhappy with us." 
 
 "No, indeed. She is very happy, but she does 
 not realize it." 
 
 "I am going to the Rue Saint-Jacques," announced 
 Monsieur Bergeret, "to ask Roupart to put up some 
 shelves in my study."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ONSIEUR BERGERET had a great 
 liking and esteem for craftsmen. As 
 he did not indulge in any elaborate 
 appointments, he rarely employed 
 
 workmen, but, when he did employ 
 \ 
 
 one, he tried to enter into conversation with him, 
 being sure of hearing something worth listening to. 
 
 So he extended a gracious welcome to Roupart, 
 the carpenter, who came one morning to put up 
 some bookshelves in his study. 
 
 Riquet, as was his custom, lay in the depths of 
 his master's arm-chair, peacefully slumbering. But 
 the immemorial recollection of the perils which 
 surrounded his wild forbears in the forests makes 
 the domestic dog sleep lightly. It should further 
 be said that this hereditary readiness to awaken 
 promptly was fostered in Riquet by the sense of 
 duty. Riquet regarded himself as a watch-dog 
 Firmly convinced that his mission in life was to 
 guard the house, he was proud and happy in his 
 vocation. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, he thought of all 
 
 63
 
 64 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 houses as being what they are in the country or the 
 fables of La Fontaine, standing betwixt courtyard 
 and garden, of which a dog could make the circuit, 
 sniffing a soil redolent of the odours of cattle and 
 manure. He had formed no idea of the plan of the 
 flat occupied by his master on the fifth story of a 
 great block of buildings. So, unacquainted with the 
 limits of his domain, he was not quite clear as to 
 what he had to guard. And he was a ferocious 
 guardian. Supposing that the appearance of this 
 stranger clad in patched blue trousers, smelling of 
 perspiration and carrying his load of planks, was 
 imperilling the house, he leaped from his chair and 
 proceeded to bark at the man, retreating before him 
 with heroic deliberation. Monsieur Bergeret bade 
 him be silent, and he regretfully obeyed, sad and 
 surprised to see his devotion useless and his signals 
 disregarded. His earnest gaze, turned upon his 
 master, seemed to say: 
 
 "So you allow this anarchist to enter, dragging 
 his infernal machine behind him. Well, come what 
 may, I've done my duty." 
 
 Then he went back to his chair and slept again. 
 Monsieur Bergeret, abandoning the scholiasts of 
 Virgil, entered into conversation with the carpenter. 
 First he questioned him as to the purchasing, cutting 
 and polishing of different woods and the joining of 
 the planks. He loved to obtain fresh information
 
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 65 
 
 and he realized the excellence of the vulgar tongue. 
 
 His face to the wall, Roupart answered him be- 
 tween intervals of long silence, during which he took 
 measurements. It was then that he discussed panel- 
 ling and the making of joints. 
 
 "A tenon and mortice joint needs no glue if the 
 work is properly done." 
 
 "Is there not also such a thing as a dovetail 
 joint?" inquired Monsieur Bergeret. 
 
 "It's an old-fashioned affair; they don't make 'em 
 now," replied the carpenter. 
 
 Thus the professor learned something by listen- 
 ing to the artisan. Having made sufficient headway 
 with his work, the carpenter turned to Monsieur 
 Bergeret. His sunken, large-featured face, his 
 brown complexion, his hair matted over his fore- 
 head, and his little goatee, grey with dust, gave him 
 the look of a bronze figure. His smile, which was 
 gentle, but came with difficulty, showed his white 
 teeth and gave him a youthful look. 
 
 "I know you, Monsieur Bergeret." 
 
 "Do you really?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I know you. That was something a 
 bit out of the common what you did, and no 
 mistake. You don't mind my mentioning it, I 
 hope?" 
 
 "Not in the least." 
 
 "Well, then, you did something quite out of the
 
 66 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 common. You cut your own class, refused to have 
 any truck with the brass hats and sky pilots." 
 
 "I hate forgers, my friend," replied Monsieur 
 Bergeret. "Surely that is permissible in a philo- 
 logist. I have made no secret of my opinions, but 
 I have not gone out of my way to spread them. 
 How did you get to know of them?" 
 
 "I will tell you. One sees all sorts of people 
 at the workshop in the Rue Saint-Jacques. All 
 sorts and conditions, big and little. One day I was 
 planing some wood, and I heard Pierre say: 'That 
 low-down cur of a Bergeret.' And Paul asks him, 
 'Won't somebody smash his jaw for him?' And 
 then I realized that you were on the right side in 
 the Affair. There aren't many like you in this part 
 of Paris." 
 
 "And what do your friends say?" 
 
 "There aren't many Socialists hereabouts, and 
 the few there are don't agree. Last Saturday at 
 the club there was a lot of tag-rag and bobtail and 
 the whole lot of us started quarrelling. Old 
 Flechier, who fought in 1870, a Communard, who 
 was deported he's a man, he is he got up on the 
 platform and said: 'Citizens, keep your hair on! 
 The intellectual bourgeois are no less bourgeois 
 than the military bourgeois. Let the capitalists 
 scratch each other's eyes out. Fold your arms and 
 keep your eyes on the anti-Semites. At present they
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 67 
 
 are drilling with sham guns and wooden swords, 
 but when the time comes to expropriate the capi- 
 talists I don't see why we shouldn't make a start 
 with the Jews.' 
 
 "That pretty well brought the house down. But, 
 I ask you, should an old Communard, a good revo- 
 lutionary, talk in that way? I am not educated 
 like old Flechier, who has read Marx, but I could 
 see well enough that his arguments were all wrong. 
 It seems to me that Socialism, which stands for 
 truth, should also stand for justice and kindliness, 
 that everything just and kindly must come from 
 it as naturally as the apple comes from the apple- 
 tree. I take it that when we fight against injus- 
 tice we are fighting for ourselves, for the 
 working-classes, because it's on us that all injustice 
 lies so heavy. In my opinion, everything that is 
 equitable is a beginning of Socialism. Like Jaures, 
 I believe that to take sides with the upholders of 
 violence and falsehood is to turn one's back upon 
 the social revolution. I know nothing of Jews 
 or Christians. I recognize only men and there 
 again the only distinction I make is between the 
 just and the unjust. Jews or Christians, it is 
 difficult for the rich to be just; but when the laws 
 are just, men will be just too. Even now the Col- 
 lectivists and Anarchists are preparing for the fu- 
 ture by fighting against tyranny and inspiring
 
 68 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 the people with hatred of war and love for their 
 fellow-men. Even now we can do something. It'll 
 keep us from dying desperate with the bitterness 
 of rage in our hearts. For sure enough we 
 shan't see the triumph of our ideas, and when 
 Collectivism is established all over the world I shall 
 have been carried feet foremost from my garret a 
 long while before. But there ! I'm jawing and the 
 time's going." 
 
 He pulled out his watch, and seeing that it was 
 eleven o'clock he put on his waistcoat, picked up 
 his tools, and ramming his cap on the back of his 
 head, said, without turning round: 
 
 "It's a sure thing that the middle classes are 
 rotten. The Dreyfus case showed that plainly 
 enough." 
 
 With that, he went off to his dinner. 
 
 Then, with wide-open mouth, bristling hair and 
 flaming eyes, Riquet rushed at Roupart's depart- 
 ing heels, pursuing them with frantic barks. It 
 may have been that a bad dream had troubled his 
 light slumber and caused him to take advantage of 
 the enemy's retreat, or, as his master feigned to 
 believe, that his anger had been aroused by the name 
 which had just been pronounced. 
 
 Alone with Riquet, Monsieur Bergeret addressed 
 him gently in these sorrowful words: 
 
 "You, too, poor little blackamoor, so feeble in
 
 69 
 
 spite of your sharp teeth and your deep bark, the 
 apparent strength of which renders your weakness 
 ridiculous and your cowardice amusing you, too, 
 worship the pomps of the flesh. You bow to the old 
 iniquities and worship injustice out of respect for 
 the social order that gives you food and a roof over 
 your head. You, too, would uphold an illegal 
 judgment obtained by fraud and untruth; you, too, 
 are the plaything of appearances and allow yourself 
 to be seduced by lies. You have been brought up 
 on clumsy falsehoods and your darkened mind feeds 
 on the works of darkness. You deceive and are 
 deceived with delightful thoroughness, and you, too, 
 have your racial hatreds, your cruel prejudices and 
 your contempt for the unfortunate." 
 
 And as Riquet gazed at his master with a look of 
 innocence Monsieur Bergeret continued still more 
 gently: 
 
 "Yes, I know: you have a vague goodness, the 
 goodness of a Caliban. You are a pious dog; you 
 have your theology and your morality, and you try 
 to do well. But then you know nothing. You keep 
 watch over the house, guarding it even against its 
 friends and those who would make it more beautiful. 
 The workman whom you wanted to drive out of the 
 house has, in his simple fashion, some admirable 
 ideas. But you did not listen to him. 
 
 "Your shaggy ears are turned not to him whose
 
 70 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 words are wisest but to him who makes the most 
 noise ; and the natural fear which in the days of the 
 cave-dwellers was the wise counsellor of your an- 
 cestors and of mine the fear that created the gods 
 and crime makes you turn from the unfortunate 
 and deprives you of pity. And you do not even want 
 to be just. The white face of the new goddess 
 Justice is strange to you, and you prostrate your- 
 self before the old gods, black like yourself with fear 
 and violence. You admire brute force, thinking it 
 the sovereign power, because you do not know that 
 it destroys itself. You do not know that all chains 
 must fall before a just idea. 
 
 "You do not know that true strength lies in wis- 
 dom and that through wisdom alone the nations rise 
 to greatness. You do not know that that which 
 makes the glory of the nations is not the senseless 
 clamour raised in public places, but the noble thought 
 concealed in some garret, which, spreading one day 
 over the whole world, will change its face. You do 
 not know that those who have suffered imprison- 
 ment, outrage and exile, for justice' sake, have 
 honoured their country in the act You do not under- 
 stand."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IONSIEUR BERGERET was in his 
 
 study chatting with his pupil, Mon- 
 sieur Goubin. 
 
 "I found to-day," he said, "in a 
 friend's library, a little book which 
 is extremely rare and perhaps unique. Whether 
 he is ignorant of its existence, or thinks it of little 
 value, Brunet does not mention it in his Manual. 
 It is a little duodecimo entitled: Les characteres et 
 pourtraictures traces d'apres les modelles anticques. 
 It was printed in the year 1538 in the learned Rue 
 Saint-Jacques." 
 
 "Do you know the author?" inquired Monsieur 
 Goubin. 
 
 "The author is a certain Master Nicole Lange- 
 lier, a Parisian," replied Monsieur Bergeret. "His 
 style is not so pleasant as that of Amyot, but it is 
 clear and full of meaning. I enjoyed reading his 
 book, and copied out a chapter that struck me as 
 very curious. Would you care to hear it?" 
 "Very much," replied Monsieur Goubin.
 
 72 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret took some papers from the 
 table and read the heading: 
 
 "Concerning the Trublions which arose in the 
 time of the Republick." 
 
 Monsieur Goubin inquired who these Trublions 
 were. Monsieur Bergeret replied that he would no 
 doubt discover that from what followed, and that it 
 was a good plan to read a text before commenting 
 on it. And he read as follows : 
 
 "In those days there appeared in the city folk 
 that uttered loud cries and were named Trublions, 
 inasmuch as they served a chief named Trublion, 
 who was of high lineage but small understanding 
 and full of the arrogance of youth. And the 
 Trublions also had another chief named Tintin- 
 nabule who made excellent speeches and marvellous 
 songs and had been cast forth from the republick 
 by the law and usage of ostracism. In truth the 
 said Tintinnabule was adverse to Trublion; when 
 the one pulled up stream the other pulled down. 
 But the Trublions cared nothing for that, being so 
 crazy that they did not know whither they were 
 steering. 
 
 "At that time there lived in the mountains a 
 villager named Robin Honeyman, who had already 
 a hoary head, like a shock of hay or straw; a person 
 full of guile and subtlety, and very expert in the art 
 of feigning, who believed that he could govern the 
 State by means of these Trublions, and he flattered 
 them to draw them about him, whistling to them as
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 73 
 
 sweetly as a flute, after the guise of the fowler 
 piping to little birds. And the good Tintmnabule 
 fell into great amazement and affliction by reason 
 of this piping and had a great fear lest Robin 
 Honeyman should entice his goslings. 
 
 "Under Trublion, Tintinnabule and Robin 
 Honeyman there held command over the Trublion 
 troops : 
 
 "Four palmers of exceeding sourness. 
 
 "Twenty-one baptized Jews. 
 
 "Twenty-five worthy begging friars. 
 
 "Eight makers of almanacks. 
 
 "Forty demagogues, misoxenes, xenophobes, 
 xenoctones and xenophages; and six bushels of 
 noblemen professing devotion to the beauteous lady 
 of Bourdes in Navarre. 
 
 "In this fashion did sundry and contrary chiefs 
 govern the Trublions. They were a right un- 
 mannerly race, and even as the Harpies, as Virgil 
 reports, sat upon trees and shrieked horribly, and 
 spoiled all that lay beneath them, in like fashion 
 these froward Trublions climbed upon the cornices 
 and pinnacles of the churches and houses, thence to 
 do despite to the courteous citizens, to drop filth 
 upon them and to piss upon them. 
 
 "And they diligently chose an old colonel 
 named Gelgopole, who was the most inept in war 
 that could be found, an enemy of justice and a 
 disdainer of the laws, and made of him their idol 
 and paragon, and went about the city crying, 
 'Long life to the old Colonel!' And the little 
 school-urchins likewise squealed at their heels,
 
 74 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 'Long life to the old Colonel!' Then the aforesaid 
 Trublions gathered together in many assemblies and 
 conventicles in which they cried: 'Health to the 
 old Colonel' with such loudness of voice that the 
 elements themselves were astounded and the birds 
 flying above their heads fell to earth benumbed and 
 dead. In sooth this was a very base madness and a 
 most horrible frenzy. 
 
 "Then the said Trublions proclaimed that he 
 who would faithfully serve the city and merit the 
 civic crown, which was fashioned of the leaves of 
 the oak-tree bound with a fillet of wool and naught 
 besides, and honourable among all crowns, should 
 utter furious cries and insane discourses, likewise 
 those that guided the plough, and those that 
 reaped and gathered the harvest, and led their 
 flocks to the pasture and grafted their pear-trees in 
 this fair land of vine and corn, of green meadows 
 and fruitful gardens, did not serve the State. 
 Neither did their fellows that hewed the stone and 
 builded in the cities and villages houses with roofs 
 of red tiles and fine slate, nor the weavers, nor the 
 glass-workers, nor the stone-cutters that laboured 
 within the bowels of Cybele. Nor the wise men 
 who laboured in their closed studies and spacious 
 libraries knowing many wondrous secrets of Nature : 
 nor the mothers giving milk unto their babes, nor 
 the good old wives spinning with their distaffs in the 
 chimney-corner, telling tales to the little children. 
 But, said they, the Trublions served the State by 
 braying like asses at a fair. And be it said for 
 justice' sake that in so doing they thought to do
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 75 
 
 well, for they had naught but the clouds of their 
 brains and the breath of their mouths for their own, 
 and they expended their breath with great force for 
 the public weal and common profit. 
 
 "And they cried not only 'Long life to the 
 old Colonel!' but they also cried without respite 
 that they loved the State. In which they 
 grievously offended the other citizens, for thus 
 they gave men to understand that those folk 
 who shouted not did not love their mother the 
 State nor the fair land of their birth, which was 
 a manifest imposture and an injury not to be 
 suffered, for men drink with their mother's milk 
 this natural love and it is sweet to breathe one's 
 natal air. 
 
 "Now there were living at this time in the 
 city and country many wise and prudent men, 
 who loved their city and republick with a dearer 
 and purer love than ever the Trublions bare 
 them. 
 
 "For the said wise men desired that their city 
 should remain wise and virtuous as themselves, 
 blooming with graces and virtues, bearing fitly in 
 her right hand the golden rod of justice, and that 
 their city should be glad, careful and free, and 
 not (as the Trublions contrary-wise desired) 
 bearing in her hands a great club wherewith to 
 belabour the good citizens and a blessed chaplet 
 to mutter Aves, and filthily and miserably sub- 
 ject to the old Colonel Gelgopole and the said 
 Tintinnabule. For in sooth these latter wished 
 her subject to monks, hypocrites, bigots, canting
 
 76 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 rogues and impostors; lousy, filthy, f rocked and 
 hooded, shaven and barefoot; for devourers of 
 crucifixes, bleaters of requiems, beggars, defrauders 
 and cozeners of testaments swarmed in those days 
 and had already by secret means acquired in houses 
 and woods, fields and meadows well-nigh one third 
 part of the land of France. And they diligently 
 laboured (these Trublions) to render the city yet 
 more rude and uncomely. For they conceived a 
 great aversion to meditation and philosophy and 
 all arguments deduced from upright feeling and 
 shrewd reasoning, and all subtle thoughts, and con- 
 demned everything save force, only esteeming this 
 latter because it was wholly brutish. Thus did the 
 Trublions love their State and the country of their 
 birth." 
 
 As he read this old French text, Monsieur 
 Bergeret was careful not to sound all the letters 
 with which it was bristling after the fashion of the 
 Renaissance. He had a feeling for the beauty of 
 his native language. He paid no attention to 
 orthography, considering it a negligible thing: 
 but he had, on the other hand, the greatest respect 
 for the old pronunciation, so light and fluent, 
 which in our days, unfortunately, is becoming 
 heavier and more clumsy. Monsieur Bergeret 
 read his text according to the traditional pronuncia- 
 tion, and in so doing restored their youth and 
 novelty to the old words. Their meaning emerged
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 77 
 
 clear and limpid, causing Monsieur Goubin to 
 remark : 
 
 "What I like about that passage is the style; it 
 is so naive." 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Monsieur Bergeret. 
 
 And he continued: 
 
 "And the Trublions said that they would 
 defend the colonels and soldiers of the State and 
 republick, which was mockery and derision, for the 
 colonels and soldiers, who are armed with guns, 
 muskets, artillery and other very terrible engines, 
 are employed to defend and not to be defended 
 by the unarmed citizens, and it did not seem possi- 
 ble that there were in the city folk fond enough to 
 attack their own defenders, and the prudent men 
 opposed to the Trublions asked only that the 
 colonels should be honourably subject to the august 
 and holy laws of the State and republick. But the 
 said Trublions continued to shout and would hear 
 nothing for that niggardly nature had deprived them 
 of understanding. 
 
 "And the Trublions nourished a great hatred of 
 foreign nations. The names alone of the said 
 nations and peoples made their eyes stand out of 
 their heads like those of cray-fish, very horrible to 
 behold; they waved their arms like the sails of wind- 
 mills, so that there was not among them a notary's 
 clerk nor a butcher's 'prentice but wished to send a 
 challenge to a king or queen or emperor of some 
 great country, and the least hatmaker or taverner
 
 78 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 made as though he were ready at any moment to 
 go to the wars, but in the end he remained in his 
 chamber. 
 
 "And as it is true that fools, who are ever 
 greater in number than the wise, march to the 
 sound of vain cymbals, so people of little knowl- 
 edge and understanding (and there are many 
 such among rich folk as well as among the poor) 
 joined the company of the Trublions and were 
 Trublions with them. And there was a horrible 
 uproar in the State, so that the wise maiden 
 Minerva, sitting in her temple, that she might 
 not have her ear-drums broken by such bangers 
 of saucepans and infuriated popinjays, filled her 
 ears with the wax brought her by her well-beloved 
 bees, thus giving her faithful ones, wise men, 
 philosophers and good law-givers of the State, 
 to understand that it were waste of time to enter 
 into wise dispute and learned argument with these 
 trublioning and tintinnabulating Trublions. And 
 some persons in the realm, and not the least 
 important, being astounded by this hurly-burly, 
 perceived that these crazy loons were on the point 
 of over-throwing the republick and over-turning the 
 noble and glorious State, which would have been 
 a most lamentable happening. But a day came 
 when the Trublions burst asunder, for they were 
 full of wind." 
 
 His reading finished, Monsieur Bergeret re- 
 placed the pamphlet upon the table. 
 
 "These old books," he said, "amuse and
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 79 
 
 divert our minds, they make us forget the present 
 day." 
 
 "That is true," replied Monsieur Goubin. 
 
 But he smiled ; a thing he seldom did.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 URING the holidays, Monsieur 
 Mazure, a keeper of departmental 
 archives, came for a few days to 
 Paris to canvass the offices of the 
 Ministry for the Cross of the Legion 
 of Honour, to make certain historical researches 
 among the National Archives, and to see the 
 Moulin-Rouge. Before entering upon his labours, 
 on the day after his arrival, he called, about six 
 o'clock in the evening, upon Monsieur Bergeret, 
 who welcomed him benevolently. As the heat of 
 the day was overwhelming to those who were 
 detained in the city, under the scorching roofs and 
 in the streets filled with acrid dust, a bright idea 
 occurred to Monsieur Bergeret. He took Monsieur 
 Mazure to the Bois, to a cabaret, where tables were 
 set out under the trees, by the brink of a slumbering 
 sheet of water. 
 
 There, in the cool shade and the peace of the 
 foliage, they enjoyed an excellent dinner, and 
 exchanged views upon familiar topics, discoursing 
 in turn upon learning and the divers fashions of 
 
 80
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 81 
 
 loving. Then, without preconcerted design, they 
 yielded to an inevitable impulse and spoke of the 
 Affair. 
 
 Monsieur Mazure was greatly perturbed by the 
 Affair. Being both by persuasion and temperament 
 a Jacobin and a patriot, after the manner of Barere 
 and Saint-Just, he had joined the Nationalist hosts 
 of his own department, and in company with Royal- 
 ists and clerics, his betes noires, he had, in the 
 superior interest of his country, uplifted his voice for 
 the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. He 
 had even become a member of the league of which 
 Monsieur Panneton de La Barge was the president, 
 and as this league had voted an address to the King 
 it was slowly dawning upon him that it was anti- 
 republican, and he no longer felt easy in respect of 
 its principles. As a matter of fact, being accus- 
 tomed to dealing with documents, and quite capable 
 of bringing his intelligence to bear upon a critical 
 inquiry of a fairly simple character, he experienced 
 some difficulty in upholding a system that displayed 
 an audacity hitherto unexampled in the fabrication 
 and falsification of documents intended to ruin an 
 innocent man. He felt that he was surrounded by 
 imposture, and yet he would not admit the fact that 
 he had made a mistake, such an admission being 
 possible only to minds of unusual quality. 
 
 He protested, on the contrary, that he was right,
 
 82 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 and it is only fair to admit that he was kept in 
 ignorance, constrained, crushed and compressed by 
 the compact mass of his fellow-citizens. The knowl- 
 edge of the inquiry and the discussion of the docu- 
 ments had not yet reached his little town, comfort- 
 ably situated on the green banks of a sluggish river. 
 There, obstructing the light, filling public offices and 
 sitting on the bench, was that host of politicians and 
 churchmen, whom Monsieur Meline had formerly 
 sheltered beneath the skirts of his provincial frock- 
 coat, waxing prosperous in acquiescent ignorance of 
 the truth. This elect society, which enlisted crime 
 in the interests of patriotism and religion, made it 
 respectable for all, even for the Radical-Socialist 
 chemist Mandar. 
 
 The department was all the more safely protected 
 against any revelation of the most notorious facts in 
 that it was administered by an Israelitish prefect. 
 
 Monsieur Worms-Clavelin held himself bound, 
 by the very fact that he was a Jew, to serve the in- 
 terests of the anti-Semites of his administration with 
 greater zeal than a Catholic prefect would have dis- 
 played in his place. With a prompt and sure hand 
 he stifled in his department the growing faction in 
 favour of revision. He favoured the leagues of the 
 clerical agitators, causing them to prosper so won- 
 derfully that citizens Francis de Pressense, Jean 
 Psichari, Octave Mirbeau and Pierre Quillard, who
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 83 
 
 came to the departmental capital to speak their 
 minds as free men, felt as though they had stepped 
 straight into a city of the sixteenth century. They 
 encountered none but idolatrous papists, howling for 
 their death, who wanted to massacre them. And 
 as Monsieur Worms-Clavelin, who since the judg- 
 ment of 1894 was fully convinced that Dreyfus was 
 innocent, made no mystery of that conviction after 
 dinner, as he smoked his cigar, the Nationalists 
 whose cause he favoured had good reason to count 
 on a loyal support which was not dependent upon 
 personal feeling. 
 
 This firm hold over the department whose ar- 
 chives he kept profoundly impressed Monsieur 
 Mazure, who was an ardent Jacobin and capable of 
 heroism, but who, like the company of heroes, 
 marched only to the sound of the drum. Monsieur 
 Mazure was not a brute. He felt that he owed it 
 to others and to himself to explain his attitude. 
 
 After the soup, as they were waiting for the trout, 
 he leaned his arms on the table and remarked: 
 
 "My dear Bergeret, I am a patriot and a repub- 
 lican; I do not know whether Dreyfus is guilty or 
 innocent. I do not want to know; it's not my busi- 
 ness. He may be innocent, but there is no doubt 
 that the Dreyfusites are guilty. They have been 
 guilty of a great impertinence in substituting their 
 own personal opinion for a decision given by repub-
 
 84 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 lican justice. Besides, they have stirred up the 
 whole country. Trade is suffering." 
 
 "There's a pretty woman," said Monsieur Ber- 
 geret, "tall, straight and slender as a young tree." 
 
 "Pooh !" said Monsieur Mazure. "A mere doll." 
 
 "You speak very frivolously," returned Monsieur 
 Bergeret. "A doll, when alive, is a great force of 
 Nature." 
 
 "I don't trouble my head about that woman or 
 any other," said Monsieur Mazure. "Perhaps be- 
 cause my own wife is a very well-made woman." 
 
 So he said and did his best to believe. The truth 
 was he had married the old servant and mistress of 
 his two predecessors. Bourgeois society had kept 
 aloof from her for ten years, but as soon as Mon- 
 sieur Mazure joined the Nationalist leagues of the 
 department she found herself received in the best 
 society of the town. General Cartier de Chalmot's 
 wife went about with her, and the wife of Colonel 
 Despauteres could hardly tear herself away from 
 her. 
 
 "The reason why I attach special blame to the 
 Dreyfusites," added Monsieur Mazure, "is that they 
 have weakened our national defence and lowered 
 our prestige in the eyes of other nations." 
 
 The sun was shedding his last crimson rays be- 
 tween the black tree-trunks. Monsieur Bergeret felt 
 that he must in honesty reply:
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 85 
 
 "Just consider, my dear Mazure," he said, "that 
 if the affairs of an obscure captain have become a 
 matter of national importance the fault is not ours, 
 but that of the ministers who erected the support 
 of an erroneous and illogical sentence into a system 
 of government. If the Keeper of the Seals had 
 done his duty and proceeded to the revision of the 
 trial as soon as it was clearly proved to be neces- 
 sary, no one would have said anything. It was dur- 
 ing this lamentable evasion of justice that protests 
 began to make themselves heard. What upset the 
 whole country, what is calculated to injure us abroad 
 and at home, was that those in authority obstinately 
 persisted in a monstrous piece of wickedness which 
 increased day by day under the covering of lies 
 with which they strove to hide it." 
 
 "What else would you expect?" said Monsieur 
 Mazure. "I am a good patriot and a republican." 
 
 "Then since you are a republican," said Monsieur 
 Bergeret, "you must feel an alien, a solitary, among 
 your fellow-citizens. There are few republicans left 
 in France to-day. The Republic herself has created 
 none. It's absolute government that makes repub- 
 licans. The love of liberty is sharpened on the 
 grinding-stone of royalty or imperialism, but it 
 grows blunt in a country where people believe they 
 are free. People seldom care much for what they 
 possess. Reality as a rule is not a very pleasant
 
 86 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 thing. One needs wisdom to be content with it. 
 We can safely say that to-day Frenchmen under fifty 
 are not republicans." 
 
 "They are not monarchists." 
 
 "No, they are not monarchists either, for while 
 as a rule men care little for what they have, because 
 what they have is not usually pleasant, they fear 
 change because it contains the Unknown. It is the 
 Unknown that frightens them most; that is the 
 source and fountain-head of all fear. You see that 
 in universal suffrage, which would produce an incal- 
 culable effect but for this terror of the Unknown, 
 which annihilates it. It contains a force which 
 ought to perform prodigies of good or evil, but the 
 fear of the change contained in the Unknown gives 
 it power, and the monster bows his head to the 
 yoke." 
 
 "Would the gentlemen care for a peche au mara- 
 squinf" inquired the head waiter. 
 
 His voice was gentle and persuasive, and none 
 of the occupied tables escaped his vigilant gaze. 
 But Monsieur Bergeret did not reply; he was watch- 
 ing a lady who was advancing along the sandy path, 
 wearing a Louis XIV "church-lamp" hat of rice- 
 straw, covered with roses, and a white muslin gown, 
 the body of which was loose and floating, drawn in 
 at the waist by a pink sash. The ruche round her 
 neck looked like the collar of wings enclosing the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 87 
 
 face of an angel. Monsieur Bergeret recognized 
 Madame de Gromance, whom he had more than 
 once met, to his secret agitation, in the dull monotony 
 of provincial streets. He saw that she was accom- 
 panied by a very smart young man, whose attitude 
 was altogether too correct for him to appear any- 
 thing but bored. 
 
 He stopped at the table next to that occupied 
 by Monsieur Bergeret and his friend, when Madame 
 de Gromance happened to glance round and see 
 Monsieur Bergeret. An expression of displeasure 
 came over her face, and she led her companion to 
 the remotest corner of the lawn, where they sat 
 down under the shade of a large tree. The sight 
 of Madame de Gromance filled Monsieur Bergeret 
 with that bitter-sweet feeling of which a pleasure- 
 loving soul is conscious at the sight of the beauty 
 of living forms. 
 
 He asked the head waiter whether he knew the 
 lady and gentleman. 
 
 "I know them in a kind of way," replied the 
 waiter. "They often come here, but I don't know 
 their names. We see so many people ! On Satur- 
 day the place was crowded. There were covers all 
 over the grass and under the trees, as far as the 
 hedge that encloses the lawn." 
 
 "Really?" said Monsieur Bergeret. "There were 
 covers under all those trees?"
 
 88 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Yes, and on the terrace as well, and in the kiosk." 
 
 Busily cracking almonds, Monsieur Mazure had 
 not noticed the muslin dress. He inquired which 
 lady they were speaking of. Monsieur Bergeret, 
 however, decided to keep Madame de Gromance's 
 secret, and made no reply. 
 
 Night had fallen. Here and there a lamp whose 
 radiance was softened by a shade of white or pink 
 paper marked the position of a table and revealed 
 shapes surrounded by faint haloes of light. Beneath 
 one of these discreet lights the little white plume 
 surmounting a straw hat was drawing closer and 
 closer to the gleaming cranium of an elderly man. 
 At the next table were two youthful faces, more 
 unsubstantial than the moths that fluttered around 
 them. Not in vain was the white round shape of 
 the moon ascending the paling sky. 
 
 "I trust you are satisfied, gentlemen," said the 
 head waiter. 
 
 And without waiting for a reply he directed his 
 vigilant steps elsewhere. 
 
 "Look at those people dining in the kindly dark- 
 ness," said Monsieur Bergeret with a smile. "Those 
 little white plumes, and right at the back, under 
 that great tree, those roses on a Louis Quatorze 
 straw hat. They are eating, drinking and making 
 love, and to this man they are nothing but covers! 
 They have instincts and desires, even thoughts per-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 89 
 
 haps, and they are covers ! What strength of mind 
 and of language! This knight of the appetite is 
 a great man." 
 
 "We have had a very pleasant dinner," said Mon- 
 sieur Mazure, rising. "This restaurant is fre- 
 quented by the very smartest people." 
 
 "Their smartness," replied Monsieur Bergeret, 
 "was possibly not of the highest category. But 
 some of them, certainly, were graceful and charm- 
 ing enough. I must confess, however, that it gives 
 me less pleasure to contemplate these fashionable 
 folk since a vile conspiracy has aroused the sickly 
 fanaticism and thoughtless cruelty of their poor little 
 brains. The Affair has revealed the moral sickness 
 with which our fashionable society is afflicted, just 
 as the vaccine of Koch discovers the lesions of tuber- 
 culosis in an infected organism. Fortunately the 
 depths of the human ocean lie beneath this gilded 
 scum. But when will my country be delivered from 
 ignorance and hatred?"
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HE Baronne Jules, the widow of the 
 great Baron and the mother of the 
 little Baron, had lost, under circum- 
 stances which are familiar to us, her 
 lover Raoul Marcien.* She was too 
 tender-hearted to live alone, and it would have been 
 a pity had she done so. It came to pass that one 
 summer night, between the Bois and the fitoile, she 
 took unto herself a new lover. It is fitting to record 
 this fact, as it is not unconnected with public affairs. 
 The Baronne Jules de Bonmont, who had spent 
 the month of June at Montil, on the banks of the 
 Loire, was passing through Paris on her way to 
 Gmunden. Her house being shut up, she dined 
 at one of the restaurants in the Bois with her 
 brother, Baron Wallstein, Monsieur and Madame 
 de Gromance, Monsieur de Terremondre, and young 
 Lacrisse, who like herself were passing through 
 Paris. 
 
