French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – His Excellency Eugène Rougon – Contents
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Chapter IV
AN IMPERIAL CHRISTENING
The baptismal procession was to start from the Pavillon de l’Horloge—the central pavilion of the Tuileries palace—at five o’clock. It was to wend its way along the main avenue of the Tuileries gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the Rue de Rivoli, the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, the Arcole bridge, the Rue d’Arcole and the Place du Parvis.
By four o’clock there was an immense crowd assembled near the Arcole bridge. There, in the breach which the river made in the midst of the city, a whole people could find accommodation. The view expanded, with the Ile Saint Louis in the distance barred by the black line of the Louis-Philippe bridge. The narrow arm of the Seine on the left vanished amid a mass of low buildings; while the broader one on the right afforded a far-reaching prospect bathed in purplish vapour, through which the trees of the Port aux Vins showed in a green patch. On both sides of the river, from the Quai Saint Paul to the Quai de la Mégisserie, from the Quai Napoléon to the Quai de l’Horloge, were long foot-pavements and roadways; while, in front of the bridge, the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville afforded a large, open, level space. And over all the wide expanse, the sky, a bright, warm June sky, spread a vault of blue.
When the half hour struck, there were people everywhere. All along the footways endless lines of eager spectators were pressed against the quay parapets. A sea of human heads, which was continually surging, filled the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Opposite, in the dark gaps of the open windows of the old houses on the Quai Napoléon, faces were thickly crowding, and even in the gloomy alleys leading to the river, the Rue Colombe, the Rue Saint Landry and the Rue Glatigny, women’s caps, with ribbons streaming in the breeze, could be seen leaning forward. The bridge of Notre Dame displayed a serried row of sight-seers, whose elbows rested on the stone parapet, as on the balustrade of some colossal balcony. Further down, the Louis Philippe bridge swarmed with little black figures; and even the most distant windows streaking the grey and yellow house-fronts were every now and then brightened by some gay dress. There were men on the roofs among the chimney stacks. People, who could not be distinguished, were looking through telescopes from their terraces on the Quai de la Tournelle. And the sunlight spreading over all seemed like the very quiver of the crowd; it bore afar the laughter of those surging heads, while gay, mirror-like parasols reflected the glow, showing as planets amidst all the medley of skirts and coats.
But there was one thing that was visible from every side, from the quays and bridges and windows, and that was a fresco painting of a colossal grey overcoat on the blank wall of a six-storeyed house on the isle of St. Louis. The sleeve of this coat was bent at the elbow as though the garment still retained the shape and attitude of a body that had disappeared from within it. In the bright sunshine, above all the swarming sight-seers, this gigantic advertisement presented a most conspicuous appearance.[5]
A double line of troops kept the roadway clear for the procession. National Guards were drawn up on the right hand, and infantrymen of the Line on the left. At one end, this military cordon extended to the Rue d’Arcole, which was gaudy with banners, while from the windows hung costly draperies which flapped languidly against the dingy house-fronts. The bridge, to which the crowd had not been admitted, was the only clear spot amidst the general invasion, and it presented a strange appearance, thus deserted. But, lower down, on the river banks, the crowding began again. Shopkeepers in Sunday clothes had spread out their pocket-handkerchiefs and seated themselves beside their wives to rest after a whole afternoon of lounging idleness. On the other side of the bridge, where the river expanded, showing a deep blue shot with green just where its arms united, there were some boatmen in red jackets who were working their oars to keep their boat on a level with the Port aux Fruits. By the Quai de Gèvres, too, there was a floating laundry, with wooden walls green with moisture, in which washerwomen could be heard laughing and beating their clothes. And all the teeming sight-seers, numbering from three to four hundred thousand people, now and again raised their heads to glance at the towers of Notre Dame which rose up square and massive above the houses of the Quai Napoléon. Gilded by the declining sun, so that they looked ruddy against the clear sky, the towers resounded with the clanging peals of their bells, which sent a quiver through the atmosphere.
Three or four false alarms had already caused a great deal of jostling in the crowd.
‘I tell you that they won’t pass before half-past five,’ said a tall fellow who was sitting in front of a café on the Quai de Gèvres with M. and Madame Charbonnel.
It was Gilquin, Théodore Gilquin, Madame Mélanie Correur’s old lodger, and Rougon’s redoubtable friend. He was dressed that day in a complete suit of yellow duck, a cheap ready-made line, stained and creased, and here and there unsewn at the seams. His boots, too, were split, and his straw hat lacked a ribbon. However, he wore tan coloured gloves, and for that reason considered that he was in full dress. He had been acting since noon as a guide to the Charbonnels, whose acquaintance he had made one evening in the kitchen at Rougon’s house.
‘You shall see everything, my children,’ he said to them, as he brushed aside the long black moustaches which swept across his tipsy-looking face. ‘You have put yourselves in my hands, haven’t you? Very well, then let me manage our little holiday.’
Gilquin had already drunk three nips of brandy and five glasses of beer. For the last two hours he had been keeping the Charbonnels prisoners at the café, whither he had brought them, on the pretext that it was absolutely necessary to be in good time. It was a little café with which he was well acquainted, and where they would be very comfortable, he assured them, and he seemed to be on most familiar terms with the waiter. The Charbonnels had resigned themselves to their fate, and listened to his talk, feeling much surprised at its abundance and variety. Madame Charbonnel had declined to take anything beyond a glass of eau sucrée, and M. Charbonnel had ordered for himself a glass of anisette, such as he occasionally indulged in at the Commercial Club at Plassans. Meanwhile Gilquin discoursed to them about the Baptism as explicitly as though he had spent the morning at the Tuileries for the purpose of acquiring information.
‘The Empress is in very high spirits,’ he said. ‘She got over her delivery splendidly. She’s a fine woman! You will see by-and-bye what a figure she has. The Emperor got back from Nantes on the day before yesterday. He went there on account of the floods. What a dreadful calamity those floods are!’
Madame Charbonnel pushed her chair back. She was beginning to feel rather afraid of the crowd which was streaming past her in increasing numbers. ‘What a lot of people!’ she muttered.
