Part 6 (1/2)
Having admired your talent, often so sublime, permit me to do homage to your delicacy and your integrity, which force me to remain always,
Your humble servant, O. d'Este M.
When Ernest de La Briere had held this letter in his hands for some little time he went to walk along the boulevards, tossed in mind like a tiny vessel by a tempest when the wind is blowing from all points of the compa.s.s. Most young men, specially true Parisians, would have settled the matter in a single phrase, ”The girl is a little hussy.” But for a youth whose soul was n.o.ble and true, this attempt to put him, as it were, upon his oath, this appeal to truth, had the power to awaken the three judges hidden in the conscience of every man. Honor, Truth, and Justice, getting on their feet, cried out in their several ways energetically.
”Ah, my dear Ernest,” said Truth, ”you never would have read that lesson to a rich heiress. No, my boy; you would have gone in hot haste to Havre to find out if the girl were handsome, and you would have been very unhappy indeed at her preference for genius; and if you could have tripped up your friend and supplanted him in her affections, Mademoiselle d'Este would have been a divinity.”
”What?” cried Justice, ”are you not always bemoaning yourselves, you penniless men of wit and capacity, that rich girls marry beings whom you wouldn't take as your servants? You rail against the materialism of the century which hastens to join wealth to wealth, and never marries some fine young man with brains and no money to a rich girl. What an outcry you make about it; and yet here is a young woman who revolts against that very spirit of the age, and behold! the poet replies with a blow at her heart!”
”Rich or poor, young or old, ugly or handsome, the girl is right; she has sense and judgment, she has tripped you over into the slough of self-interest and lets you know it,” cried Honor. ”She deserves an answer, a sincere and loyal and frank answer, and, above all, the honest expression of your thought. Examine yourself! sound your heart and purge it of its meannesses. What would Moliere's Alceste say?”
And La Briere, having started from the boulevard Poissoniere, walked so slowly, absorbed in these reflections, that he was more than an hour in reaching the boulevard des Capucines. Then he followed the quays, which led him to the Cour des Comptes, situated in that time close to the Saint-Chapelle. Instead of beginning on the accounts as he should have done, he remained at the mercy of his perplexities.
”One thing is evident,” he said to himself; ”she hasn't six millions; but that's not the point--”
Six days later, Modeste received the following letter:
Mademoiselle,--You are not a D'Este. The name is a feigned one to conceal your own. Do I owe the revelations which you solicit to a person who is untruthful about herself? Question for question: Are you of an ill.u.s.trious family? or a n.o.ble family? or a middle-cla.s.s family? Undoubtedly ethics and morality cannot change; they are one: but obligations vary in the different states of life. Just as the sun lights up a scene diversely and produces differences which we admire, so morality conforms social duty to rank, to position.
The peccadillo of a soldier is a crime in a general, and vice-versa. Observances are not alike in all cases. They are not the same for the gleaner in the field, for the girl who sews at fifteen sous a day, for the daughter of a petty shopkeeper, for the young bourgoise, for the child of a rich merchant, for the heiress of a n.o.ble family, for a daughter of the house of Este. A king must not stoop to pick up a piece of gold, but a laborer ought to retrace his steps to find ten sous; though both are equally bound to obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad-brimmed hat and plume, to flourish her whip, press the flanks of her barb, and ride like an amazon decked in gold lace, with a lackey behind her, into the presence of a poet and say: ”I love poetry; and I would fain expiate Leonora's cruelty to Ta.s.so!” but a daughter of the people would cover herself with ridicule by imitating her. To what cla.s.s do you belong? Answer sincerely, and I will answer the question you have put to me.
As I have not the honor of knowing you personally, and yet am bound to you, in a measure, by the ties of poetic communion, I am unwilling to offer any commonplace compliments. Perhaps you have already won a malicious victory by thus embarra.s.sing a maker of books.
The young man was certainly not wanting in the sort of shrewdness which is permissible to a man of honor. By return courier he received an answer:--
To Monsieur de Ca.n.a.lis,--You grow more and more sensible, my dear poet. My father is a count. The chief glory of our house was a cardinal, in the days when cardinals walked the earth by the side of kings. I am the last of our family, which ends in me; but I have the necessary quarterings to make my entry into any court or chapter-house in Europe. We are quite the equals of the Ca.n.a.lis.
You will be so kind as to excuse me from sending you our arms.
Endeavor to answer me as truthfully as I have now answered you. I await your response to know if I can then sign myself as I do now,
Your servant, O. d'Este M.
”The little mischief! how she abuses her privileges,” cried La Briere; ”but isn't she frank!”
No young man can be four years private secretary to a cabinet minister, and live in Paris and observe the carrying on of many intrigues, with perfect impunity; in fact, the purest soul is more or less intoxicated by the heady atmosphere of the imperial city. Happy in the thought that he was not Ca.n.a.lis, our young secretary engaged a place in the mail-coach for Havre, after writing a letter in which he announced that the promised answer would be sent a few days later,--excusing the delay on the ground of the importance of the confession and the pressure of his duties at the ministry.
He took care to get from the director-general of the post-office a note to the postmaster at Havre, requesting secrecy and attention to his wishes. Ernest was thus enabled to see Francoise Cochet when she came for the letters, and to follow her without exciting observation. Guided by her, he reached Ingouville and saw Modeste Mignon at the window of the Chalet.
”Well, Francoise?” he heard the young girl say, to which the maid responded,--
”Yes, mademoiselle, I have one.”
Struck by the girl's great beauty, Ernest retraced his steps and asked a man on the street the name of the owner of that magnificent estate.
”That?” said the man, nodding to the villa.
”Yes, my friend.”
”Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest s.h.i.+pping merchant in Havre, so rich he doesn't know what he is worth.”