CHAPTER XXI
DIPLOMACY
When M. de Sérigny had left me, I fell back into the bitter thoughts from which this interview had drawn me.
In spite of my efforts to drive away all thought of Madame de Fersen, I could not succeed. I suffered greatly, but my grief, though deep, had a certain charm which I had not previously known.
I was conscious of having conducted myself nobly towards Catherine, of not deserving her severe disapproval, and this comforting consciousness gave me a proud and courageous resignation.
I have always faced boldly the most cruel phases of my life. No hope was left to me of ever gaining Madame de Fersen's love. I therefore gathered religiously in my heart and memory the slightest traces of this ineffable love, as one gathers the sacred and precious remnants of a departed being, to come daily and contemplate them with dreamy sadness, and ask of them the melancholy charm of memory.
Not wishing, however, to be prostrated, and hoping to find some distraction in work, I went assiduously to M. de Sérigny's study.
He was truly an excellent man.
He showed himself full of kindness to me. Having doubtless assured himself of my scrupulous discretion, he soon gave me a flattering mark of his confidence in me, by entrusting me to make a clear and concise summing up of his diplomatic correspondence. This brief was to be handed daily to the king.
This work, it is true, appeared of much greater importance than it really was, since there was at that time no great political question pending in Europe. Almost all these despatches, written mostly in very faint ink, and very poor French, contained only vague and trifling particulars about foreign courts, particulars which had frequently even been discounted in the public print.
I convinced myself of that which I had always surmised, that in modern times, and with a representative government like ours, diplomacy which may be called current is almost nothing; the vital questions of nations are fought on fields of battle, in the Chambers, or in congresses.
Most of the time (I speak only of representative governments) diplomatic positions are mere sinecures which ministers use as a means of action or corruption, by disposing of them by political expediency.
I was all the more struck by the futility of the correspondence under my eyes, because my father had formerly made me almost go through a whole course of political law, and I had studied with him the most famous negotiators of the latter half of the seventeenth century. My great-great-grandfather having filled certain missions conjointly with Messieurs d'Avaux, de Lyonne, and Courtin, we had at Serval a duplicate of his despatches and theirs, and I must confess that the reading of these documents had made me very fastidious.
M. Sérigny himself was a man of second-rate ability; but he had enough tact, shrewdness, and perspicacity to enable him to respond to the modest requirements of his position. When he fought the Opposition in the Chambers, he could extinguish, drown, the most heated discussion with the clear flow of his abundant words, cold and monotonous as a waterfall.
From the constitutional point of view M. de Sérigny could just as well have been Minister of Marine, of Justice, or of Finances as Minister of Foreign Affairs, but from the real, special point of view of these ministries, he was incapable of filling any.
I kept to myself my opinion of M. de Sérigny. He had been kind to me, and I was not Pommerive. Far from it, I defended my minister with all my might.
My duties amused me a good deal, for the very reason that their futility contrasted in a flagrant manner with their supposed importance.
The knowledge of these facts aroused in me charitable sentiments; I became very tolerant of that pitiless and affected self-importance, thanks to which most of our diplomatic agents always deceive the public on the value and the necessity of their position.
Without this prestige, they would cease to exist.
If I have never had the whim to become the associate or the dupe of a juggler, neither have I been malicious enough, when I fancied I had discovered his tricks, to proclaim it aloud, thus depriving the poor devil of his audience; for I never could picture to myself the future of a juggler deprived of his trade. I would, therefore, advise poor parents who destine their sons to a diplomatic career to be wise enough, to have sufficient foresight, to make them also learn some good solid trade which may some day be a useful resource should unexpected accidents deprive them of their first career.
This is not a brutal paradox. The essential specialty of our diplomats, consisting in worthily representing France, that is, in having a grand house and retinue at the expense of the state, in leading a luxurious, worldly, and amusing life, in receiving and writing insignificant despatches, it is difficult to imagine how these fine qualities could be employed when no longer exercising the profession which required them.
My new position with M. de Sérigny soon became known, and gave me singular authority in the world. People knew that I had not sought a place, in devoting myself assiduously to the work on which I was engaged, and they naturally concluded that my apprenticeship must lead to high destinies.
