Jansoulet

“ With those magic words Jenkins can obtain whatever he wants. With his hoarse, cheerful voice, which seems to be hailing a vessel in the fog, the Nabob calls, "Bompain." The man in the fez, tearing himself away from the cellaret, crosses the salon majestically, whispers, goes away and returns with an inkstand and a check-book, the leaves of which come out and fly away of themselves. What a fine thing is wealth! To sign a check for two hundred thousand francs on his knee costs Jansoulet no more than to take a louis from his pocket. ”

“ Gradually the salons became empty. The Levantines disappeared one after another, each leaving an immense void in her place. Madame Jenkins had gone, and only two or three women, strangers to Jansoulet, remained, among whom the mistress of the house seemed to be seeking refuge from him. But Hemerlingue was at liberty, and the Nabob joined him just as he was [Pg 181] sidling furtively away in the direction of his offices, which were on the same floor opposite the state apartments. Jansoulet went out with him, forgetting in his confusion to salute the baroness ”

“ Thereupon the little old gentleman, very red in the face and wearing a white tie, stepped quickly in front of the Nabob, and ceremoniously raised his hat to him with great respect. With what gratitude, what a smile of eager good-will was that solitary greeting returned, that greeting from a man whom Jansoulet did not know, whom he had never seen, and who had yet exerted a weighty influence upon his destiny; for, but for the pere Joyeuse, the chairman of the board of the Territorial would probably have shared the fate of the Marquis de Bois l’Hery. ”

“ Jansoulet adorning himself with Jenkins’s ribbon might very well have been guilty of illegality. But a piece of theatrical business is not necessarily logical; this one brought about between the two men an effusion of feeling, embraces, a generous battle, at the end of which Jenkins replaced the objects in his pocket, speaking of protests, letters to the newspapers. The Nabob was again obliged to check him. ”

“ Bernard Jansoulet, in Le Nabab, is not, like the two most successful figures that Daudet has previously created, a representation of full-blown selfishness. The unhappy nabob is generous to a fault; he is the most good-natured and free-handed of men, and if he has made use of all sorts of means to build up his enormous fortune, he knows an equal number of ways of spending it. ”

“ The woman ascended, erect and proud, enveloped in a black Spanish mantilla; the man supported himself by the baluster, slower in his movements and tired, the collar of his light overcoat turned up above a rather bent back, which was shaken by a convulsive sob.
“Let us be off, Nabob. Nothing more to be done here,” said the old beau, taking Jansoulet by the arm and drawing him outside. He paused on the threshold, with raised hand, making a little gesture of farewell in the direction of the man who lay dying upstairs. “Good-bye old fellow!” ”

“ The two characters drawn from life in a special sense—for Daudet, like most other writers of fiction, had human life in general constantly before him—are Jansoulet and Mora, precisely the most effective personages in the book, and scarcely surpassed in the whole range of Daudet’s fiction. The Nabob was Francois Bravay, who rose from poverty to wealth by devious transactions in the Orient, and came to grief in Paris, much as Jansoulet did. ”

“ The duke could not restrain a smile at the bewilderment of the Nabob, stupefied to find him so well informed.
“A Minister of State has to know everything. But don’t worry. Your election will be declared valid all the same. And once declared valid—”
Jansoulet heaved a sigh of relief.
“Ah, M. le Duc, how it cheers me to hear you speak thus! I was beginning to lose all confidence. My enemies are so powerful. And a piece of bad luck into the bargain. Do you know that it is Le Merquier himself who is charged with the report on my election?”
“Le Merquier? The devil!” ”

“ Hemerlingue enjoyed seeing his friend so humble, he gave him advice concerning his business affairs, with which he seemed to be thoroughly acquainted. According to his view, the Nabob could still get out of his difficulties in very good shape. Everything depended on the confirmation of his election, on having another card to play. Then it must be played judiciously. But Jansoulet had no confidence. In losing Mora he had lost everything.
"You have lost Mora, but you have found me. One's worth as much as the other," said the baron, calmly. ”

