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Read Ebook: Götiska rummen: Släktöden från sekelslutet by Landquist John Annotator Strindberg August
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Ebook has 1908 lines and 91613 words, and 39 pages
CHAPTER
THE RED COCKADE.
THE MARQUIS DE ST. ALAIS.
When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of the Ch?teau, separates the house from the new lawn, St. Alais looked round with eyes of scarcely-veiled contempt.
"What have you done with the garden?" he asked, his lip curling.
"My father removed it to the other side of the house," I answered.
"Out of sight?"
"Yes," I said; "it is beyond the rose garden."
"English fashion!" he answered with a shrug and a polite sneer. "And you prefer to see all this grass from your windows?"
"Yes," I said, "I do."
"Ah! And that plantation? It hides the village, I suppose, from the house?"
"Yes."
"I have burned it," I said, feeling the blood mount to my temples.
"Your father did, you mean?" he answered, with a glance of surprise.
"No," I said stubbornly, hating myself for being ashamed of that before St. Alais of which I had been proud enough when alone. "I did. I burned it last winter. I think the day of such things is past."
The Marquis was not my senior by more than five years; but those five years, spent in Paris and Versailles, gave him a wondrous advantage, and I felt his look of contemptuous surprise as I should have felt a blow. However, he did not say anything at the moment, but after a short pause changed the subject and began to speak of my father; recalling him and things in connection with him in a tone of respect and affection that in a moment disarmed my resentment.
"The first time that I shot a bird on the wing I was in his company!" he said, with the wonderful charm of manner that had been St. Alais' even in boyhood.
"Twelve years ago," I said.
I felt the blood mount to my temples again, but for a different reason. "Mademoiselle has come home?" I said.
"Yesterday," he answered. "She will go with my mother to Cahors to-morrow, and take her first peep at the world. I do not doubt that among the many new things she will see, none will interest her more than the Vicomte de Saux."
"Mademoiselle is well?" I said clumsily.
"Perfectly," he answered with grave politeness, "as you will see for yourself to-morrow evening, if we do not meet on the road. I daresay that you will like a week or so to commend yourself to her, M. le Vicomte? And after that, whenever Madame la Marquise and you can settle the date, and so forth, the match had better come off--while I am here."
I bowed. I had been expecting to hear this for a week past; but from Louis, who was on brotherly terms with me, not from Victor. The latter had indeed been my boyish idol; but that was years ago, before Court life and a long stay at Versailles and St. Cloud had changed him into the splendid-looking man I saw before me, the raillery of whose eye I found it as difficult to meet as I found it impossible to match the aplomb of his manner. Still, I strove to make such acknowledgments as became me; and to adopt that nice mixture of self-respect, politeness, and devotion which I knew that the occasion, formally treated, required. But my tongue stumbled, and in a moment he relieved me.
"Most certainly, M. le Marquis."
But either he could not immediately remember, or he found a difficulty in introducing the subject, for we were nearly half-way down the avenue of walnut trees that leads to the village when he spoke again. Then he plunged into the matter abruptly.
"You have heard of this protest?" he said.
"Yes," I answered reluctantly and with a foresight of trouble.
"You will sign it, of course?"
Now, for myself, whatever had been my original views on this question--and, as a fact, I should have preferred to see reform following the English model, the nobles' house remaining separate--I regarded the step, now it was taken, and legalised by the King, as irrevocable; and protest as useless. More, I could not help knowing that those who were moving the protest desired also to refuse all reform, to cling to all privileges, to balk all hopes of better government; hopes, which had been rising higher, day by day, since the elections, and which it might not now be so safe or so easy to balk. Without swallowing convictions, therefore, which were pretty well known, I could not see my way to supporting it. And I hesitated.
"Well?" he said at last, finding me still silent.
"I do not think that I can," I answered, flushing.
"Can support it?"
"No," I said.
He laughed genially. "Pooh!" he said. "I think that you will. I want your promise, Vicomte. It is a small matter; a trifle, and of no importance; but we must be unanimous. That is the one thing necessary."
I shook my head. We had both come to a halt under the trees, a little within the gates. His servant was leading the horses up and down the road.
"Come," he persisted pleasantly: "you do not think that anything is going to come of this chaotic States General, which his Majesty was mad enough to let Neckar summon? They met on the 4th of May; this is the 17th of July; and to this date they have done nothing but wrangle! Nothing! Presently they will be dismissed, and there will be an end of it!"
"Why protest, then?" I said rather feebly.
"I will tell you, my friend," he answered, smiling indulgently and tapping his boot with his whip. "Have you heard the latest news?"
"What is it?" I replied cautiously. "Then I will tell you if I have heard it."
"The King has dismissed Neckar!"
"No!" I cried, unable to hide my surprise.
"Yes," he answered; "the banker is dismissed. In a week his States General or National Assembly, or whatever he pleases to call it, will go too, and we shall be where we were before. Only, in the meantime, and to strengthen the King in the wise course he is at last pursuing, we must show that we are alive. We must show our sympathy with him. We must act. We must protest."
"Whom have we to thank for that?" he said, with a whimsical glance at me. "But, never fear, Vicomte; they will endure it. I know Paris; and I can assure you that it is not the Paris of the Fronde, though M. de Mirabeau would play the Retz. It is a peaceable, sensible Paris, and it will not rise. Except a bread riot or two, it has seen no rising to speak of for a century and a half: nothing that two companies of Swiss could not deal with as easily as D'Argenson cleared the Cour des Miracles. Believe me, there is no danger of that kind: with the least management, all will go well!"
But his news had roused my antagonism. I found it more easy to resist him now.
"I do not know," I said coldly; "I do not think that the matter is so simple as you say. The King must have money, or be bankrupt; the people have no money to pay him. I do not see how things can go back to the old state."
M. de St. Alais looked at me with a gleam of anger in his eyes.
"You mean, Vicomte," he said, "that you do not wish them to go back?"
"I mean that the old state was impossible," I said stiffly. "It could not last. It cannot return."
For a moment he did not answer, and we stood confronting one another--he just without, I just within, the gateway--the cool foliage stretching over us, the dust and July sunshine in the road beyond him; and if my face reflected his, it was flushed, and set, and determined. But in a twinkling his changed; he broke into an easy, polite laugh, and shrugged his shoulders with a touch of contempt.
"Well," he said, "we will not argue; but I hope that you will sign. Think it over, M. le Vicomte, think it over. Because"--he paused, and looked at me gaily--"we do not know what may be depending upon it."
"It is a reason for thinking more before you refuse," he said, bowing very low, and this time without smiling. Then he turned to his horse, and his servant held the stirrup while he mounted. When he was in the saddle and had gathered up the reins, he bent his face to mine.
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