Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II

CHAPTER XI. A SALLE DE POLICE

When I entered the breakfast-room the following morning, I found Duchesne stretched before the fire in an easy-chair, busily engaged in reading the “Moniteur” of that day, where a long list of imperial ordonnances filled nearly three columns.

“Here have I been,” said he, “conning over this catalogue of princely favor these twenty minutes, and yet cannot discern one word of our well-beloved cousins Captains Burke and Duchesne. And yet there seems to be a hailstorm of promotions. Some of them have got grand duchies; some principalities; some have the cross of the Legion; and here, by Jove! are some endowed with wives. Now that his Majesty has taken to christening and marrying, I suppose we shall soon see him administering all the succors of Holy Church. Have you much interest in hearing that Talleyrand is to be called Prince of Benevente, and Murat is now Grand-Duke of Berg, – that Sebastiani is to be married to Mademoiselle de Coigny, and Monsieur Decazes, fils de M. Decazes, has taken some one else to wife? Oh dear, oh dear! It’s all very tiresome, and not even the fête of Saint Napoleon – ”

“Of whom?” said I, laughing.

“Saint Napoleon, parbleu! It’s no joking matter, I assure you. Here is the letter of the cardinal legate to the arch-bishops and bishops of France, commanding that the first Sunday in the August of each year should be set apart to celebrate his saintship, with an account of the processions to take place, and various plenary indulgences to the pious who shall present themselves on the occasion. Fouché could tell you the names of some people who bled freely to get rid of all this trumpery; and, in good sooth, it’s rather hard, if we could not endure Saint Louis, to be obliged to tolerate Saint Napoleon, – saints, like Bordeaux wine, being all the more palatable when they have age to mellow them. I could forgive anything, however, but this system of forced marriages; it smacks too much of old Frederick for my taste. And one cannot always have the luck of your friend General d’Auvergne.”

I felt my cheek grow burning hot at the words. Duchesne did not notice my confusion, but continued, —

“And yet, of all the ill-assorted unions for which his sainted Majesty will have to account hereafter, that was unquestionably the most extraordinary.”

“But I have heard, and I believe too, that the marriage was not of the Emperor’s making; it was purely a matter of liking.”

“Come, come, Burke,” said he, laughing, “you will not tell me that the handsomest girl at the Court, with a large dowry, an ancient name, and every advantage of position, marries an old weather-beaten soldier – the senior officer of her own father once – of her own free will and choice. The thing is absurd. No, no; these are the Imperial recompenses, when grand duchies are scarce and confiscations few. The Emperor does not travel for nothing. He brought back with him from Egypt something besides his Mameluke Guard: that clever trick the pachas have of providing a favorite with an ex-sultana. There, there! don’t look so angrily. We shall both be marshals of France one of these days, and that may reconcile one to a great deal.”

“You are determined to owe nothing of your promotion to a blind devotion to Napoleon, – that’s certain,” said I, annoyed at the tone of insolent disparagement in which he spoke.

“You are right, – perfectly right there,” replied he, in a quiet tone of voice. “No man would rather hug himself up in an illusion, if he could but make it minister to his pleasure or his enjoyment; but when it does neither, – when the material is so flimsy as to be seen through at every minute, – I throw it from me as a worthless garment, unfit to wear.”

“Can you, then, deem Napoleon’s glory such?”

“Of course, to me it is. How am I a sharer in his triumphs, save as the charger that marches in the cavalcade? You don’t perceive that I, as the descendant of an old Loyalist family, would have fared far better with the Bourbons, from reasons of blood and kindred; and a hundred times better with the Jacobins, from very recklessness.”

“How then came it – ”

“I will spare you the question. I liked neither emigration nor the guillotine, and preferred the slow suffering of ennui to the quick death of the scaffold. There has been but one career in France for many a day past. I adopted it as much from necessity as choice; I followed it more from habit than either.”

“But you cannot be insensible to the greatness of your country, nor her success in arms.”

“Nor am I; but these things are a small ingredient in patriotism. You, the stranger, share with us all our triumphs in the field. But the inherent features of a nation, – the distinctive traits of which every son of the soil feels proud, – where are they now? What is France to me more than to you? One half my kindred are exiled; of those who remain, many regard me as a renegade. Their properties confiscated, themselves suspected, what tie binds them to this country? You are not more an alien here than I am.”

“And yet, Duchesne, you shed your blood freely for this same cause you condemn. You charged the Pratzen, some days ago, with four squadrons, against a whole column of Russian cavalry.”

“Ay, and would again to-morrow, boy. Had you been a gambler, I need n’t have told you that it is the game, not the stake, that interests the real gamester. But come, do not fancy I want to make you a convert to these tiresome theories of mine. What say you to the pretty Mademoiselle Pauline? Did you admire her much?”

“She is unquestionably very handsome; but, if I must confess it, her manner towards me was too ungracious to make me loud in her praise.”

