Chapter 6. The Inconsistency Of An Old Chouan

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_ CHAPTER VI. THE INCONSISTENCY OF AN OLD CHOUAN

While the madman, Boleslas, hastened to Ardea to ask his cooperation in the most unreasonable of encounters, with a species of savage delight, Florent Chapron was possessed by only one thought: at any price to prevent his brother-in-law from suspecting his quarrel with Madame Steno's former lover and the duel which was to be the result. His passionate friendship for Lincoln was so strong that it prevented the nervousness which usually precedes a first duel, above all when he who appears upon the ground has all his life neglected practising with the sword or pistol. To a fencer, and to one accustomed to the use of firearms, a duel means a number of details which remove the thought of danger. The man conceives the possibilities of the struggle, of a deed to be bravely accomplished. That is sufficient to inspire him with a composure which absolute ignorance can not inspire, unless it is supported by one of those deep attachments often so strong within us. Such was the case with Florent.

Dorsenne's instinct, which could so easily read the heart, was not mistaken there; the painter had in his wife's brother a friend of self-sacrificing devotion. He could exact anything of the Mameluke, or, rather, of that slave, for it was the blood of the slaves, of his ancestors, which manifested itself in Chapron by so total an absorption of his personality. The atavism of servitude has these two effects which are apparently contradictory: it produces fathomless capacities of sacrifice or of perfidy. Both of these qualities were embodied in the brother and in the sister. As happens, sometimes, the two characteristics of their race were divided between them; one had inherited all the virtue of self-sacrifice, the other all the puissance of hypocrisy.

But the drama called forth by Madame Steno's infidelity, and finally by Gorka's rashness, would only expose to light the moral conditions which Dorsenne had foreseen without comprehending. He was completely ignorant of the circumstances under which Florent had developed, of those under which Maitland and he had met, of how Maitland had decided to marry Lydia; finally an exceptional and lengthy history which it is necessary to sketch here at least, in order to render clear the singular relations of those three beings.

As we have seen, the allusion coarsely made by Boleslas to negro blood marked the moment when Florent lost all self-control, to the point even of raising his cane to his insolent interlocutor. That blemish, hidden with the most jealous care, represented to the young man what it had represented to his father, the vital point of self-love, secret and constant humiliation. It was very faint, the trace of negro blood which flowed in their veins, so faint that it was necessary to be told of it, but it was sufficient to render a stay in America so much the more intolerable to both, as they had inherited all the pride of their name, a name which the Emperor mentioned at St. Helena as that of one of his bravest officers. Florent's grandfather was no other, indeed, than the Colonel Chapron who, as Napoleon desired information, swam the Dnieper on horseback, followed a Cossack on the opposite shore, hunted him like a stag, laid him across his saddle and took him back to the French camp. When the Empire fell, that hero, who had compromised himself in an irreparable manner in the army of the Loire, left his country and, accompanied by a handful of his old comrades, went to found in the southern part of the United States, in Alabama, a sort of agricultural colony, to which they gave the name--which it still preserves--of Arcola, a naive and melancholy tribute to the fabulous epoch which, however, had been dear to them.

Who would have recognized the brilliant colonel, who penetrated by the side of Montbrun the heart of the Grande Redoute, in the planter of forty-five, busy with his cotton and his sugar-cane, who made a fortune in a short time by dint of energy and good sense? His success, told of in France, was the indirect cause of another emigration to Texas, led by General Lallemand, and which terminated so disastrously. Colonel Chapron had not, as can be believed, acquired in roaming through Europe very scrupulous notions an the relations of the two sexes. Having made the mother of his child a pretty and sweet-tempered mulattress whom he met on a short trip to New Orleans, and whom he brought back to Arcola, he became deeply attached to the charming creature and to his son, so much the more so as, with a simple difference of complexion and of hair, the child was the image of him. Indeed, the old warrior, who had no relatives in his native land, on dying, left his entire fortune to that son, whom he had christened Napoleon. While he lived, not one of his neighbors dared to treat the young man differently from the way in which his father treated him.

But it was not the same when the prestige of the Emperor's soldier was not there to protect the boy against that aversion to race which is morally a prejudice, but socially interprets an instinct of preservation of infallible surety. The United States has grown only on that condition.

[Those familiar with the works of Bourget will recognize here again his well known antipathy for the United States of America. Mark Twain in the late 1800's felt obliged to rebut some of Bourget's prejudice: "What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us." D.W.]

The mixture of blood would there have dissolved the admirable Anglo-Saxon energy which the struggle against a nature at once very rich and very mutinous has exalted to such surprising splendor. It is not necessary to ask those who are the victims of such an instinct to comprehend the legal injustice. They only feel its ferocity. Napoleon Chapron, rejected in several offers of marriage, thwarted in his plans, humiliated under twenty trifling circumstances by the Colonel's former companions, became a species of misanthrope. He lived, sustained by a twofold desire, on the one hand to increase his fortune, and on the other to wed a white woman. It was not until 1857, at the age of thirty-five, that he realized the second of his two projects. In the course of a trip to Europe, he became interested on the steamer in a young English governess, who was returning from Canada, summoned home by family troubles. He met her again in London. He helped her with such delicacy in her distress, that he won her heart, and she consented to become his wife. From that union were born, one year apart, Florent and Lydia.

Lydia had cost her mother her life, at the moment when the War of Secession jeoparded the fortune of Chapron, who, fortunately for him, had, in his desire to enrich himself quickly, invested his money a little on all sides. He was only partly ruined, but that semi-ruin prevented him from returning to Europe, as he had intended. He was compelled to remain in Alabama to repair that disaster, and he succeeded, for at his death, in 1880, his children inherited more than four hundred thousand dollars each. The incomparable father's devotion had not limited itself to the building up of a large fortune. He had the courage to deprive himself of the presence of the two beings whom he adored, to spare them the humiliation of an American school, and he sent them after their twelfth year to England, the boy to the Jesuits of Beaumont, the girl to the convent of the Sacred Heart, at Roehampton. After four years there, he sent them to Paris, Florent to Vaugirard, Lydia to the Rue de Varenne, and just at the time that he had realized the amount he considered requisite, when he was preparing to return to live near them in a country without prejudices, a stroke of apoplexy took him off suddenly. The double wear of toil and care had told upon one of those organisms which the mixture of the black and white races often produces, athletic in appearance, but of a very keen sensibility, in which the vital resistance is not in proportion to the muscular vigor.

Whatever care the man, so deeply grieved by the blemish upon his birth, had taken to preserve his children from a similar experience, he had not been able to do so, and soon after his son entered Beaumont his trials began. The few boys with whom Florent was thrown in contact, in the hotels or in his walks, during his sojourn in America, had already made him feel that humiliation from which his father had suffered so much. The youth of twelve, silent and absurdly sensitive, who made his appearance on the lawn of the peaceful English college on an autumn morning, brought with him a self-love already bleeding, to whom it was a delightful surprise to find himself among comrades of his age who did not even seem to suspect that any difference separated them from him. It required the perception of a Yankee to discern, beneath the nails of the handsome boy with the dark complexion, the tiny drops of negro blood, so far removed. Between an octoroon and a creole a European can never tell the difference. Florent had been represented as what he really was, the grandson of one of the Emperor's best officers. His father had taken particular pains to designate him as French, and his companions only saw in him a pupil like themselves, coming from Alabama--that is to say, from a country almost as chimerical as Japan or China.

All who in early youth have known the torture of apprehension will be able to judge of the poor child's agony when, after four months of a life amid the warmth of sympathy, one of the Jesuit fathers who directed the college announced to him, thinking it would afford him pleasure, the expected arrival of an American, of young Lincoln Maitland. This was to Florent so violent a shock that he had a fever for forty-eight hours. In after years he could remember what thoughts possessed him on the day when he descended from his room to the common refectory, sure that as soon as he was brought face to face with the new pupil he would have to sustain the disdainful glance suffered so frequently in the United States. There was no doubt in his mind that, his origin once discovered, the atmosphere of kindness in which he moved with so much surprise would soon be changed to hostility. He could again see himself crossing the yard; could hear himself called by Father Roberts--the master who had told him of the expected new arrival--and his surprise when Lincoln Maitland had given him the hearty handshake of one demi-compatriot who meets another. He was to learn later that that reception was quite natural, coming from the son of an Englishman, educated altogether by his mother, and taken from New York to Europe before his fifth year, there to live in a circle as little American as possible. Chapron did not reason in that manner. He had an infinitely tender heart. Gratitude entered it--gratitude as impassioned as had been his fear. One week later Lincoln Maitland and he were friends, and friends so intimate that they never parted.

The affection, which was merely to the indifferent nature of Maitland a simple college episode, became to Florent the most serious, most complete sentiment of his life. Those fraternities of election, the loveliest and most delicate of the heart of man, usually dawn thus in youth. It is the ideal age of passionate friendship, that period between ten and sixteen, when the spirit is so pure, so fresh, still so virtuous, so fertile in generous projects for the future. One dreams of a companionship almost mystical with the friend from whom one has no secret, whose character one sees in such a noble light, on whose esteem one depends as upon the surest recompense, whom one innocently desires to resemble. Indeed, they are, between the innocent lads who work side by side on a problem of geometry or a lesson in history, veritable poems of tenderness at which the man will smile later, finding so far different from him in all his tastes, him whom he desired to have for a brother. It happens, however, in certain natures of a sensibility particularly precocious and faithful at the same time, that the awakening of effective life is so strong, so encroaching, that the impassioned friendship persists, first through the other awakening, that of sensuality, so fatal to all the senses of delicacy, then through the first tumult of social experience, not less fatal to our ideal of youth.