‘Yes, indeed,’ cried Gilquin, ‘I should think so. There are more than three hundred thousand visitors in Paris. Excursion trains have been bringing them here for the last week from all parts of the country. See, over yonder there are some people from Normandy, and there are some from Gascony, and some from Franche-Comté. I can spot them at once; I’ve knocked about a good deal in my time.’
He next told them that the courts and the Bourse were closed, and that all the clerks in the government offices had got a holiday. The whole capital was holding festival in honour of the Baptism. Then he began to quote figures, and calculate what the ceremony and rejoicings would cost. The Corps Législatif had voted 400,000 francs,[6] but that was a mere nothing, for a groom at the Tuileries had informed him that the procession alone would cost nearly 200,000. If the Emperor got off with a million from the civil list, he might think himself lucky. The layette alone had cost 100,000 francs.
‘What, 100,000 francs!’ cried Madame Charbonnel in amazement. ‘Why, how can they have possibly spent all that? What can it have gone in?’
Gilquin laughed as he told her that some laces cost an enormous sum. He himself had travelled in the lace business in former days. Then he went on with his calculations: 50,000 francs had gone to the parents of children who had been born on the same day as the little prince, and of whom the Emperor and Empress had expressed their intention to be godfather and godmother respectively. Then 85,000 francs were to be spent in purchasing medals for the authors of the cantatas which were sung at the theatres. Finally, there were 120,000 commemorative medals distributed among the collegians, the pupils of the primary schools and asylums and the non-commissioned officers and privates of the army of Paris. He had got one of those medals himself, and showed it to them. It was about the size of a half-franc piece, and bore on one side the profiles of the Emperor and Empress, and on the other that of the Prince Imperial, with the date of the latter’s baptism, namely, June 14, 1856.
‘Would you mind selling it me?’ M. Charbonnel inquired of Gilquin.
The other expressed his willingness to do so, but as Charbonnel, embarrassed as to what he should offer for it, handed him a twenty-sous-piece, he declined it, saying that the medal was not worth more than ten sous. Madame Charbonnel, meanwhile, was gazing at the profiles of the imperial couple, and seemed quite affected by emotion: ‘How good they look!’ she said. ‘There they are, side by side, like an affectionate pair. See, Monsieur Charbonnel, you would say two heads lying on the same pillow when you look at them this way.’
Then Gilquin returned to the subject of the Empress, of whose charitable disposition he spoke in the most laudatory terms. But a short time before her delivery she had devoted whole afternoons to furthering the establishment of an educational institute for poor girls in the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Moreover, she had just refused to accept an offering of 80,000 francs which had been collected in sums of five sous amongst the poorer classes for the purpose of buying a present for the young prince; and by her express desire the money was to be devoted to the apprenticing of a hundred poor orphans. Gilquin, who was already somewhat tipsy, twisted his eyes about in the most dreadful manner as he sought for tender phrases and expressions which should combine the respect of the subject with the passionate admiration of the man. He declared that he would gladly offer up his life in sacrifice at the feet of that noble woman. And nobody protested against this. The murmur of the crowd seemed indeed like a distant echo of his praises. It was now growing into a continuous clamour, while over the house-tops from the bells of Notre Dame rolled peal on peal of clanging, tumultuous joy.
‘Don’t you think it time for us to go and take our places?’ timidly suggested M. Charbonnel, who felt tired of sitting still.
At this Madame Charbonnel rose up and fastened her yellow shawl about her neck. ‘Yes, I’m sure it is,’ she said. ‘You wanted to be there in good time, and we’re sitting here and letting everyone go past us.’
Gilquin, however, became indignant; and, with an oath, brought his fist down on the little zinc table. Didn’t he know all about Paris? he asked; and then, as Madame Charbonnel timidly dropped upon her chair again, he cried to the waiter: ‘Jules, a glass of absinthe and some cigars!’
But as soon as he had dipped his big moustaches in the absinthe, he angrily called the waiter back again. ‘Are you having a game with me? Just take this filth away, and give me some out of the other bottle; the same as I had on Friday. I have travelled in the liquor-trade, my fine fellow. You can’t bamboozle me.’
He calmed down, however, when the waiter, who seemed afraid of him, had brought the other bottle, and then he tapped the Charbonnels on the shoulders, and called them ‘old fellow’ and ‘old lady.’ ‘Ah! so you’re itching to be on the move, are you, old lady?’ said he. ‘You’ll have plenty of use for your feet between now and to-night, so you needn’t be in a hurry. We’re very comfortable at this café; don’t you think so, old fellow? We can take our ease and watch the people go by. We’ve plenty of time, I assure you, so you’d better order something else.’
‘Thank you, we’ve had all that we want,’ said M. Charbonnel.
Gilquin had just lighted a cigar. He leaned back in his chair, inserted his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, thrust out his chest, and began to rock himself backwards and forwards. His eyes glowed with an expression of perfect content. Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he cried; ‘I’ll call for you at seven o’clock to-morrow morning, and take you off with me and show you all the festivities. We’ll have a splendid day of it.’
The Charbonnels looked at each other very uneasily. But Gilquin proceeded to explain his programme after the manner of a strolling showman. In the morning they would lunch at the Palais Royal, and walk about the city. In the afternoon they would go to the Esplanade of the Invalides, where there would be military performances, greasy poles, three hundred balloons laden with packets of sweets, and one large balloon raining down sugared almonds. In the evening they would dine at a wineshop which he knew of, on the Quai de Billy; then they would see the fireworks, the principal set-piece of which would represent a baptistery, and afterwards they could stroll among the illuminations. And he also told them of a fiery cross which was to be fixed on the Hôtel de la Légion d’Honneur; of a fairy palace on the Place de la Concorde, in the building of which 950,000 pieces of coloured glass had been used; and of the image atop of the tower of Saint Jacques, which would look like a blazing torch in mid-air.
As the Charbonnels still hesitated, however, he leaned towards them and added in lower tones: ‘And then, as we come back, we might look in at a creamery in the Rue de Seine where they give you such stunning onion soup with cheese.’
