"Rodin."
CHAPTER XLIX. THE TRYSTING-PLACE OF THE WOLVES.
It was a Sunday morning the very day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville had received Rodin"s letter with regard to Mother Bunch"s disappearance.
Two men were talking to together, seated at a table in one of the public houses in the little village of Villiers, situated at no great distance from Hardy"s factory. The village was for the most part inhabited by quarrymen and stonecutters, employed in working the neighboring quarries. Nothing can be ruder and more laborious, and at the same time less adequately paid, than the work of this cla.s.s of people. Therefore, as Agricola had told Mother Bunch, they drew painful comparisons between their condition, almost always miserable, and the comfort and comparative ease enjoyed by M. Hardy"s workmen, thanks to his generous and intelligent management, and to the principles of a.s.sociation and community which he had put in practice amongst them. Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels. For a long time, the happiness of M. Hardy"s workmen had been naturally envied, but not with a jealousy amounting to hatred. As soon, however, as the secret enemies of the manufacturer, uniting with his rival Baron Tripeaud, had an interest in changing this peaceful state of things--it changed accordingly.
With diabolical skill and perseverance they succeeded in kindling the most evil pa.s.sions. By means of chosen emissaries, they applied to those quarrymen and stonecutters of the neighborhood, whose bad conduct had aggravated their misery. Notorious for their turbulence, audacity, and energy, these men might exercise a dangerous influence on the majority of their companions, who were peaceful, laborious, and honest, but easily intimidated by violence. These turbulent leaders, previously embittered by misfortune, were soon impressed with an exaggerated idea of the happiness of M. Hardy"s workmen, and excited to a jealous hatred of them. They went still further; the incendiary sermons of an abbe, a member of the Jesuits, who had come expressly from Paris to preach during Lent against M. Hardy, acted powerfully on the minds of the women, who filled the church, whilst their husbands were haunting the taverns. Profiting by the growing fear, which the approach of the Cholera then inspired, the preacher struck with terror these weak and credulous imaginations by pointing to M. Hardy"s factory as a centre of corruption and d.a.m.nation, capable of drawing down the vengeance of Heaven, and bringing the fatal scourge upon the country. Thus the men, already inflamed with envy, were still more excited by the incessant urgency of their wives, who, maddened by the abbe"s sermons, poured their curses on that band of atheists, who might bring down so many misfortunes upon them and their children. Some bad characters, belonging to the factory of Baron Tripeaud, and paid by him (for it was a great interest the honorable manufacturer had in the ruin of M. Hardy), came to augment the general irritation, and to complete it by raising one of those alarming union-questions, which in our day have unfortunately caused so much bloodshed. Many of M. Hardy"s workmen, before they entered his employ, had belonged to a society or union, called the Devourers; while many of the stonecutters in the neighboring quarries belonged to a society called the Wolves. Now, for a long time, an implacable rivalry had existed between the Wolves and Devourers, and brought about many sanguinary struggles, which are the more to be deplored, as, in some respects, the idea of these unions is excellent, being founded on the fruitful and mighty principle of a.s.sociation.
But unfortunately, instead of embracing all trades in one fraternal communion, these unions break up the working-cla.s.s into distinct and hostile societies, whose rivalry often leads to b.l.o.o.d.y collisions.(27) For the last week, the Wolves, excited by so many different importunities, burned to discover an occasion or a pretext to come to blows with the Devourers; but the latter, not frequenting the public-houses, and hardly leaving the factory during the week, had hitherto rendered such a meeting impossible, and the Wolves had been forced to wait for the Sunday with ferocious impatience.
Moreover, a great number of the quarrymen and stonecutters, being peaceable and hard-working people, had refused, though Wolves themselves to join this hostile manifestation against the Devourers of M. Hardy"s factory; the leaders had been obliged to recruit their forces from the vagabonds and idlers of the barriers, whom the attraction of tumult and disorder had easily enlisted under the flag of the warlike Wolves. Such then was the dull fermentation, which agitated the little village of Villiers, whilst the two men of whom we have spoken were at table in the public-house.
These men had asked for a private room, that they might be alone. One of them was still young, and pretty well dressed. But the disorder in his clothes, his loose cravat, his shirt spotted with wine, his dishevelled hair, his look of fatigue, his marble complexion, his bloodshot eyes, announced that a night of debauch had preceded this morning; whilst his abrupt and heavy gesture, his hoa.r.s.e voice, his look, sometimes brilliant, and sometimes stupid, proved that to the last fumes of the intoxication of the night before, were joined the first attacks of a new state of drunkenness. The companion of this man said to him, as he touched his gla.s.s with his own: "Your health, my boy!"
"Yours!" answered the young man; "though you look to me like the devil."
"I!--the devil?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"How did you come to know me?"
"Do you repent that you ever knew me?"
"Who told you that I was a prisoner at Sainte-Pelagie?"
"Didn"t I take you out of prison?"
"Why did you take me out?"
"Because I have a good heart."
"You are very fond of me, perhaps--just as the butcher likes the ox that he drives to the slaughter-house."
"Are you mad?"
"A man does not pay a hundred thousand francs for another without a motive."
"I have a motive."
"What is it? what do you want to do with me?"
"A jolly companion that will spend his money like a man, and pa.s.s every night like the last. Good wine, good cheer, pretty girls, and gay songs.
Is that such a bad trade?"
After he had remained a moment without answering, the young man replied with a gloomy air: "Why, on the eve of my leaving prison, did you attach this condition to my freedom, that I should write to my mistress to tell her that I would never see her again! Why did you exact this letter from me?"
"A sigh! what, are you still thinking of her?"
"Always."
"You are wrong. Your mistress is far from Paris by this time. I saw her get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of Sainte Pelagie."
"Yes, I was stifled in that prison. To get out, I would have given my soul to the devil. You thought so, and therefore you came to me; only, instead of my soul, you took Cephyse from me. Poor Baccha.n.a.l-Queen! And why did you do it? Thousand thunders! Will you tell me!"
"A man as much attached to his mistress as you are is no longer a man.
He wants energy, when the occasion requires."
"What occasion?"
"Let us drink!"
"You make me drink too much brandy."
"Bah! look at me!"
"That"s what frightens me. It seems something devilish. A bottle of brandy does not even make you wink. You must have a stomach of iron and a head of marble."
"I have long travelled in Russia. There we drink to roast ourselves."
"And here to only warm. So--let"s drink--but wine."
"Nonsense! wine is fit for children. Brandy for men like us!"
"Well, then, brandy; but it burns, and sets the head on fire, and then we see all the flames of h.e.l.l!"
"That"s how I like to see you, hang it!"
"But when you told me that I was too much attached to my mistress, and that I should want energy when the occasion required, of what occasion did you speak?"
"Let us drink!"
"Stop a moment, comrade. I am no more of a fool than others. Your half words have taught me something.
"Well, what?"
"You know that I have been a workman, that I have many companions, and that, being a good fellow, I am much liked amongst them. You want me for a catspaw, to catch other chestnuts?"
"What then?"
"You must be some getter-up of riots--some speculator in revolts."
"What next?"