It was late when the carriage arrived, and we returned to Paris to finish the evening at Mademoiselle Mars" lodgings in the Rue de Choiseul. The little _salons_, furnished with a consummate taste and elegance, were crowded with visitors, as we reached them,--artists, authors, musicians, theatrical people of every kind and sort, with a sprinkling of the higher world, admitted as a rare favor to these "Sat.u.r.days."
It was in the fascination of this very cla.s.s of society that Margot had originally conceived her pa.s.sion for the stage. It was in their enthusiasm for her genius and their admiration of her beauty she had first tasted the ambitious longing for fame and applause; and it was still here that she revelled, as in a charmed existence,--here sought the inspirations that quickened her spirit to its proudest darings, and nerved her heart for efforts almost beyond human strength.
I had but to see her for a moment in the midst of this adulation to comprehend the whole history of her life. The poet brought his verses, the musician his strains, the sculptor laid his own image of herself at her feet; the most rapturous verses, the most polished flatteries, met her as she entered. Mademoiselle Mars herself swelled the chorus of these praises, and seemed prouder in the triumphs of her _protegee_ than she had ever been in her own. Margot accepted all this homage as a queen might have done. She received it as a tribute that was due, and of which none dared to defraud her. Shall I own that if at first a modest humility and a girlish diffidence had been more gratifying to me to witness, yet, as the hours wore on, not only had I accustomed myself to bear with, but I actually felt myself joining in that same spirit of adulation which seemed so meetly offered at this shrine?
What sad repinings, what terrible self-reproaches come over me as I write these lines! My thoughts all turn to the very darkest, and yet the most brilliant, moment of my life: the brightest in all its actual splendor and delight,--the gloomiest in its dreary memory! Lest these fancies should master me, I will pursue my story rapidly, coldly, apathetically, if I may. I will not suffer a word, if I can help it, to escape me that may unman me for my task, now all but completed. I suppose that no man can write of himself without becoming more or less his own apologist. Even in his self-accusings there will be mingled a degree of commiseration, and his judgments will be found tempered with merciful considerations. I would that I were capable of something better, bolder, and more manly than this. I would that others might learn of my "short-comings," and be taught by my "over-reachings"! But though I cannot point the moral, I will tell the tale.
Margot--it was the caprice of the moment--presented me to the society as her cousin. I was the Chevalier de Bertin, of good family and ample fortune. "Pa.s.sionne pour les arts," as she said, "and the devoted slave of genius." The introduction was well calculated to insure me a favorable reception; and so it proved. I was at once admitted into all the masonry of the craft. The "coulisses" of every theatre were open to me; the private box of the prima donna, the editorial sanctum, the dressing-room where the great actress received her chosen few, and the little supper-table, at which a place would have been a boon to royalty,--all were mine. To support myself, and maintain a condition proportionate to my pretended rank, I labored immensely. I wrote for no less than four of the great journals of Paris. I was the leading political writer in the Bonapartist "Presse," the royalist in the "Gazette de la Vendee," and the infuriated defender of the Girondins in the terrible columns of "Le Drapeau de Pays," theatrical and literary criticism being my walk in the pages of the "Avant Scene."
Two persons only were in my secret,--Sanson, the subeditor of the "Presse," and Jostard, who was a royalist agent, and who paid with a liberal hand all the advocates of the Bourbons. My intimate knowledge of the secret history of party, my acquaintance with political characters personally, and, above all, my information on England and English topics, gave me enormous advantages, and many of my contributions were attributed to persons high in political station, and speaking the sentiments of authority. I was well versed in the slashing insolence of the military style in which the Bonapartists wrote, and knew all the cant of the Jesuit, as well as the chosen phraseology of the wildest republican. In this way I attacked and replied to myself vindictively, and even savagely. a.s.sault and counter-attack, insulting demands and still more insulting replies, issued forth each morning to amaze the capital, and make men ask how long could such a polemic be sustained without personal vengeance?
