The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (beautiful books to read TXT) 📖

Victor dressed and went out. The streets were crowded. Workmen were everywhere employed in the childish operation of removing all insignia, and obliterating all names that showed where an Empire had existed. One greasy citizen, mounted on a ladder, was effacing the words “Boulevard Haussman,” and substituting for Haussman, “Victor Hugo.”

Suddenly De Mauleon came on a group of blouses, interspersed with women holding babies and ragged boys holding stones, collected round a well-dressed slender man, at whom they were hooting and gesticulating, with menaces of doing something much worse. By an easy effort of his strong frame the Vicomte pushed his way through the tormentors, and gave his arm to their intended victim.

“Monsieur, allow me to walk home with you.” Therewith the shrieks and shouts and gesticulations increased. “Another impertinent! Another traitor! Drown him! Drown them both! To the Seine! To the Seine!” A burly fellow rushed forward, and the rest made a plunging push. The outstretched arm of De Mauleon kept the ringleader at bay. “Mes enfans,” cried Victor with a calm clear voice, “I am not an Imperialist. Many of you have read the articles signed Pierre Firmin, written against the tyrant Bonaparte when he was at the height of his power. I am Pierre Firmin—make way for me.” Probably not one in the crowd had ever read a word written by Pierre Firmin, nor even heard of the name. But they did not like to own ignorance; and that burly fellow did not like to encounter that arm of iron which touched his throat. So he cried out, “Oh! if you are the great Pierre Firmin, that alters the case. Make way for the patriot Pierre!”

“But,” shrieked a virago, thrusting her baby into De Mauleon’s face, “the other is the Imperialist, the capitalist, the vile Duplessis. At least we will have him.”

De Mauleon suddenly snatched the baby from her, and said, with imperturbable good temper, “Exchange of prisoners. I resign the man, and I keep the baby.”

No one who does not know the humours of a Parisian mob can comprehend the suddenness of popular change, or the magical mastery over crowds which is effected by quiet courage and a ready joke. The group was appeased at once. Even the virago laughed; and when De Mauleon restored the infant to her arms, with a gold piece thrust into its tiny clasp, she eyed the gold, and cried, “God bless you, citizen!” The two gentlemen made their way safely now.

“M. de Mauleon,” said Duplessis, “I know not how to thank you. Without your seasonable aid I should have been in great danger of life; and—would you believe it?—the woman who denounced and set the mob on me was one of the objects of a charity which I weekly dispense to the poor.”

“Of course I believe that. At the Red clubs no crime is more denounced than that of charity. It is the ‘fraud against Egalite’—a vile trick of the capitalist to save to himself the millions he ought to share with all by giving a sou to one. Meanwhile, take my advice, M. Duplessis, and quit Paris with your young daughter. This is no place for rich Imperialists at present.”

“I perceived that before to-day’s adventure. I distrust the looks of my very servants, and shall depart with Valerie this evening for Bretagne.”

“Ah! I heard from Louvier that you propose to pay off his mortgage on Rochebriant, and make yourself sole proprietor of my young kinsman’s property.”

“I trust you only believe half what you hear. I mean to save Rochebriant from Louvier, and consign it, free of charge, to your kinsman, as the dot of his bride, my daughter.”

“I rejoice to learn such good news for the head of my house. But Alain himself—is he not with the prisoners of war?”

“No, thank heaven. He went forth an officer of a regiment of Parisian Mobiles—went full of sanguine confidence; he came back with his regiment in mournful despondency. The undiscipline of his regiment, of the Parisian Mobiles generally, appears incredible. Their insolent disobedience to their officers, their ribald scoffs at their general—oh, it is sickening to speak of it! Alain distinguished himself by repressing a mutiny and is honoured by a signal compliment from the commander in a letter of recommendation to Palikao. But Palikao is nobody now. Alain has already been sent into Bretagne, commissioned to assist in organising a corps of Mobiles in his neighbourhood. Trochu, as you know, is a Breton. Alain is confident of the good conduct of the Bretons. What will Louvier do? He is an arch Republican; is he pleased now he has got what he wanted?”

“I suppose he is pleased, for he is terribly frightened. Fright is one of the great enjoyments of a Parisian. Good day. Your path to your hotel is clear now. Remember me kindly to Alain.”

De Mauleon continued his way through streets sometimes deserted, sometimes thronged. At the commencement of the Rue de Florentin he encountered the brothers Vandemar walking arm in arm.

“Ha, De Mauleon!” cried Enguerrand; “what is the last minute’s news?”

“I can’t guess. Nobody knows at Paris how soon one folly swallows up another. Saturn here is always devouring one or other of his children.”

“They say that Vinoy, after a most masterly retreat, is almost at our gates with 80,000 men.”

“And this day twelvemonth we may know what he does with them.”

Here Raoul, who seemed absorbed in gloomy reflections, halted before the hotel in which the Contessa di Rimini lodged, and with a