Chapter 11

During the thousands of hours in which I was thus confined between the stove, the screen, the window, the child, and the dog, I read over all that antiquity has written and bequeathed to us, except the poets, with whom we had been surfeited at school, and in whose verses our wearied eyes saw but the caæsura, and the long or short syllables. Sad effect of premature satiety, which withers in the mind of a child the most brightly tinted and perfumed flowers of human thought. But I read over every philosopher, orator, and historian, in his own language. I loved especially those who united the three great faculties of intelligence,--narration, eloquence, and reflection; the fact, the discourse, and the moral. Thucydides and Tacitus above all others; then Machiavelli, the sublime practitioner of the diseases of empires; then Cicero, the sonorous vessel which contains all, from the individual tears of the man, the husband, the father, and the friend, up to the catastrophes of Rome and of the world, even to his gloomy forebodings of his own fate. There is in Cicero a stratum of divine philosophy and serenity, through which all waters seem to be filtrated and clarified, and through which his great mind flows in torrents of eloquence, wisdom, piety, and harmony. I had, till then, thought him a great but empty speaker, with little sense contained in his long periods; I was mistaken. Next to Plato, he is the word of antiquity made man; his style is the grandest of any language. We suppose him meagre, because his drapery is so magnificent; but strip him of his purple and you will still find a vast mind, which has felt, understood, and said, all that there was to comprehend, to feel, or to say, in his day in Rome.

LXV.

As to Tacitus, I did not even attempt to combat my partiality for him. I preferred him even to Thucydides, the Demosthenes of history. Thucydides relates, but does not give life and being. Tacitus is not the historian, but a compendium of mankind. His narration is the counter-blow of the fact in the heart of a free, virtuous, and feeling man. The shudder that one feels as one reads not only passes over the flesh, but is a shudder of the heart. His sensibility is more than emotion,--it is pity; his judgments are more than vengeance,--they are justice; his indignation is more than anger,--it is virtue. Our hearts mingle with that of Tacitus, and we feel proud of our kindred with him. Would you make crime impossible to your sons? Would you inspire them with the love of virtue? Rear them in the love of Tacitus. If they do not become heroes at such a school, Nature must have created them base or vile. A people who adopted Tacitus as their political gospel would rise above the common stature of nations; such a people would enact before God the tragical drama of mankind in all its grandeur and in all its majesty. As to me, I owe to his writings more than the fibres of the flesh, I owe all the metallic fibres of my being. Should our vulgar and commonplace days ever rise to the tragic grandeur of his time, and I become the worthy victim of a worthy cause, I might exclaim in dying, "Give the honor of my life and of my death to the master, and not to the disciple, for it is Tacitus that lived, and dies in me."

LXVI.

I was also a passionate admirer of orators. I studied them with the presentiment of a man who would one day have to speak to the deaf multitude, and who would strike the chords of human auditors. I studied Demosthenes, Cicero, Mirabeau, and especially Lord Chatham,--more striking to my mind than all the rest, because his inspired and lyrical eloquence seems more like a cry than like a voice. It soars above his limited audience and the passions of the day, on the loftiest wings of poetry, to the immutable regions of eternal truth and of eternal feeling. Chatham receives truth from the hand of God; and with him it becomes, not only the light, but also the thunder of the debate. Unfortunately, as in the case of Phidias at the Parthenon, we have only fragments, heads, arms, and mutilated trunks left of him. But when in thought we reassemble these remains, we produce marvels and divinities of eloquence. I pictured to myself times, events, and passions, like those which upraised these great men, a forum such as that they filled; and like Demosthenes addressing the billows of the sea, I spoke inwardly to the phantoms of my imagination.

LXVII.

