Bab Bab 15 · Chapter Seventeen

The Conte regarded himself as out of office. "Let us see now," he said

to himself, "how many horses we shall be able to have after my disgrace,

for that is what they will call my resignation." He made a reckoning of

his fortune: he had come to the Ministry with 80,000 francs to his name;

greatly to his surprise, he found that, all told, his fortune at that

moment did not amount to 500,000 francs: "that is an income of 20,000

lire at the most," he said to himself. "I must admit that I am a great

simpleton! There is not a citizen in Parma who does not suppose me to

have an income of 150,000 lire, and the Prince, in that respect, is more

of a cit than any of them. When they see me in the ditch, they will say

that I know how to hide my fortune. Egad!" he cried, "if I am still

Minister in three months' time, we shall see that fortune doubled." He

found in this idea an occasion for writing to the Duchessa, which he

seized with avidity, but to bespeak her pardon for a letter, seeing the

terms on which they were, he filled this with figures and calculations.

"We shall have only 20,000 lire of income," he told her, "to live upon,

all three of us, at Naples, Fabrizio, you and myself. Fabrizio and I

shall have one saddle-horse between us." The Minister had barely sent

off his letter when the Fiscal General Rassi was announced. He received

him with a stiffness which bordered on impertinence.

"What, Sir," he said to him, "you seize and carry off from Bologna a

conspirator who is under my protection; what is more, you propose to cut

off his head, and you say nothing about it to me! Do you at least know

the name of my successor? Is it General Conti, or yourself?"

Rassi was dumbfoundered; he was too little accustomed to good society to

know whether the Conte was speaking seriously: he blushed a deep red,

mumbled a few scarcely intelligible words; the Conte watched him and

enjoyed his embarrassment. Suddenly Rassi pulled himself together and

exclaimed, with perfect ease and with the air of Figaro caught

red-handed by Almaviva:

"Faith, Signor Conte, I shan't beat about the bush with Your Excellency:

what will you give me to answer all your questions as I should those of

my confessor?"

"The Cross of San Paolo" (which is the Parmesan Order) "or money, if you

can find me an excuse for granting it to you."

"I prefer the Cross of San Paolo, because it ennobles me."

"What, my dear Fiscal, you still pay some regard to our poor nobility?"

"If I were of noble birth," replied Rassi with all the impudence of his

trade, "the families of the people I have had hanged would hate me, but

they would not feel contempt for me."

"Very well, I will save you from their contempt," said the Conte; "cure

me of my ignorance. What do you intend to do with Fabrizio?"

_THE COURT_

"Faith, the Prince is greatly embarrassed; he is afraid that, seduced by

the fine eyes of Armida--forgive my slightly bold language, they are the

Sovereign's own words--he is afraid that, seduced by a certain pair of

very fine eyes, which have touched him slightly himself, you may leave

him stranded, and there is no one but you to handle the question of

Lombardy. I will go so far as to say," Rassi went on, lowering his

voice, "that there is a fine opportunity there for you, and one that is

well worth the Cross of San Paolo which you are giving me. The Prince

would grant you, as a reward from the nation, a fine estate worth

600,000 francs, which he would set apart from his own domains, or a

gratuity of 300,000 scudi, if you would agree not to interfere in the

affairs of Fabrizio del Dongo, or at any rate not to speak of them to

him except in public."

"I expected something better than that," said the Conte; "not to

interfere with Fabrizio means quarrelling with the Duchessa."

"There, that is just what the Prince says: the fact is that he is

horribly enraged against the Signora Duchessa, this is between

ourselves; and he is afraid that, to compensate yourself for the rupture

with that charming lady, now that you are a widower, you may ask him for

the hand of his cousin, the old Princess Isotta, who is only fifty."

"He has guessed aright," exclaimed the Conte; "our master is the

shrewdest man in his States."

Never had the Conte entertained the grotesque idea of marrying this

elderly Princess; nothing would less have suited a man whom the

ceremonies of the court bored to death.

He began to tap with his snuff-box on the marble of a little table

beside his chair. Rassi saw in this gesture of embarrassment the

possibility of a fine windfall; his eye gleamed.

