It is easy to conceive that Alain did not stay long. But he stayed long enough to convince him that on L200 a year the polite society of Paris, even as seen at M. Gandrins, was not for him. Nevertheless, a day or two after, he resolved to call upon the nearest of his kinsmen to whom his aunt had given him letters. With the Count de Vandemar, one of his fellow-nobles of the sacred Faubourg, he should be no less Rochebriant, whether in a garret or a palace. The Vandemars, in fact, though for many generations before the First Revolution a puissant and brilliant family, had always recognized the Rochebriants as the head of their house,the trunk from which they had been slipped in the fifteenth century, when a younger son of the Rochebriants married a wealthy heiress and took the title with the lands of Vandemar.
Since then the two families had often intermarried. The present count had a reputation for ability, was himself a large proprietor, and might furnish advice to guide Alain in his negotiations with M. Gandrin. The Hotel do Vandemar stood facing the old Hotel de Rochebriant; it was less spacious, but not less venerable, gloomy, and prison-like.
As he turned his eyes from the armorial scutcheon which still rested, though chipped and mouldering, over the portals of his lost ancestral house, and was about to cross the street, two young men, who seemed two or three years older than himself, emerged on horseback from the Hotel de Vandemar.
Handsome young men, with the lofty look of the old race, dressed with the punctilious care of person which is not foppery in men of birth, but seems part of the self-respect that appertains to the old chivalric point of honour. The horse of one of these cavaliers made a caracole which brought it nearly upon Alain as he was about to cross. The rider, checking his steed, lifted his hat to Alain and uttered a word of apology in the courtesy of ancient high-breeding, but still with condescension as to an inferior. This little incident, and the slighting kind of notice received from coevals of his own birth, and doubtless his own blood,for he divined truly that they were the sons of the Count de Vandemar,disconcerted Alain to a degree which perhaps a Frenchman alone can comprehend. He had even half a mind to give up his visit and turn back. However, his native manhood prevailed over that morbid sensitiveness which, born out of the union of pride and poverty, has all the effects of vanity, and yet is not vanity itself.
The Count was at home, a thin spare man with a narrow but high forehead, and an expression of countenance keen, severe, and un peu moqueuse.
He received the Marquis, however, at first with great cordiality, kissed him on both sides of his cheek, called him cousin, expressed immeasurable regret that the Countess was gone out on one of the missions of charity in which the great ladies of the Faubourg religiously interest themselves, and that his sons had just ridden forth to the Bois.
As Alain, however, proceeded, simply and without false shame, to communicate the object of his visit at Paris, the extent of his liabilities, and the penury of his means, the smile vanished from the Counts face. He somewhat drew back his fauteuil in the movement common to men who wish to estrange themselves from some other mans difficulties; and when Alain came to a close, the Count remained some moments seized with a slight cough; and, gazing intently on the carpet, at length he said, My dear young friend, your father behaved extremely ill to you,dishonourably, fraudulently.
Hold! said the Marquis, colouring high. Those are words no man can apply to my father in my presence.
The Count stared, shrugged his shoulders, and replied with sang froid, Marquis, if you are contented with your fathers conduct, of course it is no business of mine: he never injured me. I presume, however, that, considering my years and my character, you come to me for advice: is it so?
Alain bowed his head in assent.
There are four courses for one in your position to take, said the Count, placing the index of the right hand successively on the thumb and three fingers of the left,four courses, and no more.
First. To do as your notary recommended: consolidate your mortgages, patch up your income as you best can, return to Rochebriant, and devote the rest of your existence to the preservation of your property. By that course your life will be one of permanent privation, severe struggle; and the probability is that you will not succeed: there will come one or two bad seasons, the farmers will fail to pay, the mortgagee will foreclose, and you may find yourself, after twenty years of anxiety and torment, prematurely old and without a sou.
Course the second. Rochebriant, though so heavily encumbered as to yield you some such income as your father gave to his chef de cuisine, is still one of those superb terres which bankers and Jews and stock-jobbers court and hunt after, for which they will give enormous sums. If you place it in good hands, I do not doubt that you could dispose of the property within three months, on terms that would leave you a considerable surplus, which, invested with judgment, would afford you whereon you could live at Paris in a way suitable to your rank and age. Need we go further?does this course smile to you?
