Part 39

--You did very well to prevent Fabrice from arriving officially; we are in the midst of a reaction here. Just guess the colleague the prince has given me as minister of justice! It is Rassi, my dear, Rassi, whom I treated like the scoundrel he is on the day of our great affairs. By the way, I warn you that everything that happened here has been suppressed. If you read our gazette, you will see that a clerk of the citadel, named Barbone, died from a carriage fall. As for the sixty-odd rogues I had shot when they were attacking the prince's statue in the gardens, they are doing very well, only they are traveling. Count Zurla, the minister of the interior, went himself to the home of each of these unfortunate heroes, and gave fifteen sequins to their families or friends, with orders to say that the deceased was traveling, and a very explicit threat of prison if anyone ventured to suggest he had been killed. A man from my own ministry, foreign affairs, was sent on a mission to the journalists of Milan and Turin, so that they would not speak of the unfortunate event, that is the accepted word; this man is to go as far as Paris and London, to deny in all the newspapers, almost officially, anything that might be said about our troubles. Another agent set out for Bologna and Florence. I shrugged my shoulders.

"But the amusing thing, at my age, is that I had a moment of enthusiasm when speaking to the guardsmen and tearing the epaulettes off that coward of a General P... At that instant I would have given my life, without hesitation, for the prince; I confess now that would have been a pretty stupid way to end. Today, the prince, good young man that he is, would give a hundred crowns for me to die of illness; he does not yet dare ask for my resignation but we speak as rarely as possible, and I send him a quantity of little written reports, as I used to do with the late prince, after Fabrice's imprisonment. By the way, I did not make curl-papers of the signed sentence against him, for the excellent reason that that scoundrel Rassi did not hand it to me. So you did very well to prevent Fabrice from arriving here officially. The sentence is still enforceable; I do not think, however, that Rassi would dare have our nephew arrested today, but it is possible he may dare in fifteen days. If Fabrice absolutely wants to return to the city, let him come lodge with me.

--But the cause of all this? cried the duchess, astonished.

--They have persuaded the prince that I give myself the airs of a dictator and savior of the country, and that I want to lead him like a child; what is more, in speaking of him, I supposedly pronounced the fatal word: <i>that child</i>. The fact may be true, I was exalted that day: for instance, I saw him as a great man, because he was not too afraid amid the first musket shots he had ever heard in his life. He is not lacking in wit, he even has a better manner than his father: in short, I cannot repeat it too often, his heart is honest and good; but that sincere and young heart bristles when told of some knavish trick, and believes one must have a very black soul oneself to perceive such things: think of the education he has received!...

--Your Excellency should have thought that one day he would be master, and placed a man of wit near him.

--First, we have the example of the Abbé de Condillac, who, called by the Marquis de Felino, my predecessor, made of his pupil only the king of fools. He went to procession, and in 1796 he did not know how to treat with General Bonaparte, who would have tripled the extent of his States. Secondly, I never believed I would remain minister ten years running. Now that I am disillusioned with everything, and this for a month, I want to gather a million, before leaving to itself this kennel that I saved. Without me, Parma would have been a republic for two months, with the poet Ferrante Palla as dictator.

This word made the duchess blush. The count knew nothing.

--We are going to fall back into the ordinary monarchy of the eighteenth century: the confessor and the mistress. At bottom, the prince loves only mineralogy, and perhaps you, madame. Since he has reigned, his valet de chambre, whom I have just made a captain brother, this brother has nine months of service, this valet de chambre, I say, went and put into his head that he must be happier than another because his profile will appear on the crowns. Following this fine idea came boredom.

"Now he needs an aide-de-camp, a remedy for boredom. Well! even if he offered me that famous million which is necessary for us to live well in Naples or Paris, I would not want to be his remedy for boredom, and spend four or five hours each day with His Highness. Besides, as I have more wit than he, after a month he would take me for a monster.

"The late prince was wicked and envious, but he had made war and commanded army corps, which had given him bearing; one found in him the stuff of a prince, and I could be a good or bad minister. With this honest man of a candid and truly good son, I am forced to be an intriguer. Here I am the rival of the last little woman of the castle, and a very inferior rival, for I shall scorn a hundred necessary details. For example, three days ago, one of those women who distribute white napkins every morning in the apartments had the idea of making the prince lose the key to one of his English desks. Whereupon His Highness refused to occupy himself with all the affairs whose papers were in that desk; to be sure, for twenty francs one could have the planks forming its back detached, or use false keys; but Ranuce-Ernest V told me that would give the court locksmith bad habits.