In my Bonapartist capacity I a.s.sailed Pitt unceasingly. It was the theme of which that party never wearied, and in which all their hatred to England could be carried without openly wounding the susceptibilities of the nation. If I a.s.sailed the covert treachery of the English minister by the increased activity in the dockyards during a state of peace, I hailed that very sign in a Bourbonist article as an evidence that the cause of the exiled family had not been abandoned in Great Britain; while in the "Drapeau" I turned attention to the glorious struggle for freedom then sustained by the blacks of St. Domingo under the chivalrous guidance of Toussaint, openly declaring that with the negro lay at that moment the whole destiny of all Europe.
One of these articles--I wrote it half wild with the excitement of a supper at the Rue Choiseul; I came home nearly distracted by a quarrel with a Martogard--I cannot continue--was headed "Noir au Blanc," and was an insulting comparison between "Negro Chivalry and the White Man"s Subserviency." An outrageously insolent contrast of Bonaparte with Toussaint closed the paper, and occasioned a police visit to the office of the journal, demanding the name and address of the writer. Of these the editor knew nothing; and though he succeeded in establishing his innocence, the journal was declared to be suppressed, and a heavy fine imposed upon its conductors. I was resolved, at whatever sacrifice, to pay this, and consulted with Sanson how best to set about it. My receipts at that time were as follows: from the "Presse" sixty francs daily; fifty from the "Vendee;" the theatrical journal paid me one hundred weekly; and the "Drapeau," up to the time of its suppression, forty francs for every article, irrespective of its length. In a word, each day"s revenue averaged above a hundred and fifty francs, which it was my custom to spend to the last sou-piece.
To sustain the character of wealth and fortune, I not only toiled without ceasing, but I entered on a career of extravagance almost as distasteful to me. Margot loved display of every kind. The theatrical pa.s.sion seemed to suggest a desire for every species of notoriety; and to please her I set up a costly equipage, with showy liveries and magnificent horses. The dinners I gave were of the most extravagant kind; the bouquets I presented to her each evening at the theatre would have in their price supported a family. My earnings could never have compa.s.sed such outlay, and to meet it I became a gambler,--a practised, a professional gambler,--playing with all the calm-headed skill of a deep calculator. Fortune vacillated; but, on the whole, I was a large winner. The fine decreed against the "Drapeau" was fifteen thousand francs,--a large sum for me, and far above what any effort at acc.u.mulation could possibly compa.s.s. So, indeed, Sanson told me, and laughed at the bare thought of my attempting it. There was, however, he said, a possibility--a mere possibility--of a way to meet this, and he would think over it. I gave him a day or two, and at the end of that time he told me his plan. It was this. There was a certain minister high in the confidence of Bonaparte, whose counsels had not been always followed, nor even listened to at times. These counsels had been founded on the a.s.sumption that certain views and intentions of a particular kind were maintained by the royalists,--secretly maintained, but still occasionally shadowed forth in such a way as to be intelligible to all in the secrets of the party. To be plain, the suspected plan was neither more nor less than a union of the royalist with the republican faction to overthrow the Bonapartists. This idea seemed so chimerical to Bonaparte that to broach it was at once to lose character with him for acuteness or political foresight. Not so to him of whom Sanson spoke, and whom I at once p.r.o.nounced to be Fouche.
"Then you are mistaken," said he; "but to any other guess I will make no reply, nor, if you press me on this subject, will I consent to continue the negotiation."
I yielded to his terms; and after a brief interval came an order for me to hold myself in readiness on a particular evening, when a carriage would be sent to fetch me to the house of the minister. At eight, the hour indicated, I was ready; and scarcely had the clock struck when the carriage rolled into the courtyard.
I have been led, as it were by accident, into the mention of this little incident, which had no bearing nor influence on my future; but now that I have touched upon it, I will finish it as briefly as I can.
I was received in a small office-like chamber by a man somewhat past middle life, but whose appearance gave him the look of even age. He was short, broad-shouldered, and slightly stooped; the figure altogether vulgar, but the bead ma.s.sive and lofty, and the face the strangest mixture of dignity and cunning--a blending of the high-bred gentleman with the crafty pettifogger--I ever beheld. He received me courteously, and at once opened the business for which we met. After some compliments on the vigor of my articles in the "Presse," he proceeded to ask what my peculiar opportunities might be for knowing the secret intentions of the two great parties who opposed the government.
