A biting satirical tale by Octave Mirbeau featuring Joseph Reinach at a casino, revealing his ambitious dreams of becoming France’s Grand Inquisitor. This 1897 masterpiece brilliantly skewers political hypocrisy and social climbing during the Panama scandal era.
One evening at the Casino in Gennesaret-by-the-Sea, Joseph Reinach and I found ourselves seated side by side at the roulette table—not by chance, mind you, but drawn together by mutual sympathy. Reinach was winning handsomely, which made him particularly charming. Though I must say, win or lose, he was always unfailingly gracious with me and indeed with everyone. Not once did I detect that cutting tone, that haughty insolence he had wielded so combatively in the Chamber during his days of power. Not once did he speak of killing, imprisoning, or exiling his enemies. He seemed to have genuinely renounced his terrible prosecutorial speeches, his thunderous denunciations, his righteous laws, his ever-ready guillotines. I found him absolutely delightful. Throughout Gennesaret-by-the-Sea, there was but one verdict: “What a charming fellow!”
Oh, his conversation on the beach at bathing time! He enchanted us, thrilled us with his vast and ever-ready literary erudition. With what elegant, perfumed artistry he could conjure up, dress up, and parade those delicious memories of women and love in the eighteenth century! And what robust flavour—positively Plutarchian!—in his inexhaustible portraits of Gambetta! One rainy morning, when we were gathered at his place watching the rain fall on the sea, he explained with perfect grace and evident sincerity the reason for this transformation that so delighted me.
“You understand, my dear fellow,” he said, “I’m obliged to exercise considerable restraint, considerable tact, considerable moral flexibility. I must smile to the right, to the left, forwards, backwards… And literature provides a marvellous means of throwing people off the scent. So until this wretched Panama business is definitively settled and buried, I’m forced to be exclusively anecdotal and literary! Of course, my hands are clean… I’ve nothing to fear… and no one’s accusing me! But it’s my name… my damned name! Oh, if only I could change it! What rotten luck for someone as pure as I to bear a name so unfortunately synonymous with that cursed isthmus! When someone says ‘Panama!’ anywhere—and God knows they do!—immediately it conjures up that fatal name: ‘Reinach!’ just as, in another sphere, ‘Napoleon!’ follows ‘Austerlitz!’ But I have patience… Patience is the genius of my race. I’m waiting for this affair to blow over, and meanwhile I’m confining myself to literature, to history, and to the charm of universal tolerance! Afterwards, we’ll see… we’ll see! Because you don’t imagine, my dear fellow, that I’ve finished legislating, that I haven’t got more—oh, so much more!—of those famous prosecutions and those resounding righteous laws still in me! You’ll be astonished when I unleash all that upon France!”
“God grant it be soon!” I wished. “For literature will lose nothing in losing you… and politics desperately needs you, my dear Reinach…”
“I know!” he said simply.
And he shook my hand, happy to feel the warmth of true friendship, that someone in all Christendom understood him!
So then, on the evening in question, Joseph Reinach had won substantially. Blue notes, gold louis, silver coins formed an impressive pile before him on the table. After a particularly lucrative round, he rose.
“Mustn’t push one’s luck!” he said. “Let’s go!”
And with a powerful sweep of his hand, he gathered his winnings—notes, gold, and silver all jumbled together—and stuffed them into his dinner jacket pocket.
The night was mild. I walked him home. As we strolled:
“You’ve won quite a tidy sum tonight, my dear Reinach.”
“Indeed!” he said, jingling his pocket. “I always win!”
“Well… do you know what I’d do if I were you?”
“Tell me!”
“I’d leave for Jerusalem immediately… rebuild the Temple… I’d…”
But he interrupted me, very seriously.
“I’ve thought about it… once upon a time! It was tempting! With my jack-of-all-trades energy, my organisational and legislative mania, and this violently persecutory Jacobinism that admits neither political scruples nor human pity… it’s obvious I’d have quickly achieved something preponderant… even autocratic, if I dare say so!”
“You see!”
“King of Jerusalem, isn’t that what you were thinking? I’m certain of it!”
