The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

to promote my wishes,

and that he was very glad his nephew had behaved so as to meet my

ideas, because he meant to refresh his memory in my behalf, being

determined, as he was pleased to say, to place it beyond all

manner of doubt how far he himself participated in all my views,

and to make it evident that, instead of one fast friend, I had

two. In terms like these did Don Balthasar, through mere

friendship for Navarro, take the moulding of my fortunes on

himself.

 

On that same evening did I leave my paltry lodging to take up my

abode at the prime minister’s, where I sat down to supper with

Scipio in my own suite of apartments. There were we both waited

on by the servants belonging to the household, who as they stood

behind our chairs, while we were affecting the pomp and

circumstance of political elevation, were more likely than not to

be laughing in their sleeves at the pantomime they had been

ordered by their manager to play in our presence. When they had

taken away and left us to ourselves, my secretary being no longer

under restraint, gave vent to a thousand wild imaginations which

his sprightly temper and inventive hopes engendered in his fancy.

On my part, though by no means cold or insensible to the

brilliant prospects which were opening on my view, I did not as

yet yield in the least degree to the weakness of being thrust

aside from the right line of my

philosophy by temporal allurements. So much otherwise, that on

going to bed I fell into a sound sleep, without being haunted in

my dreams by those phantoms of flattering delusion which might

have gained admittance with no severe question from a corruptible

door-keeper. The ambitious Scipio, on the contrary, tossed and

tumbled all night in the agitation of restless contrivance.

Whenever he dozed a little imp took possession of his brain, with

a pen behind its ear, working out by all the rules of arithmetic

the bulky sum total of his daughter Seraphina’s marriage portion.

 

No sooner had I got my clothes on the next morning, than a

message came from his lordship. I flew like lightning at the

summons, when his excellency said: Now then, Santillane, suppose

you give us a specimen of your talents for business. You say that

the Duke of Lerma used to give you state papers to bring into

official form; and I have one, by way of experiment, on which you

shall try your skill. The subject you will easily comprehend: it

turns upon an exposition of public affairs, such as to throw an

artificial light on the first appearance of the new ministry, and

to prejudice the public in its favour. I have already whispered

it about by my emissaries, that every department of the state was

completely disorganized, that the talents which preceded us were

no talents at all; and the object at present is to impress both

court and city by a formal declaration with the idea, that our

aid is absolutely necessary to save the monarchy itself from

sinking. On this theme you may expatiate till the populace become

lock-jawed with astonishment, and the sober part of the public

are gravely argued out of all prepossession in favour of the

discarded party. By way of contrast, you will talk of the dignus

vindice nodus, taking care to translate it into Spanish; and

boast of the measures adopted under the new order of things, to

secure the permanent glory of the king’s reign, to give perpetual

prosperity to his dominions, and to confer perfect, unchangeable

happiness on his good people.

 

His lordship, having given out the general subject of my thesis,

left me with a paper containing the heads of charges, whether

just or unjust, against the late administration: and I remember

perfectly well, that there were ten articles, whose lightest

word, even of the lightest article, would harrow up the soul of a

true Spaniard, and make his knotted and combined locks to part.

That the current of my fancy might experience no interruption, he

shut me into a little closet near his own, where the spirit of

poetry might possess me in all its freedom and in dependence. My

best faculties were called forth, to compose a statement of

affairs commensurate with my own concern in the sweeping of the

new brooms. My first object was to lay open the nakedness and

abandonment of the kingdom: the finances in a state of

bankruptcy, the civil list and immediate resources of the crown

pawned fifty times over, the navy unpaid, dismantled, and in

mutiny. All this hideous delineation was referred for its justice

and accuracy to the wrong-headedness and stupidity of government

at the close of the last reign, and the doctrine most strongly

enforced, that unexampled wisdom and patriotism only could ward

off the fatal consequences. In short, the monarchy could only be

sustained on the shoulders of our political sufficiency and

reforming prudence. The ex-ministry were so cruelly belaboured,

that the Duke of Lerma’s ruin, according to the terms of my

syllogism, was the salvation of Spain. To own the truth, though

my professions were in the spirit of Christian charity towards

that nobleman, I was not sorry to give him a sly rub in the

exercise of my function. Oh man! man! what a compound of candour-breathing satire and splenetic impartiality art thou!

 

Towards the conclusion, having finished my frightful portraiture

of overhanging evils, I endeavoured to allay the storm my art had

raised by making futurity as bright as the past had been gloomy.

