The Deputy of Arcis, Honoré de Balzac [bts book recommendations .txt] 📗

him, through the organ at Saint-Louis, and the following Sunday after high mass I posted myself as before at the door of the organ loft, determined not to let go of the sphinx until I had made him speak. But here again, disappointment! Monsieur Jacques Bricheteau's place was taken by a pupil. The same thing happened on the three following Sundays. On the fourth, I accosted the pupil and asked him if the master were ill.

"No, monsieur," he replied. "Monsieur Bricheteau has asked for leave of absence. He will be absent for some time; I believe on business."

"Where, then, can I write to him?"

"I don't rightly know; but I think you had better address your letter to his house; not far from here, quai de Bethune."

"But he has moved; didn't you know it?"

"No, indeed; where does he live now?"

This was poor luck; to ask information of a man who asked it of me when I questioned him. As if to put be quite beside myself while I was making these inquiries, I saw that damned dwarf in the distance evidently laughing at me.

Happily for my patience and my curiosity, which, under the pressure of all this opposition was growing terrible, a certain amount of light was given me. A few days after my last discomfiture, a letter reached me bearing the post-mark Stockholm, Sweden; which address did not surprise me because, while in Rome, I had been honored by the friendship of Thorwaldsen, the great Swedish sculptor, and I had often met in his studio many of his compatriots. Probably, therefore, this letter conveyed an order from one of them, sent through Thorwaldsen. But, on opening the letter what was my amazement, and my emotion, in presence of its opening words:--


Monsieur my Son,--


The letter was long. I had no patience to read it until I knew the name I bore. I turned to the signature; again my disappointment was complete--there was no name!


Monsieur my Son,


said my anonymous father,--

I do not regret that by your passionate insistence on knowing the
secret of your birth, you have forced the person who has watched
over you from childhood to come here to confer with me as to the
course your vehement and dangerous curiosity requires us to
pursue.

For some time past, I have entertained a thought which I bring to
maturity to-day; the execution of which could have been more
satisfactorily settled by word of mouth than it can now be by
correspondence.

Immediately after your birth, which cost your mother's life, being
forced to expatriate myself, I made in a foreign country a noble
fortune, and I occupy in the ministry of that country an eminent
position. I foresee the moment when, free to restore to you my
name, I shall also be able to secure to you the inheritance of my
titles and the position to which I have attained.

But, to reach that height, the reputation you have, I am told,
acquired in art is not a sufficient recommendation. It is my wish
that you should enter political life; and in that career, under
the present institutions of France, there are not two ways of
becoming a man of distinction: you must begin by being made a
deputy. I know that you are not yet of the legal age, and also
that you do not possess the property qualification. But, in
another year you will be thirty years old, and that is just the
necessary time required by law to be a land-owner before becoming
a candidate for election.

To-morrow, therefore, you can present yourself to Mongenod Bros.,
bankers, rue de la Victoire. A sum of two hundred and fifty
thousand francs will be paid to you; this you must immediately
employ in the purchase of real estate, applying part of the
surplus to obtain an interest in some newspaper which, when the
right time comes, will support your candidacy, and the rest in
another expense I shall presently explain to you.

Your political aptitude is guaranteed to me by the person who,
with a disinterested zeal for which I shall ever be grateful, has
watched over you since you were abandoned. For some time past he
has secretly followed you and listened to you, and he is certain
that you will make yourself a dignified position in the Chamber.
Your opinions of ardent yet moderate liberalism please me; without
being aware of it, you have very cleverly played into my game. I
cannot as yet tell you the place of your probable election. The
secret power which is preparing for that event is all the more
certain to succeed because its plans are pursued quietly and for
the present in the shade. But success will be greatly assisted by
the execution of a work which I shall now propose to you,
requesting you to accept its apparent strangeness without surprise
or comment.

