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

knows

very well that I am the son of an usher and a duenna: it would be

caricaturing the peerage to confer it on me; and besides, of all

the boons in his majesty’s power to bestow, it is that which I

deserve and desire the least. Your birth, replied the minister,

is a slight objection. You have been employed on affairs of state

under the Duke of Lerma’s administration and under mine: besides,

added he with a smile, have you not rendered some things to

Caesar, which Caesar is bound, on the honour of a prince, to

render back in another shape? To deal candidly, Santillane, you

will make just as good a lord as the best of them; nay, more than

that, your high office about my son is incompatible with plebeian

rank, and therefore have I procured you to be created. Since your

excellency will have it so, replied I, there is no more to be

said. So, saying no more, I put my new-blown honours in my

pocket, and walked off.

 

Now can I make any Joan a lady! said I to myself when I had got

into the street: but it was not the handywork of my parents that

made me a gentle man. I may add a foot of honour to my name

whenever I please; and if any of my acquaintance should snuff or

snigger when they call me Don, I may suck my teeth, lean upon my

elbow, and draw out my credentials of heraldry. But let us see

what they contain; and how the corporeal particles, which have

accrued during my artificial contact with the court, are

distinguished by genealogical metaphysics from the native clay of

my original extraction. The instrument ran thus in substance:

That the king in acknowledgment of my zeal in more than one

instance for his service and the good of the state, had been

graciously pleased to confer this mark of distinction on me. I

may safely say that the recollection of the act for which I was

promoted effectually kept down my pride. Neither did the

bashfulness of low birth ever forsake me; so that nobility to me

was like a hair shirt to a penitent: I determined therefore to

lock up the evidences of my shame in a private drawer, instead of

blazoning them to dazzle the eyes of the foolish and corrupt.

 

CH. VII. — An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio.

Their last conversation together, and a word to the wise from

Nunez.

 

THE poet of the Asturias, as the reader, if he thought of him,

may have remarked, was very negligent in his intercourse with me.

It was not to be expected, that my employments would leave me

time to go and look after him. I had not seen him since the

critical discussion touching the Iphigenia of Euripides, when

chance threw me across him, as he came out of a printing-house. I

accosted him, saying: So! so! Master Nunez, you have got among

the printers: this looks as if we were threatened with some new

production.

 

You may indeed prepare yourselves for such an event, answered he:

I have a pamphlet just ready for publication which is likely to

make some noise in the literary world. There can be no question

about its merit, replied I: but I cannot conceive why you waste

your time in writing pamphlets: it should seem as if such squibs

and rockets were scarcely worth the powder expended in their

manufacture. It is very true, rejoined Fabricio: and I am well

aware that none but the most vulgar gazers are caught by such

holiday fireworks: however, this single one has escaped me, and

I must own that it is a child of necessity. Hunger, as you know,

will bring the wolf out of the forest.

 

What! exclaimed I, is it the author of the “Count of Saldagna”

who holds this language? A man with an annuity of two thousand

crowns? Gently, my friend, interrupted Nunez: I am no longer a

pensioned poet. The affairs of the treasurer Don Bertrand are all

at sixes and sevens: he has been at the gaming table, and played

with the public money: an extent has issued, and my rent-charge

is gone post-haste to the devil. That is a sad affair, said I:

but may not matters come round again in that quarter? No chance

of it, answered he: Signor Gomez Del Ribero, in plight as

destitute as that of his poor bard, is sunk for ever; nor can he,

as they say, by any possible contrivance be set afloat again.

 

In that case, my good friend, replied I, we must look out for

some post which may make you amends for the loss of your annuity.

I will ease your con science on that score, said he: though you

should offer me the wealth of the Indies as a salary in one of

your offices, I would reject the boon: clerkships are no object

to a partner in the firm of the Muses; a literary berth, or

absolute starvation for your humble servant! If you must have it

plump, I was born to live and die a poet, and the man whose

destiny is hanging, will never be drowned.

 

But do not suppose, continued he, that we are altogether forlorn

and destitute: besides that we accommodate the requisites of

independence to our finances, we do not look far beyond our noses

in calculating the avenge of our fortunes. It is insinuated that

we often dine with the most abstemious orders of the religious;

but our sanctity in this particular is too credulously imputed.

There is not one of my brother wits, without excepting the

calculators of almanacs, who has not a plate laid for him at some

substantial table: for my own part, I have the run of two good

houses. To the master of one I have dedicated a romance; and he

is the first commissioner of taxes who was ever associated with

the Muses: the other is a rich tradesman in Madrid, whose lust is

to get wits about him; he is not nice in his choice, and this

town furnishes abundance to those who value wit more by quantity

than quality.

