The Immortal Part 16

CHAPTER XV.

'It's a scandal.'

'There must be a reply. The Academie cannot be silent under the attack.'

'What are you thinking of? On the contrary, the dignity of the Academie demands----'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen, the real feeling of the Academie is----'

In their private a.s.sembly room, in front of the great chimney-piece and the full-length portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, the 'deities'

were engaged in a discussion preliminary to the meeting. The cold smoke-stained light of a Parisian winter's day, falling through the great lantern overhead, gave effect to the chill solemnity of the marble busts ranged in row along the walls; and the huge fire in the chimney, nearly as red as the Cardinal's robe, was not enough to warm the little council-chamber or court-house, furnished with green leather seats, long horse-shoe table in front of the desk, and chain-bedecked usher, keeping the entrance near the place of Picheral, the Secretary.

Generally the best part of the meeting is the quarter of an hour's grace allowed to late-comers. The Academicians gather in groups with their backs to the fire and their coat tails turned up, chatting familiarly in undertones. But on this afternoon the conversation was general and had risen to the utmost violence of public debate, each new comer joining in from the far end of the room, while he signed the attendance list.

Some even before entering, while they were still depositing their great coats, comforters, and overshoes in the empty room of the Academie des Sciences, opened the door to join in the cries of 'Shame!' and 'Scandalous!'

The cause of all the commotion was this. There had appeared in a morning paper a reprint of a highly disrespectful report made to the Academie of Florence upon Astier-Rehu's 'Galileo' and the manifestly apocryphal and absurd (sic) historical doc.u.ments which were published with it. The report had been sent with the greatest privacy to the President of the Academie Francaise, and for some days there had been considerable excitement at the Inst.i.tute, where Astier-Rehu's decision was eagerly awaited. He had said nothing but, 'I know, I know; I am taking the necessary steps.' And now suddenly here was this report which they believed to be known only to themselves, hurled at them like a bomb-sh.e.l.l from the outer sheet of one of the most widely circulated of the Parisian newspapers, and accompanied by remarks insulting to the Permanent Secretary and to the whole Society.

Furious was the indignant outcry against the impudence of the journalist and the folly of Astier-Rehu, which had brought this upon them. The Academie has not been accustomed to such attacks, since it has prudently opened its doors to 'gentlemen of the Press.' The fiery Laniboire, familiar with every kind of 'sport.' talked of cutting off the gentleman's ears, and it took two or three colleagues to restrain his ardour.

'Come, Laniboire; we wear the sword, but we do not draw it Why, it's your own epigram, confound you, though adopted by the Inst.i.tute.'

'Gentlemen, you remember that Pliny the Elder, in the thirteenth book of his "Natural History"'--here arrived Gazan, who came in puffing with his elephantine trot--'is one of the first writers who mentions counterfeit autographs; amongst others, a false letter of Priam's on papyrus'--

'Monsieur Gazan has not signed the list,' cried Picheral's sharp falsetto.

'Oh, I beg your pardon.' And the fat man went off to sign, still discoursing about papyrus and King Priam, though unheard for the hubbub of angry voices, in which the only word that could be distinguished was 'Academie.' They all talked about the Academie as if it were an actual live person, whose real view each man believed himself alone to know and to express. Suddenly the exclamations ceased, as Astier-Rehu entered, signed his name, and quietly deposited at his place as Permanent Secretary the ensign of his office, carried under his arm. Then moving towards his colleagues he said:

'Gentlemen, I have bad news for you. I sent to the Library to be tested the twelve or fifteen thousand doc.u.ments which made what I called my collection. Well, gentlemen, all are forgeries. The Academie of Florence stated the truth. I am the victim of a stupendous hoax.'

As he wiped from his brow the great drops of sweat wrung out by the strain of his confession, some one asked in an insolent tone:

'Well, and _so_, Mr. Secretary'--

'So, M. Danjou, I had no other choice but to bring an action--which is what I have done. There was a general protest, all declaring that a lawsuit was out of the question and would bring ridicule upon the whole Society, to which he answered that he was exceedingly sorry to disoblige his colleagues, but his mind was made up. 'Besides, the man is in prison and the proceedings have commenced.'

