第23章 MLLE.DE CHAULIEU TO MME.DE L'ESTORADE February(1)
At nine o'clock this morning,sweetheart,my father was announced in my rooms.I was up and dressed.I found him solemnly seated beside the fire in the drawing-room,looking more thoughtful than usual.He pointed to the armchair opposite to him.Divining his meaning,I sank into it with a gravity,which so well aped his,that he could not refrain from smiling,though the smile was dashed with melancholy.
"You are quite a match for your grandmother in quick-wittedness,"he said.
"Come,father,don't play the courtier here,"I replied;"you want something from me."He rose,visibly agitated,and talked to me for half an hour.This conversation,dear,really ought to be preserved.As soon as he had gone,I sat down to my table and tried to recall his words.This is the first time that I have seen my father revealing his inner thoughts.
He began by flattering me,and he did not do it badly.I was bound to be grateful to him for having understood and appreciated me.
"Armande,"he said,"I was quite mistaken in you,and you have agreeably surprised me.When you arrived from the convent,I took you for an average young girl,ignorant and not particularly intelligent,easily to be bought off with gewgaws and ornaments,and with little turn for reflection.""You are complimentary to young girls,father.""Oh!there is no such thing as youth nowadays,"he said,with the air of a diplomat."Your mind is amazingly open.You take everything at its proper worth;your clear-sightedness is extraordinary,there is no hoodwinking you.You pass for being blind,and all the time you have laid your hand on causes,while other people are still puzzling over effects.In short,you are a minister in petticoats,the only person here capable of understanding me.It follows,then,that if I have any sacrifice to ask from you,it is only to yourself I can turn for help in persuading you.
"I am therefore going to explain to you,quite frankly,my former plans,to which I still adhere.In order to recommend them to you,Imust show that they are connected with feelings of a very high order,and I shall thus be obliged to enter into political questions of the greatest importance to the kingdom,which might be wearisome to any one less intelligent than you are.When you have heard me,I hope you will take time for consideration,six months if necessary.You are entirely your own mistress;and if you decline to make the sacrifice Iask,I shall bow to your decision and trouble you no further."This preface,my sweetheart,made me really serious,and I said:
"Speak,father."
Here,then,is the deliverance of the statesman:
"My child,France is in a very critical position,which is understood only by the King and a few superior minds.But the King is a head without arms;the great nobles,who are in the secret of the danger,have no authority over the men whose co-operation is needful in order to bring about a happy result.These men,cast up by popular election,refuse to lend themselves as instruments.Even the able men among them carry on the work of pulling down society,instead of helping us to strengthen the edifice.
"In a word,there are only two parties--the party of Marius and the party of Sulla.I am for Sulla against Marius.This,roughly speaking,is our position.To go more into details:the Revolution is still active;it is embedded in the law and written on the soil;it fills people's minds.The danger is all the greater because the greater number of the King's counselors,seeing it destitute of armed forces and of money,believe it completely vanquished.The King is an able man,and not easily blinded;but from day to day he is won over by his brother's partisans,who want to hurry things on.He has not two years to live,and thinks more of a peaceful deathbed than of anything else.
"Shall I tell you,my child,which is the most destructive of all the consequences entailed by the Revolution?You would never guess.In Louis XVI.the Revolution has decapitated every head of a family.The family has ceased to exist;we have only individuals.In their desire to become a nation,Frenchmen have abandoned the idea of empire;in proclaiming the equal rights of all children to their father's inheritance,they have killed the family spirit and created the State treasury.But all this has paved the way for weakened authority,for the blind force of the masses,for the decay of art and the supremacy of individual interests,and has left the road open to the foreign invader.
"We stand between two policies--either to found the State on the basis of the family,or to rest it on individual interest--in other words,between democracy and aristocracy,between free discussion and obedience,between Catholicism and religious indifference.I am among the few who are resolved to oppose what is called the people,and that in the people's true interest.It is not now a question of feudal rights,as fools are told,nor of rank;it is a question of the State and of the existence of France.The country which does not rest on the foundation of paternal authority cannot be stable.That is the foot of the ladder of responsibility and subordination,which has for its summit the King.
"The King stands for us all.To die for the King is to die for oneself,for one's family,which,like the kingdom,cannot die.All animals have certain instincts;the instinct of man is for family life.A country is strong which consists of wealthy families,every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure;it is weak when composed of scattered individuals,to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one,a Russian or a Corsican,so long as each keeps his own plot of land,blind,in their wretched egotism,to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.
"Terrible calamities are in store for us,in case our party fails.