His Excellency the Minister | Page 6

of a railway

embankment, in an out of the way cemetery of Saint-Ouen,--the
cemetery called Cayenne,because the dead are "deported" thither. We
were but four faithful ones. Yes, four, but amongst these four must be
included a young man, bare-headed and wearing the uniform of an
officer, who stood by the deceased man's son.
Whilst one of us bade the last farewell to the departed on the brink of
the grave, the scream of the railway engine cut short his words, and
seemed to hiss for the last time the fate of the vanquished man lying
there. As we were quitting the cemetery, a worthy man, a song-writer,
observed to me: "Well, if all those whom Léon Plée helped during his
lifetime had remembered him when he was dead, this little Campo
Santoof Saint-Ouen would not have been large enough to hold them
all!"
Doubtless. But they did not remember him.
And from the contrast between the shabby obsequies of the old
journalist and the solemn pomp of that of the funeral service of the four
days' minister came the idea of my book. It seemed to me that here was
an appropriate idea and a useful reparation. Art has nothing to
lose--rather the contrary, when it devotes itself to militant tasks.
Ah! I forgot--When one mentions to-day the name of this illustrious
minister whose funeral convoy was in its day one of the great
spectacles of Paris, and one of the great surprises to those who know
how difficult it is for a minister to die in office--like the Spartan still
grasping his shield--those best informed, shaking their heads solemnly
will say:
"Ricard?--Oh! he had great talent, Ricard--I saw lately a portrait of
Paul de Musset by him--It is superb!"
They confound him with the painter to whom no statue has been erected,
but whose works remain.
Be, then, a Cabinet Minister!

JULES CLARETIE.
Viroflay, September 1, 1886.

HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER
PART FIRST
I
The third act of L'Africaine had just come to a close.
The minister, on leaving the manager's box, said smilingly, like a man
glad to be rid of the cares of State: "Let us go to the greenroom, Granet,
shall we?"
"Let us go to the greenroom, as your Excellency proposes!"
They were obliged to cross the immense stage where the stage
carpenters were busy with the stage accessories as sailors with the
equipment of a vessel; and men in evening dress, with white ties,
looked natty without their greatcoats, and with opera hats on their
heads were going to and fro, picking their way amongst the ropes and
other impedimenta which littered the stage, on their way to the
greenroom of the ballet.
They had come here from all parts of the house, from the stalls and
boxes; most of them humming as they went the air from Nélusko's
ballad, walking lightly as habitués through the species of antechamber
which separates the body of the house from the stage.
A servant wearing a white cravat, was seated at a table writing down
upon a sheet of paper the names of those who came in. One side of this
sheet bore a headline reading: Messieurs, and the other Médecin, in two
columns. From time to time this man would get up from his chair to
bow respectfully to some official personage whom he recognized.

"Have you seen Monsieur Vaudrey come in yet, Louis?" asked a still
young man with a monocle in his eye, who seemed quite at home
behind the scenes.
"His Excellency is in the manager's box, monsieur!" answered the
servant civilly.
"Thank you, Louis!"
And as the visitor turned to go up the narrow stairway leading to the
greenroom, the servant wrote down in the running-hand of a clerk,
upon the printed sheet: Monsieur Guy de Lissac.
Upon the stage, Vaudrey, the Minister whom Lissac had been inquiring
for, stood arm in arm with his companion Granet, looking in
astonishment at the vast machinery of the opera, operated by this army
of workmen, whom he did not know. He was quite astonished at the
sight, as he had never beheld its like. His astonishment was so evident
and artless that Granet, his friend and colleague in the Chamber of
Deputies, could not help smiling at it from under his carefully waxed
moustaches.
"I consider all this much more wonderful than the opera itself,"
observed his Excellency. The floor and wings were like great yellow
spots, and the whole immense stage resembled a great, sandy desert.
Vaudrey raised his head to gaze at the symmetrical arrangement of the
chandeliers, as bright as rows of gas-jets, amongst the hangings of the
friezes. A huge canvas at the back represented a sunlit Indian landscape,
and in the enormous space between the lowered curtain and the scenery,