"As a favour, Signor Conte," he cried, "if Your Excellency decides to

accept this estate of 600,000 francs or the gratuity in money, I beg that

he will not choose any other intermediary than myself. I should make an

effort," he added, lowering his voice, "to have the gratuity increased,

or else to have a forest of some importance added to the land. If Your

Excellency would deign to introduce a little gentleness and tact into

his manner in speaking to the Prince of this youngster they've locked

up, a Duchy might perhaps be created out of the lands which the nation's

gratitude would offer him. I repeat to Your Excellency; the Prince, for

the moment, abominates the Duchessa, but he is greatly embarrassed, so

much so indeed that I have sometimes thought there must be some secret

consideration which he dared not confess to me. Do you know, we may find

a gold mine here, I selling you his most intimate secrets, and quite

openly, for I am supposed to be your sworn enemy. After all, if he is

furious with the Duchessa, he believes also, and so do we all, that you

are the one man in the world who can carry through all the secret

negotiations with regard to the Milanese. Will Your Excellency permit me

to repeat to him textually the Sovereign's words?" said Rassi, growing

heated; "there is often a character in the order of the words which no

translation can render, and you may be able to see more in them than I

see."

"I permit everything," said the Conte, as he went on, with an air of

distraction, tapping the marble table with his gold snuff-box; "I permit

everything, and I shall be grateful."

"Give me a patent of hereditary nobility independently of the Cross, and

I shall be more than satisfied. When I speak of ennoblement to the

Prince, he answers: 'A scoundrel like you, noble! I should have to shut

up shop next day; nobody in Parma would wish to be ennobled again.' To

come back to the business of the Milanese, the Prince said to me not

three days ago: 'There is only that rascal to unravel the thread of our

intrigues; if I send him away, or if he follows the Duchessa, I may as

well abandon the hope of seeing myself one day the Liberal and beloved

ruler of all Italy.'"

At this the Conte drew breath. "Fabrizio will not die," he said to

himself.

Never in his life had Rassi been able to secure an intimate conversation

with the Prime Minister. He was beside himself with joy: he saw himself

on the eve of being able to discard the name Rassi, which had become

synonymous throughout the country with everything that was base and

vile. The lower orders gave the name Rassi to mad dogs; recently more

than one soldier had fought a duel because one of his comrades had

called him Rassi. Not a week passed, moreover, in which this ill-starred

name did not figure in some atrocious sonnet. His son, a young and

innocent schoolboy of sixteen, used to be driven out of the caffè on

the strength of his name. It was the burning memory of all these little

perquisites of his office that made him commit an imprudence. "I have an

estate," he said to the Conte, drawing his chair closer to the

Minister's; "it is called Riva. I should like to be Barone Riva."

"Why not?" said the Minister. Rassi was beside himself.

"Very well, Signor Conte, I shall take the liberty of being indiscreet.

I shall venture to guess the object of your desires; you aspire to the

hand of the Princess Isotta, and it is a noble ambition. Once you are of

the family, you are sheltered from disgrace, you have our man _tied

down_. I shall not conceal from you that he has a horror of this

marriage with the Princess Isotta. But if your affairs were entrusted to

some skilful and _well paid_ person, you would be in a position not to

despair of success."

"I, my dear Barone, should despair of it; I disavow in advance

everything that you can say in my name; but on the day on which that

illustrious alliance comes at length to crown my wishes and to give me

so exalted a position in the State, I will offer you, myself, 300,000

francs of my own money, or else recommend the Prince to accord you a

mark of his favour which you yourself will prefer to that sum of money."

The reader finds this conversation long: and yet we are sparing him more

than half of it; it continued for two hours more. Rassi left the Conte's

presence mad with joy; the Conte was left with a great hope of saving

Fabrizio, and more than ever determined to hand in his resignation. He

found that his credit stood in need of renewal by the succession to

power of persons such as Rassi and General Conti; he took an exquisite

delight in a possible method which he had just discovered of avenging

himself on the Prince: "He may send the Duchessa away," he cried, "but,

by gad, he will have to abandon the hope of becoming Constitutional King

of Lombardy." (This was an absurd fantasy: the Prince had abundance of

brains, but, by dint of dreaming of it, he had fallen madly in love with

the idea.)