Never had the private a.s.sembly-room heard a roar like that which greeted this statement. Laniboire distinguished himself as usual among the most excited by shouting that the Academie ought to get rid of so dangerous a member. In the first heat of their anger some of the a.s.sembly began to discuss the question aloud. Could it be done? Could the Academie say to a member who had brought the whole body into an undignified position, 'Go! I reverse my judgment. Deity as you are, I relegate you to the rank of a mere mortal'? Suddenly, either having caught a few words of the discussion, or by one of those strange intuitions which seem occasionally to come as an inspiration to the most hopelessly deaf, old Rehu, who had been keeping to himself, away from the fire for fear of a fit, remarked in his loud unmodulated voice, 'During the Restoration, for reasons merely political, we turned out eleven members at once.' The patriarch gave the usual little attesting movement of the head, calling to witness his contemporaries of the period, white busts with vacant eyes standing in rows on pedestals round the room.

'Eleven! whew!' muttered Danjou amid a great silence. And Laniboire, cynical as before, said 'All societies are cowardly; it's the natural law of self-preservation.' Here Epinchard, who had been busy near the door with Picheral the Secretary, rejoined the rest, and observed in a weak voice, between two fits of coughing, that the Permanent Secretary was not the only person to blame in the matter, as would appear from the minutes of the proceedings of July 8, 1879, which should now be read.

Picheral from his place, in his thin brisk voice, began at a great pace: _On July 8, 1879, Leonard-Pierre-Alexandre Astier-Rehu presented to the Academie Francaise a letter from Rotrou to Cardinal Richelieu respecting the statutes of the Society. The Academie, after an examination of this unpublished and interesting doc.u.ment, pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to the donor, and decided to enter the letter of Rotrou upon the minutes. The letter is appended_ (at this point the Secretary slackened his delivery and put a malicious stress upon each word) _with all the errors of the original text, which, being such as occur in ordinary correspondence, confirm the authenticity of the doc.u.ment_. All stood motionless in the faded light that came through the gla.s.s, avoiding each other's eyes and listening in utter amazement.

'Shall I read the letter too?' asked Picheral with a smile. He was much amused.

'Yes, read the letter too,' said Epinchard. But after a phrase or two there were cries of 'Enough, enough, that will do!' They were ashamed of such a letter of Rotrou. It was a crying forgery, a mere schoolboy's imitation, the sentences misshapen, and half the words not known at the supposed date. How could they have been so blind?

'You see, gentlemen, that we could scarcely throw the whole burden upon our unfortunate colleague,' said Epinchard; and turning to the Permanent Secretary begged him to abandon proceedings which could bring nothing but discredit upon the whole Society and the great Cardinal himself.

But neither the fervour of the appeal nor the magnificence of the orator's att.i.tude, as he pointed to the insignia of the Sacred Founder, could prevail over the stubborn resolution of Astier-Rehu. Standing firm and upright before the little table in the middle of the room, which was used as a desk for the reading of communications, with his fists clenched, as if he feared that his decision might be wrung out of his hands, he repeated that 'Nothing, I a.s.sure you, nothing' would alter his determination. He struck the hard wood angrily with his big knuckles, as he said, 'Ah, gentlemen, I have waited, for reasons like these, too long already! I tell you, my "Galileo" is a bone in my throat! I am not rich enough to buy it up, and I see it in the shop windows, advertising me as the accomplice of a forger.' What was his object! Why, to tear out the rotten pages with his own hand and burn them before all the world!

A trial would give him the opportunity. 'You talk of ridicule? The Academie is above the fear of it; and as for me, a b.u.t.t and a beggar as I must be, I shall have the proud satisfaction of having protected my personal honour and the dignity of history. I ask no more.' Honest Crocodilus! In the beat of his rhetoric was a sound of pure probity, which rang strangely where all around was padded with compromise and concealment. Suddenly the usher announced, 'Four o'clock, gentlemen.'

Four o'clock! and they had not finished the arrangements for Ripault-Babin's funeral.

'Ah, we must remember Ripault-Babin!' observed Danjou in a mocking voice. 'He has died at the right moment!' said Laniboire with mournful emphasis. But the point of his epigram was lost, for the usher was crying, 'Take your places'; and the President was ringing his bell On his right was Desminieres the Chancellor, and on his left the Permanent Secretary, reading quietly with recovered self-possession the report of the Funeral Committee, to an accompaniment of eager whispers and the pattering of sleet on the gla.s.s.