At this the Charbonnels no longer dared to refuse. Childish curiosity and alarm mingled in the expression of their dilated eyes. They felt that they could not escape from that terrible man, and must do whatever he told them. Madame Charbonnel simply murmured: ‘Oh! this Paris! this Paris! Well, well, since we are here, I suppose we must see all that there is to be seen. But if you only knew, Monsieur Gilquin, how quiet we were at Plassans! I have a store-room full of preserves and brandied cherries and pickles which are all mouldering away!’
‘Don’t alarm yourself, old lady,’ replied Gilquin, who was growing more and more familiar; ‘when you gain your case, you can ask me to come and stay with you, and then we’ll all have a go at the jam-pots!’
So saying, he poured himself out another glass of absinthe. He was now perfectly tipsy. For a moment he looked at the Charbonnels with loving affection; but, all at once, he sprang to his feet and waved his long arms while calling; ‘Eh! eh! Hallo! you there!’
Madame Mélanie Correur, arrayed in a dress of dove-coloured silk, was just then passing on the opposite footwalk. She turned her head and seemed extremely annoyed at seeing Gilquin. However, she crossed over with the majestic gait of a princess, but on reaching the table required a deal of pressing before she would accept any refreshment.
‘Come now,’ cried Gilquin, ‘have a little glass of blackcurrant brandy. I know you like it. You haven’t forgotten the Rue Vanneau, eh? We used to have fine times then, didn’t we? Ah! that big old stupid of a Correur!’
Just as Madame Correur was at last sitting down, a loud shouting was heard among the crowd. The promenaders scuttled off like sheep, as though swept along by a gust of wind. The Charbonnels had instinctively risen with the idea of following the others, but Gilquin’s heavy hand brought them to their chairs again. His face was quite purple.
‘Just keep still and wait for orders, will you?’ said he. ‘Those folks are making fools of themselves. It is only five o’clock, isn’t it? Well, then, it’s the Cardinal-Legate who’s coming; and we don’t want to see the Cardinal-Legate, do we? For my part, I think it’s very neglectful of the Pope not to have come himself. When a man is a godfather he ought to behave as such, it seems to me. However, I tell you that the youngster won’t be here for another half-hour.’
His intoxication was rapidly depriving him of all sense of decorum. He had cocked his chair back and begun to smoke in people’s faces, winking the while at the women and glaring defiantly at the men. A few yards away, near the bridge of Notre Dame, there was now a block in the road traffic. Horses were pawing the ground with impatience, and the uniforms of high functionaries and officers, embroidered with gold and glittering with decorations, appeared at the windows of the passing carriages.
‘There’s a nice show of tinsel and pewter!’ sneered Gilquin, with the smile of a man who cares nothing for gew-gaws.
However, as a brougham came along from the Quai de la Mégisserie, he almost upset the table as he sprang up and cried: ‘Hallo, Rougon!’
He saluted the great man with his gloved hand, and then, fearing that he had not been recognised, snatched off his straw hat and began to wave it. At this, Rougon, whose senatorial uniform was attracting a deal of notice, quickly withdrew to a corner of his brougham. And thereupon Gilquin began to call him, raising his hand to his mouth and using it as a speaking-trumpet. The people on the footway stopped and turned to see what was the matter with this strange-looking fellow dressed in yellow duck. At last, however, the coachman was able to urge his horse forward, and the brougham turned on to the bridge of Notre Dame.
‘Do be quiet!’ said Madame Correur in a low voice, while catching hold of Gilquin’s arms.
But he would not at once sit down again. He remained on tip-toes, watching the brougham as it mingled with the other carriages, and at last he hurled a parting shout after the fleeing wheels: ‘Ah! the turn-tail! just because he wears gold lace on his coat now! All the same, my fat fellow, you were deucedly hard up once upon a time!’
Some middle-class citizens and their wives who were sitting at the seven or eight tables of the little café heard this and opened their eyes in astonishment. At one table there was a family, consisting of the father and mother and three children, who seemed profoundly interested in Gilquin’s proceedings. The latter puffed himself out, quite delighted to find that he had an audience. He let his eyes travel round the customers of the café, and said in a loud voice as he dropped into his seat again: ‘Rougon! why it was I who made him what he is!’
Then turning to Madame Correur, who was trying to quiet him, he appealed to her for corroboration. She knew that he was speaking the truth, he proclaimed. It had all happened at the Hôtel Vanneau in the Rue Vanneau. She surely wouldn’t deny that he had lent Rougon his boots a score of times to enable him to go to the houses of highly-placed people and mix in a lot of mysterious goings-on. Why, in those days Rougon only possessed an old pair of split shoes, which a rag-picker wouldn’t have taken as a gift. Then with a triumphant air Gilquin bent towards the family at the next table, and exclaimed: ‘Oh, she won’t confess it, but it was she who paid for his first pair of new boots in Paris.’
Madame Correur, however, turned her chair round, so that she might no longer seem to be one of Gilquin’s party. The Charbonnels had become quite pale at hearing the man who was to put half a million francs in their pockets spoken of in such a fashion. Gilquin, however, was wound up, and rattled off innumerable stories of Rougon’s early days. He, Gilquin, claimed to be a philosopher, and he began to laugh, and accosted the parties at the different tables one after another, smoking, spitting, and drinking, while telling them that he was quite accustomed to the ingratitude of mankind, and was satisfied with preserving his own self-respect. And he repeated that he himself had been the making of Rougon. At that time, he said, he had been a traveller in the perfumery line, but the Republic was bad for trade. Both he and Rougon had been living on the same floor in a state of starvation. Then he was struck with the idea of getting Rougon to send for some olive-oil from a producer at Plassans, and they had both wandered about Paris in different directions till ten o’clock at night with samples of olive-oil in their pockets. Rougon was not clever at the business, but he occasionally succeeded in getting some good orders from the fine folks to whose houses he went in the evenings.
