Part 7 (2/2)
EDMOND DANTeS, DEPUTY FROM Ma.r.s.eILLES.
Beauchamp, Lucien Debray and Chateau-Renaud were not the only persons puzzled with regard to the enigmatical M. Dantes; all Paris was more or less bothered about him; his entire career prior to his appearance at the capital as the Deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles seemed shrouded in impenetrable mystery, and this was the more galling to the curious Parisians as his wonderful oratorical powers and his intense republicanism rendered him the cynosure of all eyes and made him the sensation of the hour. The Government had inst.i.tuted investigations concerning him, but without result; even in Ma.r.s.eilles his antecedents were unknown; he had come there from the east utterly unheralded, attended only by a black servant, and bringing with him his son and daughter, but almost immediately he had plunged into politics, winning his way to the front with startling rapidity. From the first he had ardently espoused the cause of the working people, and such was his personal magnetism that he had made hosts of admirers, and had been chosen Deputy with hardly a dissenting voice. Some of the inhabitants of Ma.r.s.eilles, indeed, remembered a youthful sailor named Edmond Dantes, but they a.s.serted that he had been dead many years, and that the Deputy was unlike him in every particular.
As the young men pa.s.sed the Theatre Francais, on their way to the Chamber of Deputies, after a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit at Very's, their attention was attracted by a crowd gathered around an immense poster spread upon the bill-board. There seemed no little excitement among the throng, a large proportion of whom appeared to be artisans and laborers, and loud expressions of admiration, accompanied by animated gestures, were heard. Nor were there wanting also words of deep denunciation and of significant threatening.
”Down! down with the tyrants! Bread or blood! Wages for work! Food for the laborer!” and other cries of equally fearful significance were audible.
”Do you hear that, Beauchamp?” said Debray, quietly.
”Undoubtedly,” was the equally quiet reply.
”Those laborers have deserted the daily toil which would give them the bread they so fiercely demand, in order to discuss their imaginary misery, and denounce those who are richer than themselves.”
”But what brings them to the theatre at this hour?” asked Chateau-Renaud.
”The new play,” suggested Beauchamp.
”Ah! the new play. 'The Laborer of Lyons,' is it not?”
”Yes,” said Debray, ”and one of the most dangerous productions of the hour.”
”It is evidently from the pen of one unaccustomed to dramatic composition, yet familiar with stage effect,” added the journalist. ”And yet, without the least claptrap, with but little melodramatic power, against strong opposition and bitter prejudices, and without claqueurs, its own native force and the popularity of the principles it supports have carried it triumphantly through the ordeal of two representations.
It will, doubtless, have a long run, and its influence will be incalculable in the cause it advocates--the cause of human liberty and human right.”
”No doubt it will exert a most baneful influence,” bitterly rejoined Debray. ”Without containing a syllable to which the Ministry can object, at least sufficiently to warrant its suppression, it yet abounds with principles, sentiments and theories of the most incendiary description, well calculated to rouse the disaffection of the laboring cla.s.ses to frenzy. Its inevitable effect will be to give them a false and exaggerated idea of their wrongs and their rights, and to stimulate them to revolution. Oh! these men have much to answer for. They are drawing down an avalanche.”
”They are the champions of human liberty,” said Beauchamp, warmly, ”and will be blessed by posterity, if not by the men of the present generation.”
”Truce to politics, Messieurs!” cried the Deputy, observing that his friends were becoming excited. ”I had heard of this play and its powerful character. Who's the author, Beauchamp?”
”The production is attributed to M. Dantes, the Deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles, with what truth I know not; but he is fully capable of composing such a drama. To-morrow night, it is supposed, the author, whoever he may be, will be compelled by the people to appear and claim the laurels ready to be showered on him in such profusion. But it is nearly three o'clock,”
continued Beauchamp, ”and M. Dantes is expected to speak in the early part of the sitting.”
”To the Chamber, then,” said the others, and the trio mingled with the crowd hurrying in the same direction.
”What a glorious thing is popularity!” exclaimed the Count.
”What a glorious thing to be the champion of the people!” rejoined Beauchamp.
”And how glorious is that champion's glorious career!” cried the Secretary. ”Let the hydra alone. Like the antique G.o.d of mythology, it eats up its own children as soon as they get large enough to be eaten.
It is a fickle beast, and the idol of to-day it crushes to-morrow.”
The hall of the Chamber of Deputies was crowded when the three friends entered. Although the hour for the President to take the chair had not yet arrived, the benches were full, and the galleries, public and private, were overflowing. Strong agitation was visible among the Ministerial benches of the extreme left. The Premier himself was present, although his cold countenance, like the surface of a frozen lake, betrayed neither apprehension nor the reverse. Self-reliant, self-poised, calm, seemingly insensible to surrounding objects and events, this man of iron, with a heart of ice and a brain of fire, glanced quietly and fixedly around him, with his cold, dark eye, which, from time to time, rested on the Communist benches of the extreme right, unmoved by the stern glances hurled at him by his many fierce opponents and the almost tumultuous excitement by which they were agitated.
At length President Sauzet took the chair. The house came to order, and the sitting opened with the usual preliminary business. A large number of pet.i.tions from the workmen of Paris for employment by the Government were presented and referred, and one immense roll containing a hundred thousand names, which came from the manufacturing districts, was brought in on the shoulders of two men and placed in the area before the President's chair, escorted by a deputation from the artisans; it was received with an uproar of applause from the centre of the extreme right of the benches, and from the throngs of blouses in the galleries. The tumult having, at length, subsided, the order of the day was announced to be the discussion of the bill introduced by M. Dantes, having for its purpose the general amelioration of the condition of the industrial cla.s.ses in the Kingdom; and M. Dantes was himself announced to be the first on the list to occupy the tribune. A deep murmur of antic.i.p.ation ran around the vast hall at this announcement. The mult.i.tudes in the galleries leaned forward to gain a better view of this idol, and to catch every syllable that might fall from his lips; and every eye among the members was turned to the seat of M. Dantes, on the centre right of the benches.
<script>