Chapter 172 Three wishes

Madame T.'s drawing room was all Marius' knowledge of the world.It was the only hole through which he could peer into life.The hole was dark, and for him there was more cold than warm, more shadow than light, coming from the cracks.That child was cheerful and cheerful when he first entered this strange society, but he soon became depressed, and what was especially disproportionate to his age became gloomy.Surrounded by those majestic and grotesque figures, he looked about him with solemn astonishment, and all things combined added to his bewilderment.In Mrs. T.'s drawing-room there were some distinguished ladies of honor, some named Matan, some named Noah, some called Levius and called Levi, and some named Compi and called Combiz's.Those dignified and ancient faces, the names from ancient classics, were confused in the child's mind with the "Old Testament" he was reciting, and those old women sat around a dying fire, sitting in groups under the green veil. Under the light, their faces are faintly visible, their expressions are stern, their hair is gray or completely white, and they wear long dresses from another era. Every color is gloomy and gloomy. At that time, little Marius stared at them in panic, thinking that what he saw was not a woman, but some ancient sages, not real people, but ghosts.

Among those ghosts were several priests and nobles, who often appeared in the ancient drawing room, one was the Marquis of Chasney, the secretary of merits of Madame de Berry; The Viscount Vallauris of the lyric poem; one was Lord Beauformont, rather young, but grey-haired, with a beautiful, intelligent, bare-breasted woman in a scarlet velvet gown trimmed with gold lace, this Disturbed those in the shadows; one was the Marquis de Corially des Pinousz, the most courteous man in France; one was the Count de Armandre, a A chubby good-natured fellow; and the Chevalier de Pierre de Guise, regular patron of the Louvre library, the so-called King's Reading Room.Mr. de Porte de Guie, who was young but old and bald, recounted that in 1793, at the age of sixteen, he was imprisoned in a hard labor prison as a recalcitrant, and an eighty-year-old The bishop of Mirpois, the old man, was chained together, also a bigot, but the bishop's charge was for refusing to take the oath, and his own for evading military service.It was in Toulon.Their task is to go to the guillotine at night to pick up the corpses and heads executed during the day.They carried the bloody corpses on their backs, and their red hats—the red hats worn by convicts—had a crust of blood on the back, dry in the morning and damp again in the dark.Tragic stories of this kind are found in T.The lady's living room was full of people, and after cursing Marat, they applauded Tresdalen.A few eccentric deputies used to play whist there, Monsieur Diporte de Salar, Monsieur Lemachan de Gomicourt, and a rightist famous for booing, Cornet- Mr Tangul.The magistrate de Ferrette, wearing a pair of shorts and showing his thin legs, sometimes passed by here and walked in the living room when he went to M. Talleyrand's house.He was a close friend of the Count of Artois, and he did not bow his knees to Cambas like Aristotle, but in turn asked Guimar to slither and prostrate, so that all generations would know that there was an imperial order. The judge spoke for a philosopher thousands of years ago.

As for the priests, one was Abbe Halma, to whom M. Laloz, who co-edited "Thunder," once said to him: "Who is not fifty years old? Except those who have no hair on their mouths!" The abbe Bernal, the royal preacher; the abbe Flessine, who was neither count, nor bishop, nor minister, nor minister, but wore only an old cassock with a few buttons missing and the Abbe Clafonan, curate of Saint-Germain de Bray; and one of the Pope's legates, the Archbishop of Nisippy, who was then Bishop of Marcy, later called Cardinal, who Famous for his sad long nose; there is also a bishop, his title is as follows: Palmieri, Instructor in purple, one of the seven confidential secretaries of the Holy Court, deliberative priest of the Cathedral of Liberia, saint's The Advocate, which has to do with canonization, is almost the Inquisitor of the Paradise Department; and finally the two Cardinals, Monsieur de La Ruzelne and Monsieur de Cremon-Donna.Monsieur Cardinal de La Ruzelne, a writer, had the same honor as Chateaubriand a few years later for finalizing the Conservative; Paris was on holiday with his nephew, the Marquis de Donner, who had been Minister of the Navy and War.Cardinal de Crement-Donna, a merry little old man who used to pull up his cassock to reveal his red socks, was characterized by a hatred of encyclopedias and a love of billiards.De Cremont-Donna's house was in the Rue Madame, and in those days, on summer nights, passers-by would stop and listen to the clinking of marbles and the laughing of the cardinal. His colleague, Bishop Emeritus of Christ, Privy Councilor of the Curia, Lord Cotterlet cried: "Score, Father, I'm playing skewers." Mrs. T. was brought to the house by a friend of mine, Monsieur de Roquerol, who had been Bishop of Senlis and was one of the forty.Monsieur de Roquerol was of great stature, and was famous for his constant presence at the Académie de France.The hall next to the library was the meeting place of the French Academy at that time. Curious people can see the former bishop of Senlis through the glass door every Thursday. He has newly powdered his head, wears purple socks, and often stands He stood with his back to the door, apparently to let people see his little white collar.All those priests, although they were mostly courtiers and churchmen, had increased the solemn atmosphere in Madame T.'s drawing room, plus five French ministers, Marquis de Vibre, de Tararou. The Marquis, the Marquis d'Herbville, the Vicomte d'Ambry and the Duke of Valentinoy, the richness was even more pronounced.Although the Duke of Valentinois was the Prince of Monaco, that is to say, although he was the current monarch of a foreign country, he had such great respect for the titles of France and the Minister of the World, so that he had to consider every problem from these two points.Therefore he used to say: "The cardinal is the French minister of Rome, and the knight is the French minister of England." Moreover, since there is no place in this century that is not affected by the revolution, this feudal drawing room, as we first said, Those who have passed are also subject to the domination of the bourgeoisie.M. Gillenormand took the top spot.