About this period I read for the first time the speeches of Fox and Pitt. I thought Fox declamatory, though prosaic; one of those cavilling minds, born to gainsay, rather than to say,--lawyers without gowns, with mere lip-conscience, who plead above all for their own popularity. I saw in Pitt a statesman whose words were deeds, and who in the crash of Europe maintained his country, almost alone, on the foundation of his good sense, and the consistency of his character. Pitt was Mirabeau, with less impulse and more integrity. Mirabeau and Pitt became, and have ever continued to be, my favorite statesmen of modern days. Compared to them, I saw in Montesquieu only erudite, ingenious, and systematical dissertations; Fénelon seemed to me divine, but chimerical; Rousseau, more impassioned than inspired, greater by instinct than by truth; while Bossuet, with his golden eloquence and fawning soul, united, in his conduct and his language before Louis XIV., doctoral despotism with the complaisance of a courtier. From these studies of history and oratory I naturally passed on to politics. The remembrance of the imperial yoke which had just been shaken off, and my abhorrence of the military rule to which we had been subjected, impelled me towards liberty. On the other hand, family recollections; the influence of daily associations; the touching situation of a royal family, passing from a throne to a scaffold or to exile, and brought back from exile to a throne; the orphan princess in the palace of her fathers; those old men, crowned by misfortune as much as by their ancestry; those young princes, schooled by stern adversity, from whom so much might be expected,--all made me hope that new-born liberty might be made to accord with the ancient monarchy of our forefathers. The government would thus have possessed the two most potent spells in all human affairs,--antiquity and novelty; memory and hope. It was a fair dream, and most natural at my age. Each succeeding day, however, dispelled a portion of that dream. I perceived with grief that old forms but ill contain new ideas; that monarchy and liberty would never hold together in one bond without a perpetual struggle; that in that struggle the strength of the state would be exhausted, that monarchy would be constantly suspected, liberty constantly betrayed.

LXVIII.

From these general studies I turned to another that perhaps engrossed my mind the more from the very aridity and dryness of its nature, so far removed from the intoxication of love and fancy in which I lived. I mean political economy, or the science of the Wealth of Nations.

V---- had applied his mind to it with more curiosity than ardor. All the Italian, English, or French books that had been written on the science lined his shelves and covered his table. We read and discussed them together, noting down the remarks that they suggested. The science of political economy, which at that time laid down, as it still does in the present day, more axioms than truths, and proposed more problems than it can solve, had for us precisely the charm of mystery. It became, moreover, between us an endless theme for those conversations which exercise the intelligence without engrossing the mind, and suffer us to feel, even while conversing, the presence of the one secret and continuous thought concealed in the inmost recesses of our hearts. It was an enigma of which we sought the answer without any great desire to find it. After having read, examined, and noted all that constituted the science at that time, I fancied I could discern a few theoretical principles true in their generality, doubtful in their application, ambitiously aspiring to be classed among absolute truths, often hollow or false in their formula. I had no objection to make, but my instinctive desire of demonstration was not thoroughly satisfied. I threw down the books and awaited the light. Political economy at that time did not exist; being an entirely experimental science, it had neither sufficient maturity nor long standing to affirm so positively. Since then it has progressed and promises to statesmen a few dogmas which may be applied cautiously to society, a few sources of general comfort, and some new ties of fraternity, to be strengthened between nations.

LXIX.

I varied these serious pursuits with the study of diplomacy or the laws of intercourse between governments, which had always attracted me from my early youth. Chance directed me to the fountain-head. At the time that I applied myself to political economy I had written a pamphlet of about a hundred pages, on a subject which at that period attracted a great share of public attention. The title of the pamphlet was: "What place can the nobility occupy in France under a constitutional government?" I treated this question, which was a most delicate one at the time, with the instinctive good sense that Nature had allotted to me, and with the impartiality of a youthful mind, soaring without effort above the vanities from on high, the envy from below, and the prejudices of his day. I spoke with love of the people, with intelligence of our institutions, and with respect of that historic nobility whose names were long the name of France herself, on her battlefields, in her magistracy, and in foreign lands. I was for the suppression of all privileges of nobility, save the memory of nations, which cannot be suppressed, and proposed an elective peerage, showing that in a free country there could be no other nobility than that of election, which is a perpetual stimulus to public duty, and a temporary reward of the merit or virtues of its citizens.