Circumstances occurred which contributed to these exaggerated rumours.
It was at a ball at the Duchesse de Berri's.
M. de Sérigny was laid up with the gout, and therefore could not be present. Lord Stuart, the British ambassador, who had earnestly urged our government to take the most active steps to discover the pirate of Porquerolles, came up to tell me that they were on the tracks of the wretch, hoped soon to reach him, and asked me for further particulars of the affair. He took my arm, and we had a half-hour's talk in the recess of a window.
This was enough to make people believe that I was far advanced in what is benignantly called "secrets of state."
This was not all: about eleven o'clock I was going to leave the ball just at the moment the king was taking his departure.
I had had the honour to be presented to him; he stopped in front of me, and said, with his customary gracious affability:
"I read your reports every day. I am pleased with them, they interest me; they are very satisfying, and, thanks to you, I have the harvest without the trouble of reaping."
"The king overwhelms me," I said to his majesty, "and his approbation is a favour which imposes new duties; and I will endeavour to prove myself worthy of them."
Instead of leaving the ball, the king seated himself on a sofa near at hand, and said to me:
"But tell me, what is all this I hear from Lord Stuart? It is very extraordinary, and sounds like a romance."
When the king seated himself while speaking to me, the persons who accompanied him held themselves discreetly aside.
I related to the king the history of the pirate of Porquerolles; he listened with interest, put several questions to me, thanked me very graciously, and withdrew.
When the king had left, I became the centre of attraction; they could make nothing out of it. His majesty was leaving, he happens to meet me, and thereupon he remains a quarter of an hour in particular conversation with me.
Decidedly, I must be a man of the highest importance.
I know that nothing is more ridiculous than to appear to take pride in such a success, and I prepared to quit the ball, when I saw Madame de Fersen coming towards me. I had not seen her for some time, and she seemed so changed, so fallen away, that I was shocked.
I saluted her without waiting for her, and retired, though she looked entreatingly at me, and she was evidently coming towards me with the intention of speaking to me.
The next day I received a letter from her.
She begged me in touching terms to come and see her, apologising for her ingratitude, and making some gracious allusions to the past.
My first impulse was to go to Catherine at once.
I reflected, however, that this meeting was not likely to change the fate of my love. I remembered the harshness with which Madame de Fersen had behaved, and foolishly fancied my dignity required that I should not yield to the first advance.
I wrote a very cold and polite letter, apologising for not going to her as she requested, and said she could not fail to understand my reasons.
To this she made no answer.
I concluded that she had not a very great desire to see me since she did not insist. I therefore congratulated myself on the course I had taken.
I soon heard that the prince had been called back to Russia by his court, and was surprised, I must confess, that his wife did not accompany him.
As to Madame de V——, I had implored her, for the sake of the friendship she professed for me, to cease tormenting so cruelly M. de Sérigny, declaring I would no longer lend myself to her coquettish manœuvres; that, moreover, she was compromising herself frightfully, and that sooner or later she would find herself ill-received in society.
She answered that I spoke like a Quaker, but for the joke of the thing she was going to live without a shade of coquetry.
One month after this glorious determination she came to express her gratitude to me, saying that, though this new life was deadly wearisome, it had made a tremendous sensation, and wagers were laid as to whether she would persist in her conversion or not. As to the minister, she said, since he had passed from the stupidity of jealous irritation to the stupidity of blind adoration, she neither gained nor lost in no longer tormenting him.
Consequently, the rumours which had been current about Madame de V—— and myself soon ceased, and I was accused of having deserted her.
I could not avoid smiling sometimes when I observed the obsequiousness of those around me, for I continued, as I may say, in sheer idleness my work at M. de Sérigny's.
Cernay, whom I sometimes met, concealed his envy under the semblance of the most exaggerated admiration. "You are a very able man," he said; "you should have, and you will have, all kinds of success. You are now a statesman, intimate with ministers and ambassadors. The king even takes notice of you; you are considered, my good fellow, and you can have all you wish for, for you have such tact! if you will excuse the word, such cunning!"
