"Ah, you! you are my client, and that will save you; for genius is an odious privilege, to which too much is accorded in France; we shall be forced to annihilate some of our greatest men in order to teach others to be simple citizens."
The corn-cutter spoke with a semi-serious, semi-jesting air that made Gazonal shudder.
"So," he said, "there's to be no more religion?"
"No more religion OF THE STATE," replied the pedicure, emphasizing the last words; "every man will have his own. It is very fortunate that the government is just now endowing convents; they'll provide our funds. Everything, you see, conspires in our favour. Those who pity the peoples, who clamor on behalf of proletaries, who write works against the Jesuits, who busy themselves about the amelioration of no matter what,--the communists, the humanitarians, the philanthropists, you understand,--all these people are our advanced guard. While we are storing gunpowder, they are making the tinder which the spark of a single circumstance will ignite."
"But what do you expect will make the happiness of France?" cried Gazonal.
"Equality of citizens and cheapness of provisions. We mean that there will be no persons lacking anything, no millionaires, no suckers of blood and victims."
"That's it!--maximum and minimum," said Gazonal.
"You've said it," replied the corn-cutter, decisively.
"No more manufacturers?" asked Gazonal.
"The state will manufacture. We shall all be the usufructuaries of France; each will have his ration as on board ship; and all the world will work according to their capacity."
"Ah!" said Gazonal, "and while awaiting the time when you can cut off the heads of aristocrats--"
"I cut their nails," said the radical republican, putting up his tools and finishing the jest himself.
Then he bowed very politely and went away.
"Can this be possible in 1845?" cried Gazonal.
"If there were time we could show you," said his cousin, "all the personages of 1793, and you could talk with them. You have just seen Marat; well! we know Fouquier-Tinville, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Chabot, Fouche, Barras; there is even a magnificent Madame Roland."
"Well, the tragic is not lacking in your play," said Gazonal.
"It is six o'clock. Before we take you to see Odry in 'Les Saltimbauques' to-night," said Leon to Gazonal, "we must go and pay a visit to Madame Cadine,--an actress whom your committee-man Massol cultivates, and to whom you must therefore pay the most assiduous court."
"And as it is all important that you conciliate that power, I am going to give you a few instructions," said Bixiou. "Do you employ workwomen in your manufactory?"
"Of course I do," replied Gazonal.
"That's all I want to know," resumed Bixiou. "You are not married, and you are a great--"
"Yes!" cried Gazonal, "you've guessed my strong point, I'm a great lover of women."
"Well, then! if you will execute the little manoeuvre which I am about to prescribe for you, you will taste, without spending a farthing, the sweets to be found in the good graces of an actress."
When they reached the rue de la Victoire where the celebrated actress lived, Bixiou, who meditated a trick upon the distrustful provincial, had scarcely finished teaching him his role; but Gazonal was quick, as we shall see, to take a hint.
The three friends went up to the second floor of a rather handsome house, and found Madame Jenny Cadine just finishing dinner, for she played that night in an afterpiece at the Gymnase. Having presented Gazonal to this great power, Leon and Bixiou, in order to leave them alone together, made the excuse of looking at a piece of furniture in another room; but before leaving, Bixiou had whispered in the actress's ear: "He is Leon's cousin, a manufacturer, enormously rich; he wants to win a suit before the Council of State against his prefect, and he thinks it wise to fascinate you in order to get Massol on his side."
All Paris knows the beauty of that young actress, and will therefore understand the stupefaction of the Southerner on seeing her. Though she had received him at first rather coldly, he became the object of her good graces before they had been many minutes alone together.
"How strange!" said Gazonal, looking round him disdainfully on the furniture of the salon, the door of which his accomplices had left half open, "that a woman like you should be allowed to live in such an ill-furnished apartment."
"Ah, yes, indeed! but how can I help it? Massol is not rich; I am hoping he will be made a minister."
"What a happy man!" cried Gazonal, heaving the sigh of a provincial.
"Good!" thought she. "I shall have new furniture, and get the better of Carabine."
"Well, my dear!" said Leon, returning, "you'll be sure to come to Carabine's to-night, won't you?--supper and lansquenet."
"Will monsieur be there?" said Jenny Cadine, looking artlessly and graciously at Gazonal.
"Yes, madame," replied the countryman, dazzled by such rapid success.
"But Massol will be there," said Bixiou.
"Well, what of that?" returned Jenny. "Come, we must part, my treasures; I must go to the theatre."
Gazonal gave his hand to the actress, and led her to the citadine which was waiting for her; as he did so he pressed hers with such ardor that Jenny Cadine exclaimed, shaking her fingers: "Take care! I haven't any others."
When the three friends got back into their own vehicle, Gazonal endeavoured to seize Bixiou round the waist, crying out: "She bites!
You're a fine rascal!"
"So women say," replied Bixiou.
At half-past eleven o'clock, after the play, another citadine took the trio to the house of Mademoiselle Seraphine Sinet, better known under the name of Carabine,--one of those pseudonyms which famous lorettes take, or which are given to them; a name which, in this instance, may have referred to the pigeons she had killed.
