The Conquest of Plassans (Les Rougon-Macquart Book 4) (31 page)

After leaving the café they had set up in the Minimes cellars, the priest regularly went along to the Work of the Virgin. He arrived in the middle of recreation and appeared smiling on the steps into the yard. Then all the girls ran up and fought over what was in his pockets—there were always holy icons, beads, sacred medallions. He had made himself into an object of adoration for these girls by giving them pats on their cheeks and exhorting them to be good, which put smirks on their bold-as-brass faces. The nuns often complained to him. The children entrusted to their care were ungovernable, they fought to pull out each other’s hair, and worse. To his mind these were nothing but peccadilloes. He lectured the most unruly amongst them in the chapel, and they came out suitably subdued. Sometimes he used the pretext of a more serious misdemeanour to have the parents in, and sent them away impressed by his approachability. The girls from the Work of the Virgin had in this way won the hearts and minds of the poor families of Plassans. When they went home in the evening they related extraordinary things about Monsieur le Curé. It was not unusual to come across a couple of them in the dark corners of the ramparts fighting over which of them Monsieur le Curé liked best.

‘Those little hussies represent two or three thousand votes at least,’ thought Trouche, watching the blandishments of Abbé Faujas from the window of his office.

He had himself offered to win over these little darlings, as he called the young girls; but the priest, worried at the gleam in his eye, had strictly forbidden him to set foot in the courtyard. He made do with throwing sweets to the little darlings when the nuns’ backs were turned, as if he were throwing crumbs to sparrows. He filled up the pinafore of a big blonde girl in particular, the daughter of a tanner who, at thirteen, had the shoulders of a fully developed woman.

Abbé Faujas’s day was not over. After that, he went to pay brief visits to the society ladies. Madame Rastoil and Madame Delangre welcomed him with delight. They repeated his every word, and it formed the basis of a whole week’s conversation. But his special friend was Madame de Condamin. She kept up her cheerful familiarity, with the superior air of a pretty woman who is conscious of her omnipotence.
She conversed in a low voice, with winks, and special smiles, which bore witness to a secret alliance. When the priest was ushered in, she indicated to her husband with a look that he should leave the room. ‘The government is about to start its session,’ as the forestry commissioner jokingly said, and calmly rode off on his horse. It was Madame Rougon who had pointed out Madame de Condamin to the priest.

‘She is not yet totally accepted in Plassans,’ she explained. ‘She’s a very strong woman beneath all that pretty coquettishness. You can open up to her. She will see in your success a way of achieving her place in society here. She will be of the utmost use to you if you have positions and decorations to give away… She still has a good friend in Paris who sends her as much red ribbon
*
as she wants.’

As Madame Rougon stayed very cleverly on the sidelines, the beautiful Octavie had become the most active ally of Abbé Faujas. She won over her friends and the friends of friends. She went off campaigning every morning, her electioneering had astonishing results, and all by nothing more than the small salutations she bestowed on everyone from the tips of her gloved fingers. She was especially effective with middle-class women, increasing the feminine influence tenfold, which the priest had felt to be an absolute necessity the very first time he had stepped into the narrow world of Plassans. She it was who squashed the complaints of the Paloques, who were always persecuting the Mouret household. She threw a honeycake to these two monsters.

‘Do you have something against us, dear lady?’ she said one day to the justice’s wife when she met her. ‘If so, you are very wrong. Your friends do not forget you, they are thinking of you, and arranging a nice surprise.’

‘A nice surprise! Chance would be a fine thing!’ cried Madame Paloque sourly. ‘Come now, they are not going to make fun of us any more. I have sworn to keep myself to myself.’

Madame de Condamin smiled.

‘What would you say’, she demanded, ‘if Monsieur Paloque were to receive an honour?’

The justice’s wife was struck dumb. She flushed, and her face took on a bluish tint, quite hideous.

‘You must be joking,’ she stammered. ‘This is yet another trick they are playing on us. If it’s not true, I shan’t ever forgive you.’

The beautiful Octavie had to swear to her that nothing was more
true. The nomination was assured. But it would only appear in the
Moniteur
after the elections because the government did not want to seem to be buying the magistrates’ vote. And she let it be understood that Abbé Faujas was not unconnected with this long-awaited reward. He had spoken about it to the sub-prefect.