That was the case with Florent Chapron, whether his character, at once somewhat wild and yet submissive, rendered him more qualified for that renunciation of his personality than friendship demands, whether, far from his father and his sister and not having any mother, his loving heart had need of attaching itself to some one who could fill the place of his relatives, or whether Maitland exercised over him a special prestige by his opposite qualities. Fragile and somewhat delicate, was he seduced by the strength and dexterity which his friend exhibited in all his exercises? Timid and naturally taciturn, was he governed by the assurance of that athlete with the loud laugh, with the invincible energy? Did the surprising tendency toward art which the other one showed conquer him, as well as sympathy for the misfortunes which were confided to him and which touched him more than they touched him who experienced them?

Gordon Maitland, Lincoln's father, of an excellent family of New York, had been killed at the battle of Chancellorsville, during the same war which had ruined Florent's father in part. Mrs. Maitland, the poor daughter of a small rector of a Presbyterian church at Newport, and who had only married her husband for his money, had but one idea, when once a widow--to go abroad. Whither? To Europe, vague and fascinating spot, where she fancied she would be distinguished by her intelligence and her beauty. She was pretty, vain and silly, and that voyage in pursuit of a part to play in the Old World caused her to pass two years first in one hotel and then in another, after which she married the second son of a poor Irish peer, with the new chimera of entering that Olympus of British aristocracy of which she had dreamed so much. She became a Catholic, and her son with her, to obtain the result which cost her dear, for not only was the lord who had given her his name brutal, a drunkard and cruel, but he added to all those faults that of being one of the greatest gamblers in the entire United Kingdom. He kept his stepson away from home, beat his wife, and died toward 1880, after dissipating the poor creature's fortune and almost all of Lincoln's. At that time the latter, whom his stepfather had naturally left to develop in his own way, and who, since leaving Beaumont, had studied painting at Venice, Rome and Paris, was in the latter city and one of the first pupils in Bonnat's studio. Seeing his mother ruined, without resources at forty-four years of age, persuaded himself of his glorious future, he had one of those magnificent impulses such as one has in youth and which prove much less the generosity than the pride of life. Of the fifteen thousand francs of income remaining to him, he gave up to his mother twelve thousand five hundred. It is expedient to add that in less than a year afterward he married the sister of his college friend and four hundred thousand dollars. He had seen poverty and he was afraid of it. His action with regard to his mother seemed to justify in his own eyes the purely interested character of the combination which freed his brush forever. There are, moreover, such artistic consciences. Maitland would not have pardoned himself a concession of art. He considered rascals the painters who begged success by compromise in their style, and he thought it quite natural to take the money of Mademoiselle Chapron, whom he did not love, and for whom, now that he had grown to manhood and knew several of her compatriots, he likewise felt the prejudice of race. "The glory of the colonel of the Empire and friendship for that good Florent," as he said, "covered all."

Poor and good Florent! That marriage was to him the romance of his youth realized. He had desired it since the first week that Maitland had given him the cordial handshake which had bound them. To live in the shadow of his friend, become at once his brother-in-law and his ideal--he did not dream of any other solution of his own destiny. The faults of Maitland, developed by age, fortune, and success--we recall the triumph of his 'Femme en violet et en jeune' in the Salon of 1884--found Florent as blind as at the epoch when they played cricket together in the fields at Beaumont. Dorsenne very justly diagnosed there one of those hypnotisms of admiration such as artists, great or small, often inspire around them. But the author, who always generalized too quickly, had not comprehended that the admirer with Florent was grafted on a friend worthy to be painted by La Fontaine or by Balzac, the two poets of friendship, the one in his sublime and tragic Cousin Pons, the other in that short but fine fable, in which is this verse, one of the most tender in the French language:

Vous metes, en dormant, un peu triste apparu.

Florent did not love Lincoln because he admired him; he admired him because he loved him. He was not wrong in considering the painter as one of the most gifted who had appeared for thirty years. But Lincoln would have had neither the bold elegance of his drawing, nor the vivid strength of coloring, nor the ingenious finesse of imagination if the other had lent himself with less ardor to the service of the work and to the glory of the artist. When Lincoln wanted to travel he found his brother-in-law the most diligent of couriers. When he had need of a model he had only to say a word for Florent to set about finding one. Did Lincoln exhibit at Paris or London, Florent took charge of the entire proceeding--seeing the journalists and picture dealers, composing letters of thanks for the articles, in a handwriting so like that of the painter that the latter had only to sign it. Lincoln desired to return to Rome. Florent had discovered the house on the Rue Leopardi, and he settled it even before Maitland, then in Egypt, had finished a large study begun at the moment of the departure of the other.

Florent had, by virtue of the affection felt for his brother-in-law, come to comprehend the paintings as well as the painter himself. These words will be clear to those who have been around artists and who know what a distance separates them from the most enlightened amateur. The amateur can judge and feel. The artist only, who has wielded the implements, knows, before a painting, how it is done, what stroke of the brush has been given, and why; in short, the trituration of the matter by the workman. Florent had watched Maitland work so much, he had rendered him so many effective little services in the studio, that each of his brother-in-law's canvases became animated to him, even to the slightest details. When he saw them on the wall of the gallery they told him of an intimacy which was at once his greatest joy and his greatest pride. In short, the absorption of his personality in that of his former comrade was so complete that it had led to this anomaly, that Dorsenne himself, notwithstanding his indulgence for psychological singularities, had not been able to prevent himself from finding almost monstrous: Florent was Lincoln's brother-in-law, and he seemed to find it perfectly natural that the latter should have adventures outside, if the emotion of those adventures could be useful to his talent!

Perhaps this long and yet incomplete analysis will permit us the better to comprehend what emotions agitated the young man as he reascended the staircase of his house--of their house, Lincoln's and his--after his unexpected dispute with Boleslas Gorka. It will attenuate, at least with respect to him, the severity of simple minds. All passion, when developed in the heart, has the effect of etiolating around it the vigor of other instincts. Chapron was too fanatical a friend to be a very equitable brother. It seemed to him very simple and very legitimate that his sister should be at the service of the genius of Lincoln, as he himself was. Moreover, if, since the marriage with her brother's friend, his sister had been stirred by the tempest of a moral tragedy, Florent did not suspect it. When had he studied Lydia, the silent, reserved Lydia, of whom he had once for all formed an opinion, as is the almost invariable custom of relative with relative? Those who have seen us when young are like those who see us daily. The images which they trace of us always reproduce what we were at a certain moment--scarcely ever what we are. Florent considered his sister very good, because he had formerly found her so; very gentle, because she had never resisted him; not intelligent, because she did not seem sufficiently interested in the painter's work; as for the suffering and secret rebellion of the oppressed creature, crushed between his blind partiality and the selfishness of a scornful husband, he did not even suspect them, much less the terrible resolution of which that apparent resignation was capable.

If he had trembled when Madame Steno began to interest herself in Lincoln, it was solely for the work of the latter, so much the more as for a year he had perceived not a decline but a disturbance in the painting of that artist, too voluntary not to be unequal. Then Florent had seen, on the other hand, the nerve of Maitland reawakened in the warmth of that little intrigue.

The portrait of Alba promised to be a magnificent study, worthy of being placed beside the famous 'Femme en violet et en jaune,' which those envious of Lincoln always remembered. Moreover, the painter had finished with unparalleled ardor two large compositions partly abandoned. In the face of that proof of a fever of production more and more active, how would not Florent have blessed Madame Steno, instead of cursing her, so much the more that it sufficed him to close his eyes and to know that his conscience was in repose when opposite his sister? He knew all, however. The proof of it was in his shudder when Dorsenne announced to him the clandestine arrival in Rome of Madame Steno's other lover, and one proof still more certain, the impulse which had precipitated him upon Boleslas, who was parleying with the servant, and now it was he who had accepted the duel which an exasperated rival had certainly come to propose to his dear Lincoln, and he thought only of the latter.

"He must know nothing until afterward. He would take the affair upon himself, and I have a chance to kill him, that Gorka--to wound him, at least. In any case, I will arrange it so that a second duel will be rendered difficult to that lunatic.... But, first of all, let us make sure that we have not spoken too loudly and that they have not heard upstairs the ill-bred fellow's loud voice."

It was in such terms that he qualified his adversary of the morrow. For very little more he would have judged Gorka unpardonable not to thank Lincoln, who had done him the honor to supplant him in the Countess's favor!

In the meantime, let us cast a glance at the atelier! When the friend, devoted to complicity, but also to heroism, entered the vast room, he could see at the first glance that he had been mistaken and that no sound of voices had reached that peaceful retreat.

The atelier of the American painter was furnished with a harmonious sumptuousness which real artists know how to gather around them. The large strip of sky seen through the windows looked down upon a corner veritably Roman--of the Rome of to-day, which attests an uninterrupted effort toward forming a new city by the side of the old one. One could see an angle of the old garden and the fragment of an antique building, with a church steeple beyond. It was on a background of azure, of verdure and of ruins, in a horizon larger and more distant, but composed of the same elements, that was to arise the face of the young girl, designed after the manner, so sharp and so modelled, of the 'Pier della Francesca', with whom Maitland had been preoccupied for six months.

