Z. Marcas | Page 3

or the debates in the Chamber, and
discussed the proceedings of a Court whose wilful ignorance could find
no parallel but in the platitude of the courtiers, the mediocrity of the
men forming the hedge round the newly-restored throne, all alike
devoid of talent or breadth of view, of distinction or learning, of
influence or dignity!
Could there be a higher tribute to the Court of Charles X. than the
present Court, if Court it may be called? What a hatred of the country
may be seen in the naturalization of vulgar foreigners, devoid of talent,
who are enthroned in the Chamber of Peers! What a perversion of
justice! What an insult to the distinguished youth, the ambitions native
to the soil of France! We looked upon these things as upon a spectacle,
and groaned over them, without taking upon ourselves to act.
Juste, whom no one ever sought, and who never sought any one, was,
at five-and-twenty, a great politician, a man with a wonderful aptitude
for apprehending the correlation between remote history and the facts
of the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly what would
and did happen--the murders, the conspiracies, the ascendency of the
Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity of talent in
the higher circles, and the abundance of intellect in the lowest ranks,
where the finest courage is smothered under cigar ashes.
What was to become of him? His parents wished him to be a doctor.
But if he were a doctor, must he not wait twenty years for a practice?
You know what he did? No? Well, he is a doctor; but he left France, he

is in Asia. At this moment he is perhaps sinking under fatigue in a
desert, or dying of the lashes of a barbarous horde--or perhaps he is
some Indian prince's prime minister.
Action is my vocation. Leaving a civil college at the age of twenty, the
only way for me to enter the army was by enlisting as a common
soldier; so, weary of the dismal outlook that lay before a lawyer, I
acquired the knowledge needed for a sailor. I imitate Juste, and keep
out of France, where men waste, in the struggle to make way, the
energy needed for the noblest works. Follow my example, friends; I am
going where a man steers his destiny as he pleases.
These great resolutions were formed in the little room in the
lodging-house in the Rue Corneille, in spite of our haunting the Bal
Musard, flirting with girls of the town, and leading a careless and
apparently reckless life. Our plans and arguments long floated in the
air.
Marcas, our neighbor, was in some degree the guide who led us to the
margin of the precipice or the torrent, who made us sound it, and
showed us beforehand what our fate would be if we let ourselves fall
into it. It was he who put us on our guard against the time-bargains a
man makes with poverty under the sanction of hope, by accepting
precarious situations whence he fights the battle, carried along by the
devious tide of Paris--that great harlot who takes you up or leaves you
stranded, smiles or turns her back on you with equal readiness, wears
out the strongest will in vexatious waiting, and makes misfortune wait
on chance.

At our first meeting, Marcas, as it were, dazzled us. On our return from
the schools, a little before the dinner-hour, we were accustomed to go
up to our room and remain there a while, either waiting for the other, to
learn whether there were any change in our plans for the evening. One
day, at four o'clock, Juste met Marcas on the stairs, and I saw him in
the street. It was in the month of November, and Marcas had no cloak;
he wore shoes with heavy soles, corduroy trousers, and a blue

double-breasted coat buttoned to the throat, which gave a military air to
his broad chest, all the more so because he wore a black stock. The
costume was not in itself extraordinary, but it agreed well with the
man's mien and countenance.
My first impression on seeing him was neither surprise, nor distress,
nor interest, nor pity, but curiosity mingled with all these feelings. He
walked slowly, with a step that betrayed deep melancholy, his head
forward with a stoop, but not bent like that of a conscience-stricken
man. That head, large and powerful, which might contain the treasures
necessary for a man of the highest ambition, looked as if it were loaded
with thought; it was weighted with grief of mind, but there was no
touch of remorse in his expression. As to his face, it may be summed
up in a word.