Ah! that rascal Rougon, he was a bigger booby than a goose in most things, yet all the same he was very cunning. A little later, how he had made him, Gilquin, run about to further his politics! Here Gilquin lowered his voice a little and winked, and let them know that he himself had belonged to the Bonapartist band. He had haunted the low dancing-rooms crying out ‘Long live the Republic’; for it was necessary to profess Republicanism to get influence over the people. The Empire certainly owed him a big debt for what he had done; but it hadn’t even thanked him. No, while Rougon and his clique shared all the prizes, he was turned out of doors like a mangy dog. Well, on the whole, he preferred that it should be so, he would rather remain independent. He had only one regret now, and that was that he had not stuck to the Republicans and made an end of all this scum with his musket.
‘It’s just the same, too, with little Du Poizat,’ he said in conclusion. ‘He pretends not to know me now; a skinny little beggar to whom I’ve often given a pipe of tobacco! And yet he’s a sub-prefect now! Why I’ve often seen him with big Amélie, who used to box his ears and kick him outside the door when he didn’t behave properly.’
After this he became silent for a moment as if overcome by tender recollections amidst his maudlin fit. Then, glancing round at his audience, he began again.
‘Well, you’ve just seen Rougon. I’m as tall a man as he is, and I’m the same age, and I flatter myself that I’ve got a better looking head on my shoulders. Well, now, don’t you think that it would be much better for everyone if I were in that carriage instead of that great fat pig, with his body covered all over with gold lace?’
However, just at this moment such a shouting arose on the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, that the people at the café became much too excited to reply. The crowd made another rush; men’s legs flew along, while women caught up their petticoats to enable themselves to run the faster. As the shouting came nearer and grew more distinct, Gilquin cried out:
‘Ah! here comes the youngster! Hurry up and pay the score, old man, and then follow me all of you!’
Madame Correur grasped his yellow duck coat so as not to lose him, and Madame Charbonnel panted along close behind, while her husband was almost lost in the crowd. Gilquin, by much resolute pushing, managed to open a passage through the dense throng, making such a show of authority that people drew back even at the most crowded parts. When he at last reached the quay, he lifted the ladies with an effort, and seated them on the parapet, with their legs dangling over, on the water side, and this in spite of their little shrieks of alarm. He himself and M. Charbonnel remained standing behind.
‘Well, my little dears, you’re in the front boxes now,’ he said, to reassure the women; ‘don’t be frightened, we’ll take hold of your waists.’
Thereupon he slipped both arms round Madame Correur’s plump figure. She smiled at him. It was impossible to get angry with such a jovial fellow. As yet, however, they could see nothing. The Place de l’Hôtel de Ville was full of surging heads, and echoed with continuous cheering. Hats were waving in the distance, held aloft by hands which were indistinguishable, and forming a huge black billow which slowly rolled nearer and nearer. Then the occupants of the houses on the Quai Napoléon, which fronted the Place, began to show signs of excitement. They leant out of the windows, crowding against each other, with beaming faces, and arms outstretched to call attention to something in the direction of the Rue de Rivoli. For three minutes, which seemed very long, however, the bridge still remained empty. The bells of Notre Dame were ringing louder than ever, as though in some wild fit of joyful excitement.
Suddenly the anxious multitude beheld a company of trumpeters upon the empty bridge. There was a great sigh of expectation. Behind the trumpeters and the mounted band which followed them, came a general, escorted by his staff. Then, behind squadrons of carabineers, dragoons and hussars, followed the state-carriages. There were eight of them, each drawn by six horses. In those that came first sat the ladies-in-waiting, the chamberlains, the officers of the household of the Emperor and Empress, and the ladies in attendance upon the Grand Duchess of Baden, who had been deputed to represent the young prince’s godmother. Gilquin, without letting go his hold of Madame Correur, told her from behind that the godmother, the Queen of Sweden, had not put herself out any more than the godfather had done. Then, as the seventh and eighth carriages went past, he told her the names of those who occupied them, with a glibness which bespoke great familiarity with court matters. Those two ladies, he said, were the Princess Mathilde and the Princess Marie. Those three gentlemen were King Jérôme, Prince Napoleon and the Crown Prince of Sweden. The lady with them was the Grand Duchess of Baden. Meanwhile, the procession swept on slowly. The equerries and aides-de-camp and gentlemen-in-waiting all rode with short reins to keep their horses at a walk.
‘But where is the baby?’ asked Madame Charbonnel impatiently.
‘Oh! don’t be frightened,’ said Gilquin, with a laugh; ‘they haven’t put him under a seat. Wait a little and you’ll see him.’
So saying, he tightened his grasp round Madame Correur, who allowed him to do so, she explained, because she was afraid of slipping into the water. Then, growing enthusiastic over the display, he continued, while his eyes glistened brightly: ‘Isn’t it really splendid? See how they take their ease, the rascals, in their satin-quilted coaches! And to think that I worked for all this!’
Then he began to puff himself out as though the procession, the crowd and everything that was to be seen owed their origin to him. However, after the temporary lull, caused by the appearance of the first carriages, there came a tremendous uproar. It was upon the quay itself now that hats were waving over the surging heads of the crowd. Six imperial outriders, wearing green liveries and round caps, from which dangled large gold tassels, had made their appearance on the bridge. Then at last the Empress’s carriage came in sight. It was drawn by eight horses; and at each of its four corners there was a magnificent lamp. Large and rounded, panelled almost entirely with glass, this coach resembled a huge crystal casket with gold settings, mounted upon golden wheels. Inside it, amidst a cloud of snowy lace, one could clearly distinguish the rosy face of the Prince Imperial, carried upon the knees of the Governess of the Children of France, by whose side sat the wet nurse, a young, handsome, and buxom Burgundian. Then a short distance behind, following a group of mounted equerries and grooms on foot, came the Emperor’s carriage, which also was drawn by eight horses, and was as magnificent as the previous one. In it sat the Emperor and Empress, who bowed to the people as they passed. Beside these two last carriages rode several marshals of France, who, without sign of impatience, let all the dust from the wheels settle on their richly broidered uniforms.
‘Just fancy if the bridge were to break down!’ exclaimed Gilquin with a grin. He was fond of indulging in the most awful suppositions.