All great composers, of an originality more composite than genitive, have these infatuations.

Maitland was at his easel, dressed with that correct elegance which is the almost certain mark of Anglo-Saxon artists. With his little varnished shoes, his fine black socks, spotted with red, his coat of quilted silk, his light cravat and the purity of his linen, he had the air of a gentleman who applied himself to an amateur effort, and not of the patient and laborious worker he really was. But his canvases and his studies, hung on all sides, among tapestries, arms and trinkets, bespoke patient labor. It was the history of an energy bent upon the acquisition of a personality constantly fleeting. Maitland manifested in a supreme degree the trait common to almost all his compatriots, even those who came in early youth to Europe, that intense desire not to lack civilization, which is explained by the fact that the American is a being entirely new, endowed with an activity incomparable, and deprived of traditional saturation. He is not born cultivated, matured, already fashioned virtually, if one may say so, like a child of the Old World. He can create himself at his will. With superior gifts, but gifts entirely physical, Maitland was a self-made man of art, as his grand father had been a self-made man of money, as his father had been a self-made man of war. He had in his eye and in his hand two marvellous implements for painting, and in his perseverence in developing a still more marvellous one. He lacked constantly the something necessary and local which gives to certain very inferior painters the inexpressible superiority of a savor of soil. It could not be said that he was not inventive and new, yet one experienced on seeing no matter which one of his paintings that he was a creature of culture and of acquisition. The scattered studies in the atelier first of all displayed the influence of his first master, of solid and simple Bonnat. Then he had been tempted by the English pre-Raphaelites, and a fine copy of the famous 'Song of Love', by Burne-Jones, attested that reaction on the side of an art more subtle, more impressed by that poetry which professional painters treat scornfully as literary. But Lincoln was too vigorous for the languors of such an ideal, and he quickly turned to other teachings. Spain conquered him, and Velasquez, the colorist of so peculiar a fancy that, after a visit to the Museum of the Prado, one carries away the idea that one has just seen the only painting worthy of the name.

The spirit of the great Spaniard, that despotic stroke of the brush which seems to draw the color in the groundwork of the picture, to make it stand out in almost solid lights, his absolute absence of abstract intentions and his newness which affects entirely to ignore the past, all in that formula of art, suited Maitland's temperament. To him, too, he owed his masterpiece, the 'Femme en violet et en jaune', but the restless seeker did not adhere to that style. Italy and the Florentines next influenced him, just those the most opposed to Velasquez; the Pollajuoli, Andrea del Castagna, Paolo Uccello and Pier delta Francesca. Never would one have believed that the same hand which had wielded with so free a brush the color of the 'Femme en violet...' could be that which sketched the contour of the portrait of Alba with so severe, so rigid a drawing.

At the moment Florent entered the studio that work so completely absorbed the attention of the painter that he did not hear the door open any more than did Madame Steno, who was smoking cigarettes, reclining indolently and blissfully upon the divan, her half-closed eyes fixed upon the man she loved. Lincoln only divined another presence by a change in Alba's face. God! How pale she was, seated in the immobility of her pose in a large, heraldic armchair, with a back of carved wood, her hands grasping the arms, her mouth so bitter, her eyes so deep in their fixed glance!... Did she divine that which she could not, however, know, that her fate was approaching with the visitor who entered, and who, having left the studio fifteen minutes before, had to justify his return by an excuse.

"It is I," said he. "I forgot to ask you, Lincoln, if you wish to buy Ardea's three drawings at the price they offer."

"Why did you not tell me of it yesterday, my little Linco?" interrupted the Countess. "I saw Peppino again this morning.... I would have from him his lowest figure."

"That would only be lacking," replied Maitland, laughing his large laugh. "He does not acknowledge those drawings, dear dogaresse.... They are a part of the series of trinkets he carefully subtracted from his creditor's inventory and put in different places. There are some at seven or eight antiquaries', and we may expect that for the next ten years all the cockneys of my country will be allured by this phrase, 'This is from the Palais Castagna. I have it by a little arrangement.'"

His eyes sparkled as he imitated one of the most celebrated bric-a-brac dealers in Rome, with the incomparable art of imitation which distinguishes all the old habitues of Parisian studios.

"At present these three drawings are at an antiquary's of Babuino, and very authentic."

"Except when they are represented as Vincis," said Florent, "when Leonardo was left-handed, and their hatchings are made from left to right."

"And you think Ardea would not agree with me in it?" resumed the Countess.

"Not even with you," said the painter. "He had the assurance last night, when I mentioned them before him, to ask me the address in order to go to see them."

"How did you learn their production?" questioned Madame Steno.

"Ask him," said Maitland, pointing to Chapron with the end of his brush. "When there is a question of enriching his old Maitland's collection, he becomes more of a merchant than the merchants themselves. They tell him all.... Vinci or no Vinci, it is the pure Lombard style. Buy them. I want them."

"I will go, then," replied Florent. "Countess.... Contessina."

He bowed to Madame Steno and her daughter. The mother bestowed upon him her pleasantest smile. She was not one of those mistresses to whom their lovers' intimate friends are always enemies. On the contrary, she enveloped them in the abundant and blissful sympathy which love awoke in her. Besides, she was too cunning not to feel that Florent approved of her love. But, on the other hand, the intense aversion which Alba at that moment felt toward her mother's suspected intrigues was expressed by the formality with which she inclined her head in response to the farewell of the young man, who was too happy to have found that the dispute had not been heard.

"From now until to-morrow," thought he, on redescending the staircase, "there will be no one to warn Lincoln.... The purchase of the drawings was an invention to demonstrate my tranquillity....Now I must find two discreet seconds."

Florent was a very deliberate man, and a man who had at his command perfect evenness of temperament whenever it was not a question of his enthusiastic attachment to his brother-in-law. He had the power of observation habitual to persons whose sensitive amour propre has frequently been wounded. He therefore deferred until later his difficult choice and went to luncheon, as if nothing had happened, at the restaurant where he was expected. Certainly the proprietor did not mistrust, in replying to the questions of his guest relative to the most recent portraits of Lenbach, that the young man, so calm, so smiling, had on hand a duel which might cost him his life. It was only on leaving the restaurant that Florent, after mentally reviewing ten of his older acquaintances, resolved to make a first attempt upon Dorsenne. He recalled the mysterious intelligence given him by the novelist, whose sympathy for Maitland had been publicly manifested by an eloquent article. Moreover, he believed him to be madly in love with Alba Steno. That was one probability more in favor of his discretion.

Dorsenne would surely maintain silence with regard to a meeting in connection with which, if it were known, the cause of the contest would surely be mentioned. It was only too clear that Gorka and Chapron had no real reason to quarrel and fight a duel. But at ten-thirty, that is to say, three hours after the unreasonable altercation in the vestibule, Florent rang at the door of Julien's apartments. The latter was at home, busy upon the last correction of the proofs of 'Poussiere d'Idees'. His visitor's confidence upset him to such a degree that his hands trembled as he arranged his scattered papers. He remembered the presence of Boleslas on that same couch, at the same time of the day, forty-eight hours before. How the drama would progress if that madman went away in that mood! He knew only too well that Maitland's brother-in-law had not told him all.

"It is absurd," he cried, "it is madness, it is folly!... You are not going to fight about an argument such as you have related to me? You talked at the corner of the street, you exchanged a few angry words, and then, suddenly, seconds, a duel.... Ah, it is absurd."

"You forget that I offered him a violent insult in raising my cane to him," interrupted Florent, "and since he demands satisfaction I must give it to him."

"Do you believe," said the writer, "that the public will be contented with those reasons? Do you think they will not look for the secret motives of the duel? Do I know the story of a woman?... You see, I ask no questions. I rely upon what you confide in me. But the world is the world, and you will not escape its remarks."

"It is precisely for that reason that I ask absolute discretion of you," replied Florent, "and for that reason that I have come to ask you to serve me as a second.... There is no one in whom I trust as implicitly as I do in you.... It is the only excuse for my step."

"I thank you," said Dorsenne. He hesitated a moment. Then the image of Alba, which had haunted him since the previous day, suddenly presented itself to his mind. He recalled the sombre anguish he had surprised in the young girl's eyes, then her comforted glance when her mother smiled at once upon Gorka and Maitland. He recalled the anonymous letter and the mysterious hatred which impended over Madame Steno. If the quarrel between Boleslas and Florent became known, there was no doubt that it would be said generally that Florent was fighting for his brother-in-law on account of the Countess. No doubt, too, that the report would reach the poor Contessina. It was sufficient to cause the writer to reply: "Very well! I accept. I will serve you. Do not thank me. We are losing valuable time. You will require another second. Of whom have you thought?"

"Of no one," returned Florent. "I confess I have counted on you to aid me."

"Let us make a list," said Julien. "It is the best way, and then cross off the names."

Dorsenne wrote down a number of their acquaintances, and they indeed crossed them off, according to his expression, so effectually that after a minute examination they had rejected all of them. They were then as much perplexed as ever, when suddenly Dorsenne's eyes brightened, he uttered a slight exclamation, and said brusquely:

"What an idea! But it is an idea!... Do you know the Marquis de Montfanon?" he asked Florent.