For the time being you must continue to be a sculptor, and with
the talents of which you have already given proofs, I wish you to
make a statue of Saint-Ursula. That is a subject which does not
lack either interest or poesy. Saint-Ursula, virgin and martyr,
was, as is generally believed, a daughter of prince of Great
Britain. Becoming the abbess of a convent of unmarried women, who
were called with popular naivete the Eleven Thousand Virgins, she
was martyred by the Huns in the fifth century; later, she was
patroness of the order of the Ursulines, to which she gave its
name, and she was also patroness of the famous house of Sorbonne.
An able artist like yourself could, it seems to me, make much of
these details.

Without knowing the locality of which you will be made the
representative, it is expedient that you should from the present
moment, make known your political opinions and your intention of
becoming a candidate for election. But I cannot too strongly
insist on your keeping secret the communication now made to you;
at any rate as much as your patience will allow. Leave my agent in
peace, and await the slow and quiet development of the brilliant
future to which you are destined, without yielding to a curiosity
which might, I warn you, lead to great disasters.

If you refuse to enter my plans, you will take from yourself all
chance of ever penetrating a mystery which you have shown yourself
so eager to understand. But I do not admit even the supposition of
your resistance, and I prefer to believe in your deference to the
wishes of a father who will regard it as the finest day of his
life when at last it be granted to him to reveal himself to his
son.

P.S. Your statue, which is intended for a convent of Ursuline
nuns, must be in white marble. Height: one metre seven hundred and
six millimetres; in other words, five feet three inches. As it
will not be placed in a niche, you must carefully finish all sides
of it. The costs of the work are to be taken out of the two
hundred and fifty thousand francs mentioned above.

This letter chilled and pained me. In the first place, it took from me a hope long cherished,--that of recovering a mother as loving as yours, of whose adorable tenderness, dear friend, you have so often told me. After all, it was a half-light thrown upon the fogs of my life without even allowing me to know whether I was or was not the child of a legitimate marriage. It also seemed to me that such paternal intimations addressed to a man of my age were much too despotic and imperious. Was it not a strange proceeding to change my whole life as if I were a boy just leaving school! At first I employed to myself all the arguments against this political vocation which you and my other friends have since addressed to me. Nevertheless curiosity impelled me to go the Mongenods'; and finding there, sure enough, in actual, living money, the two hundred and fifty thousand francs announced to me, I was led to reason in another way.

I reflected that a will which began by making such an outlay must have something serious in it. And inasmuch as this mysterious father knew all and I nothing, it seemed to me that to enter on a struggle with him was neither reasonable nor opportune. In fact, had I any real repugnance to the career suggested to me? No. Political interests have always roused me to a certain degree; and if my electoral attempt should come to nothing, I could always return to my art without being more ridiculous than the other still-born ambitions which each new legislature produces.

Accordingly, I have bought the necessary piece of property, and made myself a shareholder in the "National." I have also made the Saint-Ursula, and am now awaiting instructions, which seem to me rather long in coming, as to her actual destination. Moreover, I have made known my parliamentary ambition, and the fact that I intend to stand in the coming elections.

I need not ask you to preserve the utmost secrecy about my present confidence. Discretion is a virtue which you practise, to my knowledge, in too signal a manner to need any exhorting thereto from me. But I am wrong, dear friend, in making these unkind allusions to the past, for at this moment I am, more perhaps than you know, the obliged party. Partly out of interest in me, but more because of the general aversion your brother-in-law's extreme haughtiness inspires, the democratic party has flocked to my door to make inquiries about my wound, and the talk and excitement about this duel have served me well; there is no doubt that my candidacy has gained much ground. Therefore, I say, a truce to your gratitude; do you not see how much I owe to you?


X. DORLANGE TO MARIE-GASTON

Paris, April, 1839.

Dear Friend,--For better or for worse, I continue my candidacy without a constituency to elect me. This surprises my friends and worries me, for it is only a few weeks now to the general election; and if it happens that all this mysterious "preparation" comes to nought, a pretty figure I shall cut in the caricatures of Monsieur Bixiou, of whose malicious remarks on the subject you lately wrote me.

One thing reassures me: it does not seem likely that any one would have sown two hundred and fifty thousand francs in my electoral furrow without feeling pretty sure of gathering a harvest. Perhaps, to take a cheerful view of the matter, this very slowness may be considered as showing great confidence of success.

However that may be, I am kept by this long