Madame Correur, frightened at the thought of such a thing, tried to stop him, but he would dwell on the subject, remarking that iron bridges were never safe. He even asserted that he could see the platform oscillating when the two carriages were but half-way across. What a splash, he continued; if papa and mamma and baby went down they would get such a drink as would keep them from ever wanting another! The carriages, however, rolled softly and silently over the bridge, and the frame-work of the gently-curving arch was so light that they looked almost as though suspended in space over the river, in whose blue depths they were reflected like strange gold-fishes, carried up by the flow of the tide. The Emperor and Empress, feeling a little tired, leaned back against the buttoned satin, glad to escape the crowd for a moment and the necessity of bowing to it. The Governess, too, took advantage of the stretch of empty space to raise the little prince, who was slipping from her knees, while the nurse, leaning forward, amused him with a smile. The whole procession was steeped in bright sunshine. The uniforms, the gay gowns, and the horse-trappings shone out brilliantly, while the sparkling planet-like coaches cast tremulous beams of reflected sunlight along the fronts of the dingy houses on the Quai Napoléon. In the distance, above the bridge, the colossal advertisement of the giant grey overcoat, painted on the wall of a six-storeyed house, and now illumined with radiant splendour by the sun, formed a sort of background to the magnificent picture.
Gilquin noticed the overcoat just as it towered above the two carriages. ‘Look!’ he cried, ‘there’s the uncle[7] over yonder!’
A laugh ran through the surrounding crowd. M. Charbonnel, who did not catch the point, wanted to have it explained to him, but his request was drowned by the deafening cheering and clapping of hands that arose from the three hundred thousand people there pressed together. A mighty thrill of enthusiasm had sped through the mass of sight-seers as the little prince, followed by the Emperor and Empress, came into sight on the middle of the bridge, of which they had a full, unbroken view. Men rose on tip-toe, and set their dazed youngsters astride their necks, while women wept or stammered out expressions of love for ‘the little darling,’ showing a heartfelt sympathy with the happiness of the imperial parents. A storm of shouts still rolled on from the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville; and upon the quays, both up and down the river, there was a forest of waving, outstretched arms. Handkerchiefs fluttered from the windows, and men and women craned forward with glistening eyes and gaping mouths. Away in the distance the windows of the Ile Saint Louis, which looked like narrow streaks of charcoal, were lighted up with white gleams and evidences of life too far away to be clearly distinguished. However, the boatmen in red jackets stood up in the middle of the river, where the current swept them along, and shouted their loudest, while the washerwomen, leaning out of the windows of the floating laundry, waved their bare arms excitedly, and, in their desire to be heard, dealt blow after blow with their beetles till they nearly broke them.
‘There, it’s all over!’ exclaimed Gilquin; ‘let us be off.’
The Charbonnels, however, wanted to see the end of everything. The tail of the procession—squadrons of Cent Gardes, cuirassiers and carabineers—was plunging into the Rue d’Arcole. Then there came a scene of dreadful confusion. In several places people broke through the double line of National Guards and regulars, and women began to scream.
‘Come along! come along!’ repeated Gilquin. ‘We shall be crushed to death!’
When he had deposited the ladies on the footway, he made them cross the road in spite of the crowd. Madame Correur and the Charbonnels had wanted to keep near the parapet, so as to make their way to the bridge of Notre Dame and see what was happening on the Place du Parvis. But Gilquin would not hear of it, and dragged them after him. When they once more reached the little café, he gave them a push and made them sit down again at the table which they had recently left.
‘What perverse creatures you are!’ he cried. ‘Do you suppose that I want to have my feet crushed by all those louts? We’ll have something to drink, we will! We are much better off here than in that crush. We’ve had enough sight-seeing. It was beginning to get wearisome. Come, old lady, what will you drink?’
The Charbonnels, upon whom he kept his perturbing eyes, began to make timid objections. They would have liked to see the procession leave the church. But Gilquin assured them that it would be best to give the crowd time to disperse, and that he would take them to the church in a quarter of an hour, if the crush was not too thick. However, while he was telling Jules to bring a supply of cigars and beer, Madame Correur prudently made her escape. ‘Well, stay and rest yourselves a little,’ she said to the Charbonnels. ‘You will find me over yonder by-and-bye.’
She made her way to the bridge of Notre Dame and then into the Rue de la Cité. But the crush there was still so great that it took her a good quarter of an hour to reach the Rue de Constantine. At last she made a cut through the Rue de la Licorne and the Rue des Trois Canettes, and in this way emerged upon the Place du Parvis, after losing at the ventilator of a suspicious house one of the flounces of her dove-coloured dress. Round the square, strewn with sand and flowers, stood tall masts, from which hung banners bearing the imperial arms. In front of the church a vast tent-shaped porch draped the stone-work with curtains of crimson velvet, having fringes and tassels of gold.
Here Madame Correur was checked by a body of troops who kept back the crowd. In the middle of the space from which the public had been excluded, footmen were pacing up and down beside the carriages, which were drawn up in five rows, their coachmen still occupying their seats and holding their reins. As Madame Correur craned her head forward in the hope of finding some gap through which she might pass, she caught sight of Du Poizat quietly smoking a cigar in a corner of the square among some of the footmen.
‘Don’t you think you could get me in?’ she asked him, when she had attracted his attention by waving her handkerchief.
Du Poizat went and spoke to an officer, and then led Madame Correur in front of the church.
‘If you’ll take my advice,’ he said to her, ‘you’ll stay here with me. It’s perfectly packed inside. I was nearly suffocated myself, and so I came out. See, there are Colonel Jobelin and Monsieur Bouchard, who have given up all hope of finding room.’
She looked and saw the two men on her left, near the Rue du Cloître Notre Dame. M. Bouchard was saying that he had just left his wife in charge of M. d’Escorailles, who had an excellent seat for a lady at his disposal, while the colonel’s chief regret seemed to be that he was not able to explain the ceremony to his son Auguste.
‘I much wished to show him the famous vase,’ he said. ‘It is, as you know, the genuine vase of Saint Louis—a vase of copper, damascened and ornamented with niello work in the most perfect Persian manner. It is a relic of the times of the Crusades, and has been used at the christenings of all our kings ever since.’
‘Did you see all the insignia?’ M. Bouchard asked Du Poizat.
