to announce to the French government
that he was going to present his letters of recall. The kings of finance speculated
then on a drop in the market, coming on news of an imminent mobilization. Considerable
sums were lost in the stock exchange. For one whole day they sold government bonds
that the banker Nucingen, secretly alerted by his friend the minister de Marsay of
the resignation of the chancellor Delcassé, which people in Paris didn’t hear about
until around four o’clock, bought back at a ludicrous price and has kept ever since.
Even Raoul Nathan believed in the war, although Florine’s lover, because du Tillet,
whose sister-in-law he had wanted to seduce (see
A Daughter of Eve
), had given him a bad steer on the stock market, advocated peace at any price in
his newspaper.
France was saved from a disastrous war then only by the intervention, of which for
a long time historians have been unaware, of the Maréchal de Montcornet, the strongest
man of his century after Napoleon. Even Napoleon was unable to execute his plan of
landing in England, the master idea of his reign. Napoleon, Montcornet—isn’t there
a kind of mysterious resemblance between these two names? I should be careful not
to say that they are linked to each other by some occult bond. Perhaps our era, after
having doubted all great things without trying to understand them, will be forced
to return to the pre-established harmony of Leibniz. What’s more, the man who was
then at the head of the most colossal diamond business in England was named Werner,
Julius Werner—Werner! Doesn’t this name seem to you strangely to evoke the Middle
Ages? Just hearing it, don’t you already see Dr. Faust, bending over his crucibles,
with or without Marguerite? Doesn’t it imply the idea of the philosopher’s stone?
Werner! Julius! Werner! Change two letters and you have Werther.
Werther
is by Goethe.
Julius Werner used Lemoine, one of those extraordinary men who, if they are guided
by a favorable fate, will be called Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, Ivan the Terrible,
Peter the Great, Charlemagne, Berthollet,Spalanzani, Volta. Change the circumstances and they will end up like the Maréchal
d’Ancre, Balthazar Cleas, Pugachev, Le Tasse, the Comtesse de la Motte or Vautrin.
In France, the patent the government grants inventors has no value of its own. That
is where we should seek the cause that is paralyzing the whole vast industrial enterprise
in our country. Before the Revolution, the Séchards, giants of printing, still used
wooden presses in Angoulême, and the Cointet brothers hesitated to buy the second
printing patent. (See
Lost Illusions
.) In fact, few people understood the answer Lemoine made to the policemen who had
come to arrest him. “What? Would Europe abandon me?” the false inventor had exclaimed
with profound terror. The remark bandied about that evening in the salons of the government
minister Rastignac passed unnoticed.
“Has that man gone mad?” the Comte de Granville said, surprised.
The former clerk of the attorney Bordin was supposed to take the stand in this case
in the name of the public prosecutor’s department, having recently recovered, through
the marriage of his second daughter to the banker du Tillet, the favorable consideration
from the new government that his alliance with the Vandenesses had made him lose,
etc.
II THE “LEMOINE AFFAIR” BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The heat had become stifling, a bell chimed, some turtledoves took flight, and, the
windows having been closed by order of the presiding magistrate, a smell of dust spread.
He was old, with a clown’s face, wore a gown too narrow for his girth, and had pretensions
to wit; his twin sideburns, which a trace of tobacco stained, gave something ornamental
and vulgar to his entire person. Since the adjournment of the hearing was prolonged,
private exchanges started up; to
that he was going to present his letters of recall. The kings of finance speculated
then on a drop in the market, coming on news of an imminent mobilization. Considerable
sums were lost in the stock exchange. For one whole day they sold government bonds
that the banker Nucingen, secretly alerted by his friend the minister de Marsay of
the resignation of the chancellor Delcassé, which people in Paris didn’t hear about
until around four o’clock, bought back at a ludicrous price and has kept ever since.
Even Raoul Nathan believed in the war, although Florine’s lover, because du Tillet,
whose sister-in-law he had wanted to seduce (see
A Daughter of Eve
), had given him a bad steer on the stock market, advocated peace at any price in
his newspaper.
France was saved from a disastrous war then only by the intervention, of which for
a long time historians have been unaware, of the Maréchal de Montcornet, the strongest
man of his century after Napoleon. Even Napoleon was unable to execute his plan of
landing in England, the master idea of his reign. Napoleon, Montcornet—isn’t there
a kind of mysterious resemblance between these two names? I should be careful not
to say that they are linked to each other by some occult bond. Perhaps our era, after
having doubted all great things without trying to understand them, will be forced
to return to the pre-established harmony of Leibniz. What’s more, the man who was
then at the head of the most colossal diamond business in England was named Werner,
Julius Werner—Werner! Doesn’t this name seem to you strangely to evoke the Middle
Ages? Just hearing it, don’t you already see Dr. Faust, bending over his crucibles,
with or without Marguerite? Doesn’t it imply the idea of the philosopher’s stone?
Werner! Julius! Werner! Change two letters and you have Werther.
Werther
is by Goethe.
Julius Werner used Lemoine, one of those extraordinary men who, if they are guided
by a favorable fate, will be called Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, Ivan the Terrible,
Peter the Great, Charlemagne, Berthollet,Spalanzani, Volta. Change the circumstances and they will end up like the Maréchal
d’Ancre, Balthazar Cleas, Pugachev, Le Tasse, the Comtesse de la Motte or Vautrin.
In France, the patent the government grants inventors has no value of its own. That
is where we should seek the cause that is paralyzing the whole vast industrial enterprise
in our country. Before the Revolution, the Séchards, giants of printing, still used
wooden presses in Angoulême, and the Cointet brothers hesitated to buy the second
printing patent. (See
Lost Illusions
.) In fact, few people understood the answer Lemoine made to the policemen who had
come to arrest him. “What? Would Europe abandon me?” the false inventor had exclaimed
with profound terror. The remark bandied about that evening in the salons of the government
minister Rastignac passed unnoticed.
“Has that man gone mad?” the Comte de Granville said, surprised.
The former clerk of the attorney Bordin was supposed to take the stand in this case
in the name of the public prosecutor’s department, having recently recovered, through
the marriage of his second daughter to the banker du Tillet, the favorable consideration
from the new government that his alliance with the Vandenesses had made him lose,
etc.
II THE “LEMOINE AFFAIR” BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The heat had become stifling, a bell chimed, some turtledoves took flight, and, the
windows having been closed by order of the presiding magistrate, a smell of dust spread.
He was old, with a clown’s face, wore a gown too narrow for his girth, and had pretensions
to wit; his twin sideburns, which a trace of tobacco stained, gave something ornamental
and vulgar to his entire person. Since the adjournment of the hearing was prolonged,
private exchanges started up; to
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