Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II

“You intend, then, she should know Madame de Lacostellerie?”

“Of course. I have already persuaded her that the Hôtel Clichy is the pivot of all Paris, and that nothing but consummate tact and management on her part will succeed there.”

“But I scarcely thought you cared for mademoiselle; and never dreamed of your proposing to marry her.”

“Nor I, till about a week ago. However, my plans require money, and would not be encumbered by my having a wife. I see nothing better at the moment, and so my mind is soon made up. But here we are; this is our resting-place.”

The “Moisson d’Or,” although not known to me, was then the most celebrated place for dining in Paris. The habits of the house – for there was no table d’hôte– required that everything should be ordered beforehand, and the parties all dined separately. The expensive habits and extravagant prices secured its frequenters from meeting the class who usually dined at restaurants; and this gave it a vogue among the wealthy and titled, whose equipages now thronged the street, and filled the porte cochère. I had but time to recognize the face of one of the marshals and a minister of state, as we pushed our way through the court, and entered a small pavilion beyond it.

“I’ll join you in an instant,” said Duchesne, as he left the room hastily after the waiter. In a couple of minutes he was back again. “Come along; it’s all right,” said he. “I wish to show you a corner of the old house that only the privileged ever see, and we are fortunate in finding it unoccupied.”

We recrossed the court, and mounted a large oak stair to a corridor, which conducted us, by three sides of a quadrangle, to a smaller stair, nearly perpendicular. At the top of this, a strong door, barred and padlocked, stood, which, being opened, led into a large and lofty salon, opening by three spacious windows on a terrace that formed the roof of the building. Some citron and orange trees were disposed tastefully along this, and filled the room with their fragrance.

“Here, Antoine; let us be served here,” said Duchesne to the waiter; “I have already given orders about the dinner. And now, Burke, come out here. What think you of that view?”

Scarcely had I set foot on the terrace, when I started back in mingled admiration and amazement. Beneath us lay the great city, in the mellow light of an evening in September. Close – so close as actually to startle – was the large dome of the Invalides shining like a ball of molten gold, the great courtyard in front dotted with figures; beyond, again, was the Seine, the surface flashing and flickering in the sunlight, – I traced it along to the Pont Neuf; and then my eye rested on Notre-Dame, whose tall, dark towers stood out against the pinkish sky, while the deep-toned bell boomed through the still air. I turned towards the Tuileries, and could see the guard of honor in waiting for the Emperor’s appearing. In the gardens, hundreds were passing and repassing, or standing around the band which played in front of the pavilion. A tide of population poured across the bridges and down the streets, along which equipages and horsemen dashed impetuously onward. There was all the life and stir of a mighty city, its sounds dulled by distance, but blended into one hoarse din, like the far-off sea at night.

“You don’t know, Burke, that this was a favorite resort of the courtiers of the last reign. The gay young Gardes du Corps, the gallant youths of the royal household, constantly dined here. The terrace we now stand on once held a party who came at the invitation of no less a personage than him whom men call Louis the Eighteenth. It was a freak of the time to pronounce the Court dinners execrable: and they even go so far as to say that Marie Antoinette herself once planned a party here; but this I cannot vouch for.”

At this moment Duchesne was interrupted by the entrance of the waiters who came to serve the dinner. I had not a moment left to admire the beauty and richness of the antique silver dishes which covered the table, when a gentle tap at the door attracted my attention.

“Ha! Jacotot himself!” said Duchesne, as, rising hastily, he advanced to meet the new arrival. He was a tall, thin old man, much stooped by years, but with an air and carriage distinctly well bred; his white hair, brushed rigidly back, fastened into a queue behind, and his lace “jabot” and ruffles, bespoke him as the remnant of a date long past. His coat was blue, of a shade somewhat lighter than is usually worn. He also wore large buckles in his shoes, whose brilliancy left no doubt of their real value. Bowing with great ceremony, he advanced slowly into the room.