‘So my husband was right,’ said Madame Paloque, in astonishment. ‘For a long time he has been creating the most horrible scenes, trying to make me go and offer my apologies to the abbé. I am obstinate and would rather die… But if the abbé wants to make the first move… We certainly only wish to live in peace and harmony with everybody. We’ll go to the sub-prefecture tomorrow.’

The next day the Paloques were full of humility. Madame Paloque had no words bad enough for Abbé Fenil. She even unashamedly recounted that she had gone to see him one day. He had spoken in her presence of throwing ‘the whole of the Abbé Faujas clique’ out of Plassans.

‘If you like,’ she said to the priest taking him on one side, ‘I’ll give you a note written under the dictation of the assistant bishop. You are the subject of it. I believe there are incriminating stories that he was trying to publish in the
Gazette de Plassans
.’

‘How did that note get into your hands?’ enquired the priest.

‘It’s there, and that’s enough,’ she replied, not in the least put out.

Then, a smile playing around her lips:

‘I came across it,’ she said. ‘And now I remember that, above a crossing-out, there are two or three words added by the hand of the assistant bishop himself… I’ll let you have all this in confidence, of course? We are decent people and we don’t wish to be compromised.’

Before she took along the note, she pretended for three days to be having scruples about it. Madame de Condamin had to swear, in private, that Monsieur Rastoil would be requested to step down immediately, so that Monsieur Paloque could inherit the presidency. Then she handed over the paper. Abbé Faujas did not want to keep it. He took it to Madame Rougon, directing her to make use of it but to keep out of the way herself if the assistant bishop looked like interfering the least little bit in the elections.

Madame de Condamin also let Monsieur Maffre suppose that the Emperor was thinking of decorating him, and categorically promised Doctor Porquier that a possible position would be found for his delinquent son. She was exquisitely obliging at the cosy afternoon
gatherings in the gardens. The summer was coming to an end. She would arrive in her summer dress, shivering a little, risking the cold to show off her arms and conquer the remaining scruples of Rastoil’s friends. It was in reality under the Mourets’ arbour that the election was decided.

‘Well, Monsieur le Sous-Préfet,’ said Abbé Faujas with a smile, one day when the two groups of friends were gathered together, ‘the great battle is approaching!’

Political battles had become something of a joke when they met up in small groups. They shook hands in the gardens behind their houses but devoured each other outside their front doors. Madame de Condamin threw a vivacious glance at Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, who bowed with his accustomed politeness before drawing a deep breath and pronouncing:

‘I shall stay in my tents, Monsieur le Curé. I was fortunate enough to be able to intimate to His Excellency that the government should abstain in the immediate interests of Plassans. There won’t be an official candidate.’

Monsieur de Bourdeu went white. His eyelids flickered and his hands trembled with delight.

‘There will not be an official candidate?’ echoed Monsieur Rastoil, very unsettled by this unexpected news, abandoning the reserve he had maintained until that moment.

‘No,’ replied Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, ‘the town has enough honourable men and is grown-up enough to choose a representative for itself.’

He had inclined towards Monsieur de Bourdeu, who rose, stammering:

‘No doubt, no doubt.’

Meanwhile Abbé Surin had organized a game of ‘burnt rag’. The Rastoil girls, the Maffre boys, and Séverin were at that very moment searching for the rag, actually the priest’s handkerchief, rolled up into a ball, which he had just hidden. All the young people milled round the staid adults, while the priest in his shrill voice shouted:

‘It’s burning, it’s burning!’

It was Angéline who found the ‘rag’, in the gaping pocket of Doctor Porquier where Abbé Surin had adroitly slipped it. There was much laughter and everyone thought the choice of hiding place most ingenious.

‘Bourdeu has a chance now,’ said Monsieur Rastoil, taking Abbé Faujas aside. ‘It’s very annoying. I can’t tell him this, but we shan’t vote for him. As an Orléanist
*
he is too compromised.’

‘Just look at your son Séverin,’ cried Madame de Condamin, who came to throw herself into the conversation. ‘What a big baby he is! He put the handkerchief under Abbé Bourrette’s hat.’

Then, lowering her voice:

‘By the way, Monsieur Rastoil, may I offer you my congratulations? I have received a letter from Paris where I am assured your son’s name has been seen on the list of the Ministry of Justice. I think he will be appointed deputy councillor at Faverolles.’

