Chapter 15

Birotteau saw a fortune in the book, and bought it. Yet, feeling little confidence in his unaided lights, he went to Vauquelin, the celebrated chemist, and in all simplicity asked him how to compose a double cosmetic which should produce the required effect upon the human epidermis in either case. The really learned--men so truly great in this sense that they can never receive in their lifetime all the fame that should reward vast labors like theirs--are almost always helpful and kindly to the poor in intellect. So it was with Vauquelin. He came to the assistance of the perfumer, gave him a formula for a paste to whiten the hands, and allowed him to style himself its inventor. It was this cosmetic that Birotteau called the Superfine Pate des Sultanes. The more thoroughly to accomplish his purpose, he used the recipe for the paste for a wash for the complexion, which he called the Carminative Toilet Lotion....

César Birotteau might be a Royalist, but public opinion at that time was in his favor; and tho he had scarcely a hundred thousand francs beside his business, was looked upon as a very wealthy man. His steady-going ways, his punctuality, his habit of paying ready money for everything, of never discounting bills, while he would take paper to oblige a customer of whom he was sure--all these things, together with his readiness to oblige, had brought him a great reputation. And not only so; he had really made a good deal of money, but the building of his factories had absorbed most of it, and he paid nearly twenty thousand francs a year in rent. The education of their only daughter, whom Constance and César both idolized, had been a heavy expense. Neither the husband nor the wife thought of money where Cesarine's pleasure was concerned, and they had never brought themselves to part with her.

Imagine the delight of the poor peasant parvenu when he heard his charming Cesarine play a sonata by Steibelt or sing a ballad; when he saw her writing French correctly, or making sepia drawings of landscapes, or listened while she read aloud from the Racines, father and son, and explained the beauties of the poetry. What happiness it was for him to live again in this fair, innocent flower, not yet plucked from the parent stem; this angel, over whose growing graces and earliest development they had watched with such passionate tenderness; this only child, incapable of despising her father or of laughing at his want of education, so much was she his little daughter.

When César came to Paris, he had known how to read, write, and cipher, and at that point his education had been arrested. There had been no opportunity in his hard-working life of acquiring new ideas and information beyond the perfumery trade. He had spent his time among folk to whom science and literature were matters of indifference, and whose knowledge was of a limited and special kind; he himself, having no time to spare for loftier studies, became perforce a practical man. He adopted (how should he have done otherwise?) the language, errors, and opinions of the Parisian tradesman who admires Molière, Voltaire, and Rousseau on hearsay, and buys their works, but never opens them; who will have it that the proper way to pronounce "armoire" is "ormoire"; "or" means gold, and "moire" means silk, and women's dresses used almost always to be made of silk, and in their cupboards they locked up silk and gold--therefore, "ormoire" is right and "armoire" is an innovation. Potier, Talma, Mlle. Mars, and other actors and actresses were millionaires ten times over, and did not live like ordinary mortals: the great tragedian lived on raw meat, and Mlle. Mars would have a fricassee of pearls now and then--an idea she had taken from some celebrated Egyptian actress. As to the Emperor, his waistcoat pockets were lined with leather, so that he could take a handful of snuff at a time; he used to ride at full gallop up the staircase of the orangery at Versailles. Authors and artists ended in the workhouse, the natural close to their eccentric careers; they were, every one of them, atheists into the bargain, so that you had to be very careful not to admit anybody of that sort into your house, Joseph Lebas used to advert with horror to the story of his sister-in-law Augustine, who married the artist Sommervieux. Astronomers lived on spiders. These bright examples of the attitude of the bourgeois mind toward philology, the drama, politics, and science will throw light upon its breadth of view and powers of comprehension....

