XXI

Rosalie, as white as a lily, made no reply, so completely was she

stupefied by contending feelings. And yet in the presence of the man

she had this instant begun to hate vehemently, she forced the kind of

smile which a ballet-dancer puts on for the public. Nay, she could

even laugh; she had the strength to conceal her rage, which presently

subsided, for she was determined to make use of this fat simpleton to

further her designs.

"Monsieur Amedee," said she, at the moment when her mother was walking

ahead of them in the garden, affecting to leave the young people

together, "were you not aware that Monsieur Albert Savaron de Savarus

is a Legitimist?"

"A Legitimist?"

"Until 1830 he was Master of Appeals to the Council of State, attached

to the supreme Ministerial Council, and in favor with the Dauphin and

Dauphiness. It would be very good of you to say nothing against him,

but it would be better still if you would attend the election this

year, carry the day, and hinder that poor Monsieur de Chavoncourt from

representing the town of Besancon."

"What sudden interest have you in this Savaron?"

"Monsieur Albert Savaron de Savarus, the natural son of the Comte de

Savarus--pray keep the secret of my indiscretion--if he is returned

deputy, will be our advocate in the suit about les Rouxey. Les Rouxey,

my father tells me, will be my property; I intend to live there, it is

a lovely place! I should be broken-hearted at seeing that fine piece

of the great de Watteville's work destroyed."

"The devil!" thought Amedee, as he left the house. "The heiress is not

such a fool as her mother thinks her."

Monsieur de Chavoncourt is a Royalist, of the famous 221. Hence, from

the day after the revolution of July, he always preached the salutary

doctrine of taking the oaths and resisting the present order of

things, after the pattern of the Tories against the Whigs in England.

This doctrine was not acceptable to the Legitimists, who, in their

defeat, had the wit to divide in their opinions, and to trust to the

force of inertia and to Providence. Monsieur de Chavoncourt was not

wholly trusted by his own party, but seemed to the Moderates the best

man to choose; they preferred the triumph of his half-hearted opinions

to the acclamation of a Republican who should combine the votes of the

enthusiasts and the patriots. Monsieur de Chavoncourt, highly

respected in Besancon, was the representative of an old parliamentary

family; his fortune, of about fifteen thousand francs a year, was not

an offence to anybody, especially as he had a son and three daughters.

With such a family, fifteen thousand francs a year are a mere nothing.

Now when, under these circumstances, the father of the family is above

bribery, it would be hard if the electors did not esteem him. Electors

wax enthusiastic over a /beau ideal/ of parliamentary virtue, just as

the audience in the pit do at the representation of the generous

sentiments they so little practise.

Madame de Chavoncourt, at this time a woman of forty, was one of the

beauties of Besancon. While the Chamber was sitting, she lived

meagrely in one of their country places to recoup herself by economy

for Monsieur de Chavoncourt's expenses in Paris. In the winter she

received very creditably once a week, on Tuesdays, understanding her

business as mistress of the house. Young Chavoncourt, a youth of two-

and-twenty, and another young gentleman, named Monsieur de Vauchelles,

no richer than Amedee and his school-friend, were his intimate allies.

They made excursions together to Granvelle, and sometimes went out

shooting; they were so well known to be inseparable that they were

invited to the country together.

Rosalie, who was intimate with the Chavoncourt girls, knew that the

three young men had no secrets from each other. She reflected that if

Monsieur de Soulas should repeat her words, it would be to his two

companions. Now, Monsieur de Vauchelles had his matrimonial plans, as

Amedee had his; he wished to marry Victoire, the eldest of the

Chavoncourts, on whom an old aunt was to settle an estate worth seven

thousand francs a year, and a hundred thousand francs in hard cash,

when the contract was to be signed. Victoire was this aunt's god-

daughter and favorite niece. Consequently, young Chavoncourt and his

friend Vauchelles would be sure to warn Monsieur de Chavoncourt of the

danger he was in from Albert's candidature.

But this did not satisfy Rosalie. She sent the Prefet of the

department a letter written with her left hand, signed "/A friend to

Louis Philippe/," in which she informed him of the secret intentions

of Monsieur Albert de Savarus, pointing out the serious support a

Royalist orator might give to Berryer, and revealing to him the deeply

artful course pursued by the lawyer during his two years' residence at

Besancon. The Prefet was a capable man, a personal enemy of the

Royalist party, devoted by conviction to the Government of July--in

short, one of those men of whom, in the Rue de Grenelle, the Minister

of the Interior could say, "We have a capital Prefet at Besancon."--

The Prefet read the letter, and, in obedience to its instructions, he

burnt it.

Rosalie aimed at preventing Albert's election, so as to keep him five

years longer at Besancon.

