Collected Works of Eugène Sue, page 563
The veteran listened attentively to this explanation, which did not seem to him so entirely devoid of reason, now, after all.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” he responded, nodding his head; “but it is like all love songs — extremely far-fetched.”
“‘Poor Jacques’ far-fetched? The idea!” cried Madame Barbançon, indignantly.
“‘Every one to his taste,’ as you remarked a moment ago,” answered the veteran. “I like our old sea songs very much better. A man knows what he is singing about when he sings them.”
And in a voice as powerful as it was discordant, the old captain began to sing:
“Pour aller à Lorient pêcher des sardines,
Pour aller à Lorient pêcher des harengs—”
“Monsieur!” exclaimed Madame Barbançon, interrupting her employer, with a highly incensed and prudish air, for she knew the end of the ditty, “you forget there are ladies present.”
“Is that so?” demanded the veteran, straining his neck to see outside of the arbour.
“There is no need to make such an effort as that, it seems to me,” remarked the housekeeper, with great dignity. “You can see me easy enough, I should think.”
“That is true, Mother Barbançon. I always forget that you belong to the other sex, but for all that I like my song much better than I do yours. It was a great favourite on the Armide, the frigate on which I shipped when I was only fourteen, and afterwards we sang it many a time on dry land when I was in the Marine Corps. Oh, those were happy days! I was young then.”
“Yes, and then Bû-û-onaparte” — it is absolutely necessary to spell and accent the word in this way, to give the reader any idea of the disdainful and sneering manner in which Mother Barbançon uttered the name of the great man who had been the cause of her brave soldier boy’s death— “Bû-û-onaparte was your leader.”
“Yes, the Emperor, that ‘Corsican ogre,’ the Emperor you revile so, wasn’t far off, I admit.”
“Yes, monsieur, your Emperor was an ogre, and worse than an ogre.”
“What! worse than an ogre?”
“Yes, yes, laugh as much as you like, but he was. Do you know, monsieur, that when that Corsican ogre had the Pope in his power at Fontainebleau, do you know how grossly he insulted our Holy Father, your beast of a Bû-û-onaparte?”
“No, Mother Barbançon, I never heard of it, upon my word of honour.”
“It is of no use for you to deny it; I heard it from a young man in the guards—”
“Who must be a pretty old customer by this time, but let us hear the story.”
“Ah, well, monsieur, your Bû-û-onaparte was mean enough, in his longing to humiliate the Pope, to harness him to the little King of Rome’s carriage, then get into it and make the poor Holy Father drag him across the park at Fontainebleau, in order that he might go in this fashion to announce his divorce to the Empress Josephine — that poor, dear, good woman!”
“What, Mother Barbançon,” exclaimed the old sailor, almost choking with laughter, “that scoundrel of an Emperor made the Pope drag him across the park in the King of Rome’s carriage to tell the Empress Josephine of his divorce?”
“Yes, monsieur, in order to torment her on account of her religion, just as he forced her to eat a big ham every Good Friday in the presence of Roustan, that dreadful mameluke of his, who used to boast of being a Mussulman and talk about his harem before the priests, just to insult the clergy, until they blushed with shame. There is nothing to laugh at in all this, monsieur. At one time, everybody knew and talked about it, even—”
But, unfortunately, the housekeeper was unable to continue her tirade. Her recriminations were just then interrupted by a vigorous peal of the bell, and she hurried off to open the door.
A few words of explanation are necessary before the introduction of a new character, Olivier Raymond, Commander Bernard’s nephew.
The veteran’s sister had married a copyist in the Interior Department, and after several years of wedded life the clerk died, leaving a widow and one son, then about eight years of age; after which several friends of the deceased interested themselves in the fatherless boy’s behalf, and secured him a scholarship in a fairly good school.