My replies were guarded and reserved; seeing which, he at once said,--
"This information is to be recompensed."
I bowed coldly, and only replied that, if he would put distinct questions to me, I should endeavor to answer them.
After some little fencing on both sides, he asked me for the writer of the leading articles in the "Drapeau"--his name and position in life.
For reasons that may be guessed, I declined to reveal these. A similar question as to the "Gazette" met a similar reply. Undeterred by these refusals, he asked me my opinion of these writers" abilities, and the likelihood of their being available to the cause of the Government, under suitable circ.u.mstances.
I spoke half slightingly of their talents, but professed implicit trust in their integrity. He turned the conversation then towards politics, and discussed with me the questions on which I had been writing so earnestly, both for and against, in the two opposing journals. The tone of virulent abuse of both was great; and I half hinted that a personal _amende_ was perhaps the point to which my opponent and as well myself were tending. He smiled slightly, but meaningly.
"That opinion is not yours, then, sir?" asked I.
"Certainly not," said he, blandly. "Monsieur Bertin of the "Presse" will not seek satisfaction from Monsieur Bertin of the Drapeau," still less of Monsieur Bertin of the "Gazette," whom he holds in such slight esteem."
"How, sir! Do you mean to imply that I am the writer in all these journals?"
"You have just told me so, sir," said he, still smiling; "and I respect the word of a gentleman. The tone of ident.i.ty a.s.sumed on paper is exactly that you have yourself put on when advocating any of these lines of policy. I suspected this from the first; now I know it. Ah, Monsieur Bertin, you are in the mere nursery of craftiness,--not but I must admit you are a very promising child of your years."
Far from presuming on his discovery, he spoke more kindly and more confidentially than ever to me; asked my reasons for this opinion and for that, and seemed to think that I must have studied the questions I wrote on deeply and maturely. There was nothing like disparagement in his tone towards me, but, on the contrary, an almost flattering appreciation of my ingenuity as a writer.
"Still, Monsieur Bertin," said he, with affected gravity, "the "Drapeau"
went too far,--that you must allow; and, for your sake as for ours, it is better it should be suppressed. The fine shall be paid, but it must appear to have come from the royalists. Can I trust you for this?"
He looked at me calmly, but steadily as he spoke; and certainly I felt as if any deceit, should I desire it, were perfectly impossible before him. He did not wait for my reply, but, with a seriousness that savored of sincerity, said,--
"The press in France at this moment is the expression of this man or that, but it is no more. We live in a period of too much change to have anything like a public opinion; so that what is written to-day is forgotten to-morrow. Yet with all that, the people must be taught to have one religion of the State as they have one of the Church, and heresies of either kind must be suppressed. Now, Monsieur Bertin, my advice to you is, be of the good fold,--not alone because it is good, but because it is likely to be permanent. Continue to write for the "Gazette." When you want information, Sanson will procure it for you; but you must not come here again. Temper your royalist zeal with a seeming regard for your personal safety. Remember that a gentleman gives larger recognizances than a _sans-culottes_; and, above all, keep in mind that you serve us better in those columns than in our own. C"est de la haute politique, de faire combattre ses ennemis pour soi."
He repeated this sentiment twice over, and then with a courteous gesture dismissed me. I was now in the secret pay of the Government,--no regular allowance made me, but permitted to draw freely; and when any occasion of real information offered, to pay largely for it.
Had time been given me for reflection, I believe I should have abhorred myself for the life I now led. It was one course of daily trick and deception. In society I was a spy; in secret, a traitor. Trusted by all, and false to all, I hurried along in a headlong career of the wildest excitement. To enable me to write, I had recourse to various stimulants; and from one excess to another I became a confirmed opium-eater. I had by habit acquired a degree of nervous irritability that almost defied sleep. For days and days frequently I took no other rest than an occasional half-hour"s repose when overcome, and then back to the desk again,--if not refreshed, at least rallied. The turmoil and confusion of my thoughts at any chance interval of quiet was terrific. So long as I was in action, all went well; when my brain was overworked, and my faculties stretched to their extreme tension, the excitement sustained me, and I could develop whatever there was in me of intellectual power.
