CHAPTER II.
On quitting the dining-room, the Duchesse de Tarascon said to her host,
on whose arm she was leaning, "Of course you and I must go with the
stream. But is not all the fine talk that has passed to-day at your
table, and in which we too have joined, a sort of hypocrisy? I may say
this to you; I would say it to no other."
"And I say to you, Madame la Duchesse, that which I would say to no
other. Thinking over it as I sit alone, I find myself making a 'terrible
hazard;' but when I go abroad and become infected by the general
enthusiasm, I pluck up gaiety of spirit, and whisper to myself, 'True,
but it may be an enormous gain.' To get the left bank of the Rhine is a
trifle; but to check in our next neighbour a growth which a few years
hence would overtop us,--that is no trifle. And, be the gain worth the
hazard or not, could the Emperor, could any Government likely to hold its
own for a week, have declined to take the chance of the die?"
The Duchesse mused a moment, and meanwhile the two seated themselves on a
divan in the corner of the salon. Then she said very slowly--
"No Government that held its tenure on popular suffrage could have done
so. But if the Emperor had retained the personal authority which once
allowed the intellect of one man to control and direct the passions of
many, I think the war would have been averted. I have reason to know
that the Emperor gave his emphatic support to the least bellicose members
of the Council, and that Gramont's speech did not contain the passage
that precipitates hostilities when the Council in which it was framed
broke up. These fatal Ministers found the Chamber, and the reports of
the popular excitement which could not be resisted without imminent
danger of revolution. It is Paris that has forced the war on the
Emperor. But enough of this subject. What must be, must, and, as you
say, the gain may be greater than the hazard. I come to something else
you whispered to me before we went in to dinner,--a sort of complaint
which wounds me sensibly. You say I had assisted to a choice of danger
and possibly of death a very distant connection of mine, who might have
been a very near connection of yours. You mean Alain de Rochebriant?"
"Yes; I accept him as a suitor for the hand of my only daughter."
"I am so glad, not for your sake so much as for his. No one can know him
well without appreciating in him the finest qualities of the finest order
of the French noble; but having known your pretty Valerie so long, my
congratulations are for the man who can win her. Meanwhile, hear my
explanation: when I promised Alain any interest I can command for the
grade of officer in a regiment of Mobiles, I knew not that he had formed,
or was likely to form, ties or duties to keep him at home. I withdraw my
promise."
"No, Duchesse, fulfil it. I should be disloyal indeed if I robbed a
sovereign under whose tranquil and prosperous reign I have acquired,
with no dishonour, the fortune which Order proffers to Commerce, of one
gallant defender in the hour of need. And, speaking frankly, if Alain
were really my son, I think I am Frenchman enough to remember that France
is my mother."
"Say no more, my friend--say no more," cried the Duchesse, with the warm
blood of the heart rushing through all the delicate coatings of pearl-
powder. "If every Frenchman felt as you do; if in this Paris of ours all
hostilities of class may merge in the one thought of the common country;
if in French hearts there yet thrills the same sentiment as that which,
in the terrible days when all other ties were rent asunder, revered
France as mother, and rallied her sons to her aid against the confederacy
of Europe,--why, then, we need not grow pale with dismay at the sight of
a Prussian needle-gun. Hist! look yonder: is not that a tableau of Youth
in Arcady? Worlds rage around, and Love, unconcerned, whispers to Love!"
The Duchesse here pointed to a corner of the adjoining room in which
Alain and Valerie sat apart, he whispering into her ear; her cheek
downcast, and, even seen at that distance, brightened by the delicate
tenderness of its blushes.