The Count of Olivarez was

brought in at the close, like the tutelary deity of an ancient

commonwealth in the crisis of its fate. I promised more than

paganism ever feigned or chivalry fancied in the wildest of its

crusading projects. In a word, I so exactly executed what the new

minister meant, that he seemed not to know his own hints again,

when drawn out in my emphatic and appropriate language.

Santillane, said he, do you know that this is more like the

composition one might expect from a secretary of state, than like

that of a private secretary? I can no longer be surprised that

the Duke of Lerma was fond of calling your talents into action.

Your style is concise, and by no means inelegant; but it creeps

rather too much in the level paths of nature. At the same time,

pointing out the passages which did not hit his fancy, he

corrected them; and I gathered from the touches he threw in, that

Navarro was right in saying he affected sententious wit, but

mistook for it quaint and stale conceits. Nevertheless, though he

preferred the stately, or rather the grotesque in writing, he

suffered two thirds of my performance to stand without

alteration; and by way of proving how entirely he was satisfied,

sent me three hundred pistoles by Don Raymond after dinner.

 

CH. VI. The application of the three hundred pistoles, and

Scipio’s commission connected with them. Success of the state

paper mentioned in the last chapter.

 

THIS handsome present of the minister furnished Scipio with a new

subject of congratulation, by reason of our second appearance at

court. You may remark, said he, that fortune is preparing a load

of aggrandizement to lay on your lordship’s shoulders. Are you

still sorry for having turned your back on solitude? May the

Count of Olivarez live for ever! he is a very different sort of a

master from his predecessor. The Duke of Lerma, with all your

devotion to his service, left you to live upon suction for months

without a pistole to bless yourself with; and the count has

already made you a present which you could have had no reason to

expect but after a course of long service.

 

I should very much like, added he, that the lords of Leyva should

be witnesses of your great success, or at least that they should

be informed of it. It is high time indeed, answered I, and I

meant to speak with you on that subject. They must doubtless be

impatient to hear of my proceedings, but I waited till my fate

was fixed, and till I could decide for certain whether I should

stay at court or not. Now that I am sure of my destination, you

have only to set out for Valencia whenever you please, and to

acquaint those noblemen with my present situation, which I

consider as their doing, since it is evident that, but for them,

I should never have resolved on my journey to Madrid. My dear

master, cried the son of Bohemian accident, what joy shall I

communicate by relating what has happened to you! Why am I not

already at the gates of Valencia? But I shall be there forthwith.

Don Alphonso’s two horses are ready in the stable. I shall take

one of my lord’s livery servants with me. Besides that company is

pleasant on the road, you know very well the effect of official

parade, in making impression on the natives of a provincial town.

 

I could not help laughing at my secretary’s foolish vanity; and

yet, with vanity perhaps more than equal to his own, I left him

to do as he pleased. Go about your business, said I, and make the

best of your way back; for I have an other commission to give

you. I mean to send you to the Asturias with some money for my

mother. Through neglect I have suffered the time to elapse when I

promised to remit her a hundred pistoles, and pledged you to make

the payment in person. Such engagements ought to be held sacred

by a son; and I reproach myself with inaccuracy in the observance

of mine. Sir, answered Scipio, within six weeks I shall bring you

an account of both your commissions; having opened my budget to

the lords of Leyva, looked in at your country-house, and taken a

peep at the town of Oviedo, the recollection of which I cannot

admit into my mind, without turning over three-fourths of the

inhabitants, and one-half of the remaining quarter, to the

corrective discipline of that infernal executioner, who is

supposed to be kept on foot for the purpose of castigating

sinners. I then counted down one hundred pistoles to that same

son of a wandering mother for my honoured parents’ annuity, and

another hundred for himself; meaning that he should perform his

long journey without grumbling on my account by the way.

 

Some days after his departure his lordship sent our memorial to

press; and it was no sooner published than it became the topic of

conversation in every circle throughout Madrid. The people,

enamoured of novelty, took up this well written statement of

their own wretchedness with fond partiality; the derangement and

exhaustion of the finances, painted with a mixture of truth and

poetry, excited a strong feeling of popular indignation against

the Duke of Lerma; and if these paper bullets of the brain, cast

in the political armoury of a rival, failed to carry victory with

them in the opinions of all mankind, they were at all events

hailed with triumph by the most clamorous of our own partisans.

As for the magnificent promises which the Count of Olivarez threw

in, and among others that of keeping the machine of state in

motion, by a system of economy, without adding to the public

burdens, they were caught at with avidity by the citizens at

large, and considered as pledges of an enlightened and patriotic

policy, so that the whole city resounded with the acclamation of

panegyric and congratulation on the opening of new prospects.

 

The minister, delighted to have gained his end so easily, which

in that publication had only been to draw popularity upon