XII

MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L’ESTORADE
February.

At nine o’clock this morning, sweetheart, my father was announced in my rooms.  I was up and dressed.  I found him solemnly seated beside the fire in the drawing-room, looking more thoughtful than usual.  He pointed to the armchair opposite to him.  Divining his meaning, I sank into it with a gravity, which so well aped his, that he could not refrain from smiling, though the smile was dashed with melancholy.

“You are quite a match for your grandmother in quick-wittedness,” he said.

“Come, father, don’t play the courtier here,” I replied; “you want something from me.”

He rose, visibly agitated, and talked to me for half an hour.  This conversation, dear, really ought to be preserved.  As soon as he had gone, I sat down to my table and tried to recall his words.  This is the first time that I have seen my father revealing his inner thoughts.

He began by flattering me, and he did not do it badly.  I was bound to be grateful to him for having understood and appreciated me.

“Armande,” he said, “I was quite mistaken in you, and you have agreeably surprised me.  When you arrived from the convent, I took you for an average young girl, ignorant and not particularly intelligent, easily to be bought off with gewgaws and ornaments, and with little turn for reflection.”

“You are complimentary to young girls, father.”

“Oh! there is no such thing as youth nowadays,” he said, with the air of a diplomat.  “Your mind is amazingly open.  You take everything at its proper worth; your clear-sightedness is extraordinary, there is no hoodwinking you.  You pass for being blind, and all the time you have laid your hand on causes, while other people are still puzzling over effects.  In short, you are a minister in petticoats, the only person here capable of understanding me.  It follows, then, that if I have any sacrifice to ask from you, it is only to yourself I can turn for help in persuading you.

“I am therefore going to explain to you, quite frankly, my former plans, to which I still adhere.  In order to recommend them to you, I must show that they are connected with feelings of a very high order, and I shall thus be obliged to enter into political questions of the greatest importance to the kingdom, which might be wearisome to any one less intelligent than you are.  When you have heard me, I hope you will take time for consideration, six months if necessary.  You are entirely your own mistress; and if you decline to make the sacrifice I ask, I shall bow to your decision and trouble you no further.”

This preface, my sweetheart, made me really serious, and I said: 

“Speak, father.”

Here, then, is the deliverance of the statesman: 

“My child, France is in a very critical position, which is understood only by the King and a few superior minds.  But the King is a head without arms; the great nobles, who are in the secret of the danger, have no authority over the men whose co-operation is needful in order to bring about a happy result.  These men, cast up by popular election, refuse to lend themselves as instruments.  Even the able men among them carry on the work of pulling down society, instead of helping us to strengthen the edifice.