Just then, Marshal Hulot, learning that his brother and the Minister were alone together, took the liberty of walking in and, as deaf men do, went straight up to the Prince.
Oh,’ shouted the hero of the Polish campaign, ‘I know what you’ve come for, my old comrade, but it’s no use.’
‘No use?’ repeated Marshal Hulot, who had heard only those two words.
‘Yes, you’ve come to speak up for your brother, but do you know what your brother is?’
‘My brother?’ the deaf man asked.
‘Well, he’s a damned scoundrel, unworthy of you,’ shouted the Marshal.
And in his anger the Marshal’s eyes darted those flaming looks which, like Napoleon’s, broke men’s wills and minds.
‘That’s a lie, Cottin,’ replied Marshal Hulot, who had turned pale. ‘Throw down your baton, as I throw down mine. I am at your service.’
The Prince went straight up to his old comrade, looked him straight in the face, and shouted in his ear as he pressed his hand:
‘Are you a man?’
‘You shall see.’
‘Well, keep a grip on yourself! You have to bear the greatest misfortune that could happen to you.’
The Prince turned round, took a file from his table, and put it in Marshal Hulot’s hands, shouting to him:
‘Read that!’
The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter which was on the file.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL
(Confidential)
Algiers
‘My dear Prince,—We have a very unpleasant business on our hands, as you will see from the enclosed documents.
‘Briefly, the matter is this. Baron Hulot d’Ervy sent one of his uncles to the province of O… to speculate on the purchases of grain and forage, giving him a storekeeper as an accomplice. The storekeeper confessed in order to enhance his own importance and finally ran away. The public prosecutor dealt with the matter strictly, thinking only two minor officials were involved. But Johann Fischer, your Director-General’s uncle, finding himself about to be put on trial, stabbed himself in prison with a nail.
‘That would have been the end of it all, if this worthy, honest man, apparently deceived by both his accomplice and his nephew, had not taken it into his head to write to Baron Hulot. His letter, seized by the prosecution, so amazed the Public Prosecutor that he came to see me. It would be such a terrible thing to arrest and try a Councillor of State, a Director-General who has such a long record of good and loyal service (for, after the crossing of the Béresina,* he saved us all by reorganizing the administration), that I had the papers sent to me.
‘Must the affair take its course? Or, since the main obvious culprit is dead, should we put an end to the legal proceedings by convicting the storekeeper in his absence?
‘The public prosecutor agrees to my sending you the papers, and since Baron Hulot d’Ervy is domiciled in Paris, the prosecution will be within the jurisdiction of your higher court. We have thought up this rather dubious way of getting rid of the problem for the moment.
‘Only, my dear Marshal, make a decision quickly. People are already talking far too much about this deplorable business, which would do as much harm to us as it will cause to others, if the complicity of the main culprit, known as yet only to the public prosecutor, the examining magistrate, and myself, should leak out.’
There the paper fell from Marshall Hulot’s hands. He looked at his brother and saw there was no point in reading the rest of the papers. But he looked for Johann Fischer’s letter and handed it to him after reading it at a glance.
‘From the prison at O…’
Dear Nephew,—When you read this letter, I shall no longer be alive.
‘Don’t worry; no evidence will be found against you.
‘With me dead, and that Jesuit of a Chardin escaped, the lawsuit will be stopped.
‘The thought of our Adeline’s face, made happy by you, makes death easy for me.
‘You no longer need to send the two hundred thousand francs. Goodbye.
‘This letter will be delivered to you by a prisoner whom I think I can trust.
JOHANN FISCHER’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Marshal Hulot said to the Prince de Wissembourg with touching pride.
‘Come, don’t stand on ceremony with me, Hulot,’ the Minister replied, pressing his old friend’s hand. ‘The poor lancer killed no one but himself,’ he said with a thunderous look at Hulot d’Ervy.
‘How much did you take?’ the Comte de Forzheim asked his brother sternly.
‘Two hundred thousand francs.’
‘My dear friend,’ said the Count, turning to the Minister. ‘You will have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot defrauded the State of one sou.’