"Until now it has been absolutely impossible for him to keep the same will three days running. Had he been born monsieur the marquis so-and-so, with a fortune, this young prince would have been one of the most estimable men of his court, a sort of Louis XVI; but how, with his pious naivety, will he resist all the skillful snares by which he is surrounded? Thus the salon of your enemy the Raversi is more powerful than ever; there they have discovered that I, who had shots fired on the people, and who was resolved to kill three thousand men if need be, rather than let the statue of the prince who had been my master be insulted, am a raging liberal, that I wanted to have a constitution signed, and a hundred similar absurdities. With these tales of republic, fools would keep us from enjoying the best of monarchies... In short, madame, you are the only person of the present liberal party, of which my enemies make me the chief, about whom the prince has not expressed himself in offensive terms; the archbishop, always a perfectly honest man, for having spoken reasonably of what I did on that unhappy day, is in full disgrace.

"The day after the day which was not yet called unhappy, when it was still true that revolt had existed, the prince said to the archbishop that, so that you would not have to take an inferior title in marrying me, he would make me a duke. Today I believe it is Rassi, ennobled by me when he sold me the secrets of the late prince, who is to be made a count. In the face of such advancement I shall play the role of a fool.

--And the poor prince will get himself into a mess.

--No doubt: but at bottom he is the master, a quality which, in less than fifteen days, makes ridicule disappear. So, dear duchess, let us do as in the game of backgammon, let us go.

--But we shall not be very rich.

--At bottom, neither you nor I need luxury. If you give me in Naples a place in a box at San Carlo and a horse, I am more than satisfied; it will never be more or less luxury that gives you and me rank, it is the pleasure that the men of wit of the country may perhaps find in coming to take a cup of tea with you.

--But, resumed the duchess, what would have happened, on the unhappy day, if you had kept to the background as I hope you will do in future?

--The troops were fraternizing with the people, there would have been three days of massacre and fire (for it takes a hundred years for this country for a republic not to be an absurdity), then fifteen days of pillage, until two or three regiments furnished by the foreigner came to put a stop to it. Ferrante Palla was in the midst of the people, full of courage and furious as usual; he had no doubt a dozen friends acting in concert with him, of which Rassi will make a superb conspiracy. What is certain is that, wearing a coat of incredible dilapidation, he distributed gold by the handful.

The duchess, amazed at all this news, hastened to go thank the princess.

At the moment of her entry into the chamber, the lady of honor handed her the little gold key worn at the waist, which is the mark of supreme authority in the part of the palace dependent on the princess. Clara Paolina hastened to make everyone leave; and, once alone with her friend, for some moments she persisted in explaining herself only by halves. The duchess did not quite understand what all this meant, and answered only with much reserve. At last, the princess burst into tears, and, throwing herself into the duchess's arms, cried:

--The times of my unhappiness are going to begin again: my son will treat me worse than his father did!

--That is what I shall prevent, replied the duchess quickly. But first I need, she continued, that Your Most Serene Highness deign to accept here the homage of all my gratitude and my profound respect.

--What do you mean? cried the princess, full of uneasiness, and fearing a resignation.

--It is that whenever Your Most Serene Highness permits me to turn to the right the trembling chin of that china figure on your mantelpiece, she also permits me to call things by their true names.

--Is that all, my dear duchess? cried Clara Paolina, rising, and going herself to put the figure in proper position; speak then in all freedom, madame the mistress of the robes, she said in a charming tone of voice.

--Madame, resumed the other, Your Highness has perfectly seen the position; we, you and I, run the greatest dangers; the sentence against Fabrice is not revoked; consequently, the day they wish to be rid of me and insult you, they will put him back in prison. Our position is as bad as ever. As for me personally, I am marrying the count, and we are going to settle in Naples or Paris. The last trait of ingratitude of which the count is victim at this moment has entirely disgusted him with affairs and, save the interest of Your Most Serene Highness, I would not advise him to remain in this mess except insofar as the prince would give him an enormous sum. I ask Your Highness's permission to explain to you that the count, who had 130,000 francs on entering affairs, possesses today scarcely 20,000 livres of income. In vain for a long time had I pressed him to think of his fortune. During my absence, he picked quarrels with the prince's tax farmers, who were rogues; the count replaced them with other rogues who gave him 800,000 francs.