“ Pictures are so dear in these days—it's a taste so hard to gratify, a genuinely luxurious passion. A Nabob's passion," he added with a smile and a stealthy glance over his spectacles.
They were two prudent gamblers face to face; Jansoulet, however, was somewhat at fault in that novel situation, in which he was obliged to walk warily, he who knew of no other mode of action than by bold, audacious strokes.
"When I think," murmured the advocate, "that I have spent ten years covering these walls, and that I still have this whole panel to fill!" ”

“ Immediately on his arrival Paul had learned that the Chamber of Justice was beginning to hear the Jansoulet case in secret,—a mockery of a trial, lost beforehand; and the Nabob's closed counting-rooms on the Marine Quay, the seals placed upon his cash boxes, his vessels lying at anchor in the harbor of Goletta, the guard of chaouchs around his palaces, already denoted a species of civil death, an intestacy as to which there would soon be nothing left to do but divide the spoils. [Pg 268]
Not a champion, not a friend in that greedy pack ”

“ It had occurred to the excellent Jenkins to take advantage of his party to make peace between his friend Hemerlingue and his friend Jansoulet, his two wealthiest patients, who embarrassed him seriously with their internecine warfare. The Nabob asked nothing better. He bore his former chum no malice. Their rupture had come about as a result of Hemerlingue's marriage with one of the favorites of the former bey. "A woman's row, in fact," said Jansoulet ”

“ If he had worked himself up a little more, he would have killed him. [Pg 85]
The scuffle at an end, the Nabob pulled down his sleeves, which had risen to his elbows, smoothed his rumpled linen, picked up his satchel from which the papers relating to the Sarigue election had scattered as far as the gutter, and replied to the police officers, who asked him his name in order to prepare their report: "Bernard Jansoulet, Deputy for Corsica." ”

“ Apart from the emotional many who sang hymns and spiritual songs were a few determined men, bent on doing justice to Jansen though the heavens might fall. Whether or no Laura Sloly was in love with the Faith Healer, Jansen must look to its own honor—and hers. In any case, this peripatetic saint at Sloly’s Ranch—the idea was intolerable; women must be saved in spite of themselves.
Laura was now in the house by the side of the bedridden Mary Jewell, waiting, confident, smiling, as she held the wasted hand on the coverlet. ”

“ The Jansenists who remained in France had meanwhile fallen on evil days. Persecution usually begets hysteria in its victims; and the more extravagant members of the party were far advanced on the road which leads to apocalyptic prophecy and “speaking with tongues.” About 1728 the “miracles of St Médard” became the talk of Paris. This was the cemetery where was buried François de Pâris, a young Jansenist deacon of singularly holy life, and a perfervid opponent of the Unigenitus. ”

“ His tone was offhand, his hat already back upon his head.
“I am George Yeardley, at my Lord Carnal’s service,” answered the Governor.
The favourite raised his eyebrows. “I don’t need to introduce myself, it seems,” he said. “You’ve found that I am not the devil, after all,—at least not the Spanish Apollyon. Zooks! a hawk above a poultry yard couldn’t have caused a greater commotion than did my poor little ship and my few poor birding pieces! Does every strange sail so put you through your paces?”
The Governor’s colour mounted. “We are not at home,” he answered stiffly. ”

“ JANSEN, CORNELIUS (1585–1638) , bishop of Ypres, and father of the religious revival known as Jansenism, was born of humble Catholic parentage at Accoy in the province of Utrecht on the 28th of October 1585. In 1602 he entered the university of Louvain, then in the throes of a violent conflict between the Jesuit, or scholastic, party and the followers of Michael Baius, who swore by St Augustine. Jansen ended by attaching himself strongly to the latter party, and presently made a momentous friendship with a like-minded fellow-student, Du Vergier de Hauranne, afterwards abbot of Saint Cyran. ”

“ But no sound escaped my dry lips, as I recognised the Lady Janet Johnstoun.
There was the small broad head, with its raven tresses hanging down to her feet; but they were dishevelled and dripping with water. I could see and hear it trickling and dropping on to the floor. I saw the pure oval face, the eyes cast down, so that the jetty fringes rested on the cheek, as still that one hand moved on the clasp. The dim light around me became dimmer and dimmer, and my hands and feet were heavier and heavier—they were like stone. ”