César's wife, who had learned to know her husband's character during the early years of their marriage, led a life of perpetual terror; she represented sound sense and foresight in the partnership; she was doubt, opposition, and fear, while César represented boldness, ambition, activity, the element of chance and undreamed-of good luck. In spite of appearances, the merchant was the weaker vessel, and it was the wife who really had the patience and courage. So it had come to pass that a timid mediocrity, without education, knowledge, or strength of character, a being who could in nowise have succeeded in the world's most slippery places, was taken for a remarkable man, a man of spirit and resolution, thanks to his instinctive uprightness and sense of justice, to the goodness of a truly Christian soul, and love for the one woman who had been his.

ALFRED DE VIGNY

Born in 1799, died in 1863; entered the army in 1815, becoming a captain in 1823; published a volume of verse in 1822; "Cinq-Mars," his famous historical novel, published in 1826; made translations from Shakespeare and wrote original historical dramas; admitted to the French Academy in 1845.

RICHELIEU'S WAY WITH HIS MASTER[56]

The latter [Cardinal de Richelieu], attired in all the pomp of a cardinal, leaning upon two young pages, and followed by his captain of the guards and more than five hundred gentlemen attached to his house, advanced toward the King slowly and stopping at each step, as if forcibly arrested by his sufferings, but in reality to observe the faces before him. A glance sufficed.

[Footnote 56: From "Cinq-Mars; or the Conspiracy Under Louis XIII." Translated by William C. Hazlitt. The Marquis de Cinq-Mars was a favorite of Louis XIII, grand-master of the wardrobe and the horse, and aspired to a seat in the royal council and to the hand of Maria de Gonzaga, Princess of Mantua. Having been refused by Richelieu a place in the council, he formed a conspiracy against the cardinal and entered into a treasonable correspondence with Spain. The conspiracy being discovered, he was beheaded at Lyons in 1642. Bulwer's popular play "Richelieu," tho founded on this episode, diverges radically in several details.]

His suite remained at the entrance of the royal tent; of all those within it not one was bold enough to salute him, or to look toward him. Even La Vallette feigned to be deeply occupied in a conversation with Montresor; and the King, who desired to give him an unfavorable reception, greeted him lightly and continued a conversation aside in a low voice with the Duc de Beaufort.

The cardinal was therefore forced, after the first salute, to stop and pass to the side of the crowd of courtiers, as tho he wished to mix with them, but in reality to test them more closely; they all recoiled as at the sight of a leper. Fabert alone advanced toward him with the frank and blunt air habitual with him, and making use of the terms belonging to his profession, said:

"Well, my Lord, you make a breach in the midst of them like a cannon-ball; I ask pardon in their name."

"And you stand firm before me as before the enemy," said the cardinal; "you will have no cause to regret it in the end, my dear Fabert."

Mazarin also approached the cardinal, but with caution, and giving to his flexible features an expression of profound sadness, made him five or six very low bows, turning his back to the group gathered round the King, so that in the latter quarter they might be taken for those cold and hasty salutations which are made to a person one desires to be rid of, and, on the part of the Duc, for tokens of respect blended with a discreet and silent sorrow.

The minister, ever calm, smiled in disdain; and assuming that firm look and that air of grandeur which he wore so perfectly in the hour of danger, he again leaned upon his pages, and without waiting for a word or glance from his sovereign, he suddenly resolved upon his line of conduct, and walked directly toward him, traversing the whole length of the tent. No one had lost sight of him, altho affecting not to observe him. Every one now became silent, even those who were talking to the King; all the courtiers bent forward to see and to hear.

Louis XIII turned round in astonishment, and all presence of mind totally failing him, remained motionless, and waited with an icy glance--his sole force, but a _vis inertiæ_ very effectual in a prince.

The cardinal, on coming close to the prince, did not bow; and without changing his position, his eyes lowered and his hands placed on the shoulders of the two boys half-bending, he said:

"Sire, I come to implore your Majesty at length to grant me the retirement for which I have long sighed. My health is failing; I feel that my life will soon be ended. Eternity approaches me, and before rendering an account to the eternal King, I would render one to my temporal sovereign. It is eighteen years, Sire, since you placed in my hands a weak and divided kingdom; I return it to you united and powerful. Your enemies are overthrown and humiliated. My work is accomplished. I ask your Majesty's permission to retire to Citeaux, of which I am abbot, and where I may end my days in prayer and meditation."