“I like that, I vow,” said Duchesne; “that saucy air has an indescribable charm for me. I don’t know if it is not the very thing which pleases me most about her. She has been spoiled by flattery and admiration; for her beauty and her fortune are prizes in the great wheel. And that she is aware of the fact is nothing wonderful, considering that she hears it repeated every evening of her life, by every-rank in the service, from a marshal of France down to – a captain in the chasseurs à cheval,” said he, laughing.

“Who, probably, was one of the last to tell her so,” said I, looking at him slyly.

“What have we here?” said he, suddenly, without paying any attention to my remark, as he again took up the “Moniteur.” “‘It is rumored that the Russian Prince, Drobretski, was dangerously wounded this morning in an affair of honor. The names of the other party and the seconds are still unknown; but the efforts of the police, stimulated by the express command of the Emperor, will, it is to be hoped, succeed in discovering them ere long.’”

“Is not that the name of your Russian friend of last night, Duchesne?”

“Yes. And the same person, too, formerly Russian minister at Madrid, and latterly residing on his parole at Paris,” continued he, reading from the paper. “‘The very decided part his Majesty has taken against the practice of duelling is strengthened on this occasion by a recent order of council respecting the prisoners on parole.’ Diable! Burke, what a scrupulous turn Napoleon seems to have taken in regard to these Cossacks! And here follows a long list of witnesses who have seen nothing, and suspicious circumstances that occur every morning in the week without remark. After all, I don’t think the Empire has advanced us much on the score of police, – the same threadbare jests, the same old practical jokes, amused the bourgeoisie in the time of Louis the Fourteenth.”

“I don’t clearly understand your meaning.”

“It is simply this, – that every Government of France, from Pepin downwards, has understood the value of throwing public interest, from time to time, on a false scent, and to this end has maintained a police. Now, if for any cause his Majesty thought proper to incarcerate that Russian prince in the Temple or La Force, the affair would cause a tremendous sensation in Paris, and soon would ring over the whole of Germany and the rest of Europe, with every variation of despotism, tyranny, and all that, attached to it, long before any advantages to be derived from the step could be realized. Whereas see the effect of an opposite policy. By this report of a duel, for instance, – I don’t mean to assert it false, here, – the whole object is attained, and an admirable subject of Imperial praise obtained into the bargain. Governments have learned wisdom from the cuttlefish, and can muddy the water on their enemies at the moment of danger. I should not be surprised if the affairs of the Bank looked badly this morning.”

“It is evident, then, you disbelieve the whole statement about the duel.”

“My dear friend,” said he, smiling, “who is there in all Paris, from Montmartre to St. Denis, believes, or disbelieves, any one thing in the times we live in? Have we not trusted so implicitly for years past to the light of our reason that we have actually injured our eyesight with ils brilliancy. Little reproach, indeed, to our minds, when our very senses seem to mislead us; when one sees the people who enter the Tuileries now with embroidered coats, who in our father’s days never came nearer to it than the Place de Carrousel. Hélas! it’s no time for incredulity, that’s certain. But to conclude,” said he, turning to the paper once more: “‘The commissaires de police throughout Paris have received orders to spare no effort to unravel the mystery and detect the other parties in this unhappy affair.’ Military tribunal; prisoners on parole; rights of hospitality; honor of France; and the old peroration, – the usual compliment on the wisdom which presides over every department of state. How weary I do become of all this! Let your barber puff his dye for the whiskers, or your bootmaker the incomparable effulgence of his blacking, – the thing is in keeping, no one objects to it. I don’t find fault with my old friend, Pigault Lebrun, if he now and then plays the critic on himself, and shows the world the beauties they neglectfully slurred over. But, Burke, have you ever seen a bureau de police?”

“Never; and I have the greatest curiosity to do so.”

“Come, then, I ‘ll be your guide. The commissaire of this quarter has a very extended jurisdiction, stretching away towards the Bois de Boulogne, and if there be anything in this report, he is certain to know it; and assuredly, no other topic will be talked of till to-morrow evening, for it’s not Opera night, and Talma does not play either.”

I willingly accepted this proposition; and when our breakfast was over, we mounted our horses, and set out for the place in question.