“You are come to dine with us, – is it not so, Jacotot?” said Duchesne, as he still held his hand.

“Excuse me, my dear chevalier; the Comte de Chambord and Edouard de Courcelles are below, – I have promised to join them.”

“And is Courcelles here?”

“Yes,” said the old man, with a timid glance towards where I sat, and a look as if imploring caution and reserve.

“Oh, fear nothing. And that reminds me I have not presented my friend and brother officer: Captain Burke, – Monsieur Jacotot. You may feel assured, Jacotot, I make no mistake in the friends I introduce here.”

The old man gave a smile of pleasure; while, turning to me, he said, —

“He is discretion itself; and I am but too happy to make your acquaintance. And now, Chevalier, one word with you.”

He retreated towards the door, holding Duchesne’s arm, and whispering as he went. Duchesne’s face, however, expressed his impatience as he spoke; and at last he said, —

“As you please, my worthy friend; I always submit to your wiser counsels. So farewell for the present.”

He looked after the old man as he slowly descended the stairs, and then closing the door and locking it, he exclaimed, —

“Parbleu!I found it very hard to listen to his prosing with even a show of patience, and was half tempted to tell him that the Bourbons could wait, though the soup could not.”

“Then Monsieur Jacotot is a Royalist, I presume?”

“Ay, that he is; and so are all they who frequent this house. Don’t start; the police know it well, and no one is more amused at their absurd plottings and conspirings than Fouché himself. Now and then, to be sure, some fool, more rash and brainless than the others, will come up from La Vendée and try to knock his head against the walls of the Temple, – like De Courcelles there, who has no other business in Paris except to be guillotined, if it were worth the trouble. Then the minister affects to stir himself and be on the alert, just to terrify them; but he well knows that danger lurks not in this quarter. Believe me, Burke, the present rulers of France have no greater security than in the contemptible character of all their opponents. There is no course for a man of energy and courage to adopt. But I ask your pardon, my dear friend, for this treasonable talk. What think you of the dinner? The Royalists would never have fallen if they had understood government as well as cuisine. Taste that suprême, and say if you don’t regret the Capets, – a feeling you can indulge the more freely because you never knew them.”

“I cannot comprehend, Duchesne, what are the grievances you charge against the present Government of France. Had you been an old courtier of the last reign, – a hanger-on of Versailles or the Tuileries, – the thing were intelligible; but you, a soldier, a man of daring and enterprise – ”

“Let me interrupt you. I am so only because it is the taste of the day; but I despise the parade of military glory we have got into the habit of. I prefer the period when a mot did as much and more than a discharge of mitraille, and men’s esprit and talent succeeded better than a strong sword-arm or a seat on horseback. There were gentlemen in France once, my dear Burke. Ay, parbleu! and ladies too, – not marchionesses of the drum-head nor countesses of the bivouac, but women in whom birth heightened beauty, whose loveliness had the added charm of high descent beaming from their bright eyes and sitting throned on their lofty brows; before whom our mustached marshals had stood trembling and ashamed, – these men who lounge so much at ease in the salons of the Tuileries! Let me help you to this salmi; it is à la Louis Quinze, and worthy of the Regency itself. Well, then, a glass of Burgundy.”

“Your friend Monsieur Jacotot seems somewhat of an original,” said I, half desirous to change a topic which I always felt an unpleasant one.

“You are not wrong; he is so. Jacotot is a thorough Frenchman; at least, he has had the fortune to mix up in his destiny those extremes of elevated sentiment and absurdity which go very far to compose the life of my good countrymen. I must tell you a short anecdote – But shall we adjourn to the terrace? for, to prevent the interruption of servants, I have ordered our dessert there.”

