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Ebook has 3056 lines and 130524 words, and 62 pages

Translator: Henri Roberts

THIS EDITION DEDICATED TO THE HONOR OF THE ACAD?MIE FRAN?AISE IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED SETS, OF WHICH THIS IS

NUMBER 358

THE ROMANCISTS JULES CLARETIE HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER

BIBLIOTH?QUE DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE DU ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN

JULES CLARETIE

OF THE ACAD?MIE FRAN?AISE

PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY

THIS EDITION OF HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED BY HENRI ROBERTS

THE ETCHINGS ARE BY EUGENE WALLET AND DRAWINGS BY ADRIEN MARIE

TO ALPHONSE DAUDET

My dear friend,

Ideas sometimes float about in the air like the pollen of flowers. For years past I have been at work collecting notes for this book which I have decided to dedicate to you.

In one of your charming prefaces, you told us lately that you only painted from nature. We are both of us, I imagine, in our day and generation, quite captivated and carried away by that modern society from which in your exquisite creations you have so well understood how to extract the essence.

What is it that I have desired to do this time? That which we have both been trying to do at one and the same time: to seize, in passing, these stirring times of ours, these modern manners, that society which perpetuates the antediluvian uproar, that feverish, bustling world always posing before the footlights, that market for the sale of appetites, that kirmess of pleasure that saddens us a little and amuses us a great deal, and allows us romance-writers, simple seekers after truth, to smile in our sleeves at the constant seekers after portfolios.

This book is true, I have seen the events narrated in it pass before my own eyes, and I can say, as a spectator greatly interested in what I see, that I am delighted, my old fellow-traveller, to write your great and honored name on the first page of my book as a witness to the sincere affection and true comradeship of

Your devoted,

JULES CLARETIE.

HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER

PART FIRST

The third act of L'Africaine had just come to a close.

The minister, on leaving the manager's box, said smilingly, like a man glad to be rid of the cares of State: "Let us go to the greenroom, Granet, shall we?"

"Let us go to the greenroom, as your Excellency proposes!"

They were obliged to cross the immense stage where the stage carpenters were busy with the stage accessories as sailors with the equipment of a vessel; and men in evening dress, with white ties, looked natty without their greatcoats, and with opera hats on their heads were going to and fro, picking their way amongst the ropes and other impedimenta which littered the stage, on their way to the greenroom of the ballet.

They had come here from all parts of the house, from the stalls and boxes; most of them humming as they went the air from N?lusko's ballad, walking lightly as habitu?s through the species of antechamber which separates the body of the house from the stage.

"Have you seen Monsieur Vaudrey come in yet, Louis?" asked a still young man with a monocle in his eye, who seemed quite at home behind the scenes.

"His Excellency is in the manager's box, monsieur!" answered the servant civilly.

"Thank you, Louis!"

Upon the stage, Vaudrey, the Minister whom Lissac had been inquiring for, stood arm in arm with his companion Granet, looking in astonishment at the vast machinery of the opera, operated by this army of workmen, whom he did not know. He was quite astonished at the sight, as he had never beheld its like. His astonishment was so evident and artless that Granet, his friend and colleague in the Chamber of Deputies, could not help smiling at it from under his carefully waxed moustaches.

"I consider all this much more wonderful than the opera itself," observed his Excellency. The floor and wings were like great yellow spots, and the whole immense stage resembled a great, sandy desert. Vaudrey raised his head to gaze at the symmetrical arrangement of the chandeliers, as bright as rows of gas-jets, amongst the hangings of the friezes. A huge canvas at the back represented a sunlit Indian landscape, and in the enormous space between the lowered curtain and the scenery, some black spots seemed as if dancing, strange silhouettes of the visitors in their dress clothes, standing out clearly against the yellow background like the shadows of Chinese figures.

"It is very amusing; but let us see the greenroom," said the minister. "You are familiar with the greenroom, Granet?"

"I am a Parisian," returned the deputy, without too great an emphasis; but the ironical smile which accompanied his words made Vaudrey understand that his colleague looked upon his Excellency as fresh from the province and still smacking of its manners.

From both sides of the stage, from the stage-boxes, opera-glasses were turned upon him here and there and a murmur like a breeze came wafted towards him.

"It is the new Minister of the Interior!"

"Nonsense! Monsieur Vaudrey?"

"Monsieur Vaudrey."

Vaudrey proudly drew himself up under the battery of opera-glasses levelled at him, while Granet, smiling, said to the master of the chorus who, dressed in a black coat, stood near him:

"It can be easily seen that this is his first visit here!"