Julie, to whom I had lent the manuscript in order to initiate her in the labors of my life, had shown it to Monsieur M----, a clever man of her intimate acquaintance, for whose judgment she entertained the greatest deference. M. M---- was the worthy son of an illustrious member of the Constituent Assembly, had been the Emperor's private secretary, and was now a constitutional royalist. He was one of those whose minds are never youthful, who enter mature into the world, and die young, leaving a void in their epoch. M. M----, after reading my work, asked Julie who was the political man who had written those pages. She smiled, and confessed that they were the production of a very young man, who had neither name nor experience, and was quite unknown in the political world. M. M---- required to see me to believe. I was introduced to him, and he received me with kindness which afterwards ripened into a friendship, that remained unchanged until his death. My work was never printed; but M. M----, in his turn, introduced me to his friend, M. de Reyneval, a man of luminous understanding, open-hearted, and of an attractive and cheerful though grave and laborious mind, who was at that time the life of our foreign policy. He died, not long ago, while ambassador at Madrid. M. de Reyneval, who had read my work, received me with that encouraging grace and cordial smile which seems to overleap distance, and always wins at first sight the heart of a young man. He was one of those men from whom it is pleasant to learn, because they seem, so to speak, to diffuse themselves in teaching, and to give rather than prescribe. One learned more of Europe in a few mornings by conversing with this most agreeable man, than in a whole diplomatic library. He possessed tact, the innate genius of negotiations. I owe to him my taste for those high political affairs which he handled with full consciousness of their importance, but without seeming to feel their weight. His strength made everything easy, and his ready condescension seemed to infuse grace and heart into business. He encouraged my desire to enter on the diplomatic career, presented me himself to the Director of the Archives, M. d'Hauterive, and authorized him to allow me access to the collection of our treaties and negotiations. M. d'Hauterive, who had grown old over despatches, might be said to be the unalterable tradition and the living dogma of our diplomacy. With his commanding figure, hollow voice, his thick and powdered hair, his long, bushy eyebrows overshading a deep-set and dim eye, he seemed a living, speaking century. He received me like a father, and appeared happy to transmit to me the inheritance of all his hoarded knowledge; he made me read, and take notes under his own eye, and twice a week I used to study for a few hours under his direction. I love the memory of his green old age, which so prodigally bestowed its experience on a young man whose name he scarcely knew. M. d'Hauterive died during the battle of July, 1830, amid the roar of the cannon which annihilated the policy of the Bourbons and the treaties of 1815.

LXX.

Such were my studious and retired habits in my little room. I wished for nothing more; my desire to enter on some career was in truth but my mother's ambition for me, and the regret of expending the price of her diamond, without some compensation in my bettered condition. If at that time I had been offered an embassy to quit Paris, and a palace to leave my truckle-bed in the ante-room, I would have closed my eyes not to see, and my ears not to listen to Fortune. I was too happy in my obscurity, thanks to the ray, invisible to others, which warmed and illumined my darkness.

My happiness dawned as the day declined. I habitually dined at home alone in my cell, and my repast generally consisted of a slice of boiled meat, some salad, and bread. I drank water only, to save the expense of even a little wine, so necessary to correct the insipid and often unwholesome water of Paris. By this means, twenty sous a day paid for my dinner, and this meal was sufficient not only for myself but to feed the dog who had adopted me. After dinner, I used to throw myself on my bed, overcome by the application and solitude of the day, and strove thus to abridge by sleep the long, dark hours which yet divided me from the moment when time commenced for me. These were hours which young men of my age spend in theatres, public places, or the expensive amusements of a capital, as I had done before my transformation. I generally awaked about eleven, and then dressed with the simplicity of a young man whose good looks and figure set off his plain attire. I was always neatly shod, besides having white linen and a black coat, carefully brushed by my own hands, which I buttoned up to the throat, after the fashion of the young disciples of the schools of the Middle Ages. A military cloak, whose ample folds were thrown over my left shoulder, preserved my dress from being splashed in the streets, and, on the whole, my plain and unpretending costume, which neither aspired to elegance nor betrayed my distress, admitted of my passing from my solitude to a drawing-room without either attracting or offending the eye of the indifferent. I always went on foot; for the price of one evening's coach-hire would have cost me a day of my life of love. I walked on the pavement, keeping close along the walls to avoid the contact of carriage-wheels, and proceeded slowly on tip-toe for fear of the mud, which in a well-lighted drawing-room would have betrayed the humble pedestrian. I was in no hurry, for I knew that Julie received every evening some of her husband's friends, and I preferred waiting till the last carriage had driven away before I knocked. This reserve on my part arose not only from the fear of the remarks which might be made concerning my constant presence in the house of so young and lovely a woman, but, above all, from my dislike to share with others her looks and words. It seemed to me that each of those with whom she was obliged to keep up a conversation robbed me of some part of her presence or her mind. To see her, to hear her, and not to possess her alone, were often a harder trial to me than not to see her at all.

LXXI.

To pass away the time I used to walk from one end to the other of a bridge which crossed the Seine nearly opposite to the house where Julie lived. How many thousand times I have reckoned the boards of that bridge, which resounded beneath my feet! How many copper coins I have thrown, as I passed and repassed, into the tin cup of the poor blind man, who was seated through rain or snow on the parapet of that bridge! I prayed that my mite which rung in the heart of the poor, and from thence in the ear of God, might purchase for me in return a long and secure evening, and the departure of some intruder who delayed my happiness.