This was a most agreeable proposal; and so, having seated ourselves in a little arbor of orange-shrubs, with a view of the river and the Palace gardens beneath us, Duchesne thus began: —

“I am going somewhat far back in history; but have no fears on that head, Burke, – my story is a very brief one. There was, once upon a time, in France, a monarch of some repute, called Louis the Fourteenth; a man, if fame be not unjust, who possessed the most kingly qualities of which we have any record in books. He was brave, munificent, high-minded, ardent, selfish, cruel, and ungrateful, beyond any other man in his own dominions; and, like people with such gifts, he had the good fortune to attach men to him just as firmly and devotedly as though he was not in his heart devoid of every principle of friendship and affection. I need not tell you what the ladies of his reign thought of him; my present business is with the ruder sex.

“Among the courtiers of the day was a certain Vicomte Arnoud de Gency, a young man who, at the age of eighteen, won his grade of colonel at the siege of Besançon by an act of coolness and courage worthy recording. He deliberately advanced into one of the breaches, and made a sketch of the interior works of the fortification while the enemy’s shot was tearing up the ground around him. When the deed was reported to the king, he interrupted the relation, saying, ‘Don’t tell me who did this, for I have made De Gency a colonel for it;’ so rapidly did Louis guess the author of so daring a feat.

“From that hour, the young colonel’s fortune was made. He was appointed one of the gentlemen of the chamber to his Majesty, and distinguished by almost daily marks of royal intimacy. His qualities eminently fitted him for the tone of the society he lived in; he was a most witty converser, a good musician, and had, moreover, a very handsome person, – gifts not undervalued at Saint-Germain.

“Such were his social qualities; and so thoroughly did he understand the king’s humor, that even La Vallière herself saw the necessity of retaining him at the Court, and, in fact, made a confidant of him on several occasions of difficulty. Still, with all these favors of fortune, when the object of envy to almost all the rest of the household, Arnoud de Gency was suffering in his heart one of the most trying afflictions that can befall a proud man so placed; he was in actual poverty, – in want so pressing that all the efforts he could make, all the contrivances he could practise, were barely sufficient to prevent his misery being public. The taste for splendor in dress and equipage which characterized the period had greatly injured his private fortune, while the habit of high play, which Louis encouraged and liked to see about him, completed his ruin. The salary of his appointments was merely enough to maintain his daily expenditure; and thus was he, with a breaking heart, obliged not only to mix in all the reckless gayety and frivolity of that voluptuous Court, but, still more, tax his talents and his energies for new themes of pleasure, fresh sources of amusement.

“Worn out at length by the long struggle between his secret sorrow and his pride, he resolved to appeal to the king, and in a few words tell his Majesty the straits to which he was reduced, and implore his protection. To this he was impelled not solely on his own account, but on that also of his only child, a boy of eight or nine years old, whose mother died in giving him birth.

“An occasion soon presented itself. The king had given orders for a hunting-party at St. Cloud; and at an early hour of the morning De Gency in his hunting-dress took up his position in one of the ante-chambers through which the king must pass: not alone, however; at his side there stood a lovely boy, also dressed in the costume of the chase. He wore a velvet doublet of green, slashed with gold, and ornamented by a broad belt, from which hung his couteau de chasse; even to the falcon feather in his cap, nothing was forgotten.

“He had not waited long when the folding-doors were thrown wide, and a moment after Louis appeared, accompanied by a single attendant, the Marquis de Verneuil, unhappily one of the very few enemies Arnoud possessed in the world.

“‘Ah, De Gency! you here?’ said the king, gayly. ‘They told me “brelan” had been unfavorable lately, and that we should not see you.’

“‘It is true, Sire,’ said he, with a sad effort at a smile; ‘it is only on your Majesty fortune always smiles.’

“‘Pardieu! you must not say so; I lost a rouleau last night. But whom have we here?’

“‘My son; so please you, Sire, my only son, who desires, at an earlier age than even his father did, to serve your Majesty.’

“‘How like his mother!’ said the king, pushing back the fair ringlets from the boy’s forehead, and gazing almost fondly on his handsome features, – ‘how like her! She was a Courcelles?’