 

Then I no longer feel for you, said I to the poet of the

Asturias, since you are satisfied in your condition. But be that

as it may, I assure you once more, that you have a friend in Gil

Blas, however you may slight him: if you want my purse, come and

take it: it will not fail you at a pinch; and you must not stand

between me and my sincere friendship.

 

By that burst of sentiment, exclaimed Nunez, I know and thank my

friend Santillane: in return, let me give you a salutary caution.

While my lord duke is in his meridian, and you are all in all

with him, reap, bind, and gather is your harvest: when the sun

sets, the gleaners are sent home. I asked Fabricio whether his

suspicions were surely founded; and he returned me this answer.

My information comes from an old knight of Calatrava, who pokes

his nose into secrets of all sorts; his authority passes current

at Madrid, much as that of the Pythian newsmongers did through

Greece; and thus his oracle was pronounced in my hearing: My lord

duke has a host of enemies in battle-array against him; he

reckons too securely upon his influence with the king; for his

majesty, as the report goes, begins to take in hostile

representations with patience. I thanked Nunez for his friendly

warning, but without much faith in his prediction: my master’s

authority seemed rooted in the court, like the tempest-scoffing

firmness of an oak in the native soil of the forest.

 

Cu. VIII. — Gil Blas finds that Fabricio’s hint was not without

foundation. The king’s journey to Saragossa.

 

THE poet of the Asturias was no bad politician. There was a court

plot against the duke, with the queen at the bottom; but their

plans were too deeply laid to bubble at the surface. During the

space of a whole year, my simplicity was insensible to the

brewing of the tempest.

 

The revolt of the Catalans, with France at their back, and the

ill success of the war for their suppression, excited the murmurs

of the people, and whetted their tongues against government. A

council was held in the royal presence, and the Marquis de Grana,

the emperor’s ambassador, was specially requested to assist. The

subject in debate was whether the king should remain in Castile,

or go and take the command of his troops in Arragon. The minister

spoke first, and gave it as his opinion that his majesty should

not quit the seat of government All the members supported his

arguments, with the exception of the Marquis de Grana, whose

whole heart was with the house of Austria, and the sentiments of

his soul on the tip of his tongue, after the homely honesty of

his nation. He argued so forcibly against the minister, that the

king embraced his opinion from conviction, though contrary to the

vote of council, and fixed the day when he would set out for the

army.

 

This was the first time that ever the sovereign had differed from

his favourite, and the latter considered it as an inexpiable

affront. Just as the minister was withdrawing to his closet,

there to bite upon the bridle, he espied me, called me in; and

told me with much discomposure what had passed in debate: Yes,

Santillane, observed he, the king, who for the last twenty years

has spoken only through my mouth, and seen with my eyes, is now

to be wheedled over by Grana; and that on the score of zeal for

the house of Austria, as if that German had a more Austrian soul

in his body than myself.

 

Hence it is easy to perceive, continued the minister, that there

is a strong party against me, with the queen at the head. Heaven

forbid it, said I. Has not the queen for upwards of twelve years

been accustomed to your paramount authority, and have you not

taught the king the knack of not consulting her? The desire of

making a campaign may for once have enlisted his majesty on the

side of the Marquis de Grana. Say rather that the king, argued my

lord duke, will be surrounded by his principal officers when in

camp; and then the disaffected will find their opportunity for

poisoning him against my administration. But they overreach

themselves; for I shall completely insulate the prince from all

their approaches; and so he did, in a manner which, for example,

deserves not to be passed over.

 

The day of the king’s departure being arrived, the monarch,

leaving the queen regent, proceeded for Saragossa by way of

Aranjuez; a delightful residence, where he whiled away three

weeks. Cuen�a was the next stage, where the minister detained him

still longer by a succession of amusements. A hunting party was

contrived at Molina in Arragon, and hence there was no choice of

road but to Saragossa. The army was near at hand, and the king

was preparing to review it: but his keeper sickened him of the

project, by making him believe that he would be taken by the

French, who were in force in the neighbourhood; so that he was

cowed by a groundless apprehension, and consented to be a

prisoner in his own court. The minister, from an affectionate

regard to his safety, secluded him from all approach: so that the

principal nobility, who had equipped themselves at enormous

charges to be about his person, could not even procure an

occasional audience. Philip, weary of bad lodgings and worse

recreation at Saragossa, and perhaps feeling himself scarcely his

own master, soon