The Conte could not contain himself for joy as he hurried to the

Duchessa's to give her a report of his conversation with the Fiscal. He

found the door closed to him; the porter scarcely dared admit to him the

fact of this order, received from his mistress's own lips. The Conte

went sadly back to the ministerial _palazzo_; the rebuff he had just

encountered completely eclipsed the joy that his conversation with the

Prince's confidant had given him. Having no longer the heart to devote

himself to anything, the Conte was wandering gloomily through his

picture gallery when, a quarter of an hour later, he received a note

which ran as follows:

"Since it is true, dear and good friend, that we are nothing more now

than friends, you must come to see me only three times in the week. In a

fortnight we shall reduce these visits, always so dear to my heart, to

two monthly. If you wish to please me, give publicity to this apparent

rupture; if you wished to pay me back almost all the love that I once

felt for you, you would choose a new mistress for yourself. As for

myself, I have great plans of dissipation: I intend to go a great deal

into society, perhaps I shall even find a man of parts to make me forget

my misfortunes. Of course, in your capacity as a friend, the first place

in my heart will always be kept for you; but I do not wish, for the

future, that my actions should be said to have been dictated by your

wisdom; above all, I wish it to be well known that I have lost all my

influence over your decisions. In a word, dear Conte, be assured that

you will always be my dearest friend, but never anything else. Do not, I

beg you, entertain any idea of a resumption, it is all over. Count,

always, upon my friendship."

This last stroke was too much for the Conte's courage: he wrote a fine

letter to the Prince resigning all his offices, and addressed it to the

Duchessa with a request that she would forward it to the Palace. A

moment later, he received his resignation, torn across, and on one of the

blank scraps of the paper the Duchessa had condescended to write: "_No,

a thousand times no_!"

_A BREACH_

It would be difficult to describe the despair of the poor Minister. "She

is right, I quite agree," he kept saying to himself at every moment; "my

omission of the words _unjust proceedings_ is a dreadful misfortune; it

will involve perhaps the death of Fabrizio, and that will lead to my

own." It was with death in his heart that the Conte, who did not wish to

appear at the Sovereign's Palace before being summoned there, wrote out

with his own hand the _motu proprio_ which created Rassi Cavaliere of

the Order of San Paolo and conferred on him hereditary nobility; the

Conte appended to it a report of half a page which set forth to the

Prince the reasons of state which made this measure advisable. He found

a sort of melancholy joy in making a fair copy of each of these

documents, which he addressed to the Duchessa.

He lost himself in suppositions; he tried to guess what, for the future,

would be the plan of conduct of the woman he loved. "She has no idea

herself," he said to himself; "one thing alone remains certain, which is

that she would not for anything in the world fail to adhere to any

resolution once she had announced it to me." What added still further to

his unhappiness was that he could not succeed in finding that the

Duchessa was to be blamed. "She has shewn me a favour in loving me; she

ceases to love me after a mistake, unintentional, it is true, but one

that may involve a horrible consequence; I have no right to complain."

Next morning, the Conte learned that the Duchessa had begun to go into

society again; she had appeared the evening before in all the houses in

which parties were being given. What would have happened if they had met

in the same drawing-room? How was he to speak to her? In what tone was

he to address her? And how could he not speak to her?

The day that followed was a day of gloom; the rumour had gone abroad

everywhere that Fabrizio was going to be put to death, the town was

stirred. It was added that the Prince, having regard for his high birth,

had deigned to decide that he should have his head cut off.

"It is I that am killing him," the Conte said to himself; "I can no

longer aspire to see the Duchessa ever again." In spite of this fairly

obvious conclusion, he could not restrain himself from going three times

to her door; as a matter of fact, in order not to be noticed, he went to

her house on foot. In his despair, he had even the courage to write to

her. He had sent for Rassi twice; the Fiscal had not shewn his face.

"The scoundrel is playing me false," the Conte said to himself.

