his son to the little queen."
"You will then obtain the Golden Fleece, if you are still in the
ministry."
"I think, Albert, you have adopted the system of feeding me on smoke
this morning."
"Well, you must allow it is the best thing for the stomach; but I hear
Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass
away the time."
"About what?"
"About the papers."
"My dear friend," said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, "do I
ever read the papers?"
"Then you will dispute the more."
"M. Beauchamp," announced the servant. "Come in, come in," said Albert,
rising and advancing to meet the young man. "Here is Debray, who detests
you without reading you, so he says."
"He is quite right," returned Beauchamp; "for I criticise him without
knowing what he does. Good-day, commander!"
"Ah, you know that already," said the private secretary, smiling and
shaking hands with him.
"Pardieu?"
"And what do they say of it in the world?"
"In which world? we have so many worlds in the year of grace 1838."
"In the entire political world, of which you are one of the leaders."
"They say that it is quite fair, and that sowing so much red, you ought
to reap a little blue."
"Come, come, that is not bad!" said Lucien. "Why do you not join our
party, my dear Beauchamp? With your talents you would make your fortune
in three or four years."
"I only await one thing before following your advice; that is, a
minister who will hold office for six months. My dear Albert, one word,
for I must give poor Lucien a respite. Do we breakfast or dine? I must
go to the Chamber, for our life is not an idle one."
"You only breakfast; I await two persons, and the instant they arrive we
shall sit down to table."
Chapter 40. The Breakfast.
"And what sort of persons do you expect to breakfast?" said Beauchamp.
"A gentleman, and a diplomatist."
"Then we shall have to wait two hours for the gentleman, and three
for the diplomatist. I shall come back to dessert; keep me some
strawberries, coffee, and cigars. I shall take a cutlet on my way to the
Chamber."
"Do not do anything of the sort; for were the gentleman a Montmorency,
and the diplomatist a Metternich, we will breakfast at eleven; in the
meantime, follow Debray's example, and take a glass of sherry and a
biscuit."
"Be it so; I will stay; I must do something to distract my thoughts."
"You are like Debray, and yet it seems to me that when the minister is
out of spirits, the opposition ought to be joyous."
"Ah, you do not know with what I am threatened. I shall hear this
morning that M. Danglars make a speech at the Chamber of Deputies, and
at his wife's this evening I shall hear the tragedy of a peer of France.
The devil take the constitutional government, and since we had our
choice, as they say, at least, how could we choose that?"
"I understand; you must lay in a stock of hilarity."
"Do not run down M. Danglars' speeches," said Debray; "he votes for you,
for he belongs to the opposition."
"Pardieu, that is exactly the worst of all. I am waiting until you send
him to speak at the Luxembourg, to laugh at my ease."
"My dear friend," said Albert to Beauchamp, "it is plain that the
affairs of Spain are settled, for you are most desperately out of humor
this morning. Recollect that Parisian gossip has spoken of a marriage
between myself and Mlle. Eugenie Danglars; I cannot in conscience,
therefore, let you run down the speeches of a man who will one day say
to me, 'Vicomte, you know I give my daughter two millions.'"
"Ah, this marriage will never take place," said Beauchamp. "The king
has made him a baron, and can make him a peer, but he cannot make him a
gentleman, and the Count of Morcerf is too aristocratic to consent, for
the paltry sum of two million francs, to a mesalliance. The Viscount of
Morcerf can only wed a marchioness."
"But two million francs make a nice little sum," replied Morcerf.
"It is the social capital of a theatre on the boulevard, or a railroad
from the Jardin des Plantes to La Rapee."
"Never mind what he says, Morcerf," said Debray, "do you marry her. You
marry a money-bag label, it is true; well, but what does that matter? It
is better to have a blazon less and a figure more on it. You have seven
martlets on your arms; give three to your wife, and you will still have
four; that is one more than M. de Guise had, who so nearly became King
of France, and whose cousin was Emperor of Germany."