The effort over, and my task accomplished, I became almost bereft of life; a trance-like lethargy seized me; my voice failed, my sight and hearing grew dulled, and I would lie thus, sometimes for hours, scarcely breathing, indifferent to everything.
When I rallied from these seizures, I hurried off to Margot, either to her home or to the theatre. To see her, to speak to her, even to hear her, was enough to call me back once more to life and the love, of life.
There was that in her own career, with all its changes and vicissitudes, that seemed to fashion her mind into moods similar to my own. On one day she would be to me like a sister,--kind and warmly affectionate; on another, she would be as though I were her accepted lover, and show me all the tender interest of one whose fate was bound up with my own; and perhaps the very next meeting she would receive me coldly and distrustfully, and darkly hint that my secret life was known to her.
These were to me moments of intense agony. To see through them was worse than any death, and the very dread of them made existence a perfect torture. Till I had seen her I never knew, each day, in what mood she might feel towards me; and if I revelled in the heaven of her smiles, felt her deep glances descending into my very heart, and thrilled with ecstasy at each word she uttered, suddenly there would come the thought that this was but a dream, and that to-morrow would be the dreadful awaking!
Her conduct was inexplicable, for it changed sometimes within the compa.s.s of a few hours, and from warmest confidence would become the most chilling reserve. She would pour out her whole heart before me; tell me how barren were all the triumphs she had achieved; how remote from happiness was this eternal struggle for fame; how her nature yearned for one true, unchanging devotion; how this mockery of pa.s.sion made shipwreck of all real feeling, and left the nature worn out, wearied, and exhausted. She would, perhaps at our next meeting, efface all thought of this confidence by some pa.s.sionate burst of enthusiasm for the stage, and some bold apostrophe to the glory of a great success,--scornfully contrasting such a moment with the whole happiness of a life spent m obscurity. I own that in these outbursts of her wildest imagination her beauty of expression attained its highest excellence. Her dark eyes flashed with the fire of an inspired nature, and her whole figure seemed imbued with a more than mortal loveliness; while in her softer moods there was a sad and plaintive tenderness about her that subdued the spirit, and made her seem even more worthy of love than she had been of admiration. These fitful changes, which at first were only displayed in private, became after a while palpable to the public eye. On one night she would thrill an audience with horror, and in the power of her delineations make the very sternest natures yield to terror. At another, she would shock the public by some indifference to the exigencies of the scene, walk through her part in listless apathy, and receive with calm unconcern the ill-disguised disapproval of the spectators. At such times praise or blame were alike to her; she seemed like one laboring under some pressure of thought too engrossing to admit of any attention to pa.s.sing objects; and in this dreary pre-occupation she moved like one spell-bound and entranced.
To allude to these pa.s.sing states of mind after they had occurred was sure to give her deep offence; and although for a while I dared to do this, yet I saw reason to abandon the attempt, and maintain silence like the rest. The press, with less delicacy, expressed severe censure on what they characterized as an insulting appreciation of the public, and boldly declared that the voices which had made could still unmake a reputation, and that the lesson of contempt might soon pa.s.s from behind the footlights to the s.p.a.ce before them.
It was both my province to keep these criticisms from her eye, and to answer them in print; and for a while I succeeded. I wrote, I argued, I declaimed,--now casuisti-cally expressing praise of what in my heart I condemned; now seeming to discover a hidden meaning where none existed.
I even condescended to appeal to the indulgence of the public in favor of those whose efforts were not always under their own control, and whose pa.s.sing frames of sorrow or sickness must incapacitate them at seasons from embodying their own great conceptions. So sensitive had she become on the subject of remark that the slightest allusion to her health was now resented as an offence, and even Mademoiselle Mars dared not to say that she looked paler or thinner, or in better or worse spirits,--so certain would any allusion of the kind be to displease her.
This irritability gradually widened and extended itself to everything.
The slightest sign of inattention of the audience--any movement in the house while she was acting--a want of ability in those _en scene_ with her--an accidental error in even their costume--gave umbrage; and she would stop in her part, and only by an effort seem able to recover herself and continue. These evidences of indifference to public opinion--for so were they construed--gradually arrayed against her nearly the entire force of the press.