 As they all moved in good society they were all 
 Nationalists, Baron Wallstein as much as any of 
 * See The Amethyst Ring. 
 90
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 91 
 
 them. An Austrian Jew, expelled from his country 
 by the Viennese anti-Semites, he had settled in 
 France, where he founded a well-known anti-Semite 
 paper and took refuge in the friendship of the 
 Church and the Army. Monsieur de Terremondre, 
 a gentleman of the lesser nobility, and a small land- 
 owner, displayed just enough clerical and military 
 enthusiasm to be able to identify himself with the 
 superior territorial aristocracy with which he asso- 
 ciated. The Gromances had too much interest in 
 the return of the monarchy not to desire it seriously. 
 Their financial situation was very precarious. 
 Madame de Gromance, who was pretty, well-made, 
 and mistress of her own actions, had so far kept 
 free of the Affair, but her husband, who was no 
 longer young, and was fast approaching the age 
 when a man feels the need of comfort, security and 
 consideration, sighed for better days and impatiently 
 awaited the advent of the King. He was confident 
 that he would be created a peer of France by the 
 restored Philippe. He based his right to a seat in 
 the Luxembourg on his loyalty to the Throne, and 
 entered the ranks of Monsieur Meline's republicans, 
 whom the King, if he wished to secure them, would 
 have to reward. Young Lacrisse was secretary to 
 the league of the Royalist youth of the department 
 in which the Baronne had estates and the Gromances 
 creditors. Seated at the little table under the trees,
 
 92 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 lit by candles whose pink shades were surrounded 
 by swooping moths, these five felt that they were 
 united by a single idea, which Joseph Lacrisse hap- 
 pily expressed by saying: 
 
 "France must be saved." 
 
 It was the day of vast projects and stupendous 
 hopes. They had,' it is true, lost President Faure 
 and the Minister Meline, who the former strutting 
 in dress-coat and pumps, the latter in a frock-coat 
 made by a village tailor, taking short steps in his 
 heavy hob-nailed shoes were leading the Republic 
 and Justice to their downfall. Meline had left the 
 Government and Faure had left the world of the 
 living at the very height of the banquet. It must 
 also be recognized that the obsequies of the latter 
 had not produced all that was expected of them, and 
 that the coup they had hoped to bring off at the 
 lying-in-state had proved abortive. It was also true 
 that after smashing President Loubet's hat the 
 gentry of the cornflower and the white carnation 
 had received their chastisement at the hands of the 
 Socialists. It is true that a Republican Ministry 
 was formed, and obtained a majority. But in the 
 ranks of the reactionary party were the clergy, the 
 magistracy, the army, the landed gentry, industry, 
 commerce, part of the Chamber, and almost the 
 whole of the Press. And as young Lacrisse re- 
 marked, if the Keeper of the Seals had taken it into
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 93 
 
 his head to order a search to be made at the head- 
 quarters of the Royalist and Anti-Jewish Committees 
 they would not have found one police commissary 
 in the whole of France to seize the compromising 
 documents. 
 
 "Anyhow," said Monsieur de Terremondre, 
 "poor Monsieur Faure was of great service to us." 
 
 "He loved the army," sighed Madame de Bon- 
 mont. 
 
 "Assuredly," continued Monsieur de Terremon- 
 dre. "And then by his display he prepared people 
 for the monarchy. Coming after him, the King 
 will not seem to be a burden upon the people; his 
 establishment will not seem ridiculous." 
 
 Madame de Bonmont was anxious to be assured 
 that the King would enter Paris in a coach drawn 
 by six white horses. 
 
 "One day last summer," continued Monsieur de 
 Terremondre, "as I was walking down the Rue 
 Lafayette, I found all the traffic stopped, with 
 groups of police here and there, and the pavements 
 lined with people. I asked a citizen what this 
 meant, and he solemnly replied that they had been 
 waiting an hour for the President, who was return- 
 ing to the filysee after a visit to Saint-Denis. I 
 looked at the respectful idlers and at the well-to-do 
 people, who, with little parcels in their hands, were 
 sitting quiet and watchful in their waiting fiacres,
 
 94 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 deferentially losing their trains. I was pleased to 
 note that all these people adapted themselves so 
 easily to the customs of a monarchy, and that the 
 Parisians were quite ready to welcome their sov- 
 ereign." 
 
 "The city of Paris is no longer republican. All 
 is going well," said Joseph Lacrisse. 
 
 "So much the better," remarked Madame de 
 Bonmont. 
 
 "Does your father share your hopes?" said Mon- 
 sieur de Gromance of the youthful secretary of the 
 Young Royalists. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the opinion of Maitre 
 Lacrisse, advocate to the Church authorities, was not 
 to be despised. Maitre Lacrisse was working with 
 the Headquarters Staff and preparing for the Rennes 
 trial. He had to go through the depositions of 
 the generals and get them to repeat their evidence. 
 A Nationalist, and one of the leading lights of the 
 Bar, he was, however suspected of having little 
 confidence in the issue of the Monarchist plots. The 
 old man had worked in former days for the Comte 
 de Chambord and the Comte de Paris, and he knew 
 from experience that the Republic would not easily 
 be ousted, and that she was not so docile as she ap- 
 peared. He had no faith in the Senate, and as he 
 made money at the Palais he resigned himself will- 
 ingly enough to living in France under a kingless
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 95 
 
 monarchy. He did not share the hopes of his son 
 Joseph, but was too indulgent to condemn the ardour 
 of enthusiastic youth. 
 
 "My father," replied Joseph Lacrisse, "has his 
 own work; I have mine; but our efforts are con- 
 vergent." And leaning towards Madame de Bon- 
 mont he whispered, "We shall strike our blow dur- 
 ing the Rennes trial." 
 
 "May God help you," said Madame de Gro- 
 mance, with a pious sigh. "It is time, if we want 
 to save France." 
 
 It was very hot and they ate their ices in silence. 
 Then the conversation languidly revived. It pro- 
 gressed fitfully, consisting of commonplace remarks 
 and private observations. Madame de Gromance 
 and Madame de Bonmont discussed clothes. 
 
 "There is a hint this year of pleated skirts com- 
 ing into fashion," said Madame de Gromance, with 
 inward satisfaction as she pictured the plump pro- 
 portions of the Baronne in a full skirt. 
 
 "You would never guess," said Gromance, "where 
 I went to-day. I went to the Senate. They were 
 not sitting, and Laprat-Teulet took me all over the 
 building. I saw everything the hall, the gallery 
 of Busts, the library. It is a very fine building." 
 
 What he did not tell them was that, in the semi- 
 circle where the peers were to sit when the King 
 came to his own once more, he had felt the velvet
 
 96 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 chairs and chosen his place in the centre. And be- 
 fore he went out he had asked Laprat-Teulet where 
 the treasury was. This visit to the palace of the 
 future peers had revived his covetousness. He re- 
 peated with heartfelt and sincere conviction : 
 
 "We must save France, Monsieur Lacrisse, we 
 must save France, and it will only be in the nick of 
 time." 
 
 Lacrisse would see to that. He displayed much 
 confidence and affected great discretion. According 
 to him, everything was in readiness. They would 
 no doubt be forced to smash Worms-Clavelin's head 
 for him and perhaps do the same for two or three 
 more of the Dreyfusites of the department And 
 he added, swallowing a piece of crystallized peach: 
 
 "It's bound to come." 
 
 Then Baron Wallstein spoke. He spoke at 
 length; he made them realize his knowledge of af- 
 fairs; he gave them advice, and related a few stories 
 from Vienna which greatly amused him. Then, in 
 conclusion : 
 
 "It is all very satisfactory," he said, with his 
 irrepressible German accent; "it is all very satisfac- 
 tory, but you must admit that your coup at President 
 Faure's funeral was a failure. If I speak like this 
 it is because I am your friend. One owes the truth 
 to one's friends. Do not make a second mistake, 
 because in that case you would lose your following."
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 97 
 
 He looked at his watch, and seeing that he had 
 barely time to get to the Opera before the close of 
 the performance, lighted a cigar and rose from the 
 table. 
 
 The position of Joseph Lacrisse demanded dis- 
 cretion; he was a conspirator. But he loved to 
 display his power, to reveal the consideration in 
 which he was held. He took from his pocket a blue 
 morocco letter-case, which he carried against his 
 breast, and drew from it a letter which he handed 
 to Madame de Bonmont, saying with a smile : 
 
 "They can search my flat if they like; I carry 
 all my documents about me." 
 
 Madame de Bonmont took the letter, read it in a 
 whisper, and, flushing with respect and emotion, re- 
 turned it with a hand that trembled slightly to Joseph 
 Lacrisse. And when the august letter, returned to 
 its blue morocco case, once more resumed its place 
 next the secretary's heart, the Baronne gazed at his 
 left breast with a lingering expression at once tearful 
 and filled with fire. In her eyes young Lacrisse had 
 suddenly become resplendent with romantic beauty. 
 
 The diners who still lingered under the trees of 
 the restaurant began to feel the dampness and the 
 chill of the night. The pink lights gleaming on the 
 flowers and glass flickered out one by one on the 
 deserted tables. At the request of Madame de 
 Gromance and the Baronne, Joseph Lacrisse for the
 
 98 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 second time drew the royal letter from his letter-case 
 and read in a low but distinct voice : 
 
 "Mv DEAR JOSEPH, 
 
 "I am greatly delighted by the patriotic 
 enthusiasm which our friends are displaying, thanks 
 to your efforts. I have seen G. D., who seemed to 
 me to be excellently well disposed towards us. 
 
 "Cordially yours, 
 
 "PHILIPPE." 
 
 After reading the note Lacrisse replaced the sheet 
 of paper in his blue morocco letter-case against his 
 heart, beneath the white carnation in his buttonhole. 
 Monsieur de Gromance murmured a few words of 
 approval : 
 
 "Very nice indeed. Those are the words of a 
 real leader, a true king. 
 
 "That is my feeling," said Joseph Lacrisse. "It 
 is a pleasure to execute the orders of such a master." 
 
 "And the style is excellently concise," continued 
 Monsieur de Gromance. "The Due d'Orleans cer- 
 tainly seems to have inherited the secret of the 
 Comte de Chambord's epistolary style. Of course 
 you know, mesdames, that the Comte de Chambord 
 wrote the most beautiful letters imaginable. A most 
 able writer. That is really the truth. He excelled 
 above all in letter-writing. There is a trace of his 
 grand manner in the note which Monsieur Lacrisse
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 99 
 
 has just read to us. And the Due d'Orleans has 
 more enthusiasm; he has the fiery energy of youth. 
 A fine figure of a man, a fine soldierly figure, and 
 French to the backbone ! He has a fascinating per- 
 sonality. I have been assured that in the working- 
 class districts of Paris he is almost a popular 
 favourite; he is known under the nickname of 
 'Gamelle.' * 
 
 "His cause has made great progress among the 
 masses," said Lacrisse. "The little brooches with 
 the King's head, of which we have distributed 
 enormous quantities, are beginning to show them- 
 selves in the factories and workshops. The popu- 
 lace has more common sense than is commonly sup- 
 posed. We are within reach of success." 
 
 In a benevolent and authoritative tone Monsieur 
 de Gromance continued: 
 
 "With zeal, prudence and devotion such as yours, 
 Monsieur Lacrisse, any hopes are permissible, and 
 I am sure you will not have to sacrifice many vic- 
 tims in order to obtain success. Your opponents 
 will flock over to you of their own accord." 
 
 His attitude as a supporter of the Republic, while 
 not preventing him from expressing a desire for 
 the restoration of the monarchy, did not permit him 
 to express a too open approval of the violent meth- 
 ods which young Lacrisse had indicated at dessert. 
 * Gamelle might be roughly translated by "Matey."
 
 ioo MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Monsieur de Gromance, who went to balls given 
 at the Prefecture and was carrying on a flirtation 
 with Madame Worms-Clavelin, tactfully remained 
 silent when the young secretary enlarged upon the 
 necessity of doing for the "sheeny" prefect; but it 
 was no breach of good taste on his part to praise 
 the Prince's letter as it deserved, and to give them 
 all to understand that he was ready for any sacrifice 
 to save his country. 
 
 Monsieur de Terremondre was no less patriotic 
 and no less appreciative of Philippe's epistolary 
 style; but he was such an enthusiastic collector of 
 curios and autographs that all he could think of was 
 how he could get Lacrisse to give him the Prince's 
 letter, either in exchange for something else or as 
 a free gift or a so-called loan. By such methods 
 he had got hold of several letters written by people 
 mixed up in the Dreyfus affair and had formed an 
 interesting collection. Now he was thinking of 
 writing a pamphlet on the Monarchist Plot and 
 putting in the Prince's letter as the principal feature. 
 He realized that it would be difficult to obtain and 
 his mind was full of the matter. 
 
 "Come and see me, Monsieur Lacrisse," he said. 
 "Come and see me at Neuilly, where I shall be for 
 the next few days. I will show you some interesting 
 documents and we will speak again of that letter." 
 
 Madame de Gromance had listened with proper
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 101 
 
 attention to the King's epistle. She was a woman 
 of the world, and too well versed in its ways not to 
 know what was due to royalty. She had bowed 
 her head on hearing the words of Philippe as she 
 would have bowed to the King's carriage if she had 
 had the honour of seeing it pass. But she was 
 wanting in enthusiasm and had no feeling of venera- 
 tion. She knew all about princes and had been as 
 intimate as it is possible to be with a relation of the 
 Due d'Orleans. This had occurred in an unob- 
 trusive little house in the Champs-filysees district, 
 one afternoon. They had said all that they had to 
 say, and the occasion had not had a sequel. Mon- 
 seigneur had been pleasant but not at all magnificent. 
 Of course she felt honoured, but she had never re- 
 garded the honour as either very special or very 
 extraordinary. She respected princes; occasionally 
 she loved them ; but she did not dream about them, 
 and the letter left her quite unmoved. As for young 
 Lacrisse, the sympathy which she felt for him was 
 neither ardent nor tumultuous. She understood and 
 approved of this fair-haired young man. He was 
 small, slender and agreeable enough, though he was 
 not rich. He was doing his very utmost to profit 
 by the Affair and acquire importance. She, too, 
 knew by experience that it is not easy to live in 
 Society if one is poor. They were both working 
 to keep their footing in Society. This was one
 
 102 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 reason for a good understanding between them. 
 They could help one another now and then. But 
 that was all I 
 
 "I congratulate you, Monsieur Lacrisse," she said, 
 "and you have my very best wishes." 
 
 How much more chivalrous and tender were the 
 feelings of Baronne Jules ! The gentle Viennese 
 was interested heart and soul in this fashionable plot, 
 of which the white carnation was the emblem. And 
 she, too, was so fond of flowers ! To be mixed up 
 in an aristocratic plot in favour of the King was 
 to her to enter into and luxuriate in the old French 
 nobility, to be received in the most exclusive houses, 
 and later on, perhaps, to go to Court. She was 
 excited, pleased and agitated. Being affectionate 
 rather than ambitious, her susceptible heart was 
 touched by what she was pleased to consider the 
 poetry of the Prince's letter. And the innocent 
 woman spoke as she thought : 
 
 "Monsieur Lacrisse, that is a poetical letter." 
 
 "That is true," returned Lacrisse. 
 
 And a long look passed between them. 
 
 After this nothing further memorable was said 
 as they sat in the summer's night before the flowers 
 and candles of the little restaurant table. 
 
 The time came for them to go. As Monsieur 
 Joseph Lacrisse placed her cloak round the 
 Baronne's plump shoulders, she held out her hand
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 103 
 
 to Monsieur de Terremondre, who was saying good- 
 bye. He was walking to Neuilly, where he was 
 staying for the time being. 
 
 "It is quite near, only a quarter of a mile. I 
 am sure, madame, that you don't know Neuilly. I 
 have discovered, at Saint- James, the remnant of an 
 old park, with a group by Lemoyne in a trellis-work 
 arbour. I must show it to you some day." 
 
 And already his tall strongly-built figure was re- 
 ceding along the path that lay bathed in the blue 
 moonlight. 
 
 The Baronne offered to give the Gromances a 
 lift in the carriage which her brother Wallstein had 
 sent for her from the club. 
 
 "Get in with me, there is plenty of room for 
 three." 
 
 But the Gromances were people of discretion. 
 They hailed a cab which had stopped outside the 
 restaurant gates and got into it before she had time 
 to stop them. She and Joseph Lacrisse were left 
 standing alone by the open door of the carriage. 
 
 "Would you like a lift, Monsieur Lacrisse?" 
 
 "I am afraid I shall be in your way." 
 
 "Not in the least. Where shall I drop you?" 
 
 "At the fitoile." 
 
 They started along the blue road bordered by 
 black foliage, in the silent night.
 
 104 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 And the drive came to an end. 
 
 The Baronne asked as the carriage stopped, in 
 the voice of one awakening from a dream: 
 
 "Where are we?" 
 
 "At the fitoile, alas !" replied Joseph Lacrisse. 
 
 And when he had left her, the Baronne, bowling 
 along the Avenue Marceau, alone in the now chilly 
 carriage, held a torn white carnation between her 
 bare fingers. With half-closed eyes and parted lips, 
 she still felt the eager yet gentle embrace which, 
 pressing the royal letter against her bosom, had 
 filled her with the sweetness of love and the pride 
 of glory. She felt that this letter endowed her little 
 private adventure with a national greatness and the 
 majesty of the history of France.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 N a house in the Rue de Berri, at the 
 back of the courtyard, there was a 
 little entresol which was lit by a 
 trickle of daylight as dismal as the 
 stone walls between which it found 
 its difficult way. Henry de Brece, son of the Due 
 Jean de Brece, president of the Executive Commit- 
 tee, was seated at his desk with a sheet of paper 
 before him on which he was turning a round blot of 
 ink into a balloon, by the addition of netting, ropes 
 and a car. On the wall behind him was nailed a 
 large photograph of the Prince, looking extremely 
 feeble in his vulgar solemnity and heavy-witted 
 youth. Tricoloured flags spangled with fleurs de Us 
 surrounded the portrait. In the corners of the 
 room banners were displayed on which loyal ladies 
 had embroidered golden lilies and royalist mottoes. 
 At the back of the room several cavalry sabres were 
 fixed to the wainscot, with a cardboard scroll bearing 
 the inscription: "Vive I'armee!" Below them, held 
 in place by pins, was a caricature of Joseph Reinach 
 as a gorilla. A chest for papers, a strong box, a 
 
 105
 
 io6 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 couch and four chairs and a writing-desk in some 
 black wood composed the furniture of this room, 
 which looked both comfortable and business-like. 
 Propagandist pamphlets were piled in heaps against 
 the walls. 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse, secretary of the Departmental 
 Committee of Young Royalists, was standing by the 
 fireplace silently conning the list of affiliated mem- 
 bers. Henri Leon, vice-president of the Royalist 
 Committees of the South-West, was seated astride 
 a chair, where, with stony gaze and knitted brows, 
 he was unfolding his ideas. He was considered 
 irrelevant and gloomy, a regular skeleton at the 
 feast, but his inherited financial abilities made him 
 of value to his associates. He was the son of that 
 Leon-Leon, the banker of the Spanish Bourbons, 
 who had come to grief in the smash of the Union 
 generate. 
 
 "We are being hemmed in, I don't care what 
 you say, we are being hemmed in, I feel it. Day by 
 day the circle is closing upon us. When Meline 
 was with us we had air and space, as much space as 
 we wanted. We were free to do as we liked." 
 
 He jerked his elbows and moved his arms about 
 as though to demonstrate the ease with which people 
 manoeuvred in those happy days which were no more. 
 He continued : 
 
 "With Meline we had everything. We Royalists
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 107 
 
 held the Government, the army, the magistracy, the 
 administrations and the police." 
 
 "We still have all that," said Henri de Brece, 
 "and public opinion is more than ever with us now 
 that the Government is so unpopular." 
 
 "It's no longer the same thing. With Meline 
 we were pseudo-official, we were supporters of the 
 Government, we were Conservatives; the conditions 
 were ideal for conspiracy. Don't make any mistake 
 about that. France as a whole is conservative, and 
 domestic and changes alarm her. Meline did us 
 the enormous service of making us appear reassur- 
 ing; we appeared to be kindly and benign, as benign 
 as he himself appeared. He told the people that 
 we were the true Republicans, and the people be- 
 lieved him. You had only to look into his face; 
 you couldn't suspect him of a jest. Through him 
 we were accepted by public opinion, and that in 
 itself is no small service." 
 
 "Meline was a good sort," sighed Henri de 
 Brece, "We must at least do him that justice." 
 
 "He was a patriot," said Joseph Lacrisse. 
 
 "With such a minister," continued Henri Leon, 
 "we had everything, we were everything and we 
 could do everything. We had no need to conceal 
 ourselves. We were not outside the Republic; we 
 were above it, and we dominated it from the full 
 height of our patriotism. We were everything; we
 
 io8 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 were France herself ! I must admit that the Repub- 
 lic is good enough at times, though I'm not smitten 
 with the hussy. Under Meline the police I don't 
 exaggerate were exquisitely agreeable. During a 
 Royalist demonstration which you very kindly or- 
 ganized, Brece, I yelled 'Five la police* till I was 
 hoarse! And I meant it. The enthusiasm with 
 which they clubbed the Republicans I Gerault- 
 Richard was put in gaol for shouting 'Five la Re- 
 publiqitef Ah, Meline spoiled us, made life too 
 pleasant for us. A wet-nurse, positively! He 
 rocked us to sleep. That's a fact. General Decuir 
 himself used to say, 'Now that we've got all we can 
 possibly want, what's 'the good of upsetting the 
 whole caboodle and getting a nasty spill in doing 
 it?' Thrice-happy days when Meline led the dance ! 
 Nationalists, Monarchists, anti-Semites and Plebis- 
 citarians, we all danced in unison to the sound of 
 his rustic fiddle. 
 
 "We were all countrified and content. When 
 Dupuy came along I was less pleased; with him 
 things were not so honest and above-board ; we were 
 not so sure of ourselves. Of course he didn't want 
 to harm us, but he was not a true friend. He was 
 not the kindly village fiddler leading the wedding 
 procession. He was a fat coachman jogging us 
 along in his cab. And we tore along, hanging on 
 anyhow, always in danger of being upset. He had
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 109 
 
 a hard hand on the reins. You will be telling me 
 that his clumsiness was feigned; yes, but feigned 
 clumsiness is tremendously like the real thing. 
 Besides, he never knew where he wanted to go. 
 There are people like that, fellows who don't know 
 your address but drive you indefinitely along im- 
 possible roads, winking maliciously as they do it. 
 It unnerves one." 
 
 "I don't defend Dupuy," said Henri de Brece. 
 
 "I don't attack him. I watch him, study him 
 and classify him. I don't dislike him; he's been of 
 great service to us. Don't forget it. If it were 
 not for him, we should all be doing time to-day. 
 Oh yes, I mean it. I'm referring to Faure's funeral, 
 the great day fixed for simultaneous action. Well, 
 my dear friends, after the failure of the great coup 
 we should have been done for, had it not been for 
 Dupuy." 
 
 "It wasn't us he wanted to spare," said Joseph 
 Lacrisse, with his nose in his ledger. 
 
 "I know that. He saw at a glance that he 
 couldn't do anything because there were some gen- 
 erals mixed up in the business. It was too big for 
 him. But that doesn't alter the fact that we owe 
 him a jolly big candle." * 
 
 * A reference to the practice of burning candles to induce 
 the Virgin, or a Saint, to listen to a prayer, or in token of 
 gratitude for a prayer granted.
 
 i io MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Bah!" said Henri de Brece. "We should have 
 been acquitted, like Deroulede." 
 
 "It's possible, but Dupuy allowed us plenty of 
 time to pull ourselves together after the funeral 
 stampede, and I confess I am grateful to him for 
 that. On the other hand, without ill will, possibly 
 without intending it, he has done us a great deal 
 of harm. Suddenly, just when we least expected 
 such a thing, he appeared to be furiously angry with 
 us. He made out that he was defending the Repub- 
 lic. His position demanded the attitude; I recog- 
 nize that. It wasn't a serious matter, but it had a 
 bad effect. I get tired of telling you the same thing; 
 that this country is conservative at heart. Unlike 
 Meline, Dupuy did not tell people that we were the 
 Republicans, that we were the Conservatives; for 
 that matter, no one would have believed him if he 
 had. During his ministry we lost something of our 
 authority over the country. We were no longer on 
 the side of the government. We were no longer 
 reassuring; professional Republicans began to feel 
 anxious about us. That was to our credit, but it 
 was dangerous. Our position was not so good 
 under Dupuy as under Meline, and it is worse to- 
 day, under Waldeck-Rousseau, than it was under 
 Dupuy. That's the truth, the bitter truth." 
 
 "Of course," said Henri de Brece, pulling his 
 moustache, "of course the Waldeck-Millerand Min-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS in 
 
 istry is actuated by the worst intentions, but I repeat 
 it's unpopular and it won't last." 
 
 "It may be unpopular," returned Henri Leon, 
 "but are you quite sure it won't last long enough to 
 do us harm? Unpopular governments last as long 
 as popular ones. To begin with, no government is 
 ever really popular. To govern is to displease. 
 We are among ourselves and there is no need to 
 mince matters. Do you for one moment imagine 
 that we shall be popular when we form the govern- 
 ment? Do you imagine, Brece, that the people will 
 weep with emotion when they see you attired as 
 king's chamberlain with a key hanging down your 
 back? And you, Lacrisse, do you suppose you'll be 
 cheered in the working-class districts during a strike, 
 when you are, say, prefect of police? Look at 
 yourself in the glass and then tell me whether you 
 look like an idol of the people. Don't let us deceive 
 ourselves. We say that the Waldeck-Millerand 
 Cabinet is composed of idiots; we are quite right to 
 say so, but we should be wrong to believe it." 
 
 "What ought to encourage us," said Joseph 
 Lacrisse, "is the weakness of a government which 
 cannot enforce obedience." 
 
 "All our governments have been weak for many 
 a long year," said Henri Leon, "but they have 
 always been strong enough to defeat us." 
 
 "The Waldeck Ministry has not a single police-
 
 ii2 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 commissary at its disposal," said Joseph Lacrisse. 
 "Not one!" 
 
 "So much the better for us," said Henri Leon, 
 "for one would be enough to jug all three of us. 
 I tell you the circle is closing in. Consider these 
 words of a philosopher; they are worth the trouble: 
 'Republicans govern badly, but they defend them- 
 selves well.' ' 
 
 But Henri de Brece, bending over his desk, was 
 turning a second blot of ink into a beetle by the 
 addition of a head, two antennae and six legs. He 
 gave a satisfied glance at his work, looked up and 
 remarked : 
 
 "We still hold trump cards, the Army, the 
 Church " 
 
 Henri Leon interrupted him: 
 
 "The Army, the Church, the magistracy, the 
 bourgeoisie, the butcher boys in other words, the 
 whole excursion train of the Republic. The train 
 is travelling nevertheless, and will continue to do so 
 until the driver stops the engine." 
 
 "Ah," sighed Joseph Lacrisse, "if only we had 
 President Faure with us still." 
 
 "Felix Faure," resumed Henri Leon, "joined us 
 out of sheer vanity. He became a Nationalist in 
 order to get invitations to hunt with the Breces, but 
 he would have turned against us as soon as he saw 
 us on the verge of success. It was not in his interest
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 113 
 
 to restore the monarchy. Dame! What could the 
 monarchy have offered him? We could not have 
 offered him a Lord High Constable's baton. We 
 may regret him, for he loved the army; we may 
 mourn him, but we must not allow ourselves to be 
 inconsolable. He was not the driver; Loubet is not 
 the driver either; the President of the Republic, 
 whoever he may be, is never master of his engine. 
 To me the ghastly part of it is that the Republican 
 train is controlled by a phantom driver. He is in- 
 visible, and yet the train rushes on. It positively 
 frightens me. 
 
 "Then there is another thing," he continued, 
 "and that is the general indifference of the public. 
 Speaking of that, reminds me of a very significant 
 remark once made by Citizen Bissolo. It was when 
 the anti-Semites and ourselves were organizing spon- 
 taneous manifestations against Loubet. Our crowds 
 went down the boulevards shouting 'Panama ! Re- 
 sign! Long live the Army!' It was magnificent. 
 Young Ponthieu and General Decuir's two sons 
 headed the crowd, with glossy silk hats, white car- 
 nations in their buttonholes, and gold-headed canes 
 in their hands. And the toughest hooligans of Paris 
 made up the procession. We had seen to that, and 
 as it was a case of good pay and no risk we had 
 our pick. They would have been sorry to miss
 
 u 4 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 such a lark. Lord ! what voices they had, and what 
 fists, and what cudgels ! 
 
 "A counter-manifestation quickly made its ap- 
 pearance; a smaller and more insignificant crowd, 
 though warlike and determined enough, advanced to 
 meet us amid shouts of 'Long live the Republic! 
 Down with the priests !' with an occasional solitary 
 cry for Loubet that seemed surprised to find itself 
 in the air. Before it was over this unexpected dis- 
 turbance aroused the anger of the police, who at 
 that moment were barricading the boulevard and 
 looking just like an austere border of black wool 
 on a brightly variegated carpet. Soon, however, 
 this black border, actuated by a movement of its 
 own, hurled itself upon the van of the counter- 
 manifestation, while another body of police har- 
 assed them from the rear. In this way the police 
 had soon dispersed the partisans of Monsieur 
 Loubet, dragging the unrecognizable debris off to the 
 insidious depths of the Drouot police-station. That 
 was the way they did things in those troublous times. 
 Was Monsieur Loubet, at the filysee, ignorant of 
 the methods employed by his police for enforcing 
 in the streets of Paris respect for the head of the 
 State? Or, if he knew of them, was he unable and 
 unwilling to alter them? I do not know. Did he 
 realize that his unpopularity, real and undoubted 
 as it was, was fading into insignificance, almost dis-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 115 
 
 appearing in fact, before the strange and agreeable 
 spectacle which was offered nightly to a witty and 
 intelligent people? I do not think so, for in that 
 case the man would have been a terrifying person; 
 he would have been a genius, and I should no longer 
 feel confident of sleeping outside the King's door 
 at the filysee this winter. No, I believe Loubet 
 was once again so fortunate as to be unable to do 
 anything. Anyhow, it is certain that the police, 
 who acted spontaneously and solely out of the good- 
 ness of their hearts, succeeded, by their sympathetic 
 repression, in shedding over the advent of the Presi- 
 dent a little of that popular rejoicing which had been 
 totally lacking. In so doing, if one considers the 
 matter, they did us more harm than good, for they 
 pleased the public, while it was to our advantage 
 that the general discontent should increase. 
 
 "However, one night, one of the last of that 
 eventful week, when the expected manoeuvre was 
 taking place from point to point, and the counter- 
 manifestation found itself attacked simultaneously in 
 the van and in the rear by the police and in flank by 
 us, I saw Bissolo extricate himself from the menaced 
 van of the Republicans and, with long strides and a 
 desperate wriggling of his little body, reach the 
 corner of the Rue Drouot, where I was standing 
 with a dozen or so roughs who in response to my 
 orders were shouting 'Panama! Resign 1* It was
 
 ii6 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 a nice quiet little corner! I beat time, and my 
 men pronounced each syllable with great distinctness 
 'Pa-na-ma !' It was really done with taste. 
 Bissolo took refuge between my legs. He feared 
 me far less than the police ; and he was right. For 
 two years Citizen Bissolo and I had met face to face 
 in all our manifestations: we had headed the pro- 
 cessions at the beginning and end of every meeting. 
 We had exchanged every imaginable sort of political 
 insult : 'Hypocrite ! Time-server ! Forger 1 Traitor I 
 Assassin ! Outcast !' That sort of thing binds peo- 
 ple together and creates a mutual sympathy. Be- 
 sides, it pleased me to see a Socialist, almost a 
 Libertarian, standing up for Loubet, who is in his 
 own fashion a Moderate. I said to myself: 'The 
 President must hate being acclaimed by Bissolo, a 
 dwarf with a voice of thunder, who at all public 
 meetings demands the nationalization of capital. 
 Bourgeois that he is, the President would surely 
 prefer a bourgeois like myself for a supporter. But 
 he can feel in his pockets.' Panama ! Panama ! 
 Resign! Resign! Long live the Army! -Down 
 with the Jews I Long live the King ! 
 
 "All this made me treat Bissolo with courtesy. 
 I had only to say 'Hullo, here's Bissolo," and my 
 dozen costers would promptly have cut him in 
 pieces, but that wouldn't have done any good. I 
 said nothing. We were very quiet; we stood be-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 117 
 
 side one another and watched the march past of 
 Joubet's supporters driven to the police-station in 
 the Rue Drouot. Most of them, having previously 
 been clubbed, staggered along beside the police like 
 so many drunkards. Among them was a Socialist 
 deputy, a very handsome man with a big beard; 
 his sleeves had been torn off; there was a young 
 apprentice sobbing and crying 'Mother! Mother!' 
 and the editor of some trashy daily with two black 
 eyes and his nose streaming with blood. And the 
 Marseillaise! 'Qu'un sang impur.' ... I noticed 
 one man who was far more respectable and far more 
 sorry for himself than the rest. He looked like a 
 professor, a serious, middle-aged man. He had evi- 
 dently made an attempt to explain his point of view; 
 he had tried subtle and persuasive arguments on the 
 police. Otherwise the way in which they were kick- 
 ing him in the back with their hobnailed boots and 
 banging him with their fists was quite inexplicable. 
 And as he was very tall, very thin, anything but 
 strong, and weighed very little, he skipped about 
 under these blows in the most ridiculous fashion. 
 He displayed a comical tendency to make his escape 
 upwards. His bare head had a most pitiable ap- 
 pearance. He had that submerged expression which 
 comes over a short-sighted man when he has lost 
 his glasses. His face expressed the infinite distress
 
 n8 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 of a being whose only contact with the outside world 
 comes through sturdy fists and hobnailed boots. 
 