--What! cried the princess, astonished, my God! how sorry I am for that!

--Madame, replied the duchess with great coolness, must we turn the figure's nose to the left?

--Good heavens, no, cried the princess; but I am sorry that a man of the count's character thought of that kind of gain.

--Without this theft, he was despised by all honest men.

--Great God! is it possible!

--Madame, resumed the duchess, except my friend, the Marquis Crescenzi, who has 3 or 400,000 livres of income, everyone steals here; and how not to steal in a country where gratitude for the greatest services lasts not quite a month? Thus there is nothing real and surviving disgrace but money. I am going to permit myself, madame, terrible truths.

--I permit them to you, said the princess with a deep sigh, and yet they are cruelly disagreeable to me.

--Well! madame, the prince your son, a perfectly honest man, may make you much more unhappy than his father did; the late prince had character about like everyone else. Our present sovereign is not sure of wanting the same thing three days running; consequently, to be sure of him, one must live continually with him and let him speak to no one. As this truth is not very hard to guess, the new ultra party, directed by those two fine heads, Rassi and the Marquise Raversi, will seek to give the prince a mistress. This mistress will have permission to make her fortune and distribute a few subordinate places, but she will have to answer to the party for the constant will of the master.

"I, to be well established at the court of Your Highness, need that Rassi be exiled and hissed; I want, moreover, that Fabrice be judged by the most honest judges that can be found: if these gentlemen recognize, as I hope, that he is innocent, it will be natural to grant Monsieur the archbishop that Fabrice be his coadjutor with future succession. If I fail, the count and I withdraw; then, on leaving I leave this counsel to Your Most Serene Highness: she must never forgive Rassi, and never either leave the States of her son. Near at hand, this good son will do her no serious harm.

--I have followed your reasoning with all the required attention, replied the princess smiling; must I then charge myself with the care of giving a mistress to my son?

--No, madame, but first see that your salon is the only one where he amuses himself.

The conversation was endless in this vein, the scales fell from the eyes of the innocent and witty princess.

A courier from the duchess went to tell Fabrice that he might enter the city, but in hiding. He was scarcely seen: he spent his life disguised as a peasant in the wooden booth of a chestnut seller, established opposite the citadel gate, under the promenade trees.

CHAPTER XXIV

The duchess organized charming evenings at the palace, which had never seen so much gaiety; never was she more amiable than that winter, and yet she lived amid the greatest dangers; but also, during this critical season, it did not happen twice that she thought with a certain degree of unhappiness of the strange change in Fabrice. The young prince came very early to his mother's agreeable evenings, who always said to him:

--Go and govern then; I wager there are more than twenty reports on your desk awaiting a yes or a no, and I do not want Europe to accuse me of making you a lazy king so as to reign in your place.

These advices had the disadvantage of presenting themselves always at the most inopportune moments, that is to say when His Highness, having overcome his timidity, took part in some charade in action which amused him greatly. Twice a week there were country parties where, under pretext of winning for the new sovereign the affection of his people, the princess admitted the prettiest women of the bourgeoisie. The duchess, who was the soul of this joyful court, hoped that these beautiful bourgeois women, who all looked with deadly envy on the high fortune of the bourgeois Rassi, would tell the prince of some one of the countless knaveries of this minister. Now, among other childish ideas, the prince claimed to have a moral ministry.

Rassi had too much sense not to feel how dangerous for him were these brilliant evenings of the dowager princess's court, directed by his enemy. He had not wanted to hand Count Mosca the quite legal sentence rendered against Fabrice; thus the duchess or he must disappear from the court.

The day of that popular movement, whose existence it was now good tone to deny, money had been distributed to the people. Rassi started from there: more poorly dressed even than usual, he went up into the most miserable houses of the city, and spent whole hours in set conversation with their poor inhabitants. He was well rewarded for such care: after fifteen days of this kind of life he had the certainty that Ferrante Palla had been the secret chief of the insurrection, and further, that this being, poor all his life like a great poet, had had eight or ten diamonds sold at Genoa.

Among others were cited five precious stones which were really worth more than 40,000 francs, and which, ten days before the prince's death, had been left for 35,000 francs, because, it was said, money was needed.