The widow, left entirely without means, and having no right to a pension, endeavoured to support herself by her needle, but after a few years of pinched and laborious existence she left her son an orphan. His uncle Bernard, his sole relative, was then a lieutenant in command of a schooner attached to one of our naval stations in the Southern Pacific. Upon his return to France, the captain found that his nephew’s last year in college was nearing an end. Olivier, though his college course had been marked by no particularly brilliant triumphs, had at least thoroughly profited by his gratuitous education, but unfortunately, this education being, as is often the case, far from practical, his future on leaving college was by no means assured.
After having reflected long and seriously upon his nephew’s precarious position, and being unable to give him any pecuniary assistance by reason of the smallness of his own pay, Commander Bernard said to Olivier:
“My poor boy, there is but one thing for you to do. You are strong, brave, and intelligent. You have received an education which renders you superior to most of the poor young men who enlist in the army. The conscription is almost sure to catch you next year. Get ahead of it. Enlist. In that case, you will at least be able to select the branch of the service you will enter. There is fighting in Africa, and in five or six years you are likely to be made an officer. This will give you some chance of a career. Still, if the idea of a military life is distasteful to you, my dear boy, we will try to think of something else. We can get along on my pay, as a retired officer, until something else offers. Now think the matter over.”
Olivier was not long in making up his mind. Three months afterward he enlisted, on condition that he should be assigned to the African Chasseurs. A year later he was a quartermaster’s sergeant; one year afterward a quartermaster. Attacked with one of those stubborn fevers, which a return to a European climate alone can cure, Olivier, unfortunately, was obliged to leave Africa just as he had every reason to expect an officer’s epaulettes. After his recovery he was assigned to a regiment of hussars, and, after eighteen months’ service in that, he had recently come to spend a six months’ furlough in Paris, with his uncle.
The old sailor’s flat consisted of a tiny kitchen, into which Madame Barbançon’s room opened, of a sort of hall-way, which served as a dining-room, and another considerably larger room, in which the commander and his nephew slept. Olivier, knowing how little his uncle had to live on, would not consent to remain idle. He wrote a remarkably good hand, and this, together with the knowledge of accounts acquired while acting as quartermaster, enabled him to secure several sets of books to keep among the petty merchants in the neighbourhood; so, instead of being a burden upon the veteran, the young officer, with Madame Barbançon’s connivance, secretly added his mite to the forty-eight francs’ pay the commander received each month, besides treating his uncle now and then to agreeable surprises, which both delighted and annoyed the worthy man, knowing, as he did, the assiduous labour Olivier imposed upon himself to earn this money.
Accustomed from childhood to privations of every kind, first by his experience as a charity pupil, and subsequently by the vicissitudes of army life in Africa, kind-hearted, genial, enthusiastic, and brave, Olivier had but one fault, that is, if an excessive delicacy in all money matters, great and small, can be called a fault. As a common soldier, he even carried his scruples so far that he would refuse the slightest invitation from his comrades, if he was not allowed to pay his own score. This extreme sensitiveness having been at first ridiculed and considered mere affectation, two duels, in which Olivier quite covered himself with glory, caused this peculiarity in the character of the young soldier to be both accepted and respected.
Olivier, cheerful, obliging, quick-witted, and delighted with everything, enlivened his uncle’s modest home immensely by his gay spirits. In his rare moments of leisure the young man cultivated his taste by reading the great poets, or else he spaded and watered and gardened with his uncle, after which they smoked their pipes, and talked of foreign lands and of war. At other times, calling into play the culinary knowledge acquired in African camps, Olivier initiated Madame Barbançon into the mysteries of brochettes de mouton and other viands, the cooking lessons being enlivened with jokes and all sorts of teasing remarks about Bû-û-onaparte, though the housekeeper scolded and snubbed Olivier none the less because she loved him with her whole heart. In short, the young man’s presence had cheered the monotonous existence of the veteran and his housekeeper so much that their hearts quite failed them when they recollected that two months of Olivier’s leave had already expired.
CHAPTER II.
THE BRAVE DUKE.