"What do you mean?"
"Come, now, don't play the innocent. At that ball at the Tuileries, where you had in turn two interviews at once so remarkable and so much remarked, the one with Lord Stuart and the other with the king, who remained in conversation some time with you, instead of taking his departure in accordance with his expressed desire, what did you do, you shrewd fellow? Instead of doing as so many others who would have foolishly remained to strut after receiving such distinction, you quickly disappeared. That was shrewdness, or rather genius, and your absence created a prodigious effect."
"The cause of this disappearance was very simple, my dear De Cernay; I had a frightful headache, and wanted to get home."
"Nonsense," said Cernay, with charming naïveté; "you cannot make me believe that any one has the headache when the king has been talking with him for an hour."
A fortnight had passed since I had last met Madame de Fersen at the Tuileries ball, when one of my business agents came to me one morning with an air of consternation.
It was a question of preventing a disastrous failure, by which I might lose about fifty thousand dollars, which had been invested in one of the most esteemed business houses at Havre.
The failure had not yet been declared, but it was imminent, and was already suspected.
My agent therefore proposed that I should at once start with him, and go to rescue my funds from this house.
The amount was so considerable, that I did not hesitate one moment about going to Havre.
A power of attorney, however wide its scope, could never provide for all the eventualities that might occur; under such circumstances, the presence of the interested party is often of the greatest consequence.
I wrote a few lines to M. de Sérigny, telling him that an affair of the greatest importance had called me to Havre, and I left orders with my people to forward my letters to that town.
Two hours later I was on the road.
We were approaching the last relay before reaching Havre, when I heard the hurried tramp of horses galloping behind us, the sharp cracking of a whip, and a voice not unknown to me crying out, "Stop! Stop!"
My postilions looked at me inquiringly. I made them a sign to stop, and, suddenly, I saw at the door of my carriage Madame de Fersen's courier, whose horse was covered with foam and torn by spurs.
This man was so breathless from his rapid race that he could only utter these words in handing me a letter:
"M. le comte, this is a letter from the princess. I have gained four hours upon M. le comte. I could do no more."
The letter just contained these words:
"My daughter is dying—is dying—and my sole hope is in you."
"You must turn back," I cried to the postilions, "return to the stage. And you," I said to the courier, "can you gallop all the way back to Paris, and have horses ready for me at the stages?"
"Certainly, M. le comte."
"Then mount, and be off."
The good fellow turned back at full speed on the road to Paris.
"But, monsieur," said my man of business, in dismay, "you cannot go back to Paris; here we are just at Havre."
I looked at him in astonishment.
"Why not?"
"But this failure, monsieur," he exclaimed; "an hour may lose all, and fifty thousand dollars are at stake!"
I had entirely forgotten the purport of my journey.
"You are right," said I. "You are not more than a mile from Havre; oblige me by walking that distance, and arrange matters as best you can."
I had the carriage door opened.
"But, monsieur, once more, it is impossible," resumed the astounded man; "without you I can do nothing. I do not even have your power of attorney. Without you my presence is utterly useless. Come at least as far as Havre; we shall go to a notary, you will give me a power of attorney, and then—"
I was boiling with impatience. "Monsieur," said I, hastily, "you will go on to Havre without me, or you will return to Paris with me. The door is open; you can get down, or remain."
"But, monsieur—"
"Close the door, and off for Paris!" I exclaimed.
The agent at once left the carriage, saying to me, with an air of despair, "As you please, monsieur. I shall have nothing to reproach myself with. You may as well look upon these fifty thousand dollars as lost. Send me, at least, your power of attorney, registered, etc."
I did not hear the rest. The horses had started at full speed.
In my whole life, I had never travelled with such velocity.
At Versailles, I gave orders to stop in Paris a little way, before reaching Madame de Fersen's door.
When I arrived, I saw the street was strewn with straw.
Reflecting that I might possibly have to remain at Madame de Fersen's, and not wishing to have it known, I instructed my servant to take my carriage home, and tell my people that I had remained at Havre, and would return by the steamer.
I entered the mansion.
