Parisians in the Country | Page 9

told them so. I am sorry for it--on account of my
political opinions.
"As for the 'Globe,' that's another breed altogether. Just set to work and
talk new doctrines to people you fancy are fools enough to believe such
lies,--why, they think you want to burn their houses down! It is vain for
me to tell them that I speak for futurity, for posterity, for self-interest
properly understood; for enterprise where nothing can be lost; that man
has preyed upon man long enough; that woman is a slave; that the great
providential thought should be made to triumph; that a way must be
found to arrive at a rational co-ordination of the social fabric, --in short,
the whole reverberation of my sentences. Well, what do you think?
when I open upon them with such ideas these provincials lock their
cupboards as if I wanted to steal their spoons and beg me to go away!
Are not they fools? geese? The 'Globe' is smashed. I said to the
proprietors, 'You are too advanced, you go ahead too fast: you ought to
get a few results; the provinces like results.' However, I have made a
hundred 'Globes,' and I must say, considering the thick-headedness of
these clodhoppers, it is a miracle. But to do it I had to make them such
a lot of promises that I am sure I don't know how the globites, globists,
globules, or whatever they call themselves, will ever get out of them.
But they always tell me they can make the world a great deal better
than it is, so I go ahead and prophesy to the value of ten francs for each
subscription. There was one farmer who thought the paper was
agricultural because of its name. I Globed HIM. Bah! he gave in at
once; he had a projecting forehead; all men with projecting foreheads
are ideologists.
"But the 'Children'; oh! ah! as to the 'Children'! I got two thousand
between Paris and Blois. Jolly business! but there is not much to say.
You just show a little vignette to the mother, pretending to hide it from
the child: naturally the child wants to see, and pulls mamma's gown and
cries for its newspaper, because 'Papa has DOT his.' Mamma can't let
her brat tear the gown; the gown costs thirty francs, the subscription
six--economy; result, subscription. It is an excellent thing, meets an

actual want; it holds a place between dolls and sugar-plums, the two
eternal necessities of childhood.
"I have had a quarrel here at the table d'hote about the newspapers and
my opinions. I was unsuspiciously eating my dinner next to a man with
a gray hat who was reading the 'Debats.' I said to myself, 'Now for my
rostrum eloquence. He is tied to the dynasty; I'll cook him; this triumph
will be capital practice for my ministerial talents.' So I went to work
and praised his 'Debats.' Hein! if I didn't lead him along! Thread by
thread, I began to net my man. I launched my four-horse phrases, and
the F- sharp arguments, and all the rest of the cursed stuff. Everybody
listened; and I saw a man who had July as plain as day on his mustache,
just ready to nibble at a 'Movement.' Well, I don't know how it was, but
I unluckily let fall the word 'blockhead.' Thunder! you should have seen
my gray hat, my dynastic hat (shocking bad hat, anyhow), who got the
bit in his teeth and was furiously angry. I put on my grand air--you
know--and said to him: 'Ah, ca! Monsieur, you are remarkably
aggressive; if you are not content, I am ready to give you satisfaction; I
fought in July.' 'Though the father of a family,' he replied, 'I am ready--'
'Father of a family!' I exclaimed; 'my dear sir, have you any children?'
'Yes.' 'Twelve years old?' 'Just about.' 'Well, then, the "Children's
Journal" is the very thing for you; six francs a year, one number a
month, double columns, edited by great literary lights, well got up,
good paper, engravings from charming sketches by our best artists,
actual colored drawings of the Indies--will not fade.' I fired my
broadside 'feelings of a father, etc., etc.,'--in short, a subscription
instead of a quarrel. 'There's nobody but Gaudissart who can get out of
things like that,' said that little cricket Lamard to the big Bulot at the
cafe, when he told him the story.
"I leave to-morrow for Amboise. I shall do up Amboise in two days,
and I will write next from Tours, where I shall measure swords with the
inhabitants of that colorless region; colorless, I mean, from the
intellectual and speculative point of view. But, on the word of a
Gaudissart, they shall be toppled over, toppled down--