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

“Ah, excuse me, le petit Frederic,” said Julie with a sickly attempt at coquettish sprightliness; “I had no eyes except for M. Savarin.”

“And why only for me, my poor child?” asked the kindhearted author.

“Hush!” She drew him aside. “Because you can give me news of that monster Gustave. It is not true, it cannot be true, that he is going to be married?”

“Nay, surely, Mademoiselle, all connection between you and young Rameau has ceased for months—ceased from the date of that illness in July which nearly carried him off.”

“I resigned him to the care of his mother,” said the girl; “but when he no longer needs a mother, he belongs to me. Oh, consider, M. Savarin, for his sake I refused the most splendid offers! When he sought me, I had my coupe, my opera-box, my cachemires, my jewels. The Russians—the English—vied for my smiles. But I loved the man. I never loved before: I shall never love again; and after the sacrifices I have made for him, nothing shall induce me to give him up. Tell me, I entreat, my dear M. Savarin, where he is hiding. He has left the parental roof, and they refused there to give me his address.”

“My poor girl, don’t be mechante. It is quite true that Gustave Rameau is engaged to be married; and any attempt of yours to create scandal—”

“Monsieur,” interrupted Julie, vehemently, “don’t talk to me about scandal! The man is mine, and no one else shall have him. His address?”

“Mademoiselle,” cried Savarin, angrily, “find it out for yourself.” Then—repentant of rudeness to one so young and so desolate—he added, in mild expostulatory accents: “Come, come, ma belle enfant, be reasonable: Gustave is no loss. He is reduced to poverty.”

“So much the better. When he was well off I never cost him more than a supper at the Maison Doree; and if he is poor he shall marry me, and I will support him!”

“You!—and how?”

“By my profession when peace comes; and meanwhile I have offers from a cafe to recite warlike songs. Ah! you shake your head incredulously. The ballet-dancer recite verses? Yes! he taught me to recite his own Soyez bon pour moi. M. Savarin! do say where I can find mon homme.”

“No.”

“That is your last word?”

“It is.”

The girl drew her thin shawl round her and hurried off. Savarin rejoined his friends. “Is that the way you console yourself for the absence of Madame?” asked De Breze, drily.

“Fie!” cried Savarin, indignantly; “such bad jokes are ill-timed. What strange mixtures of good and bad, of noble and base, every stratum of Paris life contains! There is that poor girl, in one way contemptible, no doubt, and yet in another way she has an element of grandeur. On the whole, at Paris, the women, with all their faults, are of finer mould than the men.”

“French gallantry has always admitted that truth,” said Lemercier. “Fox, Fox, Fox.” Uttering this cry, he darted forward after the dog, who had strayed a few yards to salute another dog led by a string, and caught the animal in his arms. “Pardon me,” he exclaimed, returning to his friends, “but there are so many snares for dogs at present. They are just coming into fashion for roasts, and Fox is so plump.”

“I thought,” said Savarin, “that it was resolved at all the sporting clubs that, be the pinch of famine ever so keen, the friend of man should not be eaten.”

“That was while the beef lasted; but since we have come to cats, who shall predict immunity to dogs? Quid intactum nefasti linquimus? Nothing is sacred from the hand of rapine.”

The church of the Madeleine now stood before them. Moblots were playing pitch-and-toss on its steps.

“I don’t wish you to accompany me, Messieurs,” said Lemercier, apologetically, “but I am going to enter the church.”

“To pray?” asked De Breze, in profound astonishment. “Not exactly; but I want to speak to my friend Rochebriant, and I know I shall find him there.”

“Praying?” again asked De Breze.

“Yes.”

“That is curious—a young Parisian exquisite at prayer—that is worth seeing. Let us enter, too, Savarin.”

They enter the church. It is filled, and even the sceptical De Breze is impressed and awed by the sight. An intense fervour pervades the congregation. The majority, it is true, are women, many of them in deep mourning, and many of their faces mourning deeper than the dress. Everywhere may be seen gushing tears, and everywhere faintly heard the sound of stifled sighs. Besides the women are men of all ages—young, middle-aged, old, with heads bowed and hands clasped, pale, grave, and earnest. Most of them were evidently of the superior grade of life—nobles, and the higher bourgeoisie: few of the ouvrier class, very few, and these were of an earlier generation. I except soldiers, of whom there were many, from the provincial Mobiles, chiefly Bretons; you know the Breton soldiers by the little cross worn on their kepis.

Among them Lemercier at once distinguished the noble countenance of Alain de Rochebriant. De Breze and Savarin looked at each other with solemn eyes. I know not when either had last been within a church; perhaps both were startled to find that religion still existed in Paris—and largely exist it does, though little seen on the surface of society, little to be estimated by the articles of journals and the reports of foreigners. Unhappily, those among whom it exists are not the ruling class—are of the classes that are dominated over and obscured in every country the moment the populace becomes master. And at that moment the journals chiefly read were warring more against the Deity than the Prussians—were denouncing soldiers who attended mass. “The Gospel certainly makes a bad soldier,” writes the patriot Pyat.

Lemercier knelt down quietly. The other two men crept noiselessly out, and stood waiting for him on the steps, watching the Moblots (Parisian Moblots) at play.

“I should not wait for the roturier if he had not promised me a roti,” said the Vicomte de Breze, with a pitiful attempt at the patrician wit of the ancien regime.

Savarin shrugged his shoulders. “I am not included in the invitation,” said he, “and therefore free to depart. I must go and look up a former confrere who was an enthusiastic Red Republican, and I fear does not get so much to eat since he has no longer an Emperor to abuse.”

So Savarin went away. A few minutes afterwards Lemercier emerged from the church with Alain.