“‘She was, Sire,’ said Arnoud, as the tears fell on his cheek and coursed slowly along his face.

“‘And you want something for him?’ said the king, resuming his wonted tone, while he busied himself with his sword-knot; ‘is it not so?’

“‘If I might dare to ask – ’

“‘Assuredly you may. The thing is, what can we do? Eh, Verneuil, what say you? He is but an infant.’

“‘True, Sire,’ replied the marquis, with a look of respect, in which the most subtle could not discover a trait of his sarcastic nature; ‘but there is a place vacant.’

“‘Ah, indeed,’ said the king, quickly. ‘What is it? He shall have it.’

“‘Monsieur Jacotot, your Majesty’s head cook, stands in need of a turnspit,’ said he, in a low whisper, only audible to the king.

“‘A turnspit!’ said the king. And scarcely was the word uttered when, as if the irony was his own, he burst into a most immoderate fit of laughter, – an emotion that seemed to increase as he endeavored to repress it; when at the instant the cor de chasse, then heard without, gave a new turn to his thoughts, and he hurried forward with De Yerneuil, leaving De Gency and his son rooted to the spot, – indignant passion in that heart which despair and sorrow had almost rendered callous.

“His Majesty was still laughing as he mounted his barb in the courtyard; and the courtiers, like well-bred gentlemen, laughed as became them, with that low, quiet laugh which is the meet chorus of a sovereign’s mirth, when suddenly two loud reports, so rapidly following on each other as almost to seem one, startled the glittering cortege, and even made the Arab courser of the king plunge madly in the air.

“‘Par Saint Denis!Messieurs,’ said Louis, passionately, ‘this pleasantry of yours is ill thought of. Who has dared to do this?’

“But none spoke. A terrified look around the circle was the only reply to the king’s question, when a page rushed forward, his dress spotted and blood-stained, his face pale with horror, —

“‘Your Majesty, – ah, Sire!’ said he, kneeling. But sobs choked him, and he could not utter more.

“‘What is this? Will no one tell?’ cried the king, as a frown of dark omen shadowed his angry features.

“‘Your Majesty has lost a brave, an honest, and a faithful follower, Sire,’ said Monsieur de Coulanges. ‘Arnoud de Gency is no more.’

“‘Why, I saw him this instant,’ said the king. ‘He asked me some favor for his boy.’

“‘True, Sire,’ replied De Coulanges, mournfully. But he checked himself in time, for already the well-known and dreaded expression of passion had mounted to the king’s face.

“‘Dismiss the chasse, gentlemen,’ said he, in a low thick voice. ‘And do you, Monsieur de Verneuil, attend me.’

“The cortege was soon scattered; and the Marquis de Verneuil followed the king with an expression where fear and dread were not to be mistaken.

“Monsieur de Verneuil did indeed seem an altered man when he appeared among his friends that evening. Whatever the king had said to him assuredly had worked its due effect; for all his raillery was gone, and even the veriest trifler of the party might have dared an encounter with wits which then were subdued and broken.

“Next morning, however, the sun shone out brilliantly. The king was in high spirits; the game abounded; and his Majesty with his own hand brought down eight pheasants. The Marquis de Verneuil could hit nothing; for although the best marksman of the day, his hand shook and his sight failed him, and the king won fifty louis from him before they reached Saint-Germain.

“Never was there a happier day nor followed by a pleasanter evening. The king supped in Madame de la Vallière’s apartment; the private band played the most delicious airs during the repast; and when at length the party retired to rest, not one bright dream was clouded by the memory of Arnoud de Gency.

“Here, now, were I merely recounting an anecdote, I should stop,” said the chevalier; “but must continue a little longer, though all the romance of my story is over. The Marquis de Verneuil was a good hater: even poor De Gency’s fate did not move him, and he actually did do what he had only threatened in mockery, – he sent the orphan child to be a turnspit in the royal kitchen. Of course he changed his name, – the title of an old and honored family would soon have betrayed the foul deed, – and the boy was called Jacotot, after the chef himself. The king inquired no further on the subject; Arnoud’s name recalled too unpleasant a topic for the lips of a courtier ever to mention; and the whole circumstance was soon entirely forgotten.

