One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the Quotidienne, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest voice; for the question concerned her favorite:—
“Father, Theodule is coming to present his respects to you this morning.”
“Who’s Theodule?”
“Your grandnephew.”
“Ah!” said the grandfather.
Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his grandnephew, who was merely some Theodule or other, and soon flew into a rage, which almost always happened when he read.
The “sheet” which he held, although Royalist, of course, announced for the following day, without any softening phrases, one of these little events which were of daily occurrence at that date in Paris:
“That the students of the schools of law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du Pantheon, at midday,—to deliberate.”
The discussion concerned one of the questions of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict between the Minister of War and “the citizen’s militia,” on the subject of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre.
The students were to “deliberate” over this.
It did not take much more than this to swell M. Gillenormand’s rage.
He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with the rest, to “deliberate, at midday, on the Place du Pantheon.”
As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant Theodule entered clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which was clever of him, and was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand.
The lancer had reasoned as follows: “The old druid has not sunk all his money in a life pension. It is well to disguise one’s self as a civilian from time to time.”
Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:— “Theodule, your grandnephew.”
And in a low voice to the lieutenant:—
“Approve of everything.”
And she withdrew.
The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable encounters, stammered with some timidity:
“Good day, uncle,”—and made a salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute.
“Ah! so it’s you; that is well, sit down,” said the old gentleman.
That said, he totally forgot the lancer.
Theodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose.
M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets, talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two watches which he wore in his two fobs.
“That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du Pantheon! by my life! urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday!
If one were to squeeze their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at midday.
What are we coming to?
What are we coming to?
It is clear that we are making for the abyss.
That is what the descamisados have brought us to!
To deliberate on the citizen artillery!
To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the National Guard!
And with whom are they to meet there?
Just see whither Jacobinism leads.
I will bet anything you like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but returned convicts and released galley-slaves.
The Republicans and the galley-slaves,—they form but one nose and one handkerchief.
Carnot used to say:
‘Where would you have me go, traitor?’
Fouche replied:
‘Wherever you please, imbecile!’
That’s what the Republicans are like.”
“That is true,” said Theodule.
M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Theodule, and went on:—
“When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn carbonaro!
Why did you leave my house?
To go and become a Republican!
Pssst!
In the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common sense, they know well that there always have been kings, and that there always will be; they know well that the people are only the people, after all, they make sport of it, of your republic—do you understand, idiot?
Is it not a horrible caprice?
To fall in love with Pere Duchesne, to make sheep’s-eyes at the guillotine, to sing romances, and play on the guitar under the balcony of ‘93—it’s enough to make one spit on all these young fellows, such fools are they!