"He with one arm?" replied the latter. "I saw him once with reference to a monument I put up at Saint Louis des Francais."

"He told me of it," said Dorsenne. "For one of your relatives, was it not?"

"Oh, a distant cousin," replied Florent; "one Captain Chapron, killed in 'forty-nine in the trenches before Rome."

"Now, to our business," cried Dorsenne, rubbing his hands. "It is Montfanon who must be your second. First of all, he is an experienced duellist, while I have never been on the ground. That is very important. You know the celebrated saying: 'It is neither swords nor pistols which kill; it is the seconds.'.... And then if the matter has to be arranged, he will have more prestige than your servant."

"It is impossible," said Florent; "Marquis de Montfanon.... He will never consent. I do not exist for him."

"That is my affair," cried Dorsenne. "Let me take the necessary steps in my own name, and then if he agrees you can make it in yours.... Only we have no time to lose. Do not leave your house until six o'clock. By that time I shall know upon what to depend."

If, at first, the novelist had felt great confidence in the issue of his strange attempt with reference to his old friend, that confidence changed to absolute apprehension when he found himself, half an hour later, at the house which Marquis Claude Francois occupied in one of the oldest parts of Rome, from which location he could obtain an admirable view of the Forum. How many times had Julien come, in the past six months, to that Marquis who dived constantly in the sentiment of the past, to gaze upon the tragical and grand panorama of the historical scene! At the voice of the recluse, the broken columns rose, the ruined temples were rebuilt, the triumphal view was cleared from its mist. He talked, and the formidable epopee of the Roman legend was evoked, interpreted by the fervent Christian in that mystical and providential sense, which all, indeed, proclaims in that spot, where the Mamertine prison relates the trial of St. Peter, where the portico of the temple of Faustine serves as a pediment to the Church of St. Laurent, where Ste.-Marie-Liberatrice rises upon the site of the Temple of Vesta--'Sancta Maria, libera nos a poenis inferni'--Montfanon always added when he spoke of it, and he pointed out the Arch of Titus, which tells of the fulfilment of the prophecies of Our Lord against Jerusalem, while, opposite, the groves reveal the out lines of a nunnery upon the ruins of the dwellings of the Caesars. And, at the extreme end, the Coliseum recalls to mind the ninety thousand spectators come to see the martyrs suffer.

Such were the sights where lived the former pontifical zouave, and, on ringing the bell of the third etage, Julien said to himself: "I am a simpleton to come to propose to such a man what I have to propose. Yet it is not to be a second in an ordinary duel, but simply to prevent an adventure which might cost the lives of two men in the first place, then the honor of Madame Steno, and, lastly, the peace of mind of three innocent persons, Madame Gorka, Madame Maitland and my little friend Alba.... He alone has sufficient authority to arrange all. It will be an act of charity, like any other.... I hope he is at home," he concluded, hearing the footstep of the servant, who recognized the visitor and who anticipated all questions.

"The Marquis went out this morning before eight o'clock. He will not return until dinner-time."

"Do you know where he has gone?"

"To hear mass in a catacomb, and to be present at a procession," replied the footman, who took Dorsenne's card, adding: "The Trappists of Saint Calixtus certainly know where the Marquis is.... He lunched with them."

"We shall see," said the young man to himself, somewhat disappointed. His carriage rolled in the direction of Porte St. Sebastien, near which was the catacomb and the humble dwelling contiguous to it--the last morsel of the Papal domains kept by the poor monks. "Montfanon will have taken communion this morning," thought he, "and at the very word duel he will listen to nothing more. However, the matter must be arranged; it must be.... What would I not give to know the truth of the scene between Gorka and Florent? By what strange and diabolical ricochet did the Palatine hit upon the latter when his business was with the brother-in-law?... Will he be angry that I am his adversary's second?... Bah!... After our conversation of the other day our friendship is ended.... Good, I am already at the little church of 'Domine, quo vadis.'--["Lord, whither art thou going?"]--I might say to myself: 'Juliane, quo vadis?' 'To perform an act a little better than the majority of my actions,' I might reply."

That impressionable soul which vibrated at the slightest contact was touched by the souvenir of one of the innumerable pious legends which nineteen centuries of Catholicism have suspended at all the corners of Rome and its surrounding districts. He recalled the touching story of St. Peter flying from persecution and meeting our Lord: "Lord, whither art thou going?" asked the apostle. "To be crucified a second time," replied the Saviour, and Peter was ashamed of his weakness and returned to martyrdom. Montfanon himself had related that episode to the novelist, who again began to reflect upon the Marquis's character and the best means of approaching him. He forgot to glance at the vast solitude of the Roman suburbs before him, and so deep was his reverie that he almost passed unheeded the object of his search. Another disappointment awaited him at the first point in his voyage of exploration.

The monk who came at his ring to open the door of the inclosure contiguous to St. Calixtus, informed him that he of whom he was in search had left half an hour before.

"You will find him at the Basilica of Saint Neree and Saint Achilles," added the Trappist; "it is the fete of those two saints, and at five o'clock there will be a procession in their catacombs.... It is a fifteen minutes' ride from here, near the tower Marancia, on the Via Ardeatina."

"Shall I miss him a third time?" thought Dorsenne, alighting from the carriage finally, and proceeding on foot to the opening which leads to the subterranean Necropolis dedicated to the two saints who were the eunuchs of Domitilla, the niece of Emperor Vespasian. A few ruins and a dilapidated house alone mark the spot where once stood the pious Princess's magnificent villa. The gate was open, and, meeting no one who could direct him, the young man took several steps in the subterranean passage. He perceived that the long gallery was lighted. He entered there, saying to himself that the row of tapers, lighted every ten paces, assuredly marked the line which the procession would follow, and which led to the central basilica. Although his anxiety as to the issue of his undertaking was extreme, he could not help being impressed by the grandeur of the sight presented by the catacomb thus illuminated. The uneven niches reserved for the dead, asleep in the peace of the Lord for so many centuries, made recesses in the corridors and gave them a solemn and tragical aspect. Inscriptions were to be seen there, traced on the stone, and all spoke of the great hope which those first Christians had cherished, the same which believers of our day cherish.

Julien knew enough of symbols to understand the significance of the images between which the persecuted of the primitive church had laid their fathers. They are so touching and so simple! The anchor represents safety in the storm; the gentle dove and the ewe, symbols of the soul, which flies away and seeks its shepherd; the phoenix, whose wings announce the resurrection. Then there were the bread and the wine, the branches of the olive and the palm. The silent cemetery was filled with a faint aroma of incense, noticed by Dorsenne on entering. High mass, celebrated in the morning, left the sacred perfume diffused among those bones, once the forms of human beings who kneeled there amid the same holy aroma. The contrast was strong between that spot, where everything spoke of things eternal, and the drama of passion, worldly and culpable, the progress of which agitated even Dorsenne. At that moment he appeared to himself in the light of a profaner, although he was obeying generous and humane instincts. He experienced a sense of relief when, at a bend in one of the corridors which he had selected from among many others, he found himself face to face with a priest, who held in his hand a basket filled with the petals of flowers, destined, no doubt, for the procession. Dorsenne inquired of him the way to the Basilica in Italian, while the reply was given in perfect French.

"Perhaps you know the Marquis de Montfanon, father?" asked the novelist.

"I am one of the chaplains of Saint Louis," said the priest, with a smile, adding: "You will find him in the Basilica."

"Now, the moment has come," thought Dorsenne, "I must be subtle.... After all, it is charity I am about to ask him to do.... Here I am. I recognize the staircase and the opening above."

A corner of the sky, indeed, was to be seen, and a ray of light entered which permitted the writer to distinguish him whom he was seeking among the few persons assembled in the ruined chapel, the most venerable of all those which encircle Rome with a hidden girdle of sanctuaries. Montfanon, too recognizable, alas! by the empty sleeve of his black redingote, was seated on a chair, not very far from the altar, on which burned enormous tapers. Priests and monks were arranging baskets filled with petals, like those of the chaplain, whom Dorsenne had just met. A group of three curious visitors commented in whispers upon the paintings, scarcely visible on the discolored stucco of the ceiling. Montfanon was entirely absorbed in the book which he held in his one hand. The large features of his face, ennobled and almost transfigured by the ardor of devotion, gave him the admirable expression of an old Christian soldier. 'Bonus miles Christi'--a good soldier of Christ--had been inscribed upon the tomb of the chief under whom he had been wounded at Patay. One would have taken him for a guardian layman of the tombs of the martyrs, capable of confessing his faith like them, even to the death. And when Julien determined to approach and to touch him lightly on the shoulder, he saw that, in the nobleman's clear, blue eyes, ordinarily so gay, and sometimes so choleric, sparkled unshed tears. His voice, too, naturally sharp, was softened by the emotion of the thought which his reading, the place, the time, the occupation of his day had awakened within him.

"Ah, you here?" said he to his young friend, without any astonishment. "You have come for the procession. That is well. You will hear sung the lovely lines: 'Hi sunt quos fatue mundus abhorruit." He pronounced ou as u, 'a l'Italienne'; for his liturgic training had been received in Rome. "The season is favorable for the ceremonies. The tourists have gone. There will only be people here who pray and who feel, like you.... And to feel is half of prayer. The other half is to believe. You will become one of us. I have always predicted it. There is no peace but here."

