Part 56 (1/2)
He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field.
Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:--
”Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room.
”Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous prompt.i.tude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815.
”One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage.
Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office.”
”ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default.
”Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared.”
And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared:
”Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director.”
”The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition.
The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Ma.s.sol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals.”
Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circ.u.mvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire:
”The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe.”
Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crus.h.i.+ng weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. ”_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_,” out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, ”There is your remedy.”
Lisbeth, peeping through the c.h.i.n.k of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother.
The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years.
”Beau-Pied,” said he, ”fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!” he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.)
”You shall be obeyed, Marechal,” said Beau-Pied, with a military salute.
Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander.
By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold.
The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols.
”What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?” said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her.
”He has disgraced us all!” replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. ”He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make rest.i.tution!
”I have been abased before the Conde of the Republic, the man I esteem above all others, and to whom I unjustifiably gave the lie--the Prince of Wissembourg!--Is that nothing? That is the score his country has against him!”
He wiped away a tear.