Unconscious Comedians Part 10

"I'm not asking you about pedestrial affairs, I want to know how you are getting on politically."

Ma.s.son gave a glance at Gazonal, more eloquent than any species of question.

"Oh! you can speak out, that's my cousin; in a way he belongs to you; he thinks himself legitimist."

"Well! we are coming along, we are advancing! In five years from now Europe will be with us. Switzerland and Italy are fermenting finely; and when the occasion comes we are all ready. Here, in Paris, we have fifty thousand armed men, without counting two hundred thousand citizens who haven't a penny to live upon."

"Pooh," said Leon, "how about the fortifications?"

"Pie-crust; we can swallow them," replied Ma.s.son.

"In the first place, we sha'n't let the cannon in, and, in the second, we've got a little machine more powerful than all the forts in the world,--a machine, due to a doctor, which cured more people during the short time we worked it than the doctors ever killed."

"How you talk!" exclaimed Gazonal, whose flesh began to creep at Publicola's air and manner.

"Ha! that's the thing we rely on! We follow Saint-Just and Robespierre; but we'll do better than they; they were timid, and you see what came of it; an emperor! the elder branch! the younger branch! The Montagnards didn't lop the social tree enough."

"Ah ca! you, who will be, they tell me, consul, or something of that kind, tribune perhaps, be good enough to remember," said Bixiou, "that I have asked your protection for the last dozen years."

"No harm shall happen to you; we shall need wags, and you can take the place of Barere," replied the corn-doctor.

"And I?" said Leon.

"Ah, you! you are my client, and that will save you; for genius is an odious privilege, to which too much is accorded in France; we shall be forced to annihilate some of our greatest men in order to teach others to be simple citizens."

The corn-cutter spoke with a semi-serious, semi-jesting air that made Gazonal shudder.

"So," he said, "there's to be no more religion?"

"No more religion _of the State_," replied the pedicure, emphasizing the last words; "every man will have his own. It is very fortunate that the government is just now endowing convents; they'll provide our funds.

Everything, you see, conspires in our favour. Those who pity the peoples, who clamor on behalf of proletaries, who write works against the Jesuits, who busy themselves about the amelioration of no matter what,--the communists, the humanitarians, the philanthropists, you understand,--all these people are our advanced guard. While we are storing gunpowder, they are making the tinder which the spark of a single circ.u.mstance will ignite."

"But what do you expect will make the happiness of France?" cried Gazonal.

"Equality of citizens and cheapness of provisions. We mean that there will be no persons lacking anything, no millionaires, no suckers of blood and victims."

"That's it!--maximum and minimum," said Gazonal.

"You've said it," replied the corn-cutter, decisively.

"No more manufacturers?" asked Gazonal.

"The state will manufacture. We shall all be the usufructuaries of France; each will have his ration as on board s.h.i.+p; and all the world will work according to their capacity."

"Ah!" said Gazonal, "and while awaiting the time when you can cut off the heads of aristocrats--"

"I cut their nails," said the radical republican, putting up his tools and finis.h.i.+ng the jest himself.

Then he bowed very politely and went away.

"Can this be possible in 1845?" cried Gazonal.

"If there were time we could show you," said his cousin, "all the personages of 1793, and you could talk with them. You have just seen Marat; well! we know Fouquier-Tinville, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Chabot, Fouche, Barras; there is even a magnificent Madame Roland."

"Well, the tragic is not lacking in your play," said Gazonal.

"It is six o'clock. Before we take you to see Odry in 'Les Saltimbauques' to-night," said Leon to Gazonal, "we must go and pay a visit to Madame Cadine,--an actress whom your committee-man Ma.s.sol cultivates, and to whom you must therefore pay the most a.s.siduous court."

"And as it is all important that you conciliate that power, I am going to give you a few instructions," said Bixiou. "Do you employ workwomen in your manufactory?"

"Of course I do," replied Gazonal.

"That's all I want to know," resumed Bixiou. "You are not married, and you are a great--"

"Yes!" cried Gazonal, "you've guessed my strong point, I'm a great lover of women."

"Well, then! if you will execute the little manoeuvre which I am about to prescribe for you, you will taste, without spending a farthing, the sweets to be found in the good graces of an actress."

When they reached the rue de la Victoire where the celebrated actress lived, Bixiou, who meditated a trick upon the distrustful provincial, had scarcely finished teaching him his role; but Gazonal was quick, as we shall see, to take a hint.

The three friends went up to the second floor of a rather handsome house, and found Madame Jenny Cadine just finis.h.i.+ng dinner, for she played that night in an afterpiece at the Gymnase. Having presented Gazonal to this great power, Leon and Bixiou, in order to leave them alone together, made the excuse of looking at a piece of furniture in another room; but before leaving, Bixiou had whispered in the actress's ear: "He is Leon's cousin, a manufacturer, enormously rich; he wants to win a suit before the Council of State against his prefect, and he thinks it wise to fascinate you in order to get Ma.s.sol on his side."

All Paris knows the beauty of that young actress, and will therefore understand the stupefaction of the Southerner on seeing her. Though she had received him at first rather coldly, he became the object of her good graces before they had been many minutes alone together.

"How strange!" said Gazonal, looking round him disdainfully on the furniture of the salon, the door of which his accomplices had left half open, "that a woman like you should be allowed to live in such an ill-furnished apartment."

"Ah, yes, indeed! but how can I help it? Ma.s.sol is not rich; I am hoping he will be made a minister."

"What a happy man!" cried Gazonal, heaving the sigh of a provincial.

"Good!" thought she. "I shall have new furniture, and get the better of Carabine."

"Well, my dear!" said Leon, returning, "you'll be sure to come to Carabine's to-night, won't you?--supper and lansquenet."

"Will monsieur be there?" said Jenny Cadine, looking artlessly and graciously at Gazonal.

"Yes, madame," replied the countryman, dazzled by such rapid success.

"But Ma.s.sol will be there," said Bixiou.

"Well, what of that?" returned Jenny. "Come, we must part, my treasures; I must go to the theatre."

Gazonal gave his hand to the actress, and led her to the citadine which was waiting for her; as he did so he pressed hers with such ardor that Jenny Cadine exclaimed, shaking her fingers: "Take care! I haven't any others."

When the three friends got back into their own vehicle, Gazonal endeavoured to seize Bixiou round the waist, crying out: "She bites!

You're a fine rascal!"

"So women say," replied Bixiou.