第10章

THE FIRST PARLIAMENTARY TEMPEST

"Messieurs," said Simon Giguet, "I ask permission to thank Monsieur Achille Pigoult, who, although our meeting is altogether friendly--""It is a meeting preparatory to the great primary meeting," said the solicitor Marcelin.

"That is what I was about to explain," resumed Simon, "I thank Monsieur Achille Pigoult for having insisted on the strictness of parliamentary forms.This is the first time that the arrondissement of Arcis has been at liberty to use--""At liberty!" said Pigoult, interrupting the orator.

"At liberty!" cried the assembly.

"At liberty," continued Simon Giguet, "to use its rights in the great battle of a general election to the Chamber of Deputies; and as, in a few days, we shall have a meeting, at which all electors will be present, to judge of the merits of the candidates, we ought to feel ourselves most fortunate in becoming accustomed here, in this limited meeting, to the usages of great assemblies.We shall be all the more able to decide the political future of the town of Arcis; for the question now is to substitute a town's interests for family interests, a whole region for a man."Simon then reviewed the history of the Arcis elections for the last twenty years.While approving the constant election of Francois Keller, he said the moment had now come to shake off the yoke of the house of Gondreville.Arcis ought to be no more a fief of the liberals than a fief of the Cinq-Cygnes.Advanced opinions were arising in France of which the Kellers were not the exponents.Charles Keller, having become a viscount, belonged to the court; he could have no independence, because, in presenting him as candidate, his family thought much more of making him succeed to his father's peerage than of benefiting his constituency as deputy, etc., etc.And, finally, Simon presented himself to the choice of his fellow-citizens, pledging his word to sit on the same bench with the illustrious Odilon Barrot, and never to desert the glorious flag of Progress.

Progress! one of those words behind which more flimsy ambitions than ideas were trying to group themselves; for, after 1830, it represented only the pretensions of a few hungry democrats.Nevertheless, this word had still a great effect upon Arcis, and gave stability to whosoever might inscribe it on his banner.To call himself a man of progress was to declare himself a philosopher in all things and a puritan in politics; it declared him in favor of railroads, mackintoshes, penitentiaries, wooden pavements, Negro freedom, savings-banks, seamless shoes, lighting by gas, asphalt pavements, universal suffrage, and reduction of the civil list.In short, it meant pronouncing himself against the treaties of 1815, against the Eldest Branch, against the colossus of the North, perfidious Albion, against all enterprises, good or bad, of the government.Thus we see that the word progress might signify "No," as well as "Yes." It was gilding put upon the word liberalism, a new pass-word for new ambitions.

"If I have rightly understood what this meeting is for," said Jean Violette, a stocking-maker, who had recently bought the Beauvisage house, "it is to pledge ourselves to support, by employing every means in our power, Monsieur Simon Giguet at the elections as deputy in place of Comte Francois Keller.If each of us intends to coalesce in this manner we have only to say plainly Yes or No on that point.""That is going too quickly to the point! Political affairs do not advance in that way, or there would be no politics at all!" cried Pigoult, whose old grandfather, eighty-six years old, had just entered the room."The last speaker undertakes to decide what seems to me, according to my feeble lights, the very object we are met to discuss.

I demand permission to speak."

"Monsieur Achille Pigoult has the floor," said Beauvisage, at last able to pronounce that phrase with all his municipal and constitutional dignity.

"Messieurs," said the notary, "if there is a house in Arcis in which no voice should be raised against the influence of the Comte de Gondreville, it is surely the one we are now in.The worthy Colonel Giguet is the only person in it who has not sought the benefits of the senatorial power; he, at least, has never asked anything of the Comte de Gondreville, who took his name off the list of exiles in 1815 and caused him to receive the pension which the colonel now enjoys without lifting a finger to obtain it."A murmur, flattering to the old soldier, greeted this observation.

"But," continued the orator, "the Marions are covered with the count's benefits.Without that influence, the late Colonel Giguet would not have commanded the gendarmerie of the Aube.The late Monsieur Marion would not have been chief-justice of the Imperial court without the protection of the count, to whom I myself have every reason to be thankful.You will therefore think it natural that I should be his advocate within these walls.There are, indeed, few persons in this arrondissement who have not received benefits from that family."[Murmurs.]

"A candidate puts himself in the stocks," continued Achille Pigoult, warming up."I have the right to scrutinize his life before I invest him with my powers.I do not desire ingratitude in the delegate I may help to send to the Chamber, for ingratitude is like misfortune--one ingratitude leads to others.We have been, he tells us, the stepping-stone of the Kellers; well, from what I have heard here, I am afraid we may become the stepping-stone of the Giguets.We live in a practical age, do we not? Well, then, let us examine into what will be the results to the arrondissement of Arcis if Simon Giguet is elected.