"I would gladly have come only for the procession," replied Dorsenne, "but my visit has another motive, dear friend," said he, in a still lower tone. "I have been seeking for you for more than an hour, that you might aid me in rendering a great service to several people, in preventing a very great misfortune, perhaps."

"I can help you to prevent a very great misfortune?" repeated Montfanon.

"Yes," replied Dorsenne, "but this is not the place in which to explain to you the details of the long and terrible adventure.... At what hour is the ceremony? I will wait for you, and tell it to you on leaving here."

"It does not begin until five o'clock-five-thirty," said Montfanon, looking at his watch, "and it is now fifteen minutes past four. Let us leave the catacomb, if you wish, and you can repeat your story to me up above. A very great misfortune? Well," he added, pressing the hand of the young man whom, personally, he liked as much as he detested his views, "rest assured, my dear child, we will prevent it!"

There was in the manner in which he uttered those words the tranquillity of a mind which knows not uneasiness, that of a believer who feels sure of always accomplishing all that he wishes to do. It would not have been Montfanon, that is to say, a species of visionary, who loved to argue with Dorsenne, because he knew that in spite of all he was understood, if he had not continued, as they walked along the lighted corridor, while remounting toward daylight:

"If it is all the same to you, sir apologist of the modern world, I should like to pause here and ask you frankly: Do you not feel yourself more contemporary with all the dead who slumber within these walls than with a radical elector or a free-mason deputy? Do you not feel that if these martyrs had not come to pray beneath these vaults eighteen hundred years ago, the best part of your soul would not exist? Where will you find a poetry more touching than that of these symbols and of these epitaphs? That admirable De Rossi showed me one at Saint Calixtus last year. My tears flow as I recall it. 'Pete pro Phoebe et pro virginio ejus'. Pray for Phoebus and for--How do you translate the word 'virginius', the husband who has known only one wife, the virgin husband of a virgin spouse? Your youth will pass, Dorsenne. You will one day feel what I feel, the happiness which is wanting on account of bygone errors, and you will comprehend that it is only to be found in Christian marriage, whose entire sublimity is summed up in thus prayer: 'Pro virginio ejus'.... You will be like me then, and you will find in this book," he held up 'l'Eucologe', which he clasped in his hand, "something through which to offer up to God your remorse and your regrets. Do you know the hymn of the Holy Sacrament, 'Adoro te, devote'? No. Yet you are capable of feeling what is contained in these lines. Listen. It is this idea: That on the cross one sees only the man, not the God; that in the host one does not even see the man, and that yet one believes in the real presence.

In cruce latebat sola Deitas.
At hic latet simul et humanitas.
Ambo tamen credens atque confitens....

"And now this last verse:

Peto quod petivit latro poenitens!

[I ask that which the penitent thief asked.]

"What a cry! Ah, but it is beautiful! It is beautiful! What words to say in dying! And what did the poor thief ask, that Dixmas of whom the church has made a saint for that one appeal: 'Remember me, Lord, in Thy kingdom!' But we have arrived. Stoop, that you may not spoil your hat. Now, what do you want with me? You know the motto of the Montfanons: 'Excelsior et firmior'--Always higher and always firmer.... One can never do too many good deeds. If it be possible, 'present', as we said to the rollcall."

A singular mixture of fervor and of good-nature, of enthusiastic eloquence and of political or religious fanaticism, was Montfanon. But the good-nature rapidly vanished from his face, at once so haughty and so simple, in proportion as Dorsenne's story proceeded. The writer, indeed, did not make the error of at once formulating his proposition. He felt that he could not argue with the pontifical zouave of bygone days. Either the latter would look upon it as monstrous and absurd, or he would see in it a charitable duty to be accomplished, and then, whatever annoyance the matter might occasion him, he would accept it, as he would bestow alms. It was that chord of generosity which Julien, diplomatic for once in his life, essayed to touch by his confidence. Gaining authority by their conversation of a few days before, he related all he could of Gorka's visit, concealing the fact of that word of honor so falsely given, which still oppressed him with a mortal weight. He told how he had soothed the madman, how he conducted him to the station, then he described the meeting of the two rivals twenty-four hours later. He dwelt upon Alba's manner that evening and the infamy of the anonymous letters written to Madame Steno's discarded lover and to her daughter. And after he had reported the mysterious quarrel which had suddenly arisen between Gorka and Chapron:

"I, therefore, promised to be his second," he concluded, "because I believe it my absolute duty to do all I can to prevent the duel from taking place. Only think of it. If it should take place, and if one of them is killed or wounded, how can the affair be kept secret in this gossiping city of Rome? And what remarks it will call forth! It is evident that these two boys have quarrelled only on account of the relations between Madame Steno and Maitland. By what strange coincidence? Of that I know nothing.

"But there will not be a doubt in public opinion. And can you not see additional anonymous letters written to Alba, Madame Gorka, Madame Maitland?... The men I do not care for.... Two out of three merit all that comes to them. But those innocent creatures--is it not frightful?"

"Frightful, indeed," replied Montfanon; "it is that which renders those adulterous adventures so hideous. There are many people who are affected by it besides the guilty ones.... You see that, you who thought that society so pleasant, so refined, so interesting, the day before yesterday? But it does no good to recriminate. I understand. You have come to ask me to advise you in your role of second. My follies of youth will enable me to direct you.... Correctness in the slightest detail and no nerves, when one has to arrange a duel. Oh! You will have trouble. Gorka is mad. I know the Poles. They have great faults, but they are brave. Lord, but they are brave! And little Chapron, I know him, too; he has one of those stubborn natures, which would allow their breasts to be pierced without saying 'Ouf!' And 'amour propre'. He has good soldier's blood in his veins, that child, notwithstanding the mixture. And with that mixture, do you not see what a hero the first of the three Dumas, the mulatto general, has been?... Yes. You have there a hard job, my good Dorsenne.... You will need another second to assist you, who will have the same views as you and--pardon me--more experience, perhaps."

"Marquis," replied Julien, whose voice trembled with anxiety, "there is only one person in Rome who would be respected enough, venerated by all, so that his intervention in that delicate and dangerous matter be decisive, one person who could suggest excuses to Chapron, or obtain them from the other.... In short, there is only one person who has the authority of a hero before whom they will remain silent when he speaks of honor, and that person is you."

"I," exclaimed Montfanon, "I, you wish me to be--"

"One of Chapron's seconds," interrupted Dorsenne. "Yes. It is true. I come on his part and for that. Do not tell me what I already know, that your position will not allow of such a step. It is because it is what it is, that I thought of coming to you. Do not tell me that your religious principles are opposed to duels. It is that there may be no duel that I conjure you to accept.... It is essential that it does not take place. I swear to you, that the peace of too many innocent persons is concerned."

And he continued, calling into service at that moment all the intelligence and all the eloquence of which he was capable. He could follow on the face of the former duellist, who had become the most ardent of Catholics and the most monomaniacal of old bachelors, twenty diverse expressions. At length Montfanon laid his hand with veritable solemnity on his interlocutor's arm and said to him:

"Listen, Dorsenne, do not tell me any more.... I consent to what you ask of me, but on two conditions. They are these: The first is that Monsieur Chapron will trust absolutely to my judgment, whatsoever it may be; the second is that you will retire with me if these gentlemen persist in their childishness.... I promise to aid you in fulfilling a mission of charity, and not anything else; I repeat, not anything else. Before bringing Monsieur Chapron to me you will repeat to him what I have said, word for word."

"Word for word," replied the other, adding: "He is at home awaiting the result of my undertaking."

"Then," said the Marquis, "I will return to Rome with you at once. He has probably already received Gorka's seconds, and if they really wish to arrange a duel the rule is not to put it off.... I shall not see my procession, but to prevent misfortune is to do a good deed, and it is one way of praying to God."

"Let me press your hand, my noble friend," said Dorsenne; "never have I better understood what a truly brave man is."

When the writer alighted, three-quarters of an hour later, at the house on the Rue Leopardi, after having seen Montfanon home, he felt sustained by such moral support that was almost joyous. He found Florent in his species of salon-smoking-room, arranging his papers with methodical composure.

"He accepts," were the first words the young men uttered, almost simultaneously, while Dorsenne repeated Montfanon's words.

"I depend absolutely on you two," replied the other. "I have no thirst for Monsieur de Gorka's blood.... But that gentleman must not accuse the grandson of Colonel Chapron of cowardice.... For that I rely upon the relative of General Dorsenne and on the old soldier of Charette."

As he spoke, Florent handed a letter to Julien, who asked: "From whom is this?"

"This," said Florent, "is a letter addressed to you, on this very table half an hour ago by Baron Hafner.... There is some news. I have received my adversary's seconds. The Baron is one, Ardea the other."

"Baron Hafner!" exclaimed Dorsenne. "What a singular choice!" He paused, and he and Florent exchanged glances. They understood one another without speaking. Boleslas could not have found a surer means of informing Madame Steno as to the plan he intended to employ in his vengeance. On the other hand, the known devotion of the Baron for the Countess gave one chance more for a pacific solution, at the same time that the fanaticism of Montfanon would be confronted with Fanny's father, an episode of comedy suddenly cast across Gorka's drama of jealousy.

