By this time, the household of the new Marquis de Cluses had dwindled to a mere handful: a coachman, a liveried footman, a stable hand who doubled as kennel-master, two valets, a chef, a kitchen maid, a housekeeper, and four groundsmen. Part of the stables had been sold. With the Paris residence now let to tenants, its contents were being moved to Juvigny. The young marquis retrieved all his cherished acquisitions, drinking in every detail with his eyes, running his hands over each piece. He would summon upholsterers and decorators, only to retreat suddenly in blazing fury for half the day should some delicate treasure suffer the slightest chip or crack.
From the castle’s highest garrets to its deepest vaults, from the servants’ quarters to the elegant follies dotting the estate, Agénor and the Abbé Robiquet conducted their methodical excavation. Their hands blackened with centuries of dust, they ransacked every wardrobe, delved into cupboards, plumbed the depths of each trunk, pursuing their dream of some incomparable seventeenth-century treasure. This phantom prize forever eluded them—their ideal remained so gloriously undefined that their imaginations quite lost themselves in contemplating it. Yet in the attics, from a chest buried beneath lame chairs and worm-eaten armchairs, they unearthed Flemish tapestries and golden damascened armour crowned with a bedraggled plume of yellow and white feathers—the ancestral colours of the de Cluses line.
Scattered throughout bedchambers, reception rooms and the library, they discovered a pastel of Monsieur(43), brother to the Sun King, signed by Nanteuil(44); a Venetian mirror set in silver filigree; numerous paintings; an ivory-inlaid prie-dieu(45); a jewel-encrusted walking stick; a cabinet of Catalan enamelwork; red marble sphinxes; Oriental vases both Chinese and Japanese; collars of the Order of the Holy Spirit(46) and of Saint Michael; books with armorial bindings; jewellery and fine laces; and great heaps of fabrics and period dress—Indian silks, Genoese velvets, tooled leathers, damasks shot with satin, ceremonial doublets(47) and everyday ones, robes, sashes, waistcoats, dress coats, knee-breeches—all tumbled together in glorious confusion, of varying cuts from different eras.
As their enthusiasm mounted and their appreciation sharpened, they began to notice treasures that had never before caught their eye—for nothing blinds us quite so thoroughly as daily familiarity.
“Good heavens! These panelling… these coffered ceilings… Aren’t they magnificent!”
And up would crane the priest’s neck, his angular Adam’s apple bobbing as sensitively as quicksilver in a glass tube.
Returning from the parkland where twilight deepened through blues and greens and greys and roses, all bathed in golden light and veiled with gathering shadow, where whole colonies of rabbits frolicked, nibbled the grass and vanished into the undergrowth—it was towards the castle’s monumental bulk that Agénor’s gaze invariably turned. He would study that edifice of dressed stone with its vast roofs blackened by moss, its sweeping steps, its ornate rusticated façades, its diamond-paned windows—examining it from front and side and every angle with the sacred enthusiasm and insatiable hunger that belongs to youth alone.
He wrote to merchants in the capital, setting them on promising if uncertain trails.
They managed to secure for him a bust of Marie-Thérèse atop a trophy-laden pedestal, and an astronomical clock fashioned in rosewood and purpleheart marquetry, bronze-mounted and adorned with hanging ornaments and royal French arms, fitted with an embossed copper dial and temple-form movement crowned by a cupid, an eagle, a cockerel, and a figure of the Sun King wreathed by Victory. But when these initial prizes were exhausted, he was forced to scour country auctions in the neighbourhood of Juvigny.
Many people mocked their lord and his priest with cutting remarks, watching them brave foul weather, driving rain and rutted roads for the sake of antique curiosities that struck a jarring note against the familiar neoclassical taste that mahogany had made triumphant and now unassailable. Before long, however, scarcely a week passed without Agénor receiving word from various quarters about some available piece—debris from the Revolution, from its plunder and chaos.
No sooner was each find restored to pristine condition than it took its appointed place—and slowly but surely, the castle’s interior showed every sign of rebirth.
Evening battles of quinola(48) unfolded there over glasses of cinnamon water. A golden whistle summoned servants who would scratch discreetly at doors before entering. Had it not been for the Abbé’s modern dress and this young fellow with his close-cropped hair, gaitered legs and frock-coat, one might have fancied a genuine court of Louis XIV restored to life.
Two years slipped by in this fashion, sweetly uneventful, until there came a morning full of promise when the golden liveries of the house of de Cluses appeared once more. The last shadow of grief had lifted! Did the Marquis Robert ever truly exist?
Certainly, he lingered now and then in the hearts of his son and the priest, but dimly, already half-erased—for what reason, God alone knows—more thoroughly forgotten than that unfortunate creature, his wife, who had preceded him to the grave.
A downy shadow began to trace Agénor’s lips, chin and cheeks.
“Well then, my dear boy, shouldn’t we consider what lies ahead for you?” the Abbé Robiquet would venture repeatedly when the moment seemed ripe for serious conversation. “The King would exert himself greatly on your behalf, I’m certain.”
But each time, the young man begged leave to consider. Nothing held any appeal for him now, not even the scarlet and blue uniforms of the recently reorganised musketeers(49).
However much he might torture himself, flog his sense of honour, enumerate the host of his ancestors who had each served monarchs at close quarters, he discovered no vocation, no impulse to judge himself either necessary or useful. Between its wooded horizons, its fountains, its community of statues, its grass that winter bleached white and summer heat scorched brown and rain made green again, along with its handful of inhabitants, its store of memories, its library, its noble chambers where sunbeams danced over precious objects, Juvigny provided all he desired, sweet and satisfying. To leave would have torn his heart asunder.
Certainly, Agénor de Cluses had sacrificed neither respect nor loyalty to the throne. But, remaining true to his lineage quite as much as the Abbé Robiquet, he could not stomach the liberal politics in which Louis XVIII took such pride(50). With Napoleon at such remove from France, the nation freed ahead of schedule from foreign occupation through the efforts of the Duke of Richelieu and Emperor Alexander—why not combat these newfangled principles(51)? Why tolerate them? Wasn’t this tantamount to weakening the crown—to concede it might be less absolute, less traditional, less dogmatic?
Thus with unwavering resolve, Agénor determined to remain where he was.
Suggestions, conversations, tactful objections—nothing could shake him. Such is the manner in which those singular beings reveal their nature, most often in a single stroke, who throughout their days will heed no counsel save their own.
Léon Hennique Novel 