How to paint the transports of joy of the minister of justice at this discovery? He perceived that every day they gave him ridicule at the court of the dowager princess, and several times the prince, speaking of affairs with him, had laughed in his face with all the naivety of youth. It must be owned that Rassi had singularly plebeian habits: for example, as soon as a discussion interested him, he crossed his legs and took his shoe in his hand; if the interest grew, he spread his red cotton handkerchief on his leg, etc. The prince had laughed much at the jest of one of the prettiest women of the bourgeoisie, who, knowing besides that she had a very well-made leg, had begun to imitate this elegant gesture of the minister of justice.

Rassi solicited an extraordinary audience and said to the prince:

--Would Your Highness give a hundred thousand francs to know exactly what was the manner of death of his august father? with this sum, justice would be enabled to seize the guilty, if there are any.

The prince's answer could not be in doubt.

Some time after, the Chékina warned the duchess that a large sum had been offered her to let a jeweler examine her mistress's diamonds; she had refused with indignation. The duchess scolded her for having refused; and, a week later, the Chékina had diamonds to show. The day chosen for this exhibition of diamonds, Count Mosca placed two trustworthy men near each of the jewelers of Parma, and around midnight he came to tell the duchess that the curious jeweler was none other than Rassi's brother. The duchess, who was very gay that evening (they were playing a commedia dell'arte at the palace, that is, where each character invents the dialogue as he speaks it, only the plan of the comedy being posted in the wings), the duchess, who was playing a role, had for lover in the piece Count Baldi, the former friend of the Marquise Raversi, who was present. The prince, the most timid man in his States, but a very pretty fellow and endowed with the tenderest heart, was studying Count Baldi's role, and wanted to play it at the second performance.

--I have very little time, said the duchess to the count, I appear in the first scene of the second act; let us go into the guardroom.

There, amid twenty bodyguards, all very wide-awake and very attentive to the speeches of the prime minister and the mistress of the robes, the duchess said laughing to her friend:

--You always scold me when I tell secrets uselessly. It was through me that Ernest V was called to the throne; it was a matter of avenging Fabrice, whom I then loved much more than today, though always quite innocently. I know well you scarcely believe in that innocence, but it matters little, since you love me despite my crimes. Well! here is a true crime: I gave all my diamonds to a kind of very interesting madman, named Ferrante Palla, I even embraced him so that he would cause to perish the man who wanted to have Fabrice poisoned. Where is the harm?

--Ah! so that is where Ferrante had taken money for his uprising! said the count, somewhat stupefied; and you tell me all this in the guardroom!

--It is that I am in a hurry, and here is Rassi on the trail of the crime. It is quite true that I never spoke of insurrection, for I abhor Jacobins. Reflect on that, and tell me your opinion after the play.

--I shall tell you at once that we must inspire love in the prince... But in all honor, at least!

The duchess was called for her entrance, she fled.

A few days after, the duchess received by post a large ridiculous letter, signed with the name of an old lady's maid of hers; this woman asked to be employed at court, but the duchess had recognized at first glance that it was neither her writing nor her style. On opening the sheet to read the second page, the duchess saw fall at her feet a little miraculous image of the Madonna, folded in a printed leaf of an old book. After casting a glance at the image, the duchess read a few lines of the old printed leaf. Her eyes shone, and she found these words:

The tribune took a hundred francs a month, no more; with the rest they wanted to rekindle the sacred fire in souls found frozen by egoism. The fox is on my tracks, that is why I did not seek to see one last time the adored being. I said to myself, she does not love the republic, she who is superior to me in wit as in grace and beauty. Besides, how make a republic without republicans? Can it be I am mistaken? In six months, I shall traverse, microscope in hand, and on foot, the small towns of America, I shall see if I must still love the only rival you have in my heart. If you receive this letter, Baroness, and no profane eye has read it before you, have one of the young ash trees planted twenty paces from the spot where I dared speak to you for the first time broken. Then I shall have buried, under the great box tree of the garden you once noticed in my happy days, a box where will be found some of those things which cause people of my opinion to be slandered. Surely I would have guarded against writing if the fox were not on my tracks, and could not reach that celestial being; see the box tree in fifteen days.

"Since he has a printing press at his command, said the duchess to herself, soon we shall have a collection of sonnets, God knows what name he will give me there!"

“Stories of the world, in your language.”