Julien resumed with a smile: "You must watch Montfanon's face when we inform him of those two witnesses. He is a man of the fifteenth century, you know, a Montluc, a Duc d'Alba, a Philippe II. I do not know which he detests the most, the Freemasons, the Free-thinkers, the Protestants, the Jews, or the Germans. And as this obscure and tortuous Hafner is a little of everything, he has vowed hatred against him!... Leaving that out of the question, he suspects him of being a secret agent in the service of the Triple Alliance! But let us see the letter."

He opened and glanced through it. "This craftiness serves for something, it is equivalent almost to kindness. He, too, has felt that it is necessary to end our affair, were it only to avoid scandal. He appoints a meeting at his house between six and seven o'clock with me and your second. Come, time is flying. You must come to the Marquis to make your request officially. Begin this way. Obtain his promise before mentioning Hafner's name. I know him. He will not retract his word. But it is just."

The two friends found Montfanon awaiting them in his office, a large room filled with books, from which could be obtained a fine view of the panorama of the Forum, more majestic still on that afternoon when the shadows of the columns and arches grew longer on the sidewalk. The room with its brick floor had no other comfort than a carpet under the large desk littered with papers--no doubt fragments of the famous work on the relations of the French nobility and the Church. A crucifix stood upon the desk. On the wall were two engravings, that of Monseigneur Pie, the holy Bishop of Poitiers, and that of General de Sonis, on foot, with his wooden leg, and a painting representing St. Francois, the patron of the house. Those were the only artistic decorations of the modest habitation. The nobleman often said: "I have freed myself from the tyranny of objects." But with that marvellous background of grandiose ruins and that sky, the simple spot was an incomparable retreat in which to end in meditation and renouncement a life already shaken by the tempests of the senses and of the world.

The hermit of that Thebaide rose to greet his two visitors, and pointing out to Chapron an open volume on his table, he said to him:

"I was thinking of you. It is Chateauvillars's book on duelling. It contains a code which is not very complete. I recommend it to you, however, if ever you have to fulfil a mission like ours," and he pointed to Dorsenne and himself, with a gesture which constituted the most amicable of acceptations. "It seems you had too hasty a hand.... Ha! ha! Do not defend yourself. Such as you see me, at twenty-one I threw a plate in the face of a gentleman who bantered Comte de Chambord before a number of Jacobins at a table d'hote in the provinces. See," continued he, raising his white moustache and disclosing a scar, "this is the souvenir. The fellow was once a dragoon; he proposed the sabre. I accepted, and this is what I got, while he lost two fingers.... That will not happen to us this time at least.... Dorsenne has told you our conditions."

"And I replied that I was sure I could not intrust my honor to better hands," replied Florent.

"Cease!" replied Montfanon, with a gesture of satisfaction. "No more phrases. It is well. Moreover, I judged you, sir, from the day on which you spoke to me at Saint Louis. You honor your dead. That is why I shall be happy, very happy, to be useful to you."

"Now tell me very clearly the recital you made to Dorsenne."

Then Florent related concisely that which had taken place between him and Gorka--that is to say, their argument and his passion, carefully omitting the details in which the name of his brother-in-law would be mixed.

"The deuce!" said Montfanon, familiarly, "the affair looks bad, very bad.... You see, a second is a confessor. You have had a discussion in the street with Monsieur Gorka, but about what? You can not reply? What did he say to you to provoke you to the point of wishing to strike him? That is the first key to the position."

"I can not reply," said Florent.

"Then," resumed the Marquis, after a silence, "there only remains to assert that the gesture on your part was--how shall I say? Unmeditated and unfinished. That is the second key to the position.... You have no special grudge against Monsieur Gorka?"

"None."

"Nor he against you?"

"None."

"The affair looks better," said Montfanon, who was silent for a time, to resume, in the voice of a man who is talking to himself, "Count Gorka considers himself offended? But is there any offence? It is that which we should discuss.... An assault or the threat of an assault would afford occasion for an arrangement.... But a gesture restrained, since it was not carried into effect.... Do not interrupt me," he continued.

"I am trying to understand it clearly.... We must arrive at a solution. We shall have to express our regret, leaving the field open to another reparation, if Gorka requires it.... And he will not require it. The entire problem now rests on the choice of his seconds.... Whom will he select?"

"I have already received visits from them," said Florent. "Half an hour ago. One is Prince d'Ardea."

"He is a gentleman," replied Montfanon. "I shall not be sorry to see him to tell him my feelings with regard to the public sale of his palace, to which he should never have allowed himself to be driven.... And the other?"

"The other?" interrupted Dorsenne. "Prepare yourself for a blow.... I swear to you I did not know his name when I went in search of you at the catacomb. It is--in short--it is Baron Hafner."

"Baron Hafner!" exclaimed Montfanon. "Boleslas Gorka, the descendant of the Gorkas, of that grand Luc Gorka who was Palatine of Posen and Bishop of Cujavie, has chosen for his second Monsieur Justus Hafner, the thief, the scoundrel, who had the disgraceful suit!... No, Dorsenne, do not tell me that; it is not possible." Then, with the air of a combatant: "We will challenge him; that is all, for his lack of honor. I take it upon myself, as well as to tell of his deeds to Boleslas. We will spend an enjoyable quarter of an hour there, I promise you."

"You will not do that," said Dorsenne, quickly. "First, with regard to official honor, there is only one law, is there not? Hafner was acquitted and his adversaries condemned. You told me so the other day.... And then, you forget the conversation we just had."

"Pardon," interrupted Florent, in his turn. "Monsieur de Montfanon, in promising to assist me, has done me a great honor, which I shall never forget. If there should result from it any annoyance to him I should be deeply grieved, and I am ready to release him from his promise."

"No," said the Marquis, after another silence. "I will not take it back.".... He was so magnanimous when his two or three hobbies were not involved that the slightest delicacy awoke an echo in him. He again extended his hand to Chapron and continued, but with an accent which betrayed suppressed irritation: "After all, it does not concern us if Monsieur Gorka has chosen to be represented in an affair of honor by one whom he should not even salute.... You will, then, give our two names to those two gentlemen.... and Dorsenne and I will await them, as is the rule.... It is their place to come, since they are the proxies of the person insulted."

"They have already arranged a meeting for this evening," replied Chapron.

"What's arranged? With whom? For whom?" exclaimed Montfanon, a prey to a fresh access of choler. "With you?... For us?... Ah, I do not like such conduct where such grave matters are concerned.... The code is absolute on that subject.... Their challenge once made, to which you, Monsieur Chapron, have to reply by yes or no, these gentlemen should withdraw immediately.... It is not your fault, it is Ardea's, who has allowed that dabbler in spurious dividends to perform his part of intriguer.... But we will rectify all in the right way, which is the French.... And where is the rendezvous?"

"I will read to you the letter which the Baron left for me with Florent," said Dorsenne, who indeed read the very courteous note Hafner had written to him, in which he excused himself for choosing his own house as a rendezvous for the four witnesses. "One can not ignore so polite a note."

"There are too many dear sirs, and too many compliments," said Montfanon, brusquely. "Sit here," he continued, relinquishing his armchair to Florent, "and inform the two men of our names and address, adding that we are at their service and ignoring the first inaccuracy on their part. Let them return!... And you, Dorsenne, since you are afraid of wounding that gentleman, I will not prevent you from going to his house--personally, do you hear--to warn him that Monsieur Chapron, here present, has chosen for his first second a disagreeable person, an old duellist, anything you like, but who desires strict form, and, first of all, a correct call made upon us by them, in order to settle officially upon a rendezvous."

"What did I tell you?" asked Dorsenne, when he with Florent descended Montfanon's staircase. "He is a different man since you mentioned the Baron to him. The discussion between them will be a hot one. I hope he will not spoil all by his folly. On my honor, if I had guessed whom Gorka would choose I should not have suggested to you the old leaguer, as I call him."

"And I, if Monsieur de Montfanon should make me fight at five paces," replied Chapron, with a laugh, "would be grateful to you for having brought me into relations with him. He is a whole-souled man, as was my poor father, as is Maitland. I adore such people."

"Is there no means of having at once heart and head?" said Julien to himself, on reaching the Palais Savorelli, where Hafner lived, and recalling the Marquis's choler on the one hand, and on the other the egotism of Maitland, of which Florent's last words reminded him. His apprehension of the afternoon returned in a greater degree, for he knew Montfanon to be very sensitive on certain points, and it was one of those points which would be wounded to the quick by the forced relations with Gorka's witnesses. "I do not trust Hafner," thought he; "if the cunning fellow has accepted the mission utterly contrary to his tastes, his habits, almost to his age, it must be to connive with his future son-in-law and to conciliate all. Perhaps even the marriage had been already settled? I hope not. The Marquis would be so furious he would require the duel to a letter."

The young man had guessed aright. Chance, which often brings one event upon another, decreed that Ardea, at the very moment that he was deliberating with Gorka as to the choice of another second, received a note from Madame Steno containing simply these words: "Your proposal has been made, and the answer is yes. May I be the first to embrace you, Simpaticone?"