_PUBLIC OPINION_

The day after this, three great pieces of news excited the high society

of Parma, and even the middle classes. The execution of Fabrizio was

more certain than ever; and, a highly strange complement to this news,

the Duchessa did not appear to be at all despairing. To all appearance,

she bestowed only a quite moderate regret on her young lover; in any

event, she made the most, with an unbounded art, of the pallor which was

the legacy of a really serious indisposition, which had come to her at

the time of Fabrizio's arrest. The middle classes saw clearly in these

details the hard heart of a great lady of the court. In decency,

however, and as a sacrifice to the shade of the young Fabrizio, she had

broken with Conte Mosca. "What immorality!" exclaimed the Jansenists of

Parma. But already the Duchessa, and this was incredible, seemed

disposed to listen to the flatteries of the handsomest young men at

court. It was observed, among other curious incidents, that she had been

very gay in a conversation with Conte Baldi, the Raversi's reigning

lover, and had teased him greatly over his frequent visits to the

_castello_ of Velleja. The lower middle class and the populace were

indignant at the death of Fabrizio, which these good folk put down to

the jealousy of Conte Mosca. The society of the court was also greatly

taken up with the Conte, but only to laugh at him. The third of the

great pieces of news to which we have referred was indeed nothing else

than the Conte's resignation; everyone laughed at a ridiculous lover

who, at the age of fifty-six, was sacrificing a magnificent position to

his grief at being abandoned by a heartless woman, who moreover had long

ago shewn her preference for a young man. The Archbishop alone had the

intelligence or rather the heart to divine that honour forbade the Conte

to remain Prime Minister in a country where they were going to cut off

the head, and without consulting him, of a young man who was under his

protection. The news of the Conte's resignation had the effect of curing

General Fabio Conti of his gout, as we shall relate in due course, when

we come to speak of the way in which poor Fabrizio was spending his time

in the citadel, while the whole town was inquiring the hour of his

execution.

On the following day the Conte saw Bruno, that faithful agent whom he

had dispatched to Bologna: the Conte's heart melted at the moment when

this man entered his cabinet; the sight of him recalled the happy state

in which he had been when he sent him to Bologna, almost in concert with

the Duchessa. Bruno came from Bologna where he had discovered nothing;

he had not been able to find Lodovico, whom the _podestà_ of

Castelnuovo had kept locked up in his village prison.

"I am going to send you to Bologna," said the Conte to Bruno; "the

Duchessa wishes to give herself the melancholy pleasure of knowing the

details of Fabrizio's disaster. Report yourself to the _brigadiere_ of

police in charge of the station at Castelnuovo. . . .

"No!" exclaimed the Conte, breaking off in his orders; "start at once

for Lombardy, and distribute money lavishly among all our

correspondents. My object is to obtain from all these people reports of

the most encouraging nature." Bruno, after clearly grasping the object

of his mission, set to work to write his letters of credit. As the Conte

was giving him his final instructions, he received a letter which was

entirely false, but extremely well written; one would have called it the

letter of a friend writing to a friend to ask a favour of him. The

friend who wrote it was none other than the Prince. Having heard mention

of some idea of resignation, he besought his friend, Conte Mosca, to

retain his office; he asked him this in the name of their friendship and

of the _dangers that threatened the country_, and ordered him as his

master. He added that, the King of ---- having placed at his disposal

two Cordons of his Order, he was keeping one for himself and was sending

the other to his dear Conte Mosca.

_DIPLOMACY_

"That animal is ruining me!" cried the Conte in a fury, before the

astonished Bruno, "and he thinks to win me over by those same

hypocritical phrases which we have planned together so many times to

lime the twig for some fool." He declined the Order that was offered

him, and in his reply spoke of the state of his health as allowing him

but little hope of being able to carry on for much longer the arduous

duties of the Ministry. The Conte was furious. A moment later was

announced the Fiscal Rassi, whom he treated like a black.

"Well! Because I have made you noble, you are beginning to shew

insolence! Why did you not come yesterday to thank me, as was your

bounden duty, Master Drudge?"

Rassi was a long way below the reach of insult; it was in this tone that

he was daily received by the Prince; but he was anxious to be a Barone,

and justified himself with spirit. Nothing was easier.

"The Prince kept me glued to a table all day yesterday; I could not

leave the Palace. His Highness made me copy out in my wretched

attorney's script a number of diplomatic papers so stupid and so

long-winded that I really believe his sole object was to keep me

prisoner. When I was finally able to take my leave of him, about five

o'clock, half dead with hunger, he gave me the order to go straight home

and not to go out in the evening. As a matter of fact, I saw two of his

private spies, well known to me, patrolling my street until nearly

midnight. This morning, as soon as I could, I sent for a carriage which

took me to the door of the Cathedral. I got down from the carriage very

slowly, then at a quick pace walked through the church, and here I am.