'How late you went on to-day!' remarked Coren-tine, as she opened the door to her master. Corentine was certainly to be reckoned with those who had no great opinion of the Inst.i.tute. 'M. Paul is in your study with Madame. You must go through the library; the drawing-room is full of people waiting to see you.'

The library, where nothing was left but the frame of the pigeon-holes, looked as if there had been a fire or a burglary. It depressed him, and he generally avoided it But to-day he went through it proudly, supported by the remembrance of his resolve, and of how he had declared it at the meeting. After an effort, which had cost him so much courage and determination, he felt a sweet sense of relief in the thought that his son was waiting for him. He had not seen him since just after the duel, when he had been overcome by the sight of his gallant boy, laid at full length and whiter than the sheet. He was thinking with delight how he would go up to him with open arms, and embrace him, and hold him tight, a long while, and say nothing--nothing! But as soon as he came into the room and saw the mother and son close together, whispering, with their eyes on the carpet, and their everlasting air of conspiracy, the affectionate impulse was gone.

'Here you are at last!' cried Madame Astier, who was dressed to go out.

And in a tone of mock solemnity, as if introducing the two, she said, 'My dear--the Count Paul Astier.'

'At your service, Master,' said Paul, as he bowed.

Astier-Rehu knitted his thick brows as he looked at them. '_Count_ Paul Astier?' said he.

The young fellow, as charming as ever, in spite of the tanning of six months spent in the open air, said he had just indulged in the extravagance of a Roman t.i.tle, not so much for his own sake as in honour of the lady who was about to take his name.

'So you are going to be married,' said his father, whose suspicions increased. 'And who is the lady?'

'The d.u.c.h.ess Padovani.'

'You must have lost your senses! Why she is five-and-twenty years older than you, and besides--and besides--' He hesitated, trying to find a respectful phrase, but at last blurted right out, 'You can't marry a woman who to every one's knowledge has belonged to another for years.'

'A fact, however, which has never prevented our dining with her regularly, and accepting from her all kinds of favours,' hissed Madame Astier, rearing her little head as to strike. Without bestowing on her a word or a look, as holding her no judge in a question of honour, the man went up to his son, and said in earnest tones, the muscles of his big cheeks twitching with emotion, 'Don't do it, Paul. For the sake of the name you bear, don't do it, my boy, I beg you.' He grasped his son's shoulder and shook him, voice and hand quivering together. But the young fellow moved away, not liking such demonstrations, and objected generally that 'he didn't see it; it was not his view.' The father felt the impa.s.sable distance between himself and his son, saw the impenetrable face and the look askance, and instinctively lifted up his voice in appeal to his rights as head of the family. A smile which he caught pa.s.sing between Paul and his mother, a fresh proof of their joint share in this discreditable business, completed his exasperation. He shouted and raved, threatening to make a public protest, to write to the papers, to brand them both, mother and son, 'in his history.' This last was his most appalling threat. When he had said of some historical character, 'I have branded him in my history,' he thought no punishment could be more severe. Madame Astier, almost as familiar with the threat of branding as with the dragging of his trunk about the pa.s.sage, contented herself with saying as she b.u.t.toned her gloves: 'You know every word can be heard in the next room.' In spite of the curtains over the door, the murmur of conversation was audible from the drawing-room.

Then, repressing and swallowing his wrath, 'Listen to me, Paul,' said Leonard Astier, shaking his forefinger in the young man's face, 'if ever this thing you are talking of comes to pa.s.s, do not expect to look upon me again. I will not be present on your wedding day; I will not have you near me, not even at my death-bed; You are no longer a son of mine; and you go with my curse upon you.' Moving away instinctively from the finger which almost touched him, Paul replied with great calmness, 'Oh, you know, my dear father, that sort of thing is never done now-a-days!

Even on the stage they have given up blessing and cursing.'

'But not punis.h.i.+ng, you scoundrel!' growled the old man, lifting his hand. There was an angry cry of 'Leonard!' from the mother, as with the prompt parry of a boxer Paul turned the blow aside, quietly as if he had been in Keyser's gymnasium, and without letting go the wrist he had twisted under, said beneath his breath, 'No, no; I won't have that.'