An ingenious idea occurred to him; to have arranged by his future father-in-law the quarrel which he considered at once absurd, useless, and dangerous. The eagerness with which Gorka had accepted Hafner's name, proved, as Dorsenne and Florent had divined, his desire that his perfidious mistress should be informed of his doings. As for the Baron, he consented--oh, irony of coincidences!--by saying to Peppino Ardea words almost identical with those which Montfanon had uttered to Dorsenne:

"We will draw up, in advance, an official plan of conciliation, and, if the matter can not be arranged, we will withdraw."

It was in such terms that the memorable conversation was concluded, a conversation truly worthy of the combinazione which poor Fanny's marriage represented. There had been less question of the marriage itself than that of the services to be rendered to the infidelity of the woman who presided over the sorry traffic! Is it necessary to add that neither Ardea nor his future father-in-law had made the shadow of an allusion to the true side of the affair? Perhaps at any other time the excessive prudence innate to the Baron and his care never to compromise himself would have deterred him from the possible annoyances which might arise from an interference in the adventure of an exasperated and discarded lover. But his joy at the thought that his daughter was to become a Roman princess--and with what a name!--had really turned his brain.

He had, however, the good sense to say to the stunned Ardea: "Madame Steno must know nothing of it, at least beforehand. She would not fail to inform Madame Gorka, and God knows of what the latter would be capable."

In reality, the two men were convinced that it was essential, directly or indirectly, to beware of warning Maitland. They employed the remainder of the afternoon in paying their visit to Florent, then in sending telegram after telegram to announce the betrothal, with which charming Fanny seemed more satisfied since Cardinal Guerillot had consented, at simply a word from her, to preside at her baptism. The Baron, in the face of that consent, could not restrain his joy. He loved his daughter, strange man, somewhat in the manner in which a breeder loves a favorite horse which has won the Grand Prix for him. When Dorsenne arrived, bearing Chapron's note and Montfanon's message, he was received with a cordiality and a complaisance which at once enlightened him upon the result of the matrimonial intrigue of which Alba had spoken to him.

"Anything that your friend wishes, my dear sir.... Is it not so, Peppino?" said the Baron, seating himself at his table. "Will you dictate the letter yourself, Dorsenne?... See, is this all right? You will understand with what sentiments we have accepted this mission when you learn that Fanny is betrothed to Prince Ardea, here present. The news dates from three o'clock. So you are the first to know it, is he not, Peppino?" He had drawn up not less than two hundred despatches. "Return whenever you like with the Marquis.... I simply ask, under the circumstances, that the interview take place, if it be possible, between six and seven, or between nine and ten, in order not to interfere with our little family dinner."

"Let us say nine o'clock," said Dorsenne. "Monsieur de Montfanon is somewhat formal. He would like to have your reply by letter."

"Prince Ardea to marry Mademoiselle Hafner!" That cry which the news brought by Julien wrested from Montfanon was so dolorous that the young man did not think of laughing. He had thought it wiser to prepare his irascible friend, lest the Baron might make some allusion to the grand event during the course of the conversation, and that the other might not make some impulsive remark.

"Did I not tell you that the girl's Catholicism was a farce? Did I not tell Monseigneur Guerillot? This was what she aimed at all those years, with such perfect hypocrisy? It was the Palais Castagna. And she will enter there as mistress!... She will bring there the dishonor of that pirated gold on which there are stains of blood! Warn them, that they do not speak to me of it, or I will not answer for myself.... The second of a Gorka, the father-in-law of an Ardea, he triumphs, the thief who should by rights be a convict!... But we shall see. Will not all the other Roman princes who have no blots upon their escutcheons, the Orsinis, the Colonnas, the Odeschalchis, the Borgheses, the Rospigliosis, not combine to prevent this monstrosity? Nobility is like love, those who buy those sacred things degrade them in paying for them, and those to whom they are given are no better than mire.... Princess d'Ardea! That creature! Ah, what a disgrace!... But we must remember our engagement relative to that brave young Chapron. The boy pleases me; first, because very probably he is going to fight for some one else and out of a devotion which I can not very well understand! It is devotion all the same, and it is chivalry!... He desires to prevent that miserable Gorka from calling forth a scandal which would have warned his sister.... And then, as I told him, he respects the dead.... Let us.... I have my wits no longer about me, that intelligence has so greatly disturbed me.... Princess d'Ardea!... Well, write that we will be at Monsieur Hafner's at nine o'clock.... I do not want any of those people at my house.... At yours it would not be proper; you are too young. And I prefer going to the father-in-law's rather than to the son-inlaw's. The rascal has made a good bargain in buying what he has bought with his stolen millions. But the other.... And his great-great-uncle might have been Jules Second, Pie Fifth, Hildebrand; he would have sold all just the same!... He can not deceive himself! He has heard the suit against that man spoken of! He knows whence come those millions! He has heard their family, their lives spoken of! And he has not been inspired with too great a horror to accept the gold of that adventurer. Does he not know what a name is? Our name! It is ourselves, our honor, in the mouths, in the thoughts, of others! How happy I am, Dorsenne, to have been fifty-two years of age last month. I shall be gone before having seen what you will see, the agony of all the aristocrats and royalties. It was only in blood that they fell! But they do not fall. Alas! They fix themselves upon the ground, which is the saddest of all. Still, what matters it? The monarchy, the nobility, and the Church are everlasting. The people who disregard them will die, that is all. Come, write your letter, which I will sign. Send it away, and you will dine with me. We must go into the den provided with an argument which will prevent this duel, and sustaining our part toward our client. There must be an arrangement which I would accept myself. I like him, I repeat."

The excitement which began to startle Dorsenne was only augmented during dinner, so much the more so as, on discussing the conditions of that arrangement he hoped to bring about, the recollection of his terrible youth filled the thoughts and the discourse of the former duellist. Was it, indeed, the same personage who recited the verses of a hymn in the catacombs a few hours before? It only required the feudal in him to be reawakened to transform him. The fire in his eyes and the color in his face betrayed that the duel in which he had thought best to engage, out of charity, intoxicated him on his own statement. It was the old amateur, the epicure of the sword, very ungovernable, which stirred within that man of faith, in whom passion had burned and who had loved all excitement, including that of danger, as to-day he loved his ideas, as he loved his flagi moderately. He no longer thought of the three women to be spared suspicion, nor of the good deed to be accomplished. He saw all his old friends and their talent for fighting, the thrusts of this one, the way another had of striking, the composure of a third, and then this refrain interrupted constantly his warlike anecdotes: "But why the deuce has Gorka chosen that Hafner for his second?... It is incomprehensible.".... On entering the carriage which was to bear them to their interview, he heard Dorsenne say to the coachman: "Palais Savorelli."

"That is the final blow," said he, raising his arm and clenching his fist. "The adventurer occupies the Pretender's house, the house of the Stuarts.".... He repeated: "The house of the Stuarts!" and then lapsed into a silence which the writer felt to be laden with more storminess than his last denunciation. He did not emerge from his meditations until ushered into the salon of the ci-devant jeweller, now a grand seigneur--into one of the salons, rather, for there were five. There Montfanon began to examine everything around him, with an air of such contempt and pride that, notwithstanding his anxiety, Dorsenne could not resist laughing and teasing him by saying:

"You will not pretend to say that there are no pretty things here? These two paintings by Moroni, for example?"

"Nothing that is appropriate," replied Montfanon. "Yes, they are two magnificent portraits of ancestors, and this man has no ancestors!... There are some weapons in that cupboard, and he has never touched a sword! And there is a piece of tapestry representing the miracles of the loaves, which is a piece of audacity! You may not believe me, Dorsenne, but it is making me ill to be here.... I am reminded of the human toil, of the human soul in all these objects, and to end here, paid for how? Owned by whom? Close your eyes and think of Schroeder and of the others whom you do not know. Look into the hovels where there is neither furniture, fire, nor bread. Then, open your eyes and look at this."

"And you, my dear friend," replied the novelist, "I conjure you to think of our conversation in the catacombs, to think of the three ladies in whose names I besought you to aid Florent."

"Thank you," said Montfanon, passing his hand over his brow, "I promise you to be calm."

He had scarcely uttered those words when the door opened, disclosing to view another room, lighted also, and which, to judge by the sound of voices, contained several persons. No doubt Madame Steno and Alba, thought Julien; and the Baron entered, accompanied by Peppino Ardea. While going through the introductions, the writer was struck by the contrast offered between his three companions. Hafner and Ardea in evening dress, with buttonhole bouquets, had the open and happy faces of two citizens who had clear consciences. The usually sallow complexion of the business man was tinged with excitement, his eyes, as a rule so hard, were gentler. As for the Prince, the same childish carelessness lighted up his jovial face, while the hero of Patay, with his coarse boots, his immense form enveloped in a somewhat shabby redingote, exhibited a face so contracted that one would have thought him devoured by remorse. A dishonest intendant, forced to expose his accounts to generous and confiding masters, could not have had a face more gloomy or more anxious. He had, moreover, put his one arm behind his back in a manner so formal that neither of the two men who entered offered him their hands. That appearance was without doubt little in keeping with what the father and the fiance of Fanny had expected; for there was, when the four men were seated, a pause which the Baron was the first to break. He began in his measured tones, in a voice which handles words as the weight of a usurer weighs gold pieces to the milligramme:

"Gentlemen, I believe I shall express our common sentiment in first of all establishing a point which shall govern our meeting.... We are here, it is understood, to bring about the work of reconciliation between two men, two gentlemen whom we know, whom we esteem--I might better say, whom we all love.".... He turned, in pronouncing those words, successively to each of his three listeners, who all bowed, with the exception of the Marquis. Hafner examined the nobleman, with his glance accustomed to read the depths of the mind in order to divine the intentions. He saw that Chapron's first witness was a troublesome customer, and he continued: "That done, I beg to read to you this little paper." He drew from his pocket a sheet of folded paper and placed upon the end of his nose his famous gold 'lorgnon': "It is very trifling, one of those directives, as Monsieur de Moltke says, which serve to guide operations, a plan of action which we will modify after discussion. In short, it is a landmark that we may not launch into space."