‘Yes,’ replied the latter. ‘Madame de Llorentz was carrying the chrisom.’
Then he entered into details. The chrisom was the christening cloth, a fact of which neither of the men had been aware. But Du Poizat went on to enumerate, not only the insignia of the Prince Imperial, the chrisom, the candle and the salt-cellar, but the insignia of the godfather and godmother, the basin, the ewer and the towel, all of which were carried by ladies-in-waiting. Then there was also the little prince’s mantle, a most magnificent and wonderful mantle, which was hung over an arm-chair near the font.
‘Isn’t there really the smallest corner where I could squeeze myself?’ cried Madame Correur, in whom all these details had roused a fever of curiosity.
Then they told her of all the great state bodies and high officials and innumerable deputations that they had seen pass. It was an almost endless procession, they said; the Diplomatic body, the Senate, the Corps Législatif, the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Exchequer Court, the Appeal Court, the Tribunals of Commerce and of First Instance; to say nothing of the ministers, the prefects, the mayors and their deputies, the academicians, the general officers, and a host of others, including even delegates from the Jewish and Protestant consistories.
‘Oh! what a splendid sight it must be!’ Madame Correur exclaimed with a sigh.
Du Poizat shrugged his shoulders. He was in a very bad humour. All those people bored him, he said, and he seemed irritated by the length of the ceremony. How much longer would they be? They had sung the Veni Creator and had censed themselves and walked about and saluted one another. Surely the child must be christened by this time!
Meanwhile M. Bouchard and the colonel manifested greater patience and examined the decorated windows of the square; then, as a sudden peal of the bells shook the towers, they turned their heads and quivered uneasily at their close proximity to the huge church, whose summit they could not even discern in the sky. However, Auguste had slipped towards the porch, whither Madame Correur followed him. But when she reached the great door, which was wide open, the magnificent sight she beheld kept her rooted to the ground.
Between the two great curtains of the porch the church appeared like a vision of some superhuman temple. The vaulted arches, of a soft blue, were spangled with stars. Around this wondrous firmament the stained-glass windows gleamed like mystic planets, sparkling with burning jewels. From the lofty pillars on all sides hung drapery of crimson velvet, which still further shut the daylight out of the usually dim nave; and in the centre of this roseate twilight there blazed a multitude of tapers—thousands of tapers—so closely crowded that they seemed like a great sun flaming out amidst a rain of stars. This blaze was that of the altar, set on a platform in the centre of the transept. Thrones were placed on the right and left of it. Over the higher of the two thrones a spreading canopy of velvet lined with ermine showed like a huge bird with snowy breast and purple wings. The church was filled with a glittering crowd, bright with gold and jewels. Near the altar a group of clergy, bishops with mitres and croziers, formed, as it were, a glory, one of those dazzling splendours which suggest heaven itself. Around the altar princes, princesses and great dignitaries were ranged in sovereign pomp and circumstance. Then tiers of seats had been set up in the arms of the transept, for the Diplomatic body and the Senate, on the right, and for the Corps Législatif and the Council of State on the left; while representative bodies of every kind crowded the rest of the nave, and ladies displayed their bright, variegated gowns in the galleries above. A sanguineous haze floated over everything. The heads which showed in tiers on all sides had the roseate hue of painted porcelain. The dresses, the satin and silk and velvet, glowed with a dull splendour as though they would soon burst into a blaze. Rows of people suddenly seemed to flare. The whole deep church was like some wondrous furnace.
Then Madame Correur saw an assistant master of the ceremonies advance to the centre of the choir, where he thrice shouted energetically: ‘Long live the Prince Imperial! Long live the Prince Imperial! Long live the Prince Imperial!’
And as the lofty arches shook with a mighty acclamation, Madame Correur saw the Emperor standing on the altar steps overlooking the throng. He stood out black and distinct against the background of blazing gold which the bishops formed behind him. He was presenting the Prince Imperial to the people, holding the infant, who seemed a mere bundle of white lace, aloft in his upstretched arms.
But a beadle suddenly motioned to Madame Correur to retire. She took a couple of steps backwards, and the next moment saw nothing but one of the curtains of the porch. The vision had disappeared. The bright daylight made her blink, and for an instant she remained confused, half fancying that she had been gazing upon some old picture like those in the Louvre, some picture baked by age, purpled and gilded, and depicting people of a past-away time, such as one no longer met in the streets.
‘Don’t stop there,’ Du Poizat said to her, as he led her back to the colonel and M. Bouchard.
The latter were now discussing the floods, which had caused terrible destruction in the valleys of the Rhone and the Loire. Thousands of families had been rendered homeless. The subscriptions which had been opened on all sides were insufficient for the relief of such great distress. However, they asserted that the Emperor had exhibited most admirable courage and generosity. At Lyons he had been seen fording the low parts of the inundated city, and at Tours he had spent three hours rowing in a boat through the submerged streets; and everywhere he had lavishly distributed alms.
‘Ah, listen!’ interrupted the colonel.
The organ was now pealing through the church, and a sonorous chant rolled through the porch, whose curtains swayed as the great gust of sound swept out.
‘It is the Te Deum!’ exclaimed M. Bouchard.
Du Poizat heaved a sigh of relief. They were getting to an end at last! M. Bouchard, however, informed him that the registers had yet to be signed, and, afterwards, the Cardinal-Legate would have to give the pontifical benediction. Some of the congregation were, however, already leaving. Rougon was one of the first to appear, giving his arm to a lady of slight build, who had a sallow complexion, and was very plainly dressed. They were accompanied by a personage who wore the dress of a president of an Appeal Court.
‘Who are those?’ asked Madame Correur.
Du Poizat told her their names. M. Beulin-d’Orchère, the president, had become acquainted with Rougon some time before the Coup d’État, and had manifested much esteem for him since that period, without, however, attempting to establish any close intimacy. Mademoiselle Véronique, his sister, lived with him in a house in the Rue Garancière, which she seldom left except to attend low mass at Saint Sulpice.
‘Ah!’ said the colonel, lowering his voice, ‘that is the wife for Rougon!’