Oh! yes, truly, it was the first time that the new minister had set his foot in the wings of the Op?ra! He relished it with all the curiosity of a youth and the gusto of a collegian. How fortunate that he had not brought Madame Vaudrey, who was slightly indisposed. This rapid survey of a world unknown to him, had the flavor of an escapade. There was a little spice in this amusing adventure.

Behind the canvas in the rear, some musicians, costumed as Brahmins, with spectacles on their noses, the better to decipher their score, fingered their brass instruments with a weary air, rocking them like infants in swaddling clothes. Actors in the garb of Indians, with painted cheeks, and legs encased in chocolate-colored bandages, were yawning, weary and flabby, and stretching themselves while awaiting the time for them to present themselves upon the stage. Others, dressed like soldiers, were sleeping on the wooden benches against the walls, their mouths open, their helmets drawn down over their noses like visors. Others, their pikes serving them for canes, had taken off their headgear and placed it at their feet, the better to rest their heads against the wall, where they leaned with their eyes shut.

Little girls, all of them thin, and in short skirts, were already pirouetting, and humming airs. Older girls stood about with their legs crossed, or, half-stooping, displayed their bosoms while retying the laces of their pink shoes. Others, wearing a kind of Siamese headdress with ornaments of gold, were laughing and clashing together their little silver cymbals. Awkward fellows with false beards, dressed like high priests in robes of yellow, striped with red, elbowed past and jostled against the girls quite unceremoniously. An usher, dressed ? la Fran?aise, and wearing a chain around his neck, paced, grave and melancholy, amongst these shameless young girls.

The greenroom at the end of the stage was entered through a large vestibule hung with curtains of grayish velvet shot with violet, and at the top of the steps where some men in dress-clothes were talking to ballet-girls, Vaudrey could see in the great salon beyond, blazing with light, groups of half-nude women surrounded by men, resembling, in their black clothes, beetles crawling about roses, the whole company reflected in a flood of light, in an immense mirror that covered one end of the room. Little by little, Vaudrey could make out above the paintings representing ancient dances, and the portraits by Camargo or Noverre, a confusion of gaudy skirts, pink legs, white shoulders, with the ubiquitous black coats sprinkled about here and there amongst these bright colors like large blots of ink upon ball-dresses.

Sulpice had often heard the greenroom of the ballet spoken about, and he was at once completely disillusioned. The glaring, brutal light ruthlessly exposed the worn and faded hangings; and the pretty girls in their full, short, gauzy petticoats, with their bare arms, smiling and twisting about, their satin-shod feet resting upon gray velvet footstools, seemed to him, as they occupied the slanting floor, to move in a cloud of dust, and to be robbed of all naturalness and freshness.

"And is this all?" the minister exclaimed almost involuntarily.

"What!" answered Granet, "you seem hard to please!"

Amongst all these girls, there had been manifested an expression of mingled curiosity, coquetry and banter on Vaudrey's appearance in their midst. His presence in the manager's box had been noticed and his coming to the greenroom expected. Every one had hurried thither. Sulpice was pointed out. He was the cynosure of all eyes. On the divans beneath the mirror, some young, well-dressed, bald men, surrounded--perhaps by chance--by laughing ballet-girls, now half-concealed themselves behind the voluminous skirts of the girls about them, and bent their heads, thus rendering their baldness more visible, just as a woman buries her nose in her bouquet to avoid recognizing an acquaintance.

Vaudrey, observing this ruse, smiled a slight, sarcastic smile. He recognized behind the shielding petticoats, some of his prefects, those from the environs of Paris, come from Versailles and Chartres, or from some sub-prefectures, and gallantly administering the affairs of France from the heart of the greenroom. Amiable functionaries of the Ministry of Fine Arts also came here to study aestheticism between the acts.

All members of the different r?gimes seemed to be fraternizing in ironical promiscuousness here, and Vaudrey in a whisper drew Granet's attention to this. Old beaux of the time of the Empire, with dyed and waxed moustaches, with dyed or grizzled hair flattened on their temples, their flabby cheeks cut across by stiff collars as jelly is cut by a knife, were hobnobbing, fat and lean, with young fops of the Republic, who with their sharp eyes, wide-open nostrils, their cheeks covered with brown or flaxen down, their hair carefully brushed, or already bald, seemed quite surprised to find themselves in such a place, and chattered and cackled among themselves like beardless conscripts, perverted and immoral but with some scruples still remaining and less cunning than these well-dressed old rou?s standing firmly at their posts like veterans.

"The licentiates and the pensioners," whispered Vaudrey.

"You have a quickness of sight quite Parisian, your Excellency," returned Granet.

"There are Parisians in the Provinces, my dear Granet," replied Sulpice with a heightened complexion, his blood flowing more rapidly than usual, due to emotions at once novel and gay.

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