“This same Jacotot was the grandfather of my old friend, whom you saw a few minutes since. Fate, that seems to jest with men’s destinies, made them as successful at the fire of the kitchen as ever their ancestors were at that of a battery; and Monsieur Jacotot, our present host, has not his equal in Paris. Here for years the younger members of the royal family used to sup; this room was their favorite apartment; and one evening, when at a later sitting than usual the ruler of the feast was carried beyond himself in the praise of an admirable plat, he sent for Jacotot, and told him, whatever favor he should ask, he himself would seek for him at the hands of the king.

“This was the long-wished-for moment of the poor fellow’s life. He drew from his bosom the title-deeds of his ancient name and fortune, and placed them in the prince’s hand without uttering a word.

“‘What! and are you a De Gency?’ said the prince.

“‘Alas! I shame to say it, I am.’

“‘Come, gentlemen,’ said the gay young prince, ‘a bumper to our worthy friend, whom, with God’s blessing, I shall see restored right soon to his fitting rank and station. Yes, De Gency! my word upon it, the next evening I sup here I shall bring with me his Majesty’s own signature to these title-deeds. Make place, gentlemen, and let him sit down!’

“But poor Jacotot was too much excited by his feelings of joy and gratitude, and he rushed from the room in a torrent of tears.

“The evening the prince spoke of never came. Soon after that commenced the troubles to the royal family; the dreadful events of Versailles; the flight to Varennes; the 10th August, – a horrible catalogue I cannot bear to trace. There, yonder, where now the groups are loitering, or sitting around in happy knots, there died Louis the Sixteenth. The prince I spoke of is an exile: they call him Louis the Eighteenth; but he is a king without a kingdom.

“But Jacotot lives on in hope. He has waded through all the terrors of the Revolution; he has seen the guillotine erected almost before his door and beheld his former friends led one by one to the slaughter. Twice was he himself brought forth, and twice was his life spared by some admirer of his cuisine. But perhaps all his trials were inferior to the heart-burning with which he saw the places once occupied by the blood of Saint Louis now occupied by the canaille of the Revolution. Marat and Robespierre frequented his house; and Barras seldom passed a week without dining there. This, I verily believe, was a heavier affliction than any of his personal sufferings; and I have often heard him recount, with no feigned horror, the scenes which took place among the incroyables, as they called themselves, whose orgies he contrasted so unfavorably with the more polished excesses of his regal visitors. Through all the anarchy of that fearful period; through the scarce less sanguinary time of the Directory; through the long, dreary oppression of the consulate; and now, in the more grinding tyranny of the Empire, he hopes, ay, still hopes on, that the day will come when from the hands of the king himself he shall receive his long-buried rank, and stand forth a De Gency. Poor fellow! there is something noble and manly in the long struggle with fortune, – in that long-sustained contest in which he would never admit defeat.

“Such are the followers of the Bourbons: their best traits, their highest daring, their most long-suffering endurance, only elicited in the pursuit of some paltry object of personal ambition. They have tasted the cup of adversity, ay, drained it to the very dregs; they have seen carnage and bloodshed such as no war ever surpassed: and all they have learned by experience is, to wish for the long past days of royal tyranny and frivolity back again; to see a glittering swarm of debauchees fluttering around a sensualist king; and to watch the famished faces of the multitude, without a thought that the tiger is only waiting for his spring. As to a thought of true liberty, one single high and noble aspiration after freedom, they never dreamed of it.

“You see, my friend, I have no desire to win you over to the Bourbon cause; neither, if I could, would I make you a Jacobin. But how is this? Can it really be so late? Come, we have no time to lose: it is not accounted good breeding to be late in a visit at the Faubourg.”