OLIVIER RAYMOND WAS not more than twenty-four years of age, and possessed a singularly expressive and attractive face. His short, white hussar jacket, trimmed with red and decorated with yellow frogs, his well-cut, light blue trousers, that fitted his well-formed supple limbs perfectly, and his blue kepi, perched upon one side of a head covered with hair of the same bright chestnut hue as his moustache, imparted an extremely dashing and martial air to his appearance, only, instead of a sabre, Olivier carried that day under his left arm a big roll of papers, and in his right hand a formidable bundle of pens.
As the young man deposited these eminently peaceful implements upon a table, he turned, and exclaimed gaily, “How are you, Mamma Barbançon?”
In fact, he even had the audacity to put his long arms about the housekeeper’s bony waist, and give her a slight squeeze as he spoke.
“Will you never have done with your nonsense, you rascal?” snapped the delighted housekeeper.
“Oh, this is only the beginning. I’ve got to make a complete conquest of you, Mamma Barbançon.”
“Of me?”
“Unquestionably. It is absolutely necessary. I’m compelled to do it.”
“And why?”
“In order to induce you to grant me a favour.”
“We’ll see about that. What is it?”
“Tell me first where my uncle is.”
“Smoking his pipe out under the arbour.”
“All right! Wait for me here, Mamma Barbançon, and prepare your mind for something startling.”
“Something startling, M. Olivier?”
“Yes, something monstrous — unheard-of — impossible!”
“Monstrous — unheard-of—” repeated Madame Barbançon, wonderingly, as she watched the young soldier dash off in pursuit of his uncle.
“How are you, my lad? I didn’t expect you so early,” said the old captain, holding out his hand to his nephew in pleased surprise. “Home so soon! But so much the better!”
“So much the better!” retorted Olivier, gaily. “On the contrary, you little know what is in store for you. Courage, uncle, courage!”
“Stop your nonsense, you young scoundrel!”
“Close your eyes, and now, ‘forward march!’”
“Forward march? Against whom?”
“Against Mother Barbançon, my brave uncle.”
“But why?”
“To break the news that — that — that I have invited — some one to dinner.”
“The devil!” exclaimed the veteran, recoiling a step or two in evident dismay.
“To dinner — to-day,” continued the young lieutenant.
“The devil!” reiterated the veteran, recoiling three steps this time.
“Moreover, my guest — is a duke,” continued Olivier.
“A duke! We are lost!” faltered the veteran.
And this time he entirely vanished from sight in his verdant refuge, where he seemed as resolved to maintain his stand as if in some impregnable fortress. “May the devil and all his imps seize me if I undertake to announce any such fact as this to Mother Barbançon!”
“What, uncle, — an officer of marines — afraid?”
“But you’ve no idea what a scrape you’ve got yourself into, young man! It’s a desperate case, I tell you. You don’t know Madame Barbançon. But, good heavens, here she comes now!”
“Our retreat is cut off, uncle,” laughed the young man, as Madame Barbançon, whose curiosity had been excited to such a degree that she could wait no longer, appeared in the entrance to the arbour. “My guest will be here in an hour at the very latest, and we needs must conquer or perish of hunger, — you and I and my guest, whose name, I ought to tell you, is the Duc de Senneterre.”
“It’s no affair of mine, unhappy boy,” responded the commander. “Tell her yourself; here she is.”
But Olivier only laughed, and, turning to the dreaded housekeeper, exclaimed:
“My uncle has something to tell you, Madame Barbançon.”
“There’s not a word of truth in what he says,” protested the veteran, wiping the sweat from his brow with his checked handkerchief. “It is Olivier who has something to tell you.”
“Come, come, uncle, Mother Barbançon is not as dangerous as she looks. Make a clean breast of it.”
“It is your affair, my boy. Get out of the scrape as best you can.”
The housekeeper, after having glanced first at the uncle and then at the nephew with mingled curiosity and anxiety, at last asked, turning to her employer:
“What is it, monsieur?”
“Ask Olivier, my dear woman. As for me, I’ve nothing whatever to do with it; I wash my hands of the whole affair.”