The tough old hillsman struggled violently, but, vigorous as he still was, he had found his master. At this terrible moment, while father and son stood face to face, breathing hate at one another, and exchanging murderous glances, the door of the drawing-room opened a little and showed the good-natured doll-like smile of a fat lady bedecked with feathers and flowers. 'Excuse me, dear master, I want just to say a word--why, Adelaide is here, and M. Paul too. Charming! delightful!

Quite a family group!' Madame Ancelin was right. A family group it was, a picture of the modern family, spoilt by the crack which runs through European society from top to bottom, endangering its essential principles of authority and subordination, and nowhere more remarkable than here, under the stately dome of the Inst.i.tute, where the traditional domestic virtues are judged and rewarded.

CHAPTER XVI.

[Ill.u.s.tration: People were still coming in 316]

It was stifling in the Eighth Chamber, where the f.a.ge case was just coming on after interminable preliminaries and great efforts on the part of influential persons to stop the proceedings. Never had this court-room, whose walls of a mouldy blue and diamond pattern in faded gilding reeked with the effluvium of rags and misery, never had this court seen squeezed on its dirty seats and packed in its pa.s.sages such a press and such a crowd of fas.h.i.+onable and distinguished persons, so many flower-trimmed bonnets and spring costumes by the masters of millinery art, to throw into relief the dead black of the gowns and caps. People were still coming in through the entrance lobby, where the double doors were perpetually swinging as the tide flowed on, a wavy sea of thronging faces upturned beneath the whitish light of the landing. Everyone was there, all the well-known, well-worn, depressingly familiar personages that figure at every Parisian festivity, fas.h.i.+onable funeral, or famous 'first night.' There was Marguerite Oger well to the fore, and the little Countess Foder, and beautiful Mrs. Henry of the American Emba.s.sy.

There were the ladies belonging to the Academic confraternity, Madame Ancein in mauve on the arm of Raverand, the leader of the bar; Madame Eviza, a bush of little roses surrounded by a busy humming swarm of would-be barristers. Behind the President's bench was Danjou, standing with folded arms, and showing above the audience and the judges the hard angles of his regular stage-weathered countenance, everywhere to be seen during the last forty years as the type of social commonplace in all its manifold manifestations. With the exception of Astier-Rehu and Baron Huchenard, who were summoned as witnesses, he was the only Academician bold enough to face the irreverent remarks that might be expected in the speech of f.a.ge's counsel, Margery, the dreaded wit, who convulses the whole a.s.sembly and the bench with the mere sound of his nasal 'Well.'

