A Start in Life [80]
a lucky number," said Oscar.
"Suppose you do, what then? Your mother has well fulfilled her duty
towards you. She gave you an education; she placed you on the right
road, and secured you a career. You have left it. Now, what can you
do? Without money, nothing; as you know by this time. You are not a
man who can begin a new career by taking off your coat and going to
work in your shirt-sleeves with the tools of an artisan. Besides, your
mother loves you, and she would die to see you come to that."
Oscar sat down and no longer restrained his tears, which flowed
copiously. At last he understood this language, so completely
unintelligible to him ever since his first fault.
"Men without means ought to be perfect," added Moreau, not suspecting
the profundity of that cruel sentence.
"My fate will soon be decided," said Oscar. "I draw my number the day
after to-morrow. Between now and then I will decide upon my future."
Moreau, deeply distressed in spite of his stern bearing, left the
household in the rue de la Cerisaie to its despair.
Three days later Oscar drew the number twenty-seven. In the interests
of the poor lad the former steward of Presles had the courage to go to
the Comte de Serizy and ask for his influence to get Oscar into the
cavalry. It happened that the count's son, having left the Ecole
Polytechnique rather low in his class, was appointed, as a favor, sub-
lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry commanded by the Duc de
Maufrigneuse. Oscar had, therefore, in his great misfortune, the small
luck of being, at the Comte de Serizy's instigation, drafted into that
noble regiment, with the promise of promotion to quartermaster within
a year. Chance had thus placed the ex-clerk under the command of the
son of the Comte de Serizy.
Madame Clapart, after languishing for some days, so keenly was she
affected by these catastrophes, became a victim to the remorse which
seizes upon many a mother whose conduct has been frail in her youth,
and who, in her old age, turns to repentance. She now considered
herself under a curse. She attributed the sorrows of her second
marriage and the misfortunes of her son to a just retribution by which
God was compelling her to expiate the errors and pleasures of her
youth. This opinion soon became a certainty in her mind. The poor
woman went, for the first time in forty years, to confess herself to
the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's, who led her into the practice
of devotion. But so ill-used and loving a soul as that of Madame
Clapart's could never be anything but simply pious. The Aspasia of the
Directory wanted to expiate her sins in order to draw down the
blessing of God on the head of her poor Oscar, and she henceforth
vowed herself to works and deeds of the purest piety. She believed she
had won the attention of heaven when she saved the life of Monsieur
Clapart, who, thanks to her devotion, lived on to torture her; but she
chose to see, in the tyranny of that imbecile mind, a trial inflicted
by the hand of one who loveth while he chasteneth.
Oscar, meantime, behaved so well that in 1830 he was first sergeant of
the company of the Vicomte de Serizy, which gave him the rank of sub-
lieutenant of the line. Oscar Husson was by that time twenty-five
years old. As the Royal Guard, to which his regiment was attached, was
always in garrison in Paris, or within a circumference of thirty miles
around the capital, he came to see his mother from time to time, and
tell her his griefs; for he had the sense to see that he could never
become an officer as matters then were. At that time the cavalry
grades were all being taken up by the younger sons of noble families,
and men without the article to their names found promotion difficult.
Oscar's sole ambition was to leave the Guards and be appointed sub-
lieutenant in a regiment of the cavalry of the line. In the month of
February, 1830, Madame Clapart
"Suppose you do, what then? Your mother has well fulfilled her duty
towards you. She gave you an education; she placed you on the right
road, and secured you a career. You have left it. Now, what can you
do? Without money, nothing; as you know by this time. You are not a
man who can begin a new career by taking off your coat and going to
work in your shirt-sleeves with the tools of an artisan. Besides, your
mother loves you, and she would die to see you come to that."
Oscar sat down and no longer restrained his tears, which flowed
copiously. At last he understood this language, so completely
unintelligible to him ever since his first fault.
"Men without means ought to be perfect," added Moreau, not suspecting
the profundity of that cruel sentence.
"My fate will soon be decided," said Oscar. "I draw my number the day
after to-morrow. Between now and then I will decide upon my future."
Moreau, deeply distressed in spite of his stern bearing, left the
household in the rue de la Cerisaie to its despair.
Three days later Oscar drew the number twenty-seven. In the interests
of the poor lad the former steward of Presles had the courage to go to
the Comte de Serizy and ask for his influence to get Oscar into the
cavalry. It happened that the count's son, having left the Ecole
Polytechnique rather low in his class, was appointed, as a favor, sub-
lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry commanded by the Duc de
Maufrigneuse. Oscar had, therefore, in his great misfortune, the small
luck of being, at the Comte de Serizy's instigation, drafted into that
noble regiment, with the promise of promotion to quartermaster within
a year. Chance had thus placed the ex-clerk under the command of the
son of the Comte de Serizy.
Madame Clapart, after languishing for some days, so keenly was she
affected by these catastrophes, became a victim to the remorse which
seizes upon many a mother whose conduct has been frail in her youth,
and who, in her old age, turns to repentance. She now considered
herself under a curse. She attributed the sorrows of her second
marriage and the misfortunes of her son to a just retribution by which
God was compelling her to expiate the errors and pleasures of her
youth. This opinion soon became a certainty in her mind. The poor
woman went, for the first time in forty years, to confess herself to
the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's, who led her into the practice
of devotion. But so ill-used and loving a soul as that of Madame
Clapart's could never be anything but simply pious. The Aspasia of the
Directory wanted to expiate her sins in order to draw down the
blessing of God on the head of her poor Oscar, and she henceforth
vowed herself to works and deeds of the purest piety. She believed she
had won the attention of heaven when she saved the life of Monsieur
Clapart, who, thanks to her devotion, lived on to torture her; but she
chose to see, in the tyranny of that imbecile mind, a trial inflicted
by the hand of one who loveth while he chasteneth.
Oscar, meantime, behaved so well that in 1830 he was first sergeant of
the company of the Vicomte de Serizy, which gave him the rank of sub-
lieutenant of the line. Oscar Husson was by that time twenty-five
years old. As the Royal Guard, to which his regiment was attached, was
always in garrison in Paris, or within a circumference of thirty miles
around the capital, he came to see his mother from time to time, and
tell her his griefs; for he had the sense to see that he could never
become an officer as matters then were. At that time the cavalry
grades were all being taken up by the younger sons of noble families,
and men without the article to their names found promotion difficult.
Oscar's sole ambition was to leave the Guards and be appointed sub-
lieutenant in a regiment of the cavalry of the line. In the month of
February, 1830, Madame Clapart