The King, irritated with some haughty expressions in this address, showed none of the signs of weakness which the cardinal had expected, and which he had always seen in him when he had threatened to resign the management of affairs. On the contrary, feeling that he had the eyes of the whole court upon him, Louis looked upon him with the air of a king, and coldly replied:

"We thank you, then, for your services, M. le Cardinal, and wish you the repose you desire."

Richelieu was deeply angered, but no indication of his rage appeared upon his countenance. "Such was the coldness with which you left Montmorency to die," he said to himself; "but you shall not escape me thus." He then continued aloud, bowing at the same time:

"The only recompense I ask for my services is that your Majesty will deign to accept from me, as a gift, the Palais-Cardinal I have already erected at my own cost in Paris."

The King, astonished, bowed in token of assent. A murmur of surprize for a moment agitated the attentive court.

"I also petition your Majesty to grant me the revocation of an act of rigor, which I solicited (I publicly confess it), and which I perhaps regarded as too beneficial to the repose of the state. Yes, when I was of this world, I was too forgetful of my old sentiments of personal respect and attachment, in my eagerness for the public welfare; now that I already enjoy the enlightenment of solitude, I see that I have been wrong, and I repent."

The attention of the spectators was redoubled, and the uneasiness of the King became visible.

"Yes, there is one person, Sire, whom I have always loved, despite her wrongs toward you, and the banishment which the affairs of the kingdom forced me to procure for her; a person to whom I have owed much, and who should be very dear to you, notwithstanding her armed attempts against you; a person, in a word, whom I implore you to recall from exile--the Queen Marie de Medicis, your mother."

The King sent forth an involuntary exclamation, so far was he from expecting to hear that name. A represt agitation suddenly appeared upon every face. All awaited in silence the King's reply. Louis XIII looked for a long time at his old minister without speaking, and this look decided the fate of France; in that instant he called to mind all the indefatigable services of Richelieu, his unbounded devotion, his wonderful capacity, and was surprized at himself for having wished to part with him. He felt deeply affected at this request, which hunted out, as it were, the exact cause of his anger at the bottom of his heart, rooted it up, and took from his hands the only weapon he had against his old servant; filial love brought the words of pardon to his lips and tears into his eyes. Delighted to grant what he desired most of all things in the world, he extended his hand to the Duc with all the nobleness and kindliness of a Bourbon. The cardinal bowed, and respectfully kissed it; and his heart, which should have burst with remorse, only swelled in the joy of a haughty triumph.

The prince, much moved, abandoning his hand to him, turned gracefully toward his court and said with a tremulous voice:

"We often deceive ourselves, gentlemen, and especially in our knowledge of so great a politician as this; I hope he will never leave us, since his heart is as good as his head."

Cardinal de la Vallette on the instant seized the arm of the King's mantle, and kissed it with all the ardor of a lover, and the young Mazarin did much the same with Richelieu himself, assuming with admirable Italian suppleness an expression radiant with joyful emotion. Two streams of flatterers hastened, one toward the King, the other toward the minister; the former group, not less adroit than the second, altho less direct, addrest to the prince thanks which could be heard by the minister, and burned at the feet of the one incense which was destined for the other. As for Richelieu, bestowing a bow on the right and a smile on the left, he stept forward, and stood on the right hand of the King, as his natural place.