They who had been her most devoted admirers, now displayed all their zeal in the discovery of her faults. The very excellences they had once extolled, they now censured as stage trickery and deceit. One by one, they despoiled her of every qualification for art, save her beauty; and even that, they said, already proclaimed its perishable nature. My heart sickens as I think over the refined cruelty of these daily attacks,--the minute and careful anatomy of humanity studied to inflict misery! To stem this torrent of opinion, I devoted myself alone. Giving up all other writing, I thought only of Margot and her cause. I a.s.sailed her critics with the foulest abuse. I aspersed their motives, and not unfrequently their lives. I eagerly sought out circ.u.mstances of their private habits and actions, and proclaimed them to the world as the men who dared to teach the expressions by which virtues should be rendered, and of whose very existence they were ignorant. I contrasted their means of judgment with their daily lives. I exhibited them as mere hirelings, the cowardly bravos of a degenerate age; and, of course,--for Paris was always the same in this respect,--various duels were fastened on me for my insolence.
My skill at the sword exercise carried me safely through many of these encounters. My recklessness of life may perhaps have served to preserve it, for I was utterly reckless of it! My neglect of politics, and all interest about them, procured my dismissal from the Government journal.
The "Vendee" soon followed the example; and although the violence of my articles in the "Avant Scene" had for a time amused the town, the editors told me that my defence of Mademoiselle Margot had now been carried far enough, and that I should look elsewhere for a new topic.
Not a few of Margot"s warmest admirers condemned the ill-advised zeal of my advocacy. Some even affirmed that much of her unpopularity had its origin in my indiscreet defence. I was coldly told I had "written too much." One said I had "fought too often." The fastidious public--which acknowledged no sincerity, nor would recognize such a thing as truth--condemned, as bad taste, the excesses into which my heartfelt indignation had hurried me. Mademoiselle Mars was a half convert to this opinion; I shuddered one day as I suspected that even Margot seemed to entertain it. I had been pressing her to do something--a mere trifle--to which she dissented. I grew eager, and at last insisted; when, looking at me steadily for some seconds, she said,--
"Has it never occurred to you that over-zeal is apt to defeat itself, from the very suspicion that it excites, that there may be a deeper motive than that which meets the eye?"
The words smote me to the heart. They were the death-knell to all the hope that had sustained me through my long struggle; and though I tried to read them in various ways less wounding to my feelings, one terrible signification surmounted all the others, and seemed to proclaim itself the true meaning. What if it were really so? was the dreadful question that now struck me. What if I had been the cause of her downfall?
The thought so stunned me that I sat powerless under the spell of its terror,--a terror which has tempered every hour of life from that day to this.
CHAPTER XLIII. A Pa.s.sAGE IN THE DRAMA
One of the noted characters about Paris at this time was a certain Captain Fleury; he called himself "Fleury de Montmartre." He had been, it was said, on Bonaparte"s staff in Egypt, but got into disgrace by having taken Kleber"s side, in the differences between the two generals.
Disgusted with the service, in which he saw no prospect of promotion, he quitted the army and came to live in Paris, as some thousands live there, no one can tell how or in what manner. His chief, if not only, occupation seemed to be the frequenting of all the low gambling-houses, where, however, he rarely was seen to play, but rather waited for the good fortune which befell some other, with whom he either dined, or succeeded in borrowing a few francs. Less reputable habits than even these were likewise attributed to him: it was said that he often thrust quarrels upon people at the tables, which he afterwards compromised for money, many preferring to pay rather than risk an encounter with a professed duellist.
In his threadbare military frock and shabby hat, with broken boots and ragged gloves, he still maintained the semblance of his former condition, for he was eminently good-looking, and, in gait and bearing, every inch a soldier. I had made his acquaintance by an accident. I happened to have let fall beside my chair a bank-note for one hundred francs, one night at play. The waiter hurried after me to restore it, just as I was descending the stairs with this Captain Fleury at my side.
I was not aware of my loss, and insisted that the money could not be mine. The waiter was equally positive, and appealed to the Captain to decide the question. Fleury, instead of replying, took out a much-worn pocket-book, and proceeded to examine its contents.
"I"ll wager as much," cried I, "that this gentleman is the owner of the note."