The Lerouge Case, Émile Gaboriau [old books to read TXT] 📗

“I have quarrelled with the Duke de Sairmeuse,” said he to his son.

“That seems to me to happen whenever you meet,” answered Albert, without intending any raillery.

“True,” said the count: “but this is serious. I passed four days at his country-seat, in a state of inconceivable exasperation. He has entirely forfeited my esteem. Sairmeuse has sold his estate of Gondresy, one of the finest in the north of France. He has cut down the timber, and put up to auction the old château, a princely dwelling, which is to be converted into a sugar refinery; all this for the purpose, as he says, of raising money to increase his income!”

“And was that the cause of your rupture?” inquired Albert, without much surprise.

“Certainly it was! Do you not think it a sufficient one?”

“But, sir, you know the duke has a large family, and is far from rich.”

“What of that? A French noble who sells his land commits an unworthy act. He is guilty of treason against his order!”

“Oh, sir,” said Albert, deprecatingly.

“I said treason!” continued the count. “I maintain the word. Remember well, viscount, power has been, and always will be, on the side of wealth, especially on the side of those who hold the soil. The men of ’93 well understood this principle, and acted upon it. By impoverishing the nobles, they destroyed their prestige more effectually than by abolishing their titles. A prince dismounted, and without footmen, is no more than anyone else. The Minister of July, who said to the people, ‘Make yourselves rich,’ was not a fool. He gave them the magic formula for power. But they have not the sense to understand it. They want to go too fast. They launch into speculations, and become rich, it is true; but in what? Stocks, bonds, paper⁠—rags, in short. It is smoke they are locking in their coffers. They prefer to invest in merchandise, which pays eight or ten percent, to investing in vines or corn which will return but three. The peasant is not so foolish. From the moment he owns a piece of ground the size of a handkerchief, he wants to make it as large as a tablecloth. He is slow as the oxen he ploughs with, but as patient, as tenacious, and as obstinate. He goes directly to his object, pressing firmly against the yoke; and nothing can stop or turn him aside. He knows that stocks may rise or fall, fortunes be won or lost on ’change; but the land always remains⁠—the real standard of wealth. To become landholders, the peasant starves himself, wears sabots in winter; and the imbeciles who laugh at him will be astonished by and by when he makes his ’93, and the peasant becomes a baron in power if not in name.”

“I do not understand the application,” said the viscount.

“You do not understand? Why, what the peasant is doing is what the nobles ought to have done! Ruined, their duty was to reconstruct their fortunes. Commerce is interdicted to us; be it so: agriculture remains. Instead of grumbling uselessly during the half-century, instead of running themselves into debt, in the ridiculous attempt to support an appearance of grandeur, they ought to have retreated to their provinces, shut themselves up in their châteaux; there worked, economised, denied themselves, as the peasant is doing, purchased the land piece by piece. Had they taken this course, they would today possess France. Their wealth would be enormous; for the value of land rises year after year. I have, without effort, doubled my fortune in thirty years. Blauville, which cost my father a hundred crowns in 1817, is worth today more than a million: so that, when I hear the nobles complain, I shrug the shoulder. Who but they are to blame? They impoverish themselves from year to year. They sell their land to the peasants. Soon they will be reduced to beggary, and their escutcheons. What consoles me is, that the peasant, having become the proprietor of our domains will then be all-powerful, and will yoke to his chariot wheels these traders in scrip and stocks, whom he hates as much as I execrate them myself.”

The carriage at this moment stopped in the courtyard of the de Commarin mansion, after having described that perfect half-circle, the glory of coachmen who preserve the old tradition.

The count alighted first, and leaning upon his son’s arm, ascended the steps of the grand entrance. In the immense vestibule, nearly all the servants, dressed in rich liveries, stood in a line. The count gave them a glance, in passing, as an officer might his soldiers on parade, and proceeded to his apartment on the first floor, above the reception rooms.

Never was there a better regulated household than that of the Count de Commarin. He possessed in a high degree the art, more rare than is generally supposed, of commanding an army of servants. The number of his domestics caused him neither inconvenience nor embarrassment. They were necessary to him. So perfect was the organisation of this household, that its functions were performed like those of a machine⁠—without noise, variation, or effort.

Thus when the count returned from his journey, the sleeping hotel was awakened as if by the spell of an enchanter. Each servant was at his post; and the occupations, interrupted during the past six weeks, resumed without confusion. As the count was known to have passed the day on the road, the dinner was served in advance of the usual hour. All the establishment, even to the lowest scullion, represented the spirit of the first article of the rules of the house, “Servants are not to execute orders, but anticipate them.”

M. de Commarin had hardly removed the traces of his journey, and changed his dress, when his butler announced that the dinner was served.

He went down at once; and father and son met upon the threshold of the dining-room. This was a large apartment, with a very high ceiling,