 "As this unfortunate prisoner passed us, Bissolo, 
 although he was on hostile territory, could not help 
 sighing and saying: 'It is a strange thing that Re- 
 publicans should be so treated in a Republic.' I 
 politely replied that it was in truth somewhat amus- 
 ing. "No, Citizen Monarchist," replied Bissolo, 
 'it is not amusing, it is sad. But that is not the 
 chief misfortune. The chief misfortune, I tell you, 
 is the lethargy of the public.' Bissolo spoke these 
 words with a confidence that did us both honour. 
 I glanced at the crowd, and it is a fact that it 
 seemed to me flabby and without energy. Now and 
 then a cry rose from its depths like a firework let 
 off by a child: 'Down with Loubet! Down with 
 the thieves ! Down with the Jews ! Long live the 
 Army I' And it seemed friendly enough towards 
 the worthy police, but there was no electricity in the 
 air no storm brewing. Citizen Bissolo continued 
 with melancholy philosophy: 'The great evil is the 
 lethargy of the public. We Republicans, Socialists 
 and Libertarians are suffering from it to-day. You 
 Monarchists and Imperialists will suffer from it to- 
 morrow, and will learn in your turn that you may 
 lead a horse to the water but you can't make him 
 drink. Republicans are arrested and no one stirs 
 a finger ; and when it is the turn of the Royalists to
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 119 
 
 be arrested, no one will stir a finger, you may be 
 sure of that. The crowd will not stir an inch to 
 deliver you, Monsieur Henri Leon, or your friend 
 Monsieur Deroulede.' 
 
 "I must admit that by the light of these words 
 I seemed to catch a glimpse of a profoundly dismal 
 future flashing across my vision. Somewhat osten- 
 tatiously, however, I replied: 'Citizen Bissolo, there 
 is nevertheless this difference between you and our- 
 selves that the crowd looks upon you as a mob of 
 time-servers without love for your country, while 
 we Monarchists and Imperialists enjoy the esteem 
 of the public. We are popular.' Citizen Bissolo 
 smiled pleasantly at this and remarked: 'Your horse 
 is there, monseigneur, and you have only to mount 
 her. But when you are on her back she will quietly 
 lie down by the side of the road and will pitch you 
 off. There is no sorrier jade anywhere, I warn you. 
 Tell me which one of her riders has not had his back 
 broken by popularity? In time of peril have the 
 people ever been able to offer the least assistance 
 to their idols? You Nationalists are not so popular 
 as you profess, you and your candidate Gamelle are 
 almost unknown to the general public. But if ever 
 the mob enfolds you in its loving embrace, you will 
 very quickly discover its stupendous impotence and 
 cowardice.' 
 
 "I could not refrain from reproaching Bissolo
 
 120 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 severely for calumniating the French public. He 
 replied that he was a sociologist, that his Socialism 
 was based on science, and that he had a little box 
 at home filled with actual facts minutely classified, 
 which enabled him to bring about a methodical revo- 
 lution. And he added : 'Science, and not the people, 
 possesses sovereign power. A stupidity repeated by 
 thirty-six millions of mouths does not for that reason 
 cease to be stupid. Majorities, as a general rule, 
 display a superior capacity for servitude. Among 
 the weak, weakness is multiplied in proportion to 
 number. Mobs are always inert. They possess a 
 little energy only when they are starving. I can 
 prove to you that on the morning of the roth of 
 August, 1792, the people of Paris were still Royal- 
 ists. I have been addressing public meetings for ten 
 years and have had my share of hard blows. The 
 education of the people has hardly commenced ; that 
 is the fact of the matter. In the brain of the work- 
 ing man, in the palace where the bourgeois carry their 
 inept and brutal prejudices, there is a great cavity. 
 That has got to be filled. We shall do it. It will 
 take a long time. In the meanwhile it is better to 
 have an empty head than one filled with toads and 
 serpents. All this is scientific fact; it's all in my 
 box. It is all in accordance with the laws of evolu- 
 tion. Nevertheless the general poltroonery disgusts 
 me. And in your place it would frighten me. Look
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 121 
 
 at your partisans, the defenders of the sword and 
 the Church, did you ever see anything so flabby, so 
 gelatinous?' Having spoken, he stretched out his 
 arms, gave a wild cry of 'Long live Socialism!' 
 plunged head foremost in the enormous crowd, and 
 disappeared in the sea of people." 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse, who had listened without en- 
 thusiasm to this long story, asked whether Citizen 
 Bissolo wasn't merely an animal. 
 
 "On the contrary, he is a very clever man," re- 
 plied Henri Leon, "the sort of man one would like 
 to have as a neighbour in the country, as Bismarck 
 used to say of Lassalle. Bissolo spoke only too 
 truly when he said that you may lead a horse to the 
 water, but you can't make him drink."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ADAME DE JBONMONT con- 
 
 ceived of love as an abyss of delight. 
 After that dinner at the Madrid, 
 glorified as it had been by the reading 
 of the royal letter, she had said to 
 Joseph Lacrisse as they returned from the Bois, 
 while the carriage was still warm with an historic 
 embrace : "This will be for ever 1" and these words, 
 meaningless as they will seem if we consider the 
 impermanence of the elements which make up the 
 substance of the erotic emotions, were none the less 
 indicative of a proper spirituality and of longing 
 for the infinite which conferred a certain distinction. 
 "Quite !" had been the answer of Joseph Lacrisse. 
 
 Two weeks had passed since that happy night, 
 two weeks during which the secretary of the Depart- 
 mental Committee of Young Royalists had divided 
 his rime between the demands of his work and those 
 of his love. Dressed in a tailor-made costume, her 
 face covered with a white lace veil, the Baronne 
 had come, at the appointed hour, to the first-floor 
 flat of a discreet little house in the Rue Lord-Byron, 
 
 122
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 123 
 
 Here were three rooms which she had herself fur- 
 nished with a heart full of tenderness, hanging them 
 with that celestial blue which had formerly figured 
 in her forgotten love-affair with Raoul Marcien. 
 
 She found Joseph Lacrisse well-mannered, proud 
 and even a little shy. He was young and charming, 
 but not exactly what she had wanted. He was 
 gloomy and seemed uneasy. With his frowning 
 brows and thin tightly-closed lips he would have 
 reminded her of Kara, had she not possessed to the 
 full the delightful faculty of forgetting the past. 
 She knew that if he was anxious it was not without 
 cause. She knew that he was a conspirator and that 
 it fell to his share to hoodwink the prefect and the 
 chief Republicans of a very populous department; 
 and she knew that in this enterprise he was risking 
 his liberty and his life for the sake of King and 
 Church. It was precisely because he was a conspira- 
 tor that she had first loved him. But now she would 
 have liked him to be more cheerful and more affec- 
 tionate. He welcomed her warmly enough, how- 
 ever, saying: 
 
 "It is an intoxication to see you! For the last 
 fortnight I have positively been walking in a starry 
 dream." And he had added: "How delicious you 
 are!" 
 
 But he hardly looked at her, and at once went 
 to the window, where he lifted a corner of the cur-
 
 124 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 tain, and for ten minutes remained there peering 
 through the opening. 
 
 Then, without turning round, he remarked: 
 
 "I told you that we ought to have two exits, and 
 you wouldn't believe me. It's a good thing we are 
 in front anyhow, but I can't see properly because 
 of the tree." 
 
 "The acacia?" sighed the Baronne as she slowly 
 untied her veil. 
 
 The house stood back from the road, facing a 
 little courtyard, containing an acacia and a dozen 
 spindle-trees, shut in by an ivy-covered railing. 
 
 "Yes, the acacia, if you like." 
 
 "What are you looking at, mon ami?" 
 
 "At a man stuck against the wall opposite." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 "I don't know. I'm looking to see if he is one 
 of my detectives. I'm fed up. Since I've been in 
 Paris I've had two of them at my heels all day. It 
 gets on one's nerves in the end. But this time I 
 quite thought I'd managed to give them the slip." 
 
 "Couldn't you complain?" 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 "I don't know to the Government." 
 
 He made no reply, but stood for awhile still 
 watching. Then, having made sure that it was not 
 one of his pursuers, his countenance cleared and he 
 came over to her.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 125 
 
 "How I love you! You are lovelier than ever. 
 You are, truly, and I adore you. But what if they 
 had put different men on to me this time! It's 
 Dupuy who put them on my track. A tall fellow 
 and a short one. The tall one wore black glasses 
 and the short one had a nose like a parrot's beak 
 and little bright eyes like a bird's that were always 
 glancing sideways. I knew them well. They weren't 
 much to be feared. They were always after me. 
 When I went to the Club my friends would tell me 
 as they came in, 'Lacrisse, I've just seen your two 
 fellows at the door.' I used to send them out beer 
 and cigars. Sometimes I would ask myself if 
 Dupuy did not set them on me to protect me. He 
 was brusque and queer and irritable, but a patriot 
 all the same. He wasn't a bit like the men in power 
 to-day. With them you've got to be on your guard. 
 What if they've changed my detectives, the brutes !" 
 
 He went to the window again. 
 
 "No, it's only a coachman smoking his pipe. I 
 didn't notice his yellow-striped waistcoat. Fear dis- 
 torts objects, that certain! I must confess I was 
 afraid on your account, as you may imagine. You 
 must not be compromised through me, you who are 
 so charming, so delicious!" 
 
 He sat beside her and took her in his arms, cov- 
 ering her with vehement caresses. Presently she 
 found that her dress was in such disorder that mod-
 
 ia6 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 esty alone, in the absence of any other motive, would 
 have forced her to remove it. 
 
 "Elisabeth, tell me you love me." 
 
 "If I did not love you, it seems to me " 
 
 "Do you hear that heavy, regular footfall in the 
 street?" 
 
 "No, mon ami. 
 
 And it was true ; plunged into a delicious oblivion 
 she was not listening for sounds from the outer 
 world. 
 
 "There's no doubt this time, it's he, my man, 
 the little one, the bird. I know his step so well that 
 I could pick it out among a thousand." 
 
 And he returned to the window. 
 
 These alarms set his nerves on edge. Since the 
 failure of the 28th of February he had lost his ad- 
 mirable assurance and was beginning to anticipate a 
 long and difficult affair. Most of his companions 
 were growing discouraged and he himself suspicious. 
 Everything irritated him. 
 
 And now she made an unfortunate remark: 
 
 "Don't forget, mon ami, that I've got you an 
 invitation to dinner to-morrow at my brother's. It 
 will be an opportunity of meeting." 
 
 His irritation burst forth: 
 
 "Your brother Wallstein ! Ah, yes, let's talk of 
 him! He's a true Jew if you like. This week 
 Henri Leon told him about an interesting undertak-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 127 
 
 ing, a propagandist newspaper which must be dis- 
 tributed gratuitously in large quantities throughout 
 the country and in the manufacturing centres. He 
 pretended not to understand what Leon was driving 
 at and gave him advice good advice! Does your 
 brother imagine for a moment that it is his advice 
 that we want?" 
 
 Elisabeth was an anti-Semite. She felt that she 
 could not with decency defend her brother Wallstein, 
 of Vienna, of whom she was exceedingly fond. She 
 remained silent. 
 
 Lacrisse began to play with a small revolver 
 which lay upon the table. 
 
 "If they attempt to arrest me here " he said. 
 
 A fit of rage seized him. He cried out against 
 the Jews, Protestants, Freemasons, Freethinkers, 
 Parliamentarians, Republicans and Ministers. He 
 would like to flog them in public, and bathe them 
 in vitriol. He waxed eloquent and broke into the 
 pious language of the Croix. 
 
 "The Jews and Freemasons are ruining France, 
 ruining us, eating us up. But patience ! Wait until 
 after the Rennes trial, and then you will see how 
 we will bleed them, split them up, smoke their hams, 
 singe their hides and hang their heads in the pork- 
 butchers' shops ! Everything is ready. The move- 
 ment will break out simultaneously in Rennes and in 
 Paris. The Dreyfusards will be trampled in the
 
 128 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 streets. Loubet will be roasted in the flames of the 
 filysee, and none too soon either." 
 
 Madame de Bonmont conceived of love as an 
 abyss of delight. She did not hold it sufficient unto 
 the day to forget the world once only in this room 
 of sky-blue hangings. She sought to lead her lover 
 back to gentler thoughts. So she said: 
 
 "What beautiful eyelashes you have !" 
 
 And she covered his eyelids with tiny kisses. 
 
 When she languidly opened her eyes again, lan- 
 guishing and recalling to her happy mind the infinity 
 that had filled it for a moment, she noticed that 
 Joseph was anxious and seemed far away from her, 
 although she still held him with one of her soft, 
 beautiful, supple arms. With a voice tender as a 
 sigh, she asked him : 
 
 "What is the matter, mon ami? We were so 
 happy just now." 
 
 "Of course we were," replied Joseph Lacrisse. 
 "But I've just remembered three telegrams in cipher 
 which have to be sent off before night. It is a 
 complicated matter, and a dangerous one. We 
 really thought for a moment that Dupuy had inter- 
 cepted our telegrams on February 22nd. There was 
 enough in them to jug the lot of us." 
 
 "But he did not intercept them, mon ami?" 
 
 "We must suppose not, as we were not molested. 
 But I have my reasons for believing that for the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 129 
 
 last fortnight the Government have had an eye on 
 us, and until this wretched Republic is done for I 
 shan't have a moment's peace." 
 
 Tender and radiant, she put her arms about his 
 neck, like a scented garland of flowers, and gazing 
 at him with her moist sapphire eyes she said, with 
 a smile upon her fresh, ardent mouth : 
 
 "Do not be anxious, mon ami. Do not worry 
 so. I am sure you will succeed. Their Republic 
 is done for. How could it resist you? The people 
 have had enough of Parliamentarians. They don't 
 want any more of them, I'm certain. Nor of the 
 Freemasons, and Freethinkers, and all those horrible 
 godless people who have neither religion nor country. 
 For one's country and one's religion are the same 
 thing, aren't they? There is a wonderful spiritual 
 impulse abroad. On Sunday, at Mass, the churches 
 are full. And not only of women, as the Repub- 
 licans would have us believe. There are gentlemen 
 and officers. Believe me, mon ami, you will succeed. 
 Besides, I will burn candles for you in St. Anthony's 
 chapel." 
 
 "Yes, we shall make a move early in September," 
 he replied, grave and thoughtful. "The public 
 frame of mind is favourable. We have the good 
 wishes and encouragement of the people. Oh, it 
 is not sympathy we lack." 
 
 She imprudently inquired what they did lack.
 
 130 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "What we lack, or at any rate might lack, if 
 things were not settled quickly, is the sinews of 
 war money, deuce take it! We get a good deal, 
 of course, but we shall need so much. Three ladies 
 in the best set gave us three hundred thousand 
 francs. Monseigneur was much impressed by a gen- 
 erosity so truly French. Do you not think that 
 there is something charming, exquisite, fragrant of 
 the old France, the old aristocratic society, in the 
 offering of these women to royalty?" 
 
 Madame de Bonmont, dressing in front of the 
 glass, did not appear to have heard the question. 
 
 He explained his meaning: 
 
 "But they are trickling, trickling away, the three 
 hundred thousand francs presented by those white 
 hands. Monseigneur told us, with chivalrous grace : 
 'Spend the money to the last sou.' If some dainty 
 little hand were to bring us another hundred 
 thousand francs, how we should bless it ! It would 
 have helped to save France. There is still a place 
 to be filled among the amazons of the cheque, in 
 the squadron of fair Leaguers. I can safely promise 
 to the fourth donor an autograph letter from the 
 Prince and, what is more, a place at Court next 
 winter." 
 
 But the Baronne, feeling that he was trying to 
 bleed her, received a painful impression. This was 
 not the first time, but she could not get used to it.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 131 
 
 Besides, she did not see that it would be in any way 
 useful to give her money for the restoration of the 
 monarchy. Of course she liked the handsome young 
 Prince with his rosy face and his fair silky beard. 
 She wished ardently for his return; she was impa- 
 tient to witness his entry into Paris, and his corona- 
 tion. But, she argued, with his income of two 
 millions he had no need of anything but love, good 
 wishes and flowers. When Joseph Lacrisse had fin- 
 ished what he had to say the silence became painful. 
 
 "Mon Dieuf how awful my hair looks I" she 
 muttered to the mirror. 
 
 When she had finished dressing, she took from 
 her little purse a piece of four-leaved clover, en- 
 closed in a glass medallion framed in silver gilt, and 
 handing it to him whispered sentimentally: 
 
 "It will bring you luck. Promise to keep it 
 always." 
 
 In order to divert the attention of any police- 
 agents that might be on his track, Joseph Lacrisse 
 was the first to leave the blue flat. As he reached 
 the landing he muttered with a scowl : 
 
 "She's a regular Wallstein ! It was no good her 
 being baptized. What is bred in the bone will come 
 out in the flesh I"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 N the warm luminous decline of day, 
 the Luxembourg garden was as 
 though bathed in a golden dust. 
 Monsieur Bergeret sat on the terrace 
 between Messieurs Denis and Goubin, 
 at the foot of the statue of Marguerite d'Angouleme. 
 "Gentlemen," he said, "I should like to read you 
 an article that appeared this morning in the Figaro. 
 I shall not name the author, for I think you will 
 recognize him for yourselves. Since chance will 
 have it so, it gives me all the more pleasure to read 
 it in the presence of this lovable woman who was 
 a lover of sound doctrine and of open-hearted men, 
 and who, because she was learned, sincere, tolerant 
 and pitiful, and sought to deprive the torturers of 
 their victims, raised against her all the monasteries 
 and all the universities. They used even to incite 
 the young scapegraces of the College of Navarre to 
 insult her, and had she not been sister to the King 
 of France they would have sewed her up in a sack 
 and thrown her into the Seine. She was a gentle 
 soul, profound yet cheerful. I cannot say whether 
 
 132
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 133 
 
 when alive she had the coquettish and mischievous 
 expression which she wears in this statue by a little- 
 known sculptor, by name Lescorne, but she certainly 
 has not in the hard, sincere pencil drawings of 
 Clouet's pupils, who have left us her portrait. I 
 would rather believe that her smile was often veiled 
 in sadness, and that her lips drooped sorrowfully 
 when she said: 'I have borne more than my share 
 of the burden common to all persons of high estate.' 
 In her private life she was anything but happy, and 
 all around her she saw the wicked triumph amid the 
 applause of the cowardly and ignorant. I believe 
 that in the days when her ears were not of marble 
 she would have listened with sympathy to what I 
 am about to read." 
 
 And Monsieur Bergeret, having unfolded his 
 paper, read as follows : 
 
 "THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 "To see just where one stood in the Affair one 
 needed, at the outset, some application, and a certain 
 amount of critical method, together with sufficient 
 leisure to apply it. So that we see that the light first 
 dawned upon those who, by the quality of their 
 minds and the nature of their occupation, were bet- 
 ter adapted than others to the solution of difficult 
 problems. After this, all that was needed was com- 
 mon sense and close attention. Common sense is 
 enough to-day.
 
 i 3 4 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "We must not be surprised that the general pub- 
 lic has held out so long against the obvious truth. 
 Nothing should surprise us. There are reasons for 
 everything, and it is our place to discover these rea- 
 sons. In the present instance little reflection is 
 needed in order to perceive that the public has been 
 utterly and absolutely deceived, and its touching 
 credulity abused. The Press has largely helped the 
 lie to succeed. Most of the newspapers have hur- 
 ried to the assistance of the forgers, and have pub- 
 lished forged or falsified documents, insults and lies. 
 But we must admit that in most cases this was done 
 to please their public and respond to the private 
 opinions of their readers. It is certain that the 
 battle against truth was in the first place based on 
 the popular instinct. 
 
 "The crowd, by which I mean the crowd of peo- 
 ple who are incapable of thinking for themselves, 
 did not understand; they could not understand. 
 Their idea of the Army was a simple one. For 
 them the Army was parade, march past, review, 
 manoeuvres, uniforms, high boots, spurs, epaulets, 
 guns and flags. It also meant conscription, with 
 beribboned caps, litres of cheap wine, barracks, drill, 
 the mess, the guard-room and the canteen. It 
 meant, again, a national trade in pictures, the bril- 
 liant little sketches of our military painters with their 
 spotless uniforms and nice tidy battle scenes. And 
 finally it was a symbol of strength and security, of 
 honour and glory. The officers who rode past on 
 horseback with their swords in their hands, amid 
 the glitter of gold and steel, to the sound of music
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 135 
 
 and the roll of drums, how was it possible to believe 
 that they would shortly be bending over a table, 
 behind locked doors, tele a tele with anxious agents 
 from the prefecture of police, handling the eraser 
 and the india-rubber, handling the gum brush or 
 sprinkling pounce, scratching out or putting in a 
 name in a document, forging handwritings, to ruin 
 an innocent man; or thinking out ridiculous disguises 
 for mysterious appointments with the traitor they 
 had to save? 
 
 "What made these crimes seem impossible to the 
 public mind was that they did not smack of the open 
 air, the early morning march, the field of manoeuvres 
 and the battle-field. They were all too stuffy, they 
 savoured too much of the office; there was nothing 
 military about them. And, in truth, all the practices 
 which were resorted to in order to conceal the 
 judicial error of 1895, all those infamous documents, 
 all that vile and rascally trickery, reeks of the office, 
 and a dirty office at that. All that the four green- 
 papered walls, the china inkstand surrounded with 
 sponge, the boxwood paper-knife, the water-bottle 
 on the mantelpiece, the pigeon-holes, and the leather- 
 seated chair could suggest in the way of ridiculous 
 imaginings and evil thoughts to these stay-at-homes, 
 these poor 'sitters' as a poet has called them, to 
 vain, poor lazy, plotting scribblers, idle even in the 
 accomplishment of their idle task, jealous of one 
 another and proud of their occupation; all the 
 equivocal, false, treacherous and stupid things that 
 can be done with pen and paper in the service of 
 wickedness and folly, came out of a corner of that
 
 136 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 building on which are sculptured battle trophies and 
 smoking hand-grenades. 
 
 "The jobs perpetrated in these offices during the 
 space of four years, for the purpose of burdening 
 a condemned prisoner with evidence which they had 
 neglected to produce before his condemnation, and 
 of acquitting the guilty man whom all accused, who 
 inculpated himself, are so monstrous in their con- 
 ception as to baffle the moderate mind of a French- 
 man, and they exhale a spirit of tragic buffoonery 
 most displeasing in a country whose literature abhors 
 the confusion of styles. These documents and in- 
 quiries must be studied minutely before one can 
 admit the reality of all these plots and intrigues, 
 these prodigiously audacious tricks and inept manoeu- 
 vres, and I can well understand that the careless, ill- 
 informed public refused to believe in them even after 
 they were divulged. 
 
 "And yet it is very true that at the end of a 
 corridor in a Ministerial building, on thirty square 
 yards of waxed flooring, a few military bureaucrats, 
 some of them idle and crafty, others excited and 
 unruly, betrayed justice and deceived a great people 
 by their wicked, fraudulent documents. But if this 
 Affair, which was above all the Affair of Mercier 
 and the bureaux, has revealed a villainous morality, 
 it has also raised up some noble characters. 
 
 "For even in this very office there was one man 
 unlike the rest. His mind was broad, shrewd and 
 lucid, his character noble, his heart patient, abun- 
 dantly human and invincibly gentle. He was rightly 
 looked upon as one of the most intelligent
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 137 
 
 in the Army. And although the singularity of a 
 spirit of too rare an essence might have been a 
 stumbling-block, he had been the first among the 
 officers of his age to be appointed lieutenant-colonel, 
 and everything foretold for him the most brilliant 
 future in the Army. His friends understood his 
 rather quizzical indulgence and his genuine kindli- 
 ness. They knew him to be endowed with an un- 
 usual sense of beauty, apt to feel keenly all that was 
 best in music and literature, and to live in the 
 ethereal world of ideas. Like all men whose inner 
 life is deep and meditative, he developed his great 
 moral and intellectual faculties in solitude. This 
 tendency to retire within himself, together with his 
 natural simplicity, his spirit of renunciation and 
 sacrifice, and the beautiful sincerity which sometimes 
 seems to grace the minds of those most conscious 
 of universal suffering and evil, combined to form 
 in him the type of soldier known or dreamed of by 
 Alfred de Vigny, the quiet hero of daily life who 
 imparts some of his own nobility to the humblest 
 tasks which he undertakes, and to whom the accom- 
 plishment of routine duty is the familiar poetry of 
 life. 
 
 "This officer, who was appointed to the second 
 committee of investigation, found one day that 
 Dreyfus had been condemned for the crime of 
 Esterhazy. He informed his superior officers. 
 They tried, quietly at first, and then by threats, to 
 put a stop to his investigations, which, in proving 
 the innocence of Dreyfus, would reveal their own 
 crimes and errors. He knew that it meant ruin if
 
 138 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 he persevered. He persevered. With quiet reflec- 
 tion, slow and sure, with calm courage, he continued 
 his work of justice. He was removed. He was 
 sent to Gabes, and to the Tripoli frontier, on some 
 wicked pretext, for no other reason than to get him 
 murdered by the Arab brigands. 
 
 "Having failed to kill him, they set to work to 
 dishonour him, to ruin him by the profusion of their 
 slanders. With treacherous promises they tried to 
 keep him from speaking at the Zola trial. He spoke, 
 with the unruffled calm of the just man, with the 
 serenity of a mind that knew neither fear nor desire. 
 There was no exaggeration in his speech and no 
 weakness; only the words of a man who was doing 
 his duty on that day as on all other days, without 
 thinking for a moment that there was a singular 
 courage in the act. Neither threats nor persecution 
 caused him to hesitate for a moment. 
 
 "Many have said that in order to accomplish the 
 task which he had set himself, to establish the inno- 
 cence of a Jew and the crime of a Christian, he had 
 to get the better of clerical prejudices, to conquer 
 a hatred of the Jews ingrained in him since his early 
 youth, when he was growing to manhood in that 
 land of Alsace and of France which gave him to the 
 Army and the country. Those who know him best 
 know that he heeded nothing of the kind, that he 
 was incapable of any sort of fanaticism, that his 
 ideals were never those of a sectary, that his great 
 intelligence placed him above petty hatreds and 
 partialities; in short, that his soul was free. 
 
 "This inward liberty, the most precious of all
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 139 
 
 liberties, his persecutors could not take from him. 
 In the prison to which they sent him, whose stones, 
 in the words of Fernand Gregh, formed the pedestal 
 of his statue, he was free, freer than they. His 
 wide reading, his calm, benevolent speech, and his 
 letters, full of serene and noble thoughts, bear 
 witness (I know) to the freedom of his soul. Those 
 others, his persecutors and calumniators, were the 
 real prisoners the prisoners of their lies and their 
 crimes. People who saw him behind the bolts and 
 bars testify to the fact that he was quiet, smiling 
 and indulgent. When the great mental revolution 
 took place during which those public meetings that 
 united thousands of scholars, students and working- 
 men were organized, while petitions covered with 
 signatures demanded an end to the scandal of his 
 imprisonment, he said to Louis Havet, who went to 
 see him: 'I am much more easy in my mind than 
 you.' I think, however, that he suffered. I think 
 he suffered intensely at the thought of so much 
 baseness and treachery, of so monstrous an injustice, 
 of that epidemic of crime and madness, of the 
 execrable fury of the men who were deceiving the 
 crowd, and the pardonable fury of the ignorant 
 mob. He, too, saw the aged woman bearing with 
 saintly simplicity the faggots for the torture of the 
 innocent. How could he do other than suffer, when 
 he found that men were worse than his philosophy 
 had pictured them, less courageous and less intelli- 
 gent when put to the test than the psychologists 
 imagined in their quiet studies? I believe he 
 suffered inwardly in the secret places of his silent
 
 140 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 soul, veiled as by the Stoic's cloak. But I should 
 be ashamed to pity him. I should be too much 
 afraid lest that murmur of human pity should reach 
 his ears and offend the rightful pride of his heart. 
 Far from pitying him, rather will I say that he was 
 happy; happy because on the sudden day of trial he 
 was ready and without weakness; happy because 
 unforeseen circumstances permitted him to give to 
 the full measure of his great soul; happy that he 
 proved himself to be an honest man, heroic in his 
 simplicity; happy because he stands for ever as an 
 example to soldiers and to citizens. Pity is for those 
 who have failed. To Colonel Picquart we can offer 
 nothing less than admiration." 
 
 Having come to an end of his reading, Monsieur 
 Bergeret refolded his newspaper. The statue of 
 Marguerite of Navarre was all rosy-pink. In the 
 west the harshly brilliant sky clothed itself as with 
 a suit of mail, a network of clouds like bars of red 
 copper.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HAT same evening Monsieur Berg- 
 eret received in his study a visit from 
 his colleague Jumage. 
 
 Alphonse Jumage and Lucien 
 Bergeret were born on the same day, 
 at the same hour, and were the children of two girl 
 friends to whom, from that time, they became an 
 inexhaustible source of conversation. They had 
 grown up together. Lucien never troubled his head 
 in any way concerning their simultaneous entry into 
 the world, but Alphonse was more mindful of the 
 fact, and dwelt upon it with some emphasis. He 
 formed a mental habit of comparing the course of 
 their two lives, which had started simultaneously, 
 and he gradually persuaded himself that it was only 
 just, equitable and salutary that their progress in life 
 should be equal. 
 
 He took a great interest in the development of 
 their twin careers, both of which were devoted to 
 teaching, and, judging his own fortune by another's, 
 he created for himself continual and futile anxieties 
 which obscured the natural clearness of his vision. 
 
 141
 
 142 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 The fact that Monsieur Bergeret was a professor at 
 the University, while he himself taught grammar in 
 a suburban lycee was not, to his mind, in conformity 
 with the idea of divine justice engraven upon his 
 heart. He was too fair-minded a man to bear a 
 grudge against his friend; but when the latter was 
 appointed lecturer at the Sorbonne Jumage felt it 
 keenly. 
 
 A curious effect of this comparative study of their 
 two lives was that Jumage formed an inveterate 
 habit of thinking and acting, on every possible 
 occasion, in a manner diametrically opposed to 
 Monsieur Bergeret's way of thinking and acting; 
 not that he had not a sincere and upright character, 
 but he could not help suspecting that some malign 
 influence was at work to ensure the success of careers 
 which were of greater importance and merit than 
 his own, and were therefore unrighteous. And thus, 
 when he found that the professor was in favour of 
 the Revision, he at once joined the ranks of the 
 Nationals, because he conceived all manner of per- 
 fectly genuine reasons for doing so, and also because 
 he had to be the antithesis, in a sense, the inverted 
 self, of Monsieur Bergeret. He entered his name 
 as a member of the League of the Agitation fran- 
 gaise, and even made speeches at its meetings. In 
 the same way he opposed his friend on every topic 
 under the sun, from systems of economical heating
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 143 
 
 to the rules of Latin Grammar, and as, after all, 
 Monsieur Bergeret was not always wrong, Jumage 
 was not always right. 
 
 This contrariety, which with years had assumed 
 the exactitude of a rational system, did not in any 
 way interfere with their life-long friendship. Jumage 
 was really concerned at the misfortunes that dogged 
 Bergeret in the course of his sometimes troubled 
 career. He went to see him every time he heard of 
 a fresh calamity. He was no fair-weather friend. 
 
 On this particular occasion, he came to his old 
 friend with the worried and bewildered expression, 
 the look of mingled pain and pleasure, that Lucien 
 knew so well. 
 
 "You are quite well, Lucien? I'm not in your 
 way, am I?" 
 
 "No. I was reading the story of the porter and 
 the young girls in The Arabian Nights, newly trans- 
 lated by Dr. Mardrus. It is a literal translation and 
 very different from The Arabian Nights of our old 
 friend Galland." 
 
 "I came to see you," said Jumage, "because I 
 wanted to speak to you about something. But it's 
 of no consequence. So you were reading The 
 Arabian Nights?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Monsieur Bergeret, "and for the 
 first time too. For the worthy Galland gives one 
 no idea of the real thing. He is an excellent story
 
 144 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 teller who has carefully corrected the morals of the 
 Arabs. His Scheherazada, like Coypel's Esther, 
 has her value ; but here we have Arabia with all its 
 perfumes." 
 
 "I've brought you an article to read," continued 
 Jumage. "But, as I said before, it's of no conse- 
 quence." 
 
 And he drew from his pocket a newspaper which 
 Monsieur Bergeret slowly extended his hand to take. 
 Jumage replaced it in his pocket. Monsieur Berg- 
 eret' s hand dropped to his side; then, with fingers 
 that trembled slightly, Jumage spread the paper on 
 the table. 
 
 "Again, I repeat, it's of no importance, but I 
 thought it better perhaps it's better for you to 
 know you have enemies, many enemies." 
 
 "Flatterer!" said Monsieur Bergeret. 
 
 And picking up the paper he read the following 
 lines marked in blue pencil: 
 
 "A common usher and a Dreyfussard, the in- 
 tellectual Bergeret, who has been stagnating in the 
 provinces, has just been appointed lecturer at the 
 Sorbonne. The students of the faculty of letters 
 have lodged an energetic protest against the ap- 
 pointment of this anti-French Protestant, and it does 
 not surprise us to hear that many of them have 
 decided to greet as he deserves, with howls of 
 execration, the dirty German Jew whom the Min-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 145 
 
 ister of Treason has had the impudence to foist upon 
 them as a teacher." 
 
 And when Monsieur Bergeret had finished read- 
 ing, Jumage said eagerly: 
 
 "Don't read it, it's not worth it. It's so trivial." 
 
 "Trivial, I admit," replied Monsieur Bergeret. 
 "Yet you must not deprive me of this token, obscure 
 and insufficient, but at the same time truthful and 
 creditable, of what I did during a difficult period, 
 I didn't do a great deal; but I ran some risks. 
 Stapfer, the Dean, was suspended for having spoken 
 of justice during a funeral oration, in the days when 
 Monsieur Bourgeois was Grand Master of the 
 University. And we have known worse times than 
 those for which Monsieur Bourgeois was respon- 
 sible. If it hadn't been for the generous firmness of 
 my chiefs I should have been turned out of the 
 University by an unwise Minister. I didn't think 
 about it then, but I can think of it now, and claim 
 the reward of my actions. Now tell me what more 
 worthy, what nobler, what more finely austere re- 
 ward could I attain than the insults of the enemies 
 of justice? I could wish that the writer who, despite 
 himself, has given me this testimonial, had expressed 
 his thought in a more memorable fashion. But that 
 would be asking too much." 
 