VICTOR HUGO

Born in 1802, died in 1885; his childhood spent partly in Corsica, Italy and Spain, his father an officer in Napoleon's army; educated at home by a priest and at a school in Paris; published in 1816 his first tragedy, "Irtamème," followed by other plays and poems; his most notable work down to 1859 being "La Legende"; his writings extremely numerous, other titles being "L'Art d'être Grand-Père" 1877, "Notre Dame de Paris" 1831, "Napoleon le Petit" 1852, "Les Misérables" 1862, "Les Travailleurs de la Mer" 1866, "L'Homme Qui Rit" 1869, "Quatrevingt-treize" 1874, "History of a Crime" 1877; elected to the French Academy in 1841; exiled from France in 1851, living first in Belgium, then in Jersey and Guernsey; returned to France after the fall of the Empire in 1870; elected a life member of the Senate in 1876.

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO[57]

The battle of Waterloo is an enigma as obscure for those who gained it as for him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Blucher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does not understand it at all. Look at the reports: the bulletins are confused; the commentaries are entangled; the latter stammer, the former stutter. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it into three acts; Charras, altho we do not entirely agree with him in all his appreciations, has alone caught with his haughty eye the characteristic lineaments of this catastrophe of human genius contending with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from a certain bedazzlement in which they grope about. It was a flashing day, in truth the overthrow of the military monarchy which, to the great stupor of the kings, has dragged down all kingdoms, the downfall of strength and the rout of war.

[Footnote 57: Chapter XV of "Cosette," in "Les Misérables." Translation of Lascelles Wraxall.]

In this event, which bears the stamp of superhuman necessity, men play but a small part; but if we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blucher, does that deprive England and Germany of anything? No. Neither illustrious England nor august Germany is in question in the problem of Waterloo, for, thank heaven! nations are great without the mournful achievements of the sword. Neither Germany, nor England, nor France is held in a scabbard; at this day when Waterloo is only a clash of sabers, Germany has Goethe above Blucher, and England Byron above Wellington. A mighty dawn of ideas is peculiar to our age; and in this dawn England and Germany have their own magnificent flash. They are majestic because they think; the high level they bring to civilization is intrinsic to them; it comes from themselves, and not from an accident. Any aggrandizement the nineteenth century may have can not boast of Waterloo as its fountainhead; for only barbarous nations grow suddenly after a victory--it is the transient vanity of torrents swollen by a storm. Civilized nations, especially at the present day, are not elevated or debased by the good or evil fortune of a captain, and their specific weight in the human family results from something more than a battle. Their honor, dignity, enlightenment, and genius are not numbers which those gamblers, heroes, and conquerors can stake in the lottery of battles. Very often a battle lost is progress gained, and less of glory, more of liberty. The drummer is silent and reason speaks; it is the game of who loses wins. Let us, then, speak of Waterloo coldly from both sides, and render to chance the things that belong to chance, and to God what is God's. What is Waterloo--a victory? No; a quine in the lottery, won by Europe, and paid by France; it was hardly worth while erecting a lion for it.

Waterloo, by the way, is the strangest encounter recorded in history; Napoleon and Wellington are not enemies, but contraries. Never did God, who delights in antitheses, produce a more striking contrast, or a more extraordinary confrontation. On one side precision, foresight, geometry, prudence, a retreat assured, reserves prepared, an obstinate coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy profiting by the ground, tactics balancing battalions, carnage measured by a plumb-line, war regulated watch in hand, nothing left voluntarily to accident, old classic courage and absolute correctness. On the other side we have intuition, divination, military strangeness, superhuman instinct, a flashing glance; something that gazes like the eagle and strikes like lightning, all the mysteries of a profound mind, association with destiny; the river, the plain, the forest, and the hill summoned, and, to some extent, compelled to obey, the despot going so far as even to tyrannize over the battle-field; faith in a star, blended with strategic science, heightening, but troubling it. Wellington was the Barême of war, Napoleon was its Michelangelo, and this true genius was conquered by calculation. On both sides somebody was expected; and it was the exact calculator who succeeded. Napoleon waited for Grouchy, who did not come; Wellington waited for Blucher, and he came.

