The Deputy of Arcis | Page 5

receive much company at Troyes, where
the receiver-general reigned supreme, she now opened her salon to the
notabilities of the liberal party in Arcis. A woman accustomed to the
advantages of salon royalty does not easily renounce them. Vanity is
the most tenacious of all habits.
Bonapartist, and afterwards a liberal--for, by the strangest of
metamorphoses, the soldiers of Napoleon became almost to a man
enamoured of the constitutional system--Colonel Giguet was, during
the Restoration, the natural president of the governing committee of
Arcis, which consisted of the notary Grevin, his son-in-law Beauvisage,
and Varlet junior, the chief physician of Arcis, brother- in-law of
Grevin, and a few other liberals.
"If our dear boy is not nominated," said Madame Marion, having first
looked into the antechamber and garden to make sure that no one
overheard her, "he cannot have Mademoiselle Beauvisage; his success

in this election means a marriage with Cecile."
"Cecile!" exclaimed the old man, opening his eyes very wide and
looking at his sister in stupefaction.
"There is no one but you in the whole department who would forget the
/dot/ and the expectations of Mademoiselle Beauvisage," said his sister.
"She is the richest heiress in the department of the Aube," said Simon
Giguet.
"But it seems to me," said the old soldier, "that my son is not to be
despised as a match; he is your heir, he already has something from his
mother, and I expect to leave him something better than a dry name."
"All that put together won't make thirty thousand a year, and suitors are
already coming forward who have as much as that, not counting their
position," returned Madame Marion.
"And?" asked the colonel.
"They have been refused."
"Then what do the Beauvisage family want?" said the colonel, looking
alternately at his son and sister.
It may seem extraordinary that Colonel Giguet, the brother of Madame
Marion in whose house the society of Arcis had met for twenty-four
years, and whose salon was the echo of all reports, all scandals, and all
the gossip of the department of the Aube,--a good deal of it being there
manufactured,--should be ignorant of facts of this nature. But his
ignorance will seem natural when we mention that this noble relic of
the Napoleonic legions went to bed at night and rose in the morning
with the chickens, as all old persons should do if they wish to live out
their lives. He was never present at the intimate conversations which
went on in the salon. In the provinces there are two sorts of intimate
conversation,--one, which is held officially when all the company are
gathered together, playing at cards or conversing; the other, which
/simmers/, like a well made soup, when three or four friends remain
around the fireplace, friends who can be trusted to repeat nothing of
what is said beyond their own limits.
For nine years, ever since the triumph of his political ideas, the colonel
had lived almost entirely outside of social life. Rising with the sun, he
devoted himself to horticulture; he adored flowers, and of all flowers he
best loved roses. His hands were brown as those of a real gardener; he
took care himself of his beds. Constantly in conference with his

working gardener he mingled little, especially for the last two years,
with the life of others; of whom, indeed, he saw little. He took but one
meal with the family, namely, his dinner; for he rose too early to
breakfast with his son and sister. To his efforts we owe the famous rose
Giguet, known so well to all amateurs.
This old man, who had now passed into the state of a domestic fetich,
was exhibited, as we may well suppose, on all extraordinary occasions.
Certain families enjoy the benefit of a demi-god of this kind, and plume
themselves upon him as they would upon a title.
"I have noticed," replied Madame Marion to her brother's question,
"that ever since the revolution of July Madame Beauvisage has aspired
to live in Paris. Obliged to stay here as long as her father lives, she has
fastened her ambition on a future son-in-law, and my lady dreams now
of the splendors and dignities of political life."
"Could you love Cecile?" said the colonel to his son.
"Yes, father."
"And does she like you?"
"I think so; but the thing is, to please the mother and grandfather.
Though old Grevin himself wants to oppose my election, my success
would determine Madame Beauvisage to accept me, because she
expects to manage me as she pleases and to be minister under my
name."
"That's a good joke!" cried Madame Marion. "What does she take us
for?"
"Whom has she refused?" asked the colonel.
"Well, within the last three months, Antonin Goulard and the
/procureur-du-roi/,