Pass on, Count; I will defend to the last what I take from my ancestors, and cannot voluntarily sell their roof-tree and their tombs.
Your name would still remain, and you would be just as well received in Paris, and your noblesse just as implicitly conceded, if all Judaea encamped upon Rochebriant. Consider how few of us gentilshommes of the old regime have any domains left to us. Our names alone survive: no revolution can efface them.
It may be so, but pardon me; there are subjects on which we cannot reason,we can but feel. Rochebriant may be torn from me, but I cannot yield it.
I proceed to the third course. Keep the chateau and give up its traditions; remain de facto Marquis of Rochebriant, but accept the new order of things. Make yourself known to the people in power. They will be charmed to welcome you a convert from the old noblesse is a guarantee of stability to the new system. You will be placed in diplomacy; effloresce into an ambassador, a minister,and ministers nowadays have opportunities to become enormously rich.
That course is not less impossible than the last. Till Henry V. formally resign his right to the throne of Saint Louis, I can be servant to no other man seated on that throne.
Such, too, is my creed, said the Count, and I cling to it; but my estate is not mortgaged, and I have neither the tastes nor the age for public employments. The last course is perhaps better than the rest; at all events it is the easiest. A wealthy marriage; even if it must be a mesalliance. I think at your age, with your appearance, that your name is worth at least two million francs in the eyes of a rich roturier with an ambitious daughter.
Alas! said the young man, rising, I see I shall have to go back to Rochebriant. I cannot sell my castle, I cannot sell my creed, and I cannot sell my name and myself.
The last all of us did in the old regime, Marquis. Though I still retain the title of Vandemar, my property comes from the Farmer-Generals daughter, whom my great-grandfather, happily for us, married in the days of Louis Quinze. Marriages with people of sense and rank have always been marriages de convenance in France. It is only in le petit monde that men having nothing marry girls having nothing, and I dont believe they are a bit the happier for it. On the contrary, the quarrels de menage leading to frightful crimes appear by the Gazette des Tribunaux to be chiefly found among those who do not sell themselves at the altar.
That course is not less impossible than the last. Till Henry V. formally resign his right to the throne of Saint Louis, I can be servant to no other man seated on that throne.
Such, too, is my creed, said the Count, and I cling to it; but my estate is not mortgaged, and I have neither the tastes nor the age for public employments. The last course is perhaps better than the rest; at all events it is the easiest. A wealthy marriage; even if it must be a mesalliance. I think at your age, with your appearance, that your name is worth at least two million francs in the eyes of a rich roturier with an ambitious daughter.
Alas! said the young man, rising, I see I shall have to go back to Rochebriant. I cannot sell my castle, I cannot sell my creed, and I cannot sell my name and myself.
The last all of us did in the old regime, Marquis. Though I still retain the title of Vandemar, my property comes from the Farmer-Generals daughter, whom my great-grandfather, happily for us, married in the days of Louis Quinze. Marriages with people of sense and rank have always been marriages de convenance in France. It is only in le petit monde that men having nothing marry girls having nothing, and I dont believe they are a bit the happier for it. On the contrary, the quarrels de menage leading to frightful crimes appear by the Gazette des Tribunaux to be chiefly found among those who do not sell themselves at the altar.
The old Count said this with a grim persiflage. He was a Voltairian.
Voltairianism, deserted by the modern Liberals of France, has its chief cultivation nowadays among the wits of the old regime. They pick up its light weapons on the battle-field on which their fathers perished, and re-feather against the canaille the shafts which had been pointed against the noblesse.
Adieu, Count, said Alain, rising; I do not thank you less for your advice because I have not the wit to profit by it.
Au revoir, my cousin; you will think better of it when you have been a month or two at Paris. By the way, my wife receives every Wednesday; consider our house yours.
Count, can I enter into the world which Madame la Comtesse receives, in the way that becomes my birth, on the income I take from my fortune?