“Precisely!”
“King of Jerusalem! Yes, I believe so too! And then what? King of Jerusalem! Doesn’t that strike you as rather… operetta-ish?”
He didn’t wait for my answer, but declared firmly:
“No, my dear fellow, no! We have better here!”
He took my arm affectionately. The sky was entirely mauve. A very soft, languid song rose from the invisible, calm sea. The sounds of the Casino orchestra reached us, faint, dying, like the whisper of distant voices in a forest. Moved by this nocturnal poetry, we slowed our pace.
“We have better here,” Reinach repeated. “We have everything here! Why seek lesser adventures and diminished positions elsewhere? That would be folly! Besides, the spirit of our race is contrary to such sacrifices, such abdications! Think about it! My brother and I are very well situated… And we’re still quite young! Theodore occupies the château of Saint-Germain… He’s now a historical figure… He succeeds Francis I, Henry IV, Louis XIV! That’s certainly not commonplace! In our era, it’s worth more than succeeding Solomon! And then, perhaps people expected him to rewrite Ecclesiastes! But Theodore doesn’t feel in his soul the pessimism necessary for that sort of literature! As for me! Well, good heavens! I won’t hide it… my fortunes are currently under eclipse… But eclipses aren’t eternal. They pass, the star remains; Astra manent… And they have this admirable, consoling quality: they seem to preserve more light for the star they’ve momentarily veiled! Now, I am that star… and Panama that eclipse! Believe me, I shall soon blaze again—and with what greater intensity!—in the mess of our political firmament!”
I was shaken. The hour continued, softening. No anti-Semitism disturbed its peaceful, captivating flow. I felt nature itself harmonising with my friend’s will. Sad and charmed together, I murmured:
“Perhaps you’re right, my dear Reinach. Though you must admit it would have been a beautiful dream!”
More tender, more brotherly for having confessed, he wanted to show me his whole soul:
“A beautiful dream!” he sighed. “Well, do you know what I’ve dreamed of? What I still dream of? The secret of the passion and tenacious strength you’re kind enough to admire in me—do you know what it is?”
“Tell me!” I begged, moved.
Oh yes, moved! For Joseph Reinach’s voice had, at that moment, something strange that penetrated me. And the mauve night… and the invisible sea… and the distant orchestra gave it an inexpressible mystery. Reinach continued:
“Well… I’ve dreamed… I dream of being, in the near future… oh! nearer than you think… Grand Inquisitor of France!”
“That’s impossible!” I cried. “The spirit of history…”
“History has no spirit,” Reinach interrupted. “It’s an old blind horse… turning, turning endlessly in circles… always, always passing the same things, the same pyres… the same revolutions! What is has been before… What was will be again!”
“Wrong! Humanity doesn’t regress… It marches forward, without stopping…”
“Child! Look at China… the Yucatan… Egypt!”
“Displacement, perhaps! Retreat, never!”
“Circumference!” concluded this passionate man, tracing a vast aerial circle with his cane in the mauve night!
I wasn’t out of objections.
“I’ll grant that,” I conceded. “But Grand Inquisitor of France! Come now, you’re Jewish, my dear Reinach… I don’t reproach you for it… understand… But you are Jewish!”
“All the more reason!”
And, very tall, very handsome, sublime finally, among the enchantments of the night, he added:
“Joseph Reinach! Grand Inquisitor of France! How well that rings! And what revenge for my race!”
Subjugated, I fell silent. We had arrived anyway.
As he inserted his key in the door:
“Between us, all this, understood?” this seductive friend confided. “For these things mustn’t be revealed… yet! I need, for months and months perhaps, to lull my enemies… My enemies, sleep!”
I assured him of my discretion and that I wouldn’t betray his secrets. Then, having left him, I returned along the cliff.
The night hadn’t changed. It was still the same gentle, luminous, serenely mauve night. But I was so disturbed I didn’t recognise it. The moon, now descending into the sea, looked to me like an old opera glass. Oh, the stupidity of the image! Why?
1897.
This is one of 50+ rare French literary texts translated into English for the first time on this site.
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