‘What nonsense!’ said the Marshal. ‘I know where the two hundred thousand francs are and I’ll have them returned. Hand in your resignation and apply for your pension,’ he continued, tossing a double sheet of foolscap paper to the other side of the table, where the Councillor of State, his legs giving way beneath him, had sat down. ‘Your trial would bring shame on all of us, so I’ve had the permission of the Council of Ministers to take the course of action I’m pursuing. Since you accept life without honour, without my esteem, a life of degradation, you’ll have the pension you’re entitled to. Only make yourself scarce!’
The Marshal rang,
‘Is the clerk Marneffe there?’
‘Yes, Monseigneur,’ said the doorkeeper.
‘Tell him to come in.’
‘You and your wife,’ exclaimed the Minister, on seeing Marneffe, ‘have deliberately ruined the Baron d’Ervy, who is sitting here.’
‘I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Ministre. We are very poor. I have only my salary to live on and I have two children; the second one will have been placed in my family by Monsieur le Baron.’
‘What a scoundrel he looks,’ said the Prince to Marshal Hulot, indicating Marneffe. ‘That’s enough of this Sganarelle* whining,’ he continued. ‘You will give back two hundred thousand francs or you will go to Algeria.’
‘But, Monsieur le Ministre, you don’t know my wife. She’s gone through the lot. Monsieur le Baron used to invite six people to dinner every day. They spent fifty thousand francs a year at my house.’
‘Get out,’ said the Minister in the terrible voice that used to give the order to charge in the thick of battle. ‘You will receive notice of your transfer in two hours…. Go.’
‘I prefer to hand in my resignation,’ said Marneffe insolently, ‘for it’s too much to be in my shoes and beaten into the bargain. I wouldn’t be satisfied in that situation.’
And he left the room.
‘What an impudent rascal,’ said the Prince.
Marshal Hulot, who had remained standing, motionless and deathly pale, looking surreptitiously at his brother, went over to the Prince, took his hand and said again:
‘In forty-eight hours the material loss will be made good, but as for honour! Goodbye, Marshal. It’s the last blow that kills. Yes, it will kill me,’ he murmured.
‘Why the devil did you have to come this morning?’ returned the Prince, deeply moved.
‘I came on behalf of his wife,’ replied the Count, pointing to Hector. ‘She is destitute, now more than ever.’
‘He has his pension,’
‘It’s pledged to a money-lender.’
‘He must be possessed by the devil,’ said the Prince, shrugging his shoulders. ‘What philtre do such women make you swallow to deprive you of your wits?’ he asked Hulot d’Ervy. ‘How could you, you who know the meticulous care with which the French administration writes down everything, records everything, gets through reams of paper to note the receipt or expenditure of a few centimes, you who used to deplore the requirement of hundreds of signatures for trifles, to free a soldier, to buy curry-combs, how could you possibly hope to conceal a theft for long? And what about the newspapers? and the people who’re jealous of you? and the people who would like to steal? Do these women deprive you of common sense? Do they put blinkers on your eyes? Or are you made differently from the rest of us? You should have left government service the moment you ceased to be a man and became a slave to your temperament. If you add such follies to your crime, you’ll end up … I don’t want to say where.’
‘Promise me to look after her, Cottin,’ said the Comte de Forzheim, who heard nothing and was thinking only of his sister-in-law.
‘Set your mind at ease,’ said the Minister.
‘Well, thank you and goodbye. Come, Monsieur,’ he said to his brother.
The Prince looked, apparently calmly, at the two brothers, so different in their attitude, build, and character, the brave man and the coward, the self-indulgent and the disciplined, the honest man and the speculator, and he said to himself:
‘That coward will not know how to die, but my poor Hulot, the soul of integrity, has death in his knapsack.’
He sat down in his chair and resumed reading the despatches from Africa with a gesture which revealed both a military commander’s self-control and the profound pity inspired by the sight of battlefields; for in reality, no men are more humane than soldiers, who appear to be so tough and whose familiarity with war gives them that impassive firmness, so essential on the battlefield.