Parisians in the Country. Honore de Balzac
to the traveller’s room carrying pens, ink, and paper.
“What have you got there?” asked Gaudissart.
“If you are going to fight to-morrow,” answered Mitouflet, “you had better make some settlement of your affairs; and perhaps you have letters to write, – we all have beings who are dear to us. Writing doesn’t kill, you know. Are you a good swordsman? Would you like to get your hand in? I have some foils.”
“Yes, gladly.”
Mitouflet returned with foils and masks.
“Now, then, let us see what you can do.”
The pair put themselves on guard. Mitouflet, with his former prowess as grenadier of the guard, made sixty-two passes at Gaudissart, pushed him about right and left, and finally pinned him up against the wall.
“The deuce! you are strong,” said Gaudissart, out of breath.
“Monsieur Vernier is stronger than I am.”
“The devil! Damn it, I shall fight with pistols.”
“I advise you to do so; because, if you take large holster pistols and load them up to their muzzles, you can’t risk anything. They are SURE to fire wide of the mark, and both parties can retire from the field with honor. Let me manage all that. Hein! ‘sapristi,’ two brave men would be arrant fools to kill each other for a joke.”
“Are you sure the pistols will carry WIDE ENOUGH? I should be sorry to kill the man, after all,” said Gaudissart.
“Sleep in peace,” answered Mitouflet, departing.
The next morning the two adversaries, more or less pale, met beside the bridge of La Cise. The brave Vernier came near shooting a cow which was peaceably feeding by the roadside.
“Ah, you fired in the air!” cried Gaudissart.
At these words the enemies embraced.
“Monsieur,” said the traveller, “your joke was rather rough, but it was a good one for all that. I am sorry I apostrophized you: I was excited. I regard you as a man of honor.”
“Monsieur, we take twenty subscriptions to the ‘Children’s Journal,’” replied the dyer, still pale.
“That being so,” said Gaudissart, “why shouldn’t we all breakfast together? Men who fight are always the ones to come to a good understanding.”
“Monsieur Mitouflet,” said Gaudissart on his return to the inn, “of course you have got a sheriff’s officer here?”
“What for?”
“I want to send a summons to my good friend Margaritis to deliver the two casks of wine.”
“But he has not got them,” said Vernier.
“No matter for that; the affair can be arranged by the payment of an indemnity. I won’t have it said that Vouvray outwitted the illustrious Gaudissart.”
Madame Margaritis, alarmed at the prospect of a suit in which the plaintiff would certainly win his case, brought thirty francs to the placable traveller, who thereupon considered himself quits with the happiest region of sunny France, – a region which is also, we must add, the most recalcitrant to new and progressive ideas.
On returning from his trip through the southern departments, the illustrious Gaudissart occupied the coupe of a diligence, where he met a young man to whom, as they journeyed between Angouleme and Paris, he deigned to explain the enigmas of life, taking him, apparently, for an infant.
As they passed Vouvray the young man exclaimed, “What a fine site!”
“Yes, Monsieur,” said Gaudissart, “but not habitable on account of the people. You get into duels every day. Why, it is not three months since I fought one just there,” pointing to the bridge of La Cise, “with a damned dyer; but I made an end of him, – he bit the dust!”
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Finot, Andoche
Cesar Birotteau
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
The Firm of Nucingen
Gaudissart, Felix
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Cousin Pons
Cesar Birotteau
Honorine
Popinot, Anselme
Cesar Birotteau
Cousin Pons
Cousin Betty
THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT
To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de Gramont.
MY DEAR FERDINAND, – If the chances of the world of literature – habent sua fata libelli– should allow these lines to be an enduring record, that will still be but a trifle in return for the trouble you have taken – you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the King-at-Arms of these Studies of Life; you, to whom the Navarreins, Cadignans, Langeais, Blamont-Chauvrys, Chaulieus, Arthez, Esgrignons, Mortsaufs, Valois – the hundred great names that form the Aristocracy of the “Human Comedy” owe their lordly mottoes and ingenious armorial bearings. Indeed, “the Armorial of the Etudes, devised by Ferdinand de Gramont, gentleman,” is a complete manual of French Heraldry, in which nothing is forgotten, not even the arms of the Empire, and I shall preserve it as a monument of friendship and of Benedictine patience. What profound knowledge of the old feudal spirit is to be seen in the motto of the Beauseants, Pulchre sedens, melius agens; in that of the Espards, Des partem leonis; in that of the Vandenesses, Ne se vend. And what elegance in the thousand details of the learned symbolism which will always show how far accuracy has been carried in my work, to which you, the poet, have contributed.
Your old friend,
DE BALZAC.
On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by the Loire, infallibly attracts the traveler’s eye. Sancerre crowns the topmost height of a chain of hills, the last of the range that gives variety to the Nivernais. The Loire floods the flats at the foot of these slopes, leaving a yellow alluvium that is extremely fertile, excepting in those places where it has deluged them with sand and destroyed them forever, by one of those terrible risings which are also incidental to the Vistula – the Loire of the northern coast.
The hill on which the houses of Sancerre are grouped is so far from the river that the little river-port of Saint-Thibault thrives on the life of Sancerre. There wine is shipped and oak staves are landed, with all the produce brought from the upper and lower Loire. At the period when this story begins the suspension bridges at Cosne and at Saint-Thibault were already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre by the southern road were no longer ferried across the river from Cosne to Saint-Thibault; and this of itself is enough to show that the great cross-shuffle of 1830 was a thing of the past, for the House of Orleans has always had a care for substantial improvements, though somewhat after the fashion of a husband who makes his wife presents out of her marriage portion.
Excepting that part of Sancerre which occupies the little plateau, the streets are more or less steep, and the town is surrounded by slopes known as the Great Ramparts, a name which shows that they are the highroads of the place.
Outside the ramparts lies a belt of vineyards. Wine forms the chief industry and the most important trade of the country, which yields several vintages of high-class wine full of aroma, and so nearly resembling the wines of Burgundy, that the vulgar palate is deceived. So Sancerre finds in the wineshops of Paris the quick market indispensable for liquor that will not keep for more than seven or eight years. Below the town lie a few villages, Fontenoy and Saint-Satur, almost suburbs,