"On my word, I think you are right, Lucien," said Albert absently.
"To be sure; besides, every millionaire is as noble as a bastard--that
is, he can be."
"Do not say that, Debray," returned Beauchamp, laughing, "for here is
Chateau-Renaud, who, to cure you of your mania for paradoxes, will pass
the sword of Renaud de Montauban, his ancestor, through your body."
"He will sully it then," returned Lucien; "for I am low--very low."
"Oh, heavens," cried Beauchamp, "the minister quotes Beranger, what
shall we come to next?"
"M. de Chateau-Renaud--M. Maximilian Morrel," said the servant,
announcing two fresh guests.
"Now, then, to breakfast," said Beauchamp; "for, if I remember, you told
me you only expected two persons, Albert."
"Morrel," muttered Albert--"Morrel--who is he?" But before he had
finished, M. de Chateau-Renaud, a handsome young man of thirty,
gentleman all over,--that is, with the figure of a Guiche and the wit
of a Mortemart,--took Albert's hand. "My dear Albert," said he, "let me
introduce to you M. Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis, my friend; and
what is more--however the man speaks for himself--my preserver. Salute
my hero, viscount." And he stepped on one side to give place to a young
man of refined and dignified bearing, with large and open brow,
piercing eyes, and black mustache, whom our readers have already seen
at Marseilles, under circumstances sufficiently dramatic not to be
forgotten. A rich uniform, half French, half Oriental, set off his
graceful and stalwart figure, and his broad chest was decorated with
the order of the Legion of Honor. The young officer bowed with easy and
elegant politeness. "Monsieur," said Albert with affectionate courtesy,
"the count of Chateau-Renaud knew how much pleasure this introduction
would give me; you are his friend, be ours also."
"Well said," interrupted Chateau-Renaud; "and pray that, if you should
ever be in a similar predicament, he may do as much for you as he did
for me."
"What has he done?" asked Albert.
"Oh, nothing worth speaking of," said Morrel; "M. de Chateau-Renaud
exaggerates."
"Not worth speaking of?" cried Chateau-Renaud; "life is not worth
speaking of!--that is rather too philosophical, on my word, Morrel. It
is very well for you, who risk your life every day, but for me, who only
did so once"--
"We gather from all this, baron, that Captain Morrel saved your life."
"Exactly so."
"On what occasion?" asked Beauchamp.
"Beauchamp, my good fellow, you know I am starving," said Debray: "do
not set him off on some long story."
"Well, I do not prevent your sitting down to table," replied Beauchamp,
"Chateau-Renaud can tell us while we eat our breakfast."
"Gentlemen," said Morcerf, "it is only a quarter past ten, and I expect
some one else."
"Ah, true, a diplomatist!" observed Debray.
"Diplomat or not, I don't know; I only know that he charged himself
on my account with a mission, which he terminated so entirely to my
satisfaction, that had I been king, I should have instantly created him
knight of all my orders, even had I been able to offer him the Golden
Fleece and the Garter."
"Well, since we are not to sit down to table," said Debray, "take a
glass of sherry, and tell us all about it."
"You all know that I had the fancy of going to Africa."
"It is a road your ancestors have traced for you," said Albert
gallantly.
"Yes? but I doubt that your object was like theirs--to rescue the Holy
Sepulchre."
"You are quite right, Beauchamp," observed the young aristocrat. "It was
only to fight as an amateur. I cannot bear duelling since two seconds,
whom I had chosen to arrange an affair, forced me to break the arm of
one of my best friends, one whom you all know--poor Franz d'Epinay."
"Ah, true," said Debray, "you did fight some time ago; about what?"
