The seven hundred Pyrotists inspired the public with an increasing aversion.
Every day two or three of them were beaten to death in the streets. One of
them was publicly whipped, another thrown into the river, a third tarred and
feathered and led through a laughing crowd, a fourth had his nose cut off by a
captain of dragoons. They did not dare to show themselves at their clubs, at
tennis, or at the races; they put on a disguise when they went to the Stock
Exchange. In these circumstances the Prince des Boscenos thought it urgent to
curb their audacity and repress their insolence. For this purpose he joined
with Count Clena, M. de La Trumelle, Viscount Olive, and M. Bigourd in
founding a great anti-Pyrotist association to which citizens in hundreds of
thousands, soldiers in companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and army
corps, towns, districts, and provinces, all gave their adhesion.
About this time the Minister of War happening to visit one day his Chief of
Staff, saw with surprise that the large room where General Panther worked,
which was formerly quite bare, had now along each wall from floor to ceiling
in sets of deep pigeon-holes, triple and quadruple rows of paper bundles of
every as form and colour. These sudden and monstrous records had in a few days
reached the dimensions of a pile of archives such as it takes centuries to
accumulate.
"What is this?" asked the astonished minister.
"Proofs against Pyrot," answered General Panther with patriotic satisfaction.
"We had not got them when we convicted him, but we have plenty of them now."
The door was open, and Greatauk saw coming up the stair-case a long file of
porters who were unloading heavy bales of papers in the hall, and he saw the
lift slowly rising heavily loaded with paper packets.
"What are those others?" said he.
"They are fresh proofs against Pyrot that are now reaching us," said Panther.
"I have asked for them in every county of Penguinia, in every Staff Office and
in every Court in Europe. I have ordered them in every town in America and in
Australia, and in every factory in Africa, and I am expecting bales of them
from Bremen and a ship-load from Melbourne." And Panther turned towards the
Minister of War the tranquil and radiant look of a hero. However, Greatauk,
his eye-glass in his eye, was looking at the formidable pile of papers with
less satisfaction than uneasiness.
"Very good," said he, "very good! but I am afraid that this Pyrot business may
lose its beautiful simplicity. It was limpid; like a rock-crystal its value
lay in its transparency. You could have searched it in vain with a
magnifying-glass for a straw, a bend, a blot, for the least fault. When it
left my hands it was as pure as the light. Indeed it was the light. I give you
a pearl and you make a mountain out of it. To tell you the truth I am afraid
that by wishing to do too well you have done less well. Proofs! of course it
is good to have proofs, but perhaps it is better to have none at all. I have
already told you, Panther, there is only one irrefutable proof, the confession
of the guilty person (or if the innocent what matter!). The Pyrot affair, as I
arranged it, left no room for criticism; there was no spot where it could be
touched. It defied assault. t was invulnerable because it was invisible. Now
it gives an enormous handle for discussion. I advise you, Panther, to use your
paper packets with great reserve. I should be particularly grateful if you
would be more sparing of your communications to journalists. You speak well,
but you say too much. Tell me, Panther, are there any forged documents among
these?"
"There are some adapted ones."
"That is what I meant. There are some adapted ones. So much the better. As
proofs, forged documents, in general, are better than genuine ones, first of
all because they have been expressly made to suit the needs of the case, to
order and measure, and therefore they are fitting and exact. They are also
preferable because they carry the mind into an ideal world and turn it aside
from the reality which, alas! in this world is never without some alloy. . . .
Nevertheless, I think I should have preferred, Panther, that we had no proofs
at all."
The first act of the Anti-Pyrotist Association was to ask the Government
immediately to summon the seven hundred Pyrotists and their accomplices before
the High Court of Justice as guilty of high treason. Prince des Boscenos was
charged to speak on behalf of the Association and presented himself before the
Council which had assembled to hear him. He expressed a hope that the
vigilance and firmness of the Government would rise to the height of the
occasion. He shook hands with each of the ministers and as he passed General
Greatauk he whispered in his ear:
"Behave properly, you ruffian, or I will publish the Maloury dossier!"
Some days later by a unanimous vote of both Houses, on a motion proposed by
the Government, the Anti-Pyrotist Association was granted a charter
recognising it as beneficial to the public interest.
The Association immediately sent a deputation to Chitterlings Castle in
Porpoisia, where Crucho was eating the bitter bread of exile, to assure the
prince of the love and devotion of the Anti-Pyrotist members.
However, the Pyrotists grew in numbers, and now counted ten thousand. They had
their regular cafes on the boulevards. The patriots had theirs also, richer
and bigger, and every evening glasses of beer, saucers, match-stands, jugs,
chairs, and tables were hurled from one to the other. Mirrors were smashed to
bits, and the police ended the struggles by impartially trampling the
combatants of both parties under their hob-nailed shoes.
On one of these glorious nights, as Prince des Boscenos was leaving a
fashionable cafe in the company of some patriots, M. de La Trumelle pointed
out to him a little, bearded man with glasses, hatless, and having only one
sleeve to his coat, who was painfully dragging himself along the
rubbish-strewn pavement.
"Look!" said he, "there is Colomban!"
The prince had gentleness as well as strength; he was exceedingly mild; but at
the name of Colomban his blood boiled. He rushed at the little spectacled man,
and knocked him down with one blow of his fist on the nose.
M. de La Trumelle then perceived that, misled by an undeserved resemblance, he
had mistaken for Colomban, M. Bazile, a retired lawyer, the secretary of the
Anti-pyrotist Association, and an ardent and generous patriot. Prince des
Boscenos was one of those antique souls who never bend. However, he knew how
to recognise his faults.
"M. Bazile," said he, raising his hat, "if I have touched your face with my
hand you will excuse me and you will understand me, you will approve of me,
nay, you will compliment me, you will congratulate me and felicitate me, when
you know the cause of that act. I took you for Colomban."
M. Bazile, wiping his bleeding nostrils with his handkerchief and displaying
an elbow laid bare by the absence of his sleeve:
"No, sir," answered he drily, "I shall not felicitate you, I shall not
congratulate you, I shall not compliment you, for your action was, at the very
least, superfluous; it was, I will even say, supererogatory. Already this
evening I have been three times mistaken for Colomban and received a
sufficient amount of the treatment he deserves. The patriots have knocked in
my ribs and broken my back, and, sir, I was of opinion that that was enough."
Scarcely had he finished this speech than a band of Pyrotists appeared, and
misled in their turn by that insidious resemblance, they believed that the
patriots were killing Colomban. They fell on Prince des Boscenos and his
companions with loaded canes and leather thongs, and left them for dead. Then
seizing Bazile they carried him in triumph, and in spite of his protests,
along the boulevards, amid cries of: "Hurrah for Colomban! Hurrah for Pyrot!"
At last the police, who had been sent after them, attacked and defeated them
and dragged them ignominiously to the station, where Bazile, under the name of
Colomban, was trampled on by an innumerable quantity of thick, hob-nailed
shoes.
Read next: BOOK VI - MODERN TIMES#CHAPTER VII - BIDAULT-COQUILLE AND MANIFLORE, THE SOCIALISTS
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