Wellington is the classical war taking its revenge; Bonaparte, in his dawn, had met it in Italy, and superbly defeated it--the old owl fled before the young vulture. The old tactics had been not only overthrown, but scandalized. Who was this Corsican of six-and-twenty years of age? What meant this splendid ignoramus, who, having everything against him, nothing for him, without provisions, ammunition, guns, shoes, almost without an army, with a handful of men against masses, dashed at allied Europe, and absurdly gained impossible victories? Who was this new comet of war who possest the effrontery of a planet? The academic military school excommunicated him, while bolting, and hence arose an implacable rancor of the old Cæsarism against the new, of the old saber against the flashing sword, and of the chessboard against genius. On June 18th, 1815, this rancor got the best; and beneath Lodi, Montebello, Montenotte, Mantua, Marengo, and Arcola, it wrote--Waterloo. It was a triumph of mediocrity, sweet to majorities, and destiny consented to this irony. In his decline, Napoleon found a young Suvarov before him--in fact, it is only necessary to blanch Wellington's hair in order to have a Suvarov. Waterloo is a battle of the first class, gained by a captain of the second.

What must be admired in the battle of Waterloo is England, the English firmness, the English resolution, the English blood, and what England had really superb in it, is (without offense) herself; it is not her captain, but her army. Wellington, strangely ungrateful, declares in his dispatch to Lord Bathurst that his army, the one which fought on June 18th, 1815, was a "detestable army." What does the gloomy pile of bones buried in the trenches of Waterloo think of this? England has been too modest to herself in her treatment of Wellington, for making him so great is making herself small. Wellington is merely a hero, like any other man. The Scotch Grays, the Life Guards, Maitland and Mitchell's regiments, Pack and Kempt's infantry, Ponsonby and Somerset's cavalry, the Highlanders playing the bagpipes under the shower of canister, Ryland's battalions, the fresh recruits who could hardly manage a musket, and yet held their ground against the old bands of Essling and Rivoli--all this is grand. Wellington was tenacious; that was his merit, and we do not deny it to him, but the lowest of his privates and his troopers was quite as solid as he, and the iron soldier is as good as the iron duke. For our part, all our glorification is offered to the English soldier, the English army, the English nation; and if there must be a trophy, it is to England that this trophy is owing. The Waterloo column would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it raised to the clouds the statue of a people.

But this great England will be irritated by what we are writing here; for she still has feudal illusions, after her 1688 and the French 1789. This people believes in inheritance and hierarchy, and while no other excels it in power and glory, it esteems itself as a nation and not as a people. As a people, it readily subordinates itself, and takes a lord as its head; the workman lets himself be despised; the soldier puts up with flogging, It will be remembered that, at the battle of Inkerman, a sergeant who, as it appears, saved the British army, could not be mentioned by Lord Raglan, because the military hierarchy does not allow any hero below the rank of officer to be mentioned in dispatches. What we admire before all, in an encounter like Waterloo, is the prodigious skill of chance. The night raid, the wall of Hougomont, the hollow way of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, Napoleon's guide deceiving him, Bulow's guide enlightening him--all this cataclysm is marvelously managed.

Altogether, we will assert, there is more of a massacre than of a battle in Waterloo. Waterloo, of all pitched battles, is the one which had the smallest front for such a number of combatants. Napoleon's three-quarters of a league. Wellington's half a league, and seventy-two thousand combatants on either side. From this density came the carnage. The following calculation has been made and proportion established: loss of men, at Austerlitz, French, fourteen per cent.; Russian, thirty per cent.; Austrian, forty-four per cent.: at Wagram, French, thirteen per cent.; Austrian, fourteen per cent.: at Moscow, French, thirty-seven per cent.; Russian, forty-four per cent.: at Bautzen, French, thirteen per cent.; Russian and Prussian, fourteen per cent.: at Waterloo, French, fifty-six per cent.; allies, thirty-one per cent.--total for Waterloo, forty-one per cent., or out of one hundred and forty-four thousand fighting men, sixty thousand killed.