"The devil take me, if I remember," returned Chateau-Renaud. "But I
recollect perfectly one thing, that, being unwilling to let such talents
as mine sleep, I wished to try upon the Arabs the new pistols that had
been given to me. In consequence I embarked for Oran, and went from
thence to Constantine, where I arrived just in time to witness the
raising of the siege. I retreated with the rest, for eight and forty
hours. I endured the rain during the day, and the cold during the
night tolerably well, but the third morning my horse died of cold. Poor
brute--accustomed to be covered up and to have a stove in the stable,
the Arabian finds himself unable to bear ten degrees of cold in Arabia."
"That's why you want to purchase my English horse," said Debray, "you
think he will bear the cold better."
"You are mistaken, for I have made a vow never to return to Africa."
"You were very much frightened, then?" asked Beauchamp.
"Well, yes, and I had good reason to be so," replied Chateau-Renaud. "I
was retreating on foot, for my horse was dead. Six Arabs came up, full
gallop, to cut off my head. I shot two with my double-barrelled gun, and
two more with my pistols, but I was then disarmed, and two were still
left; one seized me by the hair (that is why I now wear it so short, for
no one knows what may happen), the other swung a yataghan, and I already
felt the cold steel on my neck, when this gentleman whom you see here
charged them, shot the one who held me by the hair, and cleft the skull
of the other with his sabre. He had assigned himself the task of saving
a man's life that day; chance caused that man to be myself. When I am
rich I will order a statue of Chance from Klagmann or Marochetti."
"Yes," said Morrel, smiling, "it was the 5th of September, the
anniversary of the day on which my father was miraculously preserved;
therefore, as far as it lies in my power, I endeavor to celebrate it by
some"--
"Heroic action," interrupted Chateau-Renaud. "I was chosen. But that is
not all--after rescuing me from the sword, he rescued me from the cold,
not by sharing his cloak with me, like St. Martin, but by giving me the
whole; then from hunger by sharing with me--guess what?"
"A Strasbourg pie?" asked Beauchamp.
"No, his horse; of which we each of us ate a slice with a hearty
appetite. It was very hard."
"The horse?" said Morcerf, laughing.
"No, the sacrifice," returned Chateau-Renaud; "ask Debray if he would
sacrifice his English steed for a stranger?"
"Not for a stranger," said Debray, "but for a friend I might, perhaps."
"I divined that you would become mine, count," replied Morrel; "besides,
as I had the honor to tell you, heroism or not, sacrifice or not, that
day I owed an offering to bad fortune in recompense for the favors good
fortune had on other days granted to us."
"The history to which M. Morrel alludes," continued Chateau-Renaud, "is
an admirable one, which he will tell you some day when you are better
acquainted with him; to-day let us fill our stomachs, and not our
memories. What time do you breakfast, Albert?"
"At half-past ten."
"Precisely?" asked Debray, taking out his watch.
"Oh, you will give me five minutes' grace," replied Morcerf, "for I also
expect a preserver."
"Of whom?"
"Of myself," cried Morcerf; "parbleu, do you think I cannot be saved as
well as any one else, and that there are only Arabs who cut off heads?
Our breakfast is a philanthropic one, and we shall have at table--at
least, I hope so--two benefactors of humanity."
"What shall we do?" said Debray; "we have only one Monthyon prize."
"Well, it will be given to some one who has done nothing to deserve it,"
said Beauchamp; "that is the way the Academy mostly escapes from the
dilemma."
"And where does he come from?" asked Debray. "You have already answered
the question once, but so vaguely that I venture to put it a second
time."
"Really," said Albert, "I do not know; when I invited him three months
ago, he was then at Rome, but since that time who knows where he may
have gone?"
"And you think him capable of being exact?" demanded Debray.
"I think him capable of everything."
"Well, with the five minutes' grace, we have only ten left."
"I will profit by them to tell you something about my guest."
"I beg pardon," interrupted Beauchamp; "are there any materials for an
article in what you are going to tell us?"
"Yes, and for a most curious one."
"Go on, then, for I see I shall not get to the Chamber this morning, and