‘Exactly,’ assented M. Bouchard. ‘She has got a suitable fortune; her family is good, and she is a steady-going woman of experience. He will never find a wife more fitted for him.’
Du Poizat, however, protested. The lady, he said, was as over-ripe as a forgotten medlar. She was at least thirty-six years of age, and looked forty. A nice broom-handle in all truth! A devotee with hair brushed smooth and smug! As faded and as washed-out as though she had been soaking her head in holy water for the last six months!
‘You are young,’ rejoined the head-clerk, gravely. ‘Rougon ought to make a sensible marriage. I myself married for love, but that does not succeed with everyone.’
‘Oh! I don’t apprehend any danger from the lady herself,’ continued Du Poizat; ‘it’s Beulin-d’Orchère’s look that alarms me. He’s got a regular dog’s jaw. Just look at him with his heavy muzzle and forest of woolly hair, without a single silver thread in it, in spite of his fifty years. What’s he thinking about, I wonder? Why does he still drive his sister into Rougon’s arms now that our friend is out of favour?’
M. Bouchard and the colonel kept silent, and exchanged uneasy glances. Was ‘the dog,’ as the ex-sub-prefect called him, going to make Rougon his own prey?
However, Madame Correur slowly opined: ‘It is a good thing to have the judicial bench on one’s side.’
Meantime, Rougon was conducting Mademoiselle Véronique to her carriage, and, before she got into it, he bowed to her. Just at that moment the fair Clorinde came out of the church, leaning upon Delestang’s arm. She became quite grave, and cast a fiery glance at that tall sallow creature, the door of whose carriage Rougon was gallantly closing, notwithstanding his senatorial uniform. And as soon as the carriage had gone off, Clorinde dropped Delestang’s arm, and stepped straight up to the great man, breaking out into her old gay laugh. All the others followed.
‘I have lost my mother!’ merrily said the girl to Rougon. ‘She has been carried off somewhere in the crowd. Will you give me a little corner in your brougham?’
At this Delestang, who had hoped to take her home, seemed very much annoyed. She was wearing a dress of orange silk, brocaded with such showy flowers that the very footmen stared at her. Rougon had immediately granted her request, but they had to wait for the brougham for another ten minutes. And they all remained standing where they were, even Delestang, though his carriage was in the first row, only a yard or two away. In the meanwhile the congregation continued to leave the church. M. Kahn and M. Béjuin, who were passing, came up and joined the group. And as the great man shook hands in a listless way, and looked somewhat out of sorts, M. Kahn asked with anxious concern: ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he answered, ‘but those lights inside there rather dazed me.’ He remained silent for a moment, and then continued in a low voice: ‘It was a splendid sight. I never saw such an expression of happiness upon a man’s face before.’
He was referring to the Emperor, and, as he spoke, he slowly spread out his arms with a sweeping majestic gesture, as though he were recalling the scene in the church. But he added not a word, and the others likewise kept silence. They formed quite a little group in a corner of the square. In front of them the stream of people leaving the church grew larger; there were judges in their robes, officers and functionaries in full uniform, a crowd of belaced and bedizened and decorated personages who trod over the flowers strewing the square, amidst the calls of footmen and sudden rolling of carriage-wheels. The soaring glory of the Empire blazed, as it were, in the crimson of the setting sun; and the towers of Notre Dame, all roseate and musical, seemed to attest the lofty peace and greatness to which the future reign of the child, baptized beneath their shadow, would some day attain. But in Rougon’s group, the splendour of the ceremony, the pealing bells, the streaming banners, and the enthusiasm of the city only aroused feelings of envy and desire. For the first time Rougon himself felt the chilly weight of the disfavour into which he had fallen. His face was very pale, and, as he stood there deep in thought, he envied the Emperor.
‘Well, good afternoon; I’m off! I can’t stand it any longer!’ exclaimed Du Poizat, shaking hands with the others.
‘What’s the matter with you to-day?’ asked the colonel, ‘you seem very fractious.’
But the sub-prefect quietly replied, as he went away: ‘Well, you can scarcely expect me to be in very high spirits. I saw in the Moniteur this morning that that ass of a Campenon has been appointed to the prefecture which was promised to me.’
The others exchanged glances. Du Poizat was quite right. They had no share in the fête. They were all left out in the cold. Ever since the birth of the prince, Rougon had promised them a shower of presents for the day of the christening. M. Kahn was to have had his railway grant; the colonel was to have had a commander’s cross, and Madame Correur was to have had the five or six tobacco-shops for which she had asked. And now they were all huddled there in a corner of the square, empty-handed. At this thought they cast such a distressful and reproachful look at Rougon, that the latter shrugged his shoulders furiously. And as his brougham at last drew up, he hastily pushed Clorinde inside, got in himself, and closed the door with a bang, never saying a word.
‘There’s Marsy under the porch,’ muttered M. Kahn, dragging M. Béjuin on one side. ‘How arrogant the rascal looks! Don’t show him your face; it would only give him the opportunity of cutting us.’
Delestang had hastily got into his carriage in order to follow Rougon’s brougham. M. Bouchard, however, waited for his wife, and when the church was empty he was surprised at not seeing her appear; however, he went off with the colonel, who had grown equally tired of waiting for his son Auguste. As for Madame Correur, she accepted the escort of a lieutenant of dragoons, who came from her own part of France, and who was to some extent indebted to her for his epaulets.
Meanwhile, inside the brougham, Clorinde was prattling enthusiastically about the ceremony that had just taken place; while Rougon leaned back with sleepy eyes and listened to her. She had seen the Easter solemnities at Rome, she told him, but they were not finer than what she had just beheld. And she added that, for her, religion lay in a vision of heaven with God the Father seated on His throne like a glittering sun amidst the glory of His encircling angels, a host of lovely youths and maidens. But all at once she broke off to inquire: ‘Are you going to the banquet which the city is giving to their majesties to-night? It will be magnificent.’
She had got an invitation herself, and meant to wear a pink dress, brocaded with forget-me-nots. M. de Plouguern was going to take her, as her mother would not go out at night on account of the headaches to which she was so subject. However, she suddenly changed her subject again, asking abruptly: ‘Who was that judge you were with just now?’