 Having thus spoken, Monsieur Bergeret placed 
 the blade of his ivory paper-knife between the pages
 
 146 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 of The Arabian Nights. He enjoyed cutting the 
 pages of his books, being a wise man who suited his 
 pleasures to his condition. The austere Jumage 
 envied him this innocent pastime. He pulled his 
 sleeve. 
 
 "Listen, Lucien. I share none of your opinions 
 with regard to the Affair. I have blamed and still 
 blame your conduct. I fear it may have the most 
 deplorable results upon your future. No true 
 Frenchman will ever find it in his heart to forgive 
 you. I should like to say, however, that I most 
 forcibly disapprove of the style of controversy em- 
 ployed against you by certain newspapers. I con- 
 demn them. You believe that, do you not?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 After a moment's silence, Jumage went on: 
 
 "You see, Lucien, you are slandered because of 
 your position. You can summon your slanderers 
 before a jury. But I don't advise you to do so. 
 They would be acquitted." 
 
 "That is most probable," said Monsieur Bergeret. 
 "Unless I walk into court in a plumed hat, a sword 
 at my side, spurs on my boots, and an army of twenty 
 thousand paid hooligans at my heels. Then my 
 plea would be heard by judge and jury. When 
 Zola was found guilty by the jury of the Seine in 
 respect of the very moderate letter which he ad- 
 dressed to a President of the Republic who was ill-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 147 
 
 prepared to read it, their deliberations took place 
 amid bestial cries, hideous threats, and unendurable 
 clatter of ironmongery, amid all the phantoms of 
 error and untruth. I have not so terrific an appara- 
 tus at my disposal, therefore it is more than probable 
 that my defamer would be acquitted." 
 
 "You cannot, however, remain indifferent to 
 insults. What do you intend to do?" 
 
 "Nothing. I am satisfied. I would just as soon 
 be subjected to the insults of the Press as to its 
 praise. Truth has been served in the newspapers 
 by her enemies as well as by her friends. When a 
 mere handful of men, mindful of the honour of 
 France, denounced the fraudulent condemnation of 
 an innocent man, the Government and public opinion 
 treated them as enemies. But they spoke out. And 
 by their speech they proved themselves the stronger. 
 You know how fervently the majority of the news- 
 papers worked against them. But in spite of them- 
 selves they were serving the cause of truth, and by 
 publishing the false documents " 
 
 "There haven't been so many false documents as 
 you think, Lucien." 
 
 "They made it possible to prove their falsity. 
 Error had been scattered broadcast, and could no 
 longer collect her scattered forces, and finally noth- 
 ing was left save that which had sequence and 
 continuity. Truth has a faculty of linking facts
 
 i 4 8 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 together which error does not possess. It formed, 
 in the face of insult and impotent hatred, a chain 
 that could not again be broken. We owe the 
 triumph of our cause to the liberty, the licence of 
 the Press." 
 
 "But you are not victorious," cried Jumage. 
 "Neither are we defeated! Quite the contrary! 
 The opinion of the whole country is against you. I 
 regret to say it, but you and your friends are unani- 
 mously execrated, dishonoured, spat upon. We 
 defeated? You are joking. The whole of France 
 is with us." 
 
 "And you are defeated from within. If I took 
 appearances into consideration I might think you 
 victorious, and despair of justice. There are 
 criminals who go unpunished. Prevarication and 
 perjury are publicly approved as praiseworthy 
 actions. I have no hope that the enemies of truth 
 will own themselves vanquished. Such an effort is 
 possible only to the highest type of mind. 
 
 "There is very little change in the general state 
 of mind. The ignorance of the public is still almost 
 complete. There have been none of those sudden 
 changes of opinion on the part of the crowd which 
 are so amazing when they occur. Nothing striking 
 or even noticeable has happened. Nevertheless the 
 time is past when a President of the Republic could 
 degrade, to the level of his own soul, justice, the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 149 
 
 honour of the country, and the alliances of the 
 Republic, the power of whose ministers depended 
 upon their understanding with the enemies of the 
 very institutions of which they were the guardians. 
 A season of brutal hypocrisy when contempt for 
 intelligence and hatred of justice were at one and 
 the same time a popular opinion and a State doctrine. 
 A time when those in power upheld the rioters, when 
 it was a crime to cry 'Five la Republiquef Those 
 days are already remote, as though they had sunk 
 into the limbo of the past and were plunged into the 
 darkness of the age of barbarism. 
 
 "They may return. We are divided from them 
 as yet by nothing tangible, nothing apparent or 
 definite. They have faded away like the clouds of 
 the error which created them, and the least breath 
 may yet rekindle their ashes. But even if everything 
 were to conspire to strengthen your cause, you are 
 none the less irretrievably lost. You are conquered 
 from within, and that is the irretrievable defeat. 
 When you are conquered from without, you can 
 continue to resist and hope for revenge. Your ruin 
 is within you. The necessary consequences of your 
 crimes and your errors are at hand in spite of your 
 efforts to prevent them, and with amazement you 
 see the beginning of your downfall. Unjust and 
 violent, you will be destroyed by your own injustice 
 and violence. And the monstrous party of unright-
 
 150 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 eousness, hitherto inviolable, respected and feared, 
 is falling, breaking asunder of its own weight. 
 
 "What does it matter then if legal sanctions are 
 dilatory or lacking? The only true and natural 
 justice is contained in the very consequences of the 
 act, not in external formulas, which are often narrow 
 and sometimes arbitrary. Why complain that the 
 greatest culprits evade the law and retain their 
 despicable honours? That doesn't matter either, 
 under the present social system, any more than it 
 mattered, in the days of the earth's infancy, when 
 the great saurians of the primeval oceans were dis- 
 appearing to make way for creatures more beautiful 
 and of happier instincts, that there still remained 
 stranded, on the slime of the beaches, a few mon- 
 strous survivors of a doomed race." 
 
 
 
 As Jumage reached the gate of the Luxembourg 
 after his visit to his friend, he met young Goubin. 
 
 "I've just been to see Bergeret," he said. "I'm 
 sorry for him ; he seems very cast-down and dejected. 
 The Affair has crushed him."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 T the offices of the Executive Com 
 mittee in the Rue de Berri, Henri 
 de Brece, Joseph Lacrisse and Henri 
 Leon were dealing with the business 
 of the day. 
 
 'My dear President," said Joseph Lacrisse to 
 Henri de Brece. "I want you to find a prefecture 
 for a good Royalist. I am sure you will not refuse 
 when I have told you of my candidate's qualification. 
 His father, Ferdinand Dellion, an iron-master at 
 Valcombe, is in every way deserving of the King's 
 favour. He is most careful of the moral and 
 physical well-being of his workmen. He has a 
 dispensary for them, and he sees that they go to 
 Mass on Sundays and send their children to the 
 church schools, and that they vote properly and 
 abstain from trade unions. He is opposed, un- 
 fortunately, by the deputy Cothard and ill-supported 
 by the sub-prefect of Valcombe. His son Gustave 
 is one of the most active and energetic members 
 of my Departmental Committee. He was most 
 vigorous in the campaign against the Jews in our
 
 152 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 city, and was arrested at Auteuil for taking part 
 in the demonstration against Loubet. You simply 
 cannot refuse a prefecture to Gustave Dellion, my 
 dear President!" 
 
 "A prefecture," murmured Brece, turning over 
 his register, "a prefecture? We've only got Gueret 
 and Draguignan left. Will you have Gueret?" 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse smiled imperceptibly as he re* 
 plied: 
 
 "My dear President, Gustave Dellion is my 
 collaborator. When the time is ripe he will proceed 
 under my orders to the forcible suppression of 
 Worms-Clavelin. It is only fair that he should 
 take his place." 
 
 With his eyes glued to the register, Henri de 
 Brece declared the thing to be impossible. Worms- 
 Clavelin's successor was already chosen. Mon- 
 seigneur had appointed Jacques de Cadde, one of 
 the first to subscribe to the Henry subscription-lists. 
 
 Lacrisse objected to Jacques de Cadde, saying 
 that he was a stranger to the department. Henri 
 de Brece retorted that one did not dispute the 
 King's orders, and the discussion was growing some- 
 what heated when Henri Leon, astride a chair, put 
 out his hand and remarked in a peremptory tone : 
 
 "Worms-Clavelin's successor will be neither 
 Jacques de Cadde nor Gustave Dellion. It will be 
 Worms-Clavelin."
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 153 
 
 Lacrisse and Brece protested. 
 
 "It will be Worms-Clavelin," repeated Henri 
 Leon. "Worms-Clavelin, who will not await your 
 arrival on the scenes to fly the royal standards from 
 the roof of the prefecture, and whom the Minister 
 of the Interior appointed by the King will have 
 notified by telephone of his retention at the head 
 of the departmental administration." 
 
 "Worms-Clavelin prefect under the monarchy!" 
 said Brece disdainfully. "I don't seem to see him." 
 
 "It would be a shocking thing, of course," replied 
 Henri Leon. "But if the Chevalier de Clavelin is 
 appointed prefect there is nothing more to be said. 
 Don't let us have any illusions, the King won't 
 bestow all the plums on us. Ingratitude is the first 
 duty of a sovereign, and no Bourbon has ever yet 
 been found lacking in that respect. I say this to the 
 praise of the House of France. 
 
 "Do you really think the King will govern with 
 the white carnation, the cornflower and the rose of 
 France, and take his ministers from the Jockey Club 
 and from Puteaux, or make Christiani Grand Master 
 of the Ceremonies? If so, you are vastly mistaken. 
 The rose of France, the cornflower and the white 
 carnation will be left on the ground, in the modest 
 shade beloved of the violet. Christiani will be set 
 at liberty, nothing more. People will look askance 
 at him for staving in Loubet's hat. Of course!
 
 154 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Once deposed, Loubet, who at present is nothing 
 but a low Panamist, will be a predecessor when we 
 have replaced him. The King will sit in his arm- 
 chair at the Auteuil races and he will then consider 
 that Christian! created a regrettable precedent and 
 will bear him a grudge for doing so. Even we 
 ourselves, we who are plotting for him, will become 
 suspect; conspirators are not liked at Court. I am 
 telling you this to save you from bitter disappoint- 
 ment. The secret of happiness is to live without 
 illusions. As far as I am concerned, if my services 
 are forgotten or despised, I shall not complain. 
 Politics isn't a matter of sentiment; I realize only 
 too well what His Majesty will be forced to do when 
 we have set him upon the throne of his fathers. 
 Before rewarding gratuitous devotion, a good King 
 pays for the services which have been sold to him. 
 Don't make any mistake about that! The greatest 
 honours and the most lucrative positions will be 
 given to the Republicans. The trimmers alone will 
 form a third of our political personnel, and will 
 receive their pay before we do. And that is only 
 fair. Gromance, the old Chouan who went over to 
 the Republic under Meline, explains his position 
 very clearly when he tells us: 'You have lost me a 
 seat in the Senate, therefore you owe me one in the 
 House of Peers.' He'll get it, and after all he 
 deserves it. But the reward of the trimmers will
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 155 
 
 be as nothing to that of the faithful Republicans 
 who reserve their treachery for the supreme mo- 
 ment. Those are they who will get the portfolios 
 and gold-laced coats, the titles and endowments. Do 
 you know where to look for our Premier and half 
 ibur Peerage at the present moment? Don't look for 
 them in our Royalist Committees where we hourly 
 run the risk of being arrested like so many thieves, 
 nor in the wandering Court of our young and hand- 
 some Prince in his cruel exile. You will find them 
 in the ante-chambers of the Radical ministers, in the 
 drawing-rooms of the Elysee and in every institution 
 in the pay of the Government. Have you never 
 heard of Talleyrand and Fouche? Have you read 
 no history, not even the works of Monsieur Imbert 
 de Saint- Amand? It was not an emigre but a 
 regicide who was appointed Minister of the Police 
 by Louis XVIII in 1815. Our young King is 
 certainly not so clever as Louis XVIII, but we must 
 not think him devoid of intelligence. That would 
 be disrespectful and, perhaps, too severe. When he 
 is King he will realize the necessities of the situation. 
 All the chiefs of the Republican party who are not 
 slain, exiled, transported or incorruptible will have 
 to be regarded, otherwise they will oppose him in 
 a great and powerful party, and Meline himself will 
 become a savage enemy. And since I have men- 
 tioned Meline, Brece, tell me yourself, which would
 
 156 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 be most advantageous to the royal cause that your 
 father should preside over the peers, or Meline, Due 
 de Remiremont, Prince des Voges, with the Grand 
 Cross of the Legion of Honour, Knight of the 
 Lily and Saint Louis? There can be no possible 
 doubt. Due Meline would bring far more adherents 
 to the crown than the Due de Brece. Must I, then, 
 teach you the A B C of restorations? 
 
 "All we shall get will be the titles and positions 
 rejected by the Republicans. Our gratuitous devo- 
 tion will be taken for granted. They will have no 
 fear of displeasing us ; they will feel assured that we 
 shall remain inoffensive malcontents. It will never 
 for a moment enter their heads that we might form 
 an Opposition. 
 
 "Well, they will be mistaken. We shall be obliged 
 to oppose them, and we shall do so. It will be 
 profitable, and it won't be difficult. Of course we 
 shall not ally ourselves with the Republicans. That 
 would be in execrable taste, and our loyalty would 
 forbid such a thing. We cannot be less Royalist 
 than the King, but we can be more so. Monsiegneur 
 le Due d'Orleans is no democrat, we must do him 
 that justice. He does not interest himself in the 
 conditions of the working-classes. He dates from 
 before the Revolution. Nevertheless, although he 
 dines in knee-breeches and a Breton waistcoat, with 
 all his orders round his neck, he will turn Liberal
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 157 
 
 when his ministers are Liberals. There is nothing 
 to prevent us from becoming 'Ultras.' We shall pull 
 to the right while the Republicans pull to the left; 
 we shall become dangerous and they will treat us 
 properly. And who can say whether the 'Ultras' 
 will not be the means of saving the monarchy? We 
 have already an incomparable army to-day which is 
 more religious than the clergy. We have an incom- 
 parable bourgeoisie, anti-Semites every one of them, 
 who think as men thought in the Middle Ages. 
 Louis XVIII was not so fortunate. If they will 
 give me the post of Minister of the Interior, with 
 such admirable elements as these I'll guarantee to 
 make the monarchy last ten years. After that it will 
 be the turn of Socialism. But ten years is a good 
 lease of life." 
 
 Having thus spoken, Henri Leon lit a cigar. Still 
 harping on the same theme, Joseph Lacrisse begged 
 Henri de Brece to see if he had not a good pre- 
 fecture to dispose of; but the President repeated 
 as before that he had nothing but Gueret and 
 Draguignan. 
 
 "It will have to be Draguignan then," said Joseph 
 Lacrisse with a sigh. "Gustave Dellion will not be 
 best pleased, but I must make him see it's a foot in 
 the stirrup."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HE Baronne de Bonmont had invited 
 all the titled landowners and the big 
 manufacturers and financiers of the 
 district to a charity fete which she 
 was giving on the 29 th of the month, 
 in the famous Chateau de Montil which Bernard de 
 Paves, Grand Master of Artillery in the reign of 
 Louis XII, had built in 1508 for Nicolette de 
 Vaucelles, his fourth wife, and which had been 
 bought by Baron Jules after the French loan of 
 1871. She had been tactful enough to send no 
 invitation to the Jewish landowners, although she 
 had friends and relations among them. After the 
 death of her husband she was baptized, and had 
 now been five years naturalized. She was wholly 
 devoted to her religion and country. Like her 
 brother Wallstein, of Vienna, she was careful to 
 distinguish herself from her former co-religionists 
 by a sincere anti-Semitism. She was quite un- 
 ambitious, however, and her natural inclination was 
 for the pleasures of domestic life. She would have 
 been satisfied with a modest position among the 
 
 158
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 159 
 
 Christian aristocracy of France, if her son had not 
 urged her to "make a splash." It was the little 
 Baron Ernest who had induced her to get in with 
 the Breces; it was he who had inscribed the entire 
 aristocracy of the province on the list of the guests 
 invited to the projected fete. It was he who 
 brought the little Duchesse de Mausac to Montil to 
 take part in the play. As she was given to remark- 
 ing, she was of good enough birth to sup with circus- 
 riders and drink with grooms. 
 
 The programme of the fete included a perform- 
 ance of Joconde by society amateurs, a fair in the 
 park, a Venetian fete on the lake, and illuminations. 
 
 It was already the lyth. The preparations were 
 proceeding hurriedly, amidst extreme confusion. 
 The little company of actors were rehearsing their 
 play in the long Renaissance gallery, the panels of 
 whose ceiling bore, in an ingenious variety of de- 
 sign, the peacock of Bernard de Paves tied by the 
 foot to the lute of Nicolette de Vaucelles. 
 
 Monsieur Germaine was accompanying the singers 
 on the piano, while in the park the carpenters were 
 putting together the framework of the booths with 
 great blows of their mallets. Largilliere, from the 
 Opera-Comique, was acting as stage manager. 
 
 "Your turn, Duchess." 
 
 Monsieur Germaine's hands, stripped of their
 
 160 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 rings, excepting one that remained on his thumb, 
 struck a chord. 
 
 "La, la." 
 
 But, taking the glass handed her by young Bon- 
 mont, the Duchess cried: 
 
 "Let me drink my cocktail first." 
 
 When she had finished, Largilliere repeated : 
 
 "Come, Duchess." 
 
 "Tout me seconde, 
 Je 1'ai prevu. . . ." 
 
 And Monsieur Germaine's hands, despoiled of 
 gold and gems save for an amethyst on the thumb, 
 once more struck a chord. But the Duchess did not 
 sing. She was staring with interest at the accom- 
 panist. 
 
 "My dear Germaine, I am lost in admiration I 
 You have grown a bust and hips! I congratulate 
 you! You've really done something! While as for 
 me look!" She drew her hands down over her 
 cloth costume. "I've got rid of all that!" She 
 made a half-turn. "Nothing left! It's all gone! 
 And in the meantime you've been growing them! 
 Now that's really funny! But there's no harm in 
 it. One thing makes up for another." 
 
 But Rene Chartier, who was playing Joconde, 
 was standing motionless with his neck extended like 
 a stove-pipe, thinking only of the velvet and pearls
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 161 
 
 of his voice, which was deep and just a little gloomy. 
 
 He grew impatient at last, remarking coldly: 
 "We shall never be in time; it's deplorable!" 
 "Let us start from the quartette," said Largilliere. 
 
 "Tout me seconde, 
 Je 1'ai prevu; 
 Pauvre Joconde! 
 II est vaincu." 
 
 "Come along, Monsieur Quatrebarbe." 
 
 Monsieur Gerard Quatrebarbe was the son of the 
 diocesan architect. Since he had broken the windows 
 of Mayer, the bootmaker, who was supposed to be 
 a Jew, he was received everywhere in society. He 
 had a good voice but he missed his cues, and Rene 
 Chartier cast furious glances at him. 
 
 "You are not in your place, Duchess," said 
 Largilliere. 
 
 "No, I dare say not I" replied the Duchess. 
 
 Rene Chartier went up to young Bonmont and 
 whispered in his ear: 
 
 "For goodness' sake don't give the Duchess any 
 more cocktails, she will spoil everything." 
 
 Largilliere was grumbling too; the choruses 
 were confused and unimpressive. However, they 
 attacked the trio. 
 
 "Monsieur Lacrisse, you are not in your place." 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse was not in his place, and it is 
 only fair to say that it was not his fault. Madame
 
 162 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 de Bonmont was perpetually enticing him into 
 corners and murmuring to him : 
 
 "Tell me you love me still; if you don't still love 
 me I feel I shall die!" 
 
 She also asked him for news of the plot, and as 
 the latter was not going on at all well the question 
 irritated him. He was annoyed with her, too, 
 because she had not given any money to the cause. 
 He strode off stiffly to join the chorus, while Rene 
 Chartier sang as though he meant it: 
 
 "Dans un delire extreme 
 On veut fuir ce qu'on aime." 
 
 Young Bonmont went up to his mother. 
 
 "Don't trust Lacrisse, mother." 
 
 She started. Then, in a tone of affected in- 
 difference : 
 
 "What do you mean? He is very serious, more 
 serious than is usual at his age. He is occupied 
 with important matters. He " 
 
 The young Baron shrugged his strong crooked 
 shoulders. 
 
 "I tell you, don't trust him. He wants to come 
 down on you for a hundred thousand francs. He 
 asked me to help to get the cheque out of you. But 
 at the present time I don't see that it's necessary. I 
 am for the King, but a hundred thousand francs is 
 a large sum." 
 
 Rene Chartier sang:
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 163 
 
 "On devient infidele, 
 On court de belle en belle." 
 
 A servant brought the Baronne a letter. It was 
 from the Breces, who enclosed a contribution to the 
 charity and expressed their regrets that they would 
 not be able to attend the fete, being obliged to go 
 away before the 29th. 
 
 She handed the letter to her son, who smiled 
 unpleasantly, and asked: 
 
 "What about the Courtrais?" 
 
 "They refused yesterday, and Madame Cartier 
 de Chalmot as well." 
 
 "The cats!" 
 
 "We shall have the Terremondres and the 
 Gromances." 
 
 "The deuce, it's part of their business to come 
 to our house." 
 
 They reviewed the situation; it was unsatisfac- 
 tory. Terremondre had not, as usual, promised to 
 hunt up his cousins and his aunts and all the rest 
 of the small gentry. The big manufacturers them- 
 selves seemed to be hesitating and seeking excuses 
 for not coming. Young Bonmont concluded: 
 
 "It's all up with your fete, mother! We are in 
 quarantine, that's very evident." 
 
 These words grieved the gentle Elisabeth. Her 
 beautiful face, always adorned by a loving smile, 
 seemed overcast.
 
 1 64 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 At the other end of the room, above the con- 
 fused babel of sounds, Largilliere's voice reiterated : 
 
 "Not like that! That's not the way! We shall 
 never be ready in time." 
 
 "Do you hear?" said the Baronne. "He says we 
 shall not be ready in time. Suppose we postpone 
 the fete if it's not going to be a success." 
 
 "You are soft, mother! But I'm not blaming 
 you. It's your nature. You are a forget-me-not 
 and will always remain one. I am a fighting man, 
 a strong man. I'm pretty well played out, as far 
 as my health goes, but I shall struggle on to 
 the end." 
 
 "My child!" 
 
 "Don't let that worry you. I'm done for, but 
 I shall struggle on." 
 
 Rene Chartier's voice flowed forth like a limpid 
 fountain : 
 
 "On pense, on pense encore 
 A celle qu'on adore, 
 Et Ton revient toujours 
 A ses premieres a ..." 
 
 Suddenly the accompanist ceased playing amidst a 
 great uproar. Monsieur Germaine was chasing the 
 Duchess who was running off with his rings. She 
 fled into the monumental fireplace, where on the 
 Angevin slate were engraven the loves of the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 165 
 
 nymphs and the metamorphoses of the gods. Then, 
 pointing to a little pocket in her corsage she said : 
 
 "Here are your rings, my old Germaine. Come 
 and fetch them. Look here! Here's a pair of 
 Louis XIII tongs! You can use them!" 
 
 And she jangled an enormous pair of tongs 
 under the musician's nose. Rene Chartier, savagely 
 rolling his eyes, threw down his score, saying that 
 he returned his part. 
 
 "I don't believe the Luzancourts are coming 
 either," said the Baronne, with a sigh. 
 
 "All is not lost. I have an idea," said the little 
 Baron. "One must know how to make a sacrifice 
 when it's useful. Say nothing to Lacrisse 1" 
 
 "Nothing to Lacrisse?" 
 
 "Nothing that matters. Leave it to me." 
 
 He left her and approached the noisy chorus. 
 To the Duchess, who asked him for another cocktail, 
 he gently remarked: 
 
 "Don't bother me." 
 
 Then he sat down beside Joseph Lacrisse who 
 was meditating apart, and spoke to him for some 
 time in a low voice. His manner was serious and 
 resolute. 
 
 "It's true enough," he said to the secretary of 
 the Committee of Young Royalists. "We must 
 overthrow the Republic and save France. And to 
 do that we need money. My mother is of the
 
 166 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 same opinion. She is prepared to pay fifty thousand 
 francs to the King's account for expenses of 
 propaganda." 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse thanked him in the King's name. 
 
 "JMonseigneur," he said, "will be happy to learn 
 that your mother adds her patriotic offering to that 
 of the three French ladies who displayed such 
 chivalrous generosity. You may be sure that he 
 will express his gratitude in a letter written by his 
 own hand." 
 
 "It's not worth speaking of," said young 
 Bonmont. 
 
 And after a short silence he added: 
 
 "When you see the Breces and the Courtrais, 
 my dear Lacrisse, you might tell them to come to 
 our little fete."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 T was the first day of the New Year. 
 Between two showers Monsieur 
 Bergeret and his daughter Pauline 
 wended their way along the streets 
 still covered with fresh golden mud, 
 to wish the compliments of the season to a maternal 
 aunt of Monsieur Bergeret's who still survived, but 
 lived alone, if living it could be called, in a little 
 Beguine's cell which stood in a kitchen garden, amid 
 the sound of convent bells. Pauline was happy 
 without a reason simply because holidays such as 
 these, which marked the flight of time, made her 
 the more conscious of the delightful progress of 
 her young life. 
 
 On this solemn day Monsieur Bergeret still 
 observed his customary indulgence, no longer 
 expecting much good from his fellow-creatures or 
 from life itself, but knowing, like Monsieur Fagon, 
 that one must forgive nature a great deal. All 
 along the road beggars of every description, stand- 
 ing upright like candlesticks, or spread out like 
 temporary altars, formed the decorations of this 
 
 167
 
 168 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 social fete. They had all come to help to adorn the 
 bourgeois quarters, all our poor unfortunates, lame, 
 halt and blind; crooks, tramps, pickpockets, malin- 
 gerers, rogues, and hardened ruffians. Yielding, 
 however, to the general tendency to obliterate indi- 
 vidual character, and to conform with the universal 
 mediocrity of manners, they did not expose to view 
 horrible malformations and ghastly sores as in the 
 days of the great Coe'sre. They did not bind their 
 mutilated limbs with blood-stained rags; they were 
 modest and affected only endurable infirmities. One 
 of them hobbled nimbly after Monsieur Bergeret 
 for some considerable distance. Then he stopped 
 and took up his position once more like a lamp-post 
 on the edge of the pavement. After which Mon- 
 sieur Bergeret remarked to his daughter: 
 
 "I have just committed a wicked action; I have 
 given alms. In giving a couple of sous to Monsieur 
 Hobbler I tasted the shameful joy of humiliating 
 my fellow-man. I was a partner to the odious pact 
 that gives power to the strong and leaves the weak 
 in their weakness. I have sealed with my own seal 
 the injustice of ages and contributed my share to 
 depriving this man of one half of his soul." 
 
 "You've done all that, papa?" asked Pauline 
 incredulously. 
 
 "Almost all that," replied Monsieur Bergeret. 
 "I have sold fraternity to my brother Hobbler,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 169 
 
 using false weights, and in humiliating him I have 
 brought humiliation on myself, for almsgiving 
 degrades both him who gives and him who takes. 
 I have done wrong." 
 
 "I don't think so," said Pauline. 
 
 "You don't think so," replied Monsieur 
 Bergeret, "because you have no philosophy and are 
 incapable of tracing from an apparently innocent 
 action the stupendous consequences which it bears 
 within itself. This fellow induced me to offer him 
 alms. I could not resist the importunity of his 
 whining appeal. I pitied his bare thin neck, the 
 knees of his trousers, which, baggy from too long 
 wear, bear such a depressing resemblance to the 
 knees of a camel, and his feet, on which his shoes 
 were gaping at the toes like a couple of ducks. 
 Seducer! Dangerous Hobbler! Through you my 
 sous have produced their little share of baseness and 
 shame. Through you I have created with ten 
 centimes a little ugliness and evil. In handing you 
 that tiny token of wealth and power, I have ironi- 
 cally made you a capitalist, and invited you, an un- 
 honoured guest, to the banquet of society, the feast 
 of civilization. And as I did it I felt that I was one 
 of the mighty of this world as compared with you, 
 a rich man compared with you, my gentle Hobbler, 
 exquisite mendicant and flatterer. I rejoiced and 
 was proud, exulting in my opulence and my great-
 
 170 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 ness. O Hobbler, live for ever I Pulcher hymnus 
 divitiarum pauper immortalis. 
 
 "An abominable practice, that of almsgiving! A 
 barbarous pity, that of charity! An ancient error, 
 that of the well-to-do who give a penny and think 
 they are performing a good deed, who believe they 
 have fulfilled their whole duty to their fellow-man 
 by means of the most miserable, awkward, ridicu- 
 lous, senseless and mean action which could possibly 
 be committed with a view to a better distribution 
 of wealth. This habit of almsgiving is contrary 
 to beneficence and abhorrent to charity." 
 
 "Really?" said Pauline good-humouredly. 
 
 "Almsgiving," went on Monsieur Bergeret, "is 
 no more to be compared to beneficence than a 
 monkey's grimace to the smile of the Joconda. 
 Beneficence is as ingenious as almsgiving is inept. 
 It is vigilant, and proportions its efforts to the need. 
 That is precisely what I did not do with regard to 
 brother Hobbler. The very name of beneficence 
 evoked the most beautiful ideas in the sensitive 
 minds of the century of the philosophers. It used 
 to be believed that the name was first created by the 
 good Abbe de Saint Pierre, but it is older still, and 
 can be found in the old Balzac. In the sixteenth 
 century men said beneficence, not bienfaisance, but it 
 is the same word. I must admit that I do not find 
 its pristine beauty in the word bienfaisance; for me
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 171 
 
 it has been spoiled by the Pharisees who have made 
 too free a use of it. We have many charitable 
 institutions in our country, pawn-shops, provident 
 societies, mutual aid and insurance societies. Some 
 of these are useful and do good service. But their 
 common defect is that they proceed to aggravate 
 the very social iniquity which they are intended to 
 correct; they are poisonous remedies. Universal 
 beneficence would have every one living by his own 
 labours and not on the labours of others. Every- 
 thing but fair exchange and solidarity is vile and 
 shameful and unfruitful. Human charity is the 
 co-operation of all in the production and division 
 of the fruits of labour. 
 
 "Charity is justice; it is love, and the poor are 
 more skilled in it than the rich. What rich man has 
 ever practised human charity as fully as Epictetus 
 or Benoit Malon? True charity is the gift of each 
 man's work to all; it is a beautiful kindness; it is 
 the harmonious gesture of the soul which bows itself 
 like a vase of precious ointment, pouring forth its 
 benefits. It is Michael Angelo painting the Sistine 
 Chapel, or the deputies in the National Assembly 
 on the night of the 4th of August. It is giving, in 
 all its happy completeness; it is money poured forth 
 together with love and thought. We have nothing 
 that belongs to us alone but ourselves ; we truly give 
 only when we give our work, our minds, our genius.
 
 172 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 And this splendid offering of one's whole self to 
 all men enriches the giver as much as the com- 
 munity." 
 
 "But," objected Pauline, "you could not give love 
 and beauty to Hobbler, so you gave him what was 
 most convenient to him." 
 
 "It is true that Hobbler has become a mere 
 animal. Of all the good things that gratify man, he 
 cares only for alcohol. I conclude as much from 
 the fact that as he came towards me he reeked of 
 brandy. But, such as he is, he is our work. Our 
 pride fathered and our sin mothered him; he is the 
 evil fruit of our vices. Every man in the world 
 should both give and receive. He has not given 
 enough, doubtless because he has not received 
 enough." 
 
 "He may be lazy," said Pauline. "Mon Dieu, 
 how can we do away with poverty and weakness 
 and idleness ! Don't you believe that men are nat- 
 urally good and that it is society that makes them 
 wicked?" 
 
 "No, I don't believe that men are naturally good," 
 replied Monsieur Bergeret. "What I see is that 
 they are emerging painfully and very slowly from 
 their primitive barbarism, and that with great effort 
 they are organizing a justice that is uncertain and a 
 charity that is precarious. The time is yet far dis- 
 tant when they will be kind and gentle to one
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 173 
 
 another. The time is yet far distant when they will 
 not war upon one another, and when pictures repre- 
 senting battle scenes will be hidden away as afford- 
 ing an immoral and shameful spectacle. I believe 
 that the reign of violence will last a long time yet, 
 that for many years to come the nations will rend 
 one another asunder for trivial reasons; that for 
 many years to come the people of the same country 
 will desperately snatch from one another the com- 
 mon necessaries of life, instead of equitably dividing 
 them. But I also believe that men are least fero- 
 cious when they are least wretched, that in the long 
 run the progress of industry will produce a certain 
 softening of manners. A botanist has assured me 
 that if a hawthorn be transplanted from a stony to 
 a fruitful soil its thorns will change into flowers." 
 
 "There you are ! You are an optimist, papa ; I 
 knew you were!" cried Pauline, stopping short for 
 a moment in the middle of the pavement to gaze at 
 her father with her dawn-grey eyes, full of gentle 
 radiance and morning coolness. "You are an 
 optimist. You are working with a cheerful heart 
 to build the house of the future. That is good ! It 
 is a fine thing to build the New Republic with men 
 of good will." 
 
 Monsieur Bergeret smiled at the hopeful words 
 and youthful eyes. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "it would be fine to lay the foun-
 
 174 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 dations for the new society, where each man would 
 receive the just price of his labour." 
 