The Count hesitated. No, said he at last, frankly; not because you will be less welcome or less respected, but because I see that you have all the pride and sensitiveness of a seigneur de province. Society would therefore give you pain, not pleasure. More than this, I know, by the remembrance of my own youth and the sad experience of my own sons, that you would be irresistibly led into debt, and debt in your circumstances would be the loss of Rochebriant. No; I invite you to visit us. I offer you the most select but not the most brilliant circles of Paris, because my wife is religious, and frightens away the birds of gay plumage with the scarecrows of priests and bishops. But if you accept my invitation and my offer, I am bound, as an old man of the world to a young kinsman, to say that the chances are that you will be ruined.
I thank you, Count, for your candour; and I now acknowledge that I have found a relation and a guide, answered the Marquis, with nobility of mien that was not without a pathos which touched the hard heart of the old man.
Come at least whenever you want a sincere if a rude friend; and though he did not kiss his cousins cheek this time, he gave him, with more sincerity, a parting shake of the hand.
And these made the principal events in Alains Paris life till he met Frederic Lemercier. Hitherto he had received no definite answer from M. Gandrin, who had postponed an interview, not having had leisure to make himself master of all the details in the abstract sent to him.
CHAPTER IV
The next day, towards the afternoon, Frederic Lemercier, somewhat breathless from the rapidity at which he had ascended to so high an eminence, burst into Alains chamber.
Br-r! mon cher; what superb exercise for the healthhow it must strengthen the muscles and expand the chest! After this who should shrink from scaling Mont Blanc? Well, well. I have been meditating on your business ever since we parted. But I would fain know more of its details. You shall confide them to me as we drive through the Bois. My coupe is below, and the day is beautiful; come.
To the young Marquis, the gayety, the heartiness of his college friend were a cordial. How different from the dry counsels of the Count de Vandemar! Hope, though vaguely, entered into his heart. Willingly he accepted Frederics invitation, and the young men were soon rapidly borne along the Champs Elysees. As briefly as he could Alain described the state of his affairs, the nature of his mortgages, and the result of his interview with M. Gandrin.
Frederic listened attentively. Then Gandrin has given you as yet no answer?
None; but I have a note from him this morning asking me to call to-morrow.
After you have seen him, decide on nothing,if he makes you any offer. Get back your abstract, or a copy of it, and confide it to me. Gandrin ought to help you; he transacts affairs in a large way. Belle clientele among the millionnaires. But his clients expect fabulous profits, and so does he. As for your principal mortgagee, Louvier, you know, of course, who he is.
No, except that M. Hebert told me that he was very rich.
Rich I should think so; one of the Kings of Finance, Ah! observe those young men on horseback.
Alain looked forth and recognized the two cavaliers whom he had conjectured to be the sons of the Count de Vandemar.
Those beaux garcons are fair specimens of your Faubourg, said Frederic; they would decline my acquaintance because my grandfather kept a shop, and they keep a shop between them.
A shop! I am mistaken, then. Who are they?
Raoul and Enguerrand, sons of that mocker of man, the Count de Vandemar.
And they keep a shop! You are jesting.
A shop at which you may buy gloves and perfumes, Rue de la Chaussee dAntin. Of course they dont serve at the counter; they only invest their pocket-money in the speculation; and, in so doing, treble at least their pocket-money, buy their horses, and keep their grooms.
Is it possible! nobles of such birth! How shocked the Count would be if he knew it!
Yes, very much shocked if he was supposed to know it. But he is too wise a father not to give his sons limited allowances and unlimited liberty, especially the liberty to add to the allowances as they please. Look again at them; no better riders and more affectionate brothers since the date of Castor and Pollux. Their tastes indeed differRaoul is religious and moral, melancholy and dignified; Enguerrand is a lion of the first water,elegant to the tips of his nails. These demigods nevertheless are very mild to mortals. Though Enguerrand is the best pistol-shot in Paris, and Raoul the best fencer, the first is so good-tempered that you would be a brute to quarrel with him, the last so true a Catholic, that if you quarrelled with him you need not fear his sword. He would not die in the committal of what the Church holds a mortal sin.
Are you speaking ironically? Do you mean to imply that men of the name of Vandemar are not brave?