At that time an election was a fight between parties, and in order to

win, the Ministry chose its ground by choosing the moment when it

would give battle. The elections were therefore not to take place for

three months yet. When a man's whole life depends on an election, the

period that elapses between the issuing of the writs for convening the

electoral bodies, and the day fixed for their meetings, is an interval

during which ordinary vitality is suspended. Rosalie fully understood

how much latitude Albert's absorbed state would leave her during these

three months. By promising Mariette--as she afterwards confessed--to

take both her and Jerome into her service, she induced the maid to

bring her all the letters Albert might sent to Italy, and those

addressed to him from that country. And all the time she was pondering

these machinations, the extraordinary girl was working slippers for

her father with the most innocent air in the world. She even made a

greater display than ever of candor and simplicity, quite

understanding how valuable that candor and innocence would be to her

ends.

"My daughter grows quite charming!" said Madame de Watteville.

Two months before the election a meeting was held at the house of

Monsieur Boucher senior, composed of the contractor who expected to

get the work for the aqueduct for the Arcier waters; of Monsieur

Boucher's father-in-law; of Monsieur Granet, the influential man to

whom Savarus had done a service, and who was to nominate him as a

candidate; of Girardet the lawyer; of the printer of the /Eastern

Review/; and of the President of the Chamber of Commerce. In fact, the

assembly consisted of twenty-seven persons in all, men who in the

provinces are regarded as bigwigs. Each man represented on an average

six votes, but in estimating their values they said ten, for men

always begin by exaggerating their own influence. Among these twenty-

seven was one who was wholly devoted to the Prefet, one false brother

who secretly looked for some favor from the Ministry, either for

himself or for some one belonging to him.

At this preliminary meeting, it was agreed that Savaron the lawyer

should be named as candidate, a motion received with such enthusiasm

as no one looked for from Besancon. Albert, waiting at home for Alfred

Boucher to fetch him, was chatting with the Abbe de Grancey, who was

interested in this absorbing ambition. Albert had appreciated the

priest's vast political capacities; and the priest, touched by the

young man's entreaties, had been willing to become his guide and

adviser in this culminating struggle. The Chapter did not love

Monsieur de Chavoncourt, for it was his wife's brother-in-law, as

President of the Tribunal, who had lost the famous suit for them in

the lower Court.

"You are betrayed, my dear fellow," said the shrewd and worthy Abbe,

in that gentle, calm voice which old priests acquire.

"Betrayed!" cried the lover, struck to the heart.

"By whom I know not at all," the priest replied. "But at the

Prefecture your plans are known, and your hand read like a book. At

this moment I have no advice to give you. Such affairs need

consideration. As for this evening, take the bull by the horns,

anticipate the blow. Tell them all your previous life, and thus you

will mitigate the effect of the discovery on the good folks of

Besancon."

"Oh, I was prepared for it," said Albert in a broken voice.

"You would not benefit by my advice; you had the opportunity of making

an impression at the Hotel de Rupt; you do not know the advantage you

would have gained--"

"What?"

"The unanimous support of the Royalists, an immediate readiness to go

to the election--in short, above a hundred votes. Adding to these

what, among ourselves, we call the ecclesiastical vote, though you

were not yet nominated, you were master of the votes by ballot. Under

such circumstances, a man may temporize, may make his way--"

Alfred Boucher when he came in, full of enthusiasm, to announce the

decision of the preliminary meeting, found the Vicar-General and the

lawyer cold, calm, and grave.

"Good-night, Monsieur l'Abbe," said Albert. "We will talk of your

business at greater length when the elections are over."

And he took Alfred's arm, after pressing Monsieur de Grancey's hand

with meaning. The priest looked at the ambitious man, whose face at

that moment wore the lofty expression which a general may have when he

hears the first gun fired for a battle. He raised his eyes to heaven,

and left the room, saying to himself, "What a priest he would make!"

Eloquence is not at the Bar. The pleader rarely puts forth the real

powers of his soul; if he did, he would die of it in a few years.

Eloquence is, nowadays, rarely in the pulpit; but it is found on

certain occasions in the Chamber of Deputies, when an ambitious man

stakes all to win all, or, stung by a myriad darts, at a given moment

bursts into speech. But it is still more certainly found in some

privileged beings, at the inevitable hour when their claims must

either triumph or be wrecked, and when they are forced to speak. Thus

at this meeting, Albert Savarus, feeling the necessity of winning

himself some supporters, displayed all the faculties of his soul and

the resources of his intellect. He entered the room well, without

awkwardness or arrogance, without weakness, without cowardice, quite

gravely, and was not dismayed at finding himself among twenty or

thirty men. The news of the meeting and of its determination had

already brought a few docile sheep to follow the bell.