The president bowed, pink in the face. The ministry had never forgiven him for the election of the Marquis de Lagrifoul. It was since then that, by a sort of fate, he had not been able to place his son in a job nor find a husband for his daughters. He did not complain, but his pinched lips told their own tale.

‘I was pointing out to you’, he said, to hide his emotion, ‘that Bourdeu is dangerous; and besides he is not from Plassans, he doesn’t know what our needs are. We might just as well re-elect the marquis.’

‘If Monsieur de Bourdeu retains his candidature,’ declared Abbé Faujas, ‘the Republicans will gather an imposing minority, which will have the most detestable effect.’

Madame de Condamin smiled. She professed to understand nothing about politics. She made good her escape, while the priest walked to the end of the arbour with the president and in a low voice went on talking to him. When they came slowly back, Monsieur Rastoil was answering:

‘You are right; he would be a suitable candidate; he does not belong to any faction and it would be possible to unite under his name… I don’t like the Empire any more than you do, as you know. But in the end it is puerile to send to the Chamber of Deputies people whose only mandate is to annoy the government. Plassans is suffering; we need someone with a head for business, somebody from the town who is capable of protecting our interests.’

‘It’s burning, it’s burning!’ came the reedy voice of Aurélie.

Abbé Surin, who was leading the group, went through the arbour, searching this way and that.

‘In the water, in the water!’ the girl repeated, delighted at their vain attempts to find it.

But one of the Maffre boys, lifting up a flower pot, discovered the handkerchief folded in four.

‘That great beanpole of a girl should have stuffed it in her mouth,’ said Madame Paloque. ‘There’s room enough and nobody would have found it there.’

Her husband silenced her with a furious look. He wouldn’t put up with her sour remarks any more. Afraid that Monsieur de Condamin might have heard, he muttered:

‘What delightful youngsters!’

‘My dear sir,’ the forestry commissioner was remarking to Monsieur de Bourdeu, ‘your success is certain. Only be very careful when you are in Paris. I have it on good authority that the government is intending to act with force if the opposition thwarts them too often.’

The former prefect glanced at him very nervously, wondering if he was pulling his leg. Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies only smiled and stroked his whiskers. Then the conversation reverted to general topics, and it seemed to Monsieur de Bourdeu that everybody was congratulating him on his forthcoming triumph, with tact and discretion. He enjoyed an hour of exquisite popularity.

‘It’s surprising how the grapes ripen more quickly in the sun,’ observed Abbé Bourrette, who had not moved from where he sat, looking up at the arbour.

‘In the north,’ explained Doctor Porquier, ‘they often only reach maturity if you pick off the surrounding leaves.’

They were just beginning to discuss this subject when it was Séverin’s turn to cry:

‘It’s burning, it’s burning!’

But he had hung the handkerchief in such an obvious place behind the garden gate that Abbé Surin found it straight away. When the latter had hidden it, the group searched in vain throughout the garden for nearly half an hour. They had to give up, whereupon the priest pointed it out right in the middle of a flower bed, so artfully disguised that it resembled a white stone. It was the best trick of the afternoon.

The news that the government was not going to put up a candidate ran quickly through the town, and caused some consternation. This withdrawal inevitably resulted in making the different political factions nervous. Their own hopes of winning relied on the diversion that would be caused by an official candidate. It was looking as
if the Marquis of Lagrifoul, Monsieur de Bourdeu, and Maurin the hatmaker would divide the vote in three roughly equal parts. There would certainly be a second round, and who knew what name would emerge at that point! In truth they were talking about a fourth candidate whose name nobody precisely knew, a tactful man who would be able to unite the parties. The electors of Plassans, apprehensive now they had been given a free hand, only wanted unity, and to choose one of their citizens who would please all the factions.

‘The government is wrong to treat us like naughty children,’ the shrewd politicians of the Chamber of Commerce protested, rather piqued. ‘You’d think the town was a hotbed of revolution! If the administration had had the good sense to sponsor a possible candidate, we should all have voted for him… The sub-prefect talked about teaching us a lesson. Well, we won’t be taught that lesson. We’ll find our own candidate, and show them that Plassans is a town of common sense and true liberty.’