2.M.5.6. THE SUBSTITUTE
IT chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Theodule
belonged came to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired
Aunt Gillenormand with a second idea. She had, on
the first occasion, hit upon the plan of having Marius spied
upon by Theodule; now she plotted to have Theodule take
Marius' place.
At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the
vague need of a young face in the house, — these rays of dawn
are sometimes sweet to ruin, — it was expedient to find another
Marius. "Take it as a simple erratum," she thought, "such as
one sees in books. For Marius, read Theodule."
A grandnephew is almost the same as a grandson; in default
of a lawyer one takes a lancer.
One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read
something in the Quotidienne, his daughter entered and
said to
him in her sweetest voice; for the question concerned her
favorite: —
"Father, Theodule is coming to present his respects to you
this morning."
"Who's Theodule?"
"Your grandnephew."
"Ah!" said the grandfather.
Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his
grandnephew, who was merely some Theodule or other, and
soon flew into a rage, which almost always happened when he
read. The "sheet" which he held, although Royalist, of
course, announced for the following day, without any softening
phrases, one of these little events which were of daily
occurrence at that date in Paris: "That the students of the
schools of law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du
Pantheon, at midday, — to deliberate." The discussion concerned
one of the questions of the moment, the artillery of the
National Guard, and a conflict between the Minister of War
and "the citizen's militia," on the subject of the cannon parked
in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were to
"deliberate"
over this. It did not take much more than this to
swell M. Gillenormand's rage.
He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would
probably go with the rest, to "deliberate, at midday, on the
Place du Pantheon."
As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant
Theodule entered clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which
was clever of him, and was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle
Gillenormand. The lancer had reasoned as follows:
"The old druid has not sunk all his money in a life pension.
It is well to disguise one's self as a civilian from time to
time."
Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father: —
"Theodule, your grandnephew."
And in a low voice to the lieutenant: —
"Approve of everything."
And she withdrew.
The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such
venerable
encounters, stammered with some timidity: "Good day,
uncle," — and made a salute composed of the involuntary and
mechanical outline of the military salute finished off as a
bourgeois salute.
"Ah! so it's you; that is well, sit down," said the old
gentleman.
That
said, he totally forgot the lancer.
Theodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose.
M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in
his pockets, talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old
fingers, at the two watches which he wore in his two fobs.
"That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du
Pantheon!
by my life! urchins who were with their nurses but
yesterday! If one were to squeeze their noses, milk would
burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at midday. What
are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that
we are making for the abyss. That is what the
descamisados
have brought us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery!
To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the National
Guard! And with whom are they to meet there? Just see
whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you like, a
million against a counter, that there will be no one there but
returned convicts and released galley-slaves. The Republicans
and the galley-slaves, — they form but one nose and one
handkerchief.
Carnot used to say: 'Where would you have me go,
traitor?' Fouche replied: 'Wherever you please, imbecile!'
That's what the Republicans are like."
"That is true," said Theodule.
M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Theodule, and
went on: —
"When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to
turn
carbonaro! Why did you leave my house? To go and become
a Republican! Pssst! In the first place, the people want none
of your republic, they have common sense, they know well that
there always have been kings, and that there always will be;
they know well that the people are only the people, after all,
they make sport of it, of your republic — do you understand,
idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with Pere
Duchesne, to make sheep's-eyes at the guillotine, to sing
romances,
and play on the guitar under the balcony of '93 — it's
enough to make one spit on all these young fellows, such fools
are they! They are all alike. Not one escapes. It suffices for
them to breathe the air which blows through the street to lose
their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The first
scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's,
thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his old relatives.
He's a Republican, he's a romantic. What does that mean,
romantic?
Do me the favor to tell me what it is. All possible
follies. A year ago, they ran to
Hernani. Now, I just
ask you,
Hernani! antitheses! abominations which are not even
written
in French! And then, they have cannons in the courtyard of
the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!"
"You are right, uncle," said Theodule.
M. Gillenormand resumed: —
"Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum! For what purpose?
Do you want to fire grape-shot at the Apollo Belvedere?
What have those cartridges to do with the Venus de Medici?
Oh! the young men of the present day are all blackguards!
What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And
those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they
can to make themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are
afraid of women, in the presence of petticoats they have a
mendicant
air which sets the girls into fits of laughter; on my word
of honor, one would say the poor creatures were ashamed of
love. They are deformed, and they complete themselves by
being stupid; they repeat the puns of Tiercelin and Potier,
they have sack coats, stablemen's waistcoats, shirts of coarse
linen, trousers of coarse cloth, boots of coarse leather, and
their rigmarole resembles their plumage. One might make use
of their jargon to put new soles on their old shoes. And all
this awkward batch of brats has political opinions, if you
please. Political opinions should be strictly forbidden. They
fabricate systems, they recast society, they demolish the
monarchy,
they fling all laws to the earth, they put the attic in the
cellar's place and my porter in the place of the King, they turn
Europe topsy-turvy, they reconstruct the world, and all their
love affairs consist in staring slily at the ankles of the
laundresses
as these women climb into their carts. Ah! Marius!
Ah! you blackguard! to go and vociferate on the public place!
to discuss, to debate, to take measures! They call that measures,
just God! Disorder humbles itself and becomes silly. I
have seen chaos, I now see a mess. Students deliberating on
the National Guard, — such a thing could not be seen among
the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked,
with their noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in
their paws, are less of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The
four-penny monkeys! And they set up for judges! Those
creatures deliberate and ratiocinate! The end of the world is
come! This is plainly the end of this miserable terraqueous
globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted
it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long
as they go and read the newspapers under the arcades of the
Odeon. That costs them a sou, and their good sense, and their
intelligence, and their heart and their soul, and their wits.
They emerge thence, and decamp from their families. All
newspapers are pests; all, even the
Drapeau Blanc! At
bottom,
Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may
boast of having driven your grandfather to despair, that you
may!"
"That is evident," said Theodule.
And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking
breath, the lancer added in a magisterial manner: —
"There should be no other newspaper than the
Moniteur,
and no other book than the Annuaire Militaire."
M. Gillenormand continued: —
"It is like their Sieyes! A regicide ending in a senator;
for
that is the way they always end. They give themselves a scar
with the address of
thou as citizens, in order to get
themselves
called, eventually,
Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur le
Comte as
big as my arm, assassins of September. The philosopher
Sieyes! I will do myself the justice to say, that I have never
had any better opinion of the philosophies of all those
philosophers,
than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli! One
day I saw the Senators cross the Quai Malplaquet in mantles
of violet velvet sown with bees, with hats a la Henri IV. They
were hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys
from the tiger's court. Citizens, I declare to you, that your
progress is madness, that your humanity is a dream, that your
revolution is a crime, that your republic is a monster, that your
young and virgin France comes from the brothel, and I maintain
it against all, whoever you may be, whether journalists,
economists, legists, or even were you better judges of liberty,
of
equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine! And
that I announce to you, my flne fellows!"
"Parbleu!" cried the lieutenant, "that is wonderfully
true."
M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun,
wheeled round, stared Lancer Theodule intently in the eyes,
and said to him: —
"You are a fool."