Some fun was to be expected; the whole atmosphere of the place announced it, the erratic tilt of the barristers' caps, the gleam in the eyes and curl in the corners of the mouths of people giving one another little antic.i.p.atory smiles. There were endless anecdotes current about the achievements in gallantry of the little humpback who had just been brought to the prisoner's box and, lifting his long well-greased head, cast into the court over the bar the conquering glance of a manifest ladies' man. Stories were told of compromising letters, of an account drawn up by the prisoner mentioning right out the names of two or three well-known ladies of fas.h.i.+on, the regular names dragged again and again into every unsavoury case. There was a copy of the production going the rounds of the seats reserved for the press, a simple conceited autobiography containing none of the revelations imputed to it by public rumour. f.a.ge had beguiled the tedium of confinement by writing for the court the story of his life. He was born, he said, near Va.s.sy (Haute Marne), as straight as anybody--so they all say--but a fall from a horse at fifteen had bent and inflected his spine. His taste for gallantry had developed somewhat late in life when he was working at a bookseller's in the Pa.s.sage des Panoramas. As his deformity interfered with his success, he tried to find some way of getting plenty of money. The story of his love affairs alternating with that of his forgeries and the means employed, with descriptions of ink and of parchment, resulted in such headings to his chapters as 'My first victim--For a red ribbon--The gingerbread fair--I make the acquaintance of Astier-Rehu--The mysterious ink--I defy the chemists of the Inst.i.tute.' This brief epitome is enough to show the combination, the humpback's self-satisfaction _plus_ the arrogance of the self-taught artisan. The general result of reading the production was utter amazement that the Permanent Secretary of the Academie Francaise and the official representatives of science and literature could have been taken in for two or three years by an ignorant dwarf with a brain crammed full of the refuse of libraries and the ill-digested parings of books. This const.i.tuted the extraordinary joke of the whole business, and was the explanation of the crowded court. People came to see the Academie pilloried in the person of Astier-Rehu, who sat among the witnesses, the mark of every eye. There he sat without moving, absorbed in his thoughts, not turning his head, and hardly answering the fulsome compliments of Freydet who was standing behind, with black gloves and a deep c.r.a.pe hat-band, having quite recently lost his sister. He had been summoned for the defence, and the Academic candidate was afraid that the fact might damage him in the eyes of his old master. He was apologising and explaining how he had come across the wretched f.a.ge in Vedrine's studio, and that was the reason of this unexpected call. But his whispers were lost in the noise of the court and the monotonous hum from the bench, as cases were called on and disposed of, the invariable 'This day week, this day week' descending like the stroke of the guillotine and cutting short the barrister's protest, and the entreaties of poor red-faced fellows mopping their brows before the seat of justice. 'But, Monsieur le President...' 'This day week.' Sometimes from the back of the court would come a cry and a despairing movement of a pair of arms, 'I am here, M. le President, but I can't get through, there's such a crowd...' 'This day week.' When a man has beheld such clearances as these, and seen the symbolic scales operate with such dexterity, he gets a vivid impression of French justice; it is not unlike the sensation of hearing the funeral service raced through in a hurry by a strange priest over a pauper's grave.

The voice of the President called for the f.a.ge case. Complete silence followed in the court, and even on the staircase landing where people had climbed on to benches to see. Then after a short consultation on the bench the witnesses filed out through a dense crowd of gowns on their way to the little room reserved for them, a dreary empty place, badly lighted by gla.s.s windows that had once been red, and looking out on a narrow alley. Astier-Rehu, who was to be called first, did not go in, but walked up and down in the gloomy pa.s.sage between the witness-room and the court. Freydet wished to stay with him, but he said in a colourless voice, 'No, no, let me alone, I want to be alone.' So the candidate joined the other witnesses who were standing in little knots--Baron Huchenard, Bos the palaeographer, Delpech the chemist, of the Academie des Sciences, some experts in handwriting, and two or three pretty girls, the originals of some of the photographs that adorned the walls of f.a.ge's room, delighted at the notoriety that the proceedings would bring them, laughing loudly and displaying startling little spring hats strangely different from the linen cap and woollen mittens of the caretaker at the Cour des Comptes. Vedrine also had been summoned, and Freydet came and sat by him on the wide ledge of the open window. The two friends, whirled apart in the opposing currents that divide men's lives in Paris, had not met since the summer before until the recent funeral of poor Germaine de Freydet Vedrine pressed his friend's hand and asked how he was, how he felt after so terrible a blow. Freydet shrugged his shoulders, 'It's hard, very hard, but after all I'm used to it.' Then, as Vedrine stared in wonder at his selfish stoicism, he added, 'Just think, that's twice in one year that I have been fooled.'

The blow, the only blow, that he remembered, was his failure to get Ripault-Babin's seat, which he had lately missed, as he had missed Loisillon's before. Presently he understood, sighed deeply, and said, 'Ah, yes, poor Germaine!' She had taken so much trouble all the winter about his unlucky candidature. Two dinners a week! Up to twelve or one o'clock she would be wheeling her chair all over the drawing-room. She had sacrificed her remaining strength to it, and was even more excited and keen than her brother. And at the last, the very last, when she was past speaking, her poor twisted fingers went on counting upon the hem of the sheet 'Yes, Vedrine, she died, ticking and calculating my chances of Ripault-Babin's seat. Oh, if only for her sake, I will get into their Academie, in defiance of them all, and in honour of her dear memory!'

He stopped short, then in an altered and lower voice went on: 'Really I don't know why I talk like that. The truth is that, since they put the idea into my head, I can think of nothing else. My sister is dead and I have hardly given her a tear. I had to pay my calls and "beg for the Academie," as that fellow says. The thing takes the very life out of me.

It's perfectly maddening.'