"Pardon, sir," interrupted Montfanon, whose brows contracted still more at the mention of the celebrated field-marshal, and, stopping by a gesture the reader, who, in his surprise, dropped his lorgnon upon the table on which his elbow rested. "I regret very much," he continued, "to be obliged to tell you that Monsieur Dorsenne and I"--here he turned to Dorsenne, who made an equivocal gesture of vexation--"can not admit the point of view in which you place yourself.... You claim that we are here to arrange a reconciliation. That is possible.... I concede that it is desirable.... But I know nothing of it and, permit me to say, you do not know any more. I am here--we are here, Monsieur Dorsenne and I, to listen to the complaints which Count Gorka has commissioned you to formulate to Monsieur Florent Chapron's proxies. Formulate those complaints, and we will discuss them. Formulate the reparation you claim in the name of your client and we will discuss it. The papers will follow, if they follow at all, and, once more, neither you nor we know what will be the issue of this conversation, nor should we know it, before establishing the facts."

"There is some misunderstanding, sir," said Ardea, whom Montfanon's words had irritated somewhat. He could not, any more than Hafner, understand the very simple, but very singular, character of the Marquis, and he added: "I have been concerned in several 'rencontres'--four times as second, and once as principal--and I have seen employed without discussion the proceeding which Baron Hafner has just proposed to you, and which of itself is, perhaps, only a more expeditious means of arriving at what you very properly call the establishment of facts."

"I was not aware of the number of your affairs, sir," replied Montfanon, still more nervous since Hafner's future son-in-law joined in the conversation; "but since it has pleased you to tell us I will take the liberty of saying to you that I have fought seven times, and that I have been a second fourteen.... It is true that it was at an epoch when the head of your house was your father, if I remember right, the deceased Prince Urban, whom I had the honor of knowing when I served in the zouaves. He was a fine Roman nobleman, and did honor to his name. What I have told you is proof that I have some competence in the matter of a duel.... Well, we have always held that seconds were constituted to arrange affairs that could be arranged, but also to settle affairs, as well as they can, that seem incapable of being arranged. Let us now inquire into the matter; we are here for that, and for nothing else."

"Are these gentlemen of that opinion?" asked Hafner in a conciliatory voice, turning first to Dorsenne, then to Ardea: "I do not adhere to my method," he continued, again folding his paper. He slipped it into his vest-pocket and continued: "Let us establish the facts, as you say. Count Gorka, our friend, considers himself seriously, very seriously, offended by Monsieur Florent Chapron in the course of the discussion in a public street. Monsieur Chapron was carried away, as you know, sirs, almost to--what shall I say?--hastiness, which, however, was not followed by consequences, thanks to the presence of mind of Monsieur Gorka.... But, accomplished or not, the act remains. Monsieur Gorka was insulted, and he requires satisfaction.... I do not believe there is any doubt upon that point which is the cause of the affair, or, rather, the whole affair."

"I again ask your pardon, sir," said Montfanon, dryly, who no longer took pains to conceal his anger, "Monsieur Dorsenne and I can not accept your manner of putting the question.... You say that Monsieur Chapron's hastiness was not followed by consequences by reason of Monsieur Gorka's presence of mind. We claim that there was only on the part of Monsieur Chapron a scarcely indicated gesture, which he himself restrained. In consequence you attribute to Monsieur Gorka the quality of the insulted party; you are over-hasty. He is merely the plaintiff, up to this time. It is very different."

"But by rights he is the insulted party," interrupted Ardea. "Restrained or not, it constitutes a threat of assault. I did not wish to claim to be a duellist by telling you of my engagements. But this is the A B C of the 'codice cavalleresco', if the insult be followed by an assault, he who receives the blow is the offended party, and the threat of an assault is equivalent to an actual assault. The offended party has the choice of a duel, weapons and conditions. Consult your authors and ours: Chateauvillars, Du Verger, Angelini and Gelli, all agree."

"I am sorry for their sakes," said Montfanon, and he looked at the Prince with a contraction of the brows almost menacing, "but it is an opinion which does not hold good generally, nor in this particular case. The proof is that a duellist, as you have just said," his voice trembled as he emphasized the insolence offered by the other, "a bravo, to use the expression of your country, would only have to commit a justifiable murder by first insulting him at whom he aims with rude words. The insulted person replies by a voluntary gesture, on the signification of which one may be mistaken, and you will admit that the bravo is the offended party, and that he has the choice of weapons."

"But, Marquis," resumed Hafner, with evident disgust, so greatly did the cavilling and the ill-will of the nobleman irritate him, "where are you wandering to? What do you mean by bringing up chicanery of this sort?"

"Chicanery!" exclaimed Montfanon, half rising.

"Montfanon!" besought Dorsenne, rising in his turn and forcing the terrible man to be seated.

"I retract the word," said the Baron, "if it has insulted you. Nothing was farther from my thoughts.... I repeat that I apologize, Marquis.... But, come, tell us what you want for your client, that is very simple.... And then we will do all we can to make your demands agree with those of our client.... It is a trifling matter to be adjusted."

"No, sir," said Montfanon, with insolent severity, "it is justice to be rendered, which is very different. What we, Monsieur Dorsenne and I, desire," he continued in a severe voice, "is this: Count Gorka has gravely insulted Monsieur Chapron. Let me finish," he added upon a simultaneous gesture on the part of Ardea and of Hafner. "Yes, sirs, Monsieur Chapron, known to us all for his perfect courtesy, must have been very gravely insulted, even to make the improper gesture of which you just spoke. But it was agreed upon between these two gentlemen, for reasons of delicacy which we had to accept--it was agreed, I say, that the nature of the insult offered by Monsieur Gorka to Monsieur Chapron should not be divulged.... We have the right, however, and I may add the duty devolves upon us, to measure the gravity of that insult by the excess of anger aroused in Monsieur Chapron.... I conclude from it that, to be just, the plan of reconciliation, if we draw it up, should contain reciprocal concessions. Count Gorka will retract his words and Monsieur Chapron apologize for his hastiness."

"It is impossible," exclaimed the Prince; "Gorka will never accept that."

"You, then, wish to have them fight the duel?" groaned Hafner.

"And why not?" said Montfanon, exasperated. "It would be better than for the one to nurse his insults and the other his blow."

"Well, sirs," replied the Baron, rising after the silence which followed that imprudent whim of a man beside himself, "we will confer again with our client. If you wish, we will resume this conversation tomorrow at ten o'clock, say here or in any place convenient to you.... You will excuse me, Marquis. Dorsenne has no doubt told you under what circumstances--"

"Yes, he has told me," interrupted Montfanon, who again glanced at the Prince, and in a manner so mournful that the latter felt himself blush beneath the strange glance, at which, however, it was impossible to feel angry. Dorsenne had only time to cut short all other explanations by replying to Justus Hafner himself.

"Would you like the meeting at my house? We shall have more chance to escape remarks."

"You have done well to change the place," said Montfanon, five minutes later, on entering the carriage with his young friend.

They had descended the staircase without speaking, for the brave and unreasonable Marquis regretted his strangely provoking attitude of the moment before.

"What would you have?" he added. "The profaned palace, the insolent luxury of that thief, the Prince who has sold his family, the Baron whose part is so sinister. I could no longer contain myself! That Baron, above all, with his directives! Words to repeat when one is German, to a French soldier who fought in 1870, like those words of Monsieur de Moltke! His terms, too, applied to honor and that abominable politeness in which there is servility and insolence!... Still, I am not satisfied with myself. I am not at all satisfied."

There was in his voice so much good-nature, such evident remorse at not having controlled himself in so grave a situation, that Dorsenne pressed his hand instead of reproaching him, as he said:

"It will do to-morrow.... We will arrange all; it has only been postponed."

"You say that to console me," said the Marquis, "but I know it was very badly managed. And it is my fault! Perhaps we shall have no other service to render our brave Chapron than to arrange a duel for him under the most dangerous conditions. Ah, but I became inopportunely angry!... But why the deuce did Gorka select such a second? It is incomprehensible!... Did you see what the cabalistic word gentleman means to those rascals: Steal, cheat, assassinate, but have carriages perfectly appointed, a magnificent mansion, well-served dinners, and fine clothes!... No, I have suffered too much! Ah, it is not right; and on what a day, too? God! That the old man might die!".... he added, in a voice so low that his companion did not hear his words. _

Read next: Chapter 7. A Little Relative Of Iago

Read previous: Chapter 5. Countess Steno

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