Your Excellency is at this moment the one man in the world whom I am

most passionately anxious to please."

"And I, Master Joker, am not in the least taken in by all these more or

less well constructed stories. You refused to speak to me about Fabrizio

the day before yesterday; I respected your scruples and your oaths of

secrecy, although oaths, to a creature like you, are at the most means

of evasion. To-day, I require the truth. What are these ridiculous

rumours which make out that this young man is sentenced to death as the

murderer of the comedian Giletti?"

"No one can give Your Excellency a better account of those rumours, for

it was I myself who started them by the Sovereign's orders; and, I

believe, it was perhaps to prevent me from informing you of this

incident that he kept me prisoner all day yesterday. The Prince, who

does not take me for a fool, could have no doubt that I should come to

you with my Cross and ask you to fasten it in my buttonhole."

"To the point!" cried the Minister. "And no fine speeches."

"No doubt, the Prince would be glad to pass sentence of death on Signor

del Dongo, but he has been sentenced, as you probably know, only to

twenty years in irons, commuted by the Prince, on the very day after the

sentence, to twelve years in a fortress, with fasting on bread and water

every Friday and other religious observances."

"It is because I knew of this sentence to imprisonment only that I was

alarmed by the rumours of immediate execution which are going about the

town; I remember the death of Conte Palanza, which was such a clever

trick on your part."

"It was then that I ought to have had the Cross!" cried Rassi, in no way

disconcerted; "I ought to have forced him when I held him in my hand,

and the man wished the prisoner killed. I was a fool then; and it is

armed with that experience that I venture to advise you not to copy my

example to-day." (This comparison seemed in the worst of taste to his

hearer, who was obliged to restrain himself forcibly from kicking

Rassi.)

"In the first place," the latter went on with the logic of a trained

lawyer and the perfect assurance of a man whom no insult could offend,

"in the first place there can be no question of the execution of the

said del Dongo; the Prince would not dare, the times have altogether

changed! Besides, I, who am noble and hope through you to become Barone,

would not lend a hand in the matter. Now it is only from me, as Your

Excellency knows, that the executioner of supreme penalties can receive

orders, and, I swear to you, Cavaliere Rassi will never issue any such

orders against Signor del Dongo."

"And you will be acting wisely," said the Conte with a severe air,

taking his adversary's measure.

"Let us make a distinction," went on Rassi, smiling. "I myself figure

only in the official death-roll, and if Signor del Dongo happens to die

of a colic, do not go and put it down to me. The Prince is vexed, and I

do not know why, with the Sanseverina." (Three days earlier Rassi would

have said "the Duchessa," but, like everyone in the town, he knew of her

breach with the Prime Minister.) The Conte was struck by the omission of

her title on such lips, and the reader may judge of the pleasure that it

afforded him; he darted at Rassi a glance charged with the keenest

hatred. "My dear angel," he then said to himself, "I can shew you my

love only by blind obedience to your orders.

"I must admit," he said to the Fiscal, "that I do not take any very

passionate interest in the various caprices of the Signora Duchessa;

only, since it was she who introduced to me this scapegrace of a

Fabrizio, who would have done well to remain at Naples and not come here

to complicate our affairs, I make a point of his not being put to death

in my time, and I am quite ready to give you my word that you shall be

Barone in the week following his release from prison."

"In that case, Signor Conte, I shall not be Barone for twelve whole

years, for the Prince is furious, and his hatred of the Duchessa is so

keen that he is trying to conceal it."

"His Highness is too good; what need has he to conceal his hatred, since

his Prime Minister is no longer protecting the Duchessa? Only I do not

wish that anyone should be able to accuse me of meanness, nor above all

of jealousy: it was I who made the Duchessa come to this country, and if

Fabrizio dies in prison you will not be Barone, but you will perhaps be

stabbed with a dagger. But let us not talk about this trifle: the fact

is that I have made an estimate of my fortune, at the most I may be able

to put together an income of twenty thousand lire, on which I propose to

offer my resignation, most humbly, to the Sovereign. I have some hope of

finding employment with the King of Naples; that big town will offer me

certain distractions which I need at this moment and which I cannot find

in a hole like Parma; I should stay here only in the event of your

obtaining for me the hand of the Princess Isotta," and so forth. The

conversation on this subject was endless. As Rassi was rising to leave,

the Conte said to him with an air of complete indifference:

"You know that people have said that Fabrizio was playing me false, in

the sense that he was one of the Duchessa's lovers; I decline to accept

that rumour, and, to give it the lie, I wish you to have this purse

conveyed to Fabrizio."

