A Prince of Bohemia | Page 5

as far back as 1100, centuries before they took the French title--for the Rusticoli had given a pope to the church and twice revolutionized the kingdom of Naples--so illustrious again under the Valois; so dexterous in the days of the Fronde, that obstinate Frondeurs though they were, they still existed through the reign of Louis XIV. Mazarin favored them; there was the Tuscan strain in them still, and he recognized it.
"Today, when Charles Edward de la Palferine's name is mentioned, not three persons in a hundred know the history of his house. But the Bourbons have actually left a Foix-Grailly to live by his easel.
"Ah, if you but knew how brilliantly Charles Edward accepts his obscure position! how he scoffs at the bourgeois of 1830! What Attic salt in his wit! He would be the king of Bohemia, if Bohemia would endure a king. His /verve/ is inexhaustible. To him we owe a map of the country and the names of the seven castles which Nodier could not discover."
"The one thing wanting in one of the cleverest skits of our time," said the Marquise.
"You can form your own opinion of La Palferine from a few characteristic touches," continued Nathan. "He once came upon a friend of his, a fellow-Bohemian, involved in a dispute on the boulevard with a bourgeois who chose to consider himself affronted. To the modern powers that be, Bohemia is insolent in the extreme. There was talk of calling one another out.
" 'One moment,' interposed La Palferine, as much Lauzun for the occasion as Lauzun himself could have been. 'One moment. Monsieur was born, I suppose?'
" 'What, sir?'
" 'Yes, are you born? What is your name?'
" 'Godin.'
" 'Godin, eh!' exclaimed La Palferine's friend.
" 'One moment, my dear fellow,' interrupted La Palferine. 'There are the Trigaudins. Are you one of them?'
"Astonishment.
" 'No? Then you are one of the new dukes of Gaeta, I suppose, of imperial creation? No? Oh, well, how can you expect my friend to cross swords with you when he will be secretary of an embassy and ambassador /some day/, and you will owe him respect? /Godin!/ the thing is non- existent! You are a nonentity, Godin. My friend cannot be expected to beat the air! When one is somebody, one cannot fight with a nobody! Come, my dear fellow--good-day.'
" 'My respects to madame,' added the friend.
"Another day La Palferine was walking with a friend who flung his cigar end in the face of a passer-by. The recipient had the bad taste to resent this.
" 'You have stood your antagonist's fire,' said the young Count, 'the witnesses declare that honor is satisfied.'
"La Palferine owed his tailor a thousand francs, and the man instead of going himself sent his assistant to ask for the money. The assistant found the unfortunate debtor up six pairs of stairs at the back of a yard at the further end of the Faubourg du Roule. The room was unfurnished save for a bed (such a bed!), a table, and such a table! La Palferine heard the preposterous demand--'A demand which I should qualify as illegal,' he said when he told us the story, 'made, as it was, at seven o'clock in the morning.'
" 'Go,' he answered, with the gesture and attitude of a Mirabeau, 'tell your master in what condition you find me.'
"The assistant apologized and withdrew. La Palferine, seeing the young man on the landing, rose in the attire celebrated in verse in /Britannicus/ to add, 'Remark the stairs! Pay particular attention to the stairs; do not forget to tell him about the stairs!'
"In every position into which chance has thrown La Palferine, he has never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of Rivarol, the polished subtlety of the old French noble. It was he who told that delicious anecdote of a friend of Laffitte the banker. A national fund had been started to give back to Laffitte the mansion in which the Revolution of 1830 was brewed, and this friend appeared at the offices of the fund with, 'Here are five francs, give me a hundred sous change!'--A caricature was made of it.--It was once La Palferine's misfortune, in judicial style, to make a young girl a mother. The girl, not a very simple innocent, confessed all to her mother, a respectable matron, who hurried forthwith to La Palferine and asked what he meant to do.
" 'Why, madame,' said he, 'I am neither a surgeon nor a midwife.'
"She collapsed, but three or four years later she returned to the charge, still persisting in her inquiry, 'What did La Palferine mean to do?'
" 'Well, madame,' returned he, 'when the child is seven years old, an age at which a boy