Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who sat in the front seat of the carriage, respectfully leaving the inside to his older brother.
The two brothers did not exchange a word. Hector was shattered. The Marshal was absorbed in his thoughts, like a man who is summoning up all his strength and concentrating it in order to support a crushing weight.
When they reached his house, he led his brother to his study without saying a word but with a commanding gesture.
The Emperor Napoleon had given the Count a magnificent pair of pistols made at Versailles; on the case was engraved the inscription: Presented by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot. He took it out of the desk where he kept it, indicated it to his brother, and said:
‘There’s your medicine.’
Lisbeth, who was looking through the half-open door, hurried to the carriage and ordered the coachman to drive at full speed to the Rue Plumet.
In about twenty minutes she brought back the Baroness, whom she had told of the Marshal’s threat to his brother.
Without looking at his brother, the Count rang for his servant, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years.
‘Beaupied,’ he said, ‘fetch my lawyer, Count Steinbock, my niece Hortense, and the Treasury stockbroker. It’s now half past ten and I must have them all here by twelve. Take cabs and go faster than that…’ he said, reverting to a Republican expression that was often on his lips in former times.
And he assumed the fierce expression which kept his soldiers in order when he was searching the thickets of Brittany in 1799 (see Les Chouans).*
‘You will be obeyed, Marshal,’ said Beaupied, giving a military salute.
Without paying any attention to his brother, the old man went back into his study, took a key that was concealed in a desk, and opened a malachite box mounted on steel, a gift from the Emperor Alexander.
On the Emperor Napoleon’s orders, General Hulot had gone to return to the Russian Emperor personal property captured at the Battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon was hoping to get Vandamme.*
The Czar rewarded General Hulot magnificently by giving him the malachite box, and told him that he hoped one day to extend the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French. But he kept Vandamme.
The Imperial Arms of Russia were inlaid in gold on the lid of the box, which was ornamented entirely with gold. The Marshal counted out the bank notes and the gold it contained. He had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He made a gesture expressing his satisfaction.
At that moment Madame Hulot came in, in a state fit to melt the heart even of politically biased judges.
She threw herself into Hector’s arms, looking frantically from the box of pistols to the Marshal.
‘What have you against your brother? What has my husband done to you?’ she said in such ringing tones that the Marshal heard her.
‘He has dishonoured us all,’ replied the old soldier of the Republic, with an effort that re-opened one of his wounds. ‘He has robbed the State. He has made my name hateful to me; he makes me want to die; he has killed me. I have only enough strength left to make restitution. I have been humiliated before the Condé* of the Republic, before the man I esteem above all others and whom, unjustly, I accused of lying, the Prince de Wissembourg. Is that nothing? That’s the state of his account with his country!’
He wiped away a tear.
‘And now for his family,’ he continued. ‘He snatches from you the bread I was saving for you, the fruit of thirty years’ savings, the hoard acquired from the privations of an old soldier. That’s what I was intending for you,’ he said, pointing to the bank notes. ‘He has killed his Uncle Fischer, a noble and worthy son of Alsace, who could not, as he did, endure the thought of a stain upon his peasant name. Above all, God in his wonderful mercy allowed him to choose the most angelic of women. He had the incredible good fortune to marry an Adeline, but he has betrayed her, filled her cup with sorrows. He has left her for whores, street-walkers, dancing-girls, and actresses, for Cadines, Joséphas, and Marneffes. And this is the man whom I regarded as my son, my pride. Go, unhappy creature, if you can accept the disgraceful life you have made for yourself. Leave my house! As for me, I haven’t the strength to curse a brother I’ve loved so much. I’m as weak, as far as he is concerned, as you are, Adeline. But let him never come into my presence again. I forbid him to attend my funeral, to follow my coffin. Let him bear the shame of his crime, even if he feels no remorse.’
The Marshal, who had turned deadly pale, dropped on to the couch in his study, exhausted by this solemn speech.
And for the first time in his life, perhaps, two tears fell from his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.
‘Poor Uncle Fischer!’ exclaimed Lisbeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes.
‘Brother,’ said Adeline, kneeling down in front of the Marshal. ‘Live for my sake! Help me in the work I shall undertake of reconciling Hector to life, of making him atone for his sins.’
‘Him!’ said the Marshal. ‘If he lives, he’s not come to the end of his crimes. A man who failed to appreciate an Adeline, and who has extinguished in his heart the feelings of a true republican, the love of family, of country, and of the poor that I tried to inculcate in him, that man is a monster, a swine. Take him away, if you still love him, for I hear a voice within me, crying to me to load my pistols and blow his brains out. By killing him, I’d save you all and I’d save him from himself.’
The old man got up with such a terrifying gesture that poor Adeline cried:
‘Come, Hector!’
She gripped hold of her husband, led him away, and left the house, dragging the Baron along with her; he was in such a sorry state that she had to put him in a cab to convey him to the Rue Plumet, where he took to his bed.
Completely prostrated, he stayed there several days, refusing all food and not saying a word.
By dint of tears, Adeline persuaded him to swallow some broth. She watched over him, sitting by his bedside, and of all the feelings that had once filled her heart, there remained only a profound pity.