“If the forms of justice where we are now going,” said Duchesne, “be divested of much of their pomp and ceremony, be assured of one thing, – it is not at the expense of the more material essence. Of all the police tribunals about Paris, this obscure den in the Bue de Dix Sous is the most effective. Situated in a quarter where crime is as rife as fever in the Pontine Marshes, it has become acquainted with the haunts and habits of the lowest class in Paris, – the lowest class, probably, in any city of Europe. Watching with parental solicitude, it tracks the criminal from his first step in vice to his last deed in crime; from his petty theft to his murder. Knowing the necessities to which poverty impels men, and studying with attention the impulses that grow up amid despair and hunger, it sees motives through a mist of intervening circumstances that would baffle less subtle observers, and can trace the tortuous windings of crime where no other sight could find the clew. Is it not strange to think with what ingenuity men will investigate the minute anatomy of vice, and how little they will do to apply this knowledge to its remedy? Like the surgeon, enamored of his operating skill, he would rather exhibit his dexterity in the amputation, than his science in the saving, of the limb. Such is the bureau of the police in the poorer quarters. In the more fashionable ones it takes a higher flight; amusing the world with its scenes, alternately humorous and pathetic, it forms a kind of feature in the literature of the period, and is the only reading of thousands. In these places the commissaire is usually a bon vivant and a wit; despising the miserable function of administering the law, he takes his seat upon the bench to cap jokes with the witnesses, puzzle the complainant, and embarrass the prisoner. To the reporters alone is he civil; and in return, his poor witticisms appear in the morning papers, with the usual ‘loud laughter’ that never existed save in type.”

As we thus chatted, we entered a quarter of dirty and narrow streets, inhabited by a poor-looking, squalid population. The women, with little to mark their sex in their coarse, heavy countenances, wore colored kerchiefs on their heads in lieu of a cap, and were for the most part without shoes or stockings. The men, a brutalized, stupid race, sat smoking in the doorways, scarcely lifting their eyes as we passed; or some were eating a coarse morsel of black rye bread, which, by their eagerness in devouring it, seemed an unusual delicacy.

“You scarcely believed there was such poverty in Paris,” said he; “but this is by no means the worst of the quarter. Though M. de Champagny, in his late report, makes no mention of these ‘signs of prosperity,’ we are now entering the region where, even in noonday, the passage is deemed perilous; but the number of police agents on duty to-day will make the journey a safe one.”

The street we entered at the moment consisted of a mass of tall houses, almost falling from decay and neglect, – scarcely a window remained in many of them; while in front, a row of miserable booths, formed of rude planks, narrowed the passage to a mere path, scarce wide enough for three people abreast. There, vice of every description, and drunkenness, waited not for the dark hours to shroud them, but came forth in the sunlight, – the ruffian shouts of intoxication mingling with the almost maniacal laugh of misery or the reckless chorus of some degrading song. Half-naked wretches leaned from the windows as we passed along, – some staring in stupid wonderment at our appearance; others saluting us with mockery and grimace, or even calling out to us in the slang dialect of the place.

“Yes,” said Duchesne, as he saw the expression of horror and disgust the scene impressed on me, “here are the rotting seeds of revolutions putrefying, to germinate at some future day. Starvation and vice, misery, even to despair, inhabit every den around you. The furious and bloodthirsty wretch of ‘92, the Chouan, the Jacobite, the escaped galley-slave, the untaken murderer, are here side by side, – crime their great bond of union. To this place men come for an assassin or a false witness, as to a market. Such are the wrecks the retiring waves of a Revolution have left us. So long as the trade of blood lasted, openly, like vultures, they fattened on it; but once the reign of order restored, they were driven to murder and outrage as a livelihood.”

While he was speaking, we approached a narrow arched passage, within which a flight of stone steps arose. “We dismount here,” said he.

At the same moment a group of ragged creatures, of every age, surrounded us to hold our horses, not noticing the orderly who rode at some distance behind us. I followed Duchesne up the steps, and along a gloomy corridor, to a little courtyard, where several dismounted gendarmes were standing in a circle, chatting. Passing through this, we entered a dirty, mean-looking house, around the door of which several people were collected, some of whom saluted the chevalier as he came up.

“Who are these fellows?” said I. “They seem to know you.”

“Oh! nothing but the common police spies,” said he, carelessly; “the fellows who lounge about the cabarets and the low gambling-houses. But here comes one of higher mark.”

As he spoke, he laid his hand on the arm of a tall, powerful-looking man, in a blouse; he wore immense whiskers, and a great beard, descending far below his chin. “Ah! Bocquin, what have we got going forward to-day? I came to show a young friend here the interior of your salle.”

“Monsieur le Capitaine, your most obedient,” said the man, in a deep voice, as he removed his casquette, and bowed ceremoniously to us; “and yours also, Monsieur,” added he, turning to me. “Why, there is nothing to speak of, save that duel, Capitaine.”

“Come, come, Bocquin; no nonsense with me. What was that story got up for?”

“Ah! you mistake there,” said Bocquin. “By Jove! there’s a man badly wounded, shot through the neck, and no one to tell a word about it. No seconds present, the thing done quite privately; the wounded man left at his own door, and the other off, – Heaven knows where.”

“And you believe this tale, Bocquin?” said Duchesne, superciliously.

“Believe it! – that I do. I have been to see the place where the man lay; and by tracking the wheel marks, I have discovered they came from the Champs Élysées. The cabriolet, too, was a private one; no fiacre has got so narrow a tire to the wheel.”