That place is where the best of the white society in Paris gathers.Famous figures, even royalists, were rejected by those.Fame is always inseparable from anarchy.If Chateaubriand came there, they would take him as Uncle Dusan too.A few proselytes were accommodated in this orthodox drawing room and allowed to enter.Count Benio was treated there. Today's "noble" living rooms are not like those of the past.Today's Saint-Germain suburb has a market atmosphere.The so-called protection of the king, to put it nicely, can only be said to be extravagant protection of the king. The guests in Mrs. T.'s house belonged to the upper class, and their tastes were delicate and high-pitched, hidden under the appearance of extremely polite.There are many unconscious refinements in their mannerisms, which are completely old ways of reviving the old order.Those habits, especially in terms of language, seem a little strange.People who only look at the superficial phenomenon think that it is a vulgar state of the provinces, but in fact it is just a piece of dead wood.A woman can be called "Madame General". "Madame Colonel" is not absolutely useless.That lovely Madame de Leon must be thinking of the Duchess of Longueville and Duchess of Chevreuse, so that she would give up her princess title and accept it with pleasure.The same was true of the Marchioness de Craigie, who called herself "Madame the Colonel."

At that time in the Tuileries Palace, people called the king "King" face to face when chatting with him, and treated the word "King" as the third person, and never said "Your Majesty". Invented by the petty upper classes, who thought that the title "Your Majesty" had been sullied by the "usurper". They are there to comment on current events and criticize people.Cynical about the times, without understanding.Make a fuss when something happens, turn around and disturb.Everyone boasted to each other what little knowledge they had.Methuselah taught Epimenides.The deaf communicate news to the blind.Together they deny the period after Coblenz.Therefore, Louis XVIII was in the twenty-fifth year of his accession to the throne, and those who returned from exile were also justified, and they were in their 25-year-old youth.

Everything is graceful and refined, nothing goes too far, the voice of the conversation seems to be just a gust of breeze, and the books and newspapers on display are just right for the living room, and they all seem to be some Bayeux scriptures.There were also young men among them, but they were all half-dead.The clothes of the servants serving in the front hall are also dingy, and the masters, servants and guests are all outdated and dead.It all had the air of being long dead but unwilling to go to the grave.Conservation, maintenance, preservation, this is almost the content of the entire dictionary, but the question is whether the smell is good.There is indeed some spice in the opinions of the small group of old and young, but those opinions always smell like moth-proofing herbs.It was a zombie world.The master is coated with antiseptic sesame oil, and the servants are stuffed with grass.

There's a dear old marquise who's come back from exile, ruined, and has only one maid, and keeps saying, "My squires." What were those people doing in Mrs. T.'s drawing room?They do extremes. To be an extremist, although the things it represents may not have disappeared, it is meaningless today.Let's explain. To go to extremes is to go too far.It is to attack the royal power under the pretense of the throne, to attack the religious authority under the pretense of the altar, it is to spoil what one has dragged, it is not to be controlled, it is to quarrel with the woodcutter over the question of whether the fire of roasting the heathen is at home, it is to make idols not popular Uplifting and blaming idols is just insulting because of excessive respect, just thinking that the pope doesn’t have enough religious power, the king doesn’t have enough royal power, and the light in the dark night is too strong, just because of whiteness, dissatisfaction with marble, snowflakes, swans and lilies , that is to regard the object of one's support as an enemy, that is, to praise too much, so that it becomes opposition.