 "It will happen, won't it? But when?" asked 
 Pauline innocently. 
 
 "Do not ask me to prophesy, my child," 
 answered Monsieur Bergeret sadly and gently. 
 "It is not without reason that the ancients consid- 
 ered the power of piercing the future as the most 
 fatal gift that could be bestowed upon man. If it 
 were possible for us to see what is to come, there 
 would be nothing left for us but to die ; or perhaps 
 we should fall stricken to death by grief or terror. 
 We must work at the future like weavers who work 
 at their tapestries without seeing what they 
 accomplish." 
 
 Thus conversing, the father and daughter pro- 
 ceeded on their way. In front of the square in the 
 Rue de Sevres they met a solitary beggar standing 
 motionless on the pavement. 
 
 "I've no more change," said Monsieur Bergeret. 
 "Can you lend me a couple of sous, Pauline? That 
 outstretched hand bars my way. If it were in the 
 Place de la Concorde it would still bar my way. 
 The outstretched hand of a beggar is a barrier that 
 I cannot pass. It is a weakness that I cannot over- 
 come. Give the man something. It's pardonable. 
 We must not let ourselves exaggerate the harm 
 we do."
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 175 
 
 "Papa, I'd like to know what you will do with 
 Hobbler in your Republic. You can't imagine he 
 will live on the fruits of his labour?" 
 
 "My daughter," said Monsieur Bergeret, "I 
 think he will consent to disappear. He is already 
 greatly diminished. Idleness and a passion for rest 
 are urging him toward final elimination. He will 
 return to oblivion easily." 
 
 "I believe, on the other hand, that he thoroughly 
 enjoys being alive." 
 
 "True, he has his joys. No doubt he delights in 
 swallowing the vitriol of the dram-shop. He will 
 disappear altogether with the last drinking house. 
 There will be no publicans in my Republic, no buyers 
 and no sellers, no rich and no poor, and each will 
 enjoy the fruits of his labours." 
 
 "We all shall be happy, papa." 
 
 "No; for without suffering the sacred flame of 
 pity which makes for the beauty of the soul would 
 perish. But that will never be. Moral and physical 
 evil, incessantly opposed, will share with happiness 
 and delight the empire of the earth, as day will 
 follow night. Evil is necessary; like good, it has 
 its roots deep in human nature, and the one cannot 
 perish without the other. Suffering is the twin sister 
 of joy, and as they breathe upon the chords of our 
 being they cause them to vibrate harmoniously. The 
 breath of happiness alone would produce but a dull
 
 176 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 and tedious sound, like silence. But the artificial 
 ills arising out of social conditions will no longer 
 be added to those that are inevitable, commonplace 
 and august, which arise out of our human state. 
 Men will no longer be deformed by iniquitous 
 labours by which they die rather than live. The 
 slave will come out of his cell and the factory will 
 no longer devour the bodies of millions. 
 
 "And I anticipate that this delivery will come 
 from machinery itself; the engine that has mangled 
 so many men will come gently and generously to the 
 aid of suffering human flesh. Cruel and hard to 
 begin with, machinery will become kind, favourable 
 and friendly. How can it change its soul? Listen. 
 The spark that flashed from the Leyden jar, the 
 little subtle star that revealed itself in the last cen- 
 tury to the wonder-stricken philosopher, will accom- 
 plish this miracle. The Unknown which ha^s allowed 
 itself to be conquered without revealing its nature, 
 the mysterious captive force, the intangible, seized 
 by human hands, the obedient lightning, bottled and 
 distributed over the innumerable wires that cover 
 the face of the earth with their network electricity 
 will yield up its energy, will give its help wherever 
 it is needed: in the houses, the rooms, the homes 
 where father, mother, and children will henceforth 
 never be separated. This is no dream. The cruel 
 machine that crushes soul and body in the factory
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 177 
 
 will become domestic, intimate and familiar. But 
 it is useless, quite useless for the pulleys, wheels, 
 connecting-rods, cranks, bearings and flywheels to 
 become humanized if men themselves remain iron- 
 hearted. 
 
 "We are waiting for and appealing to a yet more 
 wonderful change. The day will come when the 
 employer, growing in moral beauty, will become a 
 worker among the liberated workers; when there 
 will be no more wages, but only an exchange in kind. 
 The great manufacturers, like the old nobility, whose 
 place they have taken and whom they are imitating, 
 will go through their 4th of August. They will 
 abandon their disputed profits and threatened privi- 
 leges. They will become generous when they feel 
 that it is time to be so. 
 
 "What says the employer of to-day? That he is 
 the mind and the thought, and that without him 
 his army of workers would be like a body deprived 
 of understanding. Well, if that be true, let him 
 content himself with so much joy and honour. Be- 
 cause a man is thought and soul must he therefore 
 gorge himself with riches? When the great Dona- 
 tello and his companions designed a bronze statue it 
 was he who was the soul of the creation. He placed 
 the price paid for the work by the prince and the 
 citizens in a basket which hung from a pulley fixed 
 to one of the rafters of the studio, and each of his
 
 178 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 companions untied the rope and took from the 
 basket what he needed. Is not the joy of creative 
 intelligence enough, and does such an advantage 
 exempt the master worker from sharing the gain 
 with his humble collaborators? But in my Republic 
 there will be no gain, no wages, and all will belong 
 to each." 
 
 "Papa, that's collectivism," said Pauline quietly. 
 
 "The most precious gifts," replied Monsieur 
 Bergeret, "are common to all men and have always 
 been so. Air and light are the common property 
 of all that breathes and sees the light of day. After 
 the secular labours of egoism and avarice, in spite 
 of the violent efforts of individuals to seize and keep 
 wealth, the individual possessions enjoyed by the 
 wealthiest among us are little when compared with 
 those that belong without distinction to mankind 
 in general. And even in our society do you not 
 notice that the most beautiful and splendid posses- 
 sions, such as roads, rivers, forests, which were once 
 royal, libraries and museums, belong to all? Not 
 a single rich man has a greater claim than I to an 
 old oak-tree at Fontainebleau or a picture in the 
 Louvre. And they are more mine than the rich 
 man's if I can appreciate them better. Collective 
 property, dreaded like some remote monster, is 
 already among us in a thousand familiar forms. 
 When prophesied, it alarms, in spite of the fact
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 179 
 
 that we already enjoy many of the advantages which 
 it affords. 
 
 "The Positivists who meet in the house of Auguste 
 Comte, under the leadership of the venerable Mon- 
 sieur Pierre Laffitte, are in no hurry to become 
 Socialists. But one of them made the judicious 
 remark that allproperty springs from a social source. 
 Nothing could be truer, for all property acquired 
 by individual effort was created, and subsists, only 
 by the co-operation of the whole community. And 
 since private property springs from a social source 
 we neither forget its origin nor corrupt its essence 
 if we offer it to the community and entrust it to the 
 State upon which it necessarily depends. And what 
 is the State?" 
 
 Mademoiselle Bergeret hastened to answer that 
 question : 
 
 "The State, papa, is a wretched cross-grained 
 person sitting behind a counter-rail. You must see 
 that no one will want to strip himself naked for 
 such as he." 
 
 "I understand," said Monsieur Bergeret with a 
 smile. "I have always tried to understand, and in 
 so doing I have wasted much precious energy. I am 
 discovering late in life that not to understand is a 
 great faculty. It sometimes helps you to the con- 
 quest of the world. If Napoleon had been as intelli- 
 gent as Spinoza he would have lived in a garret and
 
 i8o MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 written four books. I understand. But to return 
 to this wretched cross-grained man behind the 
 counter-rail, you trust your letters to him, Pauline, 
 letters that you would not trust to the Tricoche 
 Agency. He manages a portion of your property, 
 not the least in extent or in value. He looks gloomy 
 to you, but when he becomes everything he will cease 
 to be anything, or rather he will only be ourselves. 
 Annihilated by his universality, he will cease to 
 appear tiresome. One is no longer wicked, my 
 daughter, when one ceases to exist. What makes 
 him unpleasant to-day is that he encroaches on indi- 
 vidual property, that he goes along filing and scratch- 
 ing, taking a little bite from the fat and a big bite 
 from the thin. That makes him unbearable. He is 
 greedy; he is needy. In my Republic he will be 
 without desires, like the gods. He will have all and 
 nothing. We shall not notice him because he will 
 be like ourselves, indistinguishable from ourselves; 
 will be as though he didn't exist. And when you 
 say that I sacrifice the individual to the State, the 
 living man to an abstraction, I am, on the contrary, 
 subordinating the abstraction to reality, to the State 
 which I suppress, by identifying it with the activities 
 of the whole social organism. 
 
 "Even were my Republic never to exist I 
 should be glad that I had played with this idea of 
 it. It is permissible to build in Utopia. And Au-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 181 
 
 guste Comte himself, who flattered himself that he 
 built only on the data of positive science, placed 
 Campanella in the calendar of great men. 
 
 "The dreams of philosophers have in all ages 
 raised up men of action who have set to work to 
 realize those dreams. Our thought creates the 
 future. Statesmen work on the plans which we leave 
 behind us. No, my child, I am not building in 
 Utopia. My dream, which in no way belongs to 
 me, but is, at this very moment, the dream of thou- 
 sands upon thousands of souls, is true and prophetic. 
 All societies whose organs no longer correspond to 
 the functions for which they were created, and whose 
 members are not recompensed according to the use- 
 ful work which they accomplish, die. Deep-rooted 
 disturbances and inward disorder precede and pro- 
 claim their end. 
 
 "Feudal society was strongly constituted. When 
 the clergy ceased to represent learning, and the 
 nobility to defend the labourer and artisan by the 
 sword, and these two orders became merely swollen 
 and dangerous members, the whole body perished. 
 An unexpected and necessary revolution carried off 
 the patriot. Who can maintain that in modern 
 society the organs correspond with their functions 
 and that all the members are nourished in proportion 
 to the useful work which they perform? Who can 
 maintain that there is a fair distribution of wealth?
 
 i8a MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Who, I say, can believe in the permanence of un- 
 righteousness?" 
 
 "And how can we put an end to it, papa? How 
 can we change the world?" 
 
 "By the force of speech, my child. Nothing is 
 more powerful than speech. The linking of power- 
 ful arguments and noble thoughts forms a chain 
 that nothing can break. Speech, like the sling of 
 David, lays low the violent and causes the mighty 
 to fall. It is an invincible weapon, without which 
 the world would belong to armed brutes. What 
 keeps them in abeyance? Merely thought, naked 
 and weaponless. 
 
 "I shall not see the new State. All changes in the 
 social order, as in the natural order, are slow and 
 almost imperceptible. A geologist of profound 
 understanding, Charles Lyell by name, demonstrated 
 that those fearful traces of the glacial period, those 
 monstrous rocks carried into the valleys, the flora 
 and the furry beasts of cold countries succeeding to 
 the flora and fauna of hot countries, those apparent 
 tokens of cataclysmic upheaval, were in reality only 
 the effect of prolonged and multiple action, and that 
 those great changes, produced with the merciful 
 deliberation of natural forces, were not even sus* 
 pected by the innumerable generations of living crea- 
 tures that existed during their accomplishment. 
 Social transformations operate in the same way,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 183 
 
 insensibly and incessantly. The timid man fears, as 
 he would a future cataclysm, a change which began 
 before he was born, which is going on before his 
 unconscious eyes, and which will become noticeable 
 only in a century's time."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ONSIEUR FELIX PANNETON 
 
 was sauntering up the Champs- 
 Elysees on his way to the Arc de 
 Triomphe, calculating the chances of 
 his election to the Senate. His can- 
 didature had not yet been announced. And Mon- 
 sieur Panneton reflected, like Bonaparte: "To act, 
 to calculate, to act ..." Two lists had already 
 been offered to the electors of the department. The 
 four retiring Senators, Laprat-Teulet, Goby, Manne- 
 quin and Ledru, were presenting themselves for 
 re-election. The Nationalist candidates were the 
 Comte de Brece, Colonel Despauteres, Monsieur 
 Lerond the ex-magistrate, and Lafolie the butcher. 
 It was difficult to say which of the two lists would 
 win the day. The retiring Senators found favour in 
 the eyes of the peace-lovers because of their long ex- 
 perience of legislation, and because they were guar- 
 dians of those liberal yet authoritative traditions 
 which dated back to the foundation of the Republic 
 and were connected with the legendary name of 
 Gambetta. They won the public favour by intelli- 
 
 184
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 185 
 
 gently-rendered services and abundant promises, and 
 they had a large and well-disciplined body of sup- 
 porters. These public men, who had lived in stirring 
 times, remained faithful to their doctrine with a 
 firmness that embellished the sacrifices which cir- 
 cumstances forced them to make to the exigencies 
 of public opinion. Opportunists in former days, 
 they now called themselves Radicals. At the time 
 of the Affair they had all four testified to their pro- 
 found respect for the court-martial, and in one of 
 them this respect was mingled with genuine emotion. 
 The ex-attorney Goby could never speak of mili- 
 tary justice without shedding tears. The oldest of 
 them, Laprat-Teulet, a Republican who had taken 
 part in the great conflicts of the heroic days, spoke 
 of the Army in such loving and impassioned terms 
 that, at any other period, his hearers would have 
 judged his expressions more applicable to some poor 
 orphan girl than to an institution so strong in men 
 and in millions. These four Senators had voted for 
 the law of deprivation and had expressed to the 
 General Council the pious hope that the Government 
 would take stringent measures to check the Revi- 
 sionist agitation. These were the Dreyfusards of 
 the department, and as there were no others they 
 were furiously opposed by the Nationalists. They 
 blamed Mannequin for being the brother-in-law of 
 a councillor in the Court of Appeal. As for Laprat-
 
 1 86 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Teulet, who headed the list, he was greeted with 
 insults and venomous abuse that bespattered them 
 all. Truth to tell, he had done a stroke or two of 
 business on his own account. People recalled the 
 time when, finding himself mixed up in the Panama 
 affair and threatened with arrest, he had grown a 
 long beard that gave him a venerable appearance 
 and was wheeled about in a little chair by his pious 
 wife and his daughter, the latter dressed as a nun. 
 Every day, as part of this humble and saintly pro- 
 cession, he would pass by beneath the elm-trees of 
 the Mall and have himself put in the sun, a poor 
 paralytic who traced figures in the dust with the tip 
 of his walking-stick, while with cunning skill he pre- 
 pared his defence, which a verdict of "insufficient 
 cause" had rendered useless. Since then he had 
 recovered, but the fury of the Nationalists was hot 
 against him. He was a Panamist, so they called 
 him a Dreyfusard. "This man," said Ledru to 
 himself, "will ruin the whole lot of us." He men- 
 tioned his apprehensions to Worms-Clavelin : 
 
 "Would it not be possible, monsieur le prefet, to 
 make Laprat-Teulet, a man who has rendered such 
 signal service to the Republic and the country, un- 
 derstand that the time has come for him to retire 
 into private life?" 
 
 The prefect replied that they must think twice 
 before decapitating the Republican list.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 187 
 
 However, the newspaper La Croix, introduced 
 into the department by Madame Worms-Clavelin, 
 carried on a ferocious campaign against the retiring 
 Senators. It supported the Republican list, which 
 was cleverly constructed. Monsieur de Brece rallied 
 the Royalists, who were fairly strong in the depart- 
 ment; Monsieur Lerond, as ex-magistrate and a 
 clerical advocate, was favoured by the clergy; and 
 Colonel Despauteres, in himself an unimportant old 
 man, represented the honour of the Army. He had 
 praised the forgers and was among the subscribers 
 to the fund for the widow of Colonel Henry. The 
 butcher Lafolie pleased the working-people, who 
 were half peasants, living on the outskirts of the 
 town. It was believed that the Brece list would 
 obtain more than two hundred votes and that it 
 might go right through. Monsieur Worms-Clavelin 
 was uneasy, and when La Croix published the mani- 
 festo of the Nationalist candidates he became ex- 
 tremely anxious. It attacked the President of the 
 Republic, called the Senate a poultry-run and a pig- 
 sty, and referred to the Cabinet as the "Ministry 
 of Treason." "If these fellows get in, I'm done," 
 thought the prefect, and he remarked gently to his 
 wife: 
 
 "You were wrong, my dear, to favour the diffu- 
 sion of La Croix in the department." 
 
 "What else could I do?" she replied. "As a
 
 i88 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Jewess, I was obliged to exaggerate my Catholic 
 opinions. And up to now that has helped us a 
 good deal." 
 
 "True," replied the prefect; "but we have per- 
 haps gone a little too far." 
 
 Monsieur Lacarelle, secretary to the prefecture, 
 whose famous resemblance to Vercingetorix inclined 
 him to Nationalism, spoke in favour of the Brece 
 list, and Monsieur Worms-Clavelin, a prey to 
 gloomy meditation, forgot his cigars and left them, 
 with chewed ends and still alight, on the arms of 
 the chairs. 
 
 Just at this time Monsieur Felix Panneton 
 called to see him. 
 
 Monsieur Felix Panneton, the younger brother 
 of Monsieur Panneton de La Barge, was an army 
 contractor. No one could suspect his love of the 
 Army whose heads and feet he covered. He was a 
 Nationalist, but a Government-Nationalist. He was 
 a Nationalist with Monsieur Loubet and Monsieur 
 Waldeck-Rousseau. He did not disguise the fact, 
 and when he was told that such a thing was impos- 
 sible he replied : 
 
 "It isn't impossible; it isn't even difficult; the 
 main thing was the idea." 
 
 Panneton the Nationalist remained loyal to the 
 Government. "There is plenty of time to change," 
 he thought, "and all those who broke too soon with
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 189 
 
 the Government have had cause to regret it. One 
 is too apt to forget that even a prostrate Ministry 
 has time to deal you a kick and break your jaw." 
 Such wisdom was the fruit of his common sense. 
 He was ambitious, but did his best to satisfy his 
 ambition without sacrificing his business or his pleas- 
 ures, which were pictures and women. For the rest, 
 he was a very energetic person, always running to 
 and fro between his factories and Paris, where he 
 had three or four addresses. 
 
 The idea of worming his way in between the 
 Radicals and the pure Nationalists having dawned 
 upon him one day, he went to see Monsieur 
 Worms-Clavelin. 
 
 "The proposition I am about to make to you, 
 monsieur le prefet, cannot but be agreeable to you. 
 I therefore feel certain beforehand of your consent," 
 he said. "You are anxious for the success of the 
 Laprat-Teulet list. It is your duty to be so. I 
 respect your feelings in the matter, but I cannot 
 second them. You are afraid of the success of the 
 Brece list. Nothing more legitimate. In this con- 
 nection I may be useful to you. I am forming, with 
 three of my friends, a list of Nationalist candidates. 
 The department is Nationalist but it is moderate. 
 My programme will be Nationalist and Repub- 
 lican. I shall have the clergy against me, but the 
 bishops will be on my side. Do not contest my
 
 190 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 claim. Observe a benevolent neutrality toward me. 
 I shall not take many votes from the Laprat list, 
 but, on the other hand, I shall take a great many 
 from the Brece list. I will not disguise the fact that 
 I quite expect to go through on the third scrutiny. 
 But this will be to your advantage as well, because 
 the extremists will be left in the cart." 
 
 "Monsieur Panneton," replied Monsieur Worms- 
 Clavelin, "you have long been assured of my per- 
 sonal sympathies. I thank you for the interesting 
 communication which you have been kind enough 
 to make. I will think it over and act in conformity 
 with the interest of the Republican Party, endeav- 
 ouring meanwhile to fathom the intentions of the 
 Government." 
 
 He offered Monsieur Panneton a cigar and in a 
 friendly way asked him if he had not just come 
 from Paris, and what he thought of the new piece 
 at the Varietes. He asked this question because he 
 knew that Panneton was keeping one of the actresses 
 there. Felix Panneton was supposed to be a great 
 lover of women. He was a big, ugly man of fifty, 
 dark and bald, with high shoulders and a reputation 
 for wit. 
 
 Some days after his interview with Worms- 
 Clavelin, he was walking up the Champs-filysees 
 thinking of his candidature, which augured fairly 
 well, and of the importance of making a start as
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 191 
 
 soon as possible. But just at the moment of pub- 
 lishing the list, which he headed, one of the candi- 
 dates, Monsieur de Terremondre, had backed out. 
 Monsieur de Terremondre was too moderate to 
 separate himself from the extremists. Hearing their 
 cries redoubled, he had gone back to them. "Just 
 what I expected," thought Panneton. "It doesn't 
 much matter. I will put Gromance in Terre- 
 mondre's place. Gromance will do the trick, Gro- 
 mance the landed proprietor and every acre that 
 he possesses mortgaged. But that will do him no 
 harm except in his own district. He is in Paris. 
 I'll go and see him." 
 
 He had reached this point in his reflections when 
 he saw Madame de Gromance coming towards him 
 in a mink coat that came down to her feet. Even 
 under the thick fur she was still slim and dainty. He 
 found her delicious. 
 
 "I am delighted to see you, dear lady. How is 
 Monsieur de Gromance?" 
 
 "Oh quite well." 
 
 When people asked her for news of her husband 
 she was always afraid of their doing so in an ill-bred 
 spirit of irony. 
 
 "May I walk a little way with you, madame? I 
 want to discuss some serious matters with you. 
 First " 
 
 "Well?"
 
 i 9 2 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "That coat gives you a barbaric appearance, you 
 look like a charming little savage." 
 
 "Are these the serious matters?" 
 
 "I'm coming to them. It is absolutely necessary 
 for Monsieur de Gromance to present himself as a 
 candidate for the Senate, The interests of his coun- 
 try demand it. Monsieur de Gromance is a Na- 
 tionalist, is he not?" 
 
 She looked at him with a touch of indignation. 
 
 "He certainly isn't an Intellectual." 
 
 "And is he a Republican?" 
 
 "Heavens, yes! I'll explain. He's a Royalist. 
 So you understand " 
 
 "Ah, dear lady, those are the best Republicans. 
 We will put the name of Monsieur de Gromance 
 prominently upon our list of Republican National- 
 ists." 
 
 "And do you think that Dieudonne will get in?" 
 
 "Madame, I think so. We have the bishops with 
 us and many senatorial electors who, although Na- 
 tionalists by conviction, uphold the Government on 
 account of their office or their interests. And in the 
 event of failure, which could only be an honourable 
 failure, Monsieur de Gromance can rely on the grati- 
 tude of the Government and the Administration. 
 I'll tell you a great secret. Worms-Clavelin is on 
 our side." 
 
 "Then I don't see why Dieudonne "
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 193 
 
 "Are you quite sure your husband will accept?" 
 
 "Go and see him yourself." 
 
 "You are the only person with any influence 
 over him." 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 "I am quite sure of it." 
 
 "Then it's settled." 
 
 "No, it isn't settled. There are very delicate 
 details which we can't settle like this in the street. 
 Come and see me and I will show you my Baudouins. 
 Come to-morrow." 
 
 He whispered the address, the number of a house 
 in a dull deserted street in the Quartier de 1'Europe. 
 There, at a respectable distance from his lawful and 
 spacious domicile in the Champs-filysees, he had a 
 small house, built in former days for a fashionable 
 painter. 
 
 "Is there any special hurry?" 
 
 "I should say so. Just think, my dear madame v 
 we have only three weeks left for our electoral cam- 
 paign and Brece has been working the department 
 for six months." 
 
 "But is it quite necessary that I should come and 
 see your ?" 
 
 "My Baudouins? It is indispensable." 
 
 "Is it really?" 
 
 "Listen and judge for yourself, dear lady. I do 
 not deny that your husband's name has a certain
 
 194 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 prestige among the rural population, especially in 
 the parts where he is little known. But I cannot 
 disguise the fact that when I proposed to add his 
 name to our list I met with opposition. This oppo- 
 sition still exists. You must give me strength to 
 overcome it. I must draw from your your friend- 
 ship the irresistible will to In short, I feel that 
 
 if you do not give me your sympathy I shall not 
 
 have the necessary energy to " 
 
 "But is it quite proper for me to go and see 
 your ?" 
 
 "Oh, in Paris!" 
 
 "If I do, of course it will be for the sake of the 
 country and the Army. We must save France." 
 
 "That is my opinion." 
 
 "Remember me to Madame Panneton." 
 
 "I will not forget, dear madame. Until 
 to-morrow."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 N Monsieur Felix Panneton's little 
 house there was a large room which 
 had formerly been used as a studio 
 by the fashionable painter, and which 
 the new inmate had furnished with 
 the magnificence of a great collector of curios and 
 the discretion of an accomplished lover of women. 
 Artistically and in methodical order Monsieur 
 Panneton had strewn the room with couches, sofas 
 and divans of all shapes and kinds. 
 
 Looking from right to left as you went in, you 
 would first of all notice a little blue silk settee the 
 arms of which, shaped like a swan's neck, reminded 
 one of the time when Bonaparte in Paris, like 
 Tiberius of old in Rome, was bent on improving 
 the manners and customs of society. Then came 
 another rather bigger couch upholstered in Beauvais 
 cloth with tapestry-covered ends; then a settee in 
 three divisions, covered in silk; then a little 
 wooden settee a la capucine with a covering of 
 Turkish tapestry; then a large sofa of gilded wood 
 upholstered in crimson figured velvet with cushions 
 
 195
 
 196 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 of the same, which had belonged to Mademoiselle 
 Damours; then a broad, low, luxuriously stuffed 
 divan of flame-coloured silk; and finally a tottering 
 mass of soft cushions on a very low Oriental divan 
 which, bathed in a dim rose-coloured light, stood 
 on the left near the Baudouin room. 
 
 As she entered the room, each charming visitor 
 could thus take in with a glance the varied seats and 
 choose the one that best suited her moral character 
 and her present state of mind. Panneton, from the 
 first, observed his new friends, noticed their expres- 
 sions, took some trouble to discover their tastes, and 
 was careful to ensure that they should sit only where 
 they wished to sit. The more chaste of his lady 
 friends went straight to the little blue settee, placing 
 a gloved hand on the swan's neck. There was also 
 a high straight-backed arm-chair of gilded wood and 
 Genoa velvet, the former throne of a Duchess of 
 Modena and Parma ; that was for the haughty beau- 
 ties. The Parisian ladies seated themselves calmly 
 on the Beauvais couch ; the foreign princesses gener- 
 ally preferred one of the two sofas. Thanks to 
 the judicious arrangement of these aids to conver- 
 sation, Panneton knew at a glance what he had to 
 do. He was in a position to observe all the conven- 
 tions, careful not to attempt too sudden a transition 
 in the necessary succession of his attitudes, and was 
 able to spare both his visitor and himself those long
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 197 
 
 and useless pauses between the preliminary courtesies 
 and the inspection of the Baudouins. His proceed- 
 ings thereby gained a certainty and a mastery which 
 did him honour. 
 
 Madame de Gromance gave immediate proof of a 
 tact for which Panneton was grateful. Without so 
 much as a glance at the throne of Parma and Mo- 
 dena, and leaving on the right the Napoleonic 
 swan's neck, she sat on the flowered Beauvais sofa 
 like a Parisienne. Clotilde had languished among 
 the smaller landed gentry of the department and had 
 had attentions paid to her by some rather under- 
 bred young men ; but the meaning of life was dawn- 
 ing upon her. She had racked her brains over money 
 matters and was beginning to understand what social 
 duty entailed. She did not dislike Panneton exces- 
 sively. Partially bald, with very black hair brushed 
 smoothly over his temples, and large prominent 
 eyes, he looked like a lovesick apoplectic, and made 
 her feel rather inclined to laugh, satisfying that 
 craving for the comic element in love of which she 
 had always been conscious. No doubt she would 
 have preferred a magnificent young man, but she 
 was inclined to facile gaiety and the sort of amuse- 
 ment which a man derives from jokes of a rather 
 highly salted nature and a certain kind of ugliness. 
 After a moment of very natural shyness she felt that 
 it would not be so terrible, nor even very tedious.
 
 198 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Everything went well. The transit from the 
 Beauvais to the settee and from the settee to the big 
 sofa took place with all due decorum. They judged 
 it needless to linger on the Oriental cushions and 
 went straight into the Baudouin room. 
 
 When Clotilde thought of looking at it the room, 
 like the erotic painter's pictures, was strewn with 
 women's garments and fine linen. 
 
 "Ah, there are the Baudouins, you have two of 
 them." 
 
 "Just so." 
 
 He had the Jardlnler galant and the Carquois 
 epuise, two little water-colours for which he had paid 
 60,000 francs apiece at the Godard sale, and which 
 cost him considerably more than that because of the 
 use to which he put them. Calm once more, and a 
 little melancholy even, he gazed with the eye of a 
 connoisseur at the slender, graceful, supple figure of 
 the woman before him, and, finding her beautiful, 
 was conscious of a little feeling of pride, which grew 
 as she gradually reassumed her social characteristics 
 together with her garments. 
 
 She demanded the list of candidates. 
 
 "Panneton, manufacturer; Dieudonne de Gro- 
 mance, landed proprietor; Dr. Fornerol; Mulot, 
 explorer." 
 
 "Mulot?" 
 
 "Young Mulot. He was running up bills in Paris,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 199 
 
 so his father sent him round the world. Desire 
 Mulct, explorer. That sounds well, an explorer 
 candidate ! The electors hope he will open up new 
 fields for their goods. Above all, they feel flattered." 
 
 Madame de Gromance was becoming serious. 
 She wanted to hear the address to the senatorial 
 electors. He outlined it and repeated some parts 
 which he knew by heart. 
 
 "First, we promise general pacification. Brece 
 and the pure Nationalists have not sufficiently 
 insisted on pacification. Then we absolutely 
 demolish the nameless party." 
 
 She asked what the nameless party was. 
 
 "For us it's the party of our adversaries; for our 
 adversaries it is ourselves. There can be no mistake 
 about that. We demolish the traitors, the creatures 
 who have sold themselves. We fight against the 
 power of gold that is useful for the poor ruined 
 aristocracy. Enemies of all reaction, we repudiate 
 political adventure. France is resolved on peace, but 
 the day when she draws the sword from the scab- 
 bard, etc. The country that regards with pride and 
 affection her admirable national Army I shall 
 have to alter that sentence a little." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because it is in both the other addresses, word 
 for word; the Nationalists have it and so have the 
 enemies of the Army."
 
 200 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "And you promise me that Dieudonne will 
 get in." 
 
 "Dieudonne or Goby." 
 
 "What! Dieudonne or Goby? If you were not 
 any surer than that you ought to have told me. 
 Dieudonne or Goby! To hear you one would think 
 it was all one which got in." 
 
 "It isn't all one, but in either case Brece goes 
 under." 
 
 "Brece is one of our friends, you know." 
 
 "And one of mine ! In either case, as I said 
 before, Brece and his list will go under, and having 
 contributed to his downfall the prefect and the 
 Government will be under obligations to Monsieur 
 de Gromance. After the elections, no matter how 
 they result, you will come and see my Baudouins 
 again and I will make of your husband whatever 
 you will." 
 
 "An ambassador." 
 
 At the scrutiny of the 28th of January, the list of 
 Nationalist candidates, Comte de Brece, Colonel 
 Despauteres,Lerond, ex-magistrate, La folie, butcher, 
 obtained an average of about a hundred votes. The 
 Progressive Republicans, Felix Panneton, manufac- 
 turer, Dieudonne de Gromance, landed proprietor, 
 Mulot, explorer, and Dr. Fornerol, obtained an 
 average of a hundred and thirty votes, kaprat-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 201 
 
 Teulet, implicated in the Panama affair, only suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining a hundred and twenty votes. 
 The other three retiring Senators obtained an aver- 
 age of two hundred votes. 
 
 At the second scrutiny Laprat-Teulet's votes fell 
 to sixty. 
 
 At the third scrutiny Goby, Mannequin and 
 Ledru, the three retiring Radical Senators, and 
 Felix Panneton, Republican Progressive, were 
 elected.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 OOK at the scene before you," said 
 Monsieur Bergeret to his disciple 
 Monsieur Goubin, who was polishing 
 his eyeglass, as they stood on the 
 steps of the Trocadero. "Look at 
 the domes, minarets, spires, belfries, towers and 
 pediments; the roofs of thatch, slate, glass, tile, 
 wood, hide and coloured earthenware; the Italian 
 and Moorish terraces, the palaces, temples, pagodas, 
 kiosks, huts, hovels, and tents; the fountains and 
 fire-works; the harmony and contrast of all these 
 human habitations, the marvels of workmanship, the 
 wonderful playthings of industry, the prodigious 
 diversions of modern genius, which has brought to- 
 gether in this spot the arts and crafts of the whole 
 world." 
 
 "Do you think," queried Monsieur Goubin, 
 "that France will derive any profit from this huge 
 Exhibition?" 
 
 "She may reap great advantages from it," replied 
 Monsieur Bergeret, "provided it does not fill her 
 with a barren and hostile pride. All this is only 
 
 202
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 203 
 
 the decoration and envelope, it is the study of what 
 it contains that will give us the opportunity of con- 
 sidering more minutely the exchange and circulation 
 of products, their consumption at fair prices, the 
 increase of work and wages and the emancipation of 
 the worker. And do you not admire, Monsieur 
 Goubin, one of the first kind offices of the Universal 
 Exhibition, in scaring away Jean Coq and Jean 
 Mouton? Where are they now? You neither see 
 nor hear them nowadays, and formerly one saw 
 nothing else. Jean Coq led the way, with his head 
 high, his calves prominent. Jean Mouton followed 
 him, fat and curly-headed. The whole city re- 
 echoed to the sound of their cock-a-doodle-doo and 
 baa-baa-baa, for they were eloquent. One day this 
 winter I overheard Jean Coq say, 'We must have a 
 war. This Government has made it inevitable by 
 its cowardice!' And Jean Mouton replied: 'I'd 
 rather have a naval war.' 'Of course,' said Jean 
 Coq, 'a sea-fight would be consistent with the enthu- 
 siasm of the Nationalists. But why not have war on 
 land as well as on sea? Who's to stop us?' 'No 
 one,' replied Jean Coq. 'I should like to see anyone 
 try to stop us! But we must first exterminate all 
 traitors and spies, all Jews and Freemasons. That 
 is essential.' 'That's just what I think,' replied Jean 
 Mouton. 'And I will not go to war until our land 
 has been cleared of all her enemies.'
 