“Ah, well, Mamma Barbançon,” said the young soldier, bravely, “you are to lay three covers instead of two at dinner, that is all.”
“Three covers, M. Olivier, and why?”
“Because I have invited a former comrade to dine with us.”
“Bon Dieu!” exclaimed the housekeeper, evidently more terrified than angry, “a guest, and this is not even pot au feu day. We have only an onion soup, a vinaigrette made out of yesterday’s beef, and a salad.”
“And what more could you possibly want, Mamma Barbançon?” cried Olivier, joyously, for he had not expected to find the larder nearly so well supplied. “An onion soup concocted by you, a vinaigrette and a salad seasoned by you, make a banquet for the gods, and my comrade, Gerald, will dine like a king. Take notice that I do not say like an emperor, Mamma Barbançon.”
But this delicate allusion to madame’s anti-Bonapartist opinions passed unnoticed. For the moment the worshipper of the departed guardsman was lost in the anxious housewife.
“To think that you couldn’t have selected a pot au feu day when it would have been such an easy matter, M. Olivier,” she exclaimed, reproachfully.
“It was not I but my comrade who chose the day, Mamma Barbançon.”
“But in polite society, M. Olivier, it is a very common thing to say plainly: ‘Don’t come to-day; come to-morrow. We shall have the pot au feu then.’ But, after all, I don’t suppose we’ve got dukes and peers to deal with.”
Olivier was strongly tempted to excite the worthy housewife’s perturbation to the highest pitch by telling her that it was indeed a duke that was coming to eat her vinaigrette, but scarcely daring to subject Madame Barbançon’s culinary self-love to this severe test, he contented himself with saying:
“The mischief is done, Mamma Barbançon, so all I ask is that you will not put me to shame in the presence of an old African comrade.”
“Great heavens! Is it possible you fear that, M. Olivier? Put you to shame — I? Quite the contrary, for I would like—”
“It is getting late,” said Olivier, “and my friend will soon be here, as hungry as a wolf, so, Mamma Barbançon, take pity on us!”
“True, I haven’t a minute to lose.”
And the worthy woman bustled away, repeating dolefully, “To think he couldn’t have chosen pot au feu day.”
“Well, she took it much better than I expected,” remarked the veteran. “It is evident that she is very fond of you. But now, between ourselves, my dear nephew, you ought to have warned me of your intentions, so your friend might have found, at least, a passable dinner, but you just ask him to come and take pot-luck; and he is a duke into the bargain. But, tell me, how the deuce did you happen to have a duke for a comrade in the African Chasseurs?”
“I’ll explain, my dear uncle, for I’m sure you’ll take a great fancy to my friend Gerald. There are not many of his stamp to be found nowadays, I assure you. We were classmates at the college of Louis le Grand. I left for Africa. Six months afterward my friend Gerald was in the ranks beside me.”
“A private?”
“Yes.”
“But why didn’t he enter the army by way of St. Cyr? It was merely a whim or caprice on his part, I suppose, this enlisting?”
“No, uncle; on the contrary, Gerald’s conduct in the matter has been the result of profound reflection. He is a grand seigneur by birth, being, as I told you just now, the Duc de Senneterre.”
“That is a name that has figured prominently in the history of France,” remarked the old sailor.
“Yes, the house of Senneterre is as ancient as it is illustrious, uncle, but Gerald’s family has lost the greater part of the immense fortune it once possessed. There remains now, I think, an income of barely forty thousand francs a year. That is a good deal of money for the generality of people, but not for persons of noble birth; besides, Gerald has two sisters who must be provided with dowries.”
“But tell me how and why your young duke happened to join the army as a private?”
“In the first place, my friend Gerald is very original in his ideas, and has all kinds of odd notions about life. When he found himself within the conscription age, on leaving college, his father — he had a father then — remarked one day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that arrangements must be made to secure a substitute if any such contingency should arise, and do you know what this peculiar friend of mine replied?”
“Tell me.”