Rougon raised his head, and said all in a breath: ‘Monsieur Beulin-d’Orchère, fifty years of age, of a legal family, began as public prosecutor’s assessor at Montbrison, was afterwards public prosecutor at Orleans, advocate-general at Rouen, a member of a mixed commission in 1852, and then came to Paris as councillor at the Appeal Court, of which he is now the president. Oh! I was forgetting; he approved of the decree of the twenty-second of January, 1852, confiscating the property of the Orleans family. There, are you satisfied?’
Clorinde began to laugh. He was making fun of her, she said, just because she asked for information; but there was nothing foolish—was there?—in asking about people whom one was liable to meet. She did not say a word about Mademoiselle Beulin-d’Orchère; but again began to talk of the banquet at the Hôtel de Ville. The grand gallery would be decorated with unheard-of magnificence, and a band would play the whole time the guests were dining. Ah! France was truly a great country! Nowhere, neither in England, nor in Germany, nor in Spain, nor in Italy, had she seen such wonderful balls, such prodigious galas. She had quite made up her mind now, she said, her face beaming with admiration; she meant to be a Frenchwoman.
‘Oh, look!’ she cried; ‘there are some soldiers there!’
The brougham, after rolling along the Rue de la Cité, had now been stopped at the end of the Pont Notre Dame by a regiment which was marching back to its quarters. It was one of the line. The soldiers, all of them little fellows, were hastening on like sheep, their march being somewhat irregular by reason of the trees planted along the roadside. They had been keeping the line for the procession; their faces were scorched by the hot afternoon sun; their feet were white with dust; and their backs bent beneath the weight of their knapsacks and rifles. And they had felt so bored amid the jostling of the crowd that they still looked dazed and stupid.
‘I adore the French army,’ said Clorinde enthusiastically, as she leant forward to get a better view.
Rougon roused himself, and in his turn looked out of the window. It was the power of the Empire that was passing through the dust. A great many carriages had now gathered together on the bridge, but the coachmen respectfully waited for the soldiers to pass, and distinguished personages in gala costumes smiled sympathisingly at the little fellows who were so stupefied by their long day’s work.
‘Do you see those in the rear?’ exclaimed Clorinde. ‘There’s a whole row of them without a hair on their faces. How nice they look!’
Then, in her enthusiasm, she began to kiss her hands to the little soldiers from the depths of the brougham. She lay back a little so that she might not be seen. Rougon smiled in a paternal manner. He, too, had just felt a thrill of pleasure, the first he had known during the whole day.
‘What’s going on here?’ he exclaimed, when the brougham was at last able to turn the corner of the quay.
A considerable crowd had formed on the footway and in the road, and the brougham had to stop again. A voice in the throng was heard saying: ‘It’s a drunken man who has insulted the soldiers. The police have just taken him into custody.’
Then, as the crowd parted, Rougon caught sight of Gilquin, dead-drunk, and held by a couple of policemen. His yellow duck clothes were torn, and his naked flesh showed through the rents. But he still retained his garrulous joviality and scarlet face. He addressed the policemen in the most familiar fashion, calling them his little lambs. He told them that he had been quietly spending the afternoon in a neighbouring café with some very rich people, and referred them for inquiries to the Palais Royal theatre, where M. and Madame Charbonnel, who had gone to see Les Dragées du Baptême, would readily confirm his statement.
‘Come, let me go, you jokers!’ he cried, suddenly stiffening himself. ‘Confound it all, the café’s close at hand; come with me there, if you don’t believe me. The soldiers insulted me. There was a little scamp who laughed at me, and I shut him up. But for me to insult the French army! Never! Just you mention the name of Théodore to the Emperor and hear what he says. Ah! you’re a nice set, you are!’
The crowd roared with amusement, while the imperturbable policemen slowly dragged Gilquin towards the Rue Saint Martin, where the red lamp of a police-station could be seen. Rougon had hastily thrown himself back in his brougham, but Gilquin, raising his head, caught sight of him. Then, drunk though he was, he again became good-natured and prudent, and casting a glance at Rougon, exclaimed, so that the latter might hear him: ‘Well, well, my friends: I might get up a scandal if I liked, but I’ve too much self-respect. Ah, you wouldn’t lay your hands on Théodore in this way if he drove about with princesses as a citizen of my acquaintance does. All the same, however, I’ve worked with great people, and cleverly, too, though I don’t want to boast about it, and never asked for a big reward. But I know my own worth, and that consoles me for other people’s meanness. Ah, confound it, are friends no longer friends, then?’
He spoke with growing emotion, his speech impeded by hiccoughs, while Rougon quietly beckoned to a man wearing a closely buttoned coat, whom he saw standing near his brougham, and, after whispering a few words to him, gave him Gilquin’s address, 17 Rue Virginie, Grenelle. And thereupon the man—a detective—stepped up to the officers as though he were about to help them with the drunkard who had begun to struggle. However, the crowd was greatly surprised to see the policemen turn to the left and bundle Gilquin into a cab, whose driver, after receiving an order, drove away along the Quai de la Mégisserie. Gilquin, however, thrust his huge unkempt head from the window, and, with a burst of triumphant laughter, shouted: ‘Long live the Republic!’
When the crowd had dispersed, the quays resumed their wonted tranquillity. Paris, weary of enthusiasm, had gone off to dinner. The three hundred thousand sight-seers, who had struggled and crowded there, were now invading the restaurants by the water-side and those of the district of the Temple. None but country cousins paced the deserted pavements, quite knocked up and at a loss where to dine. Down below, in the floating laundry the washerwomen were finishing their work with vigorous blows. A last ray of sunlight still gilded the towers of Notre Dame, which now rose quite silent above the houses already dark with shadow. And through the slight mist ascending from the Seine, nothing could be distinguished among the grey mass of buildings, on the Ile Saint Louis, save the giant great-coat, that colossal advertisement hanging seemingly from some nail on the horizon, and looking like the garment of a Titan, whose body had been pulverised by the thunderbolts of Jove.
< < < Chapter III
Chapter V > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – His Excellency Eugène Rougon – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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