“ The men were out at work; Mme. Luguet was seated by the fire, weeping bitterly; and Solange, sitting on a stool at her feet, was speaking to her in an angelic voice of her desire to enter a convent. Jeannet discreetly wished to withdraw.
“Don't go,” said Solange to him; “isn't it so, mother? Jeannet will not disturb us?”
“No, dear; on the contrary, my child, I am happy to see you, Jean-Louis. Is it true that you will be free to accompany Solange to Paris?”
“Alas! Mme. Luguet,” replied Jeannet, “why should I not be free, having neither family nor friends, save only you and yours? ”

“ Did [292] any come upon them now, it would hardly be held that they had flown from the battlements of Roche-de-Frêne. The ground was rough, the trees, crowding together, shut out the light from the moon, while the fires at the end of vistas grew ruddier. The muttering and humming also of the host in the night increased.
Jael the herd stood still. “It will not suit us to stumble in the dark upon some wild band! Here is Saint Laurent’s garden of safety. Let us rest on the pine-needles until cock-crow.”
They lay down, the jongleur wrapped in his mantle, the herd-girl in hers. ”

“ If there is any truth in this conjecture, it may explain very simply the origin of the double head of Janus, which has so long exercised the ingenuity of mythologists. When it had become customary to guard the entrance of houses and towns by an image of Janus, it might well be deemed necessary to make the sentinel god look both ways, before and behind, at the same time, in order that nothing should escape his vigilant eye. For if the divine watchman always faced in one direction, it is easy to imagine what mischief might have been wrought with impunity behind his back. ”

“ Caressed lush fruits and kissed the waves at play;
But no place gripped them like this western outpost
Where men with large ambitions hewed their way.
It was the challenge to the daring spirit
Of vast resources in their native state.
It was the lure of gold, romance of action,
The chances of success where stakes were great.
[*] Ocstall River—a tributary of the Skeena near its mouth.
Jansen's Curse
'Twas out upon a gold stampede,
And Jan had always planned to lead.
The man who has the greatest might,
He surely must be in the right,
Was part of Jansen's creed ”

“ All those systems had seemed to him imperfect and chaotic, destructive of one another, and tending to the same wretchedness of life. Janzen alone had occasionally satisfied him with some of his curt phrases which shot over the horizon, like arrows conquering the whole earth for the human family. And then in Guillaume's big heart, which the idea of want, the unjust sufferings of the lowly and the poor exasperated, Salvat's tragic adventure had suddenly found place, fomenting supreme rebellion. For long weeks he had lived on with trembling hands, with growing anguish clutching at his throat. ”

“ She, I think, is really an Austrian, though one must always doubt anything she herself says. As for Janzen, he calls himself a Russian, but he’s probably German. Oh! he’s the most unobtrusive, enigmatical man in the world, without a home, perhaps without a name—a terrible fellow with an unknown past. I myself hold proofs which make me think that he took part in that frightful crime at Barcelona. At all events, for nearly a year now I’ve been meeting him in Paris, where the police no doubt are watching him. ”

“ One of the women, with a load of wet, half-washed clothing, let fall a part of the burden. The herd-girl, stooping, gathered it up. “I’ll help you here, sister!” A child struck its foot against a stone, fell, and began to cry. The jongleur lifted him to his shoulder. Behind them they heard Jacques le Noir splash with his horsemen into the stream. The washerwomen and the two from Roche-de-Frêne went on like one family or like old acquaintances, and so came into the thickly peopled camp of the followers of Cap-du-Loup and his fighting men. ”

“ Amber answered to Alec's voice and heel, for the horse had as brave a spirit as his master, and, although labouring terribly, managed a very quick burst of a hundred yards or so. Saying to his cousin, "Now Yesslett, keep on; ride like mad; don't spare the horse," Alec then suddenly wheeled to one side, and quietly pulled up some little way from the road. He could hear Yesslett tearing along, and a moment after, like the gust of a storm, three or four horses dashed madly past.
In a few minutes afterwards, thundering and splashing along the muddy road, Yesslett reached Badger's Creek. ”