| "And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation
at Milan?" asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of
the people of Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur
Buonaparte, and Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting
the petitions of the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's
head whirl! It is as if the whole world had gone crazy."
Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with
a sarcastic smile.
"'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!'* They say
he was very fine when he said that," he remarked, repeating
the words in Italian: "'Dio mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'"
*God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!
"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make
the glass run over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns
will not be able to endure this man who is a menace to everything."
"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said
the vicomte, polite but hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame...
What have they done for Louis XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame
Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he became more animated. "And
believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal of the
Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending ambassadors
to compliment the usurper."
And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some
time through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward
the little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing
the Conde coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her
with as much gravity as if she had asked him to do it.
"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d' azur- maison
Conde," said he.
The princess listened, smiling.
"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year
longer," the vicomte continued, with the air of a man who,
in a matter with which he is better acquainted than anyone else,
does not listen to others but follows the current of his own thoughts,
"things will have gone too far. By intrigues, violence, exile,
and executions, French society- I mean good French society- will
have been forever destroyed, and then..."
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre
wished to make a remark, for the conversation interested him,
but Anna Pavlovna, who had him under observation, interrupted:
"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy
which always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial
family, "has declared that he will leave it to the French
people themselves to choose their own form of government; and
I believe that once free from the usurper, the whole nation will
certainly throw itself into the arms of its rightful king,"
she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist emigrant.
"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur
le Vicomte quite rightly supposes that matters have already gone
too far. I think it will be difficult to return to the old regime."
"From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing
and breaking into the conversation, "almost all the aristocracy
has already gone over to Bonaparte's side."
"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied
the vicomte without looking at Pierre. "At the present time
it is difficult to know the real state of French public opinion.
"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew
with a sarcastic smile.
It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming
his remarks at him, though without looking at him.
"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow
it,'" Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again
quoting Napoleon's words. "'I opened my antechambers and
they crowded in.' I do not know how far he was justified in saying
so."
"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After
the murder of the duc even the most partial ceased to regard him
as a hero. If to some people," he went on, turning to Anna
Pavlovna, "he ever was a hero, after the murder of the duc
there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth."
Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into
the conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would
say something inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.
"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien," declared Monsieur
Pierre, "was a political necessity, and it seems to me that
Napoleon showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself
the whole responsibility of that deed."
"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified
whisper.
"What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination
shows greatness of soul?" said the little princess, smiling
and drawing her work nearer to her.
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed several voices.
"Capital!" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and
began slapping his knee with the palm of his hand.
The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly
at his audience over his spectacles and continued.
"I say so," he continued desperately, "because
the Bourbons fled from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy,
and Napoleon alone understood the Revolution and quelled it, and
so for the general good, he could not stop short for the sake
of one man's life."
"Won't you come over to the other table?" suggested
Anna Pavlovna.
But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.
"No," cried he, becoming more and more eager, "Napoleon
is great because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed
its abuses, preserved all that was good in it- equality of citizenship
and freedom of speech and of the press- and only for that reason
did he obtain power."
"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself
of it to commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king,
I should have called him a great man," remarked the vicomte.
"He could not do that. The people only gave him power
that he might rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that
he was a great man. The Revolution was a grand thing!" continued
Monsieur Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition
his extreme youth and his wish to express all that was in his
mind.
"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well,
after that... But won't you come to this other table?" repeated
Anna Pavlovna.
"Rousseau's Contrat social," said the vicomte with
a tolerant smile.
"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas."
"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide," again
interjected an ironical voice.
"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what
is most important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation
from prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas
Napoleon has retained in full force."
"Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously,
as if at last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish
his words were, "high-sounding words which have long been
discredited. Who does not love liberty and equality? Even our
Saviour preached liberty and equality. Have people since the Revolution
become happier? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte
has destroyed it."
Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre
to the vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first
moment of Pierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social
experience, was horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's
sacrilegious words had not exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced
herself that it was impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces
and joined the vicomte in a vigorous attack on the orator.
"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre," said she, "how
do you explain the fact of a great man executing a duc- or even
an ordinary man who- is innocent and untried?"
"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask
how monsieur explains the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture?
It was a swindle, and not at all like the conduct of a great man!"
"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!"
said the little princess, shrugging her shoulders.
"He's a low fellow, say what you will," remarked
Prince Hippolyte.
Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and
smiled. His smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When
he smiled, his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously
replaced by another- a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look,
which seemed to ask forgiveness.
The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly
that this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested.
All were silent.
"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?"
said Prince Andrew. "Besides, in the actions of a statesman
one has to distinguish between his acts as a private person, as
a general, and as an emperor. So it seems to me."
"Yes, yes, of course!" Pierre chimed in, pleased
at the arrival of this reinforcement.
"One must admit," continued Prince Andrew, "that
Napoleon as a man was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the
hospital at Jaffa where he gave his hand to the plague-stricken;
but... but there are other acts which it is difficult to justify."
Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness
of Pierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it
was time to go.
Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone
to attend, and asking them all to be seated began:
"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat
you to it. Excuse me, Vicomte- I must tell it in Russian or the
point will be lost...." And Prince Hippolyte began to tell
his story in such Russian as a Frenchman would speak after spending
about a year in Russia. Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly
did he demand their attention to his story.
"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very
stingy. She must have two footmen behind her carriage, and very
big ones. That was her taste. And she had a lady's maid, also
big. She said..."
Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas
with difficulty.
"She said... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put
on a livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while
I make some calls.'"
Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long
before his audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the
narrator. Several persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna
Pavlovna, did however smile.
"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl
lost her hat and her long hair came down...." Here he could
contain himself no longer and went on, between gasps of laughter:
"And the whole world knew...."
And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why
he had told it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna
Pavlovna and the others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social
tact in so agreeably ending Pierre's unpleasant and unamiable
outburst. After the anecdote the conversation broke up into insignificant
small talk about the last and next balls, about theatricals, and
who would meet whom, and when and where.
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