 204 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Jean Coq is hot-headed, Jean Mouton mild and 
 peaceful, but they both know only too well how to 
 whet the national energies not to attempt by every 
 means in their power to assure to their country the 
 benefits of war at home and abroad. 
 
 "Jean Coq and Jean Mouton are Republicans. 
 Jean Coq votes at every election for the Imperialist 
 candidate, and Jean Mouton for the Royalist, but 
 they are both of them Republican Plebiscitarians, 
 and can imagine nothing better for the consolidation 
 of their cljosen Government than to deliver it over 
 to the hazards of an obscure and disorderly suffrage ; 
 in which they show themselves to be clever fellows. 
 For it is, of course, a profitable thing, if you have a 
 house, to stake it at dice against a truss of hay, 
 because by so doing you run the chance of winning 
 your own house, which of course would be a great 
 advantage. 
 
 "Jean Coq is not pious, neither is Jean Mouton 
 a clerical, although he is no Freethinker, but they 
 venerate and cherish the monks who grow rich by 
 the sale of miracles and who publish seditious, insult- 
 ing and slanderous newspapers. And you know as 
 well as I do how such people abound in this country 
 of ours and how they prey upon it. 
 
 "Jean Coq and Jean Mouton are patriots. 
 You think you, too, are a patriot, and I know that 
 you are attached to your country by the tender and
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 205 
 
 invincible ties of sentiment and reason. You are 
 mistaken, however, and if it be your wish to live at 
 peace with the world you are in league with the 
 enemy. Jean Coq and Jean Mouton will prove that 
 by falling upon you with their cudgels to the war-cry 
 of 'France for the French !' 'France for the French !' 
 is the slogan of Jean Coq and Jean Mouton, and as 
 it is evident that these words exactly describe the 
 position of a great nation in the midst of other na- 
 tions, and express the necessary conditions of life, 
 the universal law of exchange, the commerce of ideas 
 and of products, just as they contain a great eco- 
 nomical doctrine and a profound philosophy, Jean 
 Coq and Jean Mouton have made up their minds to 
 shut out all foreigners in order to keep France for 
 the French, thus, by a stroke of genius, extending to 
 human beings the system which Monsieur Meline 
 applied only to the products of agriculture and 
 industry, for the greater profit of a small number of 
 landed proprietors. And this idea of Jean Coq's, 
 of closing the country to men of other nations, en- 
 forces, by its modest beauty, the admiration of quite 
 a host of small middle-class people and coffee-house 
 keepers. 
 
 "Jean Coq and Jean Mouton are not evil ; they are 
 only the innocent enemies of the human species. Jean 
 Coq is the more ardent, Jean Mouton the more 
 melancholy, but they are simple fellows both, and
 
 206 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 believe what their newspapers tell them. This 
 throws a dazzling light upon their innocence, for it 
 is not easy to believe what their newspapers tell 
 them. I take you all to witness, all you famous 
 impostors, you forgers of all time; you egregious 
 liars, distinguished tricksters, notorious creators of 
 fictitious errors and illusions; you whose time- 
 honoured frauds have enriched literature, sacred and 
 profane, by so many dubious volumes; authors of 
 apocryphal Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syrian and Chal- 
 dean writings which have so long deceived learned 
 and ignorant alike; you, false Pythagoras, false 
 Hermes-Trismegistus, false Sanchoniathon, falla- 
 cious editors of the Orphic poems and the Sibylline 
 books; false Enoch, false Esdras, pseudo-Clement 
 and pseudo-Timothy; and you lord abbots who, to 
 assure yourselves of the possession of your lands 
 and privileges, forged in the reign of Louis IX the 
 charters of Clotaire and Dagobert; and you, 
 doctors of canon law, who based the pretensions of 
 the Holy See on a heap of sacred decretals composed 
 by yourselves; and you, wholesale manufacturers 
 of historical memoirs: Soulavie, Courchamps, 
 Touchard-La fosse, lying Weber, lying Bourrienne; 
 you, sham executioners and sham police-agents, who 
 wrote the sordid memoirs of Samson and Monsieur 
 Claude; and you, Vrain-Lucas, who with your own 
 hand traced a letter said to be written by Mary
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 207 
 
 Magdalene, and a note from the hand of Vercinge- 
 torix, I call you all to witness ; and you whose whole 
 life was a work of simulation; lying Smerdis, lying 
 Neros, lying Maids of Orleans, who would have 
 deceived the very brothers of Joan of Arc; lying 
 Martin Guerre, lying Demetrius and fictitious Dukes 
 of Normandy; I call you to witness, workers of 
 spells, makers of miracles that seduced the mob: 
 Simon the Magician, Apollonius of Tyana, Cagli- 
 ostro, Comte de Saint-Germain ; I call you to witness, 
 travellers returning from far-off countries, who had 
 every facility for lying and took full advantage of 
 it; you who beheld the Cyclopes and the Laestry- 
 gones, the Magnetic Mountain, the Roc and the 
 Fish-Bishop; and you, Sir John Maundeville, who 
 saw in Asia devils vomiting fire; and you, makers 
 of stories and fables and tales Mother Goose, Tyl 
 Eulenspiegel, Baron Munchausen! and you, chival- 
 rous and picturesque Spaniards, most notable bab- 
 blers, I call you to witness! Bear witness, all of 
 you ! You have not accumulated, in the long course 
 of the centuries, so many lies as Jean Coq and Jean 
 Mouton read in their newspapers in a single day! 
 And after that, how can we be surprised that they 
 have so many bogies in their heads 1"
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 JNDING himself implicated in the 
 proceedings instituted against the 
 authors of the plot against the 
 Republic, Joseph Lacrisse put his 
 person and his papers in a safe place. 
 The police commissary whose duty it was to seize 
 the correspondence of the Royalist Committee was 
 too much of a gentleman not to give the members 
 of the Committee due notice of his visit. He gave 
 them twenty-four hours' warning, thus bringing his 
 natural courtesy into line with his legitimate anxiety 
 to do his duty properly, for in common with the 
 majority he believed that the Republican Ministry 
 would soon be overthrown, and that a Ribot or 
 Meline Cabinet would take its place. When he ap- 
 peared at the headquarters of the Committee all the 
 drawers and pigeon-holes were empty. They were 
 sealed by the magistrate. He also sealed a Bottin 
 for 1897, an automobile catalogue, a packet of ciga- 
 rettes and a fancing glove which were found on the 
 mantelpiece. In this manner he obeyed the legal 
 formalities, on which we must congratulate him; 
 
 208
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 209 
 
 one should always observe the legal formalities. His 
 name was Jonquille. He was a distinguished magis- 
 trate and a clever man; in his youth he had composed 
 songs for cafes-concerts. One of his works, Les 
 Cancrelats dans le pain, achieved a great success at 
 the Champs-filysees in 1885. 
 
 After the surprise caused by these unexpected pro- 
 ceedings, Joseph Lacrisse reassured himself. He 
 soon saw that the conspirators under the present 
 Government run less risk than under the First Em- 
 pire or the Monarchy, and that the Third Republic 
 is by no means bloodthirsty. Madame de Bonmont 
 alone looked upon him as a victim, loving him the 
 more for it, for she was generous. She showed her 
 love by tears and sobs and fits of nerves, so that he 
 spent a never-to-be-forgotten fortnight with her in 
 Brussels. This was the extent of his exile. He bene- 
 fited by one of the first verdicts pronounced by the 
 Supreme Court. I do not complain of this, and if it 
 had listened to me the Supreme Court would have 
 condemned no one. Since they dared not prosecute 
 all the offenders, it was not in very good taste to 
 condemn only those of whom they were least afraid; 
 to condemn them, moreover, for actions that were 
 not, or at any rate did not seem, sufficiently distin- 
 guished from the actions for which they had already 
 been prosecuted. Again, that the only persons impli- 
 cated in an Army plot should have been civilians
 
 210 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 might well appear strange. To all of which some 
 excellent people have replied: "People must do the 
 best they can for themselves." Joseph Lacrisse had 
 lost none of his energy. He was ready to mend the 
 broken threads of the plot, but that was soon recog- 
 nized to be impossible, although the majority of the 
 police commissaries who had received search warrants 
 would have treated the Royalists with the same deli- 
 cacy as Monsieur Jonquille. The irony of chance or 
 the imprudence of the conspirators placed in their 
 hands, in spite of themselves, enough documentary 
 evidence to reveal the secret organization of the 
 Committees to the Attorney-General of the Republic. 
 They could no longer plot in safety, and had lost all 
 hope of seeing the King return with the swallows. 
 
 Madame de Bonmont sold the six white horses 
 she had bought with the intention of offering them 
 to the Prince for his entry into Paris by the Avenue 
 desChamps-filysees. At the instigation of her brother 
 Wallstein she sold them to Monsieur Gilbert, the 
 director of the National Circus at the Trocadero. 
 Nor had she the anguish of selling them at a loss; 
 she even made a little profit on them. But the tears 
 fell from her beautiful eyes when the six lily-white 
 chargers left her stables, never to return. She felt 
 as though they were harnessed to the funeral car of 
 that Royalty whom they were to have drawn in 
 triumph.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 211 
 
 However, the Supreme Court, which had investi- 
 gated the affair with languid curiosity, was still 
 sitting. 
 
 One day at Madame de Bonmont's house young 
 Lacrisse permitted himself the natural satisfaction 
 of cursing the jury that had acquitted him while still 
 retaining some of the accused men in custody. 
 
 "What bandits they are !" he cried. 
 
 "Ah," sighed Madame de Bonmont, "the 
 Senate is in the pay of the Ministry. It is a fright- 
 ful Government. Monsieur Meline would never 
 have undertaken this abominable prosecution. He 
 was a Republican, but he was an honest man. Had 
 he remained in power, the King would be in France 
 to-day." 
 
 "Alas, the King is far away from France to-day," 
 said Henri Leon, who had never had many illusions. 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse shook his head, and a long silence 
 ensued. 
 
 "It's perhaps a good thing for you," said Henri 
 Leon. 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "I say that in a way it is rather to your advan- 
 tage, Lacrisse, that the King is in exile. You ought 
 to be delighted, allowing, of course, for your patri- 
 otic feelings." 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "It's very simple. If you were a financier like
 
 212 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 myself, the return of the Monarchy might have been 
 profitable to you, if it were only for the Coronation 
 loan. The King would have raised a loan shortly 
 after his accession, for the dear man would have 
 needed money to reign with. There would have 
 been a good deal to be made out of the business for 
 me; but what would you, an advocate, have gained 
 by the Restoration? A prefecture? A lot of good 
 that would be! You can do better than that as a 
 Royalist under the Republic. You speak exceed- 
 ingly well don't deny it you speak with facility, 
 gracefully. You are one of the twenty-five or thirty 
 members of the junior bar whom Nationalism has 
 brought into prominence. You can believe me. I'm 
 not saying it to flatter you. A good speaker has 
 everything to gain by keeping the King out of the 
 country. With Philippe at the lysee you would be 
 given some post in the Government or Administra- 
 tion, and that sort of thing quickly does for a man. 
 If you take up the people's interests you displease 
 the King, and out you go. If you devote yourself to 
 the King's interests the people complain, and the 
 King dismisses you. He makes mistakes, and you 
 make them, but you are punished for both ; popular 
 or unpopular, you are done for inevitably. But as 
 long as the King is in exile you can do no wrong. 
 You can do nothing; you have no responsibility! It 
 is an excellent state of affairs. You need fear neither
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 213 
 
 popularity nor unpopularity, you are above the one 
 and the other. You cannot blunder; no blunder is 
 possible to the defender of a lost cause. The advo- 
 cate of misfortune is always eloquent. When hope 
 has become impossible, you can be a Royalist with 
 impunity in a Republic. You offer a calm opposition 
 to those in power; you are liberal; you have the 
 sympathy of all enemies of the existing system, and 
 the respect of the Government which you harmlessly 
 oppose. As a servant of the fallen Monarchy the 
 veneration with which you kneel at the feet of your 
 King will emphasize the nobility of your character, 
 and without loss of dignity you can lavish upon him 
 every sort of flattery. In the same way you can, 
 without any inconvenience, read the Prince a lesson, 
 speak to him with brusque frankness, reproach him 
 for his abdications, his alliances, his private coun- 
 sellors; you can say to him, for example: 'Mon- 
 seigneur, I must warn you, with due respect, that 
 you are keeping low company.' The papers will 
 seize upon these noble words ; the fame of your devo- 
 tion will increase, and you will dominate your own 
 party from the lofty altitudes in which your soul is 
 able to breathe. Advocate or Deputy, at the Palais 
 or from the tribune, you will strike the noblest of 
 attitudes; you are incorruptible, and the good 
 Fathers will protect you. Come, realize your good 
 fortune, Lacrisse."
 
 2i 4 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "What you say may be funny, Leon," replied 
 Lacrisse coldly, "but I don't find it so. And I doubt 
 whether your jokes are at all relevant." 
 
 "I am not joking." 
 
 "Yes, you are. You are a sceptic, and I loathe 
 scepticism. It is the negation of action. I am all 
 for action, always, and in spite of all." 
 
 Henri Leon protested : 
 
 "I assure you I am very much in earnest." 
 
 "Well then, my friend, I am sorry to tell you that 
 you don't in the least understand the spirit of your 
 age. You have described a worthy of the type of 
 Berryer. He would seem like a man stepped out of 
 a family portrait. Your Royalist might have passed 
 muster under the Second Empire, but I can assure 
 you that to-day he would appear vieux jeu and devil- 
 ishly out of date. The faithful courtier would be 
 simply absurd in the twentieth century. One has no 
 business to be beaten, and the weak are always in 
 the wrong. That is the way we look at things, my 
 dear fellow. Are we for Poland, or Greece, or Fin- 
 land? No, no ; we don't dance to that tune. We are 
 not simpletons. We shouted 'Vivent les Boers,' it's 
 true. But we knew what we were about. We wanted 
 to worry the Government by stirring up trouble with 
 England, and also we hoped that the Boers would 
 win. However, I'm not discouraged. I have reason
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 215 
 
 to hope that we shall overthrow the Republic with 
 the help of the Republicans. 
 
 "What we can't do alone we shall do with Na- 
 tionalists of every shade of opinion. With them 
 we'll make an end of the Republic. And to begin 
 with we must bring off the municipal elections."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 OSEPH LACRISSE had spoken the 
 truth when he called himself a man 
 of action. Idleness was a burden to 
 him. The Secretary of an extinct 
 Royalist Committee, he became a 
 member of a Nationalist Committee, which was very 
 much alive. It was violent in tone, full of a male- 
 volent love of France and a destructive patriotism. 
 It was continually organizing rather savage demon- 
 strations in the theatres or the churches. Joseph 
 Lacrisse was the moving spirit of these demonstra- 
 tions. When they took place in a church, Madame 
 de Bonmont, who was religiously inclined, attended 
 them, dressed in dark colours. Domus mea domus 
 orationis. One day after joining the Nationalists 
 in the Cathedral in order to pray in select company, 
 Madame de Bonmont and Lacrisse mingled with a 
 crowd of men in the square before the Cathedral 
 who were expressing their patriotism by frantic and 
 concerted shouts. Lacrisse joined his voice to that 
 of the crowd, and Madame de Bonmont quickened 
 
 216
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 217 
 
 their courage by the smile of her blue eyes and her 
 rosy lips, gleaming behind her veil. 
 
 The noise was magnificent and formidable, and it 
 was growing even louder when, on an order from the 
 prefecture, a squad of police marched upon the 
 demonstrators. Lacrisse watched them approaching 
 without surprise, and as soon as they were within 
 hearing he shouted, "Hurrah for the police 1" 
 
 This enthusiasm was not lacking in prudence, and 
 it was also sincere. Bonds of friendship had been 
 formed between the brigades of the prefecture and 
 the Nationalist demonstrators in the ever-to-be- 
 regretted times, if I may say so, of the ploughman 
 Minister who allowed cudgel-bearing roughs to club 
 the silent Republicans in the streets. That is what 
 he called acting with moderation. O gentle country 
 customs! O primitive simplicity! O happy days! 
 Who knew you not never knew the meaning of life ! 
 O simplicity of the man of the open fields, who 
 vowed that the Republic had no enemies! Where 
 were the Royalist conspirators and seditious monks? 
 There were none. He had hidden them all under his 
 long Sunday-go-to-meeting coat. Joseph Lacrisse 
 had not forgotten those happy days, and relying on 
 the old alliance of rioters and police he cheered the 
 black brigades. Standing in the front rank of the 
 Leaguers he waved his hat on the end of his stick 
 in token of peace, shouting twenty times over,
 
 218 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Hurrah for the police I" But times had changed. 
 Indifferent to this friendly welcome^ deaf to these 
 flattering shouts, the police charged. The shock was 
 violent. The Nationalist ranks wavered and fell 
 back. Human affairs are subject to time's revenges. 
 Lacrisse, who had stopped cheering the attackers 
 and had replaced his hat on his head, found it 
 knocked over his eyes by a vigorous blow. Indignant 
 at the insult he broke his stick over a policeman's 
 head, and had it not been for the efforts of friends 
 who came to his assistance he would have been 
 marched off to the police station and thrown into a 
 cell like a Socialist. 
 
 The policeman whose head was cracked was taken 
 to the hospital, where he received a silver medal 
 from the prefect of police. 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse was chosen by the Nationalist 
 Committee for the ward of the Grandes-ficuries as 
 their candidate at the municipal elections of the 
 6th of May. 
 
 This was the former Committee of Monsieur 
 Collinard, a Conservative who had been blackballed 
 at the preceding elections, and was not standing on 
 this occasion. The president of the Committee, 
 Monsieur Bonnaud, a pork-butcher, undertook to 
 assure Joseph Lacrisse of a triumphant return. 
 
 Raimondin, a Radical Republican, the retiring 
 councillor, wished to be re-elected, but the electors
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 219 
 
 had lost their faith in him. He had disappointed 
 every one, and had neglected the interests of his 
 ward. He had not even obtained the tramway which 
 had been demanded for the last twelve years, and 
 was even accused of favouring the Dreyfusards. 
 
 It was an excellent ward. The householders were 
 all Nationalists, and the tradespeople severely con- 
 demned the Waldeck-Millerand Cabinet. There 
 were some Jews among them, but they were anti- 
 Semites. The religious communities, which were 
 both rich and numerous, would do their best, and 
 the Fathers who had opened the Chapel of Saint- 
 Antoine were especially to be relied upon. Success 
 was certain. It was merely necessary that Monsieur 
 Lacrisse should not expressly and in so many words 
 announce himself as a Royalist, in order to spare 
 the feelings of the small shopkeepers, who feared a 
 change of regime, particularly during the Exhibition. 
 
 Lacrisse objected to this. He was a Royalist and 
 did not intend to put his colours in his pocket. Mon- 
 sieur Bonnaud stuck to his point. He knew the 
 elector. He knew what sort of animal he was, and 
 how to manage him. If Monsieur Lacrisse would 
 come forward as a Nationalist he, Bonnaud, would 
 win the election for him. Otherwise the thing was 
 impossible. 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse was puzzled, and wondered 
 whether he should write to the King about the mat-
 
 220 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 ter. But time pressed, and, besides, how could 
 Philippe at such a distance be a competent judge of 
 his own interests? Lacrisse consulted his friends. 
 
 "Our strength lies in our principles," replied 
 Henri Leon. "A Monarchist cannot call himself a 
 Republican, even during the Exhibition. But they 
 are not asking you to call yourself a Republican. 
 They do not even ask you to call yourself a Repub- 
 lican Progressive, or a Republican Liberal, which 
 is quite another thing than a Republican. They are 
 asking you to call yourself a Nationalist. You can 
 do that in all honesty, for you are a Nationalist. 
 Don't hesitate. Success depends upon it, and it is of 
 importance to the good cause that you should be 
 elected." 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse gave in out of patriotism, writing 
 to the Prince to explain the situation and to assure 
 him of his devotion. 
 
 The terms of the programme were drawn up 
 without difficulty. The National Army was to be 
 defended against a mob of maniacs. Cosmopoli- 
 tanism was to be combated. Paternal rights, jeop- 
 ardized by the Government's proposal in respect of 
 the Universities, were to be upheld. The peril of 
 Collectivism was to be averted. A tramway was to 
 connect the Grandes-ficuries with the Exhibition. 
 The banner of France was to be held high, and the 
 water supply improved.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 221 
 
 There was no question of a plebiscite; people did 
 not know what it was in the Grandes-ficuries ward. 
 Joseph Lacrisse had not the trouble of reconciling 
 his doctrine, which was that of Divine Right, with 
 the doctrine of the Sovereignty of the People. 
 Though he admired and loved Deroulede, he did not 
 blindly follow him. 
 
 "I will have tricolour posters," he said to 
 Monsieur Bonnaud. "It will look well, and we must 
 neglect nothing that will take the people's fancy." 
 
 Bonnaud approved of this; but Raimondin, the 
 retiring councillor, having managed to secure, at the 
 last moment, the establishment of a steam-tramway 
 from the Grandes-ficuries to the Trocadero, was 
 publishing broadcast the news of his success. He, 
 too, praised the Army in his circulars, and spoke of 
 the wonders of the Exhibition as the triumph of the 
 industrial and commercial genius of France and the 
 glory of Paris. He was becoming a formidable rival. 
 
 Feeling that the struggle would be a hard one, the 
 Nationalists did everything in their power to stimu- 
 late the courage of their adherents. They accused 
 Raimondin, at innumerable meetings, of having al- 
 lowed his old mother to die of starvation and of 
 having voted that the municipality should subscribe 
 for Urbain Gohier's book. 
 
 Every night they attacked Raimondin, the candi- 
 date of the Jews and Panamists. A group of Re-
 
 222 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 publican Progressives was formed to support Joseph 
 Lacrisse, and published the following manifesto : 
 
 To the Electors 
 
 "GENTLEMEN, 
 
 "The critical circumstances through which we 
 are now passing make it our duty to ask of the can- 
 didates at the forthcoming municipal elections a 
 statement of their opinion as to the general policy, 
 on which the future of the country depends. At 
 an hour when some deluded persons entertain the 
 criminal hope of stirring up an unseemly agitation 
 calculated to weaken our beloved country, at an hour 
 when Collectivism, audaciously installed in power, 
 threatens our property, the sacred fruit of our thrift 
 and labour; at an hour when a Government estab- 
 lished against public opinion is preparing tyrannical 
 laws, you will all vote for 
 
 "M. JOSEPH LACRISSE, 
 
 "Advocate in the Court of Appeal, 
 "Candidate for the Liberty of Con- 
 science of an honest Republic." 
 
 The Nationalist Socialists of the ward had thought 
 at first of choosing their own candidates, whose 
 votes, at the second scrutiny, would have gone to 
 Lacrisse, but the danger was so imminent as to neces- 
 sitate union. So the Nationalist Socialists of the 
 Grandes-ficuries rallied round Lacrisse, and made 
 the following appeal to the electors:
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 223 
 
 "CITIZENS, 
 
 "We commend to you the definitely Repub- 
 lican, Socialist and Nationalist candidate, 
 
 "CITIZEN LACRISSE. 
 
 "Down with the traitors! Down with the 
 Dreyfusards ! Down with the Panamists ! Down 
 with the Jews! Long live the National-Socialist 
 Republic!" 
 
 The Fathers, who possessed a chapel and an 
 enormous amount of house-property in the ward, 
 strictly refrained from meddling in electoral affairs. 
 They were too obedient to the Sovereign Pontiff to 
 infringe his orders, and absorption in the works of 
 piety kept them far removed from mundane affairs. 
 But some of their lay friends composed a circular 
 which exactly expressed the thoughts of the worthy 
 Fathers. Here is the text of this circular, which 
 was distributed throughout the ward: 
 
 "The Charity of ST. ANTHONY, for the restora- 
 tion of lost property, jewels, valuables and objects 
 of every description, such as land, houses, furniture, 
 money, feelings, affections, etc., etc. 
 
 "GENTLEMEN, 
 
 "It is chiefly during elections that the devil 
 attempts to trouble our consciences. And to attain 
 this object he has recourse to innumerable devices. 
 Alas, has he not in his service the whole army of the 
 Freemasons? But you will know how to defeat the
 
 224 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 wiles of the enemy. You will reject with horror and 
 disgust the candidate of the incendiaries, the burners 
 of churches and other Dreyfusards. 
 
 "It is only by placing righteous men in power that 
 you will put an end to the abominable persecution 
 which is so cruelly being undertaken at the present 
 moment, and will prevent an iniquitous Government 
 from laying its hands upon the money of the poor. 
 Vote for 
 
 "M. JOSEPH LACRISSE, 
 
 "Advocate in the Court of Appeal, 
 "St. Anthony's Candidate. 
 
 "Gentlemen, do not grieve the good St. Anthony 
 by inflicting upon him the unmerited grief of seeing 
 his candidate defeated. 
 
 "Signed: Ribagou, advocate; Wertheimer, publi- 
 cist; Florimond, architect; Beche, retired captain; 
 Molon, artisan." 
 
 These documents will suffice to show to what in- 
 tellectual and moral heights Nationalism elevated 
 the discussion of the candidates for the Municipal 
 Council of Paris.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 OSEPH LACRISSE, the Nationalist 
 candidate, was carrying on an active 
 campaign in the Grandes-ficuries 
 ward against the outgoing councillor, 
 Anselme Raimondin. From the first 
 he felt at his ease in the public meetings at which 
 he spoke. Being a lawyer and very ignorant, he 
 spoke profusely, and nothing ever stopped him. 
 The rapidity of his delivery astonished the electors, 
 with whom he was in sympathy because of the 
 scarcity and simplicity of his ideas, and what he said 
 was always what they would have said themselves, 
 or at least would have tried to say. He was always 
 speaking of his honesty, and of the honesty of his 
 political friends; he insisted that they must elect 
 honest men, and that his party was the party of 
 honest men. As it was a new party, the people be- 
 lieved him. 
 
 Anselme Raimondin, at his meetings, replied that 
 he himself was honest, extremely honest, but his 
 protestations, coming after the others, seemed tedi- 
 ous. Since he had already been a councillor and had
 
 226 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 experience of municipal affairs, the electors did not 
 find it easy to believe in his honesty, whereas Joseph 
 Lacrisse was dazzling in his innocence. 
 
 Lacrisse was young, brisk, and had a soldierly 
 appearance. Raimondin was short and stout, and 
 wore spectacles. This difference was remarked 
 upon at a moment when Nationalism had breathed 
 into municipal elections some of the enthusiasm and 
 poetry which are inseparable from it, together with 
 an ideal of beauty perceptible to the small shop- 
 keeper. 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse was totally ignorant of all ques- 
 tions concerning civic affairs, even to the attributions 
 of municipal councils. This ignorance was useful to 
 him. His eloquence was thereby the freer and more 
 stirring. Anselme Raimondin, on the contrary, lost 
 himself in the mazes of detail. He was accustomed 
 to the use of business expressions, and to technical 
 discussions; he had a love of figures, and a passion 
 for documents, and although he knew his public he 
 laboured under certain illusions with regard to the 
 intelligence of the electors who had nominated him. 
 He had a certain amount of respect for them; he 
 dared not lie too grossly, and did his best to enter 
 into explanations. All this made him appear cold, 
 obscure and tedious. 
 
 He was no simpleton. He knew where lay his 
 interests, and he understood minor politics. For
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 227 
 
 two years his district had been submerged by Nation- 
 alist newspapers, posters and pamphlets; and he 
 told himself that when the moment came he, too, 
 could pretend to be a Nationalist, that it wasn't so 
 difficult to demolish traitors and acclaim the National 
 Army. He had not feared his enemies sufficiently, 
 thinking that he could always do as they did, in 
 which he was mistaken. Joseph Lacrisse had an 
 inimitable genius for expressing the Nationalist 
 ideal. He had hit upon one special sentence which 
 he frequently employed, and which always seemed 
 new and beautiful. It was this: "Citizens, let us 
 all rise to defend our admirable Army against a 
 handful of cosmopolitans who have sworn to destroy 
 it." This was just the thing to say to the electors 
 of the Grandes-ficuries. Repeated nightly, the sen- 
 tence aroused the whole meeting to great and for- 
 midable enthusiasm. Anselme Raimondin did not 
 hit upon anything nearly so good; if patriotic phrases 
 occurred to him he did not deliver them in the right 
 tone, and they produced no effect. 
 
 Lacrisse covered the walls with tricolour posters. 
 Anselme Raimondin also made use of tricolour 
 posters, but either the colours were too washy or 
 the sun faded them; at all events, his posters had 
 a pallid appearance. Everything played him false, 
 every one abandoned him. He lost his assurance; 
 he humbled himself, showed himself prudent and
 
 228 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 humble. He shrank from notice ; he became almost 
 imperceptible. 
 
 Again, when he stood up to speak in the dancing- 
 hall of some third-rate drinking-house he seemed 
 like a pale phantom from which proceeded a feeble 
 voice drowned by pipe-smoke and the interruptions 
 of the audience. He recalled his past. He had 
 always been a fighter, he said. He stood up for the 
 Republic ; this remark, like the preceding one, caused 
 no sensation, had no sonorous echo. The electors 
 of the Grandes-ficuries ward wanted the Republic 
 to be defended by Joseph Lacrisse, who had con- 
 spired against her. That was what they wanted. 
 
 The meeting did not discuss both sides of the 
 question. Only once was Raimondin invited to put 
 in an appearance at a Nationalist meeting. He 
 went; but he was not allowed to speak; and was 
 utterly crushed by a resolution put and carried amid 
 darkness and disorder, for the landlord had cut off 
 the gas as soon as the people started breaking up 
 the benches. The meetings in the Grandes-ficuries 
 ward, as in all the other wards of Paris, were only 
 moderately rowdy. The people now and then dis- 
 played the languid violence peculiar to their day, 
 which is the most noticeable characteristic of our 
 political manners. The Nationalists, according to 
 their habit, hurled forth the same monotonous in- 
 sults in which the expressions "Spy," "Traitor" and
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 229 
 
 "Rogue" had a feeble, exhausted sound. Their 
 slogans told of an extreme physical and moral ener- 
 vation, a vague discontent combined with profound 
 lethargy, and a definite inability to think out the 
 simplest problems. There were many insults and 
 few blows. It was unusual if more than two or 
 three per night were wounded or knocked about, 
 counting both parties. Lacrisse's wounded were 
 taken to the Nationalist chemist Delapierre, next 
 door to the riding-school, and Raimondin's to the 
 Radical chemist Job, opposite the market-place, and 
 by midnight there was not a soul left in the streets. 
 
 On Sunday, May the 6th, at six o'clock, Joseph 
 Lacrisse, accompanied by his friends, was awaiting 
 the result of the ballot in an empty shop decorated 
 with flags and placards. This was their chief Com- 
 mittee Room. The pork-butcher, Monsieur Bon- 
 naud, arrived, and announced that Lacrisse was 
 elected by two thousand three hundred and nine 
 votes against one thousand five hundred and four- 
 teen for Monsieur Raimondin. 
 
 "Citizen," said Bonnaud, "we are much gratified. 
 It is a victory for the Republic." 
 
 "And for honest men," replied Lacrisse, adding 
 with dignified benevolence : "I thank you, Monsieur 
 Bonnaud, and I beg you to thank in my name our 
 valiant friends." Then, turning to Henri Leon
 
 230 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 who stood beside him, he whispered, "Leon, do me 1 
 a favour, will you? Wire our success at once to 
 Monseigneur." 
 
 Shouts were heard from the street. 
 
 "Long live Deroulede! Long live the Army! 
 Long live the Republic! Down with the Jews!" 
 
 Lacrisse entered his carriage amid the cheers of 
 the crowd that barred his passage. Baron Golsberg 
 the Jew, was standing at the carriage door; he seized 
 the new councillor's hand : 
 
 "I gave you my vote, Monsieur Lacrisse. You 
 understand, I gave you my vote, because, I tell you, 
 anti-Semitism is mere humbug you know it as well 
 
 as I do mere humbug, while Socialism is a serious 
 t 
 
 matter." 
 
 "Yes, yes. Good-bye, Monsieur Golsberg." 
 
 But the Baron still held on. 
 
 "Socialism is the danger. Monsieur Raimondin 
 favoured concessions to the Collectivists. That's 
 why I voted for you, Monsieur Lacrisse." 
 
 And still the crowd yelled: 
 
 "Hurrah for Deroulede ! Hurrah for the Army! 
 Down with the Dreyfusards I Down with Raimon- 
 din I Death to the Jews !" 
 
 The coachman succeeded in making a way through 
 the mass of electors. 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse found Madame de Bonmont at
 
 home, alone. She was excited and triumphant, hav- 
 ing already heard the news. 
 
 "Elected!" she cried, her arms extended and her 
 gaze directed heavenward. 
 
 And the word "elected" on the lips of so pious 
 a lady seemed full of mystical meaning. 
 
 She put her beautiful arms around him and drew 
 him to her. 
 
 "What makes me happiest is that you owe your 
 election to me." 
 
 She had contributed nothing to his expenses. It 
 is true that money had not been wanting, and Joseph 
 Lacrisse had drawn upon more than one banking 
 account; but the gentle Elisabeth had given nothing, 
 and Joseph Lacrisse could not understand what she 
 meant. She explained herself: 
 
 "I had a candle burnt every day before St. 
 Anthony; that is why you got in. St. Anthony 
 grants all requests. Father Adeodat told me so, 
 and I have proved it several times." 
 
