The Deputy of Arcis. Honore de Balzac
all,” said Olivier Vinet slyly to the sub-prefect, “Simon Giguet is your friend and schoolmate; he will belong to the Thiers’ party; you risk nothing in supporting his election.”
“The present ministry could dismiss me before its fall,” replied the sub-prefect, “and who knows when I should be reappointed?”
“Collinet, the grocer! – that makes the sixty-sixth elector who has entered the Giguet house,” said Monsieur Martener, who was practising his trade as examining-judge by counting the electors.
“If Charles Keller is the ministerial candidate,” resumed the sub-prefect, “I ought to have been told of it; the government makes a mistake in giving time for Simon Giguet to get hold of the electors.”
These four individuals had now reached, walking slowly, the spot where the avenue ceases and becomes an open square.
“There’s Monsieur Groslier,” said the judge, catching sight of a man on horseback.
This was the commissary of police; he saw the government of Arcis collected on the public square, and he rode up to the four gentlemen.
“Well, Monsieur Groslier?” said the sub-prefect, taking the commissary a little apart from his three colleagues.
“Monsieur,” said the commissary of police in a low voice, “Monsieur la prefet has sent me to tell you some sad news; Monsieur le Vicomte Charles Keller is dead. The news reached Paris by telegram night before last, and the two Messieurs Keller, the Comte de Gondreville, the Marechale Carigliano, in fact the whole family are now at Gondreville. Abd-el-Kader has resumed the offensive in Africa; the war is being vigorously carried on. This poor young man was among the first victims of the renewal of hostilities. You will receive confidential instructions, so Monsieur le prefet told me, in relation to the coming election.”
“By whom?” asked the sub-prefect.
“If I knew that, the matter would not be confidential,” replied the commissary. “In fact, I think the prefect himself does not know. He told me that the matter would be a secret one between you and the ministry.”
Then he rode on, after seeing the sub-prefect lay his fingers on his lips as a warning to keep silence.
“Well, what news from the prefecture?” said the procureur-du-roi, when Goulard returned to the group of the three functionaries.
“Nothing satisfactory,” replied Goulard, stepping quickly, as if he wanted to get away from the others, who now walked silently toward the middle of the square, somewhat piqued by the manner of the sub-prefect. There Monsieur Martener noticed old Madame Beauvisage, the mother of Phileas, surrounded by nearly all the bourgeois on the square, to whom she was apparently relating something. A solicitor, named Sinot, who numbered all the royalists of Arcis among his clients, and who had not gone to the Giguet meeting, now detached himself from the group, and running to the door of the Marion house rang the bell violently.
“What can be the matter?” said Frederic Marest, dropping his eyeglass, and calling the attention of his colleagues to this circumstance.
“The matter is, messieurs,” said the sub-prefect, thinking it useless to keep a secret which was evidently known to the other party, “that Charles Keller has been killed in Africa, and that this event doubles the chances of Simon Giguet. You know Arcis; there can be no other ministerial candidate than Charles Keller. Any other man would find the whole local patriotism of the place arrayed against him.
“Will they really elect such an idiot as Simon Giguet?” said Olivier Vinet, laughing.
This young substitute, then only twenty-three years of age, was the son of one of our most famous attorney-generals, who had come into power with the Revolution of July; he therefore owed his early entrance into public life to the influence of his father. The latter, always elected deputy by the town of Provins, is one of the buttresses of the Centre in the Chamber. Therefore the son, whose mother was a Demoiselle de Chargeboeuf [see “Pierrette”], had a certain air of assurance, both in his functions and in his personal behavior, that plainly showed the backing of his father. He expressed his opinion on men and things without reserve; for he confidently expected not to stay very long at Arcis, but to receive his appointment as procureur-du-roi at Versailles, a sure step to a post in Paris.
The confident air of this little Vinet, and the sort of assumption which the certainty of making his way gave to him, was all the more irritating to Frederic Marest, his superior, because a biting wit accompanied the rather undisciplined habits and manners of his young subordinate. Frederic Marest, procureur-du-roi, a man about forty years of age, who had spent six years of his life under the Restoration in becoming a substitute only to be neglected and left in Arcis by the government of July, in spite of the fact that he had some eighteen thousand francs a year of his own, was perpetually kept on the rack between the necessity of winning the good graces of young Vinet’s father – a touchy attorney-general who might become Keeper of the Seals – and of keeping his own dignity.
Olivier Vinet, slender in figure, with a pallid face, lighted by a pair of malicious green eyes, was one of those sarcastic young gentlemen, inclined to dissipation, who nevertheless know how to assume the pompous, haughty, and pedantic air with which magistrates arm themselves when they once reach the bench. The tall, stout, heavy, and grave procureur-du-roi had lately invented a system by which he hoped to keep out of trouble with the exasperating Olivier; he treated him as a father would treat a spoilt child.
“Olivier,” he replied to his substitute, slapping him on the shoulder, “a man of your capacity ought to reflect that Maitre Giguet is very likely to become deputy. You’d have made that remark just as readily before the people of Arcis as before us, who are safe friends.”
“There is one thing against Giguet,” observed Monsieur Martener.
This good young man, rather heavy but full of capacity, the son of a physician in Provins, owed his place to Vinet’s father, who was long a lawyer in Provins and still continued to be the patron of his people as the Comte de Gondreville was the patron of the people of Arcis.
“What is that?” asked the sub-prefect.
“Local patriotism is always bitterly against a man who is imposed upon the electors,” replied the examining-judge, “but when it happens that the good people of Arcis have to elevate one of their own equals to the Chamber, envy and jealousy are stronger than patriotism.”
“That is very simple,” said the procureur-du-roi, “and very true. If you can manage to collect fifty ministerial votes you will find yourself master of the coming election,” he added, addressing the sub-prefect.
“It will do if you produce a candidate of the same calibre as Simon Giguet,” said Olivier Vinet.
The sub-prefect allowed an expression of satisfaction to appear upon his features, which did not escape the notice of his three companions, with whom, moreover, he had a full understanding. All four being bachelors, and tolerably rich, they had formed, without premeditation, an alliance against the dulness of the provinces. The three functionaries had already remarked the sort of jealousy that Goulard felt for Giguet, which a few words on their antecedents will explain.
Antonin Goulard, the son of a former huntsman to the house of Simeuse, enriched by the purchase of the confiscated property of emigres was, like Simon Giguet, a son of Arcis. Old Goulard, his father, left the abbey of Valpreux (corruption of Val-des-Preux) to live in Arcis after the death of his wife, and he sent his son to the imperial lyceum, where Colonel Giguet had already placed his son Simon. The two schoolmates subsequently went through their legal studies in Paris together, and their intimacy was continued in the amusements of youth. They promised to help each other to success in life whenever they entered upon their different careers. But fate willed that they should end by being rivals.
In spite of Goulard’s manifest advantages, in spite of the cross of the Legion of honor which the Comte de Gondreville had obtained for him in default of promotion, the offer of his heart and position had been frankly declined when, about six months before this history begins, he had privately presented himself to Madame Beauvisage as a suitor for