Edmond Dantès
revolution. Which one of all shall it be to set the ball of revolution
in motion? The Legitimists, who consider the Duke of Bordeaux the
rightful heir, and Louis Philippe a usurper; the Bonapartists, who think
they evoke the great shade of Napoleon in the person of his unworthy
descendant; or the old Republicans? As for the Conservatives, let them
with Guizot at their head, uphold themselves if they can, and let the
dynasties under Barrot and Thiers overthrow and succeed their factional
foes. Their petty quarrels we care not for. Nor shall we, the
Communists, ever suffer ourselves to be deemed the revolutionary party;
but the revolution once commenced, let us throw ourselves into its
torrent, and with our thorough, perfect and secret organization, we
cannot fail to shape it most successfully to our own, our righteous
ends. The hour when revolution may commence we cannot predict, as it is
not our policy to start or precipitate it; but that hour may come
quickly. It must come on the demise of Louis Philippe, which event
cannot be long delayed, and it may be precipitated before. Nor will
France alone be convulsed. As the news of that old man's death, on the
lightning's wing, spreads over Europe, the electric wire will prove but
a train passing through repeated mines, which, one after the other, will
explode with awful devastation. Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg, the
strongholds of despotism in Europe, each will totter--all but the last
will fall. The press is powerless on the Russian serf. Russia will be
the tyrant's last citadel. Italy will throw off the Austrian yoke and be
free. Gregory XVIII. will shortly die. A wise, far-seeing and benevolent
priest, named Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, born at Sinigaglia, and
now a cardinal, with the title of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, will
succeed to the Papal See, and Italy will be a republic; Genoa, Venice,
Naples, Lombardy, Piedmont and Sardinia will be sister yet sovereign
states, forming one union--the constellation of freedom, the favorite
scheme of Napoleon's better days at last achieving reality. Switzerland,
with her green hills and her field Morgarten, her priestly despots
expelled, shall also be free. But I weary you, Messieurs."
"By no means," cried Marrast, cordially clasping M. Dantes by the hand.
"I have listened in silence to your earnest exposition of the policy you
suggest, and so truly do I subscribe to it that, henceforth, I am your
disciple and adopt your motto, 'Wait and hope' for my own. But it is
nearly two o'clock. In an hour the Chamber sits."
"And, meanwhile, Messieurs," interrupted M. Dantes, "I know not that we
can better employ ourselves, after so protracted a seance, than to
repair to Vefour's. This talking is hungry work, and listening and
thinking, which are by far more tedious, are still more so. So to
Vefour's."
"The seance 'National' is closed!" cried Ledru Rollin, laughing, as the
whole company descended the gloomy stairs.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MYSTERIOUS PRIMA DONNA.
All fashionable Paris was excited over the announcement of a new prima
donna, whose wonderful achievements in Italian opera had set even the
exacting critics of Italy wild with enthusiasm and delight.
This great artiste was no other than the renowned Louise d'Armilly. She
had never before sung in the presence of a Parisian audience, but her
fame had preceded her, and it was accepted as certain that her triumph
at the Academie Royale would be both instantaneous and overwhelming.
She was to assume the role of Lucrezia Borgia, in Donizetti's brilliant
opera of that name, a role in which the enterprising director of the
Academie Royale assured the expectant public that she possessed no
equal.
For weeks every Parisian journal had been sounding her praises with
unremitting zeal, and now her name was as familiar as a household word
in all the high society salons, where the ladies and their gallants
could talk of nothing but the approaching operatic event, while in the
cafes and on the boulevards an equal degree of interest was exhibited.
Even the masses, notwithstanding the political agitation in which they
were involved, had caught the prevailing excitement, and the leaders of
the contending parties themselves paused amid their heated discussions
to talk of Louise d'Armilly.
The career of this young and beautiful artiste had been remarkable. Her
debut had been made at Brussels, about two years before, in company with
her brother, M. Leon d'Armilly, and there, as well as at all the
theatres of Italy, La Scala, Argentina and Valle, they had roused a
perfect storm of operatic enthusiasm.
The origin of this young artiste was veiled in the deepest mystery.
Rumor ascribed to her descent from one of the oldest and most
respectable families of France; and domestic trials, among which was a
matrimonial misadventure, no less than the arrest of an Italian Prince
whom she was about to wed, on the bridal night, as an escaped galley
slave, were assigned as the cause which had given her splendid powers to
the stage.
At an earlier hour than usual--for Parisian fashion never fills the
opera-house until the curtain falls on the second act--the Rue
Lepelletier was crowded with carriages, La Pinon with fiacres, and the
Grande Bateliere and the passages to the Boulevard des Italiens with
persons on foot, all hastening toward that magnificent edifice,
constructed within the space of a single year by Debret, to replace the
building in the Rue de Richelieu ordered to be razed by the Government
because of the assassination at its door of the Duke of Berri, in
1820--that magnificent structure which accommodates two thousand
spectators with seats.
Among the first in the orchestra stalls were Beauchamp and Debray, whose
attention was divided between the stage and the arrivals of splendidly
attired elegantes in the different loges, during the overture. All the
elite of Paris seemed on the qui vive.
"It will be a splendid house," observed Debray.