"But, Signor Conte," said Rassi in alarm, looking at the purse, "there

is an enormous sum here, and the regulations. . . ."

"To you, my dear Sir, it may be enormous," replied the Conte with an air

of the most supreme contempt: "a cit like you, sending money to his

friend in prison, thinks he is ruining himself if he gives him ten

sequins; I, on the other hand, wish Fabrizio to receive these six

thousand francs, and on no account is the Castle to know anything of the

matter."

While the terrified Rassi was trying to answer, the Conte shut the door

on him with impatience. "Those fellows," he said to himself, "cannot see

power unless it is cloaked in insolence." So saying, this great Minister

abandoned himself to an action so ridiculous that we have some

misgivings about recording it. He ran to take from his desk a portrait

in miniature of the Duchessa, and covered it with passionate kisses.

"Forgive me, my dear angel," he cried, "if I did not fling out of the

window with my own hands that drudge who dares to speak of you in a tone

of familiarity; but, if I am acting with this excess of patience, it is

to obey you! And he will lose nothing by waiting."

After a long conversation with the portrait, the Conte, who felt his

heart dead in his breast, had the idea of an absurd action, and dashed

into it with the eagerness of a child. He sent for a coat on which his

decorations were sewn and went to pay a call on the elderly Princess

Isotta. Never in his life had he gone to her apartments, except on New

Year's Day. He found her surrounded by a number of dogs, and tricked out

in all her finery, including diamonds even, as though she were going to

court. The Conte having shewn some fear lest he might be upsetting the

arrangements of Her Highness, who was probably going out, the lady

replied that a Princess of Parma owed it to herself to be always in such

array. For the first time since his disaster the Conte felt an impulse

of gaiety. "I have done well to appear here," he told himself, "and this

very day I must make my declaration." The Princess had been delighted to

receive a visit from a man so renowned for his wit, and a Prime

Minister; the poor old maid was hardly accustomed to such visitors. The

Conte began by an adroit preamble, relative to the immense distance that

must always separate from a plain gentleman the members of a reigning

family.

"One must draw a distinction," said the Princess: "the daughter of a

King of France, for instance, has no hope of ever succeeding to the

Throne; but things are not like that in the House of Parma. And that is

why we Farnese must always keep up a certain dignity in externals; and

I, a poor Princess such as you see me now, I cannot say that it is

absolutely impossible that one day you may be my Prime Minister."

This idea, by its fantastic unexpectedness, gave the poor Conte a second

momentary thrill of perfect gaiety.

On leaving the apartments of the Princess Isotta, who had blushed deeply

on receiving the avowal of the Prime Minister's passion, he met one of

the grooms from the Palace: the Prince had sent for him in hot haste.

"I am unwell," replied the Minister, delighted at being able to play a

trick on his Prince. "Oh! Oh! You drive me to extremes," he exclaimed in

a fury, "and then you expect me to serve you; but learn this, my Prince,

that to have received power from Providence is no longer enough in these

times: it requires great brains and a strong character to succeed in

being a despot."

_DESPOTISM_

After dismissing the groom from the Palace, highly scandalised by the

perfect health of this invalid, the Conte amused himself by going to see

the two men at court who had the greatest influence over General Fabio

Conti. The one thing that made the Minister shudder and robbed him of

all his courage was that the governor of the citadel was accused of

having once before made away with a captain, his personal enemy, by

means of the _acquetta di Perugia_.

The Conte knew that during the last week the Duchessa had been

squandering vast sums with a view to establishing communications with

the citadel; but, in his opinion, there was small hope of success; all

eyes were still too wide open. We shall not relate to the reader all the

attempts at corruption made by this unhappy woman: she was in despair,

and agents of every sort, all perfectly devoted, were supporting her.

But there is perhaps only one kind of business which is done to

perfection in small despotic courts, namely the custody of political

prisoners. The Duchessa's gold had no other effect than to secure the

dismissal from the citadel of nine or ten men of all ranks.