Gil Blas, Alain-René Lesage [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗

more than plain Don Francisco de Sandoval, this man had the humility to serve him as his lackey; since which time he has risen by degrees to the post of principal secretary. A prouder excrescence of the dunghill never sprung into vegetation on a summer’s day. He considers himself as the Duke of Lerma’s colleague; and in point of fact, he may truly be said to parcel out the loaves and fishes of administration, since he gives away offices and governments at the suggestions of his own caprice. The public grumbles and growls upon occasion; but who cares for the grumbling and growling of the public? Let him steal a pair of gloves from the prostitution of political honor, and the bronze upon his forehead will be proof against the peltings of scandal. What I have said will decide your dealings toward so supercilious a compound of dust and ashes.”

“Yes, to be sure,” said I; “leave me alone for that. It will be strange indeed if I cannot wriggle myself into his good graces. If one can but get on the blind side of a man who is to be made a property, it must be want of skill in the player if the game is lost.”

“Exactly so,” replied Monteser; “and now I will introduce you to the Duke of Lerma.”

We went at once to the minister, whom we found in his audience-chamber. His levee was more crowded than the king’s. There were commanders and knights of St. James and of Calatrava, making interest for governments and viceroyalties; bishops, who, laboring under oppression of the breath and tightness of the chest in their own dioceses, had been recommended the air of an archbishopric by their physicians, while the sounder lungs of lower dignitaries were strong enough to inhale the Theban atmosphere of a suffragan see. I observed, besides, some reduced officers dancing attendance to Captain Chinchilla’s tune, and catching cold in fishing for a pension, which was never likely to pay the doctor for their cure. If the duke did not satisfy their wants, he put a pleasant face upon their importunities; and it struck me that he returned a civil answer to all applicants.

We waited patiently till the routine of ceremony was despatched. Then said Don Diego, “My lord, this is Gil Blas de Santillane, the young man appointed by your excellency to succeed Don Valerio.”

The duke now took more particular notice of me, saying obligingly, that I had already earned my promotion by my services. He then took me to a private conference in his closet, or rather to an examination. My birth, parentage, and course of life were the objects of his inquiry; nor would he be satisfied without the particulars, and those in the spirit of sincerity. What a career to run over before a patron! Yet it was impossible to lie in the presence of a prime minister. On the other hand, my vanity was concerned in suppressing so many circumstances, that there was no venturing on an unqualified confession. What cunning scene had Roscius then to act? A little painting and tattooing might decently be employed, to disguise the nakedness of truth, and spare her unsophisticated blushes. But he had studied her complexion, as well as the beauties of her natural form.

“Monsieur de Santillane,” said he with a smile on the close of my narrative, “I perceive that hitherto you have had your principles to choose.”

“My lord,” answered I, coloring up to the eyes, “your excellency enjoined me to deal sincerely, and I have complied with your orders.”

“I take your doing so in good part,” replied he. “It is all very well, my good fellow: you have escaped from the snares of this wicked world more by luck than management: it is wonderful that bad example should not have corrupted you irreparably. There are many men of strict virtue and exemplary piety, who would have turned out the greatest rogues in existence, if their destinies had exposed them to but half your trials.”

“Friend Santillane,” continued the minister, “ponder no longer on the past; consider yourself, as to the very bone and marrow, the king’s; live henceforth but for his service. Come this way; I will instruct you in the nature of your business.”

He carried me into a little closet adjoining his own, which contained a score of thick folio registers.

“This is your workshop,” said he. “All these registers compose an alphabetical peerage, giving the heraldry and history of all the nobility and gentry in the several kingdoms and principalities of the Spanish monarchy. In these volumes are recorded the services rendered to the state by the present possessors and their ancestors, descending even to the personal animosities and rencounters of the individuals and their houses. Their fortunes, their manners, in a word, all the pros and cons of their character, are set down according to the letter of ministerial scrutiny, so that they no sooner enter on the list of court candidates, than my eye catches up the very chapter and verse of their pretensions. To furnish this necessary information, I have pensioned scouts everywhere on the lookout, who send me private notices of their discoveries; but as these documents are for the most part drawn up in a gossiping and provincial style, they require to be translated into gentlemanly language, or the king would not be able to support the perusal of the registers. This task demands the pen of a polite and perspicuous writer; I doubt not but you will justify your claim to the appointment.”

After this introduction, he put a memorial into my hand, taken from a large portfolio full of papers, and then withdrew from my closet, that my first specimen might be manufactured in all the freedom of solitude. I read the memorial, which was not only stuffed with a most uncouth jargon, but breathed a brimstone spirit of rancor and personal revenge. This was most foul, strange, and unnatural! for the homily was written by a monk. He hacked