"The debutante, be she whom she may, should feel flattered by such an
unexampled assemblage of all the ton of Paris."
Orchestra, balcony, galleries, amphitheatres, lobbies and parterre were
packed; every portion of the vast edifice, in short, was thronged except
a few of the loges and baignoires, into which every moment brilliant
companies were entering.
"Who is that tall, dark military man, with the heavy moustache, now
making his way into the Minister's box?" asked Beauchamp, after a pause.
"That man is no less a personage than the Governor of Algeria, Eugene
Cavaignac, Marshal of Camp," said Debray. "He reported himself at the
War Office this morning, and is the lion of the house."
"Ah!" cried the journalist; "and that is the hero of Constantine! What a
frank, open countenance, and what a distingue bearing and manner!"
"You would not suppose all that man's life passed in a camp, would you?"
"His career has, I understand, been remarkable," said Beauchamp.
"Very. His father was a Conventionist of '92, a famous old fellow, who,
among other terrible things laid at his door, is said to have pawned an
old man's life, old Labodere, for his daughter's honor; somewhat, you
remember, as Francis I. spared St. Valliar's life for the favor of the
lovely Diana of Poitiers, his only child. His aged mother is yet living,
a woman of strong mind, though seventy, and he does nothing without her
advice. His brother Godefroi's name was notorious as that of a powerful
Republican leader for years before his decease. At eighteen Eugene
entered the Polytechnic School. At twenty-two he was a sub-lieutenant in
the engineer corps of the second regiment. In '28 he was first
lieutenant in France; in '29 he was captain; in '34 he was in Algeria;
and, in '39, his cool, bold, decided but discreet conduct had made him
chef de bataillon, despite the fact that he had incurred the Royal
displeasure some years before by a disloyal toast at a banquet. In '40
he was lieutenant-colonel; in '41 marshal of camp, and first commander
of division of Tlemeen; in '43, he was conqueror of Constantine, at the
first siege of which I so nearly lost my own valuable head, and he is
now Governor of Algeria, after service there of fourteen years."
"And the tall and sinewy man beside him, presenting such a contrast to
Cavaignac, with his light complexion, gray hair, and sullen and not very
intelligent expression?"
"Oh! that is General Bugeaud, by some deemed the real conqueror of
Algeria. But he's not at all popular with the army. His manners are
simple and excessively blunt. He is a perfect despot with his staff,
'tis said; yet he is quite a wag when in good-humor, and, at Ministerial
dinners, can unbend and make himself as agreeable as need be wished. His
voice is as harsh as a Cossack's, and in perfect contrast to that of
Cavaignac, which is the richest and most musical you ever heard, yet
distinct, emphatic and impressive."
"Bugeaud incurred intense odium with the opposition for his unwarranted
severity as jailor of the Duchess of Berri, in '34, and his killing
Dulong in a duel, because of a deserved taunt on the subject."
"Bugeaud did his duty," said the Secretary, "though a man of his nature
could hardly perform such a duty with gentleness. Bugeaud is not a
gentleman; he knows it, and don't try to seem one. He is only a soldier.
But there comes his very particular foe; General Lamoriciere. That
magnificent woman on his arm is his wife and the sister of the lady who
follows, with her husband, the ex-Minister, Adolphe Thiers."
"What a contrast!" cried Beauchamp. "The tall and elegant figure of
Lamoriciere, in his brilliant uniform of the Spahis, half oriental, half
French, with his lovely wife, and the low, swarthy little ex-Minister in
complete black, with his huge round spectacles on his nose nearly twice
the size of his eyes, and a wife on his arm nearly double his stature.
Why, Thiers reminds me of a Ghoul gallanting a Peri."
"And yet that same dark little ex-Minister has perhaps, in many respects
the most powerful mind--at all events, the most available mind--impelled
as it is by his restless ambition, in all France. Do you observe how
incessantly his keen black eye flashes around the house, beneath his
huge glasses?"
"He seems perfectly aware that every eye in the house is directed toward
his loge. But is it true that his brother-in-law owes his rapid rise to
his influence at Court?"
"By no means," replied Debray. "If there is a man in the French army who
has achieved his own fortunes, that man is Lamoriciere. He went to
Algeria a lieutenant, and bravely and gallantly has he attained his
present brilliant position. It was he who proposed the creation of a
corps of native Arab troops, like the Sepoys of British India; and he
was appointed colonel of the first regiment of Spahis. Our quondam
friend, Maximilian Morrel, has a command in this regiment, and is a
protege of his illustrious exemplar."
"The hostility between Lamoriciere and Bugeaud arises, I suppose, from
the latter's detestable disposition, his overbearing and dictatorial
temper. Lamoriciere is not a man, I take it, to be the slave of any
one."
"Rivalry in Africa is thought to have originated the feud," remarked
Debray, "and political differences in Paris to have inflamed it.
Bugeaud is a Legitimist, and Lamoriciere a Republican."
"Silence!" cried the musical connoisseurs in the orchestra. "The curtain
rises."
As the curtain rose a hush of expectation reigned over the audience. The
hum and bustle ceased, and silence most profound succeeded. The
appearance of the fair cantatrice was the signal for such a reception as
only a Parisian audience can give, and the first strains that issued
from her lips assured them that their applause was not misplaced.