The spirit of going to extremes was a prominent feature of the early days of the Restoration. Nothing in history can compare with that short period from 1814 to about 1820, before the arrival of the rightist M. de Villeret.These six years were an extraordinary period, both noisy and dull, joyous and gloomy, as if illuminated by the morning sun, but at the same time, the sky was completely dark, and dense layers of disaster clouds and shadows piled up on the horizon and slowly disappeared into the past.In such light and such shadows, there is such a small group of people, both new and old, light and sad, young and decayed, they wipe their eyes, nothing can be more like waking up than returning home In that way, the small group of people looked at France fiercely, and France also responded with a sneer.The streets are full of strange and funny old owl-like marquises, returnees and reviving ghosts, rare and strange former nobles, old and noble family members laughing and crying for returning to France , Laughing is laughing that they themselves can meet with the motherland again, crying is crying that they have lost the monarchy of the year.The nobility of the crusaders openly insulted the nobility of the empire, that is to say, the nobility with the sword, ancient families that have lost their historical significance, and the descendants of the comrades-in-arms of Charlemagne despise the comrades of Napoleon.Sword and sword, as we have just said, insulted each other, Fontenoy's sword was ridiculous, it was only a piece of rusted iron; Marengo's sword was ugly, it was only a saber.The past denies yesterday.There is no greatness or shame in human emotions.One once called Bonaparte Scapan.That society no longer exists.It should be emphasized that there is absolutely no remnant of that society today.When we recall a scene at random and bring it back to our imagination we wonder as if it were an anterior society.Indeed, even society itself was flooded.It has been wiped out in two revolutions.What a flood of thought!How quickly it can bury all that it is its mission to destroy and submerge, how swiftly it can extend its astonishing horizon!

Such was the drawing-room of those distant and foolish times, where Martinville was considered more talented than Voltaire. Those living rooms have their own set of literature and politics.They respect Fieri.Mr. Aguier is admired by the people.They commented on M. Kearney, the book critic on the banks of the Maraguey.Napoleon was, in their eyes, a man-eating devil from Corsica.In the future, it is a concession to the spirit of the times to write Mr. Buwanaba Marquis and Major General Wang Jun in history. The uniformity of those parlors did not last long.From 1818 onwards a few doctrinaires had made their presence felt there.That was a disturbing sign.The attitude of those people is that they call themselves royalists and feel guilty about it.Where the extremists were complacent, the doctrinaires felt a little ashamed.They have vision, they don't talk, their political creed has the right amount of ego, and they're confident they can succeed.They are especially particular about the whiteness of their ties and the neatness of their clothes, which is of great use.The mistake or misfortune of the doctrinaires lies in creating old youth.They put on pedantic airs.They dream of transplanting a moderate regime on top of an autocratic and radical system.They wanted to replace destructive liberalism with an overall liberalism, and sometimes displayed a rare kind of intelligence.They are often heard to say: "Royalistism should be forgiven! Royalism has done many good things. It has given rise to tradition, culture, religion, piety. It is faithfulness, courage, chivalry, charity and piety. It has come to confuse, though it is a pity, the greatness of the monarchy for thousands of years with the new greatness of the nation. Its mistake is not to know revolution, empire, glory, liberty, young minds, young generation and the new century. But have we not committed the same mistake it has committed against us? The revolution must be fully understood, and we are the heirs of the cause of the revolution. Attacking royalism is a Contrary to Liberalism. What a mistake! What a blind act! Revolutionary France does not respect historical France, that is to say, its mother, that is, itself. The monarchy's aristocracy on September 5 Days are treated the same way nobles are treated after the 8th of July in the Empire. They are not fair to eagles, and we are not fair to lilies. People always like to prohibit something. Scrape off Louis X. What is the gold of the four crowns, the removal of the coat of arms of Henry IV? We laugh at M. de Vaublant for erasing the 'N' on the Jena bridge! What has he done? Exactly what we did. Bubina's victory is ours as much as Marengo's is ours. The Lily is ours and the 'N' is ours. Both are our national heritage. Why To devalue them? We should not think of the fatherland of the past as inferior to the fatherland of the present. Why not accept the whole history? Why not love the whole of France?"

This is how the doctrinaires criticized and defended royalism, and the royalists were dissatisfied when they were criticized, but angry because they were protected. Extremists marked the first stage of royalism, religious orders the second.After tyranny, follow flexibility.Our brief description ends here. The author of this book is in this strange period of modern history in the development of this story, he has to walk into this obsolete society, take a look at it by the way, and describe its characteristics in a few words.But he spoke quickly, without sarcasm or sarcasm.Those memories were nostalgic ones that should be confronted, because they related to his mother and connected him to the past.Besides, it should be pointed out that there is greatness in that little society.We might as well smile back, but neither despise it nor hate it.That was the old France.

Marius Pontmerche, like the other children, read at random.When he was liberated from his aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather entrusted him to a teacher who was literally insane.This young man with inexperienced intelligence has been transferred from a Taoist woman to a rotten Confucian.Marius read several years of secondary school, and then entered the law school.He became a royalist, fanatical and stern.He didn't love his grandfather very much, and his frivolous and vulgar style made him uncomfortable, and he was cold and gloomy to his father. The boy was hot on the inside and cold on the outside, noble, generous, conceited, pious, and forward-looking, serious to the point of stern, and pure to the point of being uncivilized.