 She covered his face with kisses, and a beautiful 
 idea occurred to her, which reminded her of the 
 customs of chivalry. 
 
 "My dear," she asked him, "do not municipal 
 councillors wear a scarf? an embroidered scarf, isn't 
 it? I'll embroider one for you." 
 
 He was very tired and fell exhausted into a chair, 
 but kneeling at his feet she murmured :
 
 232 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "I love you." 
 
 And only the darkness heard the rest. 
 
 The same evening, in his modest apartments 
 the apartments of "a child of the quarter," as he 
 called them Anselme Raimondin heard the result 
 of the election. There were some dozen bottles of 
 wine and a cold pate on the dining-room table. His 
 failure amazed him. 
 
 "It was only what I expected," he said. 
 
 And he swung round in a pirouette, but he was 
 clumsy and twisted his ankle. 
 
 "It's your own fault," said Dr. Maufle, by way 
 of consolation. The Doctor was president of his 
 Committee, an old Radical, with the face of a 
 Silenus. "You allowed the Nationalists to poison 
 the whole ward; you hadn't the pluck to stand up 
 against them. You made no attempt to unmask 
 their falsehoods. On the contrary, like them, with 
 them, you told every lie you could think of. You 
 knew the truth, and you dared not undeceive the 
 electors while there was still time. You've funked 
 it, and you are beaten, and it serves you right!" 
 
 Anselme Raimondin shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "You are a silly old fool, Maufle. You don't 
 understand the ins and outs of this election. Yet 
 it's clear enough. My failure was due to one thing 
 only: the discontent of the small shopkeepers who
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 233 
 
 arc being crushed out of existence between the big 
 shops and the co-operative societies. They are suf- 
 fering and they made me pay for it. That's all." 
 Then, with a faint smile, he added: 
 "They'll find themselves nicely taken in."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 EETING his pupils Goubin and 
 Denis, on one of the paths of 
 the Luxembourg garden, Monsieur 
 Bergeret said : 
 
 "I have good news for you, gen- 
 tlemen. The peace of Europe will not be disturbed. 
 The Trublions themselves have assured me of it." 
 And Monsieur Bergeret went on to relate the 
 following story : 
 
 "I met Jean Coq, Jean Mouton, Jean Laiglon 
 and Gilles Singe at the Exhibition, where they were 
 listening to the creaking of the footbridges. Jean 
 Coq came up to me, and said sternly: 'Monsieur 
 Bergeret, you said that we wanted war, and that we 
 should make war, that Jean Mouton and I were 
 going to land at Dover with an army and occupy 
 London, and that then I should take Berlin and 
 various other capitals. You said this, I know. You 
 said it with malicious intent to harm us and make 
 the French nation believe that we desire war. Un- 
 derstand, monsieur, that this is a lie. Our tendencies 
 are not war-like; they are military, which is quite 
 
 234
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 235 
 
 another thing. We desire peace, and when we have 
 established the Imperial Republic in France we shall 
 not go to war.' 
 
 "I told Jean Coq that I was quite ready to believe 
 him, and, what was more, that I saw that I had 
 been mistaken and that my mistake was obvious; 
 that Jean Coq, Jean Mouton, Jean Laiglon and 
 Gilles Singe had sufficiently proved their love of 
 peace by refusing to go and fight in China, whither 
 they had been invited by beautiful white placards. 
 'From that time forth,' said I, 'I realized the truly 
 civil nature of your military sentiments, and the 
 strength of your love for your country. You could 
 not leave the soil of France. I beg you to accept 
 my apologies, Monsieur Coq. I rejoice to see that 
 you are as peacefully disposed as I.' 
 
 "Jean Coq looked at me with that eye that causes 
 the world to tremble: 'I am peacefully disposed, 
 Monsieur Bergeret, but, thank God, not as you are. 
 The peace I desire is not your peace. You are 
 slavishly content with the peace that is forced upon 
 us to-day. Our spirit is too great to endure it with- 
 out impatience. This feeble enervating peace which 
 satisfies you, cruelly wounds the pride of our hearts. 
 When we are the masters we shall make another 
 peace; a terrible, clanking, spurred and booted, 
 equestrian peace ! We shall make a pitiless, savage 
 peace, a threatening, horrible, blazing peace; a
 
 236 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 peace worthy of us; a peace which, more frightful 
 than the most frightful war, will freeze the world 
 with terror and kill all the English by inhibition. 
 That, Monsieur Bergeret, is our manner of being 
 pacific. In two or three months' time our peace will 
 burst upon the world and will set it in a blaze.' 
 
 "After this speech I was forced to admit that 
 the Trublions were peacefully disposed, and thus 
 was confirmed the truth of the oracle written upon 
 an ancient sycamore leaf by the sibyl of Panzoust: 
 
 ' 'Toi qui de vent te repais, 
 Troublion, ma petite outre, 
 Si vraiment tu veux la paix, 
 Commence par nous la f . . .' "
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 IADAME DE BONMONT'S salon 
 had been unusually lively and bril- 
 liant since the victory of the Nation- 
 alists in Paris and the election of 
 Joseph Lacrisse for the ward of the 
 Grandes-ficuries. The widow of the great Baron 
 received at her house the flower of the new party. 
 An old Rabbi of the Faubourg St. Antoine believed 
 that the gentle Elisabeth attracted to herself the 
 enemies of the chosen people by a special decree of 
 the God of Israel. The hand, he thought, that 
 placed Esther in the bed of Ahasuerus had been 
 pleased to gather together the chiefs of the anti- 
 Semites and the princes of the Trublions in the house 
 of a Jewess. It is true that the Baronne had re- 
 nounced the faith of her fathers, but who can fathom 
 the designs of Jehovah ! In the eyes of the artists, 
 who, like Fremont, bethought themselves of the 
 mythological figures in the palaces of Germany, her 
 sumptuous beauty, the beauty of a Viennese Erigone, 
 seemed symbolical of the Nationalist vintage. 
 Her dinners diffused an atmosphere of delight and 
 337
 
 238 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 power, and the smallest luncheon party at her house 
 had a truly national significance. Thus, this morn- 
 ing she had gathered together at her table the most 
 famous defenders of the Church and Army. There 
 was Henri Leon, Vice-President of the Royalist 
 Committees of the South-West, who had come to 
 congratulate the Nationalists elected in Paris; Cap- 
 tain de Chalmot, the son of General Cartier de 
 Chalmot, with his young American wife, who twit- 
 tered to such an extent as she expressed her Nation- 
 alist propensities that one would have thought the 
 very birds in their cages were taking part in our 
 human disputes ; Monsieur Tonnellier, the suspended 
 professor of the fifth form at the Lycee Sully, who, 
 as every one knows, had been convicted of defend- 
 ing, to his young pupils, an assault committed upon 
 the person of the President of the Republic, had been 
 condemned to pay a fine and was forthwith received 
 in the best society, where he behaved very well, 
 except that he was rather given to playing upon 
 words ; Fremont, an old Communard and an Inspec- 
 tor of the Fine Arts, who as he grew older became 
 wonderfully reconciled to bourgeois and capitalist 
 society, assiduously frequenting the houses of wealthy 
 Jews, the guardians of the treasures of Christian 
 art, and would gladly have lived under the dictator- 
 ship of a horse so long as he could spend the day 
 caressing, with his delicate hands, finely wrought
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 239 
 
 bibelots of precious material; and the old Comte 
 Davant, dyed, waxed and varnished, handsome still, 
 a trifle morose, who remembered the golden age of 
 the Jews when he supplied the great financiers with 
 furniture by Riesener and bronzes by Thomyres. 
 When acting as the Baron's collector he had gathered 
 together fifteen millions' worth of old furniture and 
 objects of art. To-day, ruined by unfortunate specu- 
 lation, he lived among the sons, regretting the 
 fathers, a sad, bitter old man, one of the most inso- 
 lent of parasites, insolence, as he well knew, being 
 a parasite's main passport to favour. She had also 
 invited Jacques de Cadde, one of the promoters 
 of the Henry subscription list; Philippe Dellion, 
 Astolphe de Courtrai, Hugues Chassons des Aigues, 
 President of the Nationalist Committee of Celle- 
 Saint-Cloud, and Jambe-d' Argent in breeches and 
 waistcoat of homespun, the white armlet with the 
 golden lilies on his arm, and a wild shock of hair 
 under his round hat, which, like his chaplet of olive- 
 stones, he never removed. He was a Montmartre 
 singer, by name Dupont, who having become a 
 Chouan was received in the best society. He was 
 taking a snack, with an old flint-gun between his legs, 
 drinking copiously. Since the Affair a new classi- 
 fication had occurred in aristocratic French Society. 
 Young Baron Ernest sat facing his mother in the
 
 2 4 o MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 chair set for the master of the house. The conver- 
 sation turned on politics. 
 
 "You are wrong," said Jacques de Cadde to 
 Philippe Dellion. "Believe me, you are wrong not 
 to employ Father Francois' move. No one knows 
 what may happen after the Exhibition and as soon 
 as we begin to hold public meetings." 
 
 "One thing is certain," said Astolphe de Courtrai, 
 "and that is if we want to do well in the elections 
 in twenty months' time we must prepare to begin 
 a campaign. I can promise you that I shall be 
 ready, I'm working hard every day at boxing and 
 single-stick." 
 
 "Who's your trainer?" asked Dellion. 
 
 "Gaudibert. He has brought French boxing to 
 perfection. It's astonishing. He has some exqui- 
 site foot-work, some coups de savate, quite of his 
 own. He's a first-class teacher, and understands the 
 tremendous importance of training." 
 
 "Training is everything," said Jacques de Cadde. 
 
 "Of course," continued Courtrai. "And Gaudi- 
 bert has superior methods of training, a whole sys- 
 tem, based on experience. Massage, friction and 
 dieting followed by plenty of nourishment. His 
 motto is : 'Keep down fat, build up muscle.' And in 
 six months, my friends, he makes you a first-rate 
 boxer, and gives your punch an elasticity and your 
 kick a suppleness "
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 241 
 
 Madame de Chalmot inquired: 
 
 "Can you overthrow this feeble Ministry?" 
 
 And at the bare idea of the Waldeck Cabinet 
 she indignantly shook her pretty head the head of 
 an infant Samuel. 
 
 "Do not distress yourself, madame," said Lacrisse. 
 "This Ministry will be replaced by another just 
 like it." 
 
 "Another Ministry of Republican spendthrifts," 
 said Monsieur Tonnellier. "France will be ruined." 
 
 "Yes," said Leon, "another Ministry just like 
 this one. But the new Ministry will be less un- 
 popular, for it will no longer be the Ministry of the 
 Affair. We shall need a campaign of at least six 
 weeks with all our newspapers to make it hateful to 
 the people." 
 
 "Have you been to the Petit Palais, madame?" 
 said Fremont to the Baronne. 
 
 She replied that she had been there and had seen 
 some beautiful caskets and some pretty dance- 
 engagement books. 
 
 "fimile Moliner," replied the Inspector of Fine 
 Arts, "has organized an admirable exhibition of 
 French art. The Middle Ages are represented by 
 the most valuable examples. The eighteenth cen- 
 tury takes an honourable position too, but there is 
 still space to fill up. You, madame, who possess so
 
 242 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 many treasures will not refuse us the loan of some 
 of your masterpieces." 
 
 It is true that the great Barorl had left his widow 
 many art treasures. For him the Comte Davant 
 had ransacked all the provincial chateaux on the 
 banks of the Somme, Loire and Rhone, and had 
 wrested from ignorant, needy and whiskered gentle- 
 men portraits of ancestors, historic furniture, gifts 
 from kings to their mistresses, imposing souvenirs 
 of the Monarchy, the treasured possessions of the 
 most illustrious families. In her castle at Montil 
 and her house in the Avenue Marceau she had ex- 
 amples of the work of the finest French cabinet- 
 makers and of the greatest wood-carvers of the 
 eighteenth century: chests of drawers, cabinets for 
 medals, secretaries, clocks of all descriptions, candle- 
 sticks and exquisite faded tapestries. But although 
 Fremont, and Terremondre before him, had begged 
 her to send some pieces of furniture, bronzes or 
 hangings to the coming Exhibition, she had always 
 refused. Vain of her riches and anxious to display 
 them she had not intended, on this occasion, to lend 
 anything. Joseph Lacrisse encouraged her in this 
 refusal : "Have nothing to do with their Exhibition. 
 Your things will be stolen or burned. And who 
 knows if they will ever succeed in organizing their 
 international fair? It's better to have nothing to 
 do with people like that."
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 243 
 
 Fremont, who had already been refused on several 
 occasions, persisted: 
 
 "You, madame, who possess such beautiful things 
 and are so worthy of possessing them, snow yourself 
 to be what you are, liberal, generous and patriotic, 
 for patriotism also is involved in this matter. Send 
 to the Petit Palais your Riesener cabinet decorated 
 with Sevres in pate tendre. With such a treasure 
 you need fear no rival, for its equal is only to be 
 found in England. We will put upon it your porce- 
 lain vases, which belonged to the Grand Dauphin, 
 those two marvellous sea-green vases mounted in 
 bronze by Caffieri. It will be dazzling!" 
 
 The Comte Davant interrupted him: 
 
 "The mounts," he said in a tone of melancholy 
 wisdom, "are not by Philippe Caffieri. They are 
 marked with a 'C surmounted by a lily. That is 
 Cresscnt's mark. You may not know it, but you 
 cannot deny it." 
 
 "Madame, display your magnificence I Add to 
 this your tapestry by Leprince, La Fiancee moscovite, 
 and you will deserve the gratitude of the whole 
 nation." 
 
 She was ready to give way. But before consent- 
 ing she questioned Lacrisse with a look. He said: 
 
 "Lend them your eighteenth-century stuff, as they 
 have none."
 
 244 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Then, out of deference to the Comte Davant, she 
 asked him what she should do. He replied : 
 
 "Do as you like. I have no advice to give you. 
 It will be all the same whether you send or do not 
 send your things to the Exhibition. Rien ne fait 
 rlen, as my old friend Theophile Gautier used to 
 say." 
 
 "That's done I" thought Fremont. "I'll go pres- 
 ently and tell the Ministry that I've managed to 
 secure the Bonmont collection. It's well worth the 
 rosette." 
 
 And he smiled to himself. He was no fool, but 
 he did not despise social distinctions, and it struck 
 him as piquant that a man who had been imprisoned 
 as a Communard should be made an officer of the 
 Legion of Honour. 
 
 "I must go," said Lacrisse. "I've got to prepare 
 the speech for the banquet of the Grandes-ficuries 
 next Sunday." 
 
 "Oh," sighed the Baronne, "I shouldn't trouble 
 to do that. It's not necessary, you extemporize so 
 wonderfully." 
 
 "Besides, my dear fellow," said Jacques de Cadde, 
 "it's not a difficult matter to address electors." 
 
 "Not difficult exactly," said the chosen candidate, 
 "but delicate. Our enemies complain that we have 
 no programme. That is not true, we have a pro- 
 gramme, but "
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 245 
 
 "Pheasant shooting, that's the programme, mes- 
 sieurs," said Jambe-d'Argent. 
 
 "But the elector," continued Joseph Lacrisse, "is 
 of a more complex nature than one would at first 
 suppose. For instance, I've been elected to the 
 Grandes-ficuries by the Monarchists, of course, and 
 by the Bonapartists, and also by the what shall I 
 call them? by the Republicans who are sick of the 
 Republic but who still remain Republicans. That 
 is a state of mind not infrequently met with in Paris 
 among the small tradespeople. Thus the pork- 
 butcher who presides over my Committee shouts in 
 my face : 'I've done with the Republic of the Repub- 
 licans. If I could, I'd blow it up, even if I had to 
 blow up with it; but for your Republic, Monsieur 
 Lacrisse, I would lay down my life for it.' Doubt- 
 less there are points on which we all agree. For 
 instance: 'Rally round the flag.' 'No attacks on the 
 Army!' 'Down with the traitors in the pay of the 
 foreigner who work to the undoing of our national 
 defence 1' There we are on common ground." 
 
 "Then there is also anti-Semitism," said Henri 
 Leon. 
 
 "Anti-Semitism," replied Joseph Lacrisse, "is 
 very popular in the Grandes-ficuries because there 
 are so many rich Jews in the ward who are on our 
 side."
 
 246 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "And the anti-masonic campaign I" cried Jacques 
 de Cadde, who was religious. 
 
 "All of us in the Grandes-ficuries are agreed to 
 fight the Freemasons," replied Joseph Lacrisse. 
 "The church-goers reproach them for not being 
 Catholics. The Nationalist Socialists reproach them 
 for not being anti-Semites, and all our meetings 
 adjourn to the cry of 'Down with the Freemasons 1' 
 to which Citizen Bissolo yells : 'Down with the Cas- 
 socks!' Immediately he is knocked on the head, 
 thrown down, trampled upon by our friends and 
 dragged off to the police-station by the police. The 
 spirit of the Grandes-ficuries is excellent, but there 
 are false ideas which we shall have to eliminate. 
 The small shopkeeper does not yet understand that 
 the Monarchy alone will bring him any happiness. 
 He does not yet feel that in bowing to the will of 
 the Church he increases his own stature. The shop- 
 keeper's mind has been poisoned by bad books and 
 bad newspapers. He is against the abuses of the 
 clergy and the intrusion of priests into politics. 
 Many of my electors call themselves anti-clerical." 
 
 "Really?" cried Madame de Bonmont, saddened 
 and surprised. 
 
 "Madame," said Jacques de Cadde, "it is the 
 same in the provinces. And I call that being against 
 religion. Anti-clericalism spells anti-religion." 
 
 "We must not attempt to disguise the fact,"
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 247 
 
 Lacrisse continued. "We have still a great deal 
 to do. And how? This is what we have to find 
 out." 
 
 "As far as I am concerned," said Jacques de 
 Cadde, "I am in favour of violent measures.' 1 
 
 "What measures?" asked Henri Leon. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, and Henri Leon 
 continued : 
 
 "We have had prodigious successes but so had 
 Boulanger, and he wore himself out." 
 
 "He was worn out," said Lacrisse. "But we 
 need not fear that we shall be worn out in the same 
 way. The Republicans, who put up a very good 
 defence against him, are defending themselves very 
 badly against us." 
 
 "Besides," said Leon, "it is not our enemies that 
 I fear; it's our friends. We have friends in the 
 Chamber. And what are they doing? They 
 haven't even provided us with a nice little ministerial 
 crisis complicated by a nice little presidential crisis." 
 
 "That would have been desirable," said Lacrisse, 
 "but it wasn't possible. If it had been possible 
 Meline would have done it. We must be just. 
 Meline does what he can." 
 
 "Then," said Leon, "we must wait patiently until 
 the Republicans of the Senate and the Chamber 
 make way for us. Is that your opinion, Lacrisse?" 
 
 "Ah," sighed Jacques de Cadde, "I regret the
 
 248 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 days when we cracked one another's heads. Those 
 were the good old days." 
 
 "They may return," said Henri Leon. 
 
 "Do you think they will?" 
 
 "Yes, by Jove, if we bring them back I" 
 
 "True!" 
 
 "We have numbers on our side, as General 
 Mercier said. Let us act." 
 
 "Hurrah for Mercier!" cried Jambe-d' Argent, 
 
 "Let us act," repeated Henri Leon. "And let 
 us lose no time about it. And, above all, let us be 
 careful not to allow ourselves to get cold feet. 
 Nationalism must be swallowed hot. As long as it 
 is boiling it's a cordial. Cold, it's a drug." 
 
 "What do you mean a drug?" demanded 
 Lacrisse severely. 
 
 "A salutary drug, an efficacious remedy, a good 
 medicine, but one that the patient will not swallow 
 willingly nor with pleasure. We must not let the 
 mixture settle. Shake the bottle before pouring out 
 the dose, according to the precept of the wise chem- 
 ist. At the present moment our Nationalist mixture, 
 which has been well shaken, is of a beautiful pink 
 colour, pleasant to look upon and of a slightly acid 
 flavour which pleases the palate. If we let the bot- 
 tle rest, the mixture will lose much of its colour and 
 flavour. A sediment will form. The best will go 
 to the bottom. The monarchical and clerical in-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 249 
 
 gradients which enter into its composition will stick 
 to the bottom, and the wily patient will leave three- 
 quarters of it in the bottle. Shake it up, gentlemen, 
 shake it up." 
 
 "What did I tell you?" cried young Cadde. 
 
 "It is easy to say 'shake it up,' but it must be 
 done at the right time, otherwise you run the risk 
 of upsetting the electors," objected Lacrisse. 
 
 "Oh," said Leon, "of course, if you are thinking 
 of your re-election!" 
 
 "Who said I was thinking of it? I'm not!" 
 
 "You are right, one mustn't meet trouble so much 
 more than half-way." 
 
 "What? Trouble? You think my electors will 
 change their minds?" 
 
 "On the contrary, I fear they will not. They 
 were discontented and they have elected you. They 
 will be discontented again in four years' time, and 
 then it will be with you. Would you like a word 
 of advice, Lacrisse?" 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 "You were elected by two thousand votes." 
 
 "Two thousand three hundred and nine." 
 
 "Two thousand three hundred and nine. You 
 cannot please two thousand three hundred and nine 
 people. But you mustn't think only of the quantity, 
 you must think of the quality too. You have among 
 your electors a fair number of anti-clerical Repub-
 
 250 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 licans, small shopkeepers and clerks. They are not 
 the most intelligent." 
 
 Lacrisse, who had become an earnest person, re- 
 plied slowly and thoughtfully: 
 
 "I will explain. They are Republicans, but, above 
 all, they are patriots. They voted for a patriot 
 whose ideas did not coincide with theirs, who did 
 not think as they did on matters which they thought 
 of secondary importance. Their conduct is perfectly 
 honourable and I suppose you do not hesitate to 
 approve of it." 
 
 "Certainly I approve of it, but, between our- 
 selves, we may confess that they are not particularly 
 bright." 
 
 "Not very bright!" replied Lacrisse bitterly. 
 "Not very bright 1 I will not say that they are as 
 
 bright as " He searched his brain for the 
 
 name of a brilliant man, but either he could not find 
 one among his friends or his ungrateful memory 
 refused the name he sought, or perhaps a natural 
 malevolence caused him to reject each name that 
 came into his mind. He did not finish his sentence, 
 remarking rather crossly, "Anyway, I can't see 
 what's the good of railing at them." 
 
 "I'm not railing at them. I only say they are 
 less intelligent than your Monarchist and Catholic 
 electors who worked for you with the good Fathers. 
 Well, your interest as well as your duty is to work
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 251 
 
 for them, first of all because they think as you do, 
 and also because you don't hoodwink the good 
 Fathers, while one does hoodwink fools." 
 
 "That's a mistake, a profound mistake I" cried 
 Joseph Lacrisse. "Anyone can see, my dear fellow, 
 that you don't know the electors. But I know them ! 
 Fools are not more easily hoodwinked than others. 
 They delude themselves, it's true, and they delude 
 themselves at every moment; but one doesn't hood- 
 wink them." 
 
 "Yes, yes, one does, only one must know how 
 to set about it." 
 
 "Don't you believe it I" replied Lacrisse, with 
 sincerity. Then, on second thoughts, "Anyhow, I 
 don't want to hoodwink them." 
 
 "Who's asking you to? You must satisfy them. 
 And you can do that easily enough. You don't see 
 enough of Father Adeodat. He's a good adviser, 
 and so moderate ! He will tell you, with his shrewd 
 smile, his hands tucked into his sleeves, 'Keep your 
 majority. Content them. We shall not take offence 
 at an occasional vote on the indefeasibility of the 
 rights of man and the citizen, or even against the 
 clergy thrusting themselves into the Government. 
 At public meetings think of your Republican electors, 
 and think of us in the Committees. It is there, in 
 peace and silence, that good work is done. That 
 the greater part of the Council occasionally shows
 
 252 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 itself to be anti-clerical is an evil that we can bear 
 with patience. But it is important that the large 
 Committees should be profoundly religious. They 
 will be more powerful than the Council itself; be- 
 cause an active compact minority is always worth 
 more than a lifeless, confused majority." 
 
 "That, my dear Lacrisse, is what Father Adeodat 
 will tell you. He is admirably patient and serene. 
 When our friends come and tell him with a shudder : 
 'Oh, Father, what fresh abominations the Free- 
 masons are preparing! Compulsory University 
 training for office; Article 7; the law relating to 
 associations ! Horrible !' the good Father smiles 
 and says nothing. He says nothing, but this is 
 what he thinks: 'We've been through worse than 
 this. We went through '89 and '93, the suppression 
 of religious communities and the sale of Church 
 property. And does anyone imagine that in former 
 days, under the most Christian Monarchy, we kept 
 or increased our property without effort or struggle ? 
 If so, they know very little of French history. Our 
 rich abbeys, our towns and villages, our serfs, our 
 meadows and mills, our woods and our ponds, our 
 justice and our jurisdiction powerful enemies, lords, 
 bishops and kings were incessantly striving to dis- 
 possess us of them. We had to defend by force or 
 before the courts a field or a road one day, the next 
 a castle or a gibbet. To preserve our riches from
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 253 
 
 the cupidity of secular power we had continually to 
 produce those ancient charters of Clotaire and 
 Dagobert, which the impious knowledge taught in 
 the Government schools to-day calls forgeries. We 
 pleaded for ten centuries against the king's servants. 
 We have only been pleading thirty years against the 
 justice of the Republic. And the people think we 
 are growing weary I No, we are neither frightened 
 nor discouraged. We have money and property. 
 It is the inheritance of the poor. To keep and 
 multiply it we count on two aids that will not fail 
 us: the protection of God and the impotence of 
 Parliament." 
 
 "Such are the thoughts which take shape be- 
 neath the shining pate of Father Adeodat. Lacrisse, 
 you were Father Adeodat' s candidate; you are his 
 chosen one. Go and see him. He is a great poli- 
 tician and will give you good advice. He will teach 
 you how to satisfy the pork-butcher who is a Repub- 
 lican and how to charm the umbrella-maker who is 
 a Freethinker. Go and see Father Adeodat, see 
 him again and again." 
 
 "I have spoken with him several times," said 
 Lacrisse. "He is certainly very clever. These 
 good Fathers have grown rich with surprising rapid- 
 ity. They do a great deal of good in the ward." 
 
 "A great deal of good," repeated Henri Leon. 
 "The whole of the enormous quadrilateral between
 
 254 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 the Rue des Grandes-ficuries, the riding-school 
 Baron Golsberg's hotel and the outer boulevard be- 
 longs to them. They are working patiently at a 
 gigantic scheme. They have undertaken to erect, 
 in the heart of Paris, in your ward, my dear fellow, 
 another Lourdes, an immense basilica which will 
 draw millions of pilgrims yearly. In the mean- 
 while they are covering their huge holdings with 
 house-property." 
 
 "I know that," said Lacrisse. 
 
 "I know it too," put in Fremont. "I know their 
 architect, a man called Florimond, an extraordinary 
 fellow. You know the good Fathers are organizing 
 pilgrimages in France and abroad. Florimond, 
 with his long hair and flowing beard, accompanies 
 the pilgrims on their visits to the cathedrals. He's 
 got the head of a master-mason of the thirteenth 
 century. He gazes at the spires and belfries with 
 ecstatic eyes. He explains arches in tierce-point and 
 Christian symbolism to the ladies. He shows them 
 Mary, the flower of the tree of Jesse, at the heart 
 of the great rose windows. Tearfully, with sighs 
 and prayers, he calculates the resistance of the walls. 
 At the table d'hote, where monks and pilgrims sit 
 together, his face and hands, still grey with the 
 dust of the old stones which he has embraced, bear 
 witness to the faith of the Catholic artisan. He 
 tells them his dream: 'That I, a humble workman,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 255 
 
 may bring my stone to the building of the new 
 sanctuary that will last as long as the world.' Then 
 he goes back to Paris and builds mean houses, tene- 
 ment houses, with bad mortar and hollow bricks 
 laid on edge, miserable buildings that won't last 
 twenty years." 
 
 "But," said Leon, "they are not required to last 
 twenty years. They are the houses of the Grandes- 
 ficuries of which I was speaking just now, and will 
 one day give place to the great basilica of St. 
 Anthony and its dependencies, a whole religious city 
 that will spring up in the next fifteen years. Before 
 fifteen years have elapsed the good Fathers will own 
 the whole quarter of Paris that has elected our 
 friend Lacrisse." 
 
 Madame de Bonmont rose, taking the Comte 
 Davant's arm. 
 
 "You understand, I don't like parting with my 
 things. Articles loaned run risks. It makes one so 
 anxious. But if it is in the national interest the 
 country before all. You and Monsieur Fremont 
 will choose what should be exhibited." 
 
 "All the same," said Jacques de Cadde, as they 
 left the table, "you are wrong, Dellion, not to try 
 Father Francois' expedient." 
 
 Coffee was served in the small drawing-room. 
 
 Jambe-d'Argent, the Chouan singer, sat down at 
 the piano. He had just added to his repertoire a
 
 256 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 few Royalist songs dating from the Restoration, 
 which he thought would make a hit in fashionable 
 drawing-rooms. He sang to the tune of La Senti- 
 nelle : 
 
 "Au champ d'honneur frappe d'un coup mortal, 
 Le preux Bayard, dans 1'ardeur qui 1'enflamme, 
 Fier de perir pour le sol paternel, 
 Avec ivresse exhalait sa grande ame: 
 
 Ah! sans regret je puis mourir, 
 Mon sort, dit-il, sera digne d'envie, 
 
 Puisque jusqu'au dernier soupir, 
 
 Sans reproche j'ai pu servir 
 
 Mon roi, ma belle et ma patrie." 
 
 Chassons des Aigues, the President of the 
 Nationalist Committee of Action, went up to Joseph 
 Lacrisse. 
 
 "Come now, my dear Councillor, are we really 
 doing anything on the fourteenth of July?" 
 
 "The Council," replied Lacrisse gravely, "can- 
 not organize any demonstration of opinion. That 
 is not within its province, but if spontaneous 
 demonstrations occur " 
 
 "Time passes and the danger increases," replied 
 Chassons des Aigues, who was expecting to be ex- 
 pelled from his Club, and against whom a charge of 
 swindling had been lodged with a magistrate. "We 
 must act." 
 
 "Don't get excited," said Lacrisse. "We have 
 the men and we have the money."
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 257 
 
 "We have the money," repeated Chassons des 
 Aigues thoughtfully. 
 
 "With men and money one wins elections," con- 
 tinued Lacrisse. "In twenty months we come into 
 power, and we shall remain in power for twenty 
 years." 
 
 "Yes, but until then " sighed Chassons des 
 Aigues, whose pensive eyes gazed anxiously into the 
 vague future. 
 
 "Until then," replied Lacrisse, "we shall canvass 
 the provinces. We have begun already." 
 
 "It would be better to bring things to a head at 
 once," declared Chassons des Aigues in accents of 
 deep conviction. "We cannot allow this treacherous 
 Government time to disorganize the Army and 
 paralyse the national defence." 
 
 "That is obvious," said Jacques de Cadde. "Now, 
 follow my reasoning carefully. Our cry is 'Long 
 live the Army!' " 
 
 "Rather !" said young Dellion. 
 
 "Let me speak. Our cry is 'Long live the Army I' 
 It is our rallying cry. If the Government begins to 
 replace the Nationalist generals by Republicans, we 
 shall no longer be able to shout 'Long live the 
 Army!'" 
 
 "Why?" asked young Dellion. 
 
 "Because then we should be shouting 'Vive la 
 Republique/' That's plain enough."
 
 258 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "There is no fear of that," said Joseph Lacrisse. 
 "The spirit among the officers is excellent. If the 
 Ministry of Treason succeeds in placing one Repub- 
 lican out of ten in the high command, it will be the 
 end of all things." 
 
 "That will be unpleasant," said Jacques de Cadde, 
 "for then we shall be forced to cry 'Hurrah for 
 nine-tenths of the Army!' And that's too long for 
 a slogan." 
 
 "Be easy!" said Lacrisse. "When we shout 
 'Hurrah for the Army!' everybody knows that we 
 mean 'Hurrah for Mercier !' ' 
 
 Jambe-d' Argent, at the piano, sang: 
 
 "ViveleRoi! Vive le Roi! 
 De nos vieux marins c'est 1'usage, 
 Aucun d'eux ne pensait a soi, 
 Tout en succombant au naufrage, 
 
 Chacun criait avec courage : 
 
 ViveleRoi!" 
 
 "All the same," said Chassons des Aigues, "the 
 fourteenth of July is a good day to begin the row. 
 There will be a crowd in the streets, an electrified 
 crowd, returning from the review, and cheering the 
 regiments as they pass ! With method, one could do 
 a great deal on that day, we could stir the inarticu- 
 late masses." 
 
 "You are wrong," said Henri Leon. "You don't 
 understand the psychology of crowds. The good 
 Nationalist returning from the review has a baby in
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 259 
 
 his arms, and is dragging another brat by the hand. 
 His wife is with him, carrying wine, bread and ham 
 in a basket. You try to stir up a man with his two 
 kids and his wife carrying the family lunch! And 
 then, don't you see, the masses are inspired by very 
 simple associations of ideas. You won't get them to 
 riot on a holiday. To crowds, the strings of lamps 
 and the Bengal lights suggest cheerful and pacific 
 ideas. They see a square of Chinese lanterns in 
 front of the cafes, and a gallery decked with bunting 
 for the musicians, and all they think about is dancing. 
 If you want to see riots in the streets you must 
 choose the psychological moment." 
 
 "I don't understand," said Jacques de Cadde. 
 
 "Well, you must try to understand," said 
 Henri Leon. 
 
 "Do you think I'm a blockhead?" 
 
 "What an idea!" 
 
 "You can say it if you think so ; you won't annoy 
 me. I don't pretend to be an intellectual. Besides, 
 I've noticed that the clever men fight against our 
 ideas and beliefs, that they want to destroy all that 
 we cherish. So I should be exceedingly sorry to be 
 what is called a clever man. I'd rather be a fool and 
 think what I think and believe what I believe." 
 
 "And you are quite right," said Leon. "We have 
 only to remain what we are. And if we are not fools 
 we must behave as if we are. It is folly that succeeds
 
 2 6o MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 best in this world. The clever men are the fools. 
 They don't get anywhere." 
 
 "What you say is very true," cried Jacques 
 de Cadde. 
 
 Jambe-d' Argent sang: 
 
 "Vive le Roi! ce cri de ralliement 
 Des vrais Frangais est le seul qui soit digne. 
 
 Vive le Roi! de chaque regiment 
 Que ces trois mots soient la seule consigne." 
 
 "All the same," said Chassons des Aigues, "you 
 are wrong, Lacrisse, to reject revolutionary meas- 
 ures; they are the best." 
 
 "Children I" said Henri Leon. "We have only 
 one means of action, one only, but it is certain, 
 powerful and efficacious. It is the Affair. The 
 Affair gave us birth ; we Nationalists must not forget 
 that. We have grown and prospered through the 
 Affair. It alone has fed us and feeds us still. 
 Thence comes our food and our drink; thence we 
 derive the staff of our being. If, uprooted from the 
 soil, it withers and dies, we shall languish and fade 
 out of existence. 
 
 "We can pretend to uproot it, but in reality we 
 shall cherish it carefully, nourish it and water it. 
 The public is an ass ; moreover, it is disposed in our 
 favour. When it sees us digging and scraping and 
 hoeing round the plant it will think we are doing our 
 best to uproot it completely, and it will love and
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 261 
 
 bless us for our zeal. It will never dream that we 
 may be lovingly cultivating it. It has flowered anew 
 in the very middle of the Exhibition, and this simple- 
 minded people does not see that it is our care that 
 has achieved this result." 
 Jambe-d' Argent sang: 
 
 "Puisqu'ici notre general 
 Du plaisir nous donn' le signal, 
 Mes amis, poussons a la vente; 
 Si nous voulons bien le r'mercier, 
 Chantons, soldat, comme officier: 
 
 Moi, 
 Jarnigoi ! 
 
 Je suis soldat du Roi. 
 J'm'en pique, j'm'en flatte et j'm'en vante." 
 
 "That's a very pretty song," murmured the 
 Baronne, with half-closed eyes. 
 
 "Yes," said Jambe-d'Argent, shaking back his 
 rough mane, "it's called Cadet-Buteux enregimente, 
 ou le Soldat du Roi. It's a little masterpiece. It was 
 a bright idea of mine to unearth some of these old 
 Royalist songs of the Restoration. 
 
 "Moi, 
 Jarnigoi ! 
 Je suis soldat du Roi." 
 
 Then, suddenly bringing down his huge hand on 
 the tail-piece of the piano, where he had laid his 
 chaplet and his medals, he exclaimed: 
 
 "Norn de Dieuf Lacrisse, don't touch my rosary. 
 It has been blessed by our Holy Father the Pope I"
 
 262 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "All the same," said Chassons des Aigues, "we 
 ought to have a manifestation in the streets. The 
 streets are ours, and the people ought to know it. 
 Let's go to Longchamps on the I4th." 
 
 "I'm on," said Jacques de Cadde. 
 
 "So am I," cried Dellion. 
 
 "Your manifestations are idiotic," said the little 
 Baron, who until then had been silent. He was rich 
 enough to refrain from belonging to any political 
 party. "Nationalism is beginning to bore me," he 
 added. 
 
 "Ernest!" said the Baronne with the gentle 
 severity of a mother. 
 
 "It's true," went on Ernest, "your manifestations 
 bore me to death." 
 
 Young Dellion, who owed him money, and 
 Chassons des Aigues, who wanted to borrow some, 
 carefully avoided any direct reply. Chassons tried 
 to smile, as though charmed by his wife, and Dellion 
 half assented. 
 
 "I don't deny it, but what doesn't bore one to 
 death?" 
 
 This inspired Ernest with profound reflections, 
 and after a moment's silence he said, with a genuine 
 accent of sincerity: 
 
 "You are right, everything bores one." And he 
 continued, thoughtfully: "Take motor-cars, for 
 instance. They break down just when you don't
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 263 
 
 want them to. Not that one minds being late, for 
 all the fun one gets where one is going; but I was 
 hung up five hours the other day between Marville 
 and Boulay. Do you know that part of the 
 country? It is just before you get to Dreux. Not 
 a house, not a tree, not a dip in the ground to be 
 seen ; nothing but flat, yellow, open country all round, 
 with a silly-looking sky stuck on top of it all like a 
 bell-glass. One grows old in such localities. Never 
 mind, I'm going to try a different make, seventy 
 kilometres an hour, and runs as smoothly. . . . 
 Will you come with me, Dellion? I'm starting 
 to-night."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 HE Trublions," said Monsieur 
 Bergeret, "fill me with the keenest 
 interest, so it was not without 
 pleasure that I discovered in the 
 valuable book of Nicole Langelier of 
 Paris a second chapter dealing with these little 
 creatures. Do you remember the first, Monsieur 
 Goubin?" 
 
 Monsieur Goubin replied that he knew it by 
 heart. 
 
 "I congratulate you," replied Monsieur Bergeret, 
 "for it is a perfect breviary. I will now read you 
 the second chapter, which you will like as well as 
 the first." 
 
 And the master read as follows : 
 
 "Of the hurly-burly and the great din raised by 
 the Trublions and of a beauteous speech which Robin 
 Honeyman made to them. 
 
 "In those days the Trublions made a great din 
 in the town, city and university, each one of them 
 smiting with an iron spoon upon a 'trublio/ that is 
 to say, an iron pot or saucepan, and making a right 
 
 264
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 265 
 
 tuneful noise. And went about shrieking, 'Death to 
 traitors and godmothers !' They likewise hanged 
 upon the walls and in secret places and privy cham- 
 bers beauteous little scutcheons bearing such devices 
 as 'Death to the baptized Jews! Buy neither of 
 Jews nor of Lombards ! Long life to Tintinnabule !' 
 and armed themselves with firearms and swords, for 
 they were of noble lineage. Nevertheless did they 
 receive Martin Baton into their company, and were 
 such excellent good princes wtthal'that they smote 
 with their fists and disdained not the sports of 
 bondsmen. 
 
 "And all their converse was of hewing and split- 
 ting in twain, and they said in their language and 
 idiom, which was most meet and congruous and cor- 
 responsive to their manner of thinking, that it was 
 their purpose to brain the folk, which is properly to 
 draw forth the brain from the brain-pan wherein 
 it doth lie by the order and disposition of nature. 
 And they did always as they had said, always and 
 whenever there was occasion. And being but simple 
 souls they thought themselves to be virtuous men, 
 and that apart from them there were none righteous, 
 but all evil, which was a marvellously clear ordi- 
 nance, a perfect distinction and a fair order of battle. 
 
 "And they had among them many beauteous and 
 most gracious ladies in sumptuous apparel, the which 
 very graciously and without blandishments and wan- 
 tonness did incite the aforesaid gallant Trublions to 
 belabour, break asunder, overthrow, transpierce and 
 discomfort all who did not trublion. 
 
 "Be not amazed but recognize herein the natural
 
 266 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 inclination of fair ladies to cruelty and violence and 
 the admiration of high courage and warlike valour 
 as was seen aforetime in the ancient histories, in 
 which it is related that the god Mars was beloved of 
 Venus and of goddesses and mortals in great store, 
 and that, contrariwise, Apollo, although a blithe- 
 some player upon the viol, received naught but the 
 disdain of nymphs and chamber-maids. 
 
 "And there was not held in the city any conven- 
 ticle nor procession of the Trublions, nor feast nor 
 burying, but that a poor man or twain or more was 
 belaboured by them, and left half or three parts 
 dead, yea, wholly dead upon the road, which is a 
 most marvellous thing. For it was the custom that 
 whenever the Trublions passed by they belaboured 
 that man which did refuse to 'trublion,' and after- 
 wards did pitifully bear him upon a bier unto the 
 apothecary, and for this reason or for another were 
 the apothecaries of the city upon the side of the 
 Trublions. 
 
 "In these days there was a great fair held at 
 Paris in France, more spacious and greater than 
 were ever the fairs of Aix-la-Chapelle, or Frankfort, 
 or the Lendit, or the great fair of Beaucaire. The 
 said fair of Paris was so copious and abundant in 
 merchandise and works of art and gentle inventions 
 that a worthy man named Comely, who had seen 
 much and was no homestayer, was wont to say that 
 at the sight, practice and contemplation of the same 
 he did lose the care for his eternal salvation and 
 even the desire for meat and drink. The stranger 
 peoples crowded into the city of the Parisians for
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 267 
 
 to take their pleasure withal and to spend their gold. 
 Kings and princes came at will, causing both men 
 and women to wag their heads and say, 'This is a 
 great honour.' 
 
 "As for the merchants, from the greatest to the 
 least, from All-profit to Earn-little, and the men of 
 trades and industries, they understood right well 
 how to sell much merchandise to the strangers which 
 had come to their city for the fair. Journeymen 
 and beggars unfolded their packs, the keepers of 
 eating-houses and ale-houses set out their tables, and 
 the whole city from end to end was in truth an 
 abundant market-place and a joyous refectory. 
 
 "It must also be said that the aforesaid mer- 
 chants, not all, but the greater number, loved the 
 Trublions, whom they admired for their great power 
 of voice and their many antics; yea, there were none, 
 even unto the Jewish merchants and usurers, who 
 did not look upon them with respect and an exceed- 
 ing humble desire not to be ill-treated of them. 
 
 "Thus did the common people and the merchants 
 love the Trublions, but thereto they naturally loved 
 their merchandise and means of livelihood, and were 
 thereby cast into great fear lest by lusty sallies, 
 sudden breaking forth, kicks, blows, noise and trub- 
 lionage, they should overturn their stalls and booths 
 throughout all the four quarters, gardens and ram- 
 parts of the city, and lest the said Trublions, by 
 furious and speedy slaughter , might affright the 
 stranger peoples and cause them to flee the city with 
 their pouches yet full. Truth to tell this danger was 
 not great. The Trublions did utter the most hor-
 
 268 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 rible and terrible threats, also they slew the folk in 
 small numbers, one, two, or three at one time, as has 
 been said, and people of the city: never did they 
 attack Englishmen, nor Germans, nor other peoples, 
 but always their own countrymen. They killed in 
 one place, and the city was great, and there they 
 hardly appeared. And it seemed that their love for 
 these crimes did but increase, and likewise their 
 desire to overthrow yet more. It seemed not meet 
 or seemly that, in this great fair of the world and 
 great brotherhood, the Trublions should appear 
 gnashing their teeth, rolling their fiery eyes, clench- 
 ing their fists, throwing their legs abroad, yelping 
 like mad dogs with horrible howlings, so that the 
 Parisians were in great fear lest the Trublions should 
 perform at an unseasonable time that which they 
 might perform without let or hindrance after the 
 festival and the trading, to wit, the slaughter here 
 and there of a poor devil or so. 
 
 "Then began the citizens to say that they must 
 have peace among themselves, and the public order 
 was given forth that there should be peace through- 
 out the city, to which the Trublions hearkened with 
 but one ear and made reply: 'Yea, but to live with- 
 out discomforting an enemy or even only a stranger, 
 is that content? If we leave the Jews unbaited we 
 shall not win to Paradise. Are we to fold our arms? 
 God hath said that we must labour that we may 
 live.' And pondering in their minds the universal 
 feeling and common purpose they were greatly 
 perplexed. 
 
 "Then did an ancient Trublion, hight Robin
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 269 
 
 Honeyman, gather together the chiefs of the 
 Trublions, being esteemed, venerated and well- 
 accepted of them, for they knew him to be expert in 
 deception and profuse in cunning ruses and guileful 
 devices. Opening his mouth, which was fashioned 
 like that of some ancient pike-fish the which hath 
 lost some teeth but hath yet teeth enough to bite the 
 little fishes, he said very sweetly: 
 
 " 'Hearken, friends ! Give ear, all ! We be 
 honest folk and good fellows, we be not mad. We 
 ask for peace, we desire peace. Peace is sweet, peace 
 is a precious ointment; peace is an electuary of 
 Hippocrates, an Apollonian dittany. It is a fair 
 medicinal infusion, it is flower of the lime, mallow 
 and marshmallow. It is sugar and honey. Honey 
 say I? Am I not Robin Honeyman? I do feed on 
 honey. Let the golden age return and I will e'en 
 lick the honey from the trunks of the ancient oak- 
 trees. I speak sooth. I desire peace ; ye desire peace.' 
 
 "Hearing such words from Robin Honeyman, 
 then did the Trublions begin to make churlish 
 grimaces and whispered among themselves: 'Is this 
 Robin Honeyman our friend that speaketh in this 
 wise? He loves us no longer, he would deal treach- 
 erously with us. He seeketh to do us a hurt; or 
 maybe his wits have gone wool-gathering.' And the 
 most trublioniacal among them said: 'What saith 
 this old wheezer? Doth he think we shall put away 
 our staves, cudgels, hammers, and mallets and the 
 beauteous little fire-sticks in our pockets? What are 
 we in time of peace? Naught. We are worth noth- 
 ing but by reason of the blows we deal. Would he
 
 270 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 have us smite no more? Would he have us trublion 
 no more?' And a great clamour and murmuring 
 arose in the assembly, and the council chamber of 
 the Trublions was an angry sea. 
 
 "Then did the good Robin Honeyman spread 
 forth his little yellow hands above the wagging 
 heads, like unto a Neptune calming the tempest, and 
 when he had restored the Trublion ocean to its 
 serene and tranquil estate, or well-nigh so, he spoke 
 most courteously: 
 
 " 'I am your friend, my sweetings, and your good 
 counsellor. Hearken what I would say before 
 ye wax angry. When I say we wish for peace it is 
 plain that I speak of the pacification of our enemies, 
 adversaries, and all contentious persons who think, 
 speak and act contrariwise unto us. It is visible and 
 apparent that I mean the pacification of all save 
 ourselves; of the police and magistrates opposed to 
 us. Pacification of the civil officers of the peace 
 invested with the power and office to impeach, 
 restrain, repress and contain Trublionage. Pacifica- 
 tion of that justice and law by which we be menaced. 
 We desire that these be plunged into a profound and 
 deadly peace. We desire for all that are not Trub- 
 lions the gulf and abyss of pacification and deadly 
 repose. Requiem aternam dona eis, Domine. This 
 is our desire. We do not demand our own pacifica- 
 tion. We are not pacified. When we sing 
 Requiescat, is it for ourselves? We do not desire to 
 sleep. When we are dead it is for a long time. Nos 
 qui vivimus, we bestow peace on others, not in this 
 world but in the next; this is the more certain. I
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 271 
 
 desire peace. Am I then a simple fellow? Know 
 ye not Robin Honeyman? My sweetings, I carry 
 more than one trick in my juggler's pocket. My 
 lambkins, are you then less wary than the urchins 
 and schoolboys that sport together, who, playing 
 together, when the one desireth to gain the advan- 
 tage over the other, straightway he crieth "Pax!" 
 which is truce and suspension of hostilities, and 
 having thus deprived him of all defiance and defence 
 he doth easily defeat him and leave him abashed. 
 
 "Thus do I Robin Honeyman, King's Attorney. 
 When as doth often hap I have quiet and cunning 
 enemies in the council chamber, I speak to them in 
 this wise: "Peace, peace, peace, gentlemen! Pax 
 vobiscum!" and very softly slip a pot of gunpowder 
 and old nails beneath the bench whereon they sit, 
 with a fair wick of which I hold the end. Then, 
 while I feign a peaceful sleep, I light the wick at a 
 seasonable moment, and if they do not all leap into 
 the air the fault is none of my making. Doubtless 
 the powder was discovered, and I await the next 
 good occasion. 
 
 " 'My good friends, follow the example and 
 behold a model in your chiefs, masters and rulers. 
 See ye not that Tintinnabule remaineth still and doth 
 not for the present tintinnabulate ? He awaits a fit 
 and favourable occasion. Is he then pacified? You 
 do not think so. And the young Trublio, doth he 
 desire peace? Nay, he likewise waiteth. Hearken 
 diligently. It is good, profitable and necessary that 
 you appear to desire a favourable, kind, assuaging 
 and purging pacification. What doth it cost you?
 
 272 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Naught. And you shall derive therefrom great 
 profit. You that are not pacified shall appear paci- 
 fied, and the other folk (those that do not trublion), 
 who are in truth pacified, shall appear unpacified, 
 corrupted, wayward, furious, wholly opposed and 
 contrary to a gracious peace, so covetable, pleasant 
 and desirable. Thus it shall be made manifest that 
 you have great zeal and love for the public peace 
 and welfare, and also that, on the contrary, your 
 opponents have a malign desire to trouble and de- 
 stroy the city and all that lies about it. And say not 
 that this is difficult. It will be as you desire and you 
 will make the simple folk believe that you desire 
 peace. They will believe what you tell them, for 
 they hearken unto you. If you say "I desire peace" 
 they will straightway believe that you do truly desire 
 it. Say it then to give them pleasure, for 'twill cost 
 you naught. 
 
 " 'Nevertheless, for your enemies and adversaries 
 which at first so piteously bleated "Peace 1 Peace I" 
 (for they be as gentle as sheep, which cannot be 
 gainsaid) it shall be lawful for you to brain them 
 and to say: "They desired not peace therefore we 
 have overthrown them. We do desire peace and will 
 bring the same to pass when we are your ministers." 
 
 " 'It is worthy of all praise pacifically to wage 
 war. Cry "Peace, Peace !" and smite the while. 
 This is Christian-like. "Peace, Peace I This man 
 is dead I Peace, Peace I I have slain three men !" 
 The intention was pacific and you will be judged 
 according to your intention. Go then, cry 
 "Peace!" and smite stoutly. The bells of the
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 273 
 
 monasteries will ring a merry peal for you that love 
 peace, and the praise of the peaceful citizens will 
 follow you. They seeing your victims with gaping 
 bellies lying upon the highways will say: "That is 
 well done. It is for peace' sake. Long live peace I 
 Without peace no man can live at ease "
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 ADAME DE BONMONT knew 
 the Exhibition well, having dined 
 there on several occasions. That 
 evening she was dining at the "Belle 
 Chocolatiere" a Swiss restaurant 
 situated, as every one knows, on the bank of the 
 Seine together with the militant elite of National- 
 ism, Joseph Lacrisse, Henri Leon, Gustave Dellion, 
 Jacques de Cadde, Hugues Chassons des Aigues and 
 Madame de Gromance, who, as Henri Leon 
 remarked, was very like the pretty servant in 
 Liotard's pastel, a greatly enlarged copy of which 
 served as a sign for the restaurant. Madame de 
 Bonmont was gentle and tender-hearted. It was 
 love, relentless love that had placed her among these 
 warriors, and, like the Antigone of Sophocles, she 
 brought among them a soul fashioned not for hatred 
 but for sympathy. She pitied the victims. Jamont 
 seemed to her the most pathetic of these, and the 
 premature retirement of this general moved her to 
 tears. She thought of embroidering a cushion for 
 him, on which he could lay his glorious head. She 
 
 274
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 27$ 
 
 loved making such presents, the value of which con- 
 sisted solely in the feeling that prompted them. Her 
 love, strengthened by admiration, for Municipal 
 Councillor Lacrisse, left her a good deal of leisure, 
 which she employed in weeping over the misfortunes 
 of the Army and in eating sweets. She was fast 
 putting on flesh and was becoming quite an imposing 
 figure. 
 
 The thoughts of young Madame de Gromance 
 were of a less generous kind. She had loved and 
 deceived Gustave Dellion, and then she had loved 
 him no longer. But as he removed her light pink- 
 flowered cloak under the respectfully-lowered eyes 
 of the head-waiter on the terrace of the "Belle 
 Chocolatiere," Gustave muttered in her ears words 
 that sounded strangely like "jade" and "beastly 
 strumpet." She did not allow the least distress to 
 appear on her face, but inwardly she thought him 
 rather sweet, and felt that she was about to love 
 him again. And Gustave thoughtfully realized that 
 for the first time in his life he had spoken like a 
 lover. He sat down solemnly beside Clotilde. 
 
 The dinner, which was the last of the season, was 
 by no means a merry one. The sadness of farewell 
 was felt and a certain Nationalist melancholy. 
 Doubtless they still hoped what am I saying? 
 they still cherished infinite hopes, but it is painful, 
 when one has everything, both men and money, to
 
 276 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 await the future, the dim, distant future, the realiza- 
 tion of long-cherished desires and urgent ambitions. 
 Joseph Lacrisse alone remained calm, thinking that 
 he had done enough for his King in being elected 
 municipal councillor by the Nationalist Republicans 
 of the Grandes-curies. 
 
 "Taking it altogether," he said, "everything went 
 very well at Longchamps on the I4th. The Army 
 was cheered. There were shouts of 'Hurrah for 
 Jamont ! Hurrah for Bougon I' There was a great 
 deal of enthusiasm." 
 
 "Doubtless, doubtless," said Henri Leon; "but 
 Loubet returned unmolested to the filysee, and the 
 day did not forward our affairs overmuch." 
 
 Hugues Chassons des Aigues, who had a fresh 
 scar on his nose which was of the big and royal 
 order frowned and said proudly: 
 
 "I can tell you things were hot at the Cascades. 
 When the Socialists cheered the Republic and the 
 Army " 
 
 "The police," put in Madame de Bonmont, 
 "ought not to allow things to be shouted." 
 
 "When the Socialists cheered the Republic and 
 the Army we replied, 'Long live the Army I Death 
 to the Jews !' The 'white carnations,' whom I had 
 hidden in the crowd, rallied to my cry. They 
 charged the 'red eglantines' under a hail of iron 
 chairs. They were magnificent. But it was no good,
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 277 
 
 the crowd would not respond. The Parisians had 
 come with their wives and children, with baskets 
 and string bags full of food, and the place swarmed 
 with country cousins come to see the Exhibition. 
 Old farmers with stiff legs who looked on with fishy 
 eyes, peasant women in shawls, looking as scared as 
 owls! How could we stir up a family party of 
 that sort?" 
 
 "Doubtless," said Lacrisse, "the moment was ill- 
 chosen. Besides, to a certain extent, we have to 
 respect the Exhibition truce." 
 
 "All the same," said Chassons des Aigues, "we 
 hit pretty hard at the Cascades. I gave Citizen 
 Bissolo a crack on the head that sent it down into 
 his hump. I saw him fall to the ground; he looked 
 just like a tortoise. Then, 'Hurrah for the Army! 
 Death to the Jews !' " 
 
 "Doubtless, doubtless," said Henri Leon 
 gravely. "But 'Hurrah for the Army!' and 'Death 
 to the Jews !' is a trifle subtle for crowds. It is if 
 I may say so too literary, too classical, and it is not 
 sufficiently revolutionary. 'Hurrah for the Army!' 
 It is fine, it is noble, it is proper, it is cold yes, it is 
 cold. Let me tell you, there is only one way to 
 excite a crowd, and that is by panic. Believe me, 
 the only way to get a mob of unarmed people on the 
 run is to put fear into their bellies. You should 
 have run, crying what shall I say? 'Save your-
 
 278 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 selves! Look out! You are betrayed! French- 
 men, you are betrayed !' If you had shouted that or 
 something like it, in a lugubrious voice, running 
 along the lawn, five hundred thousand people would 
 have run along with you, would have run quicker 
 than you, until they dropped. It would have been 
 terrible and magnificent. You would have been 
 knocked down and trampled to death, mashed to a 
 pulp, but you would have started the revolution." 
 
 "Do you really think so?" asked Jacques de 
 Cadde. 
 
 "I am certain of it," replied Henri Leon. 
 " 'Treachery!' that is the true cry of riot, the cry 
 that gives wings to the crowd and sets brave men 
 and cowards alike going at the same pace, fills a 
 hundred thousand hearts with one emotion and re- 
 stores the use of his legs to the paralytic. Ah, my 
 dear Chassons, if you had shouted at Longchamps 
 'We are betrayed!' you would have seen your old 
 screech-owl with her basket of hard-boiled eggs and 
 her umbrella and your old fellow with the stiff legs 
 running like hares." 
 
 "Running where?" asked Lacrisse. 
 
 "I don't know. Who knows where a panic- 
 stricken crowd runs to? They don't know them- 
 selves. But what does that matter? They've been 
 set going, and that's enough. You can't cause riots 
 with method. To occupy strategical points was well
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 279 
 
 enough in the far-off days of Barbes and Blanqui, 
 but to-day, what with the telegraph, telephone or 
 merely the police and their bicycles, any sort of con- 
 certed action is out of the question. Can you see 
 Jacques de Cadde occupying the police-station in the 
 Rue de Crenelle, for instance? No. All that is 
 possible nowadays is a vague, immense, tumultuous 
 demonstration. And fear, unanimous, tragical fear 
 alone is capable of carrying away the enormous 
 human masses that frequent public fetes or open-air 
 shows. You ask me where the crowd of the I4th of 
 July would have run to, spurred on as by a big black 
 flag at the cries of 'Treachery! Treachery! The 
 foreigner! Treachery!' Where would they have 
 run to? Into the lake, I suppose." 
 
 "Into the lake," repeated Jacques de Cadde. 
 "Well, they would have been drowned, that's all." 
 
 "Well," returned Henri Leon, "would thirty 
 thousand drowned citizens have counted for noth- 
 ing? Would not the Ministry and the Government 
 have experienced serious difficulty and real danger in 
 the matter? Wouldn't that have been a good day's 
 work? Look here, you are no politicians. You 
 don't care a damn whether you overthrow the 
 Republic or not." 
 
 "You'll see that after the Exhibition," said young 
 Cadde with the simplicity of faith. "I myself 
 smashed one of them at Longchamps for a start."
 
 2 8o MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 "Ah, you smashed one of them, did you?" 
 asked young Dellion with interest. "What sort of 
 a specimen?" 
 
 "A mechanic. It would have been better if he had 
 been a Senator, of course; but in a crowd you are 
 more likely to chance on a workman." 
 
 "What was your mechanic doing?" asked Leon. 
 
 "He was shouting 'Hurrah for the Army!' so I 
 bashed him." 
 
 Thereupon, fired with generous emulation, young 
 Dellion told them that on hearing a Socialist-Drey- 
 fusard shout for Loubet, he had bashed his jaw 
 for him. 
 
 "All goes well!" said Jacques de Cadde. 
 
 "There are some things that might go better," 
 said Hugues Chassons des Aigues. "Don't let us be 
 too pleased with ourselves. On July the I4th, 
 Loubet, Waldeck, Millerand and Andre each re- 
 turned home safe and sound. They would not have 
 returned had my advice been heeded. But no one 
 will act, we are lacking in energy." 
 
 Joseph Lacrisse answered gravely: 
 
 "No, no, we are not wanting in energy, but for 
 the moment there's nothing to be done. After the 
 Exhibition we shall enter upon a vigorous course of 
 action. It will be a favourable moment. After her 
 fete France will be suffering from a bad head and a 
 bad temper. There will be lock-outs and strikes.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 281 
 
 Nothing simpler than to provoke a Ministerial crisis, 
 even a Presidential crisis. Don't you agree with 
 me, Leon?" 
 
 "Doubtless, doubtless," replied Henri Leon. 
 "But we must not forget that in three months' time 
 we shall be a little less numerous and Loubet a little 
 less unpopular." 
 
 Jacques de Cadde, Chassons des Aigues, 
 Dellion, Lacrisse and all the Trublions tried to 
 drown with their protestations so dismal a predic- 
 tion, but in a very quiet voice Henri Leon proceeded : 
 
 "It is inevitable. Loubet will become less un- 
 popular daily. He was primarily disliked because of 
 the reports that we spread about him, but he will not 
 live up to all of them. He is not great enough to 
 equal the picture we drew of him, to the terror of 
 the crowd. We showed them a Loubet of a hundred 
 cubits' stature, protecting the thieves in Parliament 
 and destroying the Army. The reality will seem 
 much less terrible. They will see that he does not 
 always protect the thieves or disorganize the Army. 
 He will hold reviews. That will produce an impres- 
 sion. He will ride in a carriage. That is more dig- 
 nified than going on foot. He will bestow crosses 
 and an abundance of academic palms, and those who 
 receive the cross or the palms will refuse to believe 
 that he intends to betray France. He will make 
 tactful speeches; you may be sure of that; tactful
 
 282 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 because utterly inane. If he wants to be acclaimed 
 he has only to travel about. The country people 
 will cheer for the President as he passes, just as 
 though he were the kind-hearted tanner whose loss 
 we all deplore because he loved the Army. And if 
 the Russian alliance were pulled off the bare idea 
 of such a thing makes me shudder you would see 
 our Nationalist friends unharness his carriage and 
 drag it through the streets. I don't say he's a genius, 
 but he's not a bigger fool than the rest of us, and he 
 is trying to improve his position. That's only nat- 
 ural. We want to overthrow him and he is wearing 
 us out." 
 
 "I defy him to wear us out," cried young 
 Cadde. 
 
 "Time alone will suffice to wear us out," replied 
 Henri Leon. "How fine our Municipal Council was 
 on the evening of the poll that gave us the majority! 
 'Hurrah for the Army ! Death to the Jews !' yelled 
 the electors, drunk with joy, pride and love. And 
 the successful candidates, beaming, replied, 'Death 
 to the Jews! Hurrah for the Army!' But as the 
 new Council can neither free the sons of the electors 
 from military service nor distribute the money of the 
 rich Jews among the small shopkeepers nor even 
 spare the working-man the horrors of slack times, it 
 will betray vast hopes and become as odious as it was 
 once desirable. It will shortly run the risk of becom-
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 283 
 
 ing unpopular over questions of monopoly, gas, 
 water and omnibuses." 
 
 "You are wrong, my dear Leon," cried Joseph 
 Lacrisse. "There is nothing to fear with regard to 
 the renewal of monopolies. We say to the electors, 
 'We are giving you cheap gas,' and the electors will 
 not complain. The Municipal Council of Paris, 
 elected on an exclusively political programme, will 
 exercise a decisive influence on the political and na- 
 tional crises that will follow immediately after the 
 closing of the Exhibition." 
 
 "Yes, but in order to do that," said Chassons des 
 Aigues, "it will have to place itself at the head of the 
 revolutionary movement. If it is moderate, prudent, 
 conciliatory, considerate, all is lost. The Council 
 must realize that it has been elected to overthrow 
 and smash Parliamentarianism." 
 
 "Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet I" cried 
 Jacques de Cadde. 
 
 "Little must be said, but that little to the 
 point," continued Chassons des Aigues. 
 
 "Blow the trumpet ! Blow the trumpet !" 
 
 Chassons des Aigues disdained the interruption. 
 
 "A pledge, a simple pledge should be expressed 
 from time to time. Such as : 'Impeachment of the 
 Ministers ' " 
 
 "Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet!" cried 
 young Cadde louder than ever.
 
 284 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 
 
 Chassons des Aigues tried to make him listen 
 to reason. 
 
 "I am not opposed on principle to our friends 
 sounding the hallali of the parliamentarians, but in 
 public gatherings the trumpet is the supreme argu- 
 ment of the minority. We must keep it for the 
 Luxembourg and Palais Bourbon. I should like to 
 point out, my dear fellow, that at the Hotel de Ville 
 we are in the majority." 
 
 This consideration did not move young Cadde, 
 who continued to vociferate : 
 
 "Blow the trumpet ! Blow the trumpet I Do you 
 know how to blow the trumpet, Lacrisse? If you 
 don't, I'll teach you ; it is quite essential for a munici- 
 pal councillor to know how to blow the trumpet." 
 
 "To resume," said Chassons des Aigues, as solemn 
 as a judge, "the first pledge of the Council should 
 be the impeachment of the Ministers ; the second, the 
 impeachment of the Senators ; and the third, the im- 
 peachment of the President of the Republic. After 
 a few resolutions of this description the Ministry 
 will proceed to the dissolution of the Council. The 
 Council resists, and makes a vehement appeal to 
 public opinion. Outraged Paris rises " 
 
 "Do you think so?" asked Henri Leon quietly. 
 "Do you really think, Chassons, that outraged Paris 
 will rise?" 
 
 "I do think so," replied Chassons des Aigues.
 
 MONSIEUR BERGERET IN PARIS 285 
 
 "I do not think so," said Henri Leon. "You 
 know Citizen Bissolo since it was you who nearly 
 brained him on the fourteenth of July at the review 
 I know him too. One night, on the boulevard, 
 during a demonstration following the election of the 
 deplorable Loubet, Citizen Bissolo came to me as 
 the most constant and most generous of his enemies. 
 We exchanged a few words. All our paid roughs 
 were shouting at the top of their voices. Shouts of 
 'Hurrah for the Army!' resounded from the Bastille 
 to the Madeleine. Smiling and amused, the 
 passers-by were on our side. Bissolo stretched out 
 his long hunchback's arm like a scythe in the direc- 
 tion of the crowd and remarked: 'I know the jade. 
 Mount her, and she'll break your back by suddenly 
 lying down when you aren't expecting it.' Those 
 were the words of Citizen Bissolo as we stood at the 
 corner of the Rue Drouot on the day when Paris 
 offered herself to us." 
 
 "But this Bissolo of yours is a rogue," cried 
 Joseph Lacrisse. "He insults the people." 
 
 "He is a prophet," replied Henri Leon. 
 
 Young Jacques de Cadde chanted, in his 
 thick voice : 
 
 "Blow the trumpet 1 It's the only way I" 
 
 THE END.
 
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