Julie, who knew my dislike to meeting strangers at her house, had devised with me a signal which should inform me from afar of the presence or absence of visitors in her little drawing-room. When they were numerous, the two inside shutters of the window were closed, and I could only see a faint streak of light glimmering between the two leaves; when there were one or two familiar friends, on the point of leaving, one shutter was opened; and at last, when all were gone, the two shutters were thrown open, the curtains withdrawn, and I could see from the opposite quay the light of the lamp which stood on the little table, where she read or worked while expecting me. I never lost sight of that distant ray, which was visible and intelligible for me alone, amid the thousand lights of windows, lamps, shops, carriages, and _cafés_, and among all those avenues of fixed or wandering fires which illumine at night the buildings and the horizon of Paris. All other illuminations no longer existed for me,--there was no other light on earth, no other star in the firmament but that small window, which seemed like an open eye seeking me out in darkness, and on which my eyes, my thoughts, my soul, were ever and solely bent. O incomprehensible power of the infinite nature of man, which can fill the universal space and think it too confined; or can be concentrated in one bright speck shining through the river mists, amid the ocean of fires of a vast city, and feel its desires, feelings, intelligence, and love bounded by that small spark which scarce outshines the glowworm of a summer's evening! How often have I thus thought as I paced the bridge, muffled in my cloak! How often have I exclaimed, as I gazed at that oval window shining in the distance: Let all the fires of earth be quenched, let all the luminous globes of the firmament be extinguished, but may that feeble light--the mysterious star of our two lives--shine on forever; its glimmering would illumine countless worlds, and suffice my eyes through all eternity!

Alas, since then I have seen this star of my youth expire, this burning focus of my eyes and heart extinguished! I have seen the shutters of the window closed for many a long year on the funereal darkness of that little room. One year, one day, I saw them once more opened. I looked to see who dared to live where she had lived before; and then I saw, in summer time, at that same window, bathed in sunshine and adorned with flowers, a young woman whom I did not know playing and smiling with a new-born child, unconscious that she played upon a grave, that her smiles were turned to tears in the eyes of a passer-by, and that so much life seemed as a mockery of death.... Since then, at night, I have returned; and every year I still return, approach that wall with faltering steps, and touch that door; and then I sit on the stone bench, and watch the lights, and listen to the voices from above. I sometimes fancy that I see the light reflected from her lamp; that I hear the tones of her voice; that I can knock at that door; that she expects me; that I can go in--...O Memory, art thou a gift from Heaven, or pain of Hell!...But I resume my story, since you, my friend, desire it.

LXXII.

The day after my arrival, Julie had introduced me to the old man, who was to her a father, and whose latter days she brightened with the radiance of her mind, her tenderness, and her beauty. He received me as a son. He had learned from her our meeting in Savoy, our fraternal attachment, our daily correspondence, and the affinity of our minds, as shown by the conformity of our tastes, ages, and feelings. He knew the entire purity of our attachment, and felt no jealousy, or any anxiety, save for the life, the happiness, and reputation of his ward. He only feared she might have been attracted and deceived by that first look, which is sometimes a revelation, and sometimes a delusion of the young, and that she might have bestowed her heart on a man of the creation of her fancy. My letters, from which she had read him several passages, had somewhat reassured him, but it was only from my countenance he could learn whether they were an artful or natural expression of my feelings; for style may deceive, but the countenance never can.

The old man surveyed me with that anxious attention which is often concealed under an appearance of momentary abstraction. But as he saw me more, and questioned me, I could see his searching look clear up, betray an inward satisfaction, soften gradually into one of confidence and good-will, and rest upon me with that security and caress of the eye, which though a mute is perhaps the best reception at a first interview. My ardent desire to please him; the timidity so natural to a young man, who feels that the fate of his heart depends on the judgment passed upon him; the fear that it might not be favorable; the presence of Julie, which disconcerted though it encouraged me; and all the shades of thought so plainly legible in my modest attitude and my flushed cheeks,--spoke in my favor better than I could have done myself. The old man took my hand with a paternal gesture, and said, "Compose yourself; and consider that you have two friends in this house, instead of one. Julie could not have better chosen a brother, and I would not choose another son." He embraced me, and we talked together as if he had known me from my childhood, until an old servant came at ten o'clock, according to his invariable custom, to give